It’s true that none of the green alternatives that the world wants to embrace have been proven viable.
Not mentioned in this article is the parallel to the COVID vaccines I note in not proving their viability.
I believe attempts have been made to brainwash the public that green alternatives are the answer the same as COVID vaccines were promoted as being the answer.
Both green alternatives and the covid vaccines have shown themselves to be anything but silver bullets.
Someone commenting here said we had time to come up with solutions and fixes to the energy problems we face today. I understand we never had any problems with energy production at all.
I don’t believe carbon dioxide is a problem at all.
Sure, coal utilization in the past and present isn’t a super clean energy source but what about the technology to capture a large amount of known harmful byproducts? Is the cost of that technology more or less than what the public is faced with right now when heating or cooling their homes?
Making use of known gas and oil reserves that has been discouraged all this time with the same hostile attitudes toward their extraction leaves us wanting and even begging for these same resources today.
Shameful we broke something that wasn’t in need of fixing. Who can say that this green dream is the solution to anything.
Good article here. It inspired me to write the above.
Exactly. That’s why some of the biggest donors to green energy/anti-nuclear groups are from the fossil fuel industry. They know it won’t work and people will be forced back to them.
Right. You evoke the familiar pattern: easy assumption of counter-factual postures inspired by nonsensical stuff you read elsewhere… This anti-science has a huge following, so there is real security in numbers…
… Baseless denial of scientifically proven truth is a form of rodomontade…
Hydro electric has long been the answer in many places and indeed is not only green but all but made nuclear and fossil fuel irrelevant in said areas.
I mention this because,as you say, people have been brainwashed. They have also been brainwashed in the other direction in thinking that words like “green”, “sustainable”, “envirinment” etc are like 4 letter words.
It just isn’t so. and I mean both sides are spewing complete rubbish and ignoring reality far too often.
“green” is an answer in many regions. in other regions it is part of an answer. Same with fossil fuels. some places, yes. everywhere, hard no!
…the Kübler-Ross model of death acceptance was based on a study of terminally ill people who were aware that they were soon to die… I think the behavior and attitude of climate skeptics & denialists displays a strong resemblance to the first stage of the model, which is “denial” – a state of disbelief in face of an inevitable fatality. Even when confronted with evidence explaining their disease, at first, individuals will pretend there’s nothing wrong or some mistake has been made. It appears that climate skeptics will do anything to preserve their smug sense of cleverness – simply through the act of pretending nothing is wrong with the world …
But the world is in midst of the the 6th Great Extinction Event. 65 million years ago the Earth died out because of rising green house gases, and it’s happening again.
Those pretending everything is okay, or that renewable energy is untenable, or that we “must” use fossil fuels have turned off sense and thought. Climate change skeptics are like the American COVID patients who told their nurses and doctors that their disease was “fake news” – the moment before they succumbed. You imagine that you can crack jokes and remain cleverly smug even as your house burns down around you, or is flooded off the Earth… You can’t simply realize that something is really really wrong. Why do you not want to help change things by changing your behavior? Why is your complacency so smugly smart?
The selfish material “needs” of Western rich civilization are destroying the whole planet… We must work to change how we live.
Nothing smug about reality. You would not be posting here if it were not for fossil fuels keeping the lights on. Your phone and computer sure wouldn’t exist without the use of fossil fuels.
There are several extinction events that occured already without humans having anything to do with them.
Yes, people are stupid moving to where there are shortages of water - late spring - early summer 2021 there were water restrictions in Taiwan. Water was cut off for thousands to conserve and here we are surrounded by water.
Yes, death is coming for many. Policies restricting the use, exploration, and exploitation of fossil fuels will mean the certain death of millions.
I use hot water for showers, have a refrigerator, have air conditioning, have several computers and a phone. I have a nice Giant bicycle. I have a brand new kymco krv 180. My wife has a very nice car. In furtherance of everything you talked about above I expect your equipment list is much shorter than mine. Show us yours. Oh, we have a daughter and a dog as well.
