Guest essay by Eric Worrall
VOX author David Roberts worries the Sierra Club are not being practical, with their opposition to any low carbon power generation technology other than solar or wind.
Reckoning with climate change will demand ugly tradeoffs from environmentalists — and everyone else
Being a climate hawk is not easy for anyone.
By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com Jan 27, 2018, 8:30am EST
Climate change is a crisis. Serious damages are already underway, there’s enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to ensure more damages to come, and if carbon emissions continue unchecked, species-threatening damages become a non-trivial risk.
Lots of people acknowledge this. But it’s one think to acknowledge it and another to really take it on board, to follow all the implications wherever they lead. Very few people have let the reality of the situation sink in deep enough that it reshapes their values and priorities. Being a consistent climate hawk, it turns out, is extremely difficult.
Let’s take a look at an example of what I’m talking about, and then pull back to ponder the broader problem.
Zero-carbon energy vs. environmentalists in New England
The operators of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant, the only remaining nuclear plant in Massachusetts, recently announced that they would close the plant no later than June 2019. It has long been plagued with maintenance and safety issues, and nuclear is having a hard time competing in wholesale energy markets.
Pilgrim is a 690 megawatt plant that has been producing 5.12 terrawatt hours of energy per year — around 4.1 percent of the New England region’s energy. (These numbers are courtesy of Jesse Jenkins, an energy analyst and MIT PhD candidate, whose tweet thread got me thinking.)
That represents an enormous amount of carbon-free energy about to vanish from the grid, which any climate hawk must surely view with alarm.
Take the Massachusetts chapter of the Sierra Club (SCM). It proclaims that “climate change is an existential threat.” But it is not fighting to find new ownership or better safety procedures for the Pilgrim plant, or ways for the plant to be compensated for the lack of CO2 it produces (as in New York). It advocates that Pilgrim be closed immediately.
OK, well, Pilgrim is a pretty poor performer, safety-wise, so maybe it’s best to replace it as quickly as possible with clean energy.
So how about this idea? As part of an effort to clean the grid, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has proposed the Northern Pass transmission line, which would bring around 9.45 TWh/year of hydroelectric energy down from dams in Quebec. That would replace the lost Pilgrim energy and add more carbon-free energy to boot.
SCM … opposes that too. “Not only will we be contributing to ecological destruction on a massive scale,” it writes, “we will be furthering the exploitation of the indigenous people of Canada.”
…
Read more: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs
This growing war between greens who believe in the climate emergency but want nuclear power, and radical groups like the Sierra Club, seems to be about whether we get to keep the conveniences of modern civilisation.
A new generation of greens is worried about climate change, but they don’t want to give up their cell phones, lattes, cheap power, convenient travel and warm homes in winter.
How do Sierra Club reconcile their concerns about the destruction of habitat which large scale hydro causes, with their advocacy of renewables? Replacing existing energy systems with renewables, if it could be done at all, would require clearing millions of acres of land.
The answer to this dilemma in my opinion is the Sierra Club have no intention of allowing the replacement of existing energy systems.
In my opinion radical greens like the Sierra Club leapt onto the climate bandwagon because they thought the climate cause would help them achieve the social changes they wanted – large scale abandonment of modern civilisation, a return to more natural ways of life. But Sierra Club’s precious climate cause is rapidly morphing into a demand for more nuclear power, which if successful will ultimately lead to a massive increase in global energy use, an expansion of the modern way of life which groups like Sierra Club appear to despise.
“Progressives” will not be happy until we are living in mud huts, eating bugs, and drinking recycled pee.
I really find it difficult to call such regressive progressive. Stone Age here we come.
Be comforted by the fact that they will all have a wireless connection.
Oh but they won’t be living in those huts, the rest of us will. “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”. -Animal Farm
… which would require the greatest mass murder of people of all time — billions would have to die.
Peter Hartley, you are correct in your “prediction” … where I am in the camp which believes that such global carnage would have been of little concern to globalists and their dem accomplices here in our USA.
John Paul Holdren, who was the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues, was one of those green whackoes who believed that maximum Earth population should be no greater than 500 million. [You can use your imagination regarding how such deranged people planned to reduce the population to such levels; natural “attrition” or otherwise.]
This anti-human policy was held also by many of the ultra-wealthy earth-firsters who supported, with millions of donated campaign dollars, the immoral Obama admin; where, of course, many of these supporters were rewarded — or, at least, re-paid — with millions [or billions] for their “green projects” … all funded by USA taxpayers.
Should Hillary have gotten elected, these policies would have been much more entrenched; perhaps, for the next generations and beyond, with little to no hope of being reversed. I am sure that many Dems — actually, globalists — believed that before the 2016 elections they were SO CLOSE to victory with continuing the evil Obama radical environmental agenda … all moving toward world domination; where their defeat remains one of the primary reasons why they so despise POTUS Trump … and will therefore ALWAYS despise POTUS Trump.
Peter
Not necessarily mass-murder.
I don’t expect that the Sierra Folk will literally seek out and shoot – or otherwise directly kill – the seven billion or so who should be – ahem – allowed to die.
They will seek, however, to rig the economy so that winter power – especially at night – will simply be too expensive for most older folk. result – death from hypothermia – or pneumonia or bronchitis . . . . .
They will seek an ideal world human population of – at most – 750 million [marginally under 10% of the current level; or, perhaps, even 500 million.
500 million – per http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html that is the population of only those cities more populous than Istanbul or London.
[Other estimates are available, but that equates to just 22 cities world-wide].
Starvation, inundation, and variuous illnesses may – I assume – be played, also.
And of the ‘lucky ‘500/750 million?
Most will be serfs for the ‘elite’ I gather.
In truth, many will not be sexual serfs, but simple brute labour . . .
Paradise Regained?
Not for me.
Auto
Take a look at the abortion industry around the world. Take a look at the money George Soros and his friends are financing this industry with. They are well on their way to their goal. Then take a look at the spread of voluntary and involuntary euthanasia in for instance Belguim and Canada just to name two.
