We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day “Politicians have spent trillions of dollars subsidizing renewable energy with no effect on climate. Nuclear power, which would sharply reduce CO2, is taboo among the greens. Innovation in developing low-cost natural gas, which substitutes for coal, may have done more than any government policy to reduce U.S. emissions. Yet President Biden wants to crush the gas industry with regulation. The IPCC report doesn’t justify putting the U.S. economy into the hands of government. A sensible climate policy will continue to monitor trends, while allowing a free economy to find solutions and build the wealth that will allow for adaptation and amelioration if the worst happens. This lacks the drama of the Apocalypse, but it will better serve the world.”
– Wall Street Journal, responding to the latest IPCC report on global warming (aka climate change).
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Supposing somehow, with the expenditure of truly astronomical sums of taxpayers’ money and huge sacrifices on the part of the people – but not, of course, the elite – that net zero is achieved by 2050. Want to bet that same elite will then say that not enough has been done; the Earth is supposedly still getting warmer and further sacrifices must be made. Why not? They moved the goalposts with Covid-19, didn’t they? Weren’t all restrictions supposed to be lifted after the majority had been vaccinated? So why should they behave any differently with this?
Maybe, but couldn’t it be the off shoring of heavy industry and manufacturing? I think this claim is a bit disingenuous since the American consumer is still the end user.
If the climate-moralizing elites really believed anything they were saying, they would lead by example and downsize their own outrageously carbon-intensive lives.
For example, they would stop taking private jets all around the globe. They would stop heating their Olympic-sized swimming pools year-round. And they would sell their 15,000ft² mansions and move into 1200ft² condos.
When they start doing those things, I will start thinking that maybe they actually believe at least a little of what they spew.
@Ferox
It’s a bit like being lectured on the evils of smoking and drinking by a doctor barely able to get the words past the foot long Cuban in his mouth while holding a brandy glass the size of a bucket.
In an ironically just world, it would quickly become clear that 2051 was the first year of the new Ice Age, one which would be an existential event for mankind.
Those of us who keep an eye on temperature trends suspect that we might soon be entering a cooler phase. Not an ice age but a cooler phase like we had during the 1960s through to the mid 1980s
bobby b,
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn had that idea back in 1991. Fallen Angels, set in a world where control of the greenhouse effect has resulted in new ice age.
Meanwhile, China continues to generate massive amounts of noxious pollutants into the the air AND increasing CO2 emissions and has no plans of doing anything about it any time soon. Same with India and a few others. We’re meant to just look the other way. Just another “White Man’s Burden” that doesn’t apply to the rest of the planet because “…reasons…”.
When the CCP does actually do something about their emissions, it will because it gives them a strategic advantage, greater energy security or maybe because even the CCP officials are sick of living in smog shrouded cities and choking their lungs out all year round. It won’t be because of the West’s manufactured and self-inflicted boogy man aka Warble Gloaming.
Do we actually have to wait until the lights go out before having a sensible conversation about base load generation in an era of highly peaky and undependable renewables?
In France 80% of supply is from the 50 nuclear stations, another 10%+ from hydro and geothermal, with 5% to 8% from gas, giving France a very low CO2 emissions profile for electricity, and low prices.
In fact the nuclear reactors have a capacity much greater than demand which is why France is a net exporter of electricity.
So explain the logic in this. France has continually urged less electricity use, subsidises solar and wind AND is retiring one third of its nuclear fleet, and… drum-roll… replacing them with wind power which of course will need fossil fuel stations on stand-by as back-up.
Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with ‘saving’ the Earth from Climagheddon and not about the politics of global governance using junk science as a cover story, anymore than the CoVid hysteria is about proper medical practice and care, just isn’t paying proper attention.
“The IPCC report does not justify putting the U.S. economy into the hands of the government”.
The people who wrote the IPCC do want the U.S. economy (and all economies) put under government (and allied corporate control) – that is the purpose of their report.
Of course the United States economy is already dominated by the Credit Money of the Federal Reserve and the pet banks – it is no longer really capitalist, but it does still have a few aspects of freedom in it (at least in in some States) and that is unacceptable to the IPCC and all other international governance bodies (corporate as well as government).
It is hard to believe that the people who wrote the Wall Street Journal do not know all of the above – perhaps they are just keeping their eyes shut, for (quite justified) fear of what they would see if they opened their eyes.
As for C02 – if the international community were really interested in reducing C02 emissions (if this is what such reports are really about) they would all be condemning CHINA 24 hours a day. After all it is the People’s Republic of China that produces the most C02 emissions, and its emissions are going up (whereas the admissions of the United States, United Kingdom and so on – have dramatically fallen). Yet “Greta”, and other puppets, are rather quiet about China.
Indeed the international community has been, for many years, undermining Western manufacturing (with its taxes and regulations) – so that goods are made in China and shipped back (in return for utterly unsustainable levels of debt in the West – as we buy Chinese goods with borrowed money) – this process INCREASES C02 emissions (making stuff in the West would mean less C02 emissions).
It is not about C02 emissions – it is about “putting the U.S. economy into the hands of the government” (international government – or “governance”).
As for nuclear power – Joseph Biden (as Vice President) took a leading role in CLOSING DOWN the United States nuclear waste depository.
The German government is busy closing down every nuclear power station in the country.
And just about every Western country is strangling nuclear power with regulations that increase costs and REDUCE safety (by preventing smaller scale and better designed nuclear power generators).
In short John B and others are correct – all this is NOT about reducing world wide C02 emissions, all this is about “putting the economy into the hands of the government” (international governance), and the Wall Street Journal is just whistling in the dark – desperately hoping that the monster of international tyranny will not be there when it finally has to open its eyes (sorry – the monster is real, and it will be in front of you when you finally have to open your eyes).
John B – thank you for pointing out what is happening in France. I was unaware of that. For the French (of all people) to be pushing the closing of a third of their nuclear power shows (with horrible clarity) that this international campaign has got nothing to do with reducing world C02 emissions – that is not the objective. Putting the economy (society – human beings) “into the hands of” international governance, is the objective.
The international establishment (government, NGO, and corporate), at their conferences to establish international tax cartels, and their conferences to destroy Western manufacturing (with their regulations and their costs) and have China make everything. “None of this would have possible under the Trump Administration” – I heard one lady crow on a “business” television station yesterday, talking about the tax cartel and other agreements, I doubt that is true – but, if it is true, it a great complement to President Trump (perhaps I was very unfair in some of my comments about him in the past).
What do the international establishment when the cameras are off at their conferences?
Do they all start chanting “Death to the West!” and/or “Death to Liberty!”? I doubt they are so open (even when the cameras are off) – but they might as well.
They are getting more blatant – for example the “liberal” Atlantic magazine is now owned by the “Emerson Collective” (yes – that is a real name), set up by Mrs Jobs with the money of her late husband.
The “Atlantic” is considered entirely mainstream – and not the least bit extreme, it is the norm now. “D.C. Statehood is a right!” and all the rest of it.
Indeed the only criticism the Atlantic gets is from the left.
For example, Anne Applebaum (once famous for writing AGAINST totalitarian regimes – before the lady sold out and started to write “D.C. Statehood is a right!” articles) wrote an article in the Atlantic that suggested that, perhaps, “liberals” would have to live-with the “insurrectionists” of January 6th (not the many FBI stooges in the crowd, or the Antifa “Insurrection USA” people – the ordinary people protesting against the blatantly rigged November 2020 United States Presidential election).
“No” came the reply from many of the Atlantic readers and others – one could NOT live with these reactionaries, they must be wiped out. Utterly exterminated. And whether they had been in Washington D.C. on January 6th was not relevant – it was their BELIEFS that are unacceptable, people with such beliefs must be removed from this Earth.
Again – this response was not considered in any way extreme. The mask is coming off.
Remember all those people at the Wall Street Journal who were angry that Senator Cotton was allowed to write an article condemning the left for their looting and burning of wide areas of American cities in 2020.
The real objection of these people was not the article of Senator Cotton – their real objection is that he is still breathing. They want him DEAD. They want all “reactionaries” DEAD. That is what they have been “educated” to believe, at school and then university.
So, of course, they do not react well when it is suggested that they might (possibly) have to live with reactionaries – in the same world.
I am reminded of the old story about Ireland…..
“When the Celts came to Ireland they found the people of the Goddess Danu already there – and they agreed to divide Ireland between them. But the Celts’ interpretation of the agreement was – “we get all of Ireland above the ground – and you get all of Ireland, BELOW the ground”.”
Know nukes.
Knowing nuclear power would indeed be the correct line SteveD – knowing new designs for nuclear power generation, which make it both safer and cheaper. making things less expensive is no small thing – the existence of civilisation depends on COST CONTROL.