There are two big energy scares, one based on a premise of “manmade warming” which says there is too much fossil fuel for our own good, and the other based on too little fossil fuel.
Both can be turned by the wind industry that was largely responsible for flaming the global warming scare to sell windmills, but because they imply very contradictory views of fossil fuels (too much and too little), it is not logically possible to support both at the same time. So I’ve always expected there to be a point when the eco-evangelists stop trying to flog the dead horse of the failed global warming scare and start flogging a new horse: peak oil.
Well it happened to today (or at least its the first clear case I’ve seen) in http://www.environmental-expert.com.
How to develop a business plan for oil depletion
“The world currently finds itself in the position of a man standing in a road who has just noticed two large trucks bearing down on him. These metaphorical trucks are labelled Peak Oil and Global Warming. However, despite increasing evidence and clearer definitions of the risks, collectively we have been remarkably reluctant to move out of the path of the oncoming trucks.
This article will only look at Peak Oil, arguably the most imminent threat to our collective welfare. The general reluctance to act and invest appears to stem from the fact that Peak Oil seems an improbable event, … etc. etc.” (source)
Mark my words, this is only the first of a imminent flood of such stories, trying to use the peak oil scare to prolong the need to invest in those green energy saving technologies which we must all subsidies because otherwise a lot of very rich people might not be able to live in the manner to which they have become accustomed by the previous global warming scam.
Addendum
And true to form Treehugger has also jumped on the peak oil bandwagon:
“Climate change tells us we should change. Peak oil tells us we must change.” This truism has become a common refrain in some environmental circles. And it provides some insight into the rapid global spread of the transition movement. But Rob Hopkins—the founder of the Transition movement who we interviewed here—has recently gotten to wondering whether there are limits to peak oil as a motivator too. Maybe we need to focus on economics, community and prosperity if we really want to win over hearts and minds.The trouble is, muses Rob, that focusing too exclusively on climate change or peak oil can risk alienating a broad section of the community. Could climate change and peak oil outlive their usefulness as a frame for transition?
Wow! I had rightly predicted that they’d abandon the sinking global warming ship and jump onto the peak oil bandwagon, but it had never occurred to me they’d be talking about abandoning that new scam on the second article I read. This isn’t the organised retreat that I had imagined, more a disorganised chaotic rout.
Business as usual for the renewable energy proponents. One of my hobbys is to explain to my fellow Germans (who are nearly all of a Green slant) that Global Warming fails to happen – they deliver a little resistance, sometimes referring to Mann’s Hockey Stick that i quickly pulverize – then they fall back to the Peak Oil argument. When i start to pulverize that – mentioning Shale Gas and Coal To Liquid and 1378 years of known energy resources – they call foul and say “One can’t talk to you about that”.
For some reason, they come back later. Maybe their unconscious tells them that they NEED a deprogramming.
These tree huggers are way behind that loathsome bunch of knuckle-draggers the BNP who have been trying to ride the ‘GW is nonsense, the real problem is PO’ argument for quite a few years.
I am not a supporter of there’s, as a member of a mixed race family I find it useful to keep an eye on these morons.
Of course we are nowhere near peak oil yet – if we decide that large scale fracking of shale gas formations and deepwater drilling in the Arctic is the route we want to go down, and if we really do believe that CO2 driven global warming is wind industry propaganda.
But we won’t and we don’t, and no amount of cherry picking of low hanging fruit from the unkempt fringe of the internet is going to change that.
Thanks for another great post SS.
What genuinely baffles me is the SNP administration’s devotion to AGW and renewable energy.
I have friends who work at senior levels within the Scottish civil service. They all tell me the same thing – the SNP leadership (Eck, Swinney et al) are a VERY smart and shrewd bunch that are running rings around the opposition whilst breathing life into a moribund public sector culture with business-like effectiveness. All good.
However, any fool can see that the success of an independant Scotland will rely heavily upon a healthy economy that provides jobs. Without jobs and economic growth, the independence experiment will fail. Schadenfraude from many quarters will abound.
Surely someone somewhere in the SNP is aware of the growing scientific backlash against AGW, the potential of shale gas to kill the business case for renewables, the lack of ‘green jobs’ that are being, and will be, created and a distinct lack of appetite in the population to accept large increases in their energy bills in order to ‘save the planet’.
In short, the SNP have backed the wrong economic development horse (seen the woeful Scottish Enterprise website of late?) and they seem to be totally unaware of it.
