Leadership, Part 3

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Oct 22

Previous pieces on this subject recounted how the Canadian army in 1964-65 went about developing an all-new leadership doctrine based on the Leader-Follower-Situation concept.  Significantly, the process followed was empirical in nature.  It didn’t lay down dogmatisms and elaborate from them.

The process began with a review of applicable philosophy, that of John Locke and Immanuel Kant.  Locke’s philosophy gave an understanding of the general philosophical assumptions and outlook on life of the pool of future recruits: the men of Canada (this is 1965, remember!).  Kant’s philosophy delivered the justification for the demands of military service: duty, sacrifice, and a moral imperative.  From there, the army turned to the work of the world’s expert on leadership of that day, Dr. Ralph Stodgill.

The leadership theory prior to Stodgill, accepted by the army prior to 1965, was the “great man” theory, or trait theory.  “Great men” are born with certain traits that somehow makes them natural leaders of men.  It is a paradox to study the traits of “great men” since these traits cannot be implanted into lesser mortals.  Stodgill undermined the “great man” theory by observing that some traits are useful in some situations, but not others.  Other workers observed that it wasn’t so much traits, but the behavior that seemed to issue from those traits, that was the operative manifestation of leadership.

Putting the three elements together, you arrive at a Leader-Follower-Situation concept with the traits of leadership understood to be behavioural.  Leadership behavior was something that could be observed and taught to a general audience.  Situation was congenial to a military context because a military situation almost always involved a terminal end, i.e. the achievement of a mission or a goal.  Hence the famous Canadian definition of leadership: the art of influencing human behaviour so as to achieve the mission in the manner desired by the leader.  Implicitly, if the goal was achieved in a manner other than that which the leader desired, the leader didn’t really lead the group to the achievement of its mission, and despite success, was a failure of leadership.

Following Stodgill, three styles of leadership were identified as: authoritarian, or command style; the participative style, and the free-rein style, which was of minimal control.  These styles are well thought of as analytical tools which explain what the leader is doing from moment to moment.  For example, at the opening parade of personnel at the MSE depot, the leader might call his followers to attention in a parade square manner, exhibiting the authoritarian style.  After standing his followers easy, the leader might inform the followers of important news and priority of work for that day and take questions, exhibiting the participative style.  After dismissing his followers to go about their daily work, the leader exhibits a free-rein style letting the followers go about their work with only occasional supervision and inspection.

Another important aspect of the style elaboration is as a diagnostic tool.  What results when the wrong style is used for a situation?  Especially, what happens when one style is relied on too much, the most notorious being an overreliance on the authoritarian style?  The table of diagnostics are uncannily accurate.

As remains the fashion of philosophical ideology, the army identified ten ‘principles’ of leadership, which are traits expressible as behaviour: achieve professional competence, appreciate your strengths and weaknesses and pursue self-improvement, seek and accept responsibility, lead by example, make sure your follows know your meaning and intent, know your [men] and promote their welfare, develop the leadership potential of your followers, make sound and timely decisions, train you [men] as a team and employ them up to their full capabilities, keep you followers informed – of the mission, the changing situation, and the overall picture.

After the revolution of sixty years, how well does the theory hold up?  The followers have changed after the admission of women, and the philosophical outlook is different, containing much postmodernism, but the structure, principles and diagnostics hold up well.

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Just stop oil!

Vincent J. Curtis

10 June 23 

The Just Stop Oil movement is one of several environmentalist movements that believe they can stop climate disaster if somehow the use and consumption of fossil fuels were eliminated.  But is this even possible?  I say it’s impossible to end the use of fossil fuels, because oil is essential even in an ideal world.

Let’s say that only electric vehicles were permitted, and wind turbines and solar panels became the primary sources of electric power.  Those wind turbines will still need lubricating oil in their gearboxes.  Electrical transformers will still need oil as the dielectric.  The wheel bearings on those electric vehicles will still need lubricating grease.  The gear sets will still need lubricating oil.  The transmissions will still need lubricating oil.  The machining of gear sets is typically done with the aid of cutting oils.  Any kind of machinery with gears, in fact, will need oil for lubrication.  Hydraulic systems require hydraulic oil.

