Reposted from thomas buckley’s substack
Thanks to the California Globe for running this piece. You can visit the website at: https://californiaglobe.com/
Energy has to come from somewhere.
This may come as a shock to some, but if one plans to eliminate fossil fuels from the production equation, that energy creation capacity must be replaced.
But there is a problem – a big one. With the green energy movement eschewing clean natural gas, nuclear, and hydro and defining only wind, solar, wave, and geo-thermal as renewable – and therefore the only politically acceptable replacements for oil and coal – the cost of energy has skyrocketed, when it is available at all – https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220922005921/en/New-Report-Shows-How-High-Retail-Electricity-Prices-Are-Slowing-California%E2%80%99s-Progress-Towards-an-Equitable-Clean-Energy-Future and https://californiaglobe.com/articles/california-backlash-over-telling-californians-not-to-charge-electric-vehicles-during-heatwave/ .
While California may have been the tip of spear, green-wise, that spear is now plunging directly into the hearts of millions of bank accounts around the globe – https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gas-is-going-up-but-this-is-how-inflation-really-hurts-older-americans-11649873119 and https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-heating-oil-islanders-react-1.6616664.
This brings up one very simple question – why is society robbing Grandma to pay Gaia?
The leaders of the greenergy movement are not, it seems, too intellectually deficient to understand that the technology they say will alleviate the problem simply does not exist – nor will it exist any time soon.
Globally, the green movement has already inflicted utterly predictable suffering on millions of people. From energy to agriculture –– to transportation to, well, everything.
Why, then, knowing the impossibilities of the future and the disasters of the present, has the movement gained so many adherents in the government, finance, media, and the social spheres?
The answer is rather simple – power. The movement is far more about justifying the well-renumerated continued existence of bureaucrats, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, professorships, pundits, and everyone else who has realized it is really comfortable to be part of unaccountable and – so far – unstoppable gravy train than it is about the “environment.”
Of course, if one is actually a Luddite that is less of a truism – when the point of a policy stance is to literally turn back the clock on civilization, the elimination of production capacity not only makes sense but is in fact a crucial aspect of the effort. As that would cause the death of literally billions of humans (the math is simple: less food + less warmth + less transportation + less knowledge + less of everything else = less people) it is not “toplined” in most green public relations messages.
Neither are the concomitant socio-political impact – the fewer people you have in a group the easier it is to control the group – nor the inevitable actual environmental destruction – for example, pre-abundant fossil fuel Vermont had a forest coverage of 20 percent, now it’s about 80 percent – often mentioned, for obvious reasons.
The majority of the green-apocs do not publicly espouse such radical notions but emphasize that the energy needed to power the modern world can be found if we just look hard enough, are extra careful in how it is used, and pay just a little bit more. Wind, solar, geo-thermal, wave capture, etc., can be used to replace fossil fuel. It should be noted, however, that two forms of energy production that produce not a milligram of extra carbon – nuclear and hydro – tend not to be included on the alternative list as hydro means dams and dams are bad and nuclear means radioactive waste and the inevitable catastrophes associated with the technology.
As for natural gas – the cleanest, to the point of negligibility, of fossil fuels – that is verboten as well because, um, it comes from the ground? I guess?
A ”knock-on” trend following in greenergy’s wake is the worship of electricity. From restroom hand dryers (even before this whole thing a bane of existence) that claim to be good for the environment to cars to home appliances (no more home gas hook-ups to be allowed in California and New York City in a few years and if you don’t live there just wait, the “be very afraid” ground is already being laid: https://slate.com/technology/2022/10/gas-stoves-brain-development-air-quality.html ), using only electricity has attained worshipful fetish status. Just plug something in and you never have to worry and – Bonus! – you are deemed a better person than someone else.
This essential invisibility of electricity is part of its green appeal. When other fuels are used, it is readily apparent to the user – they can see the gas burning in the blue flame on the stove and every time they fill up the tank they vaguely remember from junior high that gas comes from dinosaurs that got smooshed a long time ago and now it’s what your car eats.
In other words, there is a certain noticeable physicality to fossil fuels, while electricity is simply on/off and pay the bill once a month. It is the disconnection caused by this ubiquity that creates the psychological shield of simple ever-presence around electricity, making it nearly immune to “up-stream” concerns and questions about being able to use more – a lot lot lot – more of it.
