The Conversation: Invest in Renewable Energy to Save Democracy

Essay by Eric Worrall

According to University of California Professor Eve Darian-Smith, more government is the path to freedom. Building more renewables would protect us from Russia and President Trump.

Rising authoritarianism and worsening climate change share a fossil-fueled secret

Published: April 27, 2022 10.17pm AEST

Eve Darian-Smith
Professor of Global and International Studies, University of California, Irvine

In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy.

Corporate capture of environmental politics

In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle that prioritizes citizens over corporate profits has been aggressively undermined.

Today, it’s easy to find political leaders – on both the political right and left – working on behalf of corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. These multinational companies help fund their political careers and election campaigns to keep them in office.

In “Global Burning,” I explore how three leaders of traditionally democratic countries – Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Scott Morrison of Australia and Donald Trump in the U.S. – came to power on anti-environment and nationalist platforms appealing to an extreme-right populist base and extractive corporations that are driving climate change. While the political landscape of each country is different, the three leaders have important commonalities.

Bolsonaro, Morrison and Trump all depend on extractive corporations to fund electoral campaigns and keep them in office or, in the case of Trump, get reelected.

What can people do about it?

Fortunately, there is a lot that people can do to protect democracy and the climate. 

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and reducing the destruction of forests can cut greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest obstacles, a recent U.N. climate report noted, are national leaders who are unwilling to regulate fossil fuel corporations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or plan for renewable energy production.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/rising-authoritarianism-and-worsening-climate-change-share-a-fossil-fueled-secret-181012

Why does it have to be renewables?

Wouldn’t building nuclear power plants also cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce Western dependence on hostile foreign powers?

Why couldn’t the USA copy the successful French Nuclear Programme? There is no doubt nuclear power is safe, and works, because successful conversions to nuclear have already happened. For example, in the 1970s, France replaced most of their fossil fuel plants with zero carbon nuclear power, and still get most of their electricity from nuclear power plants.

No need to rely on hostile foreign powers if you embrace nuclear – Australia and Canada are major global Uranium exporters.

But being an international studies professor, I’m sure you know all this already.

Professor Darian-Smith, if greenhouse gasses and dependence on undemocratic energy suppliers are your primary concerns, shouldn’t every possible option to resolve these problems at least rate some discussion?

I think we can all guess the answer to that question.

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Simonsays
April 27, 2022 10:04 pm

Stopped reading after, “University of California Professor”

Right-Handed Shark
Reply to  Simonsays
April 28, 2022 1:32 am

A student of Stanley J. Krammerhead III Jr perhaps?

Old Man Winter
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
April 28, 2022 5:17 am

👍👍

willem post
Reply to  Simonsays
April 28, 2022 8:51 am

Jacobsen, ENVIRONMENTAL professor/agitator at the socialist hotbed, called Stamford University, is one of those people, who folks listened to in 2015, during the Paris climate brouhaha.

Since then he sort of disappeared because what he spouted turned out to be infeasible and irrelevant.

Excerpt from:

REVIEW OF “THE 100% RE BY 2050 PLAN FOR THE US” BY THE JACOBSON GROUP
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/review-of-the-100-re-by-2050-plan-for-the-us-by-the-jacobson

This article has two purposes:
 
– A review the “100% RE by 2050 Plan for the US”, which is based on wind, solar and miscellaneous. for ALL of US primary energy, as presented in the Jacobson Group Report, issued in May 2015 
– A presentation of two alternatives, which include wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and bio energy. 

In the past, the Jacobson Group has published similar reports regarding for New York State, California, and the Whole World.

The Report aims to show the US could have 100% of its primary energy (not just electrical primary energy, which is only about 35% of primary energy) from wind (50%), solar (45.2%), and misc. (4.77%), i.e., no fossil, no nuclear and no bioenergy. The Report study period is 2010 to 2050, but the added RE capacities, MW, are additional to the existing capacities in 2013. See table.

