Deluded green narratives around oil and gas must not allow us to surrender our energy security - "Energy security was taken for granted by much of Europe in the early part of the 21st century. Whilst much has improved since the Conservatives took office in 2010 – approvals of a new generation of nuclear plants, a well-developed offshore wind industry, fresh licencing rounds for North Sea oil and gas and recent support for shale gas – the spiralling costs associated with the war in Ukraine expose the brutal truth that we do not have enough energy. Whilst there is a sensible debate to be had, a state of delusion appears to have descended over some commentators, politicians and activists when it comes to further exploration of North Sea oil and gas. They cry foul with a misleading environmental narrative that would see us surrender our energy security and harm thousands of Britons who rely on the North Sea for their livelihoods. No one credible honestly believes that we can turn off the oil and gas taps overnight, yet the Labour Party believe we should have an entirely decarbonised grid by 2030. This is not just implausible, it is a recipe for disaster."
Too bad they're still committed to net zero by 2050 and expanding "renewable" energy
Wind farm in Germany is being dismantled to expand coal mine - "A wind farm in Germany is being dismantled to expand the Garzweiler lignite mine. One of eight turbines installed at the location in 2001 has already been removed. Nevertheless, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia said it would phase out coal by 2030, as did RWE, the company that owns the mine. Wind turbines near the Garzweiler open pit mine in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, run by German energy giant RWE, is being removed to make way for more lignite exploitation. The turbines were in operation since 2001, and government subsidies have expired. Energiekontor and wpd, which is also active in the Balkans, operate the wind farm."
So much for the cope that even more renewables are needed
Snubbed by Canada, Germany turns to Qatar for its gas - "After an energy-hungry Germany was snubbed by Canada, Berlin has instead gone all-in on a gas contract with Qatar, the small, autocratic nation currently hosting the World Cup. This week, German firms announced a 15-year contract to buy roughly two million tonnes of LNG per year of Qatari natural gas. The multi-billion-dollar deal comes just three months after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a rare official visit to Canada for the explicit goal of securing Canadian sources of liquid natural gas... Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said openly that there has “never been a strong business case” for Canadian LNG exports to Europe. The prime minister then insisted on taking his German counterpart to Stephenville, N.L., the site of a proposed facility to make hydrogen gas from wind power. With any groundbreaking still years away — and with hydrogen still a vanishingly small piece of Germany’s energy mix — the visit didn’t appear to yield any particular German enthusiasm for Canadian hydrogen. Germany’s contract for Qatari gas begins in 2026, meaning that tankers of Qatari gas will be sailing into German ports until at least 2041. The scope and longevity of the contract would seem to defy Trudeau government claims that German gas demands were merely a temporary stop-gap that carried no long-term opportunity for Canada. In a press conference touting the German deal, Qatar’s minister of energy, Saad al-Kaabi, boasted about the “long-term” nature of the agreement, and assured the Germans that Qatar could guarantee their “long-term energy security.”... The Qatari deal comes with a fair amount of political awkwardness for Germany, given that Berlin has been particularly critical of the Gulf State’s poor record on human rights... A recent poll found that 65 per cent of Germans believed that Qatar should never have been granted the World Cup, with some German bars refusing to show World Cup games due to the Gulf State’s human rights record."
