Science Archives - Page 171 of 191

Video Game Developers Face the Final Boss: The FDA by Aaron Tao

September 2, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, Healthcare, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

As I drove to work the other day, I heard a very interesting segment on NPR that featured a startup designing video games to improve cognitive skills and relieve symptoms associated with a myriad of mental health conditions.

One game, Project Evo, has shown good preliminary results in training players to ignore distractions and stay focused on the task at hand:

“We’ve been through eight or nine completed clinical trials, in all cognitive disorders: ADHD, autism, depression,” says Matt Omernick, executive creative director at Akili, the Northern California startup that’s developing the game.

Omernick worked at Lucas Arts for years, making Star Wars games, where players attack their enemies with light sabers. Now, he’s working on Project Evo. It’s a total switch in mission, from dreaming up best-sellers for the commercial market to designing games to treat mental health conditions.

“The qualities of a good video game, things that hook you, what makes the brain — snap — engage and go, could be a perfect vessel for actually delivering medicine,” he says.

In fact, the creators believe their game will be so effective it might one day reduce or replace the drugs kids take for ADHD.

This all sounds very promising.

In recent years, many observers (myself included) have expressed deep concerns that we are living in the “medication generation,” as defined by the rapidly increasing numbers of young people (which seems to have extended to toddlers and infants!) taking psychotropic drugs.

As experts and laypersons continue to debate the long-term effects of these substances, the news of intrepid entrepreneurs creating non-pharmaceutical alternatives to treat mental health problems is definitely a welcome development.

But a formidable final boss stands in the way:

[B]efore they can deliver their game to players, they first have to go through the Food and Drug Administration — the FDA.

The NPR story goes on to detail on how navigating the FDA’s bureaucratic labyrinth is akin to the long-grinding campaign required to clear the final dungeon from any Legend of Zelda game. Pharmaceutical companies are intimately familiar with the FDA’s slow and expensive approval process for new drugs, and for this reason, it should come as no surprise that Silicon Valley companies do their best to avoid government regulation. One venture capitalist goes so far as to say, “If it says ‘FDA approval needed’ in the business plan, I myself scream in fear and run away.”

Dynamic, nimble startups are much more in tune with market conditions than the ever-growing regulatory behemoth that is defined by procedure, conformity, and irresponsibility. As a result, conflict between these two worlds is inevitable:

Most startups can bring a new video game to market in six months. Going through the FDA approval process for medical devices could take three or four years — and cost millions of dollars.

In the tech world, where app updates and software patches are part of every company’s daily routine just to keep up with consumer habits, technology can become outdated in the blink of an eye. Regulatory hold on a product can spell a death sentence for any startup seeking to stay ahead of its fierce market competition.

Akili is the latest victim to get caught in the tendrils of the administrative state, and worst of all, in the FDA, which distinguished political economist Robert Higgs has described as “one of the most powerful of federal regulatory agencies, if not the most powerful.” The agency’s awesome authority extends to over twenty-five percent of all consumer goods in the United States and thus “routinely makes decisions that seal the fates of millions.”

Despite its perceived image as the nation’s benevolent guardian of health and well-being, the FDA’s actual track record is anything but, and its failures have been extensively documented in a vast economic literature.

The “knowledge problem” has foiled the whims of central planners and social engineers in every setting, and the FDA is not immune. By taking a one-sized-fits-all approach in enacting regulatory policy, it fails to take into account the individual preferences, social circumstances, and physiological attributes of the people that compose a diverse society.

For example, people vary widely in their responses to drugs, depending on variables that range from dosage to genetic makeup. In a field as complex as human health, an institution forcing its way on a population is bound to cause problems (for a particularly egregious example, see what happened with the field of nutrition).

The thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s is usually cited as to why we need a centralized, regulatory agency staffed by altruistic public servants to keep the market from being flooded by toxins, snake oils, and other harmful substances. However, this needs to be weighed against the costs of keeping beneficial products withheld.

For example, the FDA’s delay of beta blockers, which were widely available in Europe to reduce heart attacks, was estimated to have cost tens of thousands of lives. Despite this infamous episode and other repeated failures, the agency cannot overcome the institutional incentives it faces as a government bureaucracy. These factors strongly skew its officials towards avoiding risk and getting blamed for visible harm. Here’s how the late Milton Friedman summarized the dilemma with his usual wit and eloquence:

Put yourself in the position of a FDA bureaucrat considering whether to approve a new, proposed drug. There are two kinds of mistakes you can make from the point of view of the public interest. You can make the mistake of approving a drug that turns out to have very harmful side effects. That’s one mistake. That will harm the public. Or you can make the mistake of not approving a drug that would have very beneficial effects. That’s also harmful to the public.

If you’re such a bureaucrat, what’s going to be the effect on you of those two mistakes? If you make a mistake and approve a product that has harmful side effects, you are a devil incarnate. Your misdeed will be spread on the front page of every newspaper. Your name will be mud. You will get the blame. If you fail to approve a drug that might save lives, the people who would object to that are mostly going to be dead. You’re not going to hear from them.

Critics of America’s dysfunctional healthcare system have pointed out the significant role of third-party spending in driving up prices, and how federal and state regulations have created perverse incentives and suppressed the functioning of normal market forces.

In regard to government restrictions on the supply of medical goods, the FDA deserves special blame for driving up the costs of drugs, slowing innovation, and denying treatment to the terminally ill while demonstrating no competency in product safety.

Going back to the NPR story, a Pfizer representative was quoted in saying that “game designers should go through the same FDA tests and trials as drug manufacturers.”

Those familiar with the well-known phenomenon of regulatory capture and the basics of public choice theory should not be surprised by this attitude. Existing industries, with their legions of lobbyists, come to dominate the regulatory apparatus and learn to manipulate the system to their advantage, at the expense of new entrants.

Akili and other startups hoping to challenge the status quo would have to run past the gauntlet set up by the “complex leviathan of interdependent cartels” that makes up the American healthcare system. I can only wish them the best, and hope Schumpeterian creative destruction eventually sweeps the whole field of medicine.

Abolishing the FDA and eliminating its too-often abused power to withhold innovative medical treatments from patients and providers would be one step toward genuine healthcare reform.

A version of this post first appeared at The Beacon.

Aaron Tao

Aaron Tao is the Marketing Coordinator and Assistant Editor of The Beacon at the Independent Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

LGBT Lobby Rebutted by Medical Experts and Ex-gays

September 1, 2015/in Culture War, Healthcare, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science/by MassResistance

The homosexual movement’s state-by-state crusade to pass laws banning youth with sexual orientation problems from seeking help by therapists, came to a head in the Massachusetts State House at a public hearing on Tuesday, July 28. The well-oiled LGBT lobbying machine was rebutted by pro-family counselors and experts, many of whom who came to Boston from across America, as well as MassResistance activists.

Pro-family team to counter destructive bill. The featured image is outside of the hearing room, from left:David Pickup, licensed therapist from Dallas; Dr. J. Abede Alexandre, child psychologist, Boston; Dr. Alexandre’s wife; Brian Camenker, MassResistance, Greg Quinlan, ex-gay, New Jersey Family Policy Council; Robin Goodspeed, ex-Lesbian, Wyoming; Mari Chamberlain, ADF allied attorney, Massachusetts; Keith Vennum MD, mental health councilor, Florida; Dr. Vennum’s wife; Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council, Washington DC. [All photos by MassResistance]

At issue is Bill H97, which is a major goal of the LGBT lobby this year. It would make it illegal for licensed therapists to help children deal with traumatic sexual orientation problems, often the result of childhood sexual molestation, rape, or abuse. Instead, the bill would only allow therapy that encourages homosexual behavior.
Read more about Bill H97 here.

Unfortunately, most people have no idea that battles like this are even happening – which is how the LGBT lobby likes it. But these kinds of laws can severely harm vulnerable children.

The hearing was held before the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities. It’s a challenge because the committee is dominated by left-wing social advocates. Plus, House Chairman of that committee, Kay Khan (D-Newton) is the sponsor of H97. But these politicians rarely, if ever, hear the pro-family side of this debate articulated as well as this, and anything can happen. This was the place for the battle!

The hearing room was completely full, and people were standing along the walls.

Normally, the well-organized and well-funded LGBT lobbying machine is accustomed to overwhelming their opponents at these hearings. But this time it was different. They were up against some heavy hitters. And although the people on our side have fewer financial resources, being in Boston for this was important.

Here’s what the legislators saw and heard that day. Below are the claims by the LGBT lobby, followed by the pro-family rebuttal . . .

The LGBT lobby: The usual disinformation, propaganda, and hysteria

To discredit this legitimate therapy, the LGBT speakers presented a campaign of disinformation, propaganda, and ginned-up hysteria to the legislators. They labeled it as “conversion therapy”. They told lurid (and blatantly untrue) stories about children being electrocuted and other alleged abuses by therapists. They claimed that even “talk” therapy causes depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior (it actually heals it). And they repeated the mantra that people are “born that way” and that virtually all the problems that homosexuals suffer through are caused by “prejudice” in society — not childhood experiences, abuse, or trauma.

State Rep. Sarah Peake (D-Provincetown), an “out” lesbian:

“Today you will hear from people who feel it is appropriate to say that being gay, or bisexual, or transgender is something less than equal, it is something undesirable, it is something lacking in dignity.“

Mental health director from “Gender Management Service” at Boston Children’s Hospital

(See the gruesome report about Children’s Hospital’s transgender work with children.)

Said that the best way to deal with children with transgender issues is to go through a“gender exploration process.” In contrast, she added, “Reparative therapy does not offer options or questions, and closes the door to exploration for healthy gender development for gender questioning youth.” One should not attempt “to repair or convert” which “leads to suicide attempts by over 50% of the youth.”

Coordinator from “Campaign to end conversion therapy” at National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Discussed alleged “electric shock”treatment. Claimed that a UN group compares reparative therapy to “torture”. Says it “defrauds” parents. Claims it causes high suicide. “This bill is a matter of life and death.”

Executive Director of Mass. Chapter of National Association of Social Workers:

“Since homosexuality is not a disorder or a disease it does not require a cure.” Instead,therapists should find ways to help youth “become more comfortable with their sexual orientation … Just as one does not choose to be straight, one does not choose to be gay or lesbian or transgender.”

Attorney from Washington, D.C. based homosexual group “Human Rights Campaign.”

(This is a man dressed as a woman.)

These are “dangerous practices” that must be dealt with by the legislature, not trusted to local licensing boards. (But admitted that people haven’t been complaining to licensing boards about this around the country.)

Attorney at Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders:

“After all these years, there is still a sense that being gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender is abnormal … Passing this bill is a message from the state that people do NOT need to change their sexual orientation or gender identity because that is not abnormal. It is a healthy, normal aspect of human development.”

Executive Director of Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition

(This is a female with a beard dressed in men’s clothes.)

“By identifying these so-called therapies for what they are – fraudulent at best and categorically harmful in many instances – the Legislature will make strides in addressing the health and wellness of LGBT youth here in Massachusetts.”

Pastor of a (far-left) Congregational Church in Worcester:

Said that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, but instead the text actually refers to other issues such as rape. “As a Christian pastor, I believe that religion is at the basis of all of these problems with abuse of our LGBT persons … Reparative therapy for our LGBT brothers and sisters is like attempting to separate Michelangelo from the art that was born in him.”

VIDEO: “Nothing but LIES: Testimony in support of H97“ (1 min 58 sec)

The pro-family side – telling the truth!

Most legislators almost never hear the truth on this issue. Honest medical people – and those who have been helped through therapy – describe how homosexual behavior is very often a result of early sexual trauma (such as sexual molestation, exposure to pornography, abuse, etc.) or serious issues with one or both parents. If youth can be helped at a critical time, it can save them years of pain, depression, disease, and even suicide.

Dr. J. Abede Alexandre – child psychologist:

“There is no conclusive evidence in the scientific community separating one particular factor that determines one’s sexual orientation. It has failed to conclude that different factors may lead to different psychological responses, which may include serious distress, which one may seek to alleviate using psychotherapy.”

Greg Quinlan – NJ Family Policy Council and former homosexual:

“I’ve heard the term ‘conversion therapy’ used. That’s offensive. That’s a term of hate. We’re not converting a religion here. This is reparative therapy. All therapy seeks to repair something.” He also described how he’s an ex-gay, and therapy was crucial to his healing, “Forgiving my father was the issue that helped me overcome my same-sex attraction.”

Robin Goodspeed – Voice of the Voiceless and former lesbian:

“I did not choose to be sexually abused as a child, but I did choose homosexuality. I made choices that led to that life. And I spent a lifetime fighting depression, addiction, suicide and being victimized by ‘born gay’ lies from the culture and [mainstream] counseling community. I know other ex-gays who had similar experiences. This bill is designed to condemn children like we were to that same experience. Licensed professional therapists through reparative therapy help sexual abuse victims like me heal from trauma.”

David Pickup – licensed counselor (and former abuse victim):

“A sexually abused child comes in at 15 years of age, he knows he’s heterosexual and he’s had sexual abuse. Or homosexual feelings come up and I as a therapist have to say ‘I can help you because I know it works, but I can’t help you because the state makes it illegal.‘ Can you imagine the horror?”

Keith Vennum, MD – mental health counselor:

“It’s not the job of the legislature to micromanage the work of the helping professionals. … Were there multiple incidents of gay identified teens being harmed at the hands of helping professionals in Massachusetts, each regulatory board would effectively step in and do the job the legislature has already commissioned them to do, but such harm has not been seen.”

Parent and MassResistance activist:

Showed committee that studies show that approximately 10% of youth become confused and think they might be LGBT. But a few years later, when in their 20s,only about 1.6%. actually believe they are LGBT. Proper counseling could relieve so much of the stress and anxiety that these youth go through in that process.

VIDEO: “Respecting Our Children’s Voices – Testimony Against H97” – (9 min 9 sec)

What happens next?

This confrontation was very necessary – especially in the Massachusetts State House. The homosexual movement needs to be strongly rebuked with the truth at every turn. Several liberal committee members were visibly moved by our side’s testimony.

However, this is only Round 1 of the fight to stop H97 in the Massachusetts State House. Since the House Chairman of this Committee is the sponsor of this bill. it is quite likely to pass this committee. But that doesn’t mean H97 will pass in the Legislature.

Rep Kay Khan, House Chairman of the Committee, is the sponsor of H97. But that can be overcome.

Last session a nearly identical bill was filed and easily passed through this committee and then a second committee. It was finally derailed before getting to the House floor by strong tactical lobbying by MassResistance activists. We know what’s ahead and we’re getting ready for it. This destructive bill is built on lies and disinformation. When politicians realize this they don’t like it. That’s why most state legislatures so far have rejected this, though the LGBT lobby is just ramping up their fight even more.

So far the committee has not acted on this bill. We would encourage everyone to contact the Committee to reject H97. If you live in Massachusetts, contact your legislators.

You can also follow the status of H97 on our page of bills. We’ll keep you informed on this!

VIDEO: Is Climate Change Dangerous?

August 30, 2015/in Environment, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

John Casey, author and former NASA rocket scientist, has taught me three facts about the climate:

The climate changes.
The changes are cyclical.
There is nothing mankind can do to change these natural cycles.

As John notes the only thing that mankind can do is prepare for these changes using good science and the best climate prediction tools to warn us of the coming changes.

In the below video by David Dilley, a former NOAA Meteorologist and current CEO and senior research scientist – Global Weather Oscillations, Inc., gives a presentation on Mind Your Own Business TV with Debi Davis.

Mr. Dilley provides the viewer a full picture and understanding of climate change cycles and carbon dioxide cycles.

Mr. Dilley combines his own research with peer reviewed research from other scientists and applies it to what is happening today, and to the likely dangerous climate change that will occur between the years 2019 to 2050.

EDITORS NOTE: To learn more please visit David Dilley’s website at: www.GlobalWeatherCycles.com

Research Findings a Blow to Anti-gun Academics

August 30, 2015/in Featured, Gun Rights, Policy, Politics, Science/by NRA Institute for Legislative Action

For decades, anti-gun academics have attacked firearms and firearm owners by conducting “research” that purportedly offers insight into the psyche of gun owners. The dubious findings of these psychology studies typically portray gun owners in a negative light, and are frequently published in uncritical academic journals, and then touted by gun control activists and the mainstream media as legitimate science. However, as a study published this week in the journal Science reveals, the entire field of psychology research warrants severe skepticism; and consequently the field’s frivolous attacks on gun ownership.

Perhaps the most famous item on this topic that has long been heralded by gun control activists is Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage’s, already largely debunked, “Weapons as Aggression-Eliciting Stimuli,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1967. This research popularized the notion of a “weapons effect,” where supposedly the mere presence of a firearm elicits aggression in an individual.

More recently, in 2012, researchers James R. Brockmole and Jessica K. Witt’s article “Action Alters Object Identification: Wielding a Gun Increases The Bias to See Guns,” was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. This paper contended that when individuals are armed with a gun, they are more likely to perceive others as being armed. Gun control advocates were quick to seize on the findings to promote the idea that gun owners are paranoid and prone to react with outsize responses to potential threats.

Some recent psychology studies have attacked gun owners more personally. A 2013 item published in PLS One titled, “Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control: Biased Attitudes in US Whites May Influence Policy Decisions,” tried to link gun ownership to racism. The researchers concluded “Symbolic racism was related to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in US whites.” Anti-gun publications, such as the New York Daily News, Huffington Post, and Salon.com were all-too-willing to parrot the findings.

The study recently published in Science is the result of a four-year effort to improve the accuracy of psychological science. A team of 270 scientists led by University of Virginia Professor Brian Nosek attempted to replicate 98 studies published in some of psychology’s most prestigious journals by conducting 100 attempts at replication. In the end, according to a Science article accompanying the study, “only 39% [of the studies] could be replicated unambiguously.”

In the same article, University of Missouri Psychologist and Editor at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (which published the Berkowitz and LePage study) Lynne Cooper, was quoted as saying of the findings, “Their data are sobering and present a clear challenge to the field.” She went on to note that the journal is working on reforms that will push “authors, editors, and reviewers… to reexamine and recalibrate basic notions about what constitutes good scholarship.”

The scale of the problem could be even greater than the recent study reveals. In an article on the team’s findings, the journal Nature noted, “John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California, says that the true replication-failure rate could exceed 80%, even higher than Nosek’s study suggests.

Further, psychology isn’t the only field to suffer these problems. In reporting on this matter, the New York Times noted, “The report appears at a time when the number of retractions of published papers is rising sharply in a wide variety of disciplines. Scientists have pointed to a hypercompetitive culture across science that favors novel, sexy results and provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.” For better, or worse, results involving guns might accurately be described as “sexy,” and the editors of the nation’s major newspapers appear willing to splash any gun control supporting findings all over their publications.

These findings and the accompanying comments by those in scientific research community encourage a healthy dose of skepticism when examining studies; regardless of how prestigious the journal, or the schools the authors hail from. The problems outlined in this study, along with pre-existing knowledge of the political bias in some portions of academia, should embolden gun rights supporters to further confront the findings of anti-gun studies, while hopefully also causing those who report on these topics to question research findings more critically.

Lawless Nation: Innocents Are Dying by Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD

August 24, 2015/in Culture War, Healthcare, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

“But if the Watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.” ~Ezekiel 33:6

Physicians have traditionally taken the Oath of Hippocrates to preserve life to the best of their ability and judgment. Your doctor is supposed to be a “watchman” over your health and life. Yet today, with rampant lawlessness on the part of our government leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings—from the most vulnerable unborn babies to America’s bravest warriors—physicians need to sound the trumpet. We cannot remain silent when life is at stake.

At one end of the spectrum the warriors that served our country here and abroad are denied prompt access to medical care when they need it, and many die waiting—either from disease or suicidal despair.

At the other end of the spectrum, euphemistically named “Planned Parenthood” is killing hundreds of thousands of innocent babies, then gruesomely and callously harvesting their body parts to be sold for profit.

Worse, both the unborn and our veterans waiting for medical care are dying at taxpayer expense! Taxpayers have been told they are paying for “women’s health” and “medical care for veterans” while both organizations bring death, not health.

Both Planned Parenthood and the VA have been shown to be violating multiple federal statutes. Both have a pattern of hiding their lawlessness from public and congressional scrutiny. Our government has failed to hold either accountable for their illegal actions. Whether deliberate or due to incompetence, the result is the same—death.

Lawlessness is out of control in many ways across our country. Many innocents are dying because of it. How can we expect the rule of law to prevail when it isn’t even followed in federally funded facilities that are supposed to care for health?

The VA issues were in the news months ago. They are being investigated, while veterans continue to die preventable deaths. Planned Parenthood’s flagrant disregard for existing laws is just now coming to light as a result of the investigative journalism work by the Center for Medical Progress.

Practices at Planned Parenthood that call for urgent investigation and possible prosecution include:

Trafficking in human body parts
Harvesting organs and removing them from babies who are alive.
Harvesting organs without proper consent from the mother.
Altering normal abortion procedures specifically in ways to allow salvage body parts for sale (such as liver, brain, heart, thymus, legs).
Failure to report statutory rape, thus protecting sexual predators.
Failure to attempt to save babies born alive in a failed abortion—instead using them for organs.

Planned Parenthood has fought vigorously to prevent mothers from seeing an ultrasound of their baby prior to an abortion, knowing that the majority of women choose not to abort once they have seen the baby’s image and beating heart.

In addition, Planned Parenthood consistently violates the ethical requirement to obtain informed consent. Clinic staff mislead women by using words to disguise that “it” is a human baby: they call “it” a fetus, they tell women their baby is just a “blob of tissue,” “isn’t a baby yet,” or “it cannot feel pain.”

Planned Parenthood’s “talking points” to clients violate principles of “truth in advertising” required in other medical and business settings.

CLAIM: “Abortion is only 3% of our business.” FACT: Based on prenatal visits (fewer than 19,000), adoption referrals (fewer than 2,000), and abortions (more than 300,000), Susan B. Anthony List said abortion was 94% of “pregnancy-related services.”
CLAIM: “If Planned Parenthood is defunded, women will not have access to women’s health services.” FACT: In fact, there are thousands of federally qualified community health centers across the United States that provide all of the necessary women’s health services. Abortion is theonly service not provided.
CLAIM: “Planned Parenthood is a women’s health organization.” FACT: The abortion centers are the leading killer of black and minority babies, following Margaret Sanger’s Eugenics agenda to “exterminate Negroes.”
CLAIM: “Defunding Planned Parenthood would prevent women from getting mammograms.” FACT: Planned Parenthood clinics are not certified for and do not perform mammograms. All mammography services are referred to other facilities.

On August 14, Congress sent a letter to Planned Parenthood demanding answers to the above issues. Multiple state investigations are underway, but the Obama administration has threatened to punish states that are cutting off state Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood while they investigate violations of state and federal law.

Physicians and the American people must now be the Watchmen, sound the trumpet, and act together to stop this Lawless Nation and slaughter of innocent babies and our deserving veterans.

ABOUT ELIZABETH LEE VLIET, M.D.

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., Dr. Vliet is Chief Medical Officer of Med Expert Chile, SpA, an international medical consulting company based in Santiago, Chile whose mission is high quality, lower cost medical care focused on preserving medical freedom, privacy, and the Oath of Hippocrates commitment to individual patients.

Dr. Vliet is a past Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Dr. Vliet also has an active U.S. medical practice in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX specializing in preventive and climacteric medicine with an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Arizona Foundation for Women 2007 Voice of Women award for her pioneering medical and educational advocacy for overlooked hormone connections in women’s health.

She received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She earned her B.S. and Master’s degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends, Sean Hannity and many nationally syndicated radio shows across the country as well as numerous Healthcare Town Halls addressing the economic and medical impact of the 2010 healthcare law. Dr. Vliet is a past co-host of America’s Fabric radio show.

Dr. Vliet’s health books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Great Sex, Strength, and Stamina, and The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS. Dr. Vliet’s websites are www.HerPlace.com , and www.MedExpertChile.com.

Will Robots Put Everyone Out of Work? by Sandy Ikeda

August 21, 2015/in Culture War, Featured, Labor & Unions, Science/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Will workplace automation make the rich richer and doom the poor?

That could happen soon, warns Paul Solman, economics correspondent for PBS NewsHour. He’s talking to Jerry Kaplan, author of a new book that seems to combine Luddism with fears about inequality.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the age-old fear of displaced workers, says Kaplan, is finally, irrevocably upon us.

JERRY KAPLAN: What happens to people who simply can’t acquire or don’t have the skills that are going to be needed in the new economy?

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, what is going to happen to them?

JERRY KAPLAN: We’re going to see much worse income inequality. And unless we take some humanitarian actions, the truth is, they’re going to starve and live in poverty and then die.

PAUL SOLMAN: Kaplan offers that grim prognosis in a new book, Humans Need Not Apply. He knows, of course, that automation has been replacing labor for 200 years or more, for decades, eliminating relatively high-paying factory jobs in America, and that new jobs have more than kept pace, but not anymore, he says.

I haven’t read Kaplan’s book, but you can get a sense of the issue from this video.

The fear is that, unlike the past when displaced workers could learn new skills for a different industry, advanced “thinking machines” will soon fill even highly skilled positions, making it that much harder to find a job that pays a decent wage. And while the Luddite argument assumes that the number of jobs in an economy is fixed, the fear now is that whatever jobs may be created will simply be filled by even smarter machines.

This new spin sounds different, but it’s essentially the same old Luddite fallacy on two levels. First, while it’s true that machinery frequently substitutes for labor in the short term, automation tends to complement labor in the long term; and, second, the primary purpose of markets is not to create jobs per se, it is to create successful ventures by satisfying human wants and needs.

While I understand that Kaplan offers some market-oriented solutions, the mainstream media has emphasized the more alarmist aspects of his thesis. The Solmans of the world would like the government to respond with regulations to slow or prevent the introduction of artificial intelligence — or to at least subsidize the kind of major labor-force adjustments that such changes appear to demand.

Short-Term Substitutes, Long-Term Complements

Fortunately, Henry Hazlitt long ago worked out in a clear, careful, and sympathetic way the consequences of innovations on employment in his classic book, Economics in One Lesson. Here’s a brief outline of the chapter relevant to our discussion, “The Curse of Machinery”:

(As Hazlitt notes, not all innovations are “labor-saving.” Many simply improve the quality of output, but let’s put that to one side. Let’s also put aside the very real problem that raising the minimum wage will artificially accelerate the trend toward automation.)

Suppose a person who owns a coat-making business invests in a new machine that makes the same number of coats with half the workers. (Assume for now that all employees work eight-hour days and earn the going wage.) What’s easy to see is that, say, 50 people are laid off; what’s harder to see is that other people will be hired to build that new machine. If the new machine does reduce the business’s cost, however, then presumably it takes fewer than 50 people to build it. If it takes, say, 30 people, there still appears to be a net loss of 20 jobs overall.

But the story doesn’t end there. Assuming the owner doesn’t lower her price for the coats she sells, Hazlitt notes that there are three things she can do with the resulting profit. She can use it to invest in her own business, to invest in some other business, or to spend on consumption goods for herself and others. Whichever she does means more production and thus more employment elsewhere.

Moreover, competition in the coat industry will likely lead her rivals to adopt the labor-saving machinery and to produce more coats. Buying more machines means more employment in the machine-making industry, and producing more coats will, other things equal, lower the price of coats.

Now, buying more machines will probably mean she has to hire more workers to operate or maintain them, and lower coat prices mean that consumers will have more disposable income to spend on goods in general, including coats.

The overall effect is to increase the demand for labor and the number of jobs, which conforms to our historical experience in many industries. So, if all you see are the 50 people initially laid off, well, you’ve missed most of the story.

Despite claims to the contrary, it’s really no different in the case of artificial intelligence.

Machines might substitute for labor in the short term, but in the long term they complement labor and increase its productivity. Yes, new machines used in production will be more sophisticated and do more things than the old ones, but that shouldn’t be surprising; that’s what new machines have done throughout history.

And as I’ve written before in “The Breezes of Creative Destruction,” it usually takes several years for an innovation — even something as currently ubiquitous as smartphones — to permeate an economy. (I would guess that we each could name several people who don’t own one.) This gives people time to adjust by moving, learning new skills, and making new connections. Hazlitt recognizes that not everyone will adjust fully to the new situation, perhaps because of age or disability. He responds,

It is altogether proper — it is, in fact, essential to a full understanding of the problem — that the plight of these groups be recognized, that they be dealt with sympathetically, and that we try to see whether some of the gains from this specialized progress cannot be used to help the victims find a productive role elsewhere.

I’m pretty sure Hazlitt means that voluntary, noncoercive actions and organizations should take the lead in filling this compassionate role.

In any case, what works at the level of a single industry also works across all industries. The same processes that Hazlitt describes will operate as long as markets are left free to adjust. Using government intervention to deliberately stifle change may save the jobs we see, but it will destroy the many more jobs that we don’t see — and worse.

More Jobs, Less Work, Greater Well-Being

Being able to contribute to making one’s own living is probably essential to human happiness. And economic development has indeed meant that we’ve been spending less time working.

Although it’s hard to calculate accurately how many hours per week our ancestors worked — and some claim that people in preindustrial society had more leisure time than industrial workers — the best estimate is that the work week in the United States fell from about 70 hours in 1850 to about 40 hours today. Has this been a bad thing? Has working less led to human misery? Given the track record of relatively free markets, that’s a strange question to ask.

Take, for example, this video by Swedish doctor Hans Rosling about his mother’s washing machine. It’s a wonderful explanation of how this particular machine, sophisticated for its day, enabled his mother to read to him, which helped him to then become a successful scientist.

I had lunch with someone who was recently laid off and whose husband has a fulfilling but low-paying job. Despite this relatively low family income, she was able to fly to New York for a weekend to attend a U2 concert, take a class at an upscale yoga studio in Manhattan, and share a vegan lunch with an old friend. Our grandparents would have been dumbfounded!

As British journalist Matt Ridley puts it in his book The Rational Optimist,

Innovation changes the world but only because it aids the elaboration of the division of labor and encourages the division of time. Forget wars, religions, famines and poems for the moment. This is history’s greatest theme: the metastasis of exchange, specialization and the invention it has called forth, the “creation” of time.

The great accomplishment of the free market is not that it creates jobs (which it does) but that it gives us the time to promote our well-being and to accomplish things no one thought possible.

If using robots raises the productivity of labor, increases output, and expands the amount, quality, and variety of goods each of us can consume — and also lowers the hours we have to work — what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with working less and having the time to promote the well-being of ourselves and of others?

In a system where people are free to innovate and to adjust to innovation, there will always be enough jobs for whoever wants one; we just won’t need to work as hard in them.

Sandy Ikeda

Sandy Ikeda is a professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism.

VIDEO: Planned Parenthood Dissects a Baby Boy’s Brain after Watching His Heart Beating

August 19, 2015/in Must Read, Policy, Politics, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

The Center for Medical Progress released the 3rd documentary episode and 7th video total in their exposé of Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby parts.

In this new video, with some calling it the most disturbing yet, former harvesting technician Holly O’Donnell describes how the heart of a late-term baby boy at Planned Parenthood’s mega-clinic in San Jose, CA started beating again after her supervisor tapped on it. Holly was then told to cut through the baby’s face to get his brain.

CMP investigators learned during the 2.5-year-long Human Capital study that born-alive infants are a shockingly common phenomenon in the abortion industry. It is made more common when fetal organs are being harvested because doctors must not poison the baby, yet also extract him or her as intact as possible—intact, an intact and live delivery is the outrageous “best case scenario” for organ harvesting.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS

The Center for Medical Progress is a 501(c)3 non-profit and we rely on your generous support to continue producing and releasing video and other evidence from our 30-month-long investigative journalism study on Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby parts.

