Critical thinking 101: Do the math if the reporter won’t

“Reporters are faced with the daily choice of painstakingly researching stories or writing whatever people tell them.  Both approaches pay the same.”

            Scott Adams

“Thanks to the Information Age communications, people grow more ignorant every day. Tall weeds of groupthink and common knowledge crowd out the few pullulating shoots of real wisdom and truth. Collective dumbness spreads like kudzu. Soon there will be nothing else alive; we will know nothing at all.”

            William Bonner and Addison Wiggin, Financial Day of Reckoning

Wherever you get your news or whatever your position on an issue, I recommend that you evaluate a news story with a critical thinking cap firmly on your head.  This is preferable to donning a dunce cap.  It’s especially true if the story validates or reinforces your own opinions—you’re easier to fool in this case.  Bottom line: Don’t be a willing dupe in a world where our betters are inveterate conmen and journalistic standards a rarity.          

I know this isn’t easy.  In the Internet Age, which is the demon spawn of the Information Age, there’s a tsunami of online information to process each day, a lot of it puerile, prurient, or partisan in nature.  It’s the proverbial situation of quantity over quality, often meant to entertain, propagandize, or inflame, rather than inform.  It’s immediate, too, perhaps even livestreamed.  This results in little, if any, time for verification or staid consideration before it’s sent out into the ether and, hence, the consumer’s device. 

Think about how different things are today when compared with the advent of the telegraph, radio, or steam powered ships. Hundreds of years ago, news of an untoward event in Spain’s Philippines would take a year to reach the Spanish king, and a return message another year getting back.  Both journeys depended on the speed of the galleons bearing the messages. Doldrums or a terrible storm were the Internet outages of their day; seafaring pirates or a good forgery were the hackers; a virus infecting the ships’ crew was, well, a virus. This logistical limitation gave the opportunity for both a measured report and then response.  Much of today’s “news” wouldn’t be worth the effort of an ocean voyage under those circumstances; in fact, much of it wouldn’t be considered newsworthy in the first place. 

Nowadays, we can watch a YouTube livestream of a street in the Philippines, twenty-four hours a day.  Or the entire world can, within minutes of it happening, wallow in the news that a customer was allegedly misgendered at a fast-food restaurant here in the United States, the incident treated as a grave crime and somehow an indictment of our entire society.  Were such a triviality to have occurred in the Spanish Philippines, I can’t imagine a scribe wasting the effort to put a quill to parchment in order to send Spain a missive about the “incident.” The paper would’ve been a profound waste of space on the galleon. The king upon receiving the news would’ve thought his faraway minions mad.                   

Yes, this immediacy is a technological marvel, but it has its drawbacks.  Inanities are given more weight than things that really matter.  We’re sucked into vortexes of petty asshatteries that pre-Internet would’ve been contained as local gossip, if even that.  People are overwhelmed with information and inflamed into half-cocked reactions before all the facts are in, or before the information that is presented can be vetted or soberly considered.  I often struggle to keep myself calmed down in response to that moment’s outrage du jour.  It’s rumored the social media algorithms are designed to keep us in a heightened emotional state.  We’re lab rats which are part of a macabre experiment, albeit willingly.  The electrodes aren’t directly stuck into our brains (as yet), but we’re nevertheless subjected to an onslaught of manipulative stimuli.             

Amidst this modernity and its inherent madness, we hope to gather real information about important issues that is accurate and well-thought out, timely but not precipitous.  Ideally, this would afford people the opportunity to make informed decisions about issues that affect their personal and collective lives.  This also requires the context of a functioning democracy that allows open dialogue and debate. 

I think you see the problem.    

Our technocratic overloads, often in collusion with our betters, are now the gatekeepers of information. For certain issues, debate is deliberately avoided or outright crushed.  Otherwise, people in power might face uncomfortable facts in conflict with their agenda.  This has been true throughout human history, but today it’s largely the Woke who are tyrannical censors.  And, boy, do they relish censorship.  These modern-day fascists don’t cotton debate if it threatens their worldview, particularly if it involves their holiest of crusades—global warming, gender ideology, COVID, or anything to do with race.       