That is, until you can’t pay the bill or the power goes out because it turns out electricity is not a magical force conjured for free out of the universal aether, but an actual thing that has to be created by people and – no matter the form – that act of creation both impacts the environment and has to be paid for – https://www.kornferry.com/content/dam/kornferry-v2/pdf/briefings/pp16-17_Briefings54_Voices_Constable.pdf .
Don’t like drilling for oil in your home state? Okay, get it from somewhere else. Have you had a positive impact – which is the whole point of the endeavor – on the global environment? Absolutely not – the pollution is just not happening near you where you can see it. Run everything on batteries because oil and gas are evil? Ok. Better for the environment and for people around the world? Nope – the mining practices alone involved in the process are brutal, to both the land and the people involved as labor laws and environmental quality assurances are not terribly high on the ”to-do” lists of the government-owned Chinese multinationals currently tearing through the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In the end, the greenergy fad is not saving the environment, cannot hope to provide enough electricity to cover current demand let alone the explosive growth planned, and is very specifically crushing economies, fueling international conflict, and pointedly making people poorer.
I think I’ll go with Grandma on this one.
Good report placed here for WATTS readers. The phrase “..not…too intellectually deficient to understand…” is the sense I always get, the persons pushing CAGW/Green Loonie Nonsense are after power and control, and chaos and disaster are how to get it. Leave grandma alone.
Spot on article and spot on comment. Unfortunately, grandma is far down the power list.
I wish the authors who get the big picture would research mining, nuclear, child labor in Africa, environmental … not using corrupted organizations, the terrible educations they themselves have had, Mine Watch, UN, all the big know nothing players who are responsible for the real life and death situation the world is suffering now.
Re above: oil isn’t from squished dinosaurs, nuclear is not the horror show described, mining is safe and clean in most places and continuingly improving.
Most cobalt is mined by large international companies with the best, cleanest tech. In all well endowed mineral regions on earth, naturally the local population is going to work small properties and get good jobs with the big companies.
In every mineral field, the locals enjoy triple and more the income of the their less fortunate compatriots. Many small miners formerly worked for the big companies and want to be their own boss. They and their families work small holdings.
Governments actually care about these people. I was the Geologist-in-charge of the Geological Survey office in Jos Nigeria in the middle 1960s. It was a tin, tantalum, niobium, rare earths area and Anglo American was dredging tin, but dozens of small miners employing whole villages worked their registered holdings. One of my duties was to assist these operators in development, mining and concentrating their minerals efficiently and safely. Latin America is full of these entrepreneurs and they formed organizations recognized by gov. who had courses in mineral ID and mining.
It gas been a bit of a wild west in China where most dangerous eyesores have been done by illegal mining. Even there this gas been curbed considerably in the past two decades.
Please don’t resort to the dishonest practices we rail against with the Dark Side. It isnt acceptable to support your position thus way for true sceptics. And realize what you think you know about sectors outside your expertise is likely very wrong. Do real broad ranging due diligence. The usual sources are corrupted.
the pics and stories OF the poor kids in africa tell a vastly different tale, as do the covering trails of company owners going via EU to then go to china ie cobalt
as around grandma age they forget grannies DO hold power, they mind the grandkids;-) or they used to;-(
sad to say grannies my age or older dont give a rats about politics climate or much else not in immediate areas of personal concern for the most part. drives me nuts!
Im not an actual grannie but I DO take time to talk to kids and tell them the climate stuff theyre hearing is wrong, and they should ask questions, even if just makes a teacher of this cruds day a tad harder I consider that a small triumph
Grandma got run over by a
reindeerscience-free radical environmental movement!There are a lot of true believer, useful idiots, that support their own eventual destruction. These seem to be a significant part of the political power involved.
I know quite a few teaches. There are 6th and 7th graders who do not know how to properly hold a pen or pencil, have no idea what a dictionary or a thesaurus is , can’t multiply two numbers. Forget about cursive writing. This is suburban Boston. It is a very frightening to view what has become of education in the US
Well … yeah. Just like the Marxist movements of 100 years ago, we are being driven by an unholy combination of elites who can never get enough power, from Xi to Gates to Schwab and many more less visible, and true believers on a holy mission to save our planet, all objective evidence notwithstanding. At the intersection of pecuniary interests and religious faith are the experts, the Manns and Faucis and celebrity goofballs for whom pecuniary interests and religious faith form a mutually self-justifying psychological circuit. This class never, ever expects that the hardship they engender should in any way affect them, for they are the priesthood, the party faithful. The alphas (Xi etc.) will come for them later.
