Essay by Eric Worrall
McKibben still doesn’t get it: Greens are entirely to blame for Net Zero momentum.
Is the Fight Against Climate Change Losing Momentum?
Some financial institutions are backing away from emission pledges.
By Bill McKibben
April 4, 2024The morally right side doesn’t lose the crucial battles: the arc of the moral universe is long, but it does bend toward justice. We know that lesson too well, which may be a problem, in that it gives us undue confidence. …
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A recent report from Bloomberg lays out the calculations clearly: there is no way for the banks to keep to the pledge without surrendering some part of their business. …
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The Bloomberg report quotes an exasperated UBS executive telling a closed-door gathering in Tokyo with representatives of “the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and public officials from around the world” that “banks are living and lending on planet Earth,” not on some planet of environmental virtue. According to the report, his “impassioned speech” met with “little pushback.” …
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To overcome the pull of that treasure you need the kind of push that can come only from mobilized public consciousness. We’ve seen a series of such moments in the course of the past decades, beginning, arguably, with the first Earth Day, fifty-four years ago this month, when twenty million Americans poured into the streets …
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Public consciousness, in other words, needs another charge. It’s not evident how that can happen in a world as politically divided as this one is. …
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Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/is-the-fight-against-climate-change-losing-momentum
The collapse in support has nothing to do with public consciousness or corporate greed. The core problem is renewable energy simply doesn’t work.
It wasn’t climate skeptics like WUWT which derailed the green juggernaut, it was the total failure of renewables to deliver affordable energy which has created a public backlash, which threatens the careers of green energy supporting politicians across the world.
Even Australia, arguably the world’s best site for solar energy, has utterly failed to make renewables work. Politicians boast Australia is on track to become a renewable energy superpower, boasted that renewables would slash household bills, but all those promises have fallen flat.
Even worse, despite paying more for energy, Australians face the prospect of imminent blackouts. Last September the AEMO warned that almost every state on East Coast of Australia is headed for an era of unreliable energy, thanks to gaps in our dispatchable capacity.
Think about that – sun drenched Australia, with vast and mostly empty deserts stretching from around 31 degrees south to 19 degrees south, cannot make solar energy work.
Greens have also suffered a series of body blows to their credibility recently. Trump hater Michael Moore and film maker Jeff Gibbs set out in 2020 to expose the Big Oil conspiracy which was suppressing the rise of renewables. Instead, Gibbs claimed they discovered a bunch of greedy green entrepreneurs who exaggerated the potential of their product, who were doing horrendous damage to the environment for very little gain in terms of emissions reductions.
I wonder how many of the 15 million+ viewers who were dismayed by the revelations in “Planet of the Humans”, would put their hand up for McKibben’s wave of public green consciousness, to demand more of the same? McKibben himself appeared in Planet of the Humans, in a less than flattering context.
And of course there have been lots of exposes of ineffective or downright horrible carbon offset schemes in recent years.
If greens had followed former NASA GISS Director James Hansen’s advice to wholeheartedly back nuclear energy, the world today would be well on the way to Net Zero. People would probably have accepted a few cents extra on their power bills, in return for saving the planet. Greens could have even slipped a few token windmills into the mix, and people would probably have accepted their plan.
There is zero doubt nuclear could have delivered. France switched to nuclear in just a few decades, and still gets most of its affordable zero carbon electricity from nuclear reactors. People who claim nuclear is not a viable solution to reducing emissions need to explain why France got it right, and why nobody else can do likewise. But anti-nuclear greens mostly just pretend France doesn’t exist when they diss nuclear.
Greens put squeamishness about nuclear energy ahead of their alleged mission to save the planet from global warming, and now they are paying the price for failure to deliver.
Update (EW): Added a reference to the Verra Carbon Offset Fraud.
What McKibben will not admit is that wind and solar fall into the class of “That sh!t don’t work”, despite his cheerleading.
McKibben, a journalist/weathervane, was cheerleading for wood burning at Middlebury College, Vermont, but, after California came out against wood burning, he flip-flopped as well.