Autocracies don't care about virtue signalling
Fast LNG happens – just not in Canada - "While some of Canada’s leaders question the business case for accelerating liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, one U.S. company alone is in the process of building five new LNG facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. The first is expected to be finished in March 2023 and the next four “every few months” after until all are operational in 2024. Energy-short Europe is a near-term target market, but New Fortress Energy says that long-term, the booming LNG business is global... With supportive permitting by regulators in both the U.S. and Mexico, repurposed offshore drilling rigs and floating platforms, New Fortress Energy expects to bring online seven million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG export capacity before the end of 2024. LNG buyers can move fast too. Germany just finished building its first floating LNG import terminal, completed in just 200 days. Germany’s federal economics minister Robert Habeck said the new terminal is a “central building block for energy security”... There are 33 LNG import terminal projects in Europe that are either under construction or in the planning phase, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The supply is desperately needed to replace imports from Russia, which supplied about 40 per cent of Europe’s natural gas before its invasion of Ukraine... While LNG from B.C. will mainly be destined for Asia (where it can reduce emissions by replacing coal), analysts say it can also help meet demand in Europe. “More western Canadian LNG would allow a lot of the other sources to go to Europe. It’s like a domino,” said Matthias Bloennigen, director of Americas consulting with Wood Mackenzie. Asia represents 67 per cent of world LNG demand today, and that share is expected to grow to 73 per cent while demand doubles to reach 700 MTPA by 2040. “We’re at the early stages of an LNG boom cycle,” said Kateryna Filippenko, Wood Mackenzie’s director of global gas research."
Gwyn Morgan: Hard facts puncture anti-fossil fuel fantasies - "The marvellous Christmas movie Polar Express, starring the inimitable Tom Hanks, ends with the words “anything is possible, if you only believe.” Except, as adults understand, many things aren’t possible, not even if some people do believe them. An obvious example is the fantasy that the 84 per cent of global energy supplied by oil and gas can be replaced by so-called “green energy... in the world capital of “if you only believe” fantasies, the prime minister of a country endowed with one of the world’s largest reserves of oil has presided over a seven-year long anti-oil industry scourge, thwarting multiple proposed export pipelines that could now have been supplying those captive market countries. Sharing his anti-oil zealotry seems to be a necessary qualification for Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney recently went to Washington to present the Senate Energy Committee with plans to increase Canadian oil exports, thereby freeing-up more U.S. oil to help Europe reduce Russian oil purchases. The idea received a warm reception. Unfortunately, Kenney’s message was promptly contradicted by Federal Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who told the same committee that shifting to renewables and hydrogen “will provide true energy and national security to Europe.” In other words, don’t count on Canada to help de-fund Putin’s murderous war unless it lasts five or ten more years. It’s incomprehensible that during a global oil and gas shortage brought on by the wanton destruction of a civilized democracy, our prime minister thinks all will be well if only Canada rids itself of fossil-fueled vehicles. Deep in delusion, he considers this a perfect time to announce a plan to have 60 per cent of new cars and light duty trucks be “zero emission” by 2030. When you live in a perennial state of fantasy, facts don’t matter. But here are facts that do matter to Canadians forced to face the real-world impact.
Fact 1: High cost. The federal budget promises a $5000/vehicle rebate. There are 24 million gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles in Canada. Subsidizing replacement of just one million would cost $5 billion. The budget also contains $900 million for new charging stations. That’s helpful in urban centres but providing a charging station network necessary to allow e-vehicles to travel interurban highways would cost tens of billions more.
Fact 2: Revenue needs. The Trudeau government’s longer-term plan is to get rid of all fossil-fueled vehicles. Federal and provincial fuel taxes now total a stunning $22 billion each and every year. These revenues fund the cost of building and maintaining urban streets and highways. How long can it be before governments are forced to regain those revenues from electrical vehicle charging levies?
Fact 3: Grid stress... Electric vehicle advocates say the problem will be mitigated by mandating low amperage during off-peak, late-night hours. But most highway drivers travel during the day when the grid is near capacity. And they will need high-amperage DC quick-chargers during these already supply-tight hours.
Fact 4: Land demand. Refueling with gasoline or diesel takes around five minutes. But even rapid chargers need 30 minutes. That means six times more land occupied by charging stations."
