How the Green Movement Can Trigger the Great Human Dieoff

Powerful persons in the global green movement would like to see the human population of Earth reduced by at least 90%. For several decades, many of them believed that resource depletion, energy scarcity, mass starvation, or voluntary sterilisation might achieve their grand goal. But it is slowly dawning on them that if they are to slash the human population of the planet to a size that they consider manageable, they will have to be a bit more proactive.

Just in time for the great green engineered human dieoff, biological scientists have devised the perfect method of genocidal species extinction.

IN THE urban jungle of Juazeiro in Brazil, an army is being unleashed. It is an army like no other: the soldiers' mission is to copulate rather than fight. But they are harbingers of death, not love. Their children appear healthy at first but die just before they reach adulthood, struck down by the killer genes their fathers passed on to them.

These soldiers are the first of a new kind of creature - "autocidal" maniacs genetically modified to wipe out their own kind without harming other creatures....the approach should work with just about any animal - from invasive fish and frogs to rats and rabbits....it could transform the way we think about genetically engineered animals.

... the autocidal approach could not only be used to control invasive species such as cane toads, but that it is the only method that could work in many cases. "It's the only hope we have for the long-term control and eradication of these pests," he says. "Other efforts help, but in the end they are Band-Aids in the absence of a real solution."

Thresher has come up with a way to create fish that produce only male offspring. Releasing enough of these "daughterless" fish into the wild, with each passing on the daughterless habit, would turn a thriving invasive population into a bunch of reluctant bachelors destined for extinction.

...Models suggest that releasing enough daughterless carp to make up 5 per cent of the total population would effectively eradicate carp in the Murray-Darling basin by 2030. Thresher's models also suggest pests such as cane toads and rats could be tackled this way.

... One [approach] that has particular promise exploits chunks of "selfish" DNA that can spread themselves through the population and kill only when two copies are inherited. In theory a one-time release of just a few insects, rather than the continual release of millions, could wipe out a wild population (New Scientist, 22 March 2003).
_NewScientist

ArmageddonOnline.org
The last paragraph from the excerpt above describes the most subtle approach, and perhaps the easiest approach to genocide for greens to take. But they should be prepared to wait several generations to see the completion of their grand project. Such an approach should also allow environmentalists to create an antidote, so they they themselves and their associates could continue to live and procreate indefinitely. Think of it: a master race of environmentalists, sitting back and watching most of the rest of humanity fade away.

It is an approach without gas chambers, without germs, poisons, bullets, or bombs. A clean, test-tube approach that could propagate death and genocide far more broadly than any method previously devised.

Obama's (Gang)Green Jobs: Getting Back to the Garden?

Besides healing the planet and returning the rising seas to their natural beds, then-Senator Obama promised that his administration would create beautiful green jobs: well paid, stable, abundant jobs, unionized, with full benefits and making the earth healthier and the American people richer. As President, he stayed on message: even after the truther-enabling “green jobs czar” Van Jones left the administration, green jobs have been one of the President’s signature policies for putting the American people back to work. _GWPF_WalterRussellMead

Cranach: Garden of Eden (Wikipedia)
Something unexpected happened on the way to the Garden of Eden. Despite massive spending and stimulus, the green jobs revolution fizzled. Wind energy failed to meet expectations, as did solar. Electric vehicles were not ready for prime time, because electrical storage batteries are still 3 breakthroughs away from being up to the task. And the "smart power grid" is proving to be one more way that government and malicious hackers can monitor private activity, and shut it down.

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter…

The Economic Development Department in California reports that $59 million in state, federal and private money dedicated to green jobs training and apprenticeship has led to only 719 job placements — the equivalent of an $82,000 subsidy for each one. _NYT_via_WalterRussellMead

Many of Obama's expensive green stimulus programs cost $1 million to $2 million per job -- mainly "hands-off" make-work administrative jobs, rather than the entry-level practical jobs as promised. Read the entire article at the link above.

The ongoing Obama recession has not helped the green revolution take off, of course. But if you look at the green revolution as just one more way for Obama to divert government spending from the private sector, into the pockets of friends and supporters, the entire effort makes a lot more sense.

...green trends suffer when a listless economy sends old-energy prices into a rollercoaster spiral.

This possibility is reflected in the less-than-impressive growth in the “green jobs” sector, which was supposed to lift America out of the recent recession. The New York Times’ Bay Citizen project surveyed the field and found some rather disappointing numbers in job growth, job training programs and even something as simple as weatherization projects. _PopSci

Perhaps the green revolution was always just about appearances, and not about results, like so many other aspects of the current US administration. Just enough hoopla! to satisfy the rubes, without the need to accomplish anything productive.

