The cold hard truth about solar energy is that it is not economically viable, except in specialized, limited and usually subsidized applications. This is despite having Billions of tax-payer dollars fed into the bottomless pit of corrupt science (man-caused global warming) incompetent governments and crony capitalism (Solyndra). So now British Petroleum (BP) has seen the light, figuratively speaking and they're pulling the plug on their solar energy efforts. I could say I told you so.
Peter
BP shutting solar unit as industry struggles
3:13 pm ET 12/21/2011 - MarketWatch Databased News
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- After prominently featuring solar panels in its brand advertisements and at some of its gas stations, BP PLC is planning to shutter its BP Solar operation, according to reports on Wednesday.
BP PLC said global economic challenges have impacted the solar industry, making it difficult to sustain long term returns, according to an internal BP email cited by press reports. The move will affect 100 jobs.
BP, which has been in the solar business for decades, had featured solar panels prominently in its Beyond Petroleum advertising campaign.
BP said the solar business, which has been flooded by excess supply from China, has become commoditized.
A phone call and email to BP by MarketWatch was not immediately returned. BP will hold on to other alternative energy businesses, including wind.
BP inked a supply contract with JA Solar in 2010 as it started scaling back its own solar panel factories and trimming jobs.
Sam Wilkinson, senior market analyst of IMS Research said BP's decision comes as global photovoltaic module manufacturing capacity reaches 50 gigawatts, while demand is expected to total only 24 gigawatts this year. Average prices are now 44% lower than they were one year ago.
"Rapid manufacturing expansions have coincided with a slowdown in the growth of global demand," Wilkinson said in a statement emailed to MarketWatch. "The result has been intense competition and a fierce price war, and not enough demand to support all of the industry's hundreds of suppliers."
The move comes just days after First Solar, the only pure-play solar panel maker in the S&P 500 , issued a profit warning for 2012 and said it'll refocus its business toward large-scale utility projects, rather than residential solar panels. See: First Solar falls to lowest level since 2007.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Wind Power Delusions of Grandeur
Telling it like it is, a waste of money foisted on unwilling and unwitting taxpayers.
The Wind Power Pipe Dream
Written by Alan Caruba, Warning Signs
December 12 2011
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9668-the-wind-power-pipe-dream?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climatechangedispatch%2FnkcO+%28Climate+Change+Dispatch+news%29
Image via Wikipedia
Imagine if you will America’s mountain ranges topped by row upon row of wind turbines and America’s deserts and plains covered by solar panels. How ugly is that?
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “Wildlife Slows Wind Power”, took note of the slaughter of birds and bats by these Cuisinarts of the countryside. The problem has reached such proportions that “New federal rules on how wind-power operators must manage threats to wildlife could create another challenge for the fast-growing industry as it seeks more footholds in the U.S. energy landscape.”
The wind-power industry is heavily subsidized by loan guarantees and mandates, and like solar power is turning out to be a vast pit of wasted funding that also raises the cost of electricity to communities whose utilities have been required to purchase its output.
It is another environmental pipe dream and one intended to enrich those who go into this dubious business.
Not only uneconomical, it utterly fails to produce sufficient electrical energy to meet the demand of America’s homes, businesses and industry. As the article noted, “The U.S. now has more than 43,000 megawatts of wind capacity, double the level three years ago, generating roughly 3% of the nation’s electricity.”
Three percent!
Try to imagine how many wind turbines it would require to produce anywhere near the nation’s needs. Now consider that the wind does not blow in a constant stream and often does not blow at all.
Consider also that the increase in wind power has occurred within the last three years, precisely the time in which the Obama administration has been in office, throwing taxpayer money at this pathetically inadequate means of generating electricity while doing all it can to shut down coal-fired plants currently responsible for fifty percent of all the electricity generated. Concurrent with this have been attacks on the coal mining industry.
In early 2011 a study sponsored by the John Muir trust of the wind turbines in California found that wind farms are much less efficient than claimed, producing below 20% of capacity more than half the time and below 10% of capacity for more than a third of the time. The report found that the suggested output was particularly low during the times of highest demand.
