It is not Science, It is Politics at the UN IPCC

This is the UN IPCC web page for a report entitled

IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate

The text under the image says:

The chapters posted are the Final Government Draft versions. They are subject to correction, copy-editing, layout and “trickleback” adjustments to the text of the full report to ensure consistency with the approved Summary for Policymakers

Take note that "adjustments to the text of the full report to ensure consistency with the approved Summary for Policymakers" means adjustments to the science will be made as necessary to support the political aims of the Policymakers, that is the politicians.  Yes, science is but the handmaiden to those who want still more power to micromanage our lives.  It is ever so important for the elitists who run our governments to dictate to the Deplorables who are over-populating the world and offending the elitists with their efforts to improve their standard of living, sometimes without the permission of the government elitists.

The Brainwashing of a Nation by Daniel Greenfield

Subtitled:
From campus identity politics cults to the media, brainwashing is bigger than ever.

Greenfield says:

The human mind, like the human body, adapts to a crisis with a fight-or-flight response. Brainwashing forces the mind into a flight response. Once in flight mode, the mind can rationalize a new belief as a protective behavior that will keep it safe. Even when, as in the case of the suspect, the new belief will actually destroy his life. Fight or flight mode inhibits long term thinking. In panic mode, destructive and suicidal behaviors seem like solutions because they offer an escape from unbearable chemical stresses.
There’s a good biological reason for that. Our minds stop us from thinking too much in a crisis so that we can take urgent action, like running into a fire or at a gunman, that our rational minds might not allow us to do. But that same function can be ‘hacked’ by artificially putting people into fight-or-flight mode to break them down and shortcut their higher reasoning functions. Decisions reached subconsciously in fight-or-flight mode will then be rationalized and internalized after the initial crisis has passed.

Cults, abusive relationships and totalitarian movements maintain ‘total crisis’, shutting down higher reasoning, creating a permanent state of stress by triggering fight-or-flight responses unpredictably. This leads to Stockholm Syndrome, where the captive tries to control their fate through total emotional identification with their captor, pack behavior, loss of identity and will, and eventually suicide or death.

Total crisis leads to burnout, emotional exhaustion, detachment from friends and family, and violence.
How do you brainwash a nation?
Control the national environment, force a crisis on the country, and tap into their fear and guilt. And then you can outlaw planes, cows, skyscrapers, straws, plastic bags and the rest of the Green New Deal.
The environmental crisis is just one example of how leftist movements can brainwash a nation.
The growing number of millennials who say that they will not have children because of environmental panic is an example of how brainwashing can make suicidal behavior seem like self-preservation.

Since the Left still lacks total control over the United States, it relies on repetition, itself a form of control and stress, to create fear and panic. It makes up for its lack of physical control by bombarding Americans with messages meant to inspire fear, love, hate and guilt through the media, through the educational system, through entertainment and through every possible messaging channel.


Global Warming panic is one of a succession of manufactured leftist crises in America that began with a class crisis. transitioned to a racial crisis, and then to an environmental crisis.

He also says "Human beings don't behave rationally." Most people do behave relatively rationally in certain compartments of their life, but largely irrationally in other compartments. Unfortunately, moral philosophy is about the most irrational compartment of most peoples lives.

I do not think intelligence itself makes you more vulnerable to brainwashing, expect insofar as unintelligent people seem much less likely to give thought at all to moral philosophy and they are usually only captured by the education system for about 12 years, not 16 years or more. It is the amateurs of moral philosophy who spend 16 or more years trying to please nearly universally leftist teachers and professors who are most likely to fall victim to the Left. A social metaphysician in the hands of leftist educators for 16 years is a goner.

Before the education system played this role, it was largely religions that played it. However irrational the religion, one of them was usually able to secure a monopoly on moral philosophy over a substantial region of the earth, demonstrating that most people are social metaphysicians.

