42 Comments

Calling out the hypocrisy of some wealthy fliers does nothing to persuade of the falsity of climate "emergency" and "crisis." Presenting facts and arguments about climate and energy is something you do pretty well, as I recall.

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There is no crisis. We can mitigate the effects of climate change through technology- though climate engineering, though massive public works in hydrology etc. In fact, it is imperative we do this so billions in the global south don’t die. The liberal Malthusians want to kill billions in the name of not building anything and condemning the poor to misery!

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Climate is literally just a new religion, we’ve had the tools to mitigate changing climates via hydrology for thousands of years. The very BASIS of human civilization is controlling water supplies. With the death of Christianity they want to convert people to an apocalyptic religion where instead of hope and renewal they believe in culling the poor and weak.

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Throw in all of their 40,000 square foot homes (5-10 each), yachts, helicopters etc, and the carbon footprint is much higher.

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The argument made by a climate model falsifies the Law of the Excluded Middle (LEM) and "unit measure" where the LEM is among Aristotle's three Laws of Thought whereas "unit measure" is an axiom of probability theory and assumption of mathematical statistics. It follows that Bloomberg cannot down-regulate global temperatures by banning gas stoves.

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Does anyone else remember how Bloomberg dismissed farmers during the 2020 election? He asserted that farming was so easy: you plant the corn, the corn grows, anyone can do it. He obviously had never attempted to grow a crop. His contempt for an entire class of working people astounded me. Yes, he and his cohort really do "live above it all."

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It’s easy on Farmville so why is it do hard in real life? Wink wink.

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Great post Robert.

We chose your piece on WY wind and eagles for our first “Cross Post” this week. Your work is solid.

We’re going deeper on this issue. To expose something few see. Not in our next piece (which is coming this Friday); the one coming after that.

Keep throwing rocks. Goliath is a giant made of clay.

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The Origin of 'Hypocrite':

This common word has a dramatic origin story from Greece.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/hypocrite-meaning-origin

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I don’t need to do my own research. I rely on the research, endorsed by every single government on the planet. If you don’t choose to rely on that research, then show me your research. I always have an open mind, and if you can demonstrate in rigorous detail that climate change is not happening or that it’s not a threat or that it’s not caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels nothing would make me happier than to see your evidence, so please show it to me.

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FYI it looks like you’re replying using entirely new posts as opposed to simply hitting the “reply” button under the one to which you wish to respond.

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Please explain how your comment relates to what I’ve written. Every government on the planet agrees that we have to stop the burning of fossil fuels to prevent an unlivable planet. Do you challenge that? If so, what is your evidence?

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im too lazy to do the math, but what is the higher emission - bloomberg's jets or global gas cooking stoves? my point is that all gas stoves and all private jets emit trivial amounts of GHG - both way under 1%. whether we scapegoat rich travelers or poor cooks, they remain scapegoats, not the real cause of excessive GHG accumulation. the largest cause is industrial heat at about 31%. and to cut that we need to develop next gen high heat output fission reactors, as robert has pointed out. many entrepreneurs and administrators need private jets to maintain their work schedule, and most of them at least in the private sector are quite valuable in the leadership productive endeavors, and this requires a portion of f2f interaction. let's stop scapegoating people who are doing their job and focus on the tasks that arent getting done.

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March 13, 2023
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i agree a revenue neutral approach to 'put a price on' GHG would help incentivize better energy and product choices, and i think it will be difficult to improve energy production without it. even a dividend will create some harsh burden where some sectors are more dependent on fossils and infrastructure construction more distant. the carbon tax may need additional protection of some sectors, for example there was a bill at Oregon legislature a few years ago to rebate carbon tax for people in rural counties, to compensate for longer commutes.

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Even the most optimistic of the IPCC scenarios calls for temperatures to increase for decades. Look at what is happening with temperatures at 1.2° C above historic levels now. Tipping points, such as the release of methane from permafrost, the die off of the Amazon, the melting of summer ice in the Arctic will have devastating destabilizing influences all over the world many times worse than what we’re experiencing today unless we drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels. That’s just science. All the talk of billionaires burning fuel is just a diversion to keep people from recognizing what the fossil fuel industry has known for 40 years and covered up - which is that fossil fuels increase CO2 and methane, raising temperatures in the atmosphere, leading to the kind of havoc we see everywhere.

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It is fun to point out hypocrisy... two thoughts occur

The hypocrites pay no attention

The hypocrites should be aware that their behavior causes us to rebel against their their pleadings. I’ll abandon my Ram 3500 diesel when Elon scraps his private jet and Al Gore builds a sea wall around his beach house.

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Give me one reason why I should believe what you say when every government in the world - on the left, on the right, big, small, rich, poor has signed on to every word of the IPCC reports that completely contradict every thing you say in your post. It’s really remarkable the degree to which people employ all kinds of extreme and desperate rationalizations to insulate themselves from the truth. But if living in a bubble, makes you happier go for it.

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Ok, Herb. We can do it in four words. We don’t even need a full sentence.

Copernicus.

Galileo.

Catholic Church.

That’s why.

If you don’t get it yet, you will.

