Why knowledge and ignorance are not always moving in opposite directions

Last night, the news showed a group of climate change activists blocking traffic in Oxford Circus causing havoc, while a tv commentator was saying that if instead of disturbing the shoppers, which did not improve climate, the protesters had instead persuaded the shoppers to stop eating meat they would be contributing to improve the climate.

The level of silliness shown by the protesters and the commentator could be looked at with benevolence and a smile if they were from a primitive tribe dancing or fasting to ask the gods for rain. But, in XXI London, where most population is well educated and there are some top universities this seems at odds with normal expectations.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case and we see a rise of such phenomenon worldwide in many other spheres. For instance, in politics one of the most advanced democracies elected one of the stupidest presidents. But, interestingly, this president now plays the role of the child shouting “the king is naked” in relation to the climate change activists.

So, why aren’t science and ignorance moving always in opposite directions?

There are at least two reasons for that.

First, just because we now know how to develop models showing how the movement of a butterfly in Asia can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean, it does not follow that there is significant chance of that happening. That is, simple minded people are prone to confuse theoretical possibilities with likely occurrences.

Second, humans seem to have a need to stand out in a crowd. This is now exacerbated by social media. And, if someone gets recognition by an exotic behaviour or stance others immediately follow a similar conduct. Again, politics gives us a good example. The rise of a silly Trump was not followed by the rise of a wise Democrat but by the emergence of an equally foolish representative Ocasio-Cortez.

Should wise people despair because we live in such a world? Of course not. The voyage of humankind from primitive predators to civilized people is a long journey on a tortuous road. We simply need to avoid crashing out while enjoying the diversity.

The stupidity about the climate change debate

No day passes without us hearing about climate change. No problem with that for the British, because for them weather has always been a popular topic to start a conversation. What is annoying about this is that some people are trying to make a political issue about it and cash-in money out of this at the tax-payers cost.

Of course, there is climate change as there has been for millions of years and will continue to be for the million years ahead. There will be recurring spells of extreme heat, cold, rain, drought and so on.

Some of these changes may be influenced by mankind be it through fire, deforestation, CO2 emissions or something else.

Mankind has experienced that and has successfully adapted and survived such extreme conditions and will continue to do so.

So is there anything new about climate change except the mumbo-jumbo of today’s environmentalists; which is not fundamentally different from the Middle Ages prey of the church and witchcraft on the helpless and ignorant before a plague? Absolutely not!

We may wish to believe that we can fine tune the weather to our desires. That might be a possibility in a distant future, but it certainly is not an option now and in the foreseeable future. The best proof is to remind us that if we cannot easily fine tune the economic activity, a man-made process, we cannot expect to fine tune a natural process of which we know much less and over which we have so little control.

So modern sorcerers – sorry, “pseudo-environmentalists” – please give us a break and find something useful to do which is not preying on other people´s fear or ignorance.

Economic cycles vs. Climate cycles

First the similarities: a) both exist and are recurrent; b) there are local/global as well as long/short cycles; c) both coexist with a high frequency of outliers (whether bumper profits or extreme temperatures).

Second the differences: a) economic cycles are mostly man-made, climate cycles are mostly nature-made; b) economic cycles can be significantly smoothed (through Keynesian policies), no equivalent climatologist has shown that man can smooth climate cycles; and c) the side effects of tempering with economic cycles are known, but not so for climate change.

Third scientific attitudes and effort: a) for more than a century economists have dedicated a large effort to study business cycles, the same with climatologists but given the research costs of the later their effort is probably lacking; b) neither economists nor climatologist have an undisputed body of consolidated knowledge; and c) the two sciences are still dominated by fads and ideology.

Fourth the involvement of politicians: a) electoral politics has always relied on economic cycles (it’s the economy stupid…), but only recently turned to climate change; b) its involvement in economics cycles is justified since these are man-made, but is questionable for nature-made cycles; and c) politicians should decide whether it is worthwhile smoothing the business cycle, but should delay acting on climate until its science knows enough about the risks of changing nature.

Finally, where do I stand on climate change: a) climate cycles do exist; b) there is little we can do to smooth them; and c) climate change should be studied scientifically, not used to bring back old mistakes based on ideas of self-sufficiency, protectionism, and huge tax-payers handouts to sponging self-serving interested groups.