Civil Defense Perspectives 34(6): November 2019 (published December 2019)
Global street theater this year has featured the Extinction Rebellion movement (XR), which began last year in Britain and claims to have chapters in 50 countries and to have held protests in 60 cities in Turkey, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere. Its flag displays a stylized hourglass in a circle. Protests often feature demonstrators wearing white masks and red costumes, and copious amounts of fake blood.
XR is aligned with the school strike movement reportedly inspired by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Thunberg, after attending a global climate change summit in Madrid, lamented that millions of students “striking” had “achieved nothing.” Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. “The current world leaders are betraying us and we will not let that happen anymore,” Thunberg said in a brief speech to a crowd of 15,000 protesters (https://tinyurl.com/rmj39jj).
So, a group of 300 scientists say that XR is right to resort to mass civil disobedience to force governments to make policy changes. “The urgency of the crisis is now so great that many scientists feel, as humans, that we now have a moral duty to take radical action,” said Emily Grossman, a molecular biologist (https://tinyurl.com/uxd5axs). XR has disrupted traffic in Berlin, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and staged a “die-in” on Wall Street (https://tinyurl.com/wuxgnls).
The New Yorker calls the success of XR “something to behold.” In London, activists glued themselves to buildings, climbed on trains, chained themselves to corporate headquarters, blocked key bridges and intersections. Police resources were tied up in arresting thousands. The triumphant outcome: Parliament declared a climate and environment emergency, becoming the first national legislature to do so, and agreed to convene a citizens’ assembly to discuss the climate crisis (tinyurl.com/tnpcgyc).
Scientists, including an ecologist and three Ph.D. candidates, are gaining international recognition for putting “another body on the street” (Nature 9/26/19). International environmental lawyer Farhana Yamin, who got arrested and handcuffed, explained “Why I broke the law for climate change” in a 3-page article in one of the world’s most prestigious science journals. She was triggered by professional bereavement and despair over Brexit and Trump’s withdrawal from Paris (Nature 9/19/19).
Yamin, the author of laws and agreements, also wrote an article in Time magazine, urging a “socially just transition for everyone on Earth” in response to an “emergency that threatens the very conditions of all life on Earth” and might cause humanity to “become extinct as a species” (https://tinyurl.com/sxkq2wa).
Who’s behind XR, and What Is the Goal?
XR agitators are paid up to £400 per week to “shut down” Britain. According to documents revealed to The Mail on Sunday, XR has paid activists more than £70,000 during a four-month span and more than £200,000 since the founding of the group—without paying taxes. The list of financial backers is not made fully public, but some high-profile elite donors include George Soros, the granddaughter of oil magnate John Paul Getty, and the rock band Radiohead (tinyurl.com/y6x8wk5u).
An article in Nature estimates that total climate-related financing amounted to $530 billion in 2017—not nearly enough and likely misdirected, it says. “A massive transformation is needed to unlock the trillions required to help the world shift to a low-carbon future.” Instead of a wind or solar project here and there, financiers need to “start thinking about the carbon impact of every dollar spent.” And since investors tend to focus on profits, policymakers need to “incentivize this shift by financially discouraging the wrong kind of projects” (Nature 9/19/19).
The largest and most important backers of climate activism are from the financial industry. Prince Charles, the Bank of England, and City of London finance promote “green financial instruments,” led by Green Bonds, to redirect pension plans and mutual funds towards “green” projects.
In December 2015, the Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Board (FSB), chaired then by outgoing Bank of England head Mark Carney, created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), to advise “investors, lenders and insurance about climate related risks.” Chaired by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, TCFD includes key people from JP MorganChase; BlackRock, one of the world’s biggest asset managers; Barclays Bank; HSBC, the London-Hong Kong bank repeatedly fined for laundering drug and other black funds; Swiss Re, the world’s second largest reinsurance; China’s ICBC bank; Tata Steel; ENI oil; Dow Chemical; mining giant BHP Billington; and David Blood of Al Gore’s Generation Investment.
Goldman Sachs has just unveiled the first global index of top-ranking environmental stocks, called CDP Environment EW and CDP Eurozone EW, which aims to lure funds from state pension systems. Top-rated companies include Alphabet (which owns Google), Microsoft, ING Group, Diageo, Philips, Danone and, conveniently, Goldman Sachs.
Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are among the young climate activists backed by “a well-oiled financial machine…promoting them for gain.”
Institutions representing $118 trillion of assets seem to have a plan: “the financialization of the entire world economy using fear of an end of world scenario to reach arbitrary aims such as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” (tinyurl.com/yytfas6c).
What Is Destined for Extinction?
XR claims to worry about the extinction of humanity—but cares not so much about human beings. The 11,000 “scientists” who warn of a “climate emergency” say that the world needs fewer people. Their “suite of graphical vital signs of climate change” shows that per-capita meat consumption has increased by 11% in 10 years, world GDP by 80% in 10 years, and passenger air travel by 64% in 10 years—all signs of increasing prosperity (tinyurl.com/szmngbx). Their view of social justice is achieved not by growth to lift people out of poverty, but by economic suicide for the developed world: “Away with cars, industry, meat and plastic, etc.” And with freedom, democracy, and liberal thought, writes P. Gosselin (tinyurl.com/y37fyrhv).
Peter Hitchens warns: “One day it will be impossible to criticize the fanatics of [XR]” (https://tinyurl.com/rf7bxyp).
