Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
For decades, the monolithic and sacrosanct international climate change hierarchy went unquestioned.
Western nations in particular spent trillions of dollars over the past half-century to subsidize expensive but erratic wind and solar energy while demonizing carbon fuels as toxic threats to the planet.
Like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion dogma, climate change orthodoxy was embedded into every aspect of Western culture, from the corporate boardroom to the university campus.
Question whether man-made global warming was truly responsible for increased temperatures rather than natural, often centuries-long cycles of heating and cooling of the planet, and one was labeled a climate crank.
Everything from declining fertility to forest fires was ridiculously attributed to climate change.
But the causes of both demographic crises and charred landscapes were more likely the result of new affluent lifestyles that saw child-rearing as too expensive and time-consuming, and misguided forest policies or underfunded firefighting.
Yet reality has caught up with the near-religious climate change cult.
One, the left-wing tech billionaires—exemplified by former climate change zealot Bill Gates—have become apostates of the green movement. Now they do not warn of a planet threatened by too much man-made heat but rather by too little man-made kilowattage.
They believe artificial intelligence will prove as transformative as the Industrial Revolution. But to win the AI revolution will require vast increases in electricity production, of up to a staggering 100 gigawatts a year of additional capacity.
Such enormous demand—to build the equivalent of a hundred huge power plants per year—is far beyond the ability of “renewables” alone.
Instead, the only solution is an “all of the above” strategy of building more nuclear, natural gas, clean-coal, wind, and solar generation plants.
Two, ascendant China’s massive arms buildup and its bullying Belt and Road imperialism have finally put international “climate accords” into question.
Even the environmentalist King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has recently let it slip that he is troubled by why Europe sandbagged its own economy by shutting down its formerly efficient nuclear and fossil fuel plants. He reminded the world that the European Union nations contribute only six percent of the planet’s carbon emissions.
The West finally realizes that a cynical China has been playing it for years by funding green propaganda abroad.
Indeed, Beijing guilt-tripped Europe and the U.S. on global warming while it exported billions of dollars of cheap wind and solar generation products—often below its own cost of production.
Meanwhile, China plows ahead, building two to three coal and nuclear generation plants per month.
Under the propagandistic banner of “climate change,” China hopes that its Western competitors invest in inefficient and high-priced renewable energy. Meanwhile, its own expanding fossil fuel and nuclear industries ensure it will enjoy global price advantages in both trade and armament.
Three, the global climate crisis shakedown has become shameless. Formerly third-world nations now demand from the West hundreds of billions of dollars in “climate reparations” for carbon emissions released decades ago.
Yes, the West burned more oil and gas. But it also provided the rest of the world with carbon-fueled cars, factories, and modern consumer goods.
Green critics fail to concede that almost all global technology and modern industrial products come from either the West or westernizing copycats.
Four, energy production is at the nexus of conflict and can mean life or death for nations. To the degree the United States and its allies produce lots of natural gas and oil, they can protect the West from crippling embargoes and cutoffs from anti-Western energy producers.
During the Ukraine War, America exported liquefied natural gas to Europe, not solar panels or turbine blades. And it will be increasingly essential to keep Europe afloat as Russia turns off its export spigot.
When oil and natural gas are affordable, thanks to the fossil fuel production of Western nations, then illiberal and bellicose oil-exporting countries like Iran and Russia have less money to spend on aggressive wars or subsidizing their global terrorists.
Five, science is not fossilized in amber but dynamic and changing.
Increasingly, climatologists are no longer afraid of being bullied by global green scolds.
They point out that while accurate temperature recording is only a couple of centuries old, the planet has been here for over 4 billion years. And it reveals plenty of evidence of natural climate volatility.
Extreme heat and cold spells lasted in nature for centuries—and did so long before humans appeared, little more than 300,000 years ago.
So, the public is sick of pseudoscientific activists peddling their doom-and-gloom wares for their own particular and profitable agendas.
Elite green gurus often buy seaside estates while warning of devastating tidal waves to come. They fly in carbon-spewing private jets while ordering the poor to turn down their air conditioners.
In sum, carbon is dead, long live carbon!
As usual on point except for the observation that the planet is ~4 billions of years old.
