By Dr. Euan Mearns
What is reported daily as an energy transition bears none of the hallmarks of previous shifts in the energy system that is a fundamental driver of global economies.
In the early 19th century, many homes were heated with wood, and transport was by horse, sailing ship or shankās pony. Industry was powered by water wheels, and agriculture by horses. Whale oil, candles or gas lamps provided light after sunset. The majority of people lived in grinding poverty, and in 1820 the life expectancy of the global population was about 26 years.
By end of the century and the close of the Victorian era, society was well into an energy transformation. Coal heated many homes. The first electric street lighting had been installed along with coal-fired power generation and a rudimentary power grid in the industrializing world. Coal-powered railways were everywhere. Steam engines fueled with coal powered mighty steel-hulled ships and industrial plants. In 1900, global life expectancy had risen to around 31 years.
This transition paralleled the Industrial Revolution launched by the introduction of coal, which has double the energy density of wood, and the 18th century invention of the steam engine.
Accelerating the transformation was Edwin Drakeās 1859 discovery of a small quantity of ārock oilā in Pennsylvania. And then in 1901, the Spindletop gusher was drilled in Texas, marking the true beginning of the oil age. Refined rock oil (kerosene) could be used in oil lamps. The replacement of whale oil with kerosene for light, effectively saved a leviathan from early extinction just as the move to coal for heating preserved many forests.
The mid 19th century also saw the development of early internal combustion engines, although at that time there was insufficient fuel for a motor industry. The Spindletop gusher and subsequent discoveries changed all that. The world was now awash with oil without any real market. Then in 1908, Henry Ford rolled out his Model T to begin the age of the car and mass transit. The Wright brothersā first powered flight in 1908 led quickly to commercial air travel and eventually to the jet age.
Unparalleled development came with the 20th century and the introduction of nuclear power plants whose uranium fuel contains more than 16,000 times the energy content of coal, oil and natural gas. At the same time, hydroelectric power rapidly expanded and natural gas (the most energy dense of the fossil fuels by mass) became more available for electricity generation and home heating and cooking.
The introduction of gas-fired central heating enhanced the well-being of populations. Whole homes would be heated by hot-water radiators, and no longer would families have to huddle round a dirty coal fire. By 2000, life expectancy in world population had risen to 66 years, 78 years in the now developed countries.
There are lessons to be learned from this short history.
As new energy sources were added over the centuries, the rough sequence has been wood, human slaves, draft animals, water wheels, windmills, coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric power and nuclear power.
These additions have been driven by the advantages of new energy sources over the old in terms of power, energy density, efficiency and cost. Populations embraced the new because it enhanced living standards.
An important thing to grasp is that, at the global scale, this is an additive process happening gradually through the endeavours of many individuals throughout society in many places. Wood and draft animals, and, tragically, human slaves are still widely used.
At no point in human history has a political decision been made by a relatively few elite to replace cheap, efficient forms of energy like fossil fuels with inferior and more expensive technologies like solar and wind. You cannot run public services on an energy source that is consuming taxes instead of paying them.
However, the current so-called transition is being forced upon the masses by politicians and through diktats and vast handouts (of our money). Taxes are being squandered, special interests enriched and citizens saddled with expensive and unreliable energy supplies and diminished living standards.
Virtually everything we have ā roads, buildings, cars, TVs, clothes, computers, aircraft, agriculture, education systems, healthcare systems, military capabilities ā exist thanks to fossil fuels. Their continued use and nuclear powerās further development promise to improve the lives of billions. Yet, the long, upward climb of humankind ā propelled through natural incentives and governed by economics and physical laws ā is being horrifyingly short-circuited by the misguided and self-interested.
Dismantling our current energy-supply system may go down as one of the greatest acts of economic, environmental and social vandalism in human history. The motives of those standing behind it must be questioned.
This commentary was first published at Biz Pac Review October 3, 2023.
