Is it even meant to make sense? Or is the environment/climate used as an excuse to bring in the 'New Normal' that they talk about which gives them more control and covers up the fact that their financial system is bust and they can't pay out people's pensions.
I was trying to be as generous as I could be in the article :-) but I have heard Prof Michaux talk about what happens when he actually gets in front of policy makers, and he says every one of them goes into stunned silence and jaws drop when they encounter this info for the first time. Even if they have totally ill intent, I really don't think they have the competence to do the basic science and maths. So it may be a very deadly combination of malice and incompetence.
Great article, as Jonathan Haidt proposes, a situation like this arises because in government and our institutions to a certain degree internal disagreement ceases, either because its people have become ideologically uniform or because they have become afraid to dissent. When going against any climate change policy became seen as climate change denialism or wrong, participants in our key institutions began self-censoring to an unhealthy degree, holding back critiques of policies and ideas, even those they believed to be ill-supported or wrong.
The most pervasive obstacle to good thinking is confirmation bias, which refers to the human tendency to search only for evidence that confirms our preferred beliefs.
The most reliable cure for confirmation bias is interaction with people who don’t share your beliefs. They confront you with counterevidence and counterargument. John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that,” and he urged us to seek out conflicting views “from persons who actually believe them.” People who think differently and are willing to speak up if they disagree with you make you smarter, almost as if they are extensions of your own brain. People who try to silence or intimidate their critics make themselves stupider, almost as if they are shooting darts into their own brain.
Yes, good summary. I agree with this. I wrote somewhere else that a good scientists first and foremost does everything to prove his/her pet hypothesis wrong, and invites friendly and constructive critique, but I encountered very few of these true scientists in the technocratic and academic circles.
I read a similar analysis from Kenneth Shultz regarding renewable power generation manufacturing, just for Australia (not the larger population countries). The figures are truly eye-watering.
"This study will show that to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, Australia will need to:
1. Decommission an amount of fossil fuel-burning generators, vehicles and equipment that collectively consume 1,085,000 gigawatt hours of fossil fuel annually and replace with zero emission equipment.
2. Install 119,000 wind turbines over an area of 60,000 square kilometres, an area as large as the area of 3 million MCG stadiums. Construction and installation of the turbines will consume 36 million tonnes of steel and 145 million tonnes of concrete.
3. Install 6 million rooftop solar systems.
4. Build 22,000 solar farms.
5. For the 516,000 gigawatt-hours of fossil fuel-burning equipment that cannot be replaced, provide carbon offsets by planting 17 billion trees per annum for a total cost of $238 billion and a total land requirement of 201 million hectares, an area equivalent to 50 per cent of Australia’s total agricultural and grazing land.
6. Build 6 nuclear power stations at a cost of $92 billion
7. Emit 670 million tonnes of carbon dioxide during the manufacture and construction of the infrastructure
8. Spend an estimated total of $1.13 trillion."
Schultz's article helped to cement my view that the push for renewable energy is the second biggest hoax, behind COVID-19 (Michael Moore's 'Planet of the Humans' also contributed!)
Thank you - another eye opening, and eye watering piece, especially this part to add to the mix: "Wind turbines chop up a large number of birds and bats each year. Figures are hard to come by, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service estimate America’s 67,000 wind turbines kill up to up to 500,000 birds and 888,000 bats each year.2 Based on the US figures, the required 119,000 turbines could kill around one million birds, including the iconic wedge-tailed eagle, and 1.6 million bats annually."
