her argument was not focused on climate science, but she felt obliged to pay tribute to it as one of those terrible problems that we will have to address together. A common occurrence in these pages, not just for her. You cannot really be a contributor at Project Syndicate, so it seems, unless you bow at that particular altar. It does not seem to matter what else are you writing about.



I find it increasingly difficult to take people who contribute to these pages seriously, because they are focused on imaginary problems. Sort of, like a tea and cake party in the salons of Marie Antoinette, in my opinion.



The real, economic, problem of the world is actually quite simple. The world population tripled in my lifetime, and I am not even dead yet (though coronavirus is gunning for the likes of me ...). This population growth occurred because of a collision between western medicine that drastically reduced the mortality of the young, and cultural imperatives in societies that, heretofore, existed under conditions of about ~50% mortality of the young. Until the cultural adjustment occurs, these societies grow exponentially, roughly doubling in numbers with every generation. There is no morality, or immorality in this, it is a natural phenomenon.



This population growth outran the ability of present day western civilization to accommodate. It is possible, even likely, that it can be accommodated eventually, but the growth occurred too fast. The US, with ~5% of world population, is still using ~20% of world oil production. To expand this usage to 7+ billion people, world oil production would have to roughly quadruple. To the average EU level, it would have to double. Very hard to do. People in poorer countries are beginning to get their political house together and they are competing with the "West" for resources, which is putting downward pressure on western living standards while simultaneously creating a lid on the advancement of these poorer societies. This, in turn, creates political tensions everywhere, which gives an opening to sociopaths who wish to establish themselves as fascist dictators. There is a crop of them in every generation, it is a part of the personality bell curve.



The only way out of this is through technological progress, which requires an unshakable commitment to science and rationality. Always a tall order, since human nature favors irrationality. Maintaining rationality requires sustained effort, from an individual and from the society, while irrationality comes naturally. Without commitment to science and rationality the world of 7+ billion people, never mind 10, is heading towards a terrible tragedy, particularly given that nukes have already been invented, are ready to fire, now at a whim of the likes of Comrades Trump, Putin, Xi, or Kim.



So now, coming back full circle to the climate science. As a physicist, I blame Physics, particularly Astrophysics, for this debacle. We have raised the whole generation of students, some of them are now "Climate Scientists", teaching them that the way to do science is to create a computer model with enough adjustable parameters to be able to fit anything that one could possibly measure. This is sometimes ok for the purpose of interpolation of a data set, but never ok for the extrapolation from this data set, unless you are fundamentally sure of the underlying physical model. Nobody can be sure of the underlying physical model of the climate, it is too complex, and we still do not understand all the physical mechanisms that couple the Earth with the Sun. This degeneration of Physics started with the Big Bang theory, which is something that is fun to talk about over beer, but is not science, as it is not subject to experimental verification. Ever. The rest, as I said, may be tackled by science historians, assuming that there is someone left to write such a history.



Climate science would have been an irrelevant footnote, if not for the fact that it undermines Science. This is why it needs to be stopped. I repeat myself. You cannot be half pregnant.



We will leave fixing Capitalism to another time, I got to walk my dog while I still can. The sun is still shining, here in Arizona, there is still food, even with the virus. It has been a pleasure talking to you my friend, good luck to us all.