Totalitarian actions in the name of ‘climate change’ threaten wildlife, people and freedoms
Paul Driessen
Environmental activism was already nasty and lethal when I wrote Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death 18 years ago. It’s gotten steadily worse since then, especially with hysteria about the “looming manmade climate apocalypse” driving ever more extreme demands that we rid the world of fossil fuels and prohibit or roll back modern living standards.
The demands have reached previously unimaginable extremes – based primarily on GIGO computer models and wild assertions about planetary temperatures, weather, icecaps and vanishing wildlife. The claims have little basis in real-world evidence, but are presented as Gospel Truth by climate alarmists.
One group of extremists wants to make what it calls “ecocide” an “international crime” – then prosecute and imprison political leaders and corporate executives who have engaged in “mass ecological destruction” that these zealots assert has now reached a magnitude “similar” to Nazi genocide.
Others are agitating for a “Great Reset” – demanding that corporations reject their traditional roles and goals, and focus instead on “saving the planet” and advancing racial and gender “equity.” This unavoidably means companies must embrace “a certain degree of eco-dictatorship,” corporate-state tyranny and “top-down authoritarianism.” But in exchange they will reap huge profits by trying to replace reliable energy, while reducing middle and working class living standards, in the name of climate stability.
The radical left routinely employs eco-hysteria and Nazi analogies to deflect attention from the horrific disease and death tolls they have inflicted on Third World “people of color,” by denying them access to reliable energy, spatial insect repellants and modern farming technologies. Slinging these epithets at fossil fuel providers, users and defenders is as wanton, wicked and baseless as claims the Nazis made to justify exterminating Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, disabled people and other “undesirables.”
Meanwhile, in the real world, the actual threats to our planet, people, wildlife and freedoms come from the green zealots who demand we replace hydrocarbon energy with electricity generated by weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels, and backed up by half-ton Tesla-style battery modules.
This Green New Deal would reverse job creation, economic growth, revenue collection, and human health and welfare gains. It would also inflict ecological damage on scales unprecedented in history.
The Harris-Biden Administration wants 80% hydrocarbon-free electricity generation by 2030, 100% by 2035 and elimination of fossil fuels from all sectors of the U.S. economy by 2050. This would require replacing coal and natural gas for generating electricity; gasoline and diesel for powering vehicles; natural gas for smelting and manufacturing; and natural gas for heating, cooking and water heating.
Together, this would send the nation’s annual electricity requirement soaring from about 2.7 billion megawatt-hours (the fossil fuel portion of total U.S. electricity in 2018) to almost 7.5 billion MWh per year by 2050. Substantial additional generation would be required to constantly recharge backup batteries for windless, sunless days, to safeguard society against blackouts, cyberattacks and wholesale collapse.
Generating all that electricity without new nuclear and hydroelectric plants would require tens of thousands of 850-foot-tall offshore wind turbines, hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of somewhat smaller onshore turbines, and billions of photovoltaic solar panels. Backing up sufficient nationwide electricity for even one week of windless, sunless days would involve well over a billion battery modules. Connecting all this and our cities would require thousands of miles of new transmission lines.
The number are sky-high because wind and sun generate electricity only 25-50% of the year in the best locations (less than 33% on average nationwide), and the more “green” electricity we need, the more we must put turbines and panels in lower quality areas, where they generate power only 15-20% of the year. Just President Biden’s plan to install 30,000 megawatts of wind power off America’s coasts by 2030 would require 2,100 14-MW turbines. Even if they operated at full capacity 24/7, they would not meet peak summer electricity needs for New York State, much less coastal states or the entire USA.
Even if wind and solar facilities avoided the most highly sensitive areas, they would still disrupt or destroy scenic areas, croplands and wildlife habitats. Turbine blades would kill millions of birds and bats. Vibration noise from offshore turbines would disrupt whale and dolphin navigation and communication.
All these turbines, panels, batteries and power lines would require tens of billions of tons of non-renewable iron, copper, aluminum, cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements, plastics, limestone and other materials. That would necessitate mining, crushing, processing, refining and transporting tens of billions of tons of ores – from thousands of mines and quarries, using gigantic gasoline and diesel equipment – followed by smelting and manufacturing, all with fossil fuels. None of this is clean, green or sustainable.
These energy-intensive activities often employ hazardous chemicals and release toxic pollutants. They require enormous volumes of water, often in the world’s most water-deprived regions. They cause acid mine drainage, create mountains of waste rock, and often result in vast “lakes” of toxic chemicals.
Just that initial Biden offshore wind program would require millions of tons of materials, including 110,000 tons of copper. At an average of 0.44% copper in all types of copper ore deposits today, that means just those first 2,100 offshore turbines would require mining, crushing and processing 25 million tons of copper ore, after removing some 40 million tons of overlying rock to reach the ore bodies.
Add in materials for solar panels, onshore wind turbines, backup battery systems, subsea and onshore electrical lines, electric vehicles, electric heating systems and other technologies – and the “U.S. energy transformation” would require raw materials in excess of the entire world’s current and foreseeable mining and processing capabilities. A global Green Deal would require mining half our solar system.
Environmental fanatics insist that the United States continue to stymie or ban mining, even to support their grand energy, economic and societal reset. They and Team Biden insist that we outsource all this mining, mostly to China. They couldn’t care less about compromising our national security or their supposed commitment to environmental protection, human rights and climate justice.
Chinese companies already control the mining and processing of many GND minerals mined in Africa and other countries; they manufacture a majority of USA-bound wind turbines, solar panels and batteries. They certainly don’t adhere to U.S. laws and standards for environmental protection, pollution control, mined land reclamation, workplace safety, fair wages, child and slave labor, or human rights.
Some 40,000 children as young as four already toil with their parents in Democratic Republic of Congo mines, for a few dollars a day, under constant threat of cave-ins and exposure to toxic and radioactive mud, dust and water – just to meet today’s cobalt needs, which would skyrocket under a Green New Deal. The cobalt ore is sent to China for processing in plants that have equally abominable safety and pollution conditions, and have been linked to alarming cancer, blood disease and other health problems.