Don’t hold your breath – too long (we need that scarce Co2).
They will like under Stalin die of “natural causes”. Starve and freeze to death because there we will not be given food or energy.
From the 1977 book by Ehrlich and Holdren :
And we let theses guys advise POTUS?!?
One of the most terrifying proposals I have ever heard was made in Belgium several(?) years ago: allow minor children to “decide” to be euthanized if terminally ill. Oh, it was all dressed up in “compassionate” language, but it was still just pure, pure evil.
For all our posturing and lip service, we have some screwed up ideas about who deserves to live, under what circumstances a being should be allowed to live, and who should get to decide.* Example: that Australian “bio-ethicist” who claims it is ethical for parents to euthanize their child up to a year after birth. I think he may have a few “restrictions”, but if I recall correctly, a child with something like Downs syndrome could be killed.
Once you believe that even physically healthy toddlers can be “ethically” killed, it is not much of a stretch to believe that it is ethical and desirable to get rid of “excess” people. Everyone has to make sacrifices to “save” the planet…except for the self-proclaimed elite.
No mud huts, progressives are against human structures of any kind.
Who told you it would be recycled?
Marxism does not accept the Western culture, economy and legal system and rights that has been handed down to us trough history. They want a radical change of the Western society.
In the light of this “Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” — John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001” it follows that they don’t want the Western society to have “Affordable energy in ample quantities”.
The progressive claim “there is a climate crisis” is 100% false. There is no climate crisis but there is an anti-freedom crisis.
Wind, Solar & Bio-fuels only? The Sierra Club should ask the people of Chatham-Kent, Ontario how they feel about wind turbines!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/turbines-municipal-wind-concerns-ontario
https://www.cbc.ca…/windsor/frustrated-chatham-kent-residents-stage-blockade-at-wind-turbin…
I hear that the EU has discovered that the pollution levels have increased with the increas in use of wood for power. It is also aggravated by the increase in homes using wood for heating – and they are using low emission wood stoves.
This is a very real disaster story. I wonder why the link you provided doesn’t work?could it be that someone doesn’t want this story to be told?
Try this link:
http://www.waterwellsfirst.org/news-updates/
Massachusets Sierra Club wants New England headed toward South Australia conditions. Only difference is people will not die in SA summer blackouts but surely will in New England winter blackouts. Whether heated by gas or fuel oil, all modern residential furnaces depend on electricity to function: fans, pumps, ignition.
It’s not just heatwaves. Winter in SA can be nasty. Not New England nasty, but sub 32F and snow occurs sometimes.
” snow occurs sometimes”
Really? Where? Maybe occasionally an inch or two on a mountaintop.
NIck, around Adelaide it will be news-worthy to find an inch or two of snow on a hill-top (I recall two such news bulletins during my childhood), but unbeknown to the SA state government and much of the population of Adelaide, South Australia extends beyond the suburban limits of Adelaide. My auld-man grew up in the mid-North and snow,while not regular, wasn’t unheard of in places like Yongala or Peterborough. And while snow is unheard of in the South-east, frost and sub-zero overnight and morning temperatures are de-rigeur during winter, so if energy for heating becomes ‘neccessarily expensive’ or inherently unreliable for the good of the cause, then population adjustment is riding shot-gun on that bandwagon.
Even in Jay Weathergirl’s green vision for South Australia.
Nick seems to buy into the myth that snow fall is soon going to be a thing of the past.
Concord Monitor, N.H., Jan.26, 2018
Re: Northern Pass hydro – power project from Quebec.
Project process began in late 2010. Is a $1.6 billion, 1090 MW project.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/mass-clean-energy-RFP-15050873
Presidential Permit / PP-371. Issued 11/16/17
Click on PP-371 for PP information on the Northern Pass project.
https://energy.gov/oe/services/electricity-policy-coordination-and-implementation/international-electricity-regulatio-3
Manitoba has 98% hydro power, which has been both reliable and reasonably priced. The province is currently building another major dam near Gillam, Keeyask, that will generate an additional 700MW. Vox is wrong about the detrimental effects on First Nations as Keeyask is a joint project of Manitoba Hydro and four northern First Nations. Many other First Nations were compensated for flooding from earlier dams. Much of the new power will be available for sale to other jurisdictions, primarily the northern Great Lakes and Plains States.
The so-called global/continental/regional trade agreements were meant to allow each partner to produce goods and services for sale to the others. These products would be produced where a jurisdiction had a natural competitive advantage that allowed both quality and quantity at the lowest price of production. For power, Manitoba and Quebec had the best resources for hydro. Quebec started early and had a huge market in the NE states. NY and other states buy a lot of Quebec hydro. Manitoba has a smaller market, but MN could use a lot of power from the north. Instead, the US went nuts on wind and solar, and the ultra-clean hydro has been supplanted by these useless sources. Without subsidies they never would have, or should have been developed because the natural competitive advantage clearly falls to Manitoba. North Dakota, for example, is a maze of wind “farms”.
These market distortions ultimately make all forms of electrical energy economically dangerous, and negate the basic principles of free trade. Only time will tell how this all plays out. I’m sure glad you guys elected Trump – we are stuck with a snowboard instructor who would sign Canada over to the UN tomorrow.
Reuters, Boston, Nov.13, 2015
‘Quebec key to cutting New England power costs: Maine governor’
Re: Using Canadian power to reduce New England’s power costs.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-canada-energy/quebec-key-to-cutting-new-england-power-costs-maine-governor-idUSKCN0T21SR20151113
RCI | Radio Canada International, Aug. 31, 2015
‘Hydro Quebec will supply energy to New England States’
Re: Northern Pass project.
http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/08/31/hydro-quebec-will-supply-energy-to-new-england-states
U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Canada
News & Events: 9 August, 2016
Quebec City, Quebec, Eastern Regional Conference
Remarks also included Northern Pass Transmission Line and other topics.
