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King Canute (1016-1035) might get my vote as the greatest ever English monarch. He’s got tough competition, I admit; and from the ladies, including the current one, as well as the odd man. But he takes the cake for me with his seaside demonstration.
Realism and modesty befit a leader and stand him or her, and the populace in tow, in good stead. Churchill was a bit like that when it mattered. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” he said in first speech to parliament as prime minister in May 1940. Contrast that with Hitler thinking he could fight a war on two fronts or Hirohito thinking he could take on the American war machine. Look at the misery they brought down on their own people.
More recently, George W Bush thought he could democratise Iraq and Afghanistan. Look at the way that turned out. Obama, the ultimate delusional narcissist, thought he could stop the oceans rising (Canute’s demonstration is especially apt). Trump, in his naivety, thought he could drain the swamp. He needed a much bigger pump.
This brings me to the current crop of Western world leaders, and I’ll throw in the Pope and the Prince (Charles) for good measure, all of whom could do with taking a lead from good King Canute, including our Scott Morrison, who I will single out a little. Though to be fair, in singling him out, I know that he blows with the wind and is simply a reluctant bedfellow of his more fanatical international peers.
Net Zero is the chimeric goal. That this is completely unachievable is by the way. Add an extra nought or two to whatever damage you think might be wrought in its forlorn quest. Also, add into the background Xi Jinping chortling away.
Of course, the Murdoch press and the BCA are now true believers giving additional cover for Morrison’s desperate flight from solid coal to nebulous hydrogen. There was much celebration among lefties at this news. Sinners seeing the light, as it were.
What does Rupert think? I suppose the Murdoch press in Australia has something called editorial independence. This can work when adults can be hired to report the news. But what happens when only infantile minds are available. Then you get what we got. My theory is that for every sinister-minded George Soros and Klaus Schwab et al there are thousands upon thousands of mindless drones following the script. And their numbers grow in the media as the universities churn them out.
Foremost, whatever the fog of propaganda, we should keep three things alive in our adult minds. The first is the premise upon which the climate-change creature has been built — that the natural climate with all of its complexity can be modelled. It can’t.
The second is the output of modelling which points to catastrophic man-made global warming. This is a tenuous hypothesis in search of proof. All of its predictions have thus far fallen flat – extreme weather, floods, droughts, drowning islands, unbearable temperatures, the end of snow etc., etc.
The third is the culmination of the hustle: A gigantic edifice of money-sucking carpetbagging which claims that no taxpayer dime should be spared to save the planet. Consider the sheer implausibility of a modest increase in a trace gas — which has been in far higher concentrations in the distant past, and whose only noticeable effect so far has been to beneficially green the planet — creating unimaginable havoc. All told, we in the midst of collective madness.
Can this madness be combatted? No. Madness is not susceptible to reason. We simply have to hope that it’s episodic and that the damage done before it ends is not irretrievable. Which brings me to the new great green hope, hydrogen. I recently paid to watch the great white hope Tyson Fury again whup Deontay Wilder. We’ll all have to pay a lot more to get green hydrogen anywhere near within cooee of the ring. The basic problem is that it’s not an idea whose time has come. It’s an idea whose time has been artificially pressed into service to attempt to solve the unsolvable.
I read an article a few days ago coming out of London, which inadvertently got to the nub of the issue. The author Jacquelin Magnay wrote, “the wind farms peppered along the Danish, Dutch, German and British horizons have been unable to generate reliable energy supplies or bolster stocks.” Bolster stocks, hey; pray tell how would they do that?
Electricity isn’t like oil or coal or gas. You can’t store it. You need to produce it when you need it. Sure, you can put a bit into batteries; a very little bit. If (if) you have pumped hydro around you could pump water uphill when you have excess electricity. Even then, how long would that power towns and industries when the wind remains still?