Euan Mearns provided analytical services to the global oil industry for more than 20 years. He has edited a book on nuclear energy and co-authored another on The Great Tangshan Earthquake and a paper on Swiss net-zero energy policy, A proud member of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia, he has a B.S. in geology and a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry, both from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
An excellent summary of the history of energy use by Euan and how it is all now going wrong; Thanks greens and stupid politicians.
In a fair, decent world, those virtue signalling shills would be the first to be banned from using anything oil, hydrocarbon or nuclear created – climate alarmism would disappear overnight
Same regarding those who want to end all forestry (tree cutting) who all live in nice wood homes with nice wood furniture and tons of paper products. I’ve suggested to them they should move into cement boxes with cement furniture and no products at all coming from trees, like toilet paper. Of course if they did that- their carbon footprint would be much higher.
Bill Gates wants to cut down trees and then bury them. I imagine it will take some time, but someone will come along and dig them up.
Rotten wood releases methane. Of course that nerd doesn’t understand that. And, it’s expensive to cut down trees and bury them with no revenue other than, unfortunately, carbon credits! Better to cut down some in a rational way- and use the wood for lumber, furniture, paper, firewood and chip what’s left for a CHP facility- and doing all that will be profitable!
I read a description of the way to tell the difference between a liberal and a conservative that went something like this:
A conservative is someone who would like to build a home in the woods. A liberal is someone who has built a home in the woods and wants to stop anyone else from building one.
We don’t need to ban anything. We just need an open fair market.
I am glad Euan Mearns, a bright light in the darkness, is providing his much needed insights.
He used to publish a much beloved website with Roger Andrews, but unfortunately Roger passed away a few years ago.
Euanās son is a whiz at graphics. Bring him back!
It is important to understand, nuclear, augmented with thorium and fast breeders, NEEDS to be the next source of energy driving the world economy.
The sooner that is realized, the sooner things will get back to ānormalā sanity
An excellent summary although the life expectancy increase has a number of factors including fencing and sanitation. One other key factor was getting coal burning out of the cities and reducing wood burning for heating.
I think the point about the need for subsidies and force to shift the populace is key.
The Greens movement have infiltrated every level of government globally. They act as advisors on policy to politicians, and act as gatekeepers to censor information from reaching its intended recipients.They run our entire education system, most MSM as well as healthcare and banking.
We are slowly turning the tables and the people are being educated. We must continue to speak out against the lies that we have been fed for so long now. We need to let them know that we do not accept their plan and nor do we believe their rhetoric. Of course them being proven wrong after more than 30 years of catastrophising helps, but let’s not get complacent.
The Marxist long march through the institutions – if only we had proper right wing conservative Governments to dismantle it
Well, McCarthy just got kicked out of his Speakership.
It’s a new kind of totalitarianism. But I don’t think those who resist are having much effect, so far. There certainly is zero sign of that here in Wokeachusetts.
Joseph the painting at the header of this article is likely my future back yard. But I refuse to go down without a fight else my life amounts to nothing. I will out their crimes against us at every opportunity and I will educate people of the truth in regards to the renewables industry at every opportunity. I will post this truth far and wide and I will write as many submissions against these atrocities as I can find the time. How will people know the truth if we don’t tell it?
When a solar “farm” was proposed behind my house and neighbors I sued the company and the town. The company was going to bring in some big law firms to win their case- so I settled since I couldn’t afford to fight them- but pushed the “farm” back enough that I can’t see them out my back windows- and they came up with some money to landscape behind the homes- with trees and shrubs. I video taped the construction of the “farm”- back in ’12.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYYVZKgusU4&t=156s
an amateurish video, but it gets the point across
I salute you Joseph, you did not back down. I am impressed.
