A friend wrote,

This morning in the NYT I read that the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences believes that the case for Man-Made GW is “overwhelming.” All that I read from Cornwall is that it is “underwhelming.” How can there be such a disjunction among scientists? Do you need to present the evidence which many scientists find “overwhelming” and get people like Roy Spencer et al to carefully analyze it, so that we give the impression that are talking about the same thing and looking at the same data?

To which I responded,

Don’t be fooled by such statements from the NAS or its NRC. Such statements are the product of the small central committees of such bodies, not the considered opinion of the membership at large, and indeed the membership has lodged protests in the past against their doing such things. But AGW fear mongers tend to be highly political, while most scientists are highly non political; it’s no surprise, therefore, that the more political dominate the politics of the organizations.

The fact is that critics of AGW alarm have indeed put forth the evidence, from solid data, again and again, in major publications such as the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change’s Climate Change Reconsidered and the Fraser Institute’s Independent Summary for Policymakers. And of course if you want a real count of scientists who commit themselves to a position, you go to www.petitionproject.org, which lists over 31,000 degreed scientists who signed its petition denying that there is convincing scientific evidence for dangerous manmade global warming but affirming that rising CO2 is of great benefit to human and all other life on Earth.

The various national academies of science are hopelessly politicized on this issue.

To which he responded,

Thank you for taking the time to explain the real facts of the case. They are hard to believe and I am sure most laymen would never dream that what you say is true. Obama said at West Point yesterday, laying out a major policy statement for the world:

“The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times. Countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing its wounds.”

It is amazing on such slim scientific ground that statements like this can be delivered with such power and solemnity for maximum effect.

Is there any hope that such falsehood can be stopped without a massive political upheaval?

To which I replied,

Two things are going to stop the world from jettisoning fossil fuels to fight global warming: (1) The physical (as in having to do with physics, that nasty, hard-as-nails discipline having to do with material reality) impossibility of renewables’ and alternatives’ replacing them because they lack adequate energy density and, more important, power density. (2) In light of (1), (2) doesn’t matter. (But if it did it would be the collapse of AGW alarmism among scientists, leading eventually to its collapse among journalists, and finally its collapse among politicians. It’s already collapsed among citizens.)

For (1), see Robert Bryce’s new book Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future. Take just this info, from a table on p. 93, “All About Power Density: A Comparison of Various Energy Sources in Horsepower (and Watts)”:

• Nuclear: 300 hp/acre (56 W/square meter) (Calculation uses entire 12,000 acres of the South Texas Project; the generating plant itself takes a small fraction of that space.)
• Average U.S. natural gas well, producing 115,000 cubic feet per day: 287.5 hp/acre (53 W/square meter)
• Gas stripper well, producing 60,000 cubic feet per day: 153.5 hp/acre (28 W/square meter)
• Oil stripper well, producing 10 barrels per day: 150 hp/acre (27 W/square meter)
• Solar PV: 36 hp/acre (6.7 W/square meter)
• Oil stripper well, producing 2 barrels per day: 30 hp/acre (5.5 W/square meter)
• Wind turbines: 6.4 hp/acre (1.2 W/square meter)
• Biomass-fueled power plant: 2.1 hp/acre (0.4 W/square meter)
• Corn ethanol: 0.26 hp/acre (0.05 W/square meter)

Or, to turn those figures into an index, using corn ethanol as 1:

• Corn ethanol: 1
• Biomass-fueled power plant: 8.1
• Wind turbines: 24.6
• Oil stripper well, producing 2 barrels per day: 115.4
• Solar PV: 138.5
• Oil stripper well, producing 10 barrels per day: 577
• Gas stripper well, producing 60,000 cubic feet per day: 590.4
• Average U.S. natural gas well: 1105.8
• Nuclear: 1153.8

I.e., nuclear’s power density is 1153.8 times that of corn ethanol and 8 times that of solar PV and 47 times that of wind.

Coal, oil, and natural gas will continue our main power sources through most of this century, being eclipsed little by little by nuclear. Solar, wind, biomass, and ethanol will never, ever compete.

As to Obama’s statement: Consider, for analogy’s sake, that every President since Kennedy has pontificated about the absolute necessity of America’s achieving “energy independence”—and through all that time, the percentage of our energy that we import has risen pretty much consistently year by year. Rhetoric doesn’t necessarily turn into reality—especially when reality (as illustrated above) is the opposite of rhetoric.