Bill Ponton
In 1519, Hernán Cortés and his fellow conquistadors arrived on the coast of a new exotic world. They soon learned that it was an outpost of a powerful, warlike empire on a great inland plateau. It was then that Cortés decided to march on the Aztec capital and conquer it. To dispel any notion amongst his crew of fleeing, he destroyed his ships, leaving only victory or death as their path forward. Cortés exemplifies the classic romantic figure in history. One who is willing to gamble all for gold and glory and willing to lead his compatriots to destruction in the event that his venture fails.
Today, we have leadership in the Western world with the romantic vision of Cortés to march us forward to the Net Zero uplands and allow no one to turn back and embrace the comfort of their former fossil-fueled past. Both figuratively and literally, these leaders have embarked on a plan of wanton destruction of the assets that have propelled our civilizational advance since the start of the industrial revolution.
The first assets to be targeted for destruction were coal-fired power plants. Until recently, coal was the mainstay fuel for baseload generation of electricity. Easily stored in stockpiles near generation sources, coal is a dependable fuel. It does not leave one vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, as with renewables, or sudden disruption in supply, as in the case of pipeline interruption (or destruction). It is for this reason that it is so zealously attacked by those who advocate for Net Zero. Coal plants must be uprooted and destroyed because they offer a tempting way back to a former era of dependable generation.
Coal-fired power is just one of the ships that the modern-day Cortés intends to torch. The other is power from natural gas. Eliminating natural gas is problematic because it provides the buttress for renewables to even function as a viable source of power. Natural gas power plants are dispatched to deliver backup generation when renewables flounder. Net Zero advocates know that battery and pumped hydro storage are not feasible substitutes for dispatchable power from natural gas. However, they believe that green hydrogen storage is an acceptable substitute even though estimates of its round-trip efficiency range between 20-30%. Moreover, they hope that hydrogen fuel will hijack the existing natural gas infrastructure, making it technically difficult and expensive to return to the status quo. This will leave the followers of our modern-day Cortés with no other option but to march forward and not look back.
Net Zero leaders have an unappeasable appetite to cut off all avenues of retreat. Nothing exemplifies it more than the banning of the internal combustion engine. They are afraid that their followers’ resolve for a Net Zero future will waver if they encounter a driver who does not worry about his car running out of fuel or self-combusting in his garage while he is asleep. Pay no attention to the past. March on to victory or death.
This is what many national leaders claim they’re going to do, but just let their citizens and voters start encountering higher prices for basics like food and fuel, and future elections will be likely to replace the environmental dreamers in short order. Poll after poll globally shows that fighting climate change is a low priority item despite all the alarmist propaganda dished out by the media, leftist governments and green organizations. Living costs, creature comforts and conveniences, jobs, housing, the economy, education, healthcare, personal safety, national defense, etc. all take precedence over the environment, regardless of the constant stream of scare tactics that most people have learned to greet with derision.
I don’t know about the rest of the world but the Democrat Party in the USA is catering to the the true greenie weenies. There is no mention of nuclear power an obvious solution.
“There is no mention of nuclear power an obvious solution.” _____________________________________________
No doubt that’s because sustainable power isn’t the goal,
which begs the question, “What is the goal?” It’s not enslave
the Aztecs.
The goal is for the millionaires and billionaires to make trillions.
Bloomberg’s green energy research team estimated that it will cost $200 trillion to meet the 2050 goal.
“an obvious solution.”
A solution to “WHAT”?
The only problem with climate is the climate models and the people who worship them.
A solution to the huge transport costs and complexities and storage issues of non solid fuels.
In the polls, around 60 percent of voters agree with the so-called “Climate Change” agenda.
“future elections will be likely to replace the environmental dreamers in short order”
If and only if the opposition dares to blame the problems on the climate alarmists and other enviro dreamers.
As Cortez was motivated by gold and power while pretending to evangelize, so our NutZero crowd seeks absolute power over us while pretending it’s to save us.
On the York river in Virginia they demolished a small regional refinery that was built in the 40s to fuel convoys bound for England during WWII.
That refinery was working just fine but was too small to pay all the fees forced by Obama’s EPA.
An interesting and valid point, Bill, but aren’t the Net Zero Nutzis more closely aligned with the Aztecs as far as their beliefs in sacrificing humans to appease the angry gods!? Isn’t the KlimateKult an amalgam of the worst of both, with a soupçon of Marxism thrown in to increase the efficacy of the slaughterhouse!?
Yeah, they want to end Western Civilization, destroy the free market and capitalism, and murder millions if not billions for their rush to power. The climate nonsense is their ticket to success. And the useful idiots are falling for it–hook, line, and sinker.
Yes, the Net-0-Nuts are the Aztecs.
At about 1519, the Aztecs population is about 25,000,000.
Aztecs population was already a really numerous one. Despite the fact that their exact population often varied because of the pretty big impact that human sacrifices to the gods made on their statistics.
Cortés sailed for the coast of Yucatán on February 18, 1519, he had 11 ships, 508 soldiers, about 100 sailors, and—most important—16 horses.
So 600 men and 16 horses against 25 million.
Aztecs were bitterly resented by many of the subject peoples who had to pay tribute to them. The ability of Cortés as a leader is nowhere more apparent than in his quick grasp of the situation—a grasp that was ultimately to give him more than 200,000 Indian allies.
We just need to motivate the people feed up with the Human Sacrifices.
Who is the world leader in building new coal power and nuclear power plants? That is correct – China.
My worry is that nuclear power will get more frightening to the masses when Chinese building methods result in disasters.
