Wasted ‘Climate Change’ Cash Could Save Lives Instead
When it comes to climate change, our leaders would do well to follow Buddhist advice: when struck by an arrow, first remove it before seeking out your assailant. Otherwise, you will die.
But most governments and charitable foundations today do exactly the opposite. They try so hard to appease climate activists — who seem more concerned about the possible plight of people yet to be born than those suffering today — that millions of people have been abandoned to misery and early death in the poorest parts of the world.
The Canadian government is providing what might appear to be a generous $142 million to help victims of drought and famine in East Africa. Australia has also committed over $103 million. That is certainly far more money than either China or Saudi Arabia — the latter situated just across the Red Sea from the disaster area — are contributing. But it pales in comparison with what Canada and Australia are paying to fulfill their entirely voluntary Copenhagen Accord climate change commitments. Australia committed $599 million and Canada $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2012.
Both nations have already donated the first third of this commitment, an amount that is almost exactly the current shortfall in the international Horn of Africa Drought fund, a deficit that may lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people if it is not rectified.
The Copenhagen Accord specified that contributions should be split 50-50 between helping people adapt to climate change and stopping (or “mitigating”) climate change. Australia is generally following this formula, but 90% of Canada’s first $400 million donation is dedicated entirely to mitigation.
This undue focus on mitigation of a hypothetical human-caused dangerous warming that has yet even to be measured comes at the expense of the urgent needs of the world’s most vulnerable peoples. For example, ClimateWorks Foundation — an American climate activist group that has donated millions to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection — received over $500 million from charitable foundations when they launched in 2008. This was twice as much as foundations contributed to the World Health Organization, and over seven times as much as they donated to UNICEF in that year.
Over the last two decades ending in 2009, the U.S. government spent a total of $68 billion for climate science research and climate-related technology development. Worldwide, it is estimated that Western countries alone are pouring at least $10 billion annually (2009) into global warming related research and policy formulation.
There are untold amounts being spent by corporations around the world on greenhouse gas reduction schemes, the costs of which are passed almost entirely on to consumers.
On October 27, the Climate Policy Initiative issued a report showing that at least $97 billion per year is being provided to “climate finance.” Tragically, just $4.4 billion — about 5% — of the total is going to help countries and communities adapt to climate change.
All the while, aid agencies remain drastically underfunded, even in the midst of East Africa’s worst famine in decades. Developing countries are pressured by eco-activists, media, and the UN to enable impractical “climate-friendly” energy policies that even developed nations cannot afford. At the same time, millions of the world’s poor lack access to electricity, running water, and basic sanitation.
And what is the world getting in return for this sacrifice? If the science being relied upon by the governments and the UN were correct, and all the countries of the world that have emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol actually met their targets, then 0.05 degrees Celsius of warming might end up being prevented by 2050. In other words, trillions of dollars of expenditure will be wasted for an impact on climate that is not even measurable.
Clearly, the time has long since passed to take an entirely different approach to the climate hazard issue. We need to pull out the arrow, address the real wound, and leave learning more about the possible assailant to another day.
Despite the demonstrated failure of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming, a very real climate problem does exist. It is the ongoing risk associated with natural climatic variations. This includes short-term events such as floods and cyclones, intermediate scale events such as drought, and longer-term warming and cooling trends.
Run the numbers, dudes.
The numbers PJMedia cites are tiny compared to US oil import costs of four hundred thirty billion dollars per year.
Those huge year-in and year-out costs are America’s “real wound”.
Those huge year-in and year-out costs are America’s real “tragedy”.
Projects like the Athabasca Tar Sands serve only to make that bleeding wound worse … worse for our planet *and* worse for the American economy.
The Keystone Pipeline doesn’t carry oil in … it carries American wealth out.
Every CEO in the world (except maybe pizza-sellers) appreciates the realities:
(1) Climate change is real, serious, human-caused, and accelerating.
(2) Carbon-addicted energy economies are unsustainable.
It’s time to walk away from carbon addiction.
Duh.
——————————————————-
Xcel CEO: Climate change science is ‘pretty solid’
“I’d be OK if there were never any more coal”
URL: http://www.realaspen.com/article/807/Retiring-Xcel-Energy-CEO-Dick-Kelly-Climate-change-science-is-pretty-solid
My god you’re an idiot
He really is an idiot, isn’t he
Still in the red herring business, I see, Johnny-Boy.
For those who haven’t met him, allow me to introduce Dr. John Sidles of the University of Washington. Charlie Martin outed him months ago.
His favorite rhetorical device is, as you can see, the red herring.
I strongly advise not buying any of his red herrings and insisting that he get back on topic. It’s the best way to get him to go away.
Oh, and you’re free to consider his behavior when deciding whether or not UW has the standards you think desirable in the school you send your children or grandchildren to.
Sigh.
Here we go again:
Obama’s own Energy Information Administration (EIA.gov)–part of DoE–has forecast that in the year 2035, less than 14% of world energy needs will be met by renewables like wind and solar:
Year 2035 A.D.
14% renewables
6% nuclear
58% coal and oil
22% natural gas
In fact, EIA estimates that in the year 2035 the world will be using more coal and oil (and lots more natural gas) than it does now.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm
All this talk about “walking away from fossil fuels” is a fantasy and a lie.
