From magnetotactic bacteria to humans, some kind of environmental assessment is necessary. On their relatively simple neuron-less level of existence, the monococci bacteria orient themselves in a magnetic field. No bacterium asks another “Which way is north?” Once in the field, the bacteria turn by magnetotaxis, most often, it seems, toward the north magnetic pole—though some even in the Northern Hemisphere can turn “south." The process is an unconscious one driven by magnetite in organelles called magnetosomes. In contrast because we possess neurons, we orient ourselves in various human fields: Social, religious, political, attitudinal, intellectual, and behavioral. And though we claim an independence of thought and action, we often act either consciously or unconsciously in one of those human fields. Like the bacteria, we also act in unison, groups of us orienting in one direction or another as the external human field dictates. As we “assess” our human environment, we judge. We set values, ascribe blame or heap praise, and support or suppress. From bacteria to human, whatever field drives us—magnetic field, social pressure, fear—garners loyalty to the orientation mechanism, often unshakeable loyalty.
I think of Sonnet 116’s “Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds/Or bends with the remover to remove./O no! It is an ever-fixed mark….” That poem by Shakespeare begins, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.” The bacteria will turn as we often turn in the field that envelopes us. And in no circumstance is this more apparent than in American political leanings. Once committed to the mass belief, the individual must orient—even when that orientation runs counter to self-interest.
Thus, the commitment to “green energy” in the field of “climate change” garners the unshakeable loyalty of those who believe that somehow eight billion people can flourish without the abundant cheap and reliable energy that fossil fuels supply. The “climate change” field envelopes much of the world—but not the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, India and China.
Picture two fields, that is, two competing fields or even two ends of a bar magnet. One field is so far physically un-demonstrable. No climate change prediction that was made in 2001 for 2021 has materialized. Anecdotes have replaced science. “Oh! Did you see how that storm devastated the coastal community and caused deaths?” “Did you see the catastrophic floods that killed so many?” “What can anyone say about the drought in the American Southwest, the drought in India, the floods in Pakistan, or the temperatures in Australia or Alaska, except that climate change is at work and humans are responsible?”
And even when the commitment to green energy relies on climate models that have as yet to prove their value—remember, most (if not all) dire climate predictions have failed to materialize except in anecdotal form that simplify causes—the “love” that connects the alarmists to the idea does not waver. No information counter to the climate change field removes the committed from their commitment. (“Love does not alter when it alteration finds”)
Are we with our neuron-filled heads much different from magnetotactic bacteria? At the current rate of sea-level rise—barring any change or discovery of a mistake about eustacy—it will take almost a millennium for a transgression of one meter. Yes, one meter of sea level can inundate the foundations of structures built along shorelines. Yes, there will be damage. Populations will have to contend with sea level changes. But a thousand years hence? Go anywhere in the world to find the location of communities a thousand years ago to see whether or not their relationship to sea level has been unaffected by eustatic changes. Or, look at the record of storms to see whether or not they are more frequent as the climate alarmist say. * Look at all weather phenomena to find the reality that all places undergo climatic fluctuations, with the prime example of the American Southwest, a region that has had droughts that last centuries. Want anecdotes of disasters caused by weather? Well, there’s no shortage of them. The 1887 Yellow River flood in China killed from one to two million people. In 1598 the Tiber River flood killed 3,000. Was either an instance of “climate change,” that is, of “anthropogenic climate change”? Was the Mayan drought of a millennium ago caused by the burning of fossil fuels? Was that megadrought in Africa 75,000 years ago the result of human activity? Did the Anasazi population move or decline because they burned coal and caused a climate disaster?
Am I arguing that the climates aren’t changing? No. As one who has taught historical geology to college students, I'm well aware of climate history on a planet whose extremes have included "snowball Earth" and the Paleo-Eocene Thermal Maximum. I’m arguing that those caught up in the “climate change field” can’t break from their commitment. Shakespeare says that someone in love would not change allegiance even when the loved one dissolves the relationship. “Love is not love when it alteration finds.” That kind of commitment is often seen in the inability of rejected lovers to change their commitment—often to someone’s detriment: Stories abound about rejected lovers killing their former mates; teens often can’t break their bond to their one-time boyfriend or girlfriend. And climate activists?
