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<i><font size="+1"><b>August </b><b>10,</b><b> 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[Sour Summers at the lake]<br>
<b>Lake Erie's Toxic Green Slime is Getting Worse With Climate
Change</b><br>
Algal blooms are a hazard around the country. But Lake Erie is
especially vulnerable to the scourge, and researchers are looking
for explanations.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082020/lake-erie-toxic-algae-climate-change">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082020/lake-erie-toxic-algae-climate-change</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Irony of coal and climate]<br>
<b>Climate change hits back, Svalbard coal mine flooded by melting
glacier</b><br>
After days with record heat at Svalbard, the penetration of water
from the above melting glacier is now flooding Norway's only
operating coal mine that supplies the country's only coal-power
plant.<br>
ByThomas Nilsen - July 30, 2020<br>
Large water penetration in Gruve 7 (Mine 7) was discovered on Sunday
July 26 during a routine inspection, the Store Norske mining company
informs.<br>
<br>
The day before, a record heat of 21,7C was measured in Longyearbyen,
the highest temperature ever measured so far north in the European
Arctic.<br>
<br>
Mine 7 is located some 15 kilometers southeast of Longyearbyen and
is the only remaining Norwegian operated coal mine on the Arctic
archipelago. The mine supplies the local coal-power plant with about
30,000 tons of coal annually, while another 80,000 tons are exported
to customers in the European metallurgical and chemical industry.<br>
<br>
The mountain above the mine is covered by a glacier and it is
melting water from this glacier that now penetrates through the
rocks into the mine.<br>
<br>
Extra pumps are installed, but has so far not been able to remove
more water than is coming in, the company explains. New pipes are
put in place and more pumping capacity is brought in.<br>
<br>
"We are also working on trying to get an overview of the equipment
we can expect to have been destroyed and therefore need to be
replaced before operations can start again," says mining chief Per
Nilssen. He says it is too early to tell when coal mining can start
again.<br>
<br>
Operations were currently on a pause due to the coronavirus
situation, a halt in mining supposed to last until August 17. The
pause is now likely to be prolonged, the mining company informs.<br>
Store Norske is owned by the state. Norway has for years been
criticized for the paradox of mining coal and supplying electricity
from a coal power plant to the town of Longyearbyen at the place on
earth where temperatures are rising most due to climate changes.<br>
Since the 70s, the annual average temperatures have risen by 4C at
Svalbard, with winter temperatures rising more than 7C, as
previously reported by the Barents Observer. A climate report
released last year warns that annual average temperatures could
increase with up to 10 degrees Celsius by 2100.<br>
<br>
This is not the first time climate changes troubles human activities
on Svalbard. The Global Seed Vault, where some 45,000 international
varieties are stored deep into what originally was believed to be
safe permafrost, was recently forced to rebuild its entrance.<br>
<br>
Climate change caused more snow and rain and the entrance was
flooded several times. During reconstruction, the ground around the
new waterproof entrance is artificially frozen to avoid further
erosion.<br>
<br>
In the town of Longyearbyen is houses sagging due to unstable ground
as the permafrost melts. About 250 homes will have to be torn down
and new buildings are built on steel pillars and sensors are placed
in the ground to measure how the steel constructions impact the
permafrost.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2020/07/coal-mine-flooded-melting-glacier">https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2020/07/coal-mine-flooded-melting-glacier</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[a very bad greenhouse gas]<br>
<b>INSIDE InsideClimate News with Reporters Phil McKenna and Lili
Pike</b><br>
InsideClimate News<br>
Reporters Phil McKenna and Lili Pike talk about their recent article
on Chinese nitrous oxide plants, and how efforts to control the
emissions of this dangerous superpollutant went haywire when funding
for a carbon trading program dried up.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/2P0ckbuvN4I">https://youtu.be/2P0ckbuvN4I</a><br>
- - <br>
[Nitrous Oxide]<br>
<b>'Super-Pollutant' Emitted by 11 Chinese Chemical Plants Could
Equal a Climate Catastrophe</b><br>
Emissions controls worked perfectly at Chinese plants, until a
