Figure 1. Midsummer Sunrise in Rural Wyoming.
SUNRISE FOR GND
Guest Post by KEVIN KILTY
Introduction
Back in April this year Anthony posted an essay entitled ” Is the Climate Change Movement a Cult?”[1] One group highlighted in that essay was Sunrise Movement. Anthony noted the group recruits children, and its website admits it does. It actually targets persons from age 13 to 35–children through young adults. By the way, if you are above 35 years of age, you can still participate, says the website. You can donate!
People send me stuff. Recently an e-mail circulated on our campus from a training fellow at Sunrise Movement that was aimed mainly at graduate students and was an invitation to attend a climate summit scheduled soon. One interesting tab on the Sunrise Movements website promotes their connection to the New Green Deal (NGD).
Sunrise joined Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey to launch the Green New Deal resolution with 64 co-sponsors. There are now 104 cosponsors and rising. Make your reps the next to join.[2]
There is no mention that all the supporters of NGD voted “no” or “present”. However, the passage and promotion of the NGD appears to be a major organization objective, as the training fellow repeats it in the invitation letter.
We know that to win a Green New Deal, young people need to be rising up in every state, especially in states heavily dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Being born and raised in Wyoming, I know it‘s impossible to do this work alone. Join me in Laramie on September 16th to meet other young people concerned about the climate crisis and get ready to step up and take action. Together, we can usher in a brighter future for our country and our beloved hometowns.
Freedom of speech, freedom of association, and pursuit of happiness mean that people can say what they want, join what they like and spend their money how they choose (within some legal limits, of course). However, it will be very interesting to see what enthusiasm there is for this climate summit. Things like it tend to fizzle around here. At the same time, accountability and transparency are important too. Let’s look at the brighter future the NGD promises for our beloved rural hometowns in states dependent on fossil fuels.
Figure 1 shows a pie chart of state GDP by sector in 2018 [3]. Minerals and Mining contribute 29%. That is substantial by any measure. Wyoming produces mainly coal, petroleum, natural gas, helium, trona (sodium sesquicarbonate), bentonite, and uranium. Only the first three of these, plus perhaps uranium, are under direct threat from the NGD. However, without natural gas and markets for the co-produced CO2, there won’t likely be much reason to produce helium. Oil and gas drilling is a major market for bentonite. Even if one were inclined to continue mining trona in Wyoming after the major energy sources are abandoned, successful passage of the NGD would make continuing to mine trona difficult. Environmentalists have complained about the industrialization of southwest Wyoming since I started college 49 years ago. And, don’t even contemplate keeping uranium mines.
Figure 2. Pie chart of sources of GDP in Wyoming.
Figure 1 includes other sectors of the state economy which have an immediate connection to mines and minerals. Construction, for example, amounts to a higher percentage of state GDP at 4.1% than it does for the nation as a whole (3% or so) simply because so much construction is tied to minerals extraction. The same is true of professional services (lawyers, consulting engineers and land surveyors are 4.3% of GDP ), wholesale commerce (3.7%), transportation (7.3%), and utilities (2.4%). Approximately 75% of the states manufactured goods (5.6% of GDP) are products derived directly from oil and natural gas.
I have also labeled the contribution from agriculture, forestry, hunting and fisheries for comparison. It is only 2.2% of state GDP, which dispels a common misconception that rural areas could depend on traditional agriculture or tourism ( less than 4% of state GDP) to replace income from extractive industries.
| Sector | Percentage of GDP | |
| Minerals and Mining | 28.5 | |
| Construction | 2.5 | |
| Manufacturing | 4.6 | |
| Professional | 3.1 | |
| Transportation | 5 | |
| Utilities | 1.2 | |
| Wholesale Trade | 1.4 | |
| Total of GDP | 46.3 | |
| Total of Private Sector GDP | 53.7 |
Table 1. Estimated reduction to state GDP from elimination of all minerals production.
Finally, nearly one-fourth of Wyoming tax revenue derives from severance and royalties on mineral production. An income tax to replace these revenues would amount to $4,400 per capita, which would be the highest state income tax in the country. Wyoming schools, K-12 through the University draw large amounts of their budgets from minerals on state trust lands, and property taxes on petroleum facilities and mines.
Table 1 shows my estimated direct hits to state GDP that would result from the elimination of minerals extraction in Wyoming. Other sectors of the economy would suffer declines as well, but what Table 1 by itself shows should suffice to drive home a sobering lesson.
Without a replacement economy for minerals extraction Wyoming would slip from 7th place among U.S. states for per capita income (Approx. $59,000), and an admirable 4th best Gini coefficient of about 0.43, to 50th place in income, well behind Mississippi, and a perfect Gini coefficient approaching zero point zero[4,5]. By the time the NGD was finished making our rural areas brighter, we would have been happier for the Seven Plagues of Egypt instead.