But perhaps it’s simply politics – Eck wants to stride the world stage as ‘a leader in renewables’ and suck the EU teet as long as possible.
I genuinely hope they have a Plan B for economic development. Otherwise when the AGW bubble pops, Scotland is going to be f**ked.
If I were Eck, I’d be throwing a wee bit of cash at Thorium research as an each way bet. Babcock strode the world for decades with boilers for power stations. Why can’t we do the same again with Thorium?
I was told that a speaker in the government said if you count oil per person then we passed peak oil in the 1970s. I think that means that the availability of fossil fuel per person in the world would be heading downward if everyone had similar access to it. But with China, India, Brazil etc. all industrialising quickly, perhaps peak oil might be more affected by rapid demand side increase.
One of the greatest myths surrounding global warming is that there is a ‘growing scientific backlash’. The evidence trotted out to prop this up consists almost entirely of links to loony spokespersons for discredited right-wing think tanks funded by big emitters.
(Oh, and occasionally David Bellamy for a bit of light relief).
Now lets be having the ‘climate scientists are all in on the gravy train’ conspiracy theory . . .
I’ll give you two reasons why I think real scientists are turning up their nose at climate “science”. First, there was a time when adding a connection to global warming in a paper clearly gave it some kind of added kudos. That time has clearly passed and I’ve only seen a couple in the last view months, when they’d have been that many each week – Scientists seem to want to have nothing to do with this area. Second, the scientists I know are openly saying that their view of this subject has changed. Indeed, it seems that the biggest factor affecting their view seems to be the way climate “science” took no action with the disreputable actions uncovered by climategate.
They accept that from time to time any subject can have rogue behaving like this, but what they can’t accept is that this type of action appears to have been condoned by climate “science” and they think this suggests all scientists are up to such tricks which really doesn’t go down well.
Which is quite ironic, because the whitewash has actually been far more damaging than if the climategate inquires had come out with a strong rebuke.
There is a kernel of truth in this: “Maybe we need to focus on economics, community and prosperity if we really want to win over hearts and minds.”
As was eloquently pointed out recently by someone in the environmental movement, if it continues to be a hellfire and damnation sermon about scarcity, doomsday and the need for austerity, the message is just not going to resonate with most sane people. There are, however, things a large majority of the population could probably get behind: efficiency, energy independence, clean water and air, affordability, wise use of resources, prosperity, etc. If those are true aims and are honestly articulated, there will likely be widespread support. However, if those are not the true aims and only a veneer of “better messaging” is applied to the rotting understructure, then folks will still see through it.
Personally, I think if you want to win hearts and minds (in the long term) then you have to be truthful, honest, and prepared to admit when you are wrong. The reason why the sceptical camp is winning at the moment isn’t because we have a better message, better publicity, better anything … it’s just because we have been more honest and like every exaggerating schoolboy or con salesman, you can tell people a fib once, maybe even a few times, but sooner or later you will get caught out. The people I feel most sympathy for, are the minority of climate SCIENTISTS not the majority “scientists”, who have been honest, who have tried to be cautious and not go beyond what the facts tell them, but who have been let down by the majority in that subject who just couldn’t help going along with the doomsday PR bandwagon, and who have so discredited everyone including the few genuine scientists in that area.
Google ‘climate change Koch brothers’ and tell me that the sceptic camp have been universally ‘more honest’.
I agree with Eric though – renewable energy and a move away from fossil fuels is a positive, economically sound and inevitable step, not a response to ‘doomsday messages’
Oh course there are some sceptics who’d be sceptical of warming even if lava were flowing between their SUVs, just as there are some alarmists who genuinely believe what they say and even some who base their belief on real science. But generally the mainstream sceptics are sceptical because that is what the evidence and their training compels them to be despite the damage it used to do to them to be sceptical, whereas the alarmists were overwhelmingly being paid to be alarmist.
On the move away from fossil fuel, as there is clear evidence that the world’s economy has grown directly as a result of fossil fuel use – because we had a cheap readily available source of energy, to suggest we should move to an expensive and limited form of energy like wind or bio-energy does seem to be one hell of a retrograde step.
Indeed, even now wind energy is heavily “subsidised” by cheap fossil fuel so that in effect each windmill has a massive fossil fuel injection to build it. I haven’t done the maths as I doubt it is possible to get honest statistics, but it may even be doubtful whether wind has a net energy return .
Even if there is a positive return, it means that wind energy will increase dramatically in cost if fossil fuel is not available. Add to that the limited bio-energy sources, the waste of space called solar (PV), and without fossil fuel we have a very bleak future economically.
