Did You Know That a 4K Temperature Rise Would Melt All the Ice in Antarctica and Justify the End of Capitalism?

The state government of Arizona pays the advocate of these ideas to teach our children this pathetic propaganda.

The New York Times published an Opinion article by Benjamin Y. Fong, a faculty fellow at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University, entitled The Climate Crisis? It's Capitalism, Stupid.  He calls for the end of Capitalism because Capitalism will inevitably bring about a mass extinction of life on Earth.  He says the mass extinction of life will be caused by a continuation of our current political systems.  By 2100, even with the USA in the Paris Accord, we were well on the way to a 7.2⁰F temperature increase by 2100 according to Fong.  He claims that a 7.2⁰F increase in the temperature of the Earth has previously melted all of the ice at either pole and may do so again.  Consequently, socialism, even communism, has no need to justify itself, because they cannot be as bad as the death warrant stupid Capitalism guarantees us.

Let us examine stupid.  A 7.2⁰F temperature increase is a 4⁰C temperature increase.  Ice melts at 0⁰C.  The highest temperature ever recorded at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was -12.3⁰C.  The warmest month at the South Pole is January and the average highest daily temperature in that month is -26.0⁰C.  It will be a most interesting trick when a 4⁰C temperature increase melts all of the ice in Antarctica.  This would increase the warmest temperature ever recorded there to only -8.3⁰C and the warmest monthly average temperature to -22⁰C.  Yes, an average temperature increase of 4⁰C would probably be the result of a greater temperature increase at the poles than in the equatorial region, but there is plenty of margin at the South Pole to allow for that.

Before you kill Capitalism because you claim it will bring on a mass extinction of life, please show me that a continuation of our current political institutions will actually cause:

• an average temperature increase of 4⁰C
• a temperature increase at the South Pole of at least 12.3⁰C, or more realistically, an increase of 26⁰C
• that the melting of all the ice at the poles will bring on a mass extinction of life
• that an average temperature increase of 4⁰C, which must be much less in the equatorial regions in order to be 12.3⁰C or more at the South Pole and also more at the North Pole, will bring on the extinction of all life
• that my chance of surviving Communist or other authoritarian socialist societies, with their history of killing over 160 million people, is greater than my chance of surviving a mass extinction
• that a life under Communism is a life worth living

The burden of reasonable proof that Capitalism will inevitably doom us all does not go away simply because someone asserts that Capitalism will have dire consequences for the survival of living creatures on Earth.  So far, most living creatures are not doing badly under Capitalism, while specifically human beings are doing better than they ever have before because of Capitalism.  Capitalism has a history of improving the human condition, while Communism has a history of killing tens of millions of human beings and depriving those who manage to survive of their individual rights and making their survival much more marginal.

It is amazing what people with a political or religious agenda will claim for a 1.4% (4K/288K) increase in the average Earth temperature.  Or, consider the mass extinction that occurs in Denver every September when the temperature rises an average of 30⁰F (16.7⁰C) from the daily average low temperature to the daily average high temperature.  The stupid hat does not go on the Capitalist.  It belongs as anyone committed to reason knows on the head of those who embrace Communism and on those who embrace Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming.  These people seem to never learn the errors of their thinking, which must be the definition of stupid.  Intelligent people have some ability to identify their mistakes and to learn from them.  Intelligence does not guarantee that onw will not make mistakes in a complex world and universe, but it does require a constant concern that one's beliefs are consistent with reality.

It is apparent that intelligence is not a requirement for a faculty position in the Honors College at Arizona State University.  Unfortunately, it is no more required in many other universities either.  Conformity of belief to the Progressive Elitist beliefs in socialism and the essentially evil nature of man is much more important at most universities than is intelligence.

Schumpeter on College Problems

Schumpeter is a regular commentary in The Economist.  In the 4 - 10 September issue, Schumpeter takes up the status of the decline of colleges with many of the same concerns addressed in my post of a few days ago, The Soon-to-Burst Education Bubble.  He adds some interesting facts, which we will take note of here.

He notes that as the world was once in awe of GM, it remains in awe of U.S. universities.  The Shanghai Ranking Consultancy evaluates universities worldwide and claims 17 of the top 20 universities are in the U.S.  Of the top 50 universities, 35 are in the U.S.  70% of the living Nobel laureates in science and economics are teaching in U.S. universities.  A disproportionate number of academic journal article citations are those of American academics.  Despite this, there are signs of major problems.

These problems are seen in these facts:

• While median U.S. household income has grown by a factor of 6.5 in the last 40 years, in-state costs to attend a state college have increased 15 times and the out-of-state costs have increased 24 times.  Private college costs are up by a factor greater than 13.
• An Ivy League college costs $38,000 a year, excluding room and board.
• Only 40% of students graduate in 4 years or less.
• A professor's reputation is based on his research, not his teaching ability.  They are said to give students light workloads and inflated grades in a trade in which students are supposed to leave the professors alone.
• Senior professors at Ivy League schools get sabbaticals every third year now, where it used to be every seventh year.  Of the 48 history professors at Harvard this year, 20 are on sabbatical!
• The patents and licenses resulting from federal R&D funding have been decreasing in numbers for several years.  One reason is that legislators are directing funding largess away from centers of excellence.
• A study of 198 top U.S. universities shows administrative spending is greatly outstripping spending on the teaching faculty.  This problem is even worse in elite private colleges than it is in state colleges.  Administrative spending per student at Harvard is up by 300%.  Almost half of Arizona State University employees are administrative staff.  College presidents are living regally.
• Universities are ranked by the research prestige of their faculty, not by the quality of their teaching.  They are also generally subject to little scrutiny on costs.  In fact, some universities such as George Washington University compete by offering lavish facilities at a high cost.

