Guest “attaboy” by David Middleton
Dec 4, 2019
Why Climate Alarmism Hurts Us All
Michael Shellenberger
I write about energy and the environment.
In July of this year, one of Lauren Jeffrey’s science teachers made an off-hand comment about how climate change could be apocalyptic. Jeffrey is 17 years old and attends high school in Milton Keynes, a city of 230,000 people about 50 miles northwest of London.
“I did research on it and spent two months feeling quite anxious,” she told me. “I would hear young people around me talk about it and they were convinced that the world was going to end and they were going to die.”
In September, British psychologists warned of the impact on children of apocalyptic discussions of climate change. “There is no doubt in my mind that they are being emotionally impacted,” one expert said.
“I found a lot of blogs and videos talking about how we’re going extinct at various dates, 2030, 2035, from societal collapse,” said Jeffrey. “That’s when I started to get quite nervous and worried. I tried to forget it at first but it kept popping up in my mind.”
[…]
I did research and found there was a lot of misinformation on the denial side of things and also on the doomsayer side of things,” said Jeffrey.
Since early October, Jeffrey has posted seven videos to YouTube, and joined Twitter. I discovered her videos after googling “extinction rebellion millions will die.”
“As important as your cause is,” said Jeffrey in one of the videos, an open letter to Extinction Rebellion, “your persistent exaggeration of the facts has the potential to do more harm than good to the scientific credibility of your cause as well as to the psychological well-being of my generation.”
Why There’s No Apocalypse in Science
In my last column, I pointed out that there is no scientific basis for claims that climate change will be apocalyptic, and argued that environmental journalists and climate activists alike have an obligation to separate fact from fiction.
If you haven’t read that column yet, I hope you do so before continuing.
[…]
“The global energy system today, as modeled by IEA, is tracking much closer to 2˚ of warming this century than previously thought,” notes Ritchie, due to lower use of coal.
[…]
Forbes
The full article is well-worth reading. Mr. Shellenberger does a great job in pointing out how the apocalyptic exaggerations by the media, activists and some scientists are possibly (I would say definitely) causing more harm than anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
His article featured this graph from the UN FAO:
Basically, even if the climate models were right (they aren’t), technological advances will more then compensate for any negative AGW impacts on food production.
Mr. Schellenberger had another great article in Forbes a few days ago…
Feb 17, 2020
If They Are So Alarmed By Climate Change, Why Are They So Opposed To Solving It?
Michael Shellenberger
I write about energy and the environmentNobody appears to be more concerned about climate change than Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders, student activist Greta Thunberg, and the thousands of Extinction Rebellion activists who shut down London last year.
Last year, Sanders called climate change “an existential threat.” Extinction Rebellion said, “Billions will die.” And Thunberg said, “I don’t want you to be hopeful” about climate change, “I want you to panic.”
But if Sanders, Thunberg, and Extinction Rebellion are so alarmed about carbon emissions, why are they fighting to halt the use of two technologies, fracking and nuclear, that are most responsible for reducing them?
Sanders says he would ban both natural gas and nuclear energy, Thunberg says she opposes nuclear energy, and Extinction Rebellion’s spokesperson said in a debate with me on BBC that she opposes natural gas.
And yet, emissions are declining thanks to the higher use of nuclear energy and natural gas. Carbon emissions have been declining in developed nations for the last decade. In Europe, emissions in 2018 were 23% below 1990 levels. In the U.S., emissions fell 15 percent from 2005 to 2016.
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Can They Be Serious?
What gives? Why are the people who are most alarmist about climate change so opposed to the technologies that are solving it?
One possibility is that they truly believe nuclear and natural gas are as dangerous as climate change. This appears to be partly the case for nuclear energy, even though neither Sanders nor Thunberg offers anti-nuclear rhetoric anywhere nearly as apocalyptic as their rhetoric on climate change.
Before progressives were apocalyptic about climate change they were apocalyptic about nuclear energy. Then, after the Cold War ended, and the threat of nuclear war declined radically, they found a new vehicle for their secular apocalypse in the form of climate change.
Though nuclear energy has prevented the premature deaths of nearly two million people by reducing air pollution, and though nuclear weapons have contributed to the Long Peace since World War II, many people remain phobic of the technology.
In the case of natural gas, neither Sanders, Thunberg, or Extinction Rebellion claim it is more dangerous or worse than coal. They simply argue that we don’t need it, thanks to renewables and energy efficiency.
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Why Alarmism Requires Opposing Technology
What’s happening with climate change is not the first time those who are most alarmist about an environmental problem have been most opposed to solving it.
In the early 1800s, the British economist Thomas Malthus opposed birth control, even as he raised the alarm over overpopulation and the threat of famines.
After World War II, scientists and environmentalists in Europe and the U.S. opposed fossil fuels and the provision of chemical fertilizers to poor nations even as they raised the alarm about soil erosion, overpopulation, and famine.
And today, environmentalists oppose the building of hydro-electric dams and flood control in poor nations, even as they raise the alarm about climate-driven flooding.
In every case, alarmists claim some moral basis for their opposition to technical fixes.
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The End of Civilization
Apocalyptic environmentalists like Sanders, Thunberg, and Extinction Rebellion insist that if we don’t enact their agenda, industrial civilization will come to an end. But if they are so concerned with protecting industrial civilization, why do they advocate solutions that would end it?
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Do Sanders, Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and other apocalyptic greens really believe that, by raising the alarm about the end of the world, they will persuade societies to choose the low-energy path?
Perhaps. But they may also fear, consciously or unconsciously, that the outsized role played by natural gas and nuclear means that climate apocalypse can be averted without any of the radical societal transformations they demand. After all, if nations were to simply use natural gas to transition to nuclear, there would be little need to stop traffic in London, moralize about the virtues of foregoing meat, flying, and driving, or deploy renewables.
