Peak Cognitive Dissonance for The Climate Scare

From the MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

In the realm of the climate scare, the cognitive dissonance has reached almost impossible levels. Just a few days ago I took note of ever increasing focus by environmental NGOs on promoting the climate scare even as the green energy schemes, offered as salvation from the apocalypse, experience soaring costs and pervasive financial collapse. But those are just a couple of pieces of the crazy mess. Everywhere you look, our overlords are doubling down on end-of-days climate propaganda while reality just refuses to cooperate. We have truly reached peak absurdity.

In the category of the overlords doubling down on climate propaganda, you can’t top the new Fifth National Climate Assessment just out (November 14) from from something called the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Have you heard of the USGCRP? It’s some kind of consortium of every U.S. government agency and department that touches on the “climate” issue in any way. Here is a picture of their logo:

It’s the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Health & Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, Department of State, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Agency for International Development. Fourteen of them in total. All speaking with one voice.

All to support the greatest and hugest honey pot ever devised to provide essentially infinite funding to grow the bureaucracies in completely futile efforts supposedly to change the weather, but which will never be measurable, never have any real effect, and will have no possibility of accountability.

The text of the Assessment consists of endlessly repeated claims of impending disaster without any scientific backup to enable an intelligent reader to evaluate whether there is anything to this. Here are just a few quotes to give you a sense of what you are dealing with:

The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses.

It’s “preeminent,” so I guess you must obey, peasant.

The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States. Rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions can limit future warming and associated increases in many risks. . . . [W]ithout deeper cuts in global net greenhouse gas emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow. . . . The more the planet warms, the greater the impacts. Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather, and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow. Each additional increment of warming is expected to lead to more damage and greater economic losses.

But don’t worry, we can all be saved by following the dictates and mandates of our lords and masters throughout the federal bureaucracies:

[R]apid emissions cuts are expected to have immediate health and economic benefits . . . . At the national scale, the benefits of deep emissions cuts for current and future generations are expected to far outweigh the costs.

And on and on and on.

Back to the real world. From an Indian source called Live Mint, November 13:

New Delhi: The Union coal ministry on Monday announced plans to increase India’s coal production to 1.404 billion tonne by 2027, with an eye to further boost it to 1.577 billion tonne by 2030. Current domestic production hovers around one billion tonne annually. This increase in output aims to ensure ample supply of domestic coal to India’s thermal power plants, which are essential for the country’s growing energy needs.

That would represent about a 60% increase in coal production and consumption over the next seven years. Here is a chart of trends to date and plans through 2030:

Hey, the Indians think that if we can have air conditioning, they should have it too.

And don’t think China is any different. From Foreign Policy, November 12:

In April 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects” in China. Since then, government permits for new coal power plants have soared. According to analysis of Global Energy Monitor data, in the two years before Xi’s pledge, the government approved 127 plants, collectively capable of producing 54 gigawatts of coal power. In the two years after, that number rose to 182 plants, with 131 gigawatts of coal power. In short, China’s new coal power capacity has more than doubled.

Is it possible for the cognitive dissonance to get any greater? I don’t see how. But then, I also thought that before this latest round of craziness.

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November 17, 2023 9:19 am

The climate crisis groupthink enslaving elites, western leaders, eco loons etc etc, is driven by a few things
> greed (globalist elites + renewables developers/owners & shareholders)
> Marxist ideology (lefties + academia)
> ignorance (useful idiots)

The last two are fleeting, part of a bigger left wing purge on capitalism and western values

The first one is the main driver and will last as long as the cash does

Our only hope of a return to energy sanity, is that the cash runs out sooner rather than later

ethical voter
Reply to  Energywise
November 17, 2023 1:46 pm

That cash is yours and mine. When it runs out things will get really ugly.

jvcstone
November 17, 2023 10:12 am

It is the nature of bureaucracies, like all cancers, to metastasize continuously,and, eventually out of control. Without radical treatment (cut the damn thing out) it will kill the host–ie, taxpayers. We need a surgeon rather than the same old politicians to destroy the bureaucratic cancer, and right the ship of state.

KevinM
Reply to  jvcstone
November 17, 2023 11:38 am

The US government is not funded with taxes anymore.

Bob Rogers
Reply to  jvcstone
November 18, 2023 12:59 am

DJT demonstrated clearly that the POTUS can’t control the bureaucracy. If there is a solution it will require Congress.

Reply to  Bob Rogers
November 18, 2023 12:35 pm

Yes, it will take a Republican president and a Republican Congress to reign in the federal government bureaucracy.

There’s a chance that could happen.

November 17, 2023 12:27 pm

With millions more people dying from cold weather than hot weather each year, what is the point of trying to keep the Earth cold near Little Ice Age temperatures?

The long-term climate of the Earth is still a 2.58-million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation. That fact is seldom mentioned in “Climate Change” stories and reports. 

The Earth is in a warmer but still cold interglacial period that happens about every 100,000 years and lasts about 10,000 years which alternates with a cold glacial period that lasts about 90,000 years. The Earth still has around 200,000 glaciers and 11 percent of the land is permafrost. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

The climate “scientists” have had the word “climate” redefined, so that now around 30 years is the so-called “climate”, so it is always changing.

This recent study shows that the cold weather we have every year causes about 4.6 million deaths a year globally mainly through increased strokes and heart attacks, compared with about 500,000 deaths a year from hot weather.

