The Paris Accordion–Breathe in Breathe Out
June 3, 2017
I have been following the Paris Climate Accord closely from the moment Obama got us involved. And YES, I am one of those people who simply do not buy into all the Global Warming hysteria! Why? Well, for many reasons…perhaps it is because I grew up seeing the very first Earth Day established in a time when “Scientists” were calling for the end of the world as we know it. I remember clearly being in middle school and listening to my teacher explain to the class that a terrible Ice Age was soon upon us and that perhaps we would all die, and then there was the great dying out famine that would kill BILLIONS, and the droughts, and the pollution and the overpopulation of the world, the ozone depletion… ALL those Scientists confirming a child’s worst fears—the earth and all those living upon it would soon PERISH, and I mean soon—by the time I was an adult I would certainly be a cast member in a Twilight Zone episode. Was I scared by all the reports from these SCIENTISTS? Heck yes! But it wasn’t so much the doom and gloom predictions from the scientific community that scared me the most, it came from my teachers who not only believed all the scare tactics but made darn sure their students believed it as well. THIS is where it all started…the seeds were planted in very fertile soil in MY generation and have grown into a multitude of human trees walking around afraid to inhale the very Carbon that keeps them alive, because, science.
Now, this brings us to the Paris Accord. So what is this agreement? For the simple mind, it is an agreement between 195 countries to stop polluting and begin to utilize alternative forms of energy that won’t cause GreenHouse gases. However, a LOT of money is needed to fund these efforts. We are encountering many developing countries who just can’t afford to buy into alternative forms of energy like solar and wind. And then we have countries like CHINA that will receive billions of dollars for these efforts but have no time frame to actually implement these alternatives energy forms. However, what most don’t realize is the China is actually producing solar panels and selling them to other countries. We’ll get into that in just minute because it is HUGE! Now let’s take a quick look at a very well developed, industrious country, say like the US and our commitment to going green. We have giant solar fields and acres and acres wind turbine facilities that produce tons of energy, right? So, it works here in the US, it should work all around the world, especially in developing countries! Let’s take a look at how well our own alternative energy productions is doing. After all the US sets the Litmus for all things pure and good.
How well do our Wind farms do in producing power? According to Newsweek,
“Over the past 35 years, wind energy – which supplied just 4.4% of US electricity in 2014 – has received US $30 billion in federal subsidies and grants. These subsidies shield people from the uncomfortable truth of just how much wind power actually costs and transfer money from average taxpayers to wealthy wind farm owners, many of which are units of foreign companies. Financial advisory firm Lazard puts the cost of generating a megawatt-hour of electricity from wind at a range of $37 to $81. In reality, the trueprice tag is significantly higher. This represents a waste of resources that could be better spent by taxpayers themselves.” Wind farms are a great idea on a small, private scale where one is looking for free energy to supplement a home or business electric bill, but on a large, wind farm scale, to many factors must be taken into account. The Wind, like the sun is unpredictable and the cost to build, run and maintain Wind Turbines usually exceeds the potential energy production, at least at this point. This is why we are seeing more and more Wind Turbines around the country sitting still. The sun, however, in certain places is much more dependable in collecting free energy, so we can assume that those who own large solar fields are raking in huge profits. Well, wrong again, the profits were huge in the beginning, because well, the sun shines. But then comes greed and bad business practices which have thrown our giant solar companies into hot water, with the largest solar company in the world in bankruptcy! Take SunEdison for instance, the worlds largest solar field is now in bankruptcy. How can this be? According to Technocracy News, “The darling industry of Sustainable Development is solar energy and wind turbines. The global policy of Sustainable Development (aka Technocracy) is to destroy carbon-based energy and b) replace the deficit with alternative energy. The first problem is that Technocracy is a crackpot vision of Utopia that has never been tried, much less tested, in the real world. There is no concrete evidence that it would ever work, even under ideal conditions. And yet, Technocrats everywhere, including the United Nations, assure us that this is the hottest thing since the invention of electricity.”
