Lord Christopher Monckton
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales,
Clarence House, London.
Candlemas, 2014
Your Royal Highness’ recent remarks describing those who have scientific and economic reason to question the Establishment opinion on climatic apocalypse in uncomplimentary and unroyal terms as “headless chickens” mark the end of our constitutional monarchy and a return to the direct involvement of the Royal Family, in the Person of our future king, no less, in the cut and thrust of partisan politics.
Now that Your Royal Highness has offered Your Person as fair game in the shootout of politics, I am at last free to offer two options. I need no longer hold back, as so many have held back, as Your Royal Highness’ interventions in politics have become more frequent and less acceptable in their manner as well as in their matter.
Option 1. Your Royal Highness will renounce the Throne forthwith and for aye. Those remarks were rankly party-political and were calculated to offend those who still believe, as Your Royal Highness plainly does not, that the United Kingdom should be and remain a free country, where any subject of Her Majesty may study science and economics, may draw his conclusions from his research and may publish the results, however uncongenial the results may be.
The line has been crossed. No one who has intervened thus intemperately in politics may legitimately occupy the Throne. Your Royal Highness’ arrogant and derogatory dismissiveness towards the near-50 percent of your subjects who no longer follow the New Religion is tantamount to premature abdication. Goodnight, sweet prince. No more “Your Royal Highness.”
Hi, there, Chazza! You are a commoner now, just like most of Her Majesty’s subjects. You will find us a cheerfully undeferential lot. Most of us don’t live in palaces, and none of us goes everywhere with his own personalized set of monogrammed white leather lavatory seat covers.
The United Kingdom Independence Party, which until recently I had the honor to represent in Scotland, considers - on the best scientific and economic evidence - that the profiteers of doom are unjustifiably enriching themselves at our expense.
For instance, even the unspeakable Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has accepted advice from me and my fellow expert reviewers that reliance upon ill-constructed and defective computer models to predict climate was a mistake. Between the pre-final and final drafts of the “Fifth Assessment Report,” published late last year, the Panel ditched the models and substituted its own “expert assessment” that in the next 30 years the rate of warming will be half what the models predict.
In fact, the dithering old fossils in white lab coats with leaky Biros sticking out of the front pocket now think the rate of warming over the next 30 years could be less than in the past 30 years, notwithstanding an undiminished increase in the atmospheric concentration of plant food. Next time you talk to the plants, ask them whether they would like more CO2 in the air they breathe. Their answer will be Yes.
The learned journals of economics are near-unanimous in saying it is 10-100 times costlier to mitigate global warming today than to adapt to its supposedly adverse consequences the day after tomorrow.
Besides, in the realm that might have been yours there has been no change none at all in mean surface temperature for 25 full years. So if you are tempted to blame last year’s cold winter (which killed 31,000 before their time) or this year’s floods (partly caused by the Environment Agency’s mad policy of returning dozens of square miles of the Somerset Levels to the sea) on global warming, don’t.
You got your science and economics wrong. And you were rude as well. And you took sides in politics. Constitutionally, that’s a no no. Thronewise, mate, you’ve blown it.
On the other hand, we Brits are sport-mad. So here is option 2. I am going to give you a sporting second chance, Charlie, baby.
You see, squire, you are no longer above politics. You’ve toppled off your gilded perch and now you’re in it up to your once-regal neck. So, to get you used to the idea of debating on equal terms with your fellow countrymen, I’m going to give you a once-in-a-reign opportunity to win back your Throne in a debate about the climate. The motion: “Global warming is a global crisis.” You say it is. I say it isn’t.
We’ll hold the debate at the Cambridge Union, for Cambridge is your alma mater and mine. You get to pick two supporting speakers and so do I. We can use PowerPoint graphs. The Grand Debate will be televised internationally over two commercial hours. We let the world vote by phone, before and after the debate. If the vote swings your way, you keep your Throne. Otherwise, see you down the pub.
Cheers, mate!
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Dale Hurd
COPENHAGEN, Denmark: It wasn’t supposed to happen: a ship full of scientists and environmentalists sent to the Antarctic to find melting ice from global warming got stuck in frozen ice from fearsome cold.
Then, the rescue ship got stuck in the ice, too.
Critics liken the incident to the climate change movement itself: stuck in denial over the fact that the climate is not getting warmer but seems to be getting much colder.
The climate is changing, but it’s not changing the way climate change crowd predicted it would. Nature has made a mockery of global warming, so who are the real climate deniers?
