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European industry is in freefall, and Net Zero is to blame. Here, climate economist Bjorn Lomborg – author of Best Things First and False Alarm – explains how panic over climate change is doing far more damage than climate change itself. Swapping cheap and dependable fossil fuels for unreliable and expensive renewables costs our economies trillions, but for little environmental gain, Lomborg says. Plus, he tackles the myth of the ‘climate apocalypse’ and explains why there are more polar bears than ever.
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About The Author
Energy greatly increases productivity and increases the market we can buy from, reducing the cost to live the life we do today.
Africa ( for example ) needs cheaper , more abundent , more energy dense power sources ( and potable water ) .
Much of the world is in no position to use resource CONSUMING energy systems to further wealthy nations
" clean " energy initiatives .
Unfortunately, Lomborg doesn't get the real point: the whole CO2 climate narrative is a hoax, a fraud, the second biggest scientific hoax in history. There is no credible empirical evidence — none — that increasing CO2 has a significant effect on the earth's surface temperature. The paleoclimate record clearly shows that temperature has more effect on CO2 than CO2 has on temperature.
It's not a problem. There has been no Climate Change from global warming which was expected to start at 1.5°C global warming with stronger observable hurricanes in the Gulf-of-America (Gulf-of-Mexico). NASA reports global warming at 1°C where it has been since 1992 after falling from a reported 1.1°C in 1991. The cause of global warming is not known in 2025.
It is scientifically impossible for greenhouse gas behavior to cause global warming. Earth's greenhouse effect is a primary example of a system always in saturation where further increasing its active elements can not increase its effect.
All the greenhouse radiant energy from the earth's is completely absorbed in earth's water vapor saturated greenhouse effect a few meters from the radiating surface to a maximum of 20 meters from the radiating surface adding 5.55°C (10°F) to earth's average temperature and can't have its overall effect changed. I learned this in 1978 USA high school science.
The Arctic region has been warming with the proving theory being from warm Atlantic Ocean waters migrating deeper and more frequently into the Arctic Ocean warming it and the region. The lower northern hemisphere has been slightly cooling in the thousands of degrees celsius.
Greenhouse radiant energy measuring equipment can be used to measured and test to see if there is any remaining greenhouse radiant energy more than 20 meters from a radiating surface in earth's lower atmosphere.
Greenhouse radiant energy is a lower frequency than far inferred and behaves as a high frequency radio wave loosely interacting with the lumpy electrostatic fields of greenhouse gases which slowly drain the greenhouse radiant energy down to zero.
Greenhouse gases have the characteristic of being composed of largely differing sized atoms giving them a lumpy electrostatic fields such as H20 water vapor and CH4 methane with the diatomic gases O2 and N2 not interacting with greenhouse radiant energy. CO2 carbon dioxide is almost inert as a greenhouse gas.
Wild AC from renewable energy: Wild AC from solar voltaic and wind turbine generated electricity is very difficult and expensive to support by the public power grid. Large amounts of wild AC is reliably supported by natural gas turbine generators running at 70% fuel consumption high readiness making little to no electricity where 100% output would 100% backup the wild AC. This consumes more natural gas at its lowest consumption than making all the electricity from efficient running natural gas combined cycle plants. The UK is culling wind turbine farm output to much lower more steady amounts to save natural gas. Germany is doing this as well publicly stating they are experiencing a "wind draught" for the lower percentage of wild AC on the public power grid.
Some locations are using massive banks of marine sized diesel generators running greatly on natural gas to support wild AC that don't have the high readiness fuel cost of gas turbine generators. The Diesel engines have a service life running nearly continuously with a lot of service tending of 3 years. A gas turbine generator has a service life of over 10 years with little maintenance. Hydropower is used in Scandinavian countries for backing up wild AC with no readiness cost. It's not clear how this is done. Traditional hydropower turbines react too slowly as do steam turbines to backup large amounts of wild AC.
Natural gas in the US even at breakeven pricing is too expensive a fuel for base load electricity generation compared to a new ultra supercritical clean coal power station burning high BTU bituminous coal. The estimated crossover fueling price between the new coal power station is at $0.80 per million BTUs of natural gas in 2022. The off-season wholesale low price for natural gas in the US June 2024 was $2.50 per million BTUs over three times the fueling costs of the coal plant at the cheapest natural gas prices of the year. The new coal plant costs a lot more per GW than a natural gas combined cycle plan to build and staff.
If the UK were to reinvigorate its coal mining even at twice the cost of US coal a new ultra supercritical clean coal power station in the UK would have a fueling cost at less than 1/6 the that of natural gas. The UK cost of wholesale natural gas was at US equivalents in Oct. 2024 $10.50 per million BTUs natural gas. The UK has high quality British bituminous coal. The UK hasn't implemented the high efficiency automated coal mining used in the US causing mining coal in the UK to be more expensive than the US. British coal tends to come from very deep mines that also adds cost over more near surface and surface mining of coal in the US.
ALL climate spending is money laundering
Net Zero Stupidity on the other hand sounds like a good plan
I live in the UK. Energy prices are horrendous. And it’s always cold here. We have 5 hot days a year. If the climate has increased, can someone tell the weather.
