From Manhattan Contrarian
September 22, 2017/ Francis Menton
Large numbers of my friends and acquaintances are climate skeptics, and many of them spend a good deal of their time feeling down in the dumps about the subject. Their reasoning goes something like this: Here we have something that should immediately be identified as baloney by any thinking person. And yet thousands and millions of people seem to have fallen for it. And not just random people, but people seemingly among the elites of society — academics and journalists and government bureaucrats. Most of the media function as propaganda bullhorns to spread the idiocy. The forces of hysteria have commandeered tens of billions of annual dollars of government funding to pay for their program and spread their message, drowning out and suppressing any opposition. Their program calls for taking away everyone’s freedom and impoverishing the populace with higher costs for energy. And yet the program seems to be getting adopted everywhere!
How could a sane person not get depressed about this? Easy! Over on the other side of this issue, we have a secret weapon. The secret weapon is that the supposedly carbon-free energy sources — or, at least, those supposedly carbon-free energy sources that are acceptable to environmentalists (meaning wind and solar and definitely not nuclear and hydro) — don’t work. Even worse, wind and solar are not even carbon-free, because it takes large amounts of carbon-based energy to make the turbines or panels or whatever. Put these two problems together, and governments that try to reduce their carbon emissions by heavily subsidizing wind and solar quickly hit a wall where energy prices for the masses soar through the roof even as the carbon emissions don’t go down. You won’t find the New York Times or Washington Post reporting on this, but it’s getting harder and harder not to notice.
Let’s take a closer look at Germany, which has been the source of quite a bit of news on this subject in the past few days. On first take Germany would seem more than any place else to be the biggest cause of your depression. “Transitioning” from fossil fuel energy to wind and solar has been the signature issue for Chancellor Angela Merkel for more than a decade, and as of this moment she seems to be cruising to victory in the election coming up on Sunday. But don’t get the idea that it would make any difference if one of the other candidates or parties managed to defeat Merkel, because there is no political party in Germany of any size or consequence that offers dissent on the “climate change” issue. The entire country has fallen into the mass hysteria! (Has anything like that ever happened before in Germany? Don’t ask!) Germany has moved aggressively to cut its carbon emissions, and was a leader in the 2015 Paris negotiations in making aggressive promises of emissions reductions and in strong-arming other countries, including the United States, to commit to aggressive reduction targets. Germany is part of the EU commitment to 40% emissions reductions (from 1990 levels) by 2030, and in addition has its own internal goals of reaching the 40% reduction by 2020 (coming right up!) and 95% reduction by 2050. Impressive!
OK, that’s the fantasy. How about in the real world? From Jamie Horgan in The American Interest, September 20, “Germany Will Miss Another Green Goal”:
Berlin’s grand green energy transition is falling short of the lofty targets that inspired it. Earlier this month, the think tank Agora Energiewende released a report that projected Germany would fall well short of its goal to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—far shorter than was previously believed. Berlin had committed to cutting 40 percent of its GHG emissions by 2020 as compared to 1990 levels, but as that year looms large, the country has achieved a reduction of “just” 28 percent (a remarkable decrease, though nowhere close to the target), and it’s expected to only shave off another 2 or 3 percent over the next few years. Now, a new study from the BEE renewable energy group suggests that the country is going to fall short of its Brussels-set target of sourcing 18 percent of its energy production from renewables by 2020.
Good job to Horgan for publicizing this, but he’s still getting taken in when he says that Germany’s existing emissions reduction of 28% below 1990 levels is “a remarkable decrease.” No, it isn’t. That 1990 date was intentionally picked by Germany to scam the rest of the world. 1989 is the year the Berlin Wall fell. Over the next decade and a half, the Germans shuttered essentially all of the inefficient Soviet-era heavy industry in East Germany. Germany picked the 1990 start date so that it could take credit for those reductions that would have happened anyway and pretend that this had something to do with saving the planet.