Edit: or consider the absurdly venal types like Biden, who would happily sell Grandma for cash. And the fact that this sort of man is propelled to the US presidency by forces seen and unseen. It’s not looking good, folks.
How many dead pensioners to ‘save the planet’?
The “Green” energy advocates don’t simply want to rob Grandma … they want Grandma to DIE. They are anti-human, misanthropic, fanatics.
It’s a good thing hospitals don’t carve notches onto ventilators. They have records for that.
they want Grandma to DIE.
Yes,
And her children – your parents and uncles and aunts;
And her grandchildren – specifically including you.
Current world population – ~8 Billion.
Their target – something like 500 million serfs and concubines. And a few ‘elites’ ….
So more than 9 in 10 of us – you and me included – need to DIE.
In pretty short order.
Let’s see how this winter goes in Europe.
I hope it’s a warm one, otherwise the suffering and loss of life may become very unpleasant.
Auto
I’ve talked to some who want the population to be well under 100 million.
a ridiculous and completely unfounded statement.
sadly no. I have heard personally people with ZERO idea where it came from call humans a plague on the planet..club of Rome stuff ehrlich strong etc and they really ARE utterly ignorant of either of those sources or rationales for it
The ATL article is nearer the “conspiracy theory” of the “elites” who want a smaller population that is easier to control, but there are several (/ many ?) “ecological” organisations whose stated aims include “the (voluntary) extinction of one species : Homo sapiens … us”.
The most well-known is probably VHEMT, or the “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement”.
While claiming (direct link to their “About the movement” page) that
the end result is the same … zero human beings on Earth resulting from a “solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing” that is supposed to be “an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology”.
It is also noteworthy that they deem it necessary to include such disclaimers on their website.
What do you think will happen when the price of heat and food both double? People are being forced to choose which they can do without more. Either way, hungry and cold people are more likely to die from sicknesses they normally would survive.
planned parent/hood
Is a good idea.
The high-tech breakthrough in political science research labs has determined that it is far better to let bad public policy run its course to crisis and then take credit for the multi-trillion-dollar stimulus plan that follows. Get with the two-phase program or perish in the inflation wilderness.
This set of long-planned changes is what’s known as the Great Reset, and is a plan to reduce the population of the world to serfdom, except for a “Council of 300” who plan to be the bosses. Read Klaus Schwab’s The Great Reset, in which he lays out the plan for which he is the public figurehead, or Alex Jones’ book of the same title, which speaks more to what you and I need to do right now to resist the plan.
When governments start seizing people’s land and herds (as they are already doing in the US, Europe, and India) we need to say no to them and make it stick. The time to fight for civilization or lose it forever is upon us.
As always, the eco-nut movement provides the cover story in which the bad guys are cloaking their demands on the world.
The Great Reset is an imaginary conspiracy theory, as you use the term
Does Build Back Better work for you? Half the Western leaders have uttered the phrase in the past two years.
Griff, it is very bad you are doing the conspiracy accusations now about incredibly serious possibilities. The reason I say this is that the timeline from conspiracy accusation to conspiracy undeniable reality has shrunk to about one year.
Griff, Do you know that my tinfoil hat gave me greater protection from covid than your shot?
Good little sheep… bah!, bah!
Exactly right on!
Burning fossil fuels releases a beneficial gas, CO2 (building block for life) that is massively greening up the planet and increasing food for most animals, especially humans raising crops.
Declaring a climate crisis because of a slight warming from the greenhouse gas effect is also ignoring the previous warmings similar to this, that were previously referred to as Climate OPTIMUMS. The last one being the Medieval WARM period, 1,000 years ago.
And the warmest global warming anomaly during human existance…..the Holocene Climate Optimum from 9,000 to 5,000 years ago that was +2 deg. warmer than this in the higher latitudes. There was LESS Arctic sea ice during much of that period than there is now and polar bears did great as they are now.
