Foreword by Anthony Watts.
This essay is written by a student at the University of Wyoming, who finds herself in the middle of a set of circumstances that are pushing her further into the realm of being a climate skeptic. It is an eye-opening read. I have verified the identity of the student, but per her request (due to the backlash she fears) I am allowing her to write under the pen name of “Clair Masters”
Guest essay by Clair Masters
The class was languid, most kids were on their phones, or surfing Facebook on their laptops. I sat with my notebook open in front of me, empty except for the lecture title at the top of the page. The professor put a slide up on the projector showing a chart relating CO2 and temperature over the course of a few million years, the one we’ve all seen by now. The CO2 curve lags after the Temperature one, and anyone’s first reading of the chart would probably be that temperature is driving the CO2 changes, not the other way around, if there is any trend at all. I perked up slightly, it was new for a professor to show alternate data, and looked around expectantly at other students, waiting for some kind of reaction—confusion, frowns, anything to show they’re seeing something that fights what we’ve been told since elementary school. I saw a few yawns, dull stares, people on their phones, though one loud girl who was a religious global warming fanatic was glaring at the slide, slouching in her seat so her hand could pet her (dubiously trained) service dog.
Besides her, no one cared, and certainly I was the only one who glanced up in surprise when our professor began to talk about the chart as if it didn’t matter, something like “This trend suggests the opposite of what we know to be true” before moving on. I looked down at my notebook—friends and family tell me my face does not hide emotions well, and I didn’t want my professor to know I was annoyed. I don’t know why he even included it in the lecture, but that’s what happens in these courses. It was incredible to me at the time, but my professors would often include evidence contrary to the anthropogenic climate change theory before quickly sweeping it aside with some short remark. It doesn’t matter this data exists, it doesn’t matter that there is debate in the climate science community—not here. This is a University, after all.
College wasn’t when I first started questioning the “acceptable” views of climate change. As far back as middle school I was a tough case for teachers trying to push global warming. It was fashionable back in 2008 to rabidly teach the “polar bears are drowning” narrative after those photographs from 2007 that showed the bear standing on a single hunk of ice. Tragic! A picture like that was all it took to have most of my classmates nodding solemnly along while our teachers taught us about our carbon footprint—about how we were contributing to the plight of the poor polar bears with our gluttonous use of electricity, by our parents having more than one car.
An animal fanatic, I spent hours paging through my Zoobooks and animal encyclopedia collections, reading all about polar bears. A number stood out to me; 60 miles. Polar bears often swim for 60 miles to get from one body of solid ground to the next. Proud of myself, I brought it up to my science teacher, and instead of getting the glowing pat on the head I was used to when I did outside research for classes, I was chastised.
“You’re wrong,” she said, looking surprisingly angry, “polar bears can’t swim that far. Global warming is melting their home, and they’re dying off.”
At the time, I thought of myself as a teacher’s pet, the good student, so her tone took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t trying to say global warming wasn’t killing the bears, as far as I knew it was. My teachers told me so, so it must be true. Her denial about the swimming capabilities of the bears is what threw me off, and for the first time I was faced with doubting a teacher. Who do I trust, the books I’ve read or this teacher? Something changed in me around that time, and that seed of doubt she unknowingly planted ended up making me who I am today—a skeptic. Not just for climate change and the like, but for everything. I abruptly stopped believing everything my teachers told me, it was a hard wake up call to the real world as I realized that adults had agendas.
This idea was reinforced when one of the books in a beloved young adult series by James Patterson abandoned the original plot and conflict to go fight against global warming—essentially like rewriting the X-Men as Captain Planet. Horrified and disgusted that the characters would rather go protect those (at this point, goddamn) polar bears than stop the original mad scientist threat, I recognized the real propaganda element of this whole global warming deal. I started fighting back in small ways, mostly in the form of asking questions; “Don’t we breathe out CO2?”, “Warmer weather will help some animals, won’t it?”. I was not popular with my seventh-grade teachers. My friends were oblivious to my small insurrection; I was always the kid who raised her hand in class anyway.