foreign subsidy dried up...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04082020/china-n2o-super-pollutant-nylon-emissions-climate-change">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04082020/china-n2o-super-pollutant-nylon-emissions-climate-change</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[some deeper considerations before we hop into the car]<br>
<b>Why climate change is about to make your bad commute worse</b><br>
By Matt Alderton - August 8, 2020<br>
Something remarkable happened on American roadways during the early
days of the coronavirus pandemic: In even the most congested cities,
traffic started moving again. With Americans staying home, cars
suddenly rolled over highways like water through a freshly unclogged
pipe. By mid-April, traffic had fallen to just 52 percent of
pre-pandemic levels, according to traffic research firm INRIX.<br>
<br>
But the reprieve was short-lived. As states and cities reopened
their economies, drivers restarted their vehicles. By late June,
INRIX reported, travel nationwide had already reached pre-pandemic
levels, and in many states traffic was actually exceeding those
levels.<br>
<br>
That's bad news for motorists, who lost an average of 99 hours to
congestion in 2019 -- two hours more than just two years prior.<br>
<br>
Most motorists are familiar with many of the reasons for bad
traffic: more cars on the road, unskilled drivers, construction,
inadequate mass transit, crashes. Increasingly, however, there's at
least one more culprit to consider: climate change.<br>
<br>
"America's transportation system is not set up to recover and regain
functionality after a major disruption or disasters," said Paula
Pagniez, director of the Climate and Resilience Hub at global risk
management firm Willis Towers Watson. "Both chronic and acute
changes in weather impact America's roads, bridges, tunnels and
transit."<br>
<br>
In fact, weather already causes approximately 15 percent of
congestion, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And
with climate change escalating -- scientists expect extreme weather
events such as heat waves, snow storms, hurricanes and floods to
increase in both frequency and intensity -- gridlock will only grow.
That is, unless governments change the way they plan, design and
manage climate-sensitive infrastructure.<br>
<br>
"We need to fundamentally reassess what our systems need to be able
to deliver, and under what conditions," said Mikhail Chester,
associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable
engineering at Arizona State University and co-leader of the Urban
Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network. "And those
conditions, it looks like, are going to be changing faster and
faster in the future."<br>
<b>The climate conundrum</b><br>
So fundamental is climate's impact on critical infrastructure that
it's codified in local, state and even federal regulations.<br>
"Everything that is built around you is built with some
consideration for how much environmental exposure it's going to be
able to tolerate," Chester explained. "When it comes to roads, for
example, the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials has guidelines that say asphalt should be
engineered to withstand the hottest week on record during a certain
historical period -- say, 1970 and 2000. In Arizona, that might be
115 degrees, and in Chicago, it might be 105 degrees."<br>
<br>
The problem is, thanks to climate change, past is no longer
prologue. "We're not going to shut off CO2 emissions overnight, so
the climate is going to continue changing. The question is, by how
much and in which direction?" Chester said.<br>
<br>
"Let's say you design a road in Chicago for the hottest week on
record, which might be 105 degrees. Well, the hottest week going
forward might be 108 degrees, or it could be 120 degrees," he said.<br>
Faced with uncertainty, civil engineers can do little but guess. And
the wrong guess could be costly.<br>
<br>
Consider, for example, "robust design." That's design "that will
withstand all of the environmental conditions you might expect over
the lifetime of a road," said Jayne Knott, a civil and environmental
engineer who is principal and senior scientist at JFK Environmental
Services.<br>
<br>
"The problem with that is, when you build a road that's good for all
conditions, you end up with very thick asphalt," said Knott, who is
also a research associate at the University of Massachusetts at
Boston's School for the Environment. "When you consider paving an
entire roadway, that extra asphalt costs big, big money. Plus,
you're raising the road, so suddenly trucks don't fit under bridges.
