Category: Climate change

Demonizing Fossil Fuels

People who are so very enthusiastic about solar and wind are motivated from their concerns about drastic and accelerating climate change due to greenhouse gases, so they lock onto this simple-minded would-be solution that doesn’t really solve the problem, but instead has terrible economic consequences in reducing the use of inexpensive fossil fuels, especially for the little guy in having to pay horrendous energy costs.

The real — but very difficult — answer to the climate-change issue is carbon extraction through improved soil conservation, among other extraction methods. Re-forestration on a very large scale is another significant method. The focus needs to shift from demonizing fossil fuels (because they are by far the cheapest form of energy and so will be with us for the foreeseable future) to extraction methods for achieving a zero-sum game for the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

We should also look at technologies that can provide various industries with carbon capture where carbon is now just released into the atmosphere. A carbon tax would induce various industries to move in this direction.

Free Trade Isn’t Free

They Are Nuts

The thing about the climate-change radicals is they want to do away with fossil fuels without having any viable substitute. Wind and solar will never be viable as a replacement — they don’t produce anywhere near enough, and there are issues with adequate battery storage of what they do produce. Nuclear could be such a substitute, and the Chinese have come up with a safer nuclear technology to boot, but after what happened in Japan, no one wants to touch the nuclear option.

A more sensible climate-change strategy would be to focus on carbon extraction, not fossil fuel suppression. We need fossil fuels to drive our economy…and our prosperity.

Taiwan

Climate-Change Solution

The solution to the climate-change problem should focus on carbon extraction rather than suppression of the use of fossil fuels that remain so critical to our economies. The objective should be to reach an equilibrium between the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere by man-made activities and the amount removed from the atmosphere, so that the net difference is zero.

  1. There should be widespread and government-sponsored reforestation programs in every state in the United States as well as a ban on all wood burning, whether in homes or for generating fuel. Trees must be regarded as nearly sacred entities.
  2. There should be a similar widespread and government-sponsored soil enrichment program, so that arable land is allowed to restore itself at least every other year with natural vegetation, which naturally absorbs huge quantities of carbon if allowed to restore itself.
  3. New industrial technologies should be further developed for extraction of carbon and other greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere, and done on a large enough scale to impact the critical equilibrium.
  4. There should be a carbon tax on plants that release carbon and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, so that these plants will need to quantify the amounts released and pay a tax on those amounts, which should induce them to either reduce the amounts released or seek an alternative to releasing them, i.e., trapping and solidifying the gases into solids that can be buried as an alternative, and thereby avoiding the carbon tax altogether.

The solution to the climate-change conundrum is EXTRACTION, not suppression.

Climate Change Disagreements

Climate Change Disagreements

I think the real debate about climate change isn’t whether it is happening and the degree to which humans are causing it — most reasonable people agree about both — but rather what measures should be implemented to address it. There is intense disagreement about these measures.

The most divisive issue has to do with restricting our use of fossil fuels. Radicals would have us do this to a large degree, but conservatives protest this would undermine our economies and lead to hardship and poverty.

Thoughtful conservatives now have the counter argument that the real remedy here has to do with more efficient ways to extract carbon from the atmosphere — through improved soil management on a large scale, planting trees and reforestation, new carbon extraction technologies, etc., i.e., use of fossil fuels becomes a non-issue if you can extract enough carbon from the atmosphere to achieve net equilibrium.

“Our Planet”

Climate Change Tradition

Something you can actually do about the climate change crisis. Instead of buying a tree with clipped roots to put in your house for Xmas and then throw away, buy one with full roots to plant it somewhere on your property or in some other protected location. If you do that for 30 years, you will extract a lot of carbon from the atmosphere, and will have done something about the problem, instead of just talking about it. Talk is cheap.

Make planting one tree — not destroying one — the new Xmas tradition.

Wandering

Climate Change Fools

According to the radicals rattling their cages about the dire consequences of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, we should all vastly reduce our use of oil, natural gas and coal as the main culprits in this buildup. The radicals make the point that those individuals and corporations that are in favor of the continued use of these fossil fuels are science-deniers and don’t admit the inevitable dire consequences of their actions. The radicals think if only everyone was onboard with swopping out the use of fossil fuels for alterative energy sources, such as wind, solar, etc., then the issue of climate change would be successfully addressed, and we would avoid those dire consequences they foresee. In my opinion, this makes these radicals no better than climate change fools, with very simplistic, even childlike, notions concerning the nature of this problem.

The core issue the radicals are want to admit is that the use of these fossil fuels — oil, natural gas and coal — are at the very heart of our economic system. And it’s not as if they only benefit corporations involved in their exploitation. In fact, the very prosperity of everyone, including all of these radicals, is intimately connected with the use of these fossils fuels. Take them away and the standard of living of everyone, including the radicals, collapses to a level the world has never experienced. That’s the harsh reality of this problem.

I would even go so far as to say that the majority of individuals and corporations that advocate the continued use of fossil fuels are probably in agreement with the radicals and the science that says that the earth is warming at an alarming rate and there will be dire consequences. A majority of them are not science-deniers at all — they are simply people who realize that our very way of life and prosperity are hopelessly enmeshed with the use of fossil fuels.

Then there’s the argument that we should simply swop the more recent “clean” sources of energy for the devilish fossil fuels, but even a cursory review of the statistics shows how naive and simple-minded a notion this is. Wind, solar, etc. don’t produce anything like the quantity of energy required by the modern world economy, and based on the current statistics, never will, even with the most optimistic projections.

So the real problem with climate change is this: how do we mitigate the damage (excessive production of greenhouse gases) of fossil fuels without eliminating the use of fossil fuels (because our economy needs them, our prosperity and way of life depend upon them). No one has come up with the solution to this vexing conundrum — least of all the simple-minded but oh so self-righteous radicals.

Kiss the Ground

Doing Something About Our Cities

Xmas and Climate Change

This coming Christmas, we should start a new Xmas tradition. Buy a tree like last year, but with the roots intact, and when Christmas is finished, take it outside and plant it on your property (dig the hole in October when the ground is still unfrozen). Every Xmas could produce millions of new trees to inhale carbon — instead of just throwing them away.

Wandering