An enormous toxic dump for effluents from rare earth mining and processing in Inner Mongolia has destroyed agriculture and created serious health issues for workers and residents. China uses Uighur slave labor to build solar panels for sale to the United States and Europe.
Woke climate and human rights activists become apoplectic when clothing and coffee producers and importers fail to meet their lofty “fair trade” standards. Maybe they should travel to Moscow, Kinshasa, Beijing, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, don their ski masks, and rage, burn and loot for our planet, Uighur rights and “responsible sourcing” of raw materials for the Green New World they want to foist on us
Meanwhile CFACT’s amicus curiae brief supports a multistate lawsuit against the Biden Administration over its fossil fuel eradication plans and phony “social costs of carbon” claims. It brings much-needed reality to the “climate chaos” and “renewable” energy charade, including costs to people and planet.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, human rights and economic development.
Thank you, Paul. Your article presents a much needed dose of hard reality to the fantasy that windmills, solar panels and batteries are ever going to power the US, let along the world.
Of course, to many of ruinables loudest and most powerful supporters, these issues are features, not bugs, and move the world a long way towards their ultimate goals which they are not even shy about stating.
“Opening remarks offered by FCCC’s Environment Program Executive Director Maurice Strong who organized the first U.N. Earth Climate Summit (1992) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil expressed an underlying priority very candidly: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?’”
The U.N.’s Global Warming War On Capitalism: An Important History Lesson
http://bit.ly/2GSWjIH
“We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?’”
Progressivism has actually turned nihilism into a virtue-signal.
And guess which college edumuhcated woke snowflakes are least prepared to cope with the collapse of industrialized civilization?
–
You got it in one if you guessed the earnest, dedicated, never-had-a-real-job,, righteous-and-holy, Climate Change believers advocating for the collapse of industrialized civilization.
–
They have been programmed to bring about their own destruction. Pretty clever of someone, eh?
Conceived in a Pro-Choice religion. Progressed under a liberal ideology.
So take a substantial number of people with differing or opposing beliefs, put them under the One Ring that Rules Them All: government , where the least human vie for control of the ruled, and then expect a sane and civilized outcome. A great example of mass stupidity and/or insanity.
So give up on trying to change or mimic your abusive husband’s destructive behaviors. Get a divorce – secede.
It might “save the last of the teeth in your mouth”.
“We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?’”
? for whom must we save the world and from whom?
When Leftists claim to be anti-fascists, then you know what they are in reality. Even Munger and Buffett are showing their true colors (red).
We see it on here daily from the likes of Simon, Ghalfrunt, Stokes, Griff….
They hate humanity and would rather watch it burn to the ground.
Got that right. I remember when Infowars consisted of fringe crazy talk.
https://banned.video/watch?id=60df63435de8233d5171e289
Let me go on record as loving humanity and doing my utmost to conserve it… which doesn’t include asserting all those of a different point of view hate humanity
Your policies are antithetical to humans thriving. You don’t want people to have fossil fuels, soo I can deduce you don’t like humans.
Like most Leftists, what you really, really want is to be able to impose your will and order people around.
You claim to love humanity, yet you push for programs that will result in the death of 90% of humanity.
You are what you do, Grift.
Exactly – environmentalism is just one head of the hydra – and it isn’t even ‘fascism’ anymore – socialists have now metastasized into ‘progressivism’ which basically takes any ostensibly noble or once worthwhile cause and turns it into fascism.
Basically, you add ‘nazi’ to any one of these words – eco-nazi, safety-nazi, health-nazi, food-nazi, race-nazi – pick the cause of your choice – and you got the modern progressive movement.
And the hell of it is, they’re all quite proud and pious over it.
Joel,
They’re all the differing denominations of the Church of Progressivism! Climastrology, transgenderism, critical racist theory; they are all just the varying facets of the religion being taught in our schools and universities!
The saddest part is that their leaders seem to really believe themselves godlike; they refuse to accept that we see them as seriously flawed human beings! That is why skeptics and heretics must be utterly destroyed; denying their divinity, much less their lack of attire, is a sin against the gods in their eyes!
The San Francisco DA proclaimed over the weekend that if you are concerned about rising crime rates, you are a racist.
His logic was that the people who made “The Birth of a Nation”, used crime as one of their justifications. Therefore anyone who is concerned about crime is the same as these people and therefore are also racists.
My conclusion from this is that the people who made “The Birth of a Nation” loved their mothers. Therefore anyone who loves their mother is also a racist.
Pity some of those safety-nazis weren’t employed as building inspectors in Florida.
This of course is the problem. It’s easy to be critical of people who go on and on about the environment, safety, health, food, race etc. Until disaster hits and people die. Then it’s why didn’t anyone realise? Why weren’t the regulations tougher? Why weren’t they followed? Don’t like whatever-nazis? Get in there and fix the problem. That will shut them up.
You are missing the point
Not really. He’s deliberately misinterpreting and bastardizing the point to justify the ‘nazi’ part – even bemoaning the fact that the Nazi’s weren’t in charge – because nothing bad ever happens when these guys run things… right?
And as if they would EVER shut up. Fix the world, they have a new list of grievances tomorrow, because there are ALWAYS going to be disasters – no matter how psychotic control-freak progressives go, or who they try to blame them on, and/or how they choose to exploit them.
And always spread with thick layers of maudlin hand-wringing over lives lost.
Justification is one of the primary reflex movements as progressives justify their fascism by unerringly assuming the psuedo-moral high ground.
Like clockwork. Tom couldn’t have possibly illustrated my point any better.
And quite proud and pious over it.
See Tom – THIS, of course, is the problem.
