( John is working on a manuscript tentatively titled "7 Great Deceptions: Recovering Truth, Freedom & Democracy". It is a continuation of Francis Schaefer's "How Shall We Then Live" that traced the decline of the Judeo-Christian foundation of truth on which modern democracy, social and economic progress is based and warned this leads to social chaos and the rise of dictators like Hitler, Trump etc. This draft of Chapter 2 exposes the fraudulent manipulation of climate data that was used by a coalition of the the New Left and wind and solar industries to gain political power and enormous profits while doing nothing to slow global warming:)
Climate Emergency as False Science is the second great deception that is driving our post-truth culture into social and economic chaos. Like all the deceptions of our post-truth time it flows directly from the flaws of self-deception, politicization and spiritual deception explained above in "Human Reason as False Truth". Climate Emergency is the best example of truth, real scientific truth, being manipulated, exaggerated, politicized and weaponized for personal, political and corporate gain. When politicians say ‘the science is settled’ they are lying. Like all politicians they know that if a lie is repeated often enough, people will believe it. Not only is the science not settled. The real existential danger of our time is the ineffective, anti-democratic and anti-capitalist policies that are currently being justified by this false science.
To be very clear global warming is a really happening and is going to require serious and very expensive economic and social changes on a global scale. But the good news is that it is not an emergency. The science, which we will review in detail, says we have until the end of this Century (not the middle) to develop, get international agreement on, and implement a comprehensive plan to slow and limit warming and prepare local mitigation measures. The title and sub-title of Bjorn Lombard’s book “False Alarm: How climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet[1]” says it all. This is a respected Swedish climate scientist who has served on international panels and seen first-hand the complexities of measuring global warming and the manipulation of raw data to create false political panic to implement ineffective and economically and politically destructive solutions.
We will begin our study of this deception with a serious, in-depth look at the key numbers to learn how global warming is measured, what causes global warming and the false science of melting glaciers, rising oceans, flooding, extreme weather and forest fires.
In section two we examine the complicated science of global warming and cooling to better understand what causes global warming. Sections three to seven the expose the “settled” false science of:
• Melting glaciers and rising oceans
• Extreme weather and flooding
• Forest fires
• Wind and solar power
• Electric cars
The disastrous political, environmental and economic consequences of this false science all came together in Germany and have now been exported to Europe and North America. It was not because Germany did not make a magnificent, trillion-dollar effort to pioneer in trying to reduce global warming. In section eight we will see how their magnificent effort was hijacked by a radical political coalition that included New Left socialists, Marxists and Nazis who politicized the science, subverted democracy and implemented anti-industrial policies. These policies wasted billions on subsidies to ineffective wind and solar power, destroyed the electrical market, bankrupted three power utilities and made power three and a half times more expensive than in America. The resulting power shortages of this wrong way forward also led to re-opening polluting coal-fired generating plants and no significant decrease in CO2 emissions.
Climate Emergency as False Science is the second great deception that is driving our post-truth culture into social and economic chaos. Like all the deceptions of our post-truth time it flows directly from the flaws of self-deception, politicization and spiritual deception explained above in human reason as false truth. Climate Emergency is the best example of truth, real scientific truth, being manipulated, exaggerated, politicized and weaponized for personal, political and corporate gain. When politicians say ‘the science is settled’ they are lying. Like all politicians they know that if a lie is repeated often enough, people will believe it. Not only is the science not settled. The real existential danger of our time is the ineffective, anti-democratic and anti-capitalist policies that are currently being justified by this false science.
To be very clear global warming is a really happening and is going to require serious and very expensive economic and social changes on a global scale. But the good news is that it is not an emergency. The science, which we will review in detail, says we have until the end of this Century (not the middle) to develop, get international agreement on, and implement a comprehensive plan to slow and limit warming and prepare local mitigation measures. The title and sub-title of Bjorn Lombard’s book “False Alarm: How climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet[1]” says it all. This is a respected Swedish climate scientist who has served on international panels and seen first-hand the complexities of measuring global warming and the manipulation of raw data to create false political panic to implement ineffective and economically and politically destructive solutions.
We will begin our study of this deception with a serious, in-depth look at the key numbers to learn how global warming is measured, what causes global warming and the false science of melting glaciers, rising oceans, flooding, extreme weather and forest fires.
In section two we examine the complicated science of global warming and cooling to better understand what causes global warming. Sections three to seven the expose the “settled” false science of:
• Melting glaciers and rising oceans
• Extreme weather and flooding
• Forest fires
• Wind and solar power
• Electric cars
The disastrous political, environmental and economic consequences of this false science all came together in Germany and have now been exported to Europe and North America. It was not because Germany did not make a magnificent, trillion-dollar effort to pioneer in trying to reduce global warming. In section eight we will see how their magnificent effort was hijacked by a radical political coalition that included New Left socialists, Marxists and Nazis who politicized the science, subverted democracy and implemented anti-industrial policies. These policies wasted billions on subsidies to ineffective wind and solar power, destroyed the electrical market, bankrupted three power utilities and made power three and a half times more expensive than in America. The resulting power shortages of this wrong way forward also led to re-opening polluting coal-fired generating plants and no significant decrease in CO2 emissions.
We will see that their unprogressive, idealistic, anti-industrial and anti-capitalism agenda was not based on scientific evidence. Instead, these fringe political groups have worked together to deceive people by creating a fake climate emergency to gain political power and implement their ineffective and destructive anti-capitalist agenda.
