By Nancy Thorner, Opinion Contributor
For 40 years climate alarmists have been warning of a climate catastrophe, yet none of their dire predictions have come true.
How then did climate alarmism become such a great threat to western democracies, with trillions of dollars at stake, millions of jobs, and the health, safety, security, and even the freedom of our own citizens, over the impossible goal of stopping climate change?
Climate change has also become a central organizing principle of public policy in many countries. This has resulted in lost manufacturing jobs, needed energy projects being cancelled or delayed, skyrocketing electricity rates, and increasing black outs, when, despite media sensationalism, extreme weather has not increased in incidence or severity; sea level rise is not unusual; and polar bears and the Great Barrier Reef have never done so well.
Why then are school children being taught to fear climate change when there is no climate emergency?
Were it not for meteorologists and climatologists informing us about the weather, no one would notice any change in climate during their lifetime.
Our politicians are still working to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by engaging in massive wind and solar energy projects which are causing huge damage to nature in the process. They are apparently unaware that it is impossible to run a modern industrial society on these unreliable and expensive energy sources.
Consider how Texas’ over-reliance on wind power led to deaths of 700 people when the wind failed just before the cold snap hit in February 2021. Now, multiply that times 10,000, with electrical grids going down all across the western world, and you get an idea of the scale of the problem facing us.
Biden administration’s opposition to fossil fuels
President Biden, before and after he entered the White House, made no apologies about his opposition to oil and natural gas. He promised to set the U.S. on a path of eliminating them over the next two decades as part of his climate change strategy, thus making the U.S. more dependent on our enemies for our basic energy needs.
Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act served as a Trojan horse for “clean energy,” specifically wind and solar power.
Signed into law on August 16, 2022 by President Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is the largest bill the U.S. has ever passed to address climate change. Nearly $370 billion was assigned to speed up the transition to carbon-free energy to cut emissions nearly 40% by 2030.
Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called climate change a sin and a moral issue, even though Buttigieg has flown 18 times on taxpayer-funded private jets since taking office early last year.
The hypocrisy further extends to John Kerry, the Biden administration’s climate envoy. In flying all over the world to make the world a greener place, Kerry’s family private jet has spewed more than 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide since he assumed the post.
A case for fossil fuels
The amount of electricity needed to empower the world’s population simply cannot be produced using alternative sources of fuels. Every major economy today depends heavily on fossil fuels to maintain a modern standard of living for human beings.
Without a doubt, whatever negative impacts fossil fuels are having on the planet’s climate (if any), those negative impacts are far outweighed by the positives coal, oil and natural gas have brought to human beings.
Fossil-fuel development has brought global poverty to a record low.
The current war on fossil fuels will only result in an indefinite delay of the world’s poorest places bringing themselves out of poverty.
Because of fossil fuels, more human beings are flourishing than at any point in history, saving lives and leading to longer life spans by improving the quality of life.
Fossil fuels are crammed full of concentrated energy. They are reliable, efficient, easy to access, cost-effective, easy to transport; with the ability to generate large amounts of electricity. There are also many beneficial by-products from the refining of oil.
In contrast, renewable power from wind and solar power is as variable as the ever-changing weather.
Ignition fusion as an alternative?
A national laboratory in California has achieved a breakthrough in a process known as “ignition,” which involves getting more energy out from fusion reactions than is put in by a laser.
But just how close are we to producing energy from fusion ignition that can power people’s homes as a clean energy alternative with zero carbon energy production?
Although promising, the use of fusion ignition technology could be decades away.
But while we might have fusion ignition technology at some future time, we already have fusion in the form of nuclear energy. Nuclear power is a clean form of energy. It also provides the biggest bang for the buck once plants are constructed and in operation.
What the future could hold
If left to those attending this year’s World Economic Forum, whose attendees ranked climate action failure as the number one risk with potentially the most severe impact over the next decade, it could mean reduced lifestyles.
And if our leaders ever did succeed in “decarbonizing” our economies, it would take us back to standards of living of at least 150 years ago.
We would need to live in smaller dwellings, cut way back on transportation, and even eat bugs as a way to reduce our carbon footprint.