Text at:
http://ca.usembassy.gov/ambassador-bruce-heymans-remarks-council-state-governors-eastern-regional-conference
Try:
https://ca.usembassy.gov/news-events
Select: Speeches
Select August, 2016
Also: Council Of State Governors Eastern Regional Conference 2016 on the Internet.
FERC Document, October 3, 2014
Docket No.ES14-45-000
‘Order Authorizing Issuance Of Securities’
Re: Hydro-Quebec and Northern Pass Transmission project.
Effective thru: December 31, 2016
https://www.ferc.gov/CalendarFiles/20141003141031-ES14-45-000.pdf
7 pages.
Come now,Sierra Club lawyers are so toxic,even Polar Bears can’t stomach them.
These people are another example of Red cloaked in Green.
What they are is a false flag,as pseudo charity to protect their dollars as they meddle in other peoples lives.
Time these corrupt organizations are stripped of their “charitable status” and criminally investigated.
Named and Shamed only works on ethical persons.
Recently this article was published by CBC news. It seems Elizabeth May has been getting upset lately. Is it really about the fact that her office wasn’t painted on time?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elizabeth-may-green-party-1.4507332
The Sierra Club is no more and no less than a hard core Marxist organization with no other purpose in life, Any environmental work they may pretend to do is incidental.
Yes, I believe you’re right. That’s what they’ve evolved to.
It’s neomarxism. “In this article I re-examine Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s account of the disenchantment of nature in Dialectic of Enlightenment. I argue that they identify disenchantment as a historical process whereby we have come to find natural things meaningless and completely intelligible. However, Adorno and Horkheimer believe that modernity not only rests on disenchantment but also tends to re-enchant nature, because it encourages us to think that its institutions derive from, and are anticipated and prefigured by, nature. I argue that Adorno’s Negative Dialecticsand Aesthetic Theory show how constellations and artworks generate an alternative form of reenchantment which is critical of modernity and its domination of nature. This form of re-enchantment finds natural beings to be mysteriously meaningful because they embody histories of immeasurable suffering. This experience engenders guilt and antipathy to human domination over nature” http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0191453706061094
“…large scale abandonment of modern civilisation, a return to more natural ways of life.” I think you mean more primitive, not more natural.
And perhaps we must depend on the Audubon Society for the birds since the Sierra Club seems to have abandoned that issue.
“perhaps we must depend on the Audubon Society for the birds”
Too late. They’ve gone full tilt Climate Crisis now too… for the money. No longer trustworthy, at all.
“Audubon strongly supports properly sited wind power as a renewable energy source that helps reduce the threats posed to birds and people by climate change…
Audubon encourages wind developers and permitting agencies to consult with wildlife experts, including Audubon staff and chapters, to help inform study and siting decisions and to support efforts to improve wind siting and technological solutions to reduce harm to birds.”
http://www.audubon.org/conservation/audubons-position-wind-power
In this link they also make this claim about their supposed efforts:
“we stood in strong opposition to a 2013 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule that offered 30-year permits for wind farms to kill and injure Bald and Golden eagles. A federal judge later overturned this rule, and USFWS dropped its appeal in 2016.”
They are LYING by omission. After that Obama changed the rules again.
“On January 17, 2017, the number of bald eagles that can be killed by wind farm permit holders will increase from the current legal number of 1,100 to 4,200—almost a quadrupling. The Fish and Wildlife Service is issuing new 30-year permits that allow the additional eagles to be killed or injured without prosecution under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The fee for a long-term permit is $36,000…
The new “30-year” rule takes effect 3 days before inauguration day. President-elect Trump could change the rule or do away with it, but the process could take months or years.”
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/obama-allows-wind-turbines-legally-kill-eagles/
Even Ducks Unlimited (DU) has climate change garbage and in their fund-raising and promotional literature.
I wonder if any of the envirowhacos demanding 100% Solar and Wind and these mythical “Micro Grids” have calculated the expenditure on rebuilding the present grid to support their pie in the sky dreams? The present electrical distribution system is designed for one way transmission – from the multimegawatt generators to the user. The present substations have protection systems that ensure that that electricity flows in one direction and one direction only. It would be near impossible to get power generated from your rooftop PV system on 4th street over to the homes on 100th street when a winter storm, tornado, etc knocks out the line feeding the 100th St neighborhood. The substation(s) between you will prevent that. Essentially all of them (may be a few that will work both ways but will require switching) will need to be rebuilt. In many cases most of the present protection breakers and control circuits will need to be replaced also. You are talking $Trillions! It is going to take more than a “Smart Grid” it will take a “Genius Grid.”
Money is no problem for the econutters. Few of them understand economics or any other science.
They think tossing out today’s TRILLIONS of dollar electric system to replace it with wind/solar is no problem and think of all those new jobs. They do not know that someone (ALL OF US, including them) will have to pay all those new workers, making all of us less well off.
‘large scale abandonment of modern civilisation, a return to more natural ways of life’
That’s what Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge wanted too, and look how that turned out. I doubt members of the Sierra Club would behave any differently if they ended up in charge.
Also Mao
Don’t worry, be happy. The Hydro Quebec deal is going through, keeping our electricity rates nice and low here in La Belle Province. As for the Aboriginals, with Junior at the helm in Ottawa, you can be sure they will be bribed into a quick acceptance of the deal.
CBC News | Montreal, Jan. 25, 2018
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hydro-quebec-energy-contract-1.4504156
Quebec hydro-power rates for customers not going up?
“nuclear is having a hard time competing in wholesale energy markets.”
One big reason for that is that the deck has been stacked against it, not unlike coal, in favor of “renewables”.
I had issues with David Roberts’ rant; but why get in the way when such folks are attacking each other?
