Today: 31.Jan.2017

Fritz Vahrenholt, PhD Chemistry: In 2012, Germany decided to close its nuclear plants, which were concentrated in the south. It reshaped the grid, building huge DC cables from north to south. The wind is more abundant in the north. A total of 6100 km of cable will have to be built by the time the last nuclear power stations shut in 2022. 400 km have been given the go-ahead and 80 km have been built, just 1.3% of the total. Due to opposition to these cables, plans have been torn up. The government now plans to build them underground, increasing the cost eight fold.

Published in Energy Tomorrow

Leon Louw, Economist: The intellectual debate against radical environmentalism was lost by "the other side" long ago, during the 1960s. But the wider public emotional, vested interest and political debate was won and continues to be won by "them".

Sky-is-falling alarmism has been around forever, in an eternal battle between realism and alarmism. This seems to be an innate hard-wired aspect of most animals and even plants, not just humans what I call the "rustle in the grass hypothesis"

Published in People - General

Roy Spencer, Ph.D. Meteorology: Given current technologies, it makes no sense to destroy $100 Trillion in wealth this century for an unmeasurable reduction in warming. As a lukewarmist I believe (but can’t prove) that humans are probably responsible for some of the recent warming (which has been mostly benign). But until some new energy technology comes along we are stuck with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. The oil industry’s use of fracking has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions — through a switch from coal to natural gas.

Thorpe Watson, Ph.D. in Physical Metallurgy & Science of Materials. Thirty five year career covering wide range of science disciplines plus 10 year investigation of the climate controversy: We have been told that the carbon dioxide (“CO2”) generated by the consumption of hydrocarbon fuels will cause runaway warming. Our only salvation is to embrace a carbon-free economy or pay indulgences (aka “carbon tax”). How a tax will ward off such a serious threat defies any rational explanation. It is absurd to believe that a carbon-free economy will stabilize the planet's ever-changing climate. However, a carbon-free economy will devastate modern lifestyles.