The Michael Moore documentary Planet of the Humans has educated millions about the dark, dirty side of so-called green energy. Producer Jeff Gibbs makes these points about wind power, solar power, and biomass in particular (verbatim):

• … there is no “green,” “sustainable” version of growth.
•  There is no technology that does not come from a profound cost to our Mother Earth.
• The mining, smelting, manufacturing, mountain dissolving, forest clearing, pit digging, air polluting, water poisoning, human exploiting, and fossil fuel burning necessary to bring us our “green” energy are no small matter.
• No “breakthroughs” in green technology will eliminate their significant and growing impact on the living planet.
• Fairy tales of green technology saving the planet protect us from the full weight of just how bad things are and from making a real plan to save ourselves and a planet worth living on. 

“Industrial wind power, a government created and enabled industry, is not only about the uneconomic. It is about controversy and division between neighbors whose country living in the wind-swept plains has never been about gargantuan machinery generating noise, flicker, and unsightliness.”

In rural communities, proposals to erect office-building-high wind turbines pit neighbor against neighbor. Some receive checks for hosting turbines on their land; the rest dread the intrusion to their senses. And all because of a slew of tax breaks and mandates to remove a free-market situation.

“Nebraska wind farm projects cause controversy and heartache,” one article in The Fence Post was titled. “With the enticement of expected high-dollar dividends and federal production tax credits,” the article explained, “some residents in Cherry County and nearby communities are struggling with daily life challenges, which they attribute to numerous turbines emerging across the landscape.”…

“The popular climate discussion … looks at man as a destructive force for climate livability … because we use fossil fuels. In fact, the truth is the exact opposite; we don’t take a safe climate and make it dangerous; we take a dangerous climate and make it safe. High-energy civilization, not climate, is the driver of climate livability.” (Alex Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, pp. 126–127).

The Houston Chronicle‘s favorite climate scientist, Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, a leading climate alarmist (see Part I yesterday) fancies himself as an energy and public policy expert. And so the Chronicle takes Dessler at face value well outside of his areas of expertise.

Dessler’s Latest

Here is Dessler’s latest Opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle, A Just Transition from Fracking to Renewable Energy is Possible [February 28, 2020] His op-ed (in yellow) is interspersed with my critical comments.…

The idea of presenting both sides of the debate in the name of scholarship is a non-starter with Andrew Dessler because the science is ‘settled,’ climate models have the correct physics, and he knows all he needs to in regard to climate economics, political economy, and public policy.

The Houston Chronicle‘s favorite climate scientist, Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, fancies himself as an energy and public policy expert. And so the Chronicle takes Dessler at face value well, even when he is outside his area of expertise.

Part II tomorrow dissects Dessler’s latest opinion piece for the Chronicle, A Just Transition from Fracking to Renewable Energy is Possible (February 28, 2020); this post looks more broadly at a climate alarmist swimming deep in the political soup.…