+1 Not a secret. AGW is designed to deny advancements in society that counter Marxist ideology. It has nothing to do with climate.
“It has nothing to do with climate.”
It’s a waste of time arguing the science–they don’t care about science.
true, and its so ironic that they claim that it’s them who “follow the science” while anyone not agreeing is a climate denier- recall how Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana) asked in a hearing- several EPA and other officials- what % of the atmosphere is CO2- none had a clue
I do this often here in Wokeachusetts- ask simple questions like that- one of my favorite is the ECS- they never heard of it!
If you look at coal usage, it hit record level of consumption in 2022 and continues to increase. The demise of coal is somewhat exaggerated. Only a few western countries have actually embraced NutZero. And they have no hope of actually replacing fossil fuels
https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023
NutZero is sponsored by China to make China great. All the “renewables” stuff that China makes for the west uses more coal in its manufacture than it replaces through its operating life. It is an illusion with China building wealth through supporting the illusion.
To be more accurate, net zero is death. Without reliable 24h power sources, all the food in chilled warehouses will spoil and there will be mass starvation. This isn’t just meat and frozen food. Your vegetables are chilled between the growing season and the time you buy it at the supermarket.
In the future, homes with root cellars will be able to demand a premium on the selling price.
Yes, all a part of the plan to reduce human population which is the ultimate goal.
We’ve all been there. We all know the dynamic. We have all seen it and been part of it
We know the bravado
We know the unshakeable confidence
We know the conviction of absolute truth
We know the impossibility of changing the minds
We have all witnessed the unstoppable belief of an individual that they are ‘safe to drive home’ when they are so out-of-it they can hardly stand up and walk to the door..
The exact same thing is happening here, except the intoxicant is different.
The real difficulty is, that when you are inside that drunken house-party as a participating guest, it is impossible to gauge just how ‘out of control’ it really is.
i.e. When *everybody* is affected, there is no benchmark for ‘normal’ behaviour
and so it is and here we are = all of us riding in the car that the belligerent drunk insisted on ‘driving home’
Got no choice. Our own Government(s) is(are) The Driver and now have, and are using, immense powers with which you can be forced into the car.
(e.g. UK Police have just been given power to ‘face recognise’ all our driving licences)
Repeat: Alzheimer’s dementia is quantifiable in folks who are ‘merely’ pre-diabetic (and probably don’t even know it)
The exact same thing is happening here, except the intoxicant is different.
Yep, virtue is the most powerful intoxicant!
I think you are intoxicated.
“The first assets to be targeted for destruction were coal-fired power plants.”
Here in Wokeachusetts- as soon as a coal power plant is shut down- they blow up the smokestack and have a big party watching it come down. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of dead factory buildings all over the state- most still have their smokestacks in place!
Unlike the yeomen and peasants of Spain far too many people today are not willing to throw away what they have for some ethereal promise of glory and gold, and in spite of media screeching more and more people, globally, are figuring out that is what this all is.
A statement that overlooks one of the elites’ central goals. That is, depopulation and Earth returning to wild National Park-like world conditions.
Their “Cortés” destruction of nuclear/hydro/fossil fueled energy destruction is a necessary step to set up conditions so that drought, flood, nutrient deficient famine, disease, war will decimate the peasant and middle class.
They don’t want ordinary people to have fossil fuels as backup
Of course, the wealthiest elites believe they can afford to pay peanuts to cold starving populace to keep specially chosen elites comfortable.
It doesn’t matter to select elites that they are destroying industrial capacity and ability in the West, leaving independent often aggressive despotic cultures with full industrial capacity and services.
Thus proving, these elites are disconnected from reality, i.e., utterly clueless that frequently socialist/communist cultures will inherit and fully utilize the Earth, not the elites.
I’m for Cortés – only for geopolitics, the ultimate non economical, non “homo economicus“-type leaders.
When you go all in, other players know bluffing is useless.
And sometimes it’s good, even essential, to avoid bluffers.
Coal is necessary for the manufacture of steel and cement. New methods of manufacture are being tried but have not yet been perfected. Without steel and cement (necessary to make concrete), we can’t make bridges, buildings, factories, ships, etc! Steel and reinforced concrete are the primary building products used today.
Cement is a high energy use product. I noticed that it takes a lot of cement (and concrete) to make the support bases of windmills. The energy required to make that cement, isn’t paid back by the windmills for many years-if ever. But math isn’t required to be a climate alarmist.
Nice analogy about Cortez.
Another analogy comes to mind: The democracies of western Europe (the UK in the lead) in the second half of the 1930s, believing that disarmament will lead to peace, while watching their enemies re-arming like there was no tomorrow. And the US believing that oceans made it safe from attack by potential enemies.
It’s not so much a deliberate burning of the bridges; it’s more a deliberate, wilful blindness to the consequences of their chosen philosophy. Consequences that are obvious to us (the “science deniers”).
Parallel movements on the tracks of “gender activism”, “racial equity”, “decolonisation” and historical revisionism all help to leave our populations confused about who they are and what their place in the world is. Which makes the possibility of broadly-based, concerted action on the net-z front much more remote.
And net-z is where action is needed. All the decolonisation, the re-wilding and the race-and-gender grifting, work on the minds of people, but net-z is trying to systematically dismantle our physical energy infrastructure.
Well said. This explains everything. I can’t believe Cortez’s men put up with that kind of crap. The first mention of such an ignorant scheme Cortez should have been fed to the sharks.
The whole climate change nonsense should be fed to the sharks.