…In my opinion radical greens like the Sierra Club leapt onto the climate bandwagon because they thought the climate cause would help them achieve the social changes they wanted – large scale abandonment of modern civilisation, a return to more natural ways of life…
Personally I don’t think they wanted any of that stuff. That wanted to -advocate- for it in order to collect donations and public funding because that’s where the “profits” were being made in the BushObama neo-Socialist society that was emerging prior to President Trump showing up and kicking all that crap out of the way.
leave that hydro power in canada.
we need it for bitcoin
Does this mean they will stop throttling Niagara Falls when it’s windy?
Mosher makes a joke, luv it.
Mosh, ya made me laugh. Good one.
Along with the GPU’s .. oh wait they aren’t used for bitcoin mining are they Steve 🙂
It’s a proven fact that perceived standards of living increase with leaving poverty behind, and at slightly higher levels, birth rates start falling. All IMPROVED by better access to reliable, low-cost energy. The green groups would drive civilization in the reverse direction, towards starvation, death, and tribal warfare.
Nuclear, especially the molten salt reactor, is an acceptable intermediate step for now.
Catch-22
The Sierra Club should be re-named the Sahara Club, to emphasize how devoid of fertile ideas they really are.
How much property taxes will be collected on a cave?
No caves. Too many animals will be disturbed. Those who are very, VERY good, obeying their betters without question, may be allowed to spend some nights under a rock shelter. But only if no non-European ever went near it.
Total greenwash.
“9.45 TWh/year of hydroelectric energy down from dams in Quebec. That would replace the lost Pilgrim energy and add more carbon-free energy to boot…”
So where does it come from? Here’s the sanitized Wiki version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bay_Project
Lots more better info on line but even Wiki cannot conceal what it really is, and did, including to the “indigenous people” they now claim to be concerned about:
“SCM … opposes that too. “Not only will we be contributing to ecological destruction on a massive scale,” it writes, “we will be furthering the exploitation of the indigenous people of Canada.”
It already HAS caused “ecological destruction on a massive scale.” But now that the UN has made things even worse on the “indigenous’ front, the so called Greens are playing this card more than ever. They have been since the ‘Crying (Italian) Indian” campaign of the 1970s but it is now institutionalized – and all based on fake history about these people living in harmony with Nature and all that.
“Environmental law and philosophy assume the existence of a fundamental state of nature: Before the arrival of Columbus, the Americas were a wilderness untouched by human hand, teeming with wildlife and almost void of native peoples. In Wilderness and Political Ecology Charles Kay and Randy Simmons state that this “natural” view of pre-European America is scientifically unsupportable. This volume brings together scholars from a variety of fields as they seek to demonstrate that native people were originally more numerous than once thought and that they were not conservationists in the current sense of the term. Rather, native peoples took an active part in managing their surroundings and wrought changes so extensive that the anthropogenic environment has long been viewed as the natural state of the American ecosystem.”
http://www.e-bookdownload.net/search/wilderness-and-political-ecology
North American Indians were not the glowing environmental stewards that the romantics like to portray. They were realistic and they were efficient in their expenditure of energy because they had to be. If it was easier to kill a whole buffalo herd, rather than to take just a few, that’s what they did. link
The noble savage is the product of a fevered imagination.
One young radical I knew in my college days assured me that prior to the European invasion, the natives were peaceful, never fought one another and murder was unheard of.
He assured me that the tomahawk was actually a farming implement until the white man showed the natives how it could be used to kill people.
“He assured me that the tomahawk was actually a farming implement until the white man showed the natives how it could be used to kill people.”
LOL! Really. I did LOL.
But this at least this “young radical” acknowledged – at least accidentally – that many of these people were farmers, living in villages, in areas where farming made the most sense.
Wasnt it also Crazy Horse who sayed that they did the same with to other Indians what the Whites did “now” with them?
Lots of people think civilization is the root of all our problems. link IMHO, the study of chimpanzees should put paid to that idea. Gombe Chimpanzee War
Another you radical of my acquaintance assured me that the worst mistake mankind ever made was abandoning the hunter gatherer lifestyle.
He was 100% convinced that such people were happier, healthier and lived much longer than people do today.
Provided they survived childhood they got their three score years and ten. Statistics is a female dog. 🙂
Another way to look at it is that our own lifespans have doubled in the last century and a half. link
Then there’s my favorite cartoon. Two cavemen are talking:
As for whether the stone age people were happier, there is evidence that society was pretty violent. link
Under no circumstances would I trade places with a caveman.
OH, they do live in some fantastical dream scape, don’t they?
This part: ‘Before the arrival of Columbus, the Americas were a wilderness untouched by human hand, teeming with wildlife and almost void of native peoples.’
That is a complete falsehood. I don’t know where they come up with this stuff, or what they’re smoking when they compose it, but it is utter baloney.
I have had no use for the Sierra Club since the 1970s when they said Chicago was a barren wilderness, devoid of wildlife and sterile at some meeting I went. I immediately rebutted that, bringing up the number of adult raccoons and their kits in my neighborhood, as well as the opossums that I could find scrounging through the dumpsters, the various songbirds that would migrate through the city in the Spring and Fall, and the butterflies that flocked to the pots of flowers that I put on the back steps of my apartment. They didn’t like that, because it was the truth.
See, their real problem is that their self-hatred becomes more and more visible with every passing week. Nothing makes them happy, never will. This argument they have is not about how many birds will be killed by wind turbines (which I heartily object to) or where power is sourced. It’s about being a bunch of money-grubbing control freaks and nothing else.
If they really want the world emptied of people, they should volunteer to be the first to go. Then we would know how sincere they really are.
I am in total agreement with Sara; even if urban dwelling raccoons and opossums are faint echoes of wildlife.
Back in the late 1960s, early 1970s; when I was free to take frequent backpacking trips. I was given a “Sierra Club” camping cook book. The book has a flexible waterproof cover, decent paper.
Most of my backpacking meals, back then, were dehydrated foods, grains, dried meats and fruits; all easily found at any grocery store.
So, I eagerly read the book looking for ways to improve camp meals.