It's very complex."<br>
<br>
If over-engineering hurts public coffers, under-engineering hurts
public safety. When pavement falls victim to extreme temperatures or
precipitation, for example, it fails. And when pavement fails --
creating cracks, potholes and rutting -- roads become hazardous.<br>
<br>
It's not just roads, either. Also vulnerable are railroads, whose
tracks can buckle in extreme temperatures; power lines, which can
sag and fall during heat waves and topple during windstorms; dams
and sewers, which can flood and fail during extreme rains; and
bridges, which expand and contract with the temperature in ways that
can degrade their structural integrity.<br>
<br>
And along with fiscal and physical fallout, there are economic
consequences.<br>
<br>
"We need infrastructure to move the goods and people that make the
economy go," said Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for
Climate and Energy Solutions, adding that infrastructure failure can
hamper employment, productivity, logistics and commerce.<br>
<br>
Solutions: More funding, adaptive engineering<br>
Even without the specter of climate change, U.S. infrastructure is
in dire straits, according to the American Society of Civil
Engineers, which gave the nation a D+ on its most recent
"Infrastructure Report Card."<br>
<br>
"Climate change is an additional stressor on already taxed
infrastructure," Chester said. The situation's silver lining, he
added, is consensus: "Everyone is in agreement that we should do
something about infrastructure."<br>
<br>
In fact, bipartisan legislation is awaiting action by Congress. The
Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019 would invest $4.9 billion
over five years in a new resiliency program to protect roads and
bridges from extreme weather and natural disasters. If passed, it
would build upon the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of
2015, which requires state departments of transportation to
incorporate resilience into long-term infrastructure planning, and
the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, whose Building Resilient
Infrastructure and Communities program funds infrastructure projects
that proactively mitigate communities' disaster risks.<br>
<br>
Federal funding is especially important in light of the coronavirus
pandemic, according to Allie Kelly, executive director of the Ray C.
Anderson Foundation, which oversees the philanthropically funded Ray
C. Anderson Memorial Highway (the Ray) in Troup County, Ga.<br>
<br>
"An added complication for us right now as we're promoting smart,
resilient infrastructure is the economic damage we'll likely be
working through for years, not months, as a result of covid," Kelly
said, adding that the funding mechanisms transportation departments
rely on to build, operate and repair infrastructure are drying up
because of the pandemic.<br>
<br>
"People don't drive during economic downturns, so they don't use as
much gas. That means DOTs don't have the gas-tax revenue that is
their lifeblood," she said.<br>
<br>
Creativity and adaptability are also essential. Along its 18-mile
stretch of Interstate 85, for example, the Ray tests new
infrastructure solutions that deliver cost savings, performance
improvements and climate resilience. Two that show particular
promise are roadside vegetation and rubber-modified asphalt. The
former fills vacant roadside land with perennial grains whose deep
roots retain water and hold soil against storm water flooding. The
latter, made with recycled tires, are rutting- and crack-resistant,
which increases road durability and extends the life of the pavement
by up to 30 percent or more.<br>
<br>
In some cases, answers lie in geography. "In the Southwest, they use
different asphalt binders than in the Northeast," Knott said. "As
the climate warms, materials that are used right now down South
might be appropriate for up North. We just have to be willing to
make changes instead of sticking with what we've always used."<br>
<br>
Chester agreed, suggesting that engineers respond to climate change
by designing infrastructure for the short term, instead of the long
term.<br>
<br>
"The way we typically approach infrastructure is to assume
stability, but it's looking more and more like the world in the
future is going to be unstable," he said. "So instead of building
rigid systems that are supposed to last 50 or 100 years, we might
want to think about building systems that are reasonable for the
next 10 or 20 years, then pivoting quickly as conditions change."<br>
<br>
