PJ Media

I have a list of 70+ senior PhDs, Professor Emeritus, Departments Heads, etc. from leading Universities and Laboratories, all over the world who have signed a common statement that man’s combustion of carbon is not causing major damage to the climate. Due to their backgrounds, they vary in their technical criticisms of the vaulted UN reports. This is not shocking to me, it is the norm for science. I have “refereed” such technical conflicts. At some point, I would summarize what we know.

I know that I am a dummy; climatology is not my field. I know that one timid expert in the back of the room has been correct in his prediction, while the majority of his colleagues were incorrect in their opposition to him. I am an energy engineer, and know that without the cheap, plentiful combustion of carbon, massive populations will die. Let me be clear. I know that carbon dioxide, CO2, is a tiny trace compound in our atmosphere. If its tinier increases in CO2 are quite harmful to man’s future, billions are doomed. Except for uranium, there is no substitute for a prime fuel to supply our base loaded energy needs. I know that North America is blessed with vast readily recoverable reserves of carbon fuel, either in solid, liquid or gaseous phase, centuries worth of fuel. They are essential to our advanced way of life.

All alternate energy technologies are inherently costly. For over a century their proponents have claimed that in five to ten years, they will dominate energy supply. I know that each has a cottage industry that survives on R&D grants and start up subsidies. We should fund R&D, but demand objective goals be achieved, and people held to account for public money expenditures.

The vast majority of energy subsidies are purposefully misnamed. They are industrial tax deductions, available to all industries. They are not true subsidies, give away money. Subsidies do exist; they are the result of lobbyist’s intense back room efforts. They must be exposed and considered in public open debate. I endorse only one, the conversion of nuclear energy from weapons to peaceful use, but even this must be periodically scrutinized. Old hogs must be routinely slaughtered.

I know that there is a greater turn over of decision makers in the Russian Duma than in the US Congress. Old hogs must be kicked out of the food trough.

IMHO, the US must end our energy regulation as it now exists. It does not work. The bureaucrats are not responsible for costs, the financial types seek to maximize profit, and our technocrats are in the middle, with zero power and total technical responsibility. The result, after two generations, is litigious chaos. If we continue the status quo, our nation will not survive.