Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Guardian, despite “unease among some unions” about destroyed jobs, Biden’s transformative first week will set the course for America’s future. But nobody has a coherent explanation for how Biden will make it all work.
Dizzying pace of Biden’s climate action sounds death knell for era of denialism
Oliver Milman @olliemilman
Sat 30 Jan 2021 18.30 AEDT…
The vision laid out in the actions signed by Biden on Wednesday, however, was transformative. A pathway for oil and gas drilling to be banned from public lands. A third of America’s land and ocean protected. The government ditching the combustion engine from its entire vehicle fleet, offering up a future where battery-powered trucks deliver America’s mail and electric tanks are operated by the US military.Biden signals radical shift from Trump era with executive orders on climate change
Biden may eschew the politically contentious framing of the Green New Deal but there was even an echo of the original New Deal with his plan for a civilian climate corps to restore public lands and waterways. “The whole approach is classic Biden; working-class values, putting people to work,” said Tim Profeta, an environmental policy expert at Duke University.
…
“It truly is a new day for climate action,” said Carol Browner, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. “President Joe Biden is taking unprecedented actions and sending an unmistakable message to the world that the United States is back and serious about tackling the climate crisis.”
Biden is yanking every possible governmental lever, it seems, to lower emissions but is also cognizant of attacks from Republicans, and unease among some unions, that ditching projects such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline will kill jobs. Battle lines have already formed – Republicans are trying to prevent any halt to drilling, with Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, vowing to “protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington DC”.
…
There will probably be bipartisan agreement in certain areas, such as tax breaks for wind and solar and upgrades to ageing infrastructure that is being increasingly battered by floods, storms and wildfires. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, is confident some climate spending can sneak into overall budget bills. Biden could do more unilaterally if he declared a state of emergency over climate, Schumer has suggested. “Trump used this emergency for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one,” the New York senator said last week.
…
The Trump years may well have been the death rattle of influential denialism. The American public’s concern over the climate crisis is at record levels, with even a majority of Republican voters supporting government intervention in the wake of a year of unprecedented wildfires and hurricanes that cost hundreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars. The question is now whether the US is able to change quickly enough to avert further disaster, rather than if it will change at all.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/30/joe-biden-climate-change-action
So far Biden’s plan appears to be to kill the fossil fuel industry, which generates massive tax revenues without government help, and replace it with a renewable industry whose representatives always have their hands out for government cash.
What is the plan when Biden burns through the two trillion dollars stimulus, and renewable energy corporatists still want more money? Does anyone seriously believe two trillion will be enough to pump prime the renewable economy? After all, the Obama one trillion dollar green stimulus disappeared without trace, other than a scary increase in the USA’s national debt. Why would Biden’s two trillion dollar stimulus be any different?
One inescapable fact is green energy costs more than fossil fuel. Renewables will always be expensive – the materials input to build and maintain a renewable installation is orders of magnitude greater than an equivalent fossil fuel installation. Another way to look at it, if renewables didn’t cost more, proponents wouldn’t have to keep demanding government handouts.
Somehow that additional cost will have to be borne by ordinary Americans, either through higher taxes, higher costs, a weaker economy, or passing the debt on to the grandkids, through increased government borrowing.
When I say Biden has no plan to make it all work, its the money I’m talking about. Even the USA cannot borrow money indefinitely, to fund the Democrat’s bright green impossibilities – especially after they crash government revenues by wrecking tax paying fossil fuel industries.
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I would guess the banishing of the ICE vehicle from the Federal fleet of cars to be the early point where the wheels come off this fantasy. Ought to be a total mess — cars that “No Va” when its cold, no heaters, no AC, inadequate charging capacity; chargers shut off when the grid begins to creak, etc.
I think this fantasy will crash well before any meaningful number of BEVs reach service.
I would love to see how long a heavy bulletproof President’s car lasts running on batteries.
The Beast will be trailed by diesel generators for recharging.
Abrams tanks will have huge arrays of solar panels on their turrets which will be programmed to follow the sun’s rays and big windmills on the engine decks which will be the new incantations of “multi-fuel” engines.
I feel sorry for the troops that have to set up solar panels, or wind turbines, to charge the electric tank during combat.
Solar panels would be a prime target for a couple of mortars.
Hard to envisage how wind turbines would be erected and function in a war zone !
They’ll still use fossil fuel powered generators to charge the batteries …but they’ll feel so much more warm and fuzzy inside.