So, oil cannot be eliminated, and we’ll still need it in our ideal world.  Where does oil come from?  It comes from the refining of crude oil.  The oil fraction is what is left of crude oil after the solvents, gasoline and diesel fractions, tar, and asphalt have been removed.  It depends on the crude oil, but typically, the oil fraction of crude oil comprises much less than half of the total volume of the crude.  And oil thus separated needs to be purified.  Purification is typically done by hydrotreating.  Where does the hydrogen come from to hydrotreat oil?

The hydrogen for hydroteating comes from the catalytic cracking of the gasoline fraction.  “Cat-cracking” gasoline raises the octane rating of the gasoline, and that process releases hydrogen, which is fed to the lube plant for hydrotreatment of oil.  Hence, to get the oil we know we’ll still need in our ideal world, we’ll still produce vast quantities of high octane gasoline and diesel fuel.  What is supposed to be done with those vast amounts of gasoline and diesel that are the by-product of the production of quality lubricating oil that we know we’ll still need?  The quantities of gasoline and diesel will be so vast that they cannot simply be stored or dumped somewhere, like mine tailings.

The only sensible thing that can be done with them is to burn them.  They can be burnt to produce electric power, or they can be burnt in internal combustion engines to produce propulsion.  There’s no getting away from it.

The economics of forcing the use of EVs and of trying to eliminate the sale of internal combustion engines will be to depress the price of gasoline and diesel and to raise the price of lubricating oil, as the oil companies try to make a profit from their refining operations.  The oil companies would be inclined practically to give away gas and diesel just to make lube oil.  Hence, the cost of operating gas and diesel powered cars, trucks, and other equipment will drop, making them more economically competitive against battery powered vehicles, which now and in the future will require subsidies for people to afford them.

Government can try to intervene further, after banning internal combustion engines, by placing punitive taxes on gas and diesel; but the absurdity of forcing the use of EVs will lead to a crisis in the economy, transportation being so important.  This conundrum cannot be avoided, or resolved.

Hence, gas and diesel powered vehicles cannot be sensibly eliminated from use, on account simply of our continuing need for lubricating oil.  Our ideal world contains an economic contradiction that cannot be avoided.  As Thomas Sowell is wont to say, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”

By taxation and subsidies, EVs can become a part of the passenger vehicle mix, but they cannot be the entirety or even the principle modes of private transport in any sensible way.

The modern world simply cannot “just stop oil.”  It is an impractical ideal.  Our need for lubricating oil makes it impossible.

What has Just Stop Oil got to say about this?  Well, nothing at all.  I doubt they have thought this far ahead.  But it is typical of the environmental movement to ignore the question of “at what cost” and to offer no solutions to the obvious consequences of their demands being met.  It should be expected of Just Stop Oil and other such movements movement (and even of governments) to offer a solution to the problem we can see coming.

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Speaking of stupid intolerance

Vincent J. Curtis

9 June 23

RE: York trustees invite a day of reckoning. Editorial by Martin Regg Cohn.  The Hamilton Spectator 9 June 23.

Martin Regg Cohn was especially stupid and belligerent in this column today. He wonders at Catholic Schools refusing to fly a Gay Pride flag, but it never occurs to him to wonder about Pride flags not being flown over mosques.

If flying the flag wasn’t a choice, why was it put to a vote?  Why wasn't it simply ordered by the Minister of Education?

It’s true that the Ten Commandments contain no provision for the funding of Separate schools, but The Commandments do say, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

The BNA Act, 1867, likewise does not condition the funding of Separate Schools upon a submission to 2SLGBTQIA+ ideology, but the existence of that right in S92 foresaw religious differences between Separate Schools and Public Schools in ethos.

With his “inviting a day of reckoning” comment, if I didn’t know that Cohn was a pussy, I’d think he was making a threat.

