Month: April 2023

This is the first in a series of excerpts from chapters in a new book

“Global Warming, aka Climate Change,” by retired Kaiser physician, Steven Schaefer.

Part 1 

Target Fascination

In 1977, while covering the emergency room in a small Wisconsin town and mentoring a senior medical student from UW-Madison, I was called to see a frightened young woman experiencing a “severe asthma attack”. Before I arrived, the student had treated her with epinephrine injections and oxygen, yet she was not improving. Upon my examination, it was clear she was experiencing a panic attack; she responded quickly to reassurance and a rebreather bag.

Taught in medical school was the concept of “target fascination”, a form of confirmation bias which could lead to wrong diagnoses, jumping to a conclusion without a careful evaluation of alternative diagnoses.

In a similar fashion, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shortly following the 1970’s panic regarding a fast-approaching Ice Age (!), blamed carbon dioxide, a trace atmospheric gas comprising 0.04% of the atmosphere, as the cause of rising temperatures following the Little Ice Age (1450-1750). The IPCC blamed man’s burning of fossil fuels from the time of the Industrial Revolution, ignoring the expected natural warming following an Ice Age.

Definitely a “misdiagnosis”!

“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds on one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, til their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, 1841.

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Part 2

Climategate and The Hockey Stick

Carbon dioxide levels have been rising steadily, three ppm per year since first measured in 1958 at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. However, it is difficult to link this steady rise to the unexplained heating of the 1930’s, cooling from 1940-1975, and the 18-year pause in warming, 1997-2014. In fact, The Pause forced alarmists to change the terminology from “global warming” to “climate change”, so any change in temperature could be attributed to carbon dioxide.

Major spikes in world temperature occurred in the El Nino cycles of 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16. These El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have nothing to do with carbon dioxide levels.

Early efforts to push the false carbon dioxide hypothesis included a cabal of climate alarmists at the University of East Anglia. Their manipulations of data, “peer review” of their own studies, and suppression of skeptics’ research was documented in leaked e-mails (“Climategate”).

Similarly, Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” delusion was a favorite tool to prove unprecedented warming in the past 1000 years, erasing the well-documented Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. His study involved bristle cone pine tree rings in California. Critics showed using his computer codes would produce a similar hockey stick spike by randomly selecting telephone numbers from a phone book!

Climategate and the Hockey Stick delusion should have derailed the alarmist hoax, but Al Gore’s slick Hollywood propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, was waiting in the wings. Roy Spencer, a well regarded climatologist, described the film as “full of disinformation, a campaign based on a litany of scientific half-truths, exaggerations and inaccuracies.”

“Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to non-existent knowledge and envision a cosmos centered on human beings, will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.” Cosmos, Carl Sagan, 1980.

4/4/23

Schaefer I

The suspicion many years ago was that smoking was bad for one’s health, and indeed this proved to be true. In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General released the first report on the health effects of smoking. After reviewing more than 7,000 articles in the medical literature, the Surgeon General concluded that smoking caused lung cancer and bronchitis. 

However, back in the day lawmakers did not totally ban cigarettes, but issued warnings about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. This then led to a concept that is apparently foreign to some in positions of authority today. Back then they informed individuals of the risks and then let the individual decide what he/she wants to do. They decided either to stop smoking or to continue to smoke. Whatever they chose, they made their own decision. After all this is America … or rather it was back in the 1960s.

Nowadays however, “those that know best” have not only decided that they absolutely know what is best for everyone, but they also feel empowered to make choices for the rest of us. In California the Dems in Sacramento feel that it is their duty to decide what foods and candy the citizens of California will be allowed to legally purchase within the authoritarian state of California. This is not recognizable as the America I once knew.

Nationally, the latest “we know what is best for everyone” is about gas stoves.

From The Epoch Times:

“The Department of Energy on Feb. 1 proposed a rule that would be a first-ever efficiency regulation for cooking appliances in the United States, setting new standards for both electric and gas cooking tops. The proposed rule was followed by an updated DOE analysis in late February that said about half of gas stove models currently being sold in the country wouldn’t be in compliance.

The DOE has not been the only Biden administration entity that had been targeting gas stoves.

In December 2022, Richard Trumka Jr., chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), said the federal government should ban gas stoves due to health concerns. He repeated the sentiment in January when he also said his agency was considering banning gas stoves.

A leaked memo showed that Trumka, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, wanted to ban gas stoves as early as October 2022.

‘There is sufficient information available for CPSC to issue [a notice of proposed rulemaking] in [fiscal year] 2023 proposing to ban gas stoves in homes,’ Trumka said in the memo.

Republicans have introduced bills to preemptively block any laws that would restrict gas stoves—the Save our Gas Stoves Act (pdf), introduced by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), and the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, introduced by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.).

These bills make it clear that Americans should decide if a gas stove is right for their families, not the federal government.”

This is more like the America I once knew!

4/3/23

I actually like the concept of noting and promoting acts of kindness and integrity. That is what initially prompted me to identify and praise those individuals who display either kindness or integrity on my Sunday blogs. 

Briar Poirier, 28, who’s worked for Market Basket for the past 8 years, was on checkout duty on a Friday afternoon when he encountered an older man paying for his groceries.

Renee Falcioni, an emergency room nurse from Killingly, Connecticut, was in another checkout lane and overheard an exchange between Briar and the man, who was dressed in veteran’s attire.

“The veteran attempted to pay for his groceries with a gift card, but he did not have enough money on the card, so Briar immediately took out his wallet and said ‘Don’t worry, I got this,’” said Renee.

Meanwhile, the cashier, who is autistic, recalled telling him, “You fought for my rights and my freedoms, it’s the least I can do for you.” He then thanked him for his service.

Renee said the veteran’s face lit up with a broad smile as he shook Briar’s hand.

Renee explained how, on returning to her car, she sat for a moment thinking how more people like Briar were needed in the world; and decided to spread the word on social media about his kind act, in an effort to help him get the recognition he deserved.

“[Renee] asked if she could write a review about me on social media, my response was ‘go for it,’ and ‘thank you miss,’” Briar said, adding, “As long as people are trying to help each other out now regardless of differences, that is what is important to me.”

Hats off to Renee!

Uber kudos to Briar Poirier !

4/2/23

Today I have taken the liberty to reproduce something that I recently read that was written by Kathy H.L. Since I do not know Kathy H.L. and do not know how to contact her, I could not ask her permission to put her essay on my blog. However since it was so good, I took the liberty to pass it on to you, my readers.

“As a child and adolescent therapist, I cringe when I see children in restaurants watching TV on their parents’ phones. Babies in grocery baskets are often engaged by I-pads instead of the sights and sounds around them. Teens in cars so rarely look out the windows while riding that they are afraid to drive because they don’t know how to get around in their own towns. We are stunting an entire generation. 

By not allowing our kids to experience the slightest period of boredom, we deny them the chance to learn to self-soothe or to discover their own imagination. If my childhood best friend and I were inside playing video games, we never would have hollowed out the big bush in our backyard to make a clubhouse. We never would have dug up my parents’ garden with spoons looking for buried treasures. How sad that would be, because those are my favorite memories of my childhood. 

“I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them. As a result,  we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, young chefs who will never make a mess in their kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against the wall, musicians who will never pick up their dad’s guitar and start strumming.” (Glennon Doyle)

Instead, we will create another generation of socially stunted young adults who are depressed, physically unhealthy and lacking motivation, imagination, and social skills. 

Electronics serve a purpose, but are being abused by parents and children alike. Please do your kids a favor and teach them to live in the moment. Sometimes, turn the electronics off.”

4/1/23