“The superior case for dense mineral energies economically and environmentally should inspire a rethink. And climate policy is in shambles heading into COP 27.”

“What is really fishy is that those that admit to ‘climate anxiety’ do not have any appetite to seriously entertain the case for CO2/climate optimism, aka energy freedom for the masses. And they see no evil in the eco-sins of wind, solar, and batteries….”

I actively engage in (and occasionally share) debates on LinkedIn against climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists. I sometimes feel like a teacher presenting a suite of arguments that have been cursorily dismissed. The good news is that there are a lot of readers in the middle who see what is going on. A number now join me in what is a two-sided debate at LinkedIn.…

“… fossil fuels are a convenient, condensed source of energy that has helped raise living standards throughout much of the world.”

“We must all be aware that demands for effective policies will yield only superficial change as long as the role of special interests in government remains unaddressed.” (- James Hansen)

James Hansen speaks truth to power in a number of areas regarding energy and climate. There is a lot to like. But when it comes to public policy, he refuses to go where his sober analysis tells him. He is not ready to make a tectonic shift toward adaptation rather than mitigation, despite the latter’s impossible economic and policy math.

“Magical Thinking”

Magical thinking has plagued climate policy. Vaclav Smil has explained the problem with little pushback. Smil, in fact, is in the mainstream as shown by the NYT’s April 2022 article, “This Eminent Scientist Says Climate Activists Need to Get Real.”…

“Thematically, the [denier and skeptic] messaging we observed usually presented the summit as one (or more) of the following: pointless, a failure, hypocritical, harmful to the economy, the product of an ‘eco-fascist’ agenda orchestrated by climate activists and elites.”

– “Deny, Deceive, Delay: Documenting and Responding to Climate Disinformation at DOP 26 and Beyond: p. 78.

At some point, the climate alarmists are going to have to wonder if the universe of “climate denial” and “climate skepticism” is growing so large that the real outliers are themselves.

Consider that Anthony Watts’s WUWT is the world’s leading climate website, for starters. At this site, hundreds of climate followers, many with advanced degrees and other expertise, are providing timely, important peer review missing from even the august climate journals. (Ditto for Judith Curry’s influential site, Climate Etc.)…

[Andrew] Dessler said anyone arguing that the science is too uncertain isn’t arguing from a legitimate position…. “[Koonin]’s a climate flat earther.” (Quoted in Benjamin Thorp, October 18, 2021).

“Dumb arguments” is too harsh? He’s just a old white dude whose vast experience in the halls of power gives him a unique ability to point out the errors that other people make? Nope. (Andrew Dessler, October 14, 2021)

Andrew Dessler, a climatologist at Texas A&M University, will have nothing to do with any critic of climate alarm. This activist has pure scorn toward his intellectual and scientific doubters. “Angry Andy” is certain that climate science is settled and drop-everything alarming.

A deep ecologist (nature is optimal and fragile; human interference cannot be good), Dessler has long concluded that we are headed for (or already in) a climate dystopia.…