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13 Reasons Why Greta Thunberg is Wrong

The taboo side of the climate debate

January 16, 2023

“Things are never as bad as they seem” - Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

A quote from a book I was definitely supposed to read in high school, and certainly never did.

We live in a world where every headline must be hyperbolic (don’t look at me, you opened the email). Every situation a death knell. Every conversation a battle.

We live in a world that has stripped any nuanced conversation from important topics and replaced it with shouting matches and character assassinations.

Today, I hope to inject a little nuance into the conversation around climate change and show you things aren’t as bas as they seem…

  1. Fossil fuel energy has reduced climate disaster related deaths by 98% in the last century.

  2. People are 9 times more likely to die from a cold related death than a heat related death.

  3. Cost effective energy (through fossil fuels) has reduced the prevalence of extreme poverty across the planet (<$2/day) from 42% in 1980 to less than 10% today.

  4. The world needs more cheap energy: 3 billion people use less electricity in a day than a refrigerator. One third of the world’s population uses wood/dung for heating/cooking. As a consequence, indoor smoke inhalation is one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide for children under 5.

  5. Fossil fuels provide over 80% of the world’s energy. A percentage that is still growing.

  6. Damage from climate disasters as a percentage of GDP is flat despite increased costal populations and government subsidized insurance.

  7. There is a direct correlation between wealth of a population and willingness to enact better climate policy. We can draw a logical conclusion then, that the best way to reduce climate impact is to provide as much cheap energy as possible.

  8. Coal consumption (the dirtiest form of energy) has returned to global all-time highs in the face of the energy crisis in Europe thanks to policy changes to unreliable wind and solar energy.

  9. Despite the rapid push for wind and solar energy they still only account for 5% of the world’s energy use and are massively subsidized in their current state.

  10. Metals required for production of renewable energy to meet 2050 goals will outpace current global supply capabilities.

  11. Extreme UN projected sea level rise is 3 feet this century (~1/3 Inch per year). While this level will cause some migratory changes, it is nowhere near catastrophic. 100,000,000 people already live below high tide sea level.

  12. Increased CO2 levels have caused a “greening” of the planet in dry areas equal to about 15% of the earths surface. As a result there are more trees in the northern hemisphere than 40 years ago and our agricultural production has become more efficient.

  13. Small modular nuclear fission reactors and nuclear fusion reactors are likely to become commercially viable within the foreseeable future, changing the modelling of most existing climate science.

The Refinery

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