Organised groups of people are taking their fears of starvation/drowning/frying to death to the streets, causing havoc in major cities around the globe. And can you blame them? With the constant flow of bad/worse/worsest climate stories featuring in seemingly every single news bulletin or print edition, it’s human nature to absorb the bad news, become angry, and become an activist in one way or another. Those of us who spent our youth growing up in the shadow of nuclear armageddon may know those fears and anger first hand. A 2019 poll showed that almost half of the world’s population believe that climate change will end the human race. This is affecting the way that people choose to live their life. Some people are deciding not to bring children into the world. And if adults are worried, then children are terrified. A Washington Post survey in 2019 showed that 57% American children aged 13 to 17 are “afraid” of climate change, 52% feel “angry”, and 42% feel “guilty”. The fear, terror and resentment felt by people, especially our youth, seems genuine.I am sorry that I couldn’t find any Australian statistics on this, but we can assume the results would be similar. Now. Climate change is a real problem, not just a perceived problem. The basic climate science has remained fairly consistent over the last twenty years. Projected changes haven’t varied much over that time. Science agrees that human activity is causing most of our climate change. It’s the political reaction to climate change that is manifestly flawed. The rhetoric around climate change has become more extreme, and less anchored to actual scientific findings.What follows this is irrational sensationalism from our failing print, radio and television media industry, hungry for sales, audience share, and ‘clicks’ to their web pages. With half of the global population living in fear of human extinction, the political reaction to this becomes more extreme, we adopt disastrous climate policies, we invest heavily in inefficient and unreliable renewables, at the expense of other immediate disasters such as food shortages, pandemics, sanitation and disease, political upheaval and conflicts. Despite these immediate problems being quite manageable and easily addressed, the obsession with climate change is causing governments to waste billions upon billions of dollars on what is proving to be ineffective climate change policy, now spiraling upwards, into the trillions. We need to stop, take a big breath, and re-evaluate our response to climate science, before this False Climate Alarm leaves the world worse off than it could be. Science shows us that fears of a global apocalypse are unfounded. The sooner we clear our heads of panic, the sooner we can get back to the actual problems at hand. Forget the rhetoric. Concentrate upon the real problems at hand. Global warming is real. It is caused predominantly by the consumption of fossil fuels. But it is not the end of the world. We can manage, and adapt to, climate change if we look at the science, pull back on the panic, look at the economics. and look at the problems in a rational and apolitical manner. The current direction of energy policy is harming the less fortunate. It is taking money from the poorest, and distributing it to the wealthier. For example, rooftop solar. Some (many) simply can’t afford to install solar panels. But these very people subsidise those that can by way of a portion of their energy bill, and their taxes, going to those that install subsidised solar panels. To me that’s very unfair.It’s the anti-Robyn Hood. A fraction of current global spending on ineffective renewables, subsidies for renewable energy programs using current inefficient technologies, subsidies for electric vehicles, etc, could totally eradicate smallpox, for example. Could dramatically reduce malaria. Could significantly reduce the impact of AIDS/HIV. We should change our investment strategies towards new and emerging technologies. In fact, investment in new technologies such as fusion or hydrogen has plummeted due to the financial resources being consumed by an unbalanced and inefficient renewable energy market. The only people benefiting from this outrageously wasteful direction is the politicians and their business mates who are raking in the subsidies and benefits of a distorted energy market. Let’s work together, to keep energy affordable, reliable and available, invest wisely, plan for a changing climate, concentrate on REAL emergencies, and the world will continue to become a better and better place for all of mankind.
