Obama and other Western political leaders keep saying that Climate Change is the biggest threat to modern society. I am coming around to agree with him, but not in the way he is thinking. I mean there is fresh evidence that we can defeat radical Islam, but we are already losing to radical environmentalism.
The Environmentalist Game Plan
Mission: Deindustrialize Civilization
Goal: Drive industrial corporations into Bankruptcy
Strategy: Cut off the Supply of Cheap, Reliable Energy
Tactics:
- Raise the price of fossil fuels
- Force the power grid to use expensive, unreliable renewables
- Demonize Nuclear energy
- Spread fear of extraction technologies such as fracking
- Increase regulatory costs on energy production
- Scare investors away from carbon energy companies
- Stop pipelines because they are too safe and efficient
- Force all companies to account for carbon usage and risk
Progress:
- UK steel plants closing their doors.
- UK coal production scheduled to cease this year.
- US coal giant Peabody close to shutting down.
- Smaller US oil companies going bankrupt in record numbers.
- Etc.
Collateral Damage:
- 27,000 extra deaths in UK from energy poverty.
- Resource companies in Canada cut 17,000 jobs last month.
- Etc.
For more info on progress see: http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/terence-corcoran-clean-green-and-catastrophic
Summary:
Radical environmentalism is playing the endgame while others are sleeping, or discussing the holes in the science. Truly, the debate is over (not ever having happened) now that all nations are signing up to the Paris COP doctrine. Political leaders are willing, even enthusiastic dupes, while environmentalist tactics erode the foundations of industrial society. Deaths and unemployment are unavoidable, but then the planet already has too many people anyway.
ISIS is an immediate threat, but there is a deeper and present danger already doing damage to the underpinnings of Life As We Know It. It is the belief in Climate Change and the activists executing their game plan. Make no mistake: they are well-funded, well-organized and mean business.
Science Matters 
Reblogged this on Climatism.
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I find this post distressing in many ways.
I am an environmentalist. I’ve been actively involved in environmental activism for 44 years now, and counting, in my professional work as an anthropologist and archaeologist, as a dedicated volunteer, as a founding member of Earth First!, as an organizer of local environmental groups and as a participant in international environmental campaigns.
Nowhere and nowhen in my environmental career have I encountered the above outlined mission, goals and objectives of “radical” environmentalism. These characteristics are made up from whole cloth by someone who is not a radical environmentalist and has no connection with radical environmentalism.
Furthermore, radical environmentalism is not an actor who can “Raise the price of fossil fuels; Force the power grid to use expensive, unreliable renewables; Increase regulatory costs on energy production; Scare investors away from carbon energy companies; and/or Force all companies to account for carbon usage and risk”.
The Mission of radical environmentalism, if there is such a thing, is to save what little biodiversity, natural habitat and viable non-human species that remain on this planet from the rapacious consumption and environmental degradation brought about by modern industrial corporate capitalism. The continued presence of the natural world is necessary for itself, not for human profit, consumption and recreation. Thus, radical environmentalists seek to limit those destructive systems of human civilization, if that’s what it is, in order to protect and preserve remaining natural habitat and the native species therein.
“Life As We Know It” is not just human life. Humans are but one of many species on this Earth. In order for all to thrive, we must learn to control our cultural systems in order to limit our impact on all other species. That is radical enough!
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Thanks for commenting. I appreciate your reasonable position, and I agree that humans must act responsibly toward other creatures. As I say in the post, I am distressed at the above tactics so clearly in process, and so little justified by science or reason.
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Hi Ron. Thanks for your response.
The above tactics are indeed taking place, but they are not the result of radical environmentalism. These are the tactics of globalized corporate capitalism, and its purveyors who seek to maximize profits from the consumption of natural resources, without responsibility for the resultant environmental destruction.
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malan, on the site where I argue climate change, there are people who talk about blowing up coal-fired power plants.
I quite honestly don’t know where you get your definition of ‘radical.’ I also don’t understand why you choose to believe that anyone arguing against radicalised environmentalists are only talking about human life when they argue that there must be a better way without putting tens of millions of people into poverty (and, by extension, into position to freeze to death in the dark).
Perhaps you could explain to me why 20 square kilometers of forest got wiped out in Denmark for the construction of a wind-power facility. Or why the Ivanapah solar site is only producing 40% of the power it was claimed it produced, while roasting a bird every two minutes since it went online. Or why they are clear-cutting forests in the US to ship to the Drax power plant in England. Or why CSS is proving to be such a piss-poor technology, costing 40% of a powerplants output while raising people’s energy prices.
