Long term readers remember that I used the website TreeHugger as a foil – going into the lair to counter their enslavement to the Eco-Gaia religion as well as being peachy with adopting totalitarian tactics by Government that ensures we all toe that GAIA religion of doing less.
Travel less, live smaller, and what travel there is will be constrained. After all, carbon emissions will kill us all! Just ask that climate muppet Greta Thunberg about her prediction! But alas, as I have said, it is a shallow shadow of itself nowadays with almost all fluffy posts.
Which, like all the other climatista Apocalyptic predictions made since the first Earth Day back in 1970, fell flat on their collective noses. Not a single one has come true. Now, too many people, as the Eco-Socialists’ demands become bigger and more strident (even as their models are STILL way off), are figuring out this grift and making it clear that they are no longer willing to put up with that. And we’re sick of the stupid taunt “Oh, you just hate clean air, wants us all to drink dirty water, and want kids to die” – enough of the emotional blackmailing, you social connivers!
Anyways, back to the post title. While there were a small handful of writers, the two main ones that drew most of the comment frenzies were Sami Grover and Lloyd Alter – and TH canned both of them. And I’ll be honest, while I pretty much disagreed with Lloyd (from which most of my commenting there was based on), he was detailed, had the stats and numbers, and did his homework. He was also honest about his beliefs – he was walking his talk. And he’s opened up his own site, Carbon Upfront!. So now I get to again ride forth and let the Eco-Socialists know that “grams of CO2 emitted” should never be the highest plane on which we should be governed – self-government should be.
Anyways, his post that got me started again was this:
Why we should be designing for intermittency
Australian study shows how electric hot water heaters can shave peak loads and deal with intermittency.
Immediately upon seeing “intermittency”, I knew that Lloyd was starting to get the message that this continued path of inadequate energy generation, because of Eco-Socialism, is going to get much worse – and soon.
Recent research from Australia found that using electric water heaters to store renewable energy could do the work of 2 million home batteries and save billions. The study authors note that about a fifth of Australian residential greenhouse gas emissions come from domestic hot water, which could be made with renewable off-peak energy and stored in a decently insulated tank.
It’s a clever way of dealing with the lack of solar power at night, and is the most common and obvious form of what could be called “design for intermittency.”
One thing to note is that Australia, even being a large coal exporter (especially to China), is ahead of us in shutting down their coal generation facilities and more push than the US (but not Germany) in moving to renewable energy. Problem is, like with Germany, their electricity costs have skyrocketed and has become “intermittent” as the demand for electricity is outstripping its supply. Thank you, Government policies. And the Australian people are starting to get fed up with it.
But Lloyd? He’s simple taking it as “a matter of course” and something that MUST happen if we are to decarbon everything. Remember from earlier posts, these Eco-Socialists have already run out of everybody else’s money and they keep pushing this downward spiral faster – regardless of who it hurts.
Alter even quotes someone that goes back in time in trying to make an equivalence that since our ancestors had to make do with less, we should as well
“Because of their limited technological options for dealing with the variability of renewable energy sources, our ancestors mainly resorted to a strategy that we have largely forgotten about: they adapted their energy demand to the variable energy supply. In other words, they accepted that renewable energy was not always available and acted accordingly. For example, windmills and sailboats were simply not operated when there was no wind.”
Limited technology? What ISN’T said is that at that time, windmills and sailboats were the BEST technology to be had at the time – so it was used. I keep saying that they want us back in the Stone Age but they’d never admit to it. Finally, a bit of a crack in that wall but it’s also a crock – our modern technology can ensure that when we turn on a light switch, keep our food cold, warm our houses in the winter and cool it in the summer. And in that single paragraph above, they want us to take our eyes off what our modernity gives us.
Now, Lloyd does talk about supply and demand a bit but it is clear that he is willing to settle for a lesser life. What’s worse, he’s happy to have Government work through our “smart appliances and thermostats”. It’s already a deed done in California with people making the bet that the electric companies won’t pull that trigger even as the power companies are sending them money. If I was there, I’d be calling that a suckers bet as Governor “Hair Creme” Newsom is pulling down more generation plants even as demand is soaring – not me, for sure.
But Lloyd’s all in and his new book’s title says it all:
Upfront Carbon
How a Life of Just Enough Offers a Way Out of the Climate Crisis
In other words, never strive for better – just apply “Quiet Quitting” to your lifestyle and never expect (or demand) for better. And he expects us all to hew to that philosophy because GAIA and the “pulled out of the air” 1.5 degree C lifestyle for all.
Yeah, I had words:
“design for intermittency.”
Translation: Government is going to force you into a lower standard of living because Greenies have taken control of the levers of Government. With “Electrify EVERYTHING!”, as Lloyd has said for years, he’s basically saying the an “Energy Monoculture” is great even as he’s said, in the past, that “agriculture crop monocultures” are bad. Sorry, the problem is “monocultures” no matter what you’re talking about.
Now add mandatory 15 minute cities (which increasingly lowers your standard of living in other ways), the removal of all but government approved modes of transportation, one can think of this as an encroaching “wall-less prison” of how mandated living will be.
Just like over at Treehugger, I was always bringing up the idea of “what happened to the Western Classical idea of Liberalism” (that would be TRUE philosophical Liberalism and not the political label which has come to mean, in words and deeds, illiberalism). I do that today as well.
If your energy source is controlled by Government, if your movement is controlled by government, if your 15 minute apartment is no larger than a small closet (and I could go on for a while – just ask Lloyd), are you truly free?
Or is that some old-fashioned and trite notion nowadays? After all, the Slippery Slide does exist. Just look at the US and gas stoves and what’s happening since that first Trumka announcement.
Added: Kinda hard to run a biz with intermittent energy: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/18/grid-asks-factories-to-use-less-energy-next-winter-under-blackout-prevention-plan/
So, in a strange way, I’m glad he’s back. And I left comments on a couple others. Sadly, though, this new set of commenters haven’t figured out what I am yet so there are no replies as of yet. I look forward to it to see what these new folks have to say.