Instead of insightful news stories, a lot of the information we get is inane, poorly researched, misinterpreted, or outright gaslighting.  It’s presented in a way not to accurately inform the citizenry but to garner mindless clicks or propagate a specific agenda.  Hystericalists and liars reign supreme under these circumstances.  Alas, the thoughtful investigative journalist—a few of these remain—is unlikely to become an Internet star or find himself invited on mainstream media outlets to discuss his findings.  Thus, we’re cursed with comically false assertions, deliberately destroyed economies, medically mutilated children, and endless military misadventures.   

We must recognize that bad news—ginned up or otherwise—is a useful tool for those who would control us.  They know it’s human nature for people to be drawn to bad news.  Catastrophes and sundry tragedies get our attention.  It’s exciting and interesting.  It results in people wanting something be done.  It provides cover for those who intend to do nefarious deeds—every dictator must have at his disposal a convenient scapegoat in order to both distract and inflame those he would rule over.    

News should be accurate and not exaggerated well beyond its veracity, but we have few assurances that this is the case.  Therefore, when encountering news, take a deep breath and then give it some thought.  Real thought.  A dose of healthy cynicism is far healthier than blind acceptance of what we are told.  It doesn’t matter if the source of the information is a scientist, politician, pundit, celebrity, or God Almighty.  Keep your thinking cap on.   

Consider global warming.  The news is awash in global warming stories.  It seems that everything bad in the world is caused by it.  There is nothing so seemingly far afield that it can’t be linked somehow to global warming.  Whether or not you believe in global warming, you must recognize there are huge political and financial incentives for promulgating the global warming narrative—and ready punishment for those who don’t bend the knee to it.     

In regard to global warming or any news story, don’t immediately believe everything you’re told, even if it’s from me.  Also keep in mind that scientists are not immune from human biases.  They are subject to the same human failings as everyone else, and this includes cowardice.  A scientist studying climate must unquestioningly embrace the global warming tenets if he or she wants research money or a paper published.  A scientist studying something other than the climate is well-advised to somehow link a grant proposal to global warming, no matter how debasing are the contortions which are necessary.  If you want to study a critter—declare it a “sentinel animal for climate change” and funds may be yours.  Government agencies realize global warming is a useful justification for increased funding.  Heck, even the military is in on the act, claiming its bases are threatened by sea level rise—and, of course, need more money to deal with it.        

In addition to money, there are other pressures which lead a person to embrace global warming: maintaining Woke friendships, not getting one’s online dating profile swiped left, receiving a good grade in class, general laudations for being a good person.  These motivations require that a person go along with the Global Warming religion’s incontrovertible core belief: Its deity is real, settled science, caused by man-made carbon dioxide, and is imminently apocalyptic—and causes every bad thing that currently happens anywhere on Earth. This religion’s Eden is a paradise in which every day, everywhere is a warm, sun-kissed spring afternoon, caressed by a gentlest of flower-scented breezes, and over which glide puffs of cotton candy clouds.   

The problem is these “climate emergency” (née global warming, née climate change) news stories are rife with flaws, contradictions, misstatements, left out information, or staggering levels of hypocrisy.  The journalist may state assumptions that the person interviewed is not actually making.  The story may include claims of impacts beyond those which the scientists who believe in man-made global warming are actually prophesizing—or claim these impacts are occurring much sooner than predicted.  That these predictions regularly fail to materialize is never discussed.    

The media live by hyping up the world’s woes.  A murder today is better than a murder tomorrow.  Two murders are better than one.  More sharks are better than fewer sharks.  A mysterious disappearance or appearance of sharks that can be blamed on global warming is better than a mystery not solved or is found due to more mundane reasons.  A nice spring day is boring.  A hurricane slamming into a populated area is a delight.  A sharknado “caused by global warming” that destroys an orphanage would be a journalist’s wet dream!

The control of information is a powerful tool—a veritable Swiss Army knife—for those who would lord over us.  The COVID mandates, which crushed economies and stripped the world’s people of their livelihoods and liberties, proved to our betters that we’re largely compliant sheep waiting to be shorn.  Pushing one narrative while crushing dissenting ones is surprisingly easy in the Internet Age.  Consider COVID a fabulously successful test run for much worse yet to come.

At this point, as a retired public health professional who was once tasked with enforcing COVID mandates, I must tell you this in all sincerity: The sweeping mandates, which destroyed economies, took away the right of bodily autonomy, and gratuitously enriched our betters were a huge mistake and must never be allowed to again happen. In the event of a pandemic, we must focus our efforts on the truly vulnerable population rather than indiscriminately and hysterically apply the public health version of a scorched earth military campaign. There were indeed those among our betters who saw the COVID mandates as a template for similar “climate change lockdowns.” Do not let this happen!

Global warming gives the Woke and our betters another excuse for controlling information, which is then used to bludgeon us into meekly accepting the justifications for their mischief.  They are enabled by gullible celebrities and intellectually incurious journalists who are, therefore, convenient abettors, if not outright co-conspirators.  These so-called journalists may be told things that are readily verifiable as true or false, but they rarely make the effort to double check.  For example, a back of the envelope check of purported catastrophic sea level rises easily debunks these claims.  The fact that predictions of sea level rises vary greatly in height and speed, and the deadline to avert a climate doomsday is slipperier than a greased eel, should be huge red flags for any journalist possessed of a modicum of investigative DNA, but instead these claxons are wholly ignored by the mainstream media. Merely bringing up these inconvenient facts is sure to bring hellfire down upon the head of any would-be contrarian.       

What do we do?  How do we become better consumers of information and, hence, more engaged as responsible citizens? 

Here are some basic questions to keep in mind when reading a news story about global warming.  These questions can be adapted and applied to other issues as well.  

• Does the reporter have an incentive to make the news seem unduly bad?  The answer is almost always hell yes.  Unless they’re doing the occasional banal “feel-good” story, reporters want the news to appear as bad as possible.  The news media and social media sites want clicks and views.  Their ad revenue depends on this.  A hilarious example of this are the videos of on-scene weather reporters during major storms.  They’re dressed in inclement weather gear and seen struggling against the storm’s terrible wrath, deliberately leaning into the wind to avoid being blown over.  In some situations, they may indeed face a true battle against Mother Nature.  But reporters have gone viral acting like a captain on a heaving, storm-tossed ship, while behind them you see people ambling along as if they were on a different planet from our intrepid newsperson.  Equally comical is the scene of a reporter sitting in a canoe amidst floodwaters—and then a person wades past it, through the calf-deep deluge.  Though humorous as hell, these deceptions are unethical gaslighting deliberately done to make things appear worse than they are. 
• What specific incentive does the person interviewed or providing the reporter information have that might compromise the story’s accuracy or veracity?  Whoever is providing the reporter information wants the news to come across as good or bad as possible, depending on how it affects him or her, regardless of the truth.  Money, power, and revenge are powerful motivators. Politicians want power for themselves and money for their special interests (i.e., donors).  So-called “antiracists” (race grifters) must find racism under every rock.  The medical-industrial complex wants to medically transition children. Scientists desire grant funding and their papers published.  The Woke need manufactured drama to fill their empty lives and provide them cheap sanctimony.  Our betters want money and control.  Global warming provides all this and is the grift that keeps on giving—it is in essence the ultimate scapegoat.   
• Is the news really that bad in the context of Life?  We must keep in mind that things are rarely as bad as they seem.  The human race has survived countless struggles and catastrophes, both natural and manmade.  We are a remarkably resilient species, as is Nature itself.  Life today is, by many important metrics, far better than life in the past.  We are healthier, live longer, and famine is a rarity.  Deaths from natural disasters are far fewer than in the past.  (Yes, far fewer.)  The poorest among us have access to things which were unavailable to the richest person on Earth a few hundred years ago (e.g., cell phones, vaccines).  Alas, this perspective is irrelevant to a reporter.  Screw context.  Doom and gloom in the here and now is what sells.  Nevertheless, be a better person than a journalist. Keep life in perspective, including its historical context.  Ask yourself, would you rather live in today’s world or the word as it was two hundred years ago?  Would you rather live in a present-day Third World country or one with a Western standard of living?  Greta Thunberg—the high priestess of Global Warming—claims we stole her future.  No, we didn’t.  The past, especially the use of fossil fuels, gave her the marvelous (albeit imperfect) world we live in today, and set the stage for even better years yet to come if we don’t foolishly throw away this progress—the Woke are hellbent on doing exactly that.         
• Did the reporter accurately characterize the scientific report or what the scientist said?  Headlines don’t always accurately reflect what the actual story says or what the reporter was told.  Every storm or untoward event is linked to global warming, often with the insinuation—or outright claim—that said event never happened before or was never as bad.  Refuting this may require you review the source material or historical records, which is something journalists should do as a standard practice.  Some scientists do attempt to be honest, admitting the uncertainty inherent to science, but then the reporter inflates things.  This is why you should read the entire article.  Look for key phrases that belie what the headline or bulk of the article may say: “May cause…”; “Could cause…”; “Warrants further study…” A phrase such as “worst/hottest/coldest/driest/wettest ______ since 1939” actually means that 1939 was worse than (or equal to) what it’s being compared to today.
• Does it make sense?  Do the numbers add up (see below)?  Does it sound feasible or realistic?  What is your Spidey sense telling you? When you’re told that this is the worst “____” ever, does it make sense based on actual historical records?  What is the methodology used (e.g., what definition of “sexual assault” is used in crime statistics)?  Don’t expect reporters to invest any effort checking numbers or the methodology used to derive the numbers—or doing even a basic Internet search.  God bless the ones who do, though.      
• Is there an obvious underlying agenda?  Cannabis companies are unlikely to admit their product is harmful.  The NFL is motivated to downplay the risk of concussions.  The military-industrial complex requires an endless parade of adversaries.  The mayor wants to downplay crime; his election opponent wants to amplify it.  And on and on.       
• Are people afraid to tell the truth or question the accepted narrative?  In other words, is the person saying it because he believes it or because he fears not appearing to believe it.  A lot of smart, sensible people, including many scientists, either don’t believe in man-made global warming or don’t think it’s serious enough to warrant the drastic and economically destructive actions which our betters want to implement.  But they’re afraid to speak because they’ve seen what happens to those who do.  
• Is there evident hypocrisy?  Those who say they believe in global warming are the biggest hypocrites to ever walk God’s green Earth.  It’s obvious from their carbon dioxide spewing behavior that most of the people who say they believe in global warming either don’t believe it or behave as if they don’t.  One can argue that some people are better coaches than they are players, but with global warming the claims of both contemporaneous and imminent apocalyptic consequences are emphatically made, so those squawking about it should not clomp about with leviathan carbon footprint boots.  In fact, a person’s carbon footprint size seems to measure in direct proportion to how much they yap about the dangers of global warming.  Two of the biggest (and most sanctimonious) yappers are Bill Gates and Barak Obama.  Bill Gates purchased and is extensively remodeling sea level beachfront property in Del Mar, California.  Barak Obama is doing likewise in Hawaii.  This is typically what the affluent squawkers do.  They scold us while generating a shitload of gratuitous carbon dioxide.  Remember: None of our betters are selling at fire sale prices their “doomed” beachfront properties.    
• Is the “settled science” claim being made insistently?  The fact this assertion is made over and over is, by itself, an indication of the person’s insecurity about their own beliefs. An ethical scientist would never assert that anything is forever settled.  Scientific findings are not incontrovertible.  The essence of science is the challenging of currently accepted theories; otherwise, we’d still be living in caves and Newton’s work would not have been improved upon by Einstein.  The brave heretics who challenge the Global Warming religion have good data and thoughtful analysis on their side, and they come across as nice, rational people—and, of course, get attacked for it.   
• Is one side obsessed with suppressing the other side?  Suppression of dissent should be a signal flare calling into question the honesty of the attacker’s claims.  A good rule of thumb: The degree of truth of one side is inversely proportional to the amount of effort they expend preventing dissenting views.  Challenging a viewpoint is often a healthy thing (it’s evidence of a free society); suppressing it, quite another.
• Is deliberately tricky language used?  In 2022, President Biden made a big to-do about an executive order which “pardons federal convictions for simple marijuana possession convictions.”  At first people thought this was a big deal.  Wow, he’s letting people out of jail for marijuana crimes.  But if you look at it carefully, as some folks did, you see the abject cynicism behind this ploy: There was currently nobody in federal custody for only simple marijuana possession.  Nobody was getting out of jail.  Similarly, President Biden claimed he was waiving a portion of student loan debt.  He doesn’t have the legal authority to do—and knew full well this was the case when he did it.  
• Is a contrary avenue of research unlikely to be funded?  Don’t assume scientists are courageous.  There are avenues of research or conclusions within allowed areas that are absolutely verboten.  This corrupts science.  Research money is not flowing to those whose investigations might support the counternarrative to either global warming or any other tenet of Woke ideology.
• Am I being manipulated?  Likely, yes.
• Lastly, am I willing to read sources with differing opinions in order to have well-rounded understanding of an issue?  This one is on you.  If you insist on being cocooned within an echo chamber, you are a willing dupe.  Read widely, including information related to all sides of an issue. Hold “your side” to scrutiny, too.

