Reposted from American Thinker
The global call to impose climate shutdowns akin to the COVID-19 lockdowns fails to recognize that there are millions of poor people for whom there is no room to compromise on energy liberty.
Political organizations like the World Economic Forum see the pandemic-driven economic pause as an opportunity to impose energy restrictions to address climate change. Many organizations now want to “save the planet” by implementing policies that will help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or at least make them appear sensitive to the issue. However, the poor in the developing world cannot forgo access to fossil-driven economic development just because of the climate delusions of politicians in luxurious European offices.
Speaking for my own country, India, the 360 million people living in poverty should have more of an option than continued deprivation. Presenting as morally superior their choosing to sacrifice the use of fossil fuels for the sake of a faux battle against climate change is itself immoral.
I know a family’s sole breadwinner whose only livelihood is stitching clothes in a poor neighborhood of India’s most populated city. For her, the electrical sewing machine — recently bought with help — is an absolute essential. Any intermittency in power supply is likely to make her lose out on precious money.
Photo credit: Jorge Royan, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
For this woman, who is already below the poverty line, the real possibility of not being able to buy basic groceries is a much larger problem than a few degrees’ change in global temperature. In fact, the United Nations has forecasted that even a large rise in global average temperature during the next 80 years will result in a loss of less than five percent in global GDP (gross domestic product).
So why would this impoverished woman give up her access to cheap and reliable coal-powered electricity just because of a theoretical loss of GDP postulated as a worst-case scenario by the year 2100? How dare anybody — least of all affluent jet-setters — ask her to?
While governments in the U.S., Canada, and Europe offered cash payment during the economic lockdown, the poor in developing parts of the world suffered without any help.
Yes, many small businesses in the West suffered during the COVID-19 lockdown. But the situation in developing countries was worse. A majority of the poor in these countries work in a sector of the economy that requires no documentation or proof of identification, making it difficult to get aid to them.
We are talking about numbers larger than the entire U.S. population who do not have a home or a vehicle or people to help them. Studies have shown that India lost years of progress against poverty during the four-month initial COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. For this reason, the country’s federal government refused to impose a nationwide lockdown during the second wave. Economic restrictions were mostly imposed by state governments.
The proposed climate lockdowns would be not at all different from the brutal COVID-19 lockdowns. They would deny the poorest hope of climbing the socio-economic ladder.
Even worse are stealthy energy restrictions that international political bodies have been imposing on developing economies. Climate alarmists have made a consistent effort to disrupt the fossil-fuel sector during the past two decades.
Oil, coal, and natural gas are requisites for the sustenance of the poor. Without them, there is no cooking fuel for billions of people in the Third World. Even a slight interruption of the coal supply will result in blackouts for more than a billion people on an everyday basis.
It makes absolutely no sense for governments to switch to intermittent renewables like wind and solar in the name of climate change. Firstly, there is no backup solution (other than fossil) that can substitute for intermittent sources in real time during peak hours. Secondly, even advanced economies like the U.K. are unable to cope with the power demand when their renewables fail. Why would developing countries fare any better? Thirdly, wind and solar are proven contributors to a rise in electricity prices globally.
Oh, yes — we should mention that there is no climate emergency. The world has been warmer for most of the last 10,000 years, and predictions of a warming catastrophe are based on consistently wrong computer models.
The clarion call from the world’s poor is not a climate SOS! Rather, they desperately need economic growth that can be fostered only through extensive use of fossil fuels.
Vijay Jayaraj is a research associate for the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va., and holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, England. He resides in Bengaluru, India.
Photo credit: Jorge Royan, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
From the Green point of view killing children today through starvation is a price worth paying so that those children’s grandchildren may have slightly less inclement weather.
Plus there is the bonus that most of the dead that the Greens kill are not white. Overpopulation only ever applies to non-white people.
That’s what the Greens have been campaigning on since the 1930s.
Using climate alarmism to cull the populations of developing nations at the same time people from these nations are being encouraged to migrate to developed nations seems inconsistent until you realize that the actual goal is to destabilize and eliminate the liberal tradition of the West.
