Some years ago I asked an old friend, who is a stockbroker and then in his forties, whether he was nervous about the expected onset of a bear market: one in which share prices fall over a long period? This was at the end of a very long bull market with steadily rising prices.
Yes, he said, he was pretty worried. Although there was no problem in managing funds successfully in these less favourable conditions, the city had recently gone through one of its periodic convulsions, with finance houses amalgamating, the upper echelons of management being ruthlessly culled, and new, younger, and more energetic blood being brought in.
He did not feel that there was anything wrong with this of course, but he saw problems ahead; in the short term at least. Although the new kids were bright and capable, they had learned their trade when the going was good and had experienced nothing other than relatively easy trading conditions. In his opinion, when the downturn came they just weren’t going to know what had hit them, and that could be a big problem for markets.
It would seem likely that a large proportion of the AGW activist movement are finding themselves in the same kind of situation at the moment. The eNGOs have grown rapidly over the last decade with a high intake of young graduates straight out of university.
So far, these keen young idealists have been pushing at an open door. Politicians, the mainstream media and, to a great extent, the general public too, have been sympathetic to their cause. No press release has been too absurd to find some journalist who will write it up. No scheme too fanciful or ill conceived to be turned down for funding. And all the time there has been an ever more vocal groundswell of public opinion urging them onwards.
There must have been periods of frustration for them of course, when progress was slower than they would have liked. But these clean cut knights in green armour had signed up to be campaigners after all, and few of them can have doubted that the triumph would be theirs eventually. All that was needed was to continually turn up the pressure with ever more extreme scare stories for the rest of the world to conform to their alarmist viewpoint.
They have become used to being hailed as the infallible fountainheads of wisdom on all matters to do with the climate, the arbiters of correct political opinion on environmental problems, and the conduit through which, provided sufficient legislation could be enacted and funding made available, the planet could be saved. The only opposition they have faced has been from a despised minority of sceptics who have persistently asked whether we can be sure that the planet really is in danger. These voices have been easy to marginalise and ignore. The forces of environmentalism have effortlessly occupied the moral high ground to such an extent that the merest hint of criticism of their views or actions has become tantamount to blasphemy.
What a difference the last two-and-a-half months have made. First Climategate, then Copenhagen, and now the seemingly endless revelations about IPCC incompetence – and worse – which is fast spreading suspicion that those who have been trusted to explain what is happening to the climate may have feet of clay.
If anyone expects that environmental activists, and the climate scientists who are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from them, will be able to mount a swift and decisive counter offensive that will win the day, they are likely to be disappointed. To do so would require them to react swiftly and with great skill to a situation that they have never faced before. These are folk who are facing the PR equivalent of shock and awe: terrifying, disorientating, and presenting a challenges for which nothing in their past experience has prepared them. Defending their beliefs is not something that they have had to plan for.
Recovery will require different skills, a new mindset, and a totally restructured strategy. This will not happen over night, and in the meantime, the panic-stricken desire to do something – to do anything – to stem the growing forces of scepticism will be irresistible. But deploying the tactics that worked so well for them in the good times is likely to have precisely the opposite effect to what they intend.
Last week, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, declared war on sceptics, and presumably he did so after consultation with those who have so successfully shaped public opinion on climate change.
Such a high profile campaign might have worked in October, or even early November, before the Climategate scandal broke , but now that even the Guardian is publishing stories that sound as though they have been lifted verbatim from the most sceptical blogs, his vituperation just sounds like a hopeless act of desperation.
At the moment, any attack on sceptics suggests that the person making it is unable to come to terms with the enormity of the Climategate revelations, or with the abject failure at Copenhagen and what that means for the balance of global economic power, or with the implications that continuing revelations about the IPCC will have for any future attempts to convince the world that AGW should be taken seriously. Mr Milibands declaration of war is more likely to encourage scepticism than vanquish it because it shows that he does not understand what is happening.
This morning the Sunday papers carry stories accusing the sceptics of launching a well-coordinated campaign funded by big oil. There is no convincing evidence to back this up of course, and as a sceptical blogger I know it is untrue. At one time or another I have been in touch with most of the high profile sceptics whose names have been appearing in the media recently. One of the things that troubles us all is that we are so totally and utterly uncoordinated and disorganised in the face of politicians and environmentalists who have vast manpower and financial resources to back PR campaigns run by experts whose calling is to manipulate the media.
