Resisting Climate Hysteria

[basilio]

Full credit to Kohler and agree with your comments but one point sticks in my mind.

A rather long list of people who are not business analysts but who are instead technical experts on various aspects of all this have been saying for an extended period now that the approach being taken will not, cannot, achieve the stated aim.

So what's Kohler's magic secret?

What enables a business analyst to cut through where countless technical people have failed over a period of decades?

That isn't a personal gripe, it's a genuine curiosity.

To the issue itself, ignoring arguments about the importance or otherwise of reducing CO2 emissions and just assuming the need is real (to avoid getting bogged down in that argument), overall we're in one hell of a predicament that I'll summarise with a series of brief points:

Fossil fuels are not the sole source of emissions. Eg cement production releases CO2 regardless of what fires the kiln, then there's methane from various sources, oxides of nitrogen, and an assortment of man-made chemicals. Some of these are easy to eliminate, some there's no fix for at present.

Some uses of fossil fuels have no easy substitute. Aviation, some metal extraction processes, etc.

A very considerable volume of fossil fuel is consumed for purposes where alternatives are technically possible but in practice problematic, mostly due to economics.

Another considerable chunk of fossil fuel use is technically and economically replaceable but faces barriers on account of cultural preferences, ideology, politics, etc.

Another chunk is doable, faces no real barrier, but will happen only slowly for an assortment of economic and practical reasons.

There are things that work and can be proven to work but that do not scale due to technical or resource limitations. Most notably biofuels.

The problem is the whole thing's become ridiculously political. Anyone who points out a problem is promptly labelled as this or that, rather than listening to what they're saying, the reasons for it and considering what solutions are available. To the point it's effectively shut down any real, rational discussion of what needs to happen. One side insists everything's going fine when clearly it isn't, the other insists there's no problem to fix, and from there it's an endless argument.

Alan Kohler identifies a few key points which highlight the challenge to reaching net zero. For example the observation that trying to use the growing of forests to draw down sufficient CO2 to overcome the gap between "electrification of everything" and what can't be done this way.

If reducing greenhouse gas emissions was just a desirable but not essential outcome then all the issues you raise could be game breakers. That presupposes that the overwhelming scientific community is quite mistaken about the causes of global warming and more importantly what will be the inevitable result of it continuing.

Desperate necessity can overcome many very difficult problems. But we don't have desperate necessity and that may be require to just ensure survival let alone a reasonable life.

 

[JohnDe]

Looks like the SA Labor Premier is sick and tired of all the climate hysteria holding up gas projects.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has staged a stunning cross-border intervention to fast-track the stalled Narrabri gas project in NSW and taken aim at Instagram “eco purists” for opposing the fossil fuel and putting the transition to net-zero emissions at risk.​

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Mr Malinauskas will tell The Australian’s Energy Nation conference on Wednesday it is now time to bring the project online, with a nod to NSW Premier Chris Minns as a leader “equally cognisant” of the need for more domestic gas supply to achieve net-zero goals.​

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His condemnation of anti-gas activists comes as a major new report showed Anthony Albanese will miss his 62-70 per cent 2035 emissions target by at least three years and will undershoot Labor’s 2030 renewable energy target by 12 percentage points due to policy shortcomings and execution bottlenecks.​

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In his speech on Wednesday, Mr Malinauskas will condemn “Lock the Gate NIMBYs and the Greens who had been determined to block this (Narrabri) development”, while arguing anyone opposed to gas is against a renewables-dominated grid.​

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“The eco-purists that fill Instagram with screeds demanding an end to gas production should be careful what they wish for. And for the rest of us: are we going to let our energy policy be determined by the socials, or the science?” Mr Malinauskas will say, according to a draft copy seen by The Australian. “If there’s gas, this is the time to get it out of the ground. And Narrabri presents the most immediate and important opportunity for our nation to secure the domestic gas supply that our nation needs to navigate the energy transition ahead.”​

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Declaring the equation on gas is “simple”, Mr Malinauskas will say that “without gas there is no firming of our electricity system”. “And without firming, there are no renewables, let alone the 80 per cent renewable penetration we have in SA,” he will say. And to risk that at this moment in history, amidst the visible destruction of the natural world, truly beggars belief.”​

South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas stages stunning Narrabri gas intervention

 

[IFocus]

Looks like the SA Labor Premier is sick and tired of all the climate hysteria holding up gas projects.

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He was pretty clear about wanting gas for firming of renewables to increase renewable power and steel works at Whyalla

Sounded very sensible.

 

[Smurf1976]

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas

Suffice to say perhaps the biggest surprise to me will be if he doesn’t make a move to federal politics and become PM.

Just my thoughts based on having talked to him face to face. He’s a lot sharper than any other current Australian politician who comes to mind and his thinking clearly extends well beyond the borders of SA.

On the issue of energy, my observation is he's firmly in the "sustainability" camp but he's got little time for those who object based on hard line ideology, triviality or pure politics.

 

[JohnDe]

Trump's speech was interesting, one part reminded me of my early high school days, we were told that we were heading towards an ice age. And when I entered the workforce that morphed into global warming. I'm not saying any of those predictions were wrong, but maybe global climate is fluid and governed by more than just carbon in the air.

First, climate change. Trump skewered the UN on the consistency of so-called expert scaremongering that has become increasingly hysterical over time but rarely accurate. He pointed to the UN’s own 1982 declaration that “by the year 2000, climate change would cause a global catastrophe”. First, he said, it was “global cooling will kill the world, we have to do something, then they started saying global warming will kill the world, so then it started getting cooler, so they called it climate change. And so that way whether it goes higher or lower or whatever the hell happens, it’s climate change. It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion.”​

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Directly addressing the current leaders of the EU, Britain, Canada and Australia, Trump said: “And I’m telling you if you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail.”​