Hydrocarbon fuels have distinct advantages. They are the energy. They are dense energy. They can be transported and stockpiled. Petroleum has so much energy per volume and weight that it can be funnelled into a small onboard tank and propel a vehicle full of passengers or freight for hundreds of miles. To say it is amazing is grossly understating the case. Without hydrocarbon fuels we would still be in caves.
Energy density, portability and storage, how do you get that in a renewables’ world? By definition you can’t dig it up. You have to make it. Enter hydrogen. Not because it’s obvious. But because what else is there? Nothing!
And to make things worse only blue hydrogen and green hydrogen will do. And blue’s not so hot for greenies. It’s produced from hydrocarbons, say, natural gas. It becomes ‘blue’, rather than grey, as a result of the CO2 emissions being captured and sequestered. That’s expensive. Moreover, an article I read in The Conversation (I know, pathetic) points to research showing that methane leakages from the process “make blue hydrogen 20 per cent worse for the climate than just using fossil gas.” Whether that’s true or not, it’s clear that Twiggy Forest, Dominic Perrottet, Morrison and company in Australia are all in for green. They believe, as do their counterparts abroad, that they can outdo others in becoming an international hydrogen producing and exporting powerhouse. The Dunning-Kruger effect in gas production!
Green Hydrogen needs lots of excess wind and solar electricity to run electrolysis plants. Therefore, it needs lots more wind and solar farms. It needs lots of water. And lots of excess wind and solar electricity to purify the water before it undergoes electrolysis. Likely more green electricity to convert hydrogen to ammonia for transportation and more to convert it back again.
Technologically it can and is being done. Scale is the issue. It is a mistake to think that what is feasible on a micro-scale is feasible on a macro-scale. Yes, I could chop up my Chippendale dining table and chairs to heat my living room. (To be clear, sadly I don’t have any Chippendale.)
Maybe technological advancements will make the production of green hydrogen on a mass scale feasible. I don’t know. But neither does anybody else. Why then would you bet the future of the world on it? Why would you stop digging and drilling for reliable proven direct energy and depend on some future unknown technologies to make energy indirectly from the wind and sun? You would only do that if you believed that the world is overheating and you can stop it. Once you believe that, derivative delusional thoughts and actions follow.
Canute would have had his courtiers leave him tied to his throne by the water’s edge, if he’d believed he could stop the incoming tide. He would have drowned. Only him. Our whole civilisation is on course to being drowned by sinister forces, by Marxist greenies, by governments, by corporates and by the media, while being cheered on by useful idiots in posh inner-city suburbs. Hold on to your hats, and diesel generator if you have one.
To be fair to Canute, he ran that demonstration to humiliate the fawning courtier who told him ‘If you commit to net zero, we can stop the oceans rising’.
Peter, I think its time you re-thought your position on “Marxist Greenies.” They are currently as relevant as Jeremy Crobyn and Bernie Sanders. Have a look at the Technocracy movement and globalist billionaire oligarchs. They are hiding in plain sight.
“Western civilisation is on course to being drowned by sinister forces, by Marxist greenies, by governments, by corporates and by the media,”
…and Islam, and the anti-white, multi-culti/indigenous crowd.
As Peter says madness is not susceptible to reason bit if you can restrain or replace the mad people steering the ship towards the rocks then that might be a start.
Bear in mind that not all the zero emissions crowd are mad – some are greedy for money, power and political and social influence.
I suggest that Australians might not be able to save the world from the Green Agenda but they can save their country if they have the will to do it.
(Likewise it’s up to other citizens in other countries to save themselves!)
I suggest that citizens who don’t want a bar of the Zero Emissions agenda identify their local politicians who are going along with it and replace them smartly.
Either redirect you vote and financial support to a minor party or local a man or woman of competence and integrity to represent you as a Citizens Independent MP.
The Green Agenda crowd have the big names and media support but you real and quiet Australians who can plainly see an oncoming disaster have the numbers.
Australia seems to have its fair share of natural disasters but every time we see decent citizens trying to clear up the damage and help those affected.