Whatever solutions they bring to bear, the biggest need for
communities to fortify their infrastructure against climate change
is better data.<br>
<br>
"If we know what the conditions are going to be, we have enough
skill in the engineering field to be able to design for those. The
weak link right now is that we don't have the information we need to
project what those future conditions will be," said Perciasepe, of
the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. He cited the flood
plain maps generated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as
an example. As recently as December 2016, a government audit found
only 42 percent of the flood map miles in FEMA's inventory were
updated and valid.<br>
<br>
"We need additional investment to be able to get that data updated
so it's available for people to use when they're doing climate
vulnerability assessments," Perciasepe said.<br>
<br>
Sandy shines a light<br>
Even as the nation falls behind, however, some cities are pulling
ahead. Among them is New York, whose coastline was walloped by
Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Two years later, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D)
established the Mayor's Office of Resiliency to lead climate
adaptation across the city's five boroughs.<br>
<br>
"Hurricane Sandy was a pivotal moment in New York City's climate
action work," said Jainey Bavishi, the office's director. "We wanted
to make sure we weren't just recovering from Hurricane Sandy, but
that we were building a city that's more resilient to the chronic
impacts of climate change that we know we are going to continue
facing."<br>
<br>
Bavishi and a staff of approximately 30 are charged with executing a
$20 billion resiliency strategy whose components include building
coastal infrastructure to protect against sea-level rise and
developing guidelines to help civil engineers leverage climate
projections in their designs.<br>
<br>
Because it must rely on external stakeholders to execute its work --
including other city departments, regional agencies and the private
sector -- the office's most important contribution might be
leadership.<br>
<br>
"Within the city, we very much are a thought leader, policy leader
and multiagency convener. A major part of our role is bringing
agencies together to introduce them to the challenge and figure out
how we're going to manage it together," Bavishi said. "We're
basically leading an organizational change process from the ground
up for the entire city government. It's a massive effort."<br>
<br>
Large though it may be, experts insist that this kind of effort is
critical.<br>
<br>
"The nation can save $6 in future disaster costs for every $1
invested in hazard mitigation," Pagniez said, citing data from the
National Institute of Building Sciences. "Beyond a misuse of
taxpayer dollars, the consequences of not acting include lives and
livelihoods lost and assets damaged -- sometimes beyond repair."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/why-climate-change-is-about-to-make-your-bad-commute-worse/2020/08/08/7ad97ba8-d5b6-11ea-aff6-220dd3a14741_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/why-climate-change-is-about-to-make-your-bad-commute-worse/2020/08/08/7ad97ba8-d5b6-11ea-aff6-220dd3a14741_story.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[pair of political propaganda books - warns the Guardian]<br>
<b>False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg; Apocalypse Never by Michael
Shellenberger - review</b><br>
Two prominent 'lukewarmers' take climate science denial to another
level, offering tepid manifestos at best<br>
Bob Ward - 9 Aug 2020<br>
It is no longer credible to deny that the average temperature around
the world is rising and that other phenomena, such as extreme
weather events, are also shifting. People can now see with their own
eyes that the climate is changing around them.<br>
<br>
Nor is it tenable to deny that the Earth's warming is driven by
increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere, resulting from human activities, such as the
production and burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Such
denial is only now promoted by cranks and conspiracy theorists who
also think, for instance, that the Covid-19 pandemic is linked to
the development of the 5G network.<br>
<br>
So instead, a different form of climate change denial is emerging
from the polemical columns of rightwing newspapers. They paint a
Panglossian picture of manmade climate crisis that will never be
catastrophic as long as the world grows rich by using fossil fuels.
