According to Forbes contributor and clean tech entrepreneur Wal van Lierop, climate change is such an emergency that Covid-19 lockdowns should continue indefinitely as climate change lockdowns.
We Need An Operation Warp Speed To Battle Climate Change
Wal van Lierop
Dec 19, 2020,04:42pm ESTWhen I wrote about the new Roaring 20s last December, the world was largely unaware of COVID-19. Although the pandemic has caused indescribable tragedy and hardship, it has also shown that with proper motivation and financing, humanity can do the impossible. That scientists developed safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines in less than a year is evidence of our untapped potential to solve global problems.
The lesson for climate change is that if we act with equal vigor, we can solve this crisis. But we need an Operation Warp Speed for the Climate. Thanks to the European and South Korean Green Deals and President-elect Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan, the world is positioned to do it. Just as the original Operation Warp Speed met the need for timely new treatments and vaccines, this operation would deliver game-changing innovations for our climate crisis.
…
1. Lock in lifestyle changes brought about by COVID-19
When COVID-19 lockdowns began in spring, people adjusted their behavior, and daily CO2 emissions worldwide decreased by an average of 17%. BP and other energy companies expect COVID-19 to permanently dent demand for fossil fuels.
We have discovered that worldwide lifestyle changes are possible and have a massive impact on emissions. A recent survey commissioned by JLL JLL +0.6%, a commercial real estate company, found that 72% of office workers want a hybrid model in which they continue work at home several days per week after the crisis ends. A quarter want to continue working remotely full time. Let’s lock those changes in to reduce commuter pollution. Meanwhile, we need a way to get people safely back onto public transport (its usage is down). And for cases where transportation is unavoidable or has even increased, like with online shopping and freight shipping, it’s time to scale electric trucks and hydrogen-powered cargo ships.
While we’re at it, let’s ensure that business travel never returns to its former excesses. Most of the time, there’s no reason to take one-day trips across the globe. Regular business meetings can be done more efficiently virtually, complemented by in-person contact only once in a while.
Governments could cement these lifestyle changes with tax deductions and by finally ending fossil fuels subsidies, as I wrote last year. In response, people would reduce their fossil fuel usage, and innovators would develop carbon-free alternatives sooner than they would otherwise. If a deadly virus changed our lifestyle at Warp Speed, why can’t a deadly climate crisis do the same?
…
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/walvanlierop/2020/12/19/we-need-an-operation-warp-speed-to-battle-climate-change/
What about nuclear fission Wal van Lierop? Van Lierop mentions nuclear fusion research, but like most greens he completely ignores nuclear fission.
We know nuclear fission works. France decarbonised their economy in the 1970s, by replacing most of their fossil fuel plants with nuclear. They still get around 75% of their electricity from nuclear plants.
Rather than imposing permanent Covid-19 style climate lockdowns, the entire world could copy what France did in the 1970s. In as little as a decade, we could reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions by at least 30%, with no lifestyle sacrifices whatsoever.
But for some reason hardline greens like van Lierop would apparently rather have us locked in our homes and local towns like sheep in pens, than promote a viable zero carbon option which allows us keep our current lifestyles.
WFH is win win all over. Everyone gains. Cheaper fuel, less traffic, fewer roads, Higher profits, les expense, cleaner air, lower costs, lower wages, cheaper housing, distributed wealth, higher wages, more skilled employees.
Huge.
Forbes has gone crazy lately. In this case, part of the success of the lockdown was fear of the virus. No one fears climate change,
Not entirely true. Sadly there are many kids who’ve been indoctrinated into fearing it by the public school system and/or by their eco-loony parents
When the kids get older they will realized they were scammed about Human-caused Global Warming/Climate Change, just like us older folks realized we had been scammed by the Human-caused Global Cooling narrative back in the 1970’s.
You see kids, some of us have been here before. We have seen a lot of dire speculation about the Earth’s climate turn into nothing. I’m expecting the same to happen with the current climate scam, and we are right on track because every one of the alarmist climate scare stories has failed to materialze, just like with the Global Cooling scare stories.
The only difference between the Global Cooling scam and the Global Warming scam is today, all the Powers-that-Be in the world are on board this Global Warming gravy train.
All based on one fraudulent, computer-generated, “hotter and hotter” global surface temperature profile.
The real temperature profile of the Earth is one where it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today, which means CO2 is not a problem because there is much more CO2 in the atmosphere today than in the past, yet it is no wamer now than in the past. Therefore, CO2 has little effect on the Earth’s temperatures.
I probably should not call Human-caused Global Cooling a scam. I think all the scientists involved in that endeavor were sincere and really believed what they were saying. And there was no money or fame in it for them then, so it was a mental exercise not a commercial exercise.
The Human-caused Global Warming/Climate Change narrative is definitely a scam. There are people who have deliberately distorted the global temperature profile making it appear to be getting hotter and hotter for decade after decade and today is the hottest temperture in human history.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
The real temperature profile of the Earth shows that it was just as warm in the Early Twentieth Century as it is today. This is shown in all unmodified, regional surface temperature charts from around the world. This means that CO2 is a minor player in the Earth’s atmosphere since there is more CO2 now than in the past, yet it is no warmer now than then.
Unfortunately, the Elites of the world have discovered they can make a lot of money and gain a lot of power by promoting the Global Warming scam, and so they do, even though they could not prove the basic premis if their lives depended on it. It makes no difference to them, they are only interested in the money and the power.
Back in the 1970’s, the climate scientists were sincere. I can’t say that for all climate scientists today, although I don’t want to leave the impression that there are not some climate scientists who know their stuff, because there are, but none of them are on the alarmist side. 🙂
As soon as this hypocrite little clown boy moves into a 600 sf apartment stacked on top of 3000 like units. – And while you are at it moron, make sure encourage the Obamas to sell their ocean front mansion and Bernie Sanders sell one of this tree homes.
Egypt H5N8 HPAI outbreak, UK ‘locks down’ domestic and captive birds.
To a hammerhead, all is nail. Or a One Trick Pony tyrant.
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.
In the news this morning, the CV19 virus in the UK has mutated into a new strain and Boris the Badenough has reinstituted his lockdown.
Also, two women who have no history of allergies had very bad allergic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine for CV19.
Where’s Wally at now because apparently his EVs haven’t grown exponentially like bacteria-
How Soon Will Electric Vehicles Kill The Gasoline Car? (forbes.com)
This writer is a mentally ill mad delusional man and he is the one who needs to be locked down/locked out away in the mental institution without access to the Internet!
We have traded liberty for the illusion of safety, the corruption of free stuff and the myth of non nuclear green energy. Green theocracy has become the latest means to advance totalitarian statism and the unspoken reality that engineered poverty is the means that justify their ends – all to the incessant sound tract of a complicit media, academia and plethora of exuberant corporate rent seekers.
“… by finally ending fossil fuels subsidies.”
The author should check out just how much of the “pump price” for automobile fuel goes to the “government” – as a tax. Subsidies? Depletion, depreciation just mean that the corporate tax is slightly lower, it’s not as if general tax-payers monies are being given to the producers.