- A weird alliance between climate deniers and climate doomers!
- What are doomers – and what motivates them?
- Attacks on renewables
- “Degrowth” promoted as the only way, but is there a “Bright Green” solution instead?
- Once we collapse, it’s permanent. Without cheap fossil fuels we’ll be stuck in the middle ages forever!
A weird alliance between climate deniers and climate doomers!
I’m a climate activist. I see climate change as a real and present danger to the biosphere and ourselves. I cheer on progress in the energy transition as our main weapon against climate change. (Some might also call me a Transitionista.)
This page explores the many myths pushed by 2 camps: the climate deniers / renewable energy sceptics that hate renewable energy for displacing their beloved coal oil and gas, and overshoot doomers who hate renewable energy because it might prevent the collapse of civilisation! This is a weird alliance. One group denies climate science. The other is completely doomsday about climate change, and even exaggerates the risk. They want a narrative of apocalyptic planetary payback on all our modern ways.
Both sides attack renewables. But these attacks are either outright falsehoods – or once had some legitimate points, but have since been solved. The energy transition is rolling out, and can save us from climate change. But as you will see – many of these so called environmentalist actually end up hating renewables – and push many tired old myths about them. Doomers – Big Oil says thank you!
What are doomers – and what motivates them?
Doomer certainty: “We’re strong enough to stare reality in the face and deal with it!” Except there are documented psychological needs being met by this ‘certainty’. And many are not ‘dealing with it.’ A young man I knew online became increasingly intense about all this doomer stuff – gave up – and took his own life!
Attacks on renewables
Renewables are false hopes: “Renewables? Ha ha – that’s just hopium!” Years ago the peer-reviewed systems engineers addressed all the concerns of renewable sceptics mentioned on this page. Now renewables are so cheap the marketplace has gone for it. They’re doubling every 4 years. The momentum is now unstoppable.
Critical Minerals: “The energy transition is going to use up every last scrap of rare earths and critical minerals!” Not at all! Many brands of wind and solar and even EV are moving away from critical minerals because of the expense. They’re trending towards super-abundant minerals.
The batteries that ate the world! “I’m sorry – but have you read Professor Simon Michaux? He’s really smart – and has modelled the huge batteries required for renewables. They use up all the critical minerals? We’ll even run out of copper – how are you going to do anything without copper!?” Simon Michaux might be a Professor of geology – but he is not a Professor of renewable energy systems nor an engineer. Michaux makes truly laughable errors in his 1000 page straw-man!
There’s not enough lithium for all your EV’s! – Have you checked what the average EV uses, and how many EV’s we could build according to the USGS?
Recycling is problematic: “But solar panels are dangerous to recycle – and no one has figured out wind turbine blades!” Solar panels are becoming safer to recycle, and there are a range of recycling measures even for those pesky fibreglass blades!
Didn’t you once say we would have a boron fuel cycle of burning and derusting boron? – I only ever reported that as one option among many – and this was from Dr James Hansen himself. It’s an interesting idea – but not as energy efficient as EV’s and solar on your rooftop.
“Degrowth” promoted as the only way, but is there a “Bright Green” solution instead?
Infinite growth: “If you think renewables can keep business as usual running, you must believe in infinite growth on a finite planet!” Yeeeees – but that’s so awfully blunt. If doomers read some other disciplines they might gain surprising new insights.
The bad bet: “We’ve got the formula that proves collapse is coming!” – How a simplistic model seduced its inventor into repeatedly predicting the end – and the catastrophic damage it did to the environmental movement. The famous bet that went so badly wrong.
“We need collapse – it’s the only way to save nature!” – I’m sorry – but collapse would do the opposite and guarantee the extinction of so many species only just hanging on today. Doomers also seem to forget some basic cave-man history!
“We must to Powerdown back to the Amish!”: So some claim – but have they considered the side effects? For instance – that this might increase population growth again?
Once we collapse, it’s permanent. Without cheap fossil fuels we’ll be stuck in the middle ages forever!
“Nuclear war and nuclear winter would surely crash industrial civilisation into the dark ages, never to rise again.” – It would be horrific! But significant nations in the south would not even collapse – and would one day ‘carry the fire’ back north again!
Sudden oil crisis: “Have you heard of war? What about a terrorist attack on a few major refineries? What about the Export Land Model!? We’re so dependent on oil that any one of these could tip us over the edge!” – Slow down a moment! Most nations already have emergency rationing legislation ready to go for such an emergency. We live in an energy-fat society. In a real emergency there are many ways to adapt. Covid saw us drop 25% oil use in a
“A super virus that wiped out 95% would surely crash modern civilisation forever!”
This one will take 3 pages to respond: and covers other themes important to any ‘apocalypse’.
1. Some governments have super-bunkers – and many private organisations and preppers have bunkers and plans to rebuild
2. A variety of basic technologies can be jerry-rigged and salvaged from the ruins to rebuild
3. Concentrating the population into viable towns (through job creation programs) takes advantage of the “Moore’s Law” of cities – giving more output per person
Eclipse Now 
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