In the eyes of such political machinations, it is enough just to get re-elected. If the news on the street is not as good as the public wishes, a great communicator can always make enough excuses, cast enough blame in other directions, and toss out enough goodies, to keep the plantation operating.

Precautionary Principle, Primum Non Nocere, Paralysis

“The precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent. It is of course true that we should take precautions against some speculative dangers. But there are always risks on both sides of a decision; inaction can bring danger, but so can action. Precautions, in other words, themselves create risks—and hence the principle bans what it simultaneously requires. _C. Sunstein [as Quoted]

The "precautionary principle" appears to be the primary policy guide for the leftist Green environmental movement. It asserts that even in the absence of proven cause and effect, society must vigorously defend against hypothesised environmental harm. It is an open-ended prescription for a chaotic descent into an infinite regress of clashing prohibitions, denials, and punishments.

Here's more on the precautionary principle:

At this year's annual meeting of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim, California, in a symposium titled "The Precautionary Principle: A Revolution in Environmental Policymaking?", environmentalist advocates and academics insisted that a principle of ultimate precaution should trump all other considerations in future environmental and technological policy making....

...The heart of the Principle, of course, is the admonition that "precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." As one biomedical researcher in the audience objected, all scientific conclusions are subject to revision, and none is ever "fully established." Since that is the case, the researcher pointed out, the Precautionary Principle could logically apply to every conceivable activity, since their outcomes are always in some sense uncertain. Furthermore, David Murray, the director of the Statistical Assessment Service in Washington D.C., points out another possible--and disquieting--interpretation of the Principle. Anyone who merely raises "threats of harm" with no more evidence than their fearful imagination gets to invoke precautionary measures. Precautionists would not need to establish any empirical basis for their fears; they may simply posit that something might go wrong and thus stymie any proposed action. _Reason

This "principle" appears to be grounds for using mental phantasms as the basis for technological and environmental policy. That will work up until the point where the economy stagnates for lack of productive output, leading to a long-term population decline.

Eventually, of course, the more ambitious and intelligent people will rebel against the unimaginative drones of the environmental - governmental bureaucratic coalition who have eagerly put such suicidally paralytic "precautionary" policies into place. Basing one's policy upon such a negative principle leads inevitably to an unsustainable society -- unless your plan is to instigate a human dieoff.orgy and technological collapse. In that case, you will want to force humans back into a hunger - gatherer subsistence culture, with a global human population of no more than 100 million persons.

But believers in vague "precautionary principles" do not generally want to understand to figure:ground positive:negative nature of the world. They merely wish to have their own poorly-examined prejudices enforced upon everyone else.

Hippocrates stated the central principle most clearly: Primum Non Nocere, first do no harm . . . or something like that. One wishes not to act, if acting will only make things worse.

But often it is impossible to know or predict in advance the likelihood of a specific action leading to improving or worsening conditions. And in situations where large numbers of people are involved, there will always be those who object to action or inaction.

The question should be: What evidence of possible harm is sufficient to put an end to an action which could conceivably lead to a great good? There is no getting around the grappling in the mud and shite. Leftist Greens want to place themselves and their prejudices above the fray, to seize veto power over any action by commercial, industrial, governmental, or other entities.

Boston University law professor George Annas, a prominent bioethicist who favors the Precautionary Principle, clearly understands that it is not a value-neutral concept. He gleefully told me, "The truth of the matter is that whoever has the burden of proof loses."

The result: Anything new is guilty until proven innocent. It's like demanding that a newborn baby prove that it will never grow up to be a serial killer, or even just a schoolyard bully, before the baby is allowed to leave the hospital. Under this corollary, inventors, scientists, and manufacturers would have to prove that their creations wouldn't cause harm--ever--to the environment or human health before they would be allowed to offer them to the public. This is asking them to prove a negative. How can someone prove that a new plastic will never, ever interact with any metabolic pathway in any plant, animal, microbe, or person? There is simply no way to test for all possible effects given the millions of different species living on the earth. _Reason

Such a principle is a recipe for paralysis across the board of human action. And if modern humans know anything, they should know that they cannot afford to be paralysed -- not if they wish to avoid widespread poverty, starvation, disease, and bloodshed. The leftist Green fantasy of a great human dieoff.orgy is not merely hypothetical -- is sits firmly within the realm of possibility should technology be so tightly constrained as to essentially fail.

