Why climate change activists have failed to score public support
We are hearing even more than usual about climate change this summer and that is not surprising — not with dog-days news cycles driven by record-setting heat waves, torrential rains and widespread Canadian wildfires.
Some climate activists think we are not hearing enough about the issue: Writing in The Guardian, columnist Jonathan Freedland insists that the problem is one of marketing. “The climate movement has devoted relatively few resources to reaching or persuading the public,” he writes, preposterously.
He quotes progressive p.r. man David Fenton — “We’re in a propaganda war, but only one side is on the battlefield” — and cites former United Nations climate grandee Christiana Figueres, who claims “the climate community has recoiled from marketing.” Why? Because, Figueres says, it is “sort of tainted. It’s icky. You know, ‘We’re too good for marketing. We’re too righteous’. . . Hopefully we’re getting over it.”
Of all the dumb and dishonest things that have been written and said in the climate debate, the notion that climate-change activists just can’t get their message out — that they won’t stoop to marketing — may be the very dumbest and most dishonest.
Billions of dollars have been spent on climate-change advocacy, to say nothing of money devoted to actual climate policies. The government leaders of practically every democratic country speak about the issue constantly.
In the intergovernmental sector, you have everybody from the United Nations to the International Monetary Fund ringing the climate alarm bells, while in the private sector you can count on the likes of BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and other corporate titans to do the same.
ESG rules have pushed the climate issue onto the corporate agenda in a big way—companies are spending billions in total (as much as $1.4 million per company) on climate-reporting costs alone.
Even the supposed villains in the story — big energy companies such as ExxonMobil — spend billions of dollars a year advertising the green agenda. “In the past ten years we have reduced greenhouse gas emissions in our operations by more than 7 million metric tons,” ExxonMobil boasts, “which is the equivalent of taking about 1.4 million cars off the road.” You may not think they are sincere, but they are far from silent about the issue.
Climate activists have the commanding heights. What do the so-called deniers have? A few of my cranky libertarian friends.
And voters.
The real issue with climate policy isn’t that voters don’t know about the issue — it is that they disagree. Climate policy touches everything from big tech to farming to economic growth, everything from the homes we live in to the cars we drive, and, as such, an ambitious climate program will necessarily impose big costs.
The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes of the world can pretend that green policies will pay for themselves, but no serious person believes that.
Sure, Guardian headline writers can straight-up declare “The beauty of a Green New Deal is that it would pay for itself” — this is nothing more than that “marketing” to which our green friends supposedly are so averse.
American voters do care about climate issues, but not as intensely as activists would like. Climate routinely polls in the single digits when it comes to voters’ top concerns, far behind (surprise!) the economy and health care.
Independents rate immigration a more pressing issue than climate change.
Maybe you think the US government is under the heel of the oil barons, but no democratic country has undertaken the kind of economic transformation climate activists advocate.
The signatories of the Paris Agreement are far from meeting their climate obligations; the $100 billion a year in climate-finance commitments promised at the UN climate summit in Glasgow have not been fully funded; even in the European Union, the leaders of which take a much stronger climate line than their US counterparts, there has been no radical change.
Germany responded to Russia’s recent energy blackmail by reopening coal plants.
European voters rank climate a higher priority than Americans do, but it typically polls behind economic growth and immediate issues such as the invasion of Ukraine.
That is not oil-drenched propaganda at work— that is, for better and for worse, democratic politics at work.
While there has been piecemeal progress, countries across the globe are moving at a glacial pace when it comes to the one policy that can reliably reduce greenhouse-gas emissions at a reasonable cost: rapidly expanding nuclear power, which has an operational carbon footprint of approximately zero.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/22/climate-change-activists-have-failed-to-score-public-support/
**************************************************The big eco lie: Solar panels produce five TIMES more carbon dioxide than previously thought, report claims
Solar panels release five times more carbon dioxide than previously thought, according to a new report.
An Italian researcher made the claims after finding a database that world institutions use to calculate global carbon footprint projections omits emissions from China, which produces 80 percent of solar panels worldwide.