Unknown to most Americans is the fact that wind power generation requires 100% backup. To maintain electrical grid capacity, the ability to supply customer demand for continuous electricity, every wind farm must have a backup generating facility. Thus, it is coal-fired, gas-powered, nuclear and hydroelectric power generation that ensures a reliable supply of electricity to consumers.
This means that the backup facility must have twice the real rated capacity of the wind farm. The result is more capital is required to ensure this, along with operating and maintenance costs when a traditional power company is forced to include wind power in its inventory. This is a global phenomenon wherever wind power is part of the mix.
The noise generated by wind turbines is such that, especially in rural areas, lawsuits and complaints, also noting lost property value. Such lawsuits have cropped up in Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, among other states. Increasingly, direct physiological impacts that include rapid heartbeat, nausea and blurred vision have been attributed to the turbine’s ultra-low-frequency sound and vibrations.
An expert on the detrimental aspects of wind power, John Droz, Jr., has created a website for those interested in the facts. Droz notes that “wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning, more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s.” It is an outmoded source of power comparable to plowing farmland using oxen.
Due to intensive lobbying based on the discredited notion that carbon dioxide emissions from traditional power generation plants (with the exception of nuclear power and natural gas) cause “global warming”, this bogus justification is the basis for the wind power industry. Another idiotic rationale is “energy diversity.”
The demand from wind (and solar) power executives for a federal “national renewable electricity standard” would inflict this ridiculous form of power generation upon consumers and it is entirely one of their self-interest. It ignores the nation’s growing population and the need for more electricity generation by means that have a long-established record of efficiency, low cost, and predictability.
Like so much that is based on environmental schemes, it should be abandoned at the earliest possible time.
The Wind Power Pipe Dream
Written by Alan Caruba, Warning Signs
December 12 2011
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9668-the-wind-power-pipe-dream?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climatechangedispatch%2FnkcO+%28Climate+Change+Dispatch+news%29
Image via Wikipedia
Imagine if you will America’s mountain ranges topped by row upon row of wind turbines and America’s deserts and plains covered by solar panels. How ugly is that?
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “Wildlife Slows Wind Power”, took note of the slaughter of birds and bats by these Cuisinarts of the countryside. The problem has reached such proportions that “New federal rules on how wind-power operators must manage threats to wildlife could create another challenge for the fast-growing industry as it seeks more footholds in the U.S. energy landscape.”
The wind-power industry is heavily subsidized by loan guarantees and mandates, and like solar power is turning out to be a vast pit of wasted funding that also raises the cost of electricity to communities whose utilities have been required to purchase its output.
It is another environmental pipe dream and one intended to enrich those who go into this dubious business.
Not only uneconomical, it utterly fails to produce sufficient electrical energy to meet the demand of America’s homes, businesses and industry. As the article noted, “The U.S. now has more than 43,000 megawatts of wind capacity, double the level three years ago, generating roughly 3% of the nation’s electricity.”
Three percent!
Try to imagine how many wind turbines it would require to produce anywhere near the nation’s needs. Now consider that the wind does not blow in a constant stream and often does not blow at all.
Consider also that the increase in wind power has occurred within the last three years, precisely the time in which the Obama administration has been in office, throwing taxpayer money at this pathetically inadequate means of generating electricity while doing all it can to shut down coal-fired plants currently responsible for fifty percent of all the electricity generated. Concurrent with this have been attacks on the coal mining industry.
In early 2011 a study sponsored by the John Muir trust of the wind turbines in California found that wind farms are much less efficient than claimed, producing below 20% of capacity more than half the time and below 10% of capacity for more than a third of the time. The report found that the suggested output was particularly low during the times of highest demand.
Unknown to most Americans is the fact that wind power generation requires 100% backup. To maintain electrical grid capacity, the ability to supply customer demand for continuous electricity, every wind farm must have a backup generating facility. Thus, it is coal-fired, gas-powered, nuclear and hydroelectric power generation that ensures a reliable supply of electricity to consumers.
This means that the backup facility must have twice the real rated capacity of the wind farm. The result is more capital is required to ensure this, along with operating and maintenance costs when a traditional power company is forced to include wind power in its inventory. This is a global phenomenon wherever wind power is part of the mix.