It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I finally got the scientific background to really combat the ideas that were being pushed on me. I took a high level environmental science class that pushed me to dig deep and question what I thought I knew about the way our climate works. I loved that class, and for once I had a teacher who didn’t try to shut me up. She acknowledged and engaged me, didn’t brush away my questions, and every year since my graduation from high school I’ve given a short presentation over Skype to her class about Petroleum engineering, petroleum geology, a little paleontology, and college life.
I distinctly remember two specific moments in that class that were “a-ha” moments for me. The first is when we watched that required documentary: Gasland. Some of the claims made in that documentary were beyond absurd, and like the skeptical jerk I am, I fact checked while watching it in class. On the school-administered iPad, I googled every single thing Josh Fox presented that got my spider-sense tingling. Antelope in Wyoming are going extinct? Not even close. Fracking fluid is in people’s water, letting them light it on fire? Try naturally occurring methane. At this point, I was already toying with the idea of going into some kind of geological science, and I was intrigued by the idea of fracking technology. We did a short lab in that class where we tried to get oil out of sand, and I thought it was cool. It was my love of all fields of science, not to mention the thrill of being involved in such a villainous industry, that helped me decide on Petroleum Engineering.
The other moment was when we were focusing on alternative energy, including a lengthy discussion about Hydrogen powered cars. I raised my hand quickly.
“If we’re worried about CO2 causing global warming, wouldn’t it be much worse if we were all driving cars that had water vapor as their exhaust?”
She paused, thinking it over. “I think you might be right, that’s a very interesting observation.” She said, before re-explaining to the class what I was talking about, how water vapor captures much more heat than carbon dioxide. I felt good about being able to apply what I learned about climate and our atmosphere to challenging popular “green” narratives. The best part was that my teacher was so supportive, and was willing to admit when something our textbook claimed wasn’t entirely true.
It has been a very different ride in college. Exhausting, as now I’m surrounded by professors and students who promote anthropogenic climate change predictions with such intensity, it makes the most zealous cultist fanatics look calm and reasonable. Again and again I’m surprised by the reactions of my peers to my skepticism, sometimes I even prompt truly angry reactions from people. One crunchy granola geology guy engaged me in a conversation about alternative energy, he tried to argue that hemp oil would soon overtake our need for fossil fuels. Right. Somehow the conversation got to land use, and I expressed an opinion that the states probably could deal with their environmental problems and land use better than federal agencies—he quoted something about the Koch Brothers, and I left him for class. Maybe a week later, he handed me a piece of notebook paper with “research” written up on it—mostly a series of bullet points about the American Lands Council which he somehow connected to white supremacy, right wing fanaticism, and most bizarrely of all the Kim Davis controversy. I couldn’t believe that someone who was a “scientific” person felt the need to use the guilt by association trap, the screeching leftist “Racist! Sexist! Homophobe!” nonsense in a discussion about land use. I gave up my favorite study spot after that, opting to avoid him instead of giving him the what-for I’d so like to. I don’t have time for that—I have school to worry about.
There have been plenty of times that I wondered if it’s my perspective that is wrong, I’ve done some soul searching on the topics I’m passionate about. College has challenged my views, while it seems to only confirm the ideas that the “warmists” hold. Some of my previously held beliefs have changed, like much of what I understood (or thought I understood) about climate, but I’ve still yet to be presented solid evidence for primary anthropogenic climate change that isn’t either refuted by another study, or backed with accusations like the ones crunchy granola guy lobbed my way. I’ve stopped being shocked by the way my professors obediently tow the party line—as I learned a few years ago that at least here, federal funding is dependent on a certain amount of global warming acceptance. I’m thankful for the engineering courses I’m taking, because if my geology and earth sciences were not balanced out by the dry technical calculations of engineering, I’d probably lose my mind. (Just imagine how bad it would be if I were in sociology or women’s studies!) I am disappointed by the quality of the “science” taught at University though—when theory is presented as fact, and computer models are regarded as gospel despite their infamous unreliability, it’s not actual science.
It’s propaganda—dogmatic as any religion.
It’s my 5th year since heading west for my engineering degree. This year I’m taking a handful of great little petroleum classes, and finishing off my geology minor. Of course, it’s my geology class that is giving me a headache. A mineral resource course sounds pretty straightforward… except of course our professor managed to turn it into a climate change/ humans are killing everything/ we’re all going to die class. We even have a section of the class towards the end of the semester dedicated to social justice, because that’s why I’m getting a science degree. In retrospect, I should have known what I was getting into when I looked around and saw several students with either half shaved heads or hair colors that in nature scream “I’m toxic”.