Net zero was always a fantasy. The sums never added up. The astronomical costs of trying (and inevitably failing) to power a developed economy using low carbon renewables were never communicated to the public. It might be argued that the true fanatics never bothered to look at the cost and the total impracticality and implausibility of their 'sustainable' pipe dream, but it is inconceivable that the politicians pushing this agenda have no idea that it can never work and that it will only result in massive societal and economic damage. They must have known. They must surely know now, yet they pursue this criminal Green agenda with dogged persistence, arguing that the alternative (not rapidly phasing out fossil fuels) would be far worse, for which there is no empirical evidence whatsoever. They know also that our efforts here in Western nations to get to net zero emissions will not be emulated by countries like China, Russia and India, therefore any modest drop in total global emissions achieved by us decimating our industries, societies and economies, will be more than made up for by the increasing use of fossil fuels in China especially, so overall, our efforts will not reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. They know this, yet they persist in punishing us with their net zero zealotry. This is not about maintaining a 'habitable climate', it is about top down control of entire populations, the massive redistribution of wealth and the intentional destruction of Western democracies.
Im returning to this old article of yours to say thank you and to plug my new series, "Clean Energy Transition." Your article was inspirational and introduced me to Michaux and the IEA report.
I have campaigned against our delusional climate change policies for years, for far too long under my own delusion that its proponents were just a bit thick and could be persuaded to re-think. Most MPs probably are too thick but the leaders at the top who have been through the WEF training school (Sunak, Hunt, Johnson, May, Hancock …) will know the real truth.
It all becomes clear if you accept that “climate change” is nothing to do with climate, it’s just a tool of oppression.
I believe you know that I believe your conclusion is totally off-base. Your conclusion talks of (arghhh!!) incompetence and stuff like that:
"our glorious technocratic leaders are operating on anti-knowledge, and had never even thought to the back-of-the-envelope sums in the first place, let alone done them. I am afraid they are likely to drive of us off a cliff in their steadfast pursuit of a solution which appears to be a pipe dream, based on wishful and magical thinking . . . "
FORGET IT. It seems to me you have drunk a fair amount of the kool-aid. To see incompetence rather than, at the core, well-planned malevolence means, to me, something is hugely missing from what your are seeing. Look at my post from yesterday, for instance, which is a tiny demonstration of what is going on - - absolutely not incompetence: https://elsaiselsa.substack.com/p/how-did-we-get-here-how-did-the-education I believe you have looked. But what I show - and there are many more demonstrations of this - is not taken into account in what you write.
By the way, if you'd ever like to talk about this, I think we have loads of interests in common, as I see from my looking at your posts.
I am being subtle and gently introducing, for people who are new to this.... and to allow folks to make up their own minds if they wish to pursue this further... this is not my usual topic, and hence many of my readers are unfamiliar with the deeper rabbit holes...
You write of being subtle. I see lying by massive omission. By the way, I tend to be great at reaching people. My suggestion, rather than (my non-soft term) lying by omission, TELL THE TRUTH: let your readers know that this is not your usual topic, that you are exploring, that you fear alienating them, that you don't know how they will take it, that you hope they can listen. IN OTHER WORDS, TELL THE TRUTH, which includes not just the fact truths, but the truth about you and your journey. I see that, instead, you are, as I have said, lying to them because you fear so much they can't take the truth. I have seen, as you know, other places where you misrepresent: for instance you write about 2 sides locked in rigidities. I saw that as a bit like seeing someone beating up someone else and saying: there are 2 people locked in struggle.
The only truth the post is intended to reveal is the hard numbers on what it would take to get to net-zero through renewable energies. This is what I felt the need to share, because I had not seen this calculation done before, and the stark reality of the conclusions I felt should be circulated wider. I ended on the open question for readers to think about the ramification of this, and to take it further if they wished but that wasn't the point - wasn't MY point. I am sorry if including the last line distracted from the point of Prof. Simon's findings. As I have said before, the "talking to each like lawyers" post is about polarizition and the division I am seeing at every level and on every topic. As I said there, there are obviously cases where there are power imbalances where it is very one sided.
Is it even meant to make sense? Or is the environment/climate used as an excuse to bring in the 'New Normal' that they talk about which gives them more control and covers up the fact that their financial system is bust and they can't pay out people's pensions.
