Klaus, it seems, believes the most critical of all challenges facing human existence is environmental.
According to Klaus, the pandemic, climate change and ecosystem collapse are existential threats to our existence.(134)
The strange thing is Klaus says:
“COVID-19 has already given us a glimpse, or foretaste, of what a full-fledged climate crisis and ecosystem collapse could entail from an economic perspective…”(134)
Yeah, I don’t think so. First, climate crises are local. A hurricane that decimates a town in Florida has no bearing on a town in Alaska from a climate perspecitive.
Does anyone honestly think that something happening on another continent has any bearing on another in its totality?
While we’re at it, has anyone stopped and asked themselves, if the climate crisis is real and everyone knows its real, why would all of humanity go about its business as usual? I know Extinction Rebellion seems to think the world is ending. But I don’t even see them practicing what they are preaching. Nor, do I see Klaus.
How much CO2 are they emitting? They have a website that sits on servers, made of metal with manufactured chips, etc. That sign in the picture below looks like it’s made from vinyl which is made from oil, almost everyone appears to be wearing leather shoes and i’m sure many of them have rubber soles.
Not to mention the textiles that all of them are wearing. So, it’s okay to use things, and industries, that are causing CO2 to rise because they’re being used to fight the rise of CO2?
Seems a little hyprocritical to me.
As far as I know there are no worldwide massive civil works to hold back the sea, or to clean the air on a massive scale to help the planet, but we have carbon credits, ESG, and we should eat less meat because apparently that will save the world.
The other thing I wonder is this; if it took us 200 years, or more, to create this climate crisis, how is it possible to fix it in 10? Unless, of course, we all die, then no one would care.
Now, to suggest the climate crisis is a hoax would be a conspiracy theory (that I believe), but one has to wonder who benefits when it appears nothing of substance is being done on any government level regarding the climate crisis when we look at the macro level.
To be blunt, if a nation can turn their back on the pledges they make regarding climate change, it means very simply climate change isn’t important, but it’s important to someone.
The question then becomes why?
Ecosystem collapse sounds terrifying and depending on what it is yes, I’d be inclined to agree with Klaus, but in my eyes he is conflating this and COVID, but to him it’s legitimate. Klaus tells us that there are many common attributes with climate, COVID, and ecosystem collapse.
- They are known
- Non-linear
- Extremely difficult, if not impossible, to measure
- Can only be properly addressed in a globally co-ordinated fashion
- Disproportionately affect already vulnerable countries and segments of the population
I will not challenge Klaus on this list. I am sure he is mostly correct. Point five is obvious, so that isn’t some great insight, at least in my eyes. The one that sticks out is, he seems to think, this needs to be globally coordinated.
As I said earlier, I can’t think of an event except maybe the flood from biblical times which supposedly affected all humans on the planet at the same time. The only one that comes to mind in recent times is when Iceland’s volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, erupted in 2010 and grounded flights because of an ash cloud.
Although it stopped flights for 400 million people, it didn’t stop flights anywhere else in the world.
Most of the world didn’t even notice.
But let’s assume for the moment there is an event that can affect the entire planet to the extent he requires.
What would that look like?
How could global coordination help especially when Klaus has already told us in number 3:
“the probabilities and distribution of their impact are very hard, if not impossible, to measure — they are constantly shifting and having to be reconsidered under revised assumptions, which in turn make them extremely difficult to manage from a policy perspective.” (134)
Remember the saying you can’t fix what you can’t measure?
I guess that concept goes out the window.
Regardless, Klaus doesn’t explain how something can/will be globally coordinated.
Just saying the words doesn’t make it magically happen, so how is this supposed to work?
If we agree with point 3, it just makes point 4 that much more impossible to understand. What value does globally coordinated bring to the table when it’s like building a house on a foundation of sand?
And if this global crisis is truly worldwide, it is unlikely those tasked with this global coordination will be successful when they first need to get their immediate situation in order before they can look beyond.
But let’s assume for the moment those aren’t issues.
Klaus seems to at least acknowledge problems when he tells us the dissimilarities between climate, pandemic, and ecosystem collapse is:
- The time-horizon difference (it has a critical bearing on policies and mitigating actions)
- The causality problem (it makes public acceptance of the mitigation strategies more difficult).(135)
This can be summed up like this:
- A near or instantaneous risk = Short time line has clear causality and means politicians can act quickly and everyone understands why and tows the line.
- Slowly evolving risk = long time line has no clear cut causality and means push back by the public because they don’t see a threat.