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Hello Climateotter:
What is your name? I prefer to correspond with real people with real names.
The fact is that human “civilization” is outstripping the Earth’s capacity by some 5-7 Earths every year. This cannot continue. Non-human species cannot change this, only humans can change they we live to be in accord with natural limitations on all species.
There is one simple explanation for your four examples of environmental degradation: increased corporate profits.
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Hello Malan. I keep my name private because I prefer to not be hounded by the radicals you claim do not exist.
I also note that ALL the corporations involved in the destruction I noted above, are all GREEN.
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Ignorance is quite blissful for the self righteous. Milan seems very blissful, if not down right smug. The assumptions that under pin his argument have been disproven since Malthus. We are not destroying Earth. We are not out stripping the Earth’s resources. We are not destroying biodiversity. And it is long past time to stand up to the thugs and their enablers.
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hunter (sic) sez: “We are not destroying Earth. We are not out stripping the Earth’s resources. We are not destroying biodiversity.”
United Nations Environment Programme sez: “Human activities contributing to land degradation include unsuitable agricultural land use, poor soil and water management practices, deforestation, removal of natural vegetation, frequent use of heavy machinery, overgrazing, improper crop rotation and poor irrigation practices.”
“Global biodiversity is being lost at a rate many times higher than that of natural extinction due to land conversion, climate change, pollution, unsustainable harvesting of natural resources and the introduction of exotic species.”
“Increasing water demand has been caused by population growth, industrial development and the expansion of irrigated agriculture.”
“Marine and coastal degradation is caused by increasing pressure on both terrestrial and marine natural resources, and on the use of the oceans to deposit wastes. Population growth and increasing urbanization, industrialization and tourism in coastal areas are root causes of this increased pressure.”
“Since the industrial revolution, the concentration of CO2, one of the major greenhouse gases, in the atmosphere has increased significantly, contributing to the greenhouse effect known as ‘global warming’. The increase is largely due to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and to a lesser extent land-use change, cement production and biomass combustion.”
“The accumulation of people, their consumption patterns, travel behaviour and their urban economic activities impact the environment in terms of resource consumption and waste discharges.”
“In an unprecedented period of population increase, the environment has been heavily drawn upon to meet a multiplicity of human needs. In many areas, the state of the environment is much more fragile and degraded than it was in 1972.”
Click to access synthesis.pdf
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I guess you never experienced modern communist life. I have, and I thoroughly hated it. Which leads me to suggest you try moving to North Korea or Cuba for a few months.
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Tone, Fernando. Malan is not the enemy. He just needs to disavow the radicals in his tribe, as Patrick Moore has done.
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Fernando and Ron: I am indeed not the enemy, nor am I a follower of communism. This is a red herring that has nothing to do with discussion about radical environmentalism.
I do not disavow radical environmentalism, as I am defined by other as such as well. I embrace the radical analysis of global corporate capitalism as the source of environmental degradation. This does not make me a communist, as communism is no less destructive of the natural world than capitalism. It is industrialism and unrestrained growth and consumption that is the proximate cause.
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Ignorance is quite blissful for the sek righteous.
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Yes, I am ” morally justifiable or right, esp from one’s own point of view”.
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‘Yes, I am ” morally justifiable or right, esp from one’s own point of view”.’
So was the Unabomber, malan. And there will be quite a few more like him coming thanks to radicalized environmentalism. I hope you are ready to accept the guilt over what they do.
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Malan, I disagree. The tactics are done by people thinking they are saving the planet. Well intentioned or not, they are on the wrong track. The ecomodernists have got it right IMO:
“The Ecomodernist Manifesto promises a much needed reformation in the green movement. Its 95 theses should be nailed to the door of the Vatican when the pope’s green-tinged encyclical comes out next month, because unlike the typical eco-wail, it contains good news for the poor. It says: no, we are not going to stop you getting rich and adopting new technologies and leaving behind the misery of cooking over wood fires in smoky huts with no artificial light. No, we do not want you to stay as subsistence farmers. Indeed, the quicker we can get you into a city apartment with a car, a phone, a fridge and a laptop, the better. Because then you won’t be taking wood and bushmeat from the forest.”
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/ecomodernist-critiques-the-encyclical/
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Oh no! Eco(sic)modernism! Run away, run away!
There is nothing ecological about Eco(sic)modernism. This is a bankrupt philosophy that ignores ecology and well know relationships in ecosystems, and pretends that humans can disconnect growth and development from its environmental consequences to the rest of the natural world.