With these qualifications, much of what Greenfield says is correct. In 1965 when I was a freshman at Brown University, I had many moral and political discussions with very committed leftist products of the nation's finest private schools. Over and over, I had the experience that someone would reluctantly concede that I was right about my limited government and generally libertarian individualist philosophy on an issue. The next day they were still spouting the belief they had conceded was wrong the day before as though we had never had our discussion. The same thing happens now when I explain why catastrophic man-made global warming is a failed hypothesis.

Greenfield is right about this: "That is why the Left cannot be defeated through policy debates and intellectual abstractions. It is a belief system. Though it traffics in seeming abstractions, these are a language, but not the meaning. The esoteric languages of policy and pop culture in which it speaks are vehicles for a deeper language of primal emotions. Behind the theories and manifestos is a great darkness of fear and terror, of love and hate, of emotional instability and vulnerability on which its lies and propaganda are built."

The only way to defeat this brainwashing is to be there constantly throughout children's and young people's lives encouraging them to apply reason to every problem and every situation. Without that encouragement, few children and young people are able to make that commitment to reason. Being there does require having the rational arguments to defeat the leftist belief system and making those argument over and over throughout a child's upbringing. One needs to take care that children really do understand the basis of rational individualism and that they do not just adopt it as a religion themselves.

I remember literally making a compact with myself when I was 5 years old to always put reason first. I did not always succeed, but I did put a lot of effort into that commitment. I realized even then that many adults, teachers, and, later, authors were wrong about many things. Whatever they said had to be subjected to critical evaluation before it was believed. I sorted what I learned into three categories: This I have evaluated and is true, this I have evaluated and is false, and this I have not yet evaluated so its truth is unknown.

Unfortunately, few people at any age make such a commitment to reason and far too many accept the word of authorities all too readily. Most students simply try to remember all they are told and assume it must be true. This often makes then "fast learners", which is interpreted as intelligence. That sort of false intelligence does make such people very much more likely victims of brainwashing.

Climate Change Settled Science: The Atmosphere Absorbs 90% or 29% of Surface Radiation

What difference does it make?  Who cares whether the atmosphere absorbs 29% or 90% of the infrared radiation from the Earth's surface?  Apparently NASA doesn't care, despite the fact that the settled science claims that atmospheric absorption of this radiation is key to the catastrophic greenhouse effect.

Here is a graphic from a  NASA web page:

Note that the surface is here emitting thermal radiation with an power equal to 17% of the solar insolation at the top of the atmosphere up into the atmosphere. Of that 17%, 5% is absorbed by the atmosphere on passage and 12% makes it through the atmosphere into space.  Therefore 5/17 = 0.29 or 29% of the surface emitted longwave radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere.  This warms the atmosphere and it retards the rate of radiative cooling of the surface.  This is the very essence of the so-called greenhouse effect.  That effect is a critical scientific issue and one that the so-called settled science claims to understand well as the basis of its call for drastic action to prevent catastrophic man-made global warming.

This being a well-understood phenomena of the settled science, we should expect NASA to be consistent in proclaiming that 29% of surface thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere.  Does NASA meet our expectations for consistency?  See this NASA Earth Energy Budget from, believe it or not, the same page as the above graphic on atmospheric absorption:

Now the Earth's surface radiation has swollen by 100% to 117% and only 12% makes it out of the atmosphere into space.  Now the atmosphere absorbs (117% - 12%) / 117% = 0.90 or 90% of the longwave infrared thermal radiation emitted by the Earth's surface.  It is much easier to make a claim that man's emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere will have dire consequences when you can present a picture of 90% surface radiation absorption in the atmosphere than when you present it as 29% absorption.  Note that the story for catastrophic man-made global warming is also made to seem more plausible because surface thermal radiation at 117% just overwhelms the rates of energy loss due to water evaporation at 25% and convection at 5%.  If surface radiation is just 17%, then 25% + 5% = 30% is a lot more important.  As I have pointed out in other postings, the loss of the majority the Earth's surface heat by non-radiative means is critically important in establishing a warm surface temperature.