Here are some examples of the principle at work in US law:

American environmental law is filled with regulatory programs that authorize, or even compel, regulatory action in the absence of scientific certainty about the nature and extent of potential risks to the environment or public health. The Clean Air Act, for example, requires that the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopt measures to control various types of air pollution when, in the administrator’s “judgment,” the emission of certain pollutants “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”6 Absolute proof or scientific certainty is not required. Rather, a “reasonable” belief in the possibility of future harm is sufficient—indeed, such a belief may require action.7 Other portions of the Clean Air Act require the EPA to set air-quality standards at the level “requisite to protect the public health” with “an adequate margin of safety,” irrespective of the cost.8 Thus, the law requires the EPA to set the standard at a level more stringent than that known to threaten public health.
In a public policy context, ‘better safe than sorry’ is a fairly vacuous instruction. Taken literally, the precautionary principle is either wholly arbitrary or incoherent.

The Endangered Species Act also requires government action in the absence of scientific certainty. Under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service must list species as endangered or threatened on the basis of the “best scientific and commercial data available.”9 That the “best available” scientific evidence may be inconclusive or uncertain does not relieve the Fish and Wildlife Service of its obligation to list a species if the “best available” evidence suggests that it could be threatened with extinction.

Federal environmental law also includes requirements that federal agencies consider the “full range of alternatives” and their likely environmental effects before taking action. Consider the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal government to consider not only the likely environmental consequences of major federal actions but also various alternatives, including forgoing the proposed action altogether.10 This seems to line up nicely with the Wingspread Statement’s call for “an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action.” _American.com

If any imaginary harm at all could come about as a result of an action -- regardless of the harm from inaction or the good from the action -- under the modern leftist Green principles, the action should be prohibited.

Clearly it is one short step to an all-pervading government control over virtually any conceivable action, and then to the arbitrary exercise of this control to benefit political friends and to harm political enemies. Such corrupt abuse of government power is inevitable, and grows more inevitable and horrific the greater the power of ideological government over virtually any private action.

The end result is a corrupt, quasi-totalitarian Green dictatorship, ruling over an increasingly impoverished, polarised, and suffering human population.

It is difficult to see such misery by merely looking at the words and reading the language of the laws, regulations, and appropriated powers. Even those few individuals who actually do read the acts of Congress and the executive orders might find it hard to foresee the consequences accurately. But the chaotic and counter-productive consequences are unavoidable, once the laws and rules are put in place and strictly enforced.

The first remedy is to return to reasonable standards of evidence, causation, and proof -- in other words, to enforce the Hippocratic rule of "first do no harm" on Congress and the entire governmental structure. If all human governments were forced to abide by such time-tested wisdom first of all, as was intended by the US Constitutional Congress, the massively dysfunctional human world as we know it would not take its current form.

In a human world subject to evolutionary constraints, paralysis is not a workable principle. The self-righteous and vacuous promoters of the modern leftist Green precautionary principle are likely to drown in the tumult resulting from their own policies, unless they cynically plan ahead far enough to step outside the maelstrom. Imagine that -- lefty-Luddites going Galt to escape their own self-created apocalypse arising from playing it "too safe."

In the future we will need to explore the issue of determining levels of risk, and how to make decisions based upon different methods of determining risk.

Off topic desultory aside:

Pascal's Wager is a similar "better safe than sorry" general approach to policy-making -- specifically the personal policy of belief or non-belief in a superior being, god, or God. Pascal suggested that a person had nothing to lose from believing in God, and everything to gain.

But Pascal's principle suffers from a similar lack of "fleshing out" as the so-called precautionary principle. What if God is actually a devil, who only torments those who believe in him? In that case, it would be far better not to believe in God than to do so. And so on, down a million different alternative ways of looking at the human :: superior being contrast and juxtaposition. Pascal's unspoken assumptions are too parochial and constricting to apply to more than a miniscule fraction of the infinite possibilities.

Pascal is discussing the personal risk of "eternal fate." Fortunately, most modern governments have not yet overtly inserted themselves into that particular topic.

Choking on Green Malthusian Dogma-Prop

From Paul Erlich's warnings of a population bomb to The Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth," contemporary ecological politics have consistently embraced [leftist] green Malthusianism despite the fact that the Malthusian premise has persistently failed for the better part of three centuries. Indeed, the [capitalist agri-tech] revolution was exponentially increasing agricultural yields at the very moment that Erlich was predicting mass starvation and the serial predictions of peak oil and various others resource collapses that have followed have continue to fail. _Breakthrough.org

One good recent example of frustrated Malthusianism is natural gas supply. Peak oil doomers declared an impending "peak natural gas" throughout the first decade of the 2000s. Even now, in the face of a shale gas bonanza sprouting up over the last few years, the doomers are frantic to justify their Malthusian true faith -- resorting to false claims of rampant water pollution from fracking fluids etc.