Klaus puts is succinctly:
“fighting a pandemic does not require a substantial change of the underlying socio-economic model of our consumption habits. Fighting environmental risks does.”(136-137)
Klaus then moves on to zoonotic diseases, i.e. animal to human transmission. Basically, he tells us they exist and because of the way we act on the planet, i.e. invade everywhere, we created the very problems we are fighting.
This obviously depends if you believe if COVID is natural or man-made. That argument is beyond the scope of this article.
To Klaus:,
“… it is in fact the destruction of biodiversity by humans that is the source of new viruses like COVID-19”. (138-138)
This dovetails nicely into the humans are bad, save the planet narrative we’ve all been hearing from the globalists for the past few years.
Clearly the only thing we as humans can do to stop pandemics like COVID is stop going into places we shouldn’t, i.e. stop advancement, or reduce the amount of people which would limit issues like COVID.
The problem with this is that it seems to be clearly anti-human instead of environmental.
It’s called “…‘planetary health’ that studies the subtle and complex connections that exist between the well-being of humans, other living species and entire ecosystems…”(138)
Here is the thing that is somewhat confusing.
If humans cause things like COVID and people like Klaus want to “save the planet” from the evil humans, why should he or anyone who thinks like him want a vaccine to “save everyone from COVID”?
Shouldn’t he be advocating for no vaccine so humans die in large numbers and the planet is saved and humans stop infiltrating places in nature that they shouldn’t go?
I guess making money on both sides of the problem is what it’s all about.
Reading this section, it’s clear Klaus believes humans are a scourge.
“Since 1970 land-use changes have had the largest relative negative impact on nature (and in the process caused a quarter of man-made emissions). Agriculture alone covers more than one-third of the terrestrial land surface and is the economic activity that disrupts nature the most.”(138)
I guess we have to agree with Klaus on that one, but what that means exactly regarding humans, and the planet isn’t discussed at any great length
Klaus then quotes an internal document, endnote 106, where he says:
“a recent academic review concludes that agriculture drivers are associated with more than 50% of zoonotic diseases.”(138)*
I don’t know about you but I can’t see how that is valid.
What methodology was used to come to that conclusion?
Why was the document not published?
I’m not saying it’s invalid. I’m saying how can it be valid if no one can read it for themselves and determine if it has merit based on a criterion that is known?
The point is Klaus is convinced that human expansion into nature is the cause of these diseases, maybe it is maybe it isn’t but to Klaus:
“the key antidote currently available to us to contain the progression of zoonotic disease is the respect and preservation of the natural environment and the active protection of biodiversity."(139)
In other words:
Attention All Humans, you are now banned from living in your current state. If you do, you will be arrested because the earth is more important than your life.
But don’t worry, Klaus will tell us of a “nature-friendly” recovery, that I am sure will mean a significant change for humans.
Klaus tells us that air quality is a problem and a contributing factor to respiratory diseases, COIVD in particular.
I think it’s logical to conclude poor air quality can and will contribute to one’s ability to breathe properly especially when one has a repository disease at the same time, which of course creates a cascading effect such as hospital visits etc.(140)
Would cleaner air be welcome?
Sure it would, but it’s not, so wishing it would doesn’t help anyone.
In my eyes, all COVID did was push someone over an edge they were already standing on.
- Old age
- Being Overweight
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes, etc.
All those diseases, pushed someone to the ledge of death. All COVID did was push someone over that ledge.
To me, air pollution, although it can be a problem in high urban and industrial areas, once you leave those areas the air becomes relatively clean, so shouldn’t Klaus be advocating for everyone to move out of cities?
No. He wants industry to stop or be severely curtailed so people can live in harmony with the land.
Klaus then switches gears and talks about carbon emissions. He tells us that global CO2:
“will fall by 8%"(141)
What Klaus fails to mention is that:
At least Klaus recognizes that lockdowns
“… with a third of the world population confined to their homes for more than a month came nowhere near to being a viable decarbonization strategy…” (141)
Seems like an odd thing to say don’t you think?
Regardless of your views on such a statement according to Klaus the only way we can combat CO2 to have a combined approach of:
“a radical and major systemic change on how we produce the energy we need to function [and] structural changes to our consumption behaviour…”(142)
But Klaus tells us that if we continue to consume as before once COVID lockdowns are lifted
“the COVIC-19 crisis will have gone to waste as climate policies are concerned.”(142)
So it seems that climate policies are in some fashion anti-human since the implication is that our current lifestyles, especially in the west, are incompatible with reducing carbon emissions, which is apparently, very important regarding the climate.