The noise generated by wind turbines is such that, especially in rural areas, lawsuits and complaints, also noting lost property value. Such lawsuits have cropped up in Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, among other states. Increasingly, direct physiological impacts that include rapid heartbeat, nausea and blurred vision have been attributed to the turbine’s ultra-low-frequency sound and vibrations.
An expert on the detrimental aspects of wind power, John Droz, Jr., has created a website for those interested in the facts. Droz notes that “wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning, more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s.” It is an outmoded source of power comparable to plowing farmland using oxen.
Due to intensive lobbying based on the discredited notion that carbon dioxide emissions from traditional power generation plants (with the exception of nuclear power and natural gas) cause “global warming”, this bogus justification is the basis for the wind power industry. Another idiotic rationale is “energy diversity.”
The demand from wind (and solar) power executives for a federal “national renewable electricity standard” would inflict this ridiculous form of power generation upon consumers and it is entirely one of their self-interest. It ignores the nation’s growing population and the need for more electricity generation by means that have a long-established record of efficiency, low cost, and predictability.
Like so much that is based on environmental schemes, it should be abandoned at the earliest possible time.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
GLOBAL WARMING MY ARSE!!!!
And they think wind turbines are going to replace fossil fuels as an energy source, and at the same time stop global warming? What global warming? How daft is that? Follow this link to see what is going on in Scotland and the rest of the U.K. right now. "Green Energy"? Major boondoggle! Follow the link below, look at all the pictures and ask "is this man-caused global warming?"
Britain bought into the global warming hoax and now they're paying the price: flaming wind turbines, power outages, and freezing in the proverbial dark. Thank Al Gore.
From the big breeze to the big freeze: After hurricane-force gusts destroy wind turbines Britain braces itself for snow and bitter cold
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071633/UK-weather-Wind-turbine-EXPLODES-hurricane-force-gusts-batter-Northern-Britain.html#ixzz1g8itJySr
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071633/UK-weather-Wind-turbine-EXPLODES-hurricane-force-gusts-batter-Northern-Britain.html
Al Gore, the man who almost became President......now there is a REALLY CHILLING THOUGHT!
Britain bought into the global warming hoax and now they're paying the price: flaming wind turbines, power outages, and freezing in the proverbial dark. Thank Al Gore.
From the big breeze to the big freeze: After hurricane-force gusts destroy wind turbines Britain braces itself for snow and bitter cold
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071633/UK-weather-Wind-turbine-EXPLODES-hurricane-force-gusts-batter-Northern-Britain.html#ixzz1g8itJySr
Al Gore, the man who almost became President......now there is a REALLY CHILLING THOUGHT!
The Big Lie Of Man-Caused Global Warming And Buddhism --- A Mismatch
The concept of man-caused global warming and climate change on a global scale, is a giant fraud and hoax driven by lies and greed. (Al Gore comes to mind.) It is past time for everyone, including well-meaning Buddhists, to recognize it as such and disassociate themselves from this terribly destructive, UN-led and fear-driven charade, now exemplified by and known as "Climategate". The following article sums it up very well.
Peter
Buddhism and Climate Change: Political Fads vs. Pursuit of Truth
Posted By Mark Stuertz On December 9, 2011 @ 11:30 am In Uncategorized
24 Comments
http://pjmedia.com/blog/buddhism-and-climate-change-political-fads-vs-pursuit-of-truth/?singlepage=true
As the second wave of Climategate emails [1] gums-up the Durban Climate Change Conference [2], it’s instructive to revisit the Buddhist position on climate change. In May of 2009 just before the first batch of Climategate emails hit, a group of 20 Buddhist teachers from all traditions released The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change [3].
The authors urged members of the international Buddhist community to sign the document in the run-up to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The Dalai Lama [4] was the first to sign, endorsing a “sustainable” atmospheric carbon dioxide limit of no more than 350 parts per million.
The declaration is a peculiar document. At its core, Buddhism is the practice of cultivating compassion to dissipate preoccupation with one’s self — to experience the truth of impermanence by surrendering attachment to things, feelings, and perceptions.
Does the declaration mesh with Buddhism?
The declaration makes note of the “overwhelming” scientific consensus that human activity is triggering environmental breakdown on a global scale. It states with assurance that if humans continue on their current energy-consuming ways, half the species on the planet will be extinct by the end of this century.
