Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Bjørn Lomborg can trigger screaming climate hysteria, just by offering to talk to people. And he is not even a climate skeptic.
When climate alarmism meets cancel culture
BJORN LOMBORG Follow @bjornlomborg
12:00AM MARCH 24, 2021Across the world, politicians are now promising climate policies costing tens of trillions of dollars – money we don’t have and resources that are desperately needed elsewhere.
Yet, climate campaigners tell us, if we don’t spend everything on climate now, nothing else matters, because climate change threatens our very civilisation. As US President Joe Biden says: climate change is “an existential threat”.
Yes, climate change is a real problem. However, it is typically vastly exaggerated, and the resulting alarmism is exploited to justify the wasteful spending of trillions.
Pointing this out will get you cancelled. I should know, because I have personally been on the receiving end of this climate alarmism enforcement for years. Last week, I was scheduled to give a public lecture at Duke University in the US when a group of climate-politicised professors – some who write for the UN Climate Panel – publicly asked Duke to cancel my appearance.
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Certainly, the professors at Duke didn’t want anyone to hear dissenting facts.
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Read more: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/weathering-climate-change-and-cancel-culture/news-story/0a505c6547c194ed6314457f3607fe6d
I once watched a dramatisation of the life of Galileo.
One of the most shocking scenes in the movie was when Galileo asked the Pope and his learned advisors to view the moons of Jupiter with their own eyes through his telescope, and they refused.
Obviously we have no way of knowing how historically accurate the dramatisation was, but the movie director clearly wanted to demonstrate the vast gulf between the intellectually repressed 16th and 17th centuries and our enlightened age, by presenting a shocking scene of learned people refusing to examine evidence placed right before their eyes, for fear of having to admit they were wrong.
I mean, nothing like that could happen today right?
h/t Izaak – I didn’t make it clear Bjorn ended up giving his lecture at Duke – my criticism was about the attempt to cancel him. Apologies for my oversight. Izaak also provided a link to the lecture.
One would think that after all these years, Mr. Lomborg would stop being content with being only half-right.
I’d agree, but his foundation-from-birth is leftist — almost impossible to crack that other than a near-death experience or emergency deprogramming.
Here is a CAPEX estimate of implementing 50% RE and 100% RE.
See URL
WORLD AND US PRIMARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND CAPITAL COST
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/world-total-energy-consumption
World energy consumption is projected to increase to 736 quads in 2040 from 575 quads in 2015, an increase of 28%, according to the latest from the US Energy Information Administration, EIA.
See URL and click on PPT to access data, click on to page 4 of PowerPoint
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/
Most of this growth is expected to come from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, and especially from countries where demand is driven by strong economic growth, particularly in Asia.
Non-OECD Asia, which includes China and India, accounted for more than 60% of the world’s total increase in energy consumption from 2015 through 2040.
PARIS AGREEMENTS
China, India, and other developing Asian countries, and Africa, and Middle and South America need to use low-cost energy, such as coal, to be competitive.
They would not have signed up for “Paris”, if they had not been allowed to be more or less exempt from the Paris agreements
Obama agreed to commit the US to the Paris agreements, i.e., be subject to its financial and other obligations for decades.
However, he never submitted the commitment to the US Senate for ratification, as required by the US Constitution.
Trump rescinded the commitment. It became effective 3 years later, one day after the US presidential elections on November 3, 2020.
If the US had not left “Paris”, a UN Council likely would have determined a level of renewable energy, RE, spending, say $500 billion/y, for distributing to various poorer countries by UN bureaucrats.
The Council would have assessed OECD members, likely in proportion to their GDPs.
The US and Europe would have been assessed at 100 to 150 billion dollars/y each.
The non-OECD countries likely would continue to be more or less exempt from paying for the Paris agreements.
SUMMARY OF CAPITAL EXPENDITURES, CAPEX
The analysis includes two scenarios: 1) 50% RE by 2050, and 2) 100% RE by 2050.
