By Robert Bradley Jr.
“It takes bits and pieces from leading establishment environmentalists to make the ecological case against climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. But taken together, the problems of wind, solar, and batteries are substantial and call for a mid-course correction from look-the-other-way, mention-and-run, wish-and-hope Big Green.”
Yes, she is a climate alarmist and supports forced (governmental) energy transformation to inferior, anti-ecological energies. But she has presented some common-sense observations about the climate crusade and agenda that offer hope about a mid-course correction toward human and ecological betterment.
Consider this recent article at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which was brought to my attention on LinkedIn (via Ian McCoy), “Climate warrior Jane Goodall isn’t sold on carbon taxes and electric vehicles.” (April 13, 2024). Quotations from the CBC article follow in two areas: a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax and electric vehicles (EVs).
Carbon Dioxide Tax
World-renowned primatologist and climate activist Jane Goodall says carbon pricing schemes like the one Canada has deployed aren’t a silver bullet to solve the pressing threat of climate change…. Goodall said the jury’s out on whether levying a consumer price on emissions will meaningfully improve the climate picture over the long term.
Goodall, who just turned 90, said a carbon tax can seem punitive to consumers — making a measure to fight climate change seem like a costly chore. She said she also worries that the fight against climate change has been “politicized … causing people just not to listen” ….
“The problem with a climate tax is that … it doesn’t get to the root cause, which is fossil fuel emissions, emissions of methane from industrial farming,” she said. “So, in that sense, it’s not something I endorse.”….
Electric Vehicles
But she added she’s worried about the current crop of electric vehicles, which largely rely on lithium batteries. She welcomes EVs as a concept but said she fears that the global scramble to mine lithium is ruining parts of the natural environment.
“Huge areas are now being destroyed by mining for lithium,” she said. “It scars the natural world.”
Pointing to Serbia, where the prospect of lithium mining prompted anger from local activists, Goodall said there’s a risk that the rush to exploit the world’s lithium supply will damage the “pristine environment” and spark a backlash.
She also said the lithium mining and refining process requires “lots of water,” which is “tough in places where there’s not that much fresh water.”
“To me, that’s one of the big problems of electric vehicles,” Goodall said. “Apparently there are other ways of sourcing batteries other than lithium and that needs to be developed.”….
Final Comment
It takes bits and pieces from leading establishment environmentalists to make the ecological case against climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. But taken together, the problems of wind, solar, and batteries are substantial and call for a mid-course correction from look-the-other-way, mention-and-run, wish-and-hope Big Green. Jane Goodall, just as James Hansen, the father of the climate alarm, recently provided just this.
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“…the fight against climate change has been “politicized … causing people just not to listen.” That should be her clue that all is not well with the AGW narrative. At least she doesn’t have blinders on like most activists.
“At least she doesn’t have blinders on like most activists.”
She sees some reality, but is still blinded by her brain-washed anti-CO2 miasma.
That miasma is the new state religion. If you’re in the elite classes, you don’t dare speak heresy against it. Ordinary folks will of course. They don’t have the social pressure to conform as their income and status aren’t dependent on that conformity.
Can something be politicised if it was all politics from the start? I would argue that it has been scientised (sciency stuff added to make it sound credible).
Michael Mann – profession: scientism.
Climate alarmism is primarily about power, political power not electrical power though. It’s about controlling the population through fear based propaganda, gaslighting the public into not only accepting the curtailment of their Rights and freedoms, but demanding it. They don’t really care about the environment, otherwise they would not be bulldozing vast tracts of forest to install wind turbines, or covering the land in solar panels.
In Wokeachusetts, there is now a big movement to stop building solar “farms”as there is little “waste land” around, other than old land fills. So, these installations need to be in forests or farmland and the small amount of farmland left is very productive. They want to protect the farms because they say we should “buy local food”. Their reason to protect forests is NOT to buy local wood but to lock up the forests forever to do nothing but sequester carbon. They do support wind turbines at sea and they think putting solar on all the roofs and parking lots will be sufficient to arrive at net zero nirvana. This is what the major enviro groups and activists are now foolishly preaching.
Two things they need to realise.
1… The only main current ways of providing large amounts of cost-effective reliable electricity are Fossil Fuels, Nuclear and some Hydro
2… CO2 has no measurable effect on climate, but a huge positive effect on the carbon cycle that provides for all life on the planet.
Exactly so. Not only that but not one serious forecast of climate doom, be it the state of corals, the supposed demise of Alpine (and other) glaciers, massive sea rises, that our children will not see snow etc has EVER come to pass.
And the recent UN IPCC Assessment Report Number Six (AR6) conclusively states that extreme weather events globally (hurricanes, major storms, floods, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires & etc.) have not increased in frequency, intensity nor longevity in the past nor are they modeled to do so in the future, even after flogging CliSciFi climate models with the outrageous 8.5 W/m^2 by 2100 scenario. Every Leftist politician, Deep State bureaucrat, academic activist, insane billionaire, lavishly funded NGO and media outlet corrupted by money and Leftist/Marxist ideology are lying to you when they say extreme weather has increased.