I was trying to be as generous as I could be in the article :-) but I have heard Prof Michaux talk about what happens when he actually gets in front of policy makers, and he says every one of them goes into stunned silence and jaws drop when they encounter this info for the first time. Even if they have totally ill intent, I really don't think they have the competence to do the basic science and maths. So it may be a very deadly combination of malice and incompetence.
People ask if our enemies are evil or stupid. Well... They're both.
I think that just about covers it, Munchy
It's bafflegarble repeated often enough that some weak-minded fools believe it.
Great article, as Jonathan Haidt proposes, a situation like this arises because in government and our institutions to a certain degree internal disagreement ceases, either because its people have become ideologically uniform or because they have become afraid to dissent. When going against any climate change policy became seen as climate change denialism or wrong, participants in our key institutions began self-censoring to an unhealthy degree, holding back critiques of policies and ideas, even those they believed to be ill-supported or wrong.
The most pervasive obstacle to good thinking is confirmation bias, which refers to the human tendency to search only for evidence that confirms our preferred beliefs.
The most reliable cure for confirmation bias is interaction with people who don’t share your beliefs. They confront you with counterevidence and counterargument. John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that,” and he urged us to seek out conflicting views “from persons who actually believe them.” People who think differently and are willing to speak up if they disagree with you make you smarter, almost as if they are extensions of your own brain. People who try to silence or intimidate their critics make themselves stupider, almost as if they are shooting darts into their own brain.
Yes, good summary. I agree with this. I wrote somewhere else that a good scientists first and foremost does everything to prove his/her pet hypothesis wrong, and invites friendly and constructive critique, but I encountered very few of these true scientists in the technocratic and academic circles.
I read a similar analysis from Kenneth Shultz regarding renewable power generation manufacturing, just for Australia (not the larger population countries). The figures are truly eye-watering.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/10/logistics-and-costs-for-australia-to-achieve-net-zero-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-2050/
The executive summary reads:
"This study will show that to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, Australia will need to:
1. Decommission an amount of fossil fuel-burning generators, vehicles and equipment that collectively consume 1,085,000 gigawatt hours of fossil fuel annually and replace with zero emission equipment.
2. Install 119,000 wind turbines over an area of 60,000 square kilometres, an area as large as the area of 3 million MCG stadiums. Construction and installation of the turbines will consume 36 million tonnes of steel and 145 million tonnes of concrete.
3. Install 6 million rooftop solar systems.
4. Build 22,000 solar farms.
5. For the 516,000 gigawatt-hours of fossil fuel-burning equipment that cannot be replaced, provide carbon offsets by planting 17 billion trees per annum for a total cost of $238 billion and a total land requirement of 201 million hectares, an area equivalent to 50 per cent of Australia’s total agricultural and grazing land.
6. Build 6 nuclear power stations at a cost of $92 billion
7. Emit 670 million tonnes of carbon dioxide during the manufacture and construction of the infrastructure
8. Spend an estimated total of $1.13 trillion."
Schultz's article helped to cement my view that the push for renewable energy is the second biggest hoax, behind COVID-19 (Michael Moore's 'Planet of the Humans' also contributed!)
Thank you - another eye opening, and eye watering piece, especially this part to add to the mix: "Wind turbines chop up a large number of birds and bats each year. Figures are hard to come by, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service estimate America’s 67,000 wind turbines kill up to up to 500,000 birds and 888,000 bats each year.2 Based on the US figures, the required 119,000 turbines could kill around one million birds, including the iconic wedge-tailed eagle, and 1.6 million bats annually."
