We can and must adjust to climate change – and not kill billions

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

The futures of poor developing countries hinge on their ability to harness foundational elements: fuels, electricity, minerals and feed stocks made from fossil fuels and other materials that are the basis for all buildings, infrastructures and other technologies in industrialized countries.

We’ve always done so and have no right to tell others they can’t have modern living standards.

Earth’s climate has changed many times over four billion years, and 99.999% of those changes occurred before humans were on this planet. During that short time, humans adjusted their housing, clothing and agriculture in response to climate changes. Can we now control the climate?

Except for decades-long droughts or massive volcanic explosions that ended some civilizations, humanity generally adjusted successfully – through a Pleistocene Ice Age, a Little Ice Age, a Dust Bowl and other natural crises. Numerous state high temperature records were set in Dust Bowl years.

After putting our current “microsecond” on Earth into its proper perspective, we might therefore ask:

* With today’s vastly superior technologies, why would humanity possibly be unable to adjust to even a few-degrees temperature increase, especially with more atmospheric carbon dioxide helping plants grow faster and better, providing more food for animals and people?

* How dare the political, bureaucratic, academic and media ruling elites – who propagate GIGO computer predictions, calculated myths and outright disinformation – tell us we must implement their “green” policies immediately and universally … or humanity won’t survive manmade climate influences that are minuscule compared to the planetary, solar and galactic forces that really control Earth’s climate?

* How dare those elites tell Earth’s poorest people and nations they have no right to seek energy, health and living standards akin to what developed countries already enjoy?

Scientists, geophysicists and engineers have yet to explain or prove what caused the slight change in global temperatures we are experiencing today – much less the huge fluctuations that brought five successive mile-high continental glaciers, and sea levels that plunged 400 feet each time (because seawater was turned to ice), interspersed with warm inter-glacial periods like the one we’re in now.

Moreover, none of the dire predictions of cataclysmic temperature increases, sea level rise, and more frequent and intense storms have actually occurred, despite decades of climate chaos fearmongering.

Earth continues to experience climate changes, from natural forces and/or human activity. However, adjusting to small temperature, sea level and precipitation changes would inflict far less harm on our planet’s eight billion people than would ridding the world of fossil fuels that provide 80% of our energy and myriad products that helped to nearly double human life expectancy over the past 200 years.

Today, with fuels, products, housing and infrastructures that didn’t even exist one or two centuries ago, we can adjust to almost anything.

When it’s cold, we heat insulated homes and wear appropriate winter clothing; when it’s hot, we use air conditioning and wear lighter clothing. When it rains, we remain dry inside or with umbrellas; when it snows, we stay warm indoors or ski, bobsled and build snowmen.

Climate changes may impact us in many ways. But eliminating coal, oil and natural gas – with no 24/7/365 substitutes to replace them – would be immoral and evil. It would bring extreme shortages of reliable, affordable, essential energy, and of over 6,000 essential products derived from fossil fuels.

It would inflict billions of needless deaths from diseases, malnutrition, extreme heat and cold, and wild weather – on a planet where the human population has grown from 1 billion to 8 billion since Col. Edwin Drake drilled the first oilwell in 1859.

* Weather-related fatalities have virtually disappeared, thanks to accurate forecasting, storm warnings, modern buildings, and medicines and other petroleum-based products that weren’t available even 100 years ago.

* Fossil fuels for huge long-range jets and merchant ships move people, products, food and medications to support global trade, mobility, health and lifestyle choices. Indeed, more than 50,000 merchant ships, 20,000 commercial aircraft and 50,000 military aircraft use fuels manufactured from crude oil.

* Food to feed Americans and humanity would be far less abundant and affordable without the fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and tractor and transportation fuels that come from oil and natural gas.

* Everything powered by electricity utilizes petroleum-based derivatives: wind turbine blades and nacelle covers, wire insulation, iPhone and computer housings, defibrillators, myriad EV components and more.