To be fair, both Sunrise Movement and the NGD contingent of Congress say that new, and better jobs will take the place of the ones lost. Yet, there is no specific plan about how this would happen, or when; and anyone with a modicum of sense knows that no such plan is possible. There are serious constraints of raw materials, labor, transportation, management, and savings that prevent implementing a replacement economy in a decade or two, or three; and there are limitations posed by physics to overcome first. Pie in the sky does not guarantee a better life.
Notes:
(1) https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/18/is-the-climate-change-movement-a-cult
(2) From the organization website, www.sunrisemovement.org, accessed Sept., 10, 2019.
(3) Wyoming state GDP data, http://eadiv.state.wy.us/i&e/wyoRealGDP97_ 18.htm Accessed Sept. 10, 2019.
(4) Wyoming per capita GDP, Gini coefficient, and rankings from Wikipedia, Accessed Sept. 11, 2019.
(5) I don’t think the Gini coefficient is meaningful at all.
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?”
Maurice Strong (Head of UNEP at the time of the creation of IPCC).
Is this a new hippie movement? but with money backing? Will all the 13-35’s stop driving, stop eating meat, wear their own hand made clothes (fossil transport of clothes/shoes) is bad… Will they grow there own food? How will they have sanitation? Will it be solar powered? Lastly, what better jobs are they offering? Will it be free labour working in a climate cult? Funny how they think that if one small town or city goes totally green, that they won’t have any different weather, will it be perfect sunny days and cool nights?…
Sunny: “Funny how they think that if one small town or city goes totally green, that they won’t have any different weather, will it be perfect sunny days and cool nights?…”
…with an inch of rain on Mondays and Thursdays ;o)
I believe you’ve captured the emotion behind ‘save the planet from climate disaster’. There certainly is no thinking involved. What will actually happen if the ‘climate solutions’ are implemented? I don’t think the Cassandras would like the answer.
Can you imagine a world with out fossil fuels? That means no construction, no world wide trade, no food transportation, no plastics, no cheap clothing. A electric vehicle uses a massive amount of plastic, from its panels, interior, tires, and the miles of insulation for the wires, even the batteries are covered in plastic… The list is endless, yet for some reason we have to give it all up as a warm world is bad, and we all need to farm our own food and then freeze to death…
“I don’t think the Cassandras would like the answer.”
I wonder if these people are actually anti-Cassandras, cursed to utter false prophecies that are always believed by their comrades.
Most people forget that most Democrats have little or no common sense and their solutions are to “just do it” and we’ll deal with the consequences later. Most of the LEFT’S ideas are redidiculous and unworkable. Do NOT listen to AOC or the Squad; they’re unrealistic Morons!
Of course there’s no thinking, there are no brains!
The obvious irrational thinking is that their lives won’t be effected.
All they have to do is feel that the NGD is necessary and correct (and of course protest against anyone thinking differently).
A big example is their assertion that NGD needs an effort similar to WWII. In their minds that means the government must expend money and resources with no impact on them. (AOC: “Just print more money”.) Cognitive dissonance prevents them from understanding the hardships everyone experiences during war; no automobile or appliance/electronic device production, gas, butter, meat etc rationing, suspension of college or a normal life for years for many, and absence or forever loss of loved ones.
As an old fart, I view this as the logical result of the “participation trophy” treatment they received.
typo – affected for effected. I really do know English, although you wouldn’t know it at times.
If people want to see what happens when you close these industries like mining come to Britain, whole towns with heart ripped out, no regeneration after thirty years and further to travel if you want work therefore more cars but mostly unemployment and drugs, food banks and social security much as the article suggests.
What sort of new jobs will be created by the elimination of fossil fuels?
Ditch diggers
Scythe wielders
Sheave stackers
Buggy whip manufacturing
Saddle makers
Stable hands
Farriers
And many many more bygone manual labor tasks, but will they outlaw blacksmiths? If blacksmiths are outlawed we are truly buggered.
Oh, but don’t forget the flies. Many forget that before there were automobiles the streets were coated with dung and there will be plenty of more flies.
“What sort of new jobs will be created by the elimination of fossil fuels?”
Grave diggers !
Blacksmiths will be on top of the list to be outlawed, at least those blacksmiths who use coal or even more evil coal derivative called coke for their forges.
https://youtu.be/X4dnLpBmCQ4
Perhaps they will allow blacksmiths who use solar or windmill powered forges, but that might not be necessary because according to Climate Theory, any object such as a horseshoe above absolute zero surrounded by carbon dioxide will heat itself to incandescence by reflected heat. No forge required.
Addendum 2: If anyone accuses you of not going to an elite school, ask them if their school offers a farrier degree. If you get a dumb look and “What’s a farrier?” in return, reply that your question has been answered. If they answer anything related to a furrier, that’s a double win.
Neil, I seem to have gone to an elite school (smallish technical institute in Cambridge MA) and it indeed did not, as I recall, offer any degrees in animal husbandry or livestock management. Steel, ironworking and metallurgy we covered but in theoretical way, although for the Mechanical Eng. degree you did need a semester in the machine shop.