Meanwhile, I’ve been fighting forestry haters for 50 years. Not so much luck there. Forestry is a wonderful thing when done right. Much has been done wrong- but the enviros think that’s a reason to stop all forestry, rather than make it all done right- after all, the “haters” already own nice wood homes and furniture and tons of paper products. Future generations can live in cement boxes for all they care. These “haters” want points for this virtue signaling. They say we foresters are murdering those trees- while the Native Americans once worshiped them.
The haters are going to hate.
The cost to stop warming by 2050 is estimated by Bloomberg at $US200 trillion and other estimates are similar.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain?embedded-checkout=true
There are around 2 billion households so that is $100,000 per household.
Ninety percent of households can’t afford anything additional so the households in developed nations will have to foot the bill making it around $US 1 million per household or about $35,000 per household per year.
Even most developed countries’ households can’t afford that.
Most households would probably rather have a degree or two of warming and an extra $1 million in the bank, anyway.
The US and EU are on a long term track to spend at least $1 TRILLION on Ukraine, the most corrupt financial black hole in the world.
It is candidate for EU membership, which will forever be tainted by it.
I had no idea, the EU could go THAT low. Totally bazookas
talking absolute rubbish!
You have never been in Ukraine and what do you know about the EU?
Kremlin trollbag!
Historically cultures have come and gone, flourished and declined, for instance between the 8th and 13th centuries (CE) the Arab world as inheritor of Greek learning was in the forefront of human development but rejected rational inquiry in favor of hard-line theism where everything was simply explained as God’s will.
What is happening mainly in the Western World is cultural decline, the adoption of so-called renewable energy in response to a concocted ‘climate crisis’ is a symptom of that inevitable decline.
I’m old and baffled, if someone had told me fifty years ago that the weather — incidentally that now is near identical to then — would become an overriding political societal religious and scientific issue I wouldn’t have believed it.
Don’t completely downgrade the Arabs. Algebra is Arabic. Many of the stars have Arabic names. And we currently use Arabic numerals. Roman numerals would have been a major detriminate to math.
For some reason, my comment posted before I finished editing it. The last sentence should read: Roman numerals would have been a major detriment to math.
Learning in Muslim lands was in the hands of Assyrians and Chaldeans who took on an Arab identity and name, because of the coercion of Islamic society.
The Arabs themselves — those people from the Hijaz — had no intellectual culture.
When the Muslims seized Alexandria, the great library fell into their hands. Instead of preserving the books for later generations, they burned them for firewood. The Muslim leader said that the only book anyone needed was the Koran (Quran). The knowledge contained in those books is a tremendous loss.
Might I add that the deism of Global Warming now substitutes Manās will for Godās will. In the religion of global warming ā¦ Man is the creator of a completely alternate universe
“Man’s will for God’s will” sounds great to me, but we must ensure it is the right man and not a figment of some authoritarian’s imagination!
They redefined climate as being only around 30 years now. I guess that was all their bad models could hope to handle. If you want to talk about the real climate that lasted thousands to millions of years I guess you have to say something like the “geological” or “long-term” climate.
“. . . in 1820 the life expectancy of the global population was about 26 years.”
Nothing annoys me more than these nonsense comments about “life expectancy.” The problem about life expectancy in the past is that lots of children died. If a child died at age 2 and an older person died at age 68, then the average lifetime averages out to 35 years. No one died at 35 years. In the past, it was common for children to die. The increase in the life span is due mainly to curing childhood diseases. In the past, once you got out of childhood, your life expectancy was reasonably long unless a war cut it short.
“ No one died at 35 years.” Really? That is quite a definitive statement. Methinks you don’t really understand statistics, if you’re willing to say that.
Lots of people die at 35, then and now. It’s just not the mean age of death. Accidents happen, diseases are still common enough so, war is not the only thing cutting lives short.
Yes, in the past, the mean was skewed by high childhood mortality but, it was also skewed by women dying while giving birth. Fortunately, modern medicine has improved things considerably for women and children.
I believe the author’s point was that access to cheap and reliable energy had a lot to do with the improvements to human life expectancy. People now living in areas without that access still have a pretty low life expectancy.
