Aussie Climate Professor: "Governments may need extraordinary emergency powers"

A new model for a greener democracy?
A new model for a greener democracy?

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Yet another Aussie academic attack on Democracy, Mark Diesendorf, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, UNSW, UNSW Australia has demanded wide ranging social changes, a “wartime response” to the climate emergency, including vesting the government with extraordinary powers in order to overcome resistance from “vested interests”.

…in practice there are several big, non-technical barriers. These include politics dominated by vested interests, culture, and institutions (organisational structures, laws, and regulations).

Vested interests include the fossil fuel industry, electricity sector, aluminium smelting, concrete, steel and motor vehicles. Governments that receive taxation revenue and political donations from vested interests are reluctant to act effectively.

To overcome this barrier, we need strong and growing pressure from the climate action movement.

UNSW PhD candidate Laurence Delina has investigated the rapid, large, socio-economic changes made by several countries just before and during World War 2.

He found that we can learn from wartime experience in changing the labour force and finance.

However, he also pointed out the limitations of the wartime metaphor for rapid climate mitigation:

  • Governments may need extraordinary emergency powers to implement rapid mitigation, but these are unlikely to be invoked unless there is support from a large majority of the electorate.
  • While such support is almost guaranteed when a country is engaged in a defensive war, it seems unlikely for climate action in countries with powerful vested interests in greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Vested interests and genuinely concerned people will exert pressure on governments to direct their policies and resources predominantly towards adaptation measures such as sea walls, and dangerous quick fixes such as geoengineering. While adaptation must not be neglected, mitigation, especially by transforming the energy sector, should be primary.

Unfortunately it’s much easier to make war than to address the global climate crisis rapidly and effectively. Indeed many governments of “democratic” countries, including Australia, make war without parliamentary approval.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/rapid-transition-to-clean-energy-will-take-massive-social-change-58211

The reason it is “difficult” to convince people to support extraordinary incursions of government into everyone’s lives, is nothing bad has happened. Not only has nothing bad happened, greens have a long and growing track record of predicting bad stuff which doesn’t happen.

If I thought there was a climate emergency, I would support extraordinary measures to stabilise the biosphere. But until someone presents more substantial evidence than a bunch of broken models with no predictive skill, I’ll hang on to my democratic right to vote for politicians who ignore radical greens.

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Marcus
May 20, 2016 6:50 am

..The liberal “Greenies” desperation is getting pathetic !

SMC
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 7:58 am

They aren’t Liberals. They’re Socialists, if you are being polite. They’re Communists, if you want to be accurate. And Watermelons, if you want to be rude.

Hugs
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 8:45 am

Marcus calls Communists ‘liberal’ from time to time, as if liberal was synonymous to radical headlessness. It is not. A conservative can be liberal, but a narrowminded person never is.

Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 8:55 am

“They aren’t Liberals. They’re Socialists, if you are being polite. They’re Communists, if you want to be accurate. And Watermelons, if you want to be rude.”
i don’t disagree with your intent. I just think the most accurate term is “collectivists” which includes all those you mention. I also think all “stateists” are leading in the direction of collectivism even if they can’t see it.
Over time, all governments tend toward tyranny.

Eric H
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 10:27 am

markstoval +1. liberal = liberty and the modern “liberal” is anti personal liberty. Collectivists is an accurate term.

Joel Snider
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 12:36 pm

Actually, it’s sociological progression. Liberalism becomes socialism which in turn becomes totalitarianism.

MarkW
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 12:46 pm

sociopathic progression?

JohnKnight
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 1:17 pm

Use collectivist, or authoritarian, or totalitarian, if that’s what you mean, I suggest . . liberal just helps conceal and confuse it seems to me, since it can mean the exact opposite of those terms.

JohnKnight
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 1:22 pm

PS~ By all means, if collectivist/authoritarian types start calling themselves Saints, don’t fall for it ; )

Sun Spot
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 2:32 pm

A Conservative and Liberal can both be progressive , which one do you think wishes to know the results of their progressive changes before actually implementation?

