The LA Times editorial board recently urged President Biden to declare a "climate emergency" and do via executive order things that Congress has not done.
While you occasionally promote some solutions to climate change, 90% of the time you are promoting "do nothing".
Well, guess what? "Do nothing" doesn't cut it any more. The public wants action on climate change, and no one has been promoting the solutions you like enough for them to rise to the top of the heap.
If you want better solutions, I suggest you spend more of your time promoting them and less of your time promoting "do nothing".
Are we back to this? Show me, please, where I'm "promoting "do nothing"."
In fact, I bet I offer alternatives far more often than most who criticize something.
When I criticize costly and harmful actions that won't have any positive effect, I typically repeat my own remedies, which *will* have positive effect and which *won't* require people diminishing their living standards. Yes, I believe that we'd be better off not doing any of what the administration (and this climate bill masquerading as an inflation bill) do, but my advocacy for nuclear, geo-engineering, and natural gas goes back decades. And, indeed, it appears that people are coming around to my point of view, as reality settles in.
I can only conclude that you simply don't like my denigrating of brute-force carbon reduction, so you keep straw-manning this "do nothing" bit. Is this the case?
You're nitpicking. Spending 90% of your time advocating against actions that others want done is very similar to "do nothing", and I think in a direct exchange with me, you've said something like "In a choice between what they want done and doing nothing, I would choose doing nothing".
It would be very, very easy for someone who reads much, but not all, of what you said to be completely convinced that you are advocating "do nothing".
First - there's nothing wrong with saying "nothing" is better than drinking poison. But, that's not what I've been doing, and even if the "90%" figure you pulled out of thin air was remotely correct, any criticism's first step is explaining why what's being done or proposes is indeed poison.
Second - you're assigning a sinister motive to me, when I have literally scores of blog posts advocating for nuclear and geo-engineering and natural gas. As if I'm constantly advocating those on a presumption that none of them will ever happen, and therefore "nothing" is what I really want. Do you really believe that to be the case? If so, why even bother reading what I write? You've decided I'm a liar, so why pay me any attention?
I'm not assigning a "sinister motive" to you. I don't think your intentions are that bad, I think you misunderstand the impact of what you write.
Practically no one who isn't a hard-core free market type is going to read your blog. Among those people, what most of them want to hear is "do nothing". If you say anything similar to "do nothing", they will LOVE it, and interpret it as "do nothing".
I debate a lot with climate skeptics and some of them, who claim that climate change is not real, say "Bjorn Lomborg agrees with me.". Actually, Lomborg agrees with the IPCC reports. But 90% of the time his lips are moving, he's saying a variety of flavors of "do nothing" (though he does say a little bit of "do something") so all these people who are dying to hear "do nothing" listen to him and hear what they want to hear instead of what he's saying.
I have yet to see you address my conclusion that forcing wind and solar upon the West is a pointless waste of time, resources, money, and political capital, given the global realities, the BRICS nations' behaviors, and the developing world's extreme unlikeliness to disavow carbon energy, by the way.
Instead, your "rebuttal" appears to be nothing more than an attempt to discredit me personally by claiming I have a hidden agenda. Tell me where I'm wrong in concluding that what I call WASABI is nothing more than pointless self-destruction.
The IRA has a nuclear component, which is good, but it's not enough. Only next-gen nuclear has any hope of being cheaper than fossil fuels, and if we achieve a zero-carbon energy source that is cheaper than fossil fuels, then all the problems of getting the BRICS and poor countries to adopt it is solved.
But there is a tremendous problem with nuclear that nearly all of the environmental movement is really opposed to it and has been for decades. To really overcome that political force, we need a really strong pro-nuclear political force. But the conservatives don't feel strongly enough about nuclear to really go to bat for it, so it's really hard. Meltdown-proof next-gen reactors should be regulated much less than the type of reactors we have now -- we'll have to get that through Washington.
But the Republican Party is too busy listening to anybody who says anything that sounds remotely like "do nothing" to bother with promoting any zero-carbon energy.
Increasingly, “DO SOMETHING!” translates directly to “CRUSH THE HICKS AND REDNECKS!!!” So, no, I am not interested whatsoever. All Democrats are liars, always, and I have zero - “0” - trust in government to do anything except to crush their political opponents. Proof? HB1088. Why would the Democrats pass such an abomination? Because they don’t want any opposition.
“This means that the current approach to mitigating anthropogenic climate change, i.e. replacement of of coal, oil, and gas energy with wind and solar, is being implemented by only one-sixth of the planet. With even that one-sixth slamming against the wall of economic and technological realities - wind and solar are simply not ready to be anything more than supplemental/niche power sources - the impact of this approach on the climate will be negligible.“
While you occasionally promote some solutions to climate change, 90% of the time you are promoting "do nothing".
Well, guess what? "Do nothing" doesn't cut it any more. The public wants action on climate change, and no one has been promoting the solutions you like enough for them to rise to the top of the heap.
