Of course, when places such as the United States or the world experience falling or steady temperatures, increased ice pack, seas maintaining at sea level, the wind to blow as hard or not so hard as it ever did, storms becoming rarer and less powerful, snowpack increasing – all of which have been occurring over the last couple of decades – emotional demands for immediate action lose their urgency. Yes, you read it right, none of those things that the “Climate Change crowd” have been screaming about have actually been taking place, particularly when one considers the “heat island” effect on the temperatures that are allegedly rising. Factor out the concrete and asphalt effect on thermometers, and things are pretty much as they have been for the past few hundred thousand years. Of course, we have no accurate way to go back in time and measure temperature variations to the tenth or hundredth of a degree that they are so fretful over, but let’s put it this way: why end our economic system as we know it in order to “prevent” temperature increases that if they occur at all, would be less that the average variation in temperature hour-by-hour, or as small and transient as when a cloud blocks the sun from a given point?
And our economic system would surely end, for with the forced abandonment of fossil fuels (including oil, natural gas, propane, coal and its variants, oil shale, tar sands) modern society could not exist. All but a small fraction of our heat and electricity is generated from those sources, and most of what is not so generated comes from wood, hydro-electric power, and nuclear power – none of which finds favor with the Climate Change zealots either. That leaves it to wind and solar, and although it isn’t of much importance to the Climate Change fanatics, the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun doesn’t shine all the time, so how do we provide energy during those “down times?”
Sure, there is geothermal, and similar sources, and they have their place, but one cannot power a modern industrial society by those means alone, nor can we heat or cool all our houses or industries, or power our vehicles. That reminds us, almost every car, truck, and motorcycle on the road burns gasoline or diesel fuel, and remember, natural gas is a fossil fuel whether it is compressed or not, so vehicles powered by it will be banned too. And it is really unlikely that we could develop solar-powered aircraft that could transport several million passengers, or find a method of powering ships that doesn’t employ fossil fuels or nuclear power, or some way to power locomotives without using fossil fuels.
And yet, every major Democrat candidate for president, and most of the minor ones, too, have signed onto some form of the “Green New Deal,” and have vowed to ban fossil fuels – and that includes good ol’ middle class, practical, Joe Biden.
It is pretty hilarious to hear the likes of Robert Francis O’Rourke carry on about fossil fuels making our cities “uninhabitable,” when too many of our cities today are overflowing with uncollected garbage or trash; rats; disease; feces on the street; to say nothing of crime and homelessness. It is more than a bit over-dramatic to hear Pete Buttigeig compare “global warming” to the Second World War; or to hear Kamala Harris call for ending the production and consumption of meat. It is really distressing to hear any of them pretend that we can “phase out” automobiles in ten years and fossil fuels in less than thirty years.
John
Shaffer
You may have heard that fracking is a pretty important thing around here. It is a major slice of our local economies, and a major reason why the US once again is Number One in energy production. The Democrat candidates do not like it. They also do not like: more traditional ways of collecting natural gas or drilling for oil; coal; or off-shore drilling for petroleum; or damming rivers to generate electricity; or nuclear power, just about anything except wind and solar – and they don’t want giant wind or solar projects situated anywhere close to their island retreats or country homes.
Please pay attention to this: Petroleum is about 36% of America’s energy consumption; Natural gas is about 31%. Coal provides 13%, and Nuclear power about 8%. “Renewable” sources of energy comprise about 11%. Of that 11% slice – hydroelectric is 23%, wood 20%, biofuels 20%, biomass waste, 4%; Wind 22% and geothermal 2%. Solar energy is a mere 8% of the 11%. And read that closely: Wind does not provide 22% of America’s energy – it provides 22% of the 11% of America’s energy that is generated by renewables.
Fossil fuels are used to power our transportation and heat and cool our homes and factories, because they are abundant, found in many places, are relatively inexpensive, are easy to store and to use. Those are the reasons we use them. Synthetic fuels or exotic sources of power make some sense in times of shortages or embargoes, or in places that completely lack coal, oil or natural gas and it is important to study them and conduct research. But it is entirely something else for an economy voluntarily to reject the cheapest, most abundant and most useful sources of energy, in order to satisfy hyberbolic fears that “computer models” that predict the end of the earth, or think that employing fossil fuels has caused the ice caps to melt – especially since ice caps melt and freeze much as they have been doing for centuries, long before man burned fossil fuels or used internal combustion engines. And let’s not forget that a mere 45 years ago, the same hysteric voices were screaming about the Coming Ice Age, “freezing to death in the dark,” were watching “The Late, Great, Planet Earth,” and were advocating Zero Population Growth because all of those “studies” that proved we were about to run out of about everything, all of which we now seem to have more of than ever.
But lest you think that the Democrats are worried about “big things” only – they also want to ban plastic grocery bags, plastic straws, meat production, and Bernie Sanders has suggested that there are just too many types of deodorants on the market. We are not sure how he proposes to address that crisis, but it makes us wonder about many other consumer products that are abundant, available, and have a wide range of prices for various tastes or needs. We suppose the socialists won’t be happy until there are only one or two types of each product available, and our supermarket shelves resemble those in Venezuela, and cars, planes, or automobiles are reserved for the political class. Well, the rest of us won’t really have any use for them, as we will be busy from dawn until dusk (and not a minute longer, since we won’t have very much electricity), scratching out a subsistence living on our own food plots and making the things we need, using hand tools and muscle power instead of those horrible modern machines.