Over the last few weeks, baffled MSM journalists have been desperately seeking out sceptics looking for guidance and background on breaking news stories of a kind that they never expected to see. That would not happen if there was any coordinated campaign, they would know exactly who to go to for the answers.
It is the sceptics who have brought the antics of the IPCC to their attention. They have been able to ‘stand up’ these stories, to use journalistic parlance, and produce powerful headlines. As one reporter said to me last week, ‘I don’t think we’ve heard the last of the Himalayas story yet by a very long way. Do you?’. The MSM know that this new slant on climate change ‘has legs’, and that it will run and run.
Attention is likely to focus on further shortcomings in the IPCC process, and those of us who read the sceptical blogs know that there is far more to come out. No doubt the cheer leaders for the warmist cause will be able to place the odd derogatory story about bloggers in the pages of the usual suspects – The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent – which is based on nothing more than bile and innuendo, but the public cannot fail to recognise that the questions that are being asked about the global warming message and the science on which it is based are well founded.
Once you know that there is a worm in the apple, who is eager to eat the rest? And if someone else has drawn the wriggling and writhing invertebrate to your attention, then you are likely to feel gratitude towards them, not suspicion about their motives.
Alex Cull
You wrote (16) of the AGW “believers”:
This is a very valid point (and a dilemma for the believers).
It goes back to the “Goldilocks” story and the “just right” porridge temperature.
What is the “Goldilocks just right” globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature (GAAALASST)?
Is it “today’s temperature” (i.e. the average GAAALASST of the past five years)?
Is it the slightly higher average GAAALASST of the previous five years?
I think everyone living outside the tropics would agree that it is NOT the GAAALASST of the mid-19th century, as humanity was still struggling to emerge from the Little Ice Age. Nor is it the GAAALASST of the harshest period of the LIA several decades earlier.
Could it be a GAAALASST one or even two degrees C higher that that of “today”?
I have asked several AGW-believers (including Peter Martin) these questions.
They are unable to give a straight answer to the question of quantifying the “Goldilocks just right” temperature for our planet (i.e. “Heaven”), but can only respond with “it’s not 6 degrees warmer than today” (i.e. “Hell”, as conjured up by IPCC).
So, like most believers in a doomsday theory, the “AGW-believers” do not have a clear picture of “Heaven”, but have the fear that a change from today’s climate will be an unstoppable move toward “Hell”.
Max
Max,
I believe Marx (or Engels, I can’t remember which) describe this plane of existence as “Utopia”.
Thinking about the psychological payoff for those who need AGW is a useful undertaking, but I imagine its main utility is enabling sceptics to remain rational in the face of seeming irrationality while debating the issue. As AGW unravels the warmists may become ever more frantic. Aspects of the retreat from reality this particular mass paranoia might include
1. Millennial madness. Populations go snaky at the end of centuries and even more exaggeratedly at the end of millennia (“who can tell what will happen in the uncharted land”). There are stories of panics at Year 1000. AGW is then the substitution of a known fear for an unknown and more threatening one.
2. Replacement of Christianity which our crypto marxist elites think will benefit us (them?) has left the realities that religion deals with unaddressed. Unfortunately for you Prof Dawkins, God is more real than you are. “I delude myself, therefore I am unreal” is Dawkin’s mantra. This renders AGW a best effort attempt to assuage religious fears.
3. I posit that fear in the human is something we get used to and comfortable with. It is only change in the level of fear that is really uncomfortable and demands a response. AGW started in earnest about the time of the end of the Cold War. When we should all have been relaxing after living for forty years under threat of nuclear annihilation, we were looking for something else to fear to restore our equilibrium.
Anyhow you get the idea that there is no shortage of societal factors for the unscrupulous and demagogues to play upon.
Tom Kennedy
You mentioned some aspects of the psychology of the AGW-believers and predicted, “As AGW unravels the warmists may become ever more frantic”.
This makes sense.
Wiki informs us
Sound familiar?
It was supposed to warm at a rate of 0.2°C per decade for the first decades of the 21st century (on its way to an even faster warming, eventually to a potentially disastrous 2-6°C by year 2100). But it hasn’t happened. After 2000 it has cooled at a rate of around 0.1°C per decade.
