Fighters for the Truth Join Schiller Conference:

There Is No ‘Climate Emergency’

by Marcia Merry Baker and Stanley Ezrol

[Print version of this article]

July 25—The Schiller Institute held a virtual international conference July 24, on the theme, “There Is No ‘Climate Emergency’—Apply Science and Economic Development To Stop Blackouts and Death,” which has quickly drawn thousands of viewers as a rallying point for the battle to defeat the Green New Deal in the United States in particular.

The two sessions were broadcast just as escalating green hysteria has been blaming “climate change” and CO₂ emissions for the several severe disasters now hitting internationally, including flooding in North Europe, China and India, the drought and heat wave in Western North America, and warnings of electricity blackouts this summer across large parts of the United States and Europe. The presentations and discussion involved 20 speakers from eight countries, including six U.S. states in which resistance to “green” dictates is growing. The speakers demonstrated that these emergencies are not from climate change, but instead are weather events, with the degree of damage directly related to lack of infrastructure; and if the green agenda is allowed to continue, there will be mass breakdown and depopulation.

The panelists included scientists, engineers, retired military, farm leaders, a physician, a state lawmaker and others, many of whom have been leading battles within their respective sectors to debunk the green axioms, and mobilize for advanced power and infrastructure systems. Out of the conference, ideas were exchanged for even more concerted action, involving specific projects for water management, nuclear power advancement, and especially for public health security. The specifics included the Transaqua Project to refill Lake Chad in Africa, the North American Water and Power Alliance, and priorities for nuclear power including micro-nuclear, small modular nuclear reactors and more.

One lifelong nuclear technology expert summed up the day’s discussion by saying the dialogue was so powerful, it was on a par with the Davos Forum—a 50-year institution—except that the Schiller Institute event was for the good, and Davos is a bunch of billionaire elites.

Green Is MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction

The keynote was given by Schiller Institute founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and follows this report. She denounced the green axiom that humanity is bad, pollutes and ruins nature. Just the opposite, mankind’s creative nature is coherent with the development of the universe. The conference was opened by a video of a 1985 speech by Lyndon LaRouche addressing this topic, titled “Science is Good.” LaRouche said, “The good is the power of the mind to recognize this principle of reason as the lawful ordering of the universe….”

The first session, “The Economic Effects of Green MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction,” included firsthand reports from Europe and the United States on the lack of infrastructure to protect against flooding, subversion of the electric grid, and land use attacks on agriculture—all coming from the advocates of the Green New Deal agenda. Jason Ross, Schiller Institute science liaison, opened and concluded the panel, emphasizing humanity’s “relationship to the environment” as actively within our power to affect for the good.

Two of the eleven speakers on this panel were prominent European leaders of public scientific initiatives created to discredit the core lies linked to the “climate change models” used to assert that human activity is causing CO₂ emissions, which are then used to assert that human activity is causing destructive climate change. Franco Battaglia, Professor of Physical Chemistry, University of Modena, in 2019 was a co-sponsor of a petition signed by many hundreds of scientists, which declared that “There Is No Climate Emergency.” Professor Augustinus “Guus” Berkhout, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, is President of CLINTEL (Climate Intelligence, a foundation) as well as a member of the Dutch Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. His title was, “Stop Blaming Climate Change for Your Failures.”

Battalgia, using graphics, tore apart the global warming climate models, showing how they could not at all predict any past phenomena or trends in recorded history. Berkhout gave an illustrated history on flooding in the Netherlands, his homeland, which suffered great damage this month. In the Maas Basin, flooding was worst where, in the feeder streams and tributaries, the pumping stations, canals, and inland dikes have not been maintained. There have been worse floods in the past. He presented examples of famously successful Dutch hydraulic defenses such as the Delta Works. Berkhout ridiculed EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, “who blames all misery on climate change.”

A dramatic report on flooding in Germany was provided by Christian Lohmeyer, a farm leader in Lower Saxony, who is on the board of Landvolk Mittelweser. On July 15, Lohmeyer made a three-minute video, after hearing from a fellow farm leader in the Ahrweiler district, near Bonn, of the gross inaction by authorities there, who then blamed “climate change” for what was in fact their own negligence. Lohmeyer denounced the officials and greens, who blame farmers for damaging the environment by growing food, and then turn around and do nothing while more than 100 people die. He said that 50 farmers came out on their own at 3:00 a.m. in Ahrweiler with their tractors and equipment to save lives and protect what they could, and nothing at all was done by the authorities. There was not even a contact person!

Paul Driessen, a well-known science analyst based in the United States, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, gave a review of the track record of green lies in many areas, such as falsifying the number and intensity of hurricanes. He reviewed past blizzards, twisters, and hurricanes, blasting the “con artists” who blame climate change, not lack of defense from bad weather. He ended with a warning about the consequences of making the green electricity shift to “intermittent, unreliable wind and solar.” He said, “If you do, you deserve what you get.”