I was sending up the way ‘nazi’ is used to label people who lobby for change. Take safety. We would all like to be confident that the building we buy an apartment in is safe, that it’s not going to fall down and kill us, that the builders weren’t crooks cutting corners to make more money. Over time people lobbied for more safety controls – they were clearly safety-nazis threatening the profit margins of builders. But shoddy buildings are still being built and still falling down (or burning down, eg Grenfell Tower). More safety-nazis needed!
I agree with the points in the article, the costs (money, human) of decarbonising are huge. There has to be a rethink. The criticism is valid especially the point that fossil fuels will need to be used in any attempt to stop the use of fossil fuels. But why doesn’t this criticism, which is arguing for change in the way fossil fuels are being demonised, count as ‘progessive’ and get a ‘nazi’ label too? Especially when it’s as maudlin and hand-ringing as anything the climate change activists do?
Basically I think the aggro, attacks on and name-calling of those pushing for decarbonisation are counter-productive, undermining the positives and good work of WUWT. That’s my point.
Grenfell Tower? You might want to rethink that citation, it being a prime example of the products of the econazi movement.
For those not in the UK, Grenfell Tower was an apartment block in West London which caught fire, incinerating over 70 people. To conform with environmental regulations, the cladding on the building was changed from a fireproof one to one made from a highly inflammable polyethylene material, with disastrous consequences.
No – the building was not initially clad. cladding was added to stop water ingress, thermal insulation and to improve appearance.
The insulation work was given to the lowest bidder. Insulation material was NOT approved for high rise buildings as it was a known fire risk. It was installed despite regulation.
“Two types of cladding were used: Arconic‘s Reynobond PE, which consists of two coil-coated aluminium sheets that are fusion bonded to both sides of a polyethylene core; and Reynolux aluminium sheets. Beneath these, and fixed to the outside of the walls of the flats, was Celotex RS5000 PIR thermal insulation.[25][26][27] An alternative cladding with better fire resistance was refused due to cost.[28]”
“The refurbishment also used an insulation foam product named Celotex RS5000, installed behind the cladding.[198] Police said this insulation proved “more flammable than the cladding”.[199]
According to its datasheet, the polyisocyanurate (PIR) product—charred pieces of which littered the area around Grenfell Tower after the fire—”will burn if exposed to a fire of sufficient heat and intensity”.[32][200] PIR insulation foams “will, when ignited, burn rapidly and produce intense heat, dense smoke and gases which are irritating, flammable and/or toxic”, among them carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.[201] The fire toxicity of polyisocyanurate foams has been well understood for some time.[202]
At least three survivors were treated for cyanide poisoning.[203] Simultaneous exposure to carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide is more lethal than exposure to the gases separately.[204]
Celotex’s Rainscreen Compliance Guide, when specifying Celotex RS5000 in buildings above 18 metres (59 ft),[205] sets out the conditions under which the product was tested and for which it has been certified as meeting the required fire safety standards. These include the use of (non-combustible) 12 mm fibre cement rainscreen panels, ventilated horizontal fire breaks at each floor slab edge and vertical non-ventilated fire breaks. It states that any changes from the tested configuration “will need to be considered by the building designer”.”
“Insulation material was NOT approved for high rise buildings as it was a known fire risk. It was installed despite regulation.”
How did it pass inspection?
The EU regulations and testing methods differed somewhat from the British Standard regulations for the same cladding. The contractors were not required to meet the BS regulations, just the EU ones, which led to the cheaper cladding being used. I’m not sure of every difference between the EU and BS regulations, but I am aware that the EU ones test a bonded material as a whole to pass fire safety standards whilst the BS ones test each element of a bonded material separately and all components must pass a minimum requirement for fire safety.
In addition, the initial fire is known to have started with a plastic backed fridge-freezer that had a new flammable (but low GWP – Global Warming Potential) type of refrigerant in it.
My reading of TF’s comment is that he is citing Grenfell Tower’s as an example of there being no additional safety, despite the rise in number and power of the safety nazi’s.
Why ever would anyone want that? The fact is that most of the most prominent AGW and “climate change” crazies along with BLM and Antifa are Fascists or Marxists. Critical race theory is Marxist. Extinction Rebellion is Fascist and All national media outlets like BBC, CBC and ABC are strongly socialist. They’re all 100% wrong about this planet’s “climate”.
Tom these people cannot be reasonable. They truly will drive humanity into the ground if they are not called out on it. Griff is a perfect example.
And of course, the implication is that corners are never cut with the socialists.
Gag. Choke.
Self-serving, walk-back.
You’re simply saying it again – Nazism is just fine if the cause is just.
You get the label when you earn it – and as much as progressives have thrown around the label, they’re the ones following the mechanics like an instruction manual.
Also – I’d love to see your moral objection to the decades of Nazi-catcalls levied in any direction other than at progressives – like anyone who isn’t an avowed socialist Marxist.
Which is a primary tell, because socialist Marxism birthed Nazism.
Another historical fact that academia has been trying to whitewash away.
How many buildings are in Florida?
How many have uncontrollably collapsed?
Herein lies the problem of exaggerating everything out of all proportion.
How many people have actually dies from climate change?
How many people can even illustrate negative consequences indisputably apportioned to climate change?
Well……None, in over 40 years of claims of impending catastrophe.
I would like to toss in my own term – neo feudalism – because it attempts to return society to a feudal cast system. There will be a ruling elite who will be incredibly wealthy and can do as they please, and everybody else who will be impoverished, servile to the elite and whose behaviours will be constrained by “climate laws”.
Did you read the book or watch the video?
Doesn’t that just describe the current state of affairs in the US today? where strangely the monied elite are against improving the environment for the ordinary folks
Yes indeed. And everybody sabotaged the only president you had for a long time who actually tried to put an end to this. Trump was a ray of hope, but the vermin finally stifled him. Human refuse is now ruling again.
Trump asked his audience a question at the political rally he held in Sarasota Florida the other day.
Trump said: “Do you know why all of you are here?”
Trump answered his own question:
Trump said: “You are here looking for hope.”
Trump was right.