TA
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 4:29 pm

Joel Snider May 20, 2016 at 12:36 pm wrote: “Actually, it’s sociological progression. Liberalism becomes socialism which in turn becomes totalitarianism.”
That’s the way I see it, too. Most of the American Democrat Liberal Left are closet socialists.
When Chris Matthews of MSNBC questioned DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz, some weeks ago, about the difference between a modern Democrat and a Socialist, Debbie could not give him an answer. She hemmed and hawed for a very long time, and never did answer the question. The reason she couldn’t point out differences is because there are no dfferences, but she didn’t want to admit it in public. Socialism is still a dirty word for most Americans.
The American Democrat Party of yesterday no longer exists. Jim Webb, a former Democrat candidate for president this year, was what a moderate/conservative (Reagan) Democrat used to look like.
The modern Democrat Party were not interested in Jim Webb, because he is too moderate, which makes Jim a pretty lonely guy in his party now.

Ardy
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 5:44 pm

EricH: I think the most accurate and easily remembered term for them is ‘Herders’. They wait for the herd to give them instructions and accept everything from their herd as the gospel truth….

E.M.Smith
Editor
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 6:36 pm

Liberal originally ment what Americans would call Libertarian. At the end of W.W.II the term Progressive was so reviled that in America, they took over the word Liberal. Thus in the USA Liberal is backward from the rest of the former British Empire.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/i-am-a-liberal/
So I am a Claasical Liberal (Classi-liberal) but not an American Social Liberal (ASo-liberal).
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/isms-ocracies-and-ologie/
Don’t let the Progressive’s word corruption strategy mislead you. The are Central Authority advocates, and Individual Liberty advocates. Everthing else is stuff and nonsence.

JohnKnight
Reply to  SMC
May 20, 2016 11:11 pm

TA, Joe,
“Actually, it’s sociological progression. Liberalism becomes socialism which in turn becomes totalitarianism.”
Are you guys aware that the US “founding fathers” were very heavily influenced by a philosophical “school” that was called Liberalism? That’s what our Constitutional Republic is literally based on . .

Reply to  SMC
May 21, 2016 7:05 am

I think authoritarian collectivists is the best fit.

average joe
Reply to  SMC
May 21, 2016 11:16 am

A globalist movement is afoot. The idea is that by mixing together all the races, nationalities, and cultures of the world, national identities will disappear, and we will be just one large human family with one world government. The plan is that Russia, China, and the USA will voluntarily turn over all of their nukes and other advanced weapons to this global governing body (let’s call it GlobalSec), and then we will all have peace and prosperity forever more, living under the laws put forth from GlobalSec. Obama and Hillary completely support this movement. This is nothing more than global communism, or socialism. This seriously scares me. The USSR is an example of what will happen. It may be good for a few years, but eventually a strongman will come to power and there will be none to oppose, as he has ALL of the weapons! This is a fact of human nature, it will not change. Humans are genetically wired to seek power, some more than others.
I do NOT want to see sovereign nations lose their national identities! That is what balances power across our blue marble and it needs to be preserved. I believe cultures and races should not be encouraged to mix (not that there is a problem with a few who wish to do so, but should not be pushed by government on large scale). The people from each country have their own unique culture, language, values, and appearance. Contrast and Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Iranian, Nigerian, Mexican, American. They are all unique. I don’t believe that one is necessarily better than another, just different. What is an American like? An American is white, speaks English, and has a christian value system (whether or not he belongs to a church). As demonstrated by the long line of presidents for over 200 years (except for the current one). Nations always originate from war – always have and always will. The USA has been infiltrated by treasonous ‘citizens’ who would obliterate our national identity, turn us into a nation of mutts, with no culture or history to anchor it. Which would lead to it’s downfall. The people who’s ancestors created this great USA are not going to let that happen. Trump is currently our answer to that challenge. But this is way bigger than Trump. This is about a nation reclaiming it’s identity and it will continue beyond Trump.

JohnKnight
Reply to  SMC
May 22, 2016 5:36 pm

average joe,
I feel compelled to quible with this statement;
“An American is white, speaks English, and has a christian value system (whether or not he belongs to a church).”
Had you said that was what a typical American is like, I could go along with it. But I don’t think the race aspect is particularly relevant. And a thing I feel is most important in the “definition” is; An American sees the government as servant, the people as master.

