Wednesday
Apr292015
by 
Josh
Josh Remember the poor - Josh 323
Apr 29, 2015 Josh 
I don't think this cartoon needs any words but many thanks to Cumbrian Lad for an inspiring post. Matt Ridley's excellent article on Electricity for Africa is also worth reading - let's hope Pope Francis reads this blog.
Reader Comments (24)
Brilliant as usual, Josh.
Well done.
I suspect the Pontiff is too stuck in Socialist thought to see that the way out of poverty is not redistribution of wealth, but the creation of more wealth.
Yes, Africa is the moving from being the 'Dark Continent' to the 'Dark Shadow' on a Green world. In which view, I thought stuck-record's comment on Matt Ridley's post was pretty graphic. He merely substituted 'them' for 'it' in the slogan, 'Keep it in the ground'. Powerful image, I thought. ymmv
Many levels there Josh, thanks. He is a good man, and will rise to the challenge.
Is the Pope signing an Encyclical - or a death warrant?
Let's wait and see what the Roman Catholics actually want us to think about?
They do care about the poor - CAFOD shows that.
They are on the ground in the third world.
They may have an interesting perspective.
All he is interested in is redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor.
If he were truly concerned about the poor, he would do something about birth control.
The Cathlic Church has not done so well in meddling around with science. I do wonder why the Church was able to largely resist the pressure to back eugenics but sems unable to think critically about climate. Frankly I find the faith based fanatics of climate obsesion to be transparently non-rational. That the Vatican seems to fail to perceive the risks of involving itself in such a regressive anti-life issue as green extremists, it raises the question of what else have these leaders of the Church missed?
Never trust a murderous old villain wearing a frock.
@Paul H
The third world poor need many children to provide sinteriorupport in their old age. For them, the catholic church supports that imperative. Should they have the wealth of a pension that imperative would disappear.
Fossil fuel is a contraceptive.
Effin smart phones.
Support
I hope this Pope continues to demonstrate common sense and humanity.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Climate Science are both founded on faith, not science. Both have a dodgy track record, when it comes to acting in good faith.
Both have new leaders, one of them is on course for self destruction.
The world and humanity would be worse off without the Catholic Church.
The world and humanity would be better off without Climate Science.
Only Green Luvvies and Climate Scientists have any faith in climate science.
Climate science proves you can fool the same people, all of the time.
God, how I hate religion.
Whatever climate science predicts will result from the Pope's signature, will be wrong. Climate science has a very consistent record, in making false predictions, and they are very confident (over 95%) about this one.
How can any true Scot put his trust in a Roman climate encyclical ?
All sound theologians know that no good can ever come from running a climate model on the Sabbath.
@Russell:
The new climate models only work on Feb. 30TH. (except when that falls on a Sunday).
Great cartoon, Josh.
"the way out of poverty is not redistribution of wealth, but the creation of more wealth"
These two aspirations aren't mutually exclusive you know!
Matt King Coal,
was a merry old
with lots of stuff to sell
Africa, of course, is his target market.
As Eli has pointed out, renewables are a lot cheaper, certainly outside of the bigger cities. The major cost per MWh of fossil fuel is the cost of the fuel. The amount of capital needed to build the generator is less than 5% or so. However, for solar PV, small hydro, and small wind capital costs are more than ~80% of the cost of power, operating costs are maybe the other 20%.
Eli, like others has to wonder why no one is building micro coal plants to roll out across Africa. That is cheaper in the short term, right? No grid. Why isn’t Matt Ridley doing that
Even now solar and wind are less expensive than coal, and they will be much less so in the future. They are orders of magnitude more deployable and not as subject to mayhem. Moreover, efficient modern lighting, telecommunications, cooling, other conveniences and necessities don’t have large power draws.
It maybe because the good professor lives in the DC area he thinks deployment of fossil fuels causes mayhem.
The anti-Catholic rhetoric that is on display here is appalling. There's a better attitude on display by greenpeace for once
Bishop, there is no ecumenical meeting of minds here at the moment. All the same mud slinging complained of from the warmists. Clean out your stable.
My comment yesterday about people with rabbit-sized brains is endorsed yet again.
Having no "efficient modern lighting, telecommunications, cooling, other conveniences and necessities" is even cheaper, Eli, and that is exactly what you end up with half the time if you try relying on solar and wind. (Though I will go some way with you on the subject of micro coal plants, or even micro-nuclear).
The first and essential requirement for a power system to drive anything above the level of bare subsistence is reliability. Which means, in simple terms, that when you push the button or throw the switch the electricity starts to flow. This is hardly rocket science though it seems that a very large number of allegedly intelligent people with letters after their name to prove how clever they are seem unable to comprehend it.
If but one ten thousand of the Victorian steam engines in the Northumbrian rust belt that have no work today were charitably exported to Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe, fueling them could provide gainful employment for thousands of indigenous coal miners, who with reasonable thrift could soon afford air conditioners to consume the coal-fired kilowatts resulting, and so assure the employment of their coal mining posterity.
Mr Rebate: remember this, from a few threads back?
Why do you think the situation could have changed, in the few days since?