Fixing the climate? Really? There are many ridiculous mainstream ideas, but this has to be top of the list.
They'll achieve net zero when they invent a perpetual motion machine.
Even Mr. Lomborg seem to think that CO2 can be the start button for global climate change. CO2 seem to have an effect but is not very significant looking at the physics of the gas. Climate chang has been part and parcel of the planet's existence ever since it became habitable for life as we define it. We as humans do have a negative effect on the planet but that is mostly in the destruction of habitats that negatively effect on the fauna and flora that developed there and is very much part of the habitability as conditions are now. We as a specie have an incredible ability to adapt and that is where we should focus on should it become necessary. I think that most people who claims to be expert climate scientists does not have the humility to acknowledge that they do not know enough and that the planet's climate machinery is way beyond human understanding at this stage. Listening to a lot of noise it seems that this climate change has been in the making at least the last 300 years and the rise in temp. is still very low.
Climate communism is financial suicide, and literal suicide 🤷
"net zero" Comunist take over 😮
Send us all back to pre supply ndustrial living standerds. No thanks
National treasure Attenborough lied about the demise of the Polar bears. That was after he lied about the demise of Walruses. They are all lying to keep the scam going.
Zealots are winning the day, sadly they are now in government.
Trump has DoGE'd the Net Zero Scam 😢
Bjorn is of the Ubermensch 😮
Gaia is of two Great Cycles of Earth…#1. The Abiogenic Hydrocarbons Cycle feeding the vast Non-Chloroplastitic microbial environment inside the planetary body…#2. The Carbon Dioxide Cycle that feeds the vast Chloroplastitic environment on the surface
You should see what we in Australia are doing to are country with the BS net zero we are now broke.
The only way to be net zero is not to be born.
You are not born, you do not pollute.
Alternative sources seems to problematic at this time really knee jerking won't help
The Arctic summer ice volume has declined by 80% in the last 45 years.
We have a ‘climate apocalypse’ . The data is in piomas.
Crime HAS gone up, drastically, in the US. 6 or 7 years ago I would have agreed with you, but the judges and prosecutors who equate jail with 'slavery' has DESTROYED this country, at least in our cities. And, also, many, many, crimes are no longer reported.
Carbon is not as big a problem as you're trying to make it
Another wealth transfer scheme.
China is building many more coal power stations.
Australia is selling our coal to them and they sell us back bloody wind turbines and solar panels DOH!
Our electricity bills are sending us broke.
No matter how any one wants to spin it until the world gets natural gas replacing most of the coal fired plants ,which inits self will greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the developed countries that can afford it nuclear has to become the base load energy , the developing world will continue to use fossil fuels to get to our standard of living . Until this happens, all i see is a mass amount of climate grifting going on . Ellites and corporations are making billions of dollars off of this yearly. Check out the Glasgow banking alliance for net zero . The one that marc carney and others where promoting until the usa started investigating, and is likely to sue for their cartel like scheme. Causing the banks to pull out of . There is more than one thinks tat is going on inthe name of saving the planet and its not good for the average person.
That's this man's opinion.
'They' know by how much the 🌡️will go up if nothing is done.'They' know how much fossil fuels will have to eliminated to stop the rise in 🌡️,exactly??So every EV should have a measured amount,a quantity,a value,a percentage it contributes to lowering the 🌡️.Can any of those geniuses tell us that value??
Pay so called scientists squillions to support your agenda and sit back see the results. They will do and say ANYTHING for funding. Its human nature. $$$$$$$$$$$$ hullo?
Building roads and construction are energy intensive.
Net zero is a weapon of the WEF to enslave europe
Climate Remediation Suggestion to reduce global warming and reduce ocean acidification.
There is a lot of discussion and no full agreement about Global Warming, whether it really exists, how serious a threat and the role of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. However, the following is generally agreed. Namely that a lot of CO2 has been released into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution and a lot of it has ended up in solution in sea waters. There is at least 150 times as much CO2 in a cubic meter of sea water as there is in a cubic meter of atmosphere at STP. This is acidifying the sea waters and possibly harming Coral Reefs and other fauna. There has also been some agreement that the Temperature of the Earth has warmed somewhat.
The Earth's rotation and the Coriolis Effect has formed several Tropical/Semi-Tropical Oceanic Gyres,(google "Oceanic Currents" and "Oceanic Gyres"} within which the mass of sea water is rotating, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Anything floating, i.e., less dense than sea water tends to float towards the center of the Gyre. There are five main Gyres all of which are Tropical/Semitropical. They are the North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, North Atlantic, and South Atlantic Oceans. Together they form a very large proportion of the 70% of the Earth's surface which is covered by water.
The North Pacific Gyre has a lot of floating debris, "the Great Pacific Garbage Patch", some of it being debris washed off Japan by tsunamis following the recent Fukushima Earth Quake. The Southern Hemisphere Gyres do not appear to contain much floating debris.
