Reality Reasserts Itself; Net-Zero, in Their Own Words; & Australia's Anti-Energy Policy.

Oct 10, 2023

In his Editor’s Column this week, Michael Walsh wrote about the latest stumbling block to the Leftist worldview’s stubborn denial of reality, namely the terrorist attack which is being referred to as “Israel’s 9/11.”

Reality Bites

Afew months ago, I wrote a column in this space entitled "First, Posit a Counter-Factual," in which I remarked upon the Left's longstanding methodology of simply asserting the truth of fantastic statements and then acting upon them with the ferocity of madmen. Multiple genders, "green" energy, transsexuals, plucky little Ukraine, the harrowing threat of the "far right," and a world-wide "climate emergency" that demands immediate action are just a few of their current ideological hallucinations. Alas for them, all are currently experiencing implosion as reality catches up with insanity. But none -- as events in Israel now so vividly illustrate -- as the feminine notion that the world can sing and hug its way to perpetual peace.

Si momumentum requeris, circumspice: Germany, which had foolishly and inexplicably abjured traditional fossil fuels as a method of heating a country that gets pretty damn cold in the winter, is now prudently backing away from its rash promise to "go Green" as the bitter realization dawns that "green" energy is essentially a political pipe dream, as well as a gigantic financial scam. Here on the home front, children inexcusably butchered by members of the medical profession are starting to sue the "doctors" who castrated them and cut off their budding breasts after a hasty but politically expedient diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" -- almost as big a hoax as "climate change" and morally even worse. While they're at it, those children ought to sue the politicians who have legalized such Mengeleian horrors, the parents who encouraged them, and the amoral members of the corporate media who have so diligently promoted the idea as (what else?) a matter of "rights."

Meanwhile, the state of Israel is today reeling from utterly predictable "surprise" attacks on its citizens launched by Muslim Hamas radicals; apparently the Israeli government, the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet, and the Mossad were all too busy observing Simchat Torah to notice what was going on in Gaza -- the selfsame Gaza they so foolishly returned to Muslim control in 2005 under the Ariel Sharon government.

One of the oldest rules in American gangland was formulated by Murray "the Camel" Humphreys of the Capone mob in Chicago: "If you ever have to cock a gun in a man's face, kill him. If you walk away without killing him after doing that, he'll kill you the next day." The Israelis could have, and should have, finished the Iran-adjacent Hamas terrorist organization when they had the chance, but of course they did not, and this is the result.

David Cavena wondered whether even devoted environmentalists believe in Net-Zero.

Net-Zero Nonsense

The more one hears about "net-zero," the more absurd it becomes that anyone is falling for it. Are the elites running this grift going to stop flying their jets, disconnect their gas stoves, stop buying beachfront properties, or eat Cricket Crispies for breakfast? No. And why not? Easy: Because they don’t believe it themselves.

Here are a few examples of them discussing, in their own words, the real significance of their “climate change” strategy:

Ottmar Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015:

One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore…. We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy.

Christina Figueres, formerly the executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change:

This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.

Think about the hubris: "we have given ourselves." A few unaccountable, un-elected, globalists have chosen – all by themselves – to terminate the economic model that is history’s primary driver of prosperity, and to charge us trillions of dollars to do so. The "climate change" cult has never been about honest discussion of the climate (doing so won't get them to their redistribution grift). The U.N.'s IPCC leadership has been announcing that fact since at least 2001:

In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

This isn't how the scientific method works. They're proposing a hypothetical which they insist is unfalsifiable, and dismiss any volumes of data, scientific opinion, and hesitancy with current models that do not support their conclusion as "denialism." The purpose of a hypothetical is to test a theory. If they refuse to test their theory, why should anyone believe it? And yet, despite its aversion to reasoned discourse and analysis, Big Environmentalism seems to keep coming out on top. Why is this?

Here’s Peter Smith on Australia’s policy of electrical unreliability.

Australia's Energy Arsonists

The government body responsible for keeping Australian lights on, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), issued its latest annual ten-year ‘outlook’ report on September 6. The report in question assesses the reliability of the supply of electricity in meeting the demand over coming years. We learn, in fact, that it cannot be relied upon at all.

Never fear though, each bummer is an opportunity. Very well disguised opportunities, realists might think. But for AEMO the more bummers the better. Hence the title of its report: “2023 Electricity Statement of Opportunities.” Oh joy! "Many factors are driving AEMO’s 2023 forecast identifying great development opportunities than in earlier reports." And, pray tell, what are these “factors” (all direct quotes, overlook tortuous syntax:

Generator unplanned outage rates are forecast higher than previously, reflecting recent trends of poor performance among some generator technologies.
New and improved weather data and modelling for renewable generation has improved the accuracy of variable renewable energy correlations with maximum demand, identifying a higher forecast occurrence of low wind and high demand conditions in Victoria, resulting in higher forecast reliability risks for South Australia and Victoria.
Many new wind, solar, battery and pumped hydro developments have advanced… however solutions which orchestrate and coordinate consumers’ generation and storage devices to support reliability have not yet demonstrated success at significant scale.

In a nutshell: deliberately running down coal-power stations lessens their reliability; the renewable energy which exists is not up to scratch and its further development is going at a snail’s pace; the wind is not playing ball; people are recalcitrant in not installing more solar panels, batteries and back-to-the-grid smart meters; and, duh, forcing households and businesses off the use of gas means more demand for electricity. And the bottom line, without a hint of its absurdity:

With up to 62 percent of [the] coal fleet now expected to close before 2033 [the] scale of opportunity to meet an imminent and growing need for firm capacity, new forms of energy production, and significant consumer energy investments is unparalleled in Australia's energy history. Imminent and urgent investment is needed to meet this opportunity, or the reliability of the national electricity market will be at risk.

Let’s all of us who have retained our sanity under the onslaught of maniacal climate cultism ask a question: how has it come to this? The reliability of the electricity supply has never been an issue in the modern Western world. I can’t remember my grandad wondering whether the lights would come on. Now governments are determinedly abandoning reliable means of generating electricity; and, gallingly and risibly, lauding and subsidising "opportunities" to combat the energy-impoverishment that they are creating. Arsonists burning down mansions while offering shanties to replace them.

And Tom Finnerty contributed a blog post on global sea-levels.

Are Sea Levels Rising? It's Complicated

That’s all for this week, but keep a look out for our upcoming pieces at The Pipeline!

Michael Walsh at The Pipeline

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