Griff, have you got something personal against the US or are your often slights dictated by your bosses?
You are describing the Democrats.
BTW, if you would look at your own country, those who run the government are getting obscenely wealthy, while everyone else is suffering.
It’s not capitalism that creates great disparities in wealth, it’s socialism.
“You [Griff] are describing the Democrats.”
Yes, apparently Griff thinks the “monied elites” in the U.S. are Republicans.
Not so, Griff, the monied elites are the Democrats like MarkW says.
To anyone who thinks the “monied elites” in the US are Republicans I have one question: Who, exactly? Give names.
That’s the amazing thing – he doesn’t even realize it.
griffter,
You appear to be suffering some sort of cognitive decline; much like former Vice President Zhao Bai Den!
The “monied elites” that you leftists like to rail about are amongst the leaders of the GangGreen movement to abolish the middle class! There’s Tom Steyer, who made his money from selling Unreliable energy products to Commifornia; he got rich while the poor and working class pay through the nose for electricity! Then there’s Warren Buffet, who says he should pay more in taxes, but doesn’t! He was very excited to see Bai Den shut down Keystone XL, as he has substantial rolling stock that must be used to transport the Canadian oil to US refineries! How do you like the price of gas since the Bai Den Regime seized power? Do you support the Nordstream pipeline, like the Big Guy!
The truth is the ruling elite will game the system with their lawyers and accountants, and the only people who believe that the rich stole their money from the poor are weak-minded or brainwashed!
Yes. That’s the inevitable outcome of control freak socialist policies.
Elites and insect drones – who are all ‘equal’.
Even if the so-called GND were attempted the turbines, panels, batteries etc. already installed would need to be replaced before it was even close to completion.
If the world were to follow suit practically the entire world economy and energy output would be devoted to the production of replacement hardware.
The so-called GND is insane and those genuinely proposing it are certifiable.
Couldn’t have stated it better myself…..right-on!
We used to discuss the “broken window fallacy” in Econ 103. However the modern economic theory is at a whole new level. Instead of the repair of the broken window being a “no gain” situation for the economy….the logic today is that the shopkeeper is down by the repair cost, but the repair man is wealthier, he puts the money in the bank, and the bank is allowed by gov’t rules to lend the money out 10X over to borrowers who need it. So the “broken window” ends up being a big economic stimulus if the repair payment is inserted into the economy at the proper location. That is what AOC is talking about with the GND. She got a lot out of that slate filler econ course.
The shopkeeper is present industry, the broken window is the environment, the newly enrichened repair man is the eco-driven businesses, the bank system is in place to allow loans to whoever the government endorses.
It will be Utopia….never worked before….but, Utopia fer shure this time….
Before the repair man can put anything in the bank, the shop keeper has to take the same amount out of his bank.
Net change in bank deposits? $0.00
The shopkeeper needs to take out a loan for the broken window due to impoverishment by GND taxes (the gov’t’s cut) and so then the fiat money ponzi works as DMac describes.
He’ll eventually own nothing and the banksters, oligarchs, nepotists and despots (BOND Villains) will be happy.
What about
“the bank is allowed by gov’t rules to lend the money out 10X over to borrowers who need it.”
didn’t you understand? Well it’s only 9X over except when it were 11X in the first place.
/s
It really is amazing how many people know things that are 100% wrong, but still want to be involved in creating regulations for others.
Banks are only allowed to loan out around 90% of what is deposited. No bank, anywhere in the world loans out 10X. That’s a complete lie.
I think he’s talking about the 10% reserve requirement. That actually was my understanding of it too – that it allowed banks to loan 10x what was deposited, but upon looking deeper it’s not quite that simple.
The “reserve” concept also looks a bit more complex than I want to delve into at the moment, so I’ll just accept that I had a misconception and won’t worry about it…
The GND, including the Green blight, have a niche value, and that is where the value is realized, treating symptoms at the fringe for renewable, redistributive change in diverse rackets.
Hmmm… people only buy one car to last them a lifetime and never replace domestic appliances? Never resurface roads?
The sad thing is that the griffster actually believes it’s come up with a killer argument.
Because some things have to be replaced, therefore needing to replace windmills and batteries can’t be a problem.
It seems very clear that in order to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in our economies by, say, 2060, or a decade or so earlier or later for certain economies, there would need to be a huge surge in the use of fossil fuels to provide the energy for such a transition.
What is not mentioned in the article is the requirement for long-distance HVDC power lines in order to avoid the need for unrealistically huge amounts of battery storage. Such HVDC lines should preferably be under ground and under sea, creating an international power grid to deal with the intermittency problem of wind and solar.
Digging hundreds of thousands of kilometres of trenches and producing the massive amount of copper and other metals required for the lines, would be a huge industry in itself, requiring the use of massive amounts of fossil fuel over several decades. There would inevitably be a significant spike in CO2 emissions.
Well the UK is enthusiastically building those: just last week Merkel and Johnson agreed the new link between Germany and the UK. Germany is building north south links, there are half a dozen being built between UK and continent, Germany just completed its link to Norway and so on.
There are speculative proposals for UK/Algeria and UK/Iceland links…
That they are building them was never in doubt.
The stupidity of needing to build them was never in doubt either.
Talk about cutting off our nose to spite our face. 81 million people voted for this lunacy.
…..AND VOTED MULTIPLE TIMES…EVEN THOUGH DEAD.
I don’t think the 81 million people who voted for Biden were actually voting for this lunacy. Some of them just voted for the party they always voted for. Others thought they were voting against another lunacy. Certainly Biden supporters ranked climate change as an issue much higher than did Trump voters, but Biden supporters put health care, the coronavirus pandemic and race and ethnic inequality as the top issues (Pew survey August 2020).
If Trump had handled the pandemic better and fixed health care (the two obviously related) he’d probably still be president, regardless of the climate debate. Basically people vote on the immediate issues, rather than what might happen in the future.