Here is a chart of Germany’s year-by-year greenhouse gas emissions changes since 1990. Source: CleanEnergyWire.
You will quickly see that Germany hit the emissions reduction wall around 2010. Since then, its emissions have actually increased in 4 of the 7 years. Multiply out the changes since 2009, and you will find that Germany’s emissions at the end of 2016 were 99.79% of the level they had had at the end of 2009. This, despite the fact that 2010 was the year they passed the so-called “Energiewende” law. That’s some “energy transition” — 0.21% emissions reduction in seven years!
How could things be going so badly? Among other things, Germany caved to environmentalists in deciding to eliminate nuclear power after the 2011 tsunami at Fukushima in Japan. Nuclear power emits no CO2. Wind and solar don’t work, at least much of the time. So, what’s left? Coal! From Bloomberg News, September 21, “How Merkel’s Green Energy Policy Has Fueled Demand for Coal”:
By 2030, the eastern German town of Poedelwitz will likely be razed to get at the rich veins of coal beneath its half-timbered houses. The reason: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s effort to steer Germany toward greener energy, which has unexpectedly meant booming demand for dirty coal. . . . “This is unparalleled destruction of the environment,” says Jens Hausner, a farmer who has seen 17 of his 20 hectares consumed by digging equipment that looks like something out of a Mad Max movie. In a bit more than a decade, the hulking machines are expected to claw through the town’s 13th-century church and 40 or so remaining homes.
Read the rest here.
HT | The GWPF
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In 2016 Germany operated 8 nuclear reactors, which supplied 13.1 % of her electricity. If she had built 48 additional reactors, they could have supplied over 90% of her power emission-free.
Cost these days in Europe to build a bunch of reactors : built by China – $5 billion, by Russia – about $5 billion each, by Korea, probably about the same, built by France – around $6-7 billion. Worst case you’re talking around $300 billion. And these reactors last over 60 years, versus 25 or so solar, perhaps the same for wind turbines. See how much fear costs you?
Not if you get the French to built the plant: From an article in The Guardian regarding the French built nuclear plant at Hinkley in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/07/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant-costs-up-to-37bn
There are always overspends, and I bet that the 37billion figure will be over 50 billion. All of this fiasco is passed onto customers through levies on the electricity bill.
There is not a single European country that has a sane electricity policy, especially since the EU is so against fracking. One can only hope that if Brexit is achieved, the UK will smell the coffee and go hell for leather with fracking, and will sell UK fracked gas to Europe.
Well, it is a nice thought. But here in the UK, 1) All the main political parties remain infatuated with climate change hysteria, 2) Brexit has just been delayed (for no good reason, in my view), 3) Ecoloon Luddites continue to resist fracking. So not much to be optimistic about with regard to ever having a sane energy policy. No-one actually knows what the true extent of recoverable gas from fracking is, all the more reason not to stand in the way of exploration – the potential is great but whether it will be matched by reality remains to be seen.
I think they probably don’t find things like radioactive boar running their country 30 years after Chernobyl to be too appealing.
“radioactive boar running their country ”
Do you mean Boris Johnston ?
heh… running their country. Meant “running around”
Your radioactive boar running around 30 years after Chernobyl is a compelling case for radiation hormesis. In essence the cause effect relationship is not linear, but a bell-curve.
Don’t look now bub, but we are all radioactive.
Always have been, back to the dawn of time.
Very well, gentlemen. I dare you to start consuming those boar.
Doesn’t sound like an endangered species then. So, why not? Might be as tasty as reindeer and bear roaming in Kola Peninsula’s outside air nuclear reactor park, Tsar Bomb impact zone, Chernobyl fallout area and/or Chernobyl reactor no 4 prototypes still churning in Sosnovyi Bor.
And yet, despite of enjoying the gentle rain outside on the dreadful Saturday evening on 26 April 1986 in addition, I’m still not glowing in the dark. Quite the contrary, my countrymen have average estimated life-expectancy going up about 3 months/year.
