A Significantly Better Way to Address the Possibility of Global Warming

An illustration of carbon dioxide molecules (left) becoming ethylene molecules (right) by passing through an electrified grid in water. (Credit: Meenesh Singh, one of the study’s authors.)

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I am very skeptical of the idea that global warming (aka climate change) is a serious problem. There are many scientific reasons for this, most notably the fact that we still have no real understanding of how increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affects global temperature. However, we do know that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is increasing, and we also know that human activity is causing that increase. As a result, it is reasonable to try to do something about that, as long as we don’t kill people or a disproportionate number of animals in the process. The problem, of course, is that most of the proposed solutions for reducing humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions do both (see here, here, here, and here).

Rather than trying to replace efficient and inexpensive sources of energy with our current unreliable, expensive, and deadly “green” sources, we should work on developing technologies that reduce carbon dioxide emissions in a way that doesn’t affect energy price and availability. One example of this better approach can be found in a recently-published study that reports on a new method which can be used to convert carbon dioxide into ethylene, a chemical that is used in a wide range of industrial processes.

The most common method currently in use for producing ethylene is called “steam cracking,” and it is a high-temperature process that is estimated to produce 260 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. However, the process described in the study can be done at much lower temperatures. It involves passing an electric current through a chemical reaction vessel that contains carbon dioxide and a water-based solution. Hydrogen atoms from the water end up combining with carbon atoms from the carbon dioxide to produce ethylene. While such methods have been explored in the past, this method is significantly more efficient. In addition, if the electric current powering the cell is produced by solar or other renewable energy sources, the process actually uses up carbon dioxide. In other words, this process turns an activity that adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere into an activity that pulls carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But wait a minute. If this process requires renewable energy sources to pull carbon dioxide out of the air, aren’t we just falling back on the old “green” technologies that cause so many problems in the first place? Not really. Two of the biggest problems with current “green” technologies are that they make energy more expensive and often cannot keep up with our energy demands. This process actually reduces cost significantly, because it doesn’t require so much heat. Thus, the higher expense of “green” technologies is offset by the lower cost of the process as a whole. Also, we don’t need to be making ethylene constantly. We can make lots of it when the “green” sources are producing energy, and we can wait when they aren’t. As a result, we are not harmed by their limitations.

In addition, scaling up this technology to make it useful for industrial purposes will probably lead to ideas of how similar processes can be used in other industrial applications. In my view, this kind of technology should be the focus of any proposed solutions for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint.

Number of Families Homeschooling Drops, Probably For The First Time

Graph from the study being discussed.

When the pandemic shut down the schools, many parents were horrified to see what their children were being taught on a daily basis. Others saw that “zoom school” just wasn’t a good way to educate children. As a result, many parents started homeschooling. Along with others, I read the news reports (like this one) covering this phenomenon.

Unfortunately, I have a rather cynical view of my fellow parents. I think that a lot of people who have children would be better off with pets, because they don’t really want to spend the time, effort, and energy necessary to properly raise their children. Thus, while I was happy to see more parents choosing the most effective model of education, I was skeptical that it would last.

Well, homeschooling researcher Dr. Brian Ray has released an analysis that at least partially confirms my cynical view. Using data from the United States Department of Education, the United States Census Bureau, an Education Next survey, and all state-level departments with relevant publicly available data, Dr. Ray estimated the number of students being homeschooled in 2020, 2021, and 2022 and then compared those numbers to previous estimates. The results are shown in the graph above.

Notice that homeschooling grew quite a bit from 2020 to 2021, which is consistent with the news reports. However, in 2022, the numbers dropped, which is consistent with my cynical view of my fellow parents. Nevertheless, I am actually surprised at how little the numbers dropped. Look at the growth in homeschooling from 2016 to 2019. In that three-year period, it grew by about 9%. Compare that to the growth from 2019 to 2022, which includes the year of decline. That growth is 25%! So even after a lot of people left homeschooling, the growth has still been unusually high.

Now, of course, there are at least two caveats here. First, it is very difficult to estimate the number of children being homeschooled. However, given the fact that Dr. Ray has been doing it for decades, I think he is probably the most reliable source on the matter. The second caveat is that 2022 might not be the last year in which the numbers drop. We will have to wait and see.

Nevertheless, given what we know now, it seems that many more parents have discovered the fact that homeschooling is the best solution for their children. More importantly, they have stuck with it (at least so far). This gives me more hope for the next generation.

An Excellent Debate on Climate Change

The Soho forum recently held an Oxford-style debate on climate change between two experts on the matter. The resolution being debated was:

Climate science compels us to make large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Arguing for the affirmative was Dr. Andrew Dessler, professor of geoscience at Texas A&M and director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies. Arguing for the negative was Dr. Steven Koonin, a professor of civil and urban engineering at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, who served as undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy during the Obama administration. You can watch it here:

You can watch it on YouTube by clicking here.