There were a lot of, er, unusual ingredients for any camper to have; but when I hit lobster complete with rubber banded claws, I knew the book was a sham.
The bottle of wine necessary to cook the lobster, was also quite absurd.
At the tender late teen age stage of life, I was severely disappointed at Sierra Club’s utterly clueless urban elites.
At least, Euell Gibbons ate the foods he gathered and cooked via simple culinary skills.
Sierra Club’s elites likely had staff to cook their grocery store foraging’s. “No trout today, our swordfish is almost fresh, will that do?”
“It’s about being a bunch of money-grubbing control freaks…”
…who have learned quite well how to mask their actual intentions and who are constantly attacking others with accusations of one sort or another.
Yes Piper, but they’re supported by a multitude of useful misinformed useful idiots who truly believe in the alleged Cause. They’ve studied the tweets, seen the documentaries, seen the sweat on Obama’s brow. The ones at the top know the scam all too well. I used to believe that many if not most of the ‘researchers’ involved were also blind true believers but now understand most are at best willfully ignorant and at worst full tilt f r a u d s or worse. Sad. Once upon a time it was a noble cause.
“Before the arrival of Columbus, the Americas were a wilderness untouched by human hand, teeming with wildlife and almost void of native peoples”
This ‘teeming wildlife” did happen after the first waves of smallpox – the first big one started in Mexico in the 1500s and spread via inter-tribal contacts – decimated indigenous populations. With them gone those mythical wildlife populations could grow, to be later recorded in history.
But that happened after Columbus (and smallpox) arrived, didn’t last long, and was a completely unnatural freak situation.
So….before Columbus the native peoples didn’t have hands?
PS How many “native peoples” cultures collapsed because they … touched stuff?
(Pueblo, Inca, Hopi, etc.)
What has the Sierra Club officially said about beaver dams?
Aren’t they “natural”? I’d say so but do they?
Man can build bigger dams than beavers. Do they say Man is unnatural?
If they say “Yes”, then just what do they say Man is? The only species that has a “club” intent on destroying itself?
I apologize for not including any statistics about the native North American aboriginal population before Columbus arrived. It was estimated at its height to be between 7 millions and 18 millions. Some scholars estimate it to have been as high as 112 millions. This was before the introduction of European diseases.
There was a common sign language used by (as far as I know) all the tribes if a large counsel was held, since their dialects and tribal colloquialisms might not work, e.g., Siouxan languages include Mandan and Lakota and BIloxi. In short, they have a common root but specifics allow the differentiation, just as Parisian French is part of the Franco-Romanse group, but while is does have the same roots as the French spoken in the Camargue, the vocabulary and pronunciation are very different. Galician and French have the same Gallic roots, too, but have veered far away from each other. Even medieval French does not resemble Galician.
I do know that there is some speculation that, owing to physical appearance, stature, and face paint, east coast tribes are thought to have belonged to the European group known as Red Paint people*, who may have crossed the Atlantic ice fields while hunting game. The western and northern tribes (Aleut, Inuit, etc.) may be related to tribes of eastern Siberia, partly based on similar features, but the further south you go into Central America and South America, the features change enough to give the natives a marked difference in appearance from their northern relatives.
*This is well ahead of the Vikings who landed at Martha’s Vineyard, by some tens of thousands of years. There are pre-Colombian artifacts that date back to as long ago as 40,000 years. That would be before the flooding of the Mississippi Valley and St. Lawrence channel by the breakup of the Laurentian ice dam. (Summarising! Don’t get too pickey, ‘kay?)
So when the self-absorbed people at Sierra Club make these pronouncements, they show no knowledge of the real history of either the northern continent or the southern continent.
As I said, they are in this for money and control, and not much else. It’s best we find valid ways to expose this and their falsehoods to the light of day, calmly and consistently.
Gunga Din, you are ignoring the other explanation. The one that shows how they truly feel about native Americans.
The Sierra Club even opposes the Northern Pass transmission project that would bring 9.45 TWh of clean hydropower from Canada. That would be enough to replace Pilgrim nearly two-fold.
https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2018/01/governor-baker-fails-renewable-energy-test
I am not sure the Sierra Club opposes much – they sell to the highest bidder that fits their public profile. They in turn finance, for example, “NGOs” in Canada who rent mobs to protest any and everything that provides alternative ways to get energy product our of Canada to Europe or Asia, particularly China. Those “NGOs” are now being attacked for their bullying of indigenous groups demanding they oppose this or that project, losing them billions in income.
That recent trend may well expand in the coming years: indigenous people’s groups standing up to eco-colonialism and the simplistic projections assumed to be the “ways of natives”. It is eco-racism, pure and simple. The “NGOs” make no effort to lump Canadian-born people of other colours or ethnic heritage into the lofty-minded groups who care for and maintain the Earth. Racism.
The opposing-electricity-from-Quebec story is idiotic. The energy return on energy invested for hydro is many times higher than other sources. In 500 years it will still be there, powering millions of homes and personal or public transports. So will Niagara Falls – both sides. I was privileged to see the alternator first installed there by Tesla to power New York City.
In the meantime, let them squabble. The future of energy is as-yet-undiscovered nuclear methods. Too many people behave as if all that could ever be invented already has been. Surprisingly, that already happened before in 1844 when the modern Age of Invention took off. Read about it. It is a lesson on being wrong about life, the universe and everything.
Very good post, thank you Crispin.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/03/climate-explainers-colder-winters-because-climate-change/comment-page-1/#comment-2708846
{excerpt]
Radical environmentalists are the great killers of our time, ranking with Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
One example of this criminal malfeasance is the banning of DDT, which has greatly increased malaria in the tropics – a global-scale holocaust based on false environmental alarmism.
A more recent example is global warming hysteria and the war against cheap, reliable, abundant energy, which is the lifeblood of society.