So which is it?  29% or three times more at 90%?  What is actually measured is the rate at which energy is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere and beyond.  Note that in the Earth energy budget schematic, the back radiation from the atmosphere is claimed to be 100%.  If you subtract that from the 117% that diagram says is emitted from the surface, you get a net surface emission of 17%. In this way, NASA believes the Earth Energy Budget diagram and the upper diagram of the atmospheric absorption are equivalent, but the lower diagram sure represents greenhouse effects as more important than does the upper diagram.

What is actually measured?  When you make a measurement of the radiation from the surface from a given altitude, you only know the radiation power transferred from the surface to your measuring instrument.  Suppose your measuring instrument is at the same temperature as the atmosphere at that altitude.  It can then only measure the energy that can be exchanged between two bodies at the respective temperatures.  In other words, the 5% of surface radiation absorbed by the atmosphere would be what your meter would read at the appropriate point in the atmosphere.  If you move your meter outside the atmosphere into space and have it at the appropriate space temperature, then it can read the 12% level of radiation that escaped into space.  What you really know is presumably what is in the upper diagram.

So how does NASA generate the lower diagram with the 117% surface thermal radiation and the 100% back radiation?  It does so by means of the hypothesis that the atmosphere is a black body radiator, as is the surface.  Both radiate energy exactly as they would if they were isolated black bodies surrounded only by space at a temperature of absolute zero.  What is more, they suppose that any body (greenhouse gases mostly) in the atmosphere absorbing surface radiation re-emits it only toward the Earth's warmer surface, none of that is absorbed by other greenhouse gases, and all of it is incident upon the Earth's surface, which then absorbs 100% of that radiation.  This is absolutely wrong.  The exchange of thermal radiation energy occurs through the medium of an electric field and the flow of photons is only as required by the electric field gradient from the warmer to the cooler body.  The 100% thermal radiation from the atmosphere to the Earth's surface is a figment of NASA's imagination.

In the NASA upper diagram of the atmosphere and the power held in it, the sum of that power is 23% + 25% + 5% + 5% = 58%.  In the NASA Earth Energy Budget lower diagram, the atmosphere has an absorbed power of 23% + 5% + 25% + (117% - 12%) = 158%.  Now it is a miracle that the atmosphere can hold more power than the sun is supplying as is claimed in the NASA Earth Energy Budget in the first place, but faith in the authority of the settled science requires us to believe this. The upper diagram, which is much closer to the actual measurements made, does not require us to violate the Conservation of Energy.  Does this not prompt the rational observer to believe that the assumptions made to generate the NASA Earth Energy Budget are wrong?

The atmosphere on average is colder than the Earth's surface.  In the upper schematic, the atmosphere radiates 59% of the solar insolation at the top of the atmosphere out into space.  The atmosphere is warmer in general than is space so this is what we expect both thermodynamically and as a means to conserve energy.  In the NASA Earth Energy Budget, the atmosphere radiates 100% power to the Earth's surface, which absorbs it all, and it only radiates a power of 59% into space.  Consequently, the atmosphere is treated as a black body radiator that radiates with a total power of 159% in the NASA Earth Energy Budget schematic.  This violates energy conservation.  It implies that a molecular gas thermal radiator emits radiation anisotropically, which is contrary to their own statements and viewpoint that bodies emit thermal radiation as though they were isolated in vacuum with a temperature of absolute zero.  They assume that the anisotropic emission heavily prefers emission from a cooler gas molecule to the warmer surface of the Earth, rather than to a much colder space.  In reality, the thermal radiation power absorbed by the infrared-active gases called greenhouse gases is emitted anisotropically, but such that it flows to colder bodies or to cold space.

