Is Fighting Global Warming the Solution to Water Shortages in Malawi (or Elsewhere)?

English: Malawi (orthographic projection) Port...
Malawi in green (orthographic projection)  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Guest essay by E. Calvin Beisner

In late May two evangelical environmentalists, recently returned from visiting Malawi, published articles in which they said poor Malawians are suffering from reduced rainfall caused by manmade global warming.

Jonathan Merritt wrote for Religion News Service, “In America, climate change is a matter of debate, but in places like Malawi, it’s a matter of life and death.” Judd Birdsall wrote for Huffington Post, “In Fombe village, Malawi, climate change is not a matter of political or scientific debate. It’s a matter of survival.”

The implication was clear: To help the poor in Malawi (and other developing nations), we must fight global warming.

If either author had dug deeper, he might have concluded differently.

Although the controversial Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project reports about 0.6°C of warming for Malawi from about 1970 to about 2010, the data are highly suspect, coming from fewer than 10 monitoring stations in a country that stretches nearly 600 miles from north to south, averages about 75 miles wide, and is slightly larger in area than the State of Ohio. Granted the widespread deviance of temperature monitoring stations even in the U.S. from standards set to ensure accuracy, and the likelihood that “urban heat island” effect (which occurs even in small villages) accounts for about half of apparent global and regional warming in recent decades, it’s likely that BEST’s data for Malawi considerably exaggerate any warming there.

Economic development also causes fictitious appearance of rising regional temperatures. As climatologist and former missionary to Kenya Dr. John Christy put it in an email, “I doubt any UHI corrections were applied to [BEST’s] Malawi temp data. … As we report in both of my papers (Kenya/Tanzania and Uganda), East Africa has a real problem with development showing up as rising nighttime (and therefore TMean [mean of daytime maximum and nighttime minimum]) temperatures. Since Malawi borders Tanzania, I would expect the same to be true there.”

clip_image002

Source: UAH Lower Tropospheric Temperature data v. 5.5, Malawi data extracted and graph prepared by John Christy, University of Alabama, Huntsville. Note: Y-axis is anomaly from mean temperature for the period in degrees Celsius. Red arrow is IPCC computer model projectins; blue line is satellite observations.

Although the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s computer models projected about 0.7°C of warming from 1979 through 2012 for Malawi, satellite measurements—unaffected by the problems that compromise land-based data—show no statistically significant trend in temperature.

Accurate rainfall measurements are very difficult to find for Malawi, but data for nearby East Africa show a slight increase in rainfall in the late twentieth century

Birdsall wrote that farmers “in every village” told him, “Until just a few decades ago the rains came by mid October and fell steadily until March. … These days the rains often don’t come until December. Sometimes it rains too much, sometimes too little. Flooding and drought can occur in the same season. The climate has changed.”

Similarly, Merritt wrote, “An elderly man from Fombe village … told me that water streamed here year round when he was a child. Banana trees and other vegetation once flourished on its banks, and an abundance of fish provided a critical source of protein for those who lived nearby. In 1977, however, the waters began receding and now flow only a handful of days each year.”

clip_image005

Of course, childhood memories are notoriously poor data sources, both for the past and for comparison with the present, but Merritt added this graph, from the 2006 Action Aid report (click graph to enlarge), showing apparent increases in droughts and floods.

Yet drought and flood data are no substitute for rainfall measurements. They reflect changes in population and land use, as climatologist Dr. David Legates explained in his lecture on global warming for Cornwall Alliance’s Resisting the Green Dragon video series. As population grows, demand for water increases, not just for drinking but also for agriculture, industry, and other uses, resulting in more frequent and severe droughts—even with no change in rainfall. Malawi’s population nearly tripled, from about 5.7 million to 16.8 million, from 1977 to 2013.

Population growth also results in land use changes. As land becomes more paved or built up, it absorbs less rain, sending more runoff into streams, which then flood more frequently and severely—again, even with no change in rainfall. As undeveloped land is converted to agriculture, demand for irrigation water grows, and agricultural land in Malawi grew by 43 percent from 1977 through 2011 and 75 percent from 1961 through 2011.

Land Used for Agriculture, Malawi, 1961–2011 (click graph to enlarge)

clip_image007

In reality, while rainfall amounts have risen and fallen in Malawi since 1900, there is no significant trend, as the data in the table below show. In 1990–2009, Malawi’s average monthly rainfall was 4% higher than in 1900–1930, 0.5% lower than in 1930–1960, 3.1% lower than in 1960–1990, and virtually identical to the average for the full 110 years, and there was no apparent delay or shortening of rainy seasons.

