The Paucity of Hope
Climate change mania continues to push our resources out of useful projects and into junk science. As each new day brings more disclosures of unfounded hype and outright fraud, there remains a significant constituency for Chicken Little.
There was a time, I suppose, when great scientists labored in the shadows, dreaming up bold solutions to long-standing problems. Now our scientists hack for dollars, dreaming up new problems to justify yesterday’s mundane research.
In public life, we once had Jack Kennedy entreating us to the moon. The audacious one has no time for such frivolity.
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. . . .
In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change. . . .
“We certainly don’t need to go back to the moon,” said one administration official.
The science sparked by the Gemini and Apollo programs paid dividends for decades and inspired others to greater achievements. Now, despite procuring hundreds of billions to stimulate economic growth, much of the money remains unspent and the dollars already committed have produced nothing. This crowd has a curious definition of stimulus.
Indeed, today’s version of liberalism relies on soaring rhetoric to disguise a philosophy of limitation, animated by small-minded navel gazing, oblivious both to real threats and opportunities, believing fervently in every passing fad, and above all fearful that the ambitious achievements of others will prove them wrong.
Against all logic, they cut off the water to Central California for the sake of the delta smelt, unsure whether it will save the small bait fish, but certain that it will kill agriculture – a perfect convergence of liberal science and economics.
Our climate-change expenditures follow the same pattern of starving productive projects to prop up trendy speculation, producing nothing but articles that will be debunked later on. Those dollars could more appropriately be channeled into the Justice Department, were they could be used to prosecute climate-change fraud and perhaps recoup some earlier improvident grants.
There’s a better way. Let’s muster enough courage to get our heads out of the California sand we have created and take on some real challenges.
Dust Bowl by Calwest - Creative Commons