Obama is too smart not to know what EIA’s own experts are saying.
Obama is lying through his teeth.
I suggest you read this EIA report and stop bothering us with any more of your green fantasies.
We should be taking advantage of what you just mentioned. If our auto companies can develop an electric car hybrid that can compete with today’s gasoline engines then we can export our bountiful natural resources, including natural gas, shale oil, coal, etc to the emerging nations in Africa, the Middle-East and Asia, countries that will be relying on fossil fuels for decades more due to capital constraints on nuclear power and hydro and other renewables, and become an energy super power. To strengthen our grids to the level required to handle the electric cars and their batteries, new nuclear plants can be built and in areas of the US where solar and wind power is competitive, panels and windmills can be built, along with modernizing our coal-powered plants and hydro stations. We’re an inexpensive lithium-ion battery away from being energy independent and an energy exporting nation.
Just think if all the money that American corporations and the government spent that currently goes into researching myths like hydrogen power, nuclear fusion, and biofuels (ethanol isn’t a mtyh but it does contribute to rising food prices) our auto companies would once again be the top vehicle manufacturers in the world.
We can export our abundant natural resources without developing “competitive” hybrids. I’m fine with hybrids and electrics, but they’re not ready for prime time. The hydrocarbon age is far from over.
Might want to check out how the government defines “renewables.”
The massive spending the Obama administration has targeted currently amounts to less than 1% of all energy production.
They threw out the preposperous notion a few days ago that “clean” energy employs 11 million people. More than twice the total employed by the other 99% of energy production and delivery market.
Also note that subsidized green energy jobs have been sufficiently proven by Spain to result in the net loss of at least 2.4 other private sector jobs due to the inherent inefficiencies introduced in the market.
A dollar spent that was earned in a value added environment propogates thru out the market in a mulitplier context. A dollar spent by this administration on clean energy projects yields not only the loss of the dollar, but also the potential multiplier because green energy has no value added component.
In short, the Green movement as propogated by this administration is a monumental waste of money and resources that of course could be used for many other things.
.
Of the 14% to be derived from renewable energy, by 2035, most is from hydro power and biofuel (primarily wood). Wind and solar power barely register at all in that figure.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!
We were wondering if you got hot by a windmill or something.
Feeling better, John? We were a little worried about you.
Of running experiments, doing theory, debugging computer code, and writing it all up … only code-debugging leaves time to post. So you and I *both* hope this new burst of code-debugging finishes fast!
Be sure to check out my Sam Palmisano prediction; `cuz yah heard it first on PJ MEdia!
Note: the prediction’s a sure bet because if necessary I can simply nominate Sam myself.
————————————
IBM/Sam Palmisano’s 2012 Conservative Path to the Presidency
URL: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/comment/1051899/
In other words, doing your day job.
Congrats, you’ve learned what work is for.
Now, if only you could learn a few other lessons…
Translation: the cops finally cleared the tents out of Westlake Park.
Why don’t you help Steve McIntyre analyze the BEST data, rather than trolling political websites, since you’re such an expert on climate change? Seems like it would be more productive. I won’t hold my breath.
Like Barbie said: “math is hard”.
We have lost our way, so to speak. I agree. The most precious thing we have lost is: perspective.
Walk away from carbon addiction!!! To what?? Hell, we are made of carbon, you idiot. Why don’t you take a drive east 200 miles on I-90 to the Columbia River gorge and see the thousands of windmills sitting idle more than half the time in one of the windiest places on earth. Physicist? No, get back to mowing the grass.
Oh yea that Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Ivar Giaever is wrong about global warming
John Coleman founder of The Weather Channell is wrong
30,000 scientists who disagree with the IPCC are wrong
The United Nations is always doing whats best for the world
Exxon Mobile pays 40.5% in taxes domestically and internationally
GE pays an average of 12% and 0 in 2011
Who’s really helping mankind more ? I’ve seen the 1000′s of dead birds on the wind farms. How about the pollution from the lithium mining to build an electric car battery ? There is not a profitable SOLAR or WINDFARM on the planet without subsidies. All in the name of “helping mankind” to battle a myth
Continue to believe in your JUNK SCIENCE “A physicist”
Put in your 5 hours a week at the W than go back to contemplating the metaphysical afterthoughts of the ring tailed squirrell.
They have equal importance to C02 output and the climate
That’s a solid post, physicist.
Another thing that ought to be noted: the first principle of conservatism is realism. We’re the ones who look the facts in the face. And the fact is that we’re seeing changes that are far from hypothetical. CO2 just flat IS a greenhouse gas. Glaciers around the world just flat ARE in retreat. The arctic ice cap IS much smaller than it was just 30 years ago.
If atmospheric CO2 continues to increase, and the increase speeds up (as it has been), it is wishful thinking of the worst sort to imagine that there is little danger of increased consequences. As another physicist wrote recently, the laws of nature are remorseless and pitiless. If we don’t act in time, the consequences will fall, like it or not. We’re seeing the first bit already; peanut butter prices soar as the crop fails due to the southern heat wave this past summer, beef prices rise due to lack of forage, etc.
To stick with the metaphor, if we spend all our efforts on coping with this unfolding tragedy, and none on heading it off, the tragedy will overwhelm us. Best to raise the shield so no more arrows strike, as well as remove the arrow that has already struck.