Given the poverty and sheer stupidity of Cohn’s argument, I’d find out which schools he attended and have them closed.

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Crying Wolf Again on Arctic sea ice

Vincent J. Curtis

7 June 23

RE: Research advances date for likely summer ice-free Arctic by decade.  CP story by Bob Weber.  The Hamilton Spectator 7 June 23.

The CP faithfully report the latest cries of “wolf” by climate fraudsters on the make for their next research grant.  The question is, why are people still buying this one?

The cry of an ice-free Arctic ocean was made by the father of the modern global warming movement, Dr. James Hansen.  He said in 1988 that the Arctic would be ice free by 2008.  Then, in 2008, Hansen forecasted 2014-2018.  At his 2007 Noble Prize acceptance speech, Al Gore forecasted an ice-free Arctic in 2014.  Later, at the COP 15 conference in 2009, he predicted 2016.  John Kerry, on the floor of the Senate said in 2009, that the Arctic would be ice-free in 2014.  The Guardian newspaper said 2015, and the Sierra Club Canada said 2013.

The prediction has been made many times before by people in high authority, but the ocean remains stubbornly ice-covered, even in summer.  There is no trend, based on actual measurements, for the Arctic to become ice-free in summer, either.  The story isn’t that the Arctic was supposed to be ice-free in the 2070s, or 2050s, and it’s now trending to the 2030s; it’s that the Arctic should be ice-free by now and that hasn’t happened.

All those other experts cried wolf, and there is no reason based on actual data to believe this latest cry of wolf will turn out differently.

But there’s no need to worry about Arctic sea ice in the 2030s. On June 21, 2018, UN Climate Representative Greta Thunberg predicted the world would end within five years, which is right about now.

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Who is anti-science?

Vincent J. Curtis

3 June 23

Who is “anti-science?”  The epithet “anti-science” is often thrown about these days to impugn those who don’t go along with the “climate change” hypothesis.  But what makes a person “anti-science?”

Science is an organized body of knowledge about a subject matter, and the philosophical approach to science is an open-minded search for truth; being undismayed by unorthodox conclusions.

A person who is anti-science is someone who places conformance to an orthodoxy above the evidence.  Characteristically, a person who insists on conformance to an orthodoxy is dismayed by unorthodox conclusions because the orthodoxy is the supreme thing that mustn’t be challenged.

Let’s look at an historical example for illustration.  Nicholas Copernicus in the 16^th century proposed that the solar system was heliocentric.  At the time, the scientific consensus was the Ptolemaic view, that the earth was the center of the universe and that all celestial objects revolved around it.  The earth being the center of the universe was also congenial to the theology of the times, since it suggested the importance of mankind, who were at the center of God’s creation.  Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis challenged both the scientific and the theological views and consensus, and was therefore of great interest to astronomers, who were guided by an open-minded search for truth.

Though imperfect, Copernicus’ theory became accepted by astronomers because it explained the movement of celestial bodies better than Ptolemy’s theory did.  Copernicus’ theory held erroneously that the planets revolved in perfect circles around the sun, and correcting for the fact that planetary orbits were elliptical made the correspondence with observation even closer.  The theologians came to accept the heliocentric theory because, to theology’s credit, it maintained that theology could not be at odds with science.

So, who was anti-science?  Actually, none on either side of the dispute was, because both astronomers and theologians accepted Copernicus’ challenge; they didn’t dismiss it as contrary to consensus.  His theory may have been dismaying, but the search for truth prevailed over prejudice.  After Sir Isaac Newton and his theory of gravitation explained heliocentricism, no one could seriously challenge the heliocentric view of the solar system; and if someone today insisted on the archaic Ptolemaic system without some extraordinary evidence, they would be anti-science.

