Stressed business man covering face with hands in office. Working over time or too much. Problem with failing business or confusion with crisis. Entrepreneur in bankruptcy.
Corporate insolvencies at an all-time high in March – Why Germany’s economy needs more than just hope
The number of Germany’s corporate insolvencies in March reached the highest level on record, new data reveal. It’s the Great Green Energies economic debacle
Blackout News here calls the trend “alarming” and that it is “a clear sign of the worsening economic crisis. The news are based on data released by the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
“There has been nothing comparable since 2016, the year the data was first collected,” reports Blackout News. “This development not only points to internal company problems, it also highlights the extensive economic challenges the country is facing.”
Insolvencies are even worse than during the Corona pandemic lockdown years.
“Exorbitantly high energy costs”
Analysts say the main driver behind the dire trend are Germany’s exorbitantly high energy costs, mostly due to the country’s mismanaged foray into green energies – like wind and solar – and the transition away from affordable and stable conventional energy sources like natural gas, coal and nuclear power.
“The wave of corporate insolvencies cannot be explained by poor business decisions alone. Rather, it is the high cost of energy, which is driving up operating costs in times of global uncertainty, and a tax policy that leaves little room for investment,” Blackout News adds.
Both, left and center-right, are to blame
The push to green energies, and away from conventional sources, began in earnest under the government led by Angela Merkel and her CDU center right party. The latest Socialist-Green coalition government, led by Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck, have since pushed draconian policies that have only exacerbated Germany’s economic and energy woes.
Most experts argue that the government hasn’t been fixing problems, rather it has been making them far worse. It simply refuses to acknowledge the reality.
Industrial exodus…country needs more than just hope
“The current crisis demands far more from political decision-makers than just hoping for a calming of the market,” adds Blackout News. “Comprehensive measures are needed…the measures include a reduction in energy costs.”
Blackout News recently reported on the “industrial exodus” as “Germany’s economic crisis forces traditional companies to flee.”
Electric cars and carbon target fantasies are hitting the wall
Right when they are meant to be growing by double digits German EV car sales are down an astonishing 30% compared to a year ago. Their market share is actually shrinking. EV’s are not much good at reducing carbon dioxide over their lifetime but they are very useful for pretending to “decarbonise” the transport sector. So this creates a vast hole in the German government’s so-called transition, which has fixed targets for every sector. Problematically, the transport sector just doesn’t seem to run on wind and solar panels, or pumped hydro. It’s hard to decarbonize. Liquid fuel is just too convenient.
It seems the German Transport Minister is threatening to ban weekend driving as an ambit claim to expose the absurdity of the Green’s position. He is warning that if the Greens don’t sign a change in legislation to average emission across all sectors, he will have to take drastic action to meet the transport sector goals, which means banning driving on weekends. (Trap set.)
The Greens responded like any petty tyrants would, saying he shouldn’t aggravate people unnecessarily, because there were other ways to fix the climate, like forcing everyone to drive slower. (Trap sprung.) The Greens stepped right into it:
“This claim is simply wrong,” Green parliamentary group leader Julia Verlinden told the German Press Agency, referring to Wissing’s threat of a weekend driving ban. She added that Wissing should not aggravate people unnecessarily because there are other ways to tackle climate issues, such as a speed limit. — Politico
Naturally, at the next election, policies that make people drive slower to stop storms 80 years from now will sink like a boat full of burning cars.
Volker Wissing (the Transport Minister) is a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) which is theoretically a centre right party. Because the German government is a “traffic light coalition” of three different parties, he needs to work with the Greens to get legislation passed, but he doesn’t have to help them win the next election.
As Pierre Gosselin at NoTricksZone points out the German government are not even close to hitting their EV targets: “The massive sales drop is bad news for the current German socialist-green government, which aims to have 15 million vehicles on the road by 2030. Currently there are just 1.4 million!”
So they’re 13.6 million cars short with only 5 years and 9 months to get there. At the current rate of sales they’re going miss their target by 11 million cars.
Germany’s ambitions to take a leading role in electromobility suffered a severe setback in the first quarter of this year. A significant drop in sales is emerging. Only 31,384 electric vehicles were newly registered in March, a drastic decrease of 28.9 percent compared to the previous year. The collapse in registrations contrasts with the political goals and underlines the gap between political planning and actual market conditions. The challenge lies in whether political measures are effective enough to counter consumer preferences and market dynamics
Electric car shock: market share falls to 11.9% – end of subsidies exposes Germany’s dilemma
The abolition of the electric bonus at the end of 2023 has revealed another problem. The sector’s dependence on government subsidies became visible. This has further exacerbated the crisis of confidence in the electric car market.