Not only that, those nasty bombs, mortars, and cartridges all produce CO2. They’ll have to be replaced with arrows and slingshots. GPS guided sandbags, anyone?
but they already set up solar panels to power bases in conflict areas…
Do you really believe the nonsense you post?
Actually they don’t. But who cares, you have a paycheck to justify.
They don’t power *bases* with solar power. They might power ancillary functions or lower power combat equipment (squad level comms, charging cell phones, etc).
Powering a minimally energized temporary base (where most soldiers live in tent like structures) is vastly different than trying to power high tech armored military vehicles in a similar fashion. Battles would be fought with hour long intensive bursts followed by 20 hours of silence while your tank is recharging.
I foresee a UN arms agreement “treaty” to manage combatants’ needs to recharge their armaments. Some type of temporal “charging” truce – say noon to three after skirmishes and a full sunny and/or windy day for major engagements. Of course all combat operations would be required to cease during wind lulls and cloud cover. and those time restraints would have to calculated for solar or wind “down” time. To meet popular democrat “equity” requirements there would need to be some compensation when one side of a conflict gets more wind and sun than their opponent. Solar panels and wind generators would have to be considered as non-combat targets like hospitals or the wars would end too quickly.
Oh, bother
I would not be surprised if this were not the first “clarification”. (Oops, I really didn’t mean what you thought I said).
If the US were to proceed, imagine the cost to first develop the fighting vehicles and to design a mobile grid to service them, and then the cost to replace serviceable war machinery!
Actually, I think military vehicles would use battery packs, rather than charge in the field. Fuel tankers are already following the troops. Just start carrying battery packs. Think of a cordless drill, on a larger scale. I think the M1 Abrams already has a quick change set-up for the gas turbine engine. Can anybody confirm this?
You’ve still got to keep the packs charged. For them to be useful they’ve got to be close to where the tanks are or they are useless. The tanks can’t just pull off the line and move away from their mission to meet a “pack truck” somewhere.
Engines aren’t changed while on the front line!
CAM_S has a point here. The Abrams tank is a real fuel hog. The turbine is great for performance, but it sucks fuel faster than a jet fighter. An F-16 can do a 750mile round trip mission on 7000lbs.of fuel. The Abrams can do something a bit over 500 miles round trip
The readily available specs are rather thin for either, though.
So the fuel bowsers have to follow behind at a carefully calculated distance. They have to be able to join up with the tanks for a quick refueling without getting targeted and then bug back to safety for their own refill.
I can just picture postal vehicles sitting on the sides of roads and streets waiting to be towed by ICE powered tow trucks….so really, how does one go about bringing some “juice” to a fully electric vehicle that has run out of charge? And we know this will happen – we all know how company vehicles are treated by workers. You run out of gas or diesel, someone can bring you a couple of gallons. You run out of battery power, guess either you tow to a charging station or ironically, bring an ICE powered truck with an ICE generator! And how long does the generator truck have to hang around in order to bring the battery up to enough charge to enable the vehicle to get to the nearest charging station? Or perhaps just easier to hook it up and tow it….either way it will be our tax dollars at waste.
Postal vehicles are ideal for EVs: they run a fixed route… doesn’t take much to calculate the daily charge and power up beforehand, does it?
And do you pay the driver while they wait for an opportunity to charge their vehicle? And what will they do on a day when there is fog? No wind, no sun? lived in SLC one year when we didn’t see the sun for 90 days. inversion, cloud cover, and no wind the entire time. With temps below freezing.
In the UK milk used to be delivered to one’s doorstep by electric vehicles (milk floats). That’s the only real use of EV’s.
They work pretty well on the Golf Course too
A parcel service never run a fixed route…..
They run a fixed route of acceleration and then stopping. Not the most efficient way to drive a vehicle. But, of course, with electric vehicles going from a dead stop to about 15 or 20 miles an hour is very efficient. And the regenerative braking will probably put back more energy into the batteries than the acceleration uses. So the postal carriers can then take their vehicles home and use the surplus energy to power their homes.
Perpetual motion has been achieved?????
Anywho, stop and go driving is precisely where regenerative breaking performs worst.
The slower the vehicle is going, the less power you get from regenerative breaks, and the more you have to rely on mechanical breaks.
Spot on! The birth of the perpetual motion machine!!!
One common theme I’ve noticed from the greens is a complete lack of understanding of the laws of thermodynamics. They really DO believe you can get more energy out of a system than you put in.