Eco(sic)modernism is the most dangerous mode of thinking, if that’s what it is, which I doubt, to come down the pike in a long time. Fortunately, it has little traction as it is easily refuted by a first year ecology student. Where do Eco(sic)modernists think city apartments, cars and car infrastructure, phones and telecommunications infrastructure, fridges, laptops and the resources and energy to run them all comes from in the first place?
More is more, not less.
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I too am an environmentalist. However I have experienced green fraud and the delusional fear of CO2 first hand. Greens claim to love humanity but it’s people they hate.
This is my story. Make of it what you will.
Click to access the-turitea-wind-farm-a-journey-through-a-labyrinth-of-lies.pdf
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…curse auto correct on smart phones…”self righteous”
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So the answer then is for the world’s poor to stay in their huts. Hungry, ignorant and practising 100% birth control. Obviously then, this is how Malan lives. He’s not a radical. He just wants to save the world by denying the world’s people any and all economic opportunity. He’s not a Socialist but like all Socialists he wants to control people and rejects the idea that people should have freedom to determine the kind of life they live. Thanks to modern science and industry we have record world food stocks and birth control. By about 2050 the world’s population should peak and then slowly drop. It may not be soon enough for Malan but most of the environmental damage is done by the desperately poor. Most of what’s good is done by the industrial world. The consumer economy is another matter. But I guess it’s tough to tell millions of individuals what to do and not do.
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Hi John:
Please do not attempt to speak for me or tell others how I live, what I am, or what I want to do. That’s for me to say, not for anyone else, especially those who do not know me.
I disagree that “most of the environmental damage is done by the desperately poor.” Exxon is not desperately poor. Monsanto is not desperately poor. The United States military-industrial complex is not desperately poor. Donald Trump is not desperately poor.
In a world of 7 billion people striving to outdo each other in consumption and waste production, everyone contributes to most of the environmental damage.
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Malan, you seem quite comfortable telling everyone else their motives and prescribing how they should live. You seem to fit right in with the emerging climate imperialism.
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Take a look at the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. One side is carpeted with trees, the other is laid waste. Guess which country is desperately poor.
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Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
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Malabar does not seem able to accept a critical review of his dogma. Quoting vested interests but not addressing the basic point, that declarations of of doomsday have been abjectly wrong, is not hidden, no matter the length of the argument by authority the defense may quote.
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Interesting. Not a single mention of population. World population was about 2 billion when I was born. I expect to see 8 billion before I depart. That is roughly a doubling every 40 years. That implies 16 billion by 2060. Impossible! Yes. Food wars will happen. Disarm the western societies might reduce the damage to the planet. The coming cold will do the rest. I look on it as evolution. Good luck for the future.
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Richard, thanks for commenting. You know, if we were still hunter-foodgatherers we would still be very few in number. But we learned to farm, and to modify crops to be more bountiful. And so larger populations could be sustained.
You forget that people are not only consumers, their Imaginations and efforts are also an expanding resource. Humans are the one resource able to create physical resources. Yes, the human resource is what the doomsayers discount.
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Humans do not create physical resources. This is the mistaken view of the ecomodernists. Humans consume physical resources, treat them as commodities, pretend their use and consumption comes at no cost, and think that there are no natural limitations to human consumption and waste production.
This turns out not to be the case.
The Earth is finite. Resources are finite and required by all species of life on this planet, not just humans. Regardless of the number of humans alive at any one moment, there is a physical limit to human consumption. Exceeding that limit affects all life on this planet.
Imagination and effort of not trump natural bio[physical processes and finite resource limitations.
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“Resource” is a human invention. For example, tar sands were a nuisance and hazardous for animals, including dinosaurs. Such deposits became resources when people figured out how to get the energy out.
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The concept and word “resource” is a human invention, but the physical resource is not. Humans did not invent fossil energy sinks, climate variation, evolution, ecosystem interrelationships, physical and chemical attributes of the universe. Humans only exploit these very real things for human benefit, pretending that the universe will follow human direction in space and through time with no consequences.
Humans are not gods. Humans are animals just like all other animals on this planet, subject to the same physical limitations.
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Agreed. I am also a physical realist. But resources can have substitutes, whereby another plentiful compound or element becomes a replacement for human needs. For example, Thorium has not been a resource for nuclear energy, but may well become one, and would be much superior to Uranium.