Unless you run away because you fear knowledge and ideology it might threaten.

Don’t do that. Keep an open mind.

This article isn’t about the science. It’s about the hypocrisy. And it’s about something else we will write about in ~2 weeks.

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Fine. I’m happy to say they’re hypocrites. So what? The real question is what are we collectively doing to address the climate crisis? They are doing a lot. So I don’t care if they’re hypocrites - we’re all hypocrites!

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The Narcissist Class ain’t doing jack squat.

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March 13, 2023
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Perhaps you could give me an example of a country that criminalizes nuclear or Hydro? And if wind and solar are nutty, why are capitalist investors in almost every country in the world pouring record amounts of investment into those technologies? Do you know something they don’t? If so, what is it?

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What exactly do you mean by “The IPCC reports?”

Can you provide any specific if examples of where Bryce is wrong?

https://greenleapforward.substack.com/p/can-we-all-please-get-on-the-same

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https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf

This is the latest IPCC report. The next one will be out on Monday, March 20 that synthesizes the last six IPCC reports.

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Thanks for the link. That’s the Summary for Policymakers from Working Group 1.

Maybe I misunderstood to whom you were directing your other comment to? Not Bryce it seems now.

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March 13, 2023
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If the corruption of the IPCC is so obvious, then, perhaps you can present one obvious example of its corruption

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Why do you believe what the greenies tell you? Are governments always right?

Do your own research. As Lee ask which IPCC scenario do you subscribe to and what is it’s estimated likelihood as opposed to others? Why is that many of those countries you mention, are buying as much cheap coal as they can find? This winter’s energy crisis in europe rang the death knell of the climate change movement. Now we can start looking at real energy solutions not the fairy tales people like have been forcing down our throats.

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To which IPCC scenario do you subscribe, Herb? It seems to me that there is more acceptance, even among some climate howlers, that the non-catastrophic scenarios are more likely.

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What a tired and cynical tactic tactic, to avoid discussion of the cataclysmic impact that accelerating climate change will have on everyone on the planet, while attempting to stir up resentment against these billionaires who are supporting effect of climate action. My criticism of Bloomberg and Jobs and others is that they’re giving much too little of their immense fortunes for climate action. Who gives a damn how they travel around the world? The fossil fuel in the street must be phased out as quickly as possible, as each barrel of oil that is burnt raises temperatures and brings us closer to an unlivable Climate.

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Safe to assume you have removed and refrain from using all products from your life that rely on carbon energy? ie do you make your own clothes, hunt/grow and process your own food, abstain from modern day refrigeration.

Oh wait! You’re posting on an electronic device and expecting others to read your post on an electronic device most of which are ultimate powered by carbon energy.

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You sound like a serf from the middle ages saying his Lords and masters knows better than him so it completely fine for them to live in the castles while he lives in the pig sty. The point is if these hypocrites actually believed what they say they just wouldn't fly private jets. And they aren’t alone, even on a tiny scale individuals who argue for reduced carbon will say that their travel is essential, an argument I had with a climate scientist. He absolutely has to fly 1000s of miles to do his job, according to him. His hypocrisy went completely over his head. That's even before we get to your hyperbolic 'the world is gonna end' narrative. We've lived in a world that was much, much warmer than now, and thrived. We've also lived in a world much, much colder than now and didn't do so well. Why is warmer climate bad? Much less ppl die from heat than cold, that's even assuming we make any difference, which Is debatable, although because all the data is corrupted nobody is really sure if we do or not. Please don't reply 99% of scientists say it does because that is also not true but a manufacturered number.

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I agree that this tactic feels a bit cringey. But there is a genuine problem this hypocrisy illustrates.

To quote Yuval Noah Harari, “One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it.”

The point is that there is no actual evidence that high standard of living energy secure people have any intention of decreasing their standard of living because of climate change worries. The rich, which includes the entire academic class of western countries, are mainly prescribing energy poverty for the lower classes and global poor, while subsidizing top down “solutions” that they perceive will save them from CO2 with no risk to them, such as electrical vehicles and windmills in someone else’s neighborhood.

This is why rich westerners are content consigning Africans to energy poverty by expecting them to skip the conventional energy ladder of grid scale electrification with coal, followed by increased standard of living and transitioning to cleaner sources--- a process every other developed economy has followed. Africans rightly call it eco-imperialism.

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You have a troubled relationship with truth, Herb.

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Calling out hypocrisy has a downside in that it reinforces the morality, values or principles that the hypocrites have violated.

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Agreed. Calling out hypocrisy carries with it the danger of the hypocritical living within their fantasies. It does not solve the core problem, the absurdity of vilifying carbon, the basis of all life nor does it drive a stake through the essence of the energy debate, that green energy programs can lead to an affluent society.

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We have lots of stakes. And heavy mallets.

We don’t expect to kill all the zombies out there in one year.

But we do eventually. The more subscribers the more stake holders and people with heavy mallets working together.

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Robert, I used your $5+ billion data in a talk I gave to about 100 people on Thursday. Slides at https://hargraves.s3.amazonaws.com/KendalNuclear.pdf Bob

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