All the propaganda and doom around “the end of the world” has created a mass formation. People are scared and confused and want to do the right thing but they’ve been captured in the religion of climate change. I believe the way out of this mass formation is to get as many people as possible speaking up and saying NO, the world is not going to end. The ridiculous doomsayers need to be publicly mocked and their “science” questioned at every opportunity. One question I hadn’t considered though, if someone becomes an expert on chimps does that lead to expertise in the energy balance of earth?
Perhaps it was she that provided the chimps for the climate models. ? 😉
You’re in great form tonight Bnice!
Her chimps were more logical and based on reality!!
What’s the saying? A thousand chimps with a thousand typewriters…would be more accurate than the CMIP?
“People are scared and confused”… WHY? is the foremost question that should be posed… nobody actually “thinks” anymore? The ‘dumbing down’ is complete.
People try thinking but are overwhelmed with this new state religion that doesn’t tolerate heresy. And, most people are too busy just surviving from day to day- paying bills, dealing with health problems, maintenance of their homes and vehicles, shopping- hardly having time for deep thinking on this and many other important issues. But of course the elite classes do have the time and their main goal is career protection, not seeking truth.
Good to hear Goodall say some things I agree with but I don’t look to Jane for advice on anything.
Tending to your Gorilla?
I don’t have a gorilla.
That’s sad 🙁 … I have a toaster and a griller. ! 🙂
A reply from Bob–I’m impressed!
I have the Gorilla My Dreams. A bit hirsute maybe, but ya can’t have everything.
Climate Apocalypse is the gorilla in the room.
Goodall is an expert primatologist, not a climate expert at all, with a sideline of fundraising for research using the standard save-the-forest stuff….
the standard is “save the forest but don’t manage it”
To come to be 90 years of age and receive praise for only being mostly deluded just seems sad to me.
Does she even have a clue that calculators exist, there’s a thing called climate sensitivity and very prominent radiative physicists, meteorologists and mathematics nerds (sorry Dr van W, just a figure of speech) have published this year on the nothingburger that is net zero, even using the scientifically fraudulent or naive IPCC numbers, and not even getting into the absurdity of net zero, or the true likely range of ECS.
Having said that, I do wish her well. It will be over soon anyway.
Once I heard Goodall was a climate believer, I questioned the rest of her science. I don’t consider Goodall to be up-to-date in climate science–whatever that is.
The is no such thing as climate science. There are no climate scientists, climatologists, certainly, but none of them are degreed in all of the relevant science and engineering fields.
But she added she’s worried about the current crop of electric vehicles, which largely rely on lithium batteries.
You’d sure want to be given all the increasing warning signs and the obvious conclusion when they’re ubiquitous much older and in varying states of repair and maintenance-
Huge Fire at Rivian Plant Destroys Dozens of EVs (msn.com)
They’re a lot more hot off the press than even the Merc parked in South Korea or the ones at Lisbon airport-
Korea’s “90% EV charge limit in car parks” WON’T WORK… | MGUY Australia (youtube.com)
If the gaslighting media and climate changers don’t get it then the insurance underwriters will knock some sense into them. I’m even having second thoughts about a Toyota hybrid with a lithium battery instead of NiMh now in that regard.
hmmm… now I’m wondering- what about the smoke from a lithium fire- I wonder how toxic it is?
Quite
Did Ms. Goodall notice during any of her primate studies that she was always within 10 degrees latitude of the equator?
All members of Family Hominidae are tropical creatures. (One species does have the ability to significantly modify its immediate environment, allowing it to spread into the temperate regions.)
The world is too cold, not too hot!
Seems like another believer of the “wash me, but don’t get me wet!”-religion.
The current climate change policies are not only ecologically not feasible, but also lead to environmental disaster!
Goodall, Hansen and all the others are to blame for “Huge areas are now being destroyed by mining for lithium”, I think few skeptics are surprised by such results!
If she does not like that result, maybe it´s time to move her alarmist point of view!
Lukewarmers always souned great to me!
The only thing politics and mass media can do from here is stop listening to them!
The crazies in leftover woke broke Danistan face a difficult conundrum-
Fuel giant says it’s time to get on with gas import plan (msn.com)
Victoristan won’t allow more offshore drilling or onshore fracking but they’re the State with the max household gas use in a nation that’s a large gas exporter.
Ive seen a few green proponent articles and videos about EVs that indicate that EVs should not be high on the list of subjects Greens talk about. They have been discouraged to mention it as they’ve noticed the pushback. So now you get people like Jane being all goodiegoodie as if all the dirty production method hadnt been known for years. It gives the impression of uber environmentalists that they too are reasonable people. But the only real reason is that there is a strong pushback. They’ve done the polls and they cant sell the idea enough. I can only hope they will move to wind turbines. They of course wont.