While this short-term cooling “blip” may not necessarily be the beginning of a new longer-term cooling trend (as predicted by several solar scientists), it is nevertheless a “crack” in the doomsday prophesy.
So the doomsayers either (a) stick their heads in the sand and deny the observed cooling trend with statements of “record warm years” or (b) rationalize it away as caused by “natural variability”, which masks the underlying warming, which is hidden for now, but will come back with a vengeance.
Festinger has called this “dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization”.
And yes, as Festinger observes “Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group’s cause after a failed prophesy”. We see this in the high level of activity of the AGW-faithful blog sites.
But there is one thing that ALL doomsday predictions throughout history have in common: they NEVER really come true (or we would not be here today).
A 100% failure rate is pretty hard to achieve, but that is what it is in the case of doomsday predictions, such as AGW.
Max.
Someone might want to suggest to the Royal Society that they correct their website. They are still saying things like:
“There is no such thing as ‘safe’ climate change. Even the global temperature increase to date (about 0.75°C) is contributing to effects that are impossible to adapt to in
some regions, notably small low-lying islands and coastal areas. As the temperature rises further, so will the risk of more widespread and dangerous climate impacts; from sea level rise, from increasing frequency and intensity of climate extremes such as heat waves, floods and droughts, especially in vulnerable areas.”
“Climate science, like any other scientific discipline, develops through vigorous debates between experts, but there is an overwhelming consensus regarding its fundamentals. Climate science has a firm basis in physics and is supported by a wealth of evidence from real world observations.”
and “It is certain that GHG emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and from land use change lead to a warming of climate”
Don’t they read the serious scientific websites like “icecap” and “wattsupwiththat”? Don’t they know that the CRU hack, and the failure of Copenhagen, has changed the Physics of Global warming ?
[TonyN: Which thread did you mean to post this on?]
This one. The Royal Society are warmists aren’t they? I suppose I could have mentioned lots of other warmists too like all the UK universities and the MET office.
[Peter: did you actually read the header post? I might just be able to guess why you think that your #30 relates to this thread, but it is by no means clear. TonyN]
TonyN,
Your header article mainly discussed the MSM, the IPCC and politicians. The main warmists are those scientists, by no means all of them climate scientists, at institutes like the Royal Society and the main UK universities.
Bring them into line and the politicians, MSM etc will follow like sheep!
PeterM
I will attempt to respond to your 30-32 on the NS site, as requested by TonyN (who wants to limit this site to the psychological reaction of the AGW-supporters to the Climategate revelations and aftermath).
Max
Geoff Chambers, the first commenter wrote “This article is an excellent push-off point for something I’ve often thought needs doing – namely a sociological analysis of the AGW phenomenon, with no name-calling or conspiracy theories, but a real attempt to explain how this strange politico-social perversion came about…”
I’ve scrolled down the comments, but can’t see mention of the excellent article carried yesterday by WuWT from Jerome Ravetz.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age/
No Peter, Its politicians, big business and other vested interests that are running the show. Science has prostituted itself at the altar of money and greed, and in some cases they have become so intoxicated that they have not only manipulated data to suit their agenda, they have in some instances broken the law in their efforts to cover up what they are doing.
Ayrdale (34)
The very interesting article on WUWT by Jerome Ravetz was also cited on the “Continuation of the New Scientist” site here by Robin Guenier (9504).
Several posters, including myself, have commented on it.
My personal opinion: Ravetz gets a lot right concerning Climategate and its buildup. His observations on what happened and why are spot on.
However, he misses the fact that a lot of the “climate science” was politically motivated “agenda-driven” science, from the start, with an appointed arbiter (IPCC), whose very existence depended on proving that there was a serious negative anthropogenic impact on our climate.
Instead he develops his rationalization that “Post-Normal Science” (as opposed to “Normal Science”) is a methodology of inquiry that is appropriate for cases where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent”. This points toward the conclusion “let’s urgently do what we know is right, even if we do not have all the facts to support our position as yet, because the stakes are so high and the impact so devastating if we do nothing” (i.e. the “precautionary principle”).
