CLEXIT: Dears’s New Book on Exiting the Paris Accord

“Efforts to cut CO2 emissions are not only harmful, but fruitless. The United States can reassert its leadership by withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty. It can then lead the world in economic development by encouraging the use of fossil fuels that provide cheap and reliable energy.”

Donn Dears is a charter member of the energy-realism school. A longtime industry participant (GE), he understands energy technology in light of market demand. A major theme in his writing is market reality versus political waste and political fantasy.

He blogs at his website, Power for USA, and posts at MasterResource. Dears also is a member of the distinguished profiled club of skeptics at DeSmogBlog.

Donn Dears has just published his fourth book, CLEXIT: For a Brighter Future. His previous works are:

Nothing to Fear: A Bright Future for Fossil Fuels (2015)

Carbon Gauntlet: What You are Not Being Told (2013)

Carbon Folly: CO2 Emission Sources and Options (2009)

In CLEXIT, he posits seven major conclusions:

• Leadership by the United States during the twentieth century freed hundreds of millions from the slavery imposed on them by fascist and communist governments.
• Once again, the United States can provide the leadership needed to ensure that people, worldwide, have the freedom to access cheap and reliable energy.
• Cheap energy, especially electricity, during the twentieth century enabled rapid improvements in the standard of living of people in many countries.
• Hysteria over climate change is now threatening to deny billions of people around the world access to the energy they need to maintain and improve their standard of living.
• Governments are engaging in efforts, promoted by the United Nations, to impose regulations on energy use so as to cut CO2 emissions.
• Efforts to cut CO2 emissions are not only harmful, but fruitless.
• The United States can reassert its leadership by withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty. It can then lead the world in economic development by encouraging the use of fossil fuels that provide cheap and reliable energy.

A guest preface, written by Bryan Leyland, New Zealand-based consulting engineer, [1] follows:

The Paris Agreement on climate change is nonsense and, if the United States stands by the commitment made by Obama, it will cost the country billions of dollars, increase the price of electricity, reduce the reliability of the power system, and do virtually nothing to slow down (mythical) dangerous, man-made global warming.

In his book Clexit For a Brighter Future, Donn Dears sets out very clearly why it is nonsense and why it would seriously damage the U.S. economy. “Clexit” is the only rational option.

Dears exposes the farcical nature of the Paris Agreement negotiated at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (COP 21): It doesn’t specify the amount of greenhouse gas reduction or have any enforcement mechanisms.

Dears also, quite rightly, points out that there is no substantial scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that man-made greenhouse gases cause dangerous global warming. He further notes that, even if they did, the enormous effort and expenditure that the United States – and the world – would incur to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a substantial amount would make virtually no difference to the world’s climate.

It is foolish for the United States to embark on an exercise in futility that will devastate its economy while ignoring the fact that China and India alone plan to add more fossil-fuel energy generation and carbon dioxide emissions than currently exist in America.

The world and the environment would be far better off if the United States spent the money helping to provide electricity, clean water, and sewage to developing countries.

Dears points out that electricity generation is the lifeblood of the economy, and, with gasoline, makes up 60 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. Wind and solar power are 8 percent of the installed capacity, but only provide about 5 percent of the nation’s energy.

In addition, those sources often provide very little power during maximum demand periods, and the shortfall is made up via inefficient, quick-response gas turbines that emit large quantities of carbon dioxide. In short: wind and solar power are very expensive and do very little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Nuclear power, by contrast, is safe, cheaper and better – yet violently opposed by the environmentalists.

Dears also analyses the contribution that electric cars and fuel cells could make to reducing emissions. He concludes that electric cars can’t make a big difference, and it is possible that fuel cells could actually increase emissions.

Plentiful low-cost energy has freed the developed world from starvation, disease, and misery. As a result, the average person in the developed world now lives better than a king did a few hundred years ago. Constraining the availability of low-cost energy from fossil fuels will ensure that billions of people in the developing world will continue to face starvation, disease, and misery.

The book is a valuable contribution to the growing evidence that dangerous man-made global warming is the biggest hoax in the history of the world – and that futile efforts to solve this non-existent problem will impoverish billions of people in the United States and all over the world. Is that what we want?

The United States has an opportunity to exit the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty and lead the world into reestablishing honest science as the basis for policies – and, if necessary, actions regarding climate change.

Look for more posts by Donn Dears at MasterResource in the weeks and months ahead.

[1] Leyland has a Masters degree in power system design; a Fellow of the Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand; a fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK); and a retired Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK).