fossil fuels

Robinson Meyer staff writer for The Atlantic: Climate change requires us to alter the biogeochemical organism that we call the global economy on the fly, in our lifetimes. Such a task should command most of the time and attention of every economist, agriculturalist, investor, executive, and politician—anyone who fancies themselves a leader in the physical workings of the economy, or whatever we call it. It is our shame, and theirs, that they don’t.

Leon Louw, Economist: The intellectual debate against radical environmentalism was lost by "the other side" long ago, during the 1960s. But the wider public emotional, vested interest and political debate was won and continues to be won by "them".

Sky-is-falling alarmism has been around forever, in an eternal battle between realism and alarmism. This seems to be an innate hard-wired aspect of most animals and even plants, not just humans what I call the "rustle in the grass hypothesis"

Bernie Sanders, Democrat candidate for President of the USA 2020: He is determined to stop use of fossil fuels and nuclear and replace them with windmills and solar panels.

John Reilly, Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change: If solar panels and wind turbines keep getting cheaper, why bother building anything else? Because as we add more solar panels and wind farms, their productivity declines. And while the cost of individual solar panels is low, when there are enough of them, they impose real costs on the rest of the system. This article contains good information about wind, solar and nuclear energy. However, it is based on the premise that use of fossil fuels cause Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming, which will soon be settled that they do not. The literature is full of articles that have good ideas about energy and bad science about the carbon dioxide cycle. Unfortunate. Worth reading for description of wind and solar energy.

Gregory Wrightstone, geologist has been investigating the Earth’s processes for more than 35 years. He is author of the newly published book Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know. Here are 25 of the most important graphs from his book about climate change. They are self-explanatory and important for all of us. These graphs show that there are no indications of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels having a significant influence on climate change. Nature is in control and doing what it always has done. To follow the alarmists and stop using fossil fuels will have almost no effect on climate change but will lead to some of the largest kill-off of human population and mass suffering for those who remain living. The climate alarmist recommendations to stop use of fossil fuels is a great crime against humanity.

Chris Bischof, Bakken Oil Business Journal: At the beginning of December 2015, leaders from almost every nation in the world met in Paris to discuss Climate Change and to create plans aimed at reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. They believe the failure to cut back on carbon emissions – greenhouse gases – will lead to a global temperature increase that would unleash an existential crisis upon humanity. The total for all NASA piloted programs from 1959 to 2015 adds up to $275 billion, or about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The $44 Trillion estimate (and it is open ended, not a cap or maximum) for putting the brakes on climate change is almost 100 times the cost of our expeditions into space. Do we have any way of knowing if this huge outlay would save the world, as the representative from Tuvalu has declared it would? We do not.

S.J. Crockford, PolarBearScience.com: National Geographic picked up the video and added subtitles. It became the most viewed video on National Geographic’s website—ever. … The mission was a success, but there was a problem: We had lost control of the narrative. The first line of the National Geographic video said, “This is what climate change looks like”—with “climate change” highlighted in the brand’s distinctive yellow. In retrospect, National Geographic went too far with the caption.

Thorpe Watson, metallurgical engineering and materials science: The history of CO2, together with a scientific analysis of the facts pertaining to CO2, reveal that it is impossible to generate too much CO2. Nevertheless, climate-change alarmists continue to demand the reduction of CO2 emissions to prevent runaway warming, an unfounded fear. In reality, an imminent climate threat is a repeat of the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1870). These reoccurring cold periods have resulted in mass migrations and the collapse of civilizations.

David Wojick, Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, CFACT, Washington, D.C., Ph.D. Philosophy of Science and Mathematical Logic, B.Sc. Civil Engineering: It all begins when the sun’s incoming energy heats the surface of the Earth. Some of that energy is then given off as infrared light, which is usually called “long wave radiation” or LWR. A lot of this LWR simply passes through the atmosphere and goes out into space, where it is gone forever. But some of it is intercepted and absorbed by GHG molecules. These energized molecules then give off this absorbed LWR energy to the rest of the air as heat. (Heat is not a substance; rather it is just molecular motion.) So at this point we can say that the CO2 has heated the air and this is as far as the alarmists go. What they do not mention is that when this heat energizes other GHG molecules, they give off LWR, thereby removing the heat. So the energy comes into the air as LWR and becomes heat, then it goes out again as LWR, and is gone. No heat is trapped in this process.