Most will know that Germany has just undergone an unsatisfactory election, and a new Government has yet to be formed. The Greens increased their share of the vote, and they will undoubtedly form part of a coalition Government.
How this will impact upon energy policy is yet to be seen, but there is growing concern that a considerable proportion of ordinary Germans have been left behind with stagnant wages, a growing appreciation that energy costs are becoming excessive with growing number of people having their electricity disconnected, and that the renewable industry is not as green as people have been led to believe, and growing opposition to onshore wind farms.
Could be interesting times. Perhaps time to get the popcorn out as Germany faces up to some hard realities. It certainly has no right to preach the US, and even though the US has pulled out of the Paris Accord, the US will be more successful at reducing CO2 emissions than will Germany. Hey ho, what fun!
The Greens remained almost at the same level. The “left” a party of the left parties won more than the Greens. The Greens would only be an emergency nail for a cohesive coalition. But there are two factors that make such a coalition almost impossible and all lie in the industrial / environmental sector: In the CDU itself, there are strong forces that want to pull out of the “Irrsinn” called renewable energies. Also in the CSU, which fears about the loss of power in Bavaria during the next parliamentary election in 2018 after over 10 percent decline in the Bundestag elections. The FDP is a climate sceptic, where it is not just a question of profitability but of the scientifical principle of “man-made climate change”. In addition, a question of profitability, because this party is strongly oriented to the industry. And there is still the AFD with nearly 13 percent of the votes, which is also strongly skeptical, as far as a “humanized” climate change is concerned.
And as a second factor, the Greens as a small emergency nail (as the smallest coalition partner) can not afford to fulfill their demands. They will have to make the biggest compromises. And the climate change fundamentalists in the Greens will probably not accept this. There are certainly popcorn times in Germany. But Merkel deserved it.
P.S. : The “greens” gaines 0,5 per cent of the votes against 2013, the “left” gains 0,6 per Cent / sarc. Thats a great gain again./sarc
what is unsatisfactory about it?
Germany needs to face reality, and this is a step on the way.
And German concern about climate change, support for renewables continues at very high levels.
http://fortune.com/2017/08/08/germans-renewable-energy-energiewende-subsidies/
You are guilty of wishful thinking.
“You are guilty of wishful thinking.”
Infinitely preferable to what YOU are guilty of.
Hans-Georg
The real disaster in Germany, All is VERBOTEN !
It is not that Germans are more stupid than others, is because they just do not know ! ( If it is against Gov policy VERBOTEN )
( stopped by the Hamburg police this morning at 0730, I was told that driving my car with the parking lights on was VERBOTEN !5 Euros )
To my knowledge the most preoccupying German disaster is anonymous denunciation being admissible in the court of law. But, having been lucky enough avoiding personal experience, I’m not sure of the extent.
I would not see that closely. Facebook and co .. are commercial offerers, want to make profit and after it has now “ausgemaast”, ie the SPD is no longer part of the government, some law will be rethought. I do not see any discrepancy about morality or justice here either, because I also loathe the idea of reading unwelcome comments, or murders, on the Internet. That does not belong, no matter who it is. Sarcasm and mockery is good, but not a primitive language.
To the previous comment, I only say, in Singapore, it is forbidden to throw chewing gums on the street . And you can go in jail for it. What are there 5 euros for wrong parking? These are not the problems of Germany, but the current Merkel policy of left-wing drifting and the “Aussitzen” of problems.