Conservation of Energy would say otherwise.
You can rely on the regenerative breaking if you don’t mind coasting slower and slower for several hundred feet, hopefully down hill in order to get max charge.
Actually it does take a lot to calculate the daily charge.
You have to account for the weight the vehicle is carrying that day.
You have to account for differing traffic conditions.
You have to account for whether it is raining or not.
You have to account for temperature, both hot and cold affect battery capacity, as well as accounting for whether the heat or AC have to be run.
You have to account for the driving habits of different drivers.
You have to account for the exact number of stops the vehicle will have to make each day.
Just run some computer models, that will give you accurate data, right?
What happens when you miscalculate? Have you ever lived in the real world or just your parents basement?
Maybe in a city but not for rural deliveries.
Wow, I’m a sceptic about the universal applicability of EVs (at the current level of technology), but the IC zealots around here seem desperate to “prove” that they can’t work in any situation.
If a mail collection truck has a daily route that’s 50 miles, then obviously if it has a range of 100 miles it’ll just be charged up over night, and still have plenty of capacity to spare.
Listen, dinosaurs, EVs may not be suitable for your lifestyle now, but they’re already perfect for most city and suburban dwellers, and in another 10 – 20 years you’ll all be driving them, because the decline in IC vehicles will mean you’d have to travel miles to get access to a gas station.
What’s the 100 mile range based on? 70F weather or 20F weather? Makes a big difference in range. Heaters pull the charge out of a battery pretty fast. Do you have two vehicles in the fleet for every route? One for summer and one for winter? Where’s the efficiency? And if you buy just one sized for winter then where is the efficiency during the summer?
They really are unusable for either urban or suburban users that take long trips. That requires having two cars – one an ICE and one an EV. I don’t know about you but I can’t afford to have two cars – one to drive around town and one to take on a trip to Dallas or Houston.
This isn’t being desperate about anything. It’s engineers questioning the assumptions being made when claiming EV’s are the answer to all our needs.
Cuba still has a plethora of cars from the 50’s and 60’s. Why can’t Americans be as adaptable?
An electric EV for mail delivery is probably usable. In the city they usually run no more than 30mph ever. Any semi-rural route will be much more demanding and cost a lot more. A gas-powered delivery is about the only way to do rural routes unless the routes are short. Plan on lots of back to office to fill up with mail and electrons.
I hope you read my post about hybrid vehicles. They are light years ahead of electric vehicles once your trip gets over maybe 100 miles. They halve the fuel use for typical gas cars, have unlimited range. They DON’T require any substantial changes in long distance travel. Nobody counts the costs that would be required to use individual electric cars for random travel anywhere outside a city. Government subsidies can only go so far.
Demonstratint that EV’s aren’t fit for the tasks that they are being touted for, really does get the EV lovers panties in a knot.
How much are tax payers on the hook for in order to build millions of charging stations?
Where is the energy for charging them up over night going to come from?
No problem lee, the mail will be delivered by gas-powered unicorns, like the header shows. Since unicorns are special there is not any methane involved in the gas. Good to go!
Unicorns now have optional catalytic converters for their “exhaust pipes”.
“so really, how does one go about bringing some “juice” to a fully electric vehicle that has run out of charge?”
Lucid Motors will be coming out with BEVs that have the ability to charge other vehicles from their own batteries (V2B).
And that helps how when you are 30 miles out on a rural route and have mail to deliver?
How does help when you are stuck in snow with no heater?
How long does the recharge take? How big is the battery on the vehicle doing the charging.
Remember, after charging, it has to have enough energy left to get itself back to base.
Or it brings an ICE generator with it to do the charging – a hybrid EV in other words!
I notice the notably non tropical city of Oslo has one of the world’s highest % of EVs – and none of the issues you mention
Norway is probably the wealthiest country in the world with a sovereign wealth fund accumulated thanks to – wait for it – North Sea Oil. It is, I believe, the single largest investor in European Stock Markets.
Norway can afford to invest in expensive infrastructure in a way that almost no other country on the planet can.
It also has a population of only 55M or so.
Please stop bleating.
Actually you missed the decimal point it is 5 and a half million people live in Norway
The key word in replying to griff about EV adoption in Norway is SUBSIDIES
And those subsidies come from the sale of its massive supplies of OIL. !!
