This piece is edited 2014, and presents the interim argument made over the war in Iraq in 2005 after it became clear that the initial bleatings of anti-war opponents was proving to be wrong.
by Patrick Muldowney
Reprinted from Lastsuperpower 2005
All ‘left’ opponents of the illegal liberation of the Iraqi peoples’ have reasoned from the first that the war was really about oil (one way or another)and so the war was to be opposed because of this obscene reason. Every peace activist seems to know ‘viscerally’ that oil has something to do with the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq. But none, of this blood is for oil!
In the west we have observed via the usually anti-Bush mass-media the Iraqi elections and the period of negotiations in the process that formed a government. It became clear that the major political parties in Iraq were and are unmistakably ‘stand alone’ forces, free from any suspicion of being U.S. puppets. It was always clear that any puppets could not be elected in any free and fair process.
Yet western anti-war activists, who (like me) generally knew nothing much about Iraq have been basing their analysis on the proposition that the U.S would be installing puppets. This is now demonstrably not the case. This is not a straw-man argument it is fundamental to all the carrying on about oil. Now only people on planet peace movement could think this, unless one thinks that U.S. war aims have failed and been abandoned already.
The vast bulk of ‘peace activists’ are sophisticated enough to realise that in this century the U.S. could not directly seize the oil and place it under direct U.S. ownership or control. If the U.S. was to keep actual control of the oil, despite formal Iraqi control, independent Iraqi politicians serving the national interests of Iraq would be anathema to such an undertaking. Yet that is who is running Iraq now, independent Iraqi politicians serving interests internal to Iraq.
It is now also widely known, that the parties constituting the interim government want to be rid of Coalition forces ASAP. (despite being grateful for their current assistance). Iraqi leaders are openly talking about the final withdrawal and scheduling the draw down of front line troops, region by region. What is possible, or more accurately optimal for that withdrawal, given the Iraqi military requirements for soldiers, technicians, trainers etc., is apparently thought to be about two years time.
The Iraqi political parties that were ever going to draw any size of the popular vote were never going to be puppets. The Sunni political forces that have as yet remained outside the electoral process, now want in on the next stage will of course further compound the problem the peace movement faces. The current government is not a U.S. puppet and the next government that will contain some of those who did not participate this time will be even more clearly independent.
Thus we can conclude that the U.S. will not be setting up bases in Iraq. (even bases comparable to those in Germany where the politicians are not puppets either) The U.S. may have some sort of presence in Iraq, but a bourgeois democracy in Iraq implies suspicion of the U.S. and these Iraqi parties will be both grateful for the help, and distanced from the great friend of Israel, America.
Most western anti-war campaigners (excusing any genuine pacifists that I simply can’t be bothered arguing with) would have at least theoretically supported Iraqis taking up arms to overthrow the Baathists but could not support the actual war launched by the U.S..
Apparently the anti-war campaigners would overwhelmingly have supported a revolution from below to overthrow the law and order that existed in Iraq. Well my question is; when will you admit that something is worth defending now, and is MUCH better than what went before?
An illegal war was launched against a lawful tyranny and this tyranny was unlawfully overthrown. Then along came the world’s international law making body, the UN Security Council (NB the victors of WW2), and after the fact they declared that the occupation was then the lawful authority. Naturally, ‘the revolution made the law, the law did not make the revolution’. That is what revolutions do! Now an election process has been conducted under the new lawful authority and it is not seriously disputed as to who the Iraqi interim government now is.
This brings about a massive problem for leftists who say that they would have supported a civil-war to overthrow the fascist Baathists. For leftists, there is such a civil-war going on now! Fortunately there are a couple of hundred thousand heavily armed soldiers that are on the Iraqi peoples’ side and they will definitely win.
“Those wishing to make the “more lives ultimately saved”, argument will need to make their comparisons with the number of civilians likely to have been killed had Saddam Hussein’s reign continued into 2003-2004, not in comparison to the number of deaths for which he was responsible in the 1980s and early 1990s…”
No we don’t! This regime was entirely variable in kill rate until overthrown. Trying to overthrow such a regime from an essentially unarmed position would have amounted to having been set up for mass slaughter. Leftists are about winning and overthrowing tyranny not about gloriously laying down our lives in the interest of any juvenile theory that requires people to overthrow their own tyrants unarmed and single-handedly.
Let’s look at some trends in Iraq and around the world. Western, society does not have such an awful death toll as is currently occurring in Iraq. Nor was any period during the reign of Saddam comparable to what we have in the west. That’s why the term tyranny is applied and why everyone worth talking to wants it overthrown. So the important question arises: Is Iraq now moving towards modernity and the lower death toll implied or away from it? Will more elections be held, and will the Coalition eventually withdraw?
Reflect on WW2. Did the U.S. occupy Germany to steal German coal? Did they withdraw? Is Germany (let alone Japan and Italy) part of the modern world again? What would make people think that sixty years later the people of the world would put up with U.S. imperialists nicking Iraqi oil at the cost of two endless sets of body bags?
The old regime was overthrown by an illegal invasion, yet is anyone not supportive of Saddam or the Jihadists now under the impression that the new Government of Iraq is itself illegal? The Interim Government is the body set up to generate a constitution and hold a referendum to approve that constitution, and then hold an election for a further even more representative legitimate government. Are they legitimate revolutionary goals and thus the interim Government worthy of support and assistance?
Humpty cannot be put back together again, so what’s to be done other than acknowledge the revolutionary transformation from a political system run by a lawful tyrant to a new system that runs via a new (for Iraq) electoral system? That’s not any sort of evolutionary transformation it’s a revolutionary transformation.
How should we think about moving ourselves and the heroic people of Iraq further along the path of the bourgeois democratic revolution? Would the situation be improved if all coalition troops were withdrawn now? The colonial era has “Gone with the wind” and it requires determined blindness not to see it. Yet we are still fed what amounts to an endless stream of the war is all about oil.
I wrote the following notes to an anti-war acquaintance just before the U.S. elections.
“I am glad that my side is on the offensive and gearing up for major battles once the U.S. elections are over. It may well be that Osama Bin Laden bombs polling booths or whatever during the U.S. elections. Whatever the outrage next perpetrated my side should remain on the offensive, as standing on the defensive loses wars. All the descendants of the enlightenment and forces of modernity are not about to lose this one!
Just sticking my neck out for a moment, I think Bush will win now that Bin Laden has intervened to try to cause another Madrid effect. The Yanks will do the opposite, and allow Bush to continue. We will know soon enough who is to do the gnashing of teeth. Anyway Kerry is locked in on the main game.
It is time to accept that Saddam’s regime would never have changed organically and evolved from within, so there was always going to be a war.
This is all old hat. I am surprised you are happy to further sully your reputation by publishing it.
What next? The Nazis were right to invade Poland?
Even top Republicans have since admitted that the invasion was for the control of oil. Want me to quote them?
Check this out:
http://www.fuelonthefire.com/index.php?page=home
When you repeat stuff fed to us by the Murdoch media you have to ask yourself, Have I become a tool of our oppressors.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/01/07/what-i-got-wrong-about-julian-assange/
‘President Biden I await your call and am ready to assist you.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HudPw2QCi50 Alex Epstein!
I try to watch these know nothing’s babble to themselves until I can take no more. At the 3 min 20 second mark, the interviewer states that the crazies are telling people who can’t put fuel into their car should buy an 80 to 90K electric car. This is emblematic of the know nothing ideologues who are pushing Murdoch’s agenda. It was shit like this that made me cancel Foxtel. Really, electric cars in the US cost 80 to 90K. Do you fact-check anything?
https://insideevs.com/news/534027/electric-car-prices-us-20210918/
Even in backward Australia, if you want to spend 80K on an electric car you can buy 2
https://www.carsguide.com.au/ev/advice/cheapest-electric-car-in-australia-83651
Just in case you don’t realise how stupid the EVs are too expensive crowd are, well try this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkA3Oi7Tztg
I still can’t see how you can watch these clowns. At the 4-minute mark, the clown being interviewed states that Biden heads a movement that has been restricting oil production in the USA. Off the top of my head I know this is bull shit but don’t take my word for it, here look at a graph that covers oil production in the USA.
https://www.macrotrends.net/2562/us-crude-oil-production-historical-chart
Oh, look, production took a tumble March 2000 can you tell me who was president then?