Net zero was always a fantasy. The sums never added up. The astronomical costs of trying (and inevitably failing) to power a developed economy using low carbon renewables were never communicated to the public. It might be argued that the true fanatics never bothered to look at the cost and the total impracticality and implausibility of their 'sustainable' pipe dream, but it is inconceivable that the politicians pushing this agenda have no idea that it can never work and that it will only result in massive societal and economic damage. They must have known. They must surely know now, yet they pursue this criminal Green agenda with dogged persistence, arguing that the alternative (not rapidly phasing out fossil fuels) would be far worse, for which there is no empirical evidence whatsoever. They know also that our efforts here in Western nations to get to net zero emissions will not be emulated by countries like China, Russia and India, therefore any modest drop in total global emissions achieved by us decimating our industries, societies and economies, will be more than made up for by the increasing use of fossil fuels in China especially, so overall, our efforts will not reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. They know this, yet they persist in punishing us with their net zero zealotry. This is not about maintaining a 'habitable climate', it is about top down control of entire populations, the massive redistribution of wealth and the intentional destruction of Western democracies.
Hi Gary,
Im returning to this old article of yours to say thank you and to plug my new series, "Clean Energy Transition." Your article was inspirational and introduced me to Michaux and the IEA report.
Cheers,
JP
Part 1 - Australia
https://fullbroadside.substack.com/p/full-broadsides-clean-energy-transition
Part 2 - Global
https://fullbroadside.substack.com/p/clean-energy-transition-part-2
Checking them out now.,,
I liked your article and its tone
I have campaigned against our delusional climate change policies for years, for far too long under my own delusion that its proponents were just a bit thick and could be persuaded to re-think. Most MPs probably are too thick but the leaders at the top who have been through the WEF training school (Sunak, Hunt, Johnson, May, Hancock …) will know the real truth.
It all becomes clear if you accept that “climate change” is nothing to do with climate, it’s just a tool of oppression.
I believe you know that I believe your conclusion is totally off-base. Your conclusion talks of (arghhh!!) incompetence and stuff like that:
"our glorious technocratic leaders are operating on anti-knowledge, and had never even thought to the back-of-the-envelope sums in the first place, let alone done them. I am afraid they are likely to drive of us off a cliff in their steadfast pursuit of a solution which appears to be a pipe dream, based on wishful and magical thinking . . . "
FORGET IT. It seems to me you have drunk a fair amount of the kool-aid. To see incompetence rather than, at the core, well-planned malevolence means, to me, something is hugely missing from what your are seeing. Look at my post from yesterday, for instance, which is a tiny demonstration of what is going on - - absolutely not incompetence: https://elsaiselsa.substack.com/p/how-did-we-get-here-how-did-the-education I believe you have looked. But what I show - and there are many more demonstrations of this - is not taken into account in what you write.
By the way, if you'd ever like to talk about this, I think we have loads of interests in common, as I see from my looking at your posts.
I am being subtle and gently introducing, for people who are new to this.... and to allow folks to make up their own minds if they wish to pursue this further... this is not my usual topic, and hence many of my readers are unfamiliar with the deeper rabbit holes...
You write of being subtle. I see lying by massive omission. By the way, I tend to be great at reaching people. My suggestion, rather than (my non-soft term) lying by omission, TELL THE TRUTH: let your readers know that this is not your usual topic, that you are exploring, that you fear alienating them, that you don't know how they will take it, that you hope they can listen. IN OTHER WORDS, TELL THE TRUTH, which includes not just the fact truths, but the truth about you and your journey. I see that, instead, you are, as I have said, lying to them because you fear so much they can't take the truth. I have seen, as you know, other places where you misrepresent: for instance you write about 2 sides locked in rigidities. I saw that as a bit like seeing someone beating up someone else and saying: there are 2 people locked in struggle.
The only truth the post is intended to reveal is the hard numbers on what it would take to get to net-zero through renewable energies. This is what I felt the need to share, because I had not seen this calculation done before, and the stark reality of the conclusions I felt should be circulated wider. I ended on the open question for readers to think about the ramification of this, and to take it further if they wished but that wasn't the point - wasn't MY point. I am sorry if including the last line distracted from the point of Prof. Simon's findings. As I have said before, the "talking to each like lawyers" post is about polarizition and the division I am seeing at every level and on every topic. As I said there, there are obviously cases where there are power imbalances where it is very one sided.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply, and for letting me know what struck me was far from the main point of your article.
Thank you!