In the words of a real climate scientist:
“The science shows us that fears of climate apocalypse are unfounded. Global warming is real, but it is not the end of the world. It is a manageable problem. Yet we live in a world where almost half the population believes climate change will extinguish humanity.”[2]
The point is that truth is always the first casualty of social activism. As George Jonas puts it “There are many systems of social philosophy built on the proposition that public causes transcend individual freedoms, interests or morality. Lying in a good cause is ok.[3]”
We will end with the hope that the truths exposed here will free people from the false science, expose the failure of the current international climate elite and lead to the adoption of a better way forward. Based on my own research and that referenced below this better way forward would begin with the appointment of a new international committee of more credible scientists and economists. This Committee would be charged with reviewing all the science, conducting cost/benefit analysis and determining:
1. A more realistic global warming temperature increase goal and time frame, national monitoring standards and trade penalties for national non-compliance.
2. A fair, effective and realistic global carbon tax and related emission surcharge on imports from non-compliant countries.
The good news is that in-depth studies have been done on the global costs and benefits of a serious plan that would both slow the rise in global temperatures and generate the trillions of dollars in economic growth needed to pay for national transition, research and the development of cleaner energy solutions and remediation efforts. We conclude with some recommendations for national committees to consider in developing a more effective national plan to meet the new internationally agreed target for global warming increase and avoid carbon trade sanctions.
My hope is that by exposing the failure of policies based on false science we can recover truth, freedom and democracy and a more constructive and effective way forward in limiting global warming.
2.1 What the Science Tells Us
Climate alarmism or climate emergency is the first and best of our examples of how politicized human reason can bend, manipulate and even break the truth. “The science is settled” the alarmists say to end freedom to discuss any contrary questions which might expose their lies. If, as has happened, the majority of people can be deceived by manipulating truth then our social order and democracy itself is in grave danger. While a great many people believe global warming is our greatest existential threat, the truth is that the real existential threat is this loss of real truth, as defined above – that is leading to social and economic chaos, loss of freedom of speech and parliamentary democracy.
We will start by looking in depth at how global warming is measured and the range of scientific estimates currently available. This is followed by a brief technical explanation of exactly what causes global warming. With this solid basis of real scientific evidence, we will be able to expose the false science behind the alarmist vision of melting glaciers, rising oceans, flooding, extreme weather and forest fires
Climate change happens in geological time which is normally measured in thousands or millions of years. For example, where I am sitting in Calgary was once under a mile of glacial ice and is within a two-hour drive of Drumheller where dinosaur bones from a tropical climate have been found. Measuring global warming is extremely complicated. For example, how do you measure the temperature of the ocean which covers two-thirds of the planet – and has different temperatures at different depths? Measurement is complicated by the fact that most of the recording stations are in the more developed northern hemisphere countries at airports. These airports are near major cities that have temperatures around two degrees C above the surrounding rural areas.
More technically advanced countries have recently developed satellite imaging techniques to measure surface temperatures from space and radio equipped buoys to drop in the ocean. The ideal would be to get agreement on how to average out all these measurements to get a reliable global average which is really a ‘best guess’. Since finding such an accurate average global temperatures for years in the distant past is impossible; scientists generally focus on variations in the historical measurements they already have from a selected base year. This is where politicization can lead to deception in interpretation. Sadly, a group of unprofessional climate alarmists have carefully selected relatively short time periods in which temperatures increased and avoided the other years in which temperatures decreased which would disprove their argument. By falsely assuming these years of warmer temperatures as the historic norm or base year, they then project this into the future to get the false science of an impending global warming crisis.
Much of the false science has come from politicized scientists, particularly those on international climate committees who have cherry picked data from much shorter timespans and built flawed computer models to create the false science of a global warming disaster.
Stephen Koonin, a scientist specializing in computer models and data analysis takes us directly to the real numbers on global temperature change – which will shock you: “…the global temperature anomaly graph in Figure 1.1 starts at about -0.3 degrees C in 1900 and ends at about +0.8 degrees C in 2020 thus showing a rise of 1.1 C in 120 years (twelve decades) or 0.09 degrees C per decade.”[4]
He also shows the great variations in different decades:
• 1980 – 2020 temperature +0.20 C / decade
• 1940 – 1980 temperature -0.05 C / decade
• 1910 – 1940 temperature +0.17 C / decade
Nigel Lawson, a former British cabinet minister has also looked at the raw data and concluded “There has in fact been no further global warming since the turn of the Century (2001)” [5]He gives us the raw annual temperature data (not the increase) from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia on degrees C above the 1961-1990 estimated base global average temperature for each specific year:
• 2001 0.40 C
• 2002 0.46 C
• 2003 0.46 C
• 2004 0.43 C
• 2005 0.48 C
• 2006 0.42 C
• 2007 0.41 C
Lawson also notes that these numbers indicate “There has in fact been no further global warming since the turn of the century.”
A rise in global temperature of 1.1C in 120 years is about half that projected by the various computer models used by the UN International Panel on Climate Change. Their Special Report on Emission Scenarios in 2000 studied six scenarios with assumptions ranging from “doing nothing” to reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. The IPCC projected ‘doing nothing’ scenario would lead to an increase of about 4.0 C. The IPCC ‘net zero’ and most economically disruptive scenario would lead an increase of about 1.8 C. This net zero and most economically destructive IPCC scenario has become the internationally agreed political goal on which the whole (Paris Accord) climate ‘emergency’ hangs.