The weakness of this logic, IMHO, is that it is circular, i.e. the postulation that “stakes are high” and “decisions are urgent” is based on “facts” that are “uncertain” and “values” that are “in dispute”.
From the uncertain facts and disputed values one could just as well conclude that the “stakes are unknown” and, thus, “decisions” should be postponed until the “facts, values and stakes” can be better established, so that the “decisions” can be taken to address the better defined situation at the time.
If, for example, solar scientists are correct in predicting a longer period of cooling for the next several decades, then imposing (direct or indirect) carbon taxes on the world will have no beneficial effect, but will simply cripple an already shaky world economy.
Such an eventuality is not considered in Ravetz’ “Post-Normal Science”.
But it is precisely such an “outlier” that can cause the whole prediction of the “stakes” and the resulting “urgent decisions” to be totally wrong.
For a good description of why expert predictions, especially longer-range forecasts, are more often wrong than not read The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.
Taleb points out that it is not “what the experts know” that gets them into trouble, it is precisely “what they do not know”. And the biggest problem is that they are not even aware of “what they do not know”.
Max
Peter Geany, the vast right wing conspiracy concept is something that should be dropped from all sceptic thinking based on its zero explanatory power and vanishingly small likelihood. Also the strategy of attempting to combat one conspiracy by theorizing another seems most unlikely to succeed. It also opens up the AGW sceptic to sceptical attack.
Industry and the captains thereof are fully engaged doing things they like and are good at, the very things which got them to their current positions. Thank goodness for obsessions and compulsions. They just don’t have time to run a vast conspiracy. Their satisfactions include the satisfaction of technical achievement and of contributing to society, nation and humanity on the largest scale. Also the adrenaline rush of competition. ( To bite the hand that feeds is a most unattractive, if human pursuit) The idea that an individual would turn to megalomania is unrealistic if for no other reason than that his colleagues would take him out if any sign of failure to play the corporate game by the rules.
My experience is that the higher in business one goes the better and nicer the people one finds. This meritocracy is based partially on the winnowing by good people who get to choose their playmates. Only the good are advanced beyond the lower levels. I do acknowledge though the corrupting influence of political interference and assorted fads and ideologies. Still, where in the private sector are there indications of malfeasance similar to those against Academia and government, those darlings of the Left?
But a left wing conspiracy by leisured or unproductively employed types seems to have much more potential (and seems actually to have happened!!). For one it is based on envy, not greed, which is much more plausible when the political effect of AGW is to take money from those who have it and give it to those who want it, say Algore or Pachauri. For another it is founded on utopian dreams, with the dreamers and their ilk as arbiters of goodness, so likely of the imaginings of the dilettante and the congenitally put upon.
Really instructive here is the history of the involvement in AGW of the inimitable Margaret Mead q.v., she who first became known reporting a utopia of sexual freedom in Samoa that turned out to be utterly fabricated. Let us merely say she seemed little embarrassed at being exposed!
Her utopia seemingly was of a lightly populated world of people unconstrained by societal mores running around doing sexy things. Now that is a utopia even I could get interested in. But too bad for those who must die to get there.
Manacker (37)
I am a mining engineer, and so have a more than passing acquaintance with fraud. Mark Twain’s comment was that “a mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top”! The problem is that a good mine historically generated extraordinary amounts of wealth, of the kind only seen today in government. Note that the bulk of petroleum reserves and production today are government owned. The seven sisters are these days weak sisters. But be that as it may…
The point is that a common factor in successful fraud is the proposal that something new has been discovered and the old rules no longer apply. The two gold mining frauds of the 1990’s (why does it always happen in the ’90’s?) Bre-x and Delgratia both were based on this proposal. A generation of investors were taught a stern lesson that indeed the old rules do apply, thats why they are old rules! Here’s a hot tip for you stock punters out there: anticipate another stock bubble in about 20 years when a new generation of tenderfeet shows up, unwilling to listen. You will know it by this sign: something new has been discovered the old rules do not apply
Manacker (cntd) 36 sorry not 37
My point is that Ravetz’ post normal science based on non scientific inputs is exactly the same old scam: the old rules do not apply. This takes a large burden of work and thought off of our increasingly unwilling-to-exert-themselves elites and so is immensely attractive. Who needs to do the scientific grunt work when we can emote our way to understanding? So post normal science is an apology for fraudulent science, eagerly received by those whose incapacity or laziness it exculpates.