The last thing Australia needs is this foolish campaign which will lead to social and economic disaster.
So save the country and save yourselves!
There is a ‘Club of Rome’ redux feel to all of this catastrophising but this time the madness has metastasised from a loony academia into capture by serious technocratic money. Instead of a food-producing technocratic revolution putting an end to Malthusian crazies theorising in academia as happened in the 70’s, the rapacious technocrats of unnecessary ‘new energy’ are selling us snake-oil with a world-wide compliant media and political chicanery. ScoMo has obviously made a deal with the deep green Boris/Biden interests to get protection and some subs and I wish he’d at least come clean on that. Climate change madness, based on an unfalsifiable hypothesis and supported by confected data, is growing and will have to die hard, pulling down whole countries and economies, before it ends, as it inevitably must. Currently, it is accompanied by a religious fervor about salvation of the planet.that will brook no opposition. I think Australia had best go nuclear to avoid the worst of it. We can always go back to coal and oil when the madness collapses. Germany has shown it’s easy to disable nuclear power plants, so that’s an option if we decide later when the madness subsides that we prefer the old fossil-fuel ways best.
Thanks for putting the gist of it all so clearly, Peter.
“I suggest that Australians might not be able to save the world from the Green Agenda but they can save their country if they have the will to do it.”
Count me in Maic, a solid protest vote might help but probably won’t overturn anything. Best we can do is get signed up under at-home protest and do what the rest of them do; ignore whatever it is that the UN want us to do, and keep ourselves nicely afloat on coal and oil while wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes.
A big information campaign on the impossibility of Net Zero without cave-dwelling might help too.
From my viewpoint in the UK, I can tell you that people are waking up, spirit slowly but painfully, for to gas and petrol/diesel shortages, to just how much hydrocarbons underpin our comfortable lives.
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I say “hydrocarbons” rather than “fossil fuels” because they are not just used for fuel. Which preopler are also slowly waking up to.
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Perfect timing for the COP 26 “Zoom’’s not good enough for us” gabfest that delegates are jetting in for..
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The deflection and diversion attempts are frantic, Brexit etc being blamed. But truck driver shortages are international (even USA afflicted by it now) and the gas shortages are Europe wide.
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I don’t think Australia really understands the truck thing since all international trade is by sea or air, but in UK up to 80% at times comes in by truck
“I don’t think Australia really understands the truck thing since all international trade is by sea or air, but in UK up to 80% at times comes in by truck”
Tricone, some of us get trucks. Everything moved from and to the 8 or so major ports moves by truck or rail.
Over 30 years of pointing all this out has clearly made no difference. That too was forecast.
Voting ? Not if we are offered only the same policies by either major side. Voting for minor Senate parties ? A combined Lib/ALP Senate vote will destroy that.
I’d considered Peter Smith’s end suggestion of a diesel/petrol generator under the house some 5-6 years ago. An automatic start when the power drops is a requisite. Guaranteed fuel supply is another, as is refuelling it each still winter night. The most likely destructive regulation will be imposed local council noise limits, though.
The list of countries purchasing Newcastle/Bowen thermal on long term contracts is now well known. Closing Aus mines will cause grief to their power grids as Aus fuel qualities, fuel costs and reliability of supply are not replicated elsewhere. I do think this is the unspoken but major motive behind the UN push to close Aus mines. A twofer …
Activists have ruined energy supply reform (which is the actual crux of climate action) by presenting claims that are either wildly exaggerated or the opposite of what the scientists are saying. Reform this huge needs a comprehensive roadmap with realistic targets based on current technology. Instead, the activists present the same old slogans over and over again, and have disastrously spooked governments into inserting wildly inappropriate wind and solar into a 24/7 dispatchable grid. What we have had so far is the Anti-Plan, a mish-mash of incorrect science, slogans and future technology dreams so incompetent and infantile that even children are taken seriously when policy is being considered. It’s time for competent adults to devise a realistic plan for the next 50-100 years, that also includes a forgotten group – the six billion of so poor and disadvantaged whose countries barely have electric power, let alone potential green hydrogen capability and fast EV charging points on every corner by 2030.