Malawi Average Monthly Rainfall (mm), 1900–2009

1900–2009 1900–1930 1930–1960 1960–1990 1990–2009
Jan 229.4 217.4 234.2 230.8 236.7
Feb 207.8 202.7 218.2 206.7 200.8
Mar 204.5 194.8 207.2 205.2 210.2
Apr 93.1 97.1 88.4 98.3 85.3
May 22.0 21.3 23.1 21.7 21.9
Jun 8.5 7.9 9.7 8.4 7.8
Jul 7.0 6.9 6.0 7.1 18.1
Aug 2.9 2.8 3.0 2.6 3.1
Sep 2.6 2.9 2.9 2.6 3.1
Oct 13.9 16.5 10.5 14.6 13.6
Nov 66.9 57.7 68.5 75.0 62.4
Dec 193.3 180.2 185.4 212.5 188.7
Annual 1,051.9 1,008.2 1,057.1 1,085.5 1,051.7

Note: September 1900-1930 and 1930-1960, 2.9 (mean of existing September data) supplied for blank cells to permit computation of percentages.

Source: World Bank Group, Climate Change Portal, from Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia

Are poor Malawians suffering from water shortages? Yes. Is that because of global warming—manmade or natural? No. Is fighting global warming the solution? No.

Malawi is actually a water-rich nation. Not only does its annual rainfall average approximately 40 inches (about the same as Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, and New Jersey), but also it includes much of Lake Malawi—“third largest and second deepest lake in Africa [and] the ninth largest in the world.”

About 80 percent of Malawi is within 75 miles of Lake Malawi, and most of what isn’t is within 50 miles of the Shire River, which flows south from the lake and eventually joins the might Zambezi River. Fifty miles is a distance easily covered by aqueducts. Fombe—where Merritt and Birdsall visited and heard the anecdotes about declining stream flow—is at least potentially a water-rich village. It is a mere 10 miles from the Shire.

For comparison, the Roman aqueducts, built two millennia ago, carried water 260 miles, and the system of aqueducts constituting the California State Water Project (SWP) provides drinking water for over 23 million people (over 1/3 third more than the entire population of Malawi) by transporting water hundreds of miles from the Colorado River, the Sierra Nevada, and central and northern California. The shortest, the Colorado River Aqueduct, is over 240 miles long.

Of course, California is wealthy (though it wasn’t nearly so wealthy when much of the SWP was built), and Malawi is poor. How can Malawi afford to build such aqueducts—even if they would cover far less distance and serve only a small fraction of the people?

The real solution to Malawi’s water needs is economic growth that will enable Malawians to bear the costs of improved water transportation, storage, purification, and conservation through efficient use.

Sad to say, however, if climate change activists succeed in enacting policies to fight global warming, Malawi’s economic growth will be curtailed. Why? Because abundant, reliable, affordable energy is an essential condition of economic growth, and activists seek to fight global warming by shunning the use of the most reliable and affordable energy sources for the developing world—coal and natural gas—and putting far more expensive “Green” energy sources like wind and solar in their place. As it happens, Malawi has abundant coal reserves and already mines them (PDF download), though it could benefit from mining far more to generate electricity and deliver its people from the smoke that comes from burning wood and dried dung as primary cooking and heating fuels—smoke that causes high rates of illness and premature death, especially among women and children, from respiratory diseases.

Ironically, and sadly, the climate policy Merritt and Birdsall want will only bring further harm to the very people they long to help, by prolonging their poverty—the real threat to Malawians’ health and life.

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., is Founder and National Spokesman of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and author of several books on environmental stewardship.

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

90 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Margaret Hardman
June 8, 2013 5:36 am

Oh, look. Don’t know who thought of it first but here’s another list that someone could have linked me to.
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=27941
I’ve played spot the difference and I think I’ve found three. I’ve seen this sort of thing going on in vaccine denial sites – copying the same unsubstantiated and unsourced lists and hoping no one has the nouse or the time to check. Cheap.
By the way, looked at the Green Agenda “sources” link and tried a couple of them. As I thought, so often they don’t do what they say on the tin.

Luther Wu
June 8, 2013 5:58 am

Margaret Hardman says:
June 8, 2013 at 12:22 am
______________________________
Margaret, You are employing well- known rhetorical tactics we’ve seen many times before. You are certainly welcome to continue. However, be aware that every time you slip a question or try misdirection, obfuscation or denial, that there are many people around here that see the words for what they are.