If you front up $2,000 more you can get 2 but if you want to save $500 you can buy 3 petrol versions of that same car! How about that. If you then didn’t get a further rebate you would be a poor negotiator, but that applies in both cases so we can cancel that out. This one point demonstrates not just sloppiness as is usual with Steve but also his determined one-sidedness.
Why would Steve want to then go on to compare apples and pears? If people are allowed to NOT pay the same tax as in the electric scam case, and yet use the roads these taxes pay for, one might think a fair-minded person might voice a complaint about yet another greenie racket. But just silence from Steve. He has not missed this issue at all so he will now weave a whole web around it based on ‘that is not the point’, because his point was ‘just the pure current economics!’ So rather than expose what is no more than a corrupt scam he helps to conceal it.
Then naturally there is no mention of the depreciation costs that I think will be notably different given the life of the $30,000 ??? or whatever is the exact price of the battery in these cars. I wonder how that would affect the value of one of these vehicles when it’s as old as my 2006 dual fuel Mitsi station wagon. What is the effective life of one of these batteries? My car is now an old car at 16yrs but not as old as my daughter’s 30 yr old 7 seat Mitsi van! I wonder what a 7 seat electric would set us back? The station wagon seats 5 and has plenty of space with an 850+k range just for starters! Now I wonder how a running down battery quality would affect range and performance and re-charge times as the battery ages? They are just the first questions that spring to mind. Such questions readily tumble out. But the question of the $80,000 price mentioned by the interviewer is Steve’s starting point! After calling the philosopher Alex Epstein names ending with ‘This is emblematic of the know-nothing ideologues who are pushing Murdoch’s agenda.’ Yet obviously neither mine nor Epstein’s views are in any way derivative from Murdoch’s agenda whatever that conspiracy smear is. Raising the Murdoch association is the green guttersnipe smearing that is one of the typical ways the ALP/Green/ABC/Trot/Woke types deal with people who form their own views.
I have no intention to delve more deeply into what is a transparently green religion issue. I won’t go further because with such a little honest investigation it, if not falls over, clearly demonstrates what the greenie who is neglecting to raise these basic questions himself is up to. The 4 little comments from Steve demonstrates ill intention on his part. When issues stand out on the face that are required to be addressed the alternative to ill intent is just plain dumb. Others can pick which of the 2 Steve is demonstrating.
Regardless of the individual limitations or intent all woke and green positions fall over because they have a mistaken direction from the start. As the open honest and above board rightwinger Julian Simon (a person who enjoyed the outdoors and the natural world more than most) conclusively demonstrated in his book The Ultimate Resource. The years of investigation that I have devoted to the Carson/Earlich followers have always resulted in demonstrating that they are invariably muddle-headed.
I won’t go further down this track when the big issue is that Steve’s man -Joe Biden- on his very first day in office attacked the oil industry by stopping a very important oil pipeline and stamped his presidency as a failed diversion from human progress and the currently greater use of fossil fuels that this without any doubt implies. In other words, the desperately needed rapid human progress requires a massive increase in what currently terrifies the woke who think there is a climate crisis from the burning of fossil fuels!
As Dave McMullen put it, Red and Green just do not mix! With opposing philosophies the politics and the economics that emerge cannot be compatible. That this green world view is mistaken for something that is leftwing is nothing new and it will continue in the west for as far into the future as we can currently foresee. Thus any genuine left must, in this context, unite with the openly pro-development conventional owning class viewpoint. That historically new but now totally dominant owning class breeds a vast non owning working-class constituting the vast majority but unlike the former systems from slave and feudal times, ‘free workers’ as a totally untethered class. The world is now more than 50% urban and the industrialization trends that produce this has increased human life spans and quality of life imensly. But the system has a built in problem where the industrial workers end up cyclicly going without because they produce to much! The very system produces highly educated industrial workers whose unstable existence turns them at some point into the gravediggers for all other classes.
The anti-fossil fuel religion has wrought deadly havoc across the planet and consequently the poor and those seeking more democracy for themselves will always pay the biggest price from the woke policies. The greens are not even the madest example in the wide spectrum of foolishness. All the way from the UN Secretary General on past Boris, Joe, Emmanuel , Justin, Jacinda and soon to be Anthony to Prince Charles and all the bureaucrats. And then it all just gets worse by the day!
The woke UN morons are like the ABC ‘investigative journalists’ constantly talking climate clap trap and that is all that it is. Albanese is a true believer when it comes to the Carbon hysteria. Just as Dan Andrews stopped the fracking in Victoria. Australia is in for 3 years of utterly stupid green policies.
We can see how Norway (a booming economy based on offshore oil) can then distort the picture with subsidies and penalties.
The green religion and their co-religionists from the Russian bombed Trot life raft are once more in the water and drowning not waving! Here they both present yet another blatant scam with no comment or exposure. The scam is either skipped over or if called out presented as an important policy to get the world off its fossil fuel dependence. A good thing no less! Carbon Dioxide is ridiculously presented as a pollutant and Alex Epstein not read and slandered instead.
Well it’s true the Democrats are not all as woke as Al Gore, perhaps the most influential of all US vice presidents yet failed presidential candidates but the Biden party is sick with carbon dioxide clap trap compared to the Republicans of Trump! The ALP is similarly mad. The notion that in Australia we ought to vote for Abanese is despite all the Turnbulites in the Liberals etc a sick joke. No internationalist can be involved in leaving the non-industrialised world in the poverty that it is and renewables can’t do the job of industrialising those billions. Machines make the moder world that we are pushing for the spread of and they are driven by fossil fuels. Communists are pro development almost above all else except in our struggle against fascism and for genuine democracy.
Just as the slave owning class was doomed with the emergence of a free labouring class that would not tollerate a slave competitor so also is doomed the aristocracy and gangster ruling elites that shove their guns in our faces as do all the tyranies led by Russia and China.
The workers of the world are once more behind the stars and stripes in the bigger form of NATO.
After the slavic revolution finally gets rid of Lukashenko and Putin then Georgia and Ukraine will become free of the occupying Russians and members of NATO.
Fossil Fuel policies are now central issues for the working classes. I am not surprised Steve has it all wrong yet again.
It’s quite simple, clown one said an EV costs 80 to 90K. This is wrong. Clown 2 said that Biden has led a 15-year campaign to restrict US oil production. In 2008 US oil production was 3,839 barrels per day. In Feb 2022 US domestic oil production stood at 11,600 barrels per day.
Now you want to go down the rabbit hole of subsidies, you know the propaganda that fossil fuels stand on their own feet while renewables get all the subsidies.
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-hit-10-3-billion-in-2020-21/
Your argument about second hand cars is snapshot economics. Yes, right now it makes sense for poor people to drive a second hand petrol car, but this is just right now. Recycling lithium batteries is uneconomic, but at some stage a used lithium battery from a car will be worth more in recycled parts than its cost of disposal, and once that happens your argument about second hand cars will fail.
Lithium batteries degrade over time due to the formation of dendrites. This phenomenon is associated with the purity of the lithium in the battery, battery grade lithium is 99.5% pure, but companies are now producing lithium at 99.99%. Batteries made with superior grade will last longer. The rise in the lithium price will enhance the end price of the car. Last time I sent a car to the scrapyard, I got $200 from memory. What do you think the scrap price of a Lithium battery car will be? I will link to a graph of lithium pricing to give you an idea about the future.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
I thought you might like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLflYkgnNBY
You really have drunk the Kool-aid haven’t you!
This is what I can’t get. You post a clip where the interviewer says that an EV costs 80 to 90K. I post a price list that shows EVs selling for below 30K.
Why can’t you just say yes, she got that wrong and move on? Instead, you produce a 16 paragraph response.
So let start again, the interviewer states that an EV costs between 80 to 90K. Is she correct or is she wrong?
What would be the price of getting a like replacement in an EV model? Everyone can get an electric scooter but that is not the issue people want like for like. A comparable boat towing vehicle as scoffed at in your latest woke horror, because it is available actually has a price tag. No builder will want one of the small car options that you say is… what…good value? In short, she is about right for replacement of the vehicles in sizes and at comfort levels that most Australians have wanted for many years.
The real point of your unthinking comments is your attack on -the no doubt unread- work of Alex Epstein (The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels). But he is spot on and you and Gore/Biden and the ALP, ABC, Greens are dead wrong.
