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A Convenient Consensus by Nick Jr. (February 2009)

‘Green is the New Crimson’ boldly announce banners before Widener and Memorial Church. Their green letters contrast strongly to the mounds of white snow and leafless trees covering the Yard. They shiver slightly in the frigid February winds. They are the artifacts of Harvard’s Sustainability Week, marked by Al Gore’s call to act for the “survival of human civilization,” to join the global fight against climate change. Ask most people on campus or watch the Discovery Channel or see a Hollywood movie or listen to the President Obama’s new energy secretary and you will likely find that not only is manmade global warming an undisputed fact, but that if we don’t act soon the consequences will be catastrophic. In his first interview in office this past week, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu declared “we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.” There appears to be an overwhelming consensus not only on college campuses and in the media, but also in the White House.

How did we ever reach this consensus? Why are we so quick to accept these claims? Ask the average manmade global warming believer why they believe and they’ll talk about carbon dioxide and climate models and polar bears. Yes, carbon dioxide tends to augment the green house effect. So does methane from cattle. Were factories and cars and cows around tens of thousands and millions of years ago to get Earth out of its repeated ice ages and smaller glaciations? Clearly the earth is capable of warming itself or of being warmed by the sun without the help of our dirty factories and smelly cows. Be it changes in Earth’s tilt or orbit, be it shifts in the sun’s brightness or the earth’s atmosphere, or be it something else we don’t quite understand, the earth has warmed repeatedly in the past. And you know if we didn’t have this past global warming, well mammals and all of us – the human race – would not exist to pollute the planet and make global warming theories. Does this mean man plays no role? Of course not. But surely it’s reason to be skeptical.

OK you say, but what about those high-tech climate models that predict Armageddon? Surely there are tons of people smarter than me working on those models. Surely we can trust their predictions and their assertions. But do you trust the Weather Channel forecast for even 10 days in advance? How much do we really understand the climate? The summer following Hurricane Katrina was forecasted to be the most turbulent, hurricane-rich summer in history, but it turned out just the opposite, turning out singularly quiet. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this winter has been the coldest since 2001, despite many dire predictions and models.

Now of course these examples don’t disprove the global warming models, but they do at least call their validity into question. If we can’t trust climate predictions just a week in advance, how can we so blindly accept forecasts that are decades and centuries into the future? In fact, perhaps the only conclusive prediction we can make about the near future is that there will be a period of global cooling following the current warm period – in accordance with the cycle of cooling and warming Earth has experienced for hundreds of millions of years.

But you still probably worry about those cute polar bears in global warming TV ads. The close-ups of their sad furry faces, seemingly stranded on vanishing ice blocks appear to accuse us. Look what you did, you reckless humans. You destroyed this bear’s environment; the least you can do is donate money to the cause. You see, as much as I empathize with the plight of the polar bears, it pays to look skeptically at such ads. Their aim is not to help these animals or even simply to raise awareness about global warming; their aim is to assign blame and to evoke guilt. Money and jobs and research careers hinge upon not just global warming, but manmade global warming. For if man made it, so can man unmake it and so can we all repent for our sins through donations to the cause.

Look my point is not that we should pollute the planet or stop recycling. I am all for alternative fuels; I think it’s absurd that we rely on fuels largely controlled by the Middle East and Russia. I love the outdoors and polar bears and feel one of America’s greatest assets is its national parks. My point is that the so-called consensus on manmade global warming is not only unfounded but also harmful. It suggests an understanding of climate and conclusiveness of research that is simply nonexistent and stifling to debate and future research. My point is that it pays to be skeptical of such assertions, to be mindful that not only is the particular science tenuous but that science in general is often just as much about money as about the truth.

I don’t pretend to be a climate scientist, but I do study science and conduct research. I know science is often a difficult game. Some theories can appear to be so beautiful and pleasing that they just should be right, while others are too ugly and unsavory to accept. Albert Einstein never accepted quantum theory for that very reason; it was an affront to the model of beauty and elegance that was his general theory of relativity. The fact is manmade global warming is a convenient theory; it is easy to understand and it seems resolvable. It is convenient to boil down global warming to one cause and forget about those things we don’t understand as well, such as glacial and solar and atmospheric variations. I ask you to be critical of such a convenient theory and to avoid that arrogance of mankind, that tendency to underestimate the force of nature, that complacent faith in our own knowledge and superiority.