Within a year, U.S. recoverable shale gas reserves alone rose from 340 trillion cubic feet to 823 tcf, the Energy Department estimates. That’s 36 years’ worth, based on what the USA currently consumes from all gas sources, or the equivalent of 74 years’ of current annual US oil production. The reserves span the continent, from Barnett shale in Texas to Marcellus shale in Eastern and Mid-Atlantic states – to large deposits in western Canada, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana and other states (and around the world).

Instead of importing gas, the United States could become an exporter. The gas can move seamlessly into existing pipeline systems, to fuel homes, factories and electrical generators, serve as a petrochemical feedstock, and replace oil in many applications. States, private citizens and the federal government could reap billions in lease bonuses, rents, royalties and taxes. Millions of high-paying jobs could be “created or saved.” Plentiful gas can also provide essential backup power for wind turbines.

...Environmentalists voiced alarm. HBO aired “Gasland,” a slick propaganda film about alleged impacts of fracking on groundwater. Its claims have been roundly debunked (for instance, methane igniting at a water faucet came from a gas deposit encountered by the homeowner’s water well – not from a fracking operation). A politically motivated Oscar was predicted, but didn’t happen.

The Environmental Protection Agency revealed a multiple personality disorder. Its Drinking Water Protection Division director told Congress there is not a single documented instance of polluted groundwater due to fracking. (Studies by Colorado and Texas regulators drew the same conclusion.)

EPA’s Texas office nevertheless insisted that Range Resources was “endangering” a public aquifer and ordered the company to stop drilling immediately and provide clean water to area homes. EPA officials then failed to show up at the hearing or submit a single page of testimony, to support their claims.

Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced plans to conduct a “life-cycle” or “cradle-to-grave” study of hydraulic fracturing drilling and gas production techniques, to assess possible impacts on groundwater and other ecological values. Depending on whether the study is scientific or politicized, it could lead to national, state-by-state or even city-by-city drilling delays, bans – or booms. _MasterResource_via_OilPrice

While scientists argue whether water wells located within a mile of shale gas wellheads contain higher levels than normal of dissolved methane, there has been no evidence of water contamination or public health hazard from fracking fluids. Given the incredible financial wealth potential of shale gas deposits, it makes far more sense to let individual states regulate shale gas fracking. This is particularly true when the US government is controlled by an administration packing an "energy starvation agenda."

Malthusian lefty-Luddite Greens litter the landscape of European capitals, and under Obama have become a national hazard in the US as well. Their extreme alarmist rhetoric and anti-commerce stance threatens economies across the western world.

Human technology and ingenuity have repeatedly confounded Malthusian predictions yet green ideology continues to cast a suspect eye towards the very technologies that have allowed us to avoid resource and ecological catastrophes. But such solutions will require environmentalists to abandon the "small is beautiful" ethic that has also characterized environmental thought since the 1960's. We, the most secure, affluent, and thoroughly modern human beings to have ever lived upon the planet, must abandon both the dark, zero-sum Malthusian visions and the idealized and nostalgic fantasies for a simpler, more bucolic past in which humans lived in harmony with Nature. _Breakthrough.org

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

Who Really Wants to Solve the Energy Problem and Who Really Wants Most Humans to Simply Disappear?

An important difference in philosophy toward energy divides future oriented persons from faux environmentalist lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgiasts:

"If this machine [EMC2 Bussard IEC fusion device] works as we hope it will work, it will probably establish a firm technical foundation," he said. "People may say, 'It's a big jump and you shouldn't be doing this.' But every year that the energy problem doesn't get solved ... costs tens of billions of dollars. Sometimes waiting too long is not a good thing. If you look at the solutions, you might say, 'Can we afford to wait?'" _CosmicLog

CosmicLog
The energy starvation approach taken by Obama, lefty-Luddite faux environmentalists, and the European greens, aims to drastically reduce human agriculture and industry -- and consequently, the human population. But rational, forward-thinking groups and persons are working hard to "solve the energy problem." Such rational, future-oriented persons are the enemies of everything the modern political and environmental left is dedicated to.

