I provide this video for informational and entertainment purposes only. I have no opinion pro or con on it. Videographer Paul Budline writes:
First, pardon the overwrought subject heading. But I would like as many people as possible to see a 5-minute piece that I just finished. It focuses on the unintended consequences of marchers demanding an end to fossil fuels.It’s obviously shot on a shoestring and relies heavily on stock footage, but it’s an important topic:
Sent this link to a large number of friends on both sides of the debate, asking them to simply watch it, and post on Facebook or whatever other social media they use. It should hopefully cut through all dissension.
Excellent, have passed it on.
But I don’t see anyone trying to install fossil fuel powered ANYTHING in these desperate places either! The poor countries are being used as pawns, even in this video. If “our side” wishes to prove it, then our side should be building coal-burning plants in these poor places, to show how easy and cheap it is! (I’m not even sure if coal is available in Africa!)
Lots of Coal in Africa.
http://www.sasol.com/about-sasol/company-profile/historical-milestones
1955:
The original coal-to-liquids (CTL) complex at Sasolburg, South Africa, starts producing synthetic fuels and chemicals and the first eight drums of creosote – the first Sasol product – are dispatched in March. In August, the Synthol reactor completes its first reaction.
The World Bank and its IFC used to support major energy projects in the third world. They may still- I am not up-to-date on their current projects.
http://www.worldbank.org/
http://www.ifc.org
but green want also to impede to say the least installation of coal plants in poor countries..there is a lot of case when green are so happy to provide a household an amount of electricity just enough to light on.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1115303 coal in pakistan
In fact, some eco-freaks are doing just the reverse. Portland, OR recently rejected the construction of a coal terminal that was designed to load ships with western US coal bound for India and other Far East destinations.
And it was all because people in Portland were convinced that coal is just solid CO2, the pariah destroying our climate.
“Brainwashed” isn’t a sufficient term for these people.
I must confess I have serious concerns with this video and it’s one sided views. Things are never as clear cut as they make out ( Unless you are hoping to provide the grid systems required for the worlds poor) I work with a charity that provides tools for poverty struck villagers in Equatorial Africa. It enables them to use the various tools to raise themselves out of poverty and change the economic base of the villages. We would like to provide some basic power tools, but most of the villages are far away from power stations and the countries are too poor to build these grids at president. So, we try and help them to utilise other sources of power. People can sneer and say renewables are death, but trust me on this, in some cases amongst the worlds poor, renewables can make the difference between poverty and and economic self sufficiency. A solar system can be set up for fraction of the price it takes to link villages living in remote area, subject to political instability and a lack of resources, to a basic national grid. I really don’t think these marchers are complaining about these situations, and the speakers on the film don’t really seem to understand these situations. What will they suggest next? Stop using these poor animals to provide power and buy fleets of land rovers to replace them? http://www.tfsrcymru.org.uk
A fair point Gareth but I suggest you are correctly referring to much smaller-scale projects off-grid.
Groups like Light Up the World are “illuminating the lives of remote and underserved communities by using LED technology powered by renewable energy”. I suggest this is good, as far as it goes. http://lutw.org/
Renewables like wind and solar can make sense off-grid, but rarely on-grid. Wind and solar are typically too intermittent, too diffuse and too costly at this time for on-grid applications. Possible solutions may include a “super-battery”, but we do not have that yet. I suggested years ago that if/when electric cars become commonplace, they may collectively serve as a super-battery.
Best to all, Allan
“He may just be a peasant, who’s had nothing much in the way of education, but he’s smart enough to wonder why, when we’ve already chopped down all our forests and have so many things he doesn’t have like abundant food, medicines, children who’re expected to reach adulthood, decent housing and electricity, we want him to continue living in poverty to somehow salve our consciences. He sees things clearly in a way we don’t and will do his best for the ones he loves. We might live on the same planet but we’re living in completely different worlds.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/green-myths-we-must-conserve-everything/
A stylish fashion meme in the first world, resulting in poverty in the developing world.
Pointman
Pointman,
Absolutely.
A few years ago, a ship I was sailing on [new managers’ superintendent] saw a small skiff adrift in the Atlantic, with, we thought, about half a dozen people on board.
