President Joe Biden speaks during the “Accelerating Clean Technology Innovation and Deployment” event at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 2, 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
It would be one thing if the shrieking, hysterical predictions of climate doom that inform administration policy that is hostile to America’s oil & gas industry were credible. But the environmental left lost its credibility long ago. That’s because none of the apocalyptic predictions that the eco-left has been spewing for five decades has ever come true.
Time and space permit only a few examples:
In 1967, Professor Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University wrote that it was already too late to avoid a worldwide famine by 1975. We would go on from that prediction into the full flower of our society’s greatest health challenge, obesity.
When I was a kid in junior high school, we were told unequivocally that Lake Erie was totally dead and would never support life again. Fast forward to today and the Nautica Waterfront District on the bank of Lake Erie is billed as, “Cleveland’s Premiere Location to Live, Work & Play.”
In 1974, Time magazine, among others, published lengthy scientific articles describing the crippling ice age that was in the process of descending upon the earth, wiping out numerous animal species and greatly curtailing agricultural output.
By 1988 the tune changed when NASA scientist James Hansen said with absolute certainty that “global warming” would very soon mean miserably long, hot summers, crops burning up in the field and polar ice melt that would raise average sea level anywhere from one to six feet. One “top scientist” predicted that New York City’s West Side Highway would be underwater by 2019. It’s not.
Al Gore told us in 2008 that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013. As of today, Arctic sea ice covers five million square miles.
In May 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry, in a joint statement with the French foreign minister, declared that we had a mere 500 days to avoid “climate chaos.” I’ll spare you counting the days. May 2014 was nearly 3,000 days ago.
There’s more but space doesn’t permit.
Suffice that it isn’t a stretch to say that doomsday, far-left environmentalism has reached the point that it’s responsible for getting people killed. Curtailment of U.S. oil & gas production via Biden administration executive action has served to raise prices to levels that greatly benefit a net energy exporter like Russia. In practical terms that means that a portion of what you pay for every tank of gas is working its way through world energy markets to help Vladimir Putin finance his murderous adventures in Ukraine.
The inflation to which high energy prices add fuel is serving to weaken the dollar and weaken America’s prestige and standing in the world. Strongmen like Vladimir Putin notice such things.
Leftist environmentalism has been around a long time and has mostly been an expensive nuisance. But now it’s provocative. Today, environmental extremism is weakening the United States while enriching and emboldening the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jingping.
Energy transactions have for a long time been denominated in U.S. dollars. Anymore, the currency is becoming human lives.
This Putin problem is much more of a problem than most people realize. The monetary sanctions lauded by the west and ideologues in Congress may have long-term consequences. For example, removing Russia from SWIFT has been called irrevocable. The petro-dollar may factually be dropped as a part of this. The issue is not ‘if’ it will happen, the issues are how and when they will happen. Putin was pushed into this position by the western financial response, and you can bet that China and Russia are anything but unhappy about it. They would love to see arrogant America get her due. The American people will be hurt most of all.
Of the “shrieking, hysterical predictions of climate doom” examples you cite, my favorite is the 1974 Time Magazine penguin on a field ice cover titled, “How To Survive The Coming Ice Age,” with the subtitle “51 things you can do to make a difference.”
When I was a freshman in high school in the mid-1960s, during the Russian missile crisis, the “experts” were saying that early in the next century the world would run out of oil and gas. And so, here we are in that new century and the future supply of oil and gas is now pegged at 100 years or more. So much for peak oil!
Folks my age will recall watching “Our Friend the Atom,” the 1957 Disneyland television episode. Back then we were told that nuclear power would take up the slack as fossil fuels dwindled away.
Wind and solar, the new kids on the energy block, are still in knee pants and will be there for years to come, unable to replace the big boys–oil, gas, and coal.
Fracking turned out to be a technological breakthrough for natural gas production. Maybe, in time, wind and solar will experience similar breakthroughs, making both affordable and abundant. No sane person opposes such a development. But until such breakthroughs occur, no sane person imagines that we can leave fossil fuels in the ground.
There will always be climate change. God is in control of that. Climate control can not be done by people. If everyone would read 2nd Chronicles 7_verses 13 & 14 they might figure out to help our crazy world.
One volcanic eruption can cause more issues with climate than humanity can dish out. How many years have volcanos been spewing forth ash, lethal gases, and hot rocks over the planet? Here is another fun factoid, “Solar Minimum”. Look that one up. I am absolutely amazed at the ignorance of the American population and saddened they can be so gullible. To quote the Supreme Leader Sleepy Joe, “Lets not let Facts get in the way of the truth!” HA!
Now it’s curtailment by executive action by current administration, ok then. So very little or no other influences just simply put ,it’s Bidens fault,no other economic forces have been at play the last two years,ok. Expensive nuisance, never heard it put that way. So basically all the stuff we’ve been hearing about since childhood about dangers of chemicals,exposure in our everday environment, water, air is just an exaggeration. So removing lead from gasoline I think in the late seventies, was nonsense after all it sure burned better with lead it’s said.All the huge increases in lung disease ( non smokers) with children and adults that’s attributed to air quality is probably exaggerated. That river in Ohio ,I believe 1969 was the year ,caught fire. It’s said that incident also ignited a movement to do something about what and how much was being dumped into our rivers . Predictions have often been wrong and comical in many arenas not just concerning ” Environmentalism .” Last I checked it wasn’t or isn’t mainly about global warming affect possibility, it’s regarding overall health of an environment that’s best regarding our health as we understand it, which like many things evolves as we learn more,same as we’ve learned more about Covid as time has passed, although some have talked as if we should have known everything from the start. You know that usual spin put on things for the sake of politics and making money. And as far as prestige and standing, Wallstreet isn’t to concerned,and when you look at the ” Circus ” that our political arena and politicians behavior and many of our citizens behavior compared to long ago,that’s so readily available now to observe, no wonder how we’re viewed has changed. We’ve had a president at Helsinki disregard his own countries intelligence reports and take a Russian (Putin)leaders word rather than his own people for the entire world to see. My how soon we forget, if that’s really what it is, forgetting. One thing is clear in this age of extreme ” Propaganda ” I’ll call it,there’s a lot of money to made, whether via the internet or TV ,or any other, you could say that’s good for some,but at what cost to others.
My wife and I just watched “Ukraine on Fire” on the cable network One American News (OAN). The executive producer is Oliver Stone. We found “Ukraine on Fire” to be both fair and balanced and, equally important, rich in historical perspective. We very much recommend “Ukraine on Fire” for those wanting to better understand Ukrainian situation. My perspective changed based on what I learned.
As Paul took me down memory lane regarding the past dire warnings of impending climate disasters, I was reminded of the street corner preachers screaming “the end of the world is near!” These prophesies have similarities, except the current evangelism is destroying our economy, as well as our individual freedoms. To subscribe to either of these irrational forecasts, one must be unaware of the biblical teachings and/or a product of our existing public educational system. The evangelists preaching in the colleges and universities have successfully indoctrinated students in the fine art of Socialism, and the science of being dependent on government. Also, when many of the graduates of public schools cannot read or write their own names, critical thinking is lacking, and invites such conversion. In my opinion, the last two paragraphs of “Deadly environmentalism” contain the most alarming prophesy, as this expensive climate theology has expanded into a more expensive cost of human lives. To enrich those who wish to do us harm, and with the same policies, make us more vulnerable to those same enemies is suicidal.