Energy realism has a strong history in Germany, In the 80-ies the slogan “Why nuclear power plants? We get our power from the wall socket!” was a popular bumper sticker. Selling wind and solar as a job creating technology has been a driving force in Germany and indeed they sold a lot of it to Spain only to find out that Spain cannot pay for it. Eventually we will need alternatives for carbon but the current wind and solar technology is certainly not going to be it so investing in large scale roll out of immature technologies is not rational, Instead it would be more rational to step up research in safe nuclear and low cost solar. History has it that Germany has come up with some of the best technology inventions and scientific discoveries. As to the reductions in emissions, DDR (East German) housholds heated their homes on lignite and lignite power plants generated a significant part of the power. DDR carbon chemical industry was based to a large extent on on acetylene generated by coal / coke fired pre-war build carbide ovens in Skopau, where the origin of carbon chemistry lies, which were closed overnight after the reunification. It would be of great advantage to the world if Germany would bear more on its scientific talent and less on its tendency to follow ideology.
But current wind and solar IS it.
Germany continues to successfully build offshore wind, for example, with latest bids coming in without need for susidy
Griffffff
Come back to earth! ! I live in Germany, You are somewhere in OUTERspace., ( My monthly electric bill, almost the same as the rent )
Haha that is the constant problem Griff sits in his little British council flat reading some junk on the net and thinks he knows anything about the world.
Griff, let’s just compare my dollars & cents charges for electricity to pounds and pence charges for yours. This is real time, real world stuff, not mind-noodling stuff.
My electric bills for summer have run $35.56 to $40.79. Electricity comes from a coal-fired generating station eight miles away. The plant uses scrubbers and there is zero, zip in the way of smoke. Steam, yes, but NOT smoke.
There is a nuclear power plant 50 miles south of me, which may supply part of my electricity, too, and another one 150 miles west, but that one supplies power to surrounding farms and towns.
Until the local reactor plant was shut down by “greenbean” protests, local electric power was generated by that nuclear plant and it transmitted power to several counties. My power bills then were about the same as they are now. The bill goes up slightly in the winter, because I run the furnace and have the lights on for longer hours because of the shorter day.
You look at YOUR electric bill and tell me what YOU pay in pounds from spring to fall. If YOUR bill is higher than mine, your ‘greenbean’ point is either invalid or moot.
Griff cites some headline or slogan, but he never ever points out the circumstances. The cheap bids he mentions are not real contracts but often a kind of declaration of intent. Usually they are submitted by “citizen”-groups which are fraudulently put up by corporate investors, so that they can circumvent environmental-policy hurdles – to save costs. Even green groups raise this issue now.
New subsidies will run out soon and many parasites want to get the foot in door before it closes. They hope that many competitors will drop out before (its a business with many defaulters). With political help they can still raise the price/subsidies when necessary.
Near where I live (not in Germany) a french Company openly admits that their relative cheap offer of a wind-project is an exercise of “getting-a-foot- in-the-door”.
That solar and wind energy don’t work as needed is a tragedy for humankind. Fossil fuels deplete and eventually society will not be able to afford them. Nuclear is our only last hope, but Western countries aren’t going that way. Orient will dominate the World in the future.
Why should the orient dominate the world in the future? Without fossil fuel and western engeneers the orient is a dwarf. My brother is technician in a company that manufactures valves of all kinds, also ball valves in oil production. In the past decades, he had to travel to the Orient several times a year, because the technicians there were not able to correct errors. And so it is everywhere. If all Western technicians and engineers were withdrawn from the Third World States, we would have a complete collapse of the economy there. Only Western knowledge and human resources keep the global economy running.
They’ll have energy (nuclear) and we won’t.
The orient will dominate because the standard of education is far higher in places like South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and China, and by virtue of force of numbers.
If the exceptionally brilliant are say 1/50th of a percent, when you have a population of a couple of billion people, you have far more exceptionally brilliant people than a country that has only 80 million people.
It also helps to have a culture that welcomes brilliant people rather than trying to suppress them.
But it does work.
That’s what you are ignoring/missing.
Griff, it sort of works. It does produce some energy some of the time. But not nearly as needed to replace fossil fuels, that produce as much as we can use all the time.