CO2 is not anywhere near a harmful level in our atmosphere. If anything a slight increase in ppm would be beneficial to plant life. This global warming business (it is a business, or a racket) is bunk.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases
A physicist:
When did the warming trend start, I mean, historically?
“The Keystone Pipeline doesn’t carry oil in…”
Yeah, well, actually, that’s exactly what it does and I wish we had one in Britain. Here we have a recent discovery of shale gas, which could keep us going for decades, but the British versions of “a physicist” are desperate to ensure that the discovery is stillborn. Detection of virtually microscopic seismic activity in the shale gas region has been greeted with characteristic alarmism from the “physicists” of this world.
All the while, the self-styled envonmentalists (I agree with the “mentalist” part) support the concept of a British population of thirty million (less than half the current number) “supported” entirely by renewable forms of energy generation: wind turbines, which massacre birds and bats; wave turbines, which slaughter seals and dolphins; tidal generators, which annihilate habitats both above and below the sea. Those forms of power generation cannot support any population consistently, even the greens’ fascist ideal of the thirty million Chosen Ones. They also, as I have suggested, inflict vastly more damage on existing ecosystems than the supposedly evil fossil fuel methods of generating energy.
“Climate change is real, serious, human-caused, and accelerating,” says “a physicist”.
Absolute twaddle.
“A physicist” cannot – I guarantee – provide reliable supporting evidence for any part of that, beyond the obvious part that “climate change is real” (well, duh, they had it in the Devonian and the Cretaceous…)
Mr. Morgan, pay no attention to Aphysicist. He has been trolling here for a long time spouting the same tripe. He has been gone for a while and we had all hoped he would stay gone. He is back, back probably from the OWS protests, or he is hacking out his drivel on a laptop from Jamison square.
Yes, climate change is real, serious, human-caused and accelerating…..except it isnt. This is his standard lie that he repeats over and over as if suddenly one day we will believe his unsupported proclamations. The truth is that, as you mentioned, reduction of population is the real goal of the environmental movement. They know very well that global cooling / warming / climate change ( or whatever it is this week ) is ‘twaddle’. Personally, I hope they get their wish. They could easily reduce population by half…..by getting rid of themselves. Perhaps the greenies advocating it could do mother earth ( and us ) a favor and all jump off of bridges, lay their heads on railroad tracks, stick their heads in ovens etc..
How about it John? Show us that you mean what you say.
Please, you can’t expect “a physicist” to take his own life! His insight is so profound that he is indispensable to leading us to the Promised Land of living in oneness with the ecology of our planet. It is his wisdom and his alone that will help us make the right decisions about who gets to live and who gets asked to make the Supreme Sacrifice for Mother Earth. We can’t do this without him.
At least that’s how I imagine he’d rationalize any reluctance to make the sacrifice of himself for Gaia.
Of course I dont expect him to, but we can hope.
I hate the hypocracy of the Green Movement, which we all know, and as you just mentioned, is simply masking their neo-Malthusian desires with climate change and conservation. The only people they don’t want existing are the poor and the unborn. Bill Gates and Ted Turner, who are major population control advocates (and so is our VP I guess after his China comments) aren’t willing to off themselves for the “good of Mother Earth.”
Of course, the entire argument is moot. Because even if “climate chaos” were not there to suck up money, it would not be spent on anything to help the Third World cope with famine, weather, etc.
Read “The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich. And keep firmly in mind that the environmentalists still consider it just as much “gospel truth” as they do AlGore’s “Earth In The Balance”.
To them, anything which reduces the human population of Holy Mother Gaia is a feature, not a bug.
The only humans they believe have a right to be here are themselves- the “true conservators” of their Goddess.
If the rest of us do as we’re told, some of us may be permitted to live. To serve them.
clear ether
eon
When we clear away the slogans, willful ignorance, and abuse what’s left of the above posts?
Nothing. Zip. Zero … there’s nothing left at all.
Fortunately, the world’s business leaders are pretty good at ignoring slogans, disinformation, and abuse … they reject willful ignorance … and they’re outstandingly successful at focusing instead on the solid science, the moral responsibilities … and the wide-open business opportunities.
That’s how a vigorous coalition of science, greens, business, and the world’s major religions is forming up.
And that coalition is a mighty good thing, eh?
8) 
Because slogans, disinformation, and abuse can’t build a hopeful future for anyone, can they?
—————————————————
Business Community Pushes for Robust Climate Package
Group includes Shell, Unilever, Tesco, Johnson & Johnson, Ricoh, Cemex,
Proctor & Gamble, Nedbank, the Lloyds Banking Group, and Vale.
URL: http://ictsd.org/i/news/biores/117250/
You must really hate yourself to be so scolding of others.
Come back to us when that coalition has figured out a way to power a jetliner on solar power, and when that coalition has figured out a way for me to power an automobile without fossil fuels.
(HINT: I don’t have a garage. I live in an apartment and I park my car in the street. Do you happen to have a 500 foot long extension cord I can borrow?)
And in your vision of the future, will we be traveling from California to Hawaii via hot-air balloons?
Get back to you on carbon-neutral energy technologies? Happy to oblige!
`Cuz PJMedia/GOP candidates are *so* desperately far behind-the-curve.