We stopped – eventually we rescued 42 men from this twelve metre by two metre skiff, four hundred miles plus from any land.
They’d looked to go from West Africa to the Canaries, in the EU, but ran out of fuel, so had drifted hundreds of miles in the ocean currents, first south, then south-westerly. For thirteen days.
One of their number died on board – he’d sampled sea water and his own urine, thinking it was ‘like’ water.
Two days later we landed 41 – and the body – at the Cabo Verde Islands.
About eight different nationalities.
The thing that really made me sit up was how practised the Cabo Verde authorities were: apparently they had something like two landings of rescued refugees every three weeks!
I remember the difficulties my then company had trying to land Vietnamese boat people in 1979: it took a personal intervention from Mrs. Thatcher, I was told, to get them landed ashore . . . . .
I have no idea how many such skiffs are not rescued.
The Atlantic is vast.
Their boats are small.
Even a modest swell will hide such boats for fifty per cent of the time.
Their boats have little or no radar echo.
And the standard of look-out on deep sea ships may not be as good as it could be – quite good enough to see and avoid collision with other merchant ships, generally yes – for sure.
But – to see a skiff, with a one foot [300 mm] freeboard, at best, even if filled with dying men?
There are many hundreds of millions of people in Africa, who seek to improve their lot. [Many elsewhere, too, but Africa is probably the worst.]
Some migrate.
Some have taken to piracy in East and West Africa.
Some turn to crime, other than piracy.
Millions are desperate.
And the watermelons of Team I’m OK would have them do not one iota better?
Auto
good video though we can hear two story from green people, the one is” we have to be poorer and let fossile energy down” and the second one “we have to let fossile energy down but we ll not be that poor because of renewable”… and of course we must stop nuclear and big dams because well…; if a sentence begins with of course do i really need to give a reason?
Most of green advocates would not accept to be actually poorer so they are either hypocritical or they are extrememy optimistic about the potential of renewable energy.
The consequence is at the very moment when they will become poorer they will stop being against fossil fuel.
Socialism is never for the Socialist…only for the masses.
Sadly, the people we need to convince will just look at this video and say, “Texas, eh? So that’s just the oil industry defending its patch again.”
talking heads, boring.
Thank you, Texans. I enjoyed Texas and Texans when I lived there.
Regards
@DaveF: Actually, that is exactly what it is. And I’m not one of those who “need[s] convincing.” Consider the source: The Texas Public Policy Foundation is not a credible producer of unbiased information or policy; it is a “think tank” (euphemism for propaganda organ) run by neoconservative apparatchiks. (Take a look at the bios of the executive board, available on Wikipedia.) Presenting this video to anyone of the Green persuasion is simply not going to fly. In fact, it would be counterproductive.
That said, just because the TPPF video is a self-interested defense of (so-called) fossil fuels doesn’t mean it’s not valid. In my opinion, “Climate Change”(TM) is disguised genocide, part of a larger campaign in resource-rich areas like Africa: the fewer the claimants to the resource, the easier and more profitable the extraction. The irony — that “Climate Change”(TM) enlists liberals in service of this quintessentially fascist enterprise — makes it sweeter still for them.
Name someone or some organization that DOESN’T have a bias. Everyone has a worldview, whether one that’s thought out and through or one that was caught somewhat like the measles. To not have a bias is to not have a mind, or to claim not to think.
The problem, specifically from a public policy point of view, is that real world experience and knowledge about a specific topic automatically renders you and your opinion “biased”…while making the opinions of people who just sit around thinking about the topic “expert”.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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Overwrought subject headings are not problems. Letting people die so you can feel good about your “green” street cred is a problem.
Partially true and partially bulls**t. I grew up in a very poor country that is building the Grand Renaissance Dam which definitely operates on renewable fuel ie water, and that dam will produce a lot of cheap power.
DaveW
Hmm, really? How much did your dam cost, US$5B? How much will the environmental impact cost, even without the formal study? On information and belief, a skeptic may be persecuted, even shot. Nothing cheap is worth doing.
Well done! Needs exposure.
So how many renewable energy systems would the “west” have been able to install in those far away off the grid places for the billions wasted on AGW research?