Electric Car Batteries Lasting Longer Than Predicted Delays Recycling Programs - "Lithium-ion batteries are expensive to manufacture, partly due to the high cost of cobalt, mainly mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Cobalt extraction is the largest source of DRC’s export income, and the country accounted for more than two-thirds of global cobalt production in 2021. While some carmakers have started building cobalt-free batteries—many Tesla batteries now rely instead on lithium phosphate—the demand for the hard, lustrous gray material is only likely to increase. The same is true for lithium, nickel, and other materials inside these batteries, which are mined in Russia, Indonesia, and other places where environmental oversight is often poor, labor standards are often lax, and where mining companies have been known to fuel conflicts with local communities. (You’ve heard of “blood diamonds”? There’s also “blood cobalt.”) Reclaiming cobalt and more through recycling makes ethical and environmental sense, but the financial case is often poor... The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the world currently has enough capacity to recycle 180,000 metric tons of spent EV batteries annually. This is nowhere near enough: recycling experts estimate that the EVs bought in 2019 alone will eventually generate 500,000 metric tons of battery waste. By 2040, there could be 1,300-gigawatt hours’ worth of spent batteries in need of recycling... Given the often poor economic case for recycling, it’s clear there need to be national and international policies to mandate EV battery recycling"
If you're one of those whose batteries fail, you're still screwed though. And with battery recycling mandates, the cost of electric vehicles is going to shoot up even more
The Singapore Green Plan 2030: What it means for car owners - "As an effort to further pave the way for greener vehicles (other than strictly regulating the number of cars on our roads), new registrations of diesel cars and taxis will cease from 2025 onwards. Singapore will only allow registrations of electric vehicles from 2030... The closest to a regular petrol car you’ll be able to buy is a hybrid car."
So much for Singapore being safe from western fads because it's Asia (see also, the war on plastic, and wokeness)
Here’s why zero-emission vehicle mandates don’t work | The Star - "ZEV mandates don’t work. Look at the 12 U.S. states that have had ZEV mandates in place for evidence. Average ZEV registrations in those states last year was 6 per cent, only 3 per cent higher than the average in states without mandates. ZEV mandates alone are not a silver bullet to boosting sales. In fact, not one country leading the world in ZEV adoption has a sales mandate in place. ZEV availability is correlated to consumer incentives and charging infrastructure, not regulations. A mandated supply will fail without organically driven consumer demand. Auto dealers are independent businesses that base inventory decisions on what a local customer wants... The automotive industry has achieved a 29 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in new vehicles since 2005 due to investments into new technologies, including ZEVs and conventional powertrains, to meet increasingly stringent vehicle GHG emissions standards. Canada must continue to align its GHG emissions standards with the U.S. given the highly integrated nature of the industry. This gives Canadians access to the broadest range of vehicles and advanced technologies — at the lowest price... ZEV mandates don’t solve global supply chain disruptions. Automotive production of both gasoline-powered and ZEVs has not recovered from pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, including a global semiconductor shortage. Regulating ZEV sales will not change this fact. If the federal government is serious about increasing North American vehicle production and inventories, it should focus its efforts on solving global supply chain challenges first. Most importantly, a ZEV mandate will not make a difference if the federal government fails to increase consumer purchase incentives and build a comprehensive, accessible, and affordable charging network... For Canadians who can afford a ZEV, the next barrier is a lack of charging infrastructure. Compared to other jurisdictions with similar ZEV goals, Canada has one of the least comprehensive and ambitious charging infrastructure plans with a commitment to build just 50,000 public chargers"
Naturally, the "solution" is to throw even more taxpayer money at it
Shocker: EV charging infrastructure is seriously insecure - "If you've noticed car charging stations showing up in your area, congratulations! You're part of a growing network of systems so poorly secured they could one day be used to destabilize entire electrical grids, and which contain enough security issues to be problematic today. That's what scientists at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico have concluded after four years of looking at demonstrated exploits and publicly-disclosed vulnerabilities in electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), as well as doing their own tests on 10 types of EV chargers with colleagues from Idaho National Lab... the EV charging industry seems to have treated cybersecurity the same way as the companies behind the Internet of Things: As an afterthought."