Joel Snider
Reply to  SMC
May 25, 2016 11:39 am

John Knight: Are you guys aware that the US “founding fathers” were very heavily influenced by a philosophical “school” that was called Liberalism? That’s what our Constitutional Republic is literally based on.’
My point was, that the open-mind becomes closed, and then militant, and then authoritarian. Just within the context of my lifetime, I’ve watched the Left go from the sixties with ‘I’m alright/you’re alright, and anything goes’, to ‘only WE are right, we will force our beliefs down your throat, and if you oppose us you will be punished.’
It’s the second generation that now has doctrine instead of ideals.
Leftists are not ‘liberal’ anymore. They are rigidly close-minded authoritarians. Sociological progression.
It happens to almost any group with a cause.

BFL
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 8:53 am

The “desperation” has just begun. When the weather (not corrupt temp measurements) generally starts cooling, as it appears to have already begun in the La Nina cycle, there will ever increasing moans and screams on high:

William
Reply to  BFL
May 21, 2016 12:10 am

Has this parent not heard of the application of a baseball bat upside the head?
Works every time.

SMC
Reply to  BFL
May 21, 2016 9:18 am

Baseball bat to the head is too extreme for a child this age. You need to wait until they’re teen agers before that becomes appropriate.

Goldrider
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 9:33 am

Do they REALLY think they can roll back the clock 75 years? Thank heaven for the “vested interests!”

nigelf
Reply to  Goldrider
May 22, 2016 5:31 am

Those vested interests are supplying us all with what we want and need for our modern healthy lifestyles. Take that away and we revert to anarchy.

Walt D.
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 10:19 am

Crony fascists would be an appropriate term. They want to use the force of government to promote there pet agenda.

george e. smith
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 10:53 am

Sorry ! That’s a nyet on the extra-ordinary emergency powers; no can do that.
But given that this appears to be an emergency, perhaps I can let you have some emergency extra-ordinary powers. Will that be of any use to you; like how to fall off cliffs ,or go jump in the lake ? Maybe we can set you up with those abilities.
g

Evan Jones
Editor
Reply to  george e. smith
May 21, 2016 6:07 am

We could always fund some short piers.

Bob Denby
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 11:16 am
Bryan A
Reply to  Bob Denby
May 20, 2016 12:42 pm

Clearly Portland Schools don’t possess a full and complete understanding of Merriam-Webster’s book
and the difference between:
“Denying” Simple Definition of denying 1: saying that something is not true 2: refusing to accept or admit (something)
and
“Refuting” transitive verb : Proving wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous

Santa Baby
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 10:43 pm

Its NeoMarxism or Cultural Marxism. Environmentalism was taken over by the ex-communists and ex-peace activists. The idea to use Nature as a surrogate to attack Western sivilization goes back to at least Frankfurt school. Marxism has been merged with environmentalism and is now the new Marxism.

Robert
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 10:51 pm

Tell them to pull their heads out of their rectums and stick it out the window ,what emergency??

average joe
Reply to  Marcus
May 21, 2016 10:49 am

A globalist movement is afoot. The idea is that by mixing together all the races, nationalities, and cultures of the world, national identities will disappear, and we will be just one large human family with one world government. The plan is that Russia, China, and the USA will voluntarily turn over all of their nukes and other advanced weapons to this global governing body (let’s call it GlobalSec), and then we will all have peace and prosperity forever more, living under the laws put forth from GlobalSec. Obama and Hillary completely support this movement. This is nothing more than global communism, or socialism. This seriously scares me. The USSR is an example of what will happen. It may be good for a few years, but eventually a strongman will come to power and there will be none to oppose, as he has ALL of the weapons! This is a fact of human nature, it will not change. Humans are genetically wired to seek power, some more than others.
I do NOT want to see sovereign nations lose their national identities! That is what balances power across our blue marble and it needs to be preserved. I believe cultures and races should not be encouraged to mix (not that there is a problem with a few who wish to do so, but should not be pushed by government on large scale). The people from each country have their own unique culture, language, values, and appearance. Contrast and Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Iranian, Nigerian, Mexican, American. They are all unique. I don’t believe that one is necessarily better than another, just different. What is an American like? An American is white, speaks English, and has a christian value system (whether or not he belongs to a church). As demonstrated by the long line of presidents for over 200 years (except for the current one). Nations always originate from war – always have and always will. The USA has been infiltrated by treasonous ‘citizens’ who would obliterate our national identity, turn us into a nation of mutts, with no culture or history to anchor it. Which would lead to it’s downfall. The people who’s ancestors created this great USA are not going to let that happen. Trump is currently our answer to that challenge. But this is way bigger than Trump. This is about a nation reclaiming it’s identity and it will continue beyond Trump.