If you want better solutions, I suggest you spend more of your time promoting them and less of your time promoting "do nothing".
Are we back to this? Show me, please, where I'm "promoting "do nothing"."
In fact, I bet I offer alternatives far more often than most who criticize something.
When I criticize costly and harmful actions that won't have any positive effect, I typically repeat my own remedies, which *will* have positive effect and which *won't* require people diminishing their living standards. Yes, I believe that we'd be better off not doing any of what the administration (and this climate bill masquerading as an inflation bill) do, but my advocacy for nuclear, geo-engineering, and natural gas goes back decades. And, indeed, it appears that people are coming around to my point of view, as reality settles in.
I can only conclude that you simply don't like my denigrating of brute-force carbon reduction, so you keep straw-manning this "do nothing" bit. Is this the case?
Where's the "do something" in this post? https://therootsofliberty.substack.com/p/this-wont-hurt-a-bit
You do realize that not sharing "do something" in every single post is nowhere near the same as advocating for "do nothing."
You claimed I advocate "do nothing." Show me where.
You're nitpicking. Spending 90% of your time advocating against actions that others want done is very similar to "do nothing", and I think in a direct exchange with me, you've said something like "In a choice between what they want done and doing nothing, I would choose doing nothing".
It would be very, very easy for someone who reads much, but not all, of what you said to be completely convinced that you are advocating "do nothing".
You've written this before, I've rejected it.
First - there's nothing wrong with saying "nothing" is better than drinking poison. But, that's not what I've been doing, and even if the "90%" figure you pulled out of thin air was remotely correct, any criticism's first step is explaining why what's being done or proposes is indeed poison.
Second - you're assigning a sinister motive to me, when I have literally scores of blog posts advocating for nuclear and geo-engineering and natural gas. As if I'm constantly advocating those on a presumption that none of them will ever happen, and therefore "nothing" is what I really want. Do you really believe that to be the case? If so, why even bother reading what I write? You've decided I'm a liar, so why pay me any attention?
I'm not nitpicking. You're straw-manning.
I'm not assigning a "sinister motive" to you. I don't think your intentions are that bad, I think you misunderstand the impact of what you write.
Practically no one who isn't a hard-core free market type is going to read your blog. Among those people, what most of them want to hear is "do nothing". If you say anything similar to "do nothing", they will LOVE it, and interpret it as "do nothing".
I debate a lot with climate skeptics and some of them, who claim that climate change is not real, say "Bjorn Lomborg agrees with me.". Actually, Lomborg agrees with the IPCC reports. But 90% of the time his lips are moving, he's saying a variety of flavors of "do nothing" (though he does say a little bit of "do something") so all these people who are dying to hear "do nothing" listen to him and hear what they want to hear instead of what he's saying.
I have yet to see you address my conclusion that forcing wind and solar upon the West is a pointless waste of time, resources, money, and political capital, given the global realities, the BRICS nations' behaviors, and the developing world's extreme unlikeliness to disavow carbon energy, by the way.
Instead, your "rebuttal" appears to be nothing more than an attempt to discredit me personally by claiming I have a hidden agenda. Tell me where I'm wrong in concluding that what I call WASABI is nothing more than pointless self-destruction.
I'm not that crazy about wind & solar.
The IRA has a nuclear component, which is good, but it's not enough. Only next-gen nuclear has any hope of being cheaper than fossil fuels, and if we achieve a zero-carbon energy source that is cheaper than fossil fuels, then all the problems of getting the BRICS and poor countries to adopt it is solved.
But there is a tremendous problem with nuclear that nearly all of the environmental movement is really opposed to it and has been for decades. To really overcome that political force, we need a really strong pro-nuclear political force. But the conservatives don't feel strongly enough about nuclear to really go to bat for it, so it's really hard. Meltdown-proof next-gen reactors should be regulated much less than the type of reactors we have now -- we'll have to get that through Washington.
But the Republican Party is too busy listening to anybody who says anything that sounds remotely like "do nothing" to bother with promoting any zero-carbon energy.
Increasingly, “DO SOMETHING!” translates directly to “CRUSH THE HICKS AND REDNECKS!!!” So, no, I am not interested whatsoever. All Democrats are liars, always, and I have zero - “0” - trust in government to do anything except to crush their political opponents. Proof? HB1088. Why would the Democrats pass such an abomination? Because they don’t want any opposition.
I thought "Wow, that's a lot dumber than most of what Peter says!".
Then I realized it wasn't Peter, it was someone else.
What’s “dumb” is all this “We are all gonna DIE!” alarmism. It’s just anti-Capitalism twaddle.
“This means that the current approach to mitigating anthropogenic climate change, i.e. replacement of of coal, oil, and gas energy with wind and solar, is being implemented by only one-sixth of the planet. With even that one-sixth slamming against the wall of economic and technological realities - wind and solar are simply not ready to be anything more than supplemental/niche power sources - the impact of this approach on the climate will be negligible.“