To avert catastrophe, the declaration urges fundamental changes in Western civilization. It insists we “de-carbonize” energy systems “by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources that are limitless, benign, and harmonious with nature.” It calls for an end to all coal plant construction.
The document stresses that wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal power are sufficient to meet all of the world’s energy needs. If political leaders refuse to make these changes, putting the long-term good of humankind above the short-term benefits of fossil-fuel corporations, the declaration calls for “sustained campaigns of citizen action.”
The crisis is so pressing that the Dalai Lama indicated he would shelve the issue of Tibetan independence and Chinese oppression, and instead focus on the threats climate change poses to the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau. This is according to leaked diplomatic cables [5] between “His Holiness” and Timothy Roemer, U.S. ambassador to India.
The most disturbing aspect of this unwavering Buddhist stance is not so much the blindness it exhibits to the corruption [6], data manipulation [7] and suppression [8], willful deception [9], intolerance [10], and even violent sadism [11] infecting the climate change movement. It’s not even the scientific and evidentiary fallacies embedded in the declaration itself. (Example: The Himalayan glacier “crisis” the Dalai Lama notes was based largely on an environmental activist group’s press report [12] and a typo [13]. While some Himalayan glaciers appear to be in retreat, others are expanding [14], and there is no evidence to suggest that they will disappear by the end of this century [15] as some climate alarmists argue.)
Also contrary to the declaration, science is never certain and isn’t the result of “consensus.” The latest findings from CERN [16] indicating that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light [17] potentially upend the “consensus” of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
The declaration insists that alternative energy sources are “benign.” Far from being “limitless” and “sustainable,” wind, geothermal, and solar power systems consume vast amounts of very limited land [18] and groundwater resources [19]. Windmill and solar panel manufacturing and maintenance are energy-intensive [20], generate toxic chemicals, and require mining processes that are often environmentally destructive [21]. Windmills also kill thousands of birds annually [22].
While the declaration’s suggested abolition of carbon-based fuels might thrill most Buddhists, in reality it would likely unleash a plague of famine and disease to rival the darkest scenarios posited by the climate change alarmists. Fertilizers and pesticides that maintain global food supplies are almost exclusively derived from petroleum. As are virtually all of the life-saving drugs and many of the medical supplies [23] used to treat injury and disease.
Also: fossil fuels are crucial to providing reliable base load power, or the minimum amount of energy required to power essential services such as hospitals, water treatment plants, communications, and traffic signals and airports. Would the Buddhist community accept mass starvation, chaos, injury, infection, and disease as the price of assuaging its offense over widespread fossil fuel use?
The most disturbing element of the declaration: it is in direct conflict with Buddhism itself.
Among the central tenets of Buddhism is the reality of impermanence and the ignorance generated by ego-consciousness. The ego not only attempts to cement experience into permanence, it strives for control over its surroundings, struggling to conform reality to its personal perceptions. This leads to suffering.
But while the term “climate change” acknowledges impermanence — the climate after all is constantly in flux — the movement itself obsesses over maintaining ill-defined or arbitrary points of stability. The core implication of the climate change movement is that there exists some ideal average global temperature that we must strive at all costs to maintain. What is this temperature? No one ever says. Most likely it’s the average global temperature measured in 1967 — the Summer of Love — since the climate change priesthood consists mostly of Baby Boomers who seem reflexively nostalgic for their “Youthquake [24]” years.
The declaration also implies that humans have the capability via massive citizen action to dramatically alter the Earth’s climate — to stop planetary change through the sheer force of human effort. What is this if not the height of conceit — ego on steroids?
It’s a conceit that assumes we know far more about the ebbs and flows of the planet than we actually do; one that presumes the narrow parameters that describe the Earth at this moment are the benchmark of how the Earth must always be — “sustainability.”
Example: the declaration assigns a “sustainable” atmospheric CO2 limit of 350 parts per million. Yet over the course of geological history, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have varied widely, reaching as high as 2,000 parts per million during the Jurassic Period [25], for example. The declaration’s 350 ppm limit is actually a low-end outlier in the context of geological history.
