Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As Michael Moore extends free viewing time for his blockbuster “Planet of the Humans” for another month, George Monbiot has launched a savage attack against Moore’s film, accusing Moore of perpetuating racist colonialist tropes.
Some Monbiot quotes;
“The only concrete proposal in your film was that there should be a mass die-off”
“Population growth is what people reach for when they don’t want to face structural and systemic problems, problems such as capitalism. Population growth is what people reach for when they want to kick down, not kick up.”
“What we see is a phenomenon of comparatively wealthy white people saying we’re not the problem, our consumption growth isn’t the issue, its those people breeding, they are the problem. This claims is inherently racist, rich white people blaming poor brown people for an environmental problem which is mainly created by rich white people. This emerges from a very long standing discourse, a discourse which really arose from colonialism, and was used as one of the justifications for colonialism. …”
Strong words from Monbiot. In my opinion what we are seeing is utter desperation in the face of Moore’s catastrophic exposure of the green failure to deliver a viable alternative to fossil fuel.
No solution is needed for “climate change.” It’s not a problem.
Unicorn farts will do.
At least he says the problem he is fighting is capitalism. If they could be upfront about that we could all discuss the merits of their arguments and solutions instead of the totally fake argument about “carbon”.
Not a fan of Monbiot and some of the garbage he has come out with over the years, but he argues his case well, especially the eugenics content of Moore’s film which he correctly takes apart.
Pretty sure Monbiot does believe in eugenics but he can’t say that when he gets paid by The Guardian. He’s an anarcho primitivist who hates farming more than anything. He admits the British population before farming was around 5,000.
‘.. maximum population of Britain during the Mesolithic (the last period in which we lived only by those means) appears to have been around 5,000.
http://www.bigissue.com/features/interviews/2415/george-monbiot-lets-rewild-british-isles
I have not seen his remarks. but what did he say about destroying the forests for “biofuel”? Something most critics avoid commenting on.
It’s true that efforts of environmentalists to reduce human populations are aimed at “the global south”, but that’s only because i) they are breeding at well above replacement rates, and ii) they’re desperate to pull themselves out of poverty, which will require them to massively expand their resource and energy usage.
There’s no point encouraging rich, developed-nation populations to reduce their fertility; Westerners are breeding at well below replacement rates.
As for Monbiot complaining that the film doesn’t offer solutions – well, explaining why wind and solar cannot solve the “problem” of CO2 emissions IS part of the solution.
Monbiot isn’t stupid, so I suppose the only explanation for his critique is that he’s in it for the money.
Yes, but aren’t they all the same points that Sceptics have been calling out for years. Population reduction has always been a pet of the Climate alarmists. It is usually pointed out to them that Pop. growth has actually been in decline. The phony Climate crisis is a crusade that hurts the poorest societies. This has been pointed out by Sceptics for years. Indeed the whole point of calling foul on renewables is to point out how unreliable they are and how expensive they are. Yet, all of a sudden he is a champion of the poor. Has he been standing on his head, putting this ”debunking” together?
His assumption that the Climate has broken down, is unfounded. So his assertions addressing this concern are irrelevant. The ole plastics in the Ocean, is an environmental issue. Though he claims that the growing population in poor countries are not to blame, it is the bad handling of waste disposal in Third World countries, that is actually responsible for the Plastics in the Ocean issue.
I could be wrong, (as I can’t remember off hand) but I don’t remember Moore having a swipe at the ”poor brown people”
Moore’s documentary is right over the target and scores a direct hit against the whole renewable energy industry. He still subscribes to the Climate crisis thing and the people expressing concern about over population in the film, are actually the ones on the Alarmists’ side. These are the ones Monbiot has a problem with. Great. He has a funny way of debunking, when he apparently has changed sides to critisise his own .
Except when it’s too cold.
Leave Moore alone – encourage leftists to see his film — almost half of it is good – the other half is leftist nonsense.
Half good is the best I’ve ever seen from a leftist.
Richard
Most of what I have seen from the left is half-fast. 🙂
Now removed by YouTube, they found some guy who claims copyright infringement of an image.
The goal of the environmentalists is not to solve a (or any) problem real or perceived but to continue it to fill their coffers with subsidies. Amazingly simple. That message is quite obviously made in the discussed movie. To paraphrase: we need Moore such movies.
The problem is the people demanding “action” against this non-existant climate change problem.
They are a huge problem
Monbiot took only the last couple of minutes of the documentary where Moore sort of threw up his hands, given that renewables, our best shot and the basket we had put all our eggs in to save the planet, simply was a scam that wasn’t going to work. If we have looming disaster for the planet, and renewables dont help and we have no other solutions, population reduction is all that would seem to be left! The raging planet will kill us off to a point we aren’t a problem anymore!
Fortunately both renewables and the problem they are to fix are both phony.
“This claims is inherently racist, rich white people blaming poor brown people for an environmental problem which is mainly created by rich white people”
More on climate change racism
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/14/racism/
It is not their color that is the problem, it is their culture. So is culture racist? Seems to me that much of the problems generated by rich people for poor people are cultural, not racist.
So if you say black people are lazy you are being culturalist , not racist ?
Chaam:
Radical greens know what they are doing – killing tens of millions of little brown and yellow kids is part of the green plan. This is no accident. They’ve been doing it for decades. No rational person could be this stupid for this long.
This is their deliberate strategy to create their vision of utopia – a global socialist dictatorship. To date they are winning – over half the countries in the world are dictatorships, where the few at the top live like kings and the rest live like peasants.
The radical green plan was never about the environment. The environment was always a false front, a smokescreen for their extremist political objectives.
The tens of millions of dead kids are collateral damage – “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”.
A few recent papers to address your valid concerns:
HYPOTHESIS: RADICAL GREENS ARE THE GREAT KILLERS OF OUR AGE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., April 14, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
SCIENCE’S UNTOLD SCANDAL: THE LOCKSTEP MARCH OF PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES TO PROMOTE CLIMATE CHANGE
By Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr, May 24, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/25/sciences-untold-scandal-the-lockstep-march-of-professional-societies-to-promote-the-climate-change-scare/
Moonbat, here’s the solution that has worked for humans for thousands of years:
adapt
You’re welcome.