None of the clocks used agree.
Shirley Gohner,
Who the phuqing,
Who the phuqing,
Who the phuqinghell are you?
Mr Hanson challenges NASA’s GISS Surface Temperature Analysis?
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/
The poster who suggested Thorium as the way to solve all our energy problems is correct. Thorium is more abundant in th Earth’s crust than tin, and has a half life of 14 billion years. Uranium is almost as abundant, and with a half life almost the age of the Earth, will be around for some time. Between them we have enough energy to last until the end of time.
Thorium is not as easily weaponised as Uranium though.
Regarding this CO2 nonsense – anyone in northern climates ever go out at night to look at the stars on a cloudless winter night? Freeze your ass off. If there were clouds, you would not see the stars, but would not be frozen half to death. The water vapour reflected the infra red back to the Earth. No clouds, cold. Clouds, warm. What was the CO2 doing?????
Actually, I suspect (not sure, though) that the reason Bill Gates is shifting from Climate Control hoax to A.I., is because he believes it will be the more lucrative of the two. Since they are in conflict, he had to pick one.
The climate change/global warming dogma didn’t go unquestioned. The people who foisted this theory on the world and the people who benefited from it silenced debate and burned heretics at the stake. If that wasn’t bad enough, they are now positioned to escape censure and probably benefit from the new reality.
Gates wants power to un his ai playhouses? OK. Let HIM build the sources.
The small totally contained nuclear powerplants that run our Navy are proven saphe and reliable, cost conserving, and the Navy don’t spend years o studies, testing, permitting, etc, They just take out the blueprints and make another one just like the other ones.
The ONLY reason Billy da Gaytes is changing horses is that he is (just barely) smart enough to realise he horse he has been so happily riding over so many years is now an old nag and has lost her spunk. That means she won’t be able to take him where he wants to go. So, being utterly and solely concerned with Mr. Gates he is trading the old worn out glue nag and getting a new one. Anything that does not reward HIM above all else is not worthy to receive his time or attention.
Key factors driving the price increase
Climate change and weather events: Extreme weather, including droughts in Brazil and floods and typhoons in Vietnam, has severely impacted harvests and reduced supply.
High global demand: Despite the price hikes, overall demand for coffee remains high and is even surging in markets like China.
Supply chain issues: Global supply chain disruptions, port strikes, and geopolitical tensions have led to longer transit times and higher shipping costs, further increasing expenses for roasters.
Economic factors: Inflation and general economic instability have increased the costs associated with production and transportation.
It took Trump to really break open the climate hoax. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get someone his caliber every presidential election!
Climate change, whether it was called ‘Global Cooling’, ‘Global Warming’, or just simple ‘climate change’ has been questioned by sane people from day one of the hoax’s conception. We saw charlatans like AlGore bilk the taxpayer and become millionaires propagandizing a bogus narrative. The anti climate hoax voices were out there, including VDH but fell upon deaf ears of those seeing greenbacks.
The ony thing fueling Gates’ beliefs was his portfolio as we witness his so called conversion to AI thirst for energy. water and land!
Whatever shall that little gnome Greta Thunberg do for a living if climate change BS dies a deservedly quick death?
Oh wait, I don’t care!
A viable solution, especially for the developing and third world countries, is Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR). Initially developed in the USA but abandoned for uranium reactors since thorium can’t be used for weapons. LFTR reactors are also much saver to operate than our typical water-cooled reactors. Thorium is also fairly abundant and does not have the same shelf life of uranium. Promoting this technology greatly reduces the chances of nuclear weapons proliferation.
The Climate Freaks, Gates included, never produced a case for their arguments that they could prove nor the economics to support their “solutions. They have totally ignored the overwhelming Green House effect of cloud cover, for instance-perhaps purposefully, or more likely they just didn’t know how to account for it.
The earth is about 4.8 billion years old. It has been through 12 epochs, or eras. They cover hundreds of million of years each. The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago, only a whisker in earth time. Man has been around, industrially, for about 260 years. A miniscule fraction of the earth’s age, a fraction so small, that it can only be displayed using scientific notation: 5.416666666666667e-8. WHY THE CLIMATE CHANGE IDEOLOGY FAILS MISEABLY.
VDH,
If you add the points you made together with the perennial Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who essentially started the nanny state with his advocacy for seat belts in the 1960’s and then every environmental movement that followed the actual start of the subsequent lunacy becomes clear.
We live in an age of TDR (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and CDR (Climate Derangement Syndrome), promulgated by the Democrat Party and their media toadies to bring more people into their expanding ‘victim’ fold. Nobel physicist John Clauser (among others) understands that climate models the Left-Wing tout are incorrect because they do not factor in the effects that high temperatures have on cloud cover over ocean areas. Specifically, more heat means more clouds that reflect more of the sun’s rays that reach the Earth. Clauser: “I don’t believe there is a climate crisis,”….”The world we live in today is filled with misinformation. It is up to each of you to serve as judges, distinguishing truth from falsehood based on accurate observations of phenomena.” Clauser made similar comments in the past, including: “In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s large population and an associated energy crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect climate science.”
Could this possibly mean that the Western World is finally pivoting from emotion to reason in its decision-making?
Hopefully, the Climate Change bandwagon will continue to lose steam and energy prices will fall to reasonable levels, making transportation less expensive and food more affordable. Next on weather front should be getting to the heart of all these chem-trails in our skies. Who is trying to manipulate the weather and why? You cannot attribute the recent massive temperature shift in the eastern US to natural causes.
5 typos in the first sentence is a clue that Mr. Gladding needs “spell check”.
It takes a prosperous country to protect the environment. Green policies have been destructive of of both prosperity and the environment.
I think the larte Sen. John McClain said it best in a canpaigning for his unsuccesful presidentcial run.
” We’ve been sailing nuclear power plants around the world for decades with no problems!” The solution to the AI power escalaiting demand and lowering our energy costs is streamling the reguatory process to get nuclear power plants online in < 5 years, not the decade+ that the NRC drags them out to approval. I spoke to a manger of a wind farm, and he admitted that the energy required to build a windmill was equall the the amount of energy it would produce in it's lifetime. There is a big problems besides that with wind power.
This thing that happeds to wind-it's called 'calm'.
Implementing green policies has always meant reducing living standards, and that those already poor should remain that way or be made even worse off. It proved eventually to be a bit of a problematic vote getter hence so many politicians (but not all) backing away from it. There is, however, significant remaining support for these policies so the drumbeat is not going to stop.
It is a hopeful sign for the security and economy of the western world that many are finally acknowledging the lack of evidence for the climate change frenzy. The climate changes. It always has. It always will. As a Christian, I realize that humanity is a relatively small bug on a planet created by a God as our home. It is designed to provide the resources we need. Stopping the fear mongering and wasteful costs of climate fear is long overdue. Thank you, VDH, for presenting the truth in basic terms.
Absolutely on point as usual Mr. Hanson as the reality of high energy prices are starting to get peoples attention and the climate crisis racket is being exposed and discredited. The climate change cults war on fossil fuels has also contributed much to inflation because high energy prices affect the costs of everything we need and use.
Hopefully America starts fast tracking new clean burning natural gas electricity plants as well as new small nuclear reactors, the sooner the better.
Of course it’s a fraud. The 1st Earth Day was to raise the alarm about Global Cooling. It became Global Warming & now, to be safe it’s Climate Change. Throw in the “precautionary principle” (there is no scientific proof but if we are correct the consequences are so dire we cannot afford not to act) & Saint Greta of Thunberg as your primary oracle while China & India build more coal powered stations than you can keep track of…what could go wrong? What’s not to like? It’s all Trump’s fault anyways. How dare you question settled science. What’s next? The covid vaccines aren’t safe or effective.
Great commentary on Climate Change.
Knowing Dr. Hanson’s relationship to agriculture, here is a short piece I wrote as one also from a farming family from Dr. Hanson’s neck of the woods which is a conversation with a composite farmer in North Carolina about what could happen if climate change advocates have their way with our farms and ranches (and which could have happened but for the 2024 elections): https://medium.com/@tpacker25/north-carolina-agriculture-and-climate-regulations-7fb51e350c78