Paul Westhaver
May 20, 2016 6:51 am

Eric, Where do you get this stuff? (Theconversation…. I know but…)
I barely have time to read 30% of WUWT articles.

MarkW
May 20, 2016 6:53 am

Another socialist wants to end democracy and give all power to the government.
Why is anyone surprised?

Hugs
Reply to  MarkW
May 20, 2016 8:52 am

Socialists don’t want democracy, they want people’s democracy. Because only central power can stop people from doing things I don’t like.

Brian R
Reply to  MarkW
May 20, 2016 9:24 am

I don’t see any way giving the Government “extraordinary powers” could backfire. /sarc

MarkW
Reply to  Brian R
May 20, 2016 9:35 am

I swear, this time it will work.

May 20, 2016 7:00 am

No mention of the Vested Interests that comprise us consumers of modern awesomeness?

Reply to  jamesbbkk
May 20, 2016 10:59 pm

exactly! I am definitely one of those ‘vested interests’. Where I live we ‘save’ lots of power each month because our electrical supply keeps failing. Maybe someone who knows where Mark Diesendorf lives can help the poor guy out by pulling his fuses and lobbing them over the fence.

Paul Coppin
May 20, 2016 7:01 am

Why are we paying any attention to PhD candidates? Especially in the climatology, atmospheric physics, environmental and sociological fields. The scientific track record of their schools, and supervisors in these disciplines, is now abysmal, and increasingly so. Much of the published and public dross in current science is the result of under-trained graduate students and their intellectually lazy, immature and ideologically bent supervisors.

Eustace Cranch
May 20, 2016 7:04 am

That graphic… what, is that a 1985 CGI outtake from “Money For Nothing?”
Appropriate, come to think of it.

TonyL
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
May 20, 2016 7:36 am

Actually, no. But it is a good thought.
That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it.
Money for nothing and your chicks for free.
Dire Straits

Pamela Gray
May 20, 2016 7:05 am

What a horrible use of WW2’s noble cause and its brave fighters, which was to remove tyranny’s destruction on freedom and the right to exist, not to impose it.

Marcus
Reply to  Pamela Gray
May 20, 2016 7:07 am

..Excellent point..5 stars ..

TonyL
Reply to  Pamela Gray
May 20, 2016 8:03 am

Horrible, indeed.
Many of us were born after the war. We did not know the war, but we grew up in it’s shadow. Sometimes you could see the war in the eyes of a parent or neighbor, or feel it in the furrows in their foreheads. They said they would keep us safe, never let the horrors of war touch us. We did not know, could not know, that they already had kept us safe. We were just children.
This PhD candidate is a child, and an idiot. So is his professor. They knows nothing.

E.M.Smith
Editor
Reply to  TonyL
May 20, 2016 6:43 pm

TonyL:
May I someday be privileged enough to wash your feet…

Ron in Austin
Reply to  Pamela Gray
May 20, 2016 9:16 am

+100

Winnipeg boy
Reply to  Pamela Gray
May 20, 2016 9:22 am

Agreed, but not the first offensive reference to WWII.
Calling skeptics ‘Deniers’ is a back-handed insult to the Genocide victims and their families.
These people have no shame.

David Smith
Reply to  Pamela Gray
May 20, 2016 12:50 pm

+100 well said Pamela

Gamecock
May 20, 2016 7:09 am

‘vesting the government with extraordinary powers’ is the objective. Any reason will do.

