The
Chicken
Little Agenda
Debunking
Experts’
Lies
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Chapter
Summary
| Chapter
One |
“The Green Revolution”
|
| Chapter Two |
“The
Greenhouse Effect, Ozone Hole, and other Acorns” |
| Chapter Three
|
“The
Sun and the Atom: The only Sources of Electricity”
|
| Chapter Four |
“Nuclear
Power, Solar Power, and Things Beyond”
|
| Chapter Five |
“When
Nuclear Goes Wrong”
|
| Chapter Six |
“Reading,
‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic, Taught to the Tune of…” |
| Chapter Seven |
“Government—by the Bureaucrat, for the Bureaucrat” |
| Chapter Eight |
“Civilized Warfare” |
| Chapter Nine |
“The Anatomy of a Nuke” |
| Chapter
Ten |
“If Not Nukes, Then What?” |
| Chapter
Eleven |
“Morality and Ethics; or—It’s not my Fault!” |
| Chapter
Twelve |
“Starlight, Star Bright: the Cosmic Speed Limit” |
| Chapter
Thirteen |
“The
Chicken Little Factor” |
When
oil tankers run aground oil gets spilled. “Exxon Valdez” conjures up
images of oil-soaked cormorants, dogged volunteers cleaning up oil soaked
beaches, and protesters burning their Exxon credit cards. For years the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has collected a huge database covering
the Arctic and near-Arctic: The Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment
Program (OCSEAP). Comparing the region impacted by the Exxon Valdez spill
to this baseline shows no significant difference. Although not so rigorously
studied, the consequences of the Amoco Cadiz spill off the coast of
France in 1978 are similar. As often as not, human clean-up efforts following
such incidents exacerbate rather than ameliorate the situation.
The Greens are a loosely knit group of people that is
being led by a smaller cadre of ideologues who got their social science from
Marx and their physical science from science popularizers. They have built an
anti-freedom, anti-democratic, anti-science world view on this.
From Marx they learned about the collective, the
dialectic, and centralized control, without understanding the lessons from
current history. From the life sciences they learned about a connection between
chemicals and cancer, without understanding the nature of minute dangers and
minuscule concentrations. From physics they learned that reality is not always
what it seems to be, and drew misinformed analogies to eastern mysticism that
reinforced their radically subjective and intuitive approach to deep ecology.
From a marriage of Marxist theory and a misunderstanding of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, which states that energy in the universe never increases, they
developed a political-economic system incorporating no private land ownership
and never expending energy. From a misapplication of quantum physics they
derived a new world order that denies the cause and effect of market economics.
From ecologists they gained a superficial understanding of the oneness of global
processes and the living earth. Out of metaphor they created reality: the living
earth became a goddess.
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The
greenhouse effect is a very real atmospheric phenomenon that plays a significant
role in everyday weather. The problem is, we simply do not know enough about the
process to predict with any certainty what will happen as we continue to pour
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The
“protective ozone layer” on the other hand is a hoax perpetrated by
well-intentioned people and popularized by manipulated dupes.
The
Snail Darter, Spotted Owl, Pacific Salmon, and other “endangered” species,
in a word, are not. We focus on how we create such “problems,” and then on
how we “solve” them.
In
order to assess the potentially devastating problem of acid rain, in the 1980s
congress created and funded the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP).
It turns out this is a problem that exists primarily in the minds of
environmental activists.
“Water,
water, everywhere and not a drop to drink…” is a problem not limited to the
Ancient Mariner. As water sources dry up in the West, how to distribute what
remains becomes a serious issue. Dr. Williscroft suggests that tabular icebergs
from Antarctica may present a viable solution to this problem.
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In
the final analysis, the only two sources of electricity available to humans at
this stage of our development are solar and nuclear/thermonuclear. When we burn
anything to generate electricity, we release solar energy stored as biomass in
coal, oil, gas, wood, or even municipal garbage. We generate hydroelectric power
by releasing gravitational energy stored in rain drops evaporated by the sun
from the oceans and carried aloft by solar generated winds. Even energy
extracted from the rising and falling ocean tides ultimately derives from the
sun’s gravitational force.
