As we approach the Glasgow climate summit, it may soon be time to recover our common sense. The looney lefties have decided that an almost unlimited cost will be paid by the world’s poor (Germans pay about 300% more than the average American for power because of their green policies) in order to make a futile and stupid gesture that will have little ultimate effect on the climate circa the year 2100. This despite the fact that the poor have no extra money to spend on such folly, and would rather increase their standards of living and take care of their families than pay a pointless tithe to the gods of climate change. No matter. Evil nuclear, coal, oil, and even natural gas must be eliminated now in favor of wind and solar, potentially backed by a breakthrough battery technology that today exists only in science fiction and the five year plans of the climate commissars.

The blackouts in California, the current wind shortage in Europe, and the coal shortages across Asia that are causing soaring energy prices and factory shutdowns are a preview of coming attractions unless we recover our senses. Average people will not willingly spend huge additional amounts on energy to make the political class happy. Especially when reliability will suffer at the same time costs would skyrocket. Make no mistake: people will die from this lack of reliability when blackouts strike in the cold of winter.

But the climate authoritarians inspired by such empty vessels as Greta Thunberg will not take the blame, they will try to shift it to the utilities that are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to do their bidding, as is currently happening in California. Being an arrogant though well-intentioned leftist apparently means never having to say you are sorry, no matter how much damage you inflict on the poor in the name of trying to help them. God save us all from such “help.”

And all of the hyperventilating projections of climate disaster assume no attempts at adaptation, such as building levees as New Orleans has done. And of course, all of these sensible adaptations can be done cheaper by orders of magnitude than the pseudo-religious attempts at “abstaining” from carbon and the good life it provides for people, as Bjorn Lomborg illustrates.

Instead of adaptation, as Mark Mills shows in his article Transition to Nowhere, California is leading the charge over the cliff.

“If one were taking bets on the outcome of the race to zero carbon, odds are that consumer patience with soaring costs—in tandem with decreasing reliability—will be exhausted long before we have the opportunity to deplete the supply of critical energy minerals. Here, too, California is leading the way.” — Mark Mills

And the idea that only “the rich” will pay the bills for this climate penance is itself a double fantasy. Hopefully the mandarins in world capitals will begin to see reality, and as the scales fall from their eyes, reasonableness will return. If not, it won’t be long before the costs become clearly exorbitant and not worth the minimal benefits, at least to the people.

In the end, adults do cost/benefit analysis. If the climate agitators were serious, they would be calling for a huge increase in nuclear power that is clean, cheap, and reliable. That they are not shows their unseriousness. This unrealistic farce will end one way or another. If the left will not end it, the people will.

See also:

Oops, Boris Johnson Told the Truth About Climate:
Voters are still in the dark about what they have to do to cut emissions. Finally a politician is telling them.

Climate Change Calls for Adaptation, Not Panic

Transition to Nowhere

California Scrambles to Find Electricity to Offset Plant Closures

To Strike a Climate Deal, Poor Nations Say They Need Trillions From Rich Ones

Energy Crisis Hobbles Biden’s Green Agenda

China’s Hypersonic Wake-Up Call

Short-seller Jim Chanos: China presents ‘a 1930s kind of problem’

Donald Trump’s Hostage Politics:
He says Republicans must agree the 2020 election was stolen or he’ll aid the Democrats.

So many people seem unable to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of ideas these days. Ridiculous conspiracy theories are accepted as reasonable with no skepticism at all.  Here are a few of the idiocies sweeping the web:

Conspiracy Theory #1. Bill Gates wants to use vaccines to implant computer chips in everyone. First of all, this is physically impossible. Microscopic computer chips given by injection that float around in one’s blood stream that somehow attach in the right place and — what? — let Bill Gates track the person or something? WTF? Second, people already carry around computers that identify their every move (smartphones) and give away all this information for free. Third, Bill Gates is giving away his money as fast as he can helping people in the Third World survive and thrive by giving away mosquito nets and financing vaccine drives for dread diseases that people in the First World take for granted. He is doing more for humans to meet their potential than any other 10 people or governments you can name. If you have tumbled down this rabbit hole, you have identified yourself as potentially non compos mentis, and not a practitioner of vigorous, rational thought.