In fact for much of the 19th century CO2 concentrations [26] were higher — at times more than 400 ppm [27] — than they are today. Yet the Earth and life survived, even thrived, during these episodes. Far from an awareness of impermanence, the declaration seems to reflect a fetish for contrived stasis.
Our “ecological emergency” stems from a sense of disconnection from the Earth itself, the declaration states — from the illusion of separateness. But doesn’t the declaration reinforce that sense of separateness by emphasizing the illusion that humans can control the climate? Doesn’t it “disconnect” humans from the Earth by suggesting they are a disturbance in the natural order rather than a part of it? If the Earth is indeed becoming “sick” (whatever that means) as a result of human activity, isn’t that simply another manifestation of the planet’s dynamism and impermanence?
After all, the Earth has “sickened” itself many times over the course of geological history. Massive toxic gas releases from its bowels via supervolcanoes [28] have resulted in catastrophic destruction and mass extinctions. “Ecological emergencies” far more severe than anything envisioned by the climate change movement are a regular feature of the global lifecycle. Far from extraordinary, species extinction is a constant: 99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived are extinct. Virtually all became extinct without the disturbances of human activity.
To reach the conclusions posited in the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change, you must discard the Buddhist principles of the truth of impermanence and the illusions of ego. The alleged climate change crisis stems from the three poisons of greed, ill will, and delusion, notes the declaration. It is disheartening that the Buddhist community seems unaware of these festering poisons in the climate change movement.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/buddhism-and-climate-change-political-fads-vs-pursuit-of-truth/
URLs in this post:
[1] Climategate emails: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204452104577059830626002226.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
[2] Durban Climate Change Conference: http://unfccc.int/meetings/durban_nov_2011/meeting/6245.php
[3] The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change: http://www.ecobuddhism.org/bcp/all_content/buddhist_declaration/
[4] Dalai Lama: http://www.dalailama.com/biography/a-brief-biography
[5] leaked diplomatic cables: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MA06Ad01.html
[6] corruption: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/
[7] data manipulation: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/23/climategate_2_first_look/
[8] suppression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mLxgNKRSpk
[9] willful deception: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html
[10] intolerance: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33371.html
[11] violent sadism: http://youtu.be/PDXQsnkuBCM
[12] environmental activist group’s press report: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html
[13] a typo: http://pjmedia.com/blog/climategate-imminent-demise-of-glaciers-due-to-a-typo/2/
[14] others are expanding: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8284223/Some-Himalayan-glaciers-are-advancing-rather-than-melting-study-finds.html
[15] by the end of this century: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100119/full/463276a.html
[16] CERN: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/About-en.html
[17] travel faster than the speed of light: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/18/neutrinos-still-faster-than-light
[18] very limited land: http://green.autoblog.com/2010/06/03/are-we-running-out-of-places-to-build-wind-farms/
[19] groundwater resources: http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/the-myth-of-renewable-energy
[20] are energy-intensive: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/solar-new-ethanol
[21] often environmentally destructive: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/clean-energy-apos-s-dirty-little-secret/7377/
[22] kill thousands of birds annually: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/may/03/checking-george-will-birds-and-wind-turbines/
[23] life-saving drugs and many of the medical supplies: http://www.pmpnews.com/news/petroleum-and-health-care-evaluating-and-managing-health-cares-vulnerability-petroleum-supply-s
[24] Youthquake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youthquake_%28movement%29
[25] 2,000 parts per million during the Jurassic Period: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
[26] 19th century CO2 concentrations: http://www.biomind.de/nogreenhouse/daten/EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
[27] at times more than 400 ppm: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth1e.htm
[28] supervolcanoes: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/04/volcano-mass-extinction.html
Peter
Buddhism and Climate Change: Political Fads vs. Pursuit of Truth
Posted By Mark Stuertz On December 9, 2011 @ 11:30 am In Uncategorized
24 Comments
http://pjmedia.com/blog/buddhism-and-climate-change-political-fads-vs-pursuit-of-truth/?singlepage=true
As the second wave of Climategate emails [1] gums-up the Durban Climate Change Conference [2], it’s instructive to revisit the Buddhist position on climate change. In May of 2009 just before the first batch of Climategate emails hit, a group of 20 Buddhist teachers from all traditions released The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change [3].
