Climate Change and COVID-19 (EP.226)

Introduction

Both Climate Change and COVID models loudly claim to be based in scientific thinking, more specifically environmental science and medical science. The believers call the non-believers “deniers.” The non-believers call the believers sheep and big government dupes. I use the words believers and non-believers advisedly; people on both sides show a religious-like fervor when supporting their side, and slamming the other.

Today’s Key Question: How do you think through tough issues like these? What are your suggestions on how to serve others with COVID, climate change and other areas in our lives?

That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. 

Continuing

We just looked at today’s question, let’s look at Today’s Key Point. It is always 100% up to us as individuals. Everything from exercise to relationships to how we are governed. Not 50%/50%, or 75%/25%–100%. Always. First of all, we are the only entity we can control. Second, to the extent that we say that another entity is responsible for what happens to us, we are saying that we are powerless to do anything. And who wants to go through life feeling powerless? And isn’t allowing ourselves to feel powerless the first step toward thinking like a victim? And victims can want everything while solving nothing. 

The two sides on both COVID and Climate Change have lined up quite predictably. One side, let’s call them The Bigs, lines up behind the beliefs that: 1. Climate change is a global, existential threat, well worthy of spending tens of trillions of dollars domestically alone to combat, while fundamentally uprooting how we currently live–changing our lives and culture forever. All requiring massive, forced changes from a government big enough to enforce the required changes, and 2. COVID represents a similar, but far smaller threat, still worthy of spending trillions of dollars, with less permanent disruption to our lives. This side cites science as their primary proof that massive, ferociously expensive and disruptive action is mandatory, and the sooner the better. 

The other side, and we’ll call them the Smalls, seems to believe that any form of government control that restricts their personal freedoms violates their Constitutional rights. Both sides point to their own set of facts to make their cases. But, Will, aren’t facts, facts, and isn’t the truth the truth?  Yes, but–but–that requires two things to be true:

1. Everyone has to be looking for the truth, not just information and data that support their agendas and preconceived notions and
2. Hard information that can be treated as evidence, similar to the rules for qualifying to be evidence in a courtroom, needs to be available for all to see. With COVID, very little of that is available. Hey, even the number of deaths is disputed. And with climate change, the same dire predictions of, “All is lost in 10 years without massive change.” have been around for decades. 

So, what’s a mere mortal to do? At Revolution 2.0™, we do not line up with either the Bigs or the Smalls; let’s call ourselves the Revs. Here’s what we do:

• We think and act to serve others.
• We think for ourselves. We never rely solely on sources that all sound alike. We dig, compare and examine. We employ our own scientific method, not relying on others to spoon feed us. For example, we carefully observe, applying rigorous skepticism about what we see, given that our assumptions can distort how we interpret our observations. In other words, we challenge what others are telling us, and we challenge our own thoughts.
• We take 100% responsibility for everything in our lives, and everything that goes on around us. It is never anyone else’s fault, nor is it their responsibility. When we were attacked at Pearl Harbor pulling the US into WWII, we responded individually and as a nation, committed to the goal, the common goal, of demanding unconditional surrender from the Axis Powers. The Axis was the Empire of Japan, the attackers, Germany, at the time master of Europe, much of Russia and swaths of Africa and other geographies, and Italy, not master of much of anything. No one found fault with our government for not seeing this attack coming soon enough, nor was there a lot of time and energy spent on why we were not better prepared to respond to an enemy attack and win a world war. History proves that we were unprepared, with troops training with fake rifles, and trucks that had signs reading “Tank” attached to the side during practice maneuvers. There was no desire to waste time and valuable resources spinning our wheels in that blame-others ditch. There was work to do, so we set about getting it done.

Here is a current specific. “In 1899, a German bacteriologist named Carl Flügge proved that microbes can be transmitted ballistically through large droplets that emit at high velocity from the mouth and nose. His method for proving the existence of these ‘Flügge droplets’ was to painstakingly count the microbe colonies growing on culture plates hit with the expelled secretions of infected lab subjects. It couldn’t have been pleasant work. But his discoveries saved countless lives. And more than 12 decades later, these large respiratory droplets have been identified as a transmission mode for COVID-19.” -Quillette 

The bottom line here is that we must wear masks to protect others. Fun fact. Speaker Pelosi wears fashionable silk scarves as a mask, rather than more effective ones that are readily available to her. Trump said he was not going to wear one, and hasn’t. Minority Leader Schumer does wear a mask. I often wish they would all wear muzzles. And the science discovered by Flügge applied to the novel coronavirus makes a clear and compelling case for social distancing as well. 

BTW, do you think that the facts about climate change are any more settled and agreed-upon than the data surrounding COVID? If so, what are they?

It is time to repeat both today’s Question and Key Point:

• Today’s Key Question: How do we think this through, what do each of us believe, and how then shall we live?
• Today’s Key Point. It is always 100% up to us as individuals.

How do you think through tough issues like these? What are your suggestions on how to serve others with COVID, climate change and other issues in our lives? I want to know. Many others want to know as well.

Contact

As we get ready to wrap up, please do respond in the episodes with comments or questions about this episode or anything that comes to mind, or connect with me on Twitter,@willluden, Facebook, facebook.com/will.luden, and LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/willluden/. And you can subscribe on your favorite device through Apple, Google, or Stitcher.

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Will Luden, coming to you from 7,200’ in Colorado Springs.