Although fusion is the process behind the power of the sun and an exploding H-bomb, physicists have never been able to achieve a net energy gain in a controlled fusion reaction. But based on the experiments so far, Park thinks there's a chance that it could be done in a sufficiently large Wiffleball reactor, costing on the order of $100 million to $200 million. That sounds like a pretty good deal, especially in comparison with the $3.5 billion that's been spent so far on fusion research at the National Ignition Facility and the $20 billion expected to be spent on the international ITER fusion project.

...Don't expect weekly updates about EMC2's progress. "Currently all our funding comes from the Navy," Park said. "That's our customer. Our customer desired that we keep most of our progress confidential. ... They're somewhat concerned about making too much hype without delivering an actual product."

But if WB-8 and the follow-up studies are successful, the Navy won't stand in EMC2's way.

"Our understanding is they want us to be successful," Park said. "They want us to provide something for our sponsors. They also want us to do well commercially as well, as long as we remain US-owned and control the technology."_CosmicLog

Canada's BC-based General Fusion recently received a capital boost from Amazon's Jeff Bezos

Mainstream fusion approaches have been ongoing since World War II, but in practise have been bulky, overpriced, overstaffed, impractical, and probably never actually meant to accomplish more than milking research funds out of government coffers.

China is planning to mine Helium-3 from the surface of the moon to use as fuel in future nuclear fusion devices.

M. Simon's IEC Fusion Technology blog, and Brian Wang's NextBigFuture blog do a good job of following progress in IEC fusion and other alternative fusion technologies.

Nuclear energy (fusion, advanced fission, and other forms of nuclear energy not yet well-defined or developed) is the best approach to large scale reliable energy into the distant future. As the technology becomes more portable, humans will be able to carry their powerplants and "artificial suns" with them wherever they go.

But if you are like the greens who populate the Obama administration and governments/intergovernments of the western world, you want humans to slash energy production to the bare bone. The end result of such a reactionary lefty-Luddite policy would be a slow but accelerating return to a "dark ages" of science and technology, with an inevitable mass die-off of individuals at the margins. Not coincidentally, most current inhabitants of Earth are living at the margins.

Cross-posted at Al Fin Energy

Beware the Plastic Apocalypse!!!

Enviros See Armageddon In Every Plastic Bag
We are told the oceans are covered with floating plastic debris, clogging the ocean food chains and destroying free-swimming wildlife. But solid evidence of this eco-catastrophe is quite thin. And ever since a Canadian high-schooler (and another in Taiwan) in 2009 discovered species of microbes that thrive on eating plastic, most informed observers have been somewhat less concerned.

Since then, scientists in Ireland have begun to put microbes to work digesting waste plastics, and UK scientists have discovered plastic-eating microbes in ocean waters.

Sargasso SeaThe latest story in the long-running ocean apocalypse saga, involves scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. Woods Hole scientists explored the Sargasso Sea, in search of plastic-eating bacteria.

Mincer and his colleagues examined bits of fishing line, a plastic bag and a plastic nurdle (a pre-production plastic pellet) fished out of the Sargasso Sea, an area of the North Atlantic where currents cause debris to accumulate. The region as a whole contains more than 1,100 tonnes of plastic1.

...Plastic-eating bacteria might help explain why the amount of debris in the ocean has levelled off, despite continued pollution. But researchers don't yet know whether the digestion produces harmless by-products, or whether it might introduce toxins into the food chain.

...Genetic analysis shows that the bacteria on the plastic differ from those in the surrounding seawater or on nearby seaweed, says microbiologist Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. So far, the DNA sequences obtained by her lab show that almost 25% of the bacteria on one polyethylene surface were vibrios, bacteria from the same group as the cholera bacterium.

...Amaral-Zettler and Mincer also found genetic and microscope evidence of eukaryotes — organisms with more complicated cells than bacteria — on the plastic. What she calls the "plastisphere" might contain complex living communities. "It may be a little world that we've created, for better or worse." _Nature_via_Impactlab

It is fascinating that particular ocean bacteria have adapted to using plastics as a food source. This is all quite reminiscent of the bacteria that have adapted to eating crude oil and methane gas around oil spills and and natural hydrocarbon seeps in the ocean floor.

To the bacteria, our discarded plastics are a feast and a windfall, allowing them to feed and reproduce to their microbial hearts' content. Of course the same phenomena occurs on land, except with a much wider range of microbes -- both prokaryotic and eukaryotic -- partaking of the cornucopian repast.

Environmentalists are concerned that the microbes may be releasing toxins into the seawater which will pollute larger sea creatures and perhaps get into the human food chain. A plastic apocalypse on the prowl, don't you see? And yet, in the middle of the ocean, nothing is wasted. If something can be seen as food, it will be used as food by something. That includes anything which humans may perceive as toxic.