The authors urged members of the international Buddhist community to sign the document in the run-up to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The Dalai Lama [4] was the first to sign, endorsing a “sustainable” atmospheric carbon dioxide limit of no more than 350 parts per million.
The declaration is a peculiar document. At its core, Buddhism is the practice of cultivating compassion to dissipate preoccupation with one’s self — to experience the truth of impermanence by surrendering attachment to things, feelings, and perceptions.
Does the declaration mesh with Buddhism?
The declaration makes note of the “overwhelming” scientific consensus that human activity is triggering environmental breakdown on a global scale. It states with assurance that if humans continue on their current energy-consuming ways, half the species on the planet will be extinct by the end of this century.
To avert catastrophe, the declaration urges fundamental changes in Western civilization. It insists we “de-carbonize” energy systems “by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources that are limitless, benign, and harmonious with nature.” It calls for an end to all coal plant construction.
The document stresses that wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal power are sufficient to meet all of the world’s energy needs. If political leaders refuse to make these changes, putting the long-term good of humankind above the short-term benefits of fossil-fuel corporations, the declaration calls for “sustained campaigns of citizen action.”
The crisis is so pressing that the Dalai Lama indicated he would shelve the issue of Tibetan independence and Chinese oppression, and instead focus on the threats climate change poses to the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau. This is according to leaked diplomatic cables [5] between “His Holiness” and Timothy Roemer, U.S. ambassador to India.
The most disturbing aspect of this unwavering Buddhist stance is not so much the blindness it exhibits to the corruption [6], data manipulation [7] and suppression [8], willful deception [9], intolerance [10], and even violent sadism [11] infecting the climate change movement. It’s not even the scientific and evidentiary fallacies embedded in the declaration itself. (Example: The Himalayan glacier “crisis” the Dalai Lama notes was based largely on an environmental activist group’s press report [12] and a typo [13]. While some Himalayan glaciers appear to be in retreat, others are expanding [14], and there is no evidence to suggest that they will disappear by the end of this century [15] as some climate alarmists argue.)
Also contrary to the declaration, science is never certain and isn’t the result of “consensus.” The latest findings from CERN [16] indicating that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light [17] potentially upend the “consensus” of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
The declaration insists that alternative energy sources are “benign.” Far from being “limitless” and “sustainable,” wind, geothermal, and solar power systems consume vast amounts of very limited land [18] and groundwater resources [19]. Windmill and solar panel manufacturing and maintenance are energy-intensive [20], generate toxic chemicals, and require mining processes that are often environmentally destructive [21]. Windmills also kill thousands of birds annually [22].
While the declaration’s suggested abolition of carbon-based fuels might thrill most Buddhists, in reality it would likely unleash a plague of famine and disease to rival the darkest scenarios posited by the climate change alarmists. Fertilizers and pesticides that maintain global food supplies are almost exclusively derived from petroleum. As are virtually all of the life-saving drugs and many of the medical supplies [23] used to treat injury and disease.
Also: fossil fuels are crucial to providing reliable base load power, or the minimum amount of energy required to power essential services such as hospitals, water treatment plants, communications, and traffic signals and airports. Would the Buddhist community accept mass starvation, chaos, injury, infection, and disease as the price of assuaging its offense over widespread fossil fuel use?
The most disturbing element of the declaration: it is in direct conflict with Buddhism itself.
Among the central tenets of Buddhism is the reality of impermanence and the ignorance generated by ego-consciousness. The ego not only attempts to cement experience into permanence, it strives for control over its surroundings, struggling to conform reality to its personal perceptions. This leads to suffering.
But while the term “climate change” acknowledges impermanence — the climate after all is constantly in flux — the movement itself obsesses over maintaining ill-defined or arbitrary points of stability. The core implication of the climate change movement is that there exists some ideal average global temperature that we must strive at all costs to maintain. What is this temperature? No one ever says. Most likely it’s the average global temperature measured in 1967 — the Summer of Love — since the climate change priesthood consists mostly of Baby Boomers who seem reflexively nostalgic for their “Youthquake [24]” years.
The declaration also implies that humans have the capability via massive citizen action to dramatically alter the Earth’s climate — to stop planetary change through the sheer force of human effort. What is this if not the height of conceit — ego on steroids?