If Monbiot would remove his insulated jacket, he might realize that global warming is not a problem.
If you remove your insulated jacket in Wales, most of the year its cold enough you risk death from exposure.
You mean it’s not become a Mediterranean climate yet?
He might want to remove those plastic glasses as well.
To what?
Beautiful.
Isn’t the classification “white people / brown people” inherently racist?
Positively yes.
That being said, some of my best friends have been rich white people. My best friend of all time (during childhood) was a poor American Indian. I guess that makes me bi-racist.
However, green people is OK. With subsidies, though.
This is what has happened: Martians invaded surreptitiously 50 years ago and are taking contol of our planet.
The fool attacks rich white people, using the race card strongly, but seems unaware that rich white people are the very ones who push the renewable hard, because it is very profitable up front, with subsidies filling their back pockets.
Then when the system is falling apart, they can walk away…..
Moonbat shows his vast ignorance every day.
Moonbat isn’t ignorant.
He’s on the payroll.
Yesterday Biden declared that you can’t be black if you support Trump.
Or, to quote the terminator, I’ll be black.
Or to quote Biden: “Come on, man!”
Joe China assumes he represents every Black person (because he’s a Democrat and arrogantly assumes their support) and he assumes you should assume that, too, especially if you are a Black person. Come on, man!
U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) says he relishes the opportunity to compare Trump’s outstanding record providing help to the Black Community with Joe China’s record.
Trump, with Senator Scott’s help, has been developing economic zones in Black Communities over the past couple of years that have been very successful, and Senator Scott is eager to go into detail about those successes. I’m eager to hear what the Senator has to say on this subject.
Joe China will have to come out of the basement at some point in time. That will be his downfall.
Trump works for the Black vote, Biden just expects it.
“Yesterday Biden declared that you can’t be black if you support Trump.”
He implied that, but the words didn’t come out that way. It was more like “If you’re having trouble figuring out whether to back me or Trump, then you ain’t black”. So he could have also meant backing Trump means you ARE black. As usual, his words are muddled.
Joe has really been doing well since they locked him in his basement. You see what happens when they let him out. I do hope they let him out more.
Joe Biden approaches infinite wisdom in solitary confinement! My favorite mathematical theorem, that of limits, strikes again!
I prefer to be known as the endangered Northern Great Ape. Our reproductive rates have been well below replacement for a long time. The lefts desire for the decline and fall of Western Civilisation is slowly and inexorably coming true.
The Moonbat has no arguments, so he’s playing the racism card.
I suppose in Moonbat’s thinking, Hitler was a racist, not because he exterminated Jews, but that he only exterminated Jews – (ie. why didn’t cull the human herd more equitably)
The body count of the Holocaust included Armenians, Gypsies, and Soviet PoWs in addition to Jews.
And they started on the “mentally ill.”
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=psychiatrists+the+men+behind+hitler&i=stripbooks&crid=1BXIEQMQKZIBB&sprefix=psychiatrists%3A+the+men+behind%2Cstripbooks%2C188&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_28
Culling “undesirables” is what collectivists excel at.
What climate change problem? No solution needed.
Yes, but getting them to recognize that is the challenge of the century!
Funny – suburbia in the US has the closest to zero-population growth that I’ve seen – unlike these high-density population centers. And yet progressives hate them and seemed hell-bent on destroying them.
One thing is crystal clear: Moonbat is only interested in facts or science to the extent that they advance his evident desire to be the world’s dictator.
Herr Monbiot is the frontman for the nihilist Tickell family. Sir Crispin, the near 90 years old quack who earned a fortune from milking the British taxpayer over decades of disinformation dissemination. Oliver, the author of the fantasy novelette, Kyoto 2 – a cornucopia of canards about climate change.
Their credibility already shot to pieces, Michael Moore finally gathered up these pieces and flushed them down the sewers, where rates may now gnaw on the entrails. Wasn’t the shill once assailed by an irate mother at his Welsh abode, because she claimed Herr Monbiot had “stolen” her son’s pocket money, supposedly to help save Wales from Climate Catastrophe, or something like that? What a despicable boor he really is.
According to Wikipedia
Margaret Thatcher credits Tickell for persuading her to make a speech on global climate change to the Royal Society in September 1988
You are intriguing Jack Black. Sometimes you are forthcoming with previously unknown information and at others you withhold it till you think it has been earned or until the next move. I sense that you quite enjoy being the antagonist, keeps people guessing, they’re never quite sure where you’re coming from.
The popcorn has been passed around in buckets these past few days. Most informative and entertaining.
You are right though, patting each other on the back does little to progress our cause. Michael Moore was an unexpected surprise, if the same movie had been made by any ‘realist’ nothing would have come of it. As it happened ‘he’ made it so people may be more open to being educated. Let’s hope that Naomi can promote our cause in a way that offers maximum exposure. Maybe she needs to have a talk to Michael Moore?
Monbiot is a crackpot of the highest order. We have had to read his nonsense in the UK for years.
People have less children when they are economically successful. Children survive into adulthood and do not die of intestinal diseases etc.
Wealthier societies don’t worry about having more children to support them when they are older as they have a financial system which is developed enough to provide a pension.
The only problem developed countries have concerns an aging population which needs replacing to join the workforce.
“People have less children when they are economically successful.”
They have less children when they get cradle-to-grave indoctrination on being evil for having kids. Historically speaking, the more successful would usually have more kids, or at least more kids that would grow up into adulthood. Which is exactly what evolution wants.
The more successful having less kids than the less successful is Idiocracy in Action.
It wasn’t meant to be a documentary.
The overpopulation myth has a lot to answer for. Humans don’t live forever and need replacing.
Humans don’t “need” replacing.
They just rather enjoy the activity that produces replacements.
In previous eras children were necessary, they provided labour for the fields and to look after stock….food for winter that enabled you to survive.
That a few of them survived their parents and reproduced themselves was a bonus for our species but provided no post death benefits to their parents.
“Fewer”, not “less”.
sars-cov-2 provided a convenient solution to that problem. You just send the sick to “care homes” and let nature take its course.