It’s pretty clear that the European and American greenies are largely made up of white racists. That is why they keep emphasizing “climate driven migration” which they think scares white conservatives because the people they say will migrate are mostly people of color. Several prominent green activists have even said providing affordable fossil fuel energy to third world (i.e. non-white) countries would bring on environmental Armageddon (e.g. Paul Ehrlich, Michael Oppenheimer). When I discuss this friends who espouse fossil fuel curtailment, I ask them if they think it’s OK to force the poorest people in the world to have to continue to collect and burn animal dung to cook and boil water so their families won’t die of dysentery. They usually change the subject at that point.
Energy poverty is the worst kind of poverty because affordable energy is the key to progress in economic growth and prosperity. If we continue on the path to destroying our own reliable and affordable energy infrastructure we will ultimately join those third world economies. Hope we have enough cows left, we may need the dung.
Was that intentional irony? In that, those children will not actually have grandchildren.
Repeat from yesterday: LINK
Here are some juicy quotes to illustrate what is really going on:
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.”
Christiana Figueres, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary
“We’ve got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it.
George Monbiot April 12, 2019
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong Chairman World Economic Forum
It’s telling that Maurice Strong after letting that cat out of the bag said to freelance writer, Daniel Wood, “I probably shouldn’t be saying things like this” Read where that quote comes from HERE. So most of the pushers of Climate Crap don’t reveal their true colors.
In 1988 they chanted “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Western Culture’s got to go!”
Today they are in power, and we need to take them at their word.
Pointing out that their policies won’t work (that’s their intention) isn’t going to slay the dragon.
a narrative where wealth and power is transferred to the masses is always a way to achieve wealth and power transfer to the narrators.
I agree Leo but a Point -Of-Order the stock photo is an antique Singer Sewing Machine that my mother (born in 1911) foot pedal powered and not an electric. She preferred that to the electric machine that my father bought her one Christmas in the 1950s. She made him take it back. God rest both their souls.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.”
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and countless academics in the developed world to the contrary.
They all just tried to change who controlled the system
They didn’t try to flip a switch and change the energy system
Who said anything about “the energy system”? What are you quoting? They said, and I quoted, “economic development model”.
Except no Green has ever advocated that and nobody is dying due to renewable energy.
Greens are behind huge numbers of schemes to actually feed the poorest.
Every Green advocates that whenever they argue for more expensive energy today for a possible benefit in the future.
And no Green policy to feed the poor balances that fundamental cruelty.
“Greens are behind huge numbers of schemes to actually feed the poorest.”
Yes, griff, the keyword is “schemes” ( = rackets; From MacMillan English Dictionary – American: INFORMAL an illegal activity that makes money: a smuggling racket): what proportion of the money alocated to those “schemes” actually goes to “feed the poorest”? What proportions is spent in “oiling” the NGO etc. “green” machinery, propaganda, jobs and travel of respective bosses?
Exactly the point I’ve made many times about David Attenboroughs “Population Matters”, formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust, whose spreadsheet shows exactly where the culling needs to take place – non-white countries
I have a link to the spreadsheet (Wayback machine) if anyone wants it
We need to keep pounding on that there IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY! There is nothing wrong with the climate and CO2 is not a pollutant.
The politicians know this is true, but they ignore it because they are manipulated and threatened with economic repercussions if they (governments) do not cooperate.
Yet the manipulators allow China to keep increasing emissions and building new coal fired power stations to boost their economic activity and exports.
And we keep posting about the climate hoax and what have we achieved?
As the Arab saying goes: the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
Except that there is: increasing heatwaves, 50C events, drought, fire, flooding, flash flooding and exceptional rainfall. And a warming planet overall, glaciers receding more quickly, ice caps melting.
all evidenced by records and observation, not models.
It’s called weather, Griff.
griff are you sure you’re not James Dyke, senior lecturer in global systems at Exeter University who has a recently published book to sell?
Title of book ‘Fire, Storm and Flood:the Violence of Climate Change’
If that is not just weather, what are we going to do about it?
The answer can only be to adapt. We cannot lockdown like Covid to stop it. The Covid lockdown had no effect on atmospheric CO2 levels as it wasn’t vicious enough. And we cannot lockdown harder than that as it would be too vicious, year after year.
Of course, if it just weather we still need to adapt. Even if only part of it is just weather.
The one thing we mustn’t do is make our adaptation harder by making energy more expensive.