It’s gonna be a fun semester, and I’ll try to keep you updated.
Nice 5 AM read. A random thought comes to mind. At an elevation of about 7100 feet, the U of Wyo may well be the “highest” campus in the US.
Thanks for this interestinf and disturbing insight.
It sounds like you are in a very hostile social scene
Best wishes.
Hang tough.
Be careful.
.
Reads like fiction.
But truth is frequently stranger than fiction.
I like to think that truth is stronger than fiction.
Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense.
In the words of John Dufresne, fiction is the lie that tells a truth.
I wondered about that too. Because I’m over 65, I could audit classes at the local University to see what is really going on, but that would really take a lot of effort.
Read David Horowitz’s ” Discover the Professors)
Or alternately spend thousands helpING your 160 plus IQ daughter go to Oxford and come back a SJW, indoctrinated into Marxism supporting BLM and ANTIFA.
Every time the IPCC shows a graph of predicted future temperature they falsify their own theory.
“If we’re worried about CO2 causing global warming, wouldn’t it be much worse if we were all driving cars that had water vapor as their exhaust?”
————
Weird or what?
Burning hydrocarbons also produces water! She did not know this?
Water vapour requires warmth to remain vapour there is a vast resource of warm water all producing vapour-the sea, the land, lakes etc – the difference between fossil and ectric would make a minimal differenc. But if not warm enough the value falls as some form of precipitation and is out of the warming equation. All climate scientists could explain this to her.
Close to reality.
-You have correclty identified that Water Vapour dwarfs the effects other trace gasses in abundance and in activity.
-You have correclty identified that Water Vapour reacts to the local temperature adn precipuitates or forms clouds of ice and changes the local albedo.
-But you missed the fact that this debunks AGW.
The author of the piece was describing how – as a child – she could see that the argument beinfg presented was silly. That she also realised that a photon doesn’t care if CO2 or H20 is excited shows far more wit than someone who believes CO2 has special, demonic powers.
Your argument is that CO2 lasts so long in the atmosphere that it ovewrwhelms the effect of water vapour. This may be true on a snowball Earth but not on a planet with liquid water oceans.
Which this is.
It’s more a matter of wavelength of energy that the H2O molecules block due to their shape, isn’t it? That H2O fills in a different part of the “gaps” than CO2?
I took a Remote Sensing course last year, my vocab isn’t quite up to par anymore.
I’ll admit I was probably wrong overall in regards to water vapor from those H cars (I’m also a big fan of the tech— if it can be proven viable) those years ago. Once you add enough to the atmosphere, would it no longer add to the “insulation” because all the gaps water molecules can fill already have been filled?
Clair Masters,
Yes, “all the gaps water molecules can fill already have been filled”. Almost. But the important thing is that the gaps in the spectrum that water molecules fill are also the very same gaps that CO2 molecules can flll.
This should not be a surprise.
H2O is a bent molecule (because it has pairs of lone electrons on the C repelling the electrons on the C=O bonds) and so it has more potential ways to bend than a linear molecule like CO2. It has more potential ways to absorb a photon. And molecules like H2O and CO2 do not shuffle along politely to queue for space on the electromagnetic spectrum. They aren’t sentient. If any photon of the right energy hits them they will absorb it and delay its escape back out of the atmoshere to space.
Of course, there are other, rarer vibration modes that do not overlap. But these are negligably small (a trillion pool balls cueing off will lead to some landing and resting on top of the 8-Ball but don’t practice your break for that occurence).
If AGW relies on those cases to be newsworthy then CO2 is insignificant.
Finally remember that these effects are logarithmic. And not in the ‘getting bigger’ way.
If you keep throwing stickers labelled “CO2” or “H2O” at a window you will block the light from getting inside. But when half the window is stickered, half of the next volley will double up. It is half as darkening as the first volley.
And when three quarters of the window is covered up, the next volley will then be half as darkening again.