Salutary lessons which will probably not be learned by our masters, who have absorbed the pseudo science which suits their selfish agenda.
God help the poor!
Excellent video. Reblogged at : http://hardnoxandfriends.com/2014/10/12/energy-policy-and-poverty/
Other than the drivers, “green”, “renewable” energy technology is neither green nor renewable throughout their life cycle from recovery to manufacturing to operation to reclamation. Also, recycling cannot be a first-order process, since it is degenerative, and must be subordinated to first-order productive processes which establish and sustain a baseline.
Three Months ago, I Posted on something similar to this at the site I contribute to.
In that Post is a very telling chart indicating that most Countries in Africa have less electricity than what we here in the Developed World would have to service a small city with a population of only 40,000 people.
Something we take so utterly for granted is something these people have never had, and in all likelihood, will most probably never have at all, access to constant and reliable electrical power.
The Green Dream is not only that we deprive these Africans of this power, we also must deprive ourselves of it also, the end result being that we go back and live like they do.
I apologise for linking into my own Post on this subject, but just like the video, and the telling graphic, this is something that everybody needs to be shown.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/climate-change-hypocrisy-exposed-new-coal-fired-power-plant-for-niger-in-africa/
Tony.
Presentations from the TPPF conference can be viewed here:
https://texas-policy.squarespace.com/crossroads-summit/
I highly recommend Mark Mills.
Of course, they want to kill millions. More starvation, cancer and disease are good, natural ways to die according to the enviros and the UN. That’s the whole point of biofuels, make corn and all grains more expensive and starve the poor to death. The biofuels program is working, doing exactly what they want.
So, she the lady at the end says that millions will die. “Is that what you want?” addressing those pushing renewables. The answer from the people pushing renewable energy is a resounding, “YES, FOR SURE!”
What’s interesting are the numbers for China. Only 8 million without electricity out of a population of how many? So, I have heard that China was building 8 new coal fired electric plants a week for some time. It appears they’ve been pretty successful at that. Now, you’d think, that if renewables were such an awesome idea that, of all nations, China would have the best chance of making that happen – they have the manufacturing capacity, the low cost labor and the centralized command and control that would make installing the infrastructure needed much more straight forward. And yet, and yet, they have chose the path of primarily coal and some nuclear. I wonder why they chose to go that route when wind and solar are so much more efficient and cost effective.
Now I just saw on the news that the Premier of China has just arrived in Russia to meet with Putin. Gee, I wonder what they’ll talk about.
Hey, just a question: that 423 million in China that don’t have clean cooking facilities, are they talking about the fuel used to cook food? Because, you know, you can cook cleanly with natural gas and China’s right next to… Oh wait… Never mind.
Back when wagon trains crossed the plains on there way to California, they would hang a sheet of some kind below the wagons. People, including the kids, walking alongside of the wagons would toss any buffalo “chips” they came across into the sheets to fuel their fires when they stopped. (You won’t see that in many of the Hollywood westerns.) They had no choice if they they wanted a fire that night. I’m sure they would have preferred to plug into an outlet if they could.
True, buffalo don’t roam the plains anymore but there are lots of cattle ranches and dairy farms now.
The rich in the video could choose to buy the cow chips to satisfy their energy needs. (Though it might be tough to run an iPhone on one.) None of them choose to do so. They use fossil fuel and nuclear at the same time that they rail against them. They can afford to do so. Some can even afford to put up some solar panels and/or windthingees. (I doubt those who have gone that far have cut themselves off from “the grid”.)
The poor in the video don’t burn chips because they choose to. They do so because “energy policy” is actively denying them a choice.
Their “unintended” consequences? There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the consequences are, for many pro-green-commie-mantra types, FULLY intended.
Cancer cells are the host’s own cells gone haywire, with messed up DNA maps, parasitic on energy use (both directly and through exhaustion of the immune system), utterly dysfunctional and ultimately causing the host to gradually die.
Modern “progressive” activists are exactly like this, with messed up worldviews, parasitic on energy use (both directly and through exhaustion of monetary means), utterly dysfunctional, and are causing their host, the human race, to gradually die.
Green enviro-nutjobs appear to be, almost without exception, “progressives.”