Jimbo
June 8, 2013 7:04 am

Margaret Hardman, I’m sorry the link didn’t shake you on bit. Let me put it this way, many Greens know full well what reducing DDT use in developing countries means but won’t say.They know full well what depriving large swathes of humanity of cheap and plentiful energy will mean but wont’s say etc. etc. I suspect they have a ‘hidden’ agenda.
Now, can you believe this! LOL.
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Jimbo
June 8, 2013 7:17 am

According to Golkany’s 2010 post the net global population at risk of water shortage is set to decline by the 2080s.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/18/the-ipcc-hiding-the-decline-in-the-future-global-population-at-risk-of-water-shortage/

Bart
June 8, 2013 8:53 am

evanmjones says:
June 7, 2013 at 6:54 pm
“Climate Change is the greatest threat that human civilization has ever faced. – Angela Merkel, German Chancellor
The irony! It burns!”

LOL. Seems an “aside from us” was missing from the end. Today in history.

Crispin in Waterloo
June 8, 2013 8:53 am

@Paul Homewood
“Deforestation can increase droughts, both on a local and regional basis.”
Exactly. Malawi has been severely deforested to the point that even quite poor people have to spend cash to get fuelwood. Flying over the south of the country one cannot avoid being astonished at how much of the mountainsides have been cleared for charcoal making for domestic cooking fuel.
It would be a ‘green thing’ to do to plant a great number of trees (which thrive when planted – just like before) and to use coal as a substitute cooking fuel in the interim. Coal can be pelleted just like wood. To burn cleaning coal has to be homogenized in some manner. There are several examples of this already so no need to detail here. Malawi has far more than enough coal to give the forests a chance to recover.
When the forests are better managed, they can processed into charcoal (a high value biofuel) in a far more efficient manner than now, and the stoves used for cooking can also be greatly improved. GIZ/ProBEC was involved in this until the funding term expired in 2010.
It is pointless to whinge that people should not use coal when there is such a man-made forest crisis. No wonder the rainfall is errant. You can’t cut down all the forest and think there will be no local rainfall consequences. It may even be local warmer as a result, but it certainly has nothing to do with ‘global warming’ because there isn’t any of that apparently.
There is also a 19 year rainfall cycle which no one bothers to consider when making blanket statements about the weather and changes therein.
My experience of African villages and water source reliability, having working on it professionally, is that people simply forget what the conditions were and overstate the reliability of local supplies. Analysts are advised to examine regional cycles and lake level records, weir measurements (the Brits loved building them in the 30’s) and farmer’s rainfall records which are usually very reliable and often the longest continuous records available. Farmers also collect evaporation pan information. Weather records on tea estates are probably the most reliable in Malawi and there are far more than 10 of them.

Bruce Cobb
June 8, 2013 9:07 am

It’s a tough choice: whether to spend multi-$billions fighting a mythical problem, causing untold human misery and death in the process, or addressing actual problems, like water shortages, fuel poverty, and real pollution, at a fraction of the cost.
But, this is why we have politicians. To do our “thinking” for us!

Zeke
June 8, 2013 9:23 am

There is no logical connection between individuals holding a view of the afterlife (whatever the view may be), and scientists and activists aggressively promoting eugenics/population control policies. The two have nothing to do with each other.
Making an equivalence between all of the people throughout history who have believed in an afterlife stretching back thousands of years, and the population control activists is not valid. The person who used the argument that one is just as “anti-human” as the other is deeply confused and is ignoring the crimes and cruelty of eugenics and population control as practiced in countries such as WWII Germany and in China. Specific policies include starvation, Lysenkoism, forced abortion, sterilization, and seizure of babies already born.

Zeke
June 8, 2013 9:38 am

If anyone sterilizes another person, that activist has maimed another, not only physically but also spiritually. Because sterilization does not involve a visibly missing limb, does not mean that it is not an exceedingly brutal amputation, carried out on the simple in foreign countries.
Definition of maim (vt)
Bing Dictionary
maim
[ maym ]
1. wound or disable somebody: to inflict a severe and permanent injury on a person or animal, especially one that renders a limb useless
Synonyms: mutilate, injure, hurt, harm, damage, disfigure, deface, mar, spoil, dismember

Patrick
June 8, 2013 10:07 am

“Zeke says:
June 8, 2013 at 9:23 am”
You need to add the Japanese Unit 731 to that list.