You can’t ignore the H2O even if you think that it will precipitate out from the atmosphere at some point. It is always in a great abundance relative to ithe impact of any addition.
Clair Masters: No, the reason adding water vapor directly to the atmosphere does not force increased warming, is because the vapor condenses out of the atmosphere quickly–10 days as a global average. Water vapor on Earth can act only as a feedback to warming from other causes, because of the Earth’s range of temperatures and pressures, and because of the vast pools of liquid water. See my explanations and links in my other comments here.
“CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale”
That is only at the end of an ice-age, at the beginning of an ice-age the lag is more like 5,000 years.
——–
ALLAN MACRAE September 7, 2017 at 2:00 am
Coles Notes for “Clair Masters”
Reference:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record. [published on icecap.us in January 2008]
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
—-_————-
Are you all joking?
Cowlags temperature by 9 months to 5000 years, it cannot be all -please chose an approximate range. You just look silly choosing millennia. Or is this the accuracy of your science
Ice cores do not have the resolution to detect the 9 month lag. It takes about half a century for them to settle and trap the atmosphere.
You are not comparing the same thing.
It’s like saying
“The best team wins the League and Leicester won the league. Therefore Leicester are the greatest team of all time… But Real Madrid have won most European Cups? That can’t be true – it must be Leicester”.
Stick around and you might notice that a lot of people with expertise write here.
You may learnt a thing or two.
So you are suggesting that the pay is 9 months? Or what.?
If you would care to check co2 and O2in atmosphere I think you will find that increasing co2 equates to decreasing O2. I.e. you are not looking at water absorption of co2 you are looking at oxidation of carbon. There is little delay in this process.
Also where are your spikes and dips corresponding to lia.mwp.rwp. etc.
Stick around and you might notice that a lot of people with expertise write here.
You may learnt a thing or two.
_—————-
Once maybe but not now. Check out the comments. It’s all about calling people communist, ignorant,sub-normal. This site lost all respect in the treatment of solar expert Leif svalgaard.
So you judge a site solely based on how it treats your sensei. Nice.
halfrunt,
You obviously do not have a clue about — ice core resolution — or what it means. Consequently you assertion “Once maybe but not now” is meaningless. I am also dubious of your claim since it means you are also a world renowned expert on climate capable of judging the contributions here as worthless.
Some collected what wisdom from this thread alone
Sam The First says: September 7, 2017 at 6:44 am
… and the diminishing number of brainwashed idealist Leftists who want to Remain in the EU. They are terrified of stepping out of line, not understanding how Establishment and unthinking they have become.
Ziiex Zeburz says: September 7, 2017 at 4:06 am
Griff.
Do you also SH&T in you bed ??
It is obvious that you eat upside down, your breath stinks!
hunter says: September 7, 2017 at 3:55 am
But any deaths during heat waves are due to AGW?
You are so full of shite it is a wonder you Have any brain at all to run your autonomic system.
Actually you sound as thoughtless and shallow as the ignorant fanatics the author of this essay is surrounded by.
CD in Wisconsin says: September 7, 2017 at 7:47 am
@Griff: You have your understanding of what is going on in climate science horribly and ignorantly bass ackwards. it isn’t the skeptics with the belief system, it is the alarmists.
With their CAGW belief system, the alarmists are the clerics, the clergy. Skeptics are applying science to the alarmists belief system with their questions and refuting evidence. The job of the skeptics is to determine the robustness of the CAGW theory, and they are finding it wanting.
MarkW says:
September 7, 2017 at 6:26 am
Models aren’t science.
Clair Masters, … I should have known what I was getting into when I looked around and saw several students with either half shaved heads or hair colors that in nature scream “I’m toxic”.
D P Laurable says: September 7, 2017 at 6:09 am
I have put 4 children through college. Substitute “gender theory” or “Marxism” for “climate change” and there you have it, a college education.
Monckton of Brenchley says: September 7, 2017 at 7:06 am
… that on climate change, as on a growing number of other subjects, the totalitarians who ruthlessly control academe are no longer willing to be challenged. They demand obedience, where my professors demanded to be challenged, and delighted in the awakening of young minds.
Ghalfrunt, a lot of the writers here are partisan. Many here hate and fear me as a Socialist.
But I do not hate and fear them.
