“The University defends the truth,” says the Harvard logo. ‘The emblem shows respect for science, using only verified facts within the University’s walls and a willingness to defend the truth.’ Yet as it relates to climate change, the University has set aside obvious truths and brought together its five professional schools supporting the new “Save the Planet” religious dogma of the past decade.”
—Harvard M.B.A John W. Jenkins, in a letter to the alumni magazine protesting the University’s complicity in promoting “imprudent policies perpetuated on our populations by Green environmental activists whose view of history is only 20 years deep.”
Jenkins, whom I have thus far not succeeded in contacting, has authored one of the clearest and most persuasive debunking of current climatic change cant, and perfectly chastised our mutual alma mater, Harvard, for its cowardly and irresponsible alliance with an unethical and destructive movement. The author appears to be in his late eighties, and more skilled in communication than graduates half, indeed a quarter his age.
Harvard Magazine published his letter, but I am trying hard to believe it was a coincidence that its second half was difficult to locate due to a pagination error. I hope Mr. Jenkins does not mind Ethics Alarms re-publishing his entire statement. It deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. The whole thing is an Ethics Quote of the Month. Here it is:
An internet search for the Harvard “Veritas” logo came back to me with the following: “The University defends the truth,” says the Harvard logo. “The emblem shows respect for science, using only verified facts within the University’s walls and a willingness to defend the truth.” Yet as it relates to climate change, the University has set aside obvious truths and brought together its five professional schools supporting the new “Save the Planet” religious dogma of the past decade (“Seeking Climate Solutions,” May-June, page 17).
The first obvious truth is that the Earth’s climate was cyclically changing eons before our industrial age began using fossil fuels which brought much of the world’s population out of sustenance living, poverty, short life spans, and relative immobility beyond one’s birthplace. The Roman Empire prospered during 600 years called the “Roman Warm Period.” Since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1750, the Earth’s temperatures have been rising, underpinning another era of prosperity.
A second obvious truth is that climate change is not an existential threat to mankind. The world is not coming to an end if we do not achieve “zero emissions” by 2035, 2050, or 2100.
The third obvious truth is that the current actions being taken to reduce temperature increases will affect the climate at best minimally, but they are severely detrimental to our economies, our security, and possibly our survivability. Our economies are suffering from deficit spending on industrial policies to destroy long-term investments in electrical generation and transportation in exchange for new technologies enriching an increasingly aggressive China.
A final truth is that incorporating increasingly high percentages of wind and solar components within our electrical power grids makes them unstable under predictable load variations, weather challenges, or black swan events. For a year or more, a major volcanic eruption can cut off solar electric generation and redirect wind forces, thereby disabling an electrical grid heavily dependent on them. Our very livelihood is dependent on continuous electrical power. When the power goes out, our short supply of food, water, and transportation fuel disappears. Communications are interrupted. Our cell phones go dormant; our credit cards will not operate. If we lose electrical power for a month, we starve and die.
If Harvard still wants to justify “Veritas” on its shield, then it should use a portion of its newly found Salata Institute grant money to add a sixth research group to develop defensive measures against imprudent policies perpetuated on our populations by Green environmental activists whose view of history is only 20 years deep.
Ethics Alarms 
Especially on top of this week’s news that Siemens has taken a huge drop in stock price because their wind turbines aren’t as robust as advertised, and Ford is laying off 1,000 people because their EV sales are woefully lagging, this call to direct more resources to combating imprudent measures couldn’t be more pertinent.
NASA has found that the subtropical areas of the planet are actually where most of the CO2 is being produced. This is in direct contradiction to the prior thinking that the subtropical rainforests are the lungs of the world. This data came from new satellite technology that can image CO2 emissions. Ironically the populated industrial regions indicated far fewer emissions. So either the new tech is faulty or the assumptions are all wrong
The first step is to ask what (the hell) is going on. I haven’t a clue, but just some thoughts off my hip:
Plants breath (as much as an elementary school teacher denied it). They “burn” sugars using oxygen to provide energy to live and grow like any other life form. A large dense mass of trees and vegetation will emit significant carbon dioxide. An area of dense plant life life could well release far more CO2 than a comparable area of human settlement.
