Climate Change Experts Have No Backup Plan to Replace Products From Oil
CommentaryThe 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) was recently held in Egypt, attracting many global elites and more than 400 private jets. All attendees recognize that the climate change is occurring, like it has for four billion years—but it seems most lack basic energy literacy, which starts with the knowledge that renewable energy is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine and cannot replace fossil fuels. The indisputable unpleasant fact is that renewables, like wind turbines and solar panels, cannot be manufactured into any of the oil derivatives that are the basis of thousands of products which make up the foundation of societies and economies around the world. Fossil fuel products were the reason the world population grew from one to eight billion in less than 200 years. As much as world leaders wish to rid the world of emissions from fossil fuels, they have yet to identify the replacement for these substances, which serve as the basis of more than 6,000 products and fuels for our various transportation infrastructures. President Joe Biden delivers a speech during the COP27 summit in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Nov. 11, 2022. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images) COP27 attendees should also know that crude oil is useless unless it can be manufactured into something usable—like the fuels for the heavy-weight and long-range ships and jets that have made our lives more comfortable. More than 50,000 merchant ships are moving products throughout the world More than 50,000 aircraft are being used by commercial airlines, private usage, and the military The World Economic Forum, the U.N., their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and banks that promote Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) are creating an extremely dangerous precedent, as the world population never voted to give governments or other entities this sort of control over basic products demanded by the people. COP27 attendees wishing to achieve zero emissions at virtually any cost will face major supply chain issues of exotic materials like lithium, cobalt, copper, zinc, and silicon, as well as the challenge of affordability—in addition to the availability and efficiency of electricity from wind and solar and the ethical challenges from mining these materials in poorer countries, just for elites to drive an electric vehicle (EV). A woman and a man seperate cobalt from mud and rocks near a mine between Lubumbashi and Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 31, 2015. (Federico Scoppa/AFP/Getty Images) The supply of lithium for current EV batteries is already extremely limited in the world, and initiatives around the world to open lithium strip mines and ore processing plants have caused public uproar as environmentalists and the local population are fearful about the impact on nature and people’s livelihoods. A few other darks clouds on the lithium supply to meet demands of EV batteries: The Chilean Supreme Court stopped the mining of lithium in Salar de Atacama, Chile—a huge chunk of terrain that holds 55 percent of the world’s known deposits of lithium. The European Chemicals Agency’s risk assessment committee aims to label three lithium compounds as dangerous for human health. Before the U.N. jumps out of an airplane without a tested parachute, officials needs to have a plan to support the demands of the eight billion on this globe for all the products and infrastructures that exist today, which did not exist a few hundred years ago. Where is the U.N. plan to keep the planet’s population alive and well without the products now being manufactured from crude oil? Efforts to cease the use of oil, without a planned replacement, could be the greatest threat to modern civilization—not climate change—and lead the world to an era of guaranteed extreme shortages of fossil fuel products. This is exactly what we had in the decarbonized world of the 1800s, and its return may result in billions of fatalities from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths. Oil pours out of a spout from Edwin Drake’s original 1859 well that launched the modern petroleum industry at the Drake Well Museum and Park in Titusville, Pa., on Oct. 5, 2017. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) It’s perfect nonsense that functional, civil societies can live without coal, oil, and gas. Today’s efforts to end the use of fossil fuels are symptomatic of an uneducated cohort who haven’t the faintest idea about what makes their safe and privileged lives possible. Electricity from wind and solar CAN: Charge your iPhone but cannot make your iPhone Operate a defibrillator but cannot make the defibrillator Operate your TV but cannot make the TV Electricity from wind and solar CANNOT: Make tires for billions of vehicles Make asphalt for millions of miles of roadways Make medications and medical equipment Make water filtration systems Make sanitation systems
Udumbara
Commentary
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) was recently held in Egypt, attracting many global elites and more than 400 private jets. All attendees recognize that the climate change is occurring, like it has for four billion years—but it seems most lack basic energy literacy, which starts with the knowledge that renewable energy is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine and cannot replace fossil fuels.