Geoff Sherrington
April 27, 2022 10:46 pm

The author is one sick puppy who has no balanced credentials -judging from her article – to qualify her to teach. Facts trump propaganda.
She must know of her personal reliance on extractive industries. Her teaching should include their place in society, with reasons why she continues to use mining products while lecturing others to cease. Geoff S

Scissor
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
April 28, 2022 4:32 am

Shela? I think she is confused. When she says democracy, she really means communism.

John Larson
Reply to  Scissor
April 28, 2022 3:49 pm

I think she might mean Dermatocracy ; ) ,but there’s no way she means actual Communism. Corporatism, Crony capitalism, Fascism, Elitism (or some other substitute word for Gangsterism), but the Communism shtick is just to keep useful idiots voting Dem, I’m quite sure.

Kenji
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
April 28, 2022 5:34 am

“Extractive corporations”? The only extractive corporation that worries me is the extractive government she speaks of in glowing terms. The government that extracts every last dollar out of my pocket that it can find. Literally strip-mining my bank account. Laying it a bare wasteland.

I’ll tell you what MY DEMOCRACY would do about that! Re-elect Trump for the second time.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Kenji
April 28, 2022 10:13 am

Government’s role is to stay out of the way. It’s not there to control every aspect of your life, and make you dependent on it for every basic need.

Tom
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
April 28, 2022 5:50 am

It certainly makes one wonder if she truly believes what she writes, or if she’s an evil cynic attempting further indoctrinate the ill-informed masses. It’s hard to believe that someone can get all the way through a formal education such as she has without some question about her beliefs, back in the cobwebs of her mind.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
April 28, 2022 10:11 am

She must know of her personal reliance on extractive industries.”

Yes, but she’s a victim of the white patriarchy. She’s such a victim, she can’t do anything personally, except shame others to give up their modern lifestyles.

Hoyt Clagwell
April 27, 2022 10:53 pm

Only a progressive democrat would think that democracy means imposing the will of the minority on the majority.

Reply to  Hoyt Clagwell
April 28, 2022 11:08 am

And only a progressive Democrat would employ intellectual dishonesty via false premise narratives in this pursuit. Eve Darian-Smith delivers on exactly that with her remark farther down in her piece about “At the same time that the energy sector has sought to influence policies on climate change, it has also worked to undermine the public’s understanding of climate science.” Where does her link in her sentence take readers? To a less-than-transparent “documentcloud.org” page showing no source for what’s there, namely ye olde never-implemented API “victory will be achieved” memo set. Read through the pages and you see they’re nothing more than a set of common sense truisms that, when turned 180° in the opposite direction, they’d then be truisms which Greenpeace would gladly use themselves. But wait  what’s the source for that otherwise anonymous “documentcloud.org” page? Change just a couple of elements in the website address and you discover it sources from Greenpeace’s Kert Davies. But since the memo set was never implemented, then by default it cannot serve as evidence that the energy industry was working on undermining the public’s understanding of climate science.

Intellectual dishonesty on full display there from Eve Darian-Smith.

aussiecol
April 27, 2022 11:29 pm

I bet Professor Darian-Smith hates the thought that Elon Musk bought Twitter. And I bet she also hates even more the thought that Trump could end up back on that platform.

fretslider
April 27, 2022 11:39 pm

Eve Darian-Smith

Professor of Ignorance, University of California, Irvine

One of many

Curious George
Reply to  fretslider
April 28, 2022 7:18 am

And this actually teaches the next generation.

The end is nigh.

jeffery P
Reply to  Curious George
April 28, 2022 9:46 am

“The sheriff is nigh!”

Dr. Bob
Reply to  fretslider
May 7, 2022 7:08 am

This is one very strong reason why I will never contribute one cent to UCI. Logic and Science were once taught there, but not anymore. A very sad decline in our educational system.

Howard Dewhirst
April 27, 2022 11:50 pm

What could be more authoritarian than the so-called liberal, left leaning, well meaning, Facebook et all clones?

ray g
April 28, 2022 12:12 am

This person has not heard that there is no crisis.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  ray g
April 28, 2022 10:14 am

In her perfect world, you would be hanged for that, and then put in prison.

Oldseadog
April 28, 2022 12:15 am

How to make a small fortune from “renewables”:-

Start with a large fortune and invest for the long term in companies which use “renewables”.