Here is the amusing thing in all this: Waste plastics are increasingly being seen as valuable feedstocks in the production of synthetic fuels, chemicals, and other high-value substances. Gasification of solid wastes for production of power, process heat, and chemical/fuel feedstock is just getting started in the developed world. In the future, the only plastic wastes the oceans will see will be coming from places too primitive to know how to unlock their intrinsic value.

And no doubt there will be plenty of plastic-eating ocean microbes to take care of those remnants. Otherwise we will need to raise our seawalls quite high, to avoid the ocean plastic tsunamis that may come from Neptune, with a crashing vengeance.

Beware the plastic apocalypse.

More on plastic apocalypse 31March11: The death of the environment by plastic bags may have been exaggerated. (via Daily Bayonet)

"Scam for the Ages" Makes Madoff Look Like Small Change

WUWT
Is it possible that you are the victim of a massive scam that makes the Bernie Madoff scam -- and all the other famous scams of history -- pale in comparison? It is not only possible -- it is true. In this incomprehensibly vast scam, there are many $billions to be made, and many $trillions to change hands over the next few decades. Clever chaps, these highly placed con-men.

A small number of humans shape and control the information flow that is accessible to most of the human race. Not coincidentally, this small number of persons is also tightly connected to even fewer persons who control most of the world's commercial, industrial, and governmental assets. If you do not take the trouble to step out of the mainstream of information flow, you are not likely to be aware of how your future prospects are being stolen from you without your consent.

Reducing man made carbon dioxide emissions is completely and utterly pointless if your goal is to change the future climate. On the other hand if you’re looking to make money from the trading of carbon allowances (carbon credits) than it makes a great deal of sense. If you’re looking to control the way the modern world makes energy then it makes perfect sense as well. If you’re trying to save the world from capitalists it makes it highly desirable to reduce “dirty” carbon emissions. If your mission is to extract money from developed nations and give it to those countries that have been robbed of their right to burn fossil fuels to grow their economies then it [may appear to be] the moral thing to do. If you are in the renewable energy business it makes perfect sense to support the reduction of carbon dioxide “pollution”. If you’re one of hundreds of environmental corporations whos mission is to save the planet at any cost, [and reduce the human population of Earth by at least 90%] then shutting down all sources of man made carbon dioxide is a war you must win. What cause could be nobler than to save the planet? _EnergyTribune

Bracketed comments in the quote above are editorial insertions by Al Fin

The frantic global rush to control human energy production -- and thus all human industry and commerce -- is based upon catastrophic climate models which project a "runaway greenhouse effect" from human CO2 emissions. But are the models believable? Are these pliable constructs of an infant science -- climatology -- trustworthy enough to base the entire human future upon their computations? There are reasons to strongly doubt the reliability of the models. From the paper: Anagnostopoulos, G. G., Koutsoyiannis, D., Christofides, A., Efstratiadis, A. & Mamassis, N. (2010) A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(7), 1094-1110 (via WUWT) we can see a few detailed comparisons between climate model outputs and actual observations.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global circulation models (GCM) are able to “reproduce features of the past climates and climate changes” (Randall et al., 2007, p. 601). Here we test whether this is indeed the case. We examine how well several model outputs fit measured temperature and rainfall in many stations around the globe. We also integrate measurements and model outputs over a large part of a continent, the contiguous USA (the USA excluding islands and Alaska), and examine the extent to which models can reproduce the past climate there. We will be referring to this as “comparison at a large scale”. _WUWT

When predicting the future it is best if your predictions range far beyond the lifetimes of anyone currently alive. That way, when you are proven wrong, no one then alive will particularly care one way or another -- certainly not you or your primary antagonists, who are long since dead. Climate modelers would like to have such luxury, but if they are to be taken at all seriously -- even by their fellows who are accepting generous and targeted research grants like themselves -- they must leave a way for the models to be tested, some tenuous connection between the models and real world observations. So far, the models appear to be highly biased and unreliable.

Is it possible that the models' outputs -- and the sensationalist headlines about climate change that face us on every front on every day of the year -- may be just a bit exaggerated?

The primary greenhouse gases listed in order of their contribution to the effect are: Water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. There are others but their concentrations in the atmosphere are so small they don’t contribute much effect. Water vapor and clouds are about 93% of the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide about 5%, nitrous oxide about 0.95% and methane contributes about 0.36%. It’s the combined greenhouse warming from these gases that gives the earth its current average temperature.