—————————————————-
Future Energy Sources: The Need to Roll the Dice
by J. Craig Venter, MD, PhD
sponsored by the New America Foundation
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc7N7554M2o
When we clear away the slogans, willful ignorance, and abuse what’s left of the above posts?
Nothing. Zip. Zero … there’s nothing left at all.
–
You mean YOUR posts, right?
Snarky, here’s another thought-provoking link …
… that belongs on PJMedia’s politics-first Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Ya’ll be careful not to read any of this stuff, hear?
——————————————————
Breaking the Tether of Fuel
Featured Article: US Army Professional Writing Collection
URL: http://www.army.mil/professionalWriting/volumes/volume5/april_2007/4_07_3.html
“Because slogans, disinformation, and abuse can’t build a hopeful future for anyone, can they?”
Oh, the irony!
Away with thee, thou pseudo-scientist charlatan! Dressing up eco-zealotry in a white lab coat isn’t fooling anyone.
The optimism of creative enterprise …
United with the discipline of science …
The new Business-Green Coalition is mighty impressive, eh?
———————————
Why America Needs Nuclear Energy
A forum where top experts explore big ideas and core skills
URL: http://bigthink.com/ideas/17891
What psychological problems you must have to need to post with all these smiley-faces (that few adults use and no on but you does, here) and the constant statements that really don’t inspire anyone here, so they must be to reinforce your own insecurities over the fact that you’re wrong.
Or, it’s that you come here, instead of posting on a typically error-driven lefty blog because you don’t get the attention you seek there.
You’re pathetic and clearly not a physicist.
You’re just a sad little child without any friends who comes here to talk down to people so that you can feel superior.
All your talking points are dirivative and pedantic. You haven’t a single independent thought in your skull. You’ve indoctrinated yourself to the religion of AGW and quite frankly, your overcompensation by citing silly reference after silly reference tells me that you have huge emotional issues.
You desperately want people to agree with you yet, you find it just as much fun to act like the petulant child that you are, with a smirk on your face and you actually think you’re “making a point” when you post these pathetic links to junk science.
What is wrong with you?
Anonymous: I recall a point from my college debate class that when one has a weak case, make personal attacks on your opponent to distract attention away from that weakness. And your personal attacks on “APhysicist” mean……… ??
Apissycist has been around here a long time, we have all debated the facts and logic with him. He is intractable and dogmatic, there is no point in debating him any longer. Now we just give him the finger.
I think his handle the physicist is a typo it is A Psycho and yes I am really an electrician as well as a data technician and electronics technician! A Psycho is is merely an eco nut and where he was protesting it got too cold and they cut out the free food!
You mean, rent-seeking businesses are flocking to suck up government subsidies? Duh.
Based on the dubious premise that one can found a multi-trillion dollar industry on artificially jacking up the price of the most basic commodity of an advanced economy? Lunacy.
(Smiley faces? You must be one hell of a teacher there, tenure-boy).
Here’s my view, Mr. Physicist:
Anthropogenic global warming is indeed a real phenomenon. I’m satisfied that the scientific evidence for it is compelling.
But the cost of stopping it will dwarf the cost of tolerating it, by a couple of orders of magnitude.
We are NOT going to turn the planetary economy upside down, spending trillions of dollars to totally remake it along different lines, just to keep the polar icecaps from melting and to keep the Maldives from being submerged. NOT.GONNA.HAPPEN.
We would be far better off if scientists like you abandoned these frantic fantasies about “green economies,” and went to work devising new ways to cope with the side effects of global warming.
We cope with much else in our industrial society. Every year, in the United States alone, 30,000 people die in automobile accidents–10 times as many as died in the 9-11 terrorist attack. The total number of Americans killed in auto accidents since cars were invented, far exceeds the total number of Americans killed in all the wars America has ever fought.
And guess what? We live with that.
We live with smog.
We live with a lot of negative side effects from industrialization.
And we can live with global warming. Our scientists and engineers will find ways to cope with the effects. Far cheaper than turning the whole global economy upside down.
I’m sick of hearing about green fantasies. Nothing resembling a quantitative econometric model of the costs of conversion to a “green economy” exists, evidently. Or else you would have long since shown us one.
Remember
When it comes to climate change, our leaders would do well to follow Buddhist advice: when struck by an arrow, first remove it before seeking out your assailant. Otherwise, you will die.
–
Actually, I believe that advice is exactly contrary to what an emergency room physician would tell you. I’m not a doctor but I’ve seen enough medical shows that feature penetrating injuries to know better, assuming the technical advisors who monitor these shows are doing their jobs properly. A penetrating injury, like one caused by an arrow, will often be greatly aggravated – not relieved – by removing the arrow. Typically, the arrow will have the inadvertent benefit of sealing off veins and arteries that have been pierced by the arrow. Ironically, removing the arrow will often unseal those rips in the veins and arteries and actually cause the patient to “bleed out”. I know that sounds counter-intuitive – it certainly did to me the first time I heard it – but it’s apparently true. The proper time and place to remove the arrow or other penetrating object is in an operating room so that doctors can carefully seal the torn blood vessels before they remove the object.
I don’t mean to be pedantic about this point but it’s the kickoff for the whole article and it doesn’t make medical sense.