Global warming alarmism is the greatest fraud in human history, in dollar terms. Tens of trillions of dollars have been squandered on this proven falsehood – funds that were more-than-adequate to install clean water and sanitation systems in every village on Earth, and operate them forever. In the 30+ years that global warming hysteria has been promoted by radicals, about 60 million kids below the age of five have died from contaminated water. These child deaths exceed the total deaths in WW2, or Stalin’s purges, and are only exceeded by Mao’s Great Leap Backwards.
Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, wrote this article in 1994. It still rings true today. Read “The Rise of Eco-Extremism”.
http://ecosense.me/2012/12/30/key-environmental-issues-4/
Below is a plot that quantifies the number of DEATHS EACH YEAR FROM MALARIA – between one and two million.
Note how malaria deaths increased steadily since 1980 (or earlier), after the banning of DDT in 1972, and how it started to decline after DDT was re-introduced.
I want to personally recognize the environmental movement for the key role it played in the banning of DDT and the resulting deaths of millions of people from malaria, especially children under five years of age. After this holocaust became fully apparent, many enviros continued to oppose DDT, based on flimsy evidence and unsupported allegations. DDT was only re-introduced circa year 2000.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1566107003466856&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
There are parallel themes common to the DDT ban and the global warming scam.
Both were based on false alarms, unproven hypotheses in which the science was shoddy, the risks to the environment were wildly exaggerated, and the harmful consequences to humanity were dismissed or ignored. Experts knew at the time that these ill-conceived, extremist policies would cause great suffering and death.
Even after these risks proved correct, the extremists continued to promote their deadly agendas and to dismiss or ignore the deadly consequences thereof.
It takes a special kind of sociopathy to continue to press an agenda that is clearly false, extremist, expensive and costs so many lives.
Roberts mentions New York’s action to preserve its nuclear plant capacity on Lake Ontario by authorizing ZEC’s (Zero Emission Credits). I live in upstate New York, and I can say this is the ONE thing about Governor Cuomo’s energy policies I support. Large-scale solar and wind power have onerous land-use and environmental quality implications which so far seem to be ignored by proponents.
Eric, you are from Australia aren’t you? How about posting more stories on the actual effects on what you once called that ‘crash test dummy for renewables.’ It seems the North America Greenies always like to go on about how Australia and Germany are ‘leading’ on this front but NEVER go into any of the resulting inconvenient details.
For example:
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/01/bonfire-electricity-bills-two-day-heat-wave-burns-nearly-400m-45-per-head-in-vic-80-each-in-sa/
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/01/madness-and-misinformation-in-renewables-land-south-australia-brags-they-didnt-have-to-load-shed/
“Guest essay by Eric Worrall VOX author David Roberts worries the Sierra Club are not being practical”
Where is the Sierra Club’s Charter does it mention “being practical?” Environmental groups are front organizations for anti-capitalist Marxist law firms. They feed off environmental lawsuits and crippling regulations. They need to drum up hysterical fears so people will keep sending them donations. Saving the earth has nothing to do with their actions, generating donations has everything to do with it. If they wanted to save the world, they would take their resources and buy up rainforest and protect it, they would own wind and solar farms, they would manufacture green products. They don’t, they drum up donations, donate to Democrats, and file crippling lawsuits. They claim to be “progressive” but all they do is stop progress. I’m sure “The Wall” will be a boon for their donations and supporters.
More Evidence; With Friends Like Environmentalists the Earth and Society Don’t Need Enemies
Straight from the Horse’s Mouth: Germany Green Party co-founder and former federal Homeland Minister Otto Georg Schily warns Swiss citizens voting on energy referendum that the Energiewende is “an economic, social and ecological disaster” Read More: Germany’s Energiewende “An Economic, Social and Ecological Disaster”, Writes Top German Socialist! Please like, share, subscribe and comment.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/more-evidence-with-friends-like-environmentalists-the-earth-and-society-dont-need-enemies/
Yes. These days, “Saving the planet” is primarily a business, not a vocation.
Unfortunately, much opposition to this is probably doomed to fail because arguing each case on it’s merits will fail against activists who manage to change the law such that it doesn’t matter what well-argued scientific cases present. This is the working of the current EPA. It is an authority within government and with the powers of government, which is seemingly not answerable to government. That has always been a great attractor for corruption and people who simply shouldn’t be. I still don’t feel good about how this is going to be resolved.
Proving Progressives will label their opponent with any slur, regardless of its meaning, Bill Maher accused Trump of appointing an “eco-terrorist” (Pruitt) to the EPA:
Fischer-Tropsch, the Real Alternative Energy Solution for America
Wind and solar will never power much of the world’s economy. The energy density, variability, and unreliability of these sources simply aren’t practical. The real solution to America’s energy problem is to produce fuel using our abundant renewable biomass, natural gas, and coal resources. Believe it or not, that ability already exists in a commercially viable and proven … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/fischer-tropsch-the-real-alternative-energy-solution-for-america/
I’d certainly like to help them out with their philosophical self-contradictions, and I wish them well. But right now I think there is some hair that needs cleaning out from the grating at the bottom of my shower.
The whole thing about the green dream of a low carbon world is that it is a dream.
The whole modern world civilization is about cheap and abundant use of energy .
Restrict the energy and civilization as we now know it will quickly crumble .
The greens have never got off their hobby horses to sit down and actually think for a few moments of what will happen when electricity and fuel double in price and the working people find that they cannot afford either .
Every thing from food to house building will escalate in price and suddenly the green world becomes a mean world for those at the bottom and up to just below the elite , as this now happens in all third world countries most of which have criminal dictators in charge..
The greens close their eyes and ears when they call for low carbon economies but unless the the base electricity power can be replaced with nuclear or a yet to be discovered cheap energy source the voting public in most democracies will soon wake up and vote for affordable energy that guarantees a good standard of living .
Austerity is not a choice that the majority will embrace
In New Zealand we actually have green nuts and even some that are not so green or nutty that state that they cannot wait for the day that some of our hydro dams are knocked down and the rivers can run free .
I read an earlier post about Paris flooding and our flooding is usually well controlled by the hydro dams that hold back a lot of flood water to ease the flooding below them .