But, that didn’t keep me from learning a few extra curricular activities.
Is there really a degree solely for farriers? That seems more like a trade skill than professional degree concentration.
If farriers and blacksmiths make a comeback, perhaps the Boy Scouts will reinstate the “Blacksmithing” merit badge, one of the original 57, discontinued in 1952.
We’re not going back to the days of manual and animal labor; today’s youth have long since lost both that work ethic and those skills. Data and statistics, however accurate and truthful, make eyes glaze over since the digitized attention span is now about 15 seconds. So, skeptics, let’s start communicating concisely and SIMPLY:
Hey Kids! If the GND passes, this is your world:
Your electricity and fuel use will be strictly rationed.
You will be physically uncomfortable in your home much of the year.
You will no longer be allowed to travel freely, by the transport of your choice.
Your dietary choices will be restricted to the inadequate and unsatisfying.
Your job will vanish, replaced by a minimal-subsistence stipend from the government, dependent on your “Good Behavior” determined Chinese style.
Hope you like the stuff you have, since you won’t be allowed to buy more.
None of this applies if you’re a member of the annointed Cosmopolitan Elite.
None of this is going to change the weather, now or in 100 years, one iota.
You’re welcome!
Kids LIKE the Chinese-style government and all forms of communism. I don’t think they’ll care about that statement and may even find it an incentive.
That’s assuming there will be any money to pay them.
And you can forget about the farriers and stable-hands. We won’t be allowed to use animal labor – although we might be required to slaughter them so they don’t fart.
Money is easy to come by for the government. Whether it’s worth anything is another matter.
“Lastly, what better jobs are they offering?”
Solar panel wiper. Bird and bat carcass collection and disposal.
Leave the carrion.
“Buzzards gotta eat same as the worms.” Josie Wales
Looks to me like your wind turbine is already in place. Nothing to worry about.
Author says: “Environmentalists have complained about the industrialization of southwest Wyoming since I started college 49 years ago.” NOT NOW.
Yes, the (expletive) turbines are destroying the environment and those crappy environmentalists are all for it. I despise anyone associated with the wind industry, anyone who supports it, etc. I consider them (both turbines and supporters) the most vile thing ever used to destroy the environment using a money laundering scheme. All past damage pales in comparison.
ALL that energy goes out-of-state. California has it made, NOT Wyoming. All we have is the trashing of the state.
Will it stop wetter AND drier climate change?
https://www.wvtf.org/post/appalachia-become-hotter-wetter-and-drier-climate-model-severe-economic-impacts#stream/0
The article you link to is a classic example of a problem I have seen growing here at WUWT for quite some time. This is the misunderstanding and misuse of the climate terms DroughtFlood and FloodDrought. As you know these part of the larger Climate Change Phenomena of HotColdWetDry. These are technical terms and must be used accurately to properly convey your message. Yet all too often, we see the terms DroughtFlood and FloodDrought used carelessly and even interchangeably. We should all strive for accuracy in our communications. The term FloodDrought refers to the situation where you have a severe drought during a flood event. And, of course, the term DroughtFlood refers to just the opposite situation.
I hope this simple explanation clarifies the issue the people here.
TonyL, I read the Appalachia article that Jones referred to and am at a loss to understand your comment “classic example of a problem I have seen growing here at WUWT for quite some time.” The Appalachia article is a mixture of CAGW what if’s and some reasonable comments from someone obviously on the CAGW side. Could you please explain what the growing problem here at WUWT is more clearly? Thank you.
Ron
Tony is obviously in “sarc” mode, he just forgot that all sarc posts on the internet need to be closed with /sarc or the coding goes awry.
BTW Tony, I must somewhat disagree with your definitions. DroughtFlood is obviously in reference to a Flood of Droughts, and a FloodDrought is in reference to a Drought of Floods…which, in essence, are one in the same…
/sarc (don’t want to break the Internet)
TonyL-
★★★★★
+500 !!!
Well played, sir!
I’ve noticed that when it rains it gets wet, and before it rains, it’s generally dry. However, the opposite is also true.
The problem is, you have to be extremely StupidSmart to understand what a FloodDrought is.
You are probably on to something there, Nicholas. The guys I play golf with always make me tee off first, they say it is because I am not smart enough to be nervous. I have no idea what that means.
In Golf, that is an honor!
Thank you all kindly for the clarifications gentlemen.
It is all so ClearFoggy to me now.
Jones,
“One of the things we were interested in, was creating science driven information that citizens could use, businesses could use, lawmakers could use, to understand how climate change is projected to impact them (due to) climate change in the Appalachian region, as part of our public discourse and our decision making.”
They seem to have missed the mark by a long shot.