Especially when you consider the fact that you need fossil fuel plants spinning in the background ready to takeover whenever the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
It does not reduce significant amounts of CO2 if that is what you mean, and that is why CO2 emissions from the energy generating sector have not reduced since 2009 (750 MT), and are in fact slightly increasing in recent years (>760MT).
It works for individual homes, on an individual dwelling basis. There have been and still are people who generate their own power using wind and solar systems, and the excess goes into the power grid. They get paid for that by the utility. That’s not the same thing as trying to do this on a massive scale that fails to take unsuitable urban structures into account.
If a city skyscraper can generate its own electricity, and supply all the needs of its inhabitants, that’s one way it does work. But on a city population scale, never mind a county-wide or statewide scale, no it does NOT work.
It’s beyond money or science, the “falling for it” narrative isn’t correct as it implies ignorance and to degree innocence.
Socialism is willful and more often then not hate driven. It’s a crony elite climate movement with all the usual “we know best” rationalizations that nullifies science or reason. Skeptics lose because the science first lead in to battle cowers to the stark political reality of Greenshirt political culture.
Strong words cwon14, but hits the nail of the head. This is why in my opinion the final battle will be won on the solid grounds of UN declaration of human rights, not on the disputable records of average global outside air temperature, composition and motion.
Having watched Germany go from a Cold War East/West Germany state to a united Germany, I can’t say that I see any kind of thriving economy under Merkel. If anything, it has become the opposite. She is such a control freak that she is sending her own country right down the drain. If Brexit was any indication, the EU may drift apart before long. Catalonia wants independence from Spain, Ireland and Scotland want out of “it” (not sure exactly what they mean but Scotland wants independence), and the pre-election Frexit (France) was on the table. With Macron in France, that may be stalled, but not forever.
Merkel has been dependent on the cash flow from other countries, as have Greece and a couple of others, and it is not a good sign that her control freak personality won’t let her follow any alternatives. Nor are Germans mindless, despite what she may think.
My suggestion to Angela is to step aside and let someone who knoww how to make an economy work bring Germany back to a successful state. If she doesn’t, she might as well try to put out that eternal fire in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. It’s been burning for a very long time. Think of all the coal that’s gone to waste. 🙂
Merkel will never resign himself. What she do best is sitting and sitting out. The CDU is already downgraded to a dwarven format and yet, apart from a serious face of Merkel is nothing substantial to be heard. Now, however, the fun ends, since the Bavarian “Spezln” have suffered frightful losses. And it is about the power, the fun ends to the Bayuwarian Christians. Interesting times, Seehofer has for the first time the power to push Merkel into the corner. Because he has more than 6.2 percent of the votes required for every realistic coalition in the Bundestag.
OK OK, but they do have 1 chart constantly rising, the retail price of electriciy. They will only pay attention when their manufactuers leave in larger nbrs due to the high electricity costs..
Germans, look at a map, solar power is not for you…….6 months of the year you get too little sun.
but 6 months of the year they get huge amounts during the working day -35% of demand is quite common
It is likely that you are being rather optimistic.
In June, July and August, the average monthly sunshine hours is around 220 hours, ie., around 7 hours a day. or 29% of the day.
In April, there are about 162 sunshine hours per month, ie., around 5.4 hours a day. or 22.5% of the day, and in October it is down to about 108 sunshine hours per month, ie., less than 3.5 hours, or about 14.5%
On those figures, even assuming optimum performance (and of course optimum performance is general only a few hours around midday at the June equinox unless one has steerable panels), it would seem that your figure of 35% is optimistic even taking into account battery storage
I would imagine that in Germany it is difficult to go off grid with solar, and in any event extremely expensive (you would need a lot of panel area and vast reservoirs of battery storage).
“Large numbers of my friends and acquaintances are climate skeptics.”
You have a large number of friends who don’t believe in the climate? Listen to what you are saying. Words have meaning, and when you adopt the “catastrophic man-made global warming (CAWG)” rhetoric you distort your message.