I do not hate and fear them because I am not a coward and I do not think political beliefs control the climate.
Why do you?
Ghalfrunt, I can assure you there is more science and fewer personal attacks on WUWT than on any alarmist site. This post, by its very nature, will elicit more subjective comments than most (it’s more about the experience than the science). But, this site isn’t for the faint of heart – commenters often tear into fellow skeptics if they don’t get the science right (or the spelling, or the punctuation, or …)
I noticed that most of the comments in your list are directed at institutions rather than people. Do you disagree with them? I would love to see you go to any college campus and pretend to be a skeptic, a capitalist, or a Trump supporter. I think you’d find that most of the comments here are true. I’m sure you would never do that though, because you know that you would be putting your career, and possibly your life, at risk. Beware the peaceful protesters!
Off topic, but this the first challenge to my understanding to date that green energy is a disaster suppirted by hot air and subsidy.
https://cleantechnica.com/page/3/
The article challenges the IEA and claims tgat green energy production is much greater than predicted.
This seems counter factual, to say the least.
I would appreciate any serious critical analysis.
I see more than a few dubious pints, but would like others to pick at this.
Clair, you have a beautiful mind. Hold on to it! Thank you for this essay.
We have hope. This woman is the proof.
I must admit, I was joyed by one of her remarks – as a big fan of H fuel for vehicles I never thought of the problem she raised about excess water vapor. I don’t know why but it made me happy to find problems with my views.
Really saw myself in her description of things in college.
Keep it up!
Water vapor is a condensing gas in Earths’ range of temperature, pressure, and abundant liquid water sources. More vapor than the air can hold at a given temperature falls out again as liquid water. That’s why warm summer air has more water vapor than cold winter air. That’s why your local weather reports mention both relative and absolute humidities. Globally on average, water vapor in excess of the carrying capacity of the air falls out in about 10 days. Therefore water vapor is a feedback from warming, not a forcing of warming. The water vapor created by hydrogen engines therefore does not cause warming.
I’ve never lived in a place where relative humidity was 100%, year round. Many places that I have lived the relative humidity often gets down below 20%.
Your belief that all water vapor from such engines quickly leaves the atmosphere is not supported by the evidence.
MarkW, I did not assert that relative humidity always is 100% year round. I specifically said the opposite. Read what I wrote. Then explain how rain can exist if, as you believe, water vapor permanently remains in air. Also explain how oceans can exist despite their liquid water constantly evaporating to become vapor. Then take a second grade science class: https://www.education.com/science-fair/article/the-dew-point/
Tom Dayton,
Try taking a sauna,,, and ” thimk”
Eyal:
“I don’t know why but it made me happy to find problems with my views.”
Truth is a thing; a worthy pursuit in and of itself, for it’s own purpose. It sets people free. It is the key to universe, so to speak.
Or so it seems to me.
err a “[beautiful] thing”, that is.
I have put 4 children through college. Substitute “gender theory” or “Marxism” for “climate change” and there you have it, a college education. What I have noticed in recent graduates I have hired is a complete absence of critical intellectual faculties outside of the leftist cant. They cannot analyze and come to a conculsion. They wait for it to be fed to them, which is what the system conditions them to do. Most will eventually climb out of this hole, but by then they will have wasted half their productive lives. I am past anger now, only sad.
Clair, if you want to be truly red-pilled, start doing some research into some of the billionaires, like the Rockefellers and their history.
All of their many various philanthropic organisations are behind this anti-fossil-fuel and divestment movement.
Rockefeller Family Fund
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Growald Foundation
Etc
For example, the following report reveals how they use these “philanthropic” organisations to prosecute their agenda:
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2014/7/post-53280dcb-9f2c-2e3a-7092-10cf6d8d08df
And the full report can be found here:
http://leftexposed.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2014-Senate-Billionaire-Club-Report.pdf
If you keep going back in history, you can learn about how these people and others like them (Carnegie) founded the original eugenics movement in the US (now Planned Parenthood), founded the Kaiser Wilhelm Eugenics Institute in Germany in the late 1930s, gave Nazi Germany the means to fight WW2 (coal to liquids and tetra-ethyl lead) and financed and transferred technology to the Soviets.