Corollary to Conspiracy Theory #1. This would require a massive conspiracy with Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, and all the rest of big Pharma in on it and all cooperating for an evil goal of enslaving the world. Really? The entire pharmaceutical industry is a bunch of people who have sold their souls to the devil for a few pieces of silver? And there isn’t one whistle blower among these tens of thousands of people who would stand up for decency? If you are paranoid enough to believe this, then I hope you have lots of canned goods and bottled water in your underground bunker to wait out the zombie hordes that will soon roam the Earth when the Walking Dead is shown to be a modern version of the Book of Revelation.

Conspiracy Theory #2. Western Medicine is a conspiracy against all of the good people of the world to wring profits out of them and harm them. Much better to have only things that are “natural.” This is a particularly unhinged theory. The reality is plain to see for anyone with the least bit of sense. In 1850, all we had were folk remedies and doctors bleeding people. Doesn’t get more basic and “natural” than that. And people lived to be 40 years old.

While Western Medicine is not flawless, the advances in understanding and treatment that have lengthened lifespans over the last 125 years or so are remarkable. Think back to the miracle that was Jonas Salk’s Polio Vaccine setting children free to play with their friends without fear of death in the 1950’s. An almost miraculous improvement brought to us by science that was appreciated as such.

Now, in the age of the internet, we have Anti-Vaxxers that are convinced that all things natural are good. These fools want to return to 1850. They have identified themselves as prime candidates for the Darwin Awards.

What is a Reasonable Person to do in this Age of Disinformation and Lunacy?

So, you may ask, how is one to separate lunacy from common sense? Here are a few ideas I use to separate “worthy of further investigation” from “lunatic fringe, don’t pollute your mind,” and to keep from falling prey to the cognitive foibles we all tend to exhibit.

All information sources are not of the same quality. Newsmax or some dude linked to from Facebook or Twitter or some viral video on Youtube are not remotely as authoritative as the Wall Street Journal or some other entity with a reputation for quality and reasonableness putting their reputation behind something. Just because someone claims it does not make it so.

Short circuit the Social Media rush to judgment and refuse to get stampeded out of reason and common sense. Take a moment and breathe. And THINK! Don’t get caught up in Twitter’s stampede to a conclusion. Quality of thought matters much more than speed in reaching a conclusion. Don’t get trapped in the endless feedback loop of doom scrolling and extrapolating only to the worst-case scenario. This only gives you a badly distorted view of reality.

Blind optimism is a fault, but blind pessimism is far worse. The story of the human journey is largely one of progress broken up by moments of unpleasantness. Losing sight of the subjective probability distribution of future developments (which includes both positive and negative outcomes) is a fundamental and elementary error that will cause you to chase figments down rabbit holes of zero value.

Occam’s razor. Entities must not be multiplied unnecessarily. I interpret this as meaning that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon should be assumed to be correct in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary.  

The Burden of Proof is on the shoulders of the purveyor of the conspiracy theory.  All ties are broken in favor of common sense.  And this is not a 55/45 proposition.  The evidence should be high quality, from good and respectable sources, stand up to skeptical inquiry, and be overwhelming.