Ice is not only growing in the South Pole, but in parts of the North Pole, too. And the coldest arctic temperatures in decades have descended upon North America.
But that didn’t stop Greenpeace from trying to scare children last month with a video of a sweaty, beleaguered Santa Claus threatening to call off Christmas because the North Pole is melting.
Global Cooling
The fact that Arctic ice is growing may not be the good news that it seems to be. There are signs that the Earth is entering a very unpleasant cooling period. Sunspot activity remains very low.
“The sun has been very unusual for almost 15 years now,” Jens Pedersen, senior scientist at the Denmark’s Technical University, said.
Pedersen said the sun recently reached solar maximum and that there should be a lot of sunspot activity, but there isn’t.
“We have to go back 100 years to find a solar maximum that was as weak as the one we are in right now,” he told CBN News. “And the recent solar minimum...one has to go back 200 years to find one that was as weak.”
The last time the sun was this quiet, North America and Europe suffered through a weather event from the 1600s to the 1800s known as “Little Ice Age,” when the Thames River in London regularly froze solid, and North America saw terrible winters. Crops failed and people starved.
Hiding the Evidence
Pedersen said climate scientists know the Earth stopped warming 15 years ago. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of which Pedersen is an expert reviewer, suppressed a recent report from its own scientists that the U.N.’s climate model has been proven wrong.
“In particular one of the issues has been why global warming has stopped during the last 15 years, and climate scientists were very frank that the climate models do not match the climate we observe,” Pedersen said.
But politicians removed that embarrassing finding from the final draft. It’s as if the alleged danger from climate change can’t be wrong because it is now too important.
It has become a political movement, a cash cow for climate scientists and environmental groups, and a way for world leaders to control economies and people.
“It’s a political agenda,” Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center, said. “When you look at what the government will be able to do with climate change, it gives them (access) into every aspect of our lives.”
A Case of Climatism
Steve Goreham, author of The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism, calls it “climatism.”
“It’s an ideology and it’s a belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate,” Goreham explained. “But it has become a path for global change across the world for adopting green economies and electric cars and putting wind turbines everywhere and changing light bulbs.”
And it doesn’t matter how much the climate change prophets of doom get it wrong. Global warming advocate Al Gore claimed all the ice in the Arctic would be melted by now. but it’s growing.
Others predicted a shrinking food supply and flooded coastlines. Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon Haiyan are said to be the result of climate change. But that ignores the fact that worse tropical cyclones occurred in the 1960s.
Nevertheless, the climate change agenda is moving forward. The world is already spending at least $250 billion a year on it, and environmentalists want more. Activists are demanding what they call “climate justice” from developed nations.
“What they really want to do is dump trillions into it, somewhere between one and three percent of global GDP,” Gainor said.
Throwing the Poor Under the Bus?
Climate change skeptics have been censored and compared to Holocaust deniers and even child molesters. But forgotten in all the effort to save the world from warming is the effect on the world’s poor.
Goreham said more than a billion people do not have access to electricity, and almost as many struggle with unreliable power. Cheap electricity from coal could be a savior for the world’s poor.
But the world’s wealthy nations don’t want them to have it, all in the name of saving the planet from a crisis that mounting evidence suggests is non-existent.
James Taylor
Global warming alarmists are defying the “settled science” of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with alarmists now claiming global warming causes more frequent and severe cold spells. The alarmists’ claim, presented while the nation is being pummeled by historically cold weather, may give them short-term public relations exposure for their mythical global warming crisis, but it completely contradicts the latest IPCC report that alarmists claim is indisputable settled science.
Faced with the embarrassment of historic cold walloping most of the nation, global warming alarmists now claim cold temperatures prove a global warming crisis. The Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, and Time magazine are just a few of the media outlets blaming global warming for the cold temperatures. According to the media reports, global warming causes more frequent and severe winter cold spells, like the one presently gripping the nation. The media stories trot out and quote the usual band of prominent alarmists to support their alarmist storyline.
Nevertheless, these are the same media outlets and global warming activists who repeatedly tell us the IPCC represents settled science compiled in near unanimity by all the world’s most expert scientists. So what does the latest IPCC report say about severe cold spells?
In IPCC’s Working Group II: Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability, we are told there will be “warmer winters and fewer cold spells, because of climate change.”
Somebody please get the global warming alarmists to hole up in a room somewhere, debate each other about whether global warming causes more or less severe cold spells, and then let us know when they have a consistent answer.
Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller
A group of climate scientists and economists are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other stationary sources.
These critics see a “massive seizure of power” by the agency.
The scientists and economists, including the former chair of the EPA’s Science Advisory Committee, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that the agency does not have the authority to permit greenhouse gases from stationary sources. According to the group, such a permitting scheme is a “naked power grab of the most cynical sort.”
“There is no avoiding that this rule is a massive seizure of power, indeed likely far and away the largest seizure of power by any government agency ever,” reads the amicus brief.
“Under the guise of a technical statutory interpretation, the EPA now asserts it has a central role for itself to control and dictate all aspects of our lives under an over 30-year-old statutory provision never previously thought remotely to cover this subject matter,” the brief continues.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments from the EPA and some states and energy companies in February regarding the agency’s greenhouse gas permitting system. The central question of the case is, whether or not the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions from cars and trucks gives the agency the authority to set standards for stationary facilities, like power plants and refineries.
The EPA argues that it has the authority to permit stationary sources, but petitioners say that such a permitting scheme would be unworkable since greenhouse gases stem from global emissions and can’t be controlled by limiting U.S. emissions alone.
The high court’s decision will have huge implications for the energy sector and for the economies of coal states. Given that, several Republican lawmakers have injected themselves into this case, arguing that the court should rule against the EPA.
“The EPA continually attempts to sidestep Congress and expand its role in advancing a partisan political agenda,” said Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith. “The Obama administration continues to overstep its constitutional authority as it attempts to enact job-killing regulations.”
Smith was joined by Kentucky’s Republican congressional delegation in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Monday. This includes Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, as well as Republican Reps. Andy Barr, Brett Guthrie, Thomas Massie, Hal Rogers and Ed Whitfield.
The lawmakers argue that the EPA has effectively usurped Congress’s authority to write the laws by moving to regulate greenhouse gases - which was done under the Obama administration.
“Our Constitution reserves the power to enact, amend, or repeal statutes to Congress alone,” reads the lawmakers’ brief.
“The power asserted by the EPA here infringes on the constitutional prerogatives of Congress, undermines government accountability, and threatens liberty,” the brief says.
The greenhouse gas permitting scheme is a key component of President Obama’s plan to tackle global warming. It would allow the administration to fore more coal plants offline to reduce U.S. carbon emissions, which some scientists say cause global warming.
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Watch Now: Climate Depot Debates Global Warming on UN TV At UN Summit!
Joseph D’Aleo CCM
Rep Kuster (D-NH) partnered with Congressman Jared Polis (CO-02) and Congressman Ben Ray Lujan (NM-03) to introduce legislation to establish a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES). This bill, the Renewable Electricity Standard Act of 2013, would require utility companies to produce at least 25 percent of their power from renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and biomass by 2025, allegedly helping spur growth in our country’s renewable energy sector.
The claim is that “Investments in clean energy are investments in a healthier environment and a stronger economy. This common sense bill will help create good middle class jobs, cut pollution, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil - all while saving consumers money on their utilities.”
FACT CHECK:
The Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website. In 2008, Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, but instead for the over $26 billion spent since 2009, DOE loan guarantees have created only 2,298 permanent jobs for a cost of over $11.45 million per job.
David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis analyzed a generic RES that starts at 3 percent of total power generation in 2012 and rises by 1.5 percent per year. Such an RES would destroy 1 million jobs by 2020, when the standard reaches 15 percent. Average families will pay $2,400 more per year. Households will see their electricity prices rise 36 percent by 2035, while industrial users will see their electricity prices rise
60 percent even after adjusting for inflation.
The claims about ‘saving money on utilities’ for consumers sounds very much like the promise that the middle class families would save $2500 a year from the ACA. The CBO and experiences in Europe suggest that energy costs like health cost would instead skyrocket.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron who once pledged to lead the ‘greenest government ever’, has publicly promised to ‘roll back’ green taxes, which add more than 110 pounds a year to average fuel bills. A senior aide said “He’s telling everyone, “We’ve got to get rid of all this green crap.”
Even in EU economic leader Germany, up to 15% of the populace is now believed to be in “fuel poverty” as fuel prices have skyrocketed as renewables have seriously under-delivered on the promised energy. Firms such as RWE and E.on are going flat out to build 16 new coal-fired and 15 new gas-fired power stations by 2020, with a combined output equivalent to some 38 per cent of Germany’s electricity needs to keep more industry from fleeing to lower cost energy countries like China and India and lower the cost for the public.