They also have the terrain and snow/rainfall to go almost 100% HYDRO
Yes they live off the ‘Devil’s Excrement’ but they manage it well-
The devil’s excrement: how Norway warded off the oil curse (livemint.com)
But they’re not going to bite the hand that feeds them or the dills and Gretaheads like you impressed with their EV rollout to hide behind-
Norway Court Green Lights Arctic Oil – Life in Norway
Look at us everybody and how Green we are and Griff is tickled pink.
America is a huge country so we drive long distances. I bet the drivers in Oslo aren’t going far most days.
Yes. right, but not because of wind or / and solar, but water.
And there is an other infrastructure being old, car pre-heating in wintertimes….
Every car can be plugged everywhere.
Griff, that is a very stupid statement. Of course you can run an EV in a non-tropical location. You just need to generate electricity using fossil fuels or hydroelectric sources. How does that solve the “climate crisis”?
griff confused EV with solar driven EVs 😀
In griff’s world, if the papers don’t cover something, it didn’t happen.
EXACTLY what percentage? How do you judge if you don’t know the actual percentage.
The really sad part is that hybrid vehicles actually to reduce emissions of CO2, for what that’s worth, save fuel, and don’t require ridiculous amounts of funding for a huge number of all-electric cars. All to pay off “green jobs” to no effect.
We have never met, but could it be you have been hacking my mind.
Ha ha. Think again Guardian. we’re just getting started..
“The American public’s concern over the climate crisis is at record levels, with even a majority of Republican voters supporting government intervention…”
Well, when a reporter doesn’t get out to talk to actual American people at all, and when a reporter believes the drivel that flows out of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication while seeking out no other corroborating info, this is the natural result.
And when non-leftists are effectively silenced in mass and social media…
…. yes, they tried asking the public what they thought in Europe, turned out nobody gave a toss.
“Climate change was only mentioned by 2% of respondents in the UK (in the month before the EU referendum), by 3% of the respondents in Germany, and by 6% of the respondents in France. In Norway, climate change received more attention than in the other three countries with 10% stating climate change as the most important issue for their country and 11% stating pollution/environment. With these scores climate change was the 4th most mentioned issue in Norway and Pollution/Environment the 2nd most mentioned issue. “
The European Perceptions of Climate Change Project (EPCC) 2016/17
I doubt anything has changed.
Except that many Norwegians that I know wouldn’t mind a little global warming.
Just another Flatulential Grauniad article
hopefully the “whinging poms” at the guardian will all go to the wall first.
They never stop (like all good socialists) demanding cash handouts for their shitty little bit of toilet paper.
It’s on every single article you might ever download from their web site… “the reminder” about how “journos have to be paid for” for “quality” journalism. LOL!
The only thing they do relatively competently at the guardy is obituaries.
Perhaps writing their own will hit the headlines ASAP?
The Graun only just outsells The Daily Record, a downmarket Scottish tabloid on sale exclusively North of The Border. Without the daily sales to the BBC, the situation would be inversed.
“The question is now whether the US is able to change quickly enough to avert further disaster, rather than if it will change at all”
This sentence epitomizes the absurdity of the climate alarmist beliefs. All of the increase in emissions has been coming from the developing world for the past 40 years and the USA has already been steadily decreasing emissions for 20 years due to the gas revolution. All this policy does is to fast track the exodus of US industry to a developing country that will have more reliance of higher emissions energy, driving up emissions faster.
It also lies about increasing natural weather disasters.
Yes, “further disaster,” LMAO. Like there has been any “disaster.” Weather, not climate, first of all, and WE are not the cause of any “climate change” you can measure in any event.
ESPECIALLY not Biden and his minders.
Coherent thought, is a thing of his past. (if ever)
Biden doesn’t have “Minders”, he does have “ers” though
Sock puppets don’t really have any power.
Prime example : Biden.
But he will take the blame …..
Usual virtual signalling LeftyBollocks™. Nothing will change until we get a three day blackout somewhere in the world. And then Questions Will Be Asked.
And after a huge propaganda war, it will become apparent to hoi polloi that in fact we need nuclear power after all.
“The American public’s concern over the climate crisis is at record levels“
Like the old Soviet tell Moscow what they want to hear and carry on with business as usual-
Average New Vehicle Sales Price Tops $40,000 For First Time Ever (musclecarsandtrucks.com)
Yes, “record levels” probably means 3% as opposed to only 2%, and they get that far only by carefully selecting the crowd to “poll” and by inserting their desired response into the choices given for answers.
Ask people a “fill in” question where they answer without pre-canned responses, and the number who include “climate change” on any list of “concerns” will be so small it is of no consequence.