Here is a ridiculous study performed by his senior students, which is totally amateurish and full of errors.
BUT, HEY, IT HAD GOOD NUMBERS!
VERMONT IS HARVESTING WOOD FAR IN EXCESS OF NET ADDED ABOVEGROUND LIVE BIOMASS
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-is-harvesting-wood-far-in-excess-annual-net-addition-of
EXCERPT
Middlebury College in Vermont, has an Environmental Studies Department.
The Department receives federal and state government grants and alumni bequests to perform environment-related studies
The Department held a Senior Seminar (ES 401) during the Winter of 2010 regarding the CO2 emissions of the Campus wood burning plant, and the sequestering of CO2 by the forest owned by the College.
According to the Campus wood burning plant website, the best estimate of wood chip delivery is 20,000 tons of green wood chips per year.
Incorrect CO2 Calculation
The seminar report states: “Thus, a more realistic estimate of carbon emissions is: 20,000, US ton of green wood x 0.50, moisture content x 44/12 x 1 = 36,667 tons of carbon”. See URL, pages 38 and 39.
This calculation is incorrect, because it did not account for the carbon content of dry wood
BTW, the word “carbon” should read “CO2”
http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/255078/original/Winter_2010carbon_sequestration.pdf
Correct CO2 Calculation
The wood chips contain 20,000, US ton of green wood x 0.50, moisture content = 10,000 US ton of dry wood.
The dry wood contains 10,000 US ton of dry wood x 0.487 lb carbon/lb dry wood = 4,870 US ton of carbon.
The CO2 created by combustion is 44/12 x 4,870 = 17,857 US ton of CO2.
The report overstated the CO2 emissions by 36,667/17,856 = 2.05 times
Incorrect Calculation of CO2 Sequestered by the Forest
The report states: “Middlebury College-owned forests, 1295 ha (3200 acre), will sequester about 9,905 US ton of carbon/y, or 9905/3200 = 3.095 US ton of carbon/acre, or 44/12 x 3.095 = 11.35 US ton of CO2/acre. See URL, page 39, table 7
For reference: Vermont forestland, 4,511,000 acres, sequestered about 4,390,000 metricton of CO2, or 0.973 metric ton of CO2/acre, or 1.073 US ton of CO2/acre, per US Forest Service.
https://fpr.vermont.gov/sites/fpr/files/Forest_and_Forestry/The_Forest_Ecosystem/Library/Forest%20Carbon%20Inventory%20_Mar%202017_final.pdf
The report overstated the sequestered CO2 by 11.35/1.073 = 10.6 times
Good bye McKibben. Your time is up, like Gore and Kerry
As most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. It is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including nuclear power to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. In the Ordovician ice age atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than now. There was no industrial revolution then to be the cause . The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases. We have no control over the climate. The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. Most importantly, Net Zero (carbon dioxide) Policy will do nothing to change it. Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.
From the headline photo it looks as though Bill McGibben himself is losing the fight and could do with a fast charge. 🤡
Schizophrenia takes its toll.
He certainly doesn’t look well. Basing one’s entire life on a huge lie as he has done tends to damage one’s health.
Nice post, EW. Great illustrations about why Bill’s momentum concerns are justified.
Thanks Rud 🙂
It’s a pity Eric couldn’t post an illustration of a modern mixed economy country, region, city or town anywhere in the world today that is (after ~ 40 years of having the option to try) running 24x7x52 only on wind & solar.
Because there isn’t one 🙁
Careful Mr., every time someone says “I don’t believe in renewables”, a green true believer loses heart.
Loses heart but gets reacquainted with reality?
Is ‘reacquainted’ a metaphor for getting slapped in the face by a harsh dose of reality?
I don’t believe in renewables.
I don’t believe in renewables.
I don’t believe in renewables.
I don’t believe in renewables.
You had me for a minute!
Ummm . . . regarding the title of the above WUWT article . . . when you’ve literally lost your mind (take McKibben as a prime example), you don’t have much else to lose, in a “fight” or otherwise.