( I wish I needed a sarc tag ).
“We have had to read his nonsense in the UK for years.”
No we haven’t. “Monbiot” is a fairly unusual name, so you probably won’t miss much if you simply skip over anything with that name tag. It works for me! Also, reading anything The Grauniad (or any similar spelling).
Jerry
Dear George,
I think you’ll find that the poor brown people are having a lot more productive sex than rich, white, people. Worldometer dot com has all the numbers.
Monbiot is asking Moore for something the video WASN’T about.
Moore simply showed that what was being pushed, the clean green energy methods, were neither clean nor effective.
A second film might cover what could be done – which just might include nuclear – which as I recall, Monbiot is quite ok with.
Perhaps Monbiot can be in the next movie Moore makes.
No, Moore’s film argues that the main problem is human overpopulation, and as renewables are not going to make a significant dent on resource and energy consumption, we must look to reducing human populations as “the answer”.
Another “if you don’t agree with me you’re racist/sexist/too rich” and now they can say colonialist! Anytime someone pulls the social card you know they’re trapped and have nothing rational to say.
Here’s an interesting read on colonialism: https://www.nas.org/blogs/press_release/nas_re_publishes_the_case_for_colonialism
I am old enough to remember separate rest rooms, etc. If everybody/thing is racist, nothings racist. If everybody is quarantined, nobody is quarantined. Wait until they try to contact trace, maybe then they will learn about statistics. Did anyone notice that the coronavirus looks like a WWII harbor mine?
People like Monbiot might first ask why nobody produces an answer to what is the true climate sensitivity. They seem unconcerned about the absence of a scientific proof that CO2 produces a predictable amount of air warming in the actual atmosphere, as opposed to in the laboratory.
The extreme measures he favours are based on unproven foundations, but no matter, near enough is good enough, for scare talk, eh? Geoff S
Geoff, Monbiot is not interested in CO2.
There certainly is a viable alternative to fossil fuel for power generation, but the Greens won’t accept it.
Atomkraft, ja bitte !
Just call it a KKW and everyone will start thinking it’s a new, safe form of energy.
Many of these haters ain’t too bright. Powered by a ‘Corn’, see?
What climate change problem? It’s a non-problem. Environmental problem? There are problems to solve, but we’re getting progressively better at it. Monbiot is just another person who mixes climate and environmental issues. These are two very different things. The solution to overpopulated developing countries is to accelerate their development, not to withhold it from them. The “rich white people” do not need to have big families as insurance when one gets old. Demography in developed countries is not a problem.
Argument by skin and class, huh. Diversity (i.e. color judgments) breeds adversity.
No solution is required when there is no problem…but, yes, Moonbat bring on the racist card. If the problem in Moonbat’s mind is capitalism, then the solution to his dilemma (does not apply to climate realists) is a socialist die-off.
Monbiot is purely projecting.
Liberals (and communists) bribing African politicians to not develop their fossil fuel resources is the epitomy of “racist colonialist tropes”.
What a scumbag.
To the point.
Monbiot to Moore: “You Provided Us with No Solutions” to Climate Change.
We have a winner here! There is no ‘solution’ for Climate Change, naturally. Why?
Natural climate change is a non-problem requiring no other ‘solution’ than what mankind has always done: Survive, Adapt, and Thrive!
In addition, Monbiot touting racism and class warfare as his central straw man argument is the refuge of a man with no substantive arguments to offer. Monbiot’s meandering misanthropy miscarries miserably.
Moaning Monbiot’s meandering misanthropy miscarries miserably ?
You Provided Us with No Solutions” to Climate Change
Wasn’t subject of the film, so what ? 😀
It’s commonly said “the left eats itself”
That’s not the whole story.
Any religious movement inevitably suffers from apostasy, heresy, schism, idolatry etc
If they are to be effective they must exterminate such wild branches.
It was thus between communism and fascism 90 years back. Should the state own 51% of you or 100%?
Not much between them otherwise.
And so it is with these modern secular religions with their ineffable and unknowable gods.
One hint of heresy, and to the bonfire you go
It’s commonly said “the left eats itself”
That’s not the whole story.
Any religious movement inevitably suffers from apostasy, heresy, schism, idolatry etc
If they are to be effective they must exterminate such wild branches.
It was thus between communism and fascism 90 years back. Should the state own 51% of you or 100%?
Not much between them otherwise.
And so it is with these modern secular religions with their ineffable and unknowable gods.
One hint of heresy, and to the bonfire you go
You can say that again, Nic.
leitmotif
I see what you did there!
Of all of the “problems” to think of and mention…capitalism? Really?
Did Paul Ehrlich’s “the Population Bomb” arise out of colonialism as well?
You know what sounds like colonialism? White people like Monbiot (from the UK no less) thinking they know what is right for the world and wanting to take control to “fix” it.
Being a Guardian writer, George is of indeterminate gender, race and sexual orientation and can self identify as whatever he chooses to suit his sermon of the hour.
How very dare you insult one of the UK’s national treasures!
Scratch a Guardian journalist, and, under the thinnest layer of paint, you’ll find a vicious, committed authoritarian who really, really wants to run every aspect of your life, and is outraged he can’t.
damn its contagious then
cos the same could be said of the ABC in Aus.
“phenomenon of comparatively wealthy white people”
If the wealth of white people bothers him so much, he’s free to give up as much of his wealth as he wants.
Lefty do-gooders like Moonbat are the meanest, least-charitable people you’ll ever meet.
So then, the real goal from the solution of climate change must be to lower white people’s standard of living in free developed countries.
That’s what I get from Monbiot’s statements…
What about all the comparatively wealthy brown people?
Is he excluding them? That’d be racist….
His head might finally explode.
“What we see is a phenomenon of comparatively wealthy white people saying …” etc.
What we see is a phenomenon of comparatively wealthy people like Monbiot in the First World lecturing the other 80% that they must not develop their economies to the same level as they themselves enjoy.
Monbiot, clearly refused to look at the issues raised in the Planet of the Humans film, and made up his own version of what the film was all about.
Yes the film talked about population being an issue, but it was not the only issue the film raised, and was in fact a distant second order issue, to what made up the bulk of the film.