Good report, Kevin. I have worked in Wyoming, most recently on insitu-leach uranium projects near Casper. I take note of your comments of negative impact if mining is shut down due to loss of state revenue on State Trust Lands. This is a very real and documented problem for many western states. Oregon, for example, has a lot of sections designated as School Sections, if you won a bid to extract timber from those sections the State of Oregon got additional tax payments dedicated to Public Education. When Oregon nearly stopped logging, they lost a lot of revenue from School Sections, but they didn’t stop education. Who paid the missing revenue? Property taxes went up. That’s the hidden negative impact of GND and similar ideas, and who pays? Every time you hear a nutty proposal remember our parents telling us “want to know what this is about? Follow The Money!”
I’m confused. Keeping the place clean is always a good idea. No one wants to live on/in a dump. People want/need jobs that pay the bills, keep us warm, and put food on the table. Having pie-in-the-sky idealism doesn’t address any of this in any way at all.
But the NGD/GND peeps want to destroy a thriving economy in any (name) state if they can, because having an industry is somehow poisonous to the planet, even if it follows all the ‘clean up environment’ rules.
Anyone besides me think they will be stunned by how quickly a dwelling chills down when the power to heat it is cut off in bitter cold weather? Seriously, they need to be dropped off some place isolated from all forms of modernity and left there for a year. They’re too smug and all-knowing for their own good. I do not believe they would last more than a few hours/days in a place as — well, the middle of the Siberian tundra, for example.
As I recall, a bunch of Greenpeace activists boarded a Russian oil drilling rig to “protest” something or other. Russia, showing a great sense of humor, arrested the lot of them and charged them all with piracy. In a further humorous mood, Russia threw them all into a prison in Siberia and locked them up for six months. After they were released, they all got out of Russia as fast as they could and have never gone back. Apparently, they did not care for the Russian hospitality and did not appreciate the Russian sense of humor.
“But the NGD/GND”
I like how you handled that, Sara. 🙂
Thank you, Tom Abbot! And they think they can fool us by moving the pegs around…. 🙂
There is an article in Wall Street Journal in which AOC’s “chief of staff” Chakrabarti admits the GND wasn’t aimed at anything other than completely changing the economy. See the link down below in Allan’s comment.
“Anyone besides me think they will be stunned by how quickly a dwelling chills down when the power to heat it is cut off in bitter cold weather”
You can build stuff to ‘passivehaus’ standards – in which case your cooling assertion does not hold up.
https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/construction/green/what-is-passive-house.htm
Yes I’ve heard of these. Heated by unicorn farts and they only cost a few pennies.
Doesn’t work too well if all you have to work with is Coconuts and Palm Fronds and perhaps a small supply of rocks.
Farts you say?.
Now there’s a problem right there.
Griff,
Passive solar is nothing new, “cave” men wanted caves that faced south and had an overhang for shade in the summer.
The problem is, in general, only more well to do people can afford the builds due to siting requirements and added upfront costs. If you tried to do passive solar in a housing tract you would loose probably 30% of the lots for siting and to reduce obstruction of sunlight exposure. I have had several houses in Las Vegas and I always wanted them to face south or southwest so that the back yard would be away from the evil sun in the afternoons when we were most likely to BBQ and also took into consideration the sun being north of the house during much of the summer.
When my lower middle class parents built their retirement home in the 70s it was on a lot given to them by my grandparents. The lot was perfectly sited on a south facing hill above a lower marshland that would not support the growth of trees that could obstruct the low winter sun. For not much added cost the interior basement concrete slab was poured on foam insulation and a central fireplace stack, 1 in the basement and one on the main floor was built to capture the suns heat. All of the windows and sliding doors are triple glazed Anderson and provided clear openings to allow the sun to warm the floor and fireplaces. The house was well insulated and tightly constructed. It also had an OPEN geothermal heat pump for heating and direct water coil for cooling that worked for years but has since been replaced by a newer system. BTW, this was all my idea because, being young and idealistic at the time they were planning the house, I had research minimalist housing and I suggested passive solar to them.
It works so well that on sunny winter days they have to close the curtains to keep the home from overheating.
Mistakes in design:
My parents were NEVER going to collect, store and then burn wood in the fireplaces which have NEVER been used, so those thermal mass storage devices have been a complete waste of construction expense and floor area.
My parents soon grew too infirm to run around opening and closing curtains and could not afford automation so the benefit was and still is limited. If they leave the curtains open you have heat loss at night and if you leave them closed you loose the heat gain during the day.
One set of sliders was placed on a west facing living room wall and that door has always provided TOO MUCH heat gain in the winter and the summer.
The necessary window shading that allows light at low winter angles to enter the house and shades the windows during the summer months was never completed so there is too much heat gain for most of the summer requiring the curtains to be closed, making the house dark and it sometimes feel like a cave.
I have built MY retirement home at a high elevation in Utah where temperatures get to 0 f. It was built with a prow front wall of windows facing slightly southeast so that the afternoon sun is not an issue. It is on a hill with very little obstruction of the full sun for most of the day. The solar benefit of the lot was secondary to the purchase but I did think about that when looking. I keep the thermostat at 45 degrees f when we are away. Oftentimes when we arrive in the mid morning on a sunny day in the winter when the nighttime temperatures were below 10 f the night before, the interior temperature at the main floor will be in the upper 40s to even into the low 50s, just from the passive solar gain. The only special efforts were the siting and design including substantial basement and roof insulation and thermal mass (LOG) construction with tile floors with thermal insulation beneath. We primarily heat with wood.