Covers a lot of ground.
My thoughts-
The word “renewable” has a new meaning unrelated to its original meaning. Weather dependent generators (WDGs) are energy sinks. They require more fossils fuels to make than they can return in their relatively short operating life. The extract energy from the climate system in ways that are unsustainable. If large regions are covered in solar panels they will become deserts. If wind turbines are placed along every coast line they will turn adjacent land into desert. No one knows how much energy can be extracted from wind before it has serious adverse impacts.
WDGS exist through enshrined theft from taxpayers and consumers to proponents and their backers. They place horrendous demand on global resources. They are fuelling inflation. Western governments have enshrined this theft and most people do not even realise they are being scammed.
The story of “greenhouse gasses” will be recognised as one of the most destructive fables in human history. The promise of perfect weather by demonising CO2, literally the molecule of life, is a destructive belief that goes beyond any previous religion.
“… a destructive belief that goes beyond any previous religion.”
That race hasn’t finished yet. Still, you are likely right.
It’s the anti-scientific post-modern thinking of the demonization of CO2 that gets my goat!
Well said, Rick
Purblind environmentalists should have realized that climate activism was losing whatever momentum it had long ago. The very fact that over 80% of global energy generation has been from fossil fuels for decades now despite billions in subsidies to alternate energy sources should have been enough to convince him and his ilk without any further research. Then all he had to do was to examine the lack of success of the COP conferences for nearly 30 years, and he would have recognized that governments, businesses, industries and consumers are at best just paying lip service to climate action while having few intentions of changing the ways they operate or conduct their lifestyles. The above facts alone would have made him and his fellow alarmists give up the ghost on radical climate action. Unfortunately there are still too many like them around who stand to benefit from whipping a lame horse, so few of them are honest enough to abandon their Net Zero and green environment fantasies.
Evidence for the low engagement by ordinary folks is presented in the UN’s “My World” 7-million people survey about their imperatives & priorities in life.
Action on Climate Change was a distant lowest / bottom nomination at 16th.
MY World 2015 – MYWorld2030
Green activism is limited to a very thin stratum of wealthy upper-middle class Westerners with zero scientific or engineering expertise.
But they have power and wealth and want more and more until they have it all.
Sorry Mr Bill,
Green Zealots aren’t what’s quashing the renewable revolution, renewable unreliability AND renewable’s cost of free energy is what’s destroying it. The people have SEEN and the people have begun to WISEN
I think a physiognomy study of these activists would yield fascinating results.
I thought McKibben came across really badly in ‘Planet of the Humans. Made a podium speech in favour of WOOD CHIPS and later when challenged in the street at a demo wafflingly back tracked because the zeitgeist was different, the poor silly old buffer. And what has happened to his futile 350ppm campaign? The Guardian still has 350 as the ‘safe level’ the poor ignorant saps.’
I think despite the intriguing claims in Planet of the Humans, Bill is a true believer. If the revelations in Planet of the Humans are as bad as they seem, perhaps Bill sometimes tells himself cutting a few corners is justified by the greater good.
Anthony had a meeting with Bill in 2015, I think Anthony believes Bill is sincere. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/06/my-one-on-one-meeting-with-bill-mckibben/
Sincerely a loony-tunes cartoon character. !
Fun extra McKibben fact. In 2021 he founded ‘Third Act’ for climate alarmists over 60 with more free time to be activists—like himself. Among Third Act’s ardent supporters are Bernie Sanders and Jane Fonda, per Wiki.
Old wise saying: lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
Well, he was the guy who screamed that anything over 350 ppm was going to horrible to the world and then he thought 1.5C was the red line to save the world.
He does have one number he should be proud of; he is wrong 100% of the time.
Stupid is stupid does.
McKibben, Sanders, and Fonda — I would rather lie down with most dogs I’ve known.
The Bloomberg report quotes an exasperated UBS executive telling a closed-door gathering in Tokyo with representatives of “the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and public officials from around the world” that “banks are living and lending on planet Earth,” not on some planet of environmental virtue. According to the report, his “impassioned speech” met with “little pushback.”