Schumpter concludes:

This luxury model is unlikely to survive what is turning into a prolonged economic downturn. Parents are much less willing to take on debt than they were and much more willing to look abroad for better deals.  The internet also poses a growing threat to what Bill Gates calls "place-based colleges".  Online, you can listen to the world's best lecturers for next to nothing.

 America's universities lost their way badly in the era of easy money. If they do not find it again, they may go the way of GM.

The education bubble is due to a combination of government interference and self-indulgence at the universities.  The government with subsidized and guaranteed student loans and loans to student's parents have made it easy for the universities to pass on cost increases, which have gone up even more than medical costs.  Government R&D research grants have overly distracted faculty from teaching.  Administrators at universities have taxed those government research funds with higher and higher overhead charges over the years, which has allowed them to live higher on the hog.   This has decreased the fraction of the funds actually being used for research, so the efficiency of research has fallen.  Finally, many politically correct aims and government mandates such as affirmative action, diversity, social activism programs, and Title IX athletics requirements have all driven up university costs, particularly administrative costs.

The universities have been hotbeds of socialism and Progressivism.  As such, they require an environment from which reality is excluded.  The longer reality has been denied access to the universities, the more ravenous it has become.  Reality will not wait for these complacent and otherworldly universities to open their doors to it.  It will simply cave-in the walls and stomp through those hallowed halls all too soon.

Sustainability on Campus

In a publication called Academic Sourcebook, the lead article of the June 2008 issue is entitled "Sustainability on Campus" by Skip Derra of Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. It describes a program in sustainability at Arizona State University. He begins with "One convert at a time is a noble goal for any altruistic endeavor, especially sustainability, which has long laid low in the grassroots of society." Convert, noble goal, altruistic endeavor, grassroots of society are words and phrases ringing of religious zeal and selfless, underdog struggle for the sake of society at the expense of self, following paths well pioneered by many religions and all forms of socialism.

ASU's president Michael Crow has made sustainability a university-wide priority. He also was much involved in creating the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. This is a man with a deep commitment to the politically correct worldview. So, ASU has the first freestanding, degree-granting School of Sustainability in the United States. Jonathan Fink, director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and ASU's sustainability officer says that "We work with government agencies to make sure the problems we are working on are the ones that actually will have an impact." Yes, this is a good strategy to be close to the sources of government funding and stroking the egos of the bureaucrats in them. It is also an admission that the universities are not able to discern the important problems and must turn to government, which has a long track record of not being able to prioritize problems of any sort or of providing practical solutions to those it tackles. This is the blind leading the blind, big time.

So, ASU is providing free bus passes to all faculty, staff, and students in the name of sustainability. Sounds like a nice perk. They are renting cars on a Flexcar program to encourage alternative methods of commuting. I have no idea how that saves energy, though possibly it does reduce the need for parking lots, providing the Flexcars are used enough. They have a program requiring the purchase of recycled products, though many recycled products cost more energy to produce than the original manufacture did and others offer reduced product specifications, such as recycled paper products. They have a commitment to solar energy and have a goal to provide 15% of their 4 to 7 MW of power from solar energy. I am not sure whether the 4 to 7 MW range means that they are unsure of their energy usage, unsure how much energy they will be using when they achieve their 15% goal, or this is an annual rate projected from their winter usage versus their summer usage. They are also growing some of their food on campus, planting citrus, date, and nut trees. They are also growing herbs. A picture shows a narrow strip of garden plowed next to a building. It is hard to imagine that the farming of this narrow strip will reach the efficiency of a farmer managing his agro-business. But, it may educate students to recognize a few of the plants whose fruits they eat, at least.

They do talk about the need to conserve water on the desert campus. Certainly if people are going to insist on living in human inhospitable areas such as the Arizona deserts in large numbers, they have some real sustainability problems. Learning ways to economically conserve energy is also a good thing. Finding ways to recycle products that actually make sense economically, such as recycling aluminum cans, makes good sense. But, sense on university campuses is in short supply. These programs of study would make more sense if they were coupled with close interactions with businesses other than those seeking subsidies from the government for sustainability programs.

There is a sidebar describing programs in sustainability at Stanford University, at Rochester Institute of Technology, at Portland State University, and at Berea College in Kentucky. Rochester Institute of Technology is the university at which my youngest daughter Katie is entering her senior year in a biotechnology degree program. The Galisano Institute for Sustainability there focuses on research and education in sustainable design, pollution prevention, remanufacturing, and alternative energy development. Such a program may have merit, if it is carried out as a matter of rational investigation and education, rather than as the all too popular religious and socialist crusade.