Just a few days ago I met a person in a bar who tried to convince me of the benefits of combustion engines and the dangers of regenerative, green energy. At first he was very sympathetic, an engineer, but the conversation got worse and we stopped, agreeing on “too much negative energy”.
His opinion was that Germany as the Auto country can not afford to stop building combustion engines, the spearhead and best of modern engineering. And that too many wind power plants would “steal” too much energy out of the atmosphere. And anyway, all the money invested there is wrongly invested, because it won’t help us through the dark doldrums that will come sooner or later, he said.
Dark Doldrums
Dark doldrums are a myth that anti-green, anti-climate lobbyists spread to create fear of the new technologies on the climate front. Same applies to the story of stealing the wind or killing the birds by giant wind power rotors. Well, almost. Anyhow, cats are worse, both for birds and the climate.
In the end of 2023, Germany experienced a dark doldrum or dark lull (“Dunkelflaute“), even a cold dark doldrum (“eiskalte Dunkelflaute”). For 105 hours, there was no solar and wind power available, almost none. Nobody died, starved, froze to death, because our grid is built for that. Here’s the facts – beware that’s from a politician, but the figures are credible and correct. “Dark Doldrums – we survived!” takes its data from Fraunhofer ISE.
Stealing the wind
Next: According to German Television’s science journalists, most scientists do not believe that wind power has ANY effect on global climate. It is highly unlikely that is has any impact, but if at all, then the positive effect by replacing fossil fuels will be much higher. Read it here (German)
Combustion Engines
Third, there’s been long discussions about combustion engines (and e-fuels). Despite German resistance (the Auto state’s auto lobby was successful on the European Casino), the European Union passed a regulation stopping almost all new combustion engine driven cars from 2035, know as combustion engine ban.
The german car drivers’ association ADAC has a great overview on the car manufacturer’s strategies – which is probably the best indicator for the future of an old technology. Sticking with combustion engines in times of modern electric drives feels like coach vendors in the 1920s must have felt. “We want faster horses!” has always been wrong and wrongly attributed to ALT-Right Henry Ford, just not in a way you’d expect. Seems like it is coming back.
Don’t Panic!
Lastly, the person I met was convinced that “Greta and the Greens” – who he actually had been voting for long time ago – had caused more harm than benefit. They created widespread climate panic and so no one is interested in facts anymore, he said. We should just lay back, calm down, it won’t be that bad, since scientists like to exaggerate anyways, and we should focus on the real facts and try everything to compensate.
Phew, that was hard. I suggested reading Simon Sharpe’s “Five times faster” where the former UN envoy on climate negotiations, among tons of great insider information shows in many details why scientists do not dare to tell the nature of the whole catastrophe: It’s both to bad to believe and too big to grasp.
Sharpe has many great, understandable examples. E.g. why London has already lived through most of its history (Spoiler: Because at about 2150 it will be cheaper to move the city than to build/update the next generation of flood protection). Or what are the mechanisms why we failed so far to create enough awareness or common grounds in the UN’s climate negotiations.
More Panic, please!
My impression is: We did not manage to create enough panic, and currently I have no clue how to stir up, wake up the people. Hey, billions are gonna die, animals and plants will vanish, it’s gonna get hot. You don’t believe in science anymore? Well, how did we f++k up that?