“Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.”
“For critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.” (NYT, below)
Let history note that the February 23, 2022, print edition of the New York Times admitted that “net zero” was a long shot. This breaks the narrative that Net Zero was the inevitable future with politics and business and high technology leading the way. Forget energy density; energy reality would be remade by a shared narrative of hoping and wanting it to be remade.…
“Mr. President, America is the world’s energy superpower. It is time we started acting like it again.”
We live in ironic political times when it comes to petroleum, a pillar of the master resource of energy. But consumers know and like their best energies, prominently including gasoline and diesel at the pump.
When citizen voters fuss about key petroleum products, politicians take off their ‘green’ masks and bow to reality. Remember Al Gore in his 2000 presidential run when motor-fuel prices became an issue? The author of Earth in the Balance stated:
…I have made it clear in this campaign that I am not calling for any tax increase on gasoline, on oil, on natural gas, or anything else. I am calling for tax cuts to stimulate the production of new sources of domestic energy and new technologies to improve efficiency.
“Given the increasing normalization of solar geoengineering research, a strong political message to block these technologies is required. An International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering is needed now.”
“The speculative possibility of future solar geoengineering risks becoming a powerful argument for industry lobbyists, climate denialists, and some governments to delay decarbonization policies.”
It is hard being green. Battling against energy density in the age of high-energy civilization is a set-up for failure so long as citizen-voters have a say. People want reliable, affordable energy. And poor people without modern energy want and need it the most. That means oil, gas, and coal–not wind, solar, and batteries.
Those wedded to climate alarmism/forced energy transformation are in a desperate hour. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 was ignored and died.…