With these questions in mind, let’s tackle an example.  

In May 2014 California Governor Jerry Brown warned that sea level could rise 4 feet over the next 200 years and threaten the Los Angeles International Airport.  (Take note of the squishy word “could.”)  A spokesman for the Governor subsequently issued a statement that “the governor misspoke about LAX.” 

It is unclear from the sources I reviewed who it was that took issue with the Governor’s statement.  The original news story contained no such challenge, though the reporter could’ve easily done so if he or she made the effort to check the veracity of what was said.  It is amazing how journalists won’t bother to do elementary school level math, which would call into question a statistic they were just told.  Governor Brown’s speechwriter certainly should’ve done so beforehand, thus avoiding the gaffe altogether. 

Alarming claims about the impacts of global warming are made daily, so we’ll take our then-governor at his word.  On its face, this sounds terrible.  Wow, a giant airport impacted, though two centuries in the future.  What should we do?  Don’t panic.  Put our caps on and consider the following:

• Fluctuations in sea level have occurred many times in the Earth’s history as ice ages come and go.  Sea level has risen approximately 390 feet since the last ice age ended about 20,000 years ago.  Most of the rise occurred prior to the Industrial Age, and the rise has been leveling off after an initial “rapid” rise. 
• Sea level rise is not uniform everywhere.  In fact, post-glacial rebound (isostasy) causes a drop in sea level in some locations because the land is rising (springing back up after being pushed down by the weight of the massive ice sheets that covered the Earth during the last ice age).  This is not a factor in Los Angeles, but ironically it is in Scandinavia, home of Greta Thunberg; parts of the Baltic are rising out of the sea.
• Some land is sinking due to reasons unrelated to sea level rise: subsidence caused by compaction, groundwater extraction, or oil extraction.  Natural geological factors return land to the oceans, such as natural erosion or an effect related to isostasy.  Isostasy is like a seesaw, which means the land that rises may be counterbalanced by other land that is sinking.  Irrespective of sea level rise, some land is doomed to become submerged or erode away due to factors which have nothing to do with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. 

Math time.  Here’s what the reporter (or the Governor’s speechwriter) should’ve done:

• Tidal gauge for Los Angeles harbor shows a steady increase since 1925 of 1.03 mm of sea level rise per year.  (Another source says 0.83 mm/year.)  The point is it’s a slow rate.
• LAX is 111 feet above sea level (one source says 125, but we’ll use 111).

Using this information, how long would it take to:

• Rise 4 feet (Governor Brown said 200 years).
• Rise 111 feet to reach the airport’s elevation.