There is an excellent book by Anthony Sutton available online which details these treasonous activities.
They are pure evil.
Here is the why and how:
http://thesavagelifestyle.com/hegelian-dialectic-sexes/
Gosh, I didn’t fully read my last link. Please do not approve that comment, mods.
There is a post on my blog regarding the Rockefellers Bros website.
There is a great search engine there as well. Never guess some of the names that pop up. Ever hear of Green Peace or the Sierra Club?
Check out https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2015/08/15/the-rockefellers-who-they-fund-from-their-web-site/
Cheers
Roger
Well done Clair, it is extremely brave to put up your views in this forum where they can be, and have been subject to critical appraisal. My geology degree was in 1969 at Exeter, uk and we were excited by the first debates on plate tectonics. We must have had good teachers as we were always asked to consider both sides of any argument and to criticize any papers that did not provide sound logic or strong evidence. There were no holy cows and we learned to be solidly skeptical as all good scientists should. In my final year I studied palaeo – climates as part of my course and so developed an understanding of the huge range of natural variation, so have been profoundly disturbed by the huge ignorance of the current crop of academics and politicians on this issue, and even among my environmental science colleagues who accept the concensus without question. I am also distressed at the deterioration in standards at what was a great university that now drives a lot of the myths on climate change, such as the recent failed expedition by boat to the north pole led by an academic from Exeter. You have the makings of a good scientist but watch your back. This journey (war?) We are on has many years to run yet. Don’t let it drive you away from geology. We will need you when we are all dead and buried and the world turns cold.
Pedantic copy editor here: the headline is a bust. I expected a story about an undergraduate “climate science” course that had the opposite effect on the author as was intended by the prof. Properly the hed should read, ‘The making of a climate skeptic — in middle school’.
Most interesting that this has even penetrated U of WY. WY isn’t exactly known to be a center of liberalism. I an only image how bad it must be at notoriously liberal institutions.
I am always fascinated by Wyoming trying to destroy the only industries that make them money—oil and gas and coal. The University teaches them that people here who work in fossil fuels are wrong to do so, but that’s what pays the teacher’s salary. Same for putting in the super computer to study climate change. Why try to destroy your state? (I admit that has been the pattern the entire 35 years I’ve lived here. Luckily, Wyoming is pretty slow at self-destruction. I suspect they’ll get there, however.)
If oil and gas go, the professor can kiss his tenured position goodbye, as can the rest of the University staff. It’s completely suicidal thinking.
Claire,
When you use your science to explore for resources, do keep in mind that you seek an actual target, one that further testing can allow description in detail.
Conversely, if you get sidetracked into doing say climate change modelling you will find that the target is often undefinable, usually meaning that you cannot know if you are right or wrong.
That is a sort of scientific accountability that makes it a requirement that you never adjust or fudge scientific data. Fudging will never help you find that next resource – but fudging in soft sciences can be covered up removing the goal posts and so on.
So do stick with your direction of hard science or hard engineering. Not only are the physical rewards greater, so are the intellectual rewards. When you get past retirement, you will find it comforting that you have given Society, through your skills, far more than you have taken. It is hard to make that claim, to feel that satisfaction, if all your Life has done is playing with numbers and social engineering and propaganda.
You can’t wish a new resource into being by fudging the figures; but you can tell some really exciting scientific stories in global warming if you are prepared to prostitute your science.
Finally, do avoid getting old and cranky like I am here. Geoff – geochemist of old.
If one does not get old and cranky, one is not paying attention to what is going on.
The head posting is a rare and wonderful contribution from a courageous student who has begun to ask questions and has discovered, to her horror, that on climate change, as on a growing number of other subjects, the totalitarians who ruthlessly control academe are no longer willing to be challenged. They demand obedience, where my professors demanded to be challenged, and delighted in the awakening of young minds. Congratulations to this brave student. I hope that she continues to have the courage to ask questions of both sides. As al-Haytham used to say, “The road to the truth is long and hard, but that is the road we must follow.”
This student will never get a Nobel Prize. Alarmists control the Committee.
An alarmist motto: It would be nice to have Mother Nature on our side, but we will do without Her. Now let’s not mention Her.