The primacy of skepticism:
“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.”
— George Santayana

On the importance of the ability to hold 2 opposing ideas in mind at once without losing the ability to function:
“Sometimes the very vivid, extreme evidence misleads you on the deeper reality. You’ve got to be on guard against that all your life. In fact, the whole trick in life is to get so that your own brain doesn’t mislead you.”
— Charlie Munger

Confirmation bias:
“People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.”
— George Orwell

Fanaticism equals subconscious self-doubt:
“Fanatic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are not sure that we are doubly sure.”
— Reinhold Niebuhr

Self-Doubt is the beginning of wisdom:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
— Bertrand Russell

Balance in all things is key to good judgment. “Faith moves us forward; skeptical critical thinking keeps us balanced.”
— Gary Taubes

First, I’d like to stipulate that Climate Change is a real problem and human activities do contribute to it. But while it is a problem with which humanity needs to grapple, it isn’t an existential threat like a massive asteroid strike. Despite the hyperventilating media coverage, it will not end life as we know it in 2030 or in 2100. But we need to find sensible, cost-effective ways to deal with its consequences for the benefit of all. It makes a lot of sense to promote incremental switching to less carbon intensive energy technologies.

But kudos to Mark Mills, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a faculty fellow at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, for his article and his brilliant paper bringing to light a fundamental problem for those who want to attempt to solve the Climate Change issue with only the existing renewable energy technologies of solar, wind, and battery power.

Because of the limits of the laws of physics, it is simply not possible to do so without enforcing energy poverty on mankind through much higher costs, much less energy use per capita, and a lack of reliability of the power grid.

The New Energy Economy Is An Exercise In Magical Thinking

The incredible technological innovation brought to us by the “Moore’s Law” phenomenon in the world of semiconductors has fooled many eminent people into thinking it applies in other areas of research such as renewable energy technologies.

But whereas the physics of shrinking transistors and decreased energy needed to manipulate the idea of the numbers one and zero has enabled breathtaking change, the physics of manipulating and transporting physical matter does not conform to such exponential change.

The physics of energy is instead the realm of asymptotic effects, with big advances getting close to the barriers of physical laws which limit potential further progress greatly.

From The “New Energy Economy:” An Exercise In Magical Thinking by Mark Mills:

The physics boundary for silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells, the Shockley-Queisser Limit, is a maximum conversion of 34% of photons into electrons; the best commercial PV technology today exceeds 26%.

The physics boundary for a wind turbine, the Betz Limit, is a maximum capture of 60% of kinetic energy in moving air; commercial turbines today exceed 40%.

The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand. It would require 1,000 years of production to make enough batteries for two days’ worth of U.S. electricity demand. Meanwhile, 50–100 pounds of materials are mined, moved, and processed for every pound of battery produced.

Current renewable energy technologies cannot approach the energy density, cost, and reliability of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Those who want to do away with fossil fuels, especially without a massive buildout of nuclear power plants, have fallen prey to a fantasy.

The Average Person Won’t Accept Energy Poverty and/or Much Higher Costs for Energy

The Yellow Vest Protests in France began as a rebellion against an increase in the gas tax by average people, before the movement was corrupted by anti-capitalist perma-protesters. Average people the world over cannot and will not accept a purported solution for Climate Change that imposes huge financial costs and energy poverty on them. It is simply a non-starter.

And in the end, whether you are talking about trading carbon credits or instituting a carbon tax, all of the schemes pushed by the left, the media, and the scientific establishment are about raising the cost of energy use and thereby reducing the demand for it. People will simply not tolerate this.

A Way Forward

The scientific community has identified a real problem in Climate Change. But they (and the media and the left) have not done cost-benefit analysis. Their proposed solutions are not effective or acceptable. We should solve the problem with a common sense engineering mindset that takes into account the tradeoffs that real people will actually accept in their real lives.

Fortunately, accepting energy poverty and doing nothing are not our only options. We need a big investment in basic scientific research to come up with more advanced, energy dense, reliable, and economically competitive renewable technologies. In the interim, continuing to trade coal use for natural gas is a no brainer as this is substantially less carbon intensive. We also need a big buildout of nuclear power plants as nuclear is very energy dense, has zero carbon emissions, and can function as base load power, which renewable technologies (even backed up by batteries) cannot without a huge buildout of diesel backup generators, which is neither carbon friendly nor cost-effective.