Look, I’m happy to move on to Einstein, but I am trying to take things in chronological order. The interviewer was talking entry price for people struggling to fill up their current car. You have introduced the price of a vehicle fit for towing. Now we should all realise that an electric motor is very good for towing. As to trades people not wanting one, well just don’t stand between a tradie and an F150. Note the price, just over 40K.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a29890843/full-electric-pickup-trucks/
So if I understand you correctly, you think that an electric vehicle that can transport a larger number of people is problematic, well maybe you need to read this.
https://myelectriccar.com.au/meet-the-joylong-e6-electric-minibus/
or this
https://www.caranddriver.com/volkswagen/id-buzz-microbus
So may I recap
You posted a clip where the interviewer said that no one wants to buy an EV because the start-up price is 80 to 90 K
I responded by saying that entry level vehicles are sub $30K
You responded by saying that tradies won’t touch them and larger cars that Australians want aren’t the small entry level vehicles.
I have responded with prices of Ford pick-ups and VW Kombi vans all well below 80K and a mini bus at $88K but which will compete with its diesel rival in its way lower servicing costs as I pointed out with the vid by those English chaps.
Plus you must realise that this is new technology and as with all new technology the price reduces as mass production becomes the norm.
Now back to the question that has a yes or no answer was the interviewer right or wrong when she said that people struggling to fill their cars aren’t interested in an EV the price of which is $80 to $90K
Are we done with the interviewer making stuff up? Im happy to move on to Einstein. He makes the claim that Biden is leading a campaign against oil. 15 years of restrictions so that supply cant meet demand.
The only problem is that under Obama, US oil production went up and under Biden, oil production has gone up. US oil production Sept 2008 was 3,839 B/day and in Jan 2022 it was 11,500 B/day. Don’t you remember Obama claiming that under him that the US had achieved oil self-sufficiency?
Einstein would be better off claiming that for the last 15 years coal production has gone down, which it has, but he won’t say anything about that because under Trump the hero of the coal miners US coal production declined to less than Obama’s lowest year.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/coal-production
I’m happy to share what I know, so here goes. Was Obama responsible for driving up oil production? No, he was just lucky that he was president during the fracking boom, where fracking and horizontal drilling unlocked the huge and previously locked up US oil reserves.
Oil production under Trump for a time tanked. Was he to blame? No, he was just president at a time that OPEC decided to release cheap oil, which had its intended aim to send marginal operations broke.
Obama and Trump oversaw a decline in coal production because coal is in a terminal decline. It’s a 19th Century fuel trying to exist in a 21st century world. Coal for steel making will last longest, but will be replaced by hydrogen.
As to oil and poor people, well, your answer is China.
Who has the most poor people, China
Who has raised the most poor people out of poverty, China
Who has electrified their economy more than anyone else, China.
Don’t thank me, just accuse me of drinking Kool-Aid being in league with Chinese fascists or just generally having no idea. Any will do.
Did you check out that list of cars that I posted for US 84K you get a Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo not a bad car really
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enuOMcOXsNE
Here in Australia for 60K base model to 90K top of range we have to put up with Tesla model3 (if you can get one)
https://www.tesla.com/en_au/model3
https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/volkswagen-group-china-4068
I think Steve is on the podium. Undoubtedly a bronze medal performance. Nevertheless on the podium.
OK the Chinese in their joint ventures and firms like Joylong etc are beginning to ‘capture’ a large part of this expanding EV market. Not unusual for companies to use prices, particularly at times like this, to do so. As an internationalist I ultimately support a global supply train and can understand how this process makes commodities very much cheaper but I don’t accept that fascists countries ought to be part of that supply chain and I believe that now that Ukraine has woken even ‘the woke’ to the real danger, many more people agree with me.
General Motors, Ford and every other major car manufacturer have products coming out of China and also going into it so the capitalist class often have different priorities to those of us that are involved in the struggle for democracy.
OK the car mags (perhaps a little more honest -in their own way- than any conventional used car salesmen) are indicating much lower prices have either arrived OR are just 1 or 2 years away for other models and brands. Fine. That would mean that Rita in the interview was outdated in her view and I suspect that the circles she mixes in ARE undoubtedly buying -when they are- the more expensive end of the market (that till recently was the only available options in many cases) and that goes for homes, holidays and everything else; and most people also still end up bellyaching about petrol prices as well. Who she mixes with is what she is familiar with so it would be hardly surprising to make this minor error and what ought to be our conclusion is that it’s not even important.
The point is that new products do not always win out and sometimes become a short term diversion before a genuine breakthrough that does end the old world. Unlike with the music and film industries, transport is a concrete beast and not so readily disrupted by fads. But EV’s are not a fad and neither are they a leapfrog opportunity for third world countries as some foolish greens delude themselves with advocacy of. Rather fossil fuels are the vital foundation to human progress and yet for decades the likes of Al Gore have been pushing a poison ‘science’ that is now at the hysterical level of morning to night ABC climate change babble and this when the horror of fascism are all around blowing up. Last night the hysterics on 4 Corners was not at a whole new level it was just the same old stuff from the same old Michael Mann types!
I am all for change and development but the green religion is not about markets and change from open competition; they are all about the woke KNOWING the pain price required for the externalities of carbon dioxide and in this they only ‘know’ that they must stop the use of fossil fuels to save the planet so the cost impost must be sufficient to do that! Meat production as well.
So what makes the interviewers minor -even if recent apparently dramatic price change error- more important than the more general thrust of what the expert interviewee Alex Epstein was saying? Nothing!
Nevertheless these vehicles that a) I have nothing against at all and b) have had and will continue in an expanding manner to have a role in the transport mix that I welcome but that c) as we have seen with people playing with Putin trade there is an issue of Pig Iron Bob Menzies dimension that must be considered.
I didn’t realise that Steve had fallen for the climate hysterics but that ought not surprise us.
Happy to acknowledge that the interviewer just made a mistake, which the expert did not pick her up on. The expert went on to say that Biden has led a 15-year campaign to stymie the oil industry. My point was that in the last 15 years oil production in the USA has exploded from 3,839 barrels per day to 11,500 barrels per day. If you read my argument correctly you would understand that this almost 3-fold increase is not determined by what is in the President’s head but what happens in the field of technology and in market forces even if these forces are somewhat contrived by OPEC
Over many years I have formed the opinion that you don’t read what I write but just go with what you think I might be writing.
“I won’t go further down this track when the big issue is that Steve’s man -Joe Biden-….”
How on earth is Joe Biden my man? I oppose Biden on so many issues, be it his statement that held Ukraine out to dry before the invasion or his refusal to supply Ukraine with fighter jets to his claim that GM is leading the EV revolution to his role in turning the US into an imprisoned nation. The US has 5% of the worlds’ population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. I can’t think of an individual who holds greater responsibility for this human rights abuse than Joseph R Biden Jr.
Now your comment about Joe being my man was in relation to his cancelling of the Keystone pipeline, but I assure you that my ignorance of the Keystone controversy means that I don’t hold a position about it. Of all the issues going on in the world, this controversy hasn’t gained my attention more than for me to know that there is a controversy. Canada has some oil that they were going to pipe to refineries in the US, and now Canada will sell that oil somewhere else. I don’t think that the world turns on this pipeline. If I’m wrong and world development is dependent on these tar sands oils being refined in the US rather than somewhere else, please do tell.
Right on cue the Turnbullite lashes out;
‘Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has savaged Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a late-night Senate speech, describing him as an autocrat who is not fit to be leader, a bully with no “moral compass” and someone who uses his faith for marketing purposes.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells will be leaving the Liberal party room after being dumped from a winnable spot last weekend in favour of Jim Molan, a Liberal senator and retired army major general.’
I have no doubt that retired Major General Jim Molan is undoubtedly the right choice for the Liberal party and for the country!
Turnbull and his mates are not serving Australia in their self serving wrecking conduct. The ALP are coming in from pendulum factors anyway. But the country will, like voters with Biden in the US, soon have byers remorse big time. Having made Turnbul PM the Liberals have themselves to blame. Latham, Rudd, Shorten spring to mind on the other side but now Albanese actually believes this green twaddle.