Banks like to make money by making loans for projects that enable the borrower to pay the bank back with interest. If a solar or wind project has a rate of return less than the interest rate, the bank won’t lend money for it.
Governments who push “environmental virtue” don’t necessarily have to make money, since they can get the money through taxation. But if taxpayers (voters) are paying both higher taxes and higher energy bills, they might revolt and vote for politicians who support the use of fossil fuels for cheaper energy, and don’t worry if the weather gets slightly warmer in the next century.
We hear a lot about ECS from the IPCC for Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity. We need an ECS day next November 5, for Energy Common Sense day.
Very few solar and wind projects can make money without sanctioned theft from consumers and taxpayers; often heavily disguised. In Australia they are termed Large Scale Generating Certificates (LGCs). Money extracted directly from consumers by retailers so they can pay the WDGs hanging off the grid the extra money to make the projects viable. Rooftops in Australia are subsidised at purchase through deemed Small Scale Certificates(STCs). But still sanctioned theft from consumers to the rooftop solar owners.and installers for the deemed output – not even actual output.
The word subsidy is a misnomer for what used to be termed theft. When the government suctions theft from consumers to WGD proponents they get to call it a “subsidy”. And most people accept it.
How is the “inflation reduction act” working in the USA?
Investment certainty for all WDG projects depends on the willingness of governments to sanction robbery from electricity consumers. There is now a growing sovereign risk. If Trump gets back in and rekindles his sensible approach to energy policy then it will be very hard for places like Europe and Australia to keep destroying their economies by buying ever more WDGs from China..
As the share of unreliables continues to grow in the UK’s energy network, Ofgem recently announced that there had been a daily rise of £2.8m in total household energy debt in the second half of 2023 – possibly over £500m in total.
Where is Nick Stokes et al??
Bailing out his garage at the moment.
It was pretty wet around Sydney last night, but it’s cleared up today.
I didn’t think Victoria copped that particular system.
You’re right.
But Nick believes every utterance from the BoM so I’m betting he was preparing to bail out his garage anyway.
He might get the tail end of it, but it seems to have pretty much fizzled out.
The radar shows a bit of light rain in NE Vic.
Nobody cares. !!!
Getting Stoked!!!
Haunting your noggin. His name gets mentioned here more often than in the headings of his posts.
As a newbee here, I don’t know the actual history. But I thought that I read that he was banned here years ago, but redeemed when click rate dropped. Better info? – I’m all eyes…
What a completely moronic comment. !
McKibben’s idea of “Justice” is running headfirst into Reality, and he is so delusional he can’t recognize it. Wonder how long for it to sink in? Alex, I’ll take “NEVER” for a million. Thanks.
Most true believers take their beliefs to the grave. Spend a few minutes with a creationist and you realise that some people are blind to reason no matter the weight of evidence.
The climate scammers have built a huge edifice that rewards the true believers and infiltrated all levels of government. If your income depends on holding certain beliefs than few people will give up that belief. The only limit on the scam is reality. It is all based on a fable and most people eventually learn to discriminate between fables and reality. The “greenhouse effect” is the gullibles’ Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy. You get rewarded as long as you believe such nonsense.
Would make an interesting study –
are we all born with intrinsic rationality, but as we mature, we allow ourselves to be seduced by ideology / religion / beliefs?
OK Rick, if YOU believe in science, you MUST believe that evolution is a THEORY that man descended from the apes.
So Rick, where is the REQUIRED missing link?
Just because YOUR belief system is supported by a 97% CONSENSUS, does not PROVE anything.
You are so sanctimonious every so often when you bring up your hatred of those who have a wholly HARMLESS Christian belief system.
I just wonder why? What or who created this level of antagonism you hold to those who, in general, are good decent people?
Related to, not descended from.
Still no missing link??
Que?
Why on on Earth should there be a missing link between two branches?
Did you mean a common ancestor?
How about the missing link between Chihuahuas and Saint Bernards?