A combination of natural gas as a long term bridge fuel combined with nuclear and renewables can work while we are doing the basic scientific research to come up with breakthroughs that can function as cost effective and reliable base load power replacements. And we should also pursue research into geo-engineering to mitigate the worst effects of Climate Change if such breakthroughs don’t come through in a timely enough fashion. Such an all-of-the-above approach is the only sensible way to proceed for the good of humanity.

See Also:

Want an Energy Revolution? It won’t come from renewables—which can never supply all the power we need—but from foundational scientific discoveries.

The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise In Magical Thinking
By Mark P. Mills

3 Challenging Scenarios for Quality-Value Investors

A Simple Formula For Investing Success

Looking for the Next ROIC Machine

The Unfulfilled Promise of DNA Testing: Rapid advances in genetic testing are whipsawing families’ diagnoses and treatment

Socialists Don’t Know History: Young people don’t remember the Soviet nightmare. But what’s Sanders’s excuse?

Driverless Cars Are 90% Here. Another 90% Is Left to Go.

I am delighted to find businesses that are ethical and treat their communities and employees well as a matter of doing good while doing well. These businesses are rewarded in the marketplace for being good citizens and profitable. They are also what might be described as “long term greedy,” realizing that helping their community thrive will help their business in the long run.

It is a virtuous circle, and the moral nature of business and capitalism has a long history of being addressed by greats such as Adam Smith in both The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and theologian Michael Novak in his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.

Larry Fink Wants to Use Coercion to Recreate Capitalism in His Image

Now Larry Fink of ETF giant BlackRock has demanded that CEOs institutionalize the pursuit of their “social purpose” and the welfare of all so-called stakeholders, and put this on par with making a profit for shareholders while serving their customers.

This seems to me to be a convoluted and coercive solution to the problem a Progressive investor might have with indexing. But, it is easy to solve this problem without turning our companies into social welfare agencies. Become a stock picker or hire one to sell the stocks of companies that don’t meet your standards, and buy the stocks of companies that do. But this would be bad for BlackRock’s index business, so Larry leans on coercion to force companies to abide by his ideals while he can still rake in the fees his company gets from having $6 Trillion under management.

His plan would distract companies and employees from their productive functions to make them hold meetings, write reports, and push paper so that they can show they are keeping up with a new kind of enforced corporate political correctness. Something tells me that value creation and serving customers and shareholders would take a back seat. Larry would have made a great regulator during the Obama Administration.

Don’t Kill the Golden Goose or There Will Be No Wealth to Redistribute

One of the things that has always dumbfounded me is that the Left is so hostile to capitalism. The reality is that wealth must be created before it can be redistributed. So a sensible Progressive should want the economy to do well and create as much wealth and prosperity as possible so they will have it to redistribute. Killing the Golden Goose means no more golden eggs.

If Larry needs to assuage his conscience for being a rich capitalist, why not simply give his money to causes that support his values like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are doing? I guess it’s cheaper to spout nonsense and hang on to his dough. It doesn’t sound like he is living up to his social purpose. But then I guess that depends on who the judge is.

Putting layers of useless guidelines, regulation, and bureaucracy on society so people are spending most of their time shuffling paper and ignoring their productive functions is a recipe for economic malaise at best. Forgive me if I hope people like Mr. Fink are kept as far from the levers of real power as possible.

Where Are the Pragmatists? Two Parties Filled with Fringe Lunatics Doesn’t Leave Voters a Decent Choice

One of the things that stuns me in our current political reality is that both sides are kind of nuts and dominated by their extremes. As bad as Trump is in many ways, at least his policies are focused on unleashing the creativity of the American people through cutting the suffocating regulation of the Obama years. If the Democrats could decide to be pragmatic and business friendly, they could really have something going. But the Far Left seems in control and wants to pursue the socialist policies that Hugo Chavez used to destroy a prosperous Venezuela. Doesn’t seem very promising.

“I think part of the popularity of Berkshire Hathaway is that we look like people who have found a trick. It’s not brilliance. It’s just avoiding stupidity.”
— Charlie Munger