Commercial EV makers losing business as lenders deny loans worried over resale value
Motor Mouth: These EV claims don't make any goddamn sense - "Let’s take BMW’s promises of simultaneously increasing range and lowering cost first. As I said, the company says it is going to reduce the cost of its battery packs by 50 per cent. The problem for Munich is that, depending on the source of your cost breakdown, raw materials — the commodities we keep hearing about in the news, like lithium, nickel, and cobalt — make up about 52 per cent of the total cost of a typical electric-vehicle battery. The other three main costs are overhead (28 per cent), capital equipment (14 per cent), and labour (a little over five per cent). In other words, a 50-per-cent reduction in battery costs is going to require BMW find a way to build its batteries either without raw materials; or without a manufacturing plant... BMW is also promising a simultaneous 30-per-cent improvement in range, most of that increase — about two-thirds, says Green Car Reports — the result of the increased density of those new 46-millimetres cells. In plain terms, BMW is saying its extended range results from packing more of those raw materials — which, as I said, account for half of the total cost of the battery — into its cars. With pricing of those base minerals increasing, it’s hard to see how incorporating more of them is going to reduce the price of BMW’s batteries... batteries are not, as long predicted, becoming cheaper to produce. Oh, to be sure, the cost of lithium-ion cells have dropped dramatically in cost from the US$1,200 per kilowatt-hour they commanded way back in 2010. But in the last 12 months or so, thanks to supply-chain issues and a massive ramp-up in demand for EVs, the cost of a battery, according to Reuters, soared back to US$160 per kWh in the first quarter of this year. No wonder, then, that major EV automakers have had substantial price increases across their model lines — Tesla no fewer than three times, here in Canada — in the last 18 months. Nor does there look to be any respite in the near future. In fact, quite the opposite, most economic signals pointing to an increase in EV-related commodity pricing"
More than a plug: EV drivers need convenient stops to recharge - The Globe and Mail - "It may take longer to charge an electric vehicle (EV) than to refuel a conventional one. However, the extra time needed for that pit stop no longer has to seem like a chore, but rather a chance to shop, eat or work. “EV drivers have different needs compared to the traditional combustion-engine drivers,” said Darren Smart, senior vice president, Energy Transition and Corporate Development at Calgary-based Parkland, an international convenience and fuel retailer. “What used to be a five-minute stop to fill the tank with gas will become a 20 to 30-minute visit,” said Mr. Smart. “This gives us an opportunity to reimagine retail stations and give our customers the freedom to not only recharge their vehicles, but also recharge themselves.”... Even in the most advanced markets in the world, a driver never knows what they’ll get when they arrive at a charging station. Parkland executives saw that when they were in London and Norway to conduct market research on EV charging. “We experienced first-hand that often the charging ports don’t work when you get there”, added Mr. Smart. “Range anxiety for EV drivers is real. Planning your journey around known charger locations, to find out they’re not operational when you arrive, is unacceptable. We are being thoughtful about how we can lead this emerging industry and have looked at stations from the lens of the customer.”"
