Robert, Great piece, very informative and persuasive. In your list of Pro-Hydrocarbon/Pro Nuclear NGOs, I noticed that you included the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists but left out the American Association of Professional Landmen. That in my view was an oversight. Paul Yale
Interesting that the elite now have a lot of money to use to fiddle with society, and f**k the poor. Nothing really changes. I agree with this ending in something akin to feudalism if not checked.
Either these climate howlers don’t understand the end of fossil fuels due to their ignorance of science and engineering, or more cynically, they see themselves as benefitting from it. You’d think Bezos would see his business critically threatened by shortages of diesel and gasoline. He’s not stupid, so..what does he think will replace the fuel for his trucks?
Can you explain why the NGO’s that are against fossil fuels are also against nuclear ? It’s puzzling to me as nuclear is the most dense of all energy sources. France has 70% of its electricity needs supplied by nuclear and Germany is scrambling to get 2 reactors back on line.
I understand clearly why fossil fuel advocates do not support nuclear. That’s a lay up.
2. they don't want affordable, reliable, abundant, on-demand electricity to proliferate, esp. to the developing world, who God forbid might ever reach our living standards (high consumption, need 5 earths, that routine). in that regard, remember the words of Paul Ehrlich (paraphrasing) - giving cheap energy to the world would be like giving an idiot child a machine gun.
If anything you are being too charitable to the “pro” side of this analysis. Generalist outfits like Heritage and the Manhattan Institute are hardly focused on fossil fuels and nuclear- that is only a tiny part of their portfolios. (To be honest, I wish Heritage would focus more on important stuff like this than the populist culture war nonsense they have fallen into lately, but I digress...)
In reality this is even more skewed than presented here!
Great article as always, Robert. Our nascent Rhode Island group, https://green-oceans.org/ , is questioning the wisdom of packing the Outer Continental Shelf with thousands of 80-story high wind turbines. For that unpopular position, we are being accused of spreading misinformation, taking money from fossil fuel interests, and most damningly, owning coastal property—which means we must be NIMBY. These folks need to come up with some new material.
The activists keep pushing out people like me who actually do want to do something about the climate, and the rest of the environment too (and most importantly improving the lives of other Humans!).
All it took was doing some simple back of the envelope math on renewables and batteries that didn’t add up, and then I asked a few questions and then I was kicked out of the “good people” tribe.
Long story short, welcome to the heretics club! I have a feeling like we are or are close to the majority at this point...
Questioning renewable energy and it's effects on the environment is the green equivalent to saying something overtly racist—it's disorienting to be kicked out of one's own club
The ties to the media are also of interest. It seems to me that as traditional regional outlets have faded, NGO funded media has risen. And they are all tied together.
“ No, they didn’t ask for mute buttons. But what we journalists must keep struggling with is how to manage the overwhelming volume of climate disinformation that is funded by fossil fuel, utility and other (e.g., agriculture, chemical) industries. Disinformation that is often created and amplified by PR firms earning hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when media companies are still laying off journalists.”.
These $billionaires like Gates, Soros, Bezos, Bloomberg, Steyer are just 2nd level minions, obeying orders from above to support these ENGOs. If they want to remain insiders. Musk is an outsider, a Cornucopian in a World run by Malthusians, mostly Old Wealth Banking families, Rockefeller, Rothschild etc. So this is all part of their Great Reset, Green Agenda. A plan for a World government, a totalitarian techno-feudal state, run by an Aristocracy of extreme wealth & privilege with everyone else being impoverised serfs. They have made no secret of their plans:
From THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION by The Club of Rome 1991 "Because of the sudden absence of traditional enemies, "new enemies must be identified."[2] "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself."[3]
"We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest"
Paul Warburg, the International Banker testifying to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1950
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis."
David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager
Depopulation: "I Hope It Can Occur In a Civil Manner"
"The World can support something like a billion people, maybe two billion"
" I know in one way or another it's going to come back down so I don't hope to avoid that, I hope that it can occur in a civil way "
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National auto determination practiced in past centuries.”
David Rockefeller in an address to a Trilateral Commission meeting in June of 1991
“This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long – We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
David Rockefeller, Club of Rome, Sept. 23, 1994
“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will.
