Hypothesis: Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng.
1. Introduction.
On December 6, 2018 I was informed in a letter from the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) that I was “the 2019 Summit Award recipient of the Centennial Leadership Award. This is APEGA’s most prestigious award and is given to members of APEGA in recognition of continued leadership in the profession and in the community, attaining the highest distinction relating to engineering or geoscience.” That award has now been withdrawn by the Executive and the unanimous vote of APEGA Council, because of posts I wrote on wattsupwiththat.com
Two of my several accomplishments that resulted in the Centennial Award were:
· Innovations, by myself or with colleagues, which created 500,000 jobs, caused $250 billion in capital investment in Alberta and made Canada the fifth-largest oil producer in the world;
· Taking decisive actions that incurred significant personal risks when staff at the Mazeppa sour gas project were afraid to act, which may have saved up to 300,000 lives in Calgary.
For brevity, I have not included in this treatise all the details and references that support my statements. For the record, I have two engineering degrees related to the earth sciences, have worked on six continents, and have diligently studied the subject fields since 1985. In the late 1960s I was a member of an environmental group at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, which predated Greenpeace. We focused on real air, water and soil pollution, which was largely cleaned up by the 1980’s and 1990’s.
APEGA objected to my following posts, which were written as my personal opinions:
“In the 20th Century, socialists Stalin, Hitler and Mao caused the deaths of over 200 million people, mostly their own citizens. Lesser killers like Pol Pot and the many tin-pot dictators of South America and Africa killed and destroyed the lives of many more.
Modern Green Death probably started with the 1972-2002 effective ban of DDT, which caused global deaths from malaria to increase from about 1 million to almost two million per year. Most of these deaths were children under five in sub-Saharan Africa – just babies for Christ’s sake!”
– February 1, 2019
“…radical greens (really radical leftists) are the great killers of our time. Now the greens are blinding and killing babies by opposing golden rice…” – March 10, 2019
“The Green movement is really a smokescreen for the old Marxists – and they are the great killers of our age.” – March 11, 2019
APEGA refused to discuss the evidence, and baselessly claimed the moral high ground.
2. My hypothesis is that “Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age”.
Here is some of the supporting evidence:
- The banning of DDT from ~1972 to 2002, which caused the malaria deaths of tens of millions of children under five years of age, and sickened and killed many more adults and children;
https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/malaria-and-the-ddt-story
- The fierce green opposition to golden rice, actions that blinded and killed millions of children;
https://reason.com/blog/2013/09/30/scientists-call-out-greenpeace-for-killi
https://reason.com/blog/2016/06/29/100-nobel-laureates-demand-that-greenpea
https://reason.com/blog/2019/03/07/life-saving-golden-rice-finally-gets-to - The misallocation of scarce global resources for destructive intermittent “green energy” schemes, which are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy;
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible - Properly allocated, a fraction of the trillions of dollars squandered on green energy schemes could have installed clean drinking water and sanitation systems into every community on the planet, saving the lives of many tens of millions of children and adults; the remaining funds could have significantly reduced deaths from malaria and malnutrition;
Global Crises, Global Solutions, The 1st Copenhagen Consensus, edited by Bjørn Lomborg, 2004,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 648 pp. - The number of Excess Winter Deaths and shattered lives caused by runaway energy costs in the developed world and lack of access to modern energy in the developing world probably exceeds the tens of millions of malaria deaths caused by the DDT ban; Excess Winter Deaths (more deaths in winter than non-winter months) total about two million souls per year, which demonstrates that Earth is colder-than-optimum for humanity;
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf - Indoor air pollution from cooking fires kills many women and children in the developing world;
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2004/statement5/en/ - In addition to runaway energy costs and increased winter deaths, intermittent wind and solar power schemes have reduced grid reliability and increased the risk of power outages;
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
https://www.thegwpf.com/increasing-electricity-system-fragility-in-the-uk/ - Huge areas of agricultural land have been diverted from growing food to biofuels production, driving up food costs and causing hunger among the world’s poorest people.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430252/
3. There is NO credible scientific evidence that climate is highly sensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2, and ample evidence to the contrary. Catastrophic humanmade global warming is a false crisis.
Competent scientists have known this fact for decades. In a written debate in 2002 sponsored by APEGA and co-authored on our side by Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Dr. Tim Patterson and me, we concluded:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Many scientific observations demonstrate that both these statements are correct-to-date.
The current usage of the term “climate change” is vague and the definition is routinely changed in the literature, such that it has become a non-falsifiable hypothesis. It is therefore non-scientific nonsense.
“A theory that is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific.” – Karl Popper
Climate has always changed. Current climate is not unusual and is beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth is in a ~10,000 year warm period during a ~100,000 year cycle of global ice ages.
The term “catastrophic human-made global warming” is a falsifiable hypothesis, and it was falsified decades ago – when fossil fuel combustion and atmospheric CO2 increased sharply after ~1940, while global temperature cooled from ~1945 to ~1977. Also, there is no credible evidence that weather is becoming more chaotic – both hurricanes and tornadoes are at multi-decade low levels of activity.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/11/Khandekar-Extreme-Weather.pdf
Even if all the observed global warming is ascribed to increasing atmospheric CO2, the calculated maximum climate sensitivity to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric CO2 is only about 1 degree C, which is not enough to produce dangerous global warming. https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/2017_christy_mcnider-1.pdf
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0667.1
Climate computer models cited by the IPCC and other climate activists employ much higher assumed sensitivity values that create false alarm. The ability to predict is perhaps the most objective measure of scientific competence. All the scary predictions by climate activists of dangerous global warming and wilder weather have proven false-to-date – a perfectly negative predictive track record.
