Whatever Happened to "Children Should Be Seen But Not Heard?"
Still believe that? "How dare you!"
Climate Change Targets the Poor, Elderly and Minorities
In my day, it was said that children should be seen but not heard. In this day and age, that old saying seems to have been turned on its head. Children and young adults are worshiped in certain circles as being the source of truth uncorrupted by prejudicial family influence or a Three-R education. This seems to hold particularly when it comes to the environment. Think Greta Thunberg.
A Chicago Tribune columnist opines that, “Young people are often the most vocal and concerned population regarding climate change.” That statement could also be interpreted as young people are the most susceptible to mind-bending indoctrination and the most likely to hold beliefs that later turn out to be utterly and often embarrassingly wrong. (This I know from experience, by the way.)
Citizens’ Climate Lobby
To its credit, the Tribune at least divulges that the author of the piece is Susan Atkinson who is “a volunteer for the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, an organization that spans the political spectrum to find common ground for climate change action.” Still, she is listed as a regular Tribune columnist.
Atkinson begins:
Older adults face unique challenges and heightened health risks from a warming climate (my emphasis, ed). It’s not just future generations that will be affected during some distant date in the future by rising temperatures.
A close friend expressed it this way: “As an elder, I have been reflecting on what I have personally observed, just in my lifetime, of the changes in the climate and environment. I think about my legacy — what I am leaving to my grandkids. I realize now addressing the problem is also about taking care of my generation too.”
Note that a warming climate is assumed, a given. So many climate scare scenarios are predicted for 2050 or 2100 or 2105 at 21:00—far enough out that few alive today will be around to check the results of the predictions. Apparently, the warmists have concluded that the urgency of the crisis must be expedited. If we are to scare the elderly into climate change terror, we must covince them that the threat is imminent.
To personalize the point, Atkinson quotes an elder whom she knows. S/he has, over an unenumerated lifetime, reflected on what she has observed about climate and environment. The observations are not detailed, but we are left with the impression that the climate and environment situation has worsened to the point that the elder must be concerned not just about his/her grandkids but about her own generation as well.
I also have a close friend who is an elder who grew up in Chicago and has observed changes in the environment and climate over a lifetime. That elder would be me, recently initiated into the Octogenarian Society. I have astutely observed that it gets colder in the winter and warmer in the summer. Some summers are hotter than others, and some winters are colder than others. But I have observed no pattern in the temperature changes, no straight line on a graph indicating that the temperature, on average, has changed over time or during my lifetime.
As for environmental changes, I can say unequivocally that air and water quality have improved immensely. In my early years, most Chicagoans were still heating with coal. I recall accompanying my uncle as he stoked the coal furnace in our Chicago two-flat. Virtually every building had a coal chute. The coal dust flew as the truck dumped its load into the chute and eventually into the coal bin in the basement. I still remember the smell of coal smoke in the air in winter, and the coal dust that was a nuisance to mothers everywhere trying to keep the household dust down and the laundered whites white.
I had childhood asthma, but I do not think it was related to air pollution. By the time my attacks began, we had moved to the suburbs. Our new house was heated with propane. After a few years, we were connected to a gas line and the backyard propane tank was history. The term environment was not yet in use, but it was generally considered better and cheaper to have a gas furnace and gas appliances.
At first, my mother had one of the old tub washers with a wringer. We kids were constantly warned about keeping our little fingers away from the wringer, yet there was something fascinating about seeing the wet clothes fed through, water squeezed out and the garment emerging from the rollers flattened beyond recognition.
Impacts of Climate Change Complicating Life for Seniors
I find that a lot of things complicate my life as a senior. Before reading this article, however, I would not have connected those complications to climate change. So let’s look at what climate is doing to me to make my life, already inconvenient, that much more inconvenient, according to Miss Atkinson.
• Mobility issues: Hurricanes, floods and wildfires can make evacuation and recovery efforts particularly challenging for those with limited mobility or pre-existing health conditions or who require assistance from others.
I do have mobility issues that were helped enormously after getting two hip replacements. From what I have read of serious studies, including those by the IPCC, neither floods, npr hurricanes nor wildfires have worsened in recent years.
• Respiratory health conditions: Conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, common among older adults, can make them more susceptible to respiratory problems.
I have already addressed the fact of my childhood asthma, a disease that no longer afflicts me. I challenge anyone over 60 to claim that air quality is worse today than it was in their youth in Chicago. Not only air quality but water quality. The Chicago River and tributaries were basically sewers when I was young. They are now clean enough to support water sports and fishing. Wildlife has come back with a vengeance.
• Heat-related illness: Increased heat waves can exacerbate heatstroke and heat exhaustion. Older Americans and people with chronic disease top the list of heat-related deaths.
There is no evidence that heat waves have increased in number or intensity. I experienced heat exhaustion on a 100-degree day when I was about ten. Heat waves in July and August were, and are, the norm. Two-a-day high school football practices in August were hell, as was trying to sleep during the long hot, humid nights with no air conditioning. Sheets were often soaking wet upon waking in the morning.
Susan Atkinson is merely citing routine life changes that we undergo as we age, then attributing the negative outcomes to climate change. She goes on to cite other consequences of catastrophic climate change that diproportionately affect the elderly: mental health impacts, access to health care and economic challenges. Connecting each of these to climate change is more of a stretch than the last.
Since the unusually hot summer of 1988 when James Hansen of NASA was invited by Rafe Pomerance to testify before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on June 23, 1988, in a building made uncomfortably warm by turning down the air conditioning, we have been treated to more and more dire predictions of climate catastrophe. None have come true, including former chief science adviser to Barack Obama John Holdren’s prediction that “it is possible that carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.” -Paul Ehrlich, The Machinery of Nature (1986), p. 27
Susan Atkinson’s column is little more than a climate as existential threat propaganda piece directed this time at older individuals who show more of a tendency to be so-called climate deniers. There is no serious analysis. No facts or figures or scientific opinion cited. No attempt at balance. Just a regurgitation of the same old myths. What purpose does this paper serve? When the Tribune becomes the next Los Angeles Times, I suggest it go with a more sympathetic spokesperson than Taylor Lorenz to make a case for the public’s sympathy.
The left also wants to allow 16 year-olds to vote in America, as they will for the first time in Germany this June.
"Harvesting" their votes in order to retain their grasp on power is all this is about, juts like unfettered "immigration" in both the EU and the US.