Mulshine on ‘Lukewarmers’ vs. ‘Jihad on Pipelines’

New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine is a lonely voice of sanity at his employer when it comes to energy and climate change. But he has written some good articles against the tide of op-eds and letters that permeate the Star-Ledger. (You can search my blog for posts citing Mulshine on fossil fuels and climate change.)

In another great article, The 'lukewarmers' show how environmentalists are in denial about denial, Mulshine shines the light (no pun intended) on a new book titled Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything. The authors, scientists Paul C. Knappenburger and Patrick Michaels, argue that lukewarming “is a more accurate representation of the views of those scientists often derided as "climate deniers" because they question the Environmentalists’ “war on fossil fuels.”

Bill McKibben is the leader in the War on Fossil Fuels. His main front is natural gas pipelines, which due to “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) is very abundant these days. Here is a quote from the article:

We already have more than 35,000 miles of oil and gas pipelines in the state. Why this sudden rise in protests over a few minor additions to an existing network?

Blame a guy by the name of Bill McKibben. He's an environmental activist who has declared a jihad on all pipelines, period. His goal is to "Keep It in the Ground" - the name for his campaign against fossil fuels.

Translation: Environmentalism is NOT about cleaner industrialization. It is an anti-reliable energy, anti-industrial, anti-humanist ideology that seeks to preserve raw nature at the expense of human improvement of the environment for the sake of man's own well-being. Why else would the environmentalists want to keep fossil fuels, the lifeblood of our advanced way of life, "in the ground?"

If you have any doubts, consider that, until recently, “environmentalists were supporting natural gas production.” Quoting Knappenburger, Mulshine goes on:

"They were in favor of natural gas while there wasn't much of it." The notion was that this was a bridge fuel. But now it's so cheap that the bridge goes on forever."

I would go further. If wind and solar power, the so-called “clean power” alternative to reliable energy like fossil fuels but also hydro and nuclear, ever became as cheap and reliable as the reliables, thye environmentalists would find a way to stop those too. The logic of the environmentalists’ standard of moral value, nature unaltered and unimproved, demands it.

There’s more good stuff in the article. I bought the book Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything, but have not yet read it. I look forward to it.

Related Reading:

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

The Unholy Alliance of the NIMBYs and the Anti-Pipeline Jihadists