Folks here on PJMedia have spent too much time in Big Carbon’s evil embrace
So get with the optimistic job-creating 21st century, folks!
—————————————————
“The Need to Roll the Dice” on Future Energy Sources
URL: http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/about/
“The Copenhagen Accord specified that contributions should be split 50-50 between helping people adapt to climate change and stopping (or “mitigating”) climate change. Australia is generally following this formula, but 90% of Canada’s first $400 million donation is dedicated entirely to mitigation.”
Maybe this is petty but to say trying to control the weather is mitigation bothers me. If you take for example the increase in the number of hurricanes we are experiencing due to all this warming(well they said we would). The mitigation is not trying to prevent the storms but to minimize the impact of the storm. Such as sufficient drinking water storage to mitigate not having it while the production facilities are restored. Moving power and communication lines between priority facilities such as hospitals and communication centers underground in order to prevent there destruction during the storm. Having response teams in place prior to the arrival of the storm to minimize response times. That is how you mitigate for hurricanes. You can’t stop their creation and you can’t control their path. You cannot control climate change anymore than you can control a hurricane.
Climate change is cyclic and chaotic. Be prepared for the changes whether it be warming or cooling which when cyclic is going to go either way. They say the warming has peaked and coincidently the sun is starting a different cycle so anybody wanna guess what we should be preparing for?
Climate will always change and there is nothing man can do about it. Our sun is dragged off center by Jupiter and three other gas giants driving the sun into and out of more or less energitic states. The more energitic, more sunspots, more solar wind and UV radiation and less cosmic rays hit earth and form less clouds and the oceans warm. When the sun is quiet as it is now, the reverse occurs and the PDO flips to cool as it has. Expect colder climate for the next 20-30 years.
Making up for lost time, I can see…
Emoticons have been winning hearts and minds since the dawn of Man.
There’s plenty of posts here on PJMedia that are expressing anger, fear, and ignorance regarding AGW. And for sure, there’s no shortage of canny politicians who keenly appreciate that:
(1) voter anger and fear can be turned into votes, and
(1) voter ignorance can be turned into Big Carbon campaign cash and pork.
That’s why, for some politics-first folks, anger-fear-and-ignorance are precious resources to be cultivated by any means necessary. Abuse and disinformation are mighty handy tools for that, eh?
But yah know, the world’s CEOs can’t build their businesses on anger, fear, abuse, and ignorance. And that’s why nowadays the world’s CEOs pretty much all take climate change seriously.
It’s just common sense … when you think like a CEO.
————————————————–
Climate Change Fix Must Come from Science
URL: http://www.statejournal.com/story/15939000/bayless-climate-change-fix-must-come-from-science
Carbon dioxide is .03 percent of the compostion of air. To put it simply there are 4 elements to phtosynthesis:water with minerals extracted by the roots of plants,sunlight, chlorophyl, and carbon dioxide. Sunlight in contact with chlorophyl causes a chemical reaction with carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide becomes carbohydrates, food for the plants and the byproduct is Oxygen. This is the only natural source of free oxygen in the world. Although oxygen is the most plentiful chemical element on earth it is form of water and oxidized materials in the earth’s crust. Only by photosynthesis do we obtain the oxygen we breathe that sustains our life. Without the carbon dioxide in the air there is no life on earth or we would have to develop gills and live in the water. This world is so insane that in Canada carbon dioxide is considered a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is a greenouse gas but is only found in trace amounts in the atmosphere. On Venus it has a huge warming effect but Venus’ atmosphere is composed of 96 percent carbon dioxide. By the way an increase in carbon dioxide increases photosythesis and provides more nourishment to plants and increases crop output.
Having engineered energy systems for forty years, worked with massive energy organizations, designed facilities which work, a score of nuclear power plants, two score fossil fuel power plants and assessed advanced technology, what is coming, for decades, I have come to some hard conclusions.
Carbon combustion will continue to be the bedrock of man’s energy needs for as far as experts can foresee, perhaps a century. The sole competitor fuel is uranium. Contrary to common myths, the north American continent contains centuries of high grade, recoverable fossil fuels, coal (solid), oil (liquid) and natural gas (gas).
The moral issue, well discussed in this article, is cost. Poor people suffer grievously when they can not pay for energy. Thus, as night follows day, poor people suffer and die, when denied cheap energy. “Pure”, green energy will always be more expensive than that made with cheap fuel.
The counterargument that carbon combustion carries hidden “external” costs is largely propaganda by those who hate carbon combustion. Ford would love to impose external costs on the price of Chevrolets. The marriage license between two homosexuals would be priced differently by the Pope, or by a San Francisco politician. Who defines the external cost on a your next fill up with gasoline?
There is a legitimate, SEPARATE, debate on who gets the profit from energy technology. It is the most concentrated financially intensive industry on earth, and is dominated by oligopolies. Duke Power, or Exxon, could care less what technology is acceptable to the government if one hard condition is met: all costs, with a big profit, land on the customer’s price. Our societal problem is that our government has a big fat thumb on the scales of commerce. There is almost no pure competition, technically, on energy. We regulate the bad guy, and subsidize our buddy, via technobabble and fear, tree rings or zoomies.
And all the while, two billion people subsist on $2 per day. And slowly starve.
