Excellent piece. I have always been bothered by the German habit of closing down clean nuclear in order to replace it with Russian (influence and) gas and now brown coal. The coal being burnt in Germany should be burnt in developing countries so that these people can raise their standards of living and it also would have prevented funding a genocidal war in Ukraine. When this was shown not to work instead of finally taking care of the system insane amounts of money were spend in order to buy LNG from around the world. Kicking the can down the road and making it unaffordable for poor countries. We should give western countries that sabotage their own energy infrastructure more grief for this.
Yup. According to EU think tank Brugel, the running toll for Europe is approaching $1 trillion. And that's just the direct pay for fuel to save itself. As you noted (and we have), Pakistan and others paid dearly for that.
EU needs to own and wear that, instead of run away from it.
The worst part is that the short term thinking still hasn’t changed. Surely the EU made it through last winter but there is still no solution on the table for the next winter. Surely Russian gas shouldn’t be on the table but neither should be buying up the world supply of LNG and outbidding low-income countries.
It's not obvious to us that their plan so far isn't as simple as pray to Gaia for another warm winter and in the meantime convince yourself that your prayers have already been answered by the climate change you caused that's now saving you.
I'm going out on a limb ... you guys are worth the price of admission. You are not pussy-footing about trying to appease the unappeasable. Too few people appreciate that the zealously driven environmentalist is beyond reason, their mythological viewpoint will stick with them until a hard dose of reality, like no food on the table, opens their eyes.
One thing I'd suggest though ... I'd not say built on a foundation of sand. I'd say, mythological foundation instead. Their support is built on the false idea that invaded our brains, that carbon dioxide is deadly. Even the Gorical would modify his diatribe if attendance for his virtue-signalling lectures plummeted to, deservedly so, zero.
Another point, a free market in energy would resolve the situation in short order. The oracle of Nebraska would go back to looking for profits in unregulated industries where he's done so very well most of his life. Get the government out of the picture and sanity can again prevail. and yes, Orwell was right. The destruction of meaning in language makes all sorts of insanity possible.
If western governments and ENGO's don't smarten up and shift, we will still eventually need a Crimes against Humanity climate POLICY tribunal. I would like to see Gore, Schwab, McKibbon etc sentenced to their remaining life being spent as subsistence farmers in a poor african nation.
Or maybe cobalt mining.
Meanwhile the press and all the usual subjects are ignoring the reality of even the biased IPCC science and pushing the "summary for idiot policy makers" with all the usual doom headlines. We need a trillion dollar class action lawsuit naming all of them, get this into a court.
We hope the market for reason and human prosperity will essentially do the same without need for tribunals. That market has 6 billion people, largest group on earth.
Hey check this great vid out. Something I have been saying for quite awhile. The Net Zero, carbon credits trading operation is just a giant greenwashing scam, almost entirely worthless:
EXPOSED: The Biggest Green SCAM In ESG | Breaking Points, Krystal breaks down the corporate scam of ESG and carbon offset programs in the USA:
Excellent article. But I strongly disagree on one point. This is not some accidental coincidence of brain disease affecting all of our ruling class simultaneously. And curious how this insanity went into overdrive at the beginning of the bioengineered covid plandemic.And of course the recent banking crisis which was also predicted by many "conspiracy theorists", along with CBDC's which are also were declared " a nutty conspiracy theory". Also coincidentally Davos was also hyping their "Great Reset" which is supposed to save the World with a "Build Back Better" program. Which of course means, destroy what we have now, and build it back according to their well documented Malthusian agenda. And lets be perfectly clear, it is not about the environment, it is about enforced scarcity and Malthusianism. The only explanation that is self-consistent.
No way. This entire insanity is centrally controlled. You can't have this level of conformance by coincidence. We are seeing the planned and programmed destruction of our industrial civilization. Wake up people!
It is fair to ask how much is ignorance (even with good intentions) and how much is malevolence. We have our thoughts. We may put pen to paper on that some day soon.
Agreed that there are some truly evil characters manipulating society but I personally believe it is because so very many people have learned only to follow rather than think for themselves. I think the insanity is largely learned in kindergarten, with bad ideas pass down through generation of suseptible minds.
But ignorance is far easier to overcome than years of mal-instruction from a couple of generation of equally mal-informed teachers. A mind uncluttered is more reachable than one that's been filled with mythology. I don't say there are no villains but an independent thinker has acquired immunity. That we so glibly follow is where the fight must take place. Dropping out of school might be a first step.:-)
The figures are pieced together from publicly available data from western governments, international bodies (International Energy Agency, UN World Bank, other), etc.