And so we arrive at the ugly point where the planned economy meets the real one:
By Šejla Ahmatović Politico, [Translated by Google]
The ruling coalition has been fighting over legislation that sets out binding climate targets.
Germany’s transport minister is threatening to ban driving on weekends to meet climate goals if the ruling coalition does not pass reforms to the Climate Protection Act by July.
A reduction in traffic to help meet the climate goals would only be possible through measures that are difficult to communicate to the public, such as “comprehensive and indefinite driving bans on Saturdays and Sundays,” Wissing added.
All Wissing is asking for is to spread the emissions reductions over other sectors:
The planned amendment to the emissions-reduction law allows climate goals to be reviewed for compliance by looking at all sectors together instead of individually. If the overall target is missed two years in a row, then the federal government is to decide in which sector and with which measures the permitted total amount of carbon dioxide emissions is to be achieved by 2030.
If the planned reforms are not passed through parliament by July 15, Wissing warned, the Ministry for Digital and Transport would be obliged to submit an “immediate action program that ensures compliance with the annual emission levels of the transport sector” until 2030 — which would include a driving ban on weekends.
Wissing has already said the government is not looking to put speed limits on highways. He’d probably quite like it if the Greens adopt that policy at the next election. The Greenpeace mobility expert (as if there is such a thing) is Clara Thompson who said that Wissing was coming up with “horror” scenarios to distract from his own failures. But at least as far as Politico reports it, she didn’t have any suggestions of how to solve electric vehicle nightmares with frozen batteries, slow charging, expensive repairs, car sickness, combustible materials, and holiday hell stories.
Germany’s ambitions to take a leading role in electromobility are experiencing a severe setback in the first quarter of this year. A significant slump in sales is emerging. In March, only 31,384 new electric vehicles were registered, a drastic decrease of 28.9 percent compared to the previous year. The slump in registrations contrasts with policy objectives and underscores the gap between a politically planned economy and actual market conditions. The challenge lies in whether political measures are effective enough to counter consumer preferences and market dynamics (FAZ: 06.04.24).
Electric car shock: Market share plunges to 11.9% – end of subsidies exposes Germany’s dilemma
A dramatic decline is characterizing the current registration figures for electric vehicles. Its market share has fallen to just 11.9 percent. This casts a glaring light on the mismatch between Germany’s political goals and the reality of the automotive market. It is clear that policy incentives and measures are inadequate.
They fail to create sustained demand for electric vehicles or change consumer preferences in the long term. The elimination of the electric bonus at the end of 2023 has revealed another problem. The sector’s dependence on government subsidies became apparent. This has further exacerbated the crisis of confidence in the electric car market.
Planned Economy vs. Market Dynamics: Germany’s Electric Car Industry Before the Storm
The discrepancy between policy objectives and market developments reveals the limits of a planned economy strategy in a rapidly changing market environment. The automotive industry, which has invested considerable sums in electromobility, is now facing great uncertainty. This is particularly evident in companies such as Volkswagen and Ford, whose production facilities have been converted to electric mobility and are now facing significant economic challenges due to declining demand.
Back to the combustion engine? Germany’s electromobility strategy at a crossroads
In light of current developments, the urgency of a market-oriented approach to policy strategy development becomes clear. Policies that do not take into account the real needs and preferences of consumers risk missing not only economic but also environmental objectives. The tendency of consumers to revert to traditional modes of propulsion shows that market mechanisms can ultimately overcome policy planning requirements if they are not in line with consumer interests.
The latest figures on the slump in sales in electromobility raise fundamental questions about the effectiveness of political control attempts.
At Klimanachrichten, Dr. Ludger Laurenz looks how solar influence on rainfall in Germany.
Precipitation patterns linked to the 22-year Hale cycle.
While droughts and periods of heavy precipitation in Germany are often blamed on CO2 climate change by the media and pseudo-experts, Laurenz sees a clear link to the 22-year solar Hale cycle. This can be detected in many historical weather data series.
To search for the solar influence on the annual precipitation sum, he used the data from the DWD dating back to 1903.
Finding: “Different precipitation trends are repeated every 22 years. This indicates solar influence.”
According to Laurenz, “The exceptionally high level of precipitation totals in the last year and the first two months of 2024 is very likely due to solar influence.”