The first duty of COP26 is to kick out the scientifically illiterate activists and RE subsidy groupies, and ensure that adult experts are set the task of devising a real plan that slowly transitions to other energy sources.
When asked by the (young) Newscorp customer service person why I was cancelling my subscription to the local paper, I told him it had become so woke as to be unbearable. He seemed genuinely surprised and confused. We have a long way to go.
And there it is, on the front page the very next day. Cassandra, I understand.
The Aus export mines will not be closed. The products just cannot be used domestically. The hard currency earned from these exports cannot be eschewed, though.
Labelling this as hypocrisy is pointless. For that to have any effect presumes an ability on the part of the hypocrites to feel shame, and it’s very clear that doesn’t exist.
And on this topic, the MSM hype is that “fossil fuels, hydrocarbons” are being starved of capital loans by Big Capital. There are quite a few of these loan consortiums (many, in fact) that are quietly commissioning DD’s on these various projects in Aus. My current experience here shows that.
Yes, the ideology of the Marxist greenies is bad for Western Civ, material abundance, and human flourishing generally. And in my view, so is the multiculturalist ideology. Ditto the “idea” that everyone is equal to all others in all respects -and if they aren’t, then government money and legislation must make it so. Bad too is the ideology that mothering and family homemaking in the context of heterosexual marriage must be discouraged. Indeed, all ideas and policies that do not encourage personal choice and self-sufficiency in the context of contributory citizenship are barriers to proper human flourishing.
So many good comments following this very good PS analysis.
However if we look for a cause of our Climate capitulation in the last term of the Federal Government then it is obviously PM Scott Morrison. To my mind this former marketing man and friendly neighborhood BBQ [and curry] specialist has no apparent political values except some personal survival cunning.
To repeat he might be a great neighbour and good family man but it is illuminating that outgoing PM Malcolm Turnbull made every effort to install him SM rather than Peter Dutton. I also recall that Turnbull’s effort was supported by several letters in The Oz from the green lobbyist who has so much influence over the Moderates in the Liberal Party.
Since gaining office Morrison has had no apparent influence in balancing the constant prolific ABC agenda for climate catastrophism and this is where the battle has been lost. His captain’s choice of the Ita Buttrose for the ABC proves that he is clueless about Conservative values or even fairness.
Please someone organise a Liberal Party spill to replace Morrison who has been no better than the disastrous Turnbull. Please save Australia from Morrison.
As an individual what can one do about all this. I decided to use my expertise and get the data out there on the state of our electrical system.
https://www.spasmodicenergy.com/Pages/Home.aspx
It does not argue whether climate change is real or not but more to the point whether the solutions are viable. It uses 10 years of hourly data and produces many charts showing aspects of our system on the eastern grid of Australia. As it is overseas this shows clearly that we are headed for exactly the same disaster and probably much worse. The reason is we have nothing to fall back on when our electrical system collapses. Coal is closing because the finance is not there and it is so disapproved of. We have reached the point of no return and will be in a lot of trouble of the next 10 years. At least that’s what I see.
The website is there for others to use you may want to write articles and I offer to create a web page to support on request if there is not one suitable.
And yes I have a home generator sufficient in size to keep the whole house running which will automatically cut in if needed. One last point my email address can be found in any page help pop-up.
Fossil fuels are a genuine miracle. Relatively little work is required to make their energy available, and the work that they are then capable of achieving is enormous. Without them life would be almost impossible. There is no other way for us to harness large amounts of usable energy to do work, than to use fossil fuel. Entropy makes sure of this. Wind and solar are too diffuse to convert their energy into work in any meaningful way. The green dream is nothing more than a perpetual motion machine.