Biden’s handlers installed a national very pro-union labor relations guy – so despite 11k O&G jobs vaporizing, the thought is this new guy is going to make nice with lots of the other unions getting them much sweeter ‘positions’ to negotiate from…so the thinking goes
On the union side, they know what they are doing. Look for “card check” organizing, end runs around the prohibition of mandatory dues from the non union members, etc. The union leaders will make out like bandits.
“…It truly is a new day for climate action,” said Carol Browner, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. “President Joe Biden is taking unprecedented actions and sending an unmistakable message to the world that the United States is back and serious about tackling the climate crisis.”…”
Ms. Browner should be one to talk. She was one of the signatories of a letter sent to Facebook to silence skeptics on that social media site. Such actions demonstrate (at least to me) that deep down they know that there are scientific problems with the CAGW narrative. Browner and her ilk need to keep it all hush-hush if this whole narrative is to be kept from collapsing on the foundation of bad science on which it is built.
The Guardian’s editorial staff probably know that as well. That is why they keep posting stories like this. The longer this goes on, the more uneasy they get.
Facebook Must Stop the Spread of Climate Misinformation | Climate Power 2020
Browner is a Clintonista, through-and-through, she will hoe the party line.
Clintonista and hoe. Need mind bleach, need mind bleach.
That’s what I’ve believed all along — the Green Raw Deal is impossible. There simply are not enough resources to even come close to fulfilling any of its tasks. All the money in the printing room cannot hire non-existent workers, dig up and process non-existent ores, or produce non-existent inventions. All current technology is not up to the task, and some of them are physical impossibilities no matter what politicians demand.
It’s not to say trying to implement any part of the Green Raw Deal won’t do a lot of damage. But that too is self-limiting. All of its elements are so far removed from reality that even the first baby steps will do more damage to the economy than voters will accept. The 2022 elections will be an eye opener to the Green Raw Dealers, although they will be as blind as always.
When criminals get away with a crime, rarely do they stop. Usually, they keep committing crime, while getting bolder and bolder. This cycle repeats until the criminal goes too far and gets caught. The ones with the most power find a way to prevent themselves from being caught.
Fraud was committed in the last election, and that was a crime. Because of the corrupt media and corrupt courts, they got away with it. Most of the media literally worship the democrats. They want their gods to be in charge, so they will cover-up any corruption. The courts have shown to be equally as corrupt. Since the criminals know they can get by with fraud, they will repeat in 2022, but more brazen. The democrats and their worshipers will make sure they keep winning and make sure the masses do not know about the corruption. There will be no eye-opening because the criminals know they can by with election fraud.
I don’t believe there was widespread fraud. The election results can be explained by the same random fluctuations that gave Trump his 2016 squeaker of a win; he won by luck then, and lost by luck in 2020.
If there had been widespread fraud, it would have been a much more consistent state-by-state win for Biden, and it would have carried through to the House (where Dems lost seats) and the Senate (where Dems won fewer seats that predicted).
Top it off with what ludicrous “evidence” his lawyers showed in court.
First off, corruption only occurs where the situation on the ground permits. In those places where Democrats weren’t in complete control, it would be a lot harder to get away with the fraud.
As to ludicrous evidence, there was no evidence presented in court because no case got to that point.
“As to ludicrous evidence, there was no evidence presented in court because no case got to that point.”
….. because there was no case. There finished it for you.
And exactly how would they know, since they refused to consider the evidence without looking at it?!
Lawyers present evidence in public all the time. Except these times, where nothing but accusations was ever presented.
Trump won in 2016 by a small chance spread of key votes, and lost in 2020 by the same. Crying foul without showing evidence is like sportsball complaints about umpires and referees after an 18-19 loss.
How do you learn about the “public evidence”? Through the media, perhaps? Think about it!
As usual, Simon races ahead of the data to enforce the beliefs he’s paid to push.
If you look at the reasons given by the courts, you would find that your belief are not in line with what actually happened.
But then, if you cared about evidence, you would have to abandon pretty much everything you believe.
“When I say Biden has no plan to make it all work, its the money I’m talking about.”
If he had the unlimited money he pretends to he could not “make it work” if he thinks it is about controlling the weather.
“Influential climate denialism” (?) doesn’t exist. The narrative is totally controlled by the MSM and their handlers. It won’t be a matter of proving anyone/thing wrong. It will be a matter of who controls what the people are told.