This entire AGW thing is a multi headed hydra of interrelated lies and frauds and deceits, Lopping off one head will not do the job. It is like calling for a return to the uprightness of the Roman Republic from the midst of the decadence of the late Empire. It certainly is enough to call forth despair. However the amazing last minute reprieve occasioned by the email leak does give rise to thought and hope. If there is hope it will arrive from outside our institutions. It is not unscientific to say I put my hope in God not science.
I suggest it’s best to discuss the Ravetz essay on the NS thread (here). However I will say this:
Max (36), I disagree with your comment that Ravetz “misses the fact that …”. I don’t think he misses anything. He knows precisely what he’s doing. His history/philosphy predisposes him to pursue the AGW agenda and he sees his “Post Normal Science” (PNS) as a tool to achieve this. Moreover, he’s clever and knows how to push all the sceptic buttons (I was nearly taken in when I first read his essay – as, it seems, was Ayrdale (34)). The problem he is addressing is that for the moment (as he sees it) the AGW push has lost its way. So his solution is to relate it to his PNS concept that “normal” science is (as he says) “obsolete” and the problems of uncertainty have to be “managed”. Therefore there’s no need, re AGW, to bother about old-fashioned concepts such as evidence and falsifiability. And, when he says (beguilingly for the blogosphere) that more people should be involved in the scientific process, he doesn’t mean the scientific process as you and I understand it – and which has served civilisation well for 300 years.
It’s not science, it’s politics. And its dangerous.
Ayrdale#34
I did see the Ravetz article. Tom Kennedy #39 and Robin #40 have Ravetz spot on, in my opinion, as does scientistfortruth at:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science/#more-688
It’s important, because climate-resistance, among others, has been quoting with approval Ravetz’s pupil Mike Hulme, when he speaks about bringing in other specialists to contribute to the Climate Change discussion. Sounds nicely open-minded, except isn’t that exactly what the IPCC has been doing when they quote tour guide brochures and boot-cleaning instruction leaflets?
Robin Guenier and Tom Kennedy
I’ve just responded to your two posts regarding the WUWT article by Jerome Ravetz on the NS blog here (as TonyN has requested).
Max
Max,
If I can be allowed to speak for the psychology of those who accept mainstream science on the AGW issue I should agree that the rise of climate denial is a worrying, but not surprising, trend. Its not surprising that its is happening at exactly the same time as Europe and the USA are having harsh winters.
Non scientific people tend to think that global warming means the end of snow and ice in winter. It doesn’t. If the IPCC are right and temperatures do rise by 3 degC by the end of the century then what is -10degC now will be -7degC then. You’ll still get snow. You’ll still have ice.
Robin,
Yes I can see the attraction in defining two types of science. ‘Normal’ and ‘post Normal’. Then we can divide the scientists themselves into ‘Normal’ and the ‘Post Normal politically motivated agenda-driven’ types.
There’s no prizes for guessing how to categorise Hansen, Jones, Mann, Schmidt et al, I don’t suppose? And, if someone like Lindzen comes up with anything we like that’s good science. That’s normal and we can accept it. That’s great! We’ll always get the answers we like. And we wouldn’t want it any other way, would we?
Peter, #32
At the moment, the MSM in this country appear to be following the lead of the Government’s chief scientific adviser. What is perhaps strange is that the President of the Royal Society seems to be hiding under his desk, or perhaps that should be lab bench. If he has made a substantive statement on either Climategate or the travails of the IPCC I have missed it. And the statement on global warming at the Royal society’s website is beginning to look rather dated.
I suppose one can hardly blame Lord Rees. With over £40m in government funding at stake, part of which is earmarked for ‘influence[ing] policymaking with the best scientific advice’, it’s difficult to know what he could say that would not be very dangerous in the present circumstances.
PeterM (43):
Good to see you back. But, before you comment on “post normal science”, I suggest you read Jerome Ravetz’s essay. And then comment on the NS thread. Thanks.
Tom Kennedy
Your contributions are interesting, but please have a look at the blog rules.
Here is a response, of a sort, to your #28.