Based on current knowledge, the only significant impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 is greatly increased plant and crop yields, and possibly some minor beneficial warming of climate.
4. Humanity needs modern energy to survive – to grow and transport our food and provide shelter, warmth and ~everything we need to live. Green energy schemes have been costly failures.
Fully ~85% of global primary energy is from fossil fuels – oil, coal and natural gas. The remaining ~15% is almost all nuclear and hydro. Green energy has increased from above 1% to less than 2%, despite many trillions of dollars in wasted subsidies. The 85% fossil fuels component is essentially unchanged in past decades, and is unlikely to significantly change in future decades.
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
The fatal flaw of grid-connected green energy is that it is not green and produces little useful (dispatchable) energy, primarily due to intermittency – the wind does not blow all the time, and the Sun shines only part of the day. Intermittent grid-connected green energy requires almost 100% backup (“spinning reserve”) from conventional energy sources. Renewable wind and solar electrical generation schemes typically do not even significantly reduce CO2 emissions – all they do is increase energy costs.
Claims that grid-scale energy storage will solve the intermittency problem have proven false to date. The only proven grid-scale “super-battery” is pumped storage, and suitable sites are rare – Alberta is bigger than many countries, and has no sites suitable for grid-scale pumped storage systems.
https://www.thegwpf.org/new-paper-grid-scale-electricity-storage-cant-save-renewables/
5. The trillions of dollars of scarce global resources wasted on global warming hysteria, anti-fossil fuel fanaticism and green energy schemes, properly deployed, could have improved and saved many lives.
About two million children below the age of five die from contaminated water every year – about 70 million dead kids since the advent of global warming alarmism. Bjørn Lomborg estimates that a fraction of these squandered green energy funds could have put clean water and sanitation systems into every community in the world.
Waste of funds and loss of opportunity due to global warming alarmism and green energy nonsense have harmed people around the world. In North America and Europe, trillions of dollars have been wasted on grid-connected green energy schemes that have increased energy costs, increased winter mortality, and reduced the stability of vital electrical grids.
https://www.thegwpf.com/germany-risks-complete-loss-of-control-of-energiewende-federal-audit-office-warns/
In the developing world, the installation of electrical energy grids has been stalled for decades due to false global warming alarmism.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2014/09/27/lighting-a-dark-continent
Last winter England and Wales experienced over 50,000 excess winter deaths. That British per-capita excess winter death rate was ~three times the average excess winter death rate of the USA and Canada.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/excess-winter-mortality-in-england-and-wales-2017-to-2018-provisional-and-2016-to-2017-final
Energy costs are much higher in Britain, due to radical green opposition to the fracking of gassy shales.
https://www.thegwpf.org/uk-media-coverage-of-shale-gas-is-hopelessly-biased/
The anti-oil-pipeline campaign has cost ~$120 billion dollars in lost oil revenues and destroyed ~200,000 jobs in Alberta and across Canada. This is an enormous financial and job loss for Canada.
https://www.canadaaction.ca/wcs_vs_wti_price_differential_big_for_canada
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/gwyn-morgan-talk-about-collusion-how-foreign-backed-anti-oil-activists-infiltrated-canadas-government
The funds wasted on baseless global warming hysteria, anti-fossil-fuel fanaticism and destructive green energy schemes, properly deployed, could have saved or improved the lives of many millions of people.
6. The conduct of climate activists has been destructive, deceitful and violent.
Global warming alarmists have shouted down legitimate debate and committed deceitful and violent acts in support of their false cause.
The Climategate emails provide irrefutable evidence of scientific collusion and fraudulent misconduct.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/climategate/
http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf
In Canada, skeptic climatologist Dr. Tim Ball and other skeptics have received threats, and buildings related to the energy industry including the Calgary Petroleum Club were firebombed. In the USA, skeptic scientists have had their homes invaded, and several highly competent skeptic scientists have been harassed and driven from their academic posts.
7. Radical greens have caused enormous harm to the environment, for example:
· Clear-cutting the tropical rainforests to grow sugar cane and palm oil for biofuels;
· Rapid draining of the vital Ogallala aquifer in the USA for corn ethanol and biodiesel production;
· Clear-cutting forests in the eastern USA to provide wood for the Drax power plant in Britain;
· Destructive bird-and-bat-chopping wind power turbines.
8. Why are the radical greens so anti-environmental?
Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder and Past-President of Greenpeace, provided the answer decades ago. Moore observed that Eco-Extremism is the new “false-front” for economic Marxists, who were discredited after the fall of the Soviet Union circa 1990 and took over the Green movement to further their political objectives. This is described in Moore’s essay, “Hard Choices for the Environmental Movement” written in 1994 – note especially “The Rise of Eco-Extremism”, at
http://ecosense.me/2012/12/30/key-environmental-issues-4/
For radical greens, it was never about the environment – the environment was a smokescreen for their extreme-left totalitarian political objectives.