The real world cares whether the atmosphere is absorbing 29% or 90% of the Earth's thermal radiation.  Indeed, those who make infrared sensing devices care also.  If the atmosphere really did absorb 90% of radiation emitted by bodies at a temperature of 288 K, then it would be much harder to make and use infrared sensors for imaging and for temperature measurements.  Fortunately, the 8 to 14 micrometer wavelength portion of the infrared spectrum is much more than 10% of the emission spectrum for black bodies with temperatures near 288 K all by itself.  This part of the spectrum lies in one of the atmospheric windows in which water vapor and carbon dioxide absorb almost nothing. See my recent post on how infrared thermometers use this portion of the infrared spectrum to measure temperatures of gray body thermal emitters and how the atmosphere is no gray body.  It is very clear from the arguments made there that the claim that the atmosphere absorbs 90% of the Earth's thermal radiation at 288 K is nonsense.  It is the 29% absorption value that makes sense.

The settled science behind Climate Change is full of inconsistencies and violations of science of such a simply understood nature that it is a farce.  Catastrophic man-made global warming is based in a religion and politics, not in science.  This is why its alarmist proponents get so upset when someone, especially a scientist, does not share their unquestioning faith.  Faith is everything for this belief.

The Magnificently Efficient U.S. Postal Service

One of the relatively few things the federal government does that is actually constitutional, is the operation of the U.S. Postal Service.  One can question whether this function ever should have been a government function, but it was made so by our Constitution.  Now one would think that the government would take its actual constitutional duties more seriously than its unconstitutional actions.  The reverse often seems to be true, though there is also a problem in that Congress' taking something seriously only means that the politics involved is taken seriously, not the actual delivery of any real service.  The Postal Service has come under renewed evaluation as an indicator of how a government-run health care system will evolve, not that we do not have many more direct indicators of that!

John Potter, the Postmaster General, says the U.S. Postal Service is in acute financial crisis.  He has been the Postmaster General for the last 8 years.  In FY 2009, the Postal Service lost $7 billion.  Its mail volume decreased by 28 billion pieces compared to the year before.  The recession economy has reduced its business, as well as the Internet and e-mail.  Its Christmas mail has been way down.  In response, Potter cut $6 billion of expenses and 40,000 employees.  Despite this, Potter expects the Postal Service to lose $5 billion every year for many years.

Potter bragged that the fleet of 219,000 vehicles included 44,000 alternative-fuel-capable vehicles.  I'll bet they cost a pretty penny to buy.  Most people do not buy these vehicles because it is difficult to rationalize on an economic basis.  But if you are a government-run business, where politics is everything, you have to back the government story, however fictional, that man-made CO2 emissions are a catastrophic threat to the planet.

This U.S. Postal Service always had plenty of positions considered to be ripe political plums.  Local postmasters were often chosen by politicians.  Nowadays, that still happens, but also political correctness, rather than on-the-job skills, dictates who gets many of these positions.  White males need not apply in many cases.  Having a relative in the Postal Service, I have heard many a story that would make any real businessman's blood boil.

U.S. Postal Service facilities were also long considered great pork.  No doubt, many a facility is badly located and sized as a result.  Politics still limits the closing of many of these facilities.

It is interesting to observe that the U.S. Postal Service tried competing with Federal Express and UPS on next-day deliveries and found that it could not.  It contracted its next-day service to Fed Ex in the end.  Of course, it charges more than Fed Ex does.

Shades of government rationing of health care services, the U.S. Postal Service is now thinking it will have to cut services.  It wants to cut Saturday deliveries, which it says will save it $3 billion a year.  It also wants to offer new products, as the postal services of Japan and France do.  In other words, it wants to compete more with the private sector, which should be considered unconstitutional.  Evidence would suggest it cannot compete successfully.  But, those long lines waiting for counter service are a tempting market.  They could offer them sodas, coffee, candy and other survival goods to enable their captive customers a chance to survive the long waits.

Will our government-run health service do the same?  Imagine severely ill old folks lined up around the block waiting to see the few tired and bored doctors taking a break for sanity from their mountains of paperwork.  Think of all the unskilled new jobs for union members peddling water, sodas, hot dogs, aspirin, renting wheelchairs, and stealing their money!  Think of all the additional money their SEIU union will be able to give the Democrats to further transform America into a socialist peoples state, which is a misnomer for a socialist leaders state.