Moreover, he found: “The evidence of solar influence on precipitation totals is even better if periods over the turn of the year are selected instead of the classic annual period from January to December, such as the 12-month period from July to June of the following year or the winter half-year. The solar influence on the precipitation sum is much stronger in the winter half-year than in the summer half-year.”
The solar magnetic cycle (Hale cycle) lasts approximately 22 years and can be detected in solar physical measurement data (Chapman et al. 2021) and the search for solar influence is based on Chapman’s formulations.
With the change from one Hale cycle to the next, the sun starts a new program of activity within a few weeks that repeats itself in the same pattern approximately every 22 years. Every single month and every single year of the 22-year Hale cycle is characterized by a specific solar activity pattern that affects the Earth’s atmosphere and creates weather trends.
Ms. Veretenenko’s latest publication from the Loffle Institute in Saint Petersburg has described the mechanism of the transformation of varying solar activity via the stratosphere to the troposphere and thus our weather.
Using the start years of the Hale cycles, it is easy to prove solar influence in historical weather data, Larenz shows.
To do this, the weather data from the same approx. 22-year cycle phases, starting with the respective start years of the Hale cycles, are stacked on top of each other. The result:
Every 22 years, extremely high and low annual precipitation totals accumulate in the same phases of the 22-year Hale cycle.
If German coal plants are closed down, as is required by 2030, the country faces around 100 power cuts of up to 21 hours annually, according to Westenergie, Germany’s largest electricity-distribution system operator.
Germany’s planned coal phase-out will lead to enormous supply gaps in the power grid, according to the head of the country’s primary domestic energy company.
If German coal plants are closed down, as is required by 2030, the country faces around 100 power cuts of up to 21 hours a time annually, according to Westenergie, Germany’s largest electricity-distribution system operator.
That would mean many areas would be without electricity for around 90 days a year.
Katherina Reiche, head of Westenergie, warned electricity supply was under severe threat and widespread power outages will result from the Government pushing through the planned coal phase-out.
“It may be that we have to postpone the coal phase-out somewhat,” Reiche told the Economic Journalists’ Association in Düsseldorf, according to an article published by Die Welt on March 12.
Reiche, a former politician for the Christian Democrats (CDU), also warned against stirring up exaggerated climate fears among the population.
“Politicians must not give the impression that the world will end after a certain date.”
Instead, the German Government must move away from its “panic rhetoric”, she said.
The Netherlands’ green energy transition is leading to electricity and gas prices almost doubling. https://t.co/aZNM6ClBmI
Drawing on weather data spanning the past three decades and projections of expected production capacities six years in the future, under specific circumstances there exists a substantial risk of significant supply shortfalls in 2030, according to Reiche.
This could potentially result in power shutdowns lasting anywhere from one to 10 hours.
When dark, windless phases are added in to the equation, things could get more disturbing. Periods of undersupply and power shortages, which could last up to 21 hours, may well happen once every three days, she said.
Such long-lasting power outages would cripple an already struggling German economy.
Initial plans by Berlin to phase out coal are aimed at 2038 but the progressive traffic-light Government has brought the date forward to 2030, ostensibly to faster curb global warming.
In late February, three East German regional leaders called on the Government to scrap the 2030 target date.
Die Welt noted that studies, both independent scientific ones and those commercially commissioned, have explored whether Germany could smoothly phase out nuclear power, coal and gas within a few years.
Results vary: Some say it is possible but at an eye-wateringly high cost, while others warn of serious risks to Germany’s electricity supply reliability.
The war in Ukraine has thrown a spanner in the works; Russian natural gas is no longer able to play a role and climate-neutral alternatives are insufficiently available.
The costs regarding Germany’s Energiewende – energy transition – are becoming clearer. At least €5 trillion in investments will be needed for Germany to reach its goal of climate neutrality, forecasting institute and state-owned KfW Bank said, much on electrification.
Reiche suggested that by 2035 an average of €12 billion to €16 billion a year will need to have been invested to upgrade the electricity distribution grid alone.
Ultimately, all these costs will fall on the shoulders of customers either via their electricity bills or indirectly through taxes.
A tale of two energy revolutions: How Germany got it astonishingly wrong and the United States got it astoundingly right. Now the whole of Europe needs to choose, writes @Raphfel. https://t.co/HaeGMX6me6
We have had a week that has exposed the no-limits extremes of the climate campaign.
John Kerry, with his parting shot as Climate Czar, said that the world might feel better about Russia’s actions in the Ukrainian war if they lowered their climate footprint.