To better understand radical green objectives, see http://www.green-agenda.com/, excerpted below:
· “The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations
· “We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
– Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
· “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
· “The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
– Christopher Manes, Earth First!
· “A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
· “One American burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.”
– Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
· “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
· “I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
– John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
· “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
· “The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival or millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on Earth – social and environmental.”
– Ingrid Newkirk, former President of PETA
· “The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature’s proper steward and society’s only hope.”
– David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth
9. Conclusion
The evidence strongly supports my hypothesis that “Radical Greens are the Great Killers of Our Age”.
The number of deaths and shattered lives caused by radical-green activism since ~1970 rivals the death tolls of the great killers of the 20th Century – Stalin, Hitler and Mao – they advocate similar extreme-left totalitarian policies and are indifferent to the resulting environmental damage and human suffering.
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Another heretic sacrificed to the new religion.
While his claims about “killing and blinding babies” are rather disingenuous rants rather than sceince, I am totally opposed to “removing” awards which have been given unless that removal is because the grounds for the award being given in the first place are shown to be false.
Making subsequent statements which are not deemed “politically correct ” or “offended” someone’s politics does not undermine the merit of Allan MacRae’s work and achievements and is no grounds for removing a well merited award.
In engaging this kind of politically motivated zealotry, Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta show themselves to be neither professional nor scientific. Yet more politicization of science which undermines the very objectivity which is the foundation of what science is supposed to be about.
Well done APEGA for undermining the very reason for your own existence !
Another manifestation of old soviet era addage : the future is certain , only the past can change.
How are Allan’s claims regarding the blinding and killing of millions of children “disingenuous rants”?
dis·in·gen·u·ous
/ˌdisənˈjenyo͞oəs/
adjective
not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
“this journalist was being somewhat disingenuous as well as cynical”
synonyms: dishonest, deceitful, underhand, underhanded, duplicitous, double-dealing, two-faced, dissembling, insincere, false, lying, untruthful, mendacious;
I do not see how any of what Allan has said meets this definition, let alone this particular section.
How are Allan’s claims regarding the blinding and killing of millions of children “disingenuous rants”?
Because there are many ways the poor could be fed. There is not a lack of food on Earth. Pretending that the only solution is genetically manipulated crops and that the deaths are therefore directly attributable to those who oppose them is wrong , he knows it is wrong and there it is a disingenuous argument according to the definition you so kindly provide.
Greg
No. That IS itself a lie.
There is NO POSSIBLE WAY to feed today’s 7 billion living people without fossil fuels.
Try to “feed them” without fossil fuels (and your specious distraction about GMO food is incorrect as well) will kill some 5-7 billions of those now living. For no purpose at all.
I just discovered this excellent article published in 2013:
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/peter-foster-the-child-killers
[excerpts]
During the decade in which the anti-GM campaigners have held up the adoption of Golden Rice, eight million children have died from vitamin A deficiency.
…
Given this catalogue, the support that Greenpeace receives from ordinary citizens seems a mystery, but is part of the larger mystery of support for a global cause that has resulted in literally tens of millions of preventable deaths. An even worse example is the banning of DDT in the wake of Rachel Carson’s hysterical Silent Spring, which last year “celebrated” its 50th anniversary (For a dissection of Carson and the darker roots of radical environmentalism, see Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson, edited by Roger Meiners, Pierre Desrochers and Andrew Morriss).
And this one, published yesterday:
“IT STARTS WITH SCREECHING LEFTIES CALLING US NAZIS… IT ENDS IN A POLICE STATE”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6943713/PETER-HITCHENS-starts-screeching-Lefties-calling-Nazis-ends-police-state.html
“SILENT SPRING AT 50: THE FALSE CRISES OF RACHEL CARSON”
(Reassessing environmentalism’s fateful turn from science to advocacy)
By Roger Meiners et al — September 21, 2012
https://www.masterresource.org/silent-spring-at-50/silent-spring-at-50/
“Carson made little effort to provide a balanced perspective and consistently ignored key evidence that would have contradicted her work. Thus, while the book provided a range of notable ideas, a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance.”
– Roger Meiners, et. al (cover insert)
Widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement when published 50 years ago, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring has had a profound impact on our society. While Carson was not the first to write about the dangers of pesticides or to sound environmental alarms, her writing style and ability to reach out to a broad audience allowed her to capture and retain the attention of the public.
Yet this iconic book, hardly scrutinized over the decades, substituted sensationalism for fact and apocalyptic pronouncements for genuine knowledge.
Our just released 11-author study, Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson, reexamines Carson’s historical context and science, as well as the policy consequences of Silent Spring‘s core ideas. We assembled scholars from different disciplines and asked them to evaluate Carson’s work given the state of knowledge at the time she was writing. What information was available that she ignored? Where did she deviate from accepted science of the day?
Our findings are unsettling. Carson made little effort to provide a balanced perspective and consistently ignored key evidence that would have contradicted her work. Thus, while the book provided a range of notable ideas, a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance.
Despite her reputation as a careful science- and fact-based writer, Carson produced a best-seller full of significant errors and sins of omission. Three areas are particularly noteworthy:
· Carson vilified the use of DDT and other pest controls in agriculture but ignored their role in saving millions of lives worldwide from malaria, typhus, dysentery, among other diseases. Millions of deaths, and much greater human suffering, ultimately resulted from pesticide bans as part of disease-eradication campaigns. Carson knew of the beneficial effects of DDT, but never discussed it; her story was all negative.