Targets of XR
Germany’s once powerful auto industry, the backbone of the country’s economy, is already under “massive pressure.” German online NTV reports how workers at a number of automotive suppliers have not been getting their wages. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 100-billion euro climate plan, which postpones the “economic death leap,” is far to “timid” to satisfy the Fridays for Future movement (Gosselin, op. cit.).
Modern living standards: Thanks to carbon-based fuels, we have a lifestyle the equivalent of owning more than 200 slaves, and we can be 200 times as productive, writes Ken Irwin. No cheap energy = poverty and early death (tinyurl.com/t92lesf).
“Heteronormativity”: One of XR’s founders, Stuart Basden, says the climate won’t be fixed, but the “rebellion” is not about climate but about tearing down the entire system of Western capitalism and its “delusions”—including “the idea that heterosexuality is the default biological breeding setting for humankind” (https://tinyurl.com/qo7s86j). Extinction to follow?
Private property ownership: “Land … cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market,” says UN Agenda 21. “Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes” (https://tinyurl.com/y38wb7w8).
“Everything”: Greta Thunberg said that her goal in her “climate resistance movement” is “to change everything.” In an op-ed published in Project Syndicate, she writes: “The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all” (https://tinyurl.com/wbbzcld).
‘Renewables’ Cannot Replace Hydrocarbons
XR rebels seem to believe that wind, solar, and batteries could rapidly replace hydrocarbons if only government had the political will to shut down coal mining, oil drilling, and hydrocarbon-fueled generating stations—and transfer enough cash to “green” industry. It’s an exercise in magical thinking, explains Mark P. Mills (tinyurl.com/y2dg3285).
These favored alternatives now provide about 2% of the world’s energy and 3% of America’s. The claim that we’re on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution like that experienced in computing, is a centerpiece of the Green New Deal. But there are profound differences between energy and information.
Spending $1 million on wind or solar will, over 30 years of operation, produce about 50 million kilowatt-hours (kWh)—while $1 million spent on a shale rig produces enough natural gas over 30 years to generate more 300 million kWh.
No ten-fold gains in efficiency are left. For silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells, the Shockley-Queisser Limit is a maximum conversion of 34% of photons into electrons; we’ve already reached 26%. For a wind turbine, the Betz Limit is a maximum capture of 60% of kinetic energy in moving air; commercial turbines today exceed 40%. The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand.
Engineering Reality
Energy generation technologies can differ by factors of hundreds or thousands on key measures, such as the efficiency of materials use, the land area needed, and the whole-life costs of ownership. Consider the efficiency with which energy generation systems use high-value advanced materials:
A Siemens gas turbine weighs 312 tonnes and delivers 600 MW: 1,920 W/kg of firm power over a 40-year design life.
A Finnish pressurized water (nuclear) reactor (PWR) weighs 500 tonnes and produces 860 MW of power: 1,700 W/kg of firm supply over 40 years. When combined with a steam turbine, the figure is 1,000 W/kg.
A 1.8-MW wind turbine weighs 164 tonnes: 10 W/kg for the nameplate capacity, but at a typical load factor of 30%, 3 W/kg of firm power over a 20-year life.
Solar panels for roof-top installation weigh about 16 kg/m2, and with about 40 W/m2 of firm power provided over a year, that translates to about 2.5 W/kg.
The ratio of land area needed to produce equivalent electricity from solar vs. a small modular nuclear reactor is 1,000:1.
Productivity or energy return on investment (EROI) is critical. As Michael Kelly explains, the cheetah needs to get more energy from eating a rabbit than he expended in chasing it, and much more energy if he is supporting a family. For solar and wind, the EROI is at best 5:1. The minimum EROI needed to support various aspects of human welfare is estimated to be 5:1 to grow food, 7:1 to raise a family, 9:1 to provide education, 12:1 to provide medical care, and 14:1 to support amenities such as the arts (https://tinyurl.com/vmtwc5j).
Without a better EROI than available with the means that XR demands, extinction of culture or of humanity would occur.
Climate Change from Wind and Solar
IPCC models focus on the effect of adding one molecule of CO2 to every 10,000 in the atmosphere. But what about the effects of clearing vast swaths of land and then carpeting it with wind turbines and solar panels? In the journal Joule, Lee Miller and David Keith estimate the effect of generating all U.S. electricity with wind turbines covering one-third of the continental U.S.
“Wind turbines…alter the atmospheric flow…. Those effects redistribute heat and moisture in the atmosphere, which impacts climate.” More than ten studies have observed local warming caused by U.S. wind farms, and the observations are roughly consistent with the model’s predictions. Authors conclude that large-scale wind power generation would warm the continental U.S. by 0.24 °C. It would take about a century to offset that effect with the purported effect of reductions in greenhouse gas concentrations. Over 10 years, wind has more climate impact than coal or gas (https://tinyurl.com/ya7bdlr2). Solar has climatic effects too—in deserts, a 2 °C local cooling and a 20% decrease in precipitation (https://tinyurl.com/o6w2sys).
“We have a climate crusade….This is not science, this is religion. Crusades have a bad way of ending. Typically many, many people are hurt, no good is done, a few cynical opportunists profit and most people pay the price, and the same thing will happen with the climate crusade if we permit it to go forward, and I pray that we can stop it before it does too much damage.”
Will Happer, COP25 conference, Madrid 2019