{"id":195350,"date":"2022-04-10T17:57:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-10T15:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=195350"},"modified":"2022-04-10T17:57:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-10T15:57:39","slug":"focus-on-the-light-not-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=195350","title":{"rendered":"Focus on the light, not the darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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green garden view through the window<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The recent waste of the public\u2019s time with the Will Smith-Chris Rock fiasco at the boring Oscars (second worst<\/a> audience numbers ever) hit a nerve. It has been bad enough listening on Fox and Breitbart to endless rehashes of CNN and MSNBC tirades, to the mantras repeated over and over as if the entire \u201cnews\u201d industry were being run by Occupy Wall Street copycats. How rare \u2013 and refreshing \u2013 it is when someone talks positively about how to do things right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An old friend once told me she rejects the phrase, \u201cNever forget,\u201d and instead promises to \u201cAlways remember\u201d \u2013 a positive affirmation that confesses a positive act. Similarly, the U.S. Treasury has long focused its training for spotting counterfeit money<\/a> by having agents study the real currency until they can spot any deviations quickly. When you know what (or who) is real, fakery is easy to spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But focusing on the negative always leaves us angry and depressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just look at how the Left is \u201cteaching\u201d American history \u2013 using the negativist 1619 false narrative whose goal is to encourage children to hate their country and its leaders. Or at critical race theory, which teaches that the entirety of Western civilization should be discarded because (not unlike other cultures) it at one time espoused human slavery \u2013 and because \u201cwhiteness\u201d is inherently evil. The negativist CRT ignores the long march toward human equality that its bipartisan expositors now seek to destroy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must always remember that the hated, much vilified Republican Richard Nixon opened the door both to a possible Chinese takeover of world commerce and to the creation of the powerful, self-seeking regulatory state (including the Environmental Protection Agency). Leaders of both parties continue to cede authority to bureaucrats who see their job as curbing entrepreneurship and imposing \u201csocietal\u201d mandates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But was it the heavy dose of federal regulation, or the technological advances made by the private sector in response to market demand, that brought such incredible improvements in air quality in just three decades \u2013 and more since? Was it doomsayers or entrepreneurs whose work has led to burgeoning prosperity, expanded life expectancy, and gains in literacy and personal freedom in much of the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA\u2019s 2019 report<\/a> Our Nation\u2019s Air<\/em> emphasized that levels of criteria pollutants [lead, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and ozone] identified in the 1970 Clean Air Act had fallen by 74 percent by 2018 despite 275-percent growth in the U.S. economy, a 50 percent increase in energy consumption, and a 60 percent rise in population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a sane nation, we would be celebrating. Not here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps to save their jobs but more likely to increase their power and influence, the EPA bureaucrats and their fellow travelers invented a \u201cnew\u201d \u201ccriteria pollutant\u201d \u2013 harmless, odorless, and vitally necessary carbon dioxide \u2014 and snookered even a gullible U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> to go along with the scam (though the Court<\/a> may be about to burst that bubble at least a little bit).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armed with their 2007 victory in Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em>, the increasingly leftist bureaucracy quickly moved to impose a myriad of restrictions on economic activity (and even noneconomic activity) in the name of saving the planet from Evil Carbon. The zealots empowered by these bureaucrats had been screaming \u201cglobal warming\u201d since they quit screaming \u201ca coming Ice Age\u201d \u2013 with the culprit for both cooling and warming the \u201cevil\u201d carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, if their arguments were true, historic levels of CO2<\/sub> would have long since killed off all life on the planet. Moreover, they slyly use the term \u201ccarbon\u201d rather than the accurate, and positively viewed, term \u201ccarbon dioxide,\u201d which people know we exhale and plants inhale to maintain the cycle of life. A growing world population benefits from higher crop yields brought about by higher CO2 <\/sub>levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then their \u201cscientists\u201d \u2013 under direction from federal and even private grant makers \u2013 \u201cfound\u201d evidence of damage from \u201cglobal warming\u201d (now known as \u201cclimate change\u201d \u2013 a totally meaningless term) in nearly every human activity. Further \u201cstudies\u201d have now \u201crevealed\u201d that \u201cclimate change is inherently racist.\u201d Which, given that God [or universal forces far beyond human influence] controls the climate, implies that God [or Nature herself] is inherently racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the same zealots and bureaucrats also link climate change to the COVID pandemic, if only to use COVID lockdown strategies to force \u201ccompliance\u201d with ridiculous electric vehicle and anti-gas appliance mandates. [The proposed Securities and Exchange Commission regulations are the latest in the theater of the absurd<\/a>. HONEST answers to their myriad climate questions \u2013 given that the only real \u201cclimate risks\u201d most face are the bureaucrats themselves and their mandates \u2014 would likely yield contempt charges for what would be contemptuous rules.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waste, fraud, and graft have become the standard fare in federal spending. But imagine if people got together and prioritized how to spend [or not spend] federal dollars to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number at the lowest cost. Our lives would likely improve overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But rather than celebrate our achievements in air quality and move forward into cleaning up America\u2019s waters (for example, Baltimore\u2019s water problems<\/a> may dwarf those in Flint), we spend gazillions on a phony war against a phony enemy all for the purpose of lining the pockets of non-achievers who are skilled at obtaining huge grants, siphoning off huge salaries, and quietly declaring bankruptcy (Solyndra, anyone?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s the challenge \u2013 there are plenty of ways Americans can improve our society, yet who is even taking the time to address them? Surely many poorly maintained roads, bridges, and water and wastewater systems are begging to be upgraded. But that help is not coming. Congress passes a trillion-plus \u201cinfrastructure\u201d bill \u2013 but the bulk of the money will enrich academics and activists for \u201cresearch,\u201d \u201creeducation,\u201d and countless other assaults on our freedoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six decades ago Jack Kennedy inspired Americans to \u201cput a man on the moon.\u201d Today, we have teachers who want to \u201cmoon\u201d their students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three decades ago, Newt Gingrich led the GOP to an historic victory by offering a \u201cContract with America.\u201d Today, we need an American revival<\/a>, as my pal Scott McKay says. We need to find common ground and reject the bickering that has left families divided, friendships broken, and futures smashed to bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we also need people of courage to call out the lies, the half-truths, the insider trading, the phony censorship by partisans whose deceptions provided them with great power. We know from history that power is a corrupting influence, and that decentralization of power is one of the bulwarks that made America unique \u2013 and the world\u2019s most sought-after destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best way to ensure decentralization of power \u2013 and thus begin an American revitalization \u2014 is to stop ceding power over our own lives and to start (or continue) building lives and communities that make government less and less relevant beyond its most primary raison d\u2019etre<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that means ceasing to accept the diktats of those who use the power of government to demand we submit in shame and adopt their language, their terminologies, their amoralities, their greed and abandon our own families, communities, and heritage to chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we get there? Let us always remember to review our history, to search for the good our forebears have done, and to teach our children how much better our lives \u2013 and those of generations after us \u2013 will be if we follow in their better footsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n