Your comment touches on clues that I have long thought are important pointers to the underlying causes of widespread support for climate alarmism. Let’s look at just one aspect of what you say.
In the UK at least, but I suspect elsewhere in the developed world too, we have tried to exclude fear and the tolerance of danger – together with their inseparable companion uncertainty – from the normal routines of life. We now call this the nanny society. There has been a trend over the last fifty years in particular, to transfer responsibility for personal safety away from the individual.
The perception of danger, together with the ability to adapt, is a fundamental requirement for survival throughout the natural world. Evolution has embedded this as deeply in our make-up as the ability to find food, shelter, and mates with which to breed. It is reasonable to suppose that if a culture develops in which the need to exercise an instinctive response is diminished, then there are likely to be unforeseen consequences.
Here are a couple of useful statistics: according to a Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution report, four out of five people in the UK now live in urban areas, and according to the WHO, more than half the world population are also urban dwellers, for the first time in history. The urban environment is, of course, predominantly man-made. To a great extent this insulates residents from the natural world and the impact that natural events can have on their everyday lives. First hand experience, and an instinctive understanding, of the natural world has therefore, to a large extent, become optional and is largely relegated to a recreational lifestyle option.
Only when a large-scale natural disaster occurs – and these are rare in Europe and N America from where the main impetus of the AGW scare emanates – do we have to confront the impact of forces that we cannot control and, to a large extent, are unable to protect ourselves against. And even then, we are likely to blame someone for not protecting us rather than accepting that we cannot totally control our environment and eliminate such risks from our lives.
There seems to be no doubt that, during the 20th century, a change in the climate took place that was unusual in the last five-hundred years at least. Potentilla has mentioned Furedi’e jokey reference to what happened last time ( #13). Rather than accepting that climate change is inevitable, and will be very inconvenient for a society that has created a complex technological infrastructure on which it depends, it is hardly surprising that we should prefer to believe that we have caused global warming, and can therefore prevent it, than it is to accept that it is beyond our control and we must adapt to it.
Re: Ravetz’ paper at WUWT:
The NS thread is the place to discus this.
Tom Kennedy
You say “It is not unscientific to say I put my hope in God not science.”
Well yes it is unscientific! But all the same [snip]
TonyN
Is this OT too? I don’t even know if TK looks at the other threads.
[TonyN: See first sentence of my #46, and it applies to everyone]
Tom K
where in the private sector are there indications of malfeasance..?
Enron, Bernie Madoff? I’m sure there are some good people at the top, but there are some spectacularly bad ones, and they bring their friends with them too! For some reason, Donald Rumsfeld comes to mind…
You also have to reckon with the Peter Principle and the corrupting influence of power. Does anyone know if Al Gore (for instance) really believes his stuff? He doesn’t act like it.
TonyN #46
Your mention of the urbanisation of society and its effect on our perception of nature and its dangers is undoubtedly relevant. It’s a subject which can be traced back to the Roman and Greek bucolic poets, long before the invention of the Nanny State! One interesting side issue from this is the tension between “real” country people and the “green wellie” brigade. This division runs right through the Green movement too.
It’s one of the aspects of the revolution in our spatial experience. Cheap travel means a sizeable proportion of the population (10%?) with second homes can divide their lives between town and country in a way formerly reserved for the aristocracy. Similarly, we can go to the Maldives as easily as our grandparents went to Blackpool. Our relation to space has been revolutionised.
Not so our relation to time. We still have to make do with four score and ten years, still live in the nexus of generations, still rely on the memory of grandparents to understand events like natural disasters which don’t happen every decade.
This is where I think philosophers and social scientists could help. Not, like Rivetz, by trying to redefine science in a way that suits them, but in posing some big questions about our relation to time and space. Some of them are epistemological, like: “What does it mean to talk about knowing what will happen in a hundred years time?” Clearly, it doesn’t have the same significance as talking about “being able to tell the future” or “knowing what happens after we die”.
Others are sociological, like the effect of mass tertiary education, which Brute has alluded to, or (a similar social phenomenon) the effect of sending a proportion of the educated youth to the third world on gap years, etc.
I wasn’t looking for a government research grant to explore these questions! I believe, in my 18th century way, that much can be done by intelligent discussion, using anecdotal evidence.