Leftist Greens Have Little to Offer But Oft-Falsified Predictions

... in the name of averting global economic disaster, concerned greens have been pushing the very policies most likely to cause it. Driving up energy prices, discouraging consumption, increasing regulation, rationing resources: these are not, I think we can all agree, methods traditionally associated with getting an economy out of a depression.

...‘The world has produced about one trillion barrels of oil since the start of industry in the 19th century. Currently, it is thought that there are at least five trillion barrels of petroleum resources, of which 1.4 trillion is sufficiently developed and technically and economically accessible to count as proved.’

And that’s just oil. We haven’t got on to the miracle of shale gas yet, found in such abundance in the US that energy costs have plummeted... _Spectator

Instead of global warming, more scientists are beginning to see signs of a coming cooling trend. In the face of colder winters, green platitudes about lower consumption and less carbon use are less than cold comfort -- they are a deadly hazard to society in general, when adopted by politicians and intellectual celebrities at the highest levels.

Bild reports that in Rome, Italy, school was called off today because of the intense cold and the city expects 15 cm of snow overnight.

In Serbia, over 6 feet of snow have fallen over the last few weeks. In Turkey heavy snows have have blanketed much of the country, with 50cm falling in Istanbul on Wednesday.

At Atatürk-Flughafen in Istanbul 180 flights were cancelled.

According to the BBC: “In Italy, weather experts say it is the coldest week for 27 years.”

In the Urals and Siberia, the temperature fell to -40C while in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, a forecaster told Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency the wind-chill factor meant the real temperature was down to -52C, even though the air temperature was -35C.”

Gas and electricitry supply have collapsed in some areas, leaving many to shiver.

Bild reported Thursday that a new cold record had been set in Finland: minus 39°C was recorded in Northern Finland.

In Eastern Germany, temperatures are forecast to plummet to minus 20°C in the days ahead. According to Helmut Malewski of the German Weather Service: “No warm-up is in sight for the coming 8 days.” _NoTricks

In an era of global cooling, prohibitions against the use of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power make very little sense -- although they make a great deal of sense to green leftists of the dieoff persuasion.

Here are some historical predictions of peak energy, to consider:

Here’s what Lord Kelvin had to say on the subject of another scarce resource, back in 1902: ‘The enormous amount of coal required to run our great ocean steamships, our leviathans of the deep, and the innumerable factories of our cities is making such inroads upon the available store that nature cannot forever supply the demand. When all the coal of the earth is used, what then?’

Twenty years later, the situation had grown more dire still. US president Warren Harding’s Coal Commission, having consulted 500 experts, concluded: ‘Already the output of [natural] gas has begun to wane. Production of oil cannot long maintain its present rate.’ Then in 1956, another renowned expert called M. King Hubbert declared that oil reserves were far more limited than was generally recognised; in the US supplies would peak between 1965 and 1970. Sure enough US oil production did indeed peak in 1970. Woah! How spookily prescient was that?

Actually, not very. Last year, for the first time since the 1940s, the US became a net exporter of oil — helped by such discoveries as the Bakken shale beneath North Dakota, which is reckoned to have between 4 ­billion and 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Around the world, despite a drilling rate of around 93 million barrels of oil a day, the quantity of known reserves at the end of each year is increasing, not decreasing.
_Spectator

Predictions of catastrophe are flexible. One can use peak resources, peak energy, peak oil . . . One can conjure doom from global warming, global cooling, pollution, overpopulation . . . Yes, very flexible. Eventually, if one were more intelligent, he might actually start looking a bit deeper.