Fossil fuels are currently the only way to save the planet from climate change.
griff, you are missing the eruption in that Canary island…
And it is evident that you did not read one of my last comments: no, no, no! That is NOT the way to pursue a scientific learning! You are still counting only with your eyes! Remember that old chap, an ancient Greek phylosopher, who said that, by observation, the Moon was not more than one foot wide?
Next step is to show that you have not only eyes, but also that you have brains! You are still very far from showing that!
How old are those records, griff? How old is human civilization?
You left out the explosion of cicadas, the worst outbreak in 17 years.
India has less room for energy policy mistakes. It already has many policy mistakes but adding another unnecessary one is not helping anyone. It certainly has no room for contrived emergencies. They are willing to listen to redistribution of (your) wealth though as a substitute for their past UN “Third World” push and past similar North-South Redistribution schemes.
Fixed it for ya!
Speaking of energy poverty….
Starved of Gas, European Electricity Producers Snap Up Coal (yahoo.com)
There is a level of callousness in the green movement characterized by Paul Ehrlich’s insistence in The Population Bomb that the predicted famine in India not be relieved in any way, as doing so would be futile.
This guy is educated enough to be a distinguished professor at least in Penn State University
And then promoted to the state pen…
This guy is educated enough to be a distinguished professor at least in Penn State University in climate related fields
There only problem: state funded universities tend to be mostly biased towards funder’s interests.
Born in India and having made six visits in recent years I’m tremendously encouraged by the rise in prosperity and the fall in numbers of the desperate poor. But as said above there are many on the edge of subsistence and to try and further deprive them is sacreligjously criminal. Get hold of Greta and give her a good shaking.
I misheard that at first.
Yes – a “shaking”, as distinct what I first thought I heard. 🙂
Indeed. Global poverty has been reduced at a rate that would have been called unachievable not that long ago. Every explanation for that will involve energy, technology, and capitalism. Each by itself is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.
The folks who want to do away with capitalism are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
On the other hand, you can make a legitimate case that capitalism is far from perfect. It’s actually the worst system there is … except for all the others.
But the Indian push into renewables isn’t doing that, is it?
The Indian push to renewables is going to go down the same path as the UK and Germany: At some point, their grid will crash unless they have adequate backup for the windmills and solar, for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
We already see the limits of windmills and solar. They are not going to eliminate the need for fossil fuels and/or nuclear.
“Get hold of Greta and give her a good shaking.”
“Shaking” is too much energy lost.
I would suggest instead to give her a limitless leave of absence from school, a kind of “Everyday for Climate” and put her in the same village as that woman, earning her life (yes, Greta is no longer a child according to working age rules!) with a pedal sewing machine. In the real world, with real pedal energy, with real small salaries and with real food, not bought in supermarkets, not wrapped in sophisticated vacuum sealed, hygienic packaging.
Greta would starve – she has no real-world marketable skills, no knowledge base and no ability to cope with that lifestyle.
Good article. The only rational solution to this alleged issue of climate change, is Nuclear power. Get on with it, world.
And find the best way to make liquid fuel using nuclear power.
What’s wrong with refining petroleum? There are also many other needed products from petroleum refining.
Indeed. As I understand it, although I’ll admit to knowing little about it, if we continue to build things like roads for all the virtue-signalling EVs, and don’t use petroleum, it’ll be a waste product. I know some can be used, but most won’t be.
I know it won’t happen, but people seem to think it’s possible.
nothing. but at some point in the not too distant future, mining petroleum will become more expensive than making it with nuclear power,
First show me the power
Vijay, as you know “the climate” is a front for Eurocentric neomarxist global governance. Elites are the last types to rely on to govern us. They don’t give a darn about the poor. They are planning in fact to swell the ranks of the poor to get rid of billions of people. They make no secret about this. There is no appealing to conscience on the topic of the poor with these folk.
This is just baseless conspiracy theory.
I was unaware of that but you seem to have much greater expertise in such matters, Griffy.
As poverty is eliminated and the general standard of living of Indians progresses with many becoming very rich, as is inevitable, then they can afford to buy carbon credits to offset their emissions just like wealthy Americans, Nancy Pelosi for instance.
Pandering to the insanity of the neo-Marxists and globalists is not a solution worth considering. Our planet’s climatic systems are not broken nor are they in any risk of doing so. There is a general shortage of CO2 and it is not a pollutant.
Well that fell flat, irony doesn’t work around here, apparently.