June 8, 2013 10:12 am

Whether or not you can judge a group by its leaders or radicals is a good question. However, I assert that you can do so. Part of being a Christian or a green or a Muslim for that matter is being a responsible citizen and shooting down the radicals and stupids. Failure to do so means you silently agree with what they are saying. This is why logically the green movement CAN be judged by the words and actions of the few. If they fail to police their own people and fail to shout them down they are silently agreeing. And this conformity especially in the green movement is why these quotes are so relevant. People like David Suzuki call humans maggots and instead of denouncing the guy as a village idiot, the green movement worships the man.
I am sure there are more pragmatic greens in existence but the fact that they buy books and attend lectures and view their websites is enough evidence to state that greens are responsible for the sorry state of their movement.
As for over-population, that is one ship that is never responsible. In every case every utterance about how bad people’s lives get, there is always another cause. In this case, poor water management due to either incompetent government or perhaps because of a lack of resources. Climate change effects everyone equally, from New Orleans after Katrina to St. Louis due to rainfall, a society either adopts well or not.
More people is the ultimate power because more people means more wealth to build things that prevent things like deforestation and floods and droughts. That is why whenever I read nonsense about how people are stripping the land bare and its due to some pet theory, I just think of some little kid who has no ability to actually think things through logically. The more I read from scientists the more I think they are emotionally and intellectually stunted at some child’s level and that as long as society glorifies these intellectual children the more people will want to be like them and so in a way these children are responsible for the dumbing down of our society. Just like the case of the greens, by not policing their own, all scientists regardless of whether they agree or not do share some responsibility. You can either call your fellows out for being morons, or you can sit silently and make sure that you will be lumped with the rest of the children.

June 8, 2013 10:21 am

Malawi really needs inefficient, ineffective, costly wind power. Just like it needs a navy (Malawi is landlocked).
Malawi, located in Southeast Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world.
There used to be no trained doctors outside the capital city.
Then in 1998 Canadian Dr. Chris Brooks, on his own initiative, started treating patents under a tree in rural Malawi. His good work has grown to now comprise two rural hospitals that provide medical care to 200,000 patients per year.
Chris told me his story over a coffee several years ago and has become my friend.
The Lifeline Malawi story is truly inspiring. Many decades ago, Dr. Albert Schweitzer received the Nobel Prize for his good works in (now) Gabon. Dr. Chris Brooks is the Albert Schweitzer of Canada.
If anyone truly wants to help Malawi, then consider helping Dr. Chris is his good works.
You’ll feel great, and it will take years off your time in purgatory. 🙂
Story at
http://www.lifelinemalawi.com/Default.aspx?pageId=986960
Help at
http://www.lifelinemalawi.com/Default.aspx?pageId=987048
Best, Allan

Theo Barker
June 8, 2013 10:24 am

benfrommo has dealt a blow to many of the arguments from both Margaret and her opponents. What he has stated is precisely why Anthony, Roy S., Lindzen, et al have vehemently addressed the PSI/slayer crowd. Silence is tacit agreement.

Zeke
June 8, 2013 10:35 am

inre Japanese Unit 731.
Like your example, there is an experimental aspect to the forced sterilization programs. According to Robert Zubrin, author of Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, in order to reach sterilization quotas in poor countries, “the programs use defective, unproven, unsafe, experimental, or unapproved gear, including equipment whose use has been banned outright in the United States. They also employ large numbers of inadequately trained personnel to perform potentially life-endangering operations,” as a regular practice.
He points out the main characteristics of the population control programs: they are top-down dictatorial, the programs are dishonest, the programs are coercive, the programs are medically irresponsible and negligent, the programs are cruel, callous, and abusive of human dignity and human rights, and the programs are racist. These programs are carried out against people who, like the victims of Japanese Unit 731 are in some way undesireable to the population control activists. These characteristics are explained in greater detail under the heading, The Characteristics of Population Control Programs here:
ref: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust

Margaret Hardman
June 8, 2013 11:01 am

Jimbo
There is another way to look at the suffering aspect. Since it would appear to be that the alternative to using renewable energy sources is to use fossil fuels, we could look at the suffering from respective energy sources.
According to http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/lowering-deaths-per-terawatt-hour-for.html, coal worldwide is responsible for 161 deaths per TWh (extraction, transportation and use in energy generation I assume), oil is 36 deaths per TWh, wind 0.15. I realise that these figures are arguable but my opinion is that they are in roughly the right proportions. So the desire to make more electricity from fossil fuels turns out to incur suffering and death in excess of the suffering and death preferred by the greens.
This is probably an endless game we could play. I have no doubts that there are extremists of all kinds out there who take ideas beyond anything that is common sense. Most greens, most “warmists” and most “skeptics” are a lot more sensible and probably a lot more practical. But if you want to change my mind with a list of politicians going on about the environment or world governance then you have a lot more digging for evidence before I reach my personal tipping point on that one.