Yes, they voted for progressive prices under Obamacares and similar, and the diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment), inequity, and exclusion racket (e.g. systemic racism). They voted for planned parent/hood (i.e. denial of dignity and agency), symbolic liability waivers (e.g. masks), and denying/stigmatizing early, inexpensive, effective, low-risk treatments, while backing “emergency use measures” in the general population, including people who acquired immunity, not from the shot(s), but from past and present infections.
So your saying that if Trump had handled the lies of the media better, he’d still be president.
The only way to fix health care is to get all of the government interference out of it.
I guess I’m biased on health care because I live in Australia. I paid the health levy with my tax, which funds the public health system here, but I know that if I get ill, I won’t go bankrupt. I know this from experience – 18 months of ops and treatment after a detached retina including a 700km air ambulance. I can still see, still work and am not broke. Thanks, government interference = government self-interest. After all, if I went blind it would cost the government more to support me.
If you had private insurance, you wouldn’t be broke either.
You like the current system because the government forces other people to pay for what you use.
The fact remains that the quality of care is always lower when government takes over.
Oh stop – talk to some Canadians about universal health care, tax payer funded, gov run, union ruled – it’s a mess here. Took over 6 yrs, That’s SIX YEARS for an elderly family member to get a simple knee replacement, she wound up in a wheelchair and needed extensive PT afterwards to get her somewhat mobile again. Young man with a chronic deadly condition? They sent him home to die much quicker in years than he naturally would have, he begged in the media for help… they let him die early anyway. Just because the few get good help doesn’t mean the rest are getting same. I had to wait 10 yrs to get a primary! HAD to use ER’s for regular medical care. I have no choice here of who gives me my medical care/advice.
Anyone who believes that government run health care is superior, needs to spend some time in the tender mercies of the Veteran’s Administration.
My wife grew up in Mexico. They have government run, free healthcare.
According to my wife, the saying down there is that if you want to get better, see a private doctor. If you want to die, use the government services.
Well, they were responding to five years of progressive hate-propaganda, proving unequivocally that fascism works no matter who tries it.
Perhaps you are correct – but there were only about 63 million actual, breathing, and eligible people who voted for Biden. 63 million that believed the propaganda they were being fed by the MSM (and never heard anything about the Biden crime family affairs).
“but there were only about 63 million….”
Biden won 81,283,098 votes, or 51.3 percent of the votes cast. He is the first U.S. presidential candidate to have won more than 80 million votes. Trump won 74,222,958 votes.
Can you provide evidence that these numbers are (grossly) wrong (they need to be to change the result)? Seems to me there is a lot of talk about this but no proof. Which I guess is why the courts keep throwing the challenges out.
51.3% of the ballots counted.
Not a single court has ever looked at the evidence.
The courts threw the cases out over lack of standing, or because since the election is over, the cases are no longer relevant.
There hasn’t been a single instance where the case was thrown out due to lack of evidence.
Why is it that liberals insist on telling such easily disproven lies?
And the republicans in charge of various states that Biden won that said there was no fraud (Georgia Raffensburger etc) (And I think you can throw Barr in there too.)are they just traitors?
The stupid-force is strong in this one.
You are so stupid. Why do you post here?
Biden got more than Obama? SUUUURE!
… and at least half of them voted several times. I doubt that Biden got more than 50% of the votes claimed by the Democrats.
Now I am going to take a wild guess and say you have no evidence (apart from gossip on right wing blogs) that what you said is true. What Trump supporters conveniently forget is that Biden was the polling favourite going in to the elections (on almost all except a couple of polls) so it is entirely reasonable and expected he would win. It would have been an upset had Donnie got to the tape first.
Ah, yes, the polls. Which predicted a landslide for “I’m with her!” in 2016. Proof positive, in your world, that Putin really wanted the US to oppose the Nordstrom pipeline, send arms to the Ukraine to check Russian expansionism, and generally give him a migraine.
Yep.
“Ah, yes, the polls. Which predicted a landslide for “I’m with her!” “
Another falsehood I knew you would throw up. When Comey announced the reopening of the email server investigation the polls merged to favour Clinton only slightly. Certainly within the margin of error. That wasn’t there this time… hence Trump’s loss.
Simon,
You forget the Biden family crime thingy.
Yes, before you say …
that what was there this time different… the votes for him were already in the bag, secured before the election started.
Something that wasn’t there for Hillary.
If Comey’s FBI would not done what it did, Hillary would not have had immunity from prosecution.
And the entire fascist takeover would have collapsed.
No body would have heard of Biden for president.
cheers
If being a crime family is a problem then the Trumps are toast.
Based on what, Simon? Trump has been found innocent in every instance. He’s pure as the driven snow. Other than Jesus Christ, Trump is the most investigated man in human history, and his enemies can’t find anything to pin on him.
So, based on what?
Simon you miss the point, the highest crime comited is that of treason by Comey and Loreta, and any such weak pathetic people in power.
Let me say it again, it is not some thing new under the Sun.
cheers
Simon, you have the Democrat talking points down pat. I thought you lived in Australia.
Mike Lindell says he is going to prove that Trump won the election. His rollout for the “proof” is this August.
The Arizona vote audit results will also be made public in August.
I think at the least, there will be evidence of a lot of voter fraud in all the Battleground States: Dead people voting, and illegal aliens voting, and people who no longer live in the States voting.
This won’t change the election results since we don’t know how the vote fraudsters voted (although we can guess), but at a minimum the results will demonstrate that reform of the voting procedures is called for. I see where the Biden administration is going to use the power of the federal government to try to hamper States from changing their voter laws.
As an aside: Simon, what do you think about a political party that uses the Power of the State against its political opponents, like the radical Demcrats are doing? Isn’t that akin to dictatorship?
And we’ll just wait and see if Lindell can back up his claims of a stolen election. I don’t know one way or the other, but I will be interested to see what he has to say.
The Leftwing Media can’t heap enough scorn on Mike Lindell over this stolen election claim.
