CLINTEL’s Message to National Politicians and World Leaders at COP 26

The big climate picture tells us that we are slowly moving – through ups and downs – to the next ice age. The current warming from the Little Ice Age is very beneficial to humanity and nature. Enjoy today’s relatively favorable climate! Sometime in the future, we will move into a colder phase again and eventually into the next ice age.
Hard facts show that global warming is NOT catastrophic, so there is NO climate crisis. Therefore, stop with your scary messages. Fear always leads to wrong decisions and above all, it obscures the minds of our youth. Instead, inspire them with a positive outlook on the future!
The big climate picture also tells us that extreme weather – consisting of heat waves and cold fronts, droughts and floods, hurricanes and snow storms, etc. – is an integral part of the Earth’s climate. Stop selecting weather events that depress young and old! It also leads to erroneous policies.
For many decades, observations have shown that the IPCC’s climate models misrepresent science. The reality is that changes in CO2 emissions have only a modest effect on Earth’s weather and climate. The reality is that sea level rise has been stable for centuries. So no reason to panic.
CO2 is not a polluting gas. It is essential for all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is good for nature and makes the earth greener. It is also good for agriculture, as it increases crop yields worldwide (see Figure 1). With more CO2, we can fight hunger in the world better.
Stop slavishly following the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement is based on fear and will only make the world poorer. Instead, develop concrete adaptation plans in collaboration with the regions. Global mitigation policies cost an exorbitant amount of money and have never saved a single life. National adaptation plans are very effective, whatever the causes of climate change may be (see figure 2).
Wind and solar energy can only play a small role in the energy transition. Use clean fossil fuels for increasing energy needs, especially in developing countries. Meanwhile, work together worldwide to develop the nuclear power plants of the future, along with new storage and transport technologies. It will result in greater prosperity and well-being for all.

Figure 1 : CO2 is not a polluter. It is essential for all life on Earth. More CO2 is good for nature and it makes the earth greener. It is also good for agriculture; crop yields are increasing worldwide, allowing us to better fight hunger in the world.

Figure 2 : Climate-related deaths have fallen by more than 95% in the past century thanks to increasing prosperity! Mitigation policies do the opposite, because it destroys wealth. Investing in adaptation always works, whatever the causes of climate change may be.

See also CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration (WCD), www.clintel.org

On behalf of the CLINTEL ambassadors and WCD signatories,

dr. AJ (Guus) Berkhout, President of CLINTEL

Emeritus Professor of Geophysics

Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

Senior Member of the Dutch Academy of Engineering (AcTI)

For the time being, it will be cheaper to adapt to climate change rather than to force the developing nations towards a world without fossil fuel.

Richard Lindzen is a world renowned climatologist. Surely, his opinion should count for a lot?

China Warming – Tablet Magazine

Before you throw your heart into ‘green’ energy, take some time off to watch these 2 documentaries and hear what people are saying.

After watching all this, you don’t have to be any kind of a genius to figure out that wind and solar generation are never going to replace fossil fuels in powering the world economy. The main reason is that the wind and sun only work part time, indeed well less than half of the time at best. With wind, you never know when it might work, and over a year a given facility might on average produce about 30-35% of rated capacity, with long and random periods of nothing. With the sun, you know from the get-go that you will get nothing fully half the time (i.e., night); and cloudy days wipe out half and more of the remaining half, again at random times. Averaged over the year, you’ll be lucky to get 20% of rated capacity from a solar facility.

With the world economy finally bouncing back (hopefully) from the year-and-a-half of pandemic, this is the moment for wind and solar to step up and show what they can do. All the advanced economies (Europe, UK, U.S., Canada, Australia) have been pushing wind and solar for a couple of decades, with tens of billions of dollars of various subsidies and tax breaks. There are now wind turbines and solar panels all over the place. Simultaneously the same countries have shuttered coal plants, reduced nuclear, banned fracking in many places (Europe, the UK, and much of the U.S.), and discouraged fossil fuels of every sort in a hundred different ways. Now there is a surge in demand for manufactured goods of every sort. That will take some energy. Let’s see what the wind and the sun can do:

The answer is that when they are needed they are useless.

Which brings me to two front page articles in the Wall Street Journal the past two days. Yesterday it was “Coal Shortages Weigh on global Economies.” Excerpt:

Coal supply shortages are pushing prices for the fuel to record highs and laying bare the challenges to weaning the global economy off one of its most important—and polluting—energy sources. The crunch has many causes—from the post-pandemic boom to supply-chain strains and ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions. And it is expected to last at least through the winter, raising fears in many countries of fuel shortfalls in the months ahead.

Like I always say: north, east, south, west: gas best!

(no sulphur and 50% less carbon emission compared to coal and wood).

A few weeks ago, I watched the TV series: Midnight Mass. The story eventually turned out to be a horrible one, quite literally, so don’t watch it. But I must admit that they dug out the most beautiful music and hymns for the series. I went to the internet and found some of it. Take a listen and let me know what you think.