These theoretical scenarios and computer projections are dramatically higher than what has been measured in the last century when carbon emissions increased by 30% [6]In the words of Swedish climate scientist Fritz Vahrenholt –“There is no doubt that the community of states will have to react in the course of this century and reduce CO2 emissions. However, the faulty climate models must not be used for this. They run 50 % too hot compared to reality. That means we have twice as much time. Not in 2050, but in 2100 we have to say goodbye to fossil fuels to a large extent.” [7]
Computerized climate models are extremely complex as they include hard to measure variables such as aerosols in the atmosphere that reflect back solar heat and reduce warming. Changes in land use from forests to pastures also reflects more head and reduces warming. For example, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June of 1991 resulted in Earth being 0.6 C cooler for six months.[8]These models make dozens of assumptions about how human activity, demographic changes, industrialization, technology and economic development and government regulations will affect global warming. The result is that “… the later generation of models is more uncertain than the earlier ones. the fact that the spread in their results is increasing is as good evidence as any that the science is far from settled.[9]
The problem is that the science has been politicized and distorted by focusing on the human causes of global warming, excluding the natural causes. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change specifically defines climate change as ”… a change in climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods…”.[10]
“The real question is not whether the globe has warmed recently but rather to what extent this warming is being caused by humans.”[11]The point is we cannot have a useful conversation about “the science” without understanding the basic science of global warming i.e. What causes global warming?
2.2 What Causes Global Warming?
The false science focuses on CO2 emissions and human activity. We all need to develop a more realistic and serious scientific understanding of how the earth is warmed and how it is cooled. There is a delicate natural balance between all of the many variables that affect heating and cooling – greenhouse gases and specifically CO2 gas “accounts for about 7% of the atmosphere’s ability to intercept heat.”[12]
The heat from the sun is not a constant. It varies according to solar flare activity. This variation has not been thoroughly enough researched, is not in the computer models and could be a significant cause and variable. It is out of our hands to ‘fight’. It is a known unknown.
About 30% of solar heat is reflected back before reaching earth.[13]Water vapor (clouds) accounts for more than 90 % of the atmosphere’s ability to intercept heat.[14]One Swedish study has seriously investigated the costs / benefits of a massive fleet of boats spraying sea water into the atmosphere to prevent the damage done by global warming. More heat is also reflected from light colored roofs, buildings and roads. Yes – researchers have also investigated the idea of painting asphalt roofs and pavement in light colors. Developed farmland and pasture reflects more heat than forests.[15]We are beginning to see the complexity of all these variables. Forests both absorb more heat and lead to cooling by absorbing the CO2 greenhouse gases that slow heat loss to space.
Aerosols, (fine particles) in the air also reflect heat. Burning low quality coal, forest fires and volcanos for example can have a measurable effect on heat reaching the surface. Koonin gives the example of Mt. Pinatubo erupting in 1991 which cooled the earth by 0.6 C for 15 months.[16]
The earth is cooled as this heat from the sun is radiated into the atmosphere and then space. This is where greenhouse gasses come into the picture. Heat travels in the form of a radio like wave. Heat travels in waves. Different lengths of waves can be blocked by the molecules in specific greenhouse gasses. The reason for all the focus on carbon dioxide is that this tiny molecule can block waves of a specific length and about 7 % of the heat normally vented into space.
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm (parts per million) in 1750 to 410 ppm in 2019.[17]Koonin also estimates this increase in CO2 has increased the amount of heat intercepted in the atmosphere from 82.1 % in 1750 to 82.7 % in 2019. The point is that yes, CO2 emissions and humans burning fossil fuels are a major but not the only driver of global warming. The important question is how to develop a more comprehensive, realistic and effective way forward that balances the need to slow all of this warming without destroying the political freedom and massive economic growth needed to pay the trillions of dollar needed for remediating this damage.
As we will see from the following examples of false science, we are not starting from zero. The false science of what I call the wrong way forward has taken us backward to ineffective, expensive and destructive political and economic policies that havefailed to reduceglobal warming. We need to learn from this sad history of non-science (nonsense) policy making before we can begin to develop a better way forward.
2.3 The false Science of Melting Glaciers / Rising Oceans
Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) set the stage for the false science of global warming. His graphic images of baby polar bears at sea on melting ice flows, melting glaciers and New York under 32 feet of water got everyone’s attention and made him a millionaire. He is still jetting to climate conferences all over the world spewing out tons of CO2 on the way. It was a couple of Canadians by the way that checked the math and found a basic error in statistical analysis that would get you a failing grade on a first-year statistics course. As I said figures don’t lie but liars figure.