We skeptics here are not evil climate haters, we have mostly just lived long enough to see the WHOLE picture. Did I build to the extent that my parents did? No. I do not have the ability to cost effectively use geothermal heating and have no need for cooling at my location. I do need to heat for about 4 months a year and I use primarily “renewable” energy, dead standing trees cut and split. Backup heat is propane with a 90% forced air heater, water heat is instantaneous propane although electric would have been cheaper do to our being served by a rural co-op electrical provider. I would have loved in floor radiant water based heat but the cost was WAY prohibitive, even doing the install myself. Considering how little we use the forced air heat overall I am glad I did not spend the time and money to do so.
This passive house thing is great for the rich or semi rich as long as I do not need to subsidize it. The owner will gain the lower energy cost benefits for years to come, that is why one would go to the added up front cost to design such a house.
Finally, why does Germany have a certifying agency?
To determine how much the government subsidy will be?
To certify the construction so that the seller can advertise and get a higher price?
To provide jobs for some overpaid NON-PROFIT managers/fundraisers who primarily raise funds for their excessive salaries?
All of the above?
Just asking.
Actually, GRIFF, it DOES hold up because when the power went out all over my county back in November, and the furnace could not run, my house’s insulation held the heat well enough until it hit 59F, which took from 1AM (outage start) to 6PM (power restored). 59F is not so cold that you’re in danger, but below 50F, even in an insulated shelter, it becomes a physical threat.
AND, in addition, a passive solar house only collects heat when the sun is NOT blocked by clouds or night time. I went to a lot of trouble to be informed about this kind of dwelling. They still require a booster heating system, minimum 1 ton output, in cold weather with no sunshine, e.g., a blizzard, prolonged cloud cover, etc. What kept people warm in the days before furnaces was fireplaces, including cast iron parlor stoves and Rumford-design fireplaces meant for heating AND cooking. Those are still available now, if you’re interested, and the cast iron woodburning stoves are EPA-approved.
It’s not impossible to live the old-fashioned way. I’m just not interested in chopping wood.
How does that work out for all the apartment dwellings in out urban settings?
Specific solutions unique to a particular setting are not universally adaptable and therefore less than even a partial solution.
I don’t see a green caring about reality. In their mind, the entire planet can be saved, everyone can live in a single-family dwelling, all open space will be preserved, enough food can be grown to feed everyone and still, all open space, forest and ocean will be preserved.
Or we all just die and that solves the problem. When you don’t like people, it’s really easy.
But >99% of all existing houses aren’t “Passive” and require Winter Heating and Summer Cooling.
Wyoming’s climate is not the same as Germany’s. It gets considerably colder in the winter, and considerably hotter in the summer. I doubt if the (considerable) effort required to upgrade an existing dwelling to “passivehaus” standards would pay off nearly as well there. But aside from that, how are the newly unemployed people of Wyoming going to be able to afford such an upgrade, even if it would be effective?
One demo of this is worth 10,000 words, Sara–and we got one recently when there was a power failure for 4 hours on the upper west side of NYC. Outrage! Heads must roll! Unacceptable! Subways stalled, in the dark with no lights or AC. People stuck in elevators. No Starbucks, heaven forfend! Where to charge the FONE? Trust me, they won’t put up with it. The chatterers and glitterati, least of all. Popcorn moment!
I saw that on the news, Goldrider, and I wondered what the reaction would be to a total outage like that. NYC has had some blackouts in the past, e.g., the grid failing in 1997 (I think that’s the right year) and another blackout before that. But that was long, long before the current crop of tech-dependent sorts existed and things have changed drastically.
They must have been so frightened, poor things! I wonder how many of them had to get into psych therapy to absorb what happened to them! Must have been awful … or something.
Me – when the power went out in that slop storm in November last fall, I had an oil lamp that belonged to my great-grandmother ready if I really needed it. It’s the one (and only so far) I regretted buying a house that doesn’t have a wood-burning fireplace, because I could have invited my neighbors in to keep warm until the power was restored.
Some gas stoves are now constructed so that the gas valves won’t open if the power goes out. This is a serious flaw, even though it’s meant to be a safety factor. Not all modern stuff is beneficial.
Got tired of power failures often here, some up to 4 days and in the winter. Got a big wood stove, since we’ll NEVER run out of falling wood; a gas generator and a quick-throw switch I can hook it up with in the dark. Yep, oil lamps, candle holders and best of all, those headlamp flashlights you can work hands-free, with extra batteries of course. Cell phone I don’t worry about since the towers generally blow down when the power goes anyway. Of course, since I did all this preppin’, blackouts have been rare as the power company finally trimmed back the overgrown trees.
