‘Reparations’: The Latest Ploy in the Climate Change Hustle
This is all about money. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of government handouts
STEPHEN MOORE
I’ve made the case in previous columns that the climate change movement is mostly a climate change hustle. Let’s be real. None of this is about changing the temperature of the Earth. Even the most naive environmental activist can’t really believe that building windmills and driving Teslas is going to cool the planet. This is all about money. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of government handouts.
That was never more blatantly transparent than at this year’s sham COP 27 climate conference in Egypt, which was attended by more than 20,000 delegates and activists from more than 100 countries. The only agreement that the delegates could reach was a hollow “commitment” from the rich Western nations — by that they mean the United States — to give “reparation” money to the poor nations of the world.
If you’ve never heard of this loony concept before, the theory is that America owes the rest of the world money for burning fossil fuels over the last hundred or so years.
Huh? These were the fossil fuels that provided America with the energy to save humanity from fascism and communism during World War I, World War II and the Cold War.
These energy sources are what have powered the industrial age, bringing light, heat and air conditioning. And they have powered our infrastructure, factories, an abundant food supply and a technology revolution. Add to that our drugs and vaccines, which have saved many hundreds of millions of lives globally.
It was the fossil fuel energy revolution of the last century that supplied America with the wealth and financial resources to provide some half a trillion dollars of disaster and foreign aid to seemingly every area of the rest of the world. And now, President Biden’s dunces are agreeing with foreigners that we owe them money? America should be getting reparation payments. Not the other way around.
Oh, and did I mention that China and India skipped out on the conference this year? These are by far the two largest polluting nations, and they want no part of this global handshake “agreement.” This would be like celebrating that we have reached a peace agreement during World War II, except the bad news is that Germany and Japan aren’t on board.
The sliver of good news here is that Republicans are about to run the House of Representatives, and one of their first policy declarations will be to declare we are not sending a penny of climate foreign aid to other nations when we have mammoth problems here to solve at home.
It’s almost sinister that at a time when many third-world countries lack basic health care, adequate food production, clean water, affordable/reliable electric power and basic schooling for the young (especially girls), the European and American delegation is giving sermons on the dangers of climate change.
With a fraction of the money the climate fanatics want to spend on green energy, the world could save millions of lives simply by ensuring the poor have access to clean drinking water and save millions of lives over the decades to come.
What all of this means is that America is under no moral or legal obligation to pay reparations to any nation. The United States is running a $1.2 trillion budget deficit, so there is no extra money in the bank vaults to spend right now on foreign aid. Perhaps when we’ve balanced the budget and we have surpluses. That would be around the third Wednesday of never.
https://www.nysun.com/article/reparations-the-latest-ploy-in-the-climate-change-hustle
******************************************************Green Energy Cabal Blind To Africa’s Medical Horror Show
Those discouraging the use of ‘fossil fuels’ in Africa in favor of wind and solar have played a direct role in high morbidity and mortality rates on the continent.
Homes without electricity for lights and refrigerators, businesses without sufficient power to improve productivity, and millions languishing in abject poverty — all due to a lack of energy that otherwise would be available from the much-demonized fuels of coal, oil and natural gas.
Approximately half of Africans cannot get electricity when they want it. Only 14.3 percent of people in the Central African Republic have access to electricity.
The combined production of power of 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa equals the production of a single western economy like Spain.
The most devastating effect of this energy poverty is felt in health care centers, 60 percent of which in sub-Saharan Africa do not have electricity. According to the United States Agency for International Development, 100,000 public health facilities in the region have no access to reliable electricity.
“In 2012, 150 babies on oxygen concentrators at a hospital in Jinja died after utility company UMEME Uganda Limited turned off the electricity with no prior notice. In 2015, Kiboga District Hospital was without power for over a month,” reports an article from the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development in Uganda.