It’s likely that the vandalism of our energy systems is deliberate. Destroying Western countries’ prosperity seems to preoccupy the left, no doubt stimulated by those with vested interests in having that happen. But, some also wish to depopulate the Earth and it is possible that this vandalism will serve their purposes as well.
And you are trying to make my statement apply to all cases. My example only had two individuals. Which individual died at age 35? I’m just objecting to using an average to apply to all cases. I guess you want the average to apply to all cases. There are people that think everyone died at the age of 35 in the past. That’s obviously false.
I mistook what you said as a blanket statement, rather than applying to just 2 individuals as you intended.
However, statistics is about groups, not individuals. Extrapolating from life expectancy for a large group to assess an individual’s life span is not a valid application of statistics.
Also, to address your point below, much of modern medicine is totally reliant on modern sources of energy. It would be hard to treat diseases with pharmaceuticals if there was no electricity for the factories that produce them. Diagnostic tools such as MRI’s, CAT scans and ultrasound also require electricity. Blood banks and hospitals also depend on electricity to function properly. All these things and more contribute directly to the high life expectancy of modern societies.
Your statements make it seem that you are not aware how central reliable energy is to modern society. I suggest you try living without any electricity for a week to raise your awareness on this point. Some people can do it but, not many would choose that way of life.
You are correct about reliable energy. I want reliable energy. And we can achieve much with reliable energy. Drill baby drill! Also, the stupid French have nuclear plants, why can’t we? I’m just objecting to saying that everyone in the past died at 35. If the life expectancy from age zero is 26. Then the life expectancy from age 26 is not zero–as the author’s statement implies.
No, the author’s statement implies that, if life expectancy is 26, half of the population will die before they reach 27. The other half will live past that age but, how long any individual lives past that age is indeterminate. That person’s chances of living past 60 are pretty slim, though. When life expectancy is 70, however, most people have a good chance of living past 60, statistically speaking.
I freely admit that this is an extremely simplified use of statistics but, I’m only trying to make a simple point. Life expectancy of 26 doesn’t mean no one lives past that age, only that as many people will die before that age as will live past it.
You lost me–sorry.
obviously.
Jim: I can agree that infant/child mortality has a substantial effect of average life expectancy of a population. But I suspect it is also true that the benefits of abundant low cost energy and industrial revolution have had a lot to do with the reduction in early deaths – eg improved agricultural production most certainly reduces early deaths due to malnutrition. Obviously average life expectancy is a metric that includes the influence of greatly improved health related conditions. Going from 28 to 78 in one century is indeed a remarkable testament to the benefits of industrialization.
“Itās likely that the vandalism of our energy systems is deliberate. Destroying Western countriesā prosperity seems to preoccupy the left, no doubt stimulated by those with vested interests in having that happen. But, some also wish to depopulate the Earth and it is possible that this vandalism will serve their purposes as well.”
__________________________________________________________________
From the article:
There a lots of juicy quotes like this one from Maurice Strong, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations:
āIsnāt the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isnāt it our responsibility to bring that about?ā Source
You don’t have to look much further than the World Economic Forum and their yearly conference. The Wikipedia link no doubt down plays what the WEF and their Great Reset is all about.
…preoccupy SOME of the Left. The Conservatives and Right aren’t standing up either.
The main organization pushing the “climate change” nonsense is the UN’s IPCC.
Well no, it wasn’t, and infant mortality is a perfectly valid metric by which to judge medical advances as well.
I would have died at 55 without modern medicine. Possibly at age 35 as well. Prior to antibiotics, death from a simple cut going septic at any age was common. Death from any number of bacterial diseases – typhus, typhoid, plague, cholera,polio, smallpox. tuberculosis, tetanus, even anthrax.. was common at any age, and viral infections were less treatable than they are today.
The myth that ‘most people who survived childhood lived to 70’ is simply nonsense.