The threat of melting glaciers and rising oceans is still the first go-to argument of the climate extremists. So, what does the real science say? Swedish climate scientist and former IPCC member Bjorn Lomborg gives us the short answer. “In fact sea levels have risen about a foot in the past 150 years.”[18]What the climate alarmists ignore is that sea levels – and natural global warming have been rising and falling for millions of years. This is why people in Alberta can go skiing where dinosaurs used to roam hundreds of thousands of years ago. Koonin puts sea level variations in the context of the last 400,000 years when they rose to about 20 meters above present levels about 140,000 years ago, falling to about 140 meters below present levels 420,000 years ago.[19]The most obvious - and hilarious way to prove the false science of global warming and sea level change is to put an ice cube in a full glass of water and wait for it to melt. As Lawson says “The melting of floating ice polar ice clearly cannot cause any rise in sea levels – just as the melting of ice cubes in your glass of water cannot cause the water to overflow the glass”[20]
There is some truth in the rising sea argument because if there is significantly more glarier melting than accumulating this water would raise sea levels. This needs to be kept in perspective as two-thirds of the earth is ocean so there is lots of room to spread water out. Al Gore showed dramatic evidence that glaciers were melting worldwide. This melting has continued but is offset by cooler temperatures in other parts of the world. For example, Lawson notes that “…the West Antarctica ice sheet…is showing signs of melting and glacier retreat…in most of the other 90 % of the continent …the ice sheet appears to be growing”[21]In Greenland “…while there has been some slight warming in this century…temperatures are still below levels of the1930’s and 1940’s.”[22]
Coastal flooding is the main challenge of global warming – and the one that will require trillions of dollars in remediation funding as explained in “The Right Way Forward” below. Sadly, the hype of false science goes on. Lomborg shares the humorous story of the UN Secretary General being photographed in his suit and tie off the low-lying Polynesian island of Tuvalu with water up to his waist to dramatize ocean rise. The real science for the Island as reported in Nature Magazine “…confirms sea level rising but total land area expanding by 2.4 %...” Lomborg explains that wave action washing sand up on beaches leads to this accretion and growth in land area.[23]
2.4 The False Science of Extreme Weather and Flooding
This false science is so embedded in our post-truth culture that every news report of extreme weather and flooding disaster ends with the supposedly informed scientific observation that this is yet another example of the coming carnage of global warming. In contrast “Statements from the IPCC’s AR5 WGI Report, indicating what we don’t know...”[24]includes:
• Trends in the magnitude or frequency of floods on a global scale
• Trends in drought, hail, thunderstorms
• Large scale changes in the intensity of extreme tropical cyclones since 1900
Koonin shares a very telling story from his time as a scientists with the US Government. President Obama was deep into the false science of global warming and requested a “Climate Assessment” in 2017. The Report of course came back with “High Confidence” that “There have been marked changes in temperature extremes across the contiguous United States. The number of temperature records set in the past two decades far exceed the number of low temperature records.”[25]Koonin contacted a colleague who checked the data using the absolute high and low temperatures of 725 US weather stations and calculated the actual variations from 1931 – and found the opposite to be true. “Christies analysis of absolute warms and colds showed that…that the temperature extremes in the contiguous US have become less common and somewhat milder since the late Nineteenth Century.”[26]The official Report had used a mathematical model to calculate results that would automatically show an increase. Governments hire the smart ones for a reason.
Hurricanes are the most dramatic example of extreme weather and cause enormous damage. Solemn faced newscasters automatically attribute the massive damage to global warming. What we don’t take into account is that the coastal population for Florida for example has increased by 67 times - so of course there is much more damage. Lomborg gives us the short answer. “The UN’s climate scientists looked at the evidence and concluded that globally hurricanes are not getting more frequent.”[27]
2.5 The False Science of Forest Fires
We had a horrific forest fire in Fort McMurry, Alberta two years ago which destroyed about half the town and was automatically blamed on global warming. Some (who probably don’t even believe in God) even saw it as God’s judgement on the town as the hub of the evil Alberta oilsands. We get tired of movie stars jetting in spewing CO2 emissions to condemn the most carbon efficient oil industry in the world.
Anyone with access to Google maps and street view could see the real cause of the Fort McMurry fire. Wooden suburbs with wooden outbuildings within a stones (or sparks) throw of an unusually dry forest. The town was surrounded by hundreds of miles of very dry pine forests with no (Provincial) fire breaks and no city bylaws on how close you can build to the forest. The main causes of increased in forest fire damage are poor forest management, urban sprawl and wooden buildings with flammable roofs to close to the forest edge.[28]The bottom line on wildfires is “In total, the global amount of area burned has declined more than 540,000 sq. Miles, from 1.9 million sq. mi. in the early part of the last century to 1.4 million sq. mi..[29]Lomborg believes we should take wildfires seriously as global warming will increase the risk of forest fires through this Century. But he notes that as with flooding “…the best way to manage fires is to focus not on carbon dioxide levels but on human behavior.”[30]
2.6 The False Science of Wind and Solar
Wind and solar generated electric power are the false prophecies of the “climate emergency”. Remember the expression ‘tilting at windmills’ as a way of describing a misguided person focused on the wrong thing? As we will see in 2.8 the “prophet” was smart wind and solar industrialists and investors who partnered with and financed the environmentalists and politicians who seized political power and directed Germanys wrong way forward.
To put the false science of wind and solar in perspective we need to know that in spite of over “…140 billion in every year in `government subsidies for inefficient wind and solar power…these renewable sources produced only about one percent of global energy needs.”[31]In the longer term the International Energy Agency estimates that “…by 2040 and even after another $ 4 trillion has been spent on subsidies, solar and wind power will deliver only 5 % of global energy needs.”[32]It would be a pun to say these sources are over rated. Today’s National Post has a report that on a windy day on the prairies Alberta’s largest windfarm in Blackspring Ridge, rated at 300 MW, was producing “…only 56 MW, according to Alberta Electric System Operator data.”[33]I am probably being billed for the other 246 MW.
The great problem with wind and solar is that electricity can not be economically or efficiently stored and must be produced on demand and at the same time as it is consumed. Storing electricity in batteries “…is not a little more expensive but tens of thousands of time more expensive than storing gas in tanks or coal beside power plants.”[34]Wind and solar power is not reliable and must be supported by fossil fueled backup generators. These in turn increase net CO2 emissions, cancelling out to lower emission of wind and solar.
Another problem with the science of wind and solar power is that it is usually produced in remote areas and requires the construction of special infrastructure to connect to the electrical grid. “The interconnectedness of the grid means that everything depends on and affects everything else on it.”[35]The constant turning on and off of backup generators increases the cost of maintenance, reduces their efficiency and makes dependence on large scale wind and solar and solar prohibitively expensive.
Wind and solar power are not as environmentally friendly as you might think. There are significant CO2 emissions from the fossil fuel driven machinery used in mining, shipping the rare minerals and then in manufacturing the solar panels and turbine blades. These have a 20-year lifespan, are not recyclable and are already becoming a waste management problem.