Sorry about that. Sometimes it’s a toss-up between being too subtle and too off the wall. Sadly we have a few trolls around here as daft as that.
“Political organizations like the World Economic Forum see the pandemic-driven economic pause as an opportunity to impose energy restrictions to address climate change.”
Talk about missing the point!
The World Economic Forum cares nothing for or about climate change.
The goal of the WEF is:
The Great Reset
followed by:
Build Back Better
which becomes:
The New World Order.
The WEF is openly advertising this. They state that The Great Reset is their first goal.
“Build Back Better” has even become a political campaign slogan in both the US and Canada. (Yikes!)
If the WEF sees COVID as a useful tool, they will use it.
If the WEF sees Global Warming as a useful tool, they will use it.
If the WEF sees Climate Change as a useful tool, they will use it.
They do not care about you. At all. They do not care about COVID or Global Warming or Climate Change or anything else.
“You will own nothing and you will be happy.”
You will be a slave, a happy slave. That is the plan.
“You will be a slave, a happy slave. That is the plan.”
Ironically the British patriotic song (originating from the 1740 poem “Rule, Britannia” by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne), has the chorus lines –
“Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”
Yet a large proportion of the British public are looking forward to –
‘The Great Reset
followed by:
Build Back Better’ (also a political campaign slogan in UK).
They have no idea what’s in store !!
I don’t think they care if you will be happy or not. They might care whether you believe you will be happy, but I suspect not.
“You will be happy” is an order. If you are not you will be punished.
Well said, Tony. These people regard all these manufactured crises as opportunities to get more elitist snouts into the trough. Listening to these people is like sheep discussing with wolves what’s on tonight’s diner menu.
“Build Back Better”
Did they steal Biden’s slogan, or did he steal it from them?
There is a simpler, carbon reducing option the malthusian greenies would endorse, the only problem being the logistics in recycling or composting so many of the world’s poor so quickly.
This is important. Governments need to let people decide whether to lock themselves down or not.
I never understood how forcing everyone to confine themselves would be more effective to the vulnerable than merely the vulnerable, and indeed the afraid, isolating themselves.
Free the people, let the vulnerable and afraid hide.
Then you need to study the dynamics of disease transmission.
Well, I do understand the concept of herd immunity. You know, the one before the WHO changed the definition to being vaccinated.
It’s much safer to achieve herd immunity amongst the people extremely unlikely to suffer fatalities.
Bad luck poor people of India as the UN along with the IMF wants to jack up your power prices for your own good-
UN redoubles green energy push to save climate, boost electricity (msn.com)
“Raising fuel prices is, of course, very challenging,” Georgieva said, adding, “but doing nothing will pose far greater challenges.”
PS: Kristalina Georgieva SalaryShe is a great person in the USA, very successful, and ranks among the greatest persons in the world. Georgieva’s average salary is $351,758 per year.
Kristalina Georgieva Net WorthHer net worth has been growing significantly throughout her work-life. Georgieva’s income source is mostly from being a successful employee. Her estimated net worth is $ 7 million.
Kristalina Georgieva Imf, Bio, Age, Height, Family, Salary and Net Worth (factsbuddy.com)
So, an Elite telling the Poor how to behave.
India was smart enough to reject the experimental gene therapies and use Ivemectin to cure their people of covid19 so I believe they are smart enough to use fossil fuels power their society.
The Arizona election will be decertified and it won’t be long until the Republicans are in power resulting in sane energy and environmental policies.
The reluctance of the Senate to raise the debt ceiling has killed the New Green Deal. Thank God.
dream on. The truth of things is not the reality for action.
I have searched and searched but cannot find any solid evidence that this insecticide actually helps with covid.
It certainly does not seem to be a better alternative to other therapies and certainly isn’t as good as vaccination.
Ivermectin was developed to treat parasitic worm infections. Look it up: Helminths are not insects.
“I have searched and searched but cannot find any solid evidence that this insecticide actually helps with covid.”
I posted a link just the other day that described the effects of Ivermectin on the Wuhan virus. I guess you missed it.
I’m not surprised that you couldn’t find any evidence of Ivermectin’s effects. I just did a google search on the specific article I posted the other day, and it doesn’t even show on the search pages. Google has rigged the search so it does not show anything that promotes Ivermectin.
You have been duped by google, Griff.