If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
from David Rockefeller’s autobiography ‘Memoirs’
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order (referring to the 1991 L.A. riot). Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Henry Kissinger @ Bilderberg Conference, Evaians, France 1991
Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State quoted in Time magazine on July 20, 1992: “In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea.”
" Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it. "
Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
" The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet. "
Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
" Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. "
Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
" A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation "
John Holdren Obama Science Czar
"In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a master plan is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years from today it will probably be too late."
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation."
UN Commission on Global Governance report
"Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today's problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways."
Dr. Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
"Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises."
Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute
"A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income."
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable."
Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
"All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man."
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions."
Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
"A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible."
United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
"The resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion."
There's a reason why our first two Substack subscriptions were no brainers - Robert Bryce & Doomberg. Superb, Robert.
We've loosely tracked this for over a decade. Since 2010, in round figures, whether you cut it by top 10, 20, or 25, it's always been in the range of 2X - 4X funding for the anti-industrial environmental NGOs vs. Oil/Gas/Nuclear NGOs
Despite funding skewing the opposite of the media/NGO-fueled perception and the fear mongering with it, and "traditional energy getting its butt kicked in the policy arena", and the David vs. Goliath appearance, we have two overwhelming long-term advantages:
1) Science (physics, economics, environmental and climate)
2) Art
Re: #1, we'll borrow from Doomberg (paraphrasing): "in all of history, in the battle between platitudes and physics, physics is undefeated". (We'd substitute "ideology" for "platitudes", but, semantics...). 2022 pretty well proved that in Europe.
Re: #2, Substack and Twitter are our (you, Doomberg, Keefer, Lomborg, many others) platform for the art. Yes, we are badly outnumbered. But Goliath got his ass kicked by little David with physics.
How is "art" even relevant to this existential battle for human prosperity, readers might ask?
For relevance, and motivation, we leave you with the closing of the speech Solzhenitsyn gave to the Swedish Academy upon the award of his Nobel. As you consider how badly outgunned we might seem on the surface, consider his words, then consider the role the Gulag Archipelago played in the fall of a malevolent, misanthropic ideology and the USSR, and our roles as writers in this context:
"The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me. But it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! For in the struggle with lies art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art.
And no sooner will the lies be dispersed than the repulsive nakedness of violence will be exposed—and age-old violence will topple in defeat.
This is why I believe, my friends, that we are capable of helping the world in its hour of crisis. We should not seek to justify our unwillingness by our lack of weapons, nor should we give ourselves up to a life of comfort. We must come out and join the battle!
The favorite proverbs in Russian are about truth. They forcefully express a long and difficult national experience, sometimes in striking fashion:
One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world."
Consider his contribution to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the destruction of any ability to justify Communism, and the tools he had.
Keep plowing ahead, Robert. Physics and art (words) carry more weight than money in the end.
What is surprising to me is that these large foundations funding economically regressive cost increasing policies are treated under law as charities. Charities don’t hurt the poor by making them poorer. These organizations are anti-charities. Tax laws should be amended to remove charitable receipts for such organizations.
They shouldn't be allowed to keep the names of their large donors private on their IRS990 forms for 501(c) charities. Most of these groups get anonymous personal donations in multi-$million amounts.
That would be a good start. But the legal basis of charities began in 17th century English law. The basis was primarily relief for and aid to the poor, not lobbying government to change energy use. Our law has gone far away from any real notion of charity to have taxpayers supporting all sorts of non-charitable causes through tax deductions.
I think charities should not advocate or lobby, just do useful things. This would simplify as now it seems that many political entities who would be taxed simply send $ via “charities.” A side effect, more useful positive actions would actually get done..
A couple of minor points - I believe humans are driven by their accepted moral code. The goal, albeit misguided, of all too many people is to have a better world. The problem clearly is that anyone of us may be wrong. Inflatability is not a human attribute. The other problem is that few people will actually challenge their own thinking and resent and resist change when other suggest they do so. The most effective way for anyone to learn is from reality, and so I say, let people act and don't stand between them an the consequences of what pain they inflict on themselves.
Tragically, there is always a human cost for poor thinking skills.
