The first panel at The Heartland Institute’s 14th International Conference on Climate Change in Las Vegas on Sunday October 17 was titled “Degraded Science and the Coming of the Great Reset.”
The panel was moderated by Bette Grande, government relations manager for energy issues at The Heartland Institute and a former North Dakota state representative from 1996-2014. The panel featured Steve Milloy, founder and publisher of JunkScience.com; Marc Morano, executive editor and chief correspondent for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow’s ClimateDepot.com; and H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
Through the Climate Science Looking Glass
Burnett’s presentation compared those pushing alarming climate narratives and radical changes in energy and economic policies with the fictional Red Queen, from in Lewis Carroll’s 1871 fantasy novel, Through the Looking-Glass.
During an exchange with the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, Alice’s tells her, “There’s no use in trying, you can’t believe in impossible things,” to which the Red Queen famously says, ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“This is what climate alarmists do,” said Burnett. “They make impossible claims about future climate change concerning model projections, for instance, one model projects the Great Lakes will be two feet higher, another model projects they will be one foot lower; one model projects you will have more rain in the desert Southwestern United States, and another says there will be less rain there. Climate change may result in any of those things but it certainly can’t cause both of them simultaneously in the same place at the same time—that’s impossible.”
Through the Climate Economics Looking Glass
Burnett also says those imposing policies purportedly intended to fight global warming believe impossible things about their impact on the economy.
“The say they believe we can literally go to net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” Burnett said. “They say we have the labor force, the building materials, and the technology to replace all of our carbon-based energy with non-C02 emitting energy in less than 20 years.
“But to do this, it would require building 260 wind turbines a day, nationwide from day one today (10/17) until Jan.1, 2050. We’re not building anywhere near that. It’s not going to happen, that’s impossible.”
Reality will eventually catch up with the climate alarmists, but they can do a lot of damage in the meantime, says Burnett.
“They’re having protests and riots in Europe right now because their energy supply—they used to have a modern energy supply–is going down,” Burnett said. “Now they’re worried about people shivering in the cold because there won’t be enough energy this winter.
“They’re talking about three-day work weeks and companies leaving the country, and that’s the reality of the green energy push … and people are … starting to object,” said Burnett. “The climate alarmists have already done a lot of damage in New York and California, and they’ve even done some damage in Texas¸ but eventually reality will return and the public will revolt .. [and] they will bring modern energy back, but in the meantime, a lot of people with be harmed, a lot of people will lose their homes and maybe their lives to bad health conditions due to a lack of food or maybe through a lack of air conditioning and refrigeration; and the poor, especially the poor in developing countries, will remain poor for decades to come because climate alarmists won’t allow their countries to develop.”
Rejecting Impossible Climate Policies
How can we secure our energy future, asks Burnett?
“Educate yourself by following The Heartland Institute, and vote out people that believe in magical things,” suggested Burnett. “If a politician believes something that’s impossible, that you can have net zero by 2050, then he or she needs to go.
“If they’re actually fomenting it, not just believing in it, but saying, ‘Here are the policies we have to enact to make this happen,’ then what they’re telling you is that they’re going to destroy the modern economy… and if they’re willing to do that, then they must go.”
Kenneth Artz (KApublishing@gmx.com) writes from Dallas, Texas.
Very interesting & sensible articles. Shame there aren’t more influencers with down to earth info in both the US & Europe, all of whose politicians are brainwashing their citizens (having been brainwashed themselves) into climate panic & thereby implementing policies that will bankrupt their countries while China laughs & prospers.