Owen in GA
Reply to  Gamecock
May 20, 2016 12:35 pm

Wasn’t 1984 a book on good governing principles? /sarc

Me
May 20, 2016 7:23 am

This road paved with green intentions only seems to be heading one way.

Science or Fiction
Reply to  Me
May 20, 2016 3:02 pm

The road to hell – paved with green intentions.

Harry Passfield
May 20, 2016 7:26 am

Just how many Venezuelas can the world support? Sheesh.

Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 7:29 am

A good friend is a university professor teaching politics of environment and energy; he has nothing but horror stories about students who won’t believe anything but AGW and actively support extreme measures to “make” the public change behavior. The indoctrination is so pervasive and so ingrained that within 5 or 10 years draconian measures will be taken, and most of the younger people will be ok with that. Not sure what can be done about this except take back the schooling system…..

FJ Shepherd
Reply to  Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 7:37 am

CAGW youth groups? Will that be next?

Jurg Burg
Reply to  FJ Shepherd
May 20, 2016 7:48 am

There’s no need for a youth group when it’s taught from kindergarten to grade 12.

Joe Crawford
Reply to  FJ Shepherd
May 20, 2016 9:11 am

Indoctrinated youth groups have already been tried… Mao’s Red Guard. And how did that work out?

TonyL
Reply to  Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 7:43 am

“except take back the schooling system…..”
The school system needed to be taken back a long time ago. People did not pay attention, and would not listen to warnings.
“The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.” – Koch, Vorlon ambassador.

Glenn999
Reply to  TonyL
May 20, 2016 8:12 am

Exactly.
What would a Vorlon do?

Marcus
Reply to  Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 7:48 am

…When these younger students become working, taxpaying citizens, most will change their view because it will then be THEIR money stolen to pay for liberal fantasies !!

MarkW
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 8:17 am

You assume they have any desire to become working, taxpaying citizens.
Socialism is the freedom to not work if you don’t want to.

Hugs
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 8:56 am

Sadly, socialism is not freedom to not work. It is freedom from pay, eventually.

MarkW
Reply to  Marcus
May 20, 2016 9:36 am

How can that be? I have been assured by a number of socialists that socialism is freedom.

Klem
Reply to  Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 9:02 am

Exactly. Last night my 15 yr old daughter asked me for help with her Social Studies project regarding ACC and that 93% of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was now dead due to human activity.
I almost fell out of my chair.
We spent the next hour discovering that the GB Reef was doing just fine and that the earths climate continually changes and that our house is built on ground that was permafrost only 10k years ago.
She said that now she is completely confused, she is expected to follow what she is taught in school but I’m messing things up.
I thought our school system was past this sort of crap, but the battle continues unabated.

Goldrider
Reply to  Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 9:40 am
Science or Fiction
Reply to  Goldrider
May 20, 2016 2:07 pm

The totalitarian greens must have been blinded by fear:
2016:
“In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools.
“It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” said Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux in board testimony. “Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.” ”
1933:
“On 10 May 1933, in an act of ominous significance, the students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books, thereby presaging an era of uncompromising state censorship. In many university towns, nationalist students marched in torch lit parades against the “un-German” spirit. The scripted rituals of this night called for high Nazi officials, professors, rectors, and student leaders to address the participants and spectators. At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged, banned books into the bonfires with a great joyous ceremony that included live music, singing, “fire oaths,” and incantations. In Berlin, some 40,000 people gathered in the square at the State Opera to hear Joseph Goebbels deliver a fiery address: “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Goebbels enjoined the crowd. “Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Gläser, Erich Kästner.” ”
I don´t think United Nations wanted it´s climate disciples to go this far.
I bet United Nations will soon get a hard time to rein in the beast they have fostered.

markl
Reply to  Science or Fiction
May 20, 2016 4:46 pm

Science or Fiction commented: “…I don´t think United Nations wanted it´s climate disciples to go this far.
I bet United Nations will soon get a hard time to rein in the beast they have fostered….”
I think you underestimate their vileness and belief in a means to an end. Rein in? They are just getting started training their troops. I borrowed this from another poster and I hope it comes true: “The desperation is summed up by the Chinese proverb (loosely translated) as Man can ride a tiger, but his troubles begin when he tries to dismount.”