A huge number of birds are killed each year by wind turbine blades or by having their wings singed by flying over huge solar farms. One 2013 study estimated that there were 573,000 bird kills a year from wind farms.[36]
As we will see in the case study of Germany, wind and solar power is the wrong way forward and was not part of a well thought out science-based plan to reduce global warming. Wind and solar expanded because of the New Left -Marxist- Nazi-Green political coalition that gained power in Germany with a misguided hidden goal of deconstructing industrial development. The bottom line is wind and solar power is still one of the developing technologies like small nuclear, hydrogen, fission and fusion. These technologies may all have a viable place in global emission reduction in the future, but at present we must depend on proven technologies like nuclear, hydro, geothermal, natural gas and carbon capture for immediate emission control.
2.7 The False Science of Electric cars
Popular thinking about electric cars has been best described as “magical thinking”. The only science involved as far as most people are concerned is zero CO2 emissions. They ignore the life-cycle emissions, assume that electricity grows on trees, is efficiently stored in batteries and is available anywhere. The real science says that switching from an average gasoline car that emits 34 tons of CO2 over its lifetime (including manufacturing CO2) to an electric car that emits 26 tons over its lifetime only reduces total CO2 emissions by 24%.[37]
Sadly, electricity does not grow on trees. It has to be generated somewhere (probably with CO2 emissions) and get to where it is needed and used in the same moment. As mentioned above, storing energy in batteries is tens of thousands of times less efficient than gasoline, so more power and more CO2 emissions are involved. Then there is the problem of recycling. I almost bought a hybrid myself but when I found out the huge batteries had to be replaced after about 10 years at a cost of thousands of dollars, I changed my mind. Producing batteries includes mining rare minerals, shipping them overseas to a polluting chemical plant then shipping them to a car manufacturer – all in different countries. This is where the extra CO2 emissions comes from.
The final challenge with the science of electric cars is public recharging stations. A statement from Toyota “…warns that the grid and infrastructure simply aren’t there to support the electrification of the private car fleet. A 2017 U.S. Government study found that we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charge stations to support a fleet of just 7 million.” This would be about six-times the current number of electric cars but way below the 300 million estimated for the next 20 years if GM and other carmakers follow through on promises to eliminate internal combustion engines.
These recharging stations would have to be more robust that what you have at home. Home charging takes 3 to 8 hours. “The best-case-scenario fast charging (30 minutes) cannot be done on home power. It uses direct current and specialized systems”[38]. Even 30 minutes would create intolerable frustration and huge lineups for people used to spending five minutes filling their cars with gas.
“The International Energy Agency hopes we can reach 130 million electric cars by 2030 (from 5 million in 2020)…it would cut a trifling 0.4 percent of global emissions by 2030.”[39]This is clearly, like wind and solar, the wrong way to go about slowing down global warming.
2.8 The Wrong Way Forward in Germany
We in the West like to think of Germans as well organized, logical and good at making things – like B.M.W.s. But there is a hidden dark side to German culture. We will see how a dark political coalition that included radical Marxists and Nazis gained and used political power to implement economic policies that have not been effective in halting global warming but began to replace the market economy of capitalism and social democracy with a centralized government of the “progressive” elite – themselves. We will see how this radical coalition seized power first in Europe and now in America.
German politicians and green activists saw the success of Al Gore in getting attention by presenting scary photos of melting glaciers, rising oceans and the fraudulent hockey stick graph showing temperatures rising so fast he had to go up on a lift to point at the future. They had also seen the “acid rain” fraud of Olaf Palm who swept to political power in Sweden by working with environmentalists. The German Greens, Marxists and Nazis all had an anti-industrial and pro-environmental bond. Senior civil servants, scientists and journalists also saw an opportunity to get ahead. The emerging wind and solar industries were not economically viable without huge government subsidies and saw a way to get them. Investors were looking for quick gains by investing in soon to be profitable industries. Finally, wealthy international billionaires also saw an opportunity for something worthwhile to do with their money that would make them feel good, could feel they were ‘saving the planet’. All this came together in Germany in the most expensive political and economic debacle of the century – and the planet was not saved.
The experience of this misguided political-industrial coalition driving global warming policy in Germany has shown us the environmental, economic and social cost of the wrong way forward on reducing CO2 emissions. Darwell explains how the Nazi party had an historic anti-industrialist fixation on nature. Foresters have the status of doctors in Germany. Hitler even built a huge windmill as an experimental source of power.[40]
“After his denazification, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger preached anti-industrial, environmental metaphysics. Marxist intellectuals from the Frankfurt School returned from exile in the U.S., where they had developed the New Left’s synthesis of Marxism and environmentalism and sprouted their anti-democratic anti-rationalism across American universities.”[41]
These Nazi activists joined with the Marxists and Greens, to take control of the coalition and spread their pro-environment and anti-industrial philosophy through the universities and into the civil service and general public. “The Frankfurt School had perfected the technique of taking two words with antithetical meaning and ramming them together to drain them of positive attributes.”[42]This debating trick enabled activists to argue with phrases that nobody understood but sounded plausible enough to confuse and convince to the casual listener.
The Nazis had perfected the dark art of bullying, confusing and manipulating voters under Hitler. “Nazi storm troopers began as a security detail clearing the halls of Hitler’s opponents during his rally’s.”[43]They also perfected the silencing of opposition through endless repeating of the plausible lie of Jewish responsibility for Germany’s defeat in WW1 until it became undeniably true – as in the modern label “climate change denier”. These are the same techniques Donald Trump used to successfully silence his opponents in America. This is how truth, democracy and freedom can die and be replaced by lies and tyranny.
