Nothing is Sustainable

Good guest post by Willis Eschenbach over at Watts Up With That

... “Sustainable Development” is just an airy-fairy moonbeam fantasy, a New Age oxymoron. In the real world, it can’t happen. I find the term “sustainable development” useful for one thing only.

When people use it, I know they have not thought too hard about the issues.

Finally, there is an underlying arrogance about the concept that I find disturbing. Forty percent of the world’s people live on less than $2 per day. In China it’s sixty percent. In India, three-quarters of the population lives on under $2 per day.

Denying those men, women, and especially children the ability to improve their lives based on some professed concern about unborn generations doesn’t sit well with me at all. The obvious response from their side is “Easy for you to say, you made it already.” Which is true. The West got wealthy by means which “sustainable development” wants to deny to the world’s poor.

Damned straight. Read the whole thing, as they say.

This echoes a point we've made here at the HQ on many occasions when greenies get all warm and fuzzy cuddling their Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs (or is it Leaves? ... no matter).

Just where do they think that electricity comes from? Oh, right ... the magic holes in the wall.

I hate to break it to them, but in the U.S. about 90% of the juice that powered their toys in 2010 came mainly from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants with the remainder from renewables.

Of course, a third of that renewable total was from hydroelectric power. Try to get a dam built and see how far the greens let you go with it. It's the ugly stepsister of renewable energy that they just keep around to pad the stats.

Wind and solar? Tiny - around 1.5% of total. But even then, where do they think the wind turbines and solar panels came from? More magic, I guess.

The simple fact of the matter is, like Willis said, when you hear someone blathering on about things like "sustainable development" and "clean energy", he might as well have a big red sign on his forehead that says "DUNCE".

posted by Andy at 08:06 AM

| Access Comments