A presentation on “How Future Electricity Security Is Threatened by Wind and Solar Technology and Blackouts,” was given by German specialist, Alwin Burgholte, Professor Emeritus, GADE-Hochschule Wilhelmshaven. He reviewed past outages and causes—the 2003 blackout in New York and the European-wide near crash in January 2021, for example—stressing the obvious essentials for stability. The electricity regulatory agency NERC (North American Electricity Reliability Corporation) has issued a map of areas of the United States where the likelihood of blackouts is very high from June through September 2021, because baseload power generation has become insufficient.

Reports from State Resistance

Iowa and Kansas are particularly threatened, as both states have power grids that are nearly half wind and solar. Kansas State Sen. Mike Thompson, a professional meteorologist, reported that his state has 3,100 wind turbines and plans to add another 1,000. In Kansas, 43% of the electricity comes from wind and solar; Iowa is at 49%. But during the February 2021 “polar vortex” deep freeze, wind and solar virtually disappeared as power sources, as in the Texas disaster this past winter. The potential disruption to farming and food is enormous, given that Kansas and Iowa each rank first or second nationally in wheat, corn, hogs, eggs, and soybeans. Together they are second to Texas in cattle. Thompson showed how “renewables” subsidies, plus electricity deregulation, play havoc with the electric grid in the state, and how seldom “windy” Kansas actually has strong enough wind for its big turbines to produce net power.

Minnesota farm leader Andy Olson reported on how “fragile” the electricity systems are throughout the farmbelt states. He debunked the idea that gas-fueled “peaker” plants can be counted on as backup when the wind turbines are down. Seven coal-fired plants in Minnesota have been converted to gas, but the logistics and the huge expense of getting and using the gas doesn’t work.

Angel Cushing, farm leader and activist from eastern Kansas, reported on the green assault against agricultural land use. It comes in the form of zoning, easements, federal, and green elite maneuvers, done in the name of preserving nature, with fancy code names such as “viewscape.” There is a “heritage area” campaign, which is part of the “30×30” assault, to remove 30% of U.S. land and water out of any economic use by 2030, outlined in Biden’s Executive Order 14008. This week, the federal Bureau of Land Management held a public comment session on a plan in the works for an “American Prairie Reserve,” centered in Montana, which is to be over 3 million acres, larger than the nation of Lebanon. In it, there will be permitted only bison, and no more traditional livestock grazing will be allowed.

Merkel Is the ‘Symbol of Failed Germany’

The second conference panel was a lively symposium, which effectively destroyed the notion that humanity was incapable of using our science to design a new phase of progress. Co-moderator Dennis Speed introduced the event by honoring four scientists who passed away over the last year, following careers in the science of development. They were Tom Wysmuller, a NASA scientist who organized his NASA colleagues and others to present the evidence that those who insisted human progress would wreak havoc on the Earth were knowingly lying; Dennis Avery, who published studies of development science, especially in the field of agriculture; Hal Doiron, a NASA scientist who helped develop the Lunar Landing Module and the Space Shuttle; and Freeman Dyson, an astrophysicist who promulgated the benefits of CO₂ and undermined claims of its malign effects.

That introduction was followed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s keynote, a pointed illustration of the shameful role played by current presumed leaders of the “West.” She called Germany’s Chancellor of sixteen years, Angela Merkel, the “symbol for the failed Germany,” as proven by her firm decision to shut down nuclear energy production and now coal and fossil fuel production without having any replacement in place to keep Germany functioning as a modern nation.

Zepp-LaRouche especially condemned Merkel for ignoring three days of precise warnings of the floods that killed at least 170 Germans, who could have been saved if the Chancellor’s government had taken steps to move them to safety. Rather than take responsibility, Merkel blamed the floods on “climate change.” Zepp-LaRouche said, regarding Merkel and the leadership of “the West”:

If this outlook prevails, the prognosis is that Germany will vanish as an industrial nation or even as a nation altogether.… It’s so worrisome that this is the characteristic of almost the entire Western establishment. They have policy failure after policy failure and despite that, and the fact that everybody can see it, they demonstrate a complete inability to reflect on the causes.

South African nuclear physicist and engineer Dr. Kelvin Kemm, who has become known in America “outside the Beltway” through the Schiller Institute, outlined the necessity of developing nuclear energy for Africa and reported that a growing number of African nations are preparing for that. After a brief lesson in the history of climate on Earth that demolished the myth of “anthropogenic global warming,” Kemm outlined plans for the future of energy in Africa.

In addition to rejecting the failed solar panel and windmill technologies, Kemm pointed out that even hydropower would not work in Africa because it is susceptible to droughts of up to five years, during which hydropower is as useless as solar energy after sunset.

Dr. Kemm is working on developing what are called Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and micro-reactors. These power generators are mass-produced and can be transported by train or truck and installed to provide energy for limited clients such as an industrial complex or a modest-sized city. They are easier to set up and use than large-scale reactors that form part of a national power grid.