In 1998 Germany’s Red-Green coalition swept to power and began introducing the green revolution with subsidies for solar and wind power including a 100,000 solar-roofs program with a 510 Million-euro grant. Angela Merkel had seen the success of the acid rain fraud in Sweden and led her social democratic SPD to power in 2006 after six years in opposition. She inherited a bureaucracy riddled with Frankfurt graduates in senior government positions who provided the ‘scientific’ evidence for a major green revolution. A survey in May 1969 had found that 30% of West Germany’s high-school and university students claimed to sympathize with Marxism or Communism.[44]The 2000 Renewable Energy Act was passed with minimal debate. It promised 100,000 clean energy jobs, an industrial boom and a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions. In June 2005 Merkel had declared increasing the share of renewable energy consumption to 20% “…is hardly realistic.”[45]Already committed, she had to go on and get European leaders to agree that the “…EU’s climate and energy package should include a binding commitment for the EU to derive 20 % of its energy from renewables by 2020.”[46]
The 2010 Energiewend revolution included speeding up the shutting down of coal and nuclear power plants and massive subsidies for new wind and solar power companies. In 2004 the cost of energy transformation was officially estimated as about one euro per household per month.
The consequences were devastating. Darwell observes that the 100,000 jobs went to China and there were instead “…100,000 profiteers and a gigantic solar industry in China.”[47]“In 2015 cumulative feed-in subsidies…the accrued cost of Energiewend had reached 4 billion euros.”[48]The tariff scheme which paid $ 0.60 per KWh. for solar power vs. $ 0.09 for small hydro projects cost consumers 304 billion dollars, destroyed the German power market and led to 3 German utilities loosing 70 billion euros.[49]The poor have been devastated as electricity prices in Germany soared. “In 2012, thanks mainly to the headlong rush into wind and solar, Danes paid four times and Germans three and a half times what America did for their electricity.”[50]
During this time from 1999 to 2012 CO2 emissions from power stations rose by 17.2 million tons or five percent.[51]This was clearly the wrong way forward. It was a step backward because so much money was wasted on subsidies for wind and solar ‘rent seekers’ in the uneconomic and inefficient wind and solar industries.
Germany is still going the wrong way because they closed the most efficient nuclear plants in the EU, destroyed their three major power companies and have had to reopen CO2 polluting coal-fired power plants and depend on Russia for the natural gas they need to meet the rising demand for electricity. The naïve, destructive and secret hope of the Marxists and Nazis was that industrialization would be reversed and people would adapt to having less electric power available.
The bad news is that the German wrong way forward has been exported to other countries in Europe and North America. The California experience mirrors that of Germany. The Frankfurt School exported its destructive anti-industrial ideology and political manipulation tactics to California and recruited a similar coalition of New Left students, environmental activists and foundations with idealistic billionaires as backers. Environmentalism has become the new religion of America and the Democratic Party. California had a hundred billionaires looking for worthy causes which would make them feel good.“Saving the planet” is no small thing.
The problem is they aren’t. As in Germany, wind and solar was mandated, the California power market was destroyed, 66 % of its industrial jobs disappeared and generating capacity decreased by 9 % between 2002 and 2014 while demand rose by 27 percent.[52]The average monthly power bill increased by $ 250.00 in coastal areas where the wealthy live and $ 500.00 inland where 99 % of the population live.[53]
As in Germany nuclear and large hydro were excluded from the California Global Energy Solutions Act of 2006. The real priority was shutting down oil and gas and enriching the environment lobbyists and billionaires behind the new wind and solar plants. It was not really CO2 reduction. Darwell goes into great detail in explaining the political manipulation in California which extended to the Obama Administration and Canada. U.S. NGOs and environmental foundations are still funding protests against Canadian pipelines to keep American oil and cleaner natural gas prices high. He names individuals and environmental NGOs and their multi-million-dollar international funding transfers.
Sadly, Obama continued down the same wrong way, promising 15 billion a year to unprofitable wind and solar companies and green energy.[54]The heavily subsidized feed-in tariffs for wind and solar in his 2015 Clean Power Plan cost between 5.1 and 8.4 billion.[55]Cleaner natural gas generated power from fracking – the factor that Obama ignored, and the environmentalists opposed; was the real cause of emission reductions (from coal) in the US.
The good news is that not everyone in Europe was fooled by the naïve Marxist-Green coalition. Right next door in France for example, they went the opposite way – nuclear. Today 70% of Frances’ power is from nuclear plants. Emissions per capita were 4.81T compared to 9.12T in Germany in 2019.[56]Gross CO2 emissions for France have decreased by 32 % from 408T in 2005 to 314T in 2019.
The root cause of failure in dealing with global warming in Germany and other countries has been the politicization of science or false science. Germany is a worst-case scenario because it was politicized and guided by Marxists and Nazis activists who had a secret agenda of subverting democratic debate, de-industrializing Germany and were not really concerned about global warming. This warped wrong way forward has been exported to Europe and America where it has also subverted democratic debate, market capitalism and damaged the oil and gas industry which is the engine driving economic growth and prosperity.
A thriving oil and gas industry and economic development will be essential to meet our ever-increasing demand for inexpensive electricity. This prosperity will also generate the trillions of dollars it will cost to adapt to global warming. The poor are always the hardest hit as they spend a greater portion of their income on electricity. Poorer countries in low-lying coastal regions for example will need trillions of dollars in damage remediation to subsidize rising power costs for the poor, relocate populations and build massive protective dykes like Holland.
2.9 Recovering the Truth About Global Warming
We have seen above how the politicization of science has led to the unrealistic and unenforceable emission control targets of the Paris accord, the shutting down of green nuclear and natural gas generating plants, destruction of electricity markets, shortages of power, intolerable price rises and massive subsidies for ineffective wind and solar industries with no significant decrease in global emissions. It is time to de-politicize the science, listen to the real climate scientists and economists and develop a realistic, enforceable and comprehensive international agreement. This will be an impossible task if the same international group of politicized “experts”, opportunistic politicians and green activists who created the original mess are involved. The national political actors will have enough to do after the real science, emission targets and effectiveness CO2 reducing alternatives is determined. Each country will then have to develop its own national strategy to meet the targets – and avoid some form of sanctions.