Reply to  Goldrider
May 20, 2016 9:13 pm

China, India and the rest of the BRICS aren’t buying in. The north west US, eastern US and Europe may be irrelevant in the end.

Reply to  Goldrider
May 20, 2016 11:38 pm

Goldrider
Portland Oregon is the new Munich.

Reply to  Jurg Burg
May 20, 2016 4:48 pm

Last night I was given an English exam paper to check by a student here in Hong Kong. The comprehension questions were based on the most alarmist B/S article I’ve ever seen. Truly shocking.

Tom Halla
May 20, 2016 7:45 am

Yet another twit advocating arcadian socialism.

M Seward
Reply to  Tom Halla
May 20, 2016 8:29 am

Yet another one of Voltaire’s Bastards as John Ralston Saul would put it. One of the cadre of arrogant, Jesuit inspired apparatchiks who, intoxicated by the view from their floor on the Tower of Babel, are convinced that they know all and have the final solution to the human problem, utterly blind to the essesntial irony theat THEY ARE the human problem. They are the $1.00 a litre milk loss leaders in the supermarket of intellectual expertise that big education has rotted down to these days. The source of the cheap pasteurized, homogenized intellectual (I use the term in its loosest possible meaning ) excrement peddled by the lazy, plagiarizing MSM as their source du jour.

Tim
Reply to  M Seward
May 20, 2016 9:47 am

This little piece should be set in stone at the entrance to every university in the land.

RWturner
May 20, 2016 7:57 am

Maybe after this PhD candidate finishes being indoctrinated, they can go get an education.
This is what hysteric-driven mitigation policy looks like:
http://media.washtimes.com.s3.amazonaws.com/media/image/2016/05/19/solar_plant_fire.jpeg
$2.2 billion dollar capital investment, I’d love to know how much this thing has cost thus far per kW*h.

SMC
Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 8:01 am

Wow, melted aluminum cladding. Something got really hot. How did it happen?

RWturner
Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 8:02 am

This is Ivanpah Concentrated Solar Plant, the worlds largest solar plant. It has already had many problems in its very short life, from burning more natural gas energy than the plant makes, to scorching birds mid flight, and now misdirected mirrors causing major damage on one of the three towers. It’s the CAGW cultist’s vision of the future!

Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 8:12 am

” burning more natural gas energy than the plant makes”

Do you have a citation for this claim?

MarkW
Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 8:18 am

There was a WUWT article on it a few months back.

RWturner
Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 8:49 am

http://breakingenergy.com/2014/11/19/ivanpah-solars-first-nine-months-300000-megawatt-hours-at-185mwh/
This was for the first year of production. In the second year of operation, the plant produced slightly more energy than it used from natural gas.
http://breakingenergy.com/2014/10/29/at-ivanpah-solar-power-plant-energy-production-falling-well-short-of-expectations/
In 2014, the plant produced 554,600 MW*h energy in total. The plant used 867,740,000,000 Btu in energy from natural gas, which converts to 254,309 MW*h, so the plant produced 300,291 MW*h

Resourceguy
Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 10:08 am
Resourceguy
Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 10:15 am

Note the prominence of solar CSP on publication covers of Federal reports. I think they had a heavy hand in the wrong tech and investor (Google) coercion at a time when other utility scale solar players were leading on the right path. Curious how that works…..
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2016/05/18/berkeley-lab-study-tallies-benefits-solar-power/

Reply to  RWturner
May 20, 2016 12:50 pm

@RWTurner
don’t forget the power wasted on the hotel loads. This leaching of power off of the grid, rather than accounting for it as part of the “out put power is kept well hidden.
Read the above link and then you will understand why the Heliostats must have power 24/7/365 whether they plant is generating power or not. Assuming these Heliostats draw about 10 watts an hour there is another 2,436,510 watts times 173,500 heliostats = 42,273,448,500 watts of power wasted, (and that is an extremely low estimate. I have searched the internet and can not fins the actual power draw of each heliostat.) Subtracting the 42,273 MWhr from 300,291 leaves you with 258,018 MWhr. Also missing is all of the rest of the hotel loads. I.e. Lights, motors, computers, control systems, air conditioners for the preceding, etc., etc., Easily as much if not quite a bit more than the power the heliostats use.
With 40+ years in the commercial electrical power service it is common knowledge that the “output” power is always the power as measured directly from the generator, BEFORE any house/hotel loads (comfort power) is used. Most have completely separate meters and further are at different voltages. Yet, the Wind/Solar pushers knowingly hid and obfuscate this information. Thus Ivanpah has a real “Solar” capacity of about 10%