Tom, You could give griff a direct link (again) and get the same response. My latest source of information about Ivermectin’s effectiveness is a publication from NIH. (that might have been your link)
Greenpeace has decided that India is not entitled to have the plentiful and cheap energy available from coal. Their published manifesto describes in detail how that edict was to be implemented in Australia to prevent India’s access to Australia’s high quality coal reserves. They waged war against Adani’s commitment to open up the Galilee basin, delaying it for10 years. Fortunately, Adani had the perseverance to stand by their commitment and see the last of Greenpeace’s fake litigation get buried by the truth.
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1206_greenpeace.pdf
Bur PR China could get Australian coal without much ado, till they themselves blocked coal import from down under because of Aussie Covid spread accusations. They didn’t stop using coal, contrary the accelerated with their own dirtier coal.
Greenpeace is the same club crying about the Great Barrier reef – which is in good health – but are mum about the reefs in the South China sea being concreted over.
Ever seen Greta going to China? Never.
Hypocrites, dumb, naive or paid by Xi.
Vijay, you need to be pushing for climate change POLICY crimes against humanity trials.
It needs to come from developing countries.
It needs to be public and very loud so that these creatures understand what is at stake for them.
Thanks, increasing the pace of publications. India’s energy sector is already in a coal crunch and we are wasting precious money on solar
Following many years of fighting to get a coal mine development application approved and fighting appeals against the development in courts of law the North Queensland Adani Mine owned by investors from India is finally producing coal and exporting it to India to assist in removing energy poverty for the people.
And now the UN and others are attempting to close Australia’s coal mining industry and related burning of coal and exports.
If so called renewables could produce electricity cost effectively and reliably they would put coal fired power stations out of business, but they cannot.
Thanks for this very insightsful reminder of the challenges in the developing countries.
India has had a good economic development so far in this century. This positive development may continue. I think there is a good chance that India will see a similar economic development as China has had over the last decades.
If india suceed in this, they need to at least quadruple their electricity production. That will be a challenge to achieve without new coal or gas plants.
/Jan
Well, the usual nonsense…
Where to start?
Well lets see: the largest use for electricity in rural India is irrigation pumps. Soalr power is an excellent match for this demand – plus mounting the panels over irrigation canals or in reservoirs helps reduce evaporation loss.
India is rolling out vast amounts of solar power… which shows there is no restriction on power for developing economies, merely a change of source.
Power cuts in Indian cities? Happening for decades. Absolutely no relation to introducing renewables…
India is already seeing extreme weather impacts from climate change – e.g. exceptional rain this year in the Western Ghats.
Griff, you’d be interested in my recent post debunking mainstream media’s claims about extreme weather in India. Btw i worked as a ecologist in the same Western Ghat regions you refer to. Extreme rainfall very common in India during the last 150 years
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2021/09/22/with_false_claims_washington_post_promotes_global_warming_fear_795546.html
Vijay, arguing with Griff is an openended commitment. Don’t enter. He is a dogmatist and when you tell him in detail how the real world works, next time around he comes back with exactly the same as before.
On another matter. I believe you were at UEA at time of the Climate Gate ‘hack’, which was of course really a deliberate leak. Did you know the whistleblower, or more in general do you know something we don’t? Just curious.
How do you know? During the last 30 years there was barely any change in the climate here in South India I can tell from daily experience. There was even a record harvest just now:
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/record-paddy-harvest-lower-oilseed-production-this-kharif-season/article36596368.ece
Eventually, India is going to hit the same renewables Wall that the UK and Germany are hitting now.
It’s not possible to power a modern economy with windmills and solar as currently configured.
The only hope for renewables is if solar cells suddenly become much more efficient and batteries are developed with much greater capacity. Both of those things are possible but it is going to take something like that to make renewables practical.
That’s all in the future. Right now, India needs fossil fuels and nuclear to keep their economy running. Solar and wind are a distraction.
griff,
The IEA’s India Energy Outlook 2021 projects a 50% rise in India’s CO2 emissions by 2040 the largest of any country.
“The increase is enough to offset entirely the projected fall in emissions in the EU and Europe over the same period”
Coal provided 74.4% of India’s power generation in 2017 compared to solar’s 4% in 2020. Solar is expected to be at 31.4% in 2040 so will still be less than coal’s 34.3% at that time.
“Well, the usual nonsense…”
griff, have you a mirror in front of you?…
Very good, thank you for this information