Environmentalists are monsters. They kill people, though stupidity, arrogance and lies, by ignoring real costs.
Electric utilities are natural monopolies, and have to regulated as such. There’s nothing new about that, and nothing has changed in the past few decades other than the fact that a lot of utilities are neglecting their responsibility to save money for maintenance, because government is all to anxious to hand money out in the name of “infrastructure”. If the government came along and offered to pay to overhaul your car’s engine, would you bother to change the oil?
I take exception to the old saw about Exxon, though. America’s oil industry is a lot more diverse than any other country’s, and most countries in this world have a national oil company, such as PEMEX in Mexico, or ARAMCO, in Saudi. In fact, while ExxonMobil may be the largest privately owned oil company in the world, it’s #15, behind 14 state-owned oil companies. So in the overall scheme of things, ExxonMobil isn’t a particularly large oil company, and it certainly doesn’t have anything of a monopoly position in the US. They only have one refinery on the West Coast.
You can’t have an oil company below a certain level of capitalization. But there are a lot of little bitty privately held oil companies with little bitty (by oil industry standards) refineries. Try driving through northern New Mexico some time, and see how many you can spot. Companies I’m sure you’ve never heard of.
ExxonMobil is too busy worrying about how the government trying to screw them to be worried about Podunk Oil and Refining, LLC.
Excellent points, I agree with most of this. For disclosure, I never worked for Exxon; I used the name arbitrarily because it is widely known.
My key point is their oligopoly, only a handful of decision makers define US fuel prices. If our energy policies eliminate the sources of our native prime fuels, Exxon must compete on the world market, and becomes a smaller carnivore. They succeed because they can pass on extremely high crude prices to the purchaser. IF he is a small trucker, his profit is destroyed and he parks his only means of earning a living. This is the real effect of our environmental regs; they hurt small purchasers, who can not pass on higher costs.
The theme of the article, the destructive cost of green energy, is the overlooked elephant in the room. It has the potential to destroy our nation.
Crude is a worldwide commodity, and no oligopoly, not even OPEC, can determine its price. Only supply and demand can control it. Everybody from Exxon to Ewing Oil has to operate within these parameters. OPEC at least pretends to be such an oligopoly, but nobody operating in the US has any control at all over the price of crude. It is what it is, because the commodity is fungible, and the barrel of oil is just as desired in Shanghai as in Houston.
There are no conspiracies in the US to keep crude expensive except for the greens who have an agenda of deliberately making all energy as expensive for everybody as possible. And the power of the worldwide conspiracy (OPEC) is mostly a mirage.
Agreed. If the largest energy consumer on earth elects to quash gulf drilling, Alaskan drilling, tar sands extraction, the nuclear spent fuel repository, reprocessing of spent fuel, fracking of new gas plays, while promising to pump carbon dioxide into bed rock, energy costs are distorted beyond all reason. In candidate Obama’s words, “Drive energy costs sky high.” (from coal combustion). Energy IS a fungible commodity unless constrained by government action, or oligopolistic practice. OPEC was a virtual monopoly but their power has been lessened.
It is obvious that powerful Americans have purposefully driven energy costs up. They want gas to go to $10/ barrel, to punish carbon consumers. They punish all who do not have the market power to transfer costs to their customer, ie, the working poor. This is as wrong as slavery, they confiscate the fruits of other’s work.
This article was good; the comments were better.
“Environmentalists are monsters. They kill people, though stupidity, arrogance and lies, by ignoring real costs.”
No Sir, it is not stupidity. They know very well that AGW is a lie. They are monsters who kill people deliberately. My suspicion is that this anti-carbon boondoggle is designed to do exactly that. I am certain the banning of DDT was done for that reason. The earliest reference I can find to it is from the 1975 climate conference where Margaret Mead, George Woodwell, and John Holdren ( all three Malthusian fanatics ) decided that a climate crisis should be dreamed up for the purposes of stopping third world development and industrial activity in general. I believe at that time Julian Huxley was the director-general of UNESCO ( formerly the president of Britain’s Eugenics Society).
Monsters they certainly are and may they all rot in hell.
That means you too John Sidles, if you are listening.
garyj, you do realize that nobody is proposing to bring CO2 levels down below where they were before the industrial age began? Simply put, 250ppm is status quo ante. 360 ppm is 20 years ago. 390 ppm is today, and already we’re seeing unhealthy consequences. 1000 ppm is really dangerous, 2000 ppm is scary-movie territory.
We don’t have to turn the world’s economy upside down to manage without a lot of fossil fuel consumption. We can generate solar and wind electricity at prices no worse than double our current cost. With further progress in those technologies, coal and oil will become obsolete. Since the oil is mostly coming from parts of the world that don’t much like us, getting away from dependence on it’s a good idea anyhow.
This is pure nonsense. On an apples to apples comparison, these technologies can not compete with other technologies for base loaded supply. (There will be niche markets, particularly in poor societies, or remote locations, which have no grid.) The proof lies in the free market place. IF a technology ever can compete, builds a better mouse trap,it will attract trillions of investment dollars. Thus it is immoral for the government to foster any technology, via subsidizes, mandated purchases, or regulating competitors out of business. The Solyndra disaster is a current example.