The "lukewarmers" are on the march and coming to a bookshop near
you.<br>
<br>
Two prominent lukewarmers are now launching new manifestos: False
Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor
and Fails to Fix the Planet by Bjorn Lomborg, and Apocalypse Never:
Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger.<br>
<br>
Although they are aimed primarily at American audiences, they will
appeal to anyone who, like the authors, proclaims themselves to be
an environmentalist, but despises environmental campaigners.<br>
<br>
Both books contain many pages of endnotes and references to academic
publications, conveying the initial impression that their arguments
are supported by reason and evidence. But the well-informed reader
will recognise that they rely on sources that are outdated,
cherry-picked or just wrong...<br>
- -<br>
The content of False Alarm will be familiar to those who have read
Lomborg's previous books, The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool
It. New findings and evidence are twisted and forced into the same
haranguing narrative for his new contribution. Shellenberger's book
is far easier to read, at least near the beginning, but gradually
descends into a bitter rant against environmentalists, the media and
politicians who do not share his fervour for nuclear power...<br>
Not everything that Lomborg and Shellenberger write is wrong. They
are both correct in saying that the world should be investing far
more in making populations, particularly in poor countries, more
resilient to our changing climate. Even if the world is successful
in its implementation of the Paris Agreement and limits global
warming to well below 2C by the end of the century, the impacts will
continue to grow over the coming decades, threatening lives and
livelihoods across the globe.<br>
<br>
But their argument that adaptation to climate crisis impacts is
easier and cheaper than emissions cuts is undermined by their
admission that the economic costs of extreme weather are rising
because ever-more-vulnerable businesses and homes are being built in
high-risk areas.<br>
<br>
Lomborg is also right that the world should be spending far more on
green innovation to develop technologies to help us to tackle
climate breakdown. But he is pinning all his hopes on the
breakthrough discovery of a magical new energy source that will be
both zero-carbon and cheaper than fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
This is wrong-headed for at least two reasons. The first is that
most innovation occurs through the incremental improvement of
existing technologies and we will probably need several different
sources of affordable and clean energy. The second is that climate
crisis results from the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere that is already happening, so we cannot afford to delay
the deployment of today's alternatives to fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
I also have some sympathy for Shellenberger's argument that nuclear
power has a role to play in creating a zero-carbon energy system.
However, instead of calmly explaining its advantages over fossil
fuels, he attempts to promote it by trash-talking about new
renewable technologies, particularly wind and solar...<br>
He is right that we cannot yet store energy affordably on the scale
needed to power an entire electricity grid with intermittent
renewables. But he also claims that windfarms might be responsible
for an alarming decline in insect populations in Germany, which
entomologists have blamed on agricultural practices. And he
complains that the turbines "are almost invariably loud and disturb
the peace and quiet", although he stops short of repeating Donald
Trump's ridiculous falsehood that the noise causes cancer.<br>
<br>
Both Lomborg and Shellenberger also make some legitimate criticisms
of "alarmism" by environmentalists. One of the most difficult
problems in making the case for action on climate crisis is that the
elevated levels of greenhouse gases we create over the next few
decades will have consequences not fully realised until the next
century and beyond. Some campaigners deal with this communications
challenge by wrongly warning of imminent catastrophe.<br>
<br>
However, many scientists do suspect that we are approaching, or have
already passed, thresholds beyond which very severe consequences,
such as destabilisation of the land-based polar ice caps and
associated sea level rise of several metres, become unstoppable,
irreversible or accelerate. Lomborg and Shellenberger both downplay
these huge risks because they fatally undermine the fundamental
basis for their lukewarmer ideology.<br>
<br>
Lomborg's book relies heavily on the creative use of the Dynamic
Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (Dice). William
Nordhaus, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2018 for his
pioneering work on climate change, created the Dice model, but it
has been strongly criticised for omitting the biggest risks.<br>
<br>
A graph in Lomborg's book shows that he has used Dice to predict
that 4.1C of global warming by the end of the century would only
reduce global economic output, or GDP, by about 4%. He also finds
that even more extreme warming of 7C would lead to a loss of GDP of
just 15%. These are hard to reconcile with the scientific evidence
that such temperature changes would utterly transform the world...<br>
- -<br>
Lomborg also exaggerates the costs of action by automatically