"Prepare to waste more of your time planning and waiting if you have an electric car"
Opinion: Using crops to feed cars, not people, is reprehensible as war and climate-related food shortages intensify - The Globe and Mail - "Sometime next year, as the food-price crisis evolves into a food-availability crisis, we may have to choose between feeding our cars and feeding the world’s poor. So far, feeding cars, SUVs and trucks is winning. Canada, the United States, Europe and other agriculture-rich regions are devoting ever-increasing amounts of their crop land to the feedstock that produces ethanol (made from corn or sugar cane) and biodiesel (generally from canola, soy, sunflower oils and animal fats). Turning food into fuel was always a morally dubious proposition; now it is a crime against humanity, as the war in Ukraine and the sanctions, embargoes and Black Sea blockades that accompany it raise food prices to unaffordable levels and create shortages in some poor countries. Basic economics says that grinding up food to make fuel both decreases the amount of food that can be exported and raises its price... Ethanol and biodiesel are nothing new. They came on strong in the U.S. about two decades ago and played a role in the food-price crisis of 2007 and 2008 that triggered political and economic instability, including riots, in many countries. The Arab Spring revolutions that began in Tunisia were partly due to rising prices... a 2008 World Bank report said that “large increases in biofuels production in the United States and Europe are the main reason behind the steep rise in global food prices” (the bank said Brazil’s sustainable sugar-based ethanol actually had little to do with the food price increases). Today, 40 per cent of the U.S. corn crop is devoted to making ethanol. Most gasoline in the U.S. contains 10 per cent ethanol, and President Joe Biden is setting new requirements that would increase that amount. Never mind that the environmental benefits of ethanol-laden gasoline are dubious at best, partly because corn-based ethanol has a lower heat value, so a car’s fuel economy suffers. But ethanol refineries create jobs and reduce the overall dependence on oil. In the Corn Belt of the Midwest, promoting ethanol is a vote-winner. Canada is charging ahead with biofuels, too... The UN’s World Food Programme says some parts of the world are now “marching towards starvation.” It estimates the number facing “acute food insecurity” has doubled to 276 million since 2019 and that almost 50 million “are facing emergency levels of hunger.” The midst of a food crisis – one with no end in sight – is no time for the West to boost biofuel mandates. The world needs less ethanol and other biofuels for cars and more food for humans. Any government that thinks otherwise is morally bankrupt."
"To "fight climate change", people must starve"
Glacier saga - "Not only are Montana’s glaciers an important icon for global warming (e.g. Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth), it also seems that the glaciers are an important political icon for progressive politicians in Montana... The total area of Glacier National Park covered by glaciers shrank 70% from the1850s to 2015, according to US Geological Survey. Melting began at the end of the Little Ice Age (circa 1850) when scientists believe 146 glaciers covered the region, as opposed to 26 in 2019... Much of the glacier loss occurred prior to 1966, when fossil-fueled warming was minimal. The percentage rate of glacier loss during this early period substantially exceeded the percentage rate of loss observed in the 21st century. I suspect that much of this melting occurred in the 1930’s... Looking much further back, Glacier National Park was virtually ice free 11,000 years ago... These glaciers have varied in size, tracking climatic variations, but did not grow to their recent maximum size until the end of the Little Ice Age, around 1850. An 80-year period (~1770-1840) of cool, wet summers and above-average winter snowfall led to a rapid growth of glaciers just prior to the end of the Little Ice Age. So, the recent loss of glacier mass must be understood in light of the fact the glaciers reached their largest mass for the past 11,000 years during the 19th century... The USGS hasn’t updated its glacial survey since 2015 (gotta wonder why, with the huge losses they were expecting). While the loss between 1998 and 2015 has decreased relative to prior decades, it appears that the ice loss has actually stalled or slightly reversed since 2008... The areal extent and mass balance of glaciers depends in the interplay between snow accumulation during the cold season and the glacier melting during summer. There is no prima facie reason that slow warming of the average annual surface temperatures will cause net loss of glacier area/mass. There are strong interannual and multidecadal variations in the amount of snowfall, and in some situations warmer winter temperatures can be associated with more snowfall. The summer melt season is quite short. The timing of the quixotic, weather-driven seasonal transition from snow to rainfall is a key determinant of the onset of the melt season and hence its duration. During summer, the diurnal timing and overall amount of cloudiness can make a big