On the issue of consequences of losing an industrial society, I would be surprise if the human cost would be less than 95% of the population on this planet. If the climate change gang achieves their goal, truly they will be guilty of mass murder. If we let them, we will be committing suicide.
It will take more than just letting folks endure the pain they inflict on themselves.
As they experience that pain, the anti- groups will lie about the cause. See, for example, the Feb. 2021 Texas ice storm. Before the crisis was over, there were already articles blaming gas generators (50% available) and exonerating wind generators ( 3 - 9% available) because "wind wasn't expected to show up anyway."
True, better thinking skills would help folks see through these lies, but the point is that it is not enough to feel the pain and start looking for the cause, they also have to engage their brain and see through the lies, because even as billions are dying, the liars will not stop their lying.
Thanks Jeff. When I say let reality beat up on them, I mean they need to be denied sccess to hydrocarbon energy , to live by their claim that gas and oil are evil. Should they not upgrade their thinking, after a few months they'd no long present a problem. Cheers.
Can’t wait to see what you find on the dark money, dark funding for these groups. Once upon a time Wyoming citizens were attempting to investigate Sierra Club and a local group, Powder River Resource Council who continue their influence against hydrocarbons (even though Wyoming receives 70%-80% of their GDP from hydrocarbon taxes and development) but these same groups have been amazingly silent on wind and solar rejections throughout the state.
I’ll give a hint on where this dark money was coming from *cough* China and Russia *cough*
A whistleblower in the Sierra Club leaked that they were donated $25 million from 2007 to 2010 to fund their anti-nuclear and anti-coal campaigns. With another $30 million to follow. This was largely through personal donations of the CEO of Chesapeake Energy Aubrey McClendon. And of course, during that time Sierra Club supported natural gas as "a bridge fuel" while being vehemently opposed to nuclear & coal. Curious how McClendon "suicided himself" by driving his SUV into a concrete pillar. Later $100M in funding from Bloomberg, a big natural gas/wind/solar investor. One good reference:
The Tides Foundation is renowned for that service. McClendon did inadvertently end up exposing this ENGO scam that has been going on since at least the 1970's. Maybe that's why he got suicided. All his friends said he was very upbeat at the time, had big plans, and then ran his SUV @ 100mph into a concrete pillar. Of course also the big players wanted Chesapeake's gas leases, as well. His death was very convenient.
After watching environmental activists of all breeds, I have been appalled by the legal warfare being used to insure nothing energy or electrical gets built. Even worse is the fact that it is being done without any penalties for frivolous lawsuit.
Indeed, just delaying large such projects has kept many, many of their technological upgrades from ever being built.
Be careful Robert, I love your reporting, but you are poking the bear with a stick. These people have unlimited money and virtually no morals.
This idiot (Jacobson) from Stanford claims we don't need fossil fuels. He assumes new energy storage technology (long duration battery storage), which does not exist, will allow wind and solar to power the world. He is from Stanford so politicians believe this crap and investors pour millions into it. Stanford is happy to put its name behind this crap because it is part of the same anti-Industry Industry cabal. Nasty old physics just keeps getting in the way. https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/21-USStates-PDFs/21-USStatesPaper.pdf https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/25/form-energy-raises-240-million-on-iron-air-battery-promise.html
Latest episode of Decouple talks about his model. https://youtu.be/0__qpTuLaGg
Last year Standford received a large donation.
"Stanford's first new school in 70 years gets $1.1 billion — and it's focused on climate | CNN"
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/04/us/stanford-university-climate-school/index.html
The school may be offering summer executive programs.
Robert, Great piece, very informative and persuasive. In your list of Pro-Hydrocarbon/Pro Nuclear NGOs, I noticed that you included the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists but left out the American Association of Professional Landmen. That in my view was an oversight. Paul Yale
Interesting that the elite now have a lot of money to use to fiddle with society, and f**k the poor. Nothing really changes. I agree with this ending in something akin to feudalism if not checked.
Either these climate howlers don’t understand the end of fossil fuels due to their ignorance of science and engineering, or more cynically, they see themselves as benefitting from it. You’d think Bezos would see his business critically threatened by shortages of diesel and gasoline. He’s not stupid, so..what does he think will replace the fuel for his trucks?