Here's one example. A report by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office we noted when it first came out in 2009. Documenting that the U.S. spend on "climate policy" 1998-2009 was $99 BILLION. And that was before we got the training wheels off and really started pedaling hard.
Sorry there isn't one single source to capture it all. It's like Hogan said when asked what his secret was by a journalist who'd watched him practicing hard for hours. "What's your secret, Mr. Hogan?"
Hogan looked down at the divots on the practice range, thought for a moment, then said, "it's in the dirt" and walked away. (You just gotta dig it out!).
More like $5T on solar & wind worldwide so far. I suspect it is more like $6T including all the transmission upgrades that are really there to support wind & solar.
Not sure how much has gone down the sewer on biomass. That would be more difficult to evaluate. Mandated Agrofuels are of course 100% subsidy. Biomass burned in power plants @ 3X the cost of coal means consumers are paying for the 2X increase.
It's a stunning number. Especially when you consider what good could've been done for human health and the environment. Not just in the rich countries that wasted it, but especially in the developing world. When you read Bjorn Lomborg's work with the Copenhagen Consensus, it's enough to make you angry, then nauseas.
These Malthusian creeps that run the World think that's a bonus. Excess people, "useless eaters" and all that. After all, they trashed the World economy to the tune of $40T just to foist their Covid Plandemic economic destruction down our collective throats. Enough to replace the entire World's energy supply with nuclear.
While the money measurement is able to be document, the human misery and wasted human effort in both fight and support and building and recycling, the human carnage behind the money is, I believe, is even more staggering.
Thank you. I know Texas alone spent $66B on intermittent generators and the requisite transmission lines. What I would like to know is, how to reference the source of the $5T-$6T amount.
My only complaint after reading another excellent report by environMENTAL is the inclusion of people like Buffett and to a lesser extent, the Koch brothers in the evil-but-less-so side of the ledger. Investors should and will make money wherever they can from legally available investments. Taking advantage of myopic and dangerous actors who perpetuate foolish subsidies makes lots of sense to them. In the Koch brothers case, they've been made Disney villains in the same emotional reaction as the one to Monsanto for owning glyphosate. We love reducing things and people and organizations we don't like to one dimensional monsters and heroes. The Koch's are monsters. I would prefer to keep them out of the lesser monster category because I find it difficult to believe that anyone sits in a 300 year old mansion burning cash and laughing at the poor neighbors as they live in squalor. It's an unreasoned take.
Conservatives have acted selfishly in their own twisted way where ethanol and coal mine safety law is concerned. But at least their eulogizing of farmers places value in something greater than a pile of wealthy elites parading around in Teslas for everyone to see. What makes the liberal side so laughable is that they supposedly love free speech, scientific inquiry, and protecting the poor. Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha!
Our broader point was, don't set up games based on stupid ideas that won't solve problems. You won't solve the problems you're chasing and you'll only have yourselves to blame when the smartest people in the room make money wherever they can from legally available investments.
Take away the grift. The Kochs and Warren will do just fine without the incentive for green grift. .
We're very grateful to have such thoughtful readers.
I completely get it. My radar for what I perceive to be creating one dimensional characters out of human beings has become overdeveloped. And frankly I know that there exist folks who convince themselves that whatever workers are fighting for is predicated on greed or some other base impulse; it's easy to do because that mindset only takes laziness rather than rationality. It's easy as a company owner or manager to see an us vs them narrative when money is involved.
Talking about subsidies and the economic model which allows direct financial government intervention in markets requires understanding the core principal involved which is that such subsidies are only valuable to the extent that they can be ended once the market has adjusted and allowed the company/industry receiving the subsidy(ies) to be functional. Industries that cannot stand on their own must be allowed to fail. Biden's steam shoveling money around to favored polluters is exactly NOT what subsidies are supposed to be about. And since green energy is a loser pretty much all of the time for the foreseeable future, it is in fact just a way to ensure that we hand Buffet and the Kochs (new band name?) a grift without their asking for one.
There is a point to be discussed that institutional wrongdoing, sometimes profound, is based on many individual bad decisions being made within a company such that the total of those choices creates a greed machine that is unintended by any one actor. But that's not germaine to this discussion...but it sure seems like it is given what we're seeing with solar and wind mfrs wrecking the environment in order to "save" it.
Excellent piece. I have always been bothered by the German habit of closing down clean nuclear in order to replace it with Russian (influence and) gas and now brown coal. The coal being burnt in Germany should be burnt in developing countries so that these people can raise their standards of living and it also would have prevented funding a genocidal war in Ukraine. When this was shown not to work instead of finally taking care of the system insane amounts of money were spend in order to buy LNG from around the world. Kicking the can down the road and making it unaffordable for poor countries. We should give western countries that sabotage their own energy infrastructure more grief for this.