difference in how much melting occurs. And finally, soot associated with air pollution can provide a substantial accelerant for glacier melting; this is a huge issue for the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan glaciers, but I don’t see any reference to soot in context of Glacier National Park. You will not be surprised to learn that ENSO, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) influence the atmospheric circulation patterns that influence both the cold season snow accumulation and summertime melt... If there is ever a place you might want to be kept warm by fossil fuels (or nuclear), Montana during winter is it. Montana is one of the coldest states in the U.S... Fortunately, Montana has a reliable power system with about 50% renewables (mostly hydro) with most of the rest produced by coal. There is a nontrivial contingent in Montana that is seeking 100% renewable power (hydro, wind, solar). In addition to exceptional power demand for residential heating during such Arctic outbreaks, any power generation from renewables is at a minimum during such periods. Montana’s solar and hydropower capacity are at their lowest during winter... While Arctic outbreaks generally impact the northern Great Plains states the worst, the spatial extent of these outbreaks can be very large. The cold outbreak during February 2021 that impacted Montana also covered half of the U.S. and extended down to Texas, where massive power outages ensued that resulted in considerable loss of life. The large horizontal scale of these high pressure systems indicates that remote transmission of excess energy from someplace else is not going to be of much help if much of the continent is also suffering from cold temperatures and low winds. The long duration of these events makes battery storage hugely infeasible. The options are nuclear, gas and coal. Nothing is simple when it comes to understanding the causes of climate change impacts. The key to understanding is to look at the longest data records available, and try to interpret the causes of the historical and paleo variability. Once you understand the natural variability, you aren’t so prone to attributing everything to fossil-fueled warming and making naïve predictions of the future. And once you understand weather variability and extremes, you won’t be so enthusiastic about renewable energy."
Just Stop Oil: Police chief says officials are sticking to 'liberal democracy' after Braverman calls for crackdown - "A police leader has defended the “perfectly appropriate” response to Just Stop Oil after Suella Braverman called for tougher action. Chief Constable Chris Noble, leader of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) protests, defended the approach to days of disruption to the M25. It came after the home secretary told a conference of police leaders it was their “duty to take a stricter line to maintain public order” and accused them of an “institutional reluctance” to use their powers against protesters... "we’re not going to fight our way out of the environmental protest.”... Following outrage over the arrests, Hertfordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner-elect admitted police “got it wrong” but then accused journalists of “facilitating the protests”. During a panel discussion on protests at the NPCC’s annual summit, David Lloyd said: “The editorial choices that many organizations are making to cover Just Stop Oil mean more protests are happening… You have to ask a question as a journalist with a camera, do you host, do you do the news or do you cover the news?”... Several media freedom and human rights groups have sounded the alarm over Mr Lloyd’s comments, with Liberty calling suggestions for the media to change their reporting a “dangerous exaggeration”. OpenDemocracy said it is journalists’ job to report the facts, “not to censor events to please the authorities,” while Index on Censorship added, “A cornerstone of media freedom is to let newsrooms decide what they want to prioritize.”"
"Liberal democracy" means allowing fringe groups to shut the country down. Apparently the right to protest is also the right to bring a country to its knees. Of course, if the "far right" were to protest, they must be shut down immediately
When journalists proclaim that they have an agenda, they still cannot be criticised because the press is sacrosanct and incorruptible
Sunak could be just the man to save the planet from Greta’s anti-capitalist creed - "he should have never ruled out going to the Cop27 summit... He doubtless had flashbacks to the Glasgow Cop26 summit when, as chancellor, he watched head-in-hands as Boris Johnson reeled off net zero pledges without even considering the cost. At the time, Sunak wondered how this climate debate could be carried out without the slightest question of trade-offs. Who would pay? How much? Was this politically deliverable? If such questions were never raised, then surely it’s not an agenda, but a charade? But as he’ll have realised, such charades are part of a PM’s job... Sunak had no principled objection to lockdown. What drove him mad was the refusal to level with the Cabinet, let alone the country, about the likely damage to society and the economy. It might have all been worth it, but no one weighed up