A key replacement energy source for this beneficial gas includes wind turbines.
A diffuse, intermittent form of unreliable, expensive energy that still can’t be stored on a grid level scale because batteries to accomplish that in a practical form haven’t been invented yet.
Fossil fuels are it’s own battery. The energy is stored in the fuel, wherever the fuel is stored.
But the biggest problem is that wind turbines are the energy source from environmental hell. Destroying landscapes and ecosystems, killing birds/bats and tearing up the planet to obtain the materials to build them. They last 25 years, then have to be replaced.
They only reason that wind energy exists is crony capitalism and governmental support to make it profitable and give it advantages over the superior fossil fuels.
Twenty-Five Industrial Wind Energy Deceptions
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27498/#88241
Green Energy Scores a 76X ROI for Their Lobbying Efforts
https://www.transparencyusa.org/article/green-energy-lobby-roi
How is it possible that we are actually marching forward with such a disastrous plan that defies the physical laws of science and energy and no chance of working?
Most people care about the future of our planet and want to believe in things that will save the planet.
It’s incredible how the corrupt entities, like the UN, hijacked climate science by getting control of it using the IPCC and actually rewrote climate history in order lead us down this path.
However, the bottom line is that they couldn’t have sold the junk science snake oil without people being convinced that it would “Save the Planet”.
Anybody against saving the planet must be a denier that has some self enriching connection to fossil fuels.
I’m a PRACTICING environmentalist that conserves all natural resources, minimizing energy use and buying new stuff(that I can afford to buy if I wanted it).
Have been an active member in our local environmental organizations for 40 years.
https://keepevansvillebeautiful.org/
Compare that to the life styles of the rich and famous spokespeople for the fake green energy schemes telling you how to live.
I’m not telling you to do what I do. However, If that’s your choice, then at least I can be an authentic example.
Those wind turbines are designed to last 25 years, but my understanding is that few of them actually have much chance of making it that long.
Many fail within only a few years.
Nothing new here. As Mencken stated decades ago: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”
And the lefist destruction of the family structure goes back to Marx in the The Communist Manifesto. For any cult, family is an impediment.
One, of many, elephants in the room is the problem that you can’t make anything FROM electricity only by USING it. Even then it’s not always the most cost effective way of doing anything. The source materials for a lot of stuff used in the modern world come from Fossil Fuels. Even the hated (by greens) coal can be the source of many useful chemicals
Maybe Grandma is being robbed, and yes she is and has been for a long time.
the mechanism is called (UK-wise) Gilt Edged Securities in conjunction with Managed Inflation
Basically, Gov forces employees and employers to pay money into Pension Funds and then promptly borrows that money for extended periods of time. 10, 20 or even 40 years.
During that time, Gov and despite their vehement claims as to hate/despise Inflation, carefully manage it (via interest rates) so as to keep it at a seemingly low level.
They are absolutely lying about inflation and very effectively taking the piss out of folks, esp those who don’t understand Compound Interest.
Net result is that the promised high interest and large terminal bonuses on the Securities as/when they mature, mean that Gov is paying back only a fraction of what was originally borrowed.
But Inflation makes it seem like a huuuuge and generous amount.
i.e. Big Numberism. Alarmists do so love big numbers. (peta etta gigga squigga Joules are great things to enhance the size of your willy – even skeptix go there sometimes)
But Grandma has been systematically robbed like this for decades now, they cannot really (decently) squeeze any more out of the hapless crones
So now they have turned the screws onto the children.
Primarily of course via Student Loans – selling a false promise that ‘getting a degree will get you a Good (well paid) job.
Again they’re taking the piss, how the fug can everybody have Above Average Pay?
University Graduates seemingly do and if that ain’t a measure of how deep the shit we’re now in, what is?
Also via the grotesque stunt of stopping the duty paid (Stamp Duty) on the purchase of property.
Fantastic, drove the UK property market crazy.
Then, when the Stamp Duty comes back in force – Windfall tax revenue
And who are the folks looking to buy houses if not, very effectively, The Kids
Think of the Children is the constant refrain
Bollox
Think of the Cash Cows more like, and how much can be milked out of them
is there a fate too horrible….
It’s kinda looking like we’ll be finding out pretty damn soon….
The money goes to various environmental groups and activist, a few preferred businesses and China.
