In January, my wife and I had the opportunity to teach at Chapman University, where I am a Presidential Fellow for 2014. She taught a class in poetry, and I taught “Modern Political Economy: Who is Winning the Battle of Ideas?” I used my textbook, “The Making of Modern Economics,” now in its 2nd edition.
One of today’s controversies is about pollution and the environment. We talked about a recent address by U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who warned students in Indonesia that “global warming” is “the greatest challenge of our generation,” more than disease outbreaks, poverty, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Then he demonized anyone who disagrees with him, calling critics of global warming “shoddy scientists and extreme ideologues.” You could say the same about Al Gore. Kerry added, “We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact.”
Kerry is typical of the hysteria surrounding the issue of ecology and the environment. Students are being brainwashed into thinking the problem is getting worse and worse. Kerry and the extreme environmentalists blame any weather disaster, the cold snow in the Northeast or the drought in the West, to global warming. You can’t argue with these fanatics.
I asked my students at Chapman University, “Has pollution declined or risen in the past 50 years in LA county?” Over half thought pollution was worse. The cold, hard fact is that pollution has been reduced sharply in LA county even as gasoline use has risen. See this chart:
The fact is that the average world temperature has been flat or declining for 17 straight years. If you want to know the facts about global warming and pollution, read this column by Larry Bell in Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/
During the class, a journalist visited my class and gave this nice write up: http://blogs.chapman.edu/
I will be returning to Chapman University on Wednesday, April 16, to give a public lecture as part of my Presidential Fellowship.
Students (each holding an American eagle silver dollar) join me in front of the Adam Smith statue at Chapman University.
I remember this! Sadly I was one of the misinformed students who assumed it was worse. It was quite interesting to see that most of the things that we assume are deteriorating are in fact improving substantially. Great lecture!