The North Atlantic Gyre is unique. It contains the Sargasso Sea which is characterized by the presence of two species of Sargassum which float by virtue of oxygen-filled follicles. It was discovered (first documented) by Columbus from his voyage in 1492. There is a Sargasso Sea Commission, with an Office in Washington DC, which is charged with protecting the Sargasso Sea from pollution etc. There is a website that basically describes all of the positive ecological values of the Sea.
Since 2011 the Sargassum appears to be overflowing from the Sargasso Sea and moving via the west bound currents across the north coast of South America into the Caribbean and sometimes into the Gulf of Mexico. This has been attributed to agricultural run off from the USA or Brazil but might be due to the increased levels of CO2 in solution in the sea water.
It has been washing up on beaches through out this region, as one might expect to happen. When it dies and rots it emits H2S. Since a lot of these beaches have tourism as their main industry, the weed has to be removed manually which has given Sargassum a bad name. There are several Facebook entities that keep track of Sargassum landings and there are frequent postings enquiring about Sargassum occurrence on specific tourist areas.
The occurrence of Sargassum in the Caribbean would, however, make it very easy to put live Sargassum into the Pacific off the west coast of Mexico. From there the currents would carry it all the way across the Pacific, photosynthesizing and growing all the way absorbing a lot of CO2 and heat energy, photosynthesis is an endothermic reaction. Absorbing CO2 from the Ocean would allow more CO2 from the Atmosphere to dissolve in the sea as well as reducing the amount of acidification. The Sargassum would probably stay in the North Pacific Gyre but some might drift into the South Pacific.
One might balk at the idea of covering a lot of the Oceans with Sargassum but it does have uses. It can be used to make ethanol, paper or cardboard. Some one in the Caribbean is making construction bricks from it and others are feeding it to goats.
If there appears to be some benefit from Pacific Sargassum we could easily add Sargassum to the other Gyres using ships that are transiting the Panama Canal. It seems likely that some Sargassum will eventually get into the South Atlantic Gyre, but that may take a while.
I would welcome any thoughts.
Robert O Ducharme PhD, MSc, BA (Oxon)
(rodincus@aol.com).
The UN warning is just another WEF propaganda tool and both organisations are anti human and should be defended.
This is Australia problem our government is railroading net zero at any cost on road to 3rd world country
If renewables are so unfeasible, how come Octopus energy has become the UKs biggest energy provider (25% market share and growing) within 10 years of startup, and 100% of the energy it delivers is from renewables?
Climate change is no more a problem now than it ever has been.
Quite apart from the fact it will achieve nothing, Net Zero is a solution looking for a problem.
Same old same old with Lomborg; very selective in choosing evidence and ignores findings that do not support his position. Not surprised, as he has a history of cherry picking from the papers of actual climate scientists–in order to distort them.
Voice of reason. Greta and all the Gretoids reject this.
Calling out bloody stupid ideas, conservation of resources is necessary but so is the economy to provide funding for lifting the needs of the underdeveloped countries. Don't be stupid and destroy developed economies for unachievable results!
Problem, reaction, solution. The elite class know how to play us
In the UK it is quite mad. Electricity is 4 times as expensive as in the US and still going up. We charge towàrd net zero when we produce only 0.9% of global emissions, so what we do is totally irrelevant.
One thing that's clear is that China, SE Asia and the other BRICS+ countries who now make up half the world's GDP, are only interested in economic growth, not net-zero. Without a change in direction Europe will slide into poverty while they thrive.
Why does he want to fix something that's naturally occurring?
That's what annoys me about Bjørn Lomborg – he is afraid of actually saying that there is no problem.
22.000 years ago Denmark and England were connected. But since then the sea rose 125+ meters.
That rise in the sea water is still happening, only now it's claimed to be driven by man, not nature.
To that one can expect the 'but it's worse!' clapback. How do you know? From the climate models that don't work with past data?
Or have they altered all the old data by now?
zero net zero
Its not a stupidity. Its evil. You are giving those demons too much credit.
Net Zero is just another in the world of performative politics and pandering to the noisy minority groups that costs the silent majority all of its disposable income funnelled into corporate subsidies.
If we were thinking straight we cpuld assume that China amd the CCP were the ones behind the push for destroying the weat….. Firat they uahed the globalisation of production, tgen they started quietly buying up all the western properties, plants and even infrastructure ..
Now they are expanding while supporting the Zero Carbon CC BS LIES via the UN etc…… Mark my words a certain fraction of the Elitists are in bed with these CCP communusts Leaders!!!
We're going to be muxh less poorer and MORE SUSEPTABLE …… THATS THE ENTIRE PLAN……THE ELITISTS WANT US POORER!!!
Man is a tropical animal species that dies without heating, clothing and/or shelter (housing) at temperatures below 18° C.
It all started with the biggest grifter of all – Al Gore who’s made a killing on the climate
Bjorn is stupid too – climate change is NOT a problem and the arrogante to think "we" can fix it change the climate (change) 🤣🤣🤣 Lomborg is just another WEF puppet, very disappointing.
Why not let the Earth react to increased CO2. Humans aren't the only species capable of killing itself. Plants take their food from the atmosphere and it isn't replaced. 120ppm = end of life. Each iceage removes 20-30ppm