CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
Predictions for 2040 by the National Intelligence Council
by
M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
Miss Constitution wants to bring to your attention a little-known report put out every four years by the National Intelligence Council called Global Trends. In this 144 page document senior intelligence analysts prepare a declassified report available to the public about what they see as our future and the future of the globe. Research for this year’s report was also done by students at Princeton University. Many global think-tanks all over the world added their analysis to the report. It goes directly to the Director of National Intelligence who uses the information to recommend policy positions for a current administration.
In summary, the report paints a very dismal picture for humanity. Its five themes include global challenges, fragmentation of societies, disequilibrium, contestation, and adaptation to the challenges. The Council is not allowed by law to recommend policy. It provides this report to policy makers as a tool in their deliberations. The bottom line is that Climate Change – Global Warming – is a centerpiece to the entire report. Disease, (COVID-19 is the greatest disruption since WWII), financial crises, technical disruptions, fractured societies, global migrations, and dysfunctional state systems are really just inevitable streams from the FACT that the climate is warming due to human activity. The report cites resource depletion and food catastrophe as a result and sees the wealthier countries coming to the aid of low-carbon countries through collective action and artificial intelligence. Exclusionary nationalism and divisions regarding core values exacerbate fracturing and inhibit the collectivism necessary to cope with the disruptions caused by Global Warming. In an interesting bone thrown out to the West, the Report discusses a Renaissance of Democracies, admitting that the Democracies have contributed to an overall global improvement in quality of life. The Report takes the bone away again by implying that nationalism is an aggravating factor in coping with these negative trends.
Well, now. Miss Constitution sees this Report and its strongly implied policy recommendations similarly to how she views Critical Race Theory now being adopted all over the country in our public schools. They both start with a premise that is not necessarily accurate. I would remind all what we learned early in our educations. Science is a type of inductive reasoning. One begins with proven facts and comes to a conclusion. Each element of each fact must be absolutely proven as accurate or a conclusion cannot be drawn with certainty. For the National Intelligence Council to begin its analysis with an unproven conclusion means that all that flows from that unproven conclusion could be misleading. Global Warming, caused primarily by human activity, is NOT proven to be true. Scientists disagree about drawing a definitive conclusion because the subject is extremely complex and scientists have not had enough data over a long enough period of time to really know whether their hypotheses have merit. Computer models and programs may or may not be accurate provers of fact because they depend on the bias of the person who created the model. In current colloquial terms – “garbage in, garbage out.” If one wants to prove something true a computer can be programmed to do so.
Miss Constitution is not a scientist but would nevertheless like to share some thoughts from NASA’S Science News:
“In spite of what may seem persuasive evidence many scientists are nonetheless skeptical.”
“The earth’s climate is complex and chaotic. It is so unwieldy that researchers can’t conduct experiments to check their ideas in the usual way of science.”
“There is enormous room for differences of opinion among equally competent scientists of goodwill.”
As an example, NASA cites the hypothesis that Greenland’s ice shield is thinning. Laser pictures from space seem to show thinning on the edges – perhaps a sign of melting and Global Warming. But recognized scientists have other explanations that are possible and some even see the earth as actually cooling after a long period of warming intermixed with mini periods of cooling. Relative to Greenland:
1. There has been a natural variation in snowfall that might account for the thinning.
2. Every decade or so there is a phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation of warm water
affecting Greenland that might account for the thinning.
3. There has been gradual warming since the last glacial period some 10,000 years ago that is naturally occurring and might account for the thinning.
Scientists also suggest that external influences such as volcanic activity and its input into the atmosphere and fluctuations in the sun’s intensity have a natural influence on climate notwithstanding human activity. Don’t get Miss Constitution wrong – human activity has an impact on pollution, and environmental degradation, and resource depletion. Deforestation can be devastating to food supplies and long-term economic viability. All activities by human beings that injure animal and plant life and the sustenances that we need should and can be addressed both nationally and internationally in symposiums and conferences and “best practices” papers and voluntary and governmental commitments that are critical to respecting the earth and its natural resources. Our atmosphere covers all countries; our oceans touch many nations; our great fresh-water rivers flow as they will. It is not unreasonable to expect that developed nations share accurate scientific data with the whole world where it will help. It is also not unreasonable that developed nations lead in efforts to lessen pollution and promote clean air and water and preservation of precious resources that help less developed nations preserve what they have and improve the lives of their people.
What is not reasonable is to take a premise that has not been proven true and create national and international policy that has the effect of re-distributing wealth around the globe based on some ideations that themselves might be faulty. We are coming dangerously close to deciding that America has a moral duty to bankrupt itself over climate and dissolve into a new world global order. We are coming dangerously close to forcing everyone to accept what the National Intelligence Council calls “silos of information” that if one disagrees with forces “digital repression.” What this means is, if one is not sure that the cause of Global Warming is primarily human activity; if one does not agree that the Green New Deal is appropriate; if one does not agree that batteries should completely replace fossil fuels (the loss of rare earth minerals to make batteries will itself be environmentally devastating); if one does not agree with the entire Woke movement around climate; then what the Council implies should happen is that one be declared an “exclusionary nationalist” and canceled, so that those with the “accepted” global ideations can get on with questionable policies and the often negative ramifications of those policies without hindrance. See Steven E. Koonin Unsettled about this “existential crisis.”
Miss Constitution takes exception to this reasoning. She thinks the scientific method cannot be altered for wispy ideologies. She thinks the journey of America as a Constitutional Republic to be the best global model for handling climate and other issues to 2040 and beyond. A free, reasonable, intelligent, patient people, freely discovering, experimenting appropriately and morally, and sharing honestly is the best hope for all peoples. Miss Constitution hopes the American people demand we not make sweeping global decisions about climate until there is scientific certainty. Science can never be Woke – ever.