Just back to Biden. In the Biden/Musk controversy, I am on Musk’s side. This guy Alex runs a great channel funny and informative, the running joke is about his shirts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hoJPjFtwvg
Have I got this correct? Are you stating that Fierravanti-Wells is part of the Turnbull faction? When I look her up, I see that she’s a member of the faction led by Dutton.
From a no knowledge base, it looks to me like Scomo is trying to sure up the numbers post electoral defeat.
https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1508823313182695428 very important example of what is underway right now!
also https://theobjectivestandard.com/2022/03/washington-post-journalist-tries-to-smear-alex-epstein/
As for the attack from the Senate well, I don’t know what faction she is with but it’s exactly the same as what Turnbull has been up to and is about as interesting; but not to worry the ABC/SBSetc love it!
‘Epstein’s 2014 book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels clearly and convincingly argued that climate change is nowhere near—and will not become—catastrophic. By contrast, eliminating or drastically curtailing fossil fuel use will cause catastrophe because it’s our only cheap, plentiful, and reliable form of energy. Further, if we care about human flourishing, we should not only celebrate fossil fuels and those who turn otherwise useless muck into the power source for civilization, but we should also use more such fuels on net, especially in developing countries where lives literally depend on removing anti-fossil-fuel restrictions.’
He has to read Mao. ‘To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing’
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/a-detailed-preview-of-fossil-future?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&s=r
I don’t get it. Epstein writes a book. Someone at the Washington Post writes a critical review, and he calls for the reviewer to be sacked.
I think that the word in current usage to describe this is snowflake.
I see April fools day is once more upon us and in the good-humoured way, no doubt intended we have Steve’s contribution to the merriment. Well done Steve; with such deadpan delivery, anyone would think that you were seriously suggesting that Maxine Joselow was not a total woke scoundrel. Very droll. You had me going for just a second and then I noticed the date! Your little joke aside…The low life stunt of painting Epstein as a racist was -it’s true- about as low as it gets (a lie of putinesque audacity) so though it will take some time she won’t get away with it scott free, just as Putin has become a bye word for a person who in GWB’s words was someone who you always knew if they were telling you the truth or not. She has nowhere to go with her credibility. Only the hopelessly woke would ignore such a demonstration of the lowest possible example of the cancel culture fake news type carry on.
Fossil Future is a very important book so naturally Epstien ought to treat her with utter contempt on the one hand but that can’t mean tolerating her conduct as in any way acceptable so calling for an apology for such conduct and her resignation or sacking is absolutely required. Here is the sort of conduct that is to be expected from the fascists in a Chinese or Russian media outlet and in any sort of liberal democracy must be called out! It’s simply a case of the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
The bottom line is to read this important book where the author swims so strongly against the tide AND then adopt the method of thinking that has produced such a powerful refutation of the current tosh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xijTiJJ8-g0 pushed by the ABC etc
When the argument for an increase in Fossil fuels use is presented the anti-fossil-fuel herd are simply unable to argue a case that is not transparently anti-human.
Defending the billions of energy-poor against what is an assault on their very lives is what is at stake. This is why it’s so important to study philosophy and get the ducks properly lined up. Literally, billions of people’s lives depend on getting this thinking back on top in the western world. It has always been on top in the rest of the world!
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/a-detailed-preview-of-fossil-future?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&s=r buy this book! And remember Mao “I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.’
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/a-detailed-preview-of-fossil-future?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&s=r
Alex Epstein Jan 31 2022
A detailed preview of Fossil Future
Fossil Future systematically analyzes the world’s energy, environmental, and climate choices from a human flourishing perspective—and concludes definitively that, as the subtitle of the book says: “Global human flourishing requires more, oil, coal, and natural gas—not less.”
Here is a positive review of Epstein’s latest book by a journalist with a PhD who has an energy industry background in Asia. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2022/03/31/human-flourishing-or-living-naturally-alex-epsteins-case-for-using-more-oil-coal-and-natural-gas/?sh=71ca09b530f8
Steve ought to know that on the face of it he is being deliberately misleading but if his well known ‘blank uncomprehending stare’ response in his defence is that he can’t tell the difference between a hit piece written to attack the author and avoid reviewing the book and a genuine attempt at a review then so be it; only the charge against Steve varies. Everybody else knows what this woman is up to in misusing material from over 22years ago to present Epstein as a racist that ought not to be heard. She wants him and thus his dangerous current ideas about fossil fuels CANCELLED and kept out of the MSM etc.
‘To be sure, most of Epstein’s arguments have been authoritatively covered by some of the most eminent experts in the field. These include leading climate scientists disagreeing with the “scientific consensus” on global warming such as physicists Steven Koonin, William Happer, Ivan Giaever who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, and Richard Lindzen; economists such as Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus and Richard Tol who have written extensively on the costs of carbon emissions; and generalists such as Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Shellenberger. These contributors cover many of the same issues that Epstein’s book discusses.’
Epstein is a classical mainstream rightwinger defending the joint enterprise that is the Enlightenment. He is a worthy continuation of the work from the likes of his also non-racist forbears such as Julian Simon, Alston Chase, Patrick Moore and even Hans Rosling etc He will find willing defenders in people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Jordan Peterson, Douglass Murray, Brendan O’Neill and from the radical left in Australia all the usual suspects from my former milieu now -sadly- almost silently adrift and just bobbing around before life’s great waterfall.
I’m very familiar with the basic arguments that are actually being put and fully understand why he is NOT in any legitimate manner being reviewed but rather scurrilously attacked for daring to make the arguments in the first place. It really is a case of ‘what could they possibly say to this systematic destruction of their whole world view’? It is the same with listening to Putin with his justifications! In both cases, the truth of what is before us MUST be avoided.
The FBI did character assassinations before the actual assassinations of Fred Hampton, Malcolm X and Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
If you write a paper that just repeats the character assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and still stand by that paper 20 years latter, I expect that you will receive some blow-back.
Here’s the guts of his MLK critique
“Affiliation with the global Communist movement;
Support for racial preference policies that proved to be destructive;
Support for wealth redistribution programs that proved to be destructive;
Plagiarism in his college dissertation, and;
Infidelity in his personal life.”
If you are financed by the Koch brothers and your research finds that we need to use more oil not less, well forgive us if we can’t keep the smirk from our faces.
Oh, fuck, Epstein has a BA in philosophy and parades himself as a philosopher. I have a BA in history, but I never call myself a historian. At best, I say I have an interest in history. Fuck the Koch brothers gave him $100K, if the Koch brothers give me $100K I will testify that oil will save the world.
OK just for the record the process of industrialisation has done wonderful things for humanity, and it has been fuelled by coal and oil and from what I understand the US should pipe shitty oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico but fuck a guy with a BA is helping people think straight 😂
Given that Steve is commenting at a site that has since 2007 carried the argument for the greater use of fossil fuels https://brightfuture21c.wordpress.com/ it is not possible to legitimately make the Koch brothers’ conspiracy argument that he has just made. It demonstrates the exact charge of dishonestly responding to a position that he supposedly disputes but does not in any way address! He didn’t even have to buy Dave’s book https://brightfuture21c.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/brightfuture-online-wp.pdf and cant have read the yet to be published work that Maxine was given full access to a review copy of! Lower than a snake’s belly, Steve is right at home slithering straight into the gutter with Maxine Joselow!
It is standard fare for conservative thinkers to be critical of people who have any
“Affiliation with the global Communist movement; (like Steve incessantly is)
Or who indicate
Support for racial preference policies that [they honestly believe to have] proved to be destructive;
Or who indicate
Support for wealth redistribution programs that [they believe to have] proved to be destructive;
And to make an accusation about
Plagiarism in his college dissertation
(that I don’t know the strength of, but I clearly know it does not relate to work submitted for review in 2022)
And though of no interest to me something that IS relevant for a minister of the Christian faith namely
Infidelity in his personal life.”
Is not beyond any pale that I know of for any young student conservative to write his view about.
An 18-year-old conservative thinker honestly tries to put his position and 22 years later the woke gutter snipes pretend that this is the work of a racist! No, it’s not and Maxine Joselow ought to be sacked for carrying on like a Putin propagandist.
The 41-year-old man’s work on Fossil Fuels is to be ‘reviewed’ with reference to essentially uncontroversial stands from 22 years back i.e. stands that conservatives have always held but that he applied to a person of Mother Teresa’s saintlike status! Naturally, people who are doing this kind of review are supported by the well known anti-communist, anti-catholic fruit loop Steve Owens who adds his own little Koch brothers twist!