“Doctors said they were unable to provide even basic first aid such as sutures because they could not sterilize tools,” the article continues. “Vaccines and blood went bad because of the lack of refrigeration. Laboratories could not perform diagnostic services without power. The maternity wing was in complete darkness, and Cesarean sections could not be performed. Mothers died on their way to the capital Kampala or private clinics to access emergency obstetric care.”
This situation is not unique to the sub-Sahara. Even the advanced economy of South Africa has faced regular power blackouts and load shedding due to mismanagement by the state utility ESKOM, whose policies are now influenced by the climate movement’s hostility to ‘fossil fuels’.
In South Africa, most of the 420 hospitals and 3,000 clinics – all state-run – do not have reliable backup generators.
The chairman of the South African Medical Association said, “(T)here is a huge possibility that vulnerable people going into (an operating room), having a child at a hospital or in ICU could face serious complications because of load shedding.”
One hospital in July put all surgeries on hold because of an unstable supply of electricity.
Doctors are using lights from their phones to perform surgeries and procedures in case of emergencies.
“In cases where there is a power outage, they will do their level best if they are in the middle of a procedure so that a patient can survive, especially when it is obvious that the patient’s life can be compromised if they don’t intervene and electricity won’t come back,” says Sibongiseni Delihlazo, spokesperson for the Democratic Nursing Organization of SA.
But why rely on backup when the state electricity utility ESKOM can utilize coal? Because ESKOM has committed to abandon coal in the name of ‘climate change’.
Africa’s crisis cannot be addressed without affordable and reliable energy. “Nearly $20 billion are required for universal electrification across Sub-Saharan Africa, with about $10 billion annually needed for West and Central Africa,” says Riccardo Puliti, World Bank vice president for infrastructure.
The problem is that new investments are being directed to expensive and unreliable wind and solar projects when coal is the obvious solution to Africa’s energy poverty.
The African Development Bank has stopped new fundings for coal projects. So have dozens of other aid agencies based in Europe and North America.
Africans need electricity now. Not someday in the future, after their chance to survive a hospital surgery is denied by a policy maker enamored with fanciful visions of a ‘carbon-free’ world.
https://principia-scientific.com/green-energy-cabal-blind-to-africas-medical-horror-show/
******************************************U.N. Can’t Quit The Climate Apocalypse
Michael Shellenberger
Last summer, scientists announced that they had discovered more coral on the Great Barrier Reef than at any other point in the 36 years since they started measuring it.
It was an awkward moment for those who had been prematurely proclaiming the Reef’s death for over three decades.
Well, the apocalyptic powers-that-be weren’t having it.
Yesterday, a United Nations report announced that science schmience, the Reef was “in danger” and had to be protected from… the Australians.
“The mission team concludes that the property is faced with major threats that could have deleterious effects on its inherent characteristics, and therefore meets the criteria for inscription on the list of World Heritage in danger,” said the U.N. report authors.
Declaring the Reef a “World Heritage in danger” is viewed by many Australians as a pretext for the U.N. to demand control over it.
Naturally, they objected to the U.N. designation.
“Yes, climate change is a risk to ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef,” said its environment minister, “but that means it’s a risk to every reef globally. There is no need to single the Great Barrier Reef out in this way.”
The U.N. is quickly turning into a Bond movie villain. It spreads misinformation about climate change.
It is trying to get rich nations to pay poor nations not to develop.
And it is trying to rapidly slash the use of nitrogen fertilizer around the world.
It’s enough to make one wonder what beneficial purpose the organization, beyond the Security Council, actually serves.
https://principia-scientific.com/u-n-cant-quit-the-climate-apocalypse/
*************************************************Australia: National cabinet walking a tightrope on energy policy
This week’s national cabinet meeting is one of the most dangerous gatherings of national leaders in recent times. Inexperienced in energy complexities, politicians and public servants could easily plunge the east coast of the nation into chaos, especially as the industrial relations legislation has destroyed business trust in the Albanese government. The first energy plan that was proposed, a price cap, may be rejected on the grounds of state opposition. But those state objections were almost irrelevant: the “cap” was a recipe for chaos.