The debate was excellent, with both debaters showing why they are considered experts on the issue. However, Dr. Koonin was the clear winner, because the debate audience was asked to respond to the resolution both before and after the debate. Before the debate, 24.69% of those in attendance agreed with the resolution, while 48.77% disagreed. The rest were undecided. Thus, the audience was probably better educated on the issue than most of the public (and most politicians), since a plurality had the more scientifically-defensible reaction to the resolution. However, by the end, the “yes” votes had decreased by 5.56%, while the no votes increased by 24.69%.

Now, of course, you have to be the judge of why Dr. Koonin won the debate. For me, it was because his statements were backed up by data. I hope there are more debates like, because the better educated the public is on the science related to climate change, the more likely it will be for the world to enact sane measures to address it.

Study Concludes Homeschooling Does Not Increase the Risk of Child Abuse

In the May-June 2020 issue of Harvard Magazine, professor Elizabeth Bartholet wrote an article proposing a “presumptive ban” on home education. One of the main justifications Dr. Bartholet gave for this ban was her fear that homeschooling promoted abuse. After all, homeschooled students are “isolated,” while children in school are seen by adults who are required by law to report signs of abuse so that they might be investigated. Since homeschoolers don’t have this extra layer of protection, abuse must be more common in homeschool settings. Several rebuttals followed, some from Harvard graduates. However, the fact remains that there has not been much research into the relationship between homeschooling and abuse.

Homeschooling researcher Dr. Brian Ray and his colleague Dr. M. Danish Shakeel have tried to fill this gap. They recently published a study in the Journal of School Choice in which they attempted to determine whether or not a child’s educational experience, which they called the child’s “school sector,” is correlated with abuse. They conclude:

We find no clear association between a child’s school sector and his or her experiences of abuse and neglect while growing up. Instead, demographic variables such as family structure, years in foster care, large family size, and household poverty bear a strong relationship with child abuse and neglect.

In other words, whether a student goes to a school or is homeschooled does not affect whether or not the child is a victim of abuse. While I applaud Drs. Ray and Shakeel for investigating this matter, I am not confident that this study puts the question to rest. It’s not that the study is poorly done; it is an excellent study based on the data they have. I just think they need a lot more data to make a really solid conclusion.

To do the study, they developed a survey designed to assess whether or not a person had been abused in the past. There was a lot of thought put into that survey. It was reviewed by a panel of 12 people from various walks of life and was then tested on a small group of individuals. Thus, I find no fault with their survey. They then used an experienced survey organization (the Barna Group) to administer their survey on what the Barna Group considered a nationally-representative sample of people. This produced answers from 527 people with more than six years of education in public school, 293 with the same amount of experience in private school, and 150 with the same amount of homeschooling. An additional 202 people had less than six years of experience in either type of school. In order to improve their homeschool sample size, they recruited another 81 people with more than six years of homeschooling experience to take the survey.

When they then compared the abuse experiences of those who went to school versus those who did not, they actually found a very, very weak correlation. The homeschooled students were slightly more likely to have experienced abuse than those who went to a school. However, as is the case with any study that involves people, there are many confounding factors. We know that abuse is more common among certain demographics, so what appears to be a weak correlation between homeschooling and abuse might actually be the result of demographics rather than the type of schooling used.

As a result, they used statistical modeling to control for the confounding demographic factors. When they did that, the correlation between abuse and any kind of schooling “vanished.” Of course, the problem is that statistical modeling for confounding factors, while absolutely necessary, is fraught with peril. In general, the more statistical modeling you do, the more participants you need in the study. Their total sample size was 1,253. To my mind, that’s not enough to do statistical modeling to compare groups. Now don’t get me wrong – there is nothing mathematically wrong with doing that. It’s just that the modeling is so difficult that I don’t think any conclusions can be considered robust with such a small number of subjects.

Nevertheless, if you believe that their modeling can produce firm conclusions, there is a second interesting result. When they tried to determine where abuse occurred, they found that among the homeschooled group, the vast majority of the abuse occurred when the students were either in the community or in some sort of “school” experience such as a homeschool co-op or at a school where they were taking just one or two classes:

The incidences of abuse and neglect for homeschool children are statistically significant only at community or some type of school, and the occurrence rates there are double or more than at family where the rate is not significant.

This, of course, goes directly counter to Dr. Bartholet’s view. The majority of abuse among homeschoolers occurs when the students are not “isolated” at home. While I am not sure this conclusion is robust, it does make sense. Yes, when students go into the community or some school setting, they are exposed to people who can report signs of abuse. However, they may also be exposed to abusers. Based on my experience, there are more abusers in schools and the community than those who notice and are willing to report signs of abuse. Thus, the more students are exposed to the community, the more likely they are to be abused.

Once again, I am not sure any of the conclusions of this study are certain, but nevertheless, it represents an excellent start to what I hope will be many more studies on the issue.