So, it’s all well and good sticking up windmills as a luxury to salve the conscience of a few politicians, but if or when we seriously need them to supply energy will be the day we find out just how poor will be a future without fossil fuel. And to be honest, the kind of hit on the Western economy is the type of economic downturn that has toppled whole political systems in the past. So, if we really needed renewables, there would be an awful lot more to worry about than just where we got our energy from. It would be economic and political chaos.
So, let’s just hope we don’t need those bird mincers -let’ just hope they remain a decorative luxury which are fossil fuel economy can afford to panda our politicians with!
Oh dear. ‘Bird mincers’.
What is it about wind turbines that prompts people to come out with complete nonsense about alleged deleterious effects?
Wind power is far less harmful to birds than the fossil fuels it displaces. Incidental losses of individual birds at turbine sites will always be an extremely small fraction of bird deaths caused by human activities.
Wind turbines are estimated to cause less than three out of every 100,000 human-related bird deaths in the U.S
BIRD DEATHS IN THE US:
Wind turbines: approx. 108,000 a year
Buildings 550 million
Power lines 130 million
Cars: 80 million
Poisoning by pesticides: 67 million
Domestic cats: at least 10 million
Radio and mobile phonemasts: 4.5 million
Wind power can be argued against quite legitimately on grounds of intermittency, variability and ‘industrialisation of the countryside’. I would have thought that was enough, so why bother with all this drivel about bird deaths, noise and ‘wind turbine syndrome’? This sort of bad science tends to damage the sceptic cause, not boost it.
You really don’t have a sense of humour do you! If you want to know the truth, the phrase was coined at a time when you lot simply lied through your teeth about bird deaths, much like you lied about the 45,000 jobs that it would create (and ignored the 3.9 jobs lost per job created) .
If it has any other purpose other than to mock you lot, it is to mock all those eco-nutter bird twitchers like Bill oddy whose support has created all those bird mincers that are killing their favourite endangered species like golden eagles.
As for radio masts – I’ve never heard anyone selling radio masts ever suggest they are good for birds.
Who are ‘you lot’?
Are you under the mistaken impression that I work for the wind industry as well? I actually created the website for our local anti-wind group. All I am interested in is a rational discussion on the subject, something that is remarkably hard to find.
If you are anti-wind then I’m a duck.
Rational is good. Facts are too.
Wind power is extremely difficult to integrate into the grid, undependable, costs a fortune, increases fuel poverty and bespoils the countryside.
Also, given that CO2 is simply plantfood for a flourishing biosphere and we have hundreds of years of coal under our feet that we can burn cleanly and convert to motive fuel if required, wind power simply isn’t needed.
Did I miss anything?
Quack quack.
Just interested in a rational look at the options. Not finding it here.
CO2 is plant food? Gizzabrek . . .
Just to be crystal clear SR.
You think/believe that ‘the science is settled’.
Correct?
CO2 is plantfood. Seeing is believing.
http://bit.ly/jUiqlV
I don’t think/believe ‘the science is settled’ – science isn’t like that. However, I think that the weight of evidence so far suggests that we would be extremely short-sighted to delay action any longer.
What weight of evidence? The evidence is that the temperature record has been boosted by various factors like urban heating and automation, that after the automation (and cross checking satellite – i.e no room to upjust the results) the temperature has remained stable.
There is no evidence of increase in extremes of weather, no evidence of an upswing in sea level due to CO2, there is evidence that global temperatures lead CO2 levels.
The level of direct heating from CO2 is around 1C or even 0.5C if the latest paper holds up. All the doomsday rubbish is based on hypothetical models multiplying the known science by a factor of 300% which is absolutely mad and totally unsustainable as a “scientific” method.
In short even if there is warming, there has been absolutely no measurable effect on anyone except to make an awful lot of gullible politicians scared witless over a fraction of a degree temperature rise when they regularly experience orders of magnitude more variation.
And even if the world did warm – the historical evidence is that colder periods are bad and warmer periods are good.
If you say so.
All the points you make are rebutted systematically in varous places, so I can’t be bothered. If anyone is interested see
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics
SR,
Before we descend into arguments from ‘scientific authority’, as we no doubt will, I thought I’d share my personal AGW story with you.