· Far from being on the verge of collapse, American bird populations were, by and large, increasing at the time of Silent Spring’s publication. Although Carson was active in the Audubon Society, she ignored Audubon’s annual bird count, which had long been the best single source on bird population. Instead she relied on anecdotes claiming bird population was collapsing. It is inconceivable that Carson did not know about the annual bird count–some of which occurred in the locations she asserted were in collapse.
· Cancer rates, exaggerated in the book, were increasing largely because far fewer people were dying from other diseases. Further, once statistical adjustments are made for population age and tobacco use, the apparent rise in cancer rates that so alarmed Silent Spring readers disappeared. Although writing at a time when scientists had come to agree that tobacco was a major cause of lung cancer, Carson ignored tobacco and relied on peculiar theories about its origins. She specifically ignored Public Health Service data on this point.
Silent Spring presented nature as a benign happy place that was “in balance.” Man was guilty of upsetting the balance and causing environmental catastrophes. As shown in the chapter on that issue, nature is far more nuanced and resilient than Carson understood. Her view that “natural” pests, such as wasps, could be used to control other bugs that were harmful in crop production, was not only short of the mark for agriculture, but overly optimistic about how benign such “natural” pests can be.
Carson’s “you can’t be too safe” standard is seen today in the “precautionary principle” that helps to retard the adoption of superior technology that would benefit people and the environment. Her simplified view of risk appears to have impacted the drafting of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that set impossible standards in some areas not remotely related to human health or technical feasibility.
An intellectual, and public policy reconsideration, of Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring is long overdue.
————————–
ABOUT THE EDITOR AUTHORS
ROGER MEINERS is the Goolsby Distinguished Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Texas at Arlington and a senior fellow at the Property and Environmental Research Center in Bozeman, Montana.
PIERRE DESROCHERS is associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto. His main research areas include technical innovation, business-environmental interactions, economic development, and energy policy and food policy.
ANDREW MORRISS is D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene A. Jones Chairholder in Law and Professor of Business at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and is a senior fellow at the Property and Environmental Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. He has authored or coauthored more than 50 book chapters, scholarly articles, and books.
I am not sure why Greg believes claims of “killing and blinding babies” doesn’t qualify as science. I am a specialist in infectious diseases and these facts are part of what I teach about the history of infections and policy decisions. The banning of DDT did indeed lead to a marked increase in deaths of infants and children in sub-Saharan Africa from malaria and, when DDT was reintroduced, those death rates fell dramatically. The ban itself was not scientific but emotional, based on unfounded claims of harm. Engineered rice which provides vitamin A to malnourished children in developing nations has proven benefit and can indeed prevent blindness and immune deficiency that will harm or kill millions of children. Radical environmentalists have done everything possible to prevent those children from being saved.
The radical left hides their true agenda. They fear overpopulation in the face of limited resources. They were quick to use Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” as an excuse to ban DDT and hold check over runaway populations in 3rd world nations.
The environmentalist movement focus quickly evolved from conservancy to population reduction and government control of resources after Ehrlich’ “Population Bomb” hit the NY Times bestseller list.
Along the way many in the “Science” Community discovered a Golden Ticket machine, a seemingly endless supply of government funding by feeding this beast mis-information it wanted to hear. This mis-information was the fodder to mold boogeymen, like Golems, to frighten the poorly served public school students causing them to turn to the real boogeyman, the Government, for salvation through bureaucratic dictate.
So if I prevent you from you from obtaining a source of vital nutrition that leads to blindness and premature death, what would you call that and who’d get the blame?
[MODS] What happened to my earlier comment “held for moderation” for no obvious reason? Delay in review or is WUWT practicing censorship now?
The mere fact that AGW supporters are eager to kill the careers and reputations of those with contrary opinions shows that it is a non-scientific “debate”. History will not judge them well.
I agree completely with your first sentence, but I want to expand a little on what you said to explain why the statement is true.
People who think they are on the right side of an argument will respond to opponents by first accurately describing their opponent’s arguments, and then rebutting those arguments with facts and reasoning to persuade a listener so that the listener understands why you are right and can’t be easily turned back to the other side. But that’s not how climate alarmists debate skeptics. Consider this article by Michael Mann and Bob Ward, advocating against Trump’s climate panel:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/20/donald-trump-stalinist-techniques-climate-science
Every argument in their editorial is either a textbook example of the straw man fallacy, the appeal to authority fallacy, or the ad-hominem argument fallacy. What struck me most was their dishonest portrayal of William Happer’s views. They linked to a pdf of Happer’s views on climate change, in which he at least twice acknowledged that burning fossil fuels would increase surface temperatures and cause climate to change by some amount, but argued that the benefits of the added CO2 far outweighed the costs. Yet, Mann and Ward mischaracterized Happer’s article as “disput[ing] the scientific evidence that greenhouse gases are causing climate change” – a flat out lie on their part, and a lie quickly exposed by simply reading Happer’s paper. Anyone who critically reads both Happer’s paper and their response will realize that nothing in their editorial actually refuted what Happer wrote.