The bulk message of the film was Environmentalist policies are ineffective and are not any solution to the needs of the world. The bulk message was environmentalists were frauds pushing a lie and happy to do so because it made them rich.
The clincher was the juxtaposition of Gore and Bull. Two men working together to get rich, so aptly named and so perfectly representative of the whole fraudulent Green culture.
Monbiot has no answer to the points actually raised in the film so he does what he is famous for doing, he makes up his own version of the what the story is about. He then sets about knocking down his own straw men he created.
Monbiot writes for the Guardian, that is basically all you need to know about him and his complete lack of veracity.
Not only does he make up his own versions – he airs them well away from any.. seriously – any possibility of a challenge. He is an accomplished ambush artist in cahoots with his BBC chums.
I know that’s swerving engaging with what he’s saying – but 90+ % of the time his ideas are initially emitted in the rear seating part of his trousers and should have a flash photography style warning prepended when published.
Are you saying… be careful not to light George’s farts?
As a a professional flatulist George must abide by OSHA standards in the handling of flammable gas I presume.
A bit of Green on Green action makes a refreshing change in climate la-la land.
As others have noted the climate catastrophist theological catechism is policed with gusto by those who see themselves as preeminent arbiters of belief – pouncing on heresy is part of he job.
Moonbat can believe what he likes – in that, he isn’t different from say Jehovah’s Witnesses – where I take issue is his assertions that the rest of us must obey and the way that that’s pumped out by his chums at The Guardian and BBC.
Australian’s are not always polite, from TomO’s comment it could be taken that Monbiot was talking through his arse. Sorry MOD.
Poor George, delusional as ever. Seems to think Moore will care that he doesn’t love him anymore. Still, good to see his mum won’t let him play in the garden without his coat on, even on what appears to be a nice warm spring day. “Don’t go out without your coat, Georgie, you never know when it might turn chilly”
The only concrete alternative to fossil fuels is nulcear power. Even “Boiling Oceans” Hansen recognizes this fact.
Monbiot a guilt ridden rich whiteman doing his utmost to remain a guilt ridden rich whiteman.
I would have some respect for him if he donated everything he had to the poor africans and topped himself for the sake of sustainability, but he won’t he will still pursue his parasitical life to its very end pissing and whining about racist rich white people.
Dangerous White trash that could lead by example but wont.
Monbiot is free to produce his own video about his view on, of, over the world instead of ranting about Moores view on “clean green agenda” that Monbiot isnt even able to understand.
“problems such as capitalism.”
Nice bit of honesty there, Moonbat. Stick to your truth and let’s hear no more about CO2 and climate change.
Yet he’s not moving to North Korea…
Monbiot really believes we have “trashed the planet”. If so, I love trash.
“My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back”
“The disasters I feared my grandchildren would see in their old age are happening already: insect populations collapsing, mass extinction, wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, floods. This is the world we have bequeathed to you. Yours is among the first of the unborn generations we failed to consider as our consumption rocketed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/15/planet-children-protest-climate-change-speech
George missed out tropical storms. He never was the full shilling.
This is what happens when the climate predictions fail (Warming, polar bears, Arctic sea ice), and then the promised green solutions also fail. At some point, things have to get ugly because of all the internal contradictions. That point is now.
Grossly oversensitive CMIP6 models. No SLR acceleration. Failed green energy ‘solutions’ now on three fronts: direct cost, indirect intermittency cost, environment. Moonbat is having a very hard time of it now, since his past views are indelibly on record. The first scientific battle of the internet era is now not going well now for the Warmunists.
Climate predictions never fail. The time limit just expands a bit further, then a bit more and then ……..
“This is what happens when the climate predictions fail (Warming, polar bears, Arctic sea ice), and then the promised green solutions also fail. At some point, things have to get ugly because of all the internal contradictions. That point is now.”
EXACTLY! I have been waiting for this moment for years. Popcorn time.
Yesterday, both Antarctic and Arctic sea ice were second highest for that date of the past five years. Record low summer minima were eight years ago in the Arctic and three in the Antarctic (following two freak weather events in the super El Nino 2016).
Moonbat was also absolutely convinced that snow in Britain was a thing of the past.
Looks like a nice green plastic garden chair that he’s sitting on……….
This is a good explanation why AGW is a crock.
“Mathematics Of Heat Capacity
There Is No Significant Heat To Global Warming
If all 0.7°C heating said to be caused by humans went into the oceans, the increase would be 0.0007°C, and none would be left in the air.”
“Air has no heat capacity. It is mathematically impossible for claimed global warming to have the slightest effect upon ocean temperatures or ice sheets, because air holds almost no heat.
The total mass of the oceans is 262 times the mass of the atmosphere. A gram of sea water has 3.84 times as much heat capacity as a gram of the atmosphere. Combined, it takes 1006 times as much heat to raise the temperature of the oceans 1°C as to increase atmospheric temperature 1°C.
So, if the air temperature has increased 0.7°C, as claimed, that amount of heat could only increase ocean temperatures by 0.0007°C. Even the top 100 meters of the ocean (2.7%) would only be 0.025°C warmer, if all atmospheric heating said to be caused by global warming went into it.”
It then does the arithmetic.
https://nov79.com/math.html
I knew that Monbiot totally supported the “Climate emergency” But Jesus by his comments he is nothing but a total marxist or a communist. Oh and Moore is spot on solar, wind and bio are total expensive scams.
No problem = no solution.
Perceived problem = Send me money
problems such as capitalism
≠=========
Pretty much says it all. Moonbat and Karl Marx to the rescue. So long as freedom isn’t important to you. So long as you ignore your ancestors that fought and died to win the freedoms you now enjoy. Moonbat would give this all away without a wimper.
When you have to rely on yet another cry of “racism” in lieu of an actual argument, you’re just reiterating the fact that you have no argument.
*faf solutions*… Nobody’s provided us with a scientific proof of the underlaying concern. Its all badly polluted linear progressions of anecdotal cluster-pumps that contradict actual collected data.
It would be far less expensive if Monbiot were sent to a top notch psychiatrist for intense therapy than to destroy the world economy for Monbiot’s hallucinations.