Petroleum industry history demonstrates that crude oil was virtually useless until it could be transformed in refineries and chemical plants into derivatives that are the foundation for plastics, solvents, medications and other products that support industries, health and living standards. The same is true for everything else that comes out of holes in the ground.

Plants and rocks, metals and minerals have no inherent value unless we learn how to cook them, extract metals from them, bend and shape them, or otherwise convert them into something we can use.

Similarly, the futures of poor developing countries hinge on their ability to harness foundational elements: fuels, electricity, minerals and feed stocks made from fossil fuels and other materials that are the basis for all buildings, infrastructures and other technologies in industrialized countries.

For the 80% of humanity in Africa, Asia and Latin America who still live on less than $10 a day – and the billions who still have little to no access to electricity – life is severely complicated and compromised by the hypocritical “green” agendas of wealthy country elites who have benefited so tremendously from fossil fuels since the modern industrial era began around 1850. Before that:

* Life spans were around 40 years, and people seldom travelled more than 100 miles from their birthplaces.

* There was no electricity, since generating, transmitting and utilizing this amazing energy resource requires technologies made from oil and natural gas derivatives.

* That meant the world had no modern transportation, hospitals, medicines and medical equipment, kitchen and laundry appliances, radio and other electronics, cell phones and other telecommunications, air and space travel, central heating and air conditioning, or year-round shipping and preservation of meats, fruits and vegetables, to name just a few things most of us just take for granted.

There are no silver-bullet solutions to save people from natural or man-made climate changes. However, adjusting to those fluctuations is the only solution that minimizes fatalities which would be caused by the callous or unthinking elimination of the petroleum fuels and building blocks that truly make life possible and enjoyable, instead of nasty, brutish and short. The late Steven Lyazi explained it perfectly:

“Wind and solar are … short-term solutions …. to meet basic needs until [faraway Ugandan villages] can be connected to transmission lines and a grid. Only in that way can we have modern homes, heating, lighting, cooking, refrigeration, offices, factories, schools, shops and hospitals – so that we can enjoy the same living standards people in industrialized countries do (and think is their right). We deserve the same rights and lives.

“What is an extra degree, or even two degrees, of warming in places like Africa? It’s already incredibly hot here, and people are used to it. What we Africans worry about and need to fix are malnutrition and starvation, the absence of electricity, and killer diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, sleeping sickness and HIV/AIDS…. We just need to be set free to [get the job done].”

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of articles and books on environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”

Related Topics:#FrontierCentreForPublicPolicy #PaulDriessen AfricaLivingStandards climatechange RonaldStein

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As LNG opens new markets for Canadian natural gas, reliance on U.S. to decline: analyst

Published on May 23, 2025

Todayville

From The Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

Starting with LNG Canada, producers will finally have access to new customers overseas

Canada’s natural gas production and exports are primed for growth as LNG projects come online, according to Houston, Texas-based consultancy RBN Energy.

Long-awaited LNG export terminals will open the door to Asian markets and break the decades-long grip of the United States as the sole customer for Canada’s natural gas.

RBN projects that Canada’s natural gas exports will rise to 12 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) by 2034, up from about 8 bcf/d today. But as more LNG terminals come online, less of that natural gas will head south.

“We think the real possibility exists that the amount of natural gas being exported to the United States by pipeline will actually decline,” said Martin King, RBN’s managing director of North America energy market analysis, on a recent webinar.

RBN’s analysis suggests that Canada’s natural gas exports to the United States could drop to 6 bcf/d by the early 2030s compared to around 8 bcf/d today.

With the first cargo from the LNG Canada terminal at Kitimat, B.C. expected to ship in late June, Canada will finally have access to new markets for natural gas. The first phase of the project will have capacity to ship about 1.8 bcf/d.

And more projects are on the way.

LNG Canada’s joint venture partners are considering a second phase that would double export capacity.

Also at Kitimat, the Cedar LNG project is under construction and is expected to be completed in 2028. The floating terminal led by the Haisla Nation will have capacity to export 0.4 bcf/d.