The CAPEX values exclude a great many items related to transforming the world economy to a low-carbon mode. See next section.
50% RE by 2050
World CAPEX for RE were $2,652.2 billion for 2010-2019, 10 years
World CAPEX for RE were $282.2 billion in 2019.
World CAPEX for RE would be $24,781 billion for 2019 – 2050, 32 years; compound growth 5.76%/y
US CAPEX for RE were $494.5 billion for 2010 – 2019, 10 years.
US CAPEX for RE were $59 billion in 2019.
US CAPEX for RE would be $7,233 billion for 2019 – 2050, 32 years; compound growth 8.81%/y
100% RE by 2050
World CAPEX for RE were $2,652.2 billion for 2010-2019, 10 years
World CAPEX for RE were $282.2 billion in 2019.
World CAPEX for RE would be $60,987 billion for 2019 – 2050, 32 years; compound growth 10.08%/y
US CAPEX for RE were $494.5 billion for 2010 – 2019, 10 years.
US CAPEX for RE were $59 billion in 2019.
US CAPEX for RE would be $16,988 billion for 2019 – 2050, 32 years; compound growth 13.42%/y
Addition to above comment
THE BIGGER CAPEX PICTURE FOR THE WORLD AND THE US
World More-Inclusive CAPEX
The above CAPEX numbers relate to having 50% RE, or 100% RE, in the primary energy mix by 2050, which represents a very narrow area of “fighting climate change”. See Appendix for definitions of source, primary and upstream energy.
This report, prepared by two financial services organizations, estimates the world more-inclusive CAPEX at $100 trillion to $150 trillion, over the next 30 years, about $3 trillion to $5 trillion per year
https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/research-and-markets/funding-the-fight-against-global-warming/
US More-Inclusive CAPEX
The ratio of World CAPEX for RE / US CAPEX for RE = 16,988/60,987 = 0.279
A more-inclusive US CAPEX could be $27.9 trillion to $41.8 trillion
The US CAPEX could be less, because, at present, the world is adding a quad of RE at about $58.95 billion, compare to the US at about $102.78 billion.
It is unclear what accounts for the large difference.
Part of it may be due to differences of accounting methods among countries.
NOTE: The CAPEX numbers exclude costs for replacements of shorter-life systems, such as EVs, heat-pumps, batteries, wind-turbines, etc., during these 30 years. For comparison:
Hydro plants have long lives, about 100 years.
Nuclear plants about 60 years
Coal and gas-turbine plants about 40 years
Wind turbine systems about 20 years
Solar systems about 25 years
One of the coal-units were I worked was built in 1944 and lasted to 2016 & only forced out-of-service from EPA regs. There was another, even older operating coal-unit in Ohio that was also forced-out on the utility.
After the Mt Pinatubo cooling there was the massive spike of warming which was basis of the scare about exponential run away warming which they started promoting with Jones’ fraudulent WMO2000 graphic.
After both El Chicon and Mt P, there was about 18 mo of warming in the stratosphere followed by a persistent cooling. That cooling means more solar energy was making it into the lower climate system.
There is a good case that those two stratospheric erruptions were the CAUSE of the late 20th c. warming we are all supposed to be crapping ourselves over.
Here comes the next DOE waste, fraud, and abuse with concentrating solar….
U.S. pledges to slash solar energy costs by 60% in a decade (yahoo.com)
The Democrat Party still has plenty of corrupt minions who didn’t get in on the massive defrauding of the public in the Obama administration, after all.
Oh, he’s getting feeling in his bone alright. He’s doing it to the American people and doing IT hard!
He also has a very experienced at that sort thing, coach, standing behind him helping him.
“Across the world, politicians are now promising climate policies costing tens of trillions of dollars – money we don’t have and resources that are desperately needed elsewhere.”
Well,if spending trillions on climate crap will save just one polar bear, it will be worth it!