The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday.
The report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency envisions a “energy revolution” that would greatly reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth.
“Meeting this target of 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge, and we would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale,” IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said.
Unrealistic, unacceptable, and unaffordable.
And proponents say “What harm is there in going on as if Gorbal Warming were real?” how abut $45 trillion that could go into other programs to solve REAL problems such as the growing malaria pandemic; teaching programs for agricultural techniques in poor areas; solar energy in areas not accessible to power lines; water purifing programs; education; etc.
All of that $45 trillion is going to do is line the pockets of the corporations invested in solving a problem that doesn’t exist.
Already, Al Gore’s “carbon offset” corporation is facing lawsuits for fraud. (you want to know who gets the money for Carbon Offsets — that’s who!).
Absent real debate on this topic, all you will hear in the near future is how much money is needed, and who will provide it (us, that’s who!).
Jim E.
Amen, Jim!
It’s the biggest boondoggle of our lifetimes (at least to date).
At Grace Church in Colorado Springs we have a big men’s weekly ski group that would like to have a longer ski season…so this investment in stemming global warming and giving us longer winters and more snow seems like a great idea to us…this year has been the longest season with more snow than we have had in decades, and we were very pleased…so bring it on.
This is all based on manufactured psuedo-scientific fear mongering akin to the Salem Witch scare. Only this time it won’t result in a few dozen innocent people being hanged but in the destruction of our economy and our enslavement to massive bureaucratic regulations and control on CO2 (which is the engine of life on this planet) so big as to make the New Deal look like Reaganomics. The one real growth industry from these green initiatives is government and those businesses that know how to feed off it. Instead of encouraging production we will be penalizing it and making a boon industry of trading and manufacting rations.
A few questions for those pushing this CO2 BS:
1. What has caused the increase and decrease of CO2 in ages past before industrialization?
2. What natural processes in the earth’s system consumes or displaces CO2 out of the atmosphere?
3. What is the percentage of “Greenhouse” gasses that is CO2? (Hint: water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas)
4. What is percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere that is man made? (other souces include volcanoes, other animals, decaying vegetation, and the biggest-the ocean)
5. If you gave an answer to number 4., how did you determine the answer with any certainty? Did you guess it, use a Ouji board or simply assume it as a foundational premise? Does manmade CO2 have little “made in the USA” tags on its molecules?
Encouraging man-made global cooling may trigger the next Ice Age.
Since the French already get 80% of their electricity from nuclear, and have a good nuclear plant design, this is a win-win for them. I’m sure they would be looking to sell their expertise. On a side note: I use the French nuclear example as a way to get back on enviro’s that have little true science and fact to back up their beliefs. Very easy to say “since France is in the forefront of everything liberal, progressive and green, shouldn’t we follow the French model? ” After I hear “of course”, I say “let’s go nuclear like the French did!”.
How do we encourage building 1400 nuclear plants and at the same time deal with not wanting Iran to have nuclear capability (I know “it’s different” – but controling it isn’t) Also – I’m in my 40’s – when I was in middle school nuclear power was the great evil in the world.Myhow times have changed.
#7: “Also – I’m in my 40’s – when I was in middle school nuclear power was the great evil in the world. My how times have changed.”
The science was settled then.
Nuclear energy does not necessarily equal nuclear weapons. It is when a country starts a program of enriching uranium to weapons grade that ones thoughts turn to war-fare use.
With Iran, the idea is not so much the development of nuclear power, but of using it as a cover for developing weaponry capable of reaching Israel and Europe.
Jim Elliott
#8–Back when we were in school the pundits were also worrying about global cooling and the imminent return of the Ice Age that would kill us all.
http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
([i]Newsweek[/i] on coming global cooling disaster, 4/28/75.)
We have spent $500 billion on the Iraq war. $45 trillion spread over all the countries, including China, over the next 40 years ain’t that much.
#10, Jim. I too remember all the weeping and wailing over the coming “Perpetual Winter.†When agendas lead the discussion, like in the TEC/ECUSA, or Global Warming Advocates or Perpetual Winter Advocates, I always smell a rat! Usually it entails forcing upon an unknowing populace a governmental (hierarchal) way of controlling people’s lives, their long-held beliefs, and their money. Who benefits in the long run? Governmental, Religious, or organizational functionaries.
Scientific Truth, Biblical Beliefs, or plain human intellegent thoughts mean nothing to the likes of Al Gore and +KJS.
Don:
If the price of gas and diesel keeps going up, you will be praying for enough snow to cross-country ski back and forth to the slopes!
Thankfully, it appears that the Climate Change bill has been defeated in the U.S. Senate and it’s coming back next year is in doubt. If you read what it would have done to our taxes, it is truly fightening. But TEC’s public policy department was pushing it and urging all TECer’s to do the same. (I wrote my Senators the opposite of what TEC wanted and he responded that he, in fact, agreed with me).
Who is to day that increased CO2 levels are bad?