Understanding
radiation is critical for understanding how nuclear power is created, and why it
is inherently safe for people and for the environment. In order to understand
radiation, we need to understand the basics of quantum physics, which - it turns
out - is not so difficult after all. Building on our familiarity with ponds of
water and pool tables, we gain an understanding of how the world of sub-atomic
physics can be used to our benefit.
Then Dr.
Williscroft demonstrates that “radiation”
is not the inherent evil promulgated by the Chicken Littles.
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The
only exception to solar generated electricity is that derived by releasing the
binding energy of atoms, either as fission when we split heavy atoms like
uranium, or as fusion when combine light atoms like hydrogen. We are expert at
the first, but we haven’t quite figured out how to accomplish the second. The
nuclear waste generated by the fission process has become a huge political
problem, but it was solved technically decades ago.
Dr.
Williscroft conducts a crash course in Nuclear Reactors 101, once again making
what seems complex amazingly simple. Breeder reactors are next, astonishing
machines that actually produce more fuel than they use. Dr. Williscroft explains
why we don’t
use them in America - politics (and junk science), of course.
Nuclear
waste is a trivial technical problem, but a huge political one. Burning biomass
to produce energy is the most popular alternative, but this also produces the
highest level of greenhouse gases. An elegant answer to the entire problem is to
generate power in orbit, beam it to the surface in remote marine locations where
it is converted to hydrogen gas. This clean gas is then transported either to
central generating stations or to the actual end users where it is converted
directly into electricity or heat, with absolutely no impact on the planetary
greenhouse.
Dr.
Williscroft also examines electric cars as part of the solution, and explains
exactly what is the potential of so-called Cold Fusion.
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Chernobyl
and Three Mile Island have become the twin icons of the anti-nuclear power
coalition. Dr. Williscroft first increases our knowledge of how reactors work,
in order to help us understand what really went wrong at Chernobyl and Three
Mile Island.
Chernobyl
was a bad thing by any measure, but it simply was not the disaster Greenpeace
wants the world to believe it was. It turns out that what Chicken Little has
told the world is entirely wrong. The facts are very compelling. According
to the Nuclear Energy Agency,
as
of April 2001, a
total of thirty-one persons had died as a direct consequence of the accident;
they were all either plant personnel or directly involved in fighting the fire
following the explosion. One hundred forty individuals from these same groups
had suffered varying degrees of radiation sickness and health impairment, but
all of these individuals recovered fully with no permanent consequences. Between
1990 and 1998, in the regions affected by the explosion and subsequent fallout,
1,791 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed and assumed to have been caused by
the radiation release. This is a far cry from the misinformation contained in a
Greenpeace Web site commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl
disaster, which stated flatly that 2,500 people were killed, millions were
affected, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
The
entire Chernobyl
tragedy
hinged upon the reactor becoming unstable when the coolant slowed, but this can
only happen in the RBMK reactor model used at Chernobyl, and nobody, absolutely
nobody else, uses this model. All other reactors would have shut themselves
down, period. The physical laws of the universe make it so, no matter what
Greenpeace and the other Chicken Little nuclear fear mongers say
The
1979 Three Mile Island accident was caused by a sequence of errors - mechanical
and human. Nevertheless, despite the outcry from the Chicken Little set,
everything remained inside the containment building. There was essentially no
release of harmful emissions. Had people reacted properly to the initial problem
instead of running around screaming that the nuclear sky was falling, the plant
could be in production today. More importantly, should a similar sequence of
events happen in a nuclear power plant today, the outcome would be a minor local
problem, and the plant would be back on line in a few days.
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Basic
education in the United States is a disaster, by any measure. There are as many
“reasons” as there are people giving the reasons. Dr. Williscroft examines
several of these for their ability to explain what is really happening, and he
proposes several innovative solutions, among these utilizing the skills of
retired experts who wish to pass on their experience to the younger generation.
How
to achieve quality education is, in part, a function of who does the teaching.
It follows, therefore, that Dr. Williscroft focuses on teachers as well. Among
other things, Dr. Williscroft examines tenure closely as part of his discussion
about evaluating teacher’s abilities and accomplishments.
Dr.
Williscroft analyzes the difference between education and training as part of
the overall picture of an educated society. In the final analysis, training
without education results in skilled automatons marching to a dictator’s drum.
