What has all that investment in renewables actually bought us?

(Anthony Pagano/USGS via AP)

For decades now we have been inundated with propaganda that insists we move away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives.

The hysteria has been escalating ever since Al Gore rebranded himself the Global Warming Ambassador at Large with the release of An Inconvenient Truth. What had been a constant but relatively muted refrain from the Left became a unstoppable roar that has only increased in volume. We have been treated to lectures about biofuels from switchgrass (remember that–never happened), the new hydrogen future (never happened), solar, wind, and unicorn farts all powering the future.

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We are called to save the sinking islands (they are fine), save the polar bears (they are plentiful), and stop the hurricanes from killing us all (deaths from weather events have been declining for decades). We are warned of the apocalypse, inconvenienced and enraged by activists who pour out milk, throw soup at art, glue themselves to every available surface, and scream constantly about “science” as if having tantrums is how science is done.

We have even been forced to listen to a socially awkward and incredibly irritating teenager berate us while dispensing wisdom about our energy future. Our media industry, which used to entertain and inform us, now spends vast amounts of time irritating and insulting us while demanding our dollars and taking away our autonomy.

In one sense this has worked. Trillions of dollars have been poured into investments in “renewable energy.” Vast fortunes have been made by grifters willing to pocket the money being thrown at them for building useless junk. Power has accumulated into few hands.

In another sense this has been a giant waste of time and energy: despite constraining our access to energy from fossil fuels, the energy mix has not changed even a little bit over the decades. Statistically speaking there has been no change over the decades in the amount of energy being consumed that was generated by fossil fuels.

None.

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How can $3.8 trillion buy you nothing? Well, it hasn’t bought exactly nothing. It has bought you a bunch of useless crap while also doing exactly what it is intended to do: transfer great amounts of wealth to the friends and families of powerful people and transfer huge amounts of power into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats who are gaining control over every aspect of our lives.

The war on fossil fuels is only nominally about green energy. By that I don’t mean that the average activist doesn’t believe in the coming apocalypse. They do. Decades of propaganda has convinced a lot of people that the only way to save Gaia and all life on earth is to tear down our economy, live like ants, eat crickets for lunch, and glue oneself to walls. Nobody has tantrums like that without believing in their cause. Who else would willingly humiliate themselves and others like this?

But the powerful people blowing these big bucks? They don’t believe a word of it. While children deface great art and economists complain that they literally haven’t been given a pot to piss in as they remain glued to the floor, the powers-that-be are flying in private planes, traveling in trains of SUVs, and living the high life as they become millionaires and billionaires. They buy luxury homes with the carbon footprint of a small third world country with a room dedicated exclusively to counting the cash they are raking in. Harrison Ford, a rabid climate change propagandist, literally hops in his plane to fly to his favorite burger joint. At least he used to before become a menace in the pilot’s seat.

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President Obama, who warned about rising sea levels wiping out our coastlines, bought an oceanside estate after leaving the White House. Pretty much everybody in the political elite lives in an area that will be flooded by sea level rise and battered by worsening hurricanes if the climate change predictions proved to be true. Yet they live in zillion dollar estates in the danger area payed for by money they collect while warning of impending doom.

It is a scam. A fraud. A confidence game. Watch what they do, not what they say. The nation’s capitol is right on the ocean and every single one of these people is desperate to rule from there.

Ironically there is actually good climate research out there, and genuine and reasonable scientists believe we have something to be concerned about. I follow the actual scientific research closely to search out the signals from the noise. The Earth and the human race are in no imminent danger–after all, the earth has been much much warmer at times and in those times life has flourished. No mass extinction is in the works from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We even pump it into greenhouses to improve yields and speed growth because plants absolutely love it, and at these levels animals aren’t bothered by it. It is, at higher levels than this, a trace gas.

But CO2 does play a role in climate as a greenhouse gas, and it makes sense to keep track of it and see what possible effects it may have so we can adapt to any possible changes. Were I a climate scientist I would be furious at the ignorant and harmful caterwauling of the activists and politicians who make genuine science on the subject nearly impossible. Grant dollars follow ideology, science communication has been corrupted to the point of worthlessness, and reasoned discourse has become impossible.

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As with everything else these days, politics and rhetoric have replaced the search for truth and rational policy discussions. Our leaders are con men, the American people are being scammed, and power and money are being concentrated into the hands of the few.

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David Strom 7:10 PM | October 15, 2024
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