Or convince the Goverment that your invention will “save the planet” but that you need grants to develop it.

Kenji
Reply to  Oldseadog
April 28, 2022 5:38 am

Ah yes … renewables are an “extractive corporation” of a different stripe … they extract FREE tax dollars for their corporate activities. Thanks Socialist Party Members, err Democrat politicians!

PCman999
Reply to  Kenji
April 28, 2022 1:57 pm

Yes, but renewables rely on extractive industries – mining needed for steel, copper, aluminum – in a larger and more wasteful way than fossil fuel or nuclear plants. Except for hydroelectric plants, renewables like wind and solar have short lifespans, at best 25 years even if they meet the manufacturer’s promises. Then the whole thing is a scrap heap and environmental mess. On the side, for example, old nuclear plants are frequently in the news getting recertified for another 25 or 35 years of service after a re-piping overhaul that reuses most of the existing plant.

Mason Crawford
April 28, 2022 12:29 am

“Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and reducing the destruction of forests can cut greenhouse gas emissions.”

An oxymoronic phrase if there ever was one. How are the climate doomsayers supposed to build their wind and solar farms without destroying vast swaths of pristine forest? 

Kenji
Reply to  Mason Crawford
April 28, 2022 5:40 am

A giant clear cut for a wind factory … doesn’t make a sound … if you can’t see it from one of John F Kerry’s mansions

Ladislav
April 28, 2022 12:30 am

Makes me wonder, just what rock is this Californian professor living under! What on Earth is this “unpolluted water,” she is demanding from elected leaders? The western countries have some of the cleanest environments in the world, including water. A few years ago, the news presenters on MSM here in Melbourne, Australia where I live, could not contain themselves with excitement over a research which concluded, that Melbourne has one of the best drinking water in the world. She is also calling for more renewable energy. Is she really that removed from a real world, or is she just playing dumb? Surely, if she did any research before desiding to write a bad sci-fi, she would know what wast areas of forests are decimated (including wild life) in order to install useless, intermittent wind turbines, which will continue to decimate birds, bats and insects for the duration of their use, driving some species into extinction!! Where are all the wildlife lovers, the WWF worriers, Greta and the Greens to stand up for Nature?

PCman999
Reply to  Ladislav
April 28, 2022 2:02 pm

About half of Borneo cut down for palm oil plantations to make biodiesel. Environmentalists don’t realize they are being played by eco-robber barons taking advantage of their “love” for the environment and lack of intelligence.

Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 1:01 am

Eric seems to completely miss the point of the article. Why does he go on about “hostile foreign powers” a phrase that is not mentioned or discussed and completely ignore the thrust of the article which is that politicans on both the left and the right are guilty of putting coportate interests above that of the public.

rhoda klapp
Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 1:15 am

I wonder whether the corporate interest = bad thought also applies to illegal immigration. Which is not in the interests of voters but corporates seem quiite keen.

What we see here is a common phenomenon. The idea that what I want just happens to align with ‘the greater good’.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 4:18 am

“both the left and the right are guilty of putting coportate interests above that of the public.”

Not Trump. Trump put the interests of the American people above everything else.

Kenji
Reply to  Tom Abbott
April 28, 2022 5:44 am

Yep … he brought those “messy jobs” back to America. The jobs people like this professor prefers to export to totalitarian governments … like the ChiComs.

jeffery P
Reply to  Tom Abbott
April 28, 2022 9:48 am

Mostly true. But downgraded to mostly not true for lack of context.

/wink

Simon
Reply to  Tom Abbott
April 28, 2022 1:09 pm

Not Trump. Trump put the interests of the American people above everything else.”:
Except there was that time when he tried to extort the Ukrainian president to get dirt on a political opponent. Oh and the time he minimised covid so he wouldn’t lose votes (costing the lives of countless thousands of Americans). And when he tried to charge the American tax payer exorbitant amounts to have the secret service stay at his clubs. Oh and let’s not forget when he stood on the stage and told the world he believed Putin over his own secret service…
Other than that he is a 100% behind the US for sure…

PCman999
Reply to  Simon
April 28, 2022 2:07 pm

“get dirt” – it’s not dirt if it’s illegal activity that the previous administration got away with.