John Shanahan, Editor of allaboutenergy.net and anonymous: It is important to exchange views about sensitive topics related to the use of energy without getting personal. Here are two views. What do you think?

Ken Haapala, SEPP, The Science and Environmental Policy Project - The conditions for most of the world’s population are improving significantly. Although wars are ongoing, there is no major world war, killing millions. There are no major famines, other than those created by government policies. World grain reserves are full, and production is increasing greatly in tropical countries, which were once considered too hot, with too thin, too acidic soils to be major grain producers. There is still much to do, particularly in Africa, South America and Asia. This week, the UN hosted a circus, celebrating fears of carbon dioxide (CO2)-caused climate change featuring children and the fears and horrors their parents and teachers have taught them.

Ken Haapala, SEPP, The Science and Environmental Policy Project: Many political leaders and political factions have little or no understanding of the importance of reliable, predictable electricity to modern civilization and economic wellbeing. Without thoroughly demonstrated examples of success, a number of local and national governments have passed laws phasing out electricity generated by fossil fuels based on the belief that wind and solar can replace fossil fuels. This “green dream” may become a nightmare. The fear of catastrophic global warming that is driving this political effort is based on unrealistic computer models that cannot describe what is happening in the current atmosphere, much less able to predict what will occur 30 or 80 years from now. Errors may be buried in tens of thousands of lines of computer code.

Ken Haapala, SEPP, The Science and Environmental Policy Project: Richard Lindzen’s paper summarizes what we know with reasonable certainty, what we suspect, and what we know is incorrect about climate change, the greenhouse effect, temperature trends, climate modeling, ocean chemistry, and sea level rise. Key parts included: 1) The climate system is never in equilibrium. 2) The core of the system consists of two turbulent fluids interacting with each other and unevenly heated by the sun. 3) The two most important substances in the greenhouse effect are water vapor and clouds, which are not fully understood. 4) A vital component of the atmosphere is water in its liquid, solid, and vapor phases and the changes in phases with immense dynamic consequences. 5) Doubling carbon dioxide, (CO2), creates a 2% disturbance to the normal flow of energy, which is similar to the disturbance created by changes in clouds and other natural features. 6) Temperatures in the tropics have been extremely stable. Temperature differences between the tropics and polar regions are extremely important.

Peter James Spielmann, Associated Press: UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. That was 1989. Thirty years later, 2019, nature, wildlife, the world's economy and life overall have just gotten better. Alarmist lies and fearmongering.

Washington Post, Brady Dennis: The world has squandered so much time mustering the action necessary to combat climate change that rapid, unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas emissions offer the only hope of averting an ever-intensifying cascade of consequences, according to new findings from the United Nations.

U.S. Department of Energy: The evolution of wholesale electricity markets, including the extent to which Federal policy interventions and the changing nature of the electricity fuel mix are challenging the original policy assumptions that shaped the creation of those markets. Markets recognize and compensate reliability, and must evolve to continue to compensatereliability, but more work is needed to address resilience. The biggest contributor to coal and nuclear plant retirements has been the advantaged economics of natural gas-fired generation.

Climate activists’ ill-founded opposition to fossil fuels threatens to stop a major pipeline project in East Africa and stymie economic growth in Uganda and Tanzania — home to some of the world’s poorest people.

The 895-mile-long pipeline from Uganda's Lake Alberta region to the seaport of Tanga will be the longest electrically heated crude oil pipeline in the world and will carry 216,000 barrels per day. The project received a green light for construction after the completion of an Environment and Social Impact Assessment.

Steven Lyazi, student and worker in Kampala, Uganda: Malaria is no longer a killer in western countries – because they used DDT to help eradicate the disease decades ago. If wealthy nations and NGOs really want to help developing nations, they should support fossil fuel power plants for reliable, affordable electricity. They should support DDT as an important part of the solution to eradicate this serial killer, so that Africans can work, spend less on malaria, have more money for other healthcare and family needs, and develop as much as rich nations have.