‘Sunrise for Green New Deal’ reminds me of Springtime for Hιt1er. That morphed into thinking about the Hιt1er Youth.
Same here. Warped minds think alike.
We need to stop calling it the “Green New Deal”. I think “Green Leap Forward” is much more appropriate.
How many die this time?
The Great Leap Forward was just practice.
While it is true most people (including a disproportionate number of the very young and very old, weak, sick, or otherwise less than very strong and fit) on the earth will die, and die badly, under these plans…what we really have to think about is the children, and what sort of world we want to leave for them.
If you kill off the old you lose the wisdom and expierence of the generation that has lived longer than you and could provide insight into going forward with your policies in a responsible way, if you kill off the very young , you kill off the future you want to preserve. You cheapen life and devalue it to the point that no one not even you will be safe, for if you can decide others fate with your justifications then your own fate can be decided by others the same way.
Apparently, a world without parents, grandparents, or siblings. Wait, hold on there…
And just think of the added benefits of not having to care for and pay pensions to the old, saving programs like national health care in UK and Medicare and Social Security in the US trillions. A win-win. In the US the Democrat presidential hopefuls can go ahead and give Medicare for ALL and add $1,000.00 a month to everyone’s social security once you reduce the number of the ALL to a reasonable level.
I guess the problem is the leftists will decide how many is reasonable, and who is not strong or fit enough to live.
What children?
“Lord of the Flies” comes to mind . . . how long you think AOC would last?
Green: gullible, naive, a bit thick etc…
THOSE WHO VILIFY FOSSIL FUELS ARE WOEFULLY IGNORANT, and are apparently motivated by irrational anger and intense stupidity. Here is why:
Fossil fuels comprise fully 85% of global primary energy, unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change in future decades.
The remaining 15% of global primary energy is almost all hydro and nuclear.
ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS TOMORROW AND ALMOST EVERYONE IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD WOULD BE DEAD IN ABOUT A MONTH FROM STARVATION AND EXPOSURE.
Despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies, global green energy has increased from above 1% to about 4% in recent decades.
Intermittent energy from wind and/or solar generation cannot supply the electric grid with reliable, uninterrupted power.
“Green energy” schemes are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, because they require almost 100% conventional backup from fossil fuels, nuclear or hydro when the wind does not blow and the Sun does not shine.
There is no widely-available, practical, cost-effective means of solving the fatal flaw of intermittency in grid-connected wind and solar power generation.
Hydro backup and pumped storage are only available in a few locations.
To date, vital electric grids have been destabilized, electricity costs have increased greatly, and Excess Winter Deaths have increased due to grid-connected green energy schemes.
REFERENCES:
1. “CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY”
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., P.Eng., Jun 15, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
2. “STATISTICAL REVIEW OF WORLD ENERGY”
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
3. “WIND REPORT 2005” – note Figs. 6 & 7 re intermittency.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
CTM:
If you are about, the two quotations lost their formating somewhere in all the conversions, could you place these two paragraphs in quotations? Thanks
“…Sunrise joined Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey to launch the Green New Deal resolution with 64 co-sponsors. There are now 104 cosponsors and rising. Make your reps the next to join….”[2]
“…We know that to win a Green New Deal, young people need to be rising up in every state, especially in states heavily dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Being born and raised in Wyoming, I know it‘s impossible to do this work alone. Join me in Laramie on September 16th to meet other young people concerned about the climate crisis and get ready to step up and take action. Together, we can usher in a brighter future for our country and our beloved hometowns…”
Doesn’t look brighter after reading this…
https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/paul-driessen/green-new-dealers-need-buckets-icy-cold-reality-dumped-their-climate
Thanks for that link!
The wind/solar power thing started back in the 1970s, with a huge boost by a magazine titled Mother Earth News, aimed at homesteaders, which I bought regularly to see if I could get anything out of it, even in a big city. There were some good ideas and some silly stuff, but the consistent thing I got from those articles was that on an individual basis, wind and solar will pay you back AS LONG AS YOU HAVE A BACKUP. Don’t rely on them entirely, ever.
Fast forward to now and the nonsense about the commercial solar/wind plants/farms has shown that on a commercial basis, they are far too expensive to turn a real profit, period. And if a company can’t generate a profit, it eventually tanks and dies. The expectations are not realistic.
There’s a house a couple blocks away that has solar panels on the roof. If they’re using that to backup their grid-based electricity and reduce their monthly bill somewhat, that’s smart. There’s no indication that they are wired to send excess power to the grid.
On an individual basis, it works, but relying entirely on it is not a good idea. Rooftop panels will be covered with as much snow as falls in the winter, up to 15 inches last winter. See how that works? Snow blocks the sunlight, making the panels kind of useless, unless you’re up on the roof, sweeping the snow off them. And I have no interest in going up on my roof to do that.
In my area, just north of Atlanta, rooftop solar faces obstacles every season. The area is heavily forested. In the Spring, yellow pine pollen covers everything. In the summers, it’s dusty. Autumn brings a heavy leaf fall (and pine needles, which are a real *itch to sweep). Winter occasionally brings snow, but frequently brings icing, which is a far worse problem wrt solar panels.
