The Collapse of the Climate Change Cult

By Rich Berdan

Despite the attempts by the media coverage and attendees at the COP27 Climate Change Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt touting  the creation for a loss and damage fund where developed countries who are allegedly responsible for the planet’s demise will pay reparations to countries who are seemingly impacted by our climate warming sins, there was significant turmoil as the Summit went into two-days of overtime to come up with a watered down agreement. The cracks are becoming more evident in the collapse of the politically driven climate agenda that is exposing the folly, hypocrisy, and an emerging suffering caused by the climate policies.

Ask people in developed nations if the summit is of any concern when survival for their family is top of mind. People can’t afford the 30% increase to heat their homes or fill their vehicle with enough gas to get to work. Then add inflation on food from rising supply-chain costs and a carbon tax veneer on consumer items. No wonder we are seeing people choose between food, medicine, and heat. Some are turning to burning dirtier coal and wood to weather the ensuing frigid winter with energy blackouts. The most obvious and immediate fallout from the past decade of climate action and unreliable green energy is just beginning to come home to roost.

COP27 opened with the tiring end-of-the-world doomsday rhetoric by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ stark warning that the world is losing the fight against climate change, “We are in the fight for our lives…our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible…we are on a highway to climate hell”. He added, “Humanity has a choice, cooperate, or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact”. One might add ‘a loss of Sovereignty Pact too’ by relinquishing power to the climate zealots.

Questions remain from the summit as to who will pay into the climate justice fund, how much, who will receive our personal taxes, and how will the down payment be deployed? One might ask why some 400 private jets spewing carbon lined the airports in Egypt where attendees ate lavishly in an air-conditioned luxury resort town could not have sailed or biked to a summit in tents or just go on a call and allocate the millions of dollars into their justice fund. It is estimated that the Summit will emit well over 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases.

The summiteers came away with no deal to phase out or eliminate fossil fuels and they hinged their hopes on their science to limit a global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees -referencing to 2015’s Paris Agreement, which aims to cut man-made carbon dioxide to net-zero by 2050. In all reality, only a handful of countries are keeping their promises and attaining their climate plan. If the 1.5-degree target is even a proven fact, some estimates would require global emissions to be cut 43% by 2030 where we are currently on track to dip by 1%. A reduction of this amount would tailspin the world into economic collapse resulting in wars, famine, deforestation, and societal failure unparalleled to the greatest extermination of humans.

There have been many prophetic end-of-the-world climate dates from scientists, politicians, and celebrities claiming we have a limited number of years remaining. One that sticks out was the cinematic release of ‘An Inconvenient Truth (2006) featuring former US Vice President Al Gore who convinced moviegoers the world was warming because human activity. The movie cited food crop failures, CO2 concentrations rising, and catastrophic super hurricanes. Gore, himself, predicted in 2009 there would be a 75% chance that the ice in the Arctic could vanish within 5-7 years.

These predictions all fell well short. Seventeen years following the movie, new technology and smart farming has resulted in bountiful harvests, super-sized hurricanes have not materialized although there has been significantly more collateral damage with the increasing number of homes and communities built along the coastal waters, CO2 concentrates have increased but not near the modeling, and the Arctic ice has not disappeared. We do know for sure that Gore got very rich by scaring the public into thinking there was an impending climate apocalypse.

Periodic assessments by the IPCC are flawed scenarios not based on actual real data

There is no denying climate has ebbed and changed over time. This could be attributed to the core of the earth’s volcanic eruptions ejecting ash into the atmosphere, huge forest fires releasing carbon over centuries, and the impact of solar winds surging 150 million kilometers from a medium-sized Sun. Perhaps man-made actions have marginally impacted the climate relative to the big players; and who’s to say we could not ebb back into the big freeze that we found ourselves in during the 70’s.

In February 2022, the Fraser Institute in Canada took an in-depth look at the doomsday predictions from climate models provided by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -widely considered to be the authority on matters related to the climate. The IPCC determines the number of years to the catastrophic tipping points on models of greenhouse gases, atmospheric warming, and ecological impact. According to the Fraser Institute Fraser Institute, the periodic assessments by the IPCC are flawed scenarios not based on actual real data. They stated that with each passing year, there are discrepancies from the IPCC projected climate warming exceeding actual observations over the past 35 years.

Essentially these findings undercut the current narrative at the annual COP Climate Summits that we are on ‘the highway to climate hell’ rather than taking a more balanced approach to addressing climate concerns. One cannot overlook the IPCC’s funding is derived from governments who leverage the data in their political pursuits while disregarding opposing scientific positions as climate terrorism or deniers.

Why not cheaper, reliable, and cleaner energy. Why not collaborate on nuclear energy and much cleaner natural gas through advanced technology to trap carbon? Why not work to get the world off dirtier coal and wood. Should we also question solar farms requiring massive swaths of land cleared of animals and vegetation to erect mineral-laden panels made from scorched earth mining that will generate diluted energy at high costs. What about the non-degradable hazardous panels filling landfills when decommissioned after a 20-year life span. Aside from ground species being wiped out, tens of thousands of birds are igniting in midair as they fly overhead the garage-size mirrors. Workers call them “streamers”, for the smoke plume that comes from their incineration.

If COP27 was more serious beyond the world’s leaders parachuting in with sound bites and empty promises

It is unrealistic to believe the world will stop using oil-based energy, and bi-products and lubricants over the next century. Mandating EVs without having the charging infrastructure in place; let alone the massive amounts of energy required to power millions of chargers could result in grid-failing blackouts when people crank up the A/C.

If COP27 was more serious beyond the world’s leaders parachuting in with sound bites and empty promises, they might want to turn their attention to pressuring China whose large coal-powered industries cause air quality to threaten the health of tens of millions of people. With the enormous boom in manufacturing and huge surge in motorized vehicles, China’s CO2 emissions in 2021 rose above 11.9 million tonnes accounting for 33% of the global total. It is appalling COP27 gave China a pass on contributing to their loss and damage fund whereas America, who has lower emissions, will be coughing up billions of dollars.

Rather than claiming the planet is in the emergency room with a decade to live and denying opposing voices as a political insurgency, would it not be more advantageous to win the hearts and minds of both competing visions of climate responsibility by producing the cleanest, most reliable, and most affordable energy on the planet. We have a choice to see through the political rhetoric to support cleaner and diverse energy with greener technology where the energy industry is not under the knife and unwilling to invest in a future where people do not suffer and can afford to live a better life.