It is immoral not to use our own resources, for “pure” reasons, while buying them and their manufactured fruits, from foreign suppliers. The US government killed off our heavy industry and their millions of jobs due to flawed policies, off shoring our manufacturing industries.
Environmentalists must put their money where their words lie. Invest in green technologies. Vote with your money. It is a myth that the greens stand on some high moral ground. They simply want to control society.
Seconded. There’s a lot of wishful thinking about wind in particular. The myth is that a sufficiently large ensemble of wind generators will produce a reliable base load. Real data, gathered from real wind systems, tells a very different story. Yes, sometimes the wind does stop blowing over wide areas for extended periods. Worse than that, the rest of the time, availability is rarely above 50%. Only an activist is delusional enough to believe a fairy tale like a solar/wind powered economy, let alone one where costs are only double current levels. I believe that you’re talking to such a species.
And we can do nuclear for cheaper than coal and no worse than 20% more expensive than natural gas, and it’s completely scalable, unlike your idea, which would require more than the world’s current output of rare earth metals and an enormous quantity of steel on top of it.
Sorry Doug,
CO2 is near famine levels for plant growth, cut the current levels in half and plants stop growing. Greenhouses pump in 4 times normal levels to promote more growth. US Navy Subs are allowed to run up to 8000 levels safely. With man’s contribution running around 3% of global CO2, the earth will continue to go in and out of ice ages every 100,000 years or so and warm up briefly for interglacials as we are in one now. In the past 10,000 years, there have only been about 200 years colder than today’ climate. Fear more a new ice age, CO2 is generally higher when sheets of ice cover the earth as there are fewer planets to use it up.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and the Earth is not warming.
The Sun drives the Earth’s climate and right now the command from the Sun is “Thou shalt cool off a bit.”
AGW is a hoax and AGW-bots are fleas spreading hysteria.
“1998 ice storm that paralyzed much of Eastern Canada and the Northeastern United States”
It might of paralyzed the adults but to a 13 year old OMG it was so much fun!
That feel when I will never ice skate down main street again QQ.
So climate change is real, serious, and accelerating … and yet the sages say:
So how is it, that the level of abuse here on PJ Media — abuse in its ugliest and most personal forms — is real, serious, and accelerating even faster than the ugliness of climate change?
Charlie Martin, Tom Harris, and Robert Carter — do you care to comment on what PJ Media’s new slogan “Voices from a free America” really is turning out to mean?
To me it shows that Pope was right: Americans have grown so accustomed to the ugly face of Big Carbon, that we no longer see Big Carbon clearly as “a monster of frightful mien” — a monster is gnawingly corrupting and bankrupting our American land, and our American nation, and the polity that sustains it.
———————————
Statement by World Jewish Congress: Living in God’s world
URL: http://www.arcworld.org/faiths.asp?pageID=81
If the “abuse” of being asked to defend your beliefs without resorting to red herrings gets too much for ya, John, I know that I, certainly, am not twisting your arm.
Is someone else forcing you to come here? Is there a threat against your well-being if you don’t come to PJ Media and comment?
If not, you’re free to leave if the “abuse” gets too much for your tender sensibilities. Some of us are made of sterner stuff, and compared to some of the debates and student congresses I had in high school, this is nothing.
Dude. I’ll worry about it when the Flying Spaghetti Monster tells me to worry about it.
And the answer is pirates. We need more pirates.
A few years ago (>20,) I too was a university academic before I fortunately escaped to the private sector. During my tenure and as a result of having the opportunity to observe colleagues in various disciplines I formulated what I call the higher education pomposity index (or HEPI). This is scale from 1-10 that can be used to classify self-important intellectuals. I found that most of my colleagues (at my own university and others) reliably scored somewhat higher than the original scale could accommodate; generally in the 10.5 to 12.0 range. “A Physicist” is causing me to rethink even this extension; scores greater than 12.0 are clearly possible. As an aside I will also note that last night’s score was 34-17. I was at Husky Stadium and can only conclude, based on both the game and our friends cranial/anal impaction, that it sure sucks to be a “Dawg”.
Nail. Head.
Might one ask how far you’d have to extend your 1-12 range to accommodate Dr. Sidles here?
Ah, beautiful Husky Football Stadium … by the lovely shores of Lake Union … whose water level happens to be only 9 feet above Puget Sound mean high tide.
Yeppers, Husky Stadium has survived its first 90 years … and perhaps it will survive its second 90 years … but for its third 90 years it will have to be renamed the Husky Open-Ocean Synchronized Swimming Stadium.
That whole lake’s been saltwater before … and very likely will be again … and not in geological time either, but instead pretty d*mn quick.
But our generation will have passed, and so we won’t mind that our descendants d*mn us, right?
Aye, that’s conservatism. PJ Media’s brand of conservatism anyway.
—————————————–
Robert Duvall is happy to see that a child still exists
URL: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/comment/1051617/
Ding-a-ling. You work at the UW, and you don’t realize that Husky Stadium is on the shore of Lake Washington?
Something’s wrong with this picture, Houston.
Actually, Snork, he’s claiming that the whole area’s gonna be under salt water soon.
However, note, he hasn’t shown any particular urgency to move himself and his loved ones inland, say to Oklahoma, to avoid the coming deluge.
In other words, he’s a typical lefty hypocrite, saying one thing, but doing something else.