The indisputable unpleasant fact is that renewables, like wind turbines and solar panels, cannot be manufactured into any of the oil derivatives that are the basis of thousands of products which make up the foundation of societies and economies around the world.
Fossil fuel products were the reason the world population grew from one to eight billion in less than 200 years. As much as world leaders wish to rid the world of emissions from fossil fuels, they have yet to identify the replacement for these substances, which serve as the basis of more than 6,000 products and fuels for our various transportation infrastructures.
COP27 attendees should also know that crude oil is useless unless it can be manufactured into something usable—like the fuels for the heavy-weight and long-range ships and jets that have made our lives more comfortable.
- More than 50,000 merchant ships are moving products throughout the world
- More than 50,000 aircraft are being used by commercial airlines, private usage, and the military
The World Economic Forum, the U.N., their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and banks that promote Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) are creating an extremely dangerous precedent, as the world population never voted to give governments or other entities this sort of control over basic products demanded by the people.
COP27 attendees wishing to achieve zero emissions at virtually any cost will face major supply chain issues of exotic materials like lithium, cobalt, copper, zinc, and silicon, as well as the challenge of affordability—in addition to the availability and efficiency of electricity from wind and solar and the ethical challenges from mining these materials in poorer countries, just for elites to drive an electric vehicle (EV).
The supply of lithium for current EV batteries is already extremely limited in the world, and initiatives around the world to open lithium strip mines and ore processing plants have caused public uproar as environmentalists and the local population are fearful about the impact on nature and people’s livelihoods.
A few other darks clouds on the lithium supply to meet demands of EV batteries:
- The Chilean Supreme Court stopped the mining of lithium in Salar de Atacama, Chile—a huge chunk of terrain that holds 55 percent of the world’s known deposits of lithium.
- The European Chemicals Agency’s risk assessment committee aims to label three lithium compounds as dangerous for human health.
Before the U.N. jumps out of an airplane without a tested parachute, officials needs to have a plan to support the demands of the eight billion on this globe for all the products and infrastructures that exist today, which did not exist a few hundred years ago. Where is the U.N. plan to keep the planet’s population alive and well without the products now being manufactured from crude oil?
Efforts to cease the use of oil, without a planned replacement, could be the greatest threat to modern civilization—not climate change—and lead the world to an era of guaranteed extreme shortages of fossil fuel products. This is exactly what we had in the decarbonized world of the 1800s, and its return may result in billions of fatalities from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths.
It’s perfect nonsense that functional, civil societies can live without coal, oil, and gas. Today’s efforts to end the use of fossil fuels are symptomatic of an uneducated cohort who haven’t the faintest idea about what makes their safe and privileged lives possible.
Electricity from wind and solar CAN:
- Charge your iPhone but cannot make your iPhone
- Operate a defibrillator but cannot make the defibrillator
- Operate your TV but cannot make the TV
Electricity from wind and solar CANNOT:
- Make tires for billions of vehicles
- Make asphalt for millions of miles of roadways
- Make medications and medical equipment
- Make water filtration systems
- Make sanitation systems
- Make fertilizers that come from natural gas to help feed billions
- Make pesticides to control locusts and other pests
Getting down to the basics, even all the components of wind turbines and solar panels are made with products from fossil fuels. Thus, eliminating fossil fuels would eliminate all the components of wind turbines, solar panels, vehicles, merchant ships, jets, and more. Again, where is the U.N. plan to keep the planet’s eight billion alive and well without the products now being manufactured from crude oil?
World leaders and ESG movement leaders that are setting policies to rid the world of fossil fuels seem to forget that poor nations should also have inalienable, God-given rights to develop—using fossil fuels, nuclear and hydroelectric power, and petroleum for fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and hundreds of other miraculous life-enhancing, life-saving products.
A version of this article was published Nov. 29 at Heartland Institute.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