As an academic (and avowed sceptic) myself, I wouldn’t say that academia is ruled by totalitarians so much as by opportunists. I would add that it is a misconception that academics should be particularly good at critical thinking — they are not.
As an academic, you are supposed to produce and pursue good ideas. If you aspire to such a profession, you must be convinced that your ideas are in fact good. There are two ways to achieve this. One is by actually having good ideas; the other is by having poor critical thinking skills, which will allow you believe that your very crummy ideas are actually good.
This second type of academic is far more common than the first one, which creates opportunities for those of the second kind to gang up and exclude those of the first kind altogether. When this happens, new scientific fads, err, “fields” like “climate change” are born. What makes this particular fad so special is not how stupid it is, but how much forces and interests from outside academia have taken to it and blown it out of all proportion.
I praise the student who is thinking for herself which is essential in today’s environment. Possibly there are more with such values, but they know they will be punished in the University environment so they prefer to not confront the propaganda on climate change. As an Engineer, I can tell you it is normally not to difficult in the Engineering community to convince most colleagues that global warming and climate change is largely over exaggerated. All that most engineers need is to get the plots, data and facts which I send them from WUWT and they can be convinced that CAGW mantra is political not real science.
Anthony should be proud of how his website has impacted a very wide audience in the Engineering world just by spreading the facts via the internet.
One possible bright spot. My son went to and graduated from U Mass Amherst which is a major center of lefty liberalism in the US. I found out he and his friends were listening to Rush Limbaugh while they were there so the LEFTY Professors may not be impacting as many students as much as we worry about. Of course the far left and Global warming students and politicians are the loudest and passionate about the subject as they demand everyone accept their beliefs, not liberal in allowing other beliefs. Their number may be less than it appears. I hope
Clair – if you’re reading – you’re far from alone.
I actually sent someting to Anthony very similar five years ago and he kindly published it here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/07/job-candidate-tells-bloomberg-to-take-this-job-and-over-global-warming-cover/
I’m pleased to say in the years following that article I successfully obtained my PhD and have been in gainful employment since.
The problem we have is that, other than islands of sanity such as this site, we have limited ability to publicly identify one another and get a sense of our numbers and offer mutual support.
The academy should be the last – the very last – place where one has to hide objections and different points of view but unfortunately many univerities (with some notable exceptions at both the university and departmental level) transitioned from places of learning and education to places of indoctrination and irrationality some years ago. I have a hope that academia will return to what it once was but it is a very slim hope and, like you Clair, I see my future in the private sector rather than within academia.
Read David Horowitz’s ” Discover the Professors)
Or alternately spend thousands helpING your 160 plus IQ daughter go to Oxford and come back a SJW, indoctrinated into Marxism supporting BLM and ANTIFA.
I red some paragraphs twice, maturity of the author (Ms. Masters) is unquestionable, but after reading again :
Maybe a week later, he handed me a piece of notebook paper with “research” written up on it—mostly a series of bullet points about the American Lands Council which he somehow connected to white supremacy, right wing fanaticism, and most bizarrely of all the Kim Davis controversy. I couldn’t believe that someone who was a “scientific” person felt the need to use the guilt by association trap, the screeching leftist “Racist! Sexist! Homophobe!”
got me wondering …..
and I’ll try to keep you updated.
…… hmmm
Good for you, “Clair”. It is possible to get a real education in college, but it takes the sort of effort you are putting into it. I went to school in California in the 1970’s, and it was equally bad then as far as political preaching intruding into purportedly “scientific” areas.
Claire,
I’m a UW engineering alum, my son is currently a student in the Petroleum Engineering program, graduating in December.
I too was a believer and then the evidence converted me to skeptic. I’m surprised to hear how much the AGW propaganda has infiltrated our only University. I’ve had many a discussion with my son about this and he seemed to paint a slightly less ominous picture. I got the impression most of his profs were more skeptic than believer.
Either way, congratulations on your career choice and for learning the most important lesson – critical thinking.
My best to you.
Matthew E. Epp PE, class of ’97
Lord Monckton congratulates the author because she had ‘begun to ask questions’ and expresses the hope ‘that she continues to have the courage to ask questions of both sides’. Maybe she might take that advice and questions her own statement: “It’s propaganda—dogmatic as any religion.”