The myth is using averages. Medical advances might have benefited from more energy, but it wasn’t better energy that increase health. It was effective medical specialists.
I’m 100% onboard here – averages throw away almost all the data.
Where did the Biblical ‘3 score plus ten’ come from?
Why are human females capable of making 10, 15 or even 20 babies in their lifetime when only 2 or 3 are needed?
Folks died in the cold horrible middle.dark ages becasue they were malnourished. From effects of soil erosion. It’s been ongoing for the last million years+ and is the sole/primary cause of Ice Ages and associated interglacials
Modern (fossil fuel) medicine does nothing to address starvation from nutrient deficiency = what starvation actually is and NOT what so many people think it is.
Most antibiotics we have now have been superseded by the microbes themselves – we started a war there that we can not hope to win
Burning Whale Oil in lamps was/is nothing less than suicidal insanity – powered by ‘fashion’ and ‘keeping up with the Jones’
Whale oil is exactly what us humans were designed for and eveolved to eat = immensly nutrient/energy dense food and strangely, packed with Vitamin C.
If me. you anyone runs low on Vitamin C, we fall apart, mentallya s wella s physically and are easy prey to any number of otherwise harmless bacteria
Eating the whale-oil would have done infinitely more for human well being than burning it ever did.
It was that, by rearing young girls on a diet of carbohydrate, it programmed their genes to be forever (addicted to) sugar
As they were growing. prior to age = 13, the high-carb and fat-deficiercient diet made the ‘short, fat and stumpy’ – physically as well as mentally.
Especially, such a diet causes them to have short thigh-bones and also to lay down huge fat stores on their thighs, hips and backsides.
Next time you see a (even slightly) obese woman, bare-foot in a swimsuit – see how out-of-proprtion she is = how her legs are far too short.
And All That Fat made it impossible for them to deliver their own babies
It still does – all that modern medice has done is work out a way of cutting the hapless little brats out from all that blubber.
= fat that was created, bizarrely, by Starvation = exactcly as we all see around now and on an ever rising trend.
All that fat around their backsides damages their hips and skeleton also.
Girls do NOT wiggle their backsides while walking just so as to drive boys wild with desire.
Girls wiggle while they walk because the fat on their thighs/hips means they have to ‘walk around themselves’ – just to go in a straight line.
It is extremely uncomfortable for them and ultimately, destroys their hips.
Nutrient deficiency, esp Vitamins B, C and D, allied to Magnesium deficiency does the rest
And it was all those young women, attempting to deliver their first child that utterly trashed the Life Expectancy figure
The Dark Ages were too cold for sufficient agricultural production.
I liked the way you undermined your argument by listing all the ways one can die from non-energy related causes.
70 doesn’t sound so old any more now that I just turned 74. But 80 still sounds like…. like… about as exciting as the oceans boiling. š
Life expectancy in the West is declining, as are birth rates, despite our so called developed status – global migration is being used by some to bolster western populaces, with inevitable societal problems – itās a bumpy road ahead for future generations
Story tip
Climate scientist faces sack for refusing to fly to Germany from Solomon Islands archipelago
Dr Gianluca Grimalda told by Kiel Institute for World Economy he must be at his desk on Monday after finishing fieldwork
Grimalda said he intends to make the 22,000km (14,000-mile) return trip to Europe entirely without flying, instead travelling on cargo ships, ferries, trains and coaches ā a journey he estimates will take two months,
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/04/climate-scientist-faces-sack-for-refusing-to-fly-to-germany-from-solomon-islands-archipelago
Two months?
Well good. The more utter twonks like him are out of a job the better.
He must be on a good salary if he can take two months unpaid leave, pay the difference in cost between the airfare and the sea / land fares and pay for two months worth of food. But two months? Cargo ship to Singapore or big port in Aus, a few days. Container ship Singapore to Italy via Suez, three weeks? Train to Kiel, one day.
