{"id":224624,"date":"2022-10-19T12:44:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T10:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=224624"},"modified":"2022-10-19T12:44:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T10:44:07","slug":"the-real-existential-threat-to-people-and-planet-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=224624","title":{"rendered":"The real \u201cexistential\u201d threat\u201d to people and planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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BY DON RITTER:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s ironic. The very Biden Administration and European Government policies that are supposed to address the asserted \u201cexistential threat\u201d of climate change are themselves the true existential threat to modern civilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone trained in science and engineering, a lifelong hiker, gardener and lover of nature in the extreme, I want a healthy, sustainable planet as much as anyone promoting the climate change agenda.  It\u2019s not that \u201cgreen\u201d energy is bad. It\u2019s that the rate of \u201cgoing green,\u201d and the enormous investments required, are wildly disproportionate to society\u2019s energy needs, now and for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elon Musk gets it, but most government leadership do not \u2013 or choose to remain silent. \u201cRealistically, civilization will crumble<\/em> if we don\u2019t continue to use oil and gas in the short run,\u201d Musk has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civilization crumbling is clearly an \u201cexistential threat.\u201d And this guy sells electric cars! He also recommended \u201ccontinued drilling and exploration for oil and gas,\u201d because he understands that producing and fueling electric vehicles will require substantial fossil fuel electricity generation, for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExistential\u201d issues like war, peace, economic vitality, jobs and living standards all have the same critical driving force: energy \u2013 all forms of energy<\/em>. Energy to transport people and goods, to run farms and provide food, to heat and cool homes, to power manufacturing, and to fuel ships, planes and vehicles for our military. Natural gas is essential for fertilizers to feed a hungry world. Oil and natural gas are the building blocks for plastics, pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers, paint and thousands of other products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, these vital, almost-taken-for-granted benefits come almost entirely from oil, gas and coal. Those who have it will be powerful; those who don\u2019t will not. China and Russia know this well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe made a deal with the devil by handing its energy supply to Vladimir Putin and energy-rich Russia \u2013 while crippling its own energy future with anti-fossil-fuel climate change policies. Europe closed its coal, gas and nuclear power plants, while building expensive, unreliable, weather-dependent solar and wind facilities. Putin\u2019s war on Ukraine couldn\u2019t have happened without his dominance over gas, oil and coal supplies to Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where is the United States government on energy reality? It\u2019s copying Europe, with vast green energy subsidies and an unrelenting \u201cwhole of government\u201d regulatory war on fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

America should be telling an energy-insecure world, \u201cWe will do everything in our power to increase the supply of energy,\u201d in an-all-of-the-above approach: not only fossil fuels and renewables, but nuclear, and hydroelectric power when feasible. Instead, we beg hostile dictatorships \u2013 that pay no attention to human rights or ecological values \u2013 to increase their<\/em> production, because we refuse to increase ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t that just a little embarrassing? We could be the \u201cgas station for democracy\u201d for the Free World. But our government\u2019s climate change policies stand in the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simple arithmetic tells the story. Fossil fuels still provide some 80% of the world\u2019s and America\u2019s energy consumption. The rest comes from hydro, nuclear, solar, wind and biomass. In the USA, solar and wind provide less than 5% of our total energy consumption \u2013 and less than 2% for transportation, to fuel 290 million cars, trucks and buses. For airplanes, the percentage is zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coal constitutes some 33% of total energy consumption in the U.S. and 37% worldwide. Yet it is being prematurely withdrawn from global energy supplies by climate change policies. This is devastating, especially for poor countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing nations need expanded coal mining to produce electricity, to create jobs and lift billions out of abject poverty. But they are denied access to capital by the climate-obsessed bureaucracies in international financial institutions and government aid agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and USAID. This is this hypocritical, especially because the West industrialized predominantly with coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate campaigners at all levels of government and in the revenue-driven private sector have created a new energy economy based on vast subsidies for solar and wind, to replace coal, oil and gas. It portends disaster, for Europe and America, because they are doing it prematurely \u2013 before the replacements are anywhere near ready for prime time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden Administration \u201cInflation Reduction Act\u201d contains some $370 billion in new green energy subsidies, purposely skewing massive private investment into solar and wind, and away from fossil fuels that are still essential \u2013 practically, economically and geopolitically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before governments provide such enormous subsidies, they need to analyze all the environmental impacts of producing and installing massive wind turbine, solar panel and backup battery facilities. On U.S. and global scales, those technologies would require metals and materials mining and processing \u2013 almost all with fossil fuels \u2013 on scales unprecedented in human history; indeed, at levels impossible to reach for decades to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wind, solar and battery facilities also impact and destroy vast amounts of land: wildlife habitats, croplands and scenic areas. They kill birds, bats and other wildlife. Without expensive, fire-prone battery backup, they require inefficient hydrocarbon \u201cpeaker\u201d facilities going on and off repeatedly, whenever the wind isn\u2019t blowing, and the sun isn\u2019t shining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demonizing energy sources brings risks of blackouts, factory shutdowns, and freezing people in the dark during long winters. Supposedly \u201cclean, green, renewable\u201d energy is simply not yet able to meet America\u2019s and the world\u2019s growing electricity needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Substituting natural gas for coal in electricity generation is the reason America has been leading the Free World in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas should be seen not as a pariah, but as the \u201cbridge fuel\u201d to any fossil-fuel-free future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden Administration is putting long-range, uncertain, potentially faulty, probably exaggerated predictions about climate over the lives and independence of Ukraine, the security of our European allies \u2013 and even America\u2019s own security and well-being. India, Brazil, Indonesia and many others in the \u201cGlobal South\u201d need oil, gas and coal to exist and modernize. But the Biden Administration will not assure them that America will work to fill the gap if they try to wean themselves off Russian fossil fuels. Is it any wonder they have stayed neutral on Putin\u2019s brutal invasion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, the debate over expanding American energy to substitute for Russia\u2019s \u2013 and ensure our own energy security \u2013 is virtually non-existent within the Administration, many think tanks and the media. In fact, they all cooperate to censor and silence debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not only strange, because the soaring cost of energy is the primary factor driving inflation and threatening recession, not just in America but worldwide. In fact, it is worse than strange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government suppression of fossil fuel production is threatening the national security and economies of countless nations. Demands that we precipitously \u201cgo green\u201d represent the greatest \u201cexistential threat\u201d of all \u2013 to the survival of modern industrialized nations, to developing nations, and to the survival of our planet as we know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don Ritter received his Doctorate in Metals and Materials from MIT. He served 14 years on the House Energy and Commerce and Science and Technology Committees; was Ranking Member on the Congressional Helsinki Commission and was founding Co-Chair of the Baltic States-Ukraine Caucus. Ritter led the National Environmental Policy Institute after leaving Congress. He is a Trustee of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and Trustee and President & CEO Emeritus of the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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