I’ve always known that Steve was not just ‘thick as’ but also a troubled soul dissembler with a blank-stare methodology that can only ‘work’ for people in a private setting. It’s not something you can do in public because that is when you lose the debate.
Steve has for many decades lacked all credibility as any kind of ‘honest’ researcher and yet as I said above ‘I didn’t realise that Steve had fallen for the climate hysterics but that ought not to surprise us.’ The depth of the silliness that comes out of Steve confirms the saying that there is just no fool like an old one!
“An 18 year old conservative thinker honestly tries to put his possition”
Don’t you mean an 18-year-old just parrots an FBI character assassination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr._assassination_conspiracy_theories
That’s right a guy that wrote a book called the Moral Case for Fossil Fuels is by definition helping people think straight. He is leading and Steve Owens not even following! He has done the work for many years! he is not just a 20 yr old bloke with a BA. The whole approach is exactly what is required at this crucial period. In Australia, we are about to have 3 stupid years of Carbon hysterics from the ALP. This book is urgently required. It will have zero effect on the woke and Steve.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/04/01/the-dark-fantasies-driving-just-stop-oil/ and this is what is out there and is going to burn ‘our’ books and ban ‘us’ as a threat to humanity no less!
I am very aware even if Alex Epstein is not, that first, they came for the communists!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9q-X8Xd2tk Alex Epstein last October! Leadership!
Vital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UnmVtkscGg
Ah, fracking. I have been a proponent of fracking for 10 years, but to come to a reasonable view you have to tune out the full on supporters as well as the full on opponents. Each project raises its unique difficulties, so while I support fracking in principle, each instance must be judged on it merits.
The US and Canada have had great success with fracking, and this is in part because their oil and gas fields are generally (sorry, Pennsylvania) well away from prime agricultural land and large urban centres.
The evidence is that a fracking revolution occurred in the USA while Biden was VP. He may be totally against fracking (which he isn’t), but his record would indicate the opposite.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/27/business/fracking-ban-biden-federal-leasing/index.html
Yeah, Biden, is blocking the Oil Industry
From the White House
“Right now, the oil and gas industry is sitting on more than 12 million acres of non-producing Federal land with 9,000 unused but already-approved permits for production. Today, President Biden is calling on Congress to make companies pay fees on wells from their leases that they haven’t used in years and on acres of public lands that they are hoarding without producing. Companies that are producing from their leased acres and existing wells will not face higher fees. But companies that continue to sit on non-producing acres will have to choose whether to start producing or pay a fee for each idled well and unused acre.”
Oil pipeline workers DID have to stop their work from day one of Biden’s dotage / Presidency.
Oil companies WILL (in the future)have to choose whether to start producing or pay a fee for each idled well and unused acre.
Biden is anti-fossil fuel and you know it!
I wonder how many oil companies will point out that they had intended to put their predicted oil into the cancelled oil pipeline?
Pathetic cover for Biden from the always vote for the ALP so vote for climate alarmist Albanese Steve!
You are correct, the Keystone pipeline was dead the day Biden came to office. Big deal. For some reason, this pipeline has become emblematic of the development v conservation argument. Beats me why, it just seems to be an extension of an already existing pipeline network, but as I said earlier, I have paid the Keystone pipeline issue very little attention.
Canada’s oil sands are the second-largest petroleum deposit in the world, so clearly a significant project, but will it fail because they can’t pipe this oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico? Are you suggesting that Canadians are too stupid to refine their own oil or to sell crude oil to anyone but the USA?
From what I have seen, Epstein is a charlatan, he presents himself as a philosopher when he’s clearly just an author. He allows an interviewer to make a statement that is obviously wrong. He presents the oil industry as hamstrung by Biden, when clearly the oil industry is restricting its own production in an effort to boost prices.
Just on, “Biden is anti fossil fuel and I know it”. Oil is the most important resource in the modern industrial economy. The USA is a massive producer and user of oil. Biden is a middle of the road democrat. The idea that a US president could be against such a significant industry is breathtaking in its inability to confront reality.
As sheik Yamani used to say, the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones. The end of the oil age is in sight, and the oil industry won’t go down without some sort of rear guard action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O6jbZ_fdrY&t=3s
Why I think Epstein is a charlatan is because if you are a “philosopher” of the oil industry, and you are talking about constraints on oil, and you don’t mention big Capital then what are you really saying, and please note banks started to refuse big oil funds under the president before Biden you know the guy Tangerine Mussolini
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Big-Oil-Is-No-Longer-Unbankable.html
The more I watch Epstein, the less confidence I have in what he says. He makes a case that Biden is chocking off supply and that’s the cause of high gas prices. But any cursory examination of the USA immediately exposes the real cause of gas price rises.
In 2020 the last year of Trump US economic growth was -3.41% Not his fault but reduced economic growth puts a brake on gas prices.
Projections for 2021 and 22 put growth at 5.97% and 5.2%. So the US has seen about 10% reversal in growth figures.
Just on my dismissal of Epstein being a philosopher, he may well be one, but I had a friend who had a doctorate in philosophy and I never heard him or anyone else describe him as a philosopher. He was always described as someone who had a doctorate in philosophy.
I have been doing some reading. Apparently, the environmentalists are mainly against the tar sands oil because of its 30% extra CO2 emissions.
The US will still import this oil. A lot of Canadian oil gets imported to the US by train. This has been a big boost to the train companies. Warren Buffett is a big owner of trains and a big donor to the Democrats probably just a coincidence.
Just on a side note doing anything in the US is a nightmare of regulation and litigation.
Trump derangement syndrome is real, but so is Biden derangement syndrome.
I tried to watch the hour plus video of Epstein, but gave up because I don’t trust him. I went looking for information from someone I do trust.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grZSxoLPqXI
In the roll call of intellectuals that you claim will defend Epstein, you have nominated Jordan Peterson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y564PsKvNZs
In this video at the 3-minute mark, Peterson plays his trump card. Renewables won’t work because the sun doesn’t shine at night.
Just bare with me, imagine 15 years into the future when renewables have replaced coal-fired power stations.
Jill average drives home Friday afternoon to spend a relaxing weekend at home. She parks the car in the garage and hooks up her car to the battery and flicks the switch to house powered by car battery. Later on, she has her battery recharge the car. On Saturday the solar panels not only top the house battery up but supply excess electricity to the grid for which the power company will pay her a credit. Now what if it’s overcast for weeks, and we produce less electricity than we expected? Well wind turbines run at night, pumped hydro runs at night, as does stored kinetic energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lp9ixIMKUY
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/04/06/alex-epstein-climate-skeptic/
Interesting to see that Epstein was behind the lies about what caused the Texas disaster. Much like what happened here in South Australia when a storm blew over electricity transmission towers and Morrison immediately went to the blame renewables lie.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/texas-officials-circulated-climate-skeptic-s-talking-points-power-failures-n1262700
‘Epstein’s argument about why reliance on solar and wind power are to blame for the Texas crisis is not without nuance.
Wind and solar are known as “intermittent” energy sources, because they don’t generate electricity 24 hours a day, meaning the electric grid must pull from other sources when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Epstein argues that policies that mandate or subsidize renewable energy in Texas and nationwide have led to the construction of fewer coal, gas and nuclear plants, which could be ramped up to handle a surge in demand like the one during the frigid winter storm.
It’s a remarkably similar argument to the one Wright used Feb. 26 in an interview with BIC Magazine, an energy industry journal, in which he blamed “quotas” for the use of wind and solar energy in Texas.
“We need to look at how we are allowing renewables that access onto the grid and maybe not allow that to happen,” Wright said in the interview. He didn’t respond to a request for comment this week.
Epstein said in an email that his talking points are “a free service I offer pro-energy, pro-freedom elected officials who are interested in my views on energy policy and messaging.”
He said his diagnosis of what went wrong in Texas “has proved correct.”
“Anything a recipient of my Energy Talking Points uses is solely based on whether they agree with it,” Epstein said.’
OK Steve Epstein is correct so what is your point?