The U. S President has boasted at the November, 2022, Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Conference in Egypt—in an air-conditioned room—that he will stop drilling and shut down coal-fired power plants in favor of green energy. He will oversee the installation of 50,000 charging stations. He will make green energy a gender equity issue. And, somewhere down the line of impoverishment, when people can buy only electric cars to replace the 284 million vehicles on American highways in 2022, will those 50,000 charging stations supply all the energy needed from windmills and solar panels? Will you be one of the EV owners to wait with 5,679 other EV owners for a charging wire? And will you get that power from the roadside outlet connected to a windmill or field of solar panels? **
Yet, the alarmists will not alter when they find an impediment. The commitment is unshakeable. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.” Thus, Americans and Europeans have committed themselves to an idea—nay, idea-field—regardless of its effects on self-interest. The climate-change field directs the orientation. The committed continue to be committed, and their logic lies in weather phenomena and as yet unfulfilled predictions.
And while the world’s nonruling masses are forced to commit their personal wealth to maintaining the field, they continue to suffer from restricted energy sources and shortages imposed by those in the ruling class. Yet, those who suffer continue to support those who make them suffer. The field is stronger than individual self-interest. Like bacteria driven by magnetite crystals in their organelles, many simply turn in the dominant field—regardless of the impediments they encounter. “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds,” and commitment to an idea—or to a political party—does not alter even when it goes against one’s best interests. Shakespeare’s sonnet also contains the lines “O no! It is an ever-fixed mark/That looks on tempests and is never shaken;/It is the star to every wandering bark…/Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,/But bears it out even to the edge of doom….” Just as sailors steer by the North Star, so alarmists steer by the climate-change field.
One final comment on this: Of course, anecdotal evidence will persuade. There are more people living along more coastline than ever before. There are more people living in semi-arid lands like Nevada than ever before. There are more people, billions more than there were when past weather disasters hit populations. But take this as an analog: Seismologists recognize two kinds of assessments: earthquake magnitude and earthquake intensity. A large magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake in the middle of Antarctica, where no one lives, would have no measurable intensity, which is usually assessed by the damage done to structures. A twenty-year drought would be insignificant in the Sahara or the Great Sandy. Add to the billions of people now in excess of any past era’s population the mass communication we share and the dearth of historical knowledge about weather phenomena among those billions, and you see the reason that so many are committed to their unwavering loyalty to an idea. And there won’t be a change. “Climate-change love does not alter when it alteration finds.” It seems not to matter to Americans and Europeans that their commitment to the idea of green energy in lieu of fossil fuel energy has cost them wealth, convenience, and even safety. They turn in the field.
*The alarmist will say, "Look at the number of Atlantic hurricanes in 2010 (12) and 2012 (10)." But 2011 had 7 and 2013 had only 2. In that latter year, three were no major hurricanes, and there were three years in the nineteenth century with 10 such storms, and in 1887 there were 11 of them.
**Each EV owner will have to drive the vehicle at least 60,000 miles to overcome the environmental effect of making the vehicle. And though charging time for an EV should decrease, the process will slow down a society used to rapid in-and-out refueling. Maybe EVs will be good for increasing time for meditation along a busy highway, for making new friends, or for reading a smart device.
I think of Sonnet 116’s “Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds/Or bends with the remover to remove./O no! It is an ever-fixed mark….” That poem by Shakespeare begins, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.” The bacteria will turn as we often turn in the field that envelopes us. And in no circumstance is this more apparent than in American political leanings. Once committed to the mass belief, the individual must orient—even when that orientation runs counter to self-interest.
Thus, the commitment to “green energy” in the field of “climate change” garners the unshakeable loyalty of those who believe that somehow eight billion people can flourish without the abundant cheap and reliable energy that fossil fuels supply. The “climate change” field envelopes much of the world—but not the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, India and China.
Picture two fields, that is, two competing fields or even two ends of a bar magnet. One field is so far physically un-demonstrable. No climate change prediction that was made in 2001 for 2021 has materialized. Anecdotes have replaced science. “Oh! Did you see how that storm devastated the coastal community and caused deaths?” “Did you see the catastrophic floods that killed so many?” “What can anyone say about the drought in the American Southwest, the drought in India, the floods in Pakistan, or the temperatures in Australia or Alaska, except that climate change is at work and humans are responsible?”