Now the ad-hominem fallacy is just the flip side of the appeal-to-authority fallacy; one says “trust my opinion because I’m an expert” and the other says “don’t trust his opinion – he’s just an ignorant doofus who no one considers to be an expert.” Both these arguments eschew any reasoning from facts, and instead just invite a reader to pick a side based on what kind of people are on which team. That’s the reason why AGW supporters try to “kill the careers and reputations of those with contrary opinions.” If they don’t succeed in this, their only argument (irrational as it is) goes away, and they would actually have to argue on facts and evidence instead of lies and slander.
As far as history goes, I’m a little more cynical because I think that for the most part, historians are as biased (and as honest) as climate alarmists.
So how did the Greens get control of APEGA?
The same way they every other professional organization.
The actual members are too busy building their careers and actually working in the field to spend much time worrying about the day to day operation of the organization.
As a result they are taken over by lawyers and activists whose interest is in pushing their own agenda, not advancing science or aiding humanity.
“The long march through the Institutions” as proposed by the Frankfurt school back in the 1930s was launched knowing it would be a generations long policy. Here we are three generations on and they have now taken control of all the western institutions as planned.
The socialists do not stop just because their prime construct, the USSR failed in 1990. They regard that failure as simply work in progress.
The climate as a tool which can never be tamed, was a genuine piece of strategic genius by the COGS (constantly offended green socialists).
They will not stop. The destruction of humanity is too big a prize, they view this activity as pressing the Earth’s reset button.
You are correct.
The same way they get ahold of everything, coat everything they do in virtue and dehumanize their critics, classic socialist tactics. Killing people by the millions is not a bug, it is the key feature. All of these groups and individuals believe there are to many humans, and our numbers need to be managed, by them. 90% of humanity has to go, and these folks want to decide who and how. When it comes to killing people by the thousands and millions, nothing works like starvation. It is effective, requires little manpower and the dying tend to the dead. A good way to kick off a starvation campaign would be protesting GMO food that might be developed to survive the coming deadly cold, while we squander resources on imaginary beneficial warming. If, like the Pope you believe that the earth has room for less than a billion souls, a lot of people must die to save the children, that you must not have.
Allan,
You ought to see this is a double award. They recognized your excellence in your life’s work and they certified that you are right-thinking by the fact that you offend their green religion.
Congratulations!
I agree. A twofer.
Yes Allan, they were foolish enough to recognize the excellence of your work in engineering before they realized you don’t pray at their temple of doom. Congratulations for having a brain that works and being a threat to the anti-human religion of catastrophic climate madness. And thank you for all you have contributed to all of us who benefit from the good work of the energy industry.
We have humanism vs. environmentalism. Freeman Dyson put the humanist case beautifully.
The humanist position actually produces a better environment. Environmentalism itself is pathological.
Here in Manassas, Virginia, we have “ancient” (i.e. post-Civil War) forests as far as the eye can see, as opposed to the desert-like landscape that the early settlers left behind. My wife and I feed the local fauna, birds for the most part – but my part is squirrels. Since we moved here April 1 2016, there has been an explosion of bird species (Pileated woodpeckers being my favorite), and a rising flux of squirrels. I love the little guys, because they are so adorable when they come to the door asking for a walnut. It’s really amazing to interact with wild animals (I’m sure they regard us the same way), on a basis of mutual trust.
Apparently you did not get the memo:
Humans bad. The end.*
Now please rewrite your comment, taking care to properly represent the standpoint of the devastated forests, the ravaged wildlife, and the plundered natural resources.
*Especially the pale ones.
Wow! Someone send a copy to A-O-C
The day is coming, quite soon I fear, that people like AOC, who refuse to opposing points of view because they interfere with the planned agenda of total power and control over all aspects of humanity, will be FORCED to listen. Because people’s freedom and economic livelihoods will be affected and our precious political liberties will be lost. People faced with that threat are going to be likely to react very badly to people like that who refuse to listen.
She knows that already, because she´s furiously driving that agenda.
If, or maybe when they win, it´s going to be a bloodbath never seen before. This is war and it should be taken very very seriously. We have one whole generation brainwashed by the doctrine from Mein Kampf.
We have only one leader, Donald Trump, on this planet who can think and see the game behind curtains. All other nations are lost.
Do we have any chance to survive?
“Do we have any chance to survive?”
Well, we had enough sensible people voting to elect President Trump. My guess is more people will vote for Trump next time than last time since Trump has been exonerated of criminal cospiracy with the Russians (much to the chagrin of Democrats and to the delight of wavering Republicans), his economic policies have the U.S economy booming, and Trump has calmed the international situation.
The only problem is the Leftwing News Media do not tell these positive stories, instead they treat Trump like he is Adolf Hitler and everything he does is given a negative spin. The spreading of partisan, political lies by the Democrats/Socialists is the real danger to our Republic and to the world.
And notice that Trump is influencing politicians from other nations to stand up and fight back against the socialist/totalitarian agenda like Trump does. Success breeds success. Monkey see, monkey do.
There may still be hope. Leftwing lies are what need to be addressed and called out for what they are. The Leftwing Media won’t do this so someone else has to. Trump is filling that role right now.
Who will read it to her?
Two of the deepest flaws in the current eco-loon arguments are:
1. Positive feedbacks for warming. If these existed, any warming for any reason, would cause runaway warming. It never has.