Studies by Raval & Ramanathan (1989) estimated that the greenhouse effect of a cloudless atmosphere is 146 W/m2 (watts per square meter) for the average earth. They further pointed out that water vapor is accounting for most of this greenhouse effect, leaving about 8 W/m2 for the total amount of atmospheric CO2, i.e. some 5%. In addition the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate changes (IPCC) 4th assessment showed that 3% of the atmospheric CO2 comes from man made sources. Global gross primary production and respiration, land use changes plus CO2 from the oceans totals 213 gigatons of carbon exchanged each year between the earth/oceans and the atmosphere. The IPCC figure also shows man made carbon emissions to be about 7 gigatons bringing the total to 220 gigatons per year. So from this we can see that making energy from fossil fuels is adding about 3% of the carbon dioxide added to the air each year. From that the total human component of the greenhouse effect is therefore about 3% of the total carbon dioxide component of the greenhouse effect which is 5%. That gives us a value of 0.1% from man made carbon dioxide. If you think that’s a small number you’re right. _EnergyTribune

In reality, humans could reduce their CO2 contribution to virtually nothing, and the climate would not change its trajectory. But the human population would rapidly die off to a relatively low level -- which is precisely what legions of faux environmentalists would like to see occur. And a few well-placed individuals would reap many $billions (or more) of diverted resources, which would place them in a most elevated position with respect to the mere hundreds of millions of subsistence-level humans who might survive the energy starvation and dieoff.orgy.

US President Obama's staff is well-stocked with such faux environmentalist dieoff.orgiasts, and his presidential campaign was well-financed by individuals, corporations, and investment banks who are likely to do very well from carbon markets, trades, and regulations.

If you still believe in climate catastrophe from anthropogenic greenhouse gases, then you are not likely to change your point of view by looking at observations, data, or evidence which contradicts your point of view. You are one of the happy pawns to be sacrificed at will. But for the rest -- those who seek out information for yourselves, and do your own weighing of the evidence -- for you there is just a bit of fore-knowledge.

You can get involved in politics to attempt to slow the energy starvation reich's agenda a bit, or you can make personal preparations for what is coming, or both. Alternatively, you can try to get in on the big scam. Your move.

Extra Bonus: 120 Years of Media Coverage of Climate Catastrophe -- Hot and Cold. Climate is cyclic -- first hot, then cold, then hot again. Whichever direction the cycle is heading, it is always a catastrophe to the media and to credulous consumers of media crap.

The current Religious Orthodoxy of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming -- CAGW -- is easily converted to an orthodoxy of CAGC, if conditions warrent. The direction of climate temperature is irrelevant. It is the doom that counts.

Why Do Greens Hate and Fear Clean, Abundant Energy?

New Republic recently admitted that, "Utopian environmentalism...is a form of escapism and disengagement from reality." The extremists scoff at science and would apparently prefer scarcity so that bureaucratic rationing will enforce a change in American lifestyles.

Instead of producing more of the cheap, abundant energy that fueled America's dynamic growth, the extremists who support and surround Obama dream of drastically cutting American consumption. _ReasonMag

Powerful green (and Luddite) lobbies believe that a source of clean and abundant energy would be an unmitigated disaster to their cause (and their livelihood). That is one reason that the Obama administration is trying so hard to bankrupt coal before clean technologies can gain a foodhold, and to prohibit shale gas and oil sands through backdoor faux environmental regulations. Abundant, clean energy would be a boon to the private sector of the economy and to economic growth. Greens and Luddites hate nothing more than a prosperous, growing private sector.

Geoffrey Styles confronted the energy starvationists on a recent webinar, where the fanatical zeal of energy starvationists and dieoff.orgiasts was on full display.

Yesterday I participated in a webinar on The Energy Collective examining the sustainability aspects of the shale gas revolution. The online audience asked good, probing questions, and if there was a theme to them, it seemed to be that somehow the sudden abundance of natural gas resulting from a novel combination of shale-exploitation technologies--as well as the technologies themselves--must at a minimum be considered a mixed blessing, if not actually too bitter a pill to swallow, because of its perceived shortcomings and the potential threat it poses to other, favored energy technologies.