All Texas had to do to avoid the energy crisis was to dial into the national grid, but they couldn’t because Texas had decided to run its own grid. Why? Because to participate in the national grid you had to spend money to protect your energy assets against bad weather, and Texas didn’t want to spend the money. Why? Because the energy companies were making a killing over shortages. If you followed the Enron story, you will remember that Enron used to create shortages to boost the price and scam profits. The same was happening in Texas, every shortage created mega windfall profits as the retail price went sky-high
“During the crisis, some energy firms made billions in profits, while others went bankrupt, due to some firms being able to pass extremely high wholesale prices ($9,000/MWh, typically $50/MWh) on to consumers, while others could not, as well as this price being held at the $9,000 cap by ERCOT for allegedly two days longer than necessary; creating $16 billion in unnecessary charges.”
So the whole Texas thing that killed hundreds was basically a scam and your mate who must know all this prefers to tilt at windmills. Well Don Quixote good luck with that.
The Texas freeze was mainly a grid issue, but Epstein doesn’t mention this.
The Texas freeze was a failure to weatherise issue, but Epstein doesn’t mention this.
The Texas freeze issue was about power companies scamming customers, but Epstein doesn’t mention this.
The Texas freeze issue was about failure mainly of gas powered generators, but Epstein fails to mention this.
The nuance was that wind turbines along with the gas ones also froze, and Epstein decides to make it about this.
Epstein’s performance in this tragedy is about as Charlatan as Charlatan gets. Now I understand him he gets paid by the same companies that profited from this tragedy, but why on earth do you buy this bucket of shit?
If you genuinely can’t see this guy for what he is and because on principle you can’t accept anything I say, why don’t you just run it past an uninvolved third party. Is there not anyone that you can use as a sounding board?
Don’t you see the contradiction in your own statement?
“Epstein argues that policies that mandate or subsidise renewable energy in Texas and nationwide have led to the construction of fewer coal, gas and nuclear plants, which could be ramped up to handle a surge in demand like the one during the frigid winter storm.”
Can’t you see that if Texas had zero wind turbines and was 100% gas that nothing would have changed. The gas generators froze. The Texas disaster was mainly one of the failure of gas generators. I don’t know how this could be more clear. All the electricity generators in Texas failed because they wern’t protected against cold weather. You can’t ramp up these imaginary power sources because they would have frozen. You can’t summon up power from the national grid because the Texas authorities refused to be part of the national grid because joining the national grid means protecting your power sources against cold weather and yes wind turbines can be weatherised against cold weather.
You are as wrong about Epstein as you were about Pell. If you want to try to understand why you are then start with this podcast.
I will try to respond to your points later.
Thanks, I had a listen. During the storms Epstein is messaging the Governor saying blame wind and solar. The storms lasted from Feb 10 to Feb 20. The Governor on the 16th states that the problem is with wind and solar. Epstein is on the podcast one month later blaming wind and solar while acknowledging that the evidence isn’t in. He claims that wind’s problem is that it doesn’t bow all the time. If you check the weather records for Dallas and Huston
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/dallas/historic?month=2&year=2021
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/houston/historic?month=2&year=2021
You will notice that the wind blew constantly in Dallas. In Houston, there was a 12 hour no wind period on the 16th
To say that the Texas disaster was caused by a lack of wind flies in the face of the easily obtainable records. The wind turbines froze because they lacked simple anti freeze measures that had been recommended but which were not implemented.
But by all means stick with the wind didn’t blow mantra.
Oh, and I had to laugh when Epstein accuses others of explaining away the crisis in terms favourable to their previously held beliefs. This from a guy who was handing out explanations while the storms were yet to abate.
Another interesting thing Epstein states is that prior to the storm wind was supplying more than half the electricity, but then as you know the wind doesn’t always blow. Really? Dallas is fairly centrally located, so let’s look at the wind records of February leading up to the storm and wind speeds at the beginning of the storm.
Feb 1 through to 14
Low speed v high speed
1: 0-15
2: 3-15
3: 16-26
4: 13-27
5: 6-11
6: 13-20
7: 12-16
8: 13-23
9: 11-19
10: 16-19
11: 19-21
12: 17-20
13: 18-20
14: 17-28
So as you can see, the wind speeds were fairly constant before the storm and as the storm hit.
Temperature was the issue and temperature closed down both the gas fired generation and the wind fuelled generation. So why is Epstein so insistent that intermittent supplies are at fault?
Right now I’m watching ABC propaganda on climate change called ‘The Poles Revealed.’ This is what our teachers are shoving down our children’s throats year in and year out! The fact that they can get away with this right across the western world in a Beatlemania level cult of monstrous dimensions is a full blown international disgrace.
The cult is running out of control IMV principally because there is NO credible left in the industrial world! So we get politically inspired junk science on their ABC from start to finish! This is all presented as something from the left led by Prince Charles and all the other usual suspects from the mega rich no less! Ridiculous! So here is a point by point reply.
Stephen Owens April 6, 2022 at 8:20 am
You are correct, the Keystone pipeline was dead the day Biden came to office. Big deal. For some reason, this pipeline has become emblematic of the development v conservation argument. Beats me why, it just seems to be an extension of an already existing pipeline network, but as I said earlier, I have paid the Keystone pipeline issue very little attention.
Greenies know why this project was and is a very big deal! That is why they worked so hard and so dishonestly to stop it. Just as they try to stop developments in Alaska. Just as -where and when they can- they try to stop virtually ALL development right across the planet full stop.
Canada’s oil sands are the second-largest petroleum deposit in the world, so clearly a significant project, but will it fail because they can’t pipe this oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico? Are you suggesting that Canadians are too stupid to refine their own oil or to sell crude oil to anyone but the USA?
Greenies want to stop the development of this fossil fuel resource! They demand people be forced with government policies into ‘renewables’ and out of ‘dirty’ but abundant fossil fuels; they don’t want people to choose for themselves these forms of energy that are what people like myself and Epstein correctly label as the more costly unreliables. They simply say the markets can’t be trusted because of the hidden costs known as externalities, that they happen to know the exact price of mind.
They used to pretend that we were going to run out of these ‘non-renewable’ carbon emitting fuels and because that soon proved to be yet another groundless scare they have simply reversed the problem by declaring that the problem is that we won’t run out of these ‘dirty’ fuels anywhere near fast enough. Oh woe, oh woe!
Gore-Obama-Biden are climate alarmists and Trump republicans are not and Morrison types in Australia are not either despite them bending to what they see as the political tide that they feal they must respond to. The Liberals made Turnbull PM for fucks sake! So the Democrats/ALP are from a proletarian POV worse on this issue than the Republicans/Coalition.
The revolting wealthy aristocrats like Prince Philip and Charles and green cranks like David Attenbough are philosophically anti-people and do not base their thinking on what is good for human flourishing. Epstein does and that is why he is (objectively) in the revolutionary left tradition. The green tradition is a typical owning class’s view of how the world works and who this planet is ultimately for. Proletarians clearly have a vastly different understanding of the world.
There is no settled science of what the fucking climate is doing.
From what I have seen, Epstein is a charlatan, he presents himself as a philosopher when he’s clearly just an author. He allows an interviewer to make a statement that is obviously wrong. He presents the oil industry as hamstrung by Biden, when clearly the oil industry is restricting its own production in an effort to boost prices.
Epstein self evidently is what he does given how many years he has been doing it. If he were someone like Greta Steve would have a point but he is the exact opposite of the person that is promoted by the ALP/ABC/green types. Steve has no grounds for attacking the fact that he has for example worked in this field for some 20 odd years and taken the philosophical approach to the issue.
Greenies want to force up the price of fossil fuels in order to reduce the consumption hence a carbon tax. One of the first things Steve Owens learnt in his economics study was that companies like people maximise their profits not the price of their product and so they sell where ‘the lines cross’ (tending to make more by selling cheap). Boost up the price and lower the total profit is not what profit seekers do.
Just on, “Biden is anti fossil fuel and I know it”. Oil is the most important resource in the modern industrial economy. The USA is a massive producer and user of oil. Biden is a middle of the road democrat. The idea that a US president could be against such a significant industry is breathtaking in its inability to confront reality.
The attitude to the massive Keystone project can’t be hidden nor can Biden following Obama following Gore policies not be noticed. All off to the very important planet saving fortnight conference last November in Glasgow with Greta and Prince Charles and Attenborough all saying the debate is over now you ‘deniers’ must do as you are told.
The oh so important conference did not notice that war in Ukraine was underway and all their anti fossil fuel policies directed at the west were only building a pipeline of money to Putin!
