Tag: climate change

How Could I Not Read an Article Called, “Germany’s Energy Fiasco?”

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The author is a German professor named Hans-Werner Sinn.  His bio says he is a German economist who served as President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research from 1999 to 2016. He currently serves on the German Economy Ministry’s advisory council.  He is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Finance at the University of Munich.

What’s refreshing is he writes using facts when he discusses the realities of energy production.  Germany has almost completed its program of shutting down both its coal powered and nuclear-powered electrical generation facilities.  But since wind and solar account for 6.7% of the total energy requirements for the country it uses gas to heat most of its homes and businesses.

And even though 29% of electrical generation comes from wind and solar, whenever these resources fail (which is often) the full load of the electrical grid is powered by gas powered plants.  Therefore, Germany has built a large number of gas-powered plants to supposedly allow the transition to 100% renewables.  So currently, Germany is hopelessly dependent on Russian gas for heat and power.  And even if the whole German land mass was covered in solar cells and the sky was filled with wind turbines they would still need a large amount of gas to heat their homes and run their industry.

Germany’s posturing about boycotting Russian gas is just that.  Posturing.  If Russia were to cut off gas from Germany the country would grind to a halt in less than a week.  And several other European nations are in a similar situation.  This makes Biden’s threats especially hollow.

Reading Sinn’s essay, I am struck that the Greens in Germany have slit their own throats.  Germany had 17 nuclear power plants and an abundance of coal in the ground.  They threw these things away to pay the Russians for gas that produces more of the “dreaded” green house gases than they used to produce.

Good.  Let them stew on their current situation and possibly discover wisdom.

Personally, I hope the Russians do shut off gas to the West for a few weeks.  I think it’s valuable for people to get what they say they want.  It has a clarifying effect.  Sometimes it’s even educational, depending on the intellect of the recipient.

St. Greta, Do You Really Want to be the Next Al Gore?

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I think when the Climate Conference in Madrid became stalemated Greta had her hissy fit about putting all the climate criminals against the wall.  But now that it’s collapsed she’s talking about taking a break.  Makes sense.  Without Obama in the White House Green Power is a dud.  Chances of a Nobel Peace Prize seem slim.

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/12/16/madrid_climate_conference_ends_in_failure_110499.html

But the real Nobel Peace Prize winner straightened it all out, “We have the solutions,” Gore boomed. “They are cheaper than fossil fuels.” Wind and solar are crossing the line of grid parity, he insisted—there would be no stopping them.”

But the article writer even though a greenie sees the light,  “in Earth in the Balance, Gore described the internal-combustion engine as a deadlier threat to America than any military foe. Somehow, America has survived it, even with the SUV share of auto sales soaring from 27% to 48% in just nine years. The trend toward clean energy is unstoppable, Gore claimed, but we still need new policies to make it so. A contradiction? For sure.”

UN Climate Summit in Madrid Collapses Without The U.S. Paying the Bills

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Now here’s some comedy.  Without the United States to foot the bill, the rich countries and the poor countries are at each other’s throats over why there won’t be anyone to hand out goodies to the freeloaders.  Well, I guess the world will burn up very soon and polar bears will need sun screen.

https://news.yahoo.com/un-climate-talks-unraveling-face-failure-110423955.html

So sad, so very sad.

 

A Nice Fake Science Expose – The Science of Climate Change is Anything But Settled – Washington Times

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The Climate Alarmists are getting scared.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/13/what-are-the-opponents-of-donald-trumps-climate-re/

“On March 5, 58 senior military and national security leaders sent a letter to President Trump denouncing his plan to form a National Security Council panel to take a critical look at the science underpinning climate change claims. Their objections to such a Red Team effort were basically that the “science is settled.”

But if the science is settled, what are they afraid of? Wouldn’t a review of the science come to the same conclusion as the supposed consensus of climate scientists?”

I liked this little dig at the end

“In 1931, after being informed a book had been published titled “100 Authors against Einstein,” Albert Einstein responded, “Why 100 authors? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!” As Michael Crichton once said, “There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Do I Care About the Climate Con Job?

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Well-meaning people fret about whether humans really are warming the planet and whether Trump is doing harm.  I recognize their rationalization.  What harm could it do to go along with the Paris Accord?  It’s like an insurance policy, right?  And if you’re a guy in your fifties or sixties and your money is already made and you’re getting ready to retire that’s probably an easy way to accept it.  But if you’re twenty or thirty or even forty years old you need steady work and steady growth to make your life work.  You’re starting a career or buying a house or trying to get kids through college.  And trying to do that in a low growth, energy poor economy is pretty ugly.  That’s the Jimmy Carter/Barack Obama model.  Small businesses disappearing, big businesses contracting and squeezing the workers for the privilege of keeping their jobs and government providing more bureaucrats and doling out the food stamps and misery to the serfs.

I saw this in the late seventies when I was coming of age.  Jimmy Carter had an economy so bad that one of the cheapest insurance companies in the world gave its employees a bonus just because inflation made their paychecks so pathetic that even they felt pity for the workers.  Now my kids and grandkids are growing up in this latest nightmare.  The Masters of the Universe have exported all their opportunities to Asia and the Trust Find Kids have outlawed combustion because the planet has a fever.  This was okay for George Bush and Barack Obama and the rest of the Washington gang because their kids all have jobs with the State Department or NBC.  But mine don’t.

Donald Trump’s kids have all the money they’ll ever need and so do his grandkids.  And maybe he really doesn’t care that our kids don’t.  But at the very least he heard the people who are hurting and figured out how to get their votes.  Let’s take this least flattering case.  He’s just taking advantage of the ideological situation of working class white people revolting against progressive policy neglect.  All just naked power politics no human feeling whatsoever.

I’ll still take it.  It’s the best deal we’ve been offered in a generation.  Ronald Reagan was a friendly face and a reassuring voice and a sensible speech.  Donald Trump is an angry face and a hectoring voice and he communicates in staccato sound bites and slogans.  But both of them are on my side.  Whether ideologically or pragmatically they are aligned with me.  And that’s good enough for me.

George Will was deploring the barbarians that have replaced his beloved conservative losers.  Those cheerful cultured republicans of yesteryear who happily went down to defeat but kept their dignity and trust funds intact while the rest of us were fed to the progressives.  Somehow, we need to be grateful for the manly effort they expended while adhering to the Marquess of Queensberry rules and gloriously not winning.

Well, sorry no.  I want the narrative where we don’t lose and my descendants aren’t serfs.  So no, no climate scam for me, thanks.  If the temperature does increase by ten degrees F, I’ll move to Canada or Alaska or Siberia.  In fact, that may be a better climate profile since Canada and Russia are the two largest countries on earth and both of them are too cold for much agriculture.  And the idea that New England might be able to support orange trees and bananas doesn’t disturb me overmuch.  Maybe I’ll become an orange rancher like my hero Harold Bisonette.

But anyway, that’s why I don’t have any sympathy for the environmentally sensitive.  If they really are that worried about carbon emissions then let them get Leonardo DeCaprio and Al Gore and Barack Obama and Prince Charles to start taking sail boats when they travel to the latest environmental summit.  Or better yet, let them skype instead.  But either way I’ll keep using gasoline and heating oil as long as they last.  After that I’m hoping hydrogen produced electrolytically from nuclear power plant generated electricity will be the fuel of the future.  But, however we do it I’m certainly not going to worry about global warming.  I’ll leave that to really smart people like Cher and Miley Cyrus.