Obama is Yellow

While we know Obama to be a committed socialist, he has pretended to move toward the center politically upon winning the Democrat nomination and then still further on winning the national election. He will work to promote much of his socialist plan surreptitiously. This is much more to his liking than a head-to-head battle of ideas.

Obama has often claimed that he is strong because he rose in the rough and tumble of Chicago and Illinois politics. Of course, we know that that rough and tumble nature does not mean that they play basketball with little attention to fouls or that they play tackle football without pads. It means that they are as corrupt as politics can be anywhere in the United States. Only Louisiana is commonly mentioned as a rival in corruption. It is amid such squalor of morals that Obama chose to pursue a political career and to align himself with politicians and backers such as Blagojevich, Rezko, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and the Illinois senate president Emil Jones. These are not good men. Far from it, they are extremely flawed men and Obama is at home with them.

Obama clearly found it hard to condemn the corruption of Gov. Blagojevich. He and his incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel worked closely with Blagojevich six years ago to plot out his successful campaign for the Illinois governorship. Though there were many reports of corruption and violations of the law in the first Blagojevich term, Obama supported him for re-election. He won, but it was not long before the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives called for his impeachment. The kingpin of Obama's successful race for the U.S. Senate, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, opposed the impeachment of a sitting Democrat governor on the grounds that he was a Democrat. Obama remained silent.

Now that Blagojevich has been arrested, Obama first tried to remain silent. Only after a public hew and cry arose did he finally call for Blagojevich to resign. This reminds one of the process when public indignation grew to Rev. Wright's recorded "God Damn America" speech. At first Obama was unwilling to reprimand his 20-year long spiritual father, but managed to do so when the public indignation reached a sufficiently high level. Obama is consistently a man good at playing the part of being self-assured in the way he presents himself when not under much public pressure, but who reveals his constant vacuity of self when the going gets rough. It is also clear that he has no compunction to actually act morally, though he has some wish to appear to be a moral man. What this man consistently lacks is moral courage.

If he had arisen to the Presidency as a moral reformer who was clearly appalled at the corruption of Chicago and Illinois politics and who had the courage to fight it, he would have earned some respect. Instead, he ignored the many cesspools around him and failed the people of Chicago and Illinois. Now, we must be prepared for him to fail as President of the United States. No one can succeed in this office who has no moral courage.

Krugman Criticizes Teaching of Ayn Rand

Paul Krugman referred to an article about BB&T Bank giving grants to colleges if they would offer the study of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged in college classes in his New York Times column Conscience of a Liberal. I made this comment:

Ayn Rand's work and Atlas Shrugged in particular offer students a very different approach to thinking about ethical and political ideas from those they are otherwise exposed to in most universities. I have found the usual collection of favored ethical and political ideas at universities to be simple-minded, weak-kneed, uninspiring, shackling group-think, and laden with childish envy of those who have more material goods. Ayn Rand offers a viewpoint that recognizes the complexity and uniqueness of the individual, enables the individual to claim the right to live his life and pursue his happiness, allows him the self-worth that in turn allows one to perceive and value the worth of others, and encourages everyone to make the most of their rational faculty to pursue productive and creative work and thought. This is a very good philosophy for living life.

The negative comments above have frequently indicated a clear misconception of her ideas, where enough information was given to make such a judgment. Read her works and think hard about what she has to say and some will be able to understand her philosophy. It tends to appeal much more to reality-oriented people than to academics whose theories are so readily disassociated from the real world. This is why it is more popular with businessmen and engineers as a group than with the academics. They cannot afford the luxury of ignoring reality. Ask yourself if the Marxism and socialism generally so popular among academics has proven successful in the real world. Ask yourselves if self-loathing, racial group-think, the rejection of almost all ethical values, class warfare, and the denigration of the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution are representative of a healthy world view. When Capitalism and limited government are rejected, what are they replaced with? They are replaced with government wielded force. Individuality is given little accommodation and our individual goals and values are given up to the lowest common denominator goals and values of the democratic majority, so long as that will last.

Materials physicist and small business owner,

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.