China is known to use coal-burning plants in manufacturing, which has dropped the price of technology for Americans and other Western countries.
Without data from China, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry emissions are 48 gCO2/kWh.
However, the new analysis suggests that the number is closer to 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh - 62.5 percent as much carbon dioxide emissions as natural gas electricity generation.
Robbie Andrew, a researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, told the Wall Street Journal in 2021: 'If China didn't have access to coal, then solar power wouldn't be cheap now.
'Is it OK that we've had this huge bulge of carbon emissions from China because it allowed them to develop all these technologies really cheaply?'
Most solar cells comprise silicon semiconductors, glass, and metals like silver, copper, indium and tellurium.
However, some are designed with battery storage, which includes the use of lithium.
Gathering silicon and glass has no environmental impact, but mining metals create greenhouse gas emissions and lead to soil, water and air pollution, EcoWatch reports.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) set a target for solar energy to account for 30 percent of energy generation in the US by 2030.
If the target is met, more than one billion solar panels will be spread across the US - and a majority will come from China.
The report was prepared by Italian researcher Enrico Mariuttim, who identified a discrepancy in Ecoinvent's data two years ago.
'[The data] showed how much solar photovoltaic systems used in terms of raw materials: silicon, aluminum, copper, glass, steel and silver. Then I saw the carbon footprint. It just seemed way too small,' he told Environmental Progress.
Environmental Progress is a California-based environmental group founded by Michael Shellenberger, who was a Democratic candidate for governor in the 2018 California gubernatorial election.
'According to Mariutti's findings, the carbon intensity of solar panels manufactured in China and installed in European countries like Italy was off by an order of magnitude,' according to Environmental Progress.
A 2022 study by scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado determined that emissions per module produced were twice as high in China than in the US for crystalline silicon modules and some four times as high for Cadmium Telluride thin-film modules - a type of solar cell.
A Clean Energy Buyers Institute report also shared a stark warning about China gaining dominance in the PV industry.
Solar panels have become cheaper not because of improvements in technology, which were tiny, but because they are made by slave labor, Shellenberger said in 2022.
Research determined that if the nation grows in solar manufacturing, the world will see up to 18 billion tons more carbon emissions by 2040, which would all be related to the PV industry.
And the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that 'the world will almost completely rely on China for the supply of key building blocks for solar panel production through 2025.'
The US, Japan and Germany once dominated the solar panel manufacturing industry.
However, regulations on coal use pushed the three powerhouses behind, letting China, which does not have guidelines take the top spot.
Chinese firms rely on coal-powered electricity in Xinjiang to manufacture critical raw materials like polysilicon, a high-purity form of silicon.
Mariutti found a major issue with solar data is that those compiling research have 'been slow to recognize the displacement of the industry to China.'
The nation did not pick up speed in the industry until around 2016, but data collectors could only use estimates and models of emissions rather than concrete numbers.
'In 2014, they calculated the carbon intensity of PV energy as if the panels were made in Europe, with low-carbon energy,' Mariutti told Environmental Progress, referring to data compilers.
'By 2016 calculations started to appear as if the panels were made in China, i.e. supposedly with carbon-intensive energy.'
Mariutti found that calculations always sat around 20 to 40 gCO2/kWh, but the specific model or source was not revealed.
'Had they done the math right, it would come out at around 80 to 106 gCO2/kWh, and that's with important factors still left out,' claimed Mariutti.
The IEA told Environmental Progress that carbon footprint calculations for solar panel manufacturing do not account for silicon mining, toxic panel waste and the albedo effect.
The Albedo effect is when the highly reflective properties of dark-colored solar panels increase the greenhouse effect.
'According to the IEA, when taken into proper account, the first two factors alone could more than triple the 'payback period' for panels, i.e., the time before they become carbon neutral after installation,' Environmental Progress reports.
'Why is the IEA not being transparent about its sources and the gaps in the data?' asked Mariutti.