The topic of turning away from imports of fuels to local production of them that is the now actually important and now clear to all did not get a mention! They were all attending an ideotic conference and doing exactly the wrong thing!
Yet another country is now being wrecked by fossil fuel fed machines in a war that will have to be won by fossil fuel fed machines just before fossil fuel fed machines rebuild the country and just before fossil fuel fed machines can again begin to feed the world!
Russia being paid for fossil fuels was the real problem. As it had been for years. I was writing about fascist warmaking as I have been for decades while dismissing the greenie opposition to human progress from the usual suspects claptrap UN climate conference.
All these cranks are praised by your idiot hit piece ‘journalist’ Maxine Joselow who is publishing unreadable BBC/ABC/SBS style alarmist dreck simply pushing their woke ‘climate’ religion. She is not about open honest debate anymore than the usual censors. She is a gross propagandist.
People like Dave McMullen, Arthur Dent, Barry York, Kerry Langer, Patrick Muldowney, Anita Hood etc who Joselow would never know about but who have all made anti woke/green arguments for the last fifty years she would simply smear for being communists and silence us on sight.
This ‘deplatforming’ silencing is the ALP/Greens/woke media method that I have seen being used all my life. Something the Trots got on with as their standard procedure as they nevertheless just rotted away from sheer idiocy. They are just up to the deplatforming rot in a more intensive manner than ever is all.
Joselow knows Epstein must be cancelled because people are starting to listen to him and are seeking out his very useful ‘talking points’ as these issues come up. Trump pulled out of the whole woke joke that is the alarmist racket of the Paris accords. A clear and important division is before us and no surprise Steve is in the greenie life raft.
As sheik Yamani used to say, the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones. The end of the oil age is in sight, and the oil industry won’t go down without some sort of rear guard action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O6jbZ_fdrY&t=3s
And that precisely sums up the wrong way to think about this complex interaction of issues. Hence the need for a philosopher to guide our thinking. Without a useful foundation in philosophy what we construct will not in the end be fit for purpose because we won’t know what is the purpose. It all just becomes what seems like the right attitude to preserve the planet for our children no less.
April 6, 2022 at 11:43 am
Why I think Epstein is a charlatan is because if you are a “philosopher” of the oil industry, and you are talking about constraints on oil, and you don’t mention big Capital then what are you really saying, and please note banks started to refuse big oil funds under the president before Biden you know the guy Tangerine Mussolini
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Big-Oil-Is-No-Longer-Unbankable.html
Why all the fuss just close your eyes, think of England and all the good capitalists will run the world as god planned! Naturally wealthy people use their wealth as they see fit! But they do not think the same just because they are wealthy or control the wealth that others have saved such as the Greg Combeys of this world!
April 6, 2022 at 4:03 pm
The more I watch Epstein, the less confidence I have in what he says. He makes a case that Biden is chocking off supply and that’s the cause of high gas prices. But any cursory examination of the USA immediately exposes the real cause of gas price rises.
The only industry to go against the well known trend of capitalism to reduce the price of what is produced by humans; now I wonder why that is?
In 2020 the last year of Trump US economic growth was -3.41% Not his fault but reduced economic growth puts a brake on gas prices.
Projections for 2021 and 22 put growth at 5.97% and 5.2%. So the US has seen about 10% reversal in growth figures.
The question ought to be what would the likes of Trump and Morrison have done in the face of rising fossil fuel prices? Would they have worked to reverse the trend or would they have joined with the greens as they justified this -in the big picture- unprecedented trend? The answer is clear. Carbon Tax v no carbon tax.
Just on my dismissal of Epstein being a philosopher, he may well be one, but I had a friend who had a doctorate in philosophy and I never heard him or anyone else describe him as a philosopher. He was always described as someone who had a doctorate in philosophy.
Very very sad on your part; but that’s ignorance for you.
April 7, 2022 at 7:40 am
I have been doing some reading. Apparently, the environmentalists are mainly against the tar sands oil because of its 30% extra CO2 emissions.
The US will still import this oil. A lot of Canadian oil gets imported to the US by train. This has been a big boost to the train companies. Warren Buffett is a big owner of trains and a big donor to the Democrats probably just a coincidence.
They would have been against it no matter what. They are always against ‘dirty’ carbon emitting fossil fuels. That is their religion.
Just on a side note doing anything in the US is a nightmare of regulation and litigation.
Trump derangement syndrome is real, but so is Biden derangement syndrome.
But what party would deregulate rather than regulate? As I have said before when the answer is Trump the question is appalling.
April 8, 2022 at 8:31 pm
I tried to watch the hour plus video of Epstein, but gave up because I don’t trust him. I went looking for information from someone I do trust.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grZSxoLPqXI
Well there’s your problem right there!
April 10, 2022 at 8:32 am
In the roll call of intellectuals that you claim will defend Epstein, you have nominated Jordan Peterson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y564PsKvNZs
In this video at the 3-minute mark, Peterson plays his trump card. Renewables won’t work because the sun doesn’t shine at night.
Just bare with me, imagine 15 years into the future when renewables have replaced coal-fired power stations.
Jill average drives home Friday afternoon to spend a relaxing weekend at home. She parks the car in the garage and hooks up her car to the battery and flicks the switch to house powered by car battery. Later on, she has her battery recharge the car. On Saturday the solar panels not only top the house battery up but supply excess electricity to the grid for which the power company will pay her a credit. Now what if it’s overcast for weeks, and we produce less electricity than we expected? Well wind turbines run at night, pumped hydro runs at night, as does stored kinetic energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lp9ixIMKUY
Get on with it then just stop forcing your views on others! Stop knowing what the externalities costs of fossil fed machines is. Take your carbon tax and shove it.
April 10, 2022 at 8:54 am
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/04/06/alex-epstein-climate-skeptic/
Interesting to see that Epstein was behind the lies about what caused the Texas disaster. Much like what happened here in South Australia when a storm blew over electricity transmission towers and Morrison immediately went to the blame renewables lie.
https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1362921045599023107
Dan Burr @DDB66 20 Feb 2021
‘Read up on it. They tripped off because of razor thin margins on backup power designed around wind and solar. When those unreliables died, there wasn’t enough available backup capacity, causing cascading “circuit breakers” to shut gas power.’
And here is the important discussion. For example, demand management deals!
https://anchor.fm/powerhourwithalexepstein/episodes/How-Defunding-Reliable-Energy-Caused-the-Texas-Blackouts-eteaa3 How Defunding Reliable Energy Caused the Texas Blackouts Power Hour with Alex Epstein • Mar 25, 2021
April 10, 2022 at 5:09 pm https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/texas-officials-circulated-climate-skeptic-s-talking-points-power-failures-n1262700
Good.
See, there’s our problem. I talk specifics like what was the wind speed on any of the particular days in question, and you speak in broad strokes, highlighted by the fact that you can work Prince Charles into a conversation.
Only days into the Texas disaster, Epstein knew that renewables were to blame. One month after the Texas disaster, Epstein knew that renewables were to blame.
Any reasonable reconstruction of the facts will conclude that no energy source renewable or non-renewable were to blame.
The Texas energy supply failed because the gas and the wind facilities froze. There was always plenty of gas and plenty of wind, but the production facilities froze. The authorities had been warned to protect the facilities against inclement weather.
Even if wind was the problem, it’s a situation we face here in South Australia. If demand exceeds supply, you just go to rolling black-outs to reduce demand and stop it overwhelming supply.
We are also used to blame shifting. When a storm knocked over transmission lines the federal government were all “look over reliance on renewables” when the truth was that the energy source was irrelevant it was a transmission fault, but that doesn’t stop these highly partisan warriors from transmitting their lies.
Bloody Turnbull
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/13/turnbull-ignored-advice-that-renewable-energy-not-to-blame-for-sa-blackouts
You only think you are specific;
Feb 1 through to 14
Low speed v high speed
1: 0-15
2: 3-15
3: 16-26
4: 13-27
5: 6-11
6: 13-20
7: 12-16
8: 13-23
9: 11-19
10: 16-19
11: 19-21
12: 17-20
13: 18-20
14: 17-28
Now what was the number of hours at each possible spead? You cant answer. What was day 10? 23 hrs at 16 and 1hr at 19 who knows or cares. It is unreliable energy potentials that require reliable backing that the very stupid policies make unprofitable.