Joey
Top notch psychiatrist? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
” … systemic problems, problems such as capitalism. ”
Anyone who has this opinion should have their ideas dismissed with prejudice. Capitalism is the only system that both works and is fair. It’s not the problem, but is the best solution to acheive equal opportunity and overall fairness. Socialism implements fake fairness by bringing everyone down to the same low level preventing all but the elite to reach higher levels of prosperity. Free market capitalism allows anyone to achieve high levls of prosperity without taking away from anyone else. Even as the distance between the top and bottom grows larger, the average is much higher while the bottom rises faster as owing to the higher growth enabled by capitalism.
It is ironic to see Monbiot in a thick insulated jacket complaining about Global Warming/Climate Change. If he realized that CO2 is promulgated solely as a fake cause of a non-existent problem he might not have to fall back on racist slurs against Michael Moore.
Monbiot cannot argue rationally against Moore and simply becomes angry that Moore has let the Leftists’ cat out of the bag.
Hilarious isn’t it – like the global warming protest in the snow scene in “The Day After tomorrow”. From what I remember of living in Wales those kinds of jackets have to be dry cleaned using “ozone destroying” chlorinated hydrocarbon based solvents.
I was wrong sorry – you can’t dry-clean nylon, it dissolves if you try. Dry cleaning fluid is a plastic solvent.
Lefties often get angry when discussing politics, even when arguing among themselves. The only reason anyone would get angry when discussing subjective issues like politics is that they know they have the weaker position while angry self righteous indignation makes them feel better about themselves.
“Lefties often get angry when discussing politics”
Almost always, from my experience. 🙂
Climate change alarmists are the racists. Take a look at any photo of a climate change protest. There are virtually no people of colour. In fact, the vast majority are old hippies and their grand kids; people who do not need to work.
I’ve never heard Jesse Jackson rail about climate change. I have heard him criticize high energy prices associated with renewables, because it disproportionately hurts low income people.
Cheap energy is the single greatest thing that lifts people out of poverty. Yet these fat, rich white people have no issue denying that to third world countries.
Climate alarmism is the go-to issue for the wealthy, chattering classes. They are the only ones who won’t be hurt by their insensitive policies.
I’m actually saddened this hasn’t become a bigger talking point. Climate alarmism is the bastion of virtue signalling, white, rich people who demand their pet projects be foisted on people who cannot afford it.
Monbiot’s assertions are completely false.
Population growth is a problem in the developing countries and almost all population increase in the “capitalist” developed countries is from immigration from the overpopulated developing countries. The combined carbon emissions in the capitalist developed countries are the same today as in 1980, meaning all the increase in emissions since 1980 is from the developing countries, which make up 2/3 of all emissions and rising. Not surprisingly, the developing countries have no binding targets under any climate agreement and therefore will continue to increase their emissions unabated, whilst the climate protest brigade ignore this elephant and only focus on the capitalist countries that are no longer causing the problem – if you believe it is a problem.
Ignoring the fact that we did not cause the CO2 rise and the CO2 rise did not cause the temperature rise.
Those pushing CAGW, argued that ‘Green’ energy …. Was so good, it did not matter if there was or was not a CAGW problem.
Green Energy is good for the earth. Ha, Ha.
Gibbs and Moore made the film because ‘green’ energy causes more damage, in reality, than the ‘do nothing’ case and it does not result in significant CO2 reductions if the energy to build and construct the green things (power lines and cutting down trees to make power right away, and to clear land for wind farms and such is commonly ignored) and grid inefficiency are taken into account.
This is a summary of some of the facts quoted in the film.
+ the documentary depants the ubiquitous memes/reports of how “Germany gets its energy from renewables.”
It trots out footage of a series of the top misleaders stating one after the other: “Germany gets 30% from renewables,” “40%,” “50%,” “60%”,…
The reality is that Germany gets just 3.5% of all its renewable energy from solar and wind combined.
A whopping 70% of what passes for “Green” energy in Germany comes from Biomass – grinding up trees in the Amazon and the US Southeast and shipping them to Europe where Germany (and Great Britain) burns them for electrons and get Carbon Credits for doing so!;
+ the other part of the Germany myth is that “Germany gets off coal…” The reality here is that Germany gets 37% of its energy from coal and is even trying to level one of its last intact forests to get at the coal underneath. The only thing currently stopping the destruction of the 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest is mass protests;
+ the top beneficiaries of Biomass are, of course, Big Timber giants. The Koch brothers, again, own Georgia-Pacific, the second largest stump creator in the world after Weyerhaeuser. G-P’s two mills in Oregon are the state’s #4 and #5 carbon polluters, as well.
The Green retards like Monbiot did it to themselves by rejecting emission-free nuclear power. Even the godfather of climate change James Hansen understands that failure by the idiots like Montbiot. When the Leftists lies are so blatant and obvious, even people within their ranks will see the hypocrisy and call it out as Moore has done.
That said, I love Liberal tears. Lots more to come.
To be fair Monbiot has actually said some nice things about nuclear, copped some flack for it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/28/arrested-myself-supporting-nuclear-power-george-monbiot
In addition to the WUWT comment that Monbiot is wearing what appears to be a nylon jacket, he is also obviously wearing eyeglasses.
Monbiot appears to be both knowledge-blind and thinking-blind to the facts that it was largely “comparatively wealthy white people” (his term, not mine) that invented and developed nylon and clear glass/plastic eyeglasses, with “capitalism” being fundamental to the widespread, low-cost manufacturing and distribution of such throughout the world. Ditto for many, many other inventions/products that have eased the burdens, and raised the living standards, of the vast majority of people around the planet.
Wallace Carothers, an American chemist, is credited with inventing nylon while working for DuPont.
Salvino D’Armate probably invented eyeglasses in around 1285, though various sources suggest an earlier origin. He shared the invention of his new device with Allesandro della Spina, an Italian monk, who made it public and is often credited with inventing eyeglasses. — source: http://www.glasseshistory.com/glasses-inventor/who-invented-glasses/
Monbiot citing “inherently racist, rich white people” as being the basis for the world’s environmental problems, without acknowledging consumerism at all economic levels and by all races, is farcical. He meets all qualifications for being a true hypocrite.