A free society demands both.
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A
bumper sticker reads “If you like the Post Office, you’ll love Socialized
Medicine.” We chuckle, but there is more than a little truth in this
statement. Modern government has become a means unto itself instead of a means
to an end, which ought to be an orderly and safe society that maximizes
individual freedom.
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Reasonable
men do not seek out war. On the other hand, reasonable men can be forced into
battle despite their best intentions. When this happens, do rules matter? Is
there really such a thing as civilized warfare? What role do nuclear weapons
play, and is there a meaningful difference between those deployed strategically
and those employed tactically on a battlefield?
In
a free society, can we demand that our young people put their lives on the line
in defense of that society? In defense of that society’s international
commitments? In defense of individual members of that society who come to harm
somewhere else in the world? Where is the line that separates defending freedom
from enforcing tyranny?
Is Preemptive
War an option for civilized people? What is “Nuclear
Winter”?
Did (Does) MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) work? Dr. Williscroft examines
these provocative subjects, reaching some surprising answers.
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Can
we defend ourselves unequivocally from nuclear attack? What about terrorists?
Can they get and use nukes?
Dr.
Williscroft explains how we safeguard our nuclear weapons to ensure that there
is virtually no chance one can be used without specific authorization from the
President himself. He also looks at the probability that terrorists can obtain
and successfully detonate a nuke - not very likely.
What
kind of damage will a nuke really generate? Is Chicken Little correct, about
hundreds of thousands of deaths from a small nuclear bomb going off in
mid-Manhattan? Or is the sky really not falling here either? He also examines
the so-called dirty bomb, and shows that even this acorn is not a serious
threat.
The
anti-nuclear coalition has spent countless hours and millions of dollars
in trying to convince us that the nuclear sky is falling - but it is not.
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What about the unconventional
attack: biological, chemical, cyberagents? What about terrorists using these
agents?
Dr.
Williscroft discusses chemical agents, explaining what they are, how they can be
used, and how we can defend against them, and looks at the likelihood of
terrorists obtaining and using chemical weapons.
Then he
looks at biological agents, explaining what they really are and what they can
do. As in other chapters, Dr. Williscroft keeps the discussion light and
uncomplicated, and Chicken Little is forced to take a back seat once the facts
come to light.
Manpad
weapons
- shoulder launched missiles - are a threat that we originally brought to bear
on the Soviets during their Afghanistan war. Now we face the same threat against
us, possibly from some of our own weapons. Dr. Williscroft explains the threat,
puts it into perspective, and talks about how we can protect our civilian
aircraft from this potential threat.
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The problem in society today is that organized religion,
which has dictated moral behavior, is losing favor with the general population.
Since neither our families nor our schools are teaching anything resembling
ethics, the only available replacements are the “esoteric” alternatives that
are becoming so pervasive, or else the more visceral “street rules” that
govern urban gangs. The result is predictable.
Another element in modern society is the “victim
complex”, where we tend to blame everything but the actual cause for many
problems: addiction, alcoholism, gun violence, etc.
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The
universe is a wondrous place where twins can age at different rates, where worm
holes create shortcuts between distant parts of the cosmos, but light has a
speed limit; where time travel is for real, but paradoxes are not; where cause
and effect matter, and yet chaos is the coin of the realm.
Dr.
Williscroft has never lost his awe for these mysteries, and he shares his wonder
in a delightfully simple and completely comprehensible manner. The reader will
discover, for example, why Kirk never said “Beam me up, Scotty!”, and will
delight in learning that free will is part of the fundamental fabric of the
Universe. Dr. Williscroft explains our cultural misunderstanding of
“theory” and “hypothesis,” and with this understanding, the reader will
have a much better understanding of the conflict between science and religion.
Dr.
Williscroft is a “space enthusiast.” He brings his excitement to the reader
as he discusses the Final Frontier and its impact on humanity and our future in
the universe.
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Dr.
Williscroft wraps it up in Chapter nine. He examines the increasingly compressed
time scale that drives our civilization and our individual lives, and –
leaving no doubt whatever in the reader’s mind – makes it perfectly clear
that the sky is not falling, not now, not ever.
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