Unlike factories, cars, etc, however, plants also use photosynthesis to convert their “exhaled” CO2 back to oxygen and water.
The critical follow up question to your assertion that “the technology is flawed or the assumptions are wrong”: does the rainforest reabsorb more carbon dioxide than it emits?
Without knowing the net CO2 emissions, it is impossible to conclude anything.
Satellite imagery reflects net emissions not that which takes place during photosynthesis. The NASA research I mentioned stated as much. Photosynthesis uses CO2 to convert light to energy. The byproduct is O2. This is how plant life sequesters carbon
I would be interested to know how a satellite image could differentiate between inputs and outputs.
Chris, I can’t answer your question but found the following information that might help in explaining the phenomenon of subtropical rainforests generating more CO2 than they consume. One possible explanation for the increase in “Greenhouse gases” from the tropics could be the increase in biomass decomposition like what is observed in permafrost thawing.
From a 2013 Report:
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/957/tropical-ecosystems-boost-carbon-dioxide-as-temperatures-rise/
“NASA scientists and an international team of researchers have found tropical ecosystems can generate significant carbon dioxide when temperatures rise, unlike ecosystems in other parts of the world.”
“The researchers discovered a temperature increase of just 1 degree Celsius in near-surface air temperatures in the tropics leads to an average annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent to one-third of the annual global emissions from combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation combined. In tropical ecosystems, carbon uptake is reduced at higher temperatures.”
From a 2004 Report:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242210/
“Terrestrial ecosystems exchange about 120 Gt of carbon per year with the atmosphere, through the processes of photosynthesis and respiration (Schlesinger, 1997). Roughly, half of the CO2 assimilated annually through photosynthesis is released back to the atmosphere by plant respiration.”
From a 2022 Report
https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost#:~:text=As%20permafrost%20thaws%2C%20bacteria%20can,loop%20that%20thaws%20more%20permafrost.
“Thawing permafrost worsens climate change — but we don’t know how much
There’s a huge amount of carbon stored in permafrost — an estimated 1,500 gigatons, or twice as much as the atmosphere contains.8 This carbon is the remnant of plants and other organic matter that didn’t fully decompose in the frozen soils over thousands of years. (The oldest known permafrost is around 700,000 years old!9) As permafrost thaws, bacteria can break down that organic matter, releasing that carbon into the atmosphere as the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide or methane.”
And Ford is axing 23,000 salaried employees so they can better focus the company on electric vehicles. These people are driving the entire economy off a cliff a la Thelma and Louise. Yippee!
He’s spot on with the first two obvious truths, but I hate to say the third is the same futurism that plagues climate “science” itself. Arguably “enriching China” more likely will lead to peace between the countries than conflict, if you follow the observations that ‘if goods don’t cross borders, armies will’ and that merchants have very little incentive to attack their customers.
This calls for me to contribute a second Plan 9 clip. https://youtu.be/DozyN4OpuYA
I am gratified that he brings up the fourth truth. So few people rem that until recently, we worked much of the clock just to have enough food to feed ourselves. Each person had to work very hard pretty much all the time, to survive and the vast majority of the world was in what we would call poverty. America’s poor is generally in better straights than even most of the wealthy of the past, and fossil fuels, both through energy and the petrochemical industries, are the main drivers of this prosperity.
I’d say more, but I already sound like I’m following his Shakespearean sonnet with a limerick.
There’s a web page dedicated to climate change limericks, like this one:
To make every seashore fantastic
We need to perform something drastic
Like pass a few laws
To prohibit the straws
That keep us all sucking on plastic
There is a fourth truth. Wind and solar are not an environmental freebie. They have a cost to the local environment, the birds are known, but there’s also light pollution, hundreds of miles of new transmission lines, battery storage facilities and the construction is a human footprint on nearly pristine land, often in arid ecosystems that are slow to recover. Hundreds of miles of roads and trails are established. Then remember they are a machine and machines break. They get old and need replaced and updated. There is a cement shortage where I live due to wind farms construction.
https://www.ksl.com/article/50670173/build-begins-on-wyoming-to-california-power-line-amid-growing-wind-power-concern
There’s absolutely an unrealized environmental cost to green projects.