The depths of lunacy this reaches know no bounds. It is because of the actions of Kerry and his ilk in the administration Putin has the funds to fight the war in the first place.
In Germany, destroying an ancient forest to put up wind turbines is beyond any rational thought. First of all, you can wreck plenty of open spaces with the turbines. But the removal of 120k ancient trees, each taking away 50 lbs of CO2 for 6 million pounds a year, and the environmental cost of building these monstrosities should have every environmentalist up in arms.
Do they realize the effect on the local climate?
Forests are a great way to remove CO2 as I mentioned above, and are naturally cooler areas. So if you are afraid of CO2 (I am not, but understand you might be) this shows in no uncertain terms the depths of delusion these people are forcing on others.
How this is even considered, is beyond me. And if you are an environmentalist how are you not up in arms at this?
You have a forest that has survived wars and turmoil. Germany’s forests are supposedly dying because of climate change so they destroy more forests to prevent more climate change. How is this even considered or tolerated? This is just another matter that Dostoevsky was right about.
Then, there is this illustration from this Twitter handle.
True Science PEng, DFP, ADFS, MA, MBA.
The covering of fields with solar panels could actually ADD TO WARMING. The illustration means microclimates will indeed change. We see this all the time with cities.
Not only is there an urban heat island with downstream implications. (For example, the Philadelphia UHI is a great place to start thunderstorms that then follow the 3 major highways, US 30, US 322, and the Atlantic City expressway ESE toward the shore.
There are major differences in thunderstorm frequency at the NJ shore for instance north of Atlantic City vs south, more to the north enhanced by the effect noted above). But now imagine fields that were covered with cooling vegetation replaced with solar panels that can elevate temperatures to 70C.
Imagine the change to the environment in those areas. The vegetation and animal life be dammed.
But this is because the people pushing this HAVE NO LOVE OF WEATHER OR CLIMATE. I have written about this several times. They simply use weather and climate to advance their mission. There is no rational thinking about this.
It is getting so bad that the Dostoevsky quote above, not only is evident in the irrational policies we are seeing enacted in non-climate issues but is leading to some kind of disorder that is causing societal disruptions we are seeing with climate protesters that are blocking roads or trying to destroy priceless art. Circle back to the destruction of the ancient forest. How is that so different from throwing orange paint on a priceless piece of art as far as an irrational action based on a phony mission?
In the face of all this lunacy, these facts seem to be completely ignored, nicely compiled by man-made climate change skeptic, Graham Keagan:
Since 1900… – Life expectancy +130% – Literacy percentage up 4 fold – Population up 5 fold – GDP per capita up 7 fold – Poverty down 7 fold – Death from natural disasters down 50 fold (with 5x the number of people on the planet) Civilization is flourishing!
There is no rational reason for what is being forced down the throat of the planet. The destruction of an ancient forest should raise alarm bells.
Kerry’s parting comments that would imply a carbon footprint reduction would somehow offset aggression that we are indirectly funding by phony climate war policies Kerry advocates should raise alarm bells. The effect of these actions on the environment, the destruction of large areas of nature by the establishment of these fields, and the cost of the materials should be obvious. This has nothing to do with climate or weather. It is being pushed by people who have no love of climate, weather, nature, or mankind in general.
Dostoevsky was (is) right. It’s time for rational people to stop this irrationality. I have never thought climate should be a big issue, but what is driving all this is. The motivation for all this is the reduction, if not destruction, of man’s upward mobility — and climate is the tool. This must be stopped peacefully at the ballot box. Because, in the end, this irrationality is the nail in the coffin of our freedom and is designed for top-down elitist control.
Germany’s Energiewende threatens to be a disaster:
The German Bundesrechnungshof, or the Federal Audit Office, is an independent government body charged by statute with overseeing the economic management of the Federal Republic. Last week, they published a devastating “Report … on the implementation of the energy transition” in Germany. Every one of its fifty-eight pages represents a brutal slap in the face to our Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck. German energy policies have not only made us the laughing stock of the developed world; they are deplored even by our own bureaucrats.
The report says clearly what everybody knows but nobody in charge will acknowledge, namely that wind and solar are relentlessly intermittent power sources, which require “a largely redundant” backup system to provide “secure, controllable power” when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. Habeck’s much-ballyhooed “power plant strategy,” unveiled in February, will “probably not be sufficient” to supply these “secured, controllable backup capacities.” This is because the “strategy” plans for a mere half of the capacity that was originally envisioned, because it is not clear whether conditions will be attractive enough to entice any power plant operators, and because nobody can say when the backup will come online. We are transitioning from a functional electricity system into a lot of insubstantial aspirations, which are not the kinds of things that keep the lights on.
