One of the problems the animated animals of the film Madagascar encounter is that Alex, the lion, grows hungry in the presence of his friends who are prey animals. Not to worry, however, the happy ending for starving Alex and his friends lies in a diet of sushi for the famished lion.
In a “Marie Antoinette” take on the problems of the real Madagascar under the drought and famine of 2019-2021, one might ask why the island’s starving haven’t turned to sushi. They are, after all, living on an island with more than 4,000 kilometers of shoreline. Shallow and deep fish are as available as Pennsylvania’s shallow and deep oil, coal, and gas. And surely, someone knows how to roll fresh fish with rice and green stuff in a little, very convenient handheld food. Surely, someone can see that an enormous supply of food lies just beneath the surrounding waters.
Obviously, famines are serious matters among the starving, and the extreme poverty in southern Madagascar has exacerbated their plight on the island during the drought. Subsistence farming, the local source of food, doesn’t provide longterm solutions; Madagascar has no massive grain elevators stocked with uneaten grain.
If I were to guess, such a localized drought and famine receives little attention from the well-fed populations around the world. The absence of concern is understandable. What isn’t personal is meaningless. Not that we can’t wrap our brains around a set of facts; we can do that. But meaningful facts about other humans require personalization before they beget action. Alex’s friends, for example, empathize with his plight even as they face the danger of born of his hunger.
I would note, however, that Marie Antoinettes who might have difficulty empathizing with the starving people on Madagascar seem to have little difficulty empathizing with climate change warriors whose default position is to blame all droughts and consequent famines on global warming. Am I correct in saying that such empathy derives from personalization and that as a result, millions of people have developed an empathy for a “planet under climate stress”?
The energy-fed Marie Antoinettes in industrialized countries might have difficulty distinguishing between eating bread and eating nonexistent cake that they advise eating. They have made the default position personal. They have incorporated it into the essence of their perspectives, and in doing so have either knowingly or unknowingly destined affluent societies to subsistence power in lands sitting above abundant energy reserves just as Madagascar is surrounded by sushi.
The affinity that millions of energy-rich people have for explanations by climate change alarmists and the disdain they have for explanations by those who caution against blind adherence to popular science is the result of personalizing the general idea while ignoring the specifics. During recent years, the alarmists have attributed droughts to climate change, and the general public has repeatedly seen that attribution in the Press, so much so that all droughts appear to be climate driven. The explanations for any weather phenomena always fall on the default climate change model. You might know some people who are genuinely concerned about climate change. For them a hungry lion is poised to wreak havoc in “only ten years,” or only “eight years,” or whatever number the alarmists declare. As a result, many around the world are willing to yield their energy security to the promises of more expensive and less reliable green energy alternatives, believing that subsistence energy is “good for the planet,” and that abundant fossil fuels are “bad for the planet.” And yes, if you think about the nature of most green energy technologies, you’ll note that they are “subsistence energy sources” because energy storage in batteries can never be adequate sources after prolonged periods of cloudiness, windless days, or lowered reservoirs. Climate change is a personal matter for them, and it provides an analog of Alex’s problem on the island. If there’s nothing to eat in the midst of abundant food (his friends, the prey animals), starvation is inevitable. If there is little sunshine or wind over Appalachian coals and Marcellus and Utica gas-rich shales…
So, what about Madagascar’s drought of 2019-2021? Is it driven by climate?
Apparently, not. According to a study by Luke J. Harrington and others, the recent drought and famine are part of periodic weather events that occur about once every 135 years though an even more severe drought occurred just three decades earlier. * The droughts are not attributable to climate change. They are weather phenomena not even attributable to either El Niño or La Niña events that affect precipitation patterns elsewhere.
The recent Madagascar event is not a climate change phenomenon, but it has a lesson that all climate change alarmists should personalize. As the current American administration and other governments have turned their attention to green energy alternatives, they have become the equivalent of Marie Antoinettes. Her famous response “Let them eat cake” seems to be analogous to the politicians’ advocacy of “Let them drive electric cars,” “Let them use wind power,” and “Let them just not use energy.” In fact, the US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has advised people to drive electric cars, advice he specifically gave to those who live in the American Midwest to avoid the high cost of gasoline that has occurred during his tenure as Secretary. “Let them eat cake” has become “Abandon your current cars and tractors and buy expensive electric cars and tractors.” The Secretary seems to believe that an abrupt change can satisfy the energy hunger of Americans and that placing the ravenous lion of American agriculture and industry on an island with untouchable energy sources is not an analog of Alex's problem. Pete’s windmills and electric cars are as real a source of Midwest energy as Don Quixote’s giants are real monsters. His advice is as tuned to reality of the common Midwesterner as was Marie Antoinette’s advice to the bread-less French populace.
As Texans and Californians discovered recently, windmills have serious shortcomings. They are the equivalent of subsistence farming. When winds die or temperatures drop below freezing, windmills stop turning, and there’s little anyone can do to fill the “inadequate electricity elevator or granary” because batteries can’t store sufficient power to run a complex and large society’s needs. The poor people of Madagascar have twice in three decades discovered that subsistence farming leads to famine during droughts. The industrial world’s massive populations will discover that like those living in the poverty of southern Madagascar, they will themselves live with subsistence electricity as their energy supplies become limited by the natural phenomena du jour.
Those who would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in favor of renewables don’t seem to realize that renewables aren’t consistently renewable. Those in power who want to reduce power are Marie Antoinettes. They won’t personalize the reality until they themselves are forced to eat nonexistent cake.