I agree, but it will be very difficult to hide high unemployment, falling wages, rising living costs (especially for energy); an overall significant fall in living standards for the average person.
The coming rise in gasoline prices might be the first setback. I wonder if they will repeat the price control fiasco of Nixon? Increases for electricity and natural gas might not provide the same shock.
It will when ‘journalists’ discover they can make a buck off of reporting it.
Why do we never see mention of the percentage of human CO2 contribution into the atmosphere? It is only about 1/500th of one percent.
It’s not just a dollar issue, it’s an energy impossibility.
Simple arithmetic demonstrates windmills are a loser.
5 mW wind turbine, avg output 1/3 nameplate, 20 yr life, electricity @ur momisugly wholesale 3 cents per kwh https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34552 produces $8.8E6.
Installed cost @ur momisugly $1.61E6/mW = $8.05E6. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/08/f54/2017_wind_technologies_market_report_8.15.18.v2.pdf
Operation & maintenance @ur momisugly $210,000/yr = $4.2E6 http://www.newenergyupdate.com/wind-energy-update/us-wind-om-costs-estimated-48000mw-falling-costs-create-new-industrial-uses-iea
Total life cycle cost = $12.2E6
Add the cost of energy storage facility and energy availability loss during storage/retrieval, or initial and maintenance cost of standby CCGT for low wind periods.
Solar voltaic and solar thermal are even worse with special concern for disposal and/or recycling at end-of-life (about 15 yr for PV).
Combined cycle gas turbine $614/kw ($0.6E6/mW) installed cost. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31912
The dollar relation is a proxy for energy relation (the earth does not charge). Bottom line, the energy consumed to design, manufacture, install, maintain and administer renewables exceeds the energy they produce in their lifetime.
Without the energy provided by other sources renewables could not exist.
“But what about the unicorns??!??”
Leftists double down on BS. Normal people up the resistance by factor of 10.
The National Socialists in Germany set out on a rather similar Radical Course in the 1930’s and that did not end well a decade later on.
This just gets more and more surreal.
Then we’ll be even worse off. Although, Harris will probably be such a disaster that a Republican might actually have a chance at the presidency in 2024.
We have had a young left wing woman running our government in Finland for a while already and doing a horrible job at that. Still she’s very popular because she is young and female. For people who don’t pay attention to details, it’s way easier for people to see Biden as incompetent than Harris.
If they are canny enough, they may ramp up the stupidity and incompetence under Biden so that Harris looks relatively benign by comparison.
This story in The Guardian epitomizes what political parties have cottoned onto over the past few decades –
they work out what ideologies the media outlets’ readers/viewers/listeners subscribe to, and then formulate policies that they know the media outlets will unquestioningly promote.
It just becomes a circle-jerk, and good policy and rationality don’t get a look in any more.
This is just a western democracies disease though – China, India & Russia haven’t caught it.
I’m concerned: The Democratic Party just might break us with their policy.
And they are going for broke.
“I believe in science.”
No, it is a process or methodology, starting with reasonable skepticism to proposed hypothesis, but having an open mind to evidence.
Most people who say, “I believe in science,” have no concept of the scientific method.
A response to the charge of “denialism” is that science is always open to reasonable skepticism, and if their idea isn’t open to that debate, it isn’t science, it’s dogma.
.
Correct, it is a religion.
That’s correct. And the name of that religion is “scientism”. Many people confuse “I believe in science” with actual science.
Most people who say, “I believe in science,” have no concept of the scientific method.
Even worse is “I believe the science”
The best word I’ve seen to describe that is scientism.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/22/earth-day-should-celebrate-engines-and-electricity/#comment-2335996
Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
Most politicians are too uneducated to even opine on energy, let alone set energy policy.
Witness the energy idiocy of recent politicians in Western Europe, Britain, Canada, the USA, and Australia. These imbeciles have squandered tens of trillions of dollars of scarce global resources on costly, intermittent green energy schemes that are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, all to save use from imaginary catastrophic global warming – all in a (probably) cooling world.
Fully 85% of global primary energy is still generated from fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal. The remainder is largely generated from nuclear and hydro. Hardly any useful energy is generated from green sources, despite tens of trillions in wasted subsidies – enough money to buy too many corrupt politicians, civil servants and academics.
Anti fossil fuels, anti pipelines, anti fracking, anti oilsands, pro green energy, etc. etc. – these scams are all promoted by the same people, all deliberately harming our economies while wrapping themselves in the cloak of phony environmentalism.
