environment

Greg Walcher has been deeply involved in forest management and other natural resource policy issues for decades. In this article, he assesses the current sad state of our national forests – and the policies that too often make the situation even worse – and asks a simple question: Are we willing to do anything to improve our forests and wildlife habitats, and in the process perhaps address climate change, except the one thing that might help the most? It’s a question that deserves some serious thought and robust debate.

John Shanahan, Civil Engineer, President of Go Nuclear, Inc. and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy - USA outlines the most likely, practical and beneficial main energy partnership for the future. Others take radically different views, little to no fossil fuels, limited to no nuclear. He thinks these views will have a tremendous negative impact on humanity and the environment. There are many authors and papers on efn-usa.org and go-nuclear.org websites to read and decide for yourself.

John Shanahan, President of Go Nuclear and President of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy - USA. Presentation to the Denver Mining Club: Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Energy and all their by-products are Important for Humanity and the Environment.

Bruno Comby is a very successful nuclear physicist, author, eco home designer and builder, and lecturer about nuclear energy, the environment, and healthy living. He has written ten books that have been translated into many languages. He gives lectures and does research on five continents. He is very proud of the state of the art eco-house he built himself in the suburbs of Paris and the electric car he drives around Metro Paris. Founder - President of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy - International, with branches in: Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. He is also President of Institute Bruno Comby, which focuses on healthy living and environmental problems around the world.

Skip Hobbs, geologist: The Future of Planet Earth: A Changing Biosphere, Humans, and Global Stewardship. Since its creation 4.5 billion years ago, the earth has experienced constant change. Geologic change takes time. Human civilization has made, and continues to make, profound changes to the earth, both to the benefit and detriment of mankind and all other inhabitants of earth's biosphere.

Uli Weber, Geophysiker: Die Grundlage unseres Lebensstandards ist die industrielle Wertschöpfung durch Nutzung fossiler und atomarer Energieträger, ebenso wie unsere statistisch nahezu verdoppelte Lebenserwartung gegenüber „ökologischen“ Gesellschaften auf der alleinigen Grundlage von Ackerbau und Viehzucht.

The American Interest: Germany’s much-ballyhooed green energy transition—its energiewende—has run up quite a tab, and policymakers are having trouble figuring out who is actually going to pay for the policies. In an attempt to kick-start fledgling renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, Berlin guaranteed producers locked-in, long-term, above-market rates called feed-in tariffs. To their credit, this plan of pushing technologies of dubious merit at any cost worked, perhaps too well

John Haldon, Professor of European History, Princeton, University: Grasping the challenges that climate change presents and evolving appropriate policies that promote and support mitigation and adaptation requires not only an understanding of the science and the contemporary politics, but also an understanding of the history of the societies affected and in particular of their cultural logic.

Pierre Gosselin, mechanical and civil engineer, advocate for sound use of the best energy sources: Progress is not achieved by abandoning development Imagine if the Wright Brothers had abandoned flight after the first mishap, only listening to the voices of fear that heavy objects have no place in the air and that it isn’t possible to eliminate accidents? Imagine if society had abandoned the automobile after the first deadly accident? Imagine if early doctors had been prevented from attempting surgery on a seriously ill person. Of course, if humans had given up after every failure, we’d still be in the Stone Ages – if not extinct.

Sebastian Luening, paleogeologist: In der internationalen Klimapolitik gewinnen religiöse Gruppen und Organisationen nach politikwissenschaftlichen Studien zunehmend an Einfluss. „Sie haben sich etwa bei den UN-Klimakonferenzen als Akteure unter den Nichtregierungsorganisationen etabliert und werden als eine Macht ernst genommen, die in vielen Ländern, nicht zuletzt durch hohe Mitgliederzahlen, umweltpolitische Prozesse effektiv anstoßen können“,

Der Diesel hat einen vermeintlichen und einen unmoralischen Vorteil. Der vermeintliche ist das Kraftstoffsparen und der damit verknüpfte geringere CO2 Ausstoss. Weil man wegen des billigeren Kraftstoffs sich aber PS stärkere Motoren gönnt, insbesondere im SUV, wird dieser Vorteil mehr als ausgeglichen. So ist der Mensch nun mal. Vorteil dahin. Da hat das CO2 wieder mal Glück gehabt und darf bleiben.

Aber es muss aus zwei Gründen weiter gemordet werden. Einmal ist der Diesel von den Grünen, (die sich bekanntlich immer am Besten auskennem, Physik hin oder her) ein für alle Mal als umweltfreundlicher Liebling mit sozusagen diplomatischen Rechten versehen. Zum anderen fand man aber heraus, dass weniger Menschen auf der Welt ebenfalls sehr umweltfreundlich sind. Die Erde ist übervölkert, ihre Bewohner haben sich in gut hundert Jahren knapp verzehnfacht, wodurch es mehr Autos, mehr Reisen mehr Klimaanlagen, mehr Kraftwerke und was alles sonst noch gibt, die alle, wie in den thermodynamische Gesetzen festgelegt, Abwärme erzeugen, etwa doppelt so viel wie die aus fossilen und anderen Brennstoffen gewonnene Nutzenergie.

Was meint da wohl der sogenannte gesunde Menschenverstand? Früher sterben der Umwelt zuliebe? Oder doch lieber ein sauberer Benziner?