They can’t report the subject objectively, they always throw in claims that the stolen election is untrue when reporting the story, and will give the claim no credence, when the reporters have no way of knowing whether it is credible or not. Their bias is showing when they report on Mike Lindell. I wonder if they realze it? Not that it matters.
The SCOTUS just put a huge 6-3 damper on the dems attempt to federalize all elections under the Dominion model.
You’re talking about the Arizona case. Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s new voting laws.
But that isn’t going to stop the Biden Administration from suing other States that are reforming their voting laws.
Joe Biden’s home State of Deleware has much more restricitve voting laws than does Arizona, or Georgia or any of the other States that are reforming their voting laws, yet the Biden “Justice” Department is going after the Red States and leaving their friends, the Blue States, out of it.
It’s a typical Democrat doublestandard. One standard for the Democrats, another, much more restrictive standard for all the rest of us.
Trump had already “got to the tape first” by pole closing time. Then the Republican poll watchers were either kicked out or screened off. Then the fun began. There are piles of evidence. During the campaign Biden couldn’t fill a small car park with supporters. Trump filled stadiums.
Biden only barely won on a few critical districts. Otherwise the whole country was red.Anyone who still believes the election was not rigged is a fool.
Or approves of the outcome, so they don’t care how it was orchestrated.
So when this bizarre audit in Arizona throws up nothing meaningful, will you move on then MarkW, or is it about pride now?
Bizarre audit?
Why don’t you wait for the results before trying to throw cold water on it? Oh, I see, this is a propaganda effort on your part. You sound like a radical Democrat.
Simon, the fact is simple, the American people in the USA overthrow the Congress on the 6th January 2021, as per USA constitution.
That is a fact… regardless of one able or capable to understand it or not.
The rest means not much.
Got to live with that, regardless of one’s or the other’s opinion… and in the end of the day got to be ready to face the consequences.
It is what it is and what always being there.
cheers
“There are piles of evidence. ..” Then let’s see it.
You’re obviously from some other planet. Evidence of election corruption was shown in real time. It isn’t all ht hard to find the lists of evidence of election tampering. You’re just not looking.
https://www.depernolaw.com/
Let me correct that for you….Anyone who believes the election was rigged is living in la la land.
It’s not crazy to think the Democrats rigged the election. They wouldn’t hesitate to do so if they were in a position to make it happen. They have no morals. It’s all about gaining and keeping power for them.
Eventually, we will know all about the 2020 election process.
The last statistic I saw out of the Arizona election was that Biden won by about 10,000 votes over Trump, and that about 15,000 dead people voted, and about 15,000 illegal aliens voted, and about 15,000 people who no longer lived in Arizona voted in Arizona’s elections.
Do you think any of those dead people voted for Trump?
So we have massive voter fraud regardless of who actually won.
It isn’t even questionable that the election was corrupted by the democrats. They bragged about doing it. Pelosi and Biden said a month before the election it was already decided.
Rory,
In proposition of humanity or a human, still we say, because that happens to be the evidence of what has being there before us, history, and all that;
“No body is perfect.”
Donnie too is not perfect, as every one else… including me and you.
But I think is very difficult to say and claim that the heart of Donnie was not for America, the USA.
And only stupids will claim that Hillary or Pelosi, or Obummer, or the most of the ruling political caste in USA have any heart at all… when USA considered.
This is not something new under the Sun.
I know, this maybe too much, or maybe wrong… but hey, life is life.
Sorry, if me offending or hurting the feelings there of other travelers.
cheers
C’mon man you know only pipeline companies can be hacked….no way can an election be hacked 😉
Exactly especially when the dominion voting machines hadbeen designed pecisely for that purpose. People actually watched it happening … in goes 10,000 Trump votes … out comes 8000 Biden votes and 2000 for Trump.
Or the infamous California single vote increment that registered:
0.75 BaiDen 0.25 Trump
You’ve got to be kidding. Anyone who still believes there was no fraud has to work at remaining ignorant.
Rory that is how they like their slaves.
I look forward to the midterms to restore some of my faith in our system. It has all gotten to be too bizarre for words.
It seems we’d have to use up all our fossil fuels in order to produce all the whirligigs and solar bird crispers needed to eliminate fossil fuel use.
Wait… huh?!? That doesn’t save even a drop of oil from being used.
.
.
D U M B A _ _ E _
“Is there an ‘S’, Pat?”
Since the whole ozone hole CFC scare has passed can the poor of the world get cheap, efficient refrigeration.
NO.
And when the next batch of refrigerants lose their patent protection, there will be a reason invented to no longer use them also!
Guess which country cleaned up on the CFC scam? China contracted to dispose of the stuff, at an enormous cost to us, then turned around and sold it to developing countries who didn’t sign on to the Montreal Accord. There was no net reduction on CFC use. It’s still in use.
It passed because of global concerted action.
Just as climate change as an issue will (eventually)
Global concerted action, based on complete lies. Just like climate change.
No. The new types of refrigerant are more expensive and flammable – the UK Grenfell Tower disaster was started by a fridge freezer with plastic backing for insulation and low GWP rating, which met all of the standards for low greenhouse gas emissions but turned it into a huge fire risk. Not exactly cheap or efficient.
Great post, Paul!
We must keep beating the drum of science and reality; hopefully enough people will wake up to the impossibilities of the GangGreen agenda, and the glaring lack of any actual climate emergency!
We are entering a Modern Climate Optimum; leave your paranoid delusions at the door and enjoy the warmth while you can!
Winter is coming!
Driessen continues to make this unsubstantiated claim about artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC. Exaggerating and misrepresenting the facts is a good way to lose credibility and damage the movement he is trying to promote.
To the best of my knowledge, the cobalt is in the form of a sulfide that is relatively inert. I’d like to know exactly what the purported toxins are and why there should be radioactivity associated with what were, I believe, largely copper mines, before being abandoned.
Someone, (preferably Driessen) please educate me.
Cobalt is toxic.
Cobalt Disulfide is very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. It is also a skin irritant.
This sds doesn’t anticipate levels greater than .1% I would expect contact with levels greater than this would occur during mining.
SDS-Cobalt-Disulfide (loradchemical.com)
Will the body break the chemical bond with sulfur?
Here is a good reference on the toxicity of Cobalt
Cobalt poisoning: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
Yes, refined cobalt has known toxicity issues, as do most refined heavy metals, particularly if dust from factory activities is inhaled. But then, dust from anything is not good for one’s lungs! Similarly, wearing jewelry made from anything other than the so-called precious metals is problematic for many people, resulting in dermatitis.
Complaining that refined cobalt is dangerous is in the same category as claiming that sodium and chlorine are dangerous, even when combined to create table salt.
What is at issue is the bio-availability of cobalt in the form obtained from the DRC mines. The DRC ore is a disulfide, cattierite, that is a member of the Pyrite Series, meaning that it is an end-member of a solid-solution series, where the other end-members are, pyrite (FeS2) and vaesite (NiS2). None of these minerals are known to be problematic from just handling them! With regard to the bio-availability, you might find my article on the chemical cleaning of minerals in the Midwest Chapter of Friends of Mineralogy to be of instructional value:
http://www.fommidwest.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2014_mw_Nov_Dec.pdf
The claim about cobalt disulfide being toxic to aquatic life is a little mystifying because it generally requires warm, concentrated nitric acid to dissolve pyrite. That raises the question about how the cobalt disulfide was introduced into the aquatic environment. Most likely it was an acidic effluent from processing the ore or cleaning the industrial product, and existed as a cation in solution, not as particulate cobalt disulfide. I think that there is more to the story than is provided by the Safety Data Sheet for a specific pure industrial product in a powder form.
For a more general discussion of mineral toxicity, go to the article starting on p. 25 of the BULLETIN OF FRIENDS OF MINERALOGY VOL.46, NO.3:
http://www.friendsofmineralogy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2016_Jul.pdf
Artisanal cotton picker, 1938, New Madrid, Missouri
Artisanal cobalt miner, 2020, Congo
The child plowing the field was probably at a greater health risk from dust than the child sitting in what appears to be flowing water.
(Should be “artisanal cotton farmer.” Edit timer ran out.)
I find it more than a little odd that I should receive several down-votes for asking for verification of claims made. Are you afraid of what the answer might be?
At first it’s only a few people who warn about the consequences. Then some of the consequences become real at the early stages. Then it gets rapidly worse and finally the mainstream media pick up on it, while the initial whistleblowers say we warned you of this 10 years ago. Eventually people will protest against it. At least, that is my hope.
Even many Green groups now are saying that EV’s don’t have any less of a ‘carbon’ footprint of an equivalent ICE vehicle over its life cycle, so it would appear then they will next be advocating for no cars at all. But yet the world is ramping up to transition to this, which will take more fossil fuels. We have finally arrived at a very high efficiency and non polluting ICE engine, and now they want to cancel them after all that work, research and development.
Just like all the effort that went into Syncrude the last 50-60 years, the first oil sands mining of bitumen to make into 1001+ products that we will have to do forever, because we are carbon life forms living off carbon, amongst other basic elements. The war on carbon is a war on life itself. We will always be utilizing carbon for as long as humans survive, even if someday in the long term future, we have to manufacture it. As they say, if fossil fuels didn’t exist, we would need to invent them.
If the EV is powered from coal generated electricity, yes.
But that’s increasingly not the case in UK and EU. UK for example has got just 2% of electricity from coal the last 2 years and last coal plant shuts October 2024.
If you believe that nat gas generation has the same ‘carbon’ footprint as coal due to fugitive emissions of methane, then your admission would also be the same for nat gas, or any fossil fuel. But the same emissions from the manufacturing of renewables is also still the same carbon footprint for the EV vs. a modern efficient ICE just utilizing the fossil fuel in the first place.
If you don’t believe that fugitive emissions for NG make for as carbon intensive as coal, then why not support NG as the transition to some future secure Gen 4-5 nuclear? It is becoming more clear even to the green movement that the manufacture of renewables themselves are also very carbon intensive. Not to mention the early retirement and disposal of such and the wear and tear on the Uyghur slaves in China that are manufacturing many of these solar panels. The Green movement is slowly being revealed for what they are really are, which is not all that bright. And cruel supporting slavery. Nothing is being solved long term with all these useless grid scale renewables.
I’d love there to be a new generation of nuclear – I just do not see any evidence of progress towards even a prototype.
Meanwhile for at least a decade, we have proven renewable technology to roll out, supported in the UK by a declining amount of natural gas (we don’t need natural gas as a bridge out of coal or even to keep it until some other solution comes along)
Griffy – the only non-fossil fuel technology available is non-renewable, unreliable and intermittent, and highly toxic to the environment. I’d rather that we used gas as a bridge to emerging technologies before we risked permanent ecological damage by using those disastrous renewable technologies.
Griff
Educate yourself and read the Nature comment by Prof Richard Herrington, Dept of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum (UK). ‘Mining our green future’
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-021-00325-9
You will then realise how much mining will be required to make just the UK’s car fleet EVs and nearly all of this mining will be dependent on fossil fuels.
As I pointed out to you on another thread there are around 1.4 billion cars in the world today and around 5 million EVs. By 2030 it is anticipated there will be 115 million EVs. So demand for petrol and diesel will still be very high.
You have my condolences.
Well said!!! This should be a primer for all schools and colleges where environment is discussed so that students can get a reference point.
BTW: Love the tag: ‘The Harris-Biden Administration…’ : History will not, I hope, be kind to them: they deserve far worse.
There’s a paper in preparation at the moment which examines the dangers of battery storage. Let’s hope we are not jumping into the fire.
JF
Nice. The sort of rant I could and often do put together.
