Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Poor people in Asia are rejecting the great renewable energy opportunity.
‘The world is losing the war on climate change’
10/08/2018 – by Dr Maarten van Aalst, Director, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
For those of us working on the humanitarian impacts of climate change, last week provided some very gloomy reading, including a stark headline above an Economist leader that ‘The world is losing the war against climate change’.
The authoritative weekly was not asserting that climate has suddenly become a binary issue of victory or defeat but referring to a direction of travel; it argued that on climate, the direction of travel remains the wrong direction.
‘Three years after countries vowed in Paris to keep global warming “well below” 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, greenhouse gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal [the dirtiest of the fossil fuels] rose.’
The main reason? Soaring demand for energy in the booming economies of Asia, where in the decade to 2016 this rose no less than 40 per cent, met almost entirely by coal, gas and oil.
…
The coming months will feature some significant milestones for international climate policy. In October the IPCC’s long-awaited report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is due, while negotiations on the rule book for the Paris Agreement are scheduled to be completed at the next COP meeting in Poland in December. But it’s already clear we need action way beyond what’s currently happening, and fast, as many of the extremes we are experiencing now are just a taste of what’s to come.
I continue to see strong media coverage of both current extremes and the risks we are getting locked into as a critical factor, and I’m glad to see The Economist, for one, all but taking words out of our mouths. A shift from carbon may eventually enrich economies, their leader last week concluded, but (my emphasis) ‘[p]oliticians have an essential role to play in making the case for reform and in ensuring the most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the change.’ The humanitarians’ point exactly!
Read more: https://www.climatecentre.org/news/1035/a-the-world-is-losing-the-war-on-climate-changea
Clearly the humanitarian solution is for rich countries like the USA to provide financial assistance to China and other developing countries in Asia, to help wean them away from their reliance on fossil fuels for economic growth, without them having to “bear the brunt of the change”.
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These are the same idiots that wailed and moaned because America sent an aircraft carrier group to help after tsunami in Indian Ocean. What a bunch of ‘tards.
Until someone invents a much better battery than the current state of the art, green power will remain out of reach for all but the wealthiest of the wealthiest. And more than a few of those will go bankrupt in the process.
Money will be made on green technology. By betting against it.
“Money will be made on green technology. By betting against it”
George Soros for one.
The Soros strategy is to do exactly that. To destabilize while betting against nation states. How do you destabilize legally? Simple. Rely on human nature. By giving people a taste of the one truly irresitable drug: getting something for nothing. Once hooked on “free” they will destroy their very lives to get more.
The gods grant the wishes of those they seek to destroy.
Someone needs to remind these idiots how many millions died of malaria when we saved the planet from DDT. “Silent Spring” syndrome. Same imbeciles in charge, same socioeconomic group takes it in the butt.
So bizarre. Greenies have been touting Asian nations, especially China as being the leaders in “climate control” because they scattered a few windmills and solar panels around while they built new fleets of coal generation. They lambasted Trump for pulling out of the Paris accord which had as much likelihood of altering the climate as it did repealing gravity. Now the US is the actual leader in reducing CO2 industrial emissions and the greenies seem to be admitting that China and other nations which, as Trump pointed out, had no obligation to reduce or even stop growing emissions are recognized as a problem. But no one on the left is willing to admit the one leader they dished is the one who got it right. And beyond all of that is the utter stupidity of devoting unlimited resources to trying to control the weather based on totally unverified theories the predictions of which fail over and over.
I absolutely refuse to contribute the Red Cross and like big bureaucratic organizations. Too much money goes to administration and “overhead”. Instead I contribute to those organizations where the vast majority of contributions goes directly to where it is needed.
For example Samaritan’s Purse, without fanfare, marshals material, food and labor anywhere in the world immediately after a disaster. It doesn’t matter if it is 3rd world or 1st world countries. Additionally they recruit volunteers to go in and rebuild. They are a religious based charity, but their help is direct. There are many more like them if you do a little investigation.
Apparently at one point only 7% of Red Cross donations were going towards direct humanitarian aid.
That’s more that the Clinton Foundation’s percentage.
The Red Cross goes through cycles. It started out as a very effective charity. As its reputation increased and money poured in the bureaucratic overhead increased and its effectiveness as a charity decreased. After several years people started noticing that top loevel management was traveling first class, staying in 5-star hotels and actual charitable spending had dropped to less than 10% of the budget. Its reputation took a hit, donations decreased and it finally hired a rescuer to come in and straighten it out. After a few years its reputation increased and money started pouring in again and the cycle repeated its self again. The red Cross has gone through this cycle several times in my memory so I agree with rbabcock and just stay away from it. It’s a shame but anytime there is a lot of money accumulated in one spot someone is going to figure out how to appropriate (i.e., steal) it. That is just human nature. It takes a strong moral character, usually religious upbringing, not to.
” … Clearly the humanitarian solution is for rich countries like the USA to provide financial assistance to China and other developing countries in Asia, to help wean them away from their reliance on fossil fuels for economic growth, without them having to “bear the brunt of the change”. … ”
_________
Rank communism massquerading as ‘humanitarian’ NGOs.
We already provide financial assistance to China… to the tune of 300 to 400 billion dollars a years as a trade deficit. Same thing goes with most other countries we trade with, just slightly smaller amounts.
We buy [their] goods, they buy our debt.
If China were to stop buying out debt, interest rates would go up substantially.
Actually Mark, I thing they are now buying (investing in?) more of our businesses (e.g, Smithfield) and real estate than they are our debt, but I haven’t researched the figures. If I remember correctly they were slowly unloading our government bond last year or two.