Putin seems to only invade Ukraine when Democrats are in charge – know he can get away with it.

Simon
Reply to  PCman999
April 28, 2022 2:16 pm

What illegal activity? It was about Biden’s son that was questionable, not the administration of Obama.
Oh and you think Putin is so frightened of the draft dodger Trump that he wouldn’t have dared invade under him? Wow.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Simon
April 29, 2022 2:47 am

I see Simon is still suffering from TDS.

Simon
Reply to  Tom Abbott
April 29, 2022 3:16 am

Is that the best you have Tom? I give you facts, you give me put downs. You are a better man than that.

Scissor
Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 4:37 am

You are supposed to end a question with a “?” mark.

Otherwise, your inane comment was perfectly representative of your flawed thinking.

2hotel9
Reply to  Scissor
April 28, 2022 5:01 am

Thinking? Is that what that was? All I saw was a leftist stupispew.

Old Man Winter
Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 6:08 am

“the thrust of the article which is that politicans on both the left and the right are guilty of putting coportate interests above that of the public”

Rather than use the term “right”, I’d call them “RINOS”. The GOP leadership is totally in the pocket of
corporations which the Chamber of Commerce represents. Mitch & the Mrs have done very well by
them, thank you very much. Sen Burr (NC) headed the corrupt Senate Intel Committee but let Sen Warner
(VA) run it. Sens McCain & Graham were/are also members. Romney’s also a RINO. The Tea Party was
formed cuz there wasn’t a wit’s difference between the two parties & they needed to clean the SWAMP-
it smells more like a sewer to me!

Hoyt Clagwell
Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 8:44 am

Exactly which members of a corporation are not also members of the public? When publicly held corporations make a profit, does that not also benefit the public that owns shares of that corporation? Don’t all corporations employ members of the public? Don’t they offer more employment as they make more money? How exactly do you separate the “public” from “corporations”?

Meab
Reply to  Hoyt Clagwell
April 28, 2022 9:37 am

You are confusing Isick with facts and logic. He’s too stupid to realize that without corporations he would be spending all his time hunting, gathering, and collecting bark for toilet paper. Without corporations, almost all owned by the public, he wouldn’t have enough free time on his hands to write his inane drivel. Plus he wouldn’t own a computer.

PCman999
Reply to  Meab
April 28, 2022 2:09 pm

+100

Andy Pattullo
Reply to  Izaak Walton
April 28, 2022 10:47 am

In a judiciously regulated free market the interests of corporations and the public are largely the same. Only when they diverge should government lay on a hand and then only with the intent of bringing those interests into alignment. And no that was not the main thrust as I read it – it was the promotion of the prevalent ecolunatism that will eventually destroy both the corporations and the lives of the public if not checked.

PCman999
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
April 28, 2022 2:13 pm

Exactly – government is perfect for maintaining competition, after all monopolies go against the whole spirit of freedom idea. Capitalism is one of the oldest and basic of ideals, as simple as a weaver, fisherman or farmer bringing her/his wares to market with other producers and customers.

another ian
April 28, 2022 2:27 am

I wonder if the “smartest people in the West (/s)” will finally connect the dots?

“Kremlin’s mouthpieces on Russian state television openly discussing ‘probability’ of nuclear war with The West”

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/kremlins-mouthpieces-on-russian-state-television-openly-discussing-probability-of-nuclear-war-with-t.html

This ain’t “The Mouse that Roared”

Forrest Gardener
Reply to  another ian
April 28, 2022 4:12 am

Time to do some game theory on the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  another ian
April 28, 2022 4:20 am

Psychological warfare. It works on some people. Yesterday, I saw Geraldo shaking in his boots over Putin’s threats. That’s what Putin wants.

Scissor
Reply to  another ian
April 28, 2022 4:40 am

The Biden administration wants a distraction and they are stupid enough to consider nuclear war.

OweninGA
Reply to  another ian
April 28, 2022 4:41 am

Biden won’t do it, but the proper response to Russian nuclear sabre rattling is to move all the ballistic missile subs to their loading piers then move them out to sea. Probably don’t need to go do a long patrol, just sit out in the deep to give the Russians a little thought experiment on consequences.