doubling researchers' estimates for reducing emissions. He justifies
this by referring to an obscure study in 2009 that concluded it may
prove twice as costly as the European commission expected for the
member states to cut their collective emissions by 20% by 2020. But
the European Union reached its target ahead of schedule in 2018,
with the price of emissions permits over the previous decade usually
at less than half of the level anticipated by the commission.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, Lomborg doubles Nordhaus's estimates of the costs of
global action and concludes that the "optimal" level of global
warming, balancing both damages and emissions cuts, would be 3.75C
by 2100.<br>
<br>
This calculation made me laugh out loud because modern humans have
no evolutionary experience of the climate that would be created by
such a temperature rise. The last time the Earth was more than 2C
warmer than pre-industrial times was during the Pliocene epoch,
three million years ago, when the polar ice caps were much smaller
and global sea level was 10 to 20 metres higher than today. Only
lukewarmers would claim that modern humans are best suited to a
prehistoric climate!<br>
<br>
<b>In short, these new books truly deserve their place on the
bookshelf among other classic examples of political propaganda.</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/09/false-alarm-by-bjorn-lomborg-apocalypse-never-by-michael-shellenberger-review">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/09/false-alarm-by-bjorn-lomborg-apocalypse-never-by-michael-shellenberger-review</a><br>
Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham
Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the
London School of Economics<br>
<br>
- False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts
the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet by Bjorn Lomborg is published
by Basic Books. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. <br>
<br>
- Apocalpyse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by
Michael Shellenberger is published by HarperCollins. To order a copy
go to guardianbookshop.com. <br>
- - -<br>
[checking background quotes of 2 propagandists] <br>
<b>DeSmog Climate Disinformation Research Database</b> where you can
search and browse our extensive research on the individuals and
organizations that have helped to delay and distract the public and
our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse
gas pollution and fight global warming. Choose a tab below to view
the lists of climate science denier individuals and organizations. <br>
<b>Bjorn Lomborg</b><br>
July 2020<br>
Lomborg published a book titled False Alarm: How Climate Change
Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the
Planet. It was promoted by the Institute for Energy Research and the
Hoover Institution among other groups. <br>
The thesis of the book, reported in a review at the New York Times,
was that "Activists have been sounding a false alarm about the
dangers of climate change. If we listen to them, Lomborg says, we
will waste trillions of dollars, achieve little and the poor will
suffer the most." <br>
<br>
Joseph E. Stiglitz of The New York Times notes that, "Somehow,
missing in his list of good policy measures are easy things like
good regulations -- preventing coal-burning electric generators, for
example." Stiglitz adds that Lomborg, "exhibits a naïve belief that
markets work well -- ignoring a half-century of research into market
failures that says otherwise -- so well, in fact, that there is no
reason for government to intervene other than by setting the right
price of carbon." <br>
<br>
"A second mistake -- which biases the results in the same way -- is
Nordhaus's and Lomborg's underestimation of the damage associated
with climate change." Examples of that damage include ocean
acidification and sea level rise. "Climate change also includes more
extreme weather events -- more intense hurricanes, more droughts,
more floods, with all the devastation to life, livelihood and
property that accompanies them."<br>
<br>
A third mistake identified in the article is "not taking due account
of risk."<br>
<br>
"As the atmospheric concentration of carbon increases, we are
entering uncharted territory. Not since the dawn of humanity has
there been anything like this. The models use the 'best estimate' of
impacts, but as we learn more about climate change these best
estimates keep getting revised, and, typically, in only one
direction -- more damage and sooner than had been expected."<br>
<br>
Stiglitz concluded:<br>
"This book proves the aphorism that a little knowledge is dangerous.
It's nominally about air pollution. It's really about mind
pollution."<br>
<br>
IER disagreed with Lomborg's case of a tax on carbon, suggesting "a
no-carbon-tax policy is better than the 'optimal' carbon tax." <br>
Lomborg was also interviewed at the Hoover Institution, where he is
a visiting fellow, on July 24 to discuss the book. <br>
find source details at - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/bjorn-lomborg">https://www.desmogblog.com/bjorn-lomborg</a><br>
- - -<br>
<b>Michael Shellenberger</b><br>
<b>Key Quotes</b><br>
July 2, 2020<br>
The following is from an interview Shellenberger did for The
Heartland Institute's podcast: <br>
[00:19:50] "I don't blame people for being apocalyptic
environmentalists anymore than I blame being blame people for
catching the coronavirus. You know, it's like an infectious disease.