Yup. According to EU think tank Brugel, the running toll for Europe is approaching $1 trillion. And that's just the direct pay for fuel to save itself. As you noted (and we have), Pakistan and others paid dearly for that.
EU needs to own and wear that, instead of run away from it.
The worst part is that the short term thinking still hasn’t changed. Surely the EU made it through last winter but there is still no solution on the table for the next winter. Surely Russian gas shouldn’t be on the table but neither should be buying up the world supply of LNG and outbidding low-income countries.
It's not obvious to us that their plan so far isn't as simple as pray to Gaia for another warm winter and in the meantime convince yourself that your prayers have already been answered by the climate change you caused that's now saving you.
If so, that's religion, not reason.
I'm going out on a limb ... you guys are worth the price of admission. You are not pussy-footing about trying to appease the unappeasable. Too few people appreciate that the zealously driven environmentalist is beyond reason, their mythological viewpoint will stick with them until a hard dose of reality, like no food on the table, opens their eyes.
One thing I'd suggest though ... I'd not say built on a foundation of sand. I'd say, mythological foundation instead. Their support is built on the false idea that invaded our brains, that carbon dioxide is deadly. Even the Gorical would modify his diatribe if attendance for his virtue-signalling lectures plummeted to, deservedly so, zero.
Another point, a free market in energy would resolve the situation in short order. The oracle of Nebraska would go back to looking for profits in unregulated industries where he's done so very well most of his life. Get the government out of the picture and sanity can again prevail. and yes, Orwell was right. The destruction of meaning in language makes all sorts of insanity possible.
We appreciate the vote of confidence. Editorial freedom means we're not trying to appease anyone or everyone.
If western governments and ENGO's don't smarten up and shift, we will still eventually need a Crimes against Humanity climate POLICY tribunal. I would like to see Gore, Schwab, McKibbon etc sentenced to their remaining life being spent as subsistence farmers in a poor african nation.
Or maybe cobalt mining.
Meanwhile the press and all the usual subjects are ignoring the reality of even the biased IPCC science and pushing the "summary for idiot policy makers" with all the usual doom headlines. We need a trillion dollar class action lawsuit naming all of them, get this into a court.
We hope the market for reason and human prosperity will essentially do the same without need for tribunals. That market has 6 billion people, largest group on earth.
Hey check this great vid out. Something I have been saying for quite awhile. The Net Zero, carbon credits trading operation is just a giant greenwashing scam, almost entirely worthless:
EXPOSED: The Biggest Green SCAM In ESG | Breaking Points, Krystal breaks down the corporate scam of ESG and carbon offset programs in the USA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXxqjjgH0Ec&t=2s
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe
The shenanigans there were evident to us with the EU's "emissions trading scheme" (emphasis on the last) over a decade ago.
Like many of these mom-and-apple pie deals, the veneer is wearing thin, and what's underneath is easier for all to see.
Excellent article. But I strongly disagree on one point. This is not some accidental coincidence of brain disease affecting all of our ruling class simultaneously. And curious how this insanity went into overdrive at the beginning of the bioengineered covid plandemic.And of course the recent banking crisis which was also predicted by many "conspiracy theorists", along with CBDC's which are also were declared " a nutty conspiracy theory". Also coincidentally Davos was also hyping their "Great Reset" which is supposed to save the World with a "Build Back Better" program. Which of course means, destroy what we have now, and build it back according to their well documented Malthusian agenda. And lets be perfectly clear, it is not about the environment, it is about enforced scarcity and Malthusianism. The only explanation that is self-consistent.
No way. This entire insanity is centrally controlled. You can't have this level of conformance by coincidence. We are seeing the planned and programmed destruction of our industrial civilization. Wake up people!
It is fair to ask how much is ignorance (even with good intentions) and how much is malevolence. We have our thoughts. We may put pen to paper on that some day soon.
Agreed that there are some truly evil characters manipulating society but I personally believe it is because so very many people have learned only to follow rather than think for themselves. I think the insanity is largely learned in kindergarten, with bad ideas pass down through generation of suseptible minds.
The ignorance part....
But ignorance is far easier to overcome than years of mal-instruction from a couple of generation of equally mal-informed teachers. A mind uncluttered is more reachable than one that's been filled with mythology. I don't say there are no villains but an independent thinker has acquired immunity. That we so glibly follow is where the fight must take place. Dropping out of school might be a first step.:-)
Excellent piece. I’m saving it forever for reference and pithy comments.
Environmental Jesus. We know what happened to the last guy. Watch yourself, Bill
When you are getting plunked by Indonesia the gig is up😂😂😂
Thanks, Lee.
