This author, Jonathan Koomey, is being promoted by a science group I belong to (National Center for Science Education). He is promoting global warming’s money-making potential, and has written a book about how to cash in on it. He invokes Winston Churchill and World War II, and describes climate change as “much worse.” He proposes reducing the world’s infrastructure by 7% per year (compounded), and since the developing countries will continue to develop, he notes that the reductions will come disproportionately from the developed world.
His suggestion of dismantling infrastructure (several of his graphs go to zero for carbon emissions in the next few decades) means, in practice, that his plan will do more damage to society, and cause more deaths, than World War II. So, in that sense, it IS worse.
But it is the religion of catastrophism that is causing the damage, not “climate change.” Still, he intends to make money, and to see fellow catastrophists make money, while doing this damage in the name of “saving the planet” — hence the book.
I have no problem with entrepreneurism, though in this case much of the cash to be leeched from taxpayers. I am intrigued by the constant drumbeat of leftists that “deniers” (their word for people who disagree with their interpretation of the science) are “well-funded” by “evil oil companies.” Koomey is (of course) a Berkeley academic, the California institution that benefited from a $500 million dollar grant from BP — the largest gift ever given to a university. After the oil spill, some demanded that this money be returned. But the Berkeley folks found in their hearts to forgive BP long enough to accept the money.
When the deal was first announced for BP’s half-billion-dollar oil research grant, academics were outraged that BO would actually have a say in what research was done. The governing board originally outnumbered them three-to-one, but they simply said “okay, then we’ll go somewhere else.” Berkeley saw reason, and accepted the money in 2007 to be controlled by a board made up of half Berkeley academics and half BP people.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
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