Today, there is a different orthodoxy that is being insisted upon.  Its foundational belief is that Western Civilization is the heart and the cause of evil in the world.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western Civilization stood alone and unchallenged in the world for its economic, cultural. scientific, and technological successes.  How to humble the Western powers?  Apart from incessant and unprincipled moral criticism, one way is to cripple its economic success, by making its energy production uneconomic.  Nuclear power generation having been made into a boogie-man, the next step was to abolish power generation by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.  And that was the point of the Kyoto Treaty of 1995.  The Kyoto Treaty was founded upon the belief that the continued burning of fossil fuels was going to destroy the planet.

(Note: I dispute calling methane, natural gas, a “fossil fuel.”  Its abundance elsewhere in the solar system indicates that methane on earth may not be primarily of biological origin.)

That carbon dioxide, a product of the burning of carbonaceous fuels, absorbs light in the infra-red spectrum, and thus could trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, was known in the 19^th century.  The great Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius first proposed that more CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to uncontrolled atmospheric warming; but his theory was discredited by the actual events of the 20^th century.  The earth did warm from the beginning of the 20^th century until 1940.  Then, despite rising CO2 level, the earth cooled until 1979.  The climate scare of the 1970s was of a coming ice age.  Then, the earth began to warm again until 1998, when warming paused.  That pause caused the cry of “global warming” to be changed into the vague and non-falsifiable “climate change.”  It’s hard to maintain in science a theory of rising CO2 causing global warming when CO2 is rising but global temperature isn’t.

(Note: we now understand why Arrhenius was wrong.  The greenhouse effect of CO2 is maxed out by 100 ppm concentration.  Adding more CO2 above 100 ppm traps practically no more infra-red radiation.)

The global warming file, re-started in 1988 by NASA scientist James Hansen, was given to Al Gore when he became Vice-President of the United States in 1993.  Gore conditioned the receipt of Federal science funding upon the advocacy, somehow, of the global warming hypothesis.  The Kyoto Treaty was Gore’s triumph.  The world didn’t have time to discuss it; global disaster was just around the corner; and the pre-cautionary principle commanded immediate action.

However, all the forecasts of apocalypse that came out of the global warming hypothesis, from 1988 onwards, proved wrong in the event; the most obvious of which were the many forecasts of the Arctic Ocean becoming ice-free in summer, of a rise in sea level with the accompanying inundation of coastal cities; the submersions of Pacific islands, and a catastrophic and accelerating rise in global temperature.  The failed forecast problem was answered with greater ferocity of orthodoxy enforcement and with more frightening apocalyptic forecasts.

The political orthodoxy which followed upon the global warming hypothesis did, however, succeed in crippling the growth of cheap energy supply in the Western world, and China became the center of world manufacturing over the last twenty years.

The only things supporting the ‘burning-of-fossil-fuels-causes-global-warming’ hypothesis are models, which are nothing more than specific articulations of that hypothesis.  Models aren’t data.  Models aren’t evidence.  Models demand evidence for their validation.  None of the models match the temperature data except for the Russian models.  The non-Russian models all forecast warming, and warming isn’t happening.  The Russian models don’t forecast warming, and are therefore the closest fit to the actual data.  Are you dismayed by this unorthodox outcome?

So, who is anti-science?  Are the Russian models anti-science because they correctly forecast no warming?  Or are those anti-science who place the orthodoxy ahead of the data?  Who places orthodoxy ahead of the evidence?  Who is not guided by an open-minded search for truth, and is dismayed by the unorthodox conclusions? 

The refusal to entertain hypotheses which challenge the orthodoxy is anti-science.  How else is theoretical science to advance except by challenges to the received orthodoxy, with theories which better explain the evidence?

Can a scientist be trusted whose daily bread relies upon his claiming that this or that phenomenon is a sign of climate change?  The use of the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent can often keep bread on the table and the conscience somewhat clear.

The latest fallacious climate claim is to attribute the Nova Scotia fires to ‘climate change.’  Let’s sort this out.  Okay, the hypothesis is that climate change caused the fires: what evidence have you got to support that hypothesis?  The phenomenon itself cannot serve as the proof of its own cause.  That’s obviously fallacious.

There is no evidence offered; the hypothesis that climate change caused fires is merely affirmed as consistent with the orthodoxy, which fails utterly to confirm the hypothesis at issue, namely that the cause of the fires is climate change.  This is the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent: fires, therefore climate change.

But drought is not climate change.  Drought is a normal abnormal condition; it is a prolonged but temporary condition of a lack of rain when rain is expected.  Climate change is when Nova Scotia turns into a desert.

It seems clear that those hurling the accusation of being “anti-science” are themselves the ones who are anti-science.  Lacking evidence that supports their hypothesis, they place the orthodoxy above the evidence; they are dismayed by theories and conclusions that deny the orthodoxy; they reject theories that explain the evidence better than the received orthodoxy, and their standard mode of argument is to affirm the consequent.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  Those throwing around the epithet “anti-science” to enforce an orthodoxy are the ones who are anti-science.

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Why there's a doctor shortage

Stick to your knitting

Vincent J. Curtis

5 June 23

RE: 400 doctors stand against fossil fuel expansion.  Op-ed by Dr. Samantha Green.  She is president-elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.  The Hamilton Spectator 5 June 23.

There’s a doctor shortage in Ontario.  If you want to know why, look no further than this article.  Here are 400 doctors who have time to engage in moral narcissism, and time to say stupid things about matters they know nothing about.

Climate change presents threats to health?  Let’s disregard that climate change is a hoax, but given the numbers of climates around the world, from Arctic to Equatorial, mankind faces and overcomes all sorts of different climates.  That “air pollution causes one in sever premature deaths in Canada” is a canard that I refuted when the “pre-mature deaths” business was first floated by the OMA twenty years ago.  (1500 “pre-mature” deaths per year or some such were allegedly caused by the Nanticoke and Lambton coal fired power plants, and the OMA wanted them closed early.)

Natural gas is a fantastic source of energy for electrical generation: it’s clean burning, cheap, abundant, rich in hydrogen, and the generators can be fast cycled to meet rapid changes in demand.  The Chinese unreliables, wind and solar, couldn’t be used without natural gas power generation to back them up.  Guess what the doctors prescribe.

The doctors also swallowed the nonsense about wind and solar being less expensive than natural gas generation.  Never mind the accounting chicanery in the assumptions, when they can’t produce power, the Chinese unreliables are highly expensive, and useless, white elephants.

The doctors should never mind the climate change nonsense.  Fix something in their bailiwick, like wait times, or cancer.

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Kick Alberta out of Confederation – Please!

Vincent J. Curtis

1 June 23

RE: Will Alberta endanger climate goals? Hamilton Spectator editorial. 1 June 23.

It never occurs to the Spectator to ask, first, are those goals worth anything?  Canada isn’t meeting its goal of 2 percent of GDP for NATO, but the Spec doesn’t care about that.  Canada’s climate goals are practically meaningless, and nothing would change if Canada simply ignored them.

Canada is responsible for 1.6 percent of world CO2 emissions, while China, India, and Russia together are responsible for half of global emissions.  They don’t care about CO2; and Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin aren’t going to follow any moral example set by international fool Justin Trudeau.  Canada isn’t part of the problem, and so can’t be part of the solution.

Natural gas fired electrical generation provides 95 percent of Alberta’s electricity.  The Chinese unreliables, wind and solar, are particularly unsuited to Alberta because of prairie dust, persistent snow cover, great lack of sunlight in winter, and lack of wind.  (And dangerously high winds when they do blow.)

Alberta would be a great candidate for the next generation of nuclear power generation, but the Federal government has shown no interest in that.  Given the Federal governments proclamations about fertilizer and cattle flatulence, a paranoid conspiracy theorist could get the impression that Justin Trudeau is out to screw up Alberta because it never votes Liberal.  (Alberta’s three main economic sectors are oil & gas, agriculture, and cattle ranching.)

Ottawa and its “climate goals” can go to hell.  If Alberta is a problem child, then – please! – kick us out of Confederation.

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