The word “hatred” is misplaced. I simply do not put humans above all other creatures. I have an appreciation for how Earth has evolved and simple organisms provided the atmosphere and climate conducive to existing life forms.
I enjoy interaction with wild creatures and family pets. I see different personalities in many creatures.
I am awed by the ability of trees to lock away energy that I can use for heating. Or how they created the energy stores that now drive the global economy.
There are things that I would like to understand like the connection between gravity and matter. But I have been Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy so know what they are.
“a wholly HARMLESS Christian belief system.”
What a silly statement !!
We have centuries of historical data showing how harmful the Christian belief system has been, including to members of different sects of Christianity.
All religions suffer the same problem, each brand thinks it’s superior to all the others & therefore has a god-given right to dominate/subjugate all others.
You think you do, but then that’s just your belief system.
BTW, over the last 100 years, atheists have killed far more people than all the religions of the world combined.
Lots of those who call themselves Christians have done things “in the name of God” without first finding out just what it is God wants done.
It’s just a modern twist on PT Barnum’s statement that there’s a sucker born every minute. The climate scammers have found a massive cult of CAGW believers.
They ignore that the earth is greener, crops are more abundant, and plant life is much healthier with our higher CO2 levels.
And these climate con men blame every natural event on climate change, including earthquakes.
And when there’s severe cold weather, there’s always a contingent of clowns who blame it on global warming. Every time I see that, I just say ‘using that logic, warming events are being caused by global cooling’.
As we all can see, the Green hostility to nuclear confirms that their movement is about the aesthetics of de-industrializing Western society far more than “Saving the Planet”.
A second confirmation of this is the Greens’ refusal to attack China, the greatest (and still rising) spewer of CO2. China’s nominal adherence to Marxist socialism makes it immune to harsh attacks from the Greens, who stick with the absurd argument that despoiling the environment is the sole province of capitalism.
Wouldn’t we all love to see Greta marching in Tienanmen Square. The impossibility and absurdity of such event is one needs to know about climate alarmists.
Secretly, Green activists admire Maoism and want to impose it in the West, with rhem in charge, of course. It’s for our own good.
Feels more Orwellian to me.
‘You must cut your carbon footprint!’
What about yours? ‘I buy carbon credits to offset the fossil fuels used by my private jet, yacht, fleet of cars and mansions. My carbon footprint is tiny due to this.’
We’re all equal; some are more equal than others.
I chuckle when I think of how foolish the previous couple of generations were to plant trees on Arbor Day. https://www.arborday.org/celebrate/history.cfm
Now one can sell carbon offsets by claiming to plant trees. No actual need to plant trees; there’s very little accountability.
The chicken littles can only cry wolf so many times.
Yep, that’s the other problem – we’ve hit 1.5C, according to some claims, yet the climate apocalypse is nowhere in sight.
Nowhere in sight?
who ya gonna believe –
The Grauniad or your lyin’ eyes?
Very poor analogy there; nobody believes what’s in the Grauniad even the idiots that write for it. Except, perhaps, George Monbiot.
What about the solar eclipse? That’s pure proof of the climate crisis! (/sarc)
Upward and onward…….. CO2 TOWARDS 700ppm !!
Plants LUV CO2.
I sense a movement coming on.
(be careful how you interpret this)
We should all start identifying as Chrysanthemums.
Or maybe Pansies?
(er, I think that’s already happening)
I feel a movement coming on, in the end both will be flushed
Sunflowers.
It’s what plants crave.
brawndoCO2I wonder if 700ppm is possible.
I wonder too. It’s definitely not going to happen in our lifetime.
There probably is enough coal, oil shale, bitumen and clathrates to get there with a lot of work.
I expect we are about 200 years away from permafrost advancing south and down the mountains – north slope first. The ice tends to lock away carbon that is bound in soil and biomass that gets covered up as well as dissolved in the water forming the ice. We know CO2 levels decline about 800 years after the ice starts forming. Even now, about half the amount of CO2 that humans manage to produce gets locked up. A lot ends up in the Southern Ocean and that is continuing to cool down.