Step !: Appoint a New Committee to Determine a Realistic Goal
The problem with counter global warming strategy in Germany and the U.S. has been hijacking of the science by a politicized elite. This politicized elite needs to be replaced with a new committee of real climate scientists and economists with more integrity and credibility. We have seen the social, economic and environmental damage of the false science. It is past time to go back to the beginning and recover the basic truth about how much warming, how fast, how much damage and how much CO2 emissions need to be reduced. This Committee needs to review the science and projection models and agree on the most cost/effective way of dealing with global warming.
“First we need to evaluate climate policy in the same way we evaluate every other policy: in terms of costs and benefits.”[57]As above, Lomborg and others have said the models used for the Paris Accord were defective and 50% too hot. The resulting goal was limiting global warming by 2100 to +2C or +3.6F. UN researchers have also realized this is unrealistic and would be economically and socially destructive. They recommended a goal of limiting warming to 5.83 F.[58]This would balance the increasing social and economic damage costs of warming with the decreasing social and economic costs (including G.D.P.) of carbon taxes and alternative green energy subsidies. The first step is to have a new reliable committee of scientists review the science, projection models and economics of dealing with global warming and:
1. Recommend a more realistic goal for limiting the increase in global temperature by 2100.
2. Recommend a realistic scale of how much countries would have to reduce their emissions by a checkpoints to be in compliance.
3. Recommend a realistic and effective global carbon tax that would gradually increase to 2200.
4. Recommend fair and clear standards for measuring and monitoring national annual CO2 emissions
Step Two: Recommend a Realistic Global Carbon Tax
While we all hate the idea of a carbon tax, it is the simplest, fairest and most effective way to reduce global CO2 emissions which are the major and most manageable cause of global warming. The alternative options of depending on nuclear, natural gas, hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power vary widely in suitability from country to country and must be left to individual country plans for meeting the global target for emission reduction. To be effective there needs to be a scientific basis, an agreed standard for measuring national emissions. For example, it is unfair and unhelpful to count all the emissions in drilling for oil, building pipelines, mining oilsands and refining gasoline; but not count the cost of mining rare minerals, shipping them across oceans and manufacturing solar panels or wind power blades. Even hydro which looks clean is generated from huge reservoirs with square miles of rotting biomass that generates more CO2 than mining oilsands. Having a less political Committee of scientists develop a standard definition of what is counted would give countries a sense of fairness in developing there national CO2 reduction plans.
The easiest part of this task would be to refine the Nordhaus models for cost/benefit analysis. For example, William Nordhaus, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics, used his cost/benefit model to calculate that a carbon tax of $36 a ton in 2020 rising to $ 270 a ton by 2100 would limit the increase in global warming to 6.3 F. This would have a climate cost (damage) of 87 trillion dollars and a carbon tax policy cost of 21 trillion dollars in lower GDP.[59]
We need to assume that a global carbon tax is only one part of a plan to limit global warming. The question is where is the ‘sweet spot’ between reducing emissions through a carbon tax and depending on a local mix of nuclear, hydro, natural gas and geothermal power?
What is needed from the Committee is the minimum realistic global carbon tax that, combined with their transitioning to parallel targets for green energy by specific dates targets, would limit global warming to the agreed global warming target.
The hardest part of implementing a global carbon tax will be to get all, or at least the great majority of major CO2 producing countries to agree to:
1. A scale of fair and rising global carbon taxes.
The main problem with the Paris Accord was that both the reduction targets and imposing a national carbon tax was voluntary. There were no consequences for major polluters such as China which did nothing and gained a serious trade advantage. This was grossly unfair and has undermined the efforts of participants.
2. Realistic, science-based targets by decade for limiting global warming.
Fair trade and economic competition can only be assured if there is fair international verification of national reductions and an equivalent carbon surtax on imports from countries which fail to meet their targets.
This is where the scientists and economists must turn over the final decision making and enforcement to the politicians and an international organization.
Step 3: Recovering Truth for National Plans for Global Warming
The third step in recovering the truth about global warming is for each country to develop a national plan to meet the international goal for CO2 emission reduction. The international carbon tax would be a given, so national scientists, economists and politicians would have to decide how to meet the remaining target for emission reduction based on local conditions. This would be a new country appropriate mix of nuclear, hydro, natural gas and emerging technologies.
We need a reliable cost/benefit analysis of each of these potential sources of power, indicating the cost per KWh. of power and how much they would be able to reduce carbon emissions. This would prevent the politicization of the plan and keep the solar and wind industry honest. As we have seen in Germany and California where such a cost/benefit analysis was not done, the result was power shortages, destruction of electrical markets, loss of industrial jobs, skyrocketing power costs and trillions of dollars in subsidies for no gain. We need to recover the truth and build cost-effective national CO2 emission reduction plans on realistic options:
1. Nuclear
As we have seen in France, nuclear power is the most effective way forward. Nuclear costs could be dramatically reduced if a standard design could be agreed to instead of constant changes which drive up construction costs.
2. Hydro
Hydro was ignored in Germany and California which defeated their emission reduction plans and dramatically increased power costs. The downside of hydro is massive CO2 emissions from the biomass rotting in huge reservoirs.
3. Natural gas
Natural gas has emerged as the smart short-term solution in transitioning away from coal. “Converting gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles to natural gas reduces carbon dioxide emissions by roughly a third.”[60]Canada has 15,000 natural gas-fueled vehicles compared to 5.3 million in China, 4.0 million in Iran and 3.1 million in India.[61]This would be a much better way to go than the magical electric vehicles explained above. It is a ‘near green’ and cost-effective solution that would lower national emissions in the short term while countries transition to nuclear or developing technologies over the next fifty years.