EDITORS NOTE: According to the Protest Planned Parenthood website, the following protests are planned for Florida this Saturday from 9-11am local time unless otherwise noted for a different time in certain locations:

Boca Raton

Planned Parenthood, 8177 Glades Road (map)
Sponsor: Christian on a Mission
Contact the local leader

Fort Myers

Planned Parenthood, 8595 College Parkway (map)
Contact the local leader

Gainesville

Planned Parenthood, 914 NW 13th Street (map)
Sponsor: Pray for Life Network
Contact the local leader

Jacksonville

Planned Parenthood, 5978 Powers Avenue (map)
Contact the local leader

Kissimmee

Planned Parenthood, 610 Oak Commons Blvd. (map)
Note: This protest will be from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Sponsor: Stop Planned Parenthood Kissimmee
Contact the local leader

Lakeland

Planned Parenthood, 2250 E. Edgewood Drive (map)
Sponsor: Christ Church Lakeland
Contact the local leader

Miami

Planned Parenthood – Kendall Health Center, 11440 SW 88th Street (map)
Sponsor: Catholic Disciples in the Public Square
Contact the local leader

Orlando

Planned Parenthood, 726 S. Tampa Avenue (map)
Sponsor: Pro-Life Action Ministries
Contact the local leader

Pembroke Pines

Planned Parenthood, 263 N. University Drive (map)
Contact the local leader

Sarasota

Planned Parenthood, 736 Central Avenue (map)
Contact the local leader

St. Petersburg

Planned Parenthood, 8950 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street N. (map)
NOTE: This protest will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Contact the local leader

Stuart

Planned Parenthood, 1322 NW Federal Highway (map)
Note: This protest will be from 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.
Contact the local leader

Tampa

Planned Parenthood, 8068 N. 56th Street (map)
Contact the local leader

West Palm Beach

Planned Parenthood, 931 Village Boulevard (map)
Contact the local leader

For more information about the purpose and goal of these protests, please read a portion of the mission statement from ProtestPP:

“ProtestPP is a coalition of pro-life groups calling for a National Day of Protest on August 22, 2015 at Planned Parenthood facilities all across America. The four main sponsors are: Created Equal, the Pro-Life Action League, 40 Days for Life, and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society.

The National Day of Protest will strengthen local efforts by raising their profile with the local press, the community and other pro-life activists. Together, the protests held on August 22 will put pressure on the media, both local and national, to report the truth about Planned Parenthood, and on government officials to stop funding this discredited organization.”

The War on Air Conditioning Heats Up: Is Climate Control Immoral? by Sarah Skwire

August 13, 2015/in Culture War, Environment, Politics, Regulation, Science/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

It started with the pope. In his recent encyclical, Laudato Si’, he singled out air conditioning as a particularly good example of wasteful habits and excessive consumption that overcome our better natures:

People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning.

Now, it seems to be open season on air conditioning. From a raging Facebook debate over an article that claims that air conditioning is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy to an article in the Washington Post that calls the American use of air conditioning an “addiction” and compares it unfavorably to the European willingness to sweat through the heat of summer, air conditioning is under attack. So I want to defend it.

Understand that when I defend air conditioning, I do so as something of a reluctant proponent. I grew up in the Midwest, and I have always loved sitting on the screened-in porch, rocking on the porch swing, drinking a glass of something cold. I worked in Key West during the summer after my sophomore year of college, lived in an apartment with no air conditioning, and discovered the enormous value of ceiling fans. A lazy, hot summer day can be a real pleasure.

However, let’s not kid ourselves. There were frequent nights in my childhood when it was just too hot to sleep, and the entire family would hunker down in the one air-conditioned room of the house — my father’s attic study — to cool off at night. When we moved from that house to a place that had central air, none of us complained.

And after my recent article on home canning, my friend Kathryn wrote to say,

When I was growing up in the Deep South, everybody I knew had a garden, shelled beans and peas, and canned. It could have been an Olympic event. What I remember most — besides how good the food was — is how hot it was, all those hours spent over huge pots of boiling something or other on the stove in a house with no air conditioning.

There’s a lot to be said for being able to cook in comfort and to enjoy the screened-in porch by choice rather than necessity. Making your family more comfortable is one of the great advantages of an increasingly wealthy society, after all.

So when I read that the US Department of Energy says that you can save about 11 percent on your electric bill by raising the thermostat from 72 to 77 degrees, mostly I want to invite the Department of Energy to come over to my 1929 bungalow and see if they can get any sleep in my refinished attic bedroom when the thermostat is set to 77 degrees, but the room temperature is a cozy 80-something.

And when I read Petula Dvorak arguing that air conditioning is a tool of sexism because “all these women [are freezing] who actually dress for the season — linens, sundresses, flowy silk shirts, short-sleeve tops — changing their wardrobes to fit the sweltering temperatures around them. … And then there are the men, stalwart in their business armor, manipulating their environment for their own comfort, heaven forbid they make any adjustments in what they wear,” mostly I want to ask her if she’s read the dress codes for most professional offices. In my office, women can wear sleeveless tops and open-toed shoes in the summer. Men have to wear a jacket and tie. Air conditioning isn’t sexist. Modern dress codes very well might be.

But arguments based on nostalgia or gender are mostly easily dismissed. Moral arguments, like those made by Pope Francis or by those who are concerned about the environmental and energy impact of air conditioning, are more serious and require real attention.

Is it immoral to use air conditioning?

Pope Francis certainly suggests it is. And the article in the Washington Post that compares US and European air conditioning use agrees, suggesting that the United States prefers the short-term benefits of air conditioning over the long-term dangers of potential global warming — and that our air conditioning use “will make it harder for the US to ask other countries to continue to abstain from using it to save energy.” We are meant to be deeply concerned about the global environmental impact as countries like India, Indonesia, and Brazil become wealthy enough to afford widespread air conditioning. We are meant to set a good example.

But two months before the Washington Post worried that the United States has made it difficult to persuade India not to use air conditioning, 2,500 Indians died in one of the worst heat waves in the country’s history. This June, 780 people died in a four-day heat wave in Karachi, Pakistan. And in 2003, a heat wave that spanned Europe killed 70,000. Meanwhile, in the United States, heat causes an average of only 618 deaths per year, and the more than 5,000 North American deaths in the un-air-conditioned days of 1936 remain a grim outlier.

Air conditioning is not immoral. Possessing a technology that can prevent mortality numbers like these and not using it? That’s immoral.

Air conditioning is, for most of us, a small summertime luxury. For others, it is a life-saving necessity. I am sure that it has environmental effects. Benefits always have costs, and there’s no such thing as a free climate-controlled lunch. But rather than addressing those costs by trying to limit the use of air conditioning and by insisting that developing nations not use the technologies that rocketed the developed world to success, perhaps we should be focusing on innovating new kinds of air conditioning that can keep us cool at a lesser cost.

I bet the kids who will invent that technology have already been born. I pray that they do not die in a heat wave before they can share it with us.

Sarah Skwire

Sarah Skwire is a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc. She is a poet and author of the writing textbook Writing with a Thesis.

Human Capital: Planned Parenthood Harvested Baby Organs Without Consent [Video]

August 12, 2015/in Culture War, Healthcare, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Science/by Allen West

As reported by The Daily Caller:

A medical technician who worked in Planned Parenthood clinics says they were “morbid” places where women were seen as profit opportunities by “cold-hearted” staff in a sixth video produced by a medical ethics group opposed to abortion.

“The environment, it’s morbid,” Holly O’Donnell says in the video. “You can hear screaming, you can hear crying.”

O’Donnell’s job was to procure fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood clinics for StemExpress, a middleman between the aborted fetuses and researchers. She would “consent” women — ask them to donate their fetus — and then pick through the remains for the wanted tissue.

She describes an uncaring, traumatic atmosphere where each patient was a profit opportunity pressured aborting and donating their fetuses. “I’m not going to tell a girl to kill her baby so I can get money,” she says in retrospect.

CONTINUE READING:

Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has $100 Million Worth of Fossil Fuel Investments

August 12, 2015/in Energy, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

The “Green” Pope Francis seems to be a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to the Catholic Church’s investment in fossil fuels. His push to impact climate change appears to apply to everyone but the Catholic Church.

Richard Valdmanis from Reuters reports:

[S]ome of the largest American Catholic organizations have millions of dollars invested in energy companies, from hydraulic fracturing firms to oil sands producers, according to their own disclosures, through many portfolios intended to fund church operations and pay clergy salaries.

This discrepancy between the church’s leadership and its financial activities in the United States has prompted at least one significant review of investments. The Archdiocese of Chicago, America’s third largest by Catholic population, told Reuters it will reexamine its more than $100 million worth of fossil fuel investments.

“We are beginning to evaluate the implications of the encyclical across multiple areas, including investments and also including areas such as energy usage and building materials,” Betsy Bohlen, chief operating officer for the Archdiocese, said in an email.

[ … ]

Dioceses covering Boston, Rockville Centre on Long Island, Baltimore, Toledo, and much of Minnesota have all reported millions of dollars in holdings in oil and gas stocks in recent years, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

The holdings tend to make up between 5 and 10 percent of the dioceses’ overall equities investments, similar to the 7.1 percent weighting of energy companies on the S&P 500 index, according to the documents.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ guidelines on ethical investing warn Catholics and Catholic institutions against investing in companies related to abortion, contraception, pornography, tobacco, and war, but do not suggest avoiding energy stocks.

Read more.

Will all Catholic churches, schools, hospitals and related organizations stop using fossil fuels to save the planet?

It would seem that Pope Francis has yet to walk the walk but he is good at talking the talk. To meet Pope Francis’ encyclical it would be necessary to, as Jesus did, shed all the trapping of fossil fuels.

I wonder if fossil fuels were used to cook the last supper?

Alaskan Island Residents Looking to Become First American ‘Climate Refugees’

August 12, 2015/in Culture War, Environment, Policy, Politics, Science/by Ann Corcoran

The people who chose to build their town on an island are now whining that the bad old USA needs to save them as the island is supposedly sinking.

News flash! Islands submerge and often reappear again over centuries the world over as part of the dynamism that is our planet.

Back in the ’70’s I wrote a report about islands off the coast of Virginia that had whole towns on them (hotels, schools, cemeteries) that began to be uninhabitable by the early 1900’s as they were buffeted by major east coast storms (before cars were widely used! before global warming!). The people simply recognized that it would be foolish to stay, and moved inland. They didn’t cry out to the federal government to save them from their original choice.

Now we have these whiny Alaskan islanders who wonder if the federal government will leave them there to die!

Alaska’s Kivalina Island.

Here is the news at HNGN:

Kivalina is located on a very thin barrier reef island between the Chukchi Sea and the Kivalina Lagoon, in the northwest of Alaska, above the Arctic Circle. And it may not be there in a decade, thanks to climate change.

In approximately 10 years, the village of Kivalina in northwestern Alaska could be submerged, giving its approximately 400 residents the ubiquitous honor of becoming the first climate change refugees of America, so much so that the U.S. government says it may be too dangerous to live there.

Waahhhh! Is the U.S. government going to leave us here to die?

“If we’re still here in 10 years time we either wait for the flood and die, or just walk away and go someplace else. The U.S. government imposed this Western lifestyle on us, gave us their burdens and now they expect us to pick everything up and move it ourselves. What kind of government does that?” Swan (a local elected official) asked while speaking to the BBC.

You pick it up and move it yourself! And, maybe whaling is going the way of the buggy whip anyway!

One more case in the PR campaign that is building for governments (the US taxpayer mostly!) to take care of ‘helpless’ people worldwide while they bash America!

See our category—Climate refugees for more on this newest excuse for the redistribution of wealth and people.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of two teenagers in Kivalina, Alaska, playing near a skinned polar bear.

Capitalists from Outer Space by B.K. Marcus

August 10, 2015/in Economy, Policy, Regulation, Science, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

When the aliens stop trifling with crop circles, bumpkin abduction, and indelicate probes and finally introduce themselves to the rest of humanity, will they turn out to be partisans of central planning, interventionism, or unhampered markets?

This is not the question asked by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, but whether or not the institute’s scientists realize it, the answer is crucial to their search.

Signs of Intelligent Life

The SETI Institute was founded by Frank Drake and the late Carl Sagan. Its scientists do not believe we have been visited yet. UFO sightings and abduction stories don’t stand up under scientific scrutiny, they say. Nor are they waiting for flying saucers. Because the aliens’ signals will likely reach Earth before their spaceships do, SETI monitors the skies for transmissions from advanced civilizations orbiting distant stars.

The scientific search for evidence of advanced alien societies began in 1960, when Drake aimed a 25-meter dish at two nearby stars. The previous year, the journal Nature had published an article called “Searching for Interstellar Communications,” which suggested that distant civilizations might transmit greetings at the same wavelength as the radio emission of hydrogen (the universe’s most common element). Drake found no such signals, nor has SETI found any evidence of interstellar salutations since. But it’s not giving up.

The Truth Is Out There

Before we can ask after advanced alien political economy, we must confront the more basic question: Is there anybody out there? SETI has been searching for over half a century. That may seem like a long time, but there are, as Sagan underscored, “billions and billions of stars.” How many of them should we expect to monitor before finding one that’s transmitting?

In an attempt to address, if not answer, the question, Drake proposed an equation in 1961 to summarize the concepts scientists think are relevant to any educated guess.

Here is how Sagan explains the Drake equation in the book Cosmos:

N_*, the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy;
f_p, the fraction of stars that have planetary systems;
n_e, the number of planets in a given system that are ecologically suitable for life;
f_l, the fraction of otherwise suitable planets on which life actually arises;
f_i, the fraction of inhabited planets on which an intelligent form of life evolves;
f_c, the fraction of planets inhabited by intelligent beings on which a communicative technical civilization develops;
and f_L, the fraction of a planetary lifetime graced by a technical civilization.

The End of the World as We Know It

Sagan expounds on all the terms in the equation, but it’s that last one that absorbs him: How long can an advanced civilization last before it destroys itself?

Perhaps civilizations arise repeatedly, inexorably, on innumerable planets in the Milky Way, but are generally unstable; so all but a tiny fraction are unable to survive their technology and succumb to greed and ignorance, pollution and nuclear war.

Sagan wrote Cosmos toward the end of the Cold War. He mentioned other threats — greed, ignorance, pollution — but the specter of mutual annihilation haunted him. When he imagined the end of an advanced society, he pictured something permanent.

“It is hardly out of the question,” he wrote, “that we might destroy ourselves tomorrow.” Perhaps, Sagan feared, the general pattern is for civilizations to “take billions of years of tortuous evolution to arise, and then snuff themselves out in an instant of unforgivable neglect.”

The Rise and Fall of Civilization

We cannot know if the civilizational survival rate on other planets is high or low, and so the final term in the Drake equation is guesswork, but some guesses are better than others.

“One of the great virtues of [Drake’s] equation,” Sagan wrote, “is that it involves subjects ranging from stellar and planetary astronomy to organic chemistry, evolutionary biology, history, politics and abnormal psychology.”

That’s quite an array of topics to inform an educated guess, but notice that he doesn’t mention economics.

Perhaps he thought politics covered it, but Sagan’s political focus was more on questions of war and peace than poverty and wealth. In particular, he considered the end of civilization to be an event from which it would take a planet billions of years to recover.

The history of our own species suggests that this view is too narrow. Yes, a nuclear war could wipe out humanity, but civilizations do destroy themselves in less permanent ways.

There have been two dark ages in Western history: the Mycenaean-Greek and the post-Roman. Both were marked by retrogression in technology, art, and literacy. Both saw a drop in overall population and in population density, as survivors left towns and cities for a more autarkic existence in the countryside. And both underwent a radical decline in foreign trade and the division of labor. Market societies deteriorated into disparate cultures of subsistence farming.

The ultimate causes of the Greek Dark Age are a mystery. As with the later fall of the Roman Empire, the Mycenaean demise was marked by “barbarian” invasions, but the hungry hoards weren’t new: successful invasions depend on weakened defenses and deteriorating infrastructure. What we know is that worsening poverty marked the fall, whether as cause, effect, or both.

The reasons for the fall of the Roman West are more evident, if still debated. Despite claims of lead poisoning, poor sanitation, too much religion, too little religion, and even, believe it or not, inadequate central planning, the empire’s decline resulted from bad economic policy.

To help us see this more clearly,Freeman writer Nicholas Davidson suggests in his magnificent 1987 article “The Ancient Suicide of the West” that we look to the signs of cultural and economic decline rather than to the changes, however drastic, in political leadership. While the Western empire did not fall to the barbarians until the fifth century AD, “The Roman economy [had] reached its peak toward the middle of the first century AD and thereafter began to decline.” As with the Mycenaean Greeks, the decay was evident in art and literature, science and technology. Civilization cannot advance in poverty. Wealth and civilization progress together.

How to Kill Progress

“The stagnation in all aspects of society,” Davidson writes, “was associated with a continuous extension of governmental functions. Social engineering was tried on the grand scale. The state relentlessly expanded into commerce, industry, and private life.”

As we look to our own future — or anticipate the politics of our alien brethren — we can draw on the experience of humanity’s past to help us appreciate the economics of progress and decline. Over and over, we see the same pattern: some group gains a temporary benefit from a world in flux. When further social and economic changes check those advantages, the old guard turn to the state to protect them from the dynamism of a healthy society. Adaptation is stymied. Nothing is allowed to evolve. The politically privileged — military and civilian, rich and poor — sacrifice their civilization in an doomed attempt to ward off change.

The Sustainable Society

Evolutionary science, economic theory, and cybernetics yield the same lessons: stability requires flexibility; complexity flourishes under spontaneous order; centralization leads to stagnation.

To those general lessons, economics adds insights specific to the context of scarcity: private property and voluntary exchange produce greater general wealth, longer time horizons, and ever more investment in the “luxuries” of scientific investigation, technological innovation, and a more active stewardship of the environment. Trade promotes peace, and a global division of labor unites the world’s cultures in mutual self-interest.

If, as Sagan contends, an advanced civilization would require political stability and sizable long-term investment in science and technology to survive an interstellar spacefaring phase, then we should expect any such civilization to embrace a planetwide system of free trade and free markets grounded in private property. For the civilization to last the centuries and millennia necessary to explore and colonize the stars, its governing institutions will have to be minimal and decentralized.

The aliens will, in short, embrace what Adam Smith called “the system of natural liberty.” Behind their transmissions, SETI should expect to find the invisible hand.

Scientists versus Freedom

When we do make contact, “the consequences for our own civilization will be stunning,” Sagan wrote. Humanity will gain “insights on alien science and technology, art, music, politics, ethics, philosophy and religion…. We will know what else is possible.”

What did Sagan himself believe possible? Had he survived to witness first contact, would he be surprised to learn of the capitalist political economy at the foundation of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization?

Neil deGrasse Tyson, who remade the Cosmos television series for the 21st century, recommends reading Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations but only “to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself.”

We shouldn’t assume that Tyson represents Sagan’s economic views, but when Sagan did address questions of policy, he advocated a larger welfare state and greater government spending. When he talked about “us” and “our” responsibilities, he invariably meant governments, not private individuals.

Sagan wrote, “It may be that civilizations can be divided into two great categories: one in which the scientists are unable to convince nonscientists to authorize a search for extraplanetary intelligence … and another category in which the grand vision of contact with other civilizations is shared widely.”

Why would scientists have to persuade anyone else to authorize anything? Sagan could only imagine science funded by government. It was apparently beyond credibility that less widely shared visions can secure sufficient funding.

It’s a safe guess, then, that when he talks of civilizations that are “unable to survive their technology and succumb to greed,” Sagan is talking about the profit motive.

And yet, it is the profit motive that drives innovation, and it is the great wealth generated by profit seekers that allows later generations of innovators to pursue their visions with fewer financial inducements. Whether directly or indirectly, profits pay for progress.

Self-Interested Enlightenment

Why does it matter if astronomers misunderstand the market? Does SETI really need to appreciate the virtues of individual liberty to monitor the heavens for signs of intelligent life?

Scientists can and do excel in their fields without understanding how society works. But that doesn’t mean their ignorance of economics is harmless. The more admired they are as scientists — especially as popularizers of science — the more damage they can do when they speak authoritatively outside their fields. Their brilliance in one discipline can make them overconfident about their grasp of others. And increasingly, the questions facing the scientific community cross multiple specialties. It was the cross-disciplinary nature of Drake’s equation that Sagan saw as its great virtue.

The predictions of the astronomer looking for extraterrestrial socialists will be different from those of someone who expects the first signals of alien origin to come from a radically decentralized civilization — a society of private individuals who have discovered the sustainable harmony of self-interest and the general welfare.

After that first contact, after we’ve gained “insights on alien science and technology” and we get around to learning alien history, will we discover that their species has witnessed civilizations rise and fall? What was it that finally allowed them to break the cycle? How did they avoid stagnation, decline, and self-destruction?

How did they, as a culture, come to accept the economic way of thinking, embrace the philosophy of freedom, and develop a sustainable civilization capable of reaching out to us, the denizens of a less developed world?

B.K. Marcus

B.K. Marcus is managing editor of the Freeman.

As EPA Tries to Control Climate, Global Warming ‘Pause’ Extends to Record Length – 18 years 7 months!

August 8, 2015/in Environment, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Science/by Marc Morano

A new record Pause length: no warming for 18 years 7 months

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

For 223 months, since January 1997, there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1 below). This month’s RSS temperature shows the Pause setting a new record at 18 years 7 months.

It is becoming ever more likely that the temperature increase that usually accompanies an el Niño will begin to shorten the Pause somewhat, just in time for the Paris climate summit, though a subsequent La Niña would be likely to bring about a resumption and perhaps even a lengthening of the Pause.

Figure 1. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 7 months since January 1997.

The hiatus period of 18 years 7 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend. The start date is not cherry-picked: it is calculated. And the graph does not mean there is no such thing as global warming. Going back further shows a small warming rate.

The Pause has now drawn blood. In the run-up to the world-government “climate” conference in Paris this December, the failure of the world to warm at all for well over half the satellite record has provoked the climate extremists to resort to desperate measures to try to do away with the Pause.

To Read Complete article by Lord Christopher Monckton on the new record length ‘Pause’ in global warming see here: http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/08/06/a-new-record-pause-length-no-global-warming-for-18-years-7-months-temperature-standstill-extends-to-233-months/

Other Climate Depot news items of this week:

Fmr. NASA Scientist James Hansen: Obama’s climate policy is ‘practically worthless’ – ‘You’ve got to be kidding’ – Hansen on Obama EPA climate regs: ‘The actions are practically worthless. They do nothing to attack the fundamental problem.’ “You’ve got to be kidding,” Hansen wrote, when asked if the plan would make continued climate activism unnecessary. Obama’s plan, and for that matter the proposed plan Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, he continued, “is like the fellow who walks to work instead of driving, and thinks he is saving the world.”

Watch: Morano on Fox on EPA ‘Climate’ Plan: ‘This is a nonsensical plan when it comes to climate with a lot of economic pain’ – Fox Business Host Stuart Varney – ‘Varney & Company’ – August 5, 2015

Morano on Obama’s EPA ‘Climate’ Plan: ‘They are selling us a bill of goods. Even if you believed it, this is a nonsensical plan when it comes to climate with a lot of economic pain.’ – ‘NASA’s former lead global warming scientist James Hansen came and said this plan is ‘practically worthless’ and he said ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’. Obama’s own EPA chief admitted it would have no impact on global temperature let alone impacts on global CO2 levels. It’s pure symbolism.’

Watch: Morano on Fox debates warmist over EPA regs: ‘The government is now further centrally planning our energy economy’ –

MORANO: “The EIA (U.S. Energy Information Agency – 2013) estimates that wind is about 4% of our energy and solar is about .25 of one percent! So you are asking for less than 5% of energy to somehow cover all of these carbon based regulations. We have Obama administration officials like White House Science Czar John Holdren who openly talk about cheap energy being a threat or a hazard to a free society.”

MORANO: “We do know one thing that there will be no climate impact form these bills.”

GOULD: “That is completely false. That is completely false.”

MORANO: “The EPA administrator admitted that.” See: EPA Chief Admits Obama Regs Have No Measurable Climate Impact: ‘One one-hundredth of a degree?’ EPA Chief McCarthy defends regs as ‘enormously beneficial’ – Symbolic impact

Watch Now: Morano on BBC TV on Obama EPA climate regs: ‘Even if we faced a climate crisis, these regs would have no impact. It’s pure symbolism’ – BBC World News – August 3, 2015 – Climate Depot Publisher Marc Morano – Selected Highlights of Morano’s comments: “Even if we faced a climate crisis, these regulations would have no impact. It’s pure symbolism. Its going to have a huge economic impact, jobs impact and no climate impact. Even warmists’ are saying this is not going to have any impact, that Obama way off base (and not being ambitious enough.)

EPA Chief Admits Obama Regs Have No Measurable Climate Impact: ‘One one-hundredth of a degree?’ EPA Chief McCarthy defends regs as ‘enormously beneficial’ – Symbolic impact

‘The number is so small as to be undetectable’ – Pure Symbolism – EPA Climate Regs Avert 0.018°C Temperature Rise – That’s ‘less than two one-hundredths of a degree C’ – We’re not even sure how to put such a small number into practical terms, because, basically, the number is so small as to be undetectable.’

Chip Knappenberger on CNN: Obama plan’s ‘impact on climate turns out to be largely undetectable and the public health benefits tenuous, at best’ – ‘The human health benefits of the President’s plan do not largely stem from the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. After all, carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is not dangerous to breathe. Instead, they are to come from the “co-benefits” of reducing some forms of air pollution that are emitted when fossil fuels are burned. But these by-product emissions are already subject to existing regulations and are being double-counted by the President. Further, direct health impacts from climate change are difficult to pin down — and ethereal — as adaptive measures can more than erase them.’

Obama spurns natural gas in climate rule

Analysis: EPA ‘climate’ plan will take ‘33% of productive electrical capacity off the grid by 2020′

Key Points: ‘Report shows that the plan would close 48% of all coal-fired plants in the country.’

This plan is “regulation without representation.”

‘The president’s rules would usurp the traditional role of states in managing their own electrical generation and saddle the economy with enormous costs while empowering the EPA to control vast swaths of the American economy.’

‘Coal-fired power will be the first to be shot, but the EPA is targeting all sources of carbon energy.’

Climate Scientists Rip Apart EPA’s Global Warming Rule – “Well the one thing you don’t hear President [Barack] Obama mention is how much his proposed emissions reductions will reduce global warming,” wrote Dr. Judith Curry, a climatologist at Georgia Tech. “It has been estimated that the U.S. [climate plan] of 28% emissions reduction by 2025 will prevent 0.03 [degrees Celsius] in warming by 2100.” “And these estimates assume that climate model projections are correct,” Curry wrote, “if the climate models are over-sensitive to CO2, the amount of warming prevented will be even smaller.”

Environmentalists, EPA Force The 200th US Coal Plant To Retire

Obama unleashes energy crippling climate plan to cut greenhouse gases by 32% in 2030

‘Obama To Announce Job Killing, Inflation Producing, Economy Slowing, Clean Energy, Plan’

Coal Left Fighting Over America’s Last Plants as Rules Mount

Factbox: Obama’s Clean Power Plan faces tough legal scrutiny

It’s Here! Obama’s EPA Sets Forth ‘global warming’ regulations on America! ‘Mandate even steeper emissions cuts from US power plants’

Obama Sends ‘Memo To America’ On Climate Change

Pay climate protection money or else! ‘Inaction on climate change would cost billions’, major EPA study finds

EPA Claims That ‘Global Action’ On Global Warming Will Stop ‘Extreme Weather’

Asthma prevalence has increased in the U.S. while major air pollutants like ozone, particulate matter and carbon monoxide have fallen dramatically, according to government data.

A study by John’s Hopkins Children’s Center published in January found there is no link between air pollution and childhood asthma.

Global warming threat? Now it’s asthma: Morano: ‘This is pure propaganda’ – ‘Obama has shifted the debate to children and asthma because he knows the public is not buying global warming’

Watch Now: Prof. Ross McKitrick on Obama EPA regs: The health claims ‘are groundless’ – ‘Carbon dioxide is not a factor in smog or lung issues’ – Rips Obama for deceptive language: ‘Instead of calling it carbon dioxide, we are just going to call it ‘carbon pollution’

McKitrick on Sun News on June 2, 2014 – McKitrick on Air Pollution: The models get ‘more deaths from air pollution than you were death from all causes’- ‘Particulates and soot are at such low levels in the U.S. — levels well below what they were in the 1970s. The health claims at this point are groundless coming from this administration. I noticed these numbers coming up for Ontario for how many deaths were caused by air pollution. What struck me — was knowing that air pollution levels were very low in Ontario — but they were extremely high in 1960s. So I took the same model and fed in the 1960s air pollution levels into it: How many deaths would you get? I did the calculations and you quickly get more deaths from air pollution than you were death from all causes. In other words, the streets would have been littered with bodies from air pollution if it was actually that lethal. The problem with all of these models is they are not based on an actual examination of death certificates or looking at what people actually died of — these are just statistical models where people have a spreadsheet and they take in an air pollution level and it pops out a number of deaths. But there are no actual bodies there, it is all just extrapolation.’

Obama Moves To Regulate CO2 From Airplanes – First tailpipes, then power plants and now airplanes. The Obama administration announced another major effort to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from airplanes after the Environmental Protection Agency linked airliners to global warming. The EPA issued a proposal Wednesday declaring that CO2 from airliners threatens public health because it contributes to global warming. The agency says it’s doing this in conjunction with an international effort to bring the airline industry under global carbon dioxide standards for commercial jets.

Obama Harvard Law School Prof Lawrence Tribe on EPA Climate Regs: ‘BURNING THE CONSTITUTION CANNOT BE PART OF OUR NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY’ – Laurence Tribe, a liberal constitutional scholar at Harvard University: “EPA possesses only the authority granted to it by Congress,” Tribe told lawmakers in a hearing Tuesday. “Its gambit here raises serious questions under the separation of powers… because EPA is attempting to exercise lawmaking power that belongs to Congress and judicial power that belongs to the federal courts.”

The term ‘carbon pollution’ is unscientific and misleading: ‘Phrase conflates carbon dioxide with noxious chemicals like carbon monoxide and black carbon’ – ‘The phrase ‘carbon pollution’ is scientifically inaccurate because there are more than ten million different carbon compounds, and the word ‘carbon’ could refer to any of them. Some of the more notorious of these compounds are highly poisonous, such as carbon monoxide (a deadly gas) and black carbon (the primary ingredient of cancerous and mutagenic soot). Using a phrase that does not distinguish between such drastically different substances is a sure way to misinform people.’

EPA regulations on CO2 will accomplish nothing for climate or public health: Obama using ‘diversionary tactic to conflate CO2 with the actual ‘carbon pollution’ of atmospheric particulate matter, to deflect criticism from Obama’s draconian CO2 proposals’

Warmists: ‘Obama Wants You to Think His Climate Plan Is Bold. It’s Not.’ – By Eric Holthaus – Vox’s Brad Plumer has calculated that the president’s rule would shave just 6 percent from U.S. carbon emissions by 2030. Climate science and international equitydemand the U.S. cut emissions 80 percent by then. We’re nowhere near that pace. Still, this plan is not nothing. In its coverage, the Times includes this hopeful gem: But experts say that if the rules are combined with similar action from the world’s other major economies, as well as additional action by the next American president, emissions could level off enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. That’s a lot of hedging on which to base a climate legacy. In fact, when compared with the climate plans of his would-be successors on the left—Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley—Obama ranks last in terms of ambition. Clinton, who has frequently aligned herself with the president on climate, announced a preview of her own climate plan last week. It’s fractionally more ambitious than Obama’s, but it essentially just kicks the can forward another few years.

Watch: Morano on Fox on new Fed fracking regs: ‘They are going after the foundation of fracking’s success’ – Watch Video here: Fox Business ‘Varney & Co.’ w/ Stuart Varney – March 20, 2015 – ‘Will new fracking regulations kill the industry?’ (See: Obama Admin Imposes New Regulations On Fracking) – Morano selected excerpts: It’s the first step to the death of a thousand cuts, and this is probably the first 200 or 300 blades being introduced by the federal government — but it’s not going to kill fracking now. This will impose a one size fits all federal government solution.

They are going after the foundation of fracking’s success. Obama is already taking out coal, they’ve stopped keystone pipeline, they are preventing oil drilling in places like Alaska. What’s left? Fracking. Solar is .23% of our electricity (EIA 2013), wind power is barely over 4% and their implication is they will replace carbon based fuels with solar and wind.