The biggest uncertainties associated with shale gas don't concern the size of the resource or our ability to extract it safely, but whether we will decide to allow this to be done on a scale that would make a meaningful difference in our energy and emissions balances, or under such tight restrictions that we will forgo its game-changing potential. Like anything, shale gas drilling and fracking must be done responsibly, in accordance with state and local regulations and to industry standards that are constantly improving. Post-Deepwater Horizon, that's a much tougher sell, but it doesn't make it any less important. Shale gas isn't perfect energy, not because of any unique imperfections, but because there is no perfect energy source. It requires mature, reasonable assessments of its risks that don't assume that there is. _GeoffreyStyles

Greens and Luddites want nothing more than to starve the developed nations down to a much smaller size. Their motives are mixed, being based on both political biases and faux environmental premises. The end result -- if Salazar, Holdren, Obama, Boxer, etc. are allowed to succeed -- is an industrial collapse in the west due to "voluntary" energy starvation.

The rest of the world will survive in better condition, because China, Russia, India, Brazil, and other nations are not so foolish as to destroy their own nations' industrial and commercial capacity via energy starvation. Unfortunately, the EU and the Anglosphere may be too invested in carbon hysteria and faux environmentalism to reverse course before running aground on its own idiocy.

Previously published at Al Fin Energy

Champions of the faux environmental religions have gone on record declaring that the invention of an abundant new energy source would be an unmitigated disaster to their cause -- even if the new energy were neither polluting nor destructive to the environment or wildlife habitat. Clean, abundant energy would stimulate another round of prosperity and growth for the global economy, and that is something the faux environmentalists have worked against too hard and too long to allow to happen -- if they can help it.

More 9Dec2010: Amory Lovins:"If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. " From Mother Earth News interview. H/T Pushback and Truth about Energy.

Are Baboons Running the Environmental Movement?

Source

Sorry, the title above is unkind -- to baboons. In reality, you would have to remove at least one half a baboon's brain for the primate to be as unintelligent as the average (faux) environmentalist. One of the latest of the host of environmental faux-llies is the organised movement against waste-to-energy gasification plants. Wisconsin legislators are trying to attract a gasification waste-to-energy plant to Milwaukee. But (faux) environmental organisations have banded together to stop them:

Earlier this year, the state Legislature passed a law that would qualify the waste-to-energy system as a renewable energy technology complying with the state’s green-power mandate. At the time, Gov. Jim Doyle said the technology has real potential to help us address the growing need for clean renewable power."

But bill was opposed by environmentalists who objected to the trash-to-energy project and its potential impact on air pollution. Environmental groups that are actively opposing these types of projects in other states have branded them as “incinerators in disguise.”

Josh Morby, a spokesman for Alliance Federated Energy, said that characterization is unfair because no incineration is involved in the plasma gasification process.

Under this technology, the municipal waste is not burned but is instead converted into a syngas that can be used to generate electricity, steam or biofuels. _JSOnline

Gasification -- particularly ultra-hot plasma gasification such as is being planned for Milwaukee -- reduces waste to its component atoms and plasma. Environmentalists may lack the brain power to understand the difference between simple incineration and plasma gasification, but most humans would perceive the distinction fairly quickly.

In New York state, SUNY Cobleskill plans to install a gasification plant on campus as part of a research and training program for the new Environmental and Energy Technology Program. Not a bad idea, given how much garbage is generated at the average institution of higher indoctrination learning. But SUNY plans to turn the gasification program into a 4 year degree! Sorry, SUNY, but while 4 years may be required for a rigorous thermochemical / thermomechanical waste and biomass to energy program, learning to tweak and operate one single gasifier should not take nearly so long.

Tampa Electric will be installing a 250 MW IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle) demonstration plant in partnership with RTI. Not a bad idea. But what genius is forcing them to incorporate CO2 sequestration as part of the demonstration? Don't they know they will lose up to half the generated energy and do no one any good at all by sequestering the plant food otherwise known as CO2? Oh, yes -- the idiots geniuses at Obama - Pelosi's DOE!

And to prove that gasification is nothing if not versatile, companies in Israel, Colorado, and elsewhere are developing solar powered gasification plants, using concentrated sunlight to gasify biomass and waste.

Faux environmentalists, deep down, want to reduce the human population of Earth by at least 90%. You do not expect these neo-Luddites to be looking for solutions to real world problems such as potential energy shortages. No, they oppose every form of energy that might possibly work -- including nuclear, biomass gasification, IGCC for clean coal, shale gas, and so on.

It requires a lot of energy to support heavily sub-specialised civilisations such as those in the developed world. If your goal is to reduce the human population of the planet well below 1 billion members, cutting off the energy supply to civilisation would be one of the more obvious steps. Clearly, these quasi- half-baboons will not hesitate to take that step and any others they feel necessary to reach their goals.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy