Taking global warming seriously

The World Economic Forum is meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss “Globalization 4.0,” an effort to “create a world of public-private partnerships that guide the free market to create economic growth, sustainability and social benefits, according to WEF’s founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab.” That quote comes from an information email from Climate Home News, a publication designed to inform readers about the urgency of responding to climate change warnings.

If you are skeptical about the disinterested nature of “public-private partnerships,” or indeed anything except Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” guiding the free market, you are not alone. Because there is a sameness to the messages from the elite who meet regularly in Davos to tell us how we should be living: it is they who will pull the strings on this so-called “partnership.” They want to be the “guides” who decide what energy source is allowable, how much development is sustainable, and what social programs and benefits are to be supported.

Climate change is not new, but it is a powerful rallying cry precisely because it is hard to measure. It is not that I disbelieve or doubt climate change; I am agnostic. That means I think the truth is unknowable regarding this issue. Here’s why.

To begin with, our earth is a gigantic system, and anyone who thinks they have found a way to measure global temperatures and their effect on climate is taking on an enormous responsibility. Like the six-year-old with the small tin bucket carrying seawater from the surf in the hope of draining the ocean, they have an imperfect appreciation of the scale of their task. Human beings are not good at scale: all too often they have the notion their gaze encompasses the whole scope of the problem. When discussing any global dynamic, they cannot see beyond the horizon. But they will tell you they can because the UN says so.

And they are ultimately left to make a lot of interpolations based on climate models dependent upon data points limited in time and location. All too often their data have proven to be inaccurate, or worse, dishonest.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last year calling for a unified effort to limit temperature growth world-wide to less than three degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. Such a goal, the UN says, would require us all to stop using fossil fuels, a pretty common refrain by climate change people. And even they acknowledge the changes they call for will not apply to the two worst offenders: China and India.

Think about that for a moment – our betters would like us to give up coal, petroleum, and natural gas in the next generation. In its place they call for us to use renewable energy: solar, wind and geothermal, using a transmission grid that was designed for demand that peaks irrespective of the season, the height of the sun, or a whole new storage capability. In fact, the largest part of the storage they will count on is reverse transmission into the grid at peak production periods, an additional burden on existing distribution grids, whose managers will have little alternative but to pass the cost on to consumers.

And most revealing of all is that no one talks about nuclear power generation, by far the cleanest and historically safest available to us. But no, our betters (again) have determined, not based on demonstrated experience, that nuclear power generation is dangerous, probably because of the 1979 Jane Fonda movie ‘The China Syndrome’. Our worst experiences with nuclear energy – including Chernobyl -- have been remarkably tame compared with the scare scenarios we are exposed to from Hollywood.

Nor do analyses of the cost of alternative energy sources take into account the externalities of various alternatives. The cost of a wind turbine needs to include not only the cost of its production and installation, but also the environmental costs, raptor deaths, and ultimately demolition and recycling. Solar system costs need to include environmental costs of the mining, the concentration of sunlight or heat, or (again) the demolition. These are not insignificant costs, as I can attest from personal experience.

People who want us to believe they have the inside scoop on the relative cost of traditional and renewable energy like to overwhelm us with studies, statistics and reports from authorities like the UN. They seldom address the simple question qui bono? Who benefits from those studies and reports? Does the university publishing them, or the UN agency who reports the studies, stand to gain from the results if they are accepted? All too often, the answer is “yes”.

The question we should all be asking when someone tells us they know what is best for us is: “do they follow their own advice?” Reports out of Davos are that more than fifty chartered private jets have shown up bringing individual delegations to the world forum. Traveling in a private jet has just about the greatest environmental impact possible. It will be a lot easier to take environmentalists seriously when they themselves start acting like their message is serious.

— Fred LaSor writes op-eds on political and economic matters for various publications. He retired to Minden from a career in the U.S. Foreign Service.