Beautifully put. Can you point me to the information behind the $4T or $5T subsidization of wind, solar, and biomass?
The figures are pieced together from publicly available data from western governments, international bodies (International Energy Agency, UN World Bank, other), etc.
Here's one example. A report by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office we noted when it first came out in 2009. Documenting that the U.S. spend on "climate policy" 1998-2009 was $99 BILLION. And that was before we got the training wheels off and really started pedaling hard.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/25020
Sorry there isn't one single source to capture it all. It's like Hogan said when asked what his secret was by a journalist who'd watched him practicing hard for hours. "What's your secret, Mr. Hogan?"
Hogan looked down at the divots on the practice range, thought for a moment, then said, "it's in the dirt" and walked away. (You just gotta dig it out!).
More like $5T on solar & wind worldwide so far. I suspect it is more like $6T including all the transmission upgrades that are really there to support wind & solar.
Not sure how much has gone down the sewer on biomass. That would be more difficult to evaluate. Mandated Agrofuels are of course 100% subsidy. Biomass burned in power plants @ 3X the cost of coal means consumers are paying for the 2X increase.
It's a stunning number. Especially when you consider what good could've been done for human health and the environment. Not just in the rich countries that wasted it, but especially in the developing world. When you read Bjorn Lomborg's work with the Copenhagen Consensus, it's enough to make you angry, then nauseas.
These Malthusian creeps that run the World think that's a bonus. Excess people, "useless eaters" and all that. After all, they trashed the World economy to the tune of $40T just to foist their Covid Plandemic economic destruction down our collective throats. Enough to replace the entire World's energy supply with nuclear.
While the money measurement is able to be document, the human misery and wasted human effort in both fight and support and building and recycling, the human carnage behind the money is, I believe, is even more staggering.
Thank you. I know Texas alone spent $66B on intermittent generators and the requisite transmission lines. What I would like to know is, how to reference the source of the $5T-$6T amount.
I believe I read it on Bloomberg BNEF, I've heard the figure often mentioned by Robert Bryce and others. I don't have a link handy.
Thanks. That helps.
My only complaint after reading another excellent report by environMENTAL is the inclusion of people like Buffett and to a lesser extent, the Koch brothers in the evil-but-less-so side of the ledger. Investors should and will make money wherever they can from legally available investments. Taking advantage of myopic and dangerous actors who perpetuate foolish subsidies makes lots of sense to them. In the Koch brothers case, they've been made Disney villains in the same emotional reaction as the one to Monsanto for owning glyphosate. We love reducing things and people and organizations we don't like to one dimensional monsters and heroes. The Koch's are monsters. I would prefer to keep them out of the lesser monster category because I find it difficult to believe that anyone sits in a 300 year old mansion burning cash and laughing at the poor neighbors as they live in squalor. It's an unreasoned take.
Conservatives have acted selfishly in their own twisted way where ethanol and coal mine safety law is concerned. But at least their eulogizing of farmers places value in something greater than a pile of wealthy elites parading around in Teslas for everyone to see. What makes the liberal side so laughable is that they supposedly love free speech, scientific inquiry, and protecting the poor. Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha!
Thoughtful take. Thank you for it.
Our broader point was, don't set up games based on stupid ideas that won't solve problems. You won't solve the problems you're chasing and you'll only have yourselves to blame when the smartest people in the room make money wherever they can from legally available investments.
Take away the grift. The Kochs and Warren will do just fine without the incentive for green grift. .
We're very grateful to have such thoughtful readers.
I completely get it. My radar for what I perceive to be creating one dimensional characters out of human beings has become overdeveloped. And frankly I know that there exist folks who convince themselves that whatever workers are fighting for is predicated on greed or some other base impulse; it's easy to do because that mindset only takes laziness rather than rationality. It's easy as a company owner or manager to see an us vs them narrative when money is involved.
Talking about subsidies and the economic model which allows direct financial government intervention in markets requires understanding the core principal involved which is that such subsidies are only valuable to the extent that they can be ended once the market has adjusted and allowed the company/industry receiving the subsidy(ies) to be functional. Industries that cannot stand on their own must be allowed to fail. Biden's steam shoveling money around to favored polluters is exactly NOT what subsidies are supposed to be about. And since green energy is a loser pretty much all of the time for the foreseeable future, it is in fact just a way to ensure that we hand Buffet and the Kochs (new band name?) a grift without their asking for one.
There is a point to be discussed that institutional wrongdoing, sometimes profound, is based on many individual bad decisions being made within a company such that the total of those choices creates a greed machine that is unintended by any one actor. But that's not germaine to this discussion...but it sure seems like it is given what we're seeing with solar and wind mfrs wrecking the environment in order to "save" it.
Triple like that one. Great point.