Crucial Importance of Water

Dr. Kemm concluded with an irony:

If you look back in time, whenever there were periods of global warming, they coincided with health, welfare, and prosperity; crops grew; sea routes opened up; ice melted. Passes over mountains cleared up and people could pass easily from one region to another. It’s the period of global cooling when crops failed, ice caused trade routes to be closed.

Rear Admiral Marc Pelaez (ret.), former Chief of Naval Research, and vice president of a shipbuilding firm, is currently a member of the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and former Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, with the mission of reconciling opposing views to solve the problems humanity is now confronting.

Admiral Pelaez addressed Zepp-LaRouche’s global reconstruction proposal that begins with constructing modern health care facilities and operations in every nation on the planet. He proposed that a first step in doing this would be to make sanitary drinking water available everywhere. He suggested that the Committee and the Schiller Institute hold a technology conference to discuss planning this project.

There is a water shortage plaguing the U.S./Mexican border regions. Alberto Vizcarra, coordinator of the Citizens Movement for Water in Mexico, presented this as the result of two situations. The first is the nature of the environment of the Great American Desert. The second is that agreements were reached between Mexico and the United States when the population straddling the Rio Grande border was 15 million. Today it is 100 million, so the requirements on both sides have changed drastically.

Vizcarra recalled that during the administration of Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos, whose tenure roughly coincided with that of President John F. Kennedy in the United States, there was discussion of a massive water project between the U.S. and Canada, which became known as the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA). At the same time, Mexico’s Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO) was under consideration. Both of these plans were promoted by the LaRouche movement in Mexico and North America. Recognizing that there is no physical or technical barrier preventing the completion of such projects, Vizcarra recommended that Mexico ally with China’s Belt and Road initiative to finally implement these projects.

Richard McPherson, also retired from the U.S. Navy, had surveyed these major water projects in Mexico. McPherson served as a nuclear engineering officer and on the Board of Inspection and Survey, Propulsion Examining Board. He also represented the U.S. on the International Atomic Energy Agency panel examining the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. He gave a detailed history, much based on his personal experience, of the development of peaceful nuclear power. Having long confronted the factor of public opinion, McPherson said this was the factor that sabotaged President Eisenhower’s 1953 offer to provide nuclear technology to the entire world for prosperity and security. He pledged himself to overcome the fact that 800 million people have no electricity or water and two billion go to bed hungry every night.

Energy Use and Life Expectancy

Dr. Vincenzo Romanello, a nuclear engineer and founder of the Italian Atoms for Peace, presented a human history of the annual per capita energy requirements for each technological level humanity has lived through, starting with fire (1.1 million calories) and continuing through nuclear energy (35 million). He left open the requirements of the next breakthrough, nuclear fusion, and explained his belief that the complexities involved in practical controlled fusion development would take longer to resolve than many hope. In the course of the session, several participants remarked on the three maps of the world he displayed. These showed each nation color-coded for energy use level, infant mortality rate, and life expectancy. The distinction, most notably between Africa and the rest of the world, could not be overlooked.

The panel’s presentations were concluded by John Shanahan, civil engineer and editor of allaboutenergy.net. Unlike many of his collaborators in the nuclear energy industry who present nuclear energy as a solution to anthropogenic global warming, Shanahan, following nuclear power pioneer Theodore Rockwell, views nuclear energy as a solution to natural climate change and other energy challenges.

In brief remarks prior to the open discussion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche emphasized that the political problem characterized by the “Green New Deal” will destroy all industrial nations, in opposition to restoring creative growth. This enemy is the same for water, energy, the spread of pandemics, the destruction of agriculture, and the continuation of endless wars, she said.

This requires a complete change of the axioms, and in my view, it starts with the image of man. Man is the most advanced part of the Universe. The ideas generated by human creativity, discovering scientific principles of the universe—that is the most advanced part of the evolution of the universe. If there would not be a correspondence between what the human mind creates and the laws of the universe, this would not function. This is the proof that the laws of the universe and the human mind are coherent. We are not a parasite. We are not a burden on nature.

In the context of Admiral Pelaez’s proposal on water development, Zepp-LaRouche pointed out the movement’s association with the African TransAqua project proposal for decades. This is a proposal to green the Sahara by moving water from the Congo River to the dry or drying Lake Chad basin. There is now a feasibility study under way that places this high on the agenda of African development requirements.

The discussion was joined by Major Gen. Peter Clegg (ret.), a founding member of the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites. “I am tremendously impressed” by the presentations so far, Clegg said, and pointed out that the problems we confront are not technological, but do include “the politicization of science.” He complained of politicians who say we must follow the science, but they are “the last person” to pay attention to that. He illustrated this by mentioning environmental hero Jimmy Carter, once “running around the White House in sweaters talking about global cooling,” who has now joined the crowd fighting global warming.

Zepp-LaRouche concluded the conference by discussing the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites. She explained that, so far, the membership were largely healthcare providers, but that it was open to scientists, engineers, and others involved in promoting human creativity.

The conference video is archived on the Schiller Institute site.