“ nor will it exist any time soon” … It will NEVER exist …
If you are long in the tooth as I am, it is easy to see the dirty hands of the Communists here manipulating the masses with lies and misleading propaganda.
Just analyse that ghastly FALSE Meme CAGW which has gone viral and you will see what I mean. —: It’s a brilliant bit of Propaganda writing, specifically designed to spread fear, doubt and aggression towards the perceived satanic properties of Human induced CO2 Emissions.
The UN with its political acolytes such as the IPCC is serving as a very useful tool in the global dissemination of this falsity via its vast array of tentacles reaching deep into much of society and its institutions.
My dear sir, there aren’t any communists left outside N Korea and China, and many of the c
Chinese are a bit capitalist.
There isn’t any sinister world dominating secret force behind all this, whether communists or the WEF.
The all electric future fuelled by totally unreliable sources of energy… what could go wrong?
Here is a graph showing electricity production by windmills in France last week, middle of October, you know, that windy time of year.
The black line is the load.
Just one quick question, how the fu kin L is this supposed to work you cretins?
(well written article btw)
So how was French nuclear doing last week?
If you look it up on the same website for the same week it provided approx 70% of the load.
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=FR&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&week=41
How is this supposed to work?
It isn’t.
Post says :”…As for natural gas – the cleanest, to the point of negligibility, of fossil fuels…”
it cannot be a fossil fuel. It is found on the outer moons of the solar system. It is just natural.
So what if it is found in the outer solar system?
If it came down while the earth was still molten, all of the methane would have outgassed into the atmosphere. If it came down after the crust formed, it would be in the first mile or so of the crust, and would have escaped billions of years ago.
“Run everything on batteries because oil and gas are evil?”
Batteries are passive devices. They produce nothing; and, they lose about 10% of the energy sent to them. The electricity has to come from somewhere else to charge the battery for use and recharge it after use, in addition to meeting the contemporaneous demand on the grid.
Batteries and operating a “stable grid” are mutually exclusive.
It is hard to decide whether Putin or the Greens are the most danger to humanity.
the greens BY FAR
Putin/Russia has been funding the Greens for decades. The more Europe depended on Russian energy, the more income for Russia.
Very nice article, short and clear. Green devils are monsters, the sooner the average person realizes that the better off we will be.
Making us poorer but happy is the WEF way?
yeah
you dont own you rent
may i suggest anyone using Msoft is also into this LIE
you used to get the cd own the ability to load unload transfer etc
now?
pc dies the drive wont reload in a new pc , you dont own jackschitt
you dont own “office” you now rent it
you dont own adobe you rent it
stop the rot and go to Linux
at least free download open office and give billygates n mates less profit
Well now, reading New Science mag the other day I noticed “in 2019, researchers minced a smartphone in a blender to a fine powder and found 33g of iron, 13g of silicon plus heaps more. In all, our smartphones have more than 30 different elements from lithium to cobalt! Not so easy to recycle, at all. BTW what fuel is used to mine all these elements??
musta been one hell of a blender!
Apologize in advance if someone else has already made this observation, didn’t read through the entire list of comments.
At any rate, EVERYTHING we touch and EVERYTHING we eat depends on diesel fuel. Ships, trains, farm equipment, and trucks. The green wackos are already trying to starve people (Gaia Hypothesis?) and control the proles with sky high diesel fuel prices – if they “win” and diesel fueled transportation and prime movers are docked and parked, will the proles finally rise up?
“the pollution is just not happening near you where you can see it”
That’s really the point. Out of sight, out of mind – if they can ignore it, their virtue is intact.
As a side note, Mythbusters did a test on those air hand dryers vs. paper towels and the result was that the air dryers spread bacteria a lot more than paper towels.
Please note that hydro and nuclear are eschewed by the Warmistas for two very good reasons: They provide abundant and inexpensive power.
Either of these is a deal killer for inclusion in the “new green economy*”.
The Warmistas will only allow power sources that are expensive and wholly inadequate to meet demand.
*In case you did not notice, in keeping with everything the left does or says, i.e, the opposite of the actual case, the “New Green Economy™” is neither new, nor is it green, and it is most certainly not able to form the basis of anything resembling an economy. Not to mention, it is not even a teensy itty bitty bit economical.