Morano: ‘It’s the agenda here: John Holdren said in 1970s that energy that is too cheap is one of the greatest hazards to society and the more we get away from energy, the more jobs we will have. (See: Flashback 1975: Obama Science Czar John Holdren warned U.S. ‘threatened’ by ‘the hazards of too much energy’ – Holdren: ‘Less energy can mean more employment.’)

The Energy Sec. Moniz has said he wants to make ‘dirty fuels’ three times more expensive. This is the first step towards that. (See: Obama Energy Dept. nominee favors TRIPLING the cost of fossil fuels – Energy Nominee Moniz: We Need Carbon Price To Double Or Triple Cost Of Dirty Energy)

Look to Europe to see America’s Energy Future:

Flashback 2011: ‘Era of Constant Electricity at Home is Ending, says UK power chief’ — ‘Families would have to get used to only using power when it was available’

Watch: Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer on Gore’s ‘extreme weather’ claims: ‘Bullsh*t!’ – John Stossel’s “Science Wars”

Florida Senator Bill Nelson Supports the Iran Nuke Deal

August 6, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

On August 4th, 2015 Bill Nelson (D-FL) voiced his support for the Iran nuclear deal on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Nelson stated, “Unless there is an unexpected change in conditions and facts before the vote is called in September, I will support the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (U.S., France, U.K., Russia, China, Germany) because I am convinced it will stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon for at least the next 10 to 15 years. No other available alternative accomplishes this vital objective.” [Emphasis added]

Al-Monitor reports:

One of the most popular American negotiators in Iranian social media was US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor emeritus and former director of the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment joined the nuclear talks between Iran and five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to discuss the technical aspects of the nuclear deal with the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi.

In an interview with an Iranian newspaper, Salehi spoke about the negotiations and his relationship with Moniz. Just as Moniz was picked to lead the technical negotiations due to his nuclear expertise, Salehi, [also] an MIT graduate, is one of the few individuals to have held important positions for three consecutive administrations — a sign that he has the trust of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Haaretz’s Barak Ravid writes:

Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who for the last two years has coordinated the government’s response to the Iranian nuclear program, shot back at his U.S. counterpart after the latter said, “If I were Israeli, I would support the nuclear deal.”

Read more.

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8 Things Obama Got Wrong on the Iran Deal

22 Tweets Reacting to Obama Comparing GOP to Iranians Chanting ‘Death to America’

Full text of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s Remarks on the Senate floor (as prepared for delivery) on August 4, 2015:

I want to announce my decision on the Iranian nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

This decision of mine comes after considerable study of the issue, along with talking with folks on all sides of the issue. These include colleagues as well as constituents, experts on Middle East and Central Asia, arms control experts, foreign allies and just plain folks. Secretary Moniz, a nuclear physicist was especially helpful.

Needless to say I wish that the 3 Americans jailed in Iran and Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent missing in Iran for eight years, had been a part of an agreement to return them. The Levinson family in Florida is anxious for information and help to return Bob. This is personal for me.

I am a strong supporter of Israel and recognize that country as one of America’s most important allies. I am committed to the protection of Israel as the best and right foreign policy for the U.S. and our allies.

I am blessed to represent Florida which also has among our citizens a strong and vibrant Jewish community including many Holocaust survivors and Holocaust victim’s families, some of whom I have worked with to help them get just compensation from European insurance companies which turned their back on them after World War II and would not honor their claims.

In our state we are also proud to have a Floridian, a former U.S. and Miami Beach resident, as the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer who grew up in Miami Beach, whose father and brother are former mayors, is someone I have enjoyed getting to know and have had several conversations over the years and recently spent time talking to him about his opposition to the JCPOA.

I acknowledge that this is one of the most important votes I will cast in the Senate because of the foreign and defense policy consequences are huge for the U.S. and our allies.

Unless there is an unexpected change in conditions and facts before the vote is called in September, I will support the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (U.S., France, U.K., Russia, China, Germany) because I am convinced it will stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon for at least the next 10 to 15 years. No other available alternative accomplishes this vital objective.

The goal of the two-years of negotiations culminating in this deal was to deny Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. This objective has been fulfilled in the short term. For the next 10 years, Iran will be reduce its centrifuges – the machines that enrich uranium – by two-thirds. They’ll go from more than 19,000 centrifuges to 6,000. Only 5,000 of those will be operating, all at Natanz, all the most basic models. The deeply buried Fordow facility will be converted to a research lab – no enrichment can occur there and no fissile material can be stored there. For the next 15 years, Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium – which currently amounts to 12,000 kilograms, enough for ten bombs – will also be reduced by 98 percent, to only 300 kilograms. Research and development into advanced centrifuges will also be limited. Taken together, these constraints will lengthen the time it would take for Iran to produce the highly-enriched uranium for one bomb – the so-called “breakout time” – from 2-3 months to more than a year. That is more than enough time to detect and, if necessary, stop Iran from racing to a bomb.

Iran’s ability to produce a bomb using plutonium will also be blocked under this deal. The Arak reactor – which as currently constructed could produce enough plutonium for 1-2 bombs every year – will be redesigned to produce no weapons-grade plutonium. And Iran will have to ship out the spent fuel from the reactor forever.

Iran signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 in which they agreed they would not pursue nuclear weapons. Iran has reaffirmed this principle in the JCPOA agreement. Iran also says they want to eventually make low-grade nuclear fuel, as other NPT compliant nations do, in order to produce electricity. If they comply, they will eventually be allowed to do so under the JCPOA.

Our expectation is that in 15 years, when Iran can lift the limit of 300kg of low-enriched uranium, if they have not cheated, they will continue to abide by their NPT obligations and use their fuel only for electricity and medical isotopes. If they deviate from these civilian purposes, then harsh economic sanctions will result and, very possibly military action.

The world will be a very different place in 10 – 15 years. If we can buy this much time instead of Iran developing a nuclear bomb, then that is reason enough for me to vote to uphold the agreement.

And if the United States walks away from this multi-national agreement, I believe we would find ourselves alone in the world with little credibility.

But there are many more reasons.

The opponents of the agreement say that war is not the only alternative to the agreement.

Indeed, they, as articulated by the Israeli Ambassador, say we should oppose the agreement by refusing to lift congressional economic sanctions, and the result will be that the international sanctions will stay in place, that Iran will continue to feel the economic pinch, and, therefore Iran will come back to the table and negotiate terms more favorable terms to the United States and our allies.

But if the United States kills this deal that most of the rest of the world is for, there is no question that the sanctions will erode – and they may collapse altogether. Sanctions rely on more than just the power of the United States economy – they depend on an underlying political consensus in support of a common objective. China, Russia, and many other nations eager to do business with Iran went along with our economic sanctions because they believed they were a temporary cost to pay until Iran agreed to a deal to limit their nuclear program. That fragile consensus in support of U.S. policy will fall apart if we jettison this deal.

It is unrealistic to think we can stop oil-hungry countries in Asia from buying Iranian oil – especially when offered bargain basement prices. And it is equally unrealistic to think we can continue to force foreign banks in China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan that have sequestered the Iranians’ oil money to hold on to that cash simply because we threaten them with U.S. sanctions. How will such threats be taken seriously when these countries, taken together, hold nearly half of America’s debt, making any decision to sanction them extraordinarily difficult. So killing this deal means the sanctions will be weaker than they are today, not stronger. And the United States simply cannot get a better deal with Iran with less economic leverage and less international support.

All of this probably would happen while Iran would be racing to build a bomb. Without this deal, Iran’s breakout time could quickly shrink from months to a handful of weeks or days.

It is reasonable to ask why Iran would agree to negotiate a delay in their nuclear program that they have advanced over the years at the cost of billions of dollars. The simple answer is they need the money. The Iranian economy is hurting because of the sanctions and Iran’s Supreme Leader needs to satisfy rising expectations of average Iranians who are restless to have a bigger slice of the economic pie with more and better goods and supplies.

So they have an interest in striking a deal. But does that mean we trust Iran’s government? No, not at all. The Iranian religions leadership encourages hardliners to chant “death to America” and “death to Israel.” Therefore this agreement can’t be built on trust – we must have a good enough mechanism in place to catch them when and if they try to cheat.

In other words: “Don’t trust, but verify.”

I believe the agreement sets out a reasonable assurance that Iran will not be able to hide the development of a bomb at declared or undeclared sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will have immediate access to declared sites (the Arak reactor and the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow), and for the next 20-25 years inspectors will also have regular access to the entire supply chain, including uranium mines and mills and centrifuge production, assembly, and storage sites. That means inspectors will catch Iran if they try to use the facilities we know about to build a weapon or if they try to divert materials to a secret program. And to confirm that Iran is not building a covert bomb, this agreement ensures that inspectors will have access to suspicious sites with no more than a 24-day delay. It must be physical access. Would I prefer they get in instantaneously? Of course. Could Iran hide some activities relevant to nuclear weapons research? Possibly. But, to actually make a bomb, Iran’s secret activity would still have to enrich the fuel for a device – and they couldn’t cover that up if they had years, let alone do so in a few weeks. Traces of enriched uranium or a secret plutonium program do not suddenly vanish – and they can’t be covered up with a little paint and asphalt. So, I’m convinced that, under this agreement, Iran cannot cheat and expect to get away with it.

On top of the unprecedented IAEA inspections established by this deal is the vast and little understood world of American and allied intelligence. I served on the Intelligence Committee for 6 years and now have clearances on the Armed Services Committee. U.S. intelligence is very good and extensive and will overlay IAEA inspections. Remember, we discovered their secret activities in the past even without the kinds of inspections put in place by the JCPOA. So if Iran tries to violate its commitment not to build nuclear weapons, and the IAEA doesn’t find out, I am confident our intelligence apparatus will.

What about the part of the joint agreement that allows the conventional arms embargo to be lifted in 5 years and missile technology to be lifted in 8 years. I understand that it was always going to be tough to keep these restrictions in place. But I don’t like it.

Fortunately, even when the arms embargo expires, five other U.N. resolutions passed since 2004 will continue to be in force to prohibit Iran from exporting arms to terrorists and militants. These have had some success, albeit limited, as in the case of the U.S. Navy stopping arms shipments to the Houthis in Yemen. These same U.N. resolutions will stay in place to block future Iranian arms shipments to others. We also have non-nuclear sanctions tools we can – and must – continue to use to go after those that traffic in Iranian arms and missiles.

Will this agreement allow Iran to continue to be a state sponsor of terrorism? Yes, but they now have the capability to develop a nuclear weapon within months. And I believe it is in the U.S. interest that Iran is not a nuclear power sponsoring terrorism.

As dangerous a threat that Iran is to Israel and our allies, it would pale in comparison to the threat posed to them – and us – by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Would I prefer a deal that dismantles their entire program forever and ends all of Iran’s bad behavior? Of course I would. But how do we get the “better deal” that the opposition wants? We don’t if the sanctions fall apart. And that is exactly what would happen if we reject this deal. Iran will emerge less isolated and less constrained to build a nuclear weapon.

