Opinion: Is there any Virtue in ‘Virtue Signaling’?

The recent decision of the Eugene Oregon City Council to be the first in Oregon to ban natural gas hookups for new construction was surely made with the best of intentions. The three women and two men on the council who voted for the ban thought that they were leading a righteous crusade against fossil fuels that they believe are causing Catastrophic Global Warming.

They believe the “overwhelming scientific consensus” that says temperatures are far too hot already. And they are not the least bit suspicious when scientists do not support claims of impending doom. Never mind that this winter has been very normal. They refuse to think for themselves. They believe what their tribe believes.

A poll of city voters showed that 70% do not support the ban, and three men on the council voted against it. To their credit Councilors Mike Clark, Greg Evans, and Randy Groves opposed the groupthink of the Mayor and her followers.

A less charitable explanation of those who ramrodded the ban was provided a century ago by the famous journalist and scholar, H. L. Mencken. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

Mencken recognized that we are often led by intellectual inferiors, a fact that helps us understand the present American predicament. He was also a big supporter of real science. If he were alive today, he would have no trouble recognizing our descent into superstitions that pretend a relationship to science but have none.

No one on the Eugene City Council has any relevant background in science that would give them the standing to discuss climate issues, let alone to make intelligent decisions on matters of science.

Yet those who consistently make grim decisions want us to applaud their virtue. Is there any “virtue” in their ‘virtue signaling’? To decide, we should look at those who are the very definition of virtuous.

Florence Nightingale was much more than an angel of mercy, tending to the wounded during the Crimean War of 1853-56. She founded the nursing profession, establishing standards for the training of nurses that saved countless lives. Nightingale was an early advocate for the use of statistics to demonstrate the scientific validity of her ideas. “The lady with the lamp” who came to check on her patients at night is not only a hero of modern medicine but a hero of evidence-based science. Today, Florence Nightingale would probably be celebrated for opening up professional roles for women, while ignoring her insistence on the professional standards and scientific viability that made modern medicine possible.

Losing sight of the objective basis of the modern world and reverting to tribal superstitions is the scourge of our age.

Agronomist Norman Borlaug, “the man who saved a billion people” from starvation, is another shining example of real virtue, based on great scientific ability applied to developing hybrid cereal grains for countries then on the brink of starvation, notably Mexico, Pakistan, and India.

When Dr. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, the citation noted that “Within twenty years he was spectacularly successful in finding a high-yielding short-strawed, disease-resistant wheat” for use in Mexico. Then he went on to help Pakistan and India develop similar strains of wheat that allowed them to feed themselves. Borlaug spear-headed the development of superior hybrid crops that help us to feed the eight billion people who call this planet home.

The Nobel Committee characterized Borlaug as “an eclectic, pragmatic, goal-oriented scientist, [who] accepts and discards methods or results in a constant search for more fruitful and effective ones, while at the same time avoiding the pursuit of what he calls ‘academic butterflies’.” In other words, Borlaug was a perfect scientist, sharply focused on development of wheat varieties that grow best in countries facing famine.

Despite his lack of interest in virtue signaling, Borlaug was repeatedly honored for his work, not only by the Nobel Committee but by many others.   In 1977, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2004 the National Medal of Science, and in 2006 the Congressional Gold Medal.

Borlaug’s work was termed the ‘Green Revolution,’ something far different from today’s ‘Green New Deal.’ Yet both revolved around atmospheric carbon dioxide, one greatly benefiting from it while the other demonized it. Borlaug realized that his genetically modified crops benefited from modern fertilizers and from rising atmospheric CO2. Today, we can quantify the higher yields from rising CO2 at about 20%. Put another way, more than a billion people would starve if those who are pretending virtue could reduce atmospheric CO2 from 420 to 350 ppm.

Both Nightingale and Borlaug achieved great success, improving the lives of vast numbers of ordinary people. Is there any possibility that the Eugene City Council will be able to claim any success at all in improving the human condition, even on a tiny scale? Or is their virtue signaling a completely empty gesture, full of extra costs and devoid of benefits? Let’s have a look.

Will the ban on new gas connections reduce the consumption of natural gas in Eugene? Of course not! New construction will increase the use of electricity to replace the gas. And how is power produced in this region? You guessed it: new electric generating capacity comes from natural gas!

But I thought that we are getting an increasing amount of electricity from wind?  That is true at first glance. But a closer look reveals that the extremely erratic nature of the wind demands backup from quick start natural gas boilers that are inefficient. Running them two thirds of the time to keep our lights on uses more natural gas than running a highly efficient gas turbine continuously.

Are electric household appliances more efficient than their gas equivalents? In general no. Heat pumps can come close to the efficiency of gas, when used for modest heating chores. But when the outside temperature gets down near or below freezing, heat pumps lose their advantage and become little better than resistive electric.

Are electric appliances more cost-effective than their gas equivalents? NO! They are generally much more expensive to run than their gas equivalents. Electric stoves use resistive electric that costs about three times as much as gas. Electric hot water heaters generally use resistive electric that costs three times as much. Ditto for electric clothes driers and electric furnaces. You can purchase heat pumps that lessen the cost of producing heat by grabbing it from the environment. At best, they may do as well as equivalent gas appliances. But they are several times the price of gas appliances and will not last as long.

Are electric appliances better for our health? This is a red herring that we hear frequently. The only home appliance that vents into our living space is the kitchen stove. Like electric stoves, gas stoves can burn food and create plumes of noxious smoke that require use of the kitchen fan. Other than that, gas burns very cleanly, producing very few oxides of nitrogen, a little water vapor, and modest amounts of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a great benefit for house plants, enabling them to thrive in winter in our relatively dark and dry homes.

Am I being an environmental hero by giving up gas appliances and driving an electric car? No, you are being fooled by the largest scientific scam in human history. Carbon dioxide is overwhelmingly beneficial to life on this planet, and the minuscule warming that may result from a rising atmospheric level would be beneficial. There is no looming climate catastrophe of any kind.

But I heard that natural gas (methane) is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Is this true? NO! Methane is less potent than carbon dioxide in a molecule-to-molecule comparison. But since its absorption lines are not already saturated, it becomes 30 times more potent. However, it is rising 300 times slower than carbon dioxide, leading to 30/300 or one tenth the importance of carbon dioxide.

Relax! There is no climate crisis!

When the virtue signaling majority of the Eugene City Council thinks there is a climate crisis, there is clearly NO climate crisis.

Gordon J. Fulks holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago’s Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research. He lives in Corbett, Oregon and can be reached at gordonfulks@hotmail.com.