Richard Page
Reply to  OweninGA
April 28, 2022 5:48 am

Given that the USS Nevada (SSBN) made a very public visit to Guam last month, I should imagine that the message has been sent and received. Unfortunately, due to the (obviously) ultra-secret nature of SSBN movements, it’s difficult to tell exactly how many have been forward deployed – I should imagine that most of the other 13 have been, though.

PCman999
Reply to  Richard Page
April 28, 2022 2:16 pm

How close is Guam to Moscow?

Hopefully it slows the Chinese though.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  PCman999
April 29, 2022 2:50 am

“How close is Guam to Moscow?”

Minutes away using intercontinental ballistic missiles.

John Garrett
April 28, 2022 3:41 am

When it comes to energy supply and climate, fed by their reliance on pseudoscience the climate crackpots cannot and will not see the contradiction between free market solutions and dictatorial/centrally-planned “Big Government” solutions.

Scissor
Reply to  John Garrett
April 28, 2022 4:42 am

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” Attributed to Oscar Wilde.

Tom Abbott
April 28, 2022 4:13 am

From the article: “The biggest obstacles, a recent U.N. climate report noted, are national leaders who are unwilling to regulate fossil fuel corporations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or plan for renewable energy production.”

The author seems to have missed the national leaders who actually contribute to CO2 increases, namely, the Chinese, and the Indians and the rest of Asia and Africa.

This woman is a Professor of Global and International Studies. I’m betting her students are not getting the full picture. Her readers certainly are not. I suspect she has a case of TDS.

2hotel9
Reply to  Tom Abbott
April 28, 2022 5:06 am

It is rather clear she has an advanced, metastasized case of Head-Up-Ass disease.

LdB
Reply to  Tom Abbott
April 29, 2022 6:09 am

Left out was those democratic national leaders want to get re-elected and can’t do what the greentards want because the public don’t want it 🙂

Forrest Gardener
April 28, 2022 4:13 am

Interesting how those most hell bent on destroying democracy profess to want to save it.

PCman999
Reply to  Forrest Gardener
April 28, 2022 2:20 pm

Hitler was a big environmentalist.

Makes sense, if you don’t care at all about human beings then you end up caring more for the shrubbery and vermin, sort of by default.

Michael in Dublin
April 28, 2022 4:14 am

If I were a scientist or researcher I would not want to ruin my reputation by publishing my work in this third rate publication. There are other much better open source sites that would accept good studies.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Michael in Dublin
April 28, 2022 9:42 am

Michael, you are falling into the “only believe peer reviewed studies in a reputable journal” trap. Every taxpayer funded study must be subjected to detailed verification analysis pre or post publication. At a small extra cost we could better analyze the worth of the government-funded crap now spewed by CliSciFi. Why should politicized journals or the UN determine the validity of the science?

Michael in Dublin
Reply to  Dave Fair
April 28, 2022 10:02 am

Dave,
The top peer reviewed journals that do not publish the names of the reviewers nor allow for critical comments of either the article reviewed or even the reviews themselves actually publish much that is not worth the paper it is printed on. That is why I did not recommend them as you have wrongly assumed and pushed for the open source journals where the reviewers names and comments appear.

Government funding is a huge problem because they support glamorous projects that have little long term success and benefit but negect what appears mundane but historically has proved to be of far greater benefit to people. Being more familiar with the EU situation, governments here are actually hurting “pure” research in favour of supporting whatever they hope to get some short term political mileage out of.

PCman999
Reply to  Michael in Dublin
April 28, 2022 2:25 pm

Definitely, open, free, transparent and un-paywalled science journals would be a boon to civilization.

Michael in Dublin
Reply to  PCman999
April 28, 2022 4:55 pm

Have you noticed how some journals, magazines and newspapers have a sensational headline about what we urgently need to know about the coming climate catastrophe but it is hidden behind a paywall? If it were truly so urgent and people needed to know would they not find a sponsor so all the public could read this or are they merely using this to make money off suckers?