What a self important, misguided little worm Monboit is. The race card? really?
Is that the best he has to offer?
Just one more navel gazing, group thinking, science denying, hysterical catastrophist who willingly avoids looking a little deeper into the subject so he can safely ”maintain the rage” in his insular little circle of ignorant inner city bliss.
Just like so many other ”journalists” I hear commentating on climate change every day. They ”just can’t understand the psychology of the deniers” don’t you know!
This kind of garbage just turns my stomach.
Monbiot’s logic seems to be it more important to be seen to “be doing something” rather than doing something useful. He appears to be resentful that most of the virtuous planet saving activities are being shown up for the useless follies they are. There are a lot of potential solution to the alleged problem, however none will be acceptable to the Kool Aid drinkers, they only want to hear their own nonsense echoed back.
Meanwhile the grand CO2 reduction experiement proceeds apace. Mauna Loa and Cape Grim continue track along established trends. Awkward, why are we stressing about man made CO2 again?
During the past several months when Human CO2 emissions have been drastically reduced beyond even the most optimistic forecasts of the Kyoto and Paris protocols, caused by industrial shutdown due to Coronavirus panic, this didn’t actually lead to any subsequent reduction in the Mauna Loa figures though.
Isn’t this proof enough that such measures are entirely futile anyway? The World should abandon those boondoggles with immediate effect, and de-fund the so called IPCC and its series of expensive bunfights and travelling freak shows.
We could use some of the Trillions of Dollars saved, to actually improve the lives of large numbers of poor hungry “brown people”. Sorry for suggestion, but that’s just my overbearing imperialistic racism speaking.
You’re not going to significantly help any of those people as long as their corrupt governments are still in power. The money will be funneled away, or the equipment sold or left fallow until its useless.
What we need then, is for teams of imperialistic overbearing racists to take charge and kick out those avaricious dictators, or at least pension them off into some dachas, and employ and house those “brown people” and pay and feed them ourselves. Ooerr, wait a minute that’s colonialism isn’t it, and that’s a very very bad thing to do.
On Moonbat I defer to the words of Clive James
“ the Guardian, which entrusts all aspects of the subject to George Monbiot, who once informed his green readership that there was only one reason I could presume to disagree with him, and them: I was an old man, soon to be dead, and thus with no concern for the future of “the planet”. I would have damned his impertinence, but it would have been like getting annoyed with a wheelbarrow full of freshly cut grass.
ROFL 🙂
In the 70’s I was involved in a top-level discussion that summarized the factors leading to excessive population growth. Juxtaposed in this is improved medical care provided by missionaries of colonial powers, and cessation of much tribal warfare (almost a national sport for “men” to show their manhood). But the underlying factor was the lack of Social Security. When before you were likely to lose half your kids to illness or slave traders, you needed more to make it likely someone will be around to care for you when you hit old age [your 40’s?]. A short survey in this area will show you that colonial powers, later Crown corporations, and Wall Street Bankers eclipse Climate Change as the greatest threat to Man (and Woman) kind.
In developed countries, US, England, Australia, (not New Zealand) and much of Europe, the desire to profit by developing forests into housing units requires continued population growth. Not farm workers, but consumers. I prefer not to call this Eminent Domain or Highest Economical Use but rather Environmental Destruction.
–Some Monbiot quotes;
“The only concrete proposal in your film was that there should be a mass die-off”–
I thought the stupid knew “alternative energy” didn’t work, and the the “mass die-off was actually the plan.
Why else do think China one child policy and abortion {mostly for non whites} is what they love.
Anyhow, we are in an Ice Age. warming has never been a problem.
And we continue to cool from the Holocene Optimum and past interglacial periods have been much warmer than present global temperature. AND when they were the warmest periods of past interglacier, we still were in a Ice Age, or it was still cold, or planet has been much warmer, when it was not in an Ice Age.
Now, what is an Ice Age. Other glaciers, what is an Ice Age is a cold ocean. If Oceans were 5 C, it’s still a cold ocean. Presently our ocean is 3.5 C, and impossible to warm oceans by 1 C within centuries from Sunlight. Massive volcanic activity- it’s possible. Huge impactor, it’s possible. But such huge space rock impacting or massive volcanic activity, is by itself The Problem rather than some warming of the Ocean.
Of course they are solution to reducing CO2 emission- such as nuclear power- which has reducing CO2 emission and air pollution for decades. And safer way of getting energy- compared with wood burning or Coal burning or other “fossil fuels”.
But better solution than nuclear energy, involves space exploration.
Despite being paid enough money, NASA has failed for decades to adequately explore the Moon to determine whether it has mineable water.
Having a market for water {anywhere} in space and using water to make rocket fuel- and thereby also have energy market in space- is the direction toward unlocking basically an infinite energy resource. Or enough energy to provide abundant energy for humans with populations well over 10 trillion. Or you can’t really say that about the potential of nuclear energy. unless it’s fusion nuclear energy. But Earth would get simply too crowded with 10 trillion people on. Earth would be ok with 50 to 100 billion people, assuming they also living on the ocean.
gbaikie posted: “Despite being paid enough money, NASA has failed for decades to adequately explore the Moon to determine whether it has mineable water.”
Not true. In October 2009 (a little over ONE decade ago), an impactor released by NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) blasted a bunch of water into space after slamming into a permanently shadowed region of Cabeus Crater, which lies near the moon’s south pole. This was the first experimental verification by NASA that large quantities of water (ice) existed on the Moon. There were earlier indications—but not robust evidence such as LCROSS provided—that the Moon contained some amount of water, such as from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument, which flew aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft (India’s first moon probe), and orbited the Moon from November 2008 through August 2009.
— source: https://www.space.com/41554-water-ice-moon-surface-confirmed.html
The first direct evidence of water VAPOR near the Moon was obtained by the Apollo 14 ALSEP Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment, SIDE, on March 7, 1971 (nearly five decades ago!). A series of bursts of water vapor ions were observed by the instrument mass spectrometer at the lunar surface near the Apollo 14 landing site.