And even when the commitment to green energy relies on climate models that have as yet to prove their value—remember, most (if not all) dire climate predictions have failed to materialize except in anecdotal form that simplify causes—the “love” that connects the alarmists to the idea does not waver. No information counter to the climate change field removes the committed from their commitment. (“Love does not alter when it alteration finds”)
Are we with our neuron-filled heads much different from magnetotactic bacteria? At the current rate of sea-level rise—barring any change or discovery of a mistake about eustacy—it will take almost a millennium for a transgression of one meter. Yes, one meter of sea level can inundate the foundations of structures built along shorelines. Yes, there will be damage. Populations will have to contend with sea level changes. But a thousand years hence? Go anywhere in the world to find the location of communities a thousand years ago to see whether or not their relationship to sea level has been unaffected by eustatic changes. Or, look at the record of storms to see whether or not they are more frequent as the climate alarmist say. * Look at all weather phenomena to find the reality that all places undergo climatic fluctuations, with the prime example of the American Southwest, a region that has had droughts that last centuries. Want anecdotes of disasters caused by weather? Well, there’s no shortage of them. The 1887 Yellow River flood in China killed from one to two million people. In 1598 the Tiber River flood killed 3,000. Was either an instance of “climate change,” that is, of “anthropogenic climate change”? Was the Mayan drought of a millennium ago caused by the burning of fossil fuels? Was that megadrought in Africa 75,000 years ago the result of human activity? Did the Anasazi population move or decline because they burned coal and caused a climate disaster?
Am I arguing that the climates aren’t changing? No. As one who has taught historical geology to college students, I'm well aware of climate history on a planet whose extremes have included "snowball Earth" and the Paleo-Eocene Thermal Maximum. I’m arguing that those caught up in the “climate change field” can’t break from their commitment. Shakespeare says that someone in love would not change allegiance even when the loved one dissolves the relationship. “Love is not love when it alteration finds.” That kind of commitment is often seen in the inability of rejected lovers to change their commitment—often to someone’s detriment: Stories abound about rejected lovers killing their former mates; teens often can’t break their bond to their one-time boyfriend or girlfriend. And climate activists?
The U. S President has boasted at the November, 2022, Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Conference in Egypt—in an air-conditioned room—that he will stop drilling and shut down coal-fired power plants in favor of green energy. He will oversee the installation of 50,000 charging stations. He will make green energy a gender equity issue. And, somewhere down the line of impoverishment, when people can buy only electric cars to replace the 284 million vehicles on American highways in 2022, will those 50,000 charging stations supply all the energy needed from windmills and solar panels? Will you be one of the EV owners to wait with 5,679 other EV owners for a charging wire? And will you get that power from the roadside outlet connected to a windmill or field of solar panels? **
Yet, the alarmists will not alter when they find an impediment. The commitment is unshakeable. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.” Thus, Americans and Europeans have committed themselves to an idea—nay, idea-field—regardless of its effects on self-interest. The climate-change field directs the orientation. The committed continue to be committed, and their logic lies in weather phenomena and as yet unfulfilled predictions.
And while the world’s nonruling masses are forced to commit their personal wealth to maintaining the field, they continue to suffer from restricted energy sources and shortages imposed by those in the ruling class. Yet, those who suffer continue to support those who make them suffer. The field is stronger than individual self-interest. Like bacteria driven by magnetite crystals in their organelles, many simply turn in the dominant field—regardless of the impediments they encounter. “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds,” and commitment to an idea—or to a political party—does not alter even when it goes against one’s best interests. Shakespeare’s sonnet also contains the lines “O no! It is an ever-fixed mark/That looks on tempests and is never shaken;/It is the star to every wandering bark…/Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,/But bears it out even to the edge of doom….” Just as sailors steer by the North Star, so alarmists steer by the climate-change field.
One final comment on this: Of course, anecdotal evidence will persuade. There are more people living along more coastline than ever before. There are more people living in semi-arid lands like Nevada than ever before. There are more people, billions more than there were when past weather disasters hit populations. But take this as an analog: Seismologists recognize two kinds of assessments: earthquake magnitude and earthquake intensity. A large magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake in the middle of Antarctica, where no one lives, would have no measurable intensity, which is usually assessed by the damage done to structures. A twenty-year drought would be insignificant in the Sahara or the Great Sandy. Add to the billions of people now in excess of any past era’s population the mass communication we share and the dearth of historical knowledge about weather phenomena among those billions, and you see the reason that so many are committed to their unwavering loyalty to an idea. And there won’t be a change. “Climate-change love does not alter when it alteration finds.” It seems not to matter to Americans and Europeans that their commitment to the idea of green energy in lieu of fossil fuel energy has cost them wealth, convenience, and even safety. They turn in the field.
*The alarmist will say, "Look at the number of Atlantic hurricanes in 2010 (12) and 2012 (10)." But 2011 had 7 and 2013 had only 2. In that latter year, three were no major hurricanes, and there were three years in the nineteenth century with 10 such storms, and in 1887 there were 11 of them.
**Each EV owner will have to drive the vehicle at least 60,000 miles to overcome the environmental effect of making the vehicle. And though charging time for an EV should decrease, the process will slow down a society used to rapid in-and-out refueling. Maybe EVs will be good for increasing time for meditation along a busy highway, for making new friends, or for reading a smart device.
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