Then we have, Sungevity, a California-based Solar company filing for bankruptcy last March. “Sungevity was one of seven residential solar power companies, which Congress announced in September it would formally investigate for wrongfully receiving billions in tax credits from the government. The federal government likely handed out roughly $25 billion in cash grants and tax credits to these companies.” Or how about Beamreach that wentbust in January after it received$3 million in Department of Energy funding in 2008. The majorsolar companySunEdison also recently declared bankruptcy. Roughly five major solar companies closed up shop in 2015, which follows the historic tendency that solar power companies tend to go bankrupt as soon as the subsidies are cut off.”
“Solar and wind power get 326 and 69 times more in subsidies than coal, oil, and natural gas, according to 2013 Department of Energy data collected by Forbes. Green energy in the U.S. received $13 billion in subsidies during 2013, compared to $3.4 billion in subsidies for conventional sources of energy and $1.7 billion in subsidies for nuclear, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Researchers found that expanding net metering or maintaining it for long periods of time will drive up power prices. Without government support, solar energy is non-viable, according to a 2015 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” So there we have it, plain and simple. Although, according to fastcompany.com, pulling out of the Paris Agreement, “It could also hurt job growth. The fastest-growing occupation in the U.S. is now wind turbine technicians, and there are moresolar jobs than jobs in the coal industry. It sends a signal both to companies and the 3 million people here who work in clean energy that America doesn’t care about those jobs, and America doesn’t care about the fastest-growing industry in the country, says Bob Keefe, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs, a nonpartisan group of business owners and investors.” Just reading this article makes me wonder if the author has done ANY research on the failing Solar and Turbine industry and that thousands have lost their jobs as these companies struggle to reorganize. And these “sustainable” companies are clearly ONLY sustainable with government assistance. And if the United States can not make these solar and wind-powered companies thrive, that is a very good indicator that dumping BILLIONS of US dollars into a vague and unenforceable concept that we can make it work in developing countries, when in fact we can’t even make it work in our own. But, who is dominating the solar energy field and putting many of the US companies out of business? China! YES, China! China is the largest supplier and consumer of solar! In a great article by Understanding solar.com written two years ago, “Following the very high-profile bankruptcy of SunTech, last year it was clear that China’s thin-film conglomerate Hanergy was also on the ropes, after buying up a handful of thin-film firms in the US over the last four years…In an extraordinary moment for global finance, in September, the Shanghai stock exchange fell 8.5% on what even Chinese media described as “Black Monday”, in the biggest drop since the very early days of the global financial crisis. Then the next day, it dropped another 7.6%, creating panic in the US and EU financial markets.”
More recently, in May of 2016, Bloomberg warned that the Chinese solar manufacturing giant Yingli may also be about to follow the former Chinese solar panel superstar SunTech into bankruptcy, after warning that it would be very difficult to repay $216 million that came due in May.” So how many of you knew this about China? My guess, virtually NONE! About as many that understand what the Paris Agreement is all about! Now we must wonder why a handful, albeit a powerful handful of American business are screaming FOUL regarding Trump’s pull out of the Paris Accord. Hmmm couldn’t be about the free money that their companies would receive, could it? It’s really ALL about the money! The entire deal is all about money! The Paris Accord is deeply rooted in money, GLOBAL MONEY with very little to do with reducing carbon emissions or creating renewable energy and a majority of the money coming from the US. If we really look at this loosely written “agreement”, nothing really changes in the climate except for the amount of money flooding out of the US! According to the National Review, “Unsurprisingly, the sum of many pledges to do nothing is: nothing. When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology compiled the pledges and compared them with its own preexisting projection, it found a temperature reduction by 2100 of only 0.2°C. When the analysts compared the pledges with the projection created by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change back in 2000, they found no improvement at all.”
Here’s the bottom line, I am sick and tired of all the scare tactics I have lived through in my life regarding the fate of our planet. From the very first Earth day, before its founder murdered and then composted his girlfriend, to all the so-called scientists whose end of the world predictions have been false, and let’s also not forget Al Gore’s 2008 prediction: “Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”, and yet people still believe the lie!
So if renewable energy is your thing, that’s great, FREE ENERGY is there for the taking. But when you add a bunch of greedy governments, political bureaucrats and Technocrats to the mix, it will fail, every time. It’s not that solar and wind power doesn’t work, it’s just that these things are free; “free and government” simply can not co-exist, and that is the entire point…Money! Money and Control!
Daniella Cross is the Guardian of 4Earth and the featured writer.
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