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Humans most certainly do create resources. We take a wild dangerous river, dam it and add power generators, creating productive irrigated farmland, abundant electricity, and livable places where desert once ruled.
Humans take a forest and create towns, homes, furniture, paper. And replant the forest.
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Why is your assumption that a population of 16 billion (which modern up to date demographers do not see happening) any less sustainable than when Malthus made his failed predictions of population doom nearly 200 years ago? Your implicit embracing of an apocalypse is a symptom of the deeper problem, not a prophecy or prediction of any merit.
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Check out Hans Rosling utube series….he has some good stats to suggest population will be limited to about 10 billion max.
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If the true goal of the environmentalists was to cut global green gas emissions then they would have thought through the policies. In a globalized world, increasing unit costs in one area of the world will give it a comparative disadvantage to other parts of the world. The economic theory was outlined by David Ricardo two hundred years ago.
The areas that will be affected by an increase in energy costs will depend upon the existence of substitutes. It is possible to buy steel from anywhere in the world, as transport costs per unit of output are now exceedingly low. It is the same for most high-energy consuming manufacturing. Another high energy-using type of business is supermarkets. Refrigeration, heating and lighting are exceedingly high. But, unless a consumer lives a short distance from the border with a country with low energy costs, changes in energy costs cannot be avoided.
This means that for British-produced manufactured items a substitute is manufactures produced elsewhere. For commodity items they are a close substitute. Demand will be elastic with respect to price. With no price alternative to getting your fresh food from a supermarket (the small independents being much more expensive) the costs are passed on to the consumer. The economic theory of demand elasticities was outlined by Alfred Marshall in his Principles of Economics, 1st ed 1890.
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Yes, they have not thought it through beyond the notion of “starving the beasts”, the latter being Industrialized Societies.
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Good morning Ron:
“They” (we) (I) have indeed thought beyond the role of industrialized societies and their effects on the natural world. It is economists who fail to fully understand the implications of a human economics based on an unrealistic appraisal of natural limitations to resource exploitation and waste production.
As to unlimited substitutability, another 19th Century mistaken assumption, present reality clearly demonstrates that effective resource substitution is limited and rapidly declining. As human societies become more complex and demands for resource consumption and waste production rise, meaningful substitutes for increasingly rare “resources” are diminishing as well. There’s no free lunch, not even a reasonably inexpensive snack.
At some point, humans must deal with the inescapable reality of finite and limited resources. Yes, I know, humans want to be king of the hill, master of all they survey, capable of doing anything they want till the ultimate triumph of entropy. But the Universe is not built that way, and humans must at some point bow to the inescapable reality of finite resources on this the only planet we occupy.
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Malan, No you really haven’t thought beyond a reactionary mindset at all.
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Hello manicbeancounter: (love the handle!)
Thank you for this cogent explanation of status quo economics, the ultimate cause of environmental destruction around the world.
There is no one-size-fits-all “true goal” of all environmentalists, other than the general goal of protecting the natural environment from degradation by human consumption and waste production. Cutting global greenhouse gas emissions does not of itself accomplish this goal, as there is no demonstrated causal correlation between global greenhouse gas atmospheric concentration and any negative impact on world environments. Greenhouse gases, of themselves, do not cause environmental destruction.
As to David Ricardo and Alfred Marshall, they lived and worked in the 19th Century, in a fantasy world of human economics devoid of environmental and ecological understanding. Planning the present human world based on 200 year-old economic philosophy is an exercise in extinction.
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Malan,
Your comment is completely off-topic. My comment is about the unintended consequences of policy. Britain’s policy of reducing its GHG emissions is intented to contribute towards saving the world from catastrophic global warming. The Climate Change Act 2008 was not sponsored by Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown to move British jobs abroad. Basic understanding of economics – certainly to the British A level standard – would have predicted what would happen.
Your last comment, dismissing economics, shows your ignorance. Economics distinguishes between the “is” and the “ought”. In the language of the logical positivists, between the “positive”. and the “normative”. Economics deals with the “positive”. You have a strong views about how the world ought to be. Putting that into practice will require dealing with recognizing “positive” elements. One is that there are nearly two hundred countries and over seven billion people in the world , all with different and conflicting priorities. To save the world, you need to persuade, or force, these people to conform to your beliefs.
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Hello manicbeancounter:
I’ve hesitated to say much about “global warming” (sic) because it is fraught with misunderstanding, ignorance of science, political manipulation and economic irrationality. Suffice it to say that Britain’s policy of reducing its GHG emissions to contribute towards saving the world from catastrophic global warming is misdirected, as there is no demonstrated catastrophic global warming from which to be saved, and no evidence whatsoever that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would have any effect on observed climate variation.