It’s a conceit that assumes we know far more about the ebbs and flows of the planet than we actually do; one that presumes the narrow parameters that describe the Earth at this moment are the benchmark of how the Earth must always be — “sustainability.”
Example: the declaration assigns a “sustainable” atmospheric CO2 limit of 350 parts per million. Yet over the course of geological history, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have varied widely, reaching as high as 2,000 parts per million during the Jurassic Period [25], for example. The declaration’s 350 ppm limit is actually a low-end outlier in the context of geological history.
In fact for much of the 19th century CO2 concentrations [26] were higher — at times more than 400 ppm [27] — than they are today. Yet the Earth and life survived, even thrived, during these episodes. Far from an awareness of impermanence, the declaration seems to reflect a fetish for contrived stasis.
Our “ecological emergency” stems from a sense of disconnection from the Earth itself, the declaration states — from the illusion of separateness. But doesn’t the declaration reinforce that sense of separateness by emphasizing the illusion that humans can control the climate? Doesn’t it “disconnect” humans from the Earth by suggesting they are a disturbance in the natural order rather than a part of it? If the Earth is indeed becoming “sick” (whatever that means) as a result of human activity, isn’t that simply another manifestation of the planet’s dynamism and impermanence?
After all, the Earth has “sickened” itself many times over the course of geological history. Massive toxic gas releases from its bowels via supervolcanoes [28] have resulted in catastrophic destruction and mass extinctions. “Ecological emergencies” far more severe than anything envisioned by the climate change movement are a regular feature of the global lifecycle. Far from extraordinary, species extinction is a constant: 99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived are extinct. Virtually all became extinct without the disturbances of human activity.
To reach the conclusions posited in the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change, you must discard the Buddhist principles of the truth of impermanence and the illusions of ego. The alleged climate change crisis stems from the three poisons of greed, ill will, and delusion, notes the declaration. It is disheartening that the Buddhist community seems unaware of these festering poisons in the climate change movement.
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Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/buddhism-and-climate-change-political-fads-vs-pursuit-of-truth/
URLs in this post:
[1] Climategate emails: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204452104577059830626002226.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
[2] Durban Climate Change Conference: http://unfccc.int/meetings/durban_nov_2011/meeting/6245.php
[3] The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change: http://www.ecobuddhism.org/bcp/all_content/buddhist_declaration/
[4] Dalai Lama: http://www.dalailama.com/biography/a-brief-biography
[5] leaked diplomatic cables: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MA06Ad01.html
[6] corruption: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/
[7] data manipulation: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/23/climategate_2_first_look/
[8] suppression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mLxgNKRSpk
[9] willful deception: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html
[10] intolerance: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33371.html
[11] violent sadism: http://youtu.be/PDXQsnkuBCM
[12] environmental activist group’s press report: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html
[13] a typo: http://pjmedia.com/blog/climategate-imminent-demise-of-glaciers-due-to-a-typo/2/
[14] others are expanding: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8284223/Some-Himalayan-glaciers-are-advancing-rather-than-melting-study-finds.html
[15] by the end of this century: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100119/full/463276a.html
[16] CERN: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/About-en.html
[17] travel faster than the speed of light: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/18/neutrinos-still-faster-than-light
[18] very limited land: http://green.autoblog.com/2010/06/03/are-we-running-out-of-places-to-build-wind-farms/
[19] groundwater resources: http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/the-myth-of-renewable-energy
[20] are energy-intensive: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/solar-new-ethanol
[21] often environmentally destructive: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/clean-energy-apos-s-dirty-little-secret/7377/
[22] kill thousands of birds annually: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/may/03/checking-george-will-birds-and-wind-turbines/
[23] life-saving drugs and many of the medical supplies: http://www.pmpnews.com/news/petroleum-and-health-care-evaluating-and-managing-health-cares-vulnerability-petroleum-supply-s
[24] Youthquake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youthquake_%28movement%29
[25] 2,000 parts per million during the Jurassic Period: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
[26] 19th century CO2 concentrations: http://www.biomind.de/nogreenhouse/daten/EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
[27] at times more than 400 ppm: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth1e.htm
[28] supervolcanoes: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/04/volcano-mass-extinction.html
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