Woodfibre LNG, located near Squamish, B.C. began construction in late 2023 and is expected to be substantially completed by 2027, with export capacity of about 0.3 bcf/d.

Expansions of LNG Canada and Cedar LNG could put LNG exports into the range of 5 bcf/d in the early 2030s, King said.

Daily Caller

Shale Gas And Nuclear Set To Power The US Into The Future

Published on May 22, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Shale natural gas played the lion’s share of the role in lowering U.S. emissions to levels not seen since the early 1990s by enabling power generation companies to displace coal-fired power plants with combined cycle gas plants. This led to a situation during the first Donald Trump presidency in which the U.S. was the only western country which had met its commitments under the Paris Climate Accords, even though President Trump had ended America’s participation in that compact.

While countries like Canada, the UK, Australia, and those in the European Union continue their obsession with intermittent power sources like wind and solar, the United States has been blessed with one powerful alternative for cutting emissions and is set to go full speed in pursuit of another in the coming days.

That first alternative is natural gas produced from the major U.S. shale plays. As the Statistical Review of World Energy reported last year, no energy source in world history has ever been scaled up as rapidly as the domestic US industry has achieved with shale gas.

Shale has grown faster than wind, faster than solar, and faster than even Indonesian coal. Faster than anything before it in recorded history. This rapid scaling, combined with the immensity of the recoverable resource itself has facilitated massive reductions in carbon emissions not just at home, but also abroad.

At home, shale natural gas played the lion’s share of the role in lowering U.S. emissions to levels not seen since the early 1990s by enabling power generation companies to displace coal-fired power plants with combined cycle gas plants. This led to a situation during the first Donald Trump presidency in which the U.S. was the only western country which had met its commitments under the Paris Climate Accords, even though President Trump had ended America’s participation in that compact.

Internationally, the rapid expansion of the U.S. liquefied natural gas export industry is now helping enable importing countries across the globe to meet their own commitments. The immensity of the American resource ensures such results can continue to be achieved for decades to come.

The second power source related to which America is poised for explosive growth is a long-existing one that has been woefully underutilized for decades now: Nuclear. The Deseret News reports that the White House is preparing a set of four executive orders for the President’s signature in the coming days designed to jump start American dominance in this crucial energy sector.

“We are trying to knock things over that we can that are regulatory,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the House Appropriations Committee in a May 7 hearing and reported by Energy Intelligence. “There will be catalyzing regulatory events to bring” in “tens of billions of dollars” in private capital, “mostly from hyperscalers.”

Respected energy analyst and writer Robert Bryce was able to obtain a draft of one of the orders this week. Writing in his Substack newsletter, Bryce says the draft order “begins by pointing out that the US is losing the race to deploy new reactors and that China has announced plans to: ‘Bring 200 new gigawatts of nuclear power online by 2035, at which point its total nuclear output will more than double that of the United States. Further, as American development of new reactor designs has waned, 87% of nuclear reactors installed worldwide since 2017 are based on Russian and Chinese designs. These trends cannot continue. Swift and decisive action is required to jump-start America’s nuclear renaissance and ensure our national and economic security by increasing fuel availability, enabling research and development, and preparing our workforce.”

Obviously, jump-starting a fairly moribund industry is a stretch goal for the Trump administration, especially considering that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has permitted just 5 new nuclear plants since 1978, only two of which were ultimately built and placed into service. But the reality facing the U.S. and the rest of the international community is that, if getting to net zero by any year in the future is truly an imperative, there is little other choice but to focus on a rapid, massive nuclear expansion. Intermittent, weather-dependent generation simply cannot get that job done.

Fortunately, it’s a reality that Trump and key advisors like Sec. Wright fully grasp. In a keynote speech delivered in Poland last month, Wright said, “The two biggest ‘climate solutions’ in the coming decades are the same as they were in the last two decades, natural gas and nuclear, for the simple reason that they work.”

He isn’t wrong, and the Trump administration is focused on ensuring the U.S. maximizes the benefits from both of these key energy engines both at home and abroad.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.