27,000 MW is available from James bay in Quebec and the hydro there won’t disturb much as it is one of the sparely inhabited areas of North America. Nice and renewable as long as water flows downhill 🙂
James Bay Hydro created enormous new resource space for fish and water animals, tourism and plain fun. Oh yeah, and billions in foreign exchange each year. That is what is called a Triple Bottom Line: positive return for the environment, capital investment and social development.
Sierra club and the other radical greens only oppose expansion of the modern ways of life just for commoners. They perceive themselves as elites, who would be exempt from having to make personal sacrifices to put their money where their mouths are, they feel entitled to take plane rides (like countless private jets which flew to Davos) to elites’ gatherings around the world where they would lecture the commoners about their destructive ways of living (SUVs, ICE cars, etc.) while allowing themselves to be leading the lives with many times the carbon footprint of an average commoner…
I know this is just a pile on but the Sierra Club is a particularly deceptive organization. They are currently promoting artificial release of wolves in Colorado, claiming Colorado needs to be “fixed” just like Yellowstone National Park, when wolves are actually in the state already!!! There are enough people who don’t know the facts and they are exploiting that just like they are exploiting energy issues. It isn’t about a logical solution it’s about conflict. Conflict and ignorance makes them money, plain and simple. They know how to gin up a conflict about pretty much anything, just look at their adds. The greater the conflict, the greater the drama all equals money from the useful idiots. It’s a formula that is working like a charm. Sierra Club knows how to do it and their partners in deception the Center for Biological Diversity knows how to do it, etc. There is no philosophical integrity in their heart, It’s disgusting.
Can somebody explain to me how 1 molecule of CO2 can heat up the other 2499 molecules in the atmosphere? It is one part in 2500. It is trace gas.
Don’t the Greens understand statistical thermodynamics?
No they don’t; but then again they don’t give an fig. They are ideologically driven and for idealogues, the last thing you need is an argument. You an idealogue, everything is a hammer as you aalready know the arguments and your answer is the correct one.
Don’t get me ranting.
“Don’t the Greens understand statistical thermodynamics?”
Of course they do. They know that the global warming theory is a complete piece of claptrap. But pushing it gives them power. And they love power.
By absorbing a photon of IR energy, transferring that energy to another molecule via collisions, then absorbing another photon or IR energy and so on thousands of times a second.
There’s no question that CO2 can thermalize LWIR in the 14-16 micron range, so I think it’s more pertinent to ask how can the insignificant thermal energy added by that one molecule per 2500 (supposedly added by man to the atmosphere since 1850) cause the postulated atmospheric instability and weather condition changes. That’s where the leap of faith, reductionist reasoning and hand waving occurs.
That’s why a doubling of CO2 will only result in a temperature increase in the 0.2 to 0.3C range.
A value that is at present undetectable giving natural variability.
I salute VOX, whatever that is, for standing up for reason and exposing eco-misanthropy. However, until such entities as VOX drop the green religion, they’re sincerity is in doubt.
VOX still believes that CO2 is the control knob for weather. (“climate”).
“J. Philip Peterson January 27, 2018 at 6:47 pm
VOX still believes that CO2 is the control knob for weather. (“climate”).”
No, it’s worse than that. They believe it’s just the human contribution to total CO2 concentration, the ~4% of ~400ppm/v, is *THE* control knob. It’s the bacteria on a microbe on the back of a flea on the tail of the dog.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a system that allowed us to identify the radical Sierra Club members and then the greens and in order turn off power to the Sierra Club members first then the greens whenever there is an energy shortage of green only power (which is most of the time). In other words let them make sure they don’t use any energy provided by anything other than green sources. This will allow them to put their money where their mouths are as it were. With the added benefit to society that they are likely to be the first climate casualties especially in a New England winter like the latest one. But hey it will be worth it. Virtue signalling is very important as long as it impacts on other people’s lives.
The Sierra Club, Greenpeace and all the rest of the Climate Kooks may not be aware of the fact that whenever clean energy sources like hydro and nuclear are being closed, they almost always get replaced by gas burning plants.
It is all basically just another demonstration of why the Left is unfit to lead as the dominate political party. They can be back-benchers, minority party and do little damage as long as the People recognize the danger of having the Left actually running government, as they do in California.
all you need to know about the sierra club
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/25/al-gore-bilks-people-at-christmas-asking-for-climate-crisis-money/comment-page-1/#comment-2701695
{excerpt]
Marxism made simple!
The Groucho Marxists are the leaders – they want power for its own sake at any cost, and typically are sociopaths or psychopaths. The great killers of recent history, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. etc. were of this odious ilk – first they get power, then they implement their crazy schemes that do not work and too often kill everyone who opposes them.
The Harpo Marxists are the followers – the “sheeple” – these are people of less-than-average intelligence who are easily duped and follow the Groucho’s until it is too late, their rights are lost and their society destroyed. They are attracted to simplistic concepts that “feel good” but rarely “do good”.
George Carlin said: “You know how stupid the average person is, right? Well, half of them are stupider than that!”
One can easily identify many members of these two groups in the global warming debate – and none of them are ”climate skeptics”.
I was walking around a shopping mall with my wife recently when we came across a two-year old having a meltdown. He was stamping his feet and screaming “no, no, no, no, no!!!”. My wife turned to me and said “look, there’s an environmentalist in training”.
The Sierra Club doesn’t appear to care about Carbon Dioxide released into the atmosphere. I suspect it is because they know that it is not a significant factor in climate. They have an agenda that is anti human and anti prosperity and for them climate change fears are a useful tool politically and nothing more.
Simply put; If they believed CO2 was a significant threat to the environment they would be radically pro nuclear power. They aren’t so the don’t.
The goal is to preserve the problem and shake down the people to support projects least likely to reach the purported goals with the only benefits being kickbacks to politicians and political support for them while flushing tens of billions to support pork barrel projects. More money and power for politicians and higher power costs for consumers, less dependable power, more job loss and a
far more corrupt government.
