Beware the use of rhetoric

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Sept 24

RE: Beware the power of rhetoric. Op-ed by Ronald Evans. The Hamilton Spectator 19 Sept 24

Aristotle wrote the book on rhetoric; he called it, oddly enough, the Art of Rhetoric.  Nowadays, we would call rhetoric “persuasive speech”, or more bluntly, “selling.” Ronald Evans defines rhetoric as “an emotional tool that can inspire audiences to right wrongs and to strive for a better world.”

One would hope that a retired school teacher could do a better job with his definitions, and would be solicitous of philosophical accuracy if he was going to hang an article on one.

As a work of rhetoric, his article, cautioning us of the power of rhetoric, was a failure. It was unpersuasive, and not, in fact, about rhetoric at all.  After its prefatory remarks, it slid into another tiresome, and tedious, “I hate Trump” diatribe.

Speaking of the power of rhetoric, the extreme rhetoric used against Trump, that he’s a racist, sexist, fascist, lying threat to democracy; by the Left might be in part responsible for the two attempts on his life, and perhaps the Left ought to tone it down.

Trump’s going to be the next President of the United States, and the Left can feel it coming.

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Critics are failing the science test.

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Sept 24

RE: Government are failing the climate test. Guest editorial by Robert Evans. The Hamilton Spectator 17 Sept 24

The problem with activist editorial writers is that all they know about “the science” is what they read in the funny papers. And they have developed a facility for ignoring inconvenient political facts.

Robert Hicks writes that heat pumps are a “renewable energy solution.” No, they’re not; they run off electricity, however generated. They’re very poor for heating homes in Canadian winters, especially the winter cold that is experienced in Canada’s prairie provinces.

The claim that rising CO2 will cause global temperature to rise by 1.5C is also false. Global temperature may well rise above 1.5, but it won’t be due to CO2. This is the physics: if CO2 is doubled from 400 to 800 ppm, it will increase “greenhouse forcing” by 3.7 W/m2, which results in a temperature increase of 0.7C. These are IPCC’s own figures. To get to 1.5C, greenhouse forcing has to rise by 9 W/m2, which is impossible by CO2.

Lastly, politics. Asia accounts for 60 percent of global CO2 emissions; Canada, only 1.5 percent. Canada isn’t the problem, and can’t be the solution.  Asian countries aren’t playing the CO2 reduction game, so if you think rising CO2 will bring about global doom, prepare yourself accordingly: there is, apparently, no place to hide.

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Warmed over Malthus, again

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Sept 24

RE: Has earth’s carrying capacity been reached? Spectator editorial by Wayne Poole. 16 Sept 24.

The thesis that Wayne Poole offers is called Malthusianism, after economist Thomas Malthus who, in 1798, said that the earth’s carrying capacity was within sight.  Even Poole, inter alia, admits the falsity of his claim when he says that the earth’s population is expected to increase by 36 percent, from 7.6 billion to 10.4 billion.  How can such a staggering increase be possible if carrying capacity has been reached?

There is also something profoundly racist in Poole’s thesis. Where the earth’s population is growing is in Africa, India, and China. If you’re going to cut out human population, logically, those are the places to start. But if Poole’s future must tolerate those numbers, those population must at least remain poor, for by electrification and industrialization, the world emissions of CO2 will increase.

I have noted that people who talk about “sustainability” have only the vaguest idea of what they mean. No part of the life-cycle of an insect is “sustainable”, yet insects have been around for over 100 million years!

The more extreme holders of Poole’s view maintain that the human population must drop by 75%, to 2 billion, by the end of the century for the planet to survive. A genocide of humanity is where Poole’s logic takes you.

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Dumb bomb, dumb writer?

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Sept 24

RE: War is part of our climate change problem. Op-ed by Tricia Clarkson, co-chair of the Peterborough Alliance for Climate Action. The Hamilton Spectator 11 Sept 24.

Arguing for peace on the grounds that war is bad for the climate is certainly novel, and may say something about the values of the writer. However, the writer claims that the use of “dumb bombs” dropped in Gaza by Israel undercuts Israel’s claim that they try to minimize civilian harm.

I don’t expect most people to know this, but “dumb bomb” is a military term of art, meaning that the bomb has no internal guidance system: when dropped it is a mere projectile falling in accordance with Newton’s Laws of Motion.  The bomb may be dumb, but the aircraft carrying it isn’t; and the F-16 aircraft which drop these as ordinance have quite remarkable guidance systems built into their electronic suite.

The computers on board the Israeli F-16s can plot and project continuously on the pilot’s display where the bomb would land if dropped at the aircraft’s altitude, speed, and direction.  Since a 2,000 lb aerodynamically-shaped bomb isn’t much affected by winds, the pilot is able to put the (comparatively) inexpensive dumb ordinance on the target practically with the accuracy of a guided weapon.

I don’t expect a climate activist to be up on the very latest military technology, but her error shows the hazards of drawing vicious conclusions from impressions that one doesn’t fully understand.

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The US DOJ head fake

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Sept 24

RE: Canada is an exporter of far-right influencers. Op-ed by Luke LeBrun. The Hamilton Spectator 10 Sept 24

If he wasn’t a willing dupe, Luke LeBrun certainly was taken in by the latest fake indictment by the United States Department of Justice, Get Trump Division.

There are a couple of central things lacking in LeBrun’s contentions: exporting and influence. Other than mentioning that one woman of Canadian citizenship, Lauren Chen, worked in the United States for several US media outlets, there’s no indication that Canada is “exporting” anything, such as “far-right” “influencing.” The allegations don’t live up to the drama.

The second is ‘influence.’ Let’s stipulate that Putin indeed funded several “influencers”: to do what, exactly? To keep saying what they were saying without his money! After Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim bought into the New York Times, or Torstar Corp’s acquisition of the Hamilton Spectator, was the editorial content of these newspapers decisively altered? Keep in mind the “influencers” were admittedly deceived as to where the windfall cash was flowing from.

The net effect of the DOJ indictments is to discredit certain “influencers” (said to be “far-right”) during the US presidential election. This trick was pulled before - by the Mueller investigation. The Mueller probe charged several Russian residents, who were never arrested and prosecuted, so that the theory of the case was publicized but never tested in court.  The Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, remember? But now, tested in court, its contents are authentic.  Trump-Russian collusion was real, until, called to account and bitterly disappointed, the Mueller investigation had to admit they found nothing. Hunter Biden still hasn’t been charged under FARA, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, by this DOJ, but two Russians have?

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AP disgraces itself, again

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Aug 24

RE: Millions of fish wash ashore after climate-related die-off. AP story by Vaggelis Kousioras and Derek Gatopoulos. The Hamilton Spectator 30 Aug 24.

Where’s the “, officials say” after the claim of a climate-related die-off of fish? By neglecting to add that little caveat at the end, as journalists “allegedly” know, it means AP is putting its stamp of approval on the claim.  The story neglects to mention who the “authorities” are who make the claim that AP agrees with.  They might well be activists capitalizing on, or officials hiding their negligence or malfeasance behind, the assertion that the death of the fish was “climate-related.”

The claim is this: that the lake, re-created in 2018, was swollen with rainwater last fall, then the water level dropped due to a months long period of no rainfall.  Thus, the fish died, and climate was responsible.  Post hoc, ergo, propter hoc? An appeal to prejudice?

A critical mind finds deficiencies in the rationale and the attribution of cause, that being climate funny business. Certainly, enough abounds in the story that AP ought to be hedging, as a responsible news organization would.

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