OweninGA
April 28, 2022 4:44 am

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

Looks like the left is using 1984 as a manual again.

PCman999
Reply to  OweninGA
April 28, 2022 2:39 pm

I thought it was funny how North Korea was run using Animal Farm as a foundation document, but now that I find myself living in Oceania, I’ve stopped laughing.

God help us all.

2hotel9
April 28, 2022 4:58 am

YES! Invest in oil, gas, coal, hydro and nuclear, the only renewable energy sources on the planet. THIS is how we save our Representative Republic.

PCman999
Reply to  2hotel9
April 28, 2022 2:47 pm

True – we have easily a century or more of prosperity with each of these, but there aren’t enough resources to implement a wind and solar transition.

One caveat – the eco-alarmists who truly care about the environment and who have any smarts left will start investigating solar power satellites – doesn’t depend on terrestrial resources, production happens outside of our big blue marble, doesn’t require batteries and their pollution and toxic chemicals, nor covering the countryside with wind turbines and transmission lines. Birds flying over the ground antennas will feel warm but won’t be chopped to shreds nor blinded.

observa
April 28, 2022 5:08 am

I think we can all guess the answer to that question.

Sure can as it’s just more of the usual-

We’ll need policies leading to large scale consumption changes
smoothing the social transition:

  • a carbon tax and additional environmental taxes
  • wealth and inheritance taxes
  • a shorter working week to share the work around
  • job guarantee at the basic wage for all adults who want to work and who can’t find a job in the formal economy
  • non-coercive policies to end population growth, especially in high income countries
  • boosting government spending on poverty reduction, green infrastructure and public services as part of a shift to Universal Basic Services.

Net zero by 2050 will hit a major timing problem technology can’t solve. We need to talk about cutting consumption (theconversation.com)

PCman999
Reply to  observa
April 28, 2022 2:50 pm

So the voters and taxpayers become livestock to be managed by the political elite?

Wade
April 28, 2022 5:12 am

I’ve learned that the following is a “threat to democracy”

  • Uncensored speech
  • Protests against illegal health lockdowns
  • Bans on abortion
  • Voter identification
  • Freedom
  • The ability and desire to decide what medical treatment I will and will not accept

I have also learned that the following is required to “save democracy”

  • An unelected bureaucrat appointed by Joe Biden to prevent disinformation
  • Riots against capitalism or ‘white supremacy’
  • Unverifiable elections
  • Police beating up little old ladies who are protest against illegal lockdowns
  • Bulldozing millions of acres of land and trees and putting on it solar panels
  • Keeping people who trespassed in prison without being charged with a crime and thus denying habeas corpus and their right to a speedy trial
Michael in Dublin
April 28, 2022 5:31 am

more government is the path to freedom

During my adult life of over 50 years and with a keen interest in history which goes back longer, I have not once seen more government leading to freedom. More government leads to suppression of individual responsibility which is the one thing repressive governments fear.

This Professor is not prepared to interact with CLINTEL‘s “World Climate Declaration” but has to frame her climate argument in a political framework. Her article is headed by a picture of Bolsanaro speaking to Trump with the caption, “Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump threw their weight behind industries that are driving climate change.”

She wants to make a case that the fossil fuel industry is behind the election of Trump and gives a graph of the top contributors. Using the data from her main source, I found that the top 5 fossil fuel industry political contributions were 0.32% of the total election cost. Simply using high school Math, she could have worked this out. If her arguments are flawed on points like these, I would not expect her arguments on the science to be any better. As for the assertion of the fossil fuel industry “driving climate change” this is ironic because of the damage that alarmism has and is causing.

John the Econ
April 28, 2022 6:09 am

So better democracy through eco-fascism?

Really want to see democracy in action? Continue down this path until the lights literally go out for good and see how the people react.

OweninGA
Reply to  John the Econ
April 28, 2022 8:48 am

The problem is the folks who are all-in on this idea would clamor for the government to fix the hobgoblins that government created. Some people have turned the stupid meter up to a Spinal Tap 11.

ferdberple
April 28, 2022 6:12 am

So we should rely on unreliable renewable energy.