Seems to me that years ago when the CO2 levels were much higher than now the world was an idyllic place. Plants are suffering from loiw CO2 levels. I think it is time to end our fauna-centric bias and become flora-fauna neutral.
Mega 🙂
Don
Don, “I think it is time to end our fauna-centric bias and become flora-fauna neutral.” Amen, but it will never happen. Agenda driven people like Al Gore and +KJS get too much of an adrenaline rush from spouting nonsense.
#9
Very true. Way is it that the countries like Iran, Syria, N. Korea and the like, want to generate ‘peaceful nuclear power’ by using breeder reactors, the by-product of which is (drum roll) weapons grade plutonium.
#1 Library Jim
[blockquote]All of that $45 trillion is going to do is line the pockets of the corporations invested in solving a problem that doesn’t exist.[/blockquote]
I would be happy to do the same job for half that amount. I tithe and I’ll guarantee my work.
I don’t see much science in the comments. Most scientists world wide would agree that this investment is necessary. If we do something – then its a worthwhile investment, with lots of jobs and a greener economy. It might be a “waste” but we will have done what we could. And if they are right, we would have avoided catastrophe. If we don’t do anything – and the scientists are right – then shame on us.
Its a gamble. And the best gamble is to do something, if we care about the planet.
19. John Wilkins: “If we do something – then its a worthwhile investment, with lots of jobs and a greener economy.”
John, who is paying for these “green jobs”?
What food will not be produced because effort is wasted on green jobs instead of producing food?
Same with housing.
There is no such thing as “gain” from wasted effort.
Don
John,
It’s not just that the science is questionable, it is that one group is trying to social engineer the entire world without basis.
As one supporter said:
“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [activism provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
–Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada
[i]the Calgary Herald[/i]
THAT’S what is so dangerous about all this. Who is to say they have the right to force their views on the world? Isn’t that what America and Britian were condemned for over and over by the rest of the world? So why are THEY right? Plus, there are many, many, MANY scientists coming out and saying the science is all wrong, that these conclusions are NOT correct, and that the earth will correct itself as it has done countless times in the history of the world.
JE
John, I don’t see any science in your comment. So what?
Your idea of Pascal’s wager stacks the deck. By claiming world catstrophe as a possibility if we don’t do a certain thing you immediately make any alternative action the least sensible bet. But this can be done with any possible imagined catastrophe. I’m sure you think the Iraq invasion was a mistake, but many who now oppose it supported it on the basis that the possibility of Sadam gaining nukes made not doing something more dangerous than doing invading. What matters is the reasonable evidence for the threat. It can and should be and is argued how reasonable that evidence was. What many of us are doing is arguing the reasonableness of the evidence for anthropogenic Global Warmin and how that stacks up against the reasonable estimate of the cost of “fighting it” and how succesful any solution could be.
Look, Chris, I’m siding with NASA and the intergovernmental panel on climate change. They seem to be scientists. If you can find me scientists who aren’t funded by industry, I’m all ears.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/danger_point.html
Actually, LibraryJim, we have already been “socially engineered.” Oil companies and automobile companies did social engineering when they destroyed the electric car industry. It wasn’t because there was an end to the market: it was a deliberate powerplay to destroy the competition. And it wasn’t a clean competition between consumers. To assume that we’re always the master of our own destiny is … quaint, theologically suspect (what of original sin?), and runs counter to the evidence. The government is more likely, in this great democracy, to represent my interests than a corporation, which is more interested in my money.
And as an investor, that’s the proper role of the corporation: to exploit for profits of investors. Not necessarily for the consumer’s benefit.
Oh…right, John. The government isn’t interested only in your money. It wants your freedom too.
I”l make you a deal. You find me a scientist not funded by the government which wants to tax me without my consent and I’ll find you a scientist not funded by an industry which is delivering me something I’m willing to pay for.
The easist way to make money is to suck off the government teat. And right now the Climate Change teat is giving a lot of milk. But I’m sure that won’t effect any scientific studies looking for grant money, would it? I mean, that would be cynical.
24: sounds relativist and post-modern. I’d love to pay the patriotism card right now. If you don’t like the USA…. I’m willing to pay my dues for the protections I get here. And, given that people are selfish (the original sin again), I think that sometimes they have to be told what the rules are to live in a community.
I suppose you kind of think that our government is like Saudi Arabia or the old Soviet Union. But more to the point: most of us don’t pay for what we take. We don’t actually count how we pollute or destroy the commons. Nobody does. In the end, when I hear you speak, it sounds as if you’re content to live off the institutions that give us roads, sewage and the like. You just don’t want to pay for them. The problem is that lots of things are good for all of us that individuals don’t want to pay for.
And you’re right – the military has been “sucking off the government teat” forever. The amount of waste there is… horrible. Personally, I’d much rather waste my tax money on education, hospitals and our country’s infrastructure (all of which would help businesses).
Do you believe in objective science? Or is it all relativism?