Under the deal, we keep most of the world with us. That means, if the Iranians cheat they know that we can snap back the economic sanctions and cut off their oil money.

This joint agreement declares that Iran will never ever be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. If they break their agreement, even in 10 or 15 years, every financial and military option will still be available to us and those options will be backed by ever improving military capabilities and more and better intelligence.

So, when I look at all the things for the agreement and against the agreement, it becomes pretty obvious to me to vote in favor of the agreement.

Spectacularly Poor Climate Science At NASA

August 3, 2015/in Environment, Policy, Politics, Science/by John Droz, Jr.

Dr. James Hansen of NASA, has been the world’s leading promoter of the idea that the world is headed towards “climate disaster.” There is little evidence to back this up.

In 2008, Hansen wrote about “stabilizing” the climate:

Stabilizing atmospheric CO2 and climate requires that net CO2 emissions approach zero, because of the long lifetime of CO2

Yet in 1999, he made it quite clear that past climate was not stable, and that there was little evidence to support that idea that the climate was becoming unstable.

Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

NASA GISS: Science Briefs: Whither U.S. Climate?

In that same 1999 report, he showed that US temperatures peaked in 1934, and declined through the rest of the century.

NASA fig1x.gif (500×182)

In 1989, NOAA and the UK’s leading expert agreed with Hansen that [the] U.S. had not warmed.

February 04, 1989

Last week, scientists from the United States Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that a study of temperature readings for the contiguous 48 states over the last century showed there had been no significant change in average temperature over that period.

Dr. (Phil) Jones said in a telephone interview today that his own results for the 48 states agreed with those findings.

Global Warmth In ’88 Is Found To Set a Record – New York Times

But in the year 2000, NASA and NOAA altered the historical US temperature record, which now shows that there was about one degree centigrade US warming during the century before 1989.

NASA Fig.D.gif (513×438)

The animated image below shows the changes which Dr. Hansen made to the historical US temperature record after the year 1999. He cooled the 1930s, and warmed the 1980s and 1990s. The year 1998 went from being more than half a degree cooler than 1934, to warmer than 1934.

Hansen’s recent temperature data tampering is not limited to the US. He has done the same thing all over the planet. Below is one recent example in Iceland, where he dramatically cooled the first half of the century, and warmed the present. He appears to be trying to erase evidence that there was a very warm period in much of the Arctic around 1940.

Original version Altered version

The changes in Reykjavik, Iceland were particularly heinous – because they were specifically objected to by the Icelandic Met Office. Meteorologist Mark Johnson contacted the senior expert at the Icelandic Met Office and asked him about NASA data tampering in iceland. Here is their exchange :

1) Are you happy with the adjustments as they stand right now?

No, I am not happy with the adjustments as they stand, but I might no be quite up to date. I don’t know if they have been making additional changes during the last 2-3 weeks.

2) Have you or any of your staff contacted or been contacted by anyone from NASA Goddard Space Institute officials?

No, but we made some contact with them about 5-6 weeks ago. Best wishes,

Trausti Jónsson senior meteorologist Icelandic Meteorological Office

The altering of Icelandic data by NASA was particularly troubling, because the cooling from 1940 to 1980 was a well known and difficult historical period in Iceland. NASA erased Iceland’s history, without even the courtesy to contact Iceland’s experts.

Additionally, we know that there was tremendous warming in the Arctic prior to the 1940s, which Hansen has erased from the historical record in Iceland, Greenland and elsewhere.

In 1947, noted geophysicist Dr. Hans Ahlmann reported to the University of California Geophysical Institute that the Arctic had warmed ten degrees since 1900.

31 May 1947 – Warmer Arctic Climate May Raise Ocean Levels

Arctic warming was well known as early as 1922.

Many leading experts prior to the Hansen era, agreed that the earlier Arctic warming was real, and quite dramatic.

CLEVELAND, Feb. 16 (A.A.P.) Dr. William S. Carlson, an Arctic expert, said to-night that the Polar icecaps were melting at an astonishing and unexplained rate and were threatening to swamp seaports by raising the ocean levels.

Leading Arctic expert from 1953

The glaciers of Norway and Alaska are only half the size they were 50 years age. The temperature around Spitsbergen has so modified that the sailing time has lengthened from three to eight months of the year,”

Leading Arctic expert from 1952

LONDON (A.P.).-The earth is getting warmer. The oceans are getting deeper. The glaciers are getting smaller. Even the fish are changing their way of life.

All this and more is going on because of a vast, unaccountable, century-by-century change, in climate. In his study at Bedford College in London, Britain’s distinguished geographer, Professor Gordon Manley, is worrying about it.

Leading geographer from 1950

Dr. Ahlman urged the establishment of an international agency to study conditions on a global basis. Temperatures had risen 10 degrees since 1900. The navigable season along Western Spitzbergen now last- ed eight months instead of three.

Leading Arctic expert from 1947

it was concluded that near Polar temperatures are on an average six degrees higher than those registered by Nansen 40 years ago. Ice measurements were on an average only 6½ feet against from 9¼ to 13 feet.

Russian report from 1940

Similarly NASA temperature records for Antarctica have also been altered. In 2005, NASA showed most of Antarctic on a long term cooling trend, but in 2007 they changed it to a long term warming trend – despite the fact that 2007 was the year of record sea ice in Antarctica.

The map below from 2005 shows long term cooling.

SVS Animation 3188 – Antarctic Heating and Cooling Trends

In 2007, they replaced the image above with a different one which incorrectly showed long term warming.

Disintegration: Antarctic Warming Claims Another Ice Shelf : Feature Articles

NASA has been altering data and changing the historical record from one pole to the other. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of these changes have trended towards more warming than the original thermometer readings indicated.

Misprediction

In 1988, Hansen made three very famous forecasts (shown below) of temperature rise, based on high, medium and very low (Scenario C) CO2 production.

His forecasts were very poor, and indicate that he has greatly overestimated the effect of CO2 on the climate. The graph below overlays the most recent NASA global temperatures (red line) on Hansen’s predictions from 1988. The red circle shows 2012 temperature anomalies so far.

NASA reported temperatures show more of an increase than satellites do, but even the NASA temperatures fall below Scenario C – which essentially assumes that people stopped producing CO2 in the year 2000. Hansen’s own data invalidates his theory, yet he continues to ramp up his claims about the magnitude of global warming. This is the mark of a very poor scientist.

Sea Level

Now, on to his claims about sea level. Hansen has consistently made sea level forecasts far above the upper bounds of those from the IPCC (18-59cm.) In 2007, he forecast sea level rise up to 25 metres to the US Senate, which is nearly fifty times higher than the IPCC’s highest forecast.

Antarctic blues and the Australian drought

In 1988, Hansen told (sympathetic) journalist Bob Reiss that the West Side Highway in Manhattan would be underwater within 20 or 30 years (2008-2018). In 2001, he confirmed and reiterated that claim.

While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”

And so far, over the last 10 years, we’ve had 10 of the hottest years on record.

Didn’t he also say that restaurants would have signs in their windows that read, “Water by request only.”

Under the greenhouse effect, extreme weather increases. Depending on where you are in terms of the hydrological cycle, you get more of whatever you’re prone to get. New York can get droughts, the droughts can get more severe and you’ll have signs in restaurants saying “Water by request only.”

When did he say this will happen?

Within 20 or 30 years. And remember we had this conversation in 1988 or 1989.

Does he still believe these things?

Yes, he still believes everything. I talked to him a few months ago and he said he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.

Stormy weather – Global Warming – Salon.com

Dr. Hansen has also been making wildly exaggerated forecasts about a wide variety of topics for almost three decades, like this one from 1986

The News and Courier – Google News Archive Search

In March 2006, he forecast a “Super El Nino” which went against the opinion of the expert community, and never materialized.

We suggest that an El Niño is likely to originate in 2006 and that there is a good chance it will be a “super El Niño”, rivaling the 1983 and 1997-1998 El Niños, which were successively labeled the “El Niño of the century” as they were of unprecedented strength in the previous 100 years.

– Prometheus: Out on a Limb with a Super El Niño Prediction Archives

In March, 2011 – he again predicted a strong El Nino which never materialized.

Based on subsurface ocean temperatures, the way these have progressed the past several months, and comparisons with development of prior El Niños, we believe that the system is moving toward a strong El Niño starting this summer. It’s not a sure bet, but it is probable.

http://www.truth-out.org/perceptions-climate-change/1301356800

In 2012, the NASA model is once again predicting a strong El Nino, which no one else is forecasting.

Why does James Hansen keep incorrectly predicting strong El Ninos? The reason is simple – they bring the temperature up, and he expects to see that. A very unsophisticated, lazy and ineffective basis for science.

Antarctic Ice

In 1984, Dr. Hansen predicted a large amount of ice loss in Antarctica as CO2 increases. The image below forecasts 40% albedo loss in the Ross Sea (after a doubling of CO2) which corresponds to loss of white, reflective sea ice.

www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/downloads/Challenge_chapter2.pdf

Contrary to Hansen’s forecast trend, Antarctic sea ice has steadily increased – particularly in the Ross Sea.

seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png (1122×912)

S_daily_extent.png (420×500)

Excess ice in the Ross Sea shown in the red circle above. This is the region which Hansen forecast peak ice loss.

Conspiracy Theorist?

Dr. Hansen has alluded on several occasions to the idea that there is a well funded group of people working to intentionally ruin the climate.

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist | Environment | The Guardian

“There is a very concerted effort by people who would prefer to see business to continue as usual. They have been winning the public debate with the help of tremendous resources.”

Scientist hits climate change skepticism – UPI.com

Hansen has never provided any evidence to support the idea that skeptics are either well funded or intentionally misleading the public, yet he frequently repeats this claim.

Dr. Hansen has suggested that fossil fuel corporation CEOs are intentionally committing high crimes against the planet – because they don’t believe his spectacularly failed mispredictions.

Hansen went on to say: “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

James Hansen: Try Fossil Fuel CEOs For ‘High Crimes Against Humanity

Additionally Dr. Hansen has been arrested several times for committing crimes in “defense of the planet”

Other NASA climate failures

Dr. Hansen is not the only climate scientist at NASA making spectacular mispredictions. Five years ago another NASA scientist predicted a possible ice-free Arctic in 2012

NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”

Arctic Sea Ice Gone in Summer Within Five Years?

Arctic ice extent is now within a couple percent of normal, and Alaska has the most extensive sea ice ever recorded.

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University of Illinois – Cryosphere Today

Summary

For the past 30 years, NASA climate scientists under the leadership of Dr. Hansen have demonstrated nearly complete incompetence in forecasting, and they have tampered with data to try to hide their mispredictions.

james hansen El nino 2011 prediction