This is the translated introduction from the official report:
Energy transition not on track Germany is pursuing very ambitious goals for the energy transition. However, this is not on track and is lagging behind its goals. The federal government must respond immediately to ensure a safe, affordable and environmentally friendly electricity supply.
What is it about? The energy transition in the electricity sector is of outstanding importance for climate protection. However, the federal government is lagging behind its goals in expanding renewable energies and ensuring adequately secured, controllable power plant output. Security of supply is at risk, electricity is expensive and the federal government cannot comprehensively assess the effects of the energy transition on the landscape, nature and environment. This poses considerable risks for Germany as a business location and for the population’s acceptance of the energy transition.
What should I do? The federal government must react immediately. It must effectively ensure private investments in renewable energies, power plant output to back it up and the electricity grids. It must clearly state the costs of the energy transition. In addition, the federal government must finally introduce a target and monitoring system in order to systematically assess the environmental effects of the energy transition.
What is the goal? The recommendations are aimed at a secure, affordable and environmentally friendly energy supply and the success of the energy transition. This is central to Germany as a business location, social acceptance of the transformation and the achievement of climate protection goals.
Wicked problems need wicked science to, minimally, frame what is puzzling. Wickedness is not a moral judgment. Instead, it is tied to the limits of knowing—when rationality is encumbered by ambiguity and uncertainty and when control over the variables is limited or currently impossible. Predictions that emerge from modeling, especially those that reach decades into the future, cannot be adequately evaluated in the present, thus affecting whether such predictions have low, middling, or high confidence. The policymaker is left to choose between effective or ineffective programs based on blind faith, ideology, and hope. This is the arena where Judith Curry offers enlightenment about the stumbling blocks to robust climate science. As a seasoned climate scientist, she asks us to dwell on the uncertainty and risk in predicting climate change and, equally important, to understand the different policy principles used to enable programs to affect climate and its effects.
When I first studied climate in the 1980s, it was limited to air pollution policy in the San Diego-Tijuana air basin. The focus was on measurable pollutants, air transport, and stationary versus mobile sources. It was also about what a developed nation—United States—could address versus a developing nation—Mexico. The physical context aided policymakers in their transborder efforts at cooperation.
Over the decades, environmental policy concerns have shifted focus in a major way to climate change. Multiple disciplines are required—from ocean dynamics, volcanic activity, atmospheric processes, radiative activity from the sun to human activity along with geological, historical, and contemporary data sources to predict climate and its distributive manifestations next year, ten years, fifty years, and more into the future without, unfortunately, being able to include significant technological fixes. Indeed, a very different order of measurement and global understanding from my early experiences of a local, transborder location.
I am often surprised how California state and local entities craft policies they believe would put us on the path to addressing the complex dynamics of what we label climate change. Whether these efforts—a bullet train to and from small cities, banning the sale of gasoline cars by 2035, limiting the use of gas appliances, and similar aggressive policies—make real-world sense or whether they are a virtue-signaling crystal ball without a feasible way of measuring those efforts remains to be seen.
The question should be how a policy maker, and more importantly, the general public, can rationally judge whether the expenditure of large funds and regulating the daily lives of its citizenry are effective. This question requires metrics of whether CO2 is the primary cause of human-made climate change; whether the efforts in California and elsewhere make any measurable difference in a planet-wide climate; whether the costs in lifestyle and economic activity are equal to the benefits; whether policy efforts prove to be lawful within the legal framework of local, state, and national laws; whether innovative technology may prove to be a more straightforward and more cost-effective approach, and similar questions. Judging the “answers” to these questions requires an understanding of certainty and risk. Certainty, and the humbler approach of uncertainty, require metrics we can be confident about. And depending on those metrics, decisions require a gamble on what objectives are attainable and at what cost. Risk is a matter of perception—of individual residents, academics, policymakers, journalists, and pundits. Here, in the climate change arena, we need transparency about which metrics and risks deserve to be seen as scientific or simply guesses.
Judith Curry’s book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk, provides an important entry point into this discussion. She addresses a methodology for assessing risk, one that is generally avoided and misused. Instead, we often find policy and punditry based on slogans, memes and stereotypes. This latter approach makes it easier to argue for a policy X than for a policy Y. It also avoids understanding how “facts” emerge from a complex methodology.