Whilst I lived in New Zealand I was the ‘greenest’ of all my friends and colleagues. I was a member of the Green party and a Greenpeace volunteer ‘direct action’ activist, with many police scuffles in protesting dioxin pollution from burning PVC blood bags in residential areas and long-line Blue Fin Tuna fishing that was killing 46,000 albatrosses a year. The sight of dead birds the size of children laying dead in rows would break anyone’s heart. Long-line fishing picks up masses of ‘by-catch’ (other fish) that the abatross swoop down on and in turn swallow one of the many hooks on the 100K+ fishing line. Not good.
I care about my environment, and the one that my two young children will inherit.
‘Climategate’ changed my view. After months of research, I discovered that ‘Climate Science’ is not real science. It’s a scientific bubble/cul-de-sac. Real scientists look on with dismay at their methodologies, hiding of data, ‘black-balling’ of alternative theories, flakey computer models and statistical abuse.
Looking back, I can see that I took the Matrix ‘red pill’, and it turned my world upside down. It was a challenging experience that fundamentally changed my world-view.
I genuinely hope you stay around to sample what the red pill may offer.
After years of research I strangely discovered the exact opposite. Climate science is real science, and the ‘sceptic’ movement has a personal agenda and dark backing.
If you choose to ignore the world’s most prestigious and oldest science academy, the Royal Society – even after its alleged nod to the sceptics in its ranks in its September 2010 report – then your belief in your own ‘research’ demonstrates an almost inconceivable arrogance.
Below I quote the conclusions from that report. When reading please bear in mind that this has been touted in the press as evidence for the Royal Society’s conversion to scepticism – which is really clutching at straws.
————————————————————-
There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century. This warming trend is expected to continue as are changes in precipitation over the long term in many regions. Further and more rapid increases in sea level are likely which will have profound implications for coastal communities and ecosystems.
It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made. Scientists continue to work to narrow these areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.
Like many important decisions, policy choices about climate change have to be made in the absence of perfect knowledge. Even if the remaining uncertainties were substantially resolved, the wide variety of interests, cultures and beliefs in society would make consensus about such choices difficult to achieve. However, the potential impacts of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made.
Climate science – including the substantial body of knowledge that is already well established, and the results of future research – is the essential basis for future climate projections and planning, and must be a vital component of public reasoning in this complex and challenging area.
————————————————————-
If you believe the Royal Society’s admission that there is uncertainty means climate science is ‘not real science’ then you obviously do not understand what science is and there is nothing I or anyone else can say to make you change your mind.
Of course there is uncertainty. However, the bulk of human policy decisions – on economic or military matters for example – are taken in a much more uncertain climate, are based on much less reliable intelligence.
Decisions have to be taken, and the consequences of taking the wrong one, while undoubtedly serious on the one hand, are potentially catastrophic on the other. Do that math.
If you believe in Jesus Christ, somehow people seem to find his influence everywhere. Likewise if you believe that mankind is affecting the globe (which is actually part of the Judeo Christian belief system that every harm is a result of human sin) … then likewise you will find mankind’s hand in all kinds of natural aspects.
Before trying to argue from authority based on what the Royal Society says: I suggest you read and learn their motto: “take no one’s word for it”. Science is not based on arguments from authority, but arguments from evidence, and it matters not a jot who says what so long as they back up what they say with the evidence.
And when people go and look at the evidence, they find:
1. A temperature signal which is totally corrupted by Urban heating, changes in temperature measurement (manual->automation).
2. “Scientists” who deny the bloody obvious abysmal state of the temperature record and who clearly aren’t impartial
3. A temperature record which is entirely within the normal variation of the 1/f noise given by the IPCC – so by the climate scientists own modelling its within normality!
4. An IPCC and Royal society who are a laughing stock
5. No trend in the level of extremes of weather.
6. No CO2 signature on sea level
7. A small change in Arctic ice – and anecdotal accounts that the level of ice was similar in the early 20th century (before satellite monitoring)
8. No recent trend in temperature (entirely contradicting the IPCC 1.4-5.8C rise …. we are nowhere in that range now)
9. Climategate emails exposing a highly partisan group of “scientists” who have not the slightest hesitation “sexing up” the data for blatant propaganda
10. A Royal Society which colludes with an inquiry having investigated an entirely different set of papers from those which are of concern that “there’s no evidence of any corruption”
11. Lies, lies and more lies from the wind industry on jobs, economic benefit, etc. etc.
In short, the Institute of Physics (and Chemistry?) acted correctly in raising their concerns about climategate. The Royal society showed that it hasn’t changed one iota since the events portrayed in Longitude.