— source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water
P.S. Outside of NASA, the first direct evidence of water on the Moon came the Soviet Luna 24 probe that landed at Mare Crisium, took samples from the depths of 118, 143, and 184 cm of the lunar regolith, and then took them to Earth. In February 1978, laboratory analysis of these samples were published showing they contained 0.1% water by mass. Spectral measurements showed minima near 3, 5, and 6 µm, distinctive valence-vibration bands for water molecules, with intensities two or three times larger than the noise level.
— source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water
–gbaikie posted: “Despite being paid enough money, NASA has failed for decades to adequately explore the Moon to determine whether it has mineable water.”
Not true. —
Nothing you cited as anything to do with whether the Moon has mineable water.
It’s part of an argument that NASA as failed for decades to adequately explore the Moon to determine whether it has mineable water. If NASA wanted to determine whether the Moon has mineable water it would send exploratory missions to the lunar polar regions surface- and it hasn’t.
Sigh.
Let me make something clear. Governments don’t mine, but governments can help determine if something is mineable. NASA’s charter would include activity which includes determining if something is mineable in Space. And NASA has continued to fail to do this.
NASA has reported in the past, that the Moon doesn’t have any mineable water, and having a water concentration of .1% water by mass, would the same as saying that lunar water is not mineable.
Anywhere on Earth has more than .1% water by mass.
One could argue, people have, that 1% water by mass is not mineable. Soil with less the 5% water by mass will not allow plants to grow- or if area where plants are growing, it’s area with more than 5% water by mass. Or, 1% water by mass are very dry regions on Earth.
A region of the Moon if it had 1% water by mass, might be mineable, but 10% water by mass would be more likely to be mineable. If lawn didn’t have rain or sprinklers turned on for a week, it probably has at least 10% water by mass.
Most people knowledgeable about whether the Moon is mineable, would say that lunar water is worth about $500 per kg. Or you get as much water as thought you needed, it would be worth around this price- it would be good price. Or there wasn’t enough water to buy or there was too large amount available, this affects it’s value.
$500 per kg is 1/2 million dollars per ton and one would buying by the ton.
The lunar polar regions could have 10 billion tons water. A billion tons of lunar is NOT worth 5 x 10^14 dollars nor is 1 million tons of lunar water worth 5 x 10^11 dollar but probably worth more than 100 billion dollars. But 10,000 to 100,000 tons of water should be worth 500,000 per ton or $500 per kg. So, 10,000 tons is worth about 5 billion dollars. And 10,000 tons of rocket fuel is worth about 15 billion dollars. NASA might imagine that 10,000 tons of lunar rocket fuel is worth 150 billion dollars. But NASA does not need 10,000 tons of rocket fuel on the Moon, but could need 100 tons of rocket fuel and 100 tons of lunar rocket fuel and for 1.5 billion dollar would seem like a steal.
So NASA lunar base over a period of 5-10 year period could use 100 tons of lunar rocket fuel and 100 tons of water.
Anyhow to mine lunar water one can not depend on the limited demand of lunar water and rocket fuel that NASA could have. You have to create demand- as all business, do.
Anyhow, $500 per kg is a guess estimate of a market price. And everything is a market price.
And to do it, one will have to get to point of mining about 1000 tons of lunar water per year.
Which means you could start with as little as say 50 tons of water per year but within 10 years you would planning and be ramping up to more 1000 tons per year. And in first 3 years you will be in the red, but by 3 years you have at least demonstrated path of having more value- which roughly means you created market demand, and predictably you going to have much more market demand in the future {or you are a growth company}.
What Herr Monbiot and his idiot brethren don’t understand, is that we don’t need to be reducing CO2 at all, because geological processes have been locking it away for millions of years into solid rocks! CO2, the gas essential for life in the Biosphere, has never been so low as in the past few thousand years. When it does fall below a certain level, then plants will not grow, and there will be nothing left to eat on the land. Sea life will continue for a time after that, but eventually all that CO2 will be converted into shells of sea creatures, and when they die, falling to the sea bed, where it is turned into solid rock, trapping the CO2 for millions of years. Only mindless cretins would want to hasten that process.
A common bit of bad thinking.
X says “P is so” or “We’ll do P”.
I say “That’s wrong” or “That won’t work”, and then explain why I say that.
X replies “So what’s your answer?” or “So what will work?”, with the implication that if I haven’t got answers, my initial criticism must be rejected and we should continue with P.
Monbiot, a ruling class man (£30k a year school) , son of a vice chair of Tory Party, descended from aristocracy has always avoided eugenics arguments however his mentor, Sir Crispin Tickell very much supported it.
Sir Crispin Tickell, member of the eugenics Huxley clan.
He is also a patron of population concern charity Population Matters, (formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust), and told Radio 4’s Today programme that the ideal population for Britain could be around 20 million. As a member of Lord Rogers’ Urban Task Force, Tickell counselled against spreading cities saying that we need denser living, that young adults should not expect to leave home straight away, and that older relatives could live in ‘granny flats’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_Tickell#Public_Impact
Monbiot is right about Moore-is-less – Malthusian ideology has given him a bad case of Moresles.
It is ironic that Sir John Schellnhuber , CBE, dubbed by the Queen in the Berlin Embassy, 2004, is the leading eugenics spokesman – his “optimum” population was declared to be 1 billion. This Commander of the British Empire, got to write the Pope’s “Laudato Si” a paean to Gaia, and author Merkel’s Energy Transformation, before she fired him, likely for above views. Sir john also founded the Potsdam Climate Institute.
Malthus, a parson of the Queens very own Church, made a religion out of Imperial colonial policy.
So it is clear Monbiot knows exactly the aristocracy and its shenanigans.
I suggest Moore confess at Canterbury, and ask forgiveness – he might even be granted a CBE?
I have never bothered listening to Monbiot before. I just assumed, working for the Guardian, he’d be a bit silly. This is a first for me. I had no idea how silly he turns out to be.
Don’t you just love the arrogance of the Greens?
Monbiot ends his piece to camera saying, if you retract what you have said Michael, we will all love you again.