It is worth taking Curry’s point of departure, acknowledging that climate and climate change require a sense of wickedness. Key to Curry’s approach is a dynamic adaptive decision-making approach than one based on static plans that are nearly impossible to implement.
Under conditions of deep uncertainty, static plans are likely to fail, become overly costly to protect against failure, or incapable of seizing opportunities. Alternatively, flexible plans can be designed that will adapt over time. In this way, a policy can be responsive to an evolving knowledge base and technologies.[1]
Curry provides the example of Germany and how its energy policies became counterproductive over time. The seemingly correct decision to phase out its nuclear plants by 2022 in the face of the Japanese Fukushima disaster in 2011 resulted in fairly rapid—given the crystal ball prediction of much greater timelines—negative consequences from having to restart coal fired plants to geopolitical instability with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.
While that example is well-known, Curry folds it into what ought to be fundamental to the contours of climate change—a wicked problem given the multiple physical systems involved in its analysis—and the contours of policymaking—given the wickedness of uncertainty and risk entailed by factors inside and outside of policies that aim to fix questionable predictions about the current and future environment. Curry provides a careful history and understanding of risk analysis with attendant cautionary and precautionary principles and how these are weighted to problems with different degrees of confidence of what is actually and what is poorly known, and perhaps even guesses. The problem of policymaking becomes even more wicked once one moves from memes and slogans to scientific inquiry.
Curry does not leave us with a Hamlet-type problem of tragic delay of whether to act or not to act. She is not using the thoroughness of risk analysis as a partisan tactic in the face of uncertainties. Unfortunately, scientists who speak of wicked climate change problems are painted as denialists rather than what they are—climate pragmatists. Climate pragmatism offers adaptive solutions that can address local effects. Bjorn Lomborg, author of False Alarm, is well-known for this approach.
Curry provides a useful section illustrating climate pragmatism with several examples of adaptation and maladaptation. Bangladesh has a longstanding problem with flooding and rising sea levels—partly understandable as land subsidence from groundwater withdrawal, partly from land reclamation that creates a funneling effect—and the damage from storm surges during tropical cyclones. With technical assistance from CFAN, the company Curry is with after leaving the academy, a flood forecasting system was developed for the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers that was incorporated into a cell phone warning system. The result was evacuation and early harvesting efforts. Curry notes that Bangladesh has also chosen a fruitful development path against the advice of NGOs and global environmental groups by continuing to use its natural gas resources, thereby extending the time framework with which it can eventually implement an energy transition and not undermine the well-being of its citizens in the interim.
One would be naïve if this book was accepted as a rational and thoughtful approach to a useful policy and science interface. As anyone mildly familiar with climate change analysis and policy, there are barriers that Curry and similar climate pragmatists face—delusion, illusion, hysteria, manipulation, implausibility, and bad actors. Curry resists such characterizations. At most, Curry shows that a better-to-be-safe-than-sorry mindset can end up with one that makes us more sorry than safe. How does that common-sense wisdom get expressed in risk analysis? Compare two guiding principles: the proactionary principle and the precautionary principle. These are two mindsets at play in how we see climate change hazards and risks:
The proactionary principle is designed to bridge the gap between no caution and the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle [safety at all costs] enforces a static world view that attempts to eliminate risk, whereas the proactionary principle [openminded, innovative] promotes a dynamic worldview that [in turn] promotes human development and risk-taking that produces the leaps in knowledge that have improved our world. The proactionary principle allows for handling the mixed effects of any innovation through compensation and remediation instead of prohibition. [citation] Rather than attempting to avoid risk, the risk is embraced and managed. The proactionary principle [values a] calculated risk-taking as essential to human progress.[2]
Curry’s robust approach that underwrites her climate pragmatism makes sense to many, and yet, there is a mindset that acts as a psychological barrier—one that has underwritten international treaties and goal setting out of proportion to the risk analysis laid out by Curry. Curry draws on the work of Cass Sunstein, a behavioral economist and legal scholar, to identify “cognitive mechanisms” that channel thinking into a narrow instead of a broad perspective about risk. This narrow view plays out in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where precaution overwhelms a balanced judgment: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures . . . ensur[ing] global benefits at the lowest possible cost.”[3] (Emphasis added).