We can’t easily protect our lungs from the cold air in the winter and that causes our blood vessels to constrict causing blood pressure to increase leading to heart attacks and strokes.

‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext

This study from 2015 says that cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather and that moderately warm or cool weather kills far more people than extreme weather. Increased strokes and heart attacks from cool weather are the main cause of the weather-related deaths.
‘Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multi-country observational study’ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext

Bob
November 17, 2023 12:45 pm

This is proof that the government should never be allowed to be in charge of anything. They are liars and cheats.

ethical voter
Reply to  Bob
November 17, 2023 1:50 pm

What did you expect when you voted for a party that bought your vote? honesty?

Beta Blocker
November 17, 2023 1:46 pm

Suppose President Biden could somehow convince Premier Modi to reverse India’s energy policy 180 degrees and to begin pursuing a zero carbon transition strategy. (A very iffy assumption, to be sure.)

Here is my rough visual guesstimate as to the project work scope India would need in order to dial back its CO2 emissions to 1970 levels by the year 2070, relative to the project work scope which was needed previously to expand India’s fossil-fueled energy production between 1970 and 2020.

comment image

The assumed project work scope 2020-2070 includes the total scope of work needed to be performed in all nations impacted by an Indian decision to pursue a zero emission energy future.

It includes decommissioning and environmental remediation of India’s existing fossil fuel energy infrastructure; extraction of the raw materials needed for the renewable energy systems; manufacture of the renewable energy systems; the siting and construction of new wind, solar, and battery storage facilities inside Indian territory; and the progressive replacement of those new facilites between about 2040 and 2070 as they reach the end of their assumed twenty-year service lives.

sturmudgeon
Reply to  Beta Blocker
November 17, 2023 4:46 pm

Pretty thought-provoking image. Send it to brandon, will you?

sturmudgeon
Reply to  sturmudgeon
November 17, 2023 4:47 pm

Sorry, that should read “send it to obama”…

Edward Katz
November 17, 2023 6:06 pm

The fact that the Asia-Pacific region now is accounting for 80% of global coal demand and is building new coal plants so fast that worldwide Net Zero is impossible tells us further that no one is really paying any serious attention to climate alarmism, regardless of the source. Facts like this should tell the environmentalists that they’re on a sinking ship but they just don’t want to admit it.

Reply to  Edward Katz
November 18, 2023 1:16 am

Worldwide, CO2 emissions will continue to climb at least as quickly as they have been, probably faster.

Any country pretending that Net Zero is any sort of solution to anything, especially a totally FAKE CO2 problem…

… really has the most idiotic and clueless people advising them, and even stupider people in charge of pushing the agenda.

November 18, 2023 5:19 am

They actually think we are stupid enough to fall for this crap!

John XB
November 18, 2023 8:36 am

I am trying not to get overconfident here, but the renewed frenetic effort is maybe a sign the Climatrons are realising the horrible truth, their Climatism narrative is finding less and less credibility among the population, is facing more and more opposition and challenge from credible sources finding a wide audience thanks to the Web, so they feel they are losing their grip on the greasy pole, so must tighten it and make the most of it whilst they can.

It’s moved beyond the ‘conspiracy theorists’, people in the wider population are feeling the cost, see the list of failed predicted dooms, and the absurdities.

My feeling is, they will begin their slide to ignominy, just a matter of time.

November 18, 2023 11:48 am

From the article: “In April 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects” in China. Since then, government permits for new coal power plants have soared. According to analysis of Global Energy Monitor data, in the two years before Xi’s pledge, the government approved 127 plants, collectively capable of producing 54 gigawatts of coal power. In the two years after, that number rose to 182 plants, with 131 gigawatts of coal power. In short, China’s new coal power capacity has more than doubled.”

Which just goes to show we can’t trust the Chicoms to honor any deal they make. They are laughing at Western politicians.

Richard Page
Reply to  Tom Abbott
November 18, 2023 4:41 pm

Did you really, even for one second, think that the Chinese would honour any deal not overwhelmingly in their favour? Of course they are laughing at Western politicians – because our politicians are a joke and have been for some years now. Our bought and paid for political class trade agreements and deals back and forth amongst themselves while abasing themselves before the international markets and banks, in an obscene toothless parody of international diplomacy that any past statesman would be deeply ashamed of.
The West has become a tired joke – most of the industry and innovation has moved away and we are just service industry countries – tourism and dwindling financial markets. Why on earth shouldn’t the Chinese laugh at us, we deserve it for letting this happen.

Reply to  Richard Page
November 19, 2023 5:05 am

“Did you really, even for one second, think that the Chinese would honour any deal not overwhelmingly in their favour?”

No, not me. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.

But our radical leftists still think they can make a deal with dictators.

And Joe is hoping XI doesn’t spill the beans on all that money (millions of dollars), the Chicoms gave to the Biden family.

It appears the Biden “Justice” Department is going to let Biden off scott free over his illegal possession of classified documents. Another example of a two-tiered justice system: Democrats get off free and Republicans are prosecuted not only to the full extent of the law, but beyond that into lawlessness.

One possible good thing to come out of this is if the “Justice” Department allows Biden to skate, then that allows the Republican Congress to request to see those clasified documents, since they are no longer entangled in a court case, to see whether the documents were pertinent to the bribes Biden got from bad actors all over the world.

Maybe there is a correlation between the classified documents and the actions Joe Biden took to assist the bad actors.

Joe Biden = The Worst, Most Destructive President Evah!

The damage Biden is doing to our nation is unbelievable.