December 14, 2020

Where Is The Criticism Of China From Environmentalists?

December 14, 2020/ Francis Menton

You undoubtedly are aware that the international environmental movement has almost entirely been taken over and consumed by the climate change scare; and you also cannot help but be aware of the constant drumbeat of attacks by environmentalists on the U.S. government, particularly under President Trump, for its failure to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to “save the planet.”
At the same time, you are a reader of the Manhattan Contrarian. Therefore, you know that China is not only not reducing its own carbon emissions, but instead has well more than tripled them over the past twenty years (during which period U.S. emissions have declined modestly by about 15%); and today China is in the midst of a new round of massive expansion of its fossil fuel energy generation capacity, particularly with respect to the most carbon-intensive fuel, coal. . . .

So then surely the major environmental organizations must be coming down hard on China? Wrong.

December 12, 2020

More Progressive Refusal To Deal With Reality: Climate Change

December 12, 2020/ Francis Menton

I’m going to start an ongoing series of posts on the subject of the refusal of progressives to deal with the world as it actually exists.
The post a couple of days ago covered the futility of attempting to meet racial goals in hiring for top jobs in professions like lawyers, doctors, corporate executives and computer engineers.
Today, let’s consider something just as futile: trying to affect world temperature by having one or more developed countries — even a country as large as the United States — reduce “carbon emissions” through expansion of “renewable energy.”
You will immediately recognize that this goal — emissions reduction by the U.S. sufficient to affect world temperature — is a principal promise of the incoming Biden administration.

December 09, 2020

December 09, 2020/ Francis Menton

Reality is harsh. Let’s face it, our world is imperfect, often even deadly. Not only that, it’s always going to be imperfect. So let’s get to work on enjoying our brief lives as best we can amidst the imperfection, while striving for such incremental improvements to the world as are within our modest capabilities.
If you think that way, you definitely are not “woke.” To be a woke progressive the first requirement is that you must refuse to acknowledge the real world as it exists. You must pretend that the world is something else, something immediately transformable into a fantasy of perfection through coercive collective action. You also must firmly close your eyes to any facts or evidence that might contradict such progressive fantasy, and indeed you must demand that any such facts or evidence be suppressed and never mentioned.
Among numerous illustrations of this point, perhaps the most striking is the current hysteria sometimes going by the name “anti-racism.” . . .

December 08, 2020

December 08, 2020/ Jane Menton

Back in October, weeks before the election, my dad, the Manhattan Contrarian, came home from his office and announced that he had purchased 6 MAGA hats. He wanted to know if anyone else in our family wanted one.
My dad lives in downtown Manhattan and commutes to his office in the financial district most weekdays via subway. Everyone in the family had the same immediate reaction: “You can’t possibly wear one of those in public - to your office or on the subway. You will get beaten up. This is not a joke. It’s dangerous.”
My dad, as he often does, dissented. His argument was that we need to show that we won’t be silenced…
He has a point. Throughout history and in the modern era, when we look around the globe, the silencing of any who disagree with The Party has been a hallmark of all authoritarian, dictatorial, and fascist regimes.

December 06, 2020

December 06, 2020/ Francis Menton

Have you heard of the “Great Reset”? Until very recently, I myself have only been vaguely aware of the term. But it’s time that we all start paying serious attention.
The term itself appears to be the brainchild of the World Economic Forum and its impresario Klaus Schwab. The WEF is the organization the puts on those conferences in Davos, Switzerland, attended annually by thousands of private jets and their cargo.
Up until now, you have probably thought that the cargo hauled to the WEF conferences was just a bunch of self-important stuffed shirts. You were not wrong about that.
But stuffed shirts can do quite a bit of damage if handed the coercive powers of governments.

December 02, 2020

December 02, 2020/ Francis Menton

My previous posts on the subject of Biden have mostly dealt with issues of corruption, energy and ”climate,” and to some degree foreign policy. But let’s get to the biggest of all domestic policy issues, which is the overall level of spending and taxation.
As with essentially every issue of public policy, when it comes to overall spending and taxes Biden is just all wrong. There is no nicer way to put it.
Biden has called for massive increases in domestic spending, and also massive increases in taxes. The tax increases he seeks are not remotely sufficient to pay for the increased spending, but would be more than enough to crush the hopes of millions of Americans ever to get a little ahead in life. . . .