The psychological barrier to climate pragmatism has yet to overwhelm all nations—witness aggressive fossil fuel development in China and India—or popular sentiment that rejects climate extremism. This barrier deserves more extensive treatment since it forms a significant wedge against climate pragmatism.[4]
Reading Curry’s analysis could lower the anxiety of those who cling to untested, and possibly, illusory solutions. A close reading of Climate Uncertainty and Risk could temper the overreach of climate justice warriors, leaving room for needed appreciation for climate pragmatism.
I recently observed a climate justice warrior propounding an end-of-the-world eschatology. The facts—actually a proposed hypotheses—were sufficient to move several teenagers in attendance to express their anxiety about what would happen in the near future. The climate justice advocate dwelled on the “tipping points” we apparently faced. It was a beguiling end-of-the-world prediction. The actual scientific assessment of this scenario was not disclosed nor open to discussion.
The IPCC AR5 considered a number of potential tipping points, including ice sheet collapse, collapse of the Atlantic overturning circulation, and carbon release from permafrost thawing. Every single catastrophic considered by the IPCC AR5 has a rating of very unlikely or exceptionally unlikely and/or has low confidence.[5] (Emphasis in the original).
Curry’s approach stands in stark contrast to the overreach and catastrophizing by climate justice warriors. Those warriors and their acolytes are unlikely to be persuaded by Curry’s pragmatic, but seemingly slower, approach to a changing climate.
There is no magic wand, no scientific alchemy, that can easily upend cognitive catastrophizing about weather events.
The disconnect between historical data for the past 100 years and climate model-based projections of worsening extreme weather events presents a real conundrum regarding the basis on which to assess risk and make policies when theory and historical data are in such disagreement.[6]
Curry’s book could offer an antidote to the extremes in public thought, to the pundits who misinform them and to those policymakers who fail to address climate change issues in a robust and informed way. Despite this pessimistic outlook, Curry has planted the flag on the ground of what climate science ought to be.
The windmills are spinning golden subsidies in the central German ‘fairy tale’ forest of Reinhardswald, but the payment is the partial destruction of the 1,000 year-old ancient wood itself. Work has started on the clearing of up to 120,000 trees in the forest, the setting for many of the Brothers Grimm mythical stories, to provide access for an initial 18 giant wind turbines around the Sababurg ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle. Who is opposing this massive destruction of the ancient forest teeming with wildlife with trees over 200 years old? Certainly not the Green party, now in power at national and local level. In fact the project is being led by local Hesse Green Minister Priska Hinz who is reported to have said: “Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forests and important ecosystems.”
There is some local press interest in Germany about the destruction of part of the forest that covers a 200 square kilometre area. Nevertheless, the mainstream media generally keep well away from covering environmental destruction when the Greens are doing it in the claimed cause of saving the planet. The BBC did cover the story under the headline ‘Battle over wind turbines in the land of Sleeping Beauty‘, but that was in 2013 when plans for the industrial development were first announced. It seems that the state-reliant broadcaster is less interested now that the Big Bad Wolf has finally made a meal of Little Red Riding Hood.
Pierre Gosselin, who runs the German-based science site No Tricks Zone, has been covering the outrage felt in a number of German quarters at the plans to destroy some of the Reinhardswald forest in the interest of inferior green technology. He feels the affair shows what an inefficient and costly scam green energy is. “It’s not cost-free, it’s full of corrupt and unresponsive politicians who no longer care about democracy, and it certainly doesn’t make the environment better. It’s a nasty juggernaut of waste, fraud, corruption and ecological degradation – with dead birds, turbine vibration sickness, strobe dizziness and landscape pollution,” he adds.
The Guardian has been curiously silent over the clearing of woodland to build wind turbines in Hesse. In 2020 it was less reticent about reporting on the construction of a 3 km highway in another Hessian forest at Dannenroder. Thousands of climate activists gathered on the site north of Frankfurt, it reported. Dannenroder tree-felling would be a catastrophe, environmental campaigners are reported to have said. “Some parts of this forest are 250 years old,” noted Nicola Uhde of the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (Bund), “and there is simply not much of this kind of woodland around anymore.” At the time, the Guardian noted the fate of Dannenroder was a “litmus test for the Green party” which governed the state as part of a coalition. It seems to have been remiss in not suggesting such a test with the Reinhardswald deforestation. But then it seems none of the usual climate activists have been protesting about the loss of trees and wildlife habitat on this occasion.
The Daily Sceptic has reported on numerous recent examples where the lack of interest in ecological damage is a feature of green industrial development. Last month, we noted that one of India’s iconic large birds, the great Indian bustard, was on the verge of extinction due to the growth of electric power lines in its home area of the Thar desert. To reach global Net Zero, it has been estimated that new power lines equivalent to circling the globe 2,000 times will need to be built in the next few years.