Note:
Harrington, Luke J. et al. Attribution of severe low rainfall in southern Madagascar, 2019-2021. Published online by World Weather Attribution at https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/ScientificReport_Madagascar.pdf Accessed December 2, 2021.
In a “Marie Antoinette” take on the problems of the real Madagascar under the drought and famine of 2019-2021, one might ask why the island’s starving haven’t turned to sushi. They are, after all, living on an island with more than 4,000 kilometers of shoreline. Shallow and deep fish are as available as Pennsylvania’s shallow and deep oil, coal, and gas. And surely, someone knows how to roll fresh fish with rice and green stuff in a little, very convenient handheld food. Surely, someone can see that an enormous supply of food lies just beneath the surrounding waters.
Obviously, famines are serious matters among the starving, and the extreme poverty in southern Madagascar has exacerbated their plight on the island during the drought. Subsistence farming, the local source of food, doesn’t provide longterm solutions; Madagascar has no massive grain elevators stocked with uneaten grain.
If I were to guess, such a localized drought and famine receives little attention from the well-fed populations around the world. The absence of concern is understandable. What isn’t personal is meaningless. Not that we can’t wrap our brains around a set of facts; we can do that. But meaningful facts about other humans require personalization before they beget action. Alex’s friends, for example, empathize with his plight even as they face the danger of born of his hunger.
I would note, however, that Marie Antoinettes who might have difficulty empathizing with the starving people on Madagascar seem to have little difficulty empathizing with climate change warriors whose default position is to blame all droughts and consequent famines on global warming. Am I correct in saying that such empathy derives from personalization and that as a result, millions of people have developed an empathy for a “planet under climate stress”?
The energy-fed Marie Antoinettes in industrialized countries might have difficulty distinguishing between eating bread and eating nonexistent cake that they advise eating. They have made the default position personal. They have incorporated it into the essence of their perspectives, and in doing so have either knowingly or unknowingly destined affluent societies to subsistence power in lands sitting above abundant energy reserves just as Madagascar is surrounded by sushi.
The affinity that millions of energy-rich people have for explanations by climate change alarmists and the disdain they have for explanations by those who caution against blind adherence to popular science is the result of personalizing the general idea while ignoring the specifics. During recent years, the alarmists have attributed droughts to climate change, and the general public has repeatedly seen that attribution in the Press, so much so that all droughts appear to be climate driven. The explanations for any weather phenomena always fall on the default climate change model. You might know some people who are genuinely concerned about climate change. For them a hungry lion is poised to wreak havoc in “only ten years,” or only “eight years,” or whatever number the alarmists declare. As a result, many around the world are willing to yield their energy security to the promises of more expensive and less reliable green energy alternatives, believing that subsistence energy is “good for the planet,” and that abundant fossil fuels are “bad for the planet.” And yes, if you think about the nature of most green energy technologies, you’ll note that they are “subsistence energy sources” because energy storage in batteries can never be adequate sources after prolonged periods of cloudiness, windless days, or lowered reservoirs. Climate change is a personal matter for them, and it provides an analog of Alex’s problem on the island. If there’s nothing to eat in the midst of abundant food (his friends, the prey animals), starvation is inevitable. If there is little sunshine or wind over Appalachian coals and Marcellus and Utica gas-rich shales…
So, what about Madagascar’s drought of 2019-2021? Is it driven by climate?
Apparently, not. According to a study by Luke J. Harrington and others, the recent drought and famine are part of periodic weather events that occur about once every 135 years though an even more severe drought occurred just three decades earlier. * The droughts are not attributable to climate change. They are weather phenomena not even attributable to either El Niño or La Niña events that affect precipitation patterns elsewhere.
The recent Madagascar event is not a climate change phenomenon, but it has a lesson that all climate change alarmists should personalize. As the current American administration and other governments have turned their attention to green energy alternatives, they have become the equivalent of Marie Antoinettes. Her famous response “Let them eat cake” seems to be analogous to the politicians’ advocacy of “Let them drive electric cars,” “Let them use wind power,” and “Let them just not use energy.” In fact, the US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has advised people to drive electric cars, advice he specifically gave to those who live in the American Midwest to avoid the high cost of gasoline that has occurred during his tenure as Secretary. “Let them eat cake” has become “Abandon your current cars and tractors and buy expensive electric cars and tractors.” The Secretary seems to believe that an abrupt change can satisfy the energy hunger of Americans and that placing the ravenous lion of American agriculture and industry on an island with untouchable energy sources is not an analog of Alex's problem. Pete’s windmills and electric cars are as real a source of Midwest energy as Don Quixote’s giants are real monsters. His advice is as tuned to reality of the common Midwesterner as was Marie Antoinette’s advice to the bread-less French populace.
As Texans and Californians discovered recently, windmills have serious shortcomings. They are the equivalent of subsistence farming. When winds die or temperatures drop below freezing, windmills stop turning, and there’s little anyone can do to fill the “inadequate electricity elevator or granary” because batteries can’t store sufficient power to run a complex and large society’s needs. The poor people of Madagascar have twice in three decades discovered that subsistence farming leads to famine during droughts. The industrial world’s massive populations will discover that like those living in the poverty of southern Madagascar, they will themselves live with subsistence electricity as their energy supplies become limited by the natural phenomena du jour.
Those who would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in favor of renewables don’t seem to realize that renewables aren’t consistently renewable. Those in power who want to reduce power are Marie Antoinettes. They won’t personalize the reality until they themselves are forced to eat nonexistent cake.
Note:
Harrington, Luke J. et al. Attribution of severe low rainfall in southern Madagascar, 2019-2021. Published online by World Weather Attribution at https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/ScientificReport_Madagascar.pdf Accessed December 2, 2021.
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