Rhoda K
May 20, 2016 8:03 am

I seem to recall the Aussies had a number of dockworker strikes in WW2 while the docks were vital to support Allied war efforts and the government could not do a thing about it. Freedom or Liberty or some such obsolete concept.

Chris Hanley
Reply to  Eric Worrall
May 20, 2016 2:25 pm

Not correct Eric, the strikes and sabotage by communist dock workers continued even when Australia was facing the dire threat, if not of invasion, at least isolation during the New Guinea campaign and this was apparently because the Soviet Union was neutral in the war with Japan (they had their hands full in Europe) until August 1945, the Soviet war with Japan lasted ‘three weeks and three days’.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/01-02/treachery-unions-second-world-war/

Reply to  Eric Worrall
May 20, 2016 2:39 pm

Not quite, Eric.
Communist Russia didn’t declare war on Japan until after the US dropped the first A-bomb.
Communist’s influence was unified against Germany but not against Japan.

David L. Hagen
May 20, 2016 8:11 am

100 million “extraordinary” deaths
Beware! Governments exercising “extraordinary powers” killed 100 million of their own citizens during the 20th century. This is detailed by Courtois, Stephane, and Mark Kramer in: The black book of communism: Crimes, terror, repression. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Lysenko applied these “extraordinary powers” to Lysenkoism in science resulting in the greatest setback for science in history!
The Disgraceful Episode Of Lysenkoism Brings Us Global Warming Theory

. . .Marxists wanted to believe that heredity had a limited role even among humans, and that human characteristics changed by living under socialism would be inherited by subsequent generations of humans. Thus would be created the selfless new Soviet man. . . .
Lysenko was consequently embraced and lionized by the Soviet media propaganda machine. Scientists who promoted Lysenkoism with faked data and destroyed counterevidence were favored with government funding and official recognition and award. Lysenko and his followers and media acolytes responded to critics by impugning their motives, and denouncing them as bourgeois fascists resisting the advance of the new modern Marxism. . . .
The Theory of Man Caused Catastrophic Global Warming
This same practice of Lysenkoism has long been under way in western science in regard to the politically correct theory of man caused, catastrophic, global warming. That theory serves the political fashions of the day in promoting vastly increased government powers and control over the private economy. Advocates of the theory are lionized in the dominant Democrat party controlled media in the U.S., and in leftist controlled media in other countries. Critics of the theory are denounced as “deniers,” and even still bourgeois fascists, with their motives impugned.
Those who promote the theory are favored with billions from government grants and neo-Marxist environmentalist largesse, and official recognition and award. Faked and tampered data and evidence has arisen in favor of the politically correct theory. Is not man-caused, catastrophic global warming now the only theory allowed to be taught in schools in the West? . . .
Reality is not complying with the alarmism of the UN’s global warming models, just as it refused to do for Trofim Lysenko. Remember all that hysteria about melting polar ice caps and the disappearing ice floes for the cute polar bears? As of the end of March, the Antarctic ice cap was nearly one fourth larger than the average for the last 30 years. . ..
Still another tip off should have been the practice of the alarmist new Lysenkoists to respond to dissenting science with ad hominem attacks. That apparently reflects poor public schooling that never taught that an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, as Aristotle taught more than 2,000 years ago. My how western science has fallen. . . .

Science or Fiction
Reply to  David L. Hagen
May 20, 2016 3:28 pm

I think this document might eventually become a monument showing how far western science has fallen, a monument over inductivism:
Guidance Note for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX_SPM_BOX2.jpg

May 20, 2016 8:15 am

Vested interests include the fossil fuel industry, electricity sector, aluminium smelting, concrete, steel and motor vehicles.