Forbes
My only serious disagreement is with this…
And yet, emissions are declining thanks to the higher use of nuclear energy and natural gas.
Emissions are declining thanks to the higher use of natural gas. However, the only viable path to low-carbon energy production would require a massive expansion of nuclear power production. The fact that the alarmists oppose both natural gas and nuclear power is prima facie evidence that they are Enviromarxists and that the Green New Deal is just like Stalin’s grave: A Communist plot.
I also have to give a mini-attaboy to the midget oligarch for getting in Bernie’s face last night, I think he even called him a Communist…
Sanders and Bloomberg split over fracking
Ben Geman
Tonight’s Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas laid bare the candidates’ differences over fracking as Bernie Sanders defended his push for an outright ban and challenged concerns that it could hurt Democrats politically.
Driving the news: NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Sanders what he would tell workers in Pennsylvania, a swing state where natural gas extraction via fracking is a major industry. Todd cited this New York Times piece on the politics of fracking there.
Sanders, who is leading in national polls, replied he would tell workers of the need to act “incredibly boldly” in the near future to prevent “irreparable” global damage from climate change.
‘The Green New Deal that I support, by the way, will create up to 20 million good-paying jobs as we move our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy,” said Sanders.
The other side: Michael Bloomberg, whose has donated heavily to anti-coal and other climate efforts, said he did not support a ban a fracking, the technique that has enabled the decade-plus surge in U.S. oil and natural gas production.
“If we enforced some of the rules on fracking so that they don’t release methane into the air and into the water, you will make a big difference, but we are not going to get rid of fracking for a while,” he said.
“We want to go to all renewables, but that is still many years from now,” Bloomberg said.
[…]
Axios
Sanders probably doesn’t believe in an imminent climate apocalypse, but Greta might. When I was her age I believed pretty much everything adults told me. Well, you know how that goes: eventually you find out that they were stringing you on about a few things.
Why? Because they are stupid and/or ignorant and/or charlatans. You choose.
This is the right question with regard to natural gas use and nuclear. But there is another question which exposes the depth of the problem.
Why are the people who are most alarmist about climate change so opposed to demanding that the biggest and fastest growing emitters stop and reduce?
Why is it that the measures they do demand are, according to their own theory, totally useless?
You have to explain all three. Why do they advocate doing the ineffective, and why do they refuse to advocate things that would be effective – in their own terms and according to their own theory.
Its like people claiming to believe that the corono virus is a threat to humanity on earth, then refusing to advocate control measures by China or on travel, refusing to demand any normal pandemic precautions in the US, but demanding we all stand on our heads for five minutes every day. Its that irrational in terms of what they claim to believe and what they claim to advocate. Turn off standby, for instance. Electric cars. Wind turbines…. Make the UK carbon neutral. Or maybe Tuvalu….
My own conclusion after many years of watching this is that they do not believe in the alarm in any real sense. The cries of doom have become a sort of religious mantra that is recited over and over again with increasing stridency. It has a purely emotional and tribal significance. The measures they advocate are mainly interesting to them not because of any effects they have in the real world, but as visible expressions of belief. They are like the pyramids or the Easter Island statues. They do nothing but mean a great deal.
The other observation of course is that no-one outside activist circles in the US, Germany, the UK and Australia shows any sign of believing it either. Japan, China, India all building coal plants like there was no tomorrow.
It is all a chapter in some future edition of Great Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
One question that needs to be asked of Bernie and all others who advocate for 100% wind and solar is – how do they plan to manufacture solar panels and wind turbines without using fossil fuels given that those technologies depend of FF from cradle to grave. Someone also needs to show them pictures of Baotou and other mining sites needed for the raw materials as well as the cost and pollution created when disposing of supposedly clean/green renewables.
This unfortunately has been blatantly obvious because these people generally don’t believe it themselves, but want to promote it as it suits their agenda and/or financial incentive. The longer it goes on the more they get from their agenda and further financially benefit from it so don’t want it to end. They don’t care about solving it for this reason and if they generally believed their lies, they would respond with practical solutions including reducing their own carbon footprint.
Most of the warming over recent decades has resulted from changes in ocean patterns that reduce cloud albedo, increasing shortwave radiation into the ocean surface and causing ocean warming that shortly after warms the atmosphere. Sunshine levels have been increasing around the world confirming lower distribution of clouds around the planet. The AMOC, AMO, PDO and ENSO play a significant role in this.
Global warming or climate change has been a scam for decades and reduced cloud albedo causes most of the warming not CO2.
How come the Twitter account and video channel for Lauren Jeffrey don’t exist?
One large issue about grid storage batteries that I didn’t see discussed are the inverters required to convert the DC to AC. Megawatts and gigawatts of inverters won’t be cheap. Synchronizing them to maintain grid frequency won’t be a small task either. Ongoing maintenance will also be a nightmare. Switching a high power inverter off and removing it from an active grid is pretty frightening considering the arcing that could happen.
I have wondered if it would not be more economical to switch the motors and lighting and such to Dc ones?
If one has rooftop solar panels for example, would it not make sense to have 24 volt DC lights, 24 volt DC refrigerator compressor, etc?
Many of our devices are already low voltage DC, and we have umpteen little transformers and power supply devices that are really combination transformers/rectifiers for changing 120v AC to what in many cases is 24v (or whatever) DC.
It doesn’t even take the maintenance of a DC/AC grid. Switching a local distribution substation (serving a few thousand premises) off and on for the purpose of ‘load shedding’ (as in South Africa) doesn’t do it any good, either! A fair number of substations around South African cities have drastically caught fire in the last year, and often the fire prevents the substation from being switched back ON at the end of the ‘shedding’.