You are talking green twaddle.
https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/6305-richard-lindzen
Richard Lindzen Quotes and Sayings – Page 1
“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”
— Richard Lindzen
“Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat’s dream. If you control carbon, you control life.”
— Richard Lindzen
and so on…
But a highly respected philosopher of fossil fuels stated that the wind powered more than 50% of the power prior to Feb 10 on those figures. Didn’t you listen to Epstein’s podcast?
On day 10 at 2300 hrs the wind speed was between 16 and 19 kl/hr it’s there in the record. When Epstein states that the windmills failed, the wind blew at speeds between 16 and 19 kl/hr.
The wind speeds are irrelevant in that no variation in speed would have stopped the crisis because the windmills froze. The gas fired generators could not fix the problem because they froze. Hypothetical extra gas fired generators would not have helped because they would have froze.
The issue was not the type of resource, it was that the generators had not been protected against cold weather.
No matter how many times Turnbull states that renewables were the problem, he can’t overcome the fact that the transmission towers fell over.
No matter how many times Epstein states that renewables were the problem, he can’t overcome the fact that all generators froze.
See, that’s the problem with having your ideology lead your argument, reality has a habit of proving you wrong.
At this point it’s worth quoting Keynes, allegedly someone called him a hypocrite because he was now arguing the opposite of his previous argument to which he stated when the facts change I change my opinion, what do you do?
The stone age didn’t end https://anchor.fm/powerhourwithalexepstein/episodes/Best-of-Power-Hour-The-Future-of-Oil-With-Michael-Lynch-e1951da is a sensible discussion, very wide-ranging not to be found on the ABC/BBC.
Bushfires in Australia and the ALP/ABC/Green scare https://anchor.fm/powerhourwithalexepstein/episodes/Bjorn-Lomborg-on-the-bad-climate-thinking-of-COP-26-e1a6ipa endless alarmist rubbish.
Epstein being open honest and above board with yet another honest person! Tuvalu is bigger.
Facebook censoring and called out. Overall fewer deaths. Yet blocked on Facebook.
Thank you for the Lomborg interview, always happy to listen to him. I was already aware of the misrepresentation of the Australian fires. He didn’t say it, but if you aren’t aware that we have had 6 fires of greater magnitude and 6 fires with a higher death toll, then you aren’t following the argument. But I wonder why we have gone to Lomborg, when clearly the question in front of us is the Texas freeze.
Was the Texas freeze due to the failure of infrequent energy resources as Epstein argues, or was the Texas freeze due to mismanagement of all the generating resources as I argue.
Did hundreds of people die because the wind didn’t blow, or did hundreds of people die because the infrastructure froze?
I think that you know the answer, and hence the diversion to Lomborg.
PS did you watch the vid I linked to of Hans Rosling?
I’m just amazed that no attention is paid to corporate. Texas wasn’t a disaster for everyone. One guy from a gas company described it as “hitting the jackpot”
excerpt from Washington Post
“For companies that are publicly owned, some details have trickled out. Comstock Resources, a gas drilling company controlled by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, appeared to perform well. “We were able to get super premium prices” on natural gas, Chief Financial Officer Roland Burns said in a Feb. 17 call with investors.
Comstock pushed sales in the energy market, he said, and “that’s going to pay off handsomely.” The cold snap that devastated Texas was “like hitting the jackpot,” Burns said.”
Why does Epstein never acknowledge that coal-fired power stations shut down during the storm. Who would have thought that a frozen pile of coal is useless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcrsgdl_hP0
This is why people died and will die from the cold in Texas.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/04/texas-energy-industry-donations-legislature/
All while the prophet of the industry remains mute, well not mute more like very active in diverting attention.
PS can EV’s tow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXFHgoon7lg
In Texas there were 3 big energy sources, Gas, wind and coal.
During the 2021 freeze, Gas production declined 55% wind 22% and coal 18%. None needed to decline at all if they had been fortified against extreme weather. Surrounding states didn’t have to declare an emergency because they drew down energy from unaffected states. And what do the corporates say while people are dying “We have hit the jackpot” Can you point me in the direction where Epstein criticises corporate America.
https://environmenttexas.org/blogs/blog/txe/texas-freeze-timeline-events
You might need to help me with this one. The way I read it is that ERCOT had an emergency back up plan where they would have black-outs, but not of emergency infrastructure. Some power plants were part of the Emergency infrastructure, but ERCOT was unaware of them and included them in places that had power cut off.
So ERCOT cut off electricity to power generators during the power shortage. You could not make this stuff up. Texas has several prior freeze events, but decides not to take remedial action. The freeze occurs, and the Governor blames renewables, which is patently false. Hundreds of people die while companies celebrate hitting the jackpot with sky-high prices. The Government fails to take remedial action after the freeze, as energy companies make significant political donations.
https://www.puc.texas.gov/agency/resources/reports/UTAustin_(2021)_EventsFebruary2021TexasBlackout_(002)FINAL_07_12_21.pdf
Wow, this argument has made me look at Alex Epstein way more than I think is good for me. One argument he makes is that renewables are so expensive that it prohibits energy companies from properly winterising their gas turbines, the public will just not bare the expense. Really?
The other argument he makes is that coal and gas are not inhibited by low temperature as opposed to wind which obviously cant operate in really cold places. I think that he states that coal and gas are inherently ok with low temp but wind not so much could someone point out this to him
https://mashable.com/article/wind-turbines-texas
https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1493993649767694338
He also states that when it gets cold, the wind stops blowing. You may notice in the figures I produced earlier that wind speeds increased during the Texas freeze, just another of Alex’s what shall we call them Oh yes lies definitely what they are Lies
Good news I have gone on Twitter and corrected Mr Epstein about wind speeds during the freeze which he says went down and about wind turbines in Antarctica whereby his logic they won’t work this is fun.
I’ll give you a tip, coal is for the knuckle dragging past. Elon Musk is the world’s leading visionary, here’s a taste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRvf00NooN8
Just a correction in my post April 17 9.44 am I misread the chart, the percentages are not the failure rate but the share of supply.
Despite this, it’s interesting to see Mr Epstein twist the argument. First he says that the power failure is down to wind, then when it becomes apparent that gas was the most prominent failure, he blames wind for soaking up the funds needed to weatherise gas.
Having studied a bit of philosophy at Uni, I tend to back away from any philosopher who wants to help me think straight. Plato lived in the Athenian democracy, but he opposed democracy. Hobbs lived through the English revolution but sided with the King, Descartes struggled to work out if he existed, but the cake is taken by Martin Heidegger a world leading philosopher and card-carrying Nazi. Save me from these people who want to help me think straight.
Obviously, Steve Owens is not trying to grasp why he is wrong and Epstein is correct. Epstein understands why unreliable inputs are setting up the circumstances where the failure becomes inevitable and eventually results in the manner of a straw that breaks the camel’s back. The resulting cascade of outages is what we require energy experts to fully understand and neither I nor Steve is one. Epstein IS an expert in this field by virtue of the amount of effort over many years spent at the work. He spells it out but Steve can’t hear him. Because of the unreasonable belief that Epstein is trying to con people. Epstein is just unable to slow bigots down long enough to get the little grey cells firing.
This is a repeat of Steve’s inability to grasp and develop the Pell nonsense. It was easy to spot that Pell’s conviction was unsafe and had to be set aside and yet it was not by the 2 Victorian Supreme Court Judges! Both the President and Chief Justice were being ridiculous in the face of what was self-evident from the dissenting justice. The High Court result (as the facts had come out) was dead easy to predict. What was interesting was that gradually as the court materials became available sufficient evidence was bit by bit revealed that demonstrated a shocking case of a police force gone quite feral and people of all manner of otherwise capable intelligence swept up and into a hysterical fiasco.
The important point is that even with all of Steve’s many years of experience of people with various mental disorders of one sort or another saying things that have no connection to reality, he could not discern that this ‘J’ was a man that had a full-blown mental condition and that none of what Pell was accused of by J was even possible. I could spot what was being danced around! NONE OF J’s stories was even POSSIBLE was eventually proven to be the case by not just me and the redoubtable Criss Friel but by all manner of people.
Take a deep breath and start by reading Dave’s Bright Future.
A yes fossil fuels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYDMC3q-Ljc