Pretty good list of all the basics sustaining modern life .
Guy must not be able to see past his navel .

michael hart
Reply to  Bob Armstrong
May 20, 2016 8:26 am

He can’t even see that far. Agricultural efficiency depends strongly on fossil fuel-related inputs of energy and fertilizers.

Reply to  Bob Armstrong
May 20, 2016 10:51 am

When was the last time you saw an ad by a car company in opposition to “consensus” science?
They must be funneling millions to Heartland or similar organizations? No?
Then it must be that they fund popular scientists, blogs and commentators. What?
BTW, my checks from fossil fuel companies are late this month.

Science or Fiction
May 20, 2016 8:32 am

Karl Popper warned about this kind of thoughts:
“It can’t happen here” is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere.”
― Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography

Mike the Morlock
May 20, 2016 8:44 am

UNSW PhD candidate Laurence Delina has investigated the rapid, large, socio-economic changes made by several countries just before and during World War 2.
Which countries?
Hmm just prior,,, France Maginot line. Britain “peace in our time”? American Isolationism?
Oh he was referring to the Axis -violations of arms treaty limitations – London, Washington naval treaties for example. Secret treaties to divvy up other countries and regions. Like Germany and USSR with Poland and the Baltic States.
UNSW PhD candidate Laurence Delina should have taken less “climate Catastrophy classes and more history, without any of the modern revisionism.
michael

Another Ian
Reply to  Mike the Morlock
May 21, 2016 1:46 am

Mike M
You’ll note that Australia has just thrown its hat into a French submarine deal. And that some have rised questions on how it will work re the change from nuc to diesel, and given some prior experience with things supplied from France – from Mirages to Renaults.
So does this mean we have post modern submarines
And does the whole western democratic WTF right now look like a re-run of France 1930 – 1940?
Herschel Smith ” A History of Aeronautical Piston Engines” in the section on the lack of power from Hispanio engines
“but it is hard to believe that purely engineering reasons can explain it. Politics and ideology led to strange things in pre-war France”

Roy
May 20, 2016 8:45 am

So, believers in CAGW tend to disbelieve in democracy! In order to safeguard democracy we will have to keep an eye on the alarmists and what they are up to.

markl
May 20, 2016 8:47 am

The true colors of AGW are coming out. The calls to end peoples’ voting rights and liberties because they interfere with implementing Socialist ideology are increasing. Once again folks…..it’s not about temperature.

Tim
Reply to  markl
May 20, 2016 9:58 am

And it never was about temperature.

May 20, 2016 8:47 am

“Governments may need extraordinary emergency powers”
Well, if Mother Nature continues to work against the “CO2 caused global warming” delusion then the governments will need police state powers to enforce belief in cAGW. Luckily for the left, the state already has totalitarian powers.
Just to be real clear — anthropogenic CO2 will not cause any temperature rise at all. Therefore, we will need to force belief on the part of the common man. Yes, even as the ice covers the northeast USA again, we will still be hollering that CO2 is going to fry us all.
~ Mark

May 20, 2016 8:53 am

Well, there’s this:
Australia’s science agency is laying off 275 scientists as it shifts its focus
away from climate research and toward more commercial projects.
SYDNEY —
A pre-eminent scientist in the field of rising global sea levels has been given notice of his dismissal as part of deep cuts at Australia’s national science agency that will reduce the country’s role in global climate research.
The scientist, John Church, confirmed Tuesday that he was one of 275 scientists whom the agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or Csiro, said would be laid off.

New York Times

observa
May 20, 2016 8:58 am

Mark me down as a vested interest in fossil fuels, electricity, aluminium, concrete, steel, motor vehicles and paying taxes perfessor.

Berényi Péter
May 20, 2016 9:04 am

Governments may need extraordinary emergency powers

Sure. And we do know for a fact, that those extraordinary emergency powers are never abused, don’t we?

MarkW
Reply to  Berényi Péter
May 20, 2016 9:39 am

And the emergency never seems to actually end, either.

Owen in GA
Reply to  MarkW
May 20, 2016 12:43 pm

We’ve always been at war with EastAsia…

May 20, 2016 9:14 am

This is statism and fascism. plain and simple.

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