I have strong views, based on my PhD research in archaeology, anthropology, geology and climatology, on how our planet and our Universe is and functions. Economists do not display this understanding. If this is “positive” then this word is warped beyond all rational meaning.
I do not intend to “save the world.” This is not necessary, desirable or even possible. The world cannot and does not need to be saved by humans. What is needed is for humans and human societies to stop degrading the physical environment of the planet on which we coexist with myriad other species that depend on the resources we claim as our own for their own survival and well-being.
Economists think that the human economy is the be all and end all of life on this planet. This turns out not to be the case, and is ultimately and finally bankrupt and self-defeating. Those who choose to ignore natural limitations on resource use and waste production, be they humans or other species, set themselves on a path of unavoidable decline and extinction.
I put these principles into practice in my own life, as much as is physically possible in the world in which I find myself. I can do nothing to change others, other than communicate my thoughts and provide an example of another way.
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Malan
You may have strong beliefs, but they are off-topic to this thread. At best that is discourteous to Ron Clutz. At worst it is trolling.
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I think I understand Malan. He’s not fooled by the Global Warming scare, but does believe we are peaking out of our energy resources, and thus this civilization will not be sustained on this (fossil fuel) basis. Think of the Roman empire collapsing when wood (the energy source at the time) took more energy to transport to Rome than the energy from burning it. I am not as pessimistic as he regarding technological innovation. Nor is Bill Gates (but he would say that, wouldn’t he?).
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Careful readers will note that the original post mentions Climate Change and the Paris COP doctrine, and manicbeancounter first mentioned Global Warming, so my responses are decidedly not off topic. I won’t attempt to speak for Ron. He can decide for himself if I am being discourteous to him.
I do not do belief. It is a demonstrated fact that fossil fuels, particularly petroleum, are finite and approaching peak applicability. It is a fact that our current civilization (sic) cannot be sustained at its present level of energy consumption under any future scenario, even discounting its effects on the biosphere. Technological innovation cannot create energy where non exists.
The energy we have used over the past 200 years is all stored solar energy, absorbed and concentrated over millions of years and largely dissipated over two centuries. We cannot produce enough energy from renewable sources to maintain the civilization in effect right now, which has wildly exceeded the planetary carrying capacity. As fossil fuels decrease in quantity and quality, the amount of energy available for human use will continue to dwindle.
This is not pessimism, it is the optimism of an organic realist.
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The cries of peak oil have been made by bright academics for over 100 years. They rely on their claims of authority and typically refer to their education as proof they are correct.
They also studiously avoid admitting that their predecessors’ predictions were wrong and will simply go on to the next grant funded topic when they are proven wrong once again.
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Reblogged this on 4timesayear's Blog.
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Actually an increasing amount of the energy we generate is from non-fossil sources. Nuclear and hydro… although if we go reductum, one could say even nuclear and hydro are solar in origination. Then we could a wee bit farther back and say it is all due to a minor wrinkle or eddy that developed in the the first few picoseconds after the Big Bang. But we can stick with fossil fuels as solar and the claims we are running out. But wind is solar. And of course solar is solar. Then there is the dogmatic assertion that we must go low energy because there is just not enough. But that is not really true, if one is being honest. The cliamte imperialists have worked hard to take coal off the table by fiat, and are working up to taking oil, and most cliamte imperialists hate natural gas as well. So any shortages are either illusions, like all other past sciencey claims of impending resource depletion, or they are social shortages, imposed by haters, not nature.
Calling the Earth “finite” is a bit misleading. We have done precious little mining of its depth, not even going past the equivalent thickness of an apple skin, if Earth was apple sized. These stale failed Malthusian mindsets…that is really rooted in Noah and other apocalypse myths, are only interesting because so many allegedly bright people cling to them so hard, despite so much contrary evidence.
Ron, you are a voice of reason in a derivative cacophony of reaction and doom. Thanks for offering a forum where some inkling of how much good there is can be discussed.
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Ron, I’m sorry this thread has taken off away from science into the unscientific landscape of status quo economics. I’ll be taking my discussion on natural biophysical systems, finite resources (yes, they are) and the impossibility of unrestrained human growth and development back to my own blog. I’d welcome any who cares to follow me home, for an extended prop yer feets up discussion.
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It is fascinating how the allegedly best and brightest cannot deal with being questioned.
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