Now a tax is being proposed on energy producers, where the revenue will somehow be diverted to help industrial and domestic consumers. That proposal has less risk and some advantages but again has the potential to create chaos. To help readers understand the dangers facing the nation I will first detail what is likely to happen if there is a price cap and then look at some of the potential repercussions of a tax.
I strongly urge all the ministers and public servants in the national cabinet to study the research work of Commonwealth Bank energy economist Vivek Dhar, which I have found invaluable.
Each east coast state is different. We start with NSW. Purely on the basis of cash production costs, and ignoring their enormous capital costs, renewables are the cheapest form of energy. Accordingly, in a price cap regime, as the lowest cash cost source of electricity, renewables will take the first slab of demand – assuming the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.
On the basis of a proposed cap of between $11 and $13 a gigajoule, the next lowest cost level is gas-fired power stations. Unless there is some form of complex quota, gas power stations will therefore run flat out as a baseload operation, creating gas shortages.
Then comes black coal generators which, because of the gas price cap, suddenly become the highest cost power provider. But black coal power generation needs constant output and is extremely expensive and dangerous if it is forced to be the swing producer. It is a recipe for chaos in the generation of power in NSW. Queensland will be affected in a similar way but not as severely. Then comes poor old Victoria and its infamous energy policy, partly based on preserving ALP inner city lower house seats.
Victoria is more dependent on gas than any other east coast state, and the energy regulator says that Bass Strait will go into steep decline in about three years. Woodside and Exxon are prepared to spend large sums trying to extend the output for a few more years.
The WA-based Woodside has been blunt: if there is a low price cap that money will not be spent. Victoria can swing.
Victorian government politicians scoff and demand that gas should be piped down from Queensland and NSW at the low cap price. It’s nonsense, of course. Even if such a supply is legislated, the pipe network was designed to send gas north, not south and although changes can be made to improve the “south delivery”, there will be a massive shortfall for Victoria – especially as NSW and Queensland power stations will be absorbing as much gas as possible.
Daniel Andrews’ decision not to develop Victoria’s large onshore gas fields which don’t require fracking has worked: there was no green decimation of ALP inner-city seats in the recent election.
Without the Woodside/Exxon “rescue” expenditure, Victoria has the choice of developing its onshore gas or suffering huge shortfalls in about three years’ time, when the next election is due. The inner-city green seat issue remains. Victorians voted against gas development, so can’t complain if they are hit hard by the repercussions of any price cap.
The alternative of a profits tax creates even greater complexity.
Any extra profits-tax calculation somehow or other must adjust for different cost structures in different areas. It is highly likely to put out of business the wrong energy producers. And again, almost certainly, Woodside will tell the government to jump into Bass Strait if taxes are boosted.
And then comes the issue of who in the community receives the “subsidy” benefit funded by the tax. Small business is probably the most likely to benefit, but the industrial legislation has an employment definition that is problematic and will not stop carnage. It is possible the distribution of the tax will be based on a green agenda. There may be a delay between revenue collection and money distribution, which will hit both enterprises and consumers.
There is no way anyone will be happy. To try and sort out this mess we must start with the basics.
If the politicians and public servants in Canberra are prepared to do their homework between now and the cabinet meeting, they will discover that the ideal way to operate a non-nuclear power system like Australia is to have renewables and coal providing the base power loads. Gas and hydro cater for demand swings. Over time the coal runs down, replaced by extra renewables, including hydro.
And in time gas will be reduced by batteries, extra hydro and other means. Carbon-based power generators can be encouraged to engage in regeneration agriculture and growing saltbush and other plants whose root systems store carbon in the soil.
Of course, even better, maybe we boost power supplies via smaller nuclear power units — but that is hard for politicians to endorse. Nevertheless, their back is to the wall and nuclear technology is improving. The old waste problems are rapidly diminishing.
But again, there is no trust because of industrial relations. So where there is lack of trust combined with inexperience there is grave danger of a total mess.
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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
