Environmental groups frequently claim that replacing fossil fuels with renewables will lead to more job opportunities. But according to a study that those same groups frequently cite, it’s not that simple.

According to research compiled by Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson, whose recent study outlines a “roadmap” for transitioning to 100% renewable energy, replacing fossil fuels with renewable technologies like wind and solar would actually cause a net loss of 1.2 million long-term jobs.

Jacobson’s data break out the number of long-term jobs that would be eliminated by sector. In transportation, more than 2.4 million men and women would be put out of work. Over 800,000 people working to produce oil and natural gas would lose their jobs. Nearly 90,000 jobs connected to coal mining would be wiped out.…

“If implemented, this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States. The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous. In addition, a carbon emissions trading system will be developed.”

– John Palmisano, from Kyoto, Japan (1997)

A Hall of Shame crony memo just turned 18 years old. Dated December 12, 1997, it was written from Kyoto, Japan, in the afterglow of the Kyoto Protocol agreement by Enron lobbyist John Palmisano.

Global green planners such as Palmisano were euphoric that, somehow, someway, the world had embarked on an irreversible course of climate control (and thus industrial and land-use control). His memo reflects the train-just-left-the-station mentality, as well as the specific benefits for first-mover ‘green’ Enron.…

“Many observers have speculated that the cooling [global] could be the beginning of a long and persistent trend in that direction—that is, an inevitable departure from an abnormally warm period in climatic history.”

– Paul and Anne Ehrlich and John Holdren. Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment (1977), p. 686.

“Predictions of future climate trends by Stephen Schneider and other leading climatologists, based on the prevailing knowledge of the atmosphere in the early 1970s, gave more weight to the potential problem of global cooling than it now appears to merit.”

– Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Betrayal of Science and Reason (Washington: Island Press, 1996), p. 34.

There was once talk of a coming Ice Age from John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich, and Steven Schneider. among others, before all got global warming religion.…

“Big Green consists of several ‘environmental’ organizations, including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), each with $100+M budgets, each springing from high-minded useful beginnings, each with more high-priced lawyers than you can shake a stick at. EDF … was chief architect of the disastrous Kyoto lemon. NRDC proudly claims credit for Obama’s EPA strategy and foolishly allows it to migrate to Paris.”

“The danger is that Paris will lay a Kyoto.”

– James Hansen, “Isolation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Part I,” November 27, 2015.

James Hansen speaks truth to power when it comes to the politics of climate change. (On the science, he has staked out an alarmist position that he cannot seem to shake, even at this late date.) In previous posts, I have noted Hansen’s recalcitrance toward cap-and-trade, whether federal, state (California), or in another country (Australia or Quebec/Ontario).…