American royalty? Come on! (January 2009)

I do not understand why the media loves to call the Kennedys American royalty. One can hear this cliché repeated here and there all the time. Why royalty? What is royal about them? Some of them appear to be involved with drugs, illegal or criminal activity, or just nobody fat cats. What on Earth is so royal about them? In many respects the members of that family are shame for America.


What a waste of resources and money! (January 2009)

It is unbelievable! What a "pompa", what a waste of money and resources with this "red diaper doper baby" inauguration! By train like the founding fathers did? Who are you Barak Hussein Obama!? You think you are like Washington or Lincoln? Amazing! It is so surreal and disgusting to watch all this wasteful spectacle at the time when the country is in financial crisis.


No More Cold War? (January 2009)

I do not understand why more often than not I hear in the U.S. and Europe media that there is no cold war anymore, presumably after the collapse of the Soviet Union behemoth. I wonder where this perception comes from. It is true that right after the collapse there was a lull in hostilities but that lasted for a short period of Yeltsin's time. After that the neo-KGB state was gradually in the making. Though the Communist religion is not at its peak anymore, the methods, psychology and mentality of the KGB is flourishing as before. Sometimes I am amazed how naïeve the people in the West are. The KGB withstood all the Russian turmoil of the 1990's very well and emerged strongest. One would think how on Earth it is possible that the organization that was responsible for millions and millions dead in the 20th century continues to live and flourish no matter what. The answer to this question is simple. Nothing have really changed much in Russia today and it could not for such a short period in history. One cannot just change the mentality of the population that was bred to a new species called "homo soveticus" that still believes in the KGB the savior as if there are enemies all around. So no wonder that such population "voted" the KGB to power in today's Russia. But the Western society pretends that nothing is happenning and wants to think that there is no cold war anymore.


A Myth of Two Superpowers (January 2009)

There is no and never was such a thing as 2 superpowers. I do not know why one can still hear this term in the media today. To my mind, a superpower is when its people live in prosperity and freedom, fully utilizing their intellectual and entrepreneur potential, not in misery and poverty still in apartments that are shared by several families with one kitchen and toilet in the year 2009, 17 years after the Soviet Union breakup. To my mind, a superpower is when due to prosperity and powerful economy, it can afford flying rockets into space and have the best and most sophisticated military in the world. That's the superpower, no doubt. But when all the effort is on producing low-tech weaponry in great numbers and on constant anti-American propaganda instead of on improving the quality of its society, that country cannot be named a superpower. There is no middle class in Russia still. It still does not produce any goods of acceptible quality except for the low-tech weaponry. It comes to mind the famous Reagan phrase about the then Soviet Union (unfortunately it is still true now). I do not remember the exact words but the meaning was that Russia is a dwarf with a powerful right hand. How true he was.


Totalitarian vs. Democratic Way of Living (January 2009)

When I first came to the U.S. I was fascinated by striking differences in the way the societies are orgianized in Russia and America. In Russia the best quality of living is where the authority is, that is in the center of power. The farther away you are from that center, the more miserable the living conditions are. In the U.S. no matter where you live you get all high standards of quality living. So people do not dream of moving, say, to Washington or to New York to improve the quality of their lives. In Russia it is quite the contrary. The closer you are to Moscow, the better chance that you would get from your life what you want. And this is not only about food and goods and such but also about your career. I myself is a good example. Had I not made a big effort back in 1982 to move me and my family from then Leningrad to Moscow and had I not been lucky enough to achieve that (and it was next to imposible at that time), chances would have been that I would never be in America today.

No doubt that unaware people would be puzzled as to why this difference is. But there is nothing new here. All totalitarian regimes, big or small, have this characteristic in common. Otherwise, they would not be totalitarian dictatorships. For many people who are miserable and have a great desire to make their life better, the only way to achieve that is moving to the center of power, the capital. This was always like that in Russia, and I know that this is still true now to a great degree, 17 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union behemoth. Amazing, isn't it?


On Al Gore and Co. (January 2009)

Who argues that people want clean and stable environment. Everybody wants it and to my mind should do best to keep it that way. But I think this fat cat is a complete and total fraud. He is like a blood sucker parasite that feeds on unaware victims. And he is not alone with his so called "man-made global warming". It is amazing this guy was a vice president of the U.S. and still continues with his convenient lie popping up here and there in the media all the time. This reminds me of another similar mass hysteria 15 or so years ago about the ozone layer depletion. Now everybody conveniently forget about it. No doubt that there are people who greatly benefit from the "man-made global warming" lie. Absolutely no doubt about it.