Juan Cole-Scientist

University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole is not only a scholar when it comes to history, he is also a climate scientist in his spare time. Thus, when NY freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (all 29 years of her)  came out with her harebrained Green New Deal to save the planet, while most people laughed, Cole signed on immediately. In the below article from Cole’s misnamed blog, “Informed Comment”, Cole quotes a study by three British researchers that warns that THE END IS NEAR……..

https://www.juancole.com/2019/02/environmental-breakdown-what.html

First of all, let’s look at the Insitute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), where these three researchers work. I have learned to use caution when referring to Wikipedia, but according to that source, this institute is a left-wing think tank founded  in 1988. Its “primary aim was to provide theoretical analysis for modernisers in the UK Labour Party; offering alternatives to free market fundamentalism“.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Public_Policy_Research

IPPR’s current director is Tom Kibasi.

Let me be the first to state that when it comes to science, I am lost. It was one of those subjects in school that I could never figure out. Apparently, Cole, who as I stated, is a history professor, has no such problem. In fact, the way his article reads, it’s hard in places to figure out whether Cole is merely quoting the three researchers or simply throwing out a bunch of facts and figures on his own.

“And note that we’re only at the beginning. We have been putting 38.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere every year. Seriously, all, why would you do that? Some proportion of it will be up there for 100,000 years. Some of it will be absorbed by the salt oceans and turn them acidic, killing off half of marine life. But the average temperature of the surface of the earth does not yet reflect all those heat-trapping gases already up in the atmosphere. The oceans are huge and deep and cold, and will only very gradually warm up. The two poles and the Himalayas still have a lot of surface ice, which lowers the global average. But over the next few hundred years these brakes on rapid heating will go out and the disruption will accelerate. It is already accelerating in our own lifetimes faster than any scientists imagined just a couple of decades ago.”

Is that according to the British researchers or Cole? Is it true? Hell if I know, and I have no idea how these three British researchers rank in the “research” community, whether they are correct or full of it. If you read into their report, what is their solution? I suspect they want worldwide socialism and income redistribution. After all, according to them, “environmental breakdown” is a “justice” issue because it is caused by the wealthy nations and poor nations are most impacted by it.

At any rate, Cole is buying into it. His conclusion? We need Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal and we need it yesterday.

In which case, it’s already too late.