These people are not pro-environment – many of their programs such as clear-cutting of tropical rainforests to grow biofuels, draining the Ogallala aquifer to grow corn for fuel ethanol, clear-cutting eastern US forests to provide wood pellets for British power plants, erecting huge wind power towers to slice up birds and bats, etc are ALL anti-environmental.
Their successful efforts to delay and ban fracking of petroleum-rich shales have caused great harm in Britain, continental Europe , and have hampered growth in Canada and the USA. Their successful efforts to shut-in the oilsands through anti-pipeline lies have cost Canada tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs.
By driving up the cost of energy and causing instability in electrical grids they have increased winter mortality and cost lives. Even greater loss of life has been caused in developing countries, where the installation of reliable fossil-fueled energy has been displaced by insistence on intermittent, near-worthless wind and solar power schemes.
Perhaps the greatest cost and loss-of-life has been due to the gross misallocation of global resources, where obvious first priorities such as clean water and sanitation systems, the fight against malaria, and the fight against world hunger have been displaced due to excessive spending on green energy follies.
So, would you consider those actions to be sabotage perpetrated by traitors?
“clear-cutting eastern US forests to provide wood pellets for British power plants”
FALSE!
The forests are managed for all sorts of wood products. Only the wood that has no other use goes to pellets. The better wood goes to- sawlogs for construction and furniture lumber, then wood for pulp, what’s left might go to pellets. STOP THE LIE that forests are being clear-cut for pellets. That’s as crazy as the climate alarmists. Also, a pellet burning power plant provides base load power AND wood is a RENEWABLE resource. I think I’ve seen you pitch this lie before on this site. Grow up and do your homework. Also, most forestry in the American southeast is clear-cutting- that’s how they do it. If you don’t like it, go down there and talk to them and they’ll explain it to you. Then they replant the forests.
Wood burns much quicker than it grows.
That’s utterly irrelevant. For every cubic foot of wood burning, many acres are not being cut that year and growing more wood (which is why wood use and burning wood is sustainable). And, to those who hate to see trees cut- I hope you don’t live in a wood home with wood furniture and paper products. Don’t dare you toilet paper.
And, wood gets turned into homes, furniture and paper a lot faster than it grows, but guess what, there’s lots of wood out there. Must be a miracle. No, it’s common sense- while some trees are being harvested, others on far more acres are not.
That relationship holds only as long as your primary energy source is fossil fuels. Stop fossil fuel usage, and your “sustainable” wood burning WILL consume available wood far faster than it grows, i.e. it will be unsustainable.
You are partly right and partly wrong. As for land that would produce commercial pellets or chips for a biomass power plant- that land in most cases is forest land managed for the long term- and that forest will be sustainable. If all fossil fuels were ended- certainly many people with smaller, non commercial woodlots, would use and abuse them- cutting in an unsustainable manner. But, I certainly am not calling for the end of fossil fuels- I detest wind and solar energy. Oh, a little here and there isn’t so bad- but not the idea that we can run the world with them. What’s wrong is when biomass energy is thought to be similar to wind and solar. It’s not for many reasons. For one, it is a carbon based fuel- so it’s similar to fossil fuels in that regard. It can be renewable and sustainable. Because it results in carbon emissions- the climatistas hate with a passion- just like the way they hate fossil fuels. This is where Michael Moore got it wrong- mixing biomass in with wind and solar. Furthermore, biomass allows for superior forestry work because many forests that are being managed for the long term are loaded with trees that should be removed to grow better trees but there often is no market for them other than biomass. Unfortunately, too many people who discuss biomass have no idea what they’re talking about since they don’t bother to discuss the subject with the experts, professional foresters.
According to Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly, replacing all the United Kingdom’s 32 million light duty vehicles with next-generation EVs would require huge quantities of materials to manufacture the EV batteries: [i]
One can easily see that the world may not have enough minerals and metals for the EV batteries to support the EV growth projections when you consider that today:
[i] Kelly, Michael, Until we get a proper roadmap, Net Zero is a goal without a plan, June 8, 2020, https://capx.co/until-we-get-a-proper-roadmap-net-zero-is-a-goal-without-a-plan/
[ii] Henk Car Sales Statistics, January 16, 2020, https://www.best-selling-cars.com/international/2019-full-year-international-worldwide-car-sales/
[iii] Green Car Reports, https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093560_1-2-billion-vehicles-on-worlds-roads-now-2-billion-by-2035-report
Now map this onto America, will the USA go to war against the UK to fight for copper and cobalt?