Anyone here surprised? Not me.
It’s a fair cop, snork I’m a covert agent of the Illuminati.
Yeah, AGW’s wholly a Freemason conspiracy; it’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Novus ordo seclorum!
—————————
End the Illuminati Conspiracy: Disproving AGW
URL: http://endtheilluminaticonspiracy.wordpress.com/page/29/
Actually, if Lake Union/Lake Washington become saline in the future it is more likely to be the result of isostatic deflection as the crust deforms beneath the massive weight of ice descending upon the Puget Lowlands from its historic source further north and northeast in B.C, Vancouver Island, and the North Cascades.
Ain’t happening Expat … as every Seattle mountaineer plainly sees.
Already since the 1950s, our state has lost 53 glaciers in their entirety.
Folks hike to where these glaciers used to be … and they ain’t there no more.
Up here, AGW acceleration is something everyone can plainly see.
———————————————
Facts about Washington’s retreating glaciers and declining snow pack
URL: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0711016.html
Here’s a nice simple-to-understand website with photos for yah, Expat … courtesy of the NorthWest Mountaineers. Of 47 North Cascade glaciers tracked since 1967, all 47 are retreating; five have vanished utterly.
Yeah, up here we appreciate “Nature can’t be fooled.”
——————————————-
Northwest Mountain Journal: Our Vanishing Glaciers
URL: http://www.mountaineers.org/nwmj/07/071_Glaciers.html
haha
i told you
after the third article pj media will have summoned the agw genie
Global Climate Fraud
When 31,487 American environmental and climate scientists, 9,029 of whom hold PhDs, agree that ”limits on greenhouse gasses would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology and damage the health and welfare of mankind,” can they all be wrong?
If they are, that would mean the cockamamie claims of Al Gore, the IPCC, and the whole horde of “greenies” who have been claiming for years that CO2 emissions are hazardous to the planet are a crock.
When those scientists subscribe to the view that, “there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth,” it would mean that Gore and Company should be branded as criminals for knowingly advocating a plot which would deprive mankind of those benefits.
(See the petition which includes the identities and qualifications of the signers at http://www.petitionproject.org/.)
In point of fact, the global warmists/coolists/changeists–they and their ilk have pushed all of those senseless panics over the past three decades but will be referred to here as simply the warmists and their cause as global warming–are responsible for perpetrating a scam so massive that Bernie Madoff would blush for not thinking of it first.
The immediate occasion for citing The Petition Project, which began with some 17,000 signatories in the late nineties and which has, of course, been dismissed by the warmist lobby as fraudulent despite the identification of every signatory, is the recent brouhaha over what scientist said what and what did he mean about global warming.
UC Berkeley Professor Richard Muller, member of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST) team, alleged last week that he and his team had concluded Mother Earth was indeed warming and temperatures had increased by almost one degree centigrade over the course of 60 years.
As the warmists exulted over that announcement, made just in the nick of time for the gathering of the U.N.’s climate summit in Durban, S.A., a BEST colleague of Prof. Muller’s took issue with his opinion. A day later, Britain’s DailyMail.com also rained on Muller’s warmist parade by pointing out that his fellow climatologist had basically called Muller’s claim bunk.
Professor Judith Curry, chairperson of the highly-prestigious University of Georgia’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said Muller had made “a huge mistake,” prof-speak for, Muller, you’re a ninny and/or a shill for the warmists. Curry also corrected Muller’s conclusions by adding factual analysis that there has been no global warming for at least ten years . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5918.)
Oil trade groups: Drilling deregulation could create 190,000 jobs Published: 12:04 AM 07/12/2011| Updated: 2:34 AM 07/12/2011 http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/12/oil-trade-groups-drilling-deregulation-could-create-190000-jobs/
Unleashed! Duke of Edinburgh Disses Wind!
In spite of rumors to the contrary, the 90 year old Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Consort to Queen Elizabeth II, really does have a mind of his own, at least insofar as wind farms are concerned.
The rarely-seen Philip outside the company of Queen Liz on state occasions and who even more rarely says anything of consequence, thinks wind farms are bloody tommyrot, in Brit slang.
Of course, royalty doesn’t use slang but he was equally-emphatic on the functionality of those blots on the landscape and seascape which generate far more profits for developers than they produce reliable electricity. As Phil said, they are “absolutely useless,” a position shared by his son, the less than bonnie prince Charlie who has put the kibosh on any thoughts of building windmills on his Duchy of Cornwall lands.
That very politically incorrect opinion of the House of Windsor might be seconded by the House of Kennedy clan which opposed the construction of windmills but primarily because they would obstruct their Hyannis Port view of Nantucket Sound: To hell with being eco-friendly, not in our front yard!
To hell with the Kennedys, said the Obama administration when it gave the okay to mar the Kennedy vista and ignore one of early-supporter Uncle Teddy’s final wishes last year,
Prince Philip has little worry that wind farms will be erected anywhere near Buckingham Palace or in proximity to any of his other and his bride’s royal pads. Unlike the Kennedys, however, he takes issue with the whole concept of wind-gerated energy on practical, not self-serving grounds.
He calls the idea “a disgrace,” contends it will “never work,” and accuses those who buy into the scam of believing in a “fairy tale” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=6176.)