Nice piece Robert. Food for thought.
Very interesting discussion, thank you.
Can you explain why the NGO’s that are against fossil fuels are also against nuclear ? It’s puzzling to me as nuclear is the most dense of all energy sources. France has 70% of its electricity needs supplied by nuclear and Germany is scrambling to get 2 reactors back on line.
I understand clearly why fossil fuel advocates do not support nuclear. That’s a lay up.
Many thanks.
1. partly depleted fuel ("nuclear waste!")
2. they don't want affordable, reliable, abundant, on-demand electricity to proliferate, esp. to the developing world, who God forbid might ever reach our living standards (high consumption, need 5 earths, that routine). in that regard, remember the words of Paul Ehrlich (paraphrasing) - giving cheap energy to the world would be like giving an idiot child a machine gun.
#2 is probably the most relevant. Thanks.
It is. But do not miss a critical point.
The first is held up as a justification for the second. But to anyone who understands risk and engineering, it is not.
I understand.
Can you point me to a reliable article that discuss #1.
There is so much propaganda out there.
I’d like to learn more.
Many thanks.
Dispelling the Myths of Nuclear Energy (Live Lecture), Illinois EnergyProf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1QmB5bW_WQ
Thank you.
If anything you are being too charitable to the “pro” side of this analysis. Generalist outfits like Heritage and the Manhattan Institute are hardly focused on fossil fuels and nuclear- that is only a tiny part of their portfolios. (To be honest, I wish Heritage would focus more on important stuff like this than the populist culture war nonsense they have fallen into lately, but I digress...)
In reality this is even more skewed than presented here!
Great article as always, Robert. Our nascent Rhode Island group, https://green-oceans.org/ , is questioning the wisdom of packing the Outer Continental Shelf with thousands of 80-story high wind turbines. For that unpopular position, we are being accused of spreading misinformation, taking money from fossil fuel interests, and most damningly, owning coastal property—which means we must be NIMBY. These folks need to come up with some new material.
It’s the same pattern every time, isn’t it?
Being accused of receiving funds from FF groups is one of their “you’re a witch” spells.
The activists keep pushing out people like me who actually do want to do something about the climate, and the rest of the environment too (and most importantly improving the lives of other Humans!).
All it took was doing some simple back of the envelope math on renewables and batteries that didn’t add up, and then I asked a few questions and then I was kicked out of the “good people” tribe.
Long story short, welcome to the heretics club! I have a feeling like we are or are close to the majority at this point...
Questioning renewable energy and it's effects on the environment is the green equivalent to saying something overtly racist—it's disorienting to be kicked out of one's own club
The ties to the media are also of interest. It seems to me that as traditional regional outlets have faded, NGO funded media has risen. And they are all tied together.
E.g. https://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog/climate-censorship-part-ii-courtesy-wall-street-journal-editorial-board
Hopefully your Substack will not be thought of as "disinformation."
Whoops, didn’t put the quote in from the link
“ No, they didn’t ask for mute buttons. But what we journalists must keep struggling with is how to manage the overwhelming volume of climate disinformation that is funded by fossil fuel, utility and other (e.g., agriculture, chemical) industries. Disinformation that is often created and amplified by PR firms earning hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when media companies are still laying off journalists.”.
These $billionaires like Gates, Soros, Bezos, Bloomberg, Steyer are just 2nd level minions, obeying orders from above to support these ENGOs. If they want to remain insiders. Musk is an outsider, a Cornucopian in a World run by Malthusians, mostly Old Wealth Banking families, Rockefeller, Rothschild etc. So this is all part of their Great Reset, Green Agenda. A plan for a World government, a totalitarian techno-feudal state, run by an Aristocracy of extreme wealth & privilege with everyone else being impoverised serfs. They have made no secret of their plans:
From THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION by The Club of Rome 1991 "Because of the sudden absence of traditional enemies, "new enemies must be identified."[2] "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself."[3]
"We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest"
Paul Warburg, the International Banker testifying to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1950
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis."