Where is all the energy going to come from to produce solar panels and windmills? Won’t this in fact increase emissions?

OweninGA
Reply to  ferdberple
April 28, 2022 8:49 am

When they wear out, we’d have to fire up the fossil fuels to have enough energy to make new ones. (/sarc)

Unfortunately I have heard “logic” just like that from energy deniers.

PCman999
Reply to  OweninGA
April 28, 2022 2:56 pm

Nothing sarcastic about it – so-called renewables must be causing an uptick in emissions, as the huge amount of emissions that are front-loaded in their creation – that’s why nuclear beats both wind and especially solar in emissions per kilowatts.

ferdberple
April 28, 2022 6:15 am

How about wealth? Doesn’t the government have a responsibility to facilitate the creation of wealth? Or should it create only poverty?

OweninGA
Reply to  ferdberple
April 28, 2022 8:50 am

In the leftist Utopia, misery is the commodity that is spread evenly around to all but the inner-circle apparatchiks.

LdB
Reply to  ferdberple
April 29, 2022 6:12 am

Wealth gets redistributed by design .. the moment any little baby is born it is entitled to it’s share of the worlds wealth. Next unicorns and angels appear and we all sit around a fire and sing Kumbaya with Simon, Griff, Loydo and all the Greentards.

ferdberple
April 28, 2022 6:18 am

There are only 3 ways to create wealth. Extraction is one. Many jobs create no wealth at all. They simply move it around and create inefficiencies. These jobs are called government.

George Daddis
April 28, 2022 7:25 am

The first LIE is that the named politicians ran on an “anti-environmental” platform.
I, for one care, about the environment, but I do not believe we are facing catastrophe if we in the US don’t go to net zero emissions. Nor do I believe that the mild past and forecasted warming will result in a “tipping point” of any sort.

The rest of the essay is another pseudo scientific diatribe based on a false premise.

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  George Daddis
April 30, 2022 11:26 am

More to the point, the “renewable energy” push IS “anti-environment,” far more so than using fossil fuels.

How many acres of rain forest have to be bulldozed for “biodiesel” plantations, how many acres of trees clear-cut for “wind farms” and “solar farms,” how many birds, bats and insects must be killed by wind turbine blades or roasted in “solar plant” kill zones before there is any admission of the complete stupidity of pursuing this non-solution to the imaginary “crisis?”

CD in Wisconsin
April 28, 2022 7:50 am

In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy marxism and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy Maxism.

********

Professor Darian-Smith needs a proofreader to review what she writes before she writes this stuff.

Reply to  CD in Wisconsin
April 28, 2022 10:56 am

I re-wrote one of Prof Darian-Smith’s other assertions:

In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations agenda-pushing enviro-activists.

Bruce Cobb
April 28, 2022 8:20 am

More importantly, why do we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions at all?
Oh wait, we don’t.

LdB
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
April 29, 2022 6:15 am

+5% this year alone 🙂

niceguy
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
May 3, 2022 7:29 am

I suppose the new pretext would be: less dependency on Russia.

John Pickens
April 28, 2022 8:21 am

“Extractive Corporations”

Bumper sticker: “If it wasn’t grown, it was mined.”

Everything, everything you eat, wear, or touch, everything.

By demonizing extractive corporations, you are demonizing everything. The negativity against humanity is total.

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  John Pickens
April 30, 2022 11:28 am

Corollary: “If it was grown, it probably was grown with the use of something that was mined.”

Slowroll
April 28, 2022 8:33 am

We should actually be thanking the petroleum drilling industry for engaging in a hugely capital intensive business with enormous financial risks to provide a product that makes our lives so much more pleasant and livable. And, an industry from which governments make more money in the form of taxes than the industry itself.

LdB
Reply to  Slowroll
April 29, 2022 6:16 am

Now compare that to the renewable and green economies 🙂

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  LdB
April 30, 2022 11:29 am

Who contribute those “benefits” poverty, misery and suffering.

Paul Penrose
April 28, 2022 9:31 am

The natural course of things is for government to grow, and liberty to yield. Government is the solution to a scant few problems and is the source of many, many more. Anybody with a basic understanding of human nature and history understands this; it is just ignorant/childish to think otherwise.