While we are on it, humans produce CO2, in case you didn’t know, as well CO2 is used as “food” for plants. but let’s not get into that.
Let’s agree for the moment less CO2 is good all around, and let’s agree that climate change (the globalist kind) is real and we need to do everything we can to ensure it stops.
This is where things becomes sinister.
Bill Gates famously created an equation:
“It’s a neat little formula because it drives home the point: that for all the Paris climate talks and more affordable Teslas, environmental incrementalism is somewhat pointless.
The formula is:
P x S x E x C = CO2
P = population; S = services used by people; E= the energy needed to power those services; and C = carbon dioxide created by that energy.
There is a youtube video where he discusses this.
In this video and what many globalists have been advocating for years is zero CO2.
Bill jokes when he says one of those numbers needs to be close to zero.
As everyone should be aware, in order for CO2 to be zero, a number in the equation needs to be zero.
That means DEPOPULATION
Bill tells us in the video that the US creates about 20 tons of CO2 per person yearly and people in poor countries create about 1 ton yearly.
On average, it’s about 5 tons of CO2 per person per year.
I did the math.
It’s 3.8 based on 6.8 billion people, and 26 billion tons of CO2, which he stated in the video.
What does that mean?
It means for a human to exist on the planet, in their current form, in time (time of the video) they create about 3.8 tons/year of C02 on average.
How does someone reduce their carbon footprint down to zero?
Well, there are two ways:
- Stop using services that use energy.
- Die
Bill doesn’t say you need to die obviously, he says we need an energy miracle, something that can create all the energy we need without the carbon emissions that are killing the planet.
Sure, but Bill knows there is nothing that exists, currently or in the very near future, that can accommodate that pie in the sky thinking, especially since the Paris Agreement wants emissions reduced by 45% by 2030
That’s only 8 years away and somehow magically reach “net zero” by 2050.
How many times have we been told wishing for miracles to solve solutions is a bad idea, yet this is the solution — or is it?
It would be different if tritium reactors were being built by the thousands and ready to go online in a week, but they aren’t and there isn’t anything on a scale that is needed that can help.
The only way to get that number down is to kill 45% of the population, or reduce the amount of services each person uses, which more than likely will cause the same end.
That doesn’t sound like a good long-term solution, especially when in 2050 the expectation is net zero, unless, of course, that number is adjusted before then to accommodate the masses still alive.
And I might add, even if this were possible, humans, by the sheer gall of just living, produce CO2.
Do we even know what the minimum level of CO2 emissions for life even is, and is that a life you want to live?
Just to put this in perspective, if Bill and co, think the Paris agreement and its 45% reduction of CO2 by 2030 is achievable, and we manage to do it, it will put us back to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1981 from a carbon emissions output perspective based on 2022 as a reference point..
If we assume for the moment that the current population of 7.9 billion people continues to stay alive, yet now produces CO2 at a rate of what we did back in 1981, what does that mean from a per person perspective?
- Currently 7.9 billion people create 34.81 billion tons of CO2.
- On average each person is responsible for 4.42 tons of CO2 in 2022
- Back in 1981, we output on a global scale 19.15 billion tons of CO2.
Doing the math
- Each person would now be responsible for 2.42 tons of CO2.
What does that mean?
Based on Bill’s video, he says the US per person produces about 20 tons a year and a 3rd world poor person produces around 1 ton a year and from there they reduce their CO2 emissions to 1981 levels
A 45% reduction means:
- People in the US will need to produce 11 tons a year instead of 20 tons a year.
- 3rd world poor will need to produce 0.55 tons a year instead of 1 ton a year.
That would mean subsistence level living and death for a vast majority of people is an actual possibility.
Now, let’s assume for the moment that maybe we misunderstand what net zero means, and it doesn’t mean net zero as in reducing CO2, but a net zero change in the lifestyle we currently have (I know this sounds ridiculous but stay with me for a minute).
How many people would need to be on the planet to emit 4.42 tons of CO2 annually but at the yearly CO2 emissions rate of 1981 (19.15 billion tons)?
If we do the math, it turns out 4.345 billion people will be on the planet.
If we look at 2050, which is supposed to be the date for zero, that would mean what?
It’s another 55% reduction of CO2, which would push us back to about 8.6 billion tons, which works out to about 1958 in time from a CO2 emissions perspective.
If CO2 emissions were zero, we would all be dead.