David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager
Depopulation: "I Hope It Can Occur In a Civil Manner"
"The World can support something like a billion people, maybe two billion"
" I know in one way or another it's going to come back down so I don't hope to avoid that, I hope that it can occur in a civil way "
(i.e. Plandemic and deadly forced vaccines):
Club of Rome former director Dennis Meadows
https://rumble.com/v14uz0z-depopulation-i-hope-it-can-occur-in-a-civil-manner-club-of-romes-dennis-mea.html
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National auto determination practiced in past centuries.”
David Rockefeller in an address to a Trilateral Commission meeting in June of 1991
“This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long – We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
David Rockefeller, Club of Rome, Sept. 23, 1994
“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will.
If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
from David Rockefeller’s autobiography ‘Memoirs’
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order (referring to the 1991 L.A. riot). Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Henry Kissinger @ Bilderberg Conference, Evaians, France 1991
Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State quoted in Time magazine on July 20, 1992: “In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea.”
" Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it. "
Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
" The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet. "
Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
" Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. "
Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
" A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation "
John Holdren Obama Science Czar
"In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a master plan is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years from today it will probably be too late."
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation."
UN Commission on Global Governance report
"Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today's problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways."
Dr. Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
"Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises."
Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute
"A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income."
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable."
Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
"All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man."
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions."
Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
"A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible."
United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
"The resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion."
Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
There's a reason why our first two Substack subscriptions were no brainers - Robert Bryce & Doomberg. Superb, Robert.
We've loosely tracked this for over a decade. Since 2010, in round figures, whether you cut it by top 10, 20, or 25, it's always been in the range of 2X - 4X funding for the anti-industrial environmental NGOs vs. Oil/Gas/Nuclear NGOs
Despite funding skewing the opposite of the media/NGO-fueled perception and the fear mongering with it, and "traditional energy getting its butt kicked in the policy arena", and the David vs. Goliath appearance, we have two overwhelming long-term advantages:
1) Science (physics, economics, environmental and climate)
2) Art
Re: #1, we'll borrow from Doomberg (paraphrasing): "in all of history, in the battle between platitudes and physics, physics is undefeated". (We'd substitute "ideology" for "platitudes", but, semantics...). 2022 pretty well proved that in Europe.
Re: #2, Substack and Twitter are our (you, Doomberg, Keefer, Lomborg, many others) platform for the art. Yes, we are badly outnumbered. But Goliath got his ass kicked by little David with physics.
How is "art" even relevant to this existential battle for human prosperity, readers might ask?
For relevance, and motivation, we leave you with the closing of the speech Solzhenitsyn gave to the Swedish Academy upon the award of his Nobel. As you consider how badly outgunned we might seem on the surface, consider his words, then consider the role the Gulag Archipelago played in the fall of a malevolent, misanthropic ideology and the USSR, and our roles as writers in this context:
"The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me. But it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! For in the struggle with lies art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art.
And no sooner will the lies be dispersed than the repulsive nakedness of violence will be exposed—and age-old violence will topple in defeat.
This is why I believe, my friends, that we are capable of helping the world in its hour of crisis. We should not seek to justify our unwillingness by our lack of weapons, nor should we give ourselves up to a life of comfort. We must come out and join the battle!
The favorite proverbs in Russian are about truth. They forcefully express a long and difficult national experience, sometimes in striking fashion:
One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world."
Consider his contribution to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the destruction of any ability to justify Communism, and the tools he had.
Keep plowing ahead, Robert. Physics and art (words) carry more weight than money in the end.
How ‘bout this one:
Platitudes are the gamblers, physics is the house.
Gamblers may win in the short term but in the long term its the house that always wins.
(Image of Wiley E Coyote running off a cliff before realizing there’s no ground underneath him)
What is surprising to me is that these large foundations funding economically regressive cost increasing policies are treated under law as charities. Charities don’t hurt the poor by making them poorer. These organizations are anti-charities. Tax laws should be amended to remove charitable receipts for such organizations.
They shouldn't be allowed to keep the names of their large donors private on their IRS990 forms for 501(c) charities. Most of these groups get anonymous personal donations in multi-$million amounts.
These orgs smell of money laundering operations to be honest. To cover up the ultra wealthy.