So it gets down to how fast can more CO2 be released before it gets locked away. The NH oceans will continue to warm well after the snow starts accumulating so that is on the plus side. More of the SH oceans will cool so that is on the negative side.
China may find it increasingly difficult to maintain their 30 year coal reserve. Although all reserves are a function of the price being paid.
Here is an interesting observation – if wind turbines and solar panels were the answer to the maiden’s prayer from an energy perspective. China could stop mining coal and use the wind turbines it already has to create ever more wind turbines. But wind turbines are energy sinks not sources. That is why coal reserves remain a valuable energy resource.
China added almost 47.5 GW of coal power in 2023 bringing its total coal generation to around 1080 GW
IPCC, WG-I report, section 1.6.1.4, “The likelihood of reference scenarios, scenario uncertainty and storylines”, on page 239 :
Emissions data up to 2023 show “reality” tracking closer to RCP 4.5 / SSP2-4.5 than anything else, but let’s be “optimistic” and assume we can get back on the RCP 6.0 (/ SSP4-6.0) “pathway” instead.
That would get us to 700ppm sometime in the first quarter of the 22nd century, i.e. in roughly 80 to 100 years.
Comment by “Scissor” below : “It’s definitely not going to happen in our lifetime.”
Yup.
Being ignorantly stupid is a preferred mindset of the left which is why they never improve over time.
“Being ignorantly stupid is a preferred mindset of the left”
It’s not confined to the left; plenty of examples from all sides.
Few people think critically any more & just blindly ‘follow the team’. There are sheeple everywhere waiting to be led to slaughter.
You simply can’t hide the rank incompetence Bill-
‘It’s rank incompetence’: Lionel Shriver on the real cost of going electric | SpectatorTV – YouTube
Not even the tame media feeding on a dooming meme can ignore the bleeding obvious and it’s time for anyone with half a brain to head for the exits and beat the crush.
I am a big fan of Shrivers work
For everyone’s enjoyment
The Goodies “Funky Gibbon” (youtube.com)
McKibben is a delusional crackpot. Why does he think banks are backing off net zero? It is the people the banks deal with. Most of the people the banks deal with may not have the education that McKibben does but they know they don’t want to piss their money away needlessly on some mindless project that does nothing but take their money away from them only to line the pockets of people who have orders of magnitude more wealth than them and for no good reason. He is a disgrace.
I’m not sure I’d use the word education WRT McKibben’s CV; more like indoctrination. Where’s the critical thinking?
I find it completely lacking in the greenie crowd. OTOH, I think all of us here have had more than a few moments where we’ve had to reevaluate the causes of climate change.
As we have been saying here for years – won’t happen because it can’t…
this article is a good analysis of grid operation and costs
https://cliscep.com/2024/04/05/pole-position/?fbclid=IwAR1o2is6hOZvliRhEjtfgth5zRkD5RxQrSRZ-tJ-_Y_sbRpFMxZBKe2B1co_aem_AUABb93292AXgGVoy_wwU8pPu7VLPrNYgcOCbXcYFJtlr657Jn6v8V509J9rqAuuQag
Net Zero/stopping climate change is the new term for central economic planning and control – beloved by Socialists and Fascists (tautology) – requiring authoritarianism and ever more desperate measures to make the Universe submit and comply to Man’s demands.
No matter how many times it fails causing widespread misery and impoverishment, the appetite for ‘one more try’ and ‘we can get it right this time’ is insatiable.
But our problem is that the green dumbfeks are good at one thing, and one thing only: grabbing headlines.
“…an international “Apollo” project, to make renewables economically viable.”
This is one of the key problems. My understanding was that UK governments were so easily given the impression that kick starting the industry was sufficient. Economies of scale and the free market would do the rest.
Nobody explained to them that there are some things that can’t be made economically viable. Like Moore’s Law, physical limits place a ceiling on technologies. With “green” energy the ceiling is at ground level except in exceptional circumstances like solar panels on satellites.