the drawbacks against the hoped-for benefits. When Britain decided to impose sweeping sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Sunak strongly felt that Johnson ought to have admitted, at the outset, how all this would push up fuel prices. Failure to level with people from the start, he thought, would endanger long-term public support. In his resignation letter, Sunak tried to make this point... This is why he may have a hard time ducking questions about how much net zero will cost. No one knows exactly, but he’s seen the Treasury estimates: about £50 billion a year, or a trillion pounds in all. Right now, he is looking at a series of deeply painful options on the package of cuts due this month: on schools, welfare and more – to hit £35 billion. So would it make sense to commit Britain to extra spending that would outweigh all the savings he is about to make? Isn’t net zero a prime example of the fatal “fairy tale” he so memorably warned about in his leadership campaign? Sunak is now doing his bit to genuflect in front of Gaia and recite the green creed. That if “we” don’t fix this problem, then we fry. But he’ll also be aware of the logical fallacy. Who is “we”? Britons generate 1.6 per cent of global carbon emissions: even if this falls to zero, it won’t really move the dial on the overall climate change trajectory. Yes, we’d be a model for other countries. A noble goal. But is that what all this pain is for? Not to achieve change, but to set an example? There is another line of argument, should Sunak want to take it. The environmentalism argument has been splitting for some time, between what you might call the “dark green” jeremiads of Greta Thunberg and the “bright green” message of tech and enterprise. Thunberg always saw economic growth and development as the problem. While launching her new book, she has taken her argument to its logical extension. She now defines herself against the “system defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order”. This is the familiar, classic j’accuse against capitalism. But there is another vision, perhaps best articulated by MIT academic Andrew McAfee. His research draws the opposite conclusion: that capitalism – together with tech and public awareness – has allowed the Western world “to tread more lightly on the planet”. The capitalist’s basic desire to cut costs, he says, means we have learnt to make things cheaper and do “more with less” (the title of his book). His research forms an uplifting and convincing corrective to the “dark green” narrative that has dominated environmentalism for so long. Progress, of this most stunning kind, is there for those with an eye to see it... Sunak can try to change the narrative, focusing on remarkable British progress and the case for optimism. The ferocious plans to force out gas boilers or impose crippling costs on homeowners may not be needed, given likely tech advances. It could be that a more imaginative approach would be better – and the best thing the global North can do to stop climate change is to help the spread of capitalism, sharing the technology that is driving down our emissions."
Greta Thunberg throws in her lot with the anti-capitalist Left - "Previously, she’d sold herself as a five-foot human alarm bell, a climate Cassandra. Her role was to warn, not to instruct: her most viral moments involved her scolding political leaders, not trying to supplant them. She strenuously avoided programmatic detail, saying such things were “nothing to do with me”. But now, on stage and in this book, she has found her political feet, specifically the Left-wing ideology of anti-capitalism and de-growth. Interspersed among the usual directives about the need to pressure political leaders, her message was more radical and more militant than it has been in the past. There is no “back to normal”, she told us. “Normal” was the “system” which gave us the climate crisis, a system of “colonialism, imperialism, oppression, genocide”, of “racist, oppressive extractionism”. Climate justice is part of all justice; you can’t have one without the others. We can’t trust the elites produced by this system to confront its flaws — that’s why she, much like Rishi Sunak, won’t be bothering with the COP meeting this year. COP itself is little more than a “scam” which facilitates “greenwashing, lying and cheating”. Only overthrow of “the whole capitalist system” will suffice. So now we are finally seeing the contours of Thunbergism. Run your eye down the contributors to The Climate Book and you can see who she’s been reading: Jason Hickel, Kate Raworth, Naomi Klein. For these people the climate crisis isn’t man-made. It’s made by capitalism, as are the other forms of social injustice which plague society. There’s no GDP growth — especially of the capitalist sort — without increasing carbon emissions. The only solution to this state of emergency is for rich countries to immediately abandon economic expansion as a social goal. It is hardly surprising that Greta thinks this way given how closely tied environmental activism has become with the more experimental end of the modern Left."
Environmentalism once again turns out to be a cover for anti-Capitalism. Quelle surprise. No doubt because both philosophies are based on delusions about utopia