On top of that, because of all the tall trees, no spot on my property, including my roof, ever gets more than four hours of direct sunlight. Cutting down nearby trees would greatly improve the situation, but guess what group protest cutting down the trees.
Solar panels are great for some areas, but not very many.
Are their shirts brown, or are they green? Just wondering.
Green on the outside, and red on the inside.
Reversible, cool! For when they want to show their true colors.
Are they wearing armbands?
With crossed lightning bolts
Rock Springs, Wyoming, in the 1970s had lots of Coal Miners. I ran a motel there the winter of 1973. Monthly rates were most of our revenues and the rooms not occupied by miners were usually rented to ladies of easy virtue… The town also had a large, unmarked, white building downtown which housed an illegal gambling operation of 60 Minutes fame.
The weather was horrible. Bitter cold, 40 mph winds, and lots of snow described our daily fare. Tell the squad to leave those folks alone…they deserve any comfort and prosperity they can get!
This may have been posted elsewhere, but WUWT was mentioned on Breitbart when during the Dem debate it was claimed Greenland was melting at a record pace.
https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/09/12/fact-check-jorge-ramos-falsely-claims-greenland-melting-at-record-pace/
I went to work for Amoco Production Company in 1977 in Riverton, WY. One of the “interesting” things about that time period in the oil and gas industry was the Windfall Profit Tax regulations. Remember that? The bysantine nature of the regulations was darn near unfathomable; particularly to some one new to the business.
I can’t remember (and really don’t care to) any of the details but do remember there were games played to get a higher price for products. As and example, if a surface well location could be placed such that the total depth of the well would be over a certain amount the price of gas could be appreciably higher that a shallower depth. Result; if the drillers could hit the downhole target from on top of a hill so the total depth could be realized then go for it.
As for the precentage of state revenue from severance and ad valorm taxes, those figures are drilled into anyone that worked directly for the extractive industries. Of course, out of state managers bemoaned the amounts but most of the local workforce knew what was going on and accepted it as a price of doing business in a, mostly, friendly place to do business.
Although I grew up in Gillette I don’t know what mood of the coal miners but I can’t imagine they are thrilled with the present field of Democrat presidential candidates and their Green Leap Forward ideas. Even the unionized trona miners down here in SW WY have got to be wondering if they’ll be able to keep working when coal and natural gas is fazed out as the trona processing plants use large amounts of one or the other.
Most of the big processing plants I work with down here in SW WY are a mere shaddow of what they were in the boom times (if they’ve even survived, i.e., the Whitney Canyon Plant was demolished) and they’ll never really come back. Uinta County has had to tighten it’s belt budget wise numerous times.
Take care,
The Sunrise Movement appears to be using similar methods as Moral Rearmament used in the 1960’s in recruiting children to be the basis of the movement.
Its stated aim was moral and spiritual rather than environmental, but had the same end of control.
I was pressured at school to join, but was not happy with the control element of the movement. A lucky escape.
How much do the children currently being targeted by the warmists understand the aims of the SJWs, and what can become to enlighten them?
New Green Deal = New Soylent Green Deal.
Actually, far dumber than the climate beliefs of these green new deals is their solutions, which are not only exorbitantly expemsive, but don’t even result in a more efficient energy system. It is child’s play to calculate the cost of replacing all fossil fuel power generation with small modular molten salt nuclear reactor fueled by uranium or Thorium – the cost is under a trillion dollars and results in cheaper power grid and provides enough power for an all electric transportation fleet. The jobs created would be superior (and fewer) than those resulting from the idiotic green new deals that have been proposed.
Promethium is a byproduct of nuclear fission. It could be used to run small nuclear reactors and could likely be used in reliable batteries. It already has practical applications in industry, e.g., batteries in missiles.
Here’s the skinny on it: The existence of promethium was predicted by Bohuslav Brauner, a Czech chemist, in 1902. Several groups claimed to have produced the element, but they could not confirm their discoveries because of the difficulty of separating promethium from other elements. Proof of the existence of promethium was obtained by Jacob A. Marinsky, Lawrence E. Glendenin and Charles D. Coryell in 1944. Too busy with defense related research in World War II, they did not claim their discovery until 1946. They discovered promethium while analyzing the byproducts of uranium fission that were produced in a nuclear reactor located at Clinton Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Today, Clinton Laboratories is known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Today, promethium is still recovered from the byproducts of uranium fission. It can also be produced by bombarding neodymium-146 with neutrons. Neodymium-146 becomes neodymium-147 when it captures a neutron. Neodymium-147, with a half-life of 11 days, decays into promethium-147 through beta decay. Promethium does not occur naturally on earth, although it has been detected in the spectrum of a star in the constellation Andromeda.
Promethium’s most stable isotope, promethium-145, has a half-life of 17.7 years. It decays into neodymium-145 through electron capture.
