The methodology of a recent study was preposterous on its face.
.. the now-infamous new study from Lund University’s child-averse climate scientists, advising people to save the planet by giving up their cars, avoiding air travel, becoming vegetarians, and having fewer kids.
.. ultimately concluding that childbearing does far more damage to the planet than all the other actions they measured. Actually, it’s worse than all the rest combined. Parents, how do you live with yourselves?
.. Parenthood, of course, isn’t the sort of thing you can step into and out of on a per annum basis. That’s the excuse for blaming parents for the projected carbon emissions of their child’s entire life, and then adding still more to that total based on projected grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They’re leaning on this cool concept that another team of climatologists dreamed up, called a “carbon legacy.”
.. Each parent gets credited (or demerited) with half of every child’s projected lifetime emissions, a quarter of each projected grandchild’s projected emissions, and so forth down the generations. The cumulative total becomes your “legacy,”
.. It’s about visiting the emissions of the children on the fathers, ultimately convicting parents of the crime of perpetuating human civilization.
.. Is there a chance that studies like this play some role in widespread skepticism about scientific claims? Perhaps what we have on our hands is a “crisis of scientific authority.”
.. My own personal memories may be representative. As a kid in science class I was bombarded with Malthusian lifeboat scenarios. I recall one project that required us to generate “creative solutions” for fitting 8 gazillion people into a square mile. We sat drawing pictures of people standing in pyramid formations, passing shrink-wrapped meals up from conveyor belts, while our science teacher thundered on about how this was not science fiction, people, this was math. We heard endless dirges about the dying rainforest, and when I take my kids to science museums today I feel like I’ve walked into a time warp, because the appeals don’t seem to have changed a bit
.. People mistrust politicized science for reasons that any principled empiricist ought to respect: Personal experience suggests to them that it’s unreliable.
.. Wisely noting that “adolescents poised to establish lifelong patterns are an important target group” for environmentalists, Wynes and Nicholas want schools to attack the real problem: children having children, or planning to have them at some future time
Richard Rohr Meditation: The Great Turning
I know the situation in the world can seem dark today. We are seeing theological regression into fundamentalist religions which believe all issues can be resolved by an appeal to authority (hierarchy or Scripture) and so there is no need for an inner life of prayer. In the United States we have seen the rolling back of a compassionate economic system and the abandonment of our biblical responsibility for the poor, the sick, and refugees. Fear and anger seem to rule our politics and our churches. We see these same things in many parts of the world.
.. The Apostle Paul has a marvelous line: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). In so many places, there are signs of the Holy Spirit working at all levels of society. The church might well have done its work as leaven because much of this reform, enlightenment, compassion, and healing is now happening outside the bounds of organized religion. Only God gets the credit.
Where Did ‘We the People’ Go?
I fear we’re seeing the end of ‘truth’ — that we simply can’t agree any more on basic facts. And I fear that we’re becoming Sunnis and Shiites — we call them ‘Democrats’ and ‘Republicans,’ but the sectarianism that has destroyed nation-states in the Middle East is now infecting us.”
.. Seidman argued, “then there is no legitimate authority and no unifying basis for our continued association.”
59 Missiles Don’t Equal a Foreign Policy
the public performance of President Trump and his team throughout this tragic episode hardly inspires confidence. On the contrary, the administration demonstrated a dangerous degree of incoherence and inconsistency.
.. Despite a brutal six-year civil war in which Mr. Assad’s forces have been responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 civilians, and despite near universal opposition to his rule by leaders of the civilized world
.. Ms. Haley thought it was the right time to send a signal to Mr. Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, that the new American president’s priority “is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed this new view, which Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, described as a simple recognition of “political reality.”
.. For months they have suggested that “America First” meant that the country should not become mired in the region’s civil wars and violent upheavals.
.. public reversal
- .. Mr. Trump raised doubts about the longstanding “one China” policy, only to endorse it weeks later.
- .. contradictory statements about NATO
- .. There had been talk of scrapping the Iran nuclear accord
.. Where the administration stands on any number of major issues can depend on the day of the week.
.. inability or refusal to articulate — or even formulate — an overarching foreign policy beyond Mr. Trump’s nationalistic slogan “America First”
.. disconnect between Nikki Haley .. and the White House
.. give heart to dictators who view inconsistency as weakness.
.. Mr. Trump has allowed, or perhaps encouraged, the creation of confusing lines of authority and alternative centers of power within the White House
.. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, has emerged as the president’s foreign policy troubleshooter, playing a prominent role in the administration’s talks with China, visiting Iraq
.. These are jobs traditionally given to seasoned diplomats, something Mr. Kushner is not.
.. Fixing this problem is a straightforward matter of political power, will and discipline.
.. he has put down America’s moral leadership in the world while talking up dictators and strongmen