That would be a good start. But the legal basis of charities began in 17th century English law. The basis was primarily relief for and aid to the poor, not lobbying government to change energy use. Our law has gone far away from any real notion of charity to have taxpayers supporting all sorts of non-charitable causes through tax deductions.
I think charities should not advocate or lobby, just do useful things. This would simplify as now it seems that many political entities who would be taxed simply send $ via “charities.” A side effect, more useful positive actions would actually get done..
Are they? interesting..
Thanks Robert for your diligent research.
A couple of minor points - I believe humans are driven by their accepted moral code. The goal, albeit misguided, of all too many people is to have a better world. The problem clearly is that anyone of us may be wrong. Inflatability is not a human attribute. The other problem is that few people will actually challenge their own thinking and resent and resist change when other suggest they do so. The most effective way for anyone to learn is from reality, and so I say, let people act and don't stand between them an the consequences of what pain they inflict on themselves.
Tragically, there is always a human cost for poor thinking skills.
On the issue of consequences of losing an industrial society, I would be surprise if the human cost would be less than 95% of the population on this planet. If the climate change gang achieves their goal, truly they will be guilty of mass murder. If we let them, we will be committing suicide.
It will take more than just letting folks endure the pain they inflict on themselves.
As they experience that pain, the anti- groups will lie about the cause. See, for example, the Feb. 2021 Texas ice storm. Before the crisis was over, there were already articles blaming gas generators (50% available) and exonerating wind generators ( 3 - 9% available) because "wind wasn't expected to show up anyway."
True, better thinking skills would help folks see through these lies, but the point is that it is not enough to feel the pain and start looking for the cause, they also have to engage their brain and see through the lies, because even as billions are dying, the liars will not stop their lying.
Thanks Jeff. When I say let reality beat up on them, I mean they need to be denied sccess to hydrocarbon energy , to live by their claim that gas and oil are evil. Should they not upgrade their thinking, after a few months they'd no long present a problem. Cheers.
Can’t wait to see what you find on the dark money, dark funding for these groups. Once upon a time Wyoming citizens were attempting to investigate Sierra Club and a local group, Powder River Resource Council who continue their influence against hydrocarbons (even though Wyoming receives 70%-80% of their GDP from hydrocarbon taxes and development) but these same groups have been amazingly silent on wind and solar rejections throughout the state.
I’ll give a hint on where this dark money was coming from *cough* China and Russia *cough*
A whistleblower in the Sierra Club leaked that they were donated $25 million from 2007 to 2010 to fund their anti-nuclear and anti-coal campaigns. With another $30 million to follow. This was largely through personal donations of the CEO of Chesapeake Energy Aubrey McClendon. And of course, during that time Sierra Club supported natural gas as "a bridge fuel" while being vehemently opposed to nuclear & coal. Curious how McClendon "suicided himself" by driving his SUV into a concrete pillar. Later $100M in funding from Bloomberg, a big natural gas/wind/solar investor. One good reference:
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/10/16/enemies-of-the-earth-unmasking-dirty-war-friends-of-earth-greenpeace-south-korea-nuclear-energy
McClendon's mistake is that he didn't "launder" the money through other "charitable" foundations before giving it to The Sierra Club.
That's how this is typically done. That way the ultimate source of the funding is obscured.
Must be nice to get your Public Relations/Propaganda department to operate tax-free by calling it a "charitable" NGO...
The Tides Foundation is renowned for that service. McClendon did inadvertently end up exposing this ENGO scam that has been going on since at least the 1970's. Maybe that's why he got suicided. All his friends said he was very upbeat at the time, had big plans, and then ran his SUV @ 100mph into a concrete pillar. Of course also the big players wanted Chesapeake's gas leases, as well. His death was very convenient.
They want to turn Wyoming into what they’re turning Colorado into - an ultra elite playground.
https://fleetingwest.substack.com/p/hiking-is-a-petroleum-sport
Great post. Motivated a long-ish Twtter thread https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1626950145245077504?s=20
(and a good one at that!)
Great piece, Robert.
After watching environmental activists of all breeds, I have been appalled by the legal warfare being used to insure nothing energy or electrical gets built. Even worse is the fact that it is being done without any penalties for frivolous lawsuit.
Indeed, just delaying large such projects has kept many, many of their technological upgrades from ever being built.