There is a huge difference between any two or all of three: propaganda, dogma and religion. I happen to familiar with all of them. Even wikipedia makes clear distinction.
It’s not really to surprising that the “polar bears are dying and it’s all your fault” scold is starting to wear thin with young adults. After all, as reported elsewhere the polar bear population is growing contrary to the global warming predictions.
I sometimes think back to my grade school years in the early 1970s when we were paraded into the school gym for a lecture about how, by 1985 (I think), the air would be so polluted that we wouldn’t be able to breathe and the water would be so polluted there would be none to drink. Absurd nonsense told to us by people who (we thought) should have known better.
PaulH,
Do you remember when:
– the Hudson River caught fire
– inadequate Federal legislation resulted in the mass dumping of PCBs into the Hudson, Chicago River, etc.
– lead paint, etc.
…the list is sadly too long for this comment
There is nothing wrong with an effort to seek insightful Industrial Design and Engineering solutions. Solutions which manage environmental impact and health concerns.
However, you’re correct, they create a perceived crisis to consolidate public opinion and leveraged action.
John M,
There are many documented cases of Pb poisoning from paint but they are all about high doses such as from pica for lead.
There does not seem to be a compendium of low dose lead poisoning victims. (Show us the bodies meme). One might conclude that low level Pb toxicity is an imaginary construct.
Yes, I have read the Needleman series of papers claiming harm to the IQ of youngsters and low Pb dose. This work fails to address the reverse hypothesis that youngsters silly enough to ingest lead were in the low IQ category from the start.
If you wished to waste your time you could find adequate material to postulate that low level Pb poisoning is a social construct, just as full of poor science as global warming is. Geoff
Geoff: You can find primate studies showing exposure to lead has a cognitive impact that can’t be attributed to reverse causality. Apparently hearing sensitivity showing an inverse correlation with lead levels. Reverse causality isn’t an attractive hypothesis in this case either. You are correct that most studies didn’t properly consider reverse causality.
I remember listening to NPR years ago. Global warming was a new issue at that time and I had no opinion on the subject. So, NPR had a story about farmer’s journals. By studying them over the last 300 years, it was clear that planting now starts some weeks earlier than it did 300 years ago. That seemed compelling evidence to me – I was convinced.
Then it occurred to me that 300 years ago was in the middle of the little ice age. Not once had the NPR story mentioned this fact – not once. This seemed to me a stunning omission of a relevant fact. So was born a skeptic.
Congratulations to “Clair Masters” on her masterful clear thinking in the face of all the indoctrination she has endured in high school and college.
My advice to her would be to nod her head through her mineral resources course and write down on her exams everything the professor wants to read, then she can graduate and become an excellent petroleum engineer, helping to provide energy we all need (including the Al Gore’s of the world) to escape back-breaking labor and poverty.
I graduated in 1978 with a Chemical Engineering degree, but even then we had a Humanities professor who blamed “science and technology” for all the evils of the world in front of a class full of future engineers, who all joked about him as soon as we left the classroom. This was when cars lined up at gas stations for miles at 6:00 AM, because the Saudis cut their oil production, and our genius President (Carter) was telling us we had to turn down our home thermostats and wear sweaters indoors, because we would soon run out of oil. Gee, how did that work out? Forty years later, young women are majoring in Petroleum Engineering!
“Clair Masters” is facing an even more difficult challenge than my classmates and I faced, because her geology professor does have scientific training and is not as easily rebutted as a humanities professor with little or no technical knowledge.
But she should take heart and finish her degree, because engineering is a great profession for her. An engineer’s job performance is judged based on whether what he or she designs and builds eventually WORKS and makes money for the employer or client company, usually within two years. Engineers are rewarded based on factual, provable results, and if drillers eventually find oil where “Clair Masters” says they will, she will be rewarded, regardless of her opinions on global warming.
Climate modelers have been saying since the 1980’s that increasing carbon dioxide would produce runaway global warming, but temperatures have been going sideways since 1998. Where are their results???
Once “Clair Masters” graduates and starts working as an engineer, she will be surrounded by climate skeptics. Most engineers are, because the facts they see simply do not justify the scary predictions that AGW activists have been making for 30 years.