4. Emerging technologies
Emerging technologies including small nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, carbon capture, geoengineering, hydrogen, fission and fusion are all potential contributors to reducing national CO2 emissions. Within the next decade some of them will no doubt be cost-effective for inclusion in national CO2 emission reduction strategies. The immediate task for most national planners will be to transition to nuclear, hydro and natural gas where this is possible and then integrate the emerging technologies later as they become more cost-effective:
· Small Nuclear
Small nuclear reactors are being developed by a number of countries and companies. These are at the prototype stage and appear to be the most effective of the developing technologies.
· Wind and Solar
If you have not read the real science of wind and solar section above, you will be shocked to learn that science and experience has shown that the current technology is grossly ineffective. Wind and solar was deployed in Europe and America because of politicalized science and driven by a Marxist /environmentalist / anti-oil agenda; funded by the wind and solar industry. The good news is that research on the next generation of solar panels and wind turbines may make wind and solar viable. The bad news is that some countries have signed long-term contracts to subsidize wind and solar which may be hard to break (rating fraud?).
· Geothermal Power
Geothermal power is also under development with pilot projects currently operating. This will become a simple, relatively inexpensive and completely green source of power.
· Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon capture is in use in Norway and the Netherlands. Four of 26 pilot project are in Canada. The Quest pilot project near Edmonton has removed 6.1 tons of CO2 in its first five years.[62]This project us specifically designed to eliminate some but all CO2 emissions from refineries and chemical plants.
· Geo-engineering
Geo-engineering is another emerging technology that may paly an important part in reducing national emissions. Geoengineering involves using natural processes – like a volcanic eruption, to put a huge volume of particles in the atmosphere which would reflect heat. For example, a study has indicated the cost effectiveness of hundreds of boats spraying seawater to add particles of salt to the atmosphere.
· Hydrogen, Fission and Fusion
Research is also being done on powering vehicles with hydrogen and generating electricity using fission and fusion.
National plans will have to carefully balance the need for economic development with the need for CO2 reduction. Economic development will be essential to pay for mitigation costs such as:
• Dykes for future climate storm and water damage in coastal areas
• Relocating population
• Subsidies for the poor who are most affected by change
The good news is that there is no climate emergency. There is a serious problem of global warming that must be faced now and dealt with well before the end of the century. The sooner we recover the truth of the science, develop a binding international agreement on a realistic carbon tax and develop realistic national plans; the less painful dealing with this challenge will be
[1]Bjorn Lomborg, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and fails to fix the Planet. (New York: Basic Books 2020)
[2]Ibid., p. 6
[3]George Jonas, Truth is the First Casualty of Activism” National Post. March p.15, 2008
[4]Stephen Koonin, unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t and Why It Matters (Dallas, Tx.: Ben Bella Books Inc., 2021
[5]Nigel Lawson, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming (New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2008, p. 7
[6]Ibid. p. 7
[7]Fritz Varenholt and Sebastian Luning in a summary of their new book Unerwunschte Wahrheiten Unwanted Truth (Germany: Clintel.org 12 October 2020)
[8]Stephen Koonan. Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells, what it Doesn’t and Why It Makes a Difference (Ben Bella Books Inc., Dallas, Texas 2021 p. 79.
[9]Ibid. p.
[10]https.//unfecc.int/files/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdfapplicatioo/pdf/conveg.pdf
[11]Koonin. p. 65
[12]Ibid. p. 14
[13]Ibid. p.67
[14]Ibid.
[15]Ibid. p. 179
[16]Ibid.
[17]Ibid. p. 14
[18]Lomborg Ibid. p. 185.
[19]Koonin p. 135.
[20]Lawson p. 50
[21]D. Wingham et all “Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. A, 364, pp. 1627-34.
[22]Lawson pp. 50
[23]Lomborg p. 21
[24]Koonin p. 134
[25]Ibid. p. 135
[26]Ibid.
[27]Lomborg p. 69
[28]Ibid. p. 69
[29]Ibid.
[30]Ibid.
[31]Ibid. p.103
[32]Lomborg. p. 169.
[33]Stewart Muir “Don’t write off carbon capture and storage”, National Post, Feb. 4, 2022. p. FP10.
[34]Darwell. p. 147.
[35]Ibid. 155 from http:/www.forbes.com/sites/markpmills/2015/08/07/the-clean-energy-plan-will-collide -with-the-incredibly-weird-physics-of-the-electric-grid/
[36]Darwell p. 207
[37]Lomborg p. 95
[38]Robert Wimmer, (Toyota Head of Environmental Research) Testifying before U.S Senate.
[39]Lomborg. P. 97
[40]Ibid. p. 7.
[41]Ibid.
[42]Ibid. p. 47.
[43]Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. (New York: Tim Duggan Books. 2017) p. 44.
[44]Darwell. P. 93.
[45]Herman Scheer, The Energy Imperative: 100 Percent Now. (London and New York: Routledge, 2012 p. 12.
[46]Darwell. P. 138
[47]Ibid. p. 143.
[48]Ibid. p.146.
[49]Ibid. p. 8
[50]Ibid.
[51]Ibid. p. 146
[52]Ibid. p. 204.
[53]Ibid. 203.
[54]Ibid. p. 219.
[55]Ibid. 232.
[56]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_France
[57]Lomborg. P. 12.
[58]Lomborg. P. 130.
[59]Ibid. p. 155
[60]Gwyn Morgan. National Post, October 25, 2018 p. FP9.
[61]Ibid.
[62]Ibid.
[1]Bjorn Lomborg, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and fails to fix the Planet. (New York: Basic Books 2020)
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