Luther Wu
June 8, 2013 11:48 am

Margaret Hardman says:
June 8, 2013 at 11:01 am
_____________________
You are trying to draw moral equivalency between skeptic viewpoints and your viewpoints, but your efforts fail- we see your words for what they are. In fact, you not only give tacit support to some of the very worst ideas of modern human society, but you come here and overtly defend those ideas and those who would implement them, to the detriment of all mankind.

Zeke
June 8, 2013 12:00 pm

There is no need, when citing Environmental Protection Agency science, to selectively cite the claims of the “deaths” and “suffering” caused by the use of fossil fuels.
The “deaths” and “suffering” preventable, according to government reports by government departments, include also the suffering and “death” caused by lighting fires to heat homes in Alaska. Apparently, there is also government reports of “suffering and death” caused by dust from agriculture, and methane released by beef cattle and dairy cows.
One response has been to pass legislation that requires states and state agencies to publish the scientific papers used to arrive at these unique conclusions.

Taphonomic
June 8, 2013 12:07 pm

Margaret Hardman says:
“There is another way to look at the suffering aspect. Since it would appear to be that the alternative to using renewable energy sources is to use fossil fuels, we could look at the suffering from respective energy sources.”
That nextbigfuture.com is an interesting site, but I’m not sure from where all those values for deaths per terawatt come. Do the solar and wind deaths include evaluations of extraction, pollution, and final disposal resulting from all the rare earth elements as mined in China or just people falling off roofs? But then, I suppose they couldn’t put it on the internet if it wasn’t true (I’m a french model).
However; I absolutely, utterly agree with you. Coal is evil, an abomination upon the face of the Earth. Those deaths per terawatt are absolutely unacceptable. Any death is too much. Shut down all coal plants, NOW!
What, people will die if we do this? For immediate example, people on life support in hospitals or people in traffic accidents from lack of power for traffic lights. Lack of power for heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting, medical devices, water distribution, power supply to nuclear plants, etc., etc., will claim more lives as time goes by (without even mentioning the resulting social chaos; oops, I just did). Who would have ever thought that people would die if you turn off ~45% of the electricity in the US without something to replace it? That ~2% from solar and wind will sure put a big dent in saving some of those lives (that is, when the wind is blowing at the right speed and when the sun is shining and when that power can be ported into the grid in an acceptable manner). Why, you might even have to give up using your computer. Now, THAT would be suffering.
It can be fun to look at one side of a coin. The real world needs evaluation of costs versus benefits.

June 8, 2013 1:13 pm

Theo, yes I agree. If you do not police the sceptics when you are in a position to do so, than you really do silently agree with them. I think how Anthony et al handles them is great because they forced them to defend their more stupid arguments and in doing so they show that they have no clue and are not really sceptics but die-hard believers of their own pet theory. Pet theories seem to abound nowadays where people are allowed to state and believe whatever they want without actual discourse and eventual derision when they fail to prove their case as is proper. I have read Anthony’s take on this and thought about it a great deal. I think he handled it better than I could have and am satisfied that him and a couple others are serving the sceptical community well.
This is also why I actually INSIST that people tell me I am wrong when I am wrong. I would rather look a fool once on an internet message board than to have people continually dodge and skirt the issue and allow me to have delusions.
This is why climate science is in such a sorry state. When you have delusional folks like Mann running around thinking they really are intelligent when they are at the same level of a retarded monkey….why that is your problem right there! Between incompetence and cover-ups and other nonsense, this position just guarentees that only the most incompetent and most political savvy folks make it.
In other words, you do not have nearly enough scientists speaking out about it and forcing intelligent discourse. Heck, the most recent post here is about scientists who bury their head in the sands instead of actually rebuking with integrity, honesty and facts. That is why Mann is a moron. Not because he believes a certain way but because he can not even defend his work and beliefs and HAS TO resort to platitudes and nonsense like “shutting down the debate.” If his beliefs and work actually had merit, he would WIPE THE FLOOR with sceptics at every chance. But he can not and deep down he knows this.