Meanwhile, some 600,000 low-income Germans are now being cut off by their power companies annually, a number expected to increase as a never-ending stream of global-warming projects in the pipeline wallops customers. In the U.K., which has labored under the most politically correct climate leadership in the world, some 12 million people are already in fuel poverty, 900,000 of them in Scotland alone, and the U.K. has now entered a double-dip recession.
Almost two-thirds of young Greeks are unable to find work, exemplifying Europe’s ‘lost generation’. In France, the number of jobless rose to a record, while in Italy, the unemployment rate hit its highest level in 36 years, with 40 percent of young people out of work. In Spain, unemployment reached a record 27.2% due to a combination of the progressive big government anti-business policies and the enviro pushed green energy subsidies. This green push (wind power is not only a health hazard to humans and deadly to birds (killing millions worldwide including many endangered species like eagles and condors), but among the most inefficient of all energy sources) caused energy prices to skyrocket, shutting businesses or forcing manufacturers overseas.
In Spain, 2.2 jobs were lost for every green job created and only 1 in 10 green job was permanent. In Italy it was 3.4 jobs lost for every temporary green job, Spain ceased subsidization, but the damage has been done.
All the while, instead of global warming, Europe suffered through five of the coldest years in a century with scientists “baffled” by the failure of their climate models. The UK Office of National Statistics (www.statistics.gov.uk) in a report dated November 26th 2013 titled “Excess Winter Mortality in England and Wales” states that last winter 31,000 UK residents died due to lack of heat. The vast majority were over 75 and on fixed incomes. Since 2003, the total is estimated at 280,000 (UK Spectator). In December 2010, when the UK had the second coldest December since the Little Ice Age in 1659, the massive wind farms produced less than 0.5% of their energy needs.
Sadly, even as Europe has soured on the green dream and are furiously building coal and gas power plants, Kuster and her party want us to go down the same failed green path.
It appears Kuster needs to study more than her geography. And her call for more assistance for poor people LIHEAP to pay for rising fuel bills flies in the face of her bill that will cause those costs to skyrocket.
By Dr. Tim Ball
The cover story of the November 25, 2013 Canadian weekly magazine Macleans pictures self-appointed Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki.
The caption reads, “Environmentalism Has Failed” “David Suzuki loses faith in the cause of his lifetime.”
Suzuki doesn’t realize he’s the cause of the failure as a major player in the group who exploited environmentalism and climate for a political agenda. Initially most listened and tried to accommodate, but gradually the lies, deceptions and propaganda were exposed. The age of eco-bullying is ending. Typically Suzuki blamed others for the damage to the environment and climate but now he blames them for not listening to him. He forgets that when you point a finger at someone three are pointing back at you.
Environmentalism was what academics call a paradigm shift, which Thomas Kuhn defines as “a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.” It was a necessary new paradigm. Everybody accepts the general notion it is foolish to soil your own nest and most were prepared to participate. Most were not sure what it entailed or how far it should go. Extremists grab all new paradigms for their agenda but then define the limits for the majority by pushing beyond the limits of the idea. Environmentalism and the subset climate are at that stage pushed there by extremists like Suzuki. Instead of admitting the science is wrong they double down and make increasingly extreme statements, just like the IPCC. It underscores the political rather than the scientific agenda. For example, Suzuki, apparently frustrated that politicians were not listening to his demands for action on climate change said they should be jailed.
Environmental groups grabbed environmentalism and quickly took the moral high ground preaching that only they cared about the Earth. Suzuki set up the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) with tax benefits that required it to be non-political, but after active involvement in an Ontario election he was forced to resign. His major theme in the election was to push the climate change and alternate energies put in place in that Province when Maurice Strong was in charge of Ontario Hydro, the state controlled energy agency. Ontario is the perfect example of how and why climate energy policies promoted by Strong as Founder of UNEP are a disaster.
The Foundation campaigned on environmental issues most presented in deceptive or incomplete ways. An example was the attack on salmon farming and corrupted research on PCBs and sea lice. This was the focus of an interview of researcher Vivian Krause by Ezra Levant. Another was Suzuki’s parade across Canada pushing extinction theories and claims of DSF Board member E.O Wilson that 3 species go extinct every hour. He never named one. He never listed the plethora of new species found. He refused to discuss the issue and in his visit to schools pre-arranged and wrote a question for a selected student to ask. He promoted threats of global warming, but refused to debate the issue or answer questions. When asked questions on a radio interview in Toronto, he swore and stormed out of the studio.
He hired former Federal politician NDP (socialist party) David Fulton as Director of DSF. James Hoggan has been Chairman of the Board for many years. His PR Company has major alternate energy companies as clients. Hoggan is the proud creator of DeSmogblog a web site that claims it is “Clearing the PR Pollution that clouds climate science” but mostly involves personal attacks on people asking questions. The objective was to denigrate people by creating “favorable interpretations” to the following questions. “Were these climate skeptics qualified? Were they doing any research in the climate change field? Were they accepting money, directly or indirectly, from the fossil fuel industry?” This doesn’t answer skeptics questions about the science.
Their real agenda was disclosed in a Climatic Research Unit (CRU) leaked email dated December 2007 from senior writer Richard Littlemore to Michael Mann.
Hi Michael [Mann],
I’m a DeSmogBlog writer [Richard LIttlemore] (sic) (I got your email from Kevin Grandia)* and I am trying to fend off the latest announcement that global warming has not actually occurred in the 20th century.
It looks to me like Gerd Burger is trying to deny climate change by “smoothing,” “correcting” or otherwise rounding off the temperatures that we know for a flat fact have been recorded since the 1970s, but I am out of my depth (as I am sure you have noticed: we’re all about PR here, not much about science) so I wonder if you guys have done anything or are going to do anything with Burger’s intervention in Science. (emphasis added)
(* Grandia was a former writer for DeSmogBlog who moved there after serving as a research assistant for a Liberal Minister in Ottawa.)
Do as I say, not as I do is the hallmark of extreme environmentalists behaviour. Al Gore is the poster boy for this hypocrisy. It appears Suzuki is only different in scale. They were enumerated in programs by SUN TV Reporter Ezra Levant. They include the familiar list of funding and financial activities and personal wealth accumulated, especially in properties.
A major part of Suzuki’s attacks relate to global warming. His refusal to debate or even answer questions is legendary. He ignores his lack of qualifications on climate, but uses that challenge when it comes to his supposed expertise in genetics and genetically modified food. A possible explanation for his “environmentalism is a failure” claim is a PR move to divert from the exposure of his climate ignorance in an Australian interview. He could not answer questions about information fundamental to any understanding.
Suzuki abandoned his academic career in genetics decades ago explaining why in a 1999 Seattle speech. His concerns related to the internment of his Japanese Canadian family during WWII. Here are his words:
In the exuberance of the excitement over the discovery of new principles of heredity - that seemed to apply across the plant and animal kingdoms - geneticists began to make wonderful, wild statements about the implications of their discoveries. I’m sure most of you know that it ultimately led to what was considered a legitimate area of science called Eugenics.
Some of our most eminent geneticists taught courses in eugenics, wrote textbooks in eugenics, published articles in eugenics journals. Eugenics being the attempt to apply the new-found knowledge of heredity to improve the genetic quality or makeup of human society.
It seems more logical to maintain standing as a geneticist and work to prevent such drifts occurring. Instead he quit and became a tele-evangelist using state television (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) to push his environmental/political agenda.
His television series became his undoing as a classic example of how extremism is its own undoing. It’s why Suzuki’s exploitation of environmentalism, as he defines it, caused failure. Most programs in the series were unjustified, misleading condemnations of different components of society. I identified some of the misinformation in a presentation to farmers in Saskatchewan a few years ago. Afterward a woman told me that a month earlier she would have disagreed with my comments. Now she understood because Suzuki did a program on farming and as a farmer’s wife she knew how wrong and biased it was. Each new program exposed another segment of society to the deception. This created a populace open to and not surprised by the exposure of his hypocrisies. The same is happening to climate alarmism as more and more segments of society are negatively affected. His actions and climate driven energy policies close industries, decimate communities, cause job losses and force business closures, virtually all unnecessarily.
As Suzuki’s campaign to use environmentalism for a political agenda fails he lashes out, blaming others for the failure. It parallels what is happening in the climate alarmist community. The comments and claims become more extreme, but achieve the opposite of their goal. It is necessary to consider the further negative effects of their exploitation and deceptions. What is the damage to the credibility of science? Can we pursue environmentalism with rational, science based, prioritized policies?
William Hallstein, MD - September 13, 2013
Noise Impact on People, Massachusetts
This letter, written by William Hallstein, MD, a practicing psychiatrist with over 40 years of experience, was delivered to the Chairman of the Falmouth Board of Health. Dr. Hallstein is also a resident of Falmouth Massachusetts. In his letter he explains the very real impact of the Falmouth turbines on human health.
Jed Goldstone, Chairman
Falmouth Board of Health
Subject: Falmouth wind turbines and sleep deprivation
Dear Mr. Goldstone:
In way of introduction I have been a Falmouth resident since 1970. I am a psychiatrist, my career working its way through its 44th year. Consultation/liaison psychiatry has been my primary setting. In this role one treats patients with combined physical and psychiatric illnesses in the general medical center population, be it medical, surgical or emergency units, in addition to the most severely psychiatrically ill patients admitted to locked psychiatric units and correctional institutions.
I am thoroughly acquainted with the turbine issues and neighbors who are affected. I have made it my business to spend significant amounts of time experiencing the turbine effects. I know exactly what they are describing and have experienced it.
Turning now to the topic of sleep interruption and deprivation. Sleep disturbance is not a trivial matter. Children with inadequate sleep perform poorly academically, emotionally and physically. Errors in judgement and accident rates increase with inadequate sleep and fatigue for everyone: athletes, truck drivers, ship operators , aircraft pilots and physicians. No one is exempt.
In the world of medicine illnesses of all varieties are destabilized by fatigue secondary to inadequate sleep. Diabetic blood sugars become labile, cardiac rhythms become irregular, migraines erupt and increase in intensity, tissue healing is retarded, and so forth, across the entire field of physical medicine. Psychiatric problems intensify and people decompensate. Mood disorders become more extreme and psychotic disorders more severe.
People with no previously identified psychiatric illness are destabilized by sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation experiments have repeatedly been terminated because test subjects become psychotic; they begin to hallucinate auditory and visual phenomena. They develop paranoid delusions. This all happens in the “normal” brain. Sleep deprivation has been used as an effective means of torture and a technique for extracting confessions.
I could work my way thru the presentation of 43 years of sleep deprivation observations, but that is more than the scope of this letter. I am writing because I have witnessed Town of Falmouth officials and members of other boards trivialize symptom reports from people living close to the wind turbines. I have witnessed attempts to discredit people who are being hurt by the turbines.
Sleep deprivation breaks down individual defenses and mimics a broad range of physical and mental illnesses. Let’s hope the Town of Falmouth comes to its senses and stops the abuse.
Sincerely,
William Hallstein, MD
Falmouth, MA 02540
BY LINDSAY ABRAMS
Wind and solar power alone won’t do enough to counter climate change, say four top climate scientists
Nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, in Waynesboro, Ga.(Credit: AP/Mary Ann Chastain)
In an ideal world, we’d move steadily away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, like wind and solar, while neatly avoiding messy alternatives like natural gas and nuclear power. But according to four top U.S. scientists, renewable energy won’t be enough to head off the rapidly advancing reality of climate change. Despite the scary things you may be hearing about it, they said, nuclear power is a solution, and it needs to be taken seriously.
The letter, signed by James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia all of whom, according to the AP, “have played a key role in alerting (lying) to the public to the dangers of climate change” was sent to leading environmental groups and leaders around the world. Advocating for the development of safe nuclear power, they wrote:
We appreciate your organization’s concern about global warming, and your advocacy of renewable energy. But continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change.
Renewables like wind and solar and biomass will certainly play roles in a future energy economy, but those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires. While it may be theoretically possible to stabilize the climate without nuclear power, in the real world there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power.
Using a bit less tact, Hansen told the AP: “They’re cheating themselves if they keep believing this fiction that all we need” is wind and solar.
The experts also took pains to address concerns over nuclear safety something that’s been a particular sticking point for nuclear power in the wake of the disaster at Fukushima:
We understand that today’s nuclear plants are far from perfect. Fortunately, passive safety systems and other advances can make new plants much safer. And modern nuclear technology can reduce proliferation risks and solve the waste disposal problem by burning current waste and using fuel more efficiently. Innovation and economies of scale can make new power plants even cheaper than existing plants. Regardless of these advantages, nuclear needs to be encouraged based on its societal benefits.
Quantitative analyses show that the risks associated with the expanded use of nuclear energy are orders of magnitude smaller than the risks associated with fossil fuels. No energy system is without downsides. We ask only that energy system decisions be based on facts, and not on emotions and biases that do not apply to 21st century nuclear technology.