According to a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, we have been misled about climate change. In a press release, its author, Dr Indur Goklany, evidently a one-time IPCC contributor, claims that, in reality, ‘almost everywhere you look, climate change is having only small, and often benign, impacts. The impact of extreme weather events - hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts - are, if anything, declining. Economic damages have declined as a fraction of global GDP. Death rates from such events have declined by 99% since the 1920s. Climate-related disease has collapsed. And more people die from cold than warm temperatures’.
Even sea-level rise, which some predict to be the most damaging climate impact, is said to be much less of a problem than thought. According to Dr Goklany, reviews of historic maps and satellite imagery have shown that the places predicted to disappear are in fact still with us: ‘A recent study showed that the Earth has actually gained more land in coastal areas in the last 30 years than it has lost through sea-level rise. We now know for sure that coral atolls aren't disappearing and even Bangladesh is gaining more land through siltation than it is losing through rising seas.’
He claims that empirical data also shows that food production per capita has increased by 30% since 1961 despite a more-than-doubling of global population. Hunger & malnutrition have declined, area burnt by wild fires has declined and since 1950 poverty has declined, people are wealthier and global life expectancy has increased from 46 to 73 years. And, to round off the demolition of the standard climate/eco view, in the report he ends by saying that ‘without fossil fuels, cropland would have to increase significantly to maintain current food production. Thus fossil fuels have reduced habitat loss by at least 14% of the global terrestrial area, saving numerous species and ecosystems. This fact refutes claims that fossil fuels are detrimental to biodiversity and ecosystems’.
It’s hard to know where to start with all this. Reports confirming the consensus view abound- with some actually saying it understates the risks e.g. in relation to the threat of sea level rise. While it’s hard to believe that the IPCC etc have got it all so wrong, views and perspectives can differ. But just to pick up on the last bit on energy and farming, presumably Goklany is happy with the increase of energy intensive fossil fuel-based farming, fertilizer and herbicide production and use, and associated reduced soil quality? If it all means more CO2, then fine, it helps plants grow!
Another blast of contrarianism has come from Ted Nordhaus, of the US Breakthrough Institute, but in this case he is defending what might be seen as the pro-nuclear status quo view against attacks from anti-nuclear academics. He says that ‘for decades, Sovacool and other prominent anti-nuclear academics, have published a slew of dubious studies in peer-reviewed publications purporting to find that closing nuclear plants reduces emissions, that nuclear energy is fossil fuel intensive, uniquely dangerous, and inherently expensive, and that renewable energy alone can meet 100% of the world’s energy needs’.
There certainly have been some issues. For example, addressing several methodological issues, a recent paper by Fell et al disputes the claim in Sovacool et al. (2020) that renewables are ‘on balance evidently more effective at carbon emissions mitigation’ than nuclear power and, employing the same data sources and time periods, instead, finds that ‘nuclear power and renewable energy are both associated with lower per capita CO2 emissions with effects of similar magnitude & statistical significance. ’
The debate continues. While it is reasonable to expect factual accuracy and a degree of impartiality, complete academic neutrality is hard to achieve, especially when it comes contentious policy issues like nuclear energy. There will always be academic disagreements and conflicting interpretations of data. Indeed, a post from Sovacool’s team at Sussex University in effect says that, in the end, the debate is inevitably shaped by ideological views.
A partisan stance is of course what you would expect from political groups, although that can sometimes lead to some unexpected results, as in the case for nuclear made the Finnish Greens for Science & Technology group. It’s view contrasts strongly with that adopted by most greens and seems to be based on some dubious assumptions and assertions.
Firstly, it claims that nuclear is cheap. That’s hard to sustain given the major Olkiluoto EPR cost over-runs in Finland, followed by similar cost and delay problems with EDF’s Flamanville EPR in France. The report tries to explain this away as due to the long gap in experience in building ‘new’ first of a kind plants. Are PWRs that new? How come renewables, which are really new, are getting cheaper very quickly?
Secondly it says it is safe: ‘At most, there are 62 confirmed fatalities from the worst nuclear accident in our history’. Well, as it admits, ‘statistically, there might be some 4,000 extra fatalities all in all due to the radiation from the Chernobyl accident, according to some models’. And likely more. Hard to see the use of wind technology clocking up anything like that.
Thirdly, it’s low carbon: Well, arguably, not very low, if you account properly for the emissions from using fossil energy to mine and process nuclear fuel- though the report is sniffy about the Storm and Smith study which made this case strongly. Unsurprisingly, it is also sniffy about the work of Prof. Mark Jacobson at Stanford, who says that, ‘new nuclear power plants cost 2.3 to 7.4 times those of onshore wind or utility solar PV per kWh, take 5 to 17 years longer between planning and operation, and produce 9 to 37 times the emissions per kWh as wind’.
Finland has enviable renewable resources, so it’s a bit odd to see some greens pushing for nuclear, but it’s perhaps worth noting how nervous Finland is about having to rely on gas from Russia- its very powerful fossil fuel-rich next door neighbough. Nuclear costs & risks may therefore be felt to be acceptable by some, faced with the risk of Russian energy dominance. Notice that Finland adopted the French EPR- they didn’t buy Russian nuclear tech. But it seems odd for greens to back more of that- rather than pushing for more renewables.
A much more familiar stance on energy is taken by UK climate activist Jonathon Neale, who, in his new book Fight the Fire, mounts a spirited challenge to us all to get stuck in to the fight against climate change, from a radical eco-left perspective. There are no doubts here about which technologies to back. As Brendan Montague, Co-Editor of the Ecologist, says in an Introduction to the book ‘It works through sector by sector how we can rewire the world for renewable, lower impact, energy.’ That is seen as the way to beat climate change, a view widely accepted by most greens and most progressives- who see it as a better bet than nuclear, in part since, it is claimed, investing in nuclear blocs the cheaper and faster to deploy renewable alternatives. Ted Nordhaus wont agree!
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