2. I’m beginning to believe that no ‘renewable’ energy system can make more energy than it costs to create, run and maintain. If that is even close to being true, they are a total, and I mean total, waste of resources and time.
The preferred mechanism does defy the gradient. The models, tuned in an isolated environment, may be overly optimistic, which would explain their lack of skill looking forward and backward.
I though the same, I now have read and an fairly certain it is correct solar power user $1.00 of energy to create is for every $.75 return of energy. I willing wind is as bad if not worst. So next time someone tell you they installed solar because they care about the planet, tell them the are a fool and are causing more harm than good.
The goal here is not to make energy. It’s to bring about, to quote them, “collapse of industrialized civilizations” and “extinction of the human species”. Or, for the tag along socialists, they hope they can use the resulting chaos to rebuild a “socialist, redistributionist society” after everything goes down. Convincing everyone to replace their functional energy systems with one that can’t function by design is just one of the tools they use to crash the world.
While I was googling information on environmental psychosis, this popped up.
Mikhail Gorbachev has been campaigning for a totally non democratic world government. One of his tools is Green Cross, an environmental and CAGW activist group. Every time we turn around we find more evidence that environmentalism and CAGW are a Trojan Horse.
Yep. Old and discredited Communists do have a way of making a comeback through the radical Green movements. For example, the Green Party in Germany (which has a lot of old leftist radicals) has had way too much stroke compared to their legislative numbers, precisely because posers like Merkel need them in order for their party to govern. It’s an old story, especially in Europe. The real pied piper is totalitarianism.
Allan,
Excellent post.
The Radical Greens and their financiers are the fascists of our time.
Allan, congratulations on the APEGA Award, I trust you are not going to send it back? I truly like your style but this blurting out the truth is going to melt the precious snowflakes who accidently read your reports. I think, from my own experience argueing science with dedicated Greens, that it isn’t about science, it is about their fundamental political beliefs, which they roll all together. Look at the constant Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display on the majority of TV channels, they are divorced from reality. Good on you for fighting the good fight, but here’s the problem, you can’t fix either stupid or fanatic. Meanwhile the Earth is getting greener from increasing CO2, which surely is an Inconvenient Truth.
Thank you Ron – to be clear, I was supposed to receive APEGA’s Centennial award on April 25 at the AGM, but that is not going to happen. Awards are nice and all, but my real issue here is with the radical greens.
I believe that when tens of millions children and their parents are being slaughtered due to false toxic green ideologies, one should speak out. I have done so.
Je ne regrette rien. 🙂
APEGA deserves some sort of award for this.
I could think of a few names, but …
Allan MacRae you are one of the most reasonable, caring, and thoughtful people participating on the WUWT blog, and your consistent rationality is always appreciated. You definitely earned the respect of your peers who originally awarded you the leadership award. I personally believe you would’ve made a great prime minister for Canada, with your extensive background and even temperment.
Your courage Allen is deeply inspiring. Thank you for all you’ve done for the betterment of humanity, and for being such a solid stand-up man. That APEGA withdrew your award is petty and small-minded.
APEGA should reinstate your award based on your courage in confronting deadly green duplicity.
+ 100% Bob Weber.
A great essay Allan, thank you very much.
John Doran.
“Allan MacRae you are one of the most reasonable, caring, and thoughtful people participating on the WUWT blog, and your consistent rationality is always appreciated.”
I agree! Thanks for all you do, Allan. A voice of reason in a crazy world.
I always appreciate your comments here, Allan. I value your input at O.S.P.E. as well.
Composing this article as a proactive response to this situation, is a measure of your character.
Thank you all for your kind words.
Best, Allan
A hypothesis? I don’t think any of it is hypothetical. Too many instances of verified occurrence to back up that that statement to make it a hypothesis.
Sara wrote:
“A hypothesis? I don’t think any of it is hypothetical. Too many instances of verified occurrence to back up that that statement to make it a hypothesis.”
Hi Sara,
As you know, the scientific progression is Hypothesis -> Theory -> Law, each progression requiring more and more supporting evidence and absence of disproof.
https://www.thoughtco.com/scientific-hypothesis-theory-law-definitions-604138
My Hypothesis is limited to radical greens, who support false science and use false fabricated crises to promote their toxic anti-human agenda. As such, there is a mountain of evidence to support my Hypothesis, and no evidence (that I know of) to disprove it. Therefore, over the next few years it may be promoted to the level of Theory.
If it is a Theory, it will require a nice name, like “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution”. I am not even sure if mine is an original concept – others have probably said this before.
I will therefore submit, immodestly, the proposed name
“MacRae’s Theory of Radical Green Rat Bastards”.
Others are welcome to submit improvements to the name – after all, at this time it is still a Hypothesis. 🙂
I don’t blame ya….but so much for the soft pitch.
There has been a lot of anti oil, foreign money pouring into Alberta the last few years, and a lot of people have worked their way into positions of influence or been place there by Alberta’s own anti oil government. Which will be thrown out come this Tuesday. The Tides foundation and the Rockefeller foundation among others have been running what they call the stop the oilsands campaign since 2008, and a lot of people have made a lot of money opposing Alberta’s energy industry.