Based on some heavy speculation, that would mean keeping our consumption current, about 1.945 billion people on the planet, or a population that equaled 1921 populations, depending on how you do the math.
I would think if this were possible some significant changes in the way we live would have to be achieved.
- We’d all have to live in a city.
- Driving would effectively stop, because where could you effectively go?
- Public transit would become ubiquitous.
- Rationing of goods and services would have to happen.
- Jobs would be assigned, and only the “important ones” would be done.
- Central planning of the economy would more than likely happen
Sounds like Communism doesn’t it?
I can’t see how any nation could create/maintain a country’s infrastructure when the populations are almost reduced by 75% from today’s numbers.
The problem, of course, is, although 1.945 billion people sounds like a lot, it really isn’t, especially if the expectation is to have the same level of convenience and infrastructure we currently have.
I think all of us agree net zero emissions means zero emissions.
As I stated, we don’t magically have some way of creating all the power required to run all of our systems and services with zero emissions, so that magical energy system can’t offset the services every human on the planet uses.
So to me, the P x S x E x C = CO2 is a ruse. the equation really is:
Total CO2 = P X C
This means Population times CO2 emissions equals Total CO2
It is now very easy and clear to see that we are only dealing with 2 variables
Population and CO2 emissions.
- It should also be now equally clear that population and CO2 emissions are tied.
- In order to reduce CO2 the population needs to be reduced because there is no power system available today that can offset CO2 emissions in any meaningful way.
Simply put, if X amount of people are on the planet at X time and create X amount of CO2 how is it possible to have more people and produce less CO2?
Can everyone live their life with a 45% reduction of CO2?
I suppose if you look at it from a food and calorie perspective, can you reduce your calories by 45% and still perform at the same level?
No, you can’t, and imagine you then have to reduce by another 55% by 2050.
The math isn’t looking good, so either people die off and/or we all live at a subsistence level, or both, except for the elite few.
Now to really poke a hold in the whole concept of CO2 emissions that everyone seems to gloss over is
approximately 50% of carbon emissions come from approximately 90,000 people. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
This is known as Price’s Law which states “50% of any given result is generated by the square root of the number of those who contribute to it.”.
The square root of 7.9 billion is 88,882
We hear how we have to tighten our belt and change our lifestyle in order to save the planet, yet we could stop carbon emissions overnight by 50% if just 88,000 of the top emitters of carbon just magically stopped.
How very convenient to not include that little tidbit of information.
I guess when you are part of that problem, it’s best to say nothing and since the elites don’t seem to think these rules apply to them. I think it’s safe to say my calculations don’t consider a group of people who will live to excess while the rest of us starve.
And the best part of this whole CO2 problem is that:
“climate change is essentially irreversible on human timescales.
So we are doing this for what exactly?
Is it really to limit the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?
It is currently around 416ppm (April 2021) and the ideal, we are told from the same article, is around 280 - 350ppm, yet I have found no information relating to what the upper limit of atmospheric CO2 can be.
I’ve found a lot of information saying 400ppm and higher is “bad”, but nothing telling me what the upper limit of CO2 is.
I find it strange that we are willing to change our entire lives on climate change, yet there is no information available as far as I know that tells us what the upper limit of atmospheric CO2 is before we see actual negative results in humans.
A Grist article I found, says:
“The nation’s top climate scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, apparently now believes “the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm,” according to an op-ed by the great environmental writer Bill McKibben. Yet while preindustrial levels were 280, we’re now already at more than 380 and rising 2 ppm a year! … now believe 450 ppm is the upper bound.”
450ppm is just around the corner and we don’t even notice it’s a problem and we’re at 416ppm But we are still here, so it obviously has to be higher, but how high?
According to the Minnesota Department of Health
it’s “10,000 ppm for an 8-hour period and 30,000 ppm for a 15 minute period.”
Does that mean for 24 hours a day the upper limit would be around 3,300ppm?
If it’s a survivability question, it appears that humans can survive in a relatively high CO2 environment.
Unless there is a difference between atmospheric CO2 and “departmental" CO2? If so, what is it?
As far as I can see it’s the same air, so why is indoor CO2 allowed to be almost 10 times higher than outside?
Office plants still live and seem to thrive*, so I don’t see why a rise in CO2 is necessarily bad. More importantly, if it’s not about human survivability, what is it about then — saving the planet?
Is saving the planet then incompatible with human industriousness?
It seems to be what everyone is telling us.