Why? Do we in the UK have large deposits of copper and cobalt? Chile appears to have the world’s biggest reserves of copper and Congo has the cobalt. Think you might be looking in entirely the wrong places mate.
You missed the point: if there isn’t enough copper etc. worldwide for the UK to GoGreen, what does this mean for all other countries?
Exactly – this is empty virtue signalling. It won’t go anywhere and the same old useless idiot’s will keep bickering until each of these failed ideas grinds to a halt in a cloud of wasted money. At which point they’ll blame something else and try another idiotic idea doomed to failure. Your idea that it will be judged serious enough to fight over scarce resources is missing the point – this will go nowhere.
Hoping that the cold water of reality will sink in before civilization sinks into a new dark age.
Japan’s entry into WWII was primarily so that it could secure the resources it needed, but didn’t have.
And Germany’s assault on Russia was to secure a “breadbasket”. Neither of these worked out very well.
‘… Senate where climate denialism is still rife, as demonstrated on Tuesday by the Republican senator Rand Paul promoting a baseless theory that global heating is caused by the Earth’s tilt rather than human activity …” (at link).
In a garbled comment Paul referred to Milankovitch cycles in an interview (but did not exclude some human influence) highlighting the fact that politicians ought not speculate about attribution, they should ‘stick to their knitting’.
It’s tactically and strategically counterproductive.
They should attack the insane mitigation measures on economic and social bases, not scientific.
doesn’t the Guardian have a point? If climate skepticism didn’t make progress with US business and industry under a Trump administration, pushing at an open door… if coal didn’t come back or even hold its own… well, how is it going to make progress now?
Coal is growing in China, Asia and Africa, because it is a cheap form of energy. The only impediment in the USA is the threat of a hostile regulatory environment whenever the Dems win, and given the rabid rhetoric and job destroying Biden executive orders that is quite a threat.
There is no chance renewables will deliver freedom from fossil fuel. The only question is how much the USA will suffer before Biden voters wake up to this reality.
You’re trying to reason with a retarded eight years old
With Biden banning fracking, you can expect coal to start making a come back.
“If climate skepticism didn’t make progress with US business and industry under a Trump administration, pushing at an open door”
The cancel culture was alive and well. What business would want a bunch of morons screaming at them, figuratively and literally, because they weren’t sufficiently “woke”?
Wishful thinking on your part, Griffiepoo.
“The death knell for climate denialism”, lol! Always use the rule of opposites when reading fanatical papers like the Guardian (I’m thinking how they gushed over Macron’s election). So, Biden’s “working class” approach in fact is destroying profitable highly paid blue collar jobs. Going forward, the pain and destruction to befall Americans over this renewables fantasy will be like an adrenalin shot for “denialism”, rather than its death knell.
I have asked the resident AGW trolls MANY times
What do we “deny” that they have solid empirical scientific proof for?
Never once have I had a coherent answer. !
When the facts are put forward, it is OBVIOUS that it is THEM that are the climate deniers.
@ur momisugly Vincent
“Going forward”
is purported to mean, “In the future” or “somewhere down the road” when in fact it is an attempt to dodge the use of these words, which generally indicates “I don’t know”.
The death knell of climate activism is in sight. It happens when countries realise that they have to rely on fossil fuel and/or nuclear, not renewables, to provide electricity to industry and people, including themselves.
It is under way in germany right now.
Geoff S
its easier to take out a nice big row of turbines if/when SHFT aggression wise too,ditto a solar farm.
and wit XIden running the show its looking very likely to happen
(thanks to the otherWUWT commenter who used that moniker it fits SO well)
Even if you can’t hit the wind turbines hard enough to bring them down, if you can hit one of the blades hard enough to take a chunk out of it, you can unbalance the blades to the point where the turbine can’t be used.
You don’t have to completely destroy solar panels, sometimes just cracking them is enough to drop their power output substantially. Launch a fragmentation grenade so that it does off some 50 ft above the panel array should be enough to damage 100 or so panels.
Forget the turbines and panels themselves. If you take down the transmission lines they become useless. A 30.06 bullet to an insulator on a HV transmission line can do a lot of damage.
I think it was the death rattle of climate stupidity!
Nothing bad happened when Trump dropped the Paris Climate Accord, except a bunch of bureaucrats didn’t get their bonuses!