Information to use:

• There are 25.4 mm per inch.
• There are 12 inches per foot.
• There are 304.8 mm per foot.

Using this information, we get:

• Rise 4 feet (Governor Brown said 200 years)…1,183 years
• Rise 111 feet…32,847 years

The airport is not threatened by the ocean. The San Andreas fault may have other ideas.

Are there other factors to consider?  Remember, we have our cap on, so we must ask ourselves about the long-term risks to LAX:  

• Will the sea level rise in Los Angeles stay at the same rate, increase, or decrease? 
• Will it reverse and sea level then start dropping?  A natural cooling cycle could return, which would increase the size of the ice sheets, hence dropping sea level.  Some global warming models predict an increase in the Antarctic ice sheets.  This factor has been largely ignored because it can’t be made into a hysterical story—yet.
• What are the effects of erosion or deposition of material at the coastline during long timeframes?  This can push a coastline further in or out.
• Will there be natural or manmade land subsidence?  
• Will the Milankovitch cycle or other natural climate impacting cycles occur?

There is compelling evidence that there is nothing unusual about the current climate, including extreme weather events, either from a historical or geological timeframe.  Though some Global Warming cultists believe otherwise…droughts, heatwaves, blizzards, floods, tornados, hurricanes, and sea level fluctuations have occurred throughout the Earth’s history and shall continue to occur irrespective of the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere.   

Yes, the weather changes naturally and is affected by solar, orbital, and terrestrial cycles of varying length.  This natural variability can impact a human society.  Ancient civilizations collapsed because the climate changed, thereby devastating their agriculture.  Regardless of the cause, and whether or not you believe in global warming, it is prudent to plan for the climate changing because of natural reasons.  We should make sure our infrastructure is hardened against storms, floods, and wildfires—or not building in places unduly at risk for these events.  We should make plans for long-term droughts or permanently shifting climate patterns that impact agriculture.

Sensible people, whether or not they believe in global warming, can agree on the need for similar strategic planning that would coincidentally reduce the amount of carbon dioxide generated by human activities.  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant—it is an essential gas for life—but it is a byproduct of combustion that does produce pollution.  Therefore, a common desire to reduce air pollution, provide reliable energy to the entire world so everyone can have a good standard of living, and plan for the eventual exhaustion of fossil fuel supplies should lead us to common goals, one of which must be greatly expanding our use of nuclear power.  I’ll be blunt here: If you claim to believe in global warming and all its attendant horrors but are against nuclear energy, you are at best a foolish child.  More likely you’re a Woke moron with a disproportionately large carbon footprint who is using global warming as a weapon against others or to obtain smug virtue via economic and agricultural suicide.      

Therein lies the heart of the problem.  The Woke are not reasonable people.  They have done great harm and intend a lot more.  Those who espouse the Global Warming dogma want catastrophic changes to economies and agriculture—and a drastic reduction in the number of us humans.  Among their unforgivable sins, they practice energy racism by denying Third World countries the energy infrastructure which industrialized societies used to obtain their standard of living. 

The societal changes proposed by the Woke in response to their climate emergency shall be far more disastrous than changing climate, even if their core tenet of man-made warming is true.  They use global warming alarmism to further their nefarious agenda, which at its heart is the desire for control over others.  A dangerous agenda which poses the risk of poverty, destruction, and death.  Yes, death. Death shall result not just because of the Woke’s desire for deindustrialization and upending modern agricultural practices, the latter replaced with widespread organic or boutique farming. They want more than the mere destruction of modern economies and agronomy. They want far fewer of us. Billions fewer. This is the madness which leads to genocide.  

I do not make such claims lightly.  Such a bold, inflammatory statement may ring in your ears like a cacophony of discordant church bells.  Perhaps you question my sanity, think me a conspiracy nut.  Believe what you will about me.  The Woke want far fewer people in the world, and when combined with their global warming hysteria—they’re ones who use terms like “apocalypse” and “extinction” and “only a few years left to act”—the perfect mixture for horrific deeds is in place.       

Don’t let it happen.  Seriously, don’t let this happen.