Margaret Hardman
June 8, 2013 1:20 pm

@Luther Wu
“In fact, you not only give tacit support to some of the very worst ideas of modern human society, but you come here and overtly defend those ideas and those who would implement them, to the detriment of all mankind.”
Since I am obviously very dense, could you please explain to me what those ideas are and which ones I have defended, either tacitly or overtly? Then I shall at least know what I have to defend myself against.
@Taphonomic
I can’t vouch for the figures on nextbigfuture.com so they could very well be wrong. And you are right to point out that there is no moral equivalence. However, the original sentence I was querying used a value loaded term that has yet to be demonstrated to have any substance. You are free to make your point about any energy source you like, as am I.
In the meantime, I think this from New Scientist might interest us all: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829202.300-how-the-cold-war-spawned-the-environmental-movement.html. I learned more from this than I did from the earlier links I was pointed towards.

Luther Wu
June 8, 2013 2:58 pm

Margaret Hardman says:
June 8, 2013 at 1:20 pm
@Luther Wu
_________________
I’ve been detailing your tricks, all along. Of course, you pretend otherwise. You are very good at what you are doing.

Margaret Hardman
June 8, 2013 3:10 pm

@Luther Wu
Flattery will get you everywhere. Or you could answer the question.

June 8, 2013 5:23 pm

Margarat:
http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
I know others have given you links to what some of the more rabid greens believe in, but I just figured you might like that site. Like I stated before, the green movement is fully responsible for what these dorks say. By not denouncing them on the spot and right than and there (if someone in my company called humans maggots, I would call them a dork, and push them into a wall and not let them move. After all, if we are maggots, isn’t that how maggots behave?) The irony will probably not be lost on the “dork”. And so that dork will no longer utter such a stupid thing. But greens refused to either through words or actions or the throwing of rotten veggies to stop that kind of crazy thoughts in their tracks. And so the responsibility of their inclusion in this type of thinking is already set into stone.
They agree with their silence. I posted a longer thing about this earlier. But that will remain until you can actually prove your assertions that “not all greens are like that.” Because frankly in my experience I have never met a green who ever discusses a thing of substance. The only discussion you can ever get out of a green is the question of how much we must deindustrialize to save this planet.
Some claim that hydro and/or nuclear is ok until we can invent something new. Others claim the opposite. But none of them thinks Natural Gas or Coal or Oil should ever be used. And they DEFINITLY don’t think we should allow other countries to industrialize. Is that because the other countries are of other races? And that is why it is ok to control those people so strongly? I really don’t know, because greens really do not use logic. I have talked to quite a few and that is what you get out of them if you can get them to be honest for a few seconds.
At the core, their belief is that humans are all bad and evil and anything man does is evil. But do they want to give up their cheap electricity? Nope, the bigger the green, the bigger their energy footprint and the bigger their mansion. Perhaps some of those greens who are fawned over are just laughing all the way to the bank (like Al Gore). But regardless, the green movement IS in the state it is in because of silent agreement among other greens who have no problem with people stating these awful things. If you can prove me wrong, I will appologize. But I really doubt you can find a green who is not as awful as I stated. IN the end, they always utter the phrase “to make an ommellette you need to break a few eggs” as if a platitutude like that makes it ok to play God over another race.

Taphonomic
June 8, 2013 5:31 pm

Margaret Hardman says:
“And you are right to point out that there is no moral equivalence.”
Excellent! But I didn’t do that.
I just pointed out the absurdity of your statement that somehow using fossil fuels can be considered an alternative to using renewable energy sources (“Since it would appear to be that the alternative to using renewable energy sources is to use fossil fuels, we could look at the suffering from respective energy sources.”).
Coal 45%, solar and wind ~2%; those aren’t alternatives (or equivalents). Shutting down fossil fuel power production would cause suffering and death. Are you advocating that?

DirkH
June 8, 2013 5:43 pm

Margaret Hardman says:
June 8, 2013 at 1:20 pm
“In the meantime, I think this from New Scientist might interest us all: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829202.300-how-the-cold-war-spawned-the-environmental-movement.html. I learned more from this than I did from the earlier links I was pointed towards.”
That is of course totally preposterous nonsense. Catastrophic environmentalism dates back to the Nazis.
Green Nazis – Günther Schwab – SA and NSDAP member,
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/the_nazi_origins_of_apocalypti.html