Andy Pattullo
April 28, 2022 10:42 am

The title professor no longer means what it used to. It is now akin to calling oneself a self absorbed propagandist for socialism and societal collapse. Critical thinking used to be a qualification and now it is a barrier to academic advancement.

Rich Lentz
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
April 28, 2022 6:36 pm

You have reminded me of a joke(?) I heard my first year of college, 60 years ago: A PhD is a person that has gone to college to learn more and more about less and less until they know obsoletely nothing at all. Upon which they are conferred the degree “Doctor of Philosophy.” [May not be the exact wording.]

PCman999
April 28, 2022 1:44 pm

Huge amount of projection by Darian-Smith – left wing/eco-activist politicians take their marching orders from special interest groups not the general population who will be impoverished by the “energy transition” to the neo-dark ages.

Activist politicians lie about the effects of co2 to create a fake crisis and demand emergency powers – ergo climate change is a direct threat to democracy.

Stephen Skinner
April 28, 2022 1:55 pm

In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. “
Er no.
“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.” – R. Feynman

There is a subtle but important difference.

Paul Penrose
Reply to  Stephen Skinner
April 29, 2022 10:53 am

That’s a great quote. Here’s another one: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” United States Supreme Court in the case of West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnett.

Stephen Skinner
April 28, 2022 2:00 pm

“The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.” – Max Horkheimer (Philosopher and Sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the ‘Frankfurt School’ of social research.)

Rich Lentz
April 28, 2022 5:01 pm

Are all Progressives Braindead Zombies. Japan lost the war when they ran out of oil. The two bombs were just fireworks to signify the end of the war. Any modern nation that is dependent on offshore source for fossil fuels should just raise the White flag. Thera is no way a modern civilization can exist, live, prosper and continue without fossil fuels, at least until we discover and implement some new form of energy. This hazard switch to renewable by outlawing fossil fuel will end democracy and surrender the us to China or Russia’s control. Renewable Energy is not that fuel. The stored energy density is not there and no present brainstorm is within fifty – one hundred years of being there. If every seat on an airplane had a stationary bike turning a generator the total energy generated by the passengers would not make up for the energy needed from the added weight. Can only gain a few hundred calories per hour per passenger. Do the Math.

When I graduated from HS, and bored of college, I joined the Navy and became a Nuclear
Operator. The buzz in NPS was that in less than 20 years there will be Fission Reactors in the subs and carriers! Every 10 years it is still in 20 years and I first heard that 60 years ago. A nation without Fossil fuels will cease to exist. Making all Military equipment operate on “Renewable” energy will make that nation the first to go down. Only possibly Renewable Alternative is something like H2 or a purely synthetic fuel with a higher energy density
than present fossil fuels. And My Great, Great, grandchildren will be dead before then!

And I do not like H2! if the operators had not started the RCS pumps when they did and started them 8 or 12 hours later. Nuclear power would be a forgotten subject today. The pressure in the containment building from the explosion, started by the breaker closure, was above the Design and Test pressure. And it got there in a very few seconds, not over 10 or 12 hours like the Verification Test Pressure. Worse, a H2 flame from a small leak, is essentially invisible.

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  Rich Lentz
April 30, 2022 11:34 am

I’m thinking you meant fusion reactors. There are nuclear powered carriers and subs…

paul
April 28, 2022 5:38 pm

” Professer” Eve ?… more like propaganda minister I would say

LdB
Reply to  paul
April 29, 2022 6:17 am

Greentard propaganda minister ,, be specific 🙂

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  paul
April 30, 2022 11:35 am

In most cases these days, just replace “Professor” with “Indoctrinated Leftist” and you’ll have things straight.

niceguy
May 1, 2022 5:02 pm

This bothers me:

“EDF has been informed of the increase in the concentration of certain noble gases in the primary circuit of reactor n°1 of the Taishan nuclear power plant”

https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/information-relating-to-reactor-ndeg1-of-taishan-nuclear-power-plant

It could be caused by vibrations in the coolant flow, and could be a design issue for the EPR and not just an incident with the reactor exploitation.

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