Perhaps the images of angry mobs in Greece and forecasts of a bitter cold winter for Europe are having a sobering effect on our CO2-drugged up politicians here in Europe.
And as other countries line up behind Greece on the path to discontent, perhaps its a good idea, after all, to stop raking honest citizens with the global warming scam.
At least EU Energy Commissar Günther Oettinger may be getting it.
The online Stern magazine reports here that Oettinger has a warning on the dangers of rising energy costs.
Higher energy costs do not only threaten the businesses here, but also the social peace when a part of the population is not able to afford paying the electric bills.”
Yeah, it can really piss people off when the power gets shut off in the middle of winter. Oettinger, at an international business conference last Saturday, added:
I’m surprised at how thoughtlessly the development of the electric prices have been taken. This is one reason for the steady de-industrialisation – energy intensive production is being sent overseas.”
And most the production that is done overseas uses much more energy and entails higher greenhouse gas emissions. But who cares, Germany can pat itself on the back for its contribution in rescuing the planet from greenhouse gases.
We need to recall here that Oettinger is likely only speaking the words his audience wants to hear, and that tomorrow he’ll be at some environmental conference and will be spewing just the opposite- on how “green” jobs are the future. It’s this kind of dishonesty and insincerity that really fuels the mobs out there. So let’s look at what Oettinger will say tomorrow.
Oettinger also provided a few other wise words during his rare few minutes of good sense. Stern writes:
For this reason Germany has to reconsider its subsidies in solar energy. ‘The Energy Feed-in Act was clever, but there comes a time when we have to wake up and realize that the sun shines brighter and longer in other countries,'”
Just come out and say it, Herr Commissar, solar energy was a flop.
O/T Rahmstorf gives the usual panic interview before Durban.
http://www.handelsblatt.com/technologie/energie-umwelt/umwelt-news/wir-sollten-mit-dem-klimaschutz-nicht-warten/5721320.html?p5721320=all
Looks rather tired; recounts some of the old canards like sinking island nations. Doesn’t mention the lack of warming or the lack of sea level rise. Science communication by not telling what the true situation is. 100% propagandist, 0% scientist. His only evidence: Simulations ran by PIK employees. Shut’em down, defund’em now.
Oettinger is the EU commissioner for Energy… so he defends the remaining nukes in Europe; the French and other peoples in Europe wouldn’t tolerate anything else. His European Energy Roadmap for 2050 sees Nukes as a vital component.
The taz (hard leftists) is fuming, of course:
http://taz.de/EU-Kommissar-Oettingers-Energiefahrplan/!80505/
Poor guy is speaking to a wall – has been embedded in his models for too many years. Europe could come to a complete standstill, and the world still would not manage to reduce its CO2 emissions by 2020.
Then he whines about more heat waves. If heat is so bad, then why does a majority of the population live near the equator, happily in the burning desert even, and not near the poles.
Germany may end up listening to him, but certainly not the rest of the world.
Maybe he should be forced to accept the salary of a factory worker, and be told to buy his own “affordable” green energy. You can be sure his models would suddenly put out new results.
CEO of First Solar steps down, sending shares down 18%.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9QJFOMG3&show_article=1
For quite a while, First Solar with their cheap CdTe thin film cells was one of the most profitable PV companies… looks like the diminishing price of the silicon PV competition causes them problems. Silicon has about twice the efficiency but was traditionally more than twice as expensive.
What is happening in Europe and Germany is happening in North America as well. Some of the G 8 and G20 governments and their states or provinces are party to these unsustainable and unnecessary subsidies for green energies that do nothing for global climate and yet these subsidies continue. The subsidies are a pure waste of our limited resources when there are so many more pressing issues in the world where country after country is on the verge of bankruptcy. For example in Ontario, Canada one of the new contracts calls for Samsung, a Korean energy giant, to build a 2000 megawatt wind farm. Samsung will be paid at the FIT rate of 13.5cents per kWh plus a one cent adder. [the similar rate for solar is as high as 80 cents per kWh.]. Our current power rate is 6.5 cents per kWh. If the 2000 Mw wind turbines produce at the ideal or optimum capacity of about 29 %, the cost to Ontario taxpayer will be about $1.1 million per day, $406 million per year or $8 billion over the 20 year contract. Our current escalating high energy costs [now projected to double soon] will continue to make Ontario’s products less competitive and drive yet more business to Asia. How many millions of people across the world could truly benefit by this $ 8 billion if put to proper use instead of the waste that it is now going to. An existing Ontario 4000 Megawatt coal fired power plant is being shut down that could be converted to Natural gas or shale gas or even cleaner coal technologies at a fraction of the cost being spent on the wind turbines. The power grid already exists.
PIK has cooked up statistics that “show” that the Russian heatwave etc. are caused with an 80% probability by AGW;
authors: Rahmstorf , Dim Coumou
http://www.fr-online.de/klimawandel/klimawandel-der-mensch-ist-doch-schuld-an-hitzerekord,1473244,11054208.html
Public German TV ZDF will have a Malthusian Horrorshow evening on 14th of November; combined with climate change (two for the price of one)
http://www.net-tribune.de/nt/node/68573/news/ZDF-widmet-sich-Klimawandel-und-Ressourcenknappheit
They had to travel all around the world for filming; hope they used bicycles for that.
Undiluted Malthusianism seems to be all the rage at the moment (the U.N. having declared Oct. 31 (!) to be the Day of Seven Billion).
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article13680212/Wie-viele-Milliarden-Menschen-verkraftet-die-Erde.html
And who parades out the Halloween Horrors? The president of the German Section of the Club of Rome: “Max Schön, Präsident der Deutschen Gesellschaft Club of Rome”. (This bodes ill: so we can expect Rahmstorf et al. to hawk their version of Malthusianism in forty years?)