Myself, I do not deny climate change, but I deny that my helping out will make much of a dent. It is the “tragedy of the commons”. I think my spending time on making sure I have the means to move to wherever is still the most habitable is more useful. It is not impossible that scientific advances will continue to keep our world habitable to billions of people for at least another couple hundred years.
Actually, yes your points are well-taken… As to my footprint, I have a moto, a 250 Honda AX-1, which I may sell and replace with a smaller Cub, having broken my leg this spring. I live in a house that has two aircons, but am not using either, only a couple of standing fans. I have an i5 PC that sucks juice if games are played. I don’t have much else, a washing machine, an oven, water boiler, a rice cooker, a tablet, a phone… And a gas stove. I pay 20 u.s. dollars a month for electricity. Before it was 45 in another place with aircon I had to use…
As to millions dying if we stop using fossil fuels, well, first we should look who is using them the most per Capita. The average resident of Canada uses 80 times more energy than the average Indian… So, I guess the dying will be in the northern latitudes… Your ideas about the effects of stopping exploitation of fossil fuels are completely off. They are killing us fast. That’s what we Western wasters won’t see…
Mass migration of people from southern climate zones (which fossil fuel use in northern climes have ruined) has only just begun. In coming decades, tens of millions will migrate north from Latin America and Africa – there’s no stopping that… Fossil fuels or none.
I heard about the water crisis and drought in Taiwan, it’s a perennial issue for decades, and they have not solved the problem. Fabbing chips is more important than growing rice or drinking water. I think they will be forced to start desalination on a mega-scale pretty soon. Energy required for that is enormous. Either that, or mass migration to Mars, lol…
Watch episode 5 of “A Perfect Planet – Humans”. They are planting trees in Senegal to stop the encroachment of the Sahara, and in Brazil, there’s a team of individuals gathering all sorts of indigenous seeds and replanting bio-diverse forest lands this way.
That’s the problem. You want Indians to go without the quality of life we enjoyed? You want to deny the largest population of people on the planet the ability to build skyscrapers, factories, art centers, museums, and comfortable homes with every modern trick we have today? Who will stop them and by what right does anyone have to restrict their ability to build as they please? None of what we enjoy today would have been possible without fossil fuels.
Did you go out any night this week? Did you go out at night and buy food or have a beer? Go to the 711 in the middle of the night and find exactly what you wanted? Air conditioning everywhere. Food kept fresh by cooling. Delivery trucks running all day and night moving food, water, beer, and milk all over the island.
Did you finish writing a report in the middle of the night? Take a late night taxi?
None of this would be possible without fossil fuels.
So we are at point A and want to go to the green point B. If you cut off fossil fuels now you won’t ever get to point b and hundreds of millions of people will die. Fertilizers come from fossil fuels, machines plant and harvest crops, machines transport crops to be processed, the foods are transported to your neighborhood. There isn’t anything available to do any of these things besides fossil fuels.
I’m all for making things better for planet earth but I understand that nothing will ever get done without using fossil fuels. I also understand that anything solar wind, or battery is impossible to produce without fossil fuels. I also understand these batteries at the end of their useful lives are extremely toxic to the environment and are extremely expensive to recycle so they won’t be recycled at all. These used batteries will spoil groundwater so it can’t be used for anything that will keep you alive.
If their were working alternatives, alternatives that were viable, someone would have put it out into the market and people like you would support that viable product with your dollars. But you don’t have anything viable to spend your dollars on for the solution that doesn’t exist.
Tell me something that works today and I’ll gladly switch to it if it protects the environment. Tell me what you recommend to get me entirely or partially off fossil fuels today.
There’s nuclear power that would get us to vastly reduce fossil fuels but we won’t use them because we’re too afraid. This also says that were not desperate enough or else we would have used more nuclear plants than ones that burn fossil fuels.
That tells me climate change is just political virtue signaling. If it is such a big problem then it would be solved immediately. I think the objective behind climate change is to deny countries like India wealth.