Yes, I think the writing is on the wall about lithium-powered EV’s now, and even the climate alarmists can see it.
No matter how you cut it very high carbon dioxide levels have never before been the result of human activity. We can speculate all we like on what 2050 will be but the labeling of carbon dioxide as harmful and poisonous shows how little the alarmists know or care about anything. It is not as if the alternatives to fossil fuel are clean and green when they are actually even more likely to cause more harm to our environment than fossil fuel ever was. Nuclear is pretty much the cleanest fuel we know and have and so where is the investment in its potential and future development if 2050 posed such an alarming future outlook for the planet?
Fossil fuel induced climate change was a hoax and scam from the very start and no matter what the future holds for humanity it is about time our politicians told the truth about the avoidance of nuclear energy and the environmental destructiveness of wind turbines and solar panels when they claim humans need to clean up their act. We are currently making matters much, much worse than clean burn fossil fuel was ever capable of doing.
The lady has obviously decided the destruction of the natural environment to enable battery powered vehicles to exist is not a good bargain for planet Earth.
As she has reached the handsome age of 90 she might also be considered to be in the Soylent Green phase of existence. With that in mind she may at long last be reflecting on what the removal of fossil fuel from our energy options will lead too….
White meat is considered a healthier option apparently, Well that was what Francoir Duvalier said back in the day.
Story Tip
In other news, more climate madness from the Telegraph:
Street lights on a Norfolk road notorious for car crashes will be turned off under a council’s plans to cut carbon emissions.
Residents fear the removal of lighting from a section of the B1145 near King’s Lynn, which has a series of hidden dips, will endanger motorists.
Two serious accidents on the road have happened at night in the past six months, with a number of deaths there in recent years.
Norfolk County council has said it has no safety concerns about the plans, which it previously said would be “significantly contributing” towards its plans to create “a net zero Norfolk”.
The Conservative-run authority wants to switch off 1,000 of the county’s 50,000 street lights to save up to £200,000 and cut annual carbon emissions by 76 tonnes a year. But there are concerns that the proposal – part of wider cuts worth £42 million – could have fatal consequences.
Typical of the green hysteria – they will save 76 tons a year! Out of a global total of 37 billion tons, and a UK total of around 450 million. And if it makes the roads a bit more dangerous, well, think of the children, we have to save the planet after all.
As if any efforts Norfolk makes could have any effect on the Earth’s temperatures.
It’s just so ridiculous.
Fewer car crashes will be seen, especially at night.
Perhaps Goodall and Hansen and others (even Mann?) have real doubts about the “emergency” but aren’t brave enough to say so or their cronies will eviscerate them- so instead, they discuss the problems with the energy transition. But if they really, really thought the world is doomed by a few degrees warming, then it would be worth proceeding with all possible green energies, ASAP regardless of cost.
” … Goodall said. “Apparently there are other ways of sourcing batteries other than lithium and that needs to be developed.”…. “
Really? Like what?
Baghdad Battery –
Lemon juice, grape juice, or vinegar was used as an acidic electrolyte to generate an electric current.
You also need a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron.
…carbon pricing schemes like the one Canada has deployed aren’t a silver bullet to solve the pressing threat of climate change….
Who determines climate change is a pressing threat or is it a threat just because someone said it is?
EV’s are an environmental disaster.
Here in the Midatlantic, in the PJM service area of 65 million people, wind and solar provide about 5% of the electricity. An EV in this area is not helping the climate at all. Yet, I got over $10,000 in subsidies to buy my hybrid van.
That’s not a chimp you chump, that’s a gorilla! (Moe Howard)
“…a carbon tax can seem punitive to consumers — making a measure to fight climate change seem like a costly chore.”
What she’s really saying is that costs need to be hidden from consumers (and voters) because they will not tolerate the reality. This is why Progressivism hates transparent tax policy. Everything needs to be hidden.
__________________________________________________________________________
The Global Warming Potential numbers for CH4, N2O, CFCs, & SF6 are pure propaganda.
Nice lady.
While I value her opinion on primate behaviour, I do not detect in her generalizations, a clear view of what the AGW problems are or aren’t.
Almost all global warming since 1850 happened more than 100 years ago. This simple fact has evaded those who haven’t read widely because it is never mentioned in the popular press. CAGW is for people who don’t read and are bad at math.
Restating the obvious, like saying lithium battery power electric vehicles are not going to reduce humanity’s impact on the natural environment, is a form of cheerleading. It would be more useful if the observational skills of Ms Goodall were applied to those humans who manipulate the public spaces in order to promote “the narrative” at the expense of the whole social ecosystem.
Destroying western civilization in order to elevate the prospect of a “new order” coming to “rescue humanity” is an important behavioural change that she is capable of observing perspicaciously. Her observations on a social suicide in process would be valuable to future generations of people more sober in their approach to knowledge. It might stiffen their resolve never to allow small, unelected, self-serving groups to commandeer the global political agenda.
We should apply our expertise where it is relevant and will provide the most benefit.