Someone needs to let Monbiot know, being loved by him or any of the other Green zealots for that matter is not a valid reason to promote unscientific garbage, called man made climate change.
Hasn’t the global shutdown effectively falsified AGW theory?
Despite the largest industrial collapse of all time global CO2 concentrations haven’t altered a jot. Human influence is therefore exposed as absolutely irrelevant compared to natural variations.
This huge collapse which delivered a non-existent reduction in global CO2 cannot simultaneously be too small to impact global CO2 but large enough to imperil the planet. Cognitive dissonance squared!
Game over.
How old is George Monbiot? He writes as if he were seventeen, which is the age when you go around pouting because the world is not fair. To the juvenile mind, communism seems perfectly fair, which is the basis of its popularity. Capitalism is not fair, but produces so much more human happiness that all sentient adults are eventually forced to admit that it is a wonderful system, including the people who are less rewarded by it than Henry Ford.
Mr. Monbiot is free to emigrate to Russia, or China. But I don’t think he will.
Communism aims, in theory, to improve the lives of the vast majority of people in all countries.
In an astonishingly short time (since Mao’s death) the communist Chinese government has brought good housing, transport, full employment, education, and the comforts of modern living to almost all of its population. It has used communist ideas to do this – paid for “Communism with a Chinese face”, i.e., Capitalism.
Mexico Says “Hasta La Vista” To Inefficient Green Energies. Could Be “Death Knell” For Renewables”
By P Gosselin on 22. May 2020
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German public broadcasting Deutsche Welle (DW) here reports how Mexico has decided to end its transition the renewable energies, angering activists and investors.
The move, DW reports, “is scaring off environmentalists and investors” and could be the “death knell for renewable energies.”
Apparently President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had traveled to Oaxaca and saw how the local hills were blighted by wind turbines, commenting: “These windmills are spoiling the landscape” and “produce very little energy.”
Wind energy is notorious for its inefficiency, unreliable supply, high costs, blight to the environment and health hazards. Moreover, the business has been taken over by crony capitalists out to make a killing on the massively subsidized projects. In fact, as Michael Moore’s latest film shows, green energies aren’t really green at all.
The move by the Mexican government has angered green energy activists and investors. Another reason cited by the Mexican government is “grid instability”.
The reform will have some impact on German investors, DW reports. For example: the Potsdam-based company Notus, who since 2014 has been planning five solar and wind power plants. Now their future remains uncertain.
“The new directive could be the death knell for renewable energies,” DW reports. “Protest letters from the Canadian and European Union embassies refer to 44 ongoing projects worth USD 6.8 billion.” Another problem is Mexico’s power grid is not designed to handle the massively fluctuating power fed in by wind and sun.
Though DW suggests that the return to fossil fuels is going to mean higher costs for Mexican consumers, most results from around the world suggest the opposite is the case. Germany, for example has committed a whopping 1 trillion dollars to green energies since 2000, yet today the country has among the world’s most expensive electricity prices for consumers. Annually tens of thousands of households see their power cut off because they can no longer afford to pay the power bills.
Mexico is wise to move to a source of energy that is plentiful, affordable, stable and one that doesn’t destroy the environment on a massive scale.
Except in the few windiest spots, turbines consume more energy to build, install and maintain than they produce over their lifetimes, while releasing super GHGs, plus the CO2 produced in making the concrete for their bases.
Not to mention the massacre of millions of often endangered birds and bats, to the betterment of insect pests. While blighting the landscape. Environmental disasters.
When people don’t dispute your central points but call names instead it means you’ve won the argument.
Monbiot is sooooo tedious as he tries to purge his misplaced guilt by forcing on the rest of us
George Monbiot wearing what appears to be a Nylon jacket.
==========
Its OK because underneath he has a hair shirt.
From the article: Monbiot: “The only concrete proposal in your film was that there should be a mass die-off”
I get the feeling Monbiot doesn’t like human beings.
Monbiot is right. If you want a low carbon economy, you have two choices: (1) Malthus and the Middle Ages (deindustrialise, depopulate) or (2) nuclear. Moore and Gibbs chose 1. They chose poorly.
https://youtu.be/VA7J0KkanzM
Poor old moonbat. He takes himself so seriously but doesn’t realise that he is joke.
May I say that I’ve rarely seen a more chilling and hateful video. This ranks up with the 350.org exploding children video. He claims that truth is false and that false is true. Stop being persuaded by the truth and come back to the dark side.
Things like this actually frighten me.
It is quite scary to watch how Monbiot is misinterpreting Moore’s statements. Of course, a state of desperation is very clear. When there is no way to defend your point and motive, people try to divert the attention towards irrelevant direction. The issues, he is pointing at was discussed in completely different context in the film. I am sure people can understand his psycology behind those accusion and it exposed how helpless those corrupt people are.
Moore used 10 year old data, and a loser solar thermal project example, meanwhile here is a 1.35 cent/kWh project:
Abu Dhabi has set a global record-low solar price as authorities confirmed the winning bid in a 2-gigawatt tender. Upon its expected completion in mid-2022, it is slated to be the largest single-site solar energy project in the world. The Al Dhafra project had five bidders, with the lowest offer coming in at 1.35 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/worlds-largest-solar-project-will-also-be-worlds-cheapest
But Robert it will never be reliable and that is why the figure you present is irrelevant when it’s not producing power, which is the case for the majority of the day!
That aside it does more damage to the environment by way of additional mining and covers more area then any other form of power source. The area coverage in itself is destroying ecosystems, and they still haven’t worked out what to do with it at end of life. Enormous energy is required if you recycle properly and at a high cost. Part of the process is as toxic as separating out the rare earth elements after mining. Much of it cannot be recycled and is going to landfill.
Have you lost sight of why renewables were created? Except of course to make obscene amounts of money for a handful of people, and that money comes from taxpayers by way of government subsidies! We are being swindled. On top of that they simply don’t pass the test! There is nothing positive about renewables.
Nuclear energy is really the best solution if you actually think that CO2 is a problem. It is clean, reliable and produces less waste than renewables.
Gee, we have never once heard inflated claims for a solar installation
What model did they use, models being garbage
GIGO