Even if you believe strongly in CAWG, address your critic’s criticism without name calling. If you don’t share the CAWG message, don’t adopt the rhetoric of those trying to persuade people using argumentum ad hominem.
Yes, you know what you mean, but the others will not.
German electricity prices.
I had a look at the Eurostat website to get all of the EU countries electricity prices.
Two things surprised me:
1) that industrialised EU countries had similar untaxed retail prices.
http://i65.tinypic.com/2vru3au.png
2) After tax and renewable subsidies etc Germany shot up from 7th to 2nd most expensive…
http://i64.tinypic.com/2z8pzeq.png
Thats one hell of an increase – from 13.88c/kwh to 29.69 c/kwh due to tax and renewable penalties…..
Data from:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/energy/data/database
The file was: Electricity prices for household consumers – bi-annual data (from 2007 onwards) (nrg_pc_204)
Yes Ziiex from Germany said taht above, and the point I was making Germany haven’t reduced there use of coal one bit. The next 3 years gets tricky they have made decisions to actually now try and do the hard lifting. The election result provides a great backdrop to that. It’s like the perfect storm for Merkell.
Wow. That is a massive charge. I checked my electric bill. The per KWh charge is $.,05556. The transmission charge is $.013368/KWh. The taxes per month are calculated by KWh, and are $2.79. My electric bill is pretty reasonable, but would be higher if I ran an air conditioner. Haven’t needed mine for going on five years, until Irma pushed that load of hot air at us, but it’s going away tomorrow and my house is comfy now.
I think that not just Germans, but all Europeans, are getting completely ripped off for this idiotic notion that this “greenbean” power generation is a better plan. If there is a harsh winter in Europe and people die of exposure from lack of heat because they can’t afford the utility charges, it will be entirely the fault of the people who started this mess.
Personally, I think Merkel has windmills in her head. But that’s just my view.
Posted this on Paul Homewood’s excellent site, hope you don’t mind its repeat here as I think its relevant to this debate.
Paul, I have read your superb blog for ages, but only recently decided to contribute. I am a Physicist by training , now retired after years in the UK electricity and gas industry.
I admire your and most other contributors dedication in pointing out the lack of scientific substance behind the CO2/ global warming/climate change scam. However I don’t believe it will make a scrap of difference to the direction the western world ( in particular) is moving. The ‘establishment’ made up primarily of financial institutions, very wealthy individuals and their political lackeys are well aware of the intellectual deficiencies of the warmists. However they are encouraged to continue with their dire predictions whipped on by the subservient MSM. It serves the useful purpose of reinforcing the fear factor and virtue signalling required to keep the populace ‘paying’.
And that is what it is all about, the populace paying through taxation and utility bills for the debts of governments and bankers, whilst at the same time creating the vehicles for the very rich to extract more rent from the rest of us.
The Central Banks’, Central Bank, the BIS based in Switzerland has produced investment criteria ( under the chairmanship of Carney) for every CB in the world, who in turn lay down the requirements for every commercial bank, insurance company and other financial entities. These criteria now have at their heart the requirement to include decarbonisation and climate effects on every investment decision made. This is in turn supported by every government ( including that of Trump) by default if not actively.
Are the financiers suddenly environmentalists? No of course not. But they have embraced climate change as a means to an end. All those $bns created after 2007/8 to keep the banks afloat have to be absorbed in the economy. Also the banks have still catastrophic debt levels that have yet to be solved, rather than kicked forward into the long grass. What better way to solve these problems whilst at the same time creating brand new investment opportunities for the 0.1% than the world saving change to energy production and use. There is little or no risk involved as all governments will cover the income stream required for returns by taxation and utility pricing.
It also has the positive ( as far as governments are concerned) effect of helping to create a future society which is more controllable, far better to ‘save the world’ than allow the continuation of all those pesky ‘freedoms’ enjoyed by far too many of the proles.
The question is; is it already too late? is the die cast? I hope I am wrong, but I have a horrible feeling that it may be.
