There is no talent crisis

But there will be one soon

Back in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, engineering was all the rage in my part of the world. Everyone and their uncle had engineering degrees. The socialist future required engineers. Then that future vanished from the horizon like the mirage it was and no one needed engineers any more, so everyone and their uncle got into law and economics, and universities started producing inordinate amounts of those.

An educational system that is fully in sync with the job market is perhaps a mirage but a partial synchronisation is perfectly possible — except when faculties are obsessed with climate change and forget what they were hired to do, namely educate future generations of professionals in various fields based on material reality. I’ve been hearing a lot about how universities in the UK and the U.S. have turned into ideological hothouses, churning out activists instead of real-world subject matter professionals. Now, there’s a study to prove it and that study has a rather grim warning for that future that all those activists want to make sure happens.

The study comes from the National Center for Energy Analytics, which is obviously full of climate deniers because they don’t advocate for an energy transition but for common sense. As part of that advocacy for common sense, the study — in two parts — looked into the thematic framing of university degrees and learning objectives, to conclude that most of the top universities in the U.S. have a pronounced pro-transition, climate change bias in their curricula that compromises the ultimate goal of higher education: prepare the next generation of professionals for the job market and make sure the world keeps working as it should.

Because the topic interests me very much, I reached out to the authors of the study, Mark P. Mills and Shon Hiatt. The message they had, while measured in tone, was quite grave in content. Alas, the one thing it wasn’t, was surprising.