Last October, we reported that wind farms in Tasmania had reduced the population of the endangered local wedge-tailed eagle to around 1,000 individuals. Across the world, millions of bats are being chewed by giant wind blades. Any animal that relies on wind currents for flight such as a large raptor is at risk of being sucked into the whirling machines. In California, the Democrat-controlled state Government recently relaxed controls on wildlife protections to allow permits to kill previously fully protected species for renewable infrastructure projects. Despite an increased risk to America’s national bird, the bald eagle, barely a peep of protest was recorded. Off America’s eastern coast, massive industrial parks are being constructed for wind turbines. It might be a coincidence that hundreds of whales have beached along the shore in recent years, but a more likely explanation is the deafening sonar noise, constant pile driving, extensive ocean building works and heavy shipping movements.
None of the above are likely to feature when the magic mirror is asked: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greenest one of all?”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
The Biden Administration and the far Left of the Democratic Party are congenitally opposed to nuclear power, but on February 22nd the Washington Post noted that Canada, France and Sweden have taken a different path from the U.S. and Germany. The very best comparison of these two options is to examine France versus Germany. According to Next Big Future, “France’s nuclear energy spending was 60% of what Germany spent on renewables. France gets about 400 terawatt-hours per year from nuclear, but Germany gets 226 terawatt-hours each year [from renewables]. And 45 Terawatt-hours of Germany’s renewable power comes from burning biomass which generates air pollution.”
Renewable energy advocates in the U.S. like to say America should be a lot more like Germany when it comes to generating more electricity from wind and solar. Their argument is that wind and solar are already less expensive than fossil fuels.
But if renewables are cheaper, why does Germany now have the second highest electricity price, at 52 cents per kilowatt hour? Only a penny less than Denmark. And amazingly, Germany has decommissioned all of its nuclear power stations due to political pressure from that nation’s Greens.
And, again according to Next Big Future: “Germany’s solar farms will have to be rebuilt every 15-25 years. The wind farms will need to be rebuilt every 20-25 years. Nuclear plants can last 40-80-plus years. This means that it guarantees that the solar and wind farms will have to be rebuilt in 15-25 years.”
And if Germany’s wind and solar farms are more reliable, why did Germany have to resume burning lignite (brown coal) last winter when the wind stopped blowing, the sun stopped shining and the Germans could no longer import enough natural gas from Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine? Brown coal is 20% water and it generates more CO2 than burning wood.
France completed construction on 76% of its current 58 reactors at an inflation-adjusted cost of $330 billion (€290 billion). The complete buildout of the 58 reactors is less than €400 billion. Germany has spent about €500 billion over the last 20 years to get to 35% renewables. Seven percent of this is burning biomass. France gets almost double the TWh from nuclear than Germany gets from renewables (solar, wind, biomass, hydro). France has gotten about 400 TWh per year from nuclear while all of Germany’s renewables (solar, wind and biomass) amounts to about 220 TWh.
According to Energy Central, “France’s cost was $1 billion to build each terawatt hour per year of clean energy.”
Germany’s cost is $2.5 billion to build each terawatt hour per year of relatively clean energy. The 180 TWh per year of solar and wind is clean but the biomass is not. It generates air pollution. France’s electricity is 41% cheaper for its citizens’ than Germany. Germans now pay 30 euro cents per kwh. while the French pay 18 euro cents per kwh. This was an extra €24 billion per year. Twenty-two years of extra cost is another $500 billion. This is triple the cost of France and does not include the rebuilding expense of solar and wind over the 50-plus years during the expected life of the nuclear reactors.
From 2006 to 2017, Germany increased the cost of electricity for households by 50%. French electricity prices are just 59% of German electricity prices. France produces one tenth the carbon pollution from electricity compared to Germany.
Emmanuel Macron has announced a “renaissance” of the French nuclear industry with a vast programme to build as many as 14 new reactors, arguing that it would help end the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and make France carbon neutral by 2050.
“What our country needs… is the rebirth of France’s nuclear industry,” Macron said in a recent speech.
Atomic energy provides about 70% of French electricity; low-cost nuclear power has been a mainstay of the French economy since the 1970s.
Clearly, France has made far better choices! Its nuclear based approach was far cheaper to install, will last longer and provides electricity at one half the cost. And the Germans veered far off the best course of energy action.
Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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