Good comments Rob. The anti-pipeline fraudsters have cost Alberta and Canada about $120 billion in lost oil revenues. That is a huge loss for a country of only ~35 million people.
Imagine all the good that money could have done – instead it was lost, forever, through the actions of scoundrels.
Alberta and Canada also lost about 200,000 jobs.
Vivian Krause identifies the perpetrators.
https://calgarysun.com/opinion/vivian-krause-rachel-notley-the-rockefellers-and-albertas-landlocked-oil/
Good call Rob.
Here is Jason Kenny’s election-night victory speech after the UCP’s landslide victory.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/read-jason-kenneys-prepared-victory-speech-in-full-after-ucp-wins-majority-in-alberta-election”
United Conservative Party 55% – NDP 32% – Alberta Party 9% – Rest 4%
If the Alberta Party had not split the vote, the NDP Marxists who have done so much harm to Alberta would have been wiped out – maybe down to two or three seats.
Regards, Allan
Back in February 2019 , I submitted the following (excerpted) Analysis and Recommendations to the UCP. Note the similarity to the key issues in Jason Kenny’s election-night speech.
About a decade ago, at the request of my late friend Link Byfield, I wrote the Energy Policy for the Wild Rose Party, which merged with the Conservatives to form the UCP.
SITUATION ANALYSIS and RECOMMENDED ACTIONS FOR ALBERTA
A. SITUATION ANALYSIS
1. ONE MILLIONS DOLLARS HAS BEEN TAKEN BY OTTAWA FROM EACH ALBERTA FAMILY TO SUBSIDIZE THE REST OF CANADA
The net amount that Albertans have subsidized the rest of Canada is enormous, and totals about $1 million per Alberta family since 1961.
On January 7, 2003 I published a Calgary Herald article on this subject. I wrote:
“The huge transfer payments that are taken from Alberta and given mostly to Quebec and the Maritime provinces don’t work either — they are a handout, not a hand up. Transfer payments have failed, fostering a welfare mentality in Eastern Canada instead of real economic recovery.
2. ANTI-PIPELINE MOVEMENTS IN BC AND QUEBEC, LARGELY FINANCED BY FOREIGN INTERESTS, HAVE COST ALBERTA AND CANADA OVER $120 BILLION IN LOST OIL REVENUES
Also, Quebec and Maritime refineries are forced to buy foreign crude oil that is imported by tanker, and this practice costs Quebecers and Maritimers billions more.
The decade or more of environmental hearings on oil pipelines was a costly, wasteful charade – the entire issue of pipeline can be accurately summarized in one sentence:
“Pipelines are cheaper and safer than any other form of oil transportation”.
Pipeline hearings should have lasted no more than one year, with a binding final decision to construct oil pipelines to Canada’s East and West Coasts.
3. CARBON TAXES DRIVE UP THE COST OF EVERYTHING; GREEN ENERGY SCHEMES ARE COSTLY, DESTABILIZE ENERGY SYSTEMS AND HARM HUMANITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
In 2002, and my co-authors and I published the following in a 2002 written debate sponsored by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Past decades of actual global observations adequately prove that these two statements are correct to date. However, many trillions of dollars and millions of lives have been wasted due to false global warming alarmism and green energy schemes.
The overwhelming evidence is that climate is relatively INsensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2, and the only measurable result of increasing CO2 will be greatly increased plant and crop yields, and possibly some mild warming that will be net-beneficial to humanity and the environment.
Fossil fuels comprise fully 85% of global primary energy, unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change in future decades. Eliminate fossil fuels and ~everyone in the developed world will be dead in a month from starvation and exposure. The remaining 15% of global primary energy is almost all hydro and nuclear. Despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies, global green energy has increased from above 1% to below 2% is recent decades.
Intermittent energy from wind and/or solar generation cannot supply the electric grid with reliable, uninterrupted power. These so-called “green energy” technologies are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, because they require almost 100% conventional backup from fossil fuels, nuclear or hydro for periods when the wind does not blow and the Sun does not shine. There is no practical, cost-effective means of solving the fatal flaw of intermittency in grid-connected wind and solar power generation.
Vital electric grids have been destabilized, electricity costs have increased greatly, and Excess Winter Deaths have increased due to grid-connected green energy schemes.
Intermittent green energy schemes typically do not even reduce CO2 emissions, because of the need for almost 100% conventional spinning reserve (backup).
The adoption of intermittent grid-connected green energy schemes wastes enormous amounts of scarce global resources, drives up energy costs and thus all costs, reduces grid reliability, and increases winter deaths due to energy poverty.
Environmental harm from green energy schemes includes accelerated draining of the vital Ogalalla Aquifer for corn ethanol production in the USA and clear-cutting of the rainforests in South America and Southeast Asia to grow biofuels. These actions continue to cause enormous environmental damage.
___________________________________
B. RECOMMENDED ACTIONS FOR ALBERTA
1. TAKE STEPS TO GREATLY REDUCE THE ENORMOUS SUMS OF MONEY TAKEN BY OTTAWA FROM EACH ALBERTA FAMILY TO SUBSIDIZE THE REST OF CANADA
Consider, select and implement actions:
– For example, Alberta, like Quebec could collect its own taxes and administer its own Pension Plan.