I’ve no doubt heads will roll at the Royal society pretty soon!
So the Royal Society are also part of the conspiracy.
Tell me your views on the Koch Brothers.
Oh and I forgot … the clearest indicator that someone is telling the truth is when they present all the facts (including ones against their point of view) and then explain why they have come to their point of view … and explain how it may be possible to interpret another way.
Or better still … where there is open and honest debate based on reliable evidence.
In contrast, climate “science” has “scientists” who are the most dishonest bunch of people I’ve seen outside politics. There is then a hugely well paid publicity machines which takes this distorted science and forces it down everyone’s throat.
You can tell such bad science with simple tests. Simply look for something that is contradictory to their point of view … like e.g. the “pause” in global temperature record since the turn of the century or the obvious benefits of warming. Ask youself:
– do they honestly report it (see the many discussion on Wikipedia where no mention of the 21st century pause is allowed because there is no reference in the “scientific” literature) I read 100 “scientific” reports on the effects of global warming … only one half hearted mentioned warming, the rest gave lists of all the harm and not a single mention of the obvious benefits. That was not science … it was political indoctrination with a scientific veneer.
– do they openly and honestly discuss the potential implications … as in: “obviously the lack of warming may suggest that the warming is not as bad as we had predicted, but we do expect periods of cooling as well as warming”
– do they try to stop anyone from discussing or researching alternatives to their view. Note the massive campaign of “holocaust-global warming deniers” intending to curtail any contrary views, note the stiffling of anyone who attempted (as is normal in science) to suggest possible alternative explanations … note the way funding has been actively withdrawn from anyone researching alternative explanations from CO2 warming.
All these are indicative of a debate which is not about science, but a political even religious crusade which brooks no opposition — even when it is the clear duty of all scientists to examine all the evidence dispassionately free from political and religious bias.
Conspiracy implies that there is some intelligence behind it. This is no conspiracy, it’s groupthink. Indeed, it’s almost inherent in the way science works that they will use a deconstructionalist philosophy which presupposes that they can create a total explanation of the global climate. The result is that their philosophical outlook predisposes them to find explanations where e.g. someone trained in a more holistic discipline like engineering would reject the deconstructionalist approach as dangerous given the lack of evidence.
To help you understand, there is an argument for god which goes along the lines of “the world is so complex that like a watch there must be a creator … QED there is a creator who is god”.
This is very much like the global warming “science” which says: the global temperature signal must have an explanation … we don’t know of any other explanation other than CO2, therefore CO2 must be
godthe cause.The same argument that a complex universe can exist without a god even though we don’t know why it is so complex, is the same explanation for why the climate can show variation even though we don’t know the cause.
The alternative approach used by many sceptics is not “what is the cause”, but “is there any sign of a problem” … we don’t need to understand what causes global temperature to assess whether e.g. there are extremes of weather or accelerating sea level (i.e. the CO2 signature on sea level).
And the real truth is that neither approach is “right”. Trying to understand the causes of climate variation are a valid approach, but also using an climate engineering approach “it may be too complex to understand in detail, but I can assess whether there are any worrying trends” is equally valid.
So to answer your question … it’s not a conspiracy, more two groups with alternative approaches to assessing the climate coming to very different conclusions. (And one side being extremely dishonest about the strength of their case!)
Humanity has been down this damaging ‘science co-opted by political objectives’ route before SR.
Are you familiar with the phrase ‘Lysenkoism’?
http://bit.ly/1OdQ6W
Given ‘take no one’s word for it’ is their motto, I find your attachment to the Royal Society’s pronouncements quaintly ironic.
Do you believe everything the BBC tells you too?
And the Koch brothers?
What is your point? Seriously, you are on a hiding to nothing when it comes to money because the overwhelming mass of dirty money is funding the warmists …. and then you lot have the absolute gall to accuse us of being funded by dirty money.
I’d be rich if I was a warmist — but I prefer to be honest than rich!
Anyone who is interested can google ‘Koch brothers climate change’ and draw their own conclusions.
Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the United States with estimated 2008 revenues of $100 billion. The brothers are tied as the 9th richest Americans, with a net worth of $16 billion each.
Koch Industries was sued by the government in 1995 and 1997 as a result of a reported 300 oil spills from pipelines that they owned and operated. It is estimated that during this time, three million gallons of oil were dumped into lakes and streams in six different states. The Environmental Protection Agency’s lawsuits ranged from $71 million to $214 million. In 2000, the EPA settled the case for $35 million in fines. Also, during the 1990s Koch was fined $8 million for discharging oil into streams in Minnesota.