I would say that our most important “secret weapon” is that we have truth on our side. Slowly but surely, the lies collapse under their own weight, and truth begins to erode them, as more and more people realize that emporer truly wears no clothes. The reason this has been such a long slog is that once the lies become institutionalized, they become very difficult to dislodge. The election of Trump was of course a huge blow to Warmunism, and will definitely shorten its life, especially if he gets re-elected.
And not just random people, but people seemingly among the elites of society — academics and journalists and government bureaucrats. Most of the media function as propaganda bullhorns to spread the idiocy.
But they don’t have the voting public. This is why I am so optimistic–with all these forces lining their pockets with alarmism money shouting in every way they can that we are doomed, the average person on the street is still a skeptic.
They got nuthin’. They are a spent force and they are losing, even if the slush fund is big at the moment.
Here’s another bunch of people who have ‘fallen for it’ – 300 large international companies
http://sciencebasedtargets.org/2017/09/18/more-than-300-to-set-science-based-targets/
also major insurance firms like this one…
https://www.munichre.com/en/group/focus/climate-change/index.html
backed by these guys
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Documents/supervision/activities/pradefra0915.pdf
and there are the companies committed to 100% renewable energy… I could append a massive list
It stretches credulity that all the major corporations and industry sectors are all somehow taken in by a ‘fraud’. Businesses base their investments and approach on real world evidence.
First off, Griffie-poo, your use of the f- word is just a straw man on your part.
Secondly, your claim about what businesses base their investments and approach on is total nonsense, reflecting your own ignorance about business in general. Businesses who (seemingly) buy into the Warmist claims do so because they see it as good PR, and because they can curry favor with government bureaucrats and various and sundry NGOs. Ah, but most of what they do amounts to mere greenwashing, so costs them little, and they may even get some tidy tax breakness. So, they really don’t see a down side to it. And finally, you are simply using a variation of the illogical “Concensus” argument.
Strike three, you’re out.
Griff, the sad thing is that is you who are ‘taken in’. All the bodies you refer to know there is no scientific basis for ‘warmism’. However they use pawns like you to spread the gospel to create the right environment to introduce their schemes to extract maximum ‘rent’ from the populace by taxation and utility charges. Its the financiers in cahoots with the political lackeys who are creating the ‘need’ to invest in ‘new’ energy production and uses. This ‘need’ is being used to absorb the $bns created by CBs after 2007/8 to save the banking system. It also usefully creates risk free investment vehicles for the 0.1% supported by government mandated income streams.
Griff, you along with the myriad of modellers, campaigners, environmentalists etc etc, are being used in the greatest con yet conceived by a few on the many.
It is not at all surprising, it is all a part of the global elite. These companies (including the banking sector) make huge sums of money out of climate change, and claimed risks associated with climate change.
I have quite some experience with MunichRe (and SwissRe), and reinsurance companies always like promoting risk and the need for cover at high rates when the prospect of them being called to pay out are minimal. You never see a poor reinsurance company.
You see this all the time in the oil industry. Just because there are the exceptionally few cases where claims exceed 500 million, everyone is fleeced to pay insurance of billions of worth of cover and the prospect that the insurers taking the top slice of cover (say above 500 million, or 1 billion) will have to pay out is like you winning the lottery.
But none of this has anything to do with the validity of the science, but rather only whether someone can make a quick buck at minimal risk to themselves.
Pity us here in Canada. We have a province called Ontario that has mirrored Germany in many ways and has spent huge borrowed dollars on wind power generation and shut down coal power plants. The wind power has been far less efficient than the “clean power” consultants predicted and the cost of electricity in Ontario has skyrocketed, to the point where some say their power bill is higher than their mortgage payment, and they can no longer afford electricity.
Now our illustrious Prime Minister Trudeau is reportedly receiving advice from that same Ontario clean power consultant so the rest of Canada can be forced to make the same disastrous moves that Ontario did. We are likely doomed.