I’m far more excited about the TerraPower nuclear plant that is allegedly going up at Kemmerer than those wind farms and transmission lines. However, I’m not holding my breath on that plant, as we were disappointed with DKRW’s failure to make a coal-to-liquids plant by Medicine Bow. Sometimes these projects never actually seem to see life.
When you drive down I-80, you are treated to the site of wind turbines west of Cheyenne, and again by Arlington, a tiny town halfway between Laramie and Rawlins. That makes something of an iconic view, with several ranks of turbines sitting on top of a ridge. Each time I would drive past, I would see maybe a third of those blades spinning. And that is one of the richest wind locations in the state. (Between Wheatland and Chugwater is I think the best.) Further west, before reaching the Three Sisters, you are treated to some towering turbines relatively close to the highway.
Say what you will about the weather in the state, Wyoming does have wide expanses and lots of wind. Some of that wind, such as around Casper, is very poor for power generation, because it swings so much. But the richest wind areas have continual wind that can be counted on to blow hard for long stretches of time. There are still gusts, though, and early morning is still much calmer than around 11:00 AM. So wind farms make sense in Wyoming, except for that pesky problem of transmitting the power. And the birds. And the fact they can’t be recycled when they reach end of life. And the fact that the blades can snap off in too strong of winds. And the fact that sometimes you have to decouple the turbine from the blades and let the blades spin to prevent them from frying the turbine during high winds. And the fact that, again, you are rarely treated to the sight of all the turbines spinning happily and providing all that “clean” energy, because the wind is not blowing hard enough, or in the right direction, or, even worse, there is too much good wind and the grid can’t handle all those turbines generating power at the exact same time.
I cannot believe people are serious about climate change when they propose wind turbines and solar panels. If they really want bang for their buck, they would invest in nuclear plants. They are costly to build, yes. But their footprints are so much smaller, they can provide baseload, and they are not subject to problems like what hit Scottsbluff, NE here recently. Apparently a freak hailstorm ruined a multi-million dollar, 5.2 MW solar panel farm. It had been in service for 4 years, 4 out of a projected lifespan of 20 or more. Maybe I’m biased in favor of nuclear, because Wyoming has a lot of uranium, and it would bring Jeffrey City back to life if we suddenly had a huge demand for uranium.
There’s another cost, it’s economic and I can’t predict if it’s positive or not. There’s an opportunity cost to wind in particular. These companies lease entire farms at once for decades. Typical leases last for 30-40 years with the option to renew. That has tied up millions of acres of private land. Some of these leases are automatically renewed at the end of their terms. There is a direct 1st degree environmental cost, where I live there’s a crane rental company specifically here to repair wind turbines. It’s very profitable. When they do break, if they are old, those fiberglass blades are brittle and shatter. Littering the ground which is bad enough, but they want to put them into the ocean too. They will break. Machines always break. How do you clean that up? Is it worth it? Is it worth scattering your energy platform like confetti across millions of acres or should we try to keep our land use pristine as much as possible? The 140’ deep x 20’ in diameter pillar of concrete in the soil (and who knows how a vibration or the concrete impacts the microorganisms of the soil, I certainly don’t) will never be removed. It’s a permanent environmental change and human footprint that can’t be undone, again on pristine or nearly untouched land.
There’s a solar farm project with battery power facilities proposed in my county. We’re rural. The fire department and EMS are strictly volunteer and I’m not certain they have training, equipment or safety gear to handle a hazmat emergency that an accident would create. Never mind the facility is 30 minutes away from the nearest fire department.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2023/03/14/iowa-carbon-capture-pipeline-use-eminent-domain-opposed-majority-iowa-poll/69982590007/
This is a huge private property right issue, as well as an environmental issue, not every harm to the environment is from CO2. Follow the money…
This “unrealized” cost is pretty well realized and famous in certain circles. I believe a better term is “unpublicized”.
As an addendum to your point, wind farms are far greater sources of PM2.5 pollution than any fossil fuel plant. People tend to say that PM2.5 is no biggie, not like sulfur, but Ann Althouse was showing that she’s currently breathing the equivalent of ten cigarettes a day with the Canadian fire smoke. It’s a huge deal and every time people bring this up, they get shut down.