But, some while back, I asked myself ‘why’
Why is ‘society’ behaving as it is, why the self destructive urge?
You now know me, you know ‘why’
What’s going on out there is Magical Thinking
In turn, that comes from chronic chemically induced depression
In turn, from a piss poor nutrient free diet…
… perfectly exemplified/epitomised by The Mediterranean Diet
Low fat, very low nutrient, energy solely from sugar, chock full of irritants, allergens and poisons and to cap it all, full of fibre that does nothing but pull what nutrition it does contain straight back out of you.
Even before it contains/recommends the most hideous and potent brain poison there could ever be = alcohol
Yet the Magical Thinking tells its proponents and consumers that it is actually The Cure for our contemporary woes
THAT is The Problem going on here – the alarmists are effectively drunk and as anyone will tell you, getting into an argument with a drunk very rarely ends well.
Sort out our diet and the rest will fall into place. Peace will break out.
And d’ya know what, the remedy was known about and used in the early 1920’s
is that =sad or poignant or what is the word?
“prohibit or roll back modern living standards.” I got no problem with this, start with them, round them up and put them in “camps” where they can live their utopian dream with machine guns on towers to ensure they remain there.
wild assertions about planetary temperatures, weather, icecaps and vanishing wildlife.
Those would be the assertions based on actual observation of the situation on the ground, I think you’ll find.
Wrong as usual, Griffie-wiffy. Alarmism is based on lies built upon lies built upon still more lies.
You mean. like the “disappearing” Polar Bears?
As most polar bear populations are unsurveyed, I don’t know how you can be sure they aren’t declining.
But certainly where we have data twice as many populations are in decline as are increasing…
Endangered Status – Polar Bears International
The data used in that link is badly flawed Griffy – firstly it is many years out of date (2019 may be the date on the chart but the actual data is from 2011) and the declining status of some of the polar bear populations is not based on actual observations but on a flawed model produced by Derocher and PBSG which projected a decline in numbers from a temporary migration of bears between habitats. The latest figures from actual observations rather than models is that all of the habitats are thriving and numbers are estimated to be over 30,000 and possibly near to 40,000. The numbers of only 23,000 that was created out of thin air by Derocher has had to be adjusted rapidly upwards after more accurate observations were published that exposed what Derocher had done as unscientific activism.
If you insist on posting will you at least use accurate and up to date information, not data that’s 10 years old and completely worthless.
I love it when Griff gets set straight. Thanks, Richard. Griff probably doesn’t like it very much though.
It probably rolls off of him because he appears to be convinced he has the moral high ground. The essence of being a fool is not being aware that one is a fool. I’m reminded of the simpleton character played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 movie Being There.
Richard, don’t you realize that MODELS are more real than REALITY?
Fascinating, within the last year griffie has made multiple claims regarding the impending demise of the polar bear based on allegedly plummeting population numbers.
Now that the numbers are no longer plummeting, all of a sudden, the numbers just aren’t reliable.
Where exactly are these “observations” be taking place.
Everywhere I look, the conditions are well within the bounds of normal. Nothing unusual is going on.
The wannabe Worldwide Central Planners have seen the writing on the wall regarding “renewables” or “green energy”. They know that it means people will need to use way less energy than they do now. People will have to get used to less stuff, and less energy being available. It is all part of their dystopian future they dream of. People will live in small pods, sharing space with many others. Few will own cars, although they will be available (perhaps) for intermittent use, when needed. These will be part of the system of public transportation. Otherwise, walking and biking will be used. Carbon taxes will be steep, helping to discourage purchasing even the limited supply of stuff, particularly anything guilty of not being “green” enough, while prices of “green” products will simply be higher. A “living wage” will be available to anyone unable or unwilling to work, reducing the employment pool, driving up wages and driving prices higher still. Owning even a bicycle will be a luxury. And so on.
1984, here we come.
Why would an environmentalist want to limit mining, manufacturing, and energy production in a first-world nation where there are good laws to control pollution and promote safety? These activities don’t go away, they just move to countries that have no regulations (think China, Russia, etc.) Mining in the USA or Australia is a relatively clean and well-managed enterprise. Chinese coal mines are deathtraps. Sometimes, if you can’t determine someone’s motivation, just look at what they prioritize.
Nimbyism. These are all virtue-signalling environmentalists who want their standard of living to stay the same but want to be seen to do something. So they campaign and terrorise these sectors of the economy, driving them out of business in their country but ignoring what happens in other countries – they feel happy, secure in the knowledge that they are building a better world for their children and secure in their ignorance that they have vastly increased pollution, environmental damage and forced unsafe labour on a global scale. It really is a perfect storm of stupidity, arrogance and ignorance.
Indeed the Chinese govt closed a large number of coal mines in the run up to the recent 100th party anniversary so there wouldn’t be any embarrassing accidents.
I question though whether US mining is all that ‘clean’
And of course, griff believes whatever the communists tell him to believe. Whether they live in his country or in China.
Most greenies actually believe that as long as they don’t see it, it isn’t happening.
The rest don’t care how damaging these activities are to other countries, all they care about is having the environment they live in be completely pure.
MarkW,
Once again fulfilling the Communist’s description of them as “useful idiots” to a frightening degree!
A more accurate and modern title would be religious zealots; as they never question their priests or the dogma they swallow!
My guess is they are part of the effort to destroy the US while making a few investors richer.
A decade ago, if your fridge developed a leak, the non toxic, non flammable Freon would float away and your fridge would run warmer and warmer until you noticed and repaired it or replaced it.
Now, the most common refrigerant is R600, isobutane, a highly flammable gas/liquid. Now when your fridge develops a leak, depending on where your thermostat is and where your R600 has moved to you get a fire or an explosion.
As stated earlier, it has been determined that the Grenfell fire started within the refrigerator.
The move from Freon type products to hydrocarbon type products was triggered by concerns about their ‘global warming potential’!!!!!!!!
Actually it was concerns about the first environmental crisis, the ozone layer.