2. TAKE STEPS TO FORCE OIL PIPELINES TO BE BUILT TO BOTH EAST AND WEST COASTS, TO SUPPLY CANADIAN REFINERIES AND ENABLE OIL EXPORTS
Rapid resolution is recommended to prevent the loss of further billions of dollars in oil revenues and prevent further years of needless delay.
3. TAKE STEPS TO RESTORE SENSIBLE ELECTRICAL ENERGY POLICY IN ALBERTA
Consider, select and implement actions:
– Evaluate past errors in energy policy and recommend corrective action
– For example, phase out costly intermittent grid-connected wind power schemes and re-examine serious errors made during energy de-regulation, with the objective of significantly lowering electricity costs and increasing grid reliability.
4. TAKE STEPS TO FORCE FOREIGN FUNDERS OF ANTI-PIPELINE GROUPS OUT OF CANADA, AND SEEK COMPENSATION FOR PAST LOSSES TO ALBERTA
Consider, select and implement actions:
– For example, consider civil and criminal remedies against foreign funders and their accomplices to compensate for past losses to Alberta.
Submitted by Allan MacRae, Calgary
Allan, I sympathize with you on many people spelling your name wrong. You don’t need sympathy on any front because you are a true warrior against this green menace. Sympathies are reserved for innocent victims. The true innocent victims are the 94 million people murdered by Communism/Socialism and the other millions of victims who died and are dying today because of misguided green policies. Right on bro.
The Left is now ramping up its attempts to silence Conservatives in light of Trump’s recent gains (Mueller Report exoneration, strong economy, battle with open socialists on social media).
The WSJ has an Op-Ed from Harvey Mansfield, PhD, a white male conservative literature professor at Harvard who was just dis-invited from giving a commencement speech.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-theory-behind-my-disinvitation-11555269706?mod=hp_opin_pos1
Now we have here Allan MacRae’s essay on attempts to suppress his reasoned dissent fom Eco-lunacy and their genocidal calls regarding fossil fuels.
Expect it to get worse in the coming 18 months.
– The Left knows everything in their agenda rides on defeating Trump – from bathroom regulations to unlimited government financed college and university “loans”,
– They know there are two of 4 Liberal SCOTUS justices who will certainly be replaced within 5 years.
– They know the Climate Hustle can’t survive a second term of Trump killing UNFCCC COP agreements while promoting fossil fuel coal and oil/gas drilling to provide prices that wind and solar cannot compete against even with subsidies.
– They know a critical review bya respected panel of Presidential Commission on Climate Change can inflict substantial damage, if not fatal damage, to their decades of propaganda and climate lies.
– They know the Blue States are getting killed by SALT limit on Federal Taxes, unable to raise state income taxes as high income residents flee in ever higher numbers to Texas, Nevada, and Florida.
One part of their strategy to 2020 is suppressing Conservatives and anyone who is against their Leftist-socialist agenda everywhere they can. The Left will be doing everything they can to shut down their voices. Their websites, their videos. Just watch.
“The Left will be doing everything they can to shut down their voices. Their websites, their videos. Just watch.”
Oh, yeah! That’s the name of the game. The Left doesn’t have anything positive to use to sell themselves, so their fall-back position is to demonize and silence their oppostion. Since the Left never has anything positive to promote other than unrealistic money giveaways, they are always in their fall-back position of trying to destroy the opposition and the first way to do that is to shut them up using any means possible.
Conservatives need to understand that the Left is at war with conservatives and they are pulling out all the stops. If conservatives want to win this political war for our future then they better wake up to reality and engage.
“The Left will be doing everything they can to shut down their voices. Their websites, their videos. Just watch.”
Radical greens have adopted and perverted Alinsky tactics (See Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”) to promote their extreme-left agenda.
The radical greens’ standard tactic is to never debate the scientific facts (when they do, they lose), falsely declare “the science is settled” in their favour (which is the opposite of the truth), and vilify anyone who opposes them.
Radical greens are abusers, liars and fraudsters – their global warming extremism is the greatest fraud, in dollar terms, in the history of humanity. Pass it on.
Regards, Allan
But this time around we will get the socialist governing thing right! We will govern by consensus; we won’t let the power-hungry take over our pure movement.
We can perfect the human being; the Socialist Man will emerge. Advanced technology will enable us to communicate the correct, and only correct, information and societal directives to the populace.
Fer Sure!
I think you need to check your spell check software.
‘Mainstream’ is not spelt with an R.
APEGA…
Ah pure shame. I recall a useless undergraduate from an Alberta university who could not get a well bore log correlation project going but got his membership right away while others, more competent, successful oil finders and with higher level diplomas were subjected to harsh review, extra courses etc… to even get a chance to be anointed just because they did not graduate from an Alberta college…
You may find the beginning of this video topical – but the whole thing is hilarious.
Allan,
Sorry to hear about the revocation of the award. However, as I’m sure you realise you will not be remembered for some award…you will be remember for the great truths that you expound. Please keep up the good work here at WUWT and elsewhere!
Great blog…real interesting facts.
Spammer alert.
I hope they don’t get away with it!
For a second there, I thought Santa had gone MGTOW!
Excellent post which confirms that green activists and alarmists behave as they were the henchmen (or the useful idiots for most of them) of Malthusians psychopaths whose only purpose is to reduce the population using thus far all “legal” means and deceptions.