'A hasty transition to solar and other renewables without cast-iron proof of the benefits, all the while handing control to China, could be a huge error.'
Mariutti has been met with criticism about his claims.
Dr Marco Raugei, a leading researcher of emissions from renewable technologies at Oxford Brookes University, tweeted: 'We all used Chinese electricity mixes for c-Si PV. And we still got results nowhere near as high as you imply one would. So something is clearly off in your back-of-the envelope calculations.'
Among Maritutt's claims of carbon emissions, China has also come under fire for using slave labor in manufacturing plants.
The reason the Chinese have been able to make solar panels so cheaply is because they use Uighur Muslims that are housed in concentration camps, Shellenberger told the right-wing at a 2022 CPAC gathering in Australia.
In September, Shellenberger also told a congressional hearing in Washington that the US had a 'moral imperative' to stop importing solar panels from China.
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Ron DeSantis says even HE can't afford a Tesla and blasts Biden's push to put more EVs on the road
Ron DeSantis claimed during a speech unveiling his economic policies on Monday that he couldn't afford – and doesn't want – one of Elon Musk's Teslas.
The Florida Governor told supporters in New Hampshire that he wants to reverse President Joe Biden's policies that will force car companies to produce electric vehicles as part of a path toward green energy.
DeSantis claims that Biden's policies aimed at eliminating vehicle emissions only make the U.S. more reliant on China, which is where components required for these cars are coming from.
'Forcing people to do EVs, you know, I think it's a big mistake,' DeSantis said. 'First of all, a lot of Americans – they just don't want it. And I think that Tesla creates a really good product.'
He added: 'It's not necessarily something that I would be able to afford or want. But I get people like it.'
With a net worth of $1.17 million, according to 2022 state disclosures from June, a salary of more than $130,000 as Florida's governor and a lucrative book deal, it's very likely that DeSantis could, in theory, afford to purchase a Tesla.
Vehicles on Tesla's own website range from around $40,000 to upwards of $100,000 depending on model and customizations.
During his remarks on Monday, DeSantis praised Musk by claiming the CEO of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX wants to look toward using more natural resources in the U.S. and other friendly countries as an alternative to sourcing it from China.
When asked about Musk using the resources from China for his vehicles, DeSantis defended the man who hosted his campaign launch on Twitter earlier this year.
'Well, look, I think that if you ask him [Elon], I think he's acknowledged that we need to do more of the rare earth minerals here in the United States, or at least in countries that are not as adverse to us,' DeSantis claimed.
'So I certainly recognize that and I think that that's something that our China policy is going to look to address,' he added. 'That will take time, that's not going to happen tomorrow.'
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Mike O’Connor: I’ve had a gutful of being told by governments what’s good for me
Australia:
As a child, I would sit for hours with my grandmother on the wooden bench seats circling the main arena at the Ekka [agricultural show] and watch the sheepdog trials.
Occasionally, an errant sheep would prop and stubbornly refuse to be intimidated by the dog’s constant urging and cajoling, but in the end, the dog always won and the flock would allow itself to be herded into the pen.
We’ve become like the sheep at the Ekka – constantly herded, urged and cajoled into accepting positions that governments tell us are good for us without bothering to ask us what we think.
The latest victims of herding are Victorians, who with Dodgy Dan Andrews snapping at their heels, have been told that they can’t have a gas stove in their new house.
Anyone with an IQ exceeding their shoe size knows that this will have zero effect on the world’s environment – but don’t argue. Just do as you are told.
Farmers throughout the eastern states are being herded into submission by power companies threatening to compulsorily acquire sections of their land holdings to allow the construction of giant transmission towers on their properties.
The lines could be run underground but this would be more expensive, so sorry, we’re going to trash the value of your property because it’s cheaper for us that way.
Don’t argue. Just get out of the way as we march towards net zero.
Net zero will never happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this but the sheepdogs have worked themselves into an absolute frenzy, racing from one side of the paddock to the other as they herd us into the belief that we can attain the unattainable.
All that is required is a blind acceptance of the absurd.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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