Zero Carbon Means Death for Whales, but Humans Too

 James T. Moodey has an interesting piece at the American Thinker today entitled Zero Carbon is a Whale Killer. It is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek title, but then, if the Zero Carbon goals are actually reached, who know? It could become reality.

John D. Rockefeller destroyed the whaling industry by replacing whale oil with Earth's natural compost: refined oil. Whale oil had many uses, pharmaceutical and industrial, including lubricants for nearly all machines and trains. And it was the age of machines.

The whaling ships of Nantucket were slow. Their primary prey were gray whales who do not navigate by echolocation, like many other whales. They follow the contour of coastlines, and they swim only about 3–6 mph. Modern ships move much faster, and they will have technology to find and kill the faster and more acrobatic whales, including blue whales and humpbacks. Using modern technology, they can find and kill them where they feed, in the Bering Sea.

Although this is mentioned to harpoon the left, and to grab your attention for the larger issue below, the point is not far-fetched. Whaling is still legal in some countries. And African countries, with all their efforts, cannot stop poaching. All that is required is for the price of refined oils to rise significantly. The whales won't stand a chance.

The virtue signaling "save-the-whales" types should have a shrine to old John D. Rockefeller and Exxon Mobil, but of course they don't because learning history is so yesterday. Still, if the real goal of zero carbon, or as the now call it net zero is achieved, nobody will have the time or inclination to worry about the whales. We will be too busy worrying about our own survival. You see the real goal is to cut the population of the world down as rapidly as possible to anywhere between a few million and a billion or so. And the ones driving the net zero agenda being leftists, by any means necessary.

Moodey's theory on inflation is that the price of crude oil is what today drives inflation. More importantly, his examples seem to prove him right.

Net-zero carbon may spell death for more whales. It will certainly result in more poverty for us. Poverty tracks with prices. If prices are low enough, there is no poverty. Our low point of poverty occurred in the Roaring Twenties, when an average home cost $4,000 and cars were $400. We could pay off our homes in 3–5 years (mortgage terms at the time) and pay off our cars with only two months' average pay.

It is the inflated price of goods that causes poverty. And contrary to the current groupthink that the money supply is causing inflation, inflation tends to track with the price of oil. That became apparent to me when I wrote my first economic essay in the late 1970s about oil prices and inflation. The price of oil started at a low of $1.25 per barrel in 1970 and climbed to $37 in 1980 as a result of three enormous tax increases. OPEC imposed an approximate $6.00 tax in 1976, followed by an $8.00 tax. Then oil more than doubled to $37 in 1980, when Jimmy Carter's windfall profits tax took effect.

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In 2009, president Obama signed the $787-billion stimulus and added the remainder of TARP at $370 billion. This was more than three times the cost of the Afghan and Iraq wars over five years, all in Obama's first 90 days. This was followed by continuing resolutions of $813 billion stimulus for each of the next four years, plus two years of Q.E. spending at $200 billion each. That is the largest increase in government spending and resulting money supply in our history.

Yet inflation did not budge. In fact, inflation during those years and beyond, from 2009 to 2020, averaged only 1.8 percent. That is undeniable proof that spending and the money supply did not cause inflation. The spending and money-supply cause of inflation is a worn out myth.

One could wish that the people who support the net zero initiatives would attempt to live without products derived from oil. But that would mean no telephones (plastics) no cars (plastics, gasoline) no food supplied from a grocery store (Deisel fuel), no modern pharmaceuticals, and on and on. Why, even Dawn dishwashing liquid is a surfactant derived from oil. They would have to use actual soap to clean dishes, which dries out the hands. Essentially, they would be forced to live as our colonial ancestors lived. Of course, they would be too busy surviving for another day to worry about "the climate," which is a good thing because man cannot do anything about it anyway. Oh, and the glue they use to glue themselves to various objects like art and pavements. That derives from oil too. Sorry.

Why is inflation so affected by the cost of oil? Each barrel produces these derivatives: gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, bunker fuel, heating oil, mineral oil, kerosine, naphtha, solvents, benzene, surfactants, propane, butane, propylene, ethane, ethanol, and natural gas. Each derivative has its own supply-and-demand market. That is why, in 2021, oil prices doubled but jet fuel tripled.

These derivatives create such products as plastics, synthetic rubbers, glues, cosmetics, lubricants, detergents, paints, paraffin, medical ointments, most industrial fluids, electric power, and a clean heating source for nearly all factories including food processors. The dilating cost of these products rises further due to subsequent processing.

Net zero carbon 2050 will cause runaway inflation that our country has never seen, and inflation causes poverty.

Inflation causes poverty, but not just poverty. It causes premature deaths as well. In 1900, our average life span was 35 years, mainly because of infant mortality. Many of our medical devises, and indeed medicines derive in one form or another from oil. Do we really want to go back to those times? I surely don't.