But according to the link to the Guardian piece he should be sacked for giving false information to the locals in Bougainville.
Possibly he was NOT intending to take the 2 months as unpaid leave?
“scientist faces sack for refusing to fly”
If he isn’t at his desk… He has days, not months.
Must be those damned buses – you don’t see one for a month, then 3 come along together…
And I wonder what fuels he thinks those cargo ships, ferries, trains, and coaches will be using to transport him to his nirvana? Whilst there are a few optimists and dreamers playing with alternatives, the vast majority of such conveyances are still FF-powered!
its about time these virtue signalling buffoons started practising what they preach – can they also devoid themselves of anything oil, hydrocarbon or nuclear, for full effect
Maybe he’s just trying to impress other climatistas- when he may only be afraid of flying, like me. Of course I know it’s safe- it’s just a phobia. I think we’re all allowed to have at least 1 phobia. But at least I admit to it. Maybe there’s a hot female “climate scientist” he’s trying to impress. š
But how did he get there in the first place?
You know, when it was just a phobia for me, I said to myself: “…grow a pair and get on there!” I admit to never flying sober, my self-justification for not being behind the wheel, I guess. Bit of control issues there, yes yes.
But then the bean counters started controlling industry. The first thing to be sacrificed, was the age-old engineering habit of keeping spares for things likely to break. The accountants made complicated sums, and started selling everything standing still at scrap metal prices. “Maintenance is not our core business…”
Once this attitude spread to the traditionally precise and close tolerance aeroplane industry, well, to make it short, my three last flights scared the bejeezus out of me. Two of those non-maintenance-focused airliners were well-known international flyers.
My phobia for flying was cured by the rational comprehension of the disdain The Investor has for my life. Now I just don’t fly on their
planesoperational liabilities.Identifying the problem Euan is not the solution…sadly
The biggest problem we have is decisions being made about technology by people who have absolutely no idea about the capabilities, costs, or the implications of either promoting it or legislating its banning.
Getting politics OUT of technology, and de platforming the ‘Monstrous Regiment of ArtStudentsā¢’ is the first step.
Plenty of alternatives to ‘the way we do things now‘ exist. Given the need and the financial incentive, people will develop them and the cheapest most efficient technologies will prosper, and the utter rubbish will become a footnote on history. Provided the politicians and their cronies can be prevented from interfering.
Without government interference no windmills solar panels or and other EcoBolloxā¢ would ever have been built because it simply is not cost competitive.
Fossil fuel prices would have – as they are now – simply risen until the next cheapest technology became viable. Spending trillions second guessing what that is by totally technologically illiterate politicians and pressure groups, employed to lobby for their masters’ faux solutions, is why we are in the right buggers muddle we are.
You cannot run public services on an energy source that is consuming taxes instead of paying them
Absolutely. In a nutshell. When weāre ALL impoverished from paying our outrageously inflated PG&E bills ā¦ perhaps we will wake up to that fact. Energy poverty is a sure civilization killer.
Societal wealth is CREATED by adding value ā¦ not by nicking it off the Plebes.
The plebs better wake up and do something about it
The West needs a long, dark, cold, icy, snowy winter with power outages, to bring the climerati to its senses – everything nut zero, from renewables, to heat pumps, to battery cars will fail spectacularly and that will be the end of that stupidity
Maybe- but I doubt it- there’s no cure for religious fanaticism. No matter what happens, they’ll find a way to fit it into their fantasy view of reality. With such a winter, they’ll just say that there isn’t yet enough “green energy”. They’ll double down. But I hope your right.
“The motives of those standing behind it must be questioned.”
It’s religious fanaticism. They are 100% certain they are right and we are Neanderthals. That’s the way some behaved towards me recently- when relatives of my wife stopped by the house. I asked them to leave and they wouldn’t, so I left, not being a man of violence, which thoughts entered my head. I thought it much easier to drive over to a nearby lake and star gaze for a few hours until they left and I calmed down.