The world is not losing the war on climate change; it is winning the war on poverty. The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre should be ashamed of itself for trying to perpetuate poverty — some philanthropic organization. See Fossil Fuels and Human and Environmental Well-Being ,here, slide 7.
Yeah, we in the West already got OURS, but according to our theories we have used up all the opportunities. Those people in Asia shouldn’t be allowed to have gasoline cars or electricity cause it’ll ruin the planet. However, to show we are suffering with them in solidarity we will put solar panels on our 3,500 square foot houses, and drive Teslas. Oh, and don’t tell me that cooking over a wood fire is so terrible. I do it every Sunday when I grill the steaks and it tastes wonderful!
/s
BTW, without fossil fuels how would Red Cross Red Crescent help the millions that are hit annually by natural and other disasters — solar powered helicopters, field hospitals using candles, food delivered by ox carts?
Clueless, is putting it mildly.
Any moron who puports to be at war against nature is going to lose and lose badly. As for the Asians – good on them for not being morons.
I find this terribly sad, …perhaps my sadness comes from disillusionment. My cherished view of the Red Cross has trouble accommodating ill-informed climate activism. I find myself concerned that I might not feel like supporting the organization in the future.
There would be no replacement of green for fossil energy: any $$$ would be for ADDITIONAL projects in weird places. Fossil fuel energy is profitable. Nobody in poor countries will pass up a buck, especially the leaders.
I suppose the reason for all this lunacy is the deterioration – world wide too – in University education since Richard Feynman. Frightening.
Soooo… the Red Cross has a Climate Centre… that wants us all to be poor and hurting. It’s like a make work project then? I’ll never donate to them again, well… except through my taxes.
The US, which is doing a heroic job reducing CO2 production should be punished.
China and India which are growing their CO2 production exponentially should be rewarded.
Makes perfect sense to me.
The good doctor is missing the point. When all those emissions, all 37 billion of them, go up, the climate asks itself where they come from.
If they come from the wicked capitalist West, which around one third of them do, then the climate says, this is powerful medicine, and it warms the climate.
If they come from the righteous rest of the world, then the climate gives those emissions a free ride and sends the heat straight into space.
Why does it do this?
Well, per capita emissions, emissions for export, installing lots of wind and solar, historical emissions… The climate takes all those things into consideration, and acts fairly. The climate you see is fair. It rewards the good, and it punishes the world as a whole for the sins of the wicked, namely us.
And this is why Paris was so right. This is why Trump was so wrong to leave it.
This is why Chinese emissions do not count. This is how China can lead the world in combating climate change while emitting more than anyone else and increasing its emissions with it.
Its easy when you understand the point. This is a moral issue. Physics in this case is driven by morality.
Got it now?
Shameless prostitution of humanitarian organizations in the service of International Socialism.
The fact that the good doctor references that left wing rag The Economist, edited by clueless watermelon Zany Mental-Shallows, tells you all you need to know about this Red Cross scare story. The Economist is ‘authorative’ alright but only if you happen to be a neo-Marxist.
Amazingly, poor people that live in dark huts don’t like to live in poverty or the dark.
They’re just not Progressive enough, and need to be indoctrinated until they are.
It might be helpful to know just who and what the “Red Cross Red Crescent Cliomate Centre” is. From their 2016 Annual Report:
“The Climate Centre – an independent foundation under Dutch law – remains grateful to its hosts, the Netherlands Red Cross in The Hague, which every years assists us with HR, legal and financial expertise.
In 2016, most of the Climate Centre’s income came from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UK Department for International Development, and the German and Norwegian Red Cross and their governments. We were also supported by:
American Red Cross
British Red Cross
Danish Red Cross
German Red Cross
Netherlands Red Cross
New Zealand Red Cross
Norwegian Red Cross
Swiss Red Cross.
Other contributors were the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, the World Meteorological Organization, IFAD, CDKN, UTC, the Natural Environment Research Council, the World Bank, and the European Commission. ”
For those interested in what they do, just google “Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.” From what I can tell it is just another redundant organization to employ European bureaucrats.
“Dr Maarten van Aalst, Director, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre”
I’m only asking but I wonder how big his carbon footprint is?
And not a thought by Dr van Aalst about how much better people were living due to having some more energy to provide lights, refrigeration, clean water, a sewage treatment plant to prevent the next outbreak of cholera or typhoid fever…..
Maarten Van Aalst was Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC special report on extremes and a Lead Author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
He holds adjunct appointments at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, and at the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College London.
…Van Aalst is your typical usual suspect and how any IPCC report he leads can be considered impartial is beyond a joke.
Speaking of jokes…did not The IPCC release an AR5 report in which all Extreme Weather was rated at a low confidence level? Is this from The Van Aalst report?
Note that Red Cross Red Crescent held… The 21st session of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies General Assembly in Antalya, Turkey….from 10 to 11 November 2017. This meeting will bring together national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies from 191 countries, the International Federation and the ICRC.
How did they all get there? Via The Solar Impulse Plane that failed spectacularly
a few years back…???
I am mortified. Energy means life
I spent some schooling years in a country where locals could not afford motorbikes or cars. Life expectancy 45 years. Now forty years later, people can afford cars and bikes. The life expectancy is around 65 years plus
. Life expectancy correlates well with affordable energy consumption. My take on the RC comments is that the RC is horrified that poor people are living longer.
I will not donate to them again.
The antihuman criminal mass murderers of most NGOs are the same commies who view the lack of lights in the nighttime sky or North Korea as a positive.
Sick phouques.