I wouldn’t worry with these deja vu hippies as it didn’t take long for the South Australian Premier to roll out 276MW of diesel generators when facing summer blackouts. Sure the Tesla Big battery was a unicorn stunt but the diesel gennys gave the game away for the true believers.Yes they’ve stuffed up the national grid with their unreliables and batteries won’t cut it so that only leaves pumped hydro if they’re to press on with 100% renewables by whenever the poor can afford it.
Now SA is the driest state in the driest continent and being largely flat that only leaves the Great Dividing Range to the east for pumping salt water uphill as they’ve dammed most of the easy runoff. Very populous and quite bemusing thinking about all the NIMBYs having kittens over any proposal to pump seawater up into any of their precious valleys. When the rolling blackouts begin in earnest and the doomsdayers face building salt water dams their time in the sun will be over.
Store this rubbish with batteries to make it reliable 24/7 all year round?
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2018/january
Don’t make me laugh as I’m not the product of post-modern universities with the bone heads-
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/the-researcher-sits-on-a-small-chair/news-story/e8a14e30a0de797eeeef36d62427fdca
The cracks in the grid are beginning to show although lucky for the doomsdayers it was a weekend again- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5321715/48-000-homes-Victoria-without-power-heat.html
Just need to blow up Liddell when AGL have finished wringing the last drop of revenue from it and the true believers will live in interesting times the following summer.
Low natural gas prices have made the Pilgrim economically non-viable and will lead to shutdown. The plant had no safety issues and was approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency for operation until at least 2032. The plant provided 84% of the low carbon power in Massachusettes.
How much will the 1,000 MW of Canadian hydro- power really cost by the time it reaches Boston?
[The mods begin counting the number of greedy politicians between the power supply and Boston … .mod]
CBC News | Nova Scotia, Jan. 25, 2018
According to this article:
Underwater cable to Massachuetts clean energy bid $2.2 billion.
http://cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/emera-atlantic-link-massachuetts-energy-northern-pass-transmission-1.4504425
Too many Republicans remain delusional about the left and their irreversible trajectory into total loopyville.
On some some midday cable discussion show I caught the host posed the question,
“that because some Republicans support some form of carbon taxation, perhaps if the Republicans would join a bipartisan adoption of a carbon tax the left would relent on their more nuttier stuff like war against meat and fining waitings waiters for offering straws?”
The exact opposite is certain. The rabid left would step on the crazy accelerator.
Why doesn’t this host and all of the GOP abandon this absurd thinking that placating the left will calm then down?
Let it go. Wise up. Only when the left is in full ruin will they stop.
Speak of the Devil- http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/companies/vegan-protesters-storm-melbourne-steak-restaurant/news-story/a99c20f1de1e59e027b097b239da9eb1
and in the next breath leftists will start wanking on about bullying and the need for safe spaces-
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_5716340654001
Yes there’s a Qld State election on and out comes all their virtue signalling.
Green zealots should have their electricity cut off for a while, so that they learn to value it. Anyone who values electricity won’t be so quick to call for sabotaging the infrastructure which supports it.
People from postage stamp Massachusetts have no idea of the vastness of Northern Quebec. Similarly if they educated themselves on the “plight” of the native people of Northern Quebec, they would learn that the Cree people in the James Bay Region negotiated a very lucrative deal with the government-owned Hydro-Quebec worth millions a year in perpetuity. They also get electricity at 1.5 cents CDN/kWh (~1.18 cents US) in perpetuity. This small band has an excellent K-12 School, a sports complex with a superb fitness gym, indoor hockey/skating rink, basketball, etc. They provide scholarships to university and technical schools for interested students. They have no alcohol or drugs in this community. The band has purchased significant shares in mining developments at the feasibility stage and negotiated employment and contracts for a range of services they provide (road construction, heavy equipment an large truck repairs, etc.etc.). They have high-speed internet and a a Telus cell phone service. Their is an airport and a native-owned, scheduled airline service to the Montreal International Air Terminal. On top of this and much more, they still follow a traditional lifestyle hinting abundant big game, waterfowl, trapping and the best fishing in the world. They own a commercial hunting and fishing guide service. Employment terms with mining and forestry include time off for the moose and goose hunt.
http://www.nemaska.com
The left’s empty “concerns” about native peoples are an insidious form of гас¡зм that they seem utterly blind to. It’s this form of concern that has inhibited resource development in Africa – tapping a treasure trove to bring people to prosperity and a good life.
oops “hunting”. Oh and NGOs like Sierra don’t want the people from places like Africa to become prosperous. They have been “helping” these people to go no where. Tens of trillions spent on Africa since idependence in the 1960s and you cant get a clean drink of water! This all just a safari for the NGO white – neocolonialists.
We should do goose hunting right here in Silicon Valley, CA. There are lots of undocumented Canadian geese, and some are permanent residents.
“Climate change is a crisis. Serious damages are already underway, there’s enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to ensure more damages to come, and if carbon emissions continue unchecked, species-threatening damages become a non-trivial risk.”
Sorry, but exactly when did they prove any of this?
Correct Jerry.
“Dangerous Man-made Climate Change” is so vague a hypothesis that it cannot even be disproved – is not even scientific – it is a scam.
“Dangerous Man-made Global Warming” can be disproved and I suggest it already has been disproved. The maximum sensitivity of climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 is about 1C/(2xCO2), which is not dangerous (Christy and McNider, 2017). The actual sensitivity is probably much less, and so is even less dangerous.
Global warming alarmism (aka Climate Change) is a fraud, the most costly fraud of all time.
Politicians love big scams because that is where they can derive the most graft. Between the scoundrels, the corrupt politicians and the corrupt scientists, and the imbeciles who follow them, this is a very tenacious scam. To expect the imbeciles to suddenly become intelligent is improbable; to expect the scoundrels to suddenly become honest is impossible.