In late 2000, as the Clinton administration was preparing to leave, Koch was served with a 97-count indictment for covering up the discharge of more than fifteen times the legal limit of benzene, a known carcinogen, from a refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. The company faced penalties of more than $350 million and four employees were criminally charged and faced up to 35 years in prison. Three months after the Bush administration took office the case was settled out of court. Koch Industries agreed to pay $20 million and plead guilty to one count of concealment of information; in return, the Justice Department dropped all criminal charges against Koch and its employees. Not surprisingly, in the 2000 elections Koch had contributed $800,000 to Republican candidates, including presidential nominee George W. Bush.
Since 2000 Koch Industries has paid over $50 milion in fines for violations of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
Now tell me about the ‘warmista’ dirty money . . .
How about $79 BILLION in US AGW funding alone? You can add the EU pile to that too.
I’m not sure I’d describe it as ‘dirty’; more groupthink enabling.
http://bit.ly/8Rt9x
But what’s that got to do with me? You may also like to point out that the heartland institute supports smoking or that many of the prominent “sceptics” were supporting the war in Iraq and Sadam hussein before that.
But the simple truth is that I tried for a while to find money to support me to become a fulltime sceptic (I may as well get paid as do for fun) …. but there literally isn’t any money. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE I could find has to fork out their own money to support their sceptic activities.
As for the warmists … as I well know, there is money pouring over the bowl for the warmist. Any hairbrain scheme, or academic can get funding by being a warmist.
Why would anyone pay you for being a full-time sceptic? I don’t expect to get paid for being a ‘warmista’.
The BWEA are a full time lobby organisation they have a couple dozen people, the Scottish renewables forum likewise have a nice office. Greenpeace etc. the UEA now seem to have an whole entourage of spin doctors who go around with them. In addition there is a whole department of government spinning this, plus the BBC will not employ anyone unless they are pro-warming (David Bellamy and Johny Boyle spring to mind).
Then you’ve got the employment of “climate change officers” or whatever they are all called in all the councils. Then many organisations and companies have “climate change” people spreading the word of “how to look like we really believe in this crap”.
So at a rough guess there are probably around 1000 spin doctors employed spreading the GW gospel. In contast, you’ve got Lord Lawson (who probably pays to be on the GWPF) and a couple others I’d guess the secretary is employed. Andrew montford could be described as “employed” as he does get money from his book and he did do some consultancy. Monckton … again this appears to be personal money going into it, but as a Thatcherite milksnatcher I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes funding.
That’s about it from the UK, Anthony Watts tries to run a business using WUWT to boost ernings … so let’s add him to the worldwide total. Then there’s the Heartless institute … you mention Kock,, the coal industry in the US probably funds a few. All in all I’d be struggling to find even a hundred … oh I suppose Marcus … that senator probably employs someone full time.
Anyway, the “sceptics” probably number less than 100 full time equivalents in terms of people who could be described as “working”
Beyond the funding and scientific issues, the market will eventually figure it out.
In times of austerity, people will makes decisions on expensive renewables subsidies vs. schools & healthcare.
And of course, much of the developed world is coming to the same conclusion. Canada is having a AGW bonfire, Australia is revolting over the carbon tax, Germany is building new coal-fired power stations and the US is backtracking rapidly.
Nobody wants scarce, expensive, intermittant power when they can get plentiful, cheap, reliable power.
Renewables will be a niche market that can and should be further developed. Maybe Scotland can make money from that niche. I hope so.
SS,
Fair comment. Most of the big sceptic lobbies are US-based, not UK, and they do tend to consist of a few people with shedloads of money, whereas you are referring to the supposed legions of relatively lowly paid pen-pushing PR types employed by both local and national government – and of course by the power companies in general and the wind industry in particular. It doesn’t neccessarily make them bad people, or even wrong 🙂
PaulH, you may be right about the market. Personally I think ‘the market’ is a concept whose time is drawing inexorably to a close. No idea what will replace it – we do, as the Chinese say, live in interesting times. Meanwhile, I share your hope that Scotland can lead the world in the deployment of renewable technology. Whether it remains a niche or becomes mainstream depends on so many factors that I think we will just have to wait and see – the next ten years are crucial.
All in all an interesting if hectic discussion. Do feel free to come over to my blog and rubbish some of my posts sometime 😉
Where is you blog?Ok, found it. I have added link to it on the right.