PM 2.5 is a biggie, we’re choking on it here in Japan. It’s included in our weather forecasts, along with ‘kousa’, fine sand from the Gobi desert, that picks up petroleum and coal byproducts (lead, sulphur, mercury) and viruses as it passes through China’s horrific pollution. PM 2.5 fog settles in on us a few times a year; the air smells like chemicals, visibility is greatly reduced, and we have to mask up when doing yard work, otherwise our throats burn. It’s really awful.
Sarah B, I’d like more info on PM 2.5 and wind turbines, but I’m not finding much. Wind farms as ‘Emission free energy’ and ‘pollution free energy’ articles abound. They’re just starting to push them here, I’d love some information, if you have links.
I will say that good papers on this are hard to find. I took a class from a pro-wind energy professor who admitted this problem. He was writing a paper on it and presented the findings in class, and it was very emphatic to me (a grad student working on fossil fuels projects with a strong emphasis on coal-to-liquids) that it was a problem as it showed many times the PM2.5 pollution that my office mate and CTL group member was coming up with for our project. I have never seen that paper published (we got shut down quite often, so I suspect his work was too) and he is no longer at the university. Therefore, please bear with these links, as they have to be put together to help see the full picture. I wish I could find exact numbers from wind farms, but that is not an easy number to come by. Logic has to be used.
I will first discuss where the concern comes from, since that can help understanding. In the western US, at least, the majority of wind farms are put on empty land, requiring a significant amount of new dirt roads, removing large quantities of native scrubs that hold the dusty earth down. The sheer area of land needed for wind farms means that these road are plentiful. The wind farms themselves, as mentioned by Demeter, above, have to cut out the land around them and put in huge concrete platforms. All of this removes more vegetation, and there is a need for large vehicles to drive on these roads to create these concrete platforms, as well as at least a work truck to routinely go out and do the maintenance on these moving parts that require a significant lubrication (with oil based lubricants). The dirt roads are a known factor in increasing dust (much of it in the PM 2.5 range) in wind prone areas (which is where you put these wind farms. Wind farms requires a large amount of space. 2-40 acres are needed for 1 MW of energy. One proposed wind farm of 590 MW is set to occur on 32,000 acres of land. (Rock Creek Wind project) While, of course, not all of these acres are torn up, you need this kind of space so that the air disruption of one turbine is not affecting any other turbines. Finally, while land can have some double use, we see that animals do not tend to like land with wind turbines as these do effect their movement patterns. Ignoring the birds and bats killed, since dust is less the concern than the blades, we still see terrestrial animals do not like something about the turbines. There have been discussions on whether it is the noise pollution, the vibrations in the ground, the presence of roads in previously undisturbed habitats, or the worsening of air quality. I cannot find a good summary of these discussions, but I can find a link to the issues of animal dens near wind turbines.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5968206/
Road dust and particulate matter.
https://blog.midwestind.com/wind-farms-need-dust-control-for-safe-and-efficient-operations/
This is from a sales manager of a company who deals in chemical dust suppression. He gives no details, but obviously if there are companies selling the product, there is a need for it.
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jrse/article-abstract/15/1/013306/2871345/Can-wind-turbine-farms-increase-settlement-of?redirectedFrom=fulltext
This is a scholarly article from a journal, and they are showing how wind farms change how the particulate matter deposition from dust storms. The biggest item of note in the abstract is that they admit that all their assumptions that wind farms are not placed on erodible surfaces and most wind farms are placed on erodible surfaces.
https://conservationcorridor.org/digests/2018/03/wind-energy-infrastructure-may-funnel-wildlife-movement/
This discusses change in animal movement near turbines.
Thank you ever so much! I really appreciate it!
I apologize for the clips and links, but they say it better than I ever could. This presents a lot of concerns that aren’t really mentioned much, but I think they should be.
You are right. These problems are severe. No one likes to talk about them and academics who try end up getting shut down. Some of us got real jobs and stopped trying to fight because we like to eat, sleep in beds, and wear clothes. However, now we are not authorities because we aren’t academics, so we can’t get anyone to listen. (No, I don’t find this at all frustrating, why?).
I propose that Harvard change the word on its logo from “Veritas” to “Hubris”.
How about switching to Hypocrita.
U.S. colleges talk green. But they have a dirty secret.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-pollution-universities/