Apparently, this pandemic will determine how we move forward:
Do we “… put aside concerns about global warming to focus on economic recovery… [or, are] businesses and governments embolden by a new social conscience… that life can be different, and is pushed by activists: the moment must be seized to take advantage of this unique window of opportunity to redesign a more sustainable economy for the greater good of our societies.”(143-144)
Klaus gives us reasons ensuring a robust economy would take precedence such as:
The government would grow the economy
Companies would increase revenues
Low oil-prices would drive reliance on “carbon intensive energy”
This is fine, but it’s the other reasons that would push us in the other direction that he gives us the most detail.
Enlightened Leadership:
“They will in effect make ‘good use’ of the pandemic by not letting the crisis go to waste.”(145).
A curious thing to say, but Klaus also goes on to say:
“governments led by enlightened leaders will make their stimulus packages conditional upon green commitments.” (145)
This is just another way of saying Philosopher Kings should rule us. Plato thought this up back in 375BC.
Basically, our leaders are people who are educated in all things and make decisions based on rational and logical thinking, not via emotion or special interests.
That would be great, except we all know that’s not the case, and as you can see from Klaus’ comment, they are enlightened when they adopt policies already deemed to be enlightened, which by its very nature means they aren’t using logic and rational thought, they are manipulated by politics and ideology.
So what does enlightened mean in this context?
Risk Awareness:
Given the state of the world today and the pandemic we are currently in, it has created “the great awakening.”(146)
Klaus tells us that:
“COVID-19 made it clear that we ignore science and expertise at our peril.”(146)
Exactly what we’ve been doing daily ever since 2020.
Apparently, understanding these risks somehow can now be transferred to climate change, which won’t go away and is just as urgent. (146)
To sum it up, we are so aware of all the bad things that can happen to us, changes in society and in individuals will follow.(146)
That seems to be a bit thin to me.
The thing about risk awareness is that there is a probably more compelling component, and that is risk assessment.
- Poking a bear is probably a bad thing - That’s risk awareness.
- I don’t have to worry about that because I don’t live anywhere near where I could poke a bear - that’s risk assessment.
Anyone can identify a risk.
What keeps people sane is assessing that risk and determining if it is something to truly worry about.
Living on a mountain means you don’t have to worry about a flood, but a rock slide or mudslide might be something to consider.
Klaus doesn’t seem too interested in risk assessment.
Change in Behaviour:
Klaus tells us:
“societal attitudes and demands may evolve towards greater sustainability to a greater degree than commonly assumed.” (146)
I don’t know if I believe that.
True, life became simpler in some fashion. Klaus seems to think we became greener, although he doesn’t provide any proof of that, although not driving did lessen CO2 emissions if that’s what he’s thinking.
Somehow in July 2020, 6 months into a pandemic, Klaus says:
“We are just at the beginning of a long and painful recovery and, for many of us, thinking about sustainability may seem a luxury….” (147)
I don’t know how he knows that but Klaus’s point moves back to climate change.
That is the overriding goal.
His hope is once we move through the recovery of COVID and air pollution go hand in hand and then at some magical time climate change will somehow become a thought in the forefront of our minds.(147)
Activism:
Somehow activism is something to be desired when, after the lockdowns, activists will look around, see the clean air and now allowed to interact with others, etc. will somehow re-double their efforts
“… imposing further pressures on companies and investors”(147)
this obviously goes to ESG.
Notice Klaus’ insistence that climate change is something all of us need to care about and need to support policies that determine it as the primary problem for humans.
I just don’t buy it.
He gives us a handful of examples:
- green energy
- lowering emissions, etc.
are moving forward and are a good thing overall.
Klaus calls this a trend, but he recognizes that “… systemic change will come from policy-makers.”(150)
Klaus believes or at least wants us to believe that “… building a nature-positive economy could represent more than $10 trillion per year by 2030”(151)
That’s great but it’s just a number, it’s a huge number but it’s not in relation to anything.
One would think that if the point of changing the entire way an economy is going to work, it would be beneficial in someway to show what that $10 trillion dollar number means?
The world economy is $100 trillion dollars.
So is that 10 trillion going to be 10% of the actual economy, or 90% of the actual economy in 2030?
I would think given all the reductions because of sustainability etc, $10 trillion might be closer to 90% than any of us will admit.
Just so everyone is aware, the last time the world economy was at $10 trillion dollars was in 1979.
I’m not saying that we are doomed by the time 2030 comes around, but I think it puts it in perspective, especially if CO2 targets are hit.