Werner Herzog, film maker: He has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature- and documentary films. American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog "has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. Of particular interest for EFN - USA are Herzog's appreciation of everyone's reliance on the modern way of life, with abundant energy and modern technologies. He says that there is no turning back to life without abundant energy and advanced technologies.

Hermann Dirr, naturalist, observer of wind industry effects on birds and bats: Cranes, birds of prey, sea birds fly and bats fly through more than 22,000 wind turbines in Germany. In the future, Germany plans to build much taller wind turbine towers with much larger rotor blade area backed up by more coal fired plants. Forget nature, the Real Green thing is Wind Energy! "Greenpeace and others protesting CO2 and global warming, based on a mere BELIEF, like any other religion, is as laughable (if it weren't for their willful and unlawful disruption of honest TAX-PAYING citizens' lives) as demanding the government 'do something' about the length of daylight, or the force of gravity, or the composition of Jupiter.

Max Roser, economist, geoscientist, philosopher, Founder and Program Director, Our World in Data: To see where we are coming from we must go far back in time. When you only consider what the world looked during our life time it is easy to make the mistake of thinking of the world as relatively static – the rich, healthy and educated parts of the world here and the poor, uneducated, sick regions there – and to falsely conclude that it always was like that and that it always will be like that. In 1950 two-thirds of the world were living in extreme poverty; in 1981 it was still 42%. In 2015 – the last year for which we currently have data – the share of the world population in extreme poverty has fallen below 10%. That is a huge achievement, for me as a researcher who focuses on growth and inequality maybe the biggest achievement of all in the last two centuries.

A justifiable disdain for wide-spread pollution that is totally out of control has led to our current, well founded narrative, conducted by Politicians and Environmental Advocates World Wide. Unfortunately, that narrative has been hijacked by ‘Spin Doctors’ and their allies in the Environmental Movement and the Media. Humanity has been hypnotised into believing that CO2 is causing Climate Change. Environmentalists the world over have taken over the socio-political narrative with an easy, unsubstantiated view that CO2 is the New Devil to be defeated

All the ‘Climate Change’ we are seeing today has happened before. The Roman Warming Period and The Middle Ages Warming Period are both recorded in writing and from Ice Core sampling. The purveyors of our current Narrative on Climate Change have chosen NOT to view these records as relevant. ‘Everyone knows it’s Man-Made’.

Richard Lindzen is an atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor at MIT. An implausible conjecture backed by false evidence and repeated incessantly has become politically correct ‘knowledge,’ and is used to promote the overturn of industrial civilization. What we will be leaving our grandchildren is not a planet damaged by industrial progress, but a record of unfathomable silliness as well as a landscape degraded by rusting wind farms and decaying solar panel arrays. There is at least one positive aspect to the present situation. None of the proposed policies will have much impact on greenhouse gases. Thus we will continue to benefit from the one thing that can be clearly attributed to elevated carbon dioxide: namely, its effective role as a plant fertilizer, and reducer of the drought vulnerability of plants.

Scott Brown, CEO of New Energy Capital and former member of Advisory Board of National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Scott Brown's journey to understand how reliable, high energy density nuclear power is essential for the modern world and his journey so far in understanding the effects of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is very interesting and important for everyone. His story is similar to Michael Shellenberger's at Environmental Progress. Although both Brown and Shellenberger consider the catastrophic story about carbon dioxide to be settled, Mother Nature has the last say and the world will have to wait a few years until all the forecasts of catastrophes have had a chance to happen. Two things are fairly certain: a) The world is unable and will not stop use of fossil fuels in the near future and b) The world is unable and will not implement nuclear power worldwide in the near future. It is physically and industrially not possible. But nuclear power is the only long term solution and it definitely will happen. Some people are focusing on things that are supposedly very urgent. Others are working within the realm of more realistic possibility to do the best for people and the environment everywhere. The accompanying photo shows a typical nuclear power station in France with two units and place for two replacement units. This is the best use of nuclear to date in the world. Congratulations to FRANCE.

Edward O. Wilson: One of the greatest biologists since Charles Darwin discusses his plan to save the biodiversity of Earth, and include everyone in the effort. In a career that spans six-plus decades (and ongoing) Wilson aided in developing the concept of biodiversity, biophilia, and uncovered – along with partner Robert McArthur – the theory of island biogeography, all of which overturned how conservationists, ecologists and, yes even, world leaders looked at the natural world.

Willis Eschenbach: James Hansen is the NASA scientist who is leading the charge to stop all forms of cheap energy. Coal is bad. He calls trains of coal “death trains”. He wants to deny cheap energy to all of those folks in the bottom half. He wants to deny access to cheap energy to everyone, but where it hurts is the bottom half. For example, the World Bank and other international funding agencies, at the urging of people like Hansen, have been turning down loans for coal plants in developing countries.

Heather Matteson, Materials Scientist, Nuclear Reactor Operator, Environmentalist, Co-Founder of Mothers for Nuclear: I believe nuclear power advocates care about and want the same things as most Sierra Club moms and members. We want everyone in the world to be able to care for their children like we can for ours. We want a world of less air pollution for our kids. I changed my mind about nuclear, and my dad changed his mind, too. We might be destroying the planet, just like my dad thought. But in the end, we both came to think humanity is smart enough to save it.