WALLACE MANHEIMER: A Modest Proposal To Rational, Public-Spirited American Billionaires

WALLACE MANHEIMER: A Modest Proposal To Rational, Public-Spirited American Billionaires

Wallace Manheimer on March 24, 2024

Many of your fellow billionaires contribute large sums to “cure” a nonexistent climate crisis, falsely naming it an “existential threat.” They wrongly claim that wind and solar can support modern civilization.

For instance, Michael Bloomberg has proudly committed $500 million to eliminate coal. Jeffery Bezos has committed $10 billion to a variety of climate causes and “clean energy” efforts. These billions dwarf resources available to small groups fighting, for instance, degradation of their land by gigantic wind companies.

Furthermore, philanthropists direct many dollars into foolishness like Critical Race Theory and a fabricated division of the world into oppressors and the oppressed. In addition to unnecessary climate panic, college campuses harbor harmful notions of “gender fluidity” and dangerous divisiveness among students that manifest as rampant antisemitism and hostility toward the deplorables du jour.

You know this is wrong but, despite your wealth, may feel powerless to stem the societal degradation. You make your own large contributions to hospitals, museums, medical schools, etc. Of course, that is very commendable. Still, you may be looking for other avenues for your generosity – perhaps actions that could not only help people but also challenge the promotion of negative forces. Well, here are a few suggestions.

Let’s first consider possibilities within the U.S. As a private citizen or group of citizens, you can certainly place ads in major media to expose the fraudulence of scientifically invalid claims of a climate crisis. You could cite the mountain of scientific evidence that contradicts the popular apocalyptic narrative as well as the tens of thousands of prominent scientists attesting that there is no climate crisis. Sources include the CO₂ Coalition, Global Warming Petition Project and CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration.  Furthermore, you could partially balance the scales by financially supporting local groups fighting installation of hundreds of gigantic wind turbines, each taller than the Washington Monument; or square miles and miles of solar panels, which will permanently scar their land.

If you’re more inclined to support universities, then we suggest financing a faculty position about Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Lincoln. Their accomplishments and documents are sources of inspiration worldwide.  Alternatively, you might consider supporting nuclear science and engineering departments, or initiating an interdepartmental organization, for domestic and international students, in the disciplines of petroleum geology, engineering, and industry.

Internationally, there are many countries that suffer from a lack of energy. The less developed world is not giving up on fossil fuels regardless of pompous calls from the climate industrial complex for them to do so.

“I firmly believe that no African country can be asked to halt the exploration of its natural resources, including fossil fuels,” says Kenyan President William Ruto.

Even the head of the United Nations’ most recent climate summit, Sultan Al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates, said that use of fossil fuels cannot be discontinued “unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

Perhaps nobody exhibited resentment of meddling in Third World energy policy more than did Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “The colonial mindset hasn’t gone.  We are seeing from developed nations that the path that made them developed is being closed to developing nations”.

Lesser developed countries will continue to advance in ways they see fit, employing fossil fuels (and hopefully also nuclear power). China and India are building coal-fired power plants at a furious pace, and Africa and other regions will soon as well. There is no stopping it! Rather than utter hypocritical and futile pieties, let’s help them and, while doing so, also help promote sensible, clean energy technologies developed in the U.S.

Coal promises to be the salvation of more than half of sub-Saharan Africans — the number who labor daily with inadequate supplies of electricity. Cooking, heating and lighting are done with a combination of wood, charcoal and dried animal dung.  The World Health Organization estimates that about half a million die each year from the resulting indoor air pollution.

Ultra-super critical coal-fired generating facilities, recently developed in the United States, are cleaner and more efficient than traditional plants. American billionaires investing in these sources of clean, affordable, reliable electricity could save the lives of untold numbers of sub-Saharan Africans.

Nigeria, once an important oil producer, never instituted effective pollution controls and, with the advent of hydrofracturing technology in the U.S., is hardly competitive on the world market. The right investments could restore both Nigeria’s environment and oil industry.

There are many new things for rational, public-spirited billionaires to support. Why leave the field to those pursuing the climate fetish and promoting destructive ideologies and fads?

Dr. Wallace Manheimer is a life fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and is a member of the CO₂.Coalition.  He is the author of more than 150 refereed papers.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.