I feel your pain Joseph Zorin. Divide and conquer is part of their plan. We must reject the agenda of our governments Joseph and stand our ground. We need to tell them that they do not have the social licence to carry out this plan against us. I too have uninformed and ignorant family members. I send them copies of some of my submissions now and again against the renewables scourge. If they don’t remember me kindly when I’m gone they will at least hopefully remember me as a thinking person. And ultimately they will know I was right to take up the fight.
It isn’t especially difficult to live without a reliable source of cheap energy. Millions are doing it during the course of their entire life. I personally have spent many years living without electricity or any other form of energy except that supplied by the use of an axe and saw. It doesn’t leave much time for other endeavors.
The transition from pre-historic forms of energy to increasingly more efficient modes gave accomplished individuals and whole societies the opportunity to raise their standard of living dramatically to what exists at the present. Oil, gas and nuclear power have given people the ability to go to sleep at night confident that all will be well in the morning and go about their business the next day without worrying about their own personal energy needs and at far less actual expense than formerly.
A major problem for this positive situation is that we live in an age where almost none of the most influential people have ever missed a meal or spent a night out in a cold, freezing rain. The wonders of the steady advance of technology have been at their fingertips their entire lives. They have the utmost confidence that technocrats like Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Forrest Parry have the ability to solve problems yet imagined, based on the recent past.
For the average resident of the developed West, there are currently no real technological problems. The issues that consume the heirs of the fading Anglo-American techno-empire are all social ones. Abortion, transexualism, fentanyl, urban violence, retail theft, gangs, etc. are the kinds of problems that are paramount, not if the electricity is going to fail. The general population assumes that the people in charge know what they’re doing when it comes to energy because so far it’s all worked out. On the basis of the renewable craze there’s no reason for this confidence. Investing trillions in an unproven and unlikely system is a project of fools.
Joseph Tainter in his book “The Collapse of Complex Societies” and, of course, Oswald Spengler’s opus “The Decline of the West” point out how societies are destroyed from within.
The Wright brothersā first powered flight in 1908
=======
1903 ?
I had the same reaction, though interestingly enough, there is some merit to the 1908 reference. There was widespread skepticism of the Wrights’ claim to being the first to fly, especially in France. The French had become obsessed with aviation, and were building and flying new aircraft at a dizzying rate. They were concentrating on engine power, though, and not on either aerodynamics or, most significantly, controllability. As a result, their flying consistent of short, straight-ahead hops. To convince the French, Wilbur Wright made the first public flight of the Flyer (III, I think) in France on August 8, 1908. The flight lasted 1 minute 45 seconds, but Wilbur executed several banks and turns, something the French didn’t know how to do. It was a sparsely attended event, and would not have given them the publicity they needed. However, school children present went back to town (Le Mans) and spread the word on what they had seen. Wright had scheduled another demonstration the following day, and when he arrived at the field, was flabbergasted to see thousands of townspeople, instead of the handful who attended the day before. His demonstration flight that day convinced the French that the Wrights had not only flown first, but had a significant technological edge in aeronautics.
Well said. An articulate and honest assessment of modern political āprogressivismā which like every other woke principle is named after what it is not. It is alarming to think that in most western, wealthy and left leaning political circles this article, though entirely factual, would be labelled as misinformation. One can only assume then that āmisinformationā in the mind of a progressive is any information that would help the voters and taxpayers make decisions in their own best interest.
You want Social Vandalism, get a load of this.
It’s my Cumbrian peer Dr John Campbell, discussing what the WHO are up to and what they think they want but esp, the methods they use to get it.
It’s very simple – they want Money
Quote: It’s that insane. Go back to 1992 and the framework convention for climate change….
I drop you in at that juicy bit but the whole thing is worth watching…
This guy pretty much said it all. I blame government one hundred percent for the mess we are in. Take away mandates, subsidies and tax preferences and all our energy problems go away.