Promethium could be used to make a nuclear powered battery. This type of battery would use the beta particles emitted by the decay of promethium to make a phosphor give off light. This light would then be converted into electricity by a device similar to a solar cell. It is expected that this type of battery could provide power for five years.**
Promethium could also be used as a portable X-ray source, in radioisotope thermoelectric generators to provide electricity for space probes and satellites, as a source of radioactivity for gauges that measure thickness and to make lasers that can be used to communicate with submerged submarines.
Source: https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele061.html
**But see, well, it’s “radioactive’ so it’s a bad, bad thing, even though it is in common use right now.
A brighter future in which civilization collapses, people freeze and starve to death in the dark, and food riots and famines lead to the death of billions of people a year until the population is winnowed down to pre industrial revolution levels?
That bright future?
It takes a huge heap of education for a human being to reach this level of witless insanity.
Nicholas McGinley wrote:
“A brighter future in which civilization collapses, people freeze and starve to death in the dark, and food riots and famines lead to the death of billions of people a year until the population is winnowed down to pre industrial revolution levels?
That bright future?”
Allan replied:
Yes. That is their plan. The radical Greens want to be absolute rulers, like kings, with the peasants under totalitarian control. Didn’t the Americans fight a war over this, circa 1776?
But this time the degree of oppression and control will be far worse – these new rulers want to be like their socialist heroes – Stalin, Hitler and Mao.
Their covert plans are the same for the remaining democracies – the USA, Canada, Britain, Australia, etc. – we are all heading down the same disastrous “Road to Venezuela”.
The following comments were made by Sir Ian Boyd, Britain’s Chief Environmental Scientist, as quoted by the BBC (excerpts below):
Citizens will “ultimately find themselves being told what they can and cannot consume, where they can travel and what foods they are allowed to eat, they will be furious about the way they have been misled… … eventually some form of compulsion or rationing will be necessary, if climate targets are to be met.”
Note that nasty word “compulsion”- a favorite word of tyrants.
And you can say goodbye to your cars, trucks and SUV’s. You won’t be allowed to have them – the government will decide who gets vehicles, based on their usual criteria of “societal need” and “endemic corruption”.
The British Science and Technology Committee stated:
“In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation”
And the USA is no different. The Democrats extreme-left political agenda was recently revealed by Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff for Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said:
“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all, … Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,”
And all this is being justified by the false demonization of CO2 in the greatest scientific fraud in history. Climate is NOT HIGHLY SENSITIVE to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, as the climate fraudsters claim.
We have known for decades that increasing atmospheric CO2 is hugely beneficial, and will cause at most only minor warming, and greatly increased crop yields.
The global warming / climate change fraud was never about the climate – it is all about repressive political control by the extreme left of you and everything you do.
Best regards, Allan
_____________________________
“CLIMATE CHANGE: BIG LIFESTYLE CHANGES ‘NEEDED TO CUT EMISSIONS’ – DEFRA CHIEF SCIENTIST”, BBC News, August 29, 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49499521
[excerpts]
“People must use less transport, eat less red meat and buy fewer clothes if the UK is to virtually halt greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the government’s chief environment scientist has warned.
Sir Ian Boyd has lifted the lid on the reality of the programme. We will all have to accept big lifestyle changes – travel less, eat less, consume less.
But eventually some form of compulsion or rationing will be necessary, if climate targets are to be met.
The Science and Technology Select Committee let the cat out of the bag last week, when they officially announced “In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation”. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49425402
When they ultimately find themselves being told what they can and cannot consume, where they can travel and what foods they are allowed to eat, they will be furious about the way they have been misled.”
“CHANGING THE ENTIRE ECONOMY”, The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-changing-the-entire-economy-11562970210
[excerpts]
“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti said to Inslee’s climate director, Sam Ricketts.
“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,” Chakrabarti added.
Here is a fix for ground transportation. Camels.Each home in America and the world for that matter, allowed to own up to three camels. The best advantage is they eat less since they regurgitate food and we spawn a new industry, harnessing methane from camel turd.
We used to do that with draft horses. Now you want to make it camels? I can’t see a camel pulling a plough or accepting being harnessed to a four-wheel buggy.
I feed my Durango 130 lbs of fuel once a quarter (every three months I fill my tank for around $75). How much would I have to feed my 3 Camels over 3 months and at what cost?
No problem at all, but I do wish that the OP hadn’t kept using “NGD”, while quoting things which used “GND”. Apparently, even Alexandria Occasional Cortex knows that FDR, who inspired the title of her fantastical hogwash, had a “New Deal”, not a “Green Deal”.
I just love these green virtue signalers who insist we “tackle climate change “. Tackle it ?
What does that really mean ? I suspect they haven’t a clue .
Are they really of the belief humans are now in charge of the earths climate ?
Or do they just fret that there are too many people and they must be eradicated… civilly of course .
Climate change is never ever really defined because it is a basket where virtue signalers store all their crap .