Right. All right. It's treatable, though. Highly treatable."<br>
<br>
He later commented on climate change:<br>
<br>
[00:36:27] "Climate needs to have its importance diminished. It's
not the most important environmental problem in the world. The main
function of IPCC appears to be to terrify people. I don't know what
else it does."<br>
<br>
July 2, 2020<br>
In an interview for Alex Epstein's podcast, Shellenberger described
how he believed climate change would be solved, and also gave
Epstein credit for the term "unreliables" in relation to wind and
solar -- a term Shellenberger said he used in his recent book. <br>
<br>
Michael Shellenberger: [00:04:39] We're going to deal climate change
by by by just switching to power sources that don't have that don't
produce carbon emissions. So those like the first big thing. And
then it was like once I was on board with that. It wasn't. Is it's
hard to be like, OK, maybe you do need nuclear. And then it was just
becoming disenchanted with renewables. It was really the land use
impacts and the environmental impacts of renewables. So, you know,
you and your listeners know I don't need to tell you guys. But, you
know, 400 times more land on average, for solar and wind farms than
you need for natural gas or nuclear plants. Of course, it's
completely unreliable. By the way, do you see got yourself a little
section. You got this. I gave you a little section headline once.
Unreliables. [00:05:23]<br>
<br>
Alex Epstein: [00:05:24] Yeah, I'm glad. [00:05:25]<br>
<br>
Michael Shellenberger: [00:05:26] I don't know you wrote that. But
I. [00:05:27]<br>
<br>
Alex Epstein: [00:05:27] I did, but I didn't know that you credited
me. Where did you credit me? [00:05:30]<br>
<br>
Michael Shellenberger: [00:05:30] I didn't credit you. I just stole
it from you. I'm crediting you now. Um, no, I was going to say and I
mean it was unreliables. [00:05:37]<br>
<br>
Alex Epstein: [00:05:38] I know, I love it. I was so happy when I
saw that, because I've wanted that to get wider use. [00:05:42]<br>
<br>
Later in the interview, Shellenberger compared feras of climate
change to fears of nuclear energy:<br>
<br>
Michael Shellenberger: [00:26:34] So climate change, if you listen
to how people talk about it, like the apocalyptic stuff. It sounds
almost identical to fears of nuclear weapons and nuclear wars. It's
like the same… Nuclear is kind of the prototypical apocalypse. And
then they'd kind of be like, well, yeah, overpopulation, you know,
that would be like a bomb going off. Yeah. But what? Really? I mean,
not really, right. Like, not at all. But whatever it would be like
population bomb. [00:26:58]<br>
<br>
Michael Shellenberger: [00:26:59] That was the name of the big
Malthusian population scare in 1968 and now climate change. And if I
would point out the Amazon has talked about like a bomb going off.
So the bomb became kind of the ultimate symbol of humankind's
apocalyptic power. And then and then you can see that it becomes the
devil and then you're trying to get away from it. You're going to
the angels, which just renewables. I mean, the overall cosmology of
apocalyptic environmentalism is kind of so basic and dumb. It's
almost embarrassing to when you describe it, you know, you're kind
of like God, I can't believe people really believe this, but that is
what's going on. It's ultimately this idea that with renewables,
we're going to harmonize ourselves with the new god of nature. And
they keep destroying the environment in order to save it while doing
that. [00:27:43]<br>
see source details at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/michael-shellenberger">https://www.desmogblog.com/michael-shellenberger</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
August 10, 2013 </b></font><br>
CBS News reports on a new study linking rising temperatures to more
violence.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-may-increase-violence-new-study-finds/">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-may-increase-violence-new-study-finds/</a>
<br>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/</p>
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