Recycled water or renewable energy - which is truly sustainable?

It's July 1983 and a rare good summer is coming to Belfast. We had both graduated and were to be married within two months. Fast forward to 2019, my wife of 36 years has now just retired, and I continue to work as an independent water consultant in Oz, promoting the sustainable use and management of water.

At 23years of age, I was to embark on my PhD and had chosen water, as opposed to the study of alternative energies (solar, wind, wave, tidal, geothermal and heat pumps which were also of interest to me at that time). I am pleased to have devoted the last 36 years to water, as a researcher, lecturer, industry manager, government executive/regulator and now independent consultant. On reflection, I am pleasednot to have become an alternative/renewable energy specialist. I do have solar panels on our roof, we harvest and treat rainwater, thus practice what I preach about the value of renewable energy and water sustainability.

After 20+ years of climate cultism and indoctrination starting with Kyoto (1992) and the overly reveered IPCC quango, the renewable solar and wind industry has not only distorted energy policy around the world, but has scooped up lucrative Billion$ of subsidies and policy driven incentives that have cost 1^st world taxpayers dearly. Energy prices have skyrocketed and to add insult to injury, lower-middle income populations pay through their general taxes and indirectly through their governments now donate to the profits of the global wind and solar energy industry. Climate change cultists and globalisation gurus almost worship wind and solar "free" energy supplies. The United Nations see it as their ultimate lever to extract money from the imperialist 1^st world countries into the pockets of 3^rd world governments, while 'developing' countries like China and India receive a "get out of jail" card.

Climate change cultism is now even justifying international terrorism, manifesting itself via Extinction Rebellion. Who, in the late 1980's would have thought, Maggie Thatcher's initial support of the IPCC carbon focused climate change agenda would lead to this? I am sure she would be bemused. Prime Minister Thatcher's real aim was to justify controlling the coal mining and power unions. By criticising coal and offering climate change as the "righteous cause", she saw a golden opportunity to mortally wound her government's greatest nemeses, the mining unions.

Since the 1960s, environmentalists have striven to find a way of controlling and constraining humankind's 'footprint' on planet earth. From the early days of the Club of Rome (1968) and their early attempts to model the world's physical, economic and social environments, they have been seeking a justification for taxation on pollution. Their conceptual model was coded into the world's most powerful computers of the time. After multiple iterations, they handed down doomsday predictions through publication of the Popular "Limits to Growth" back in 1972, and its updated reincarnation in 2002, "Limits to Growth 2". When adopted by university environmental courses and the reading material for government environment policy makers, the traction for justifying a new "green pollution tax" was clearly needed and carbon dioxide emissions was the means. Not just a tax on human breathing, but our lifestyles. It could even be used to tax farting cows. The vegetarians must have almost choked with excitement!

Concurrently, the mathematicians (not climate scientists) who worked on the climate model predictions for the Earth and other planets in the solar system, saw an opportunity which was their golden pass to the top table of global influence. New super-computer time was becoming available as NASA's space programs shrank. With access to this computing power, a new breed of scientist was born, namely "climate modellers", who now had the opportunity to start building supposedly "complex climate models". The rest is history, carbon dioxide is labelled a pollutant and, we the proletariat must pay a tax just for breathing. Unfortunately, the climate modellers' rise was at the expense of traditional scientists. Nowadays, if your grant application doesn't mention climate change, you're not "with the program" and you aren't getting funded. We the taxpayers have embarked on one of the most destructive global policy initiatives ever experienced by the masses.

These models remain just that… models. Groups like the IPCC (a mere 1500 scientists, bureaucrats and policy makers) have grasped these model predictions (just as Maggie Thatcher had used the theory in the 1980s) and exploited and conflated them into the very mechanism they had been searching for. In particular, it is one small variable in these ginormous climate models…… yes carbon dioxide, Since then, Carbon dioxide was defined as a pollutant that could be used justify a global tax to fund global equalisation of wealth, offer enormous profits to the solar/wind industrialists and provide nation state governments/politicians with something to blame for its underperforming policies in health, social wealth fare, environment and even the economy.

The ultimate silver bullet had been found, a veritable holy grail to save the world from its impending destruction! Great for these vested interests, but not for the lower-middle class occupants of 1^st world countries, who must fund this magic tax revenue stream, while not impacting on so-called developing countries like China and India, whose economies are quarantined from the pain.

So what are the real issues real tangible human impact issues facing our planet? Well, let me suggest overpopulation, erosion, over mining of resources, ground water depletion and pollution, land degradation, deforestation, river pollution, sanitation, safe drinking water supplies, epidemic diseases, ocean pollution, habitat/ecosystem destruction…….to name but a few.

Do you really think climate models, which are very crude misrepresentations of a very complex and naturally changing global climate, are fit for purpose? These crude models don't consider ecosystem interactions, solar weather or internal geological factors that have significant influence on the climate. Weather timeframe models are far more complex than the global models because they are processed driven and operate on more localized areas (circa 3 million km², as opposed to the global models' 510 million km²).Yet these near real time process driven weather prediction models can only accurately forecast 3-5 days ahead, and even in the case of massive systems like hurricanes/typhoons, can't manage to predict trajectories 1-2 days ahead.

Politicians, bureaucrats and financiers adore climate change cultism. It gives them the opportunity to introduce an almost universally applicable tax across the economy that can be increased repeatedly to adjust for our failings to reduce emissions. And above all it is a 'good and just, righteous' tax that will help save the planet for future generations. In this Orwellian world, anyone who dares question the benefits of these carbon taxes must be ridiculed, pilloried, damned as deniers/sceptics or dishonest puppets of the oil/coal barons. Many non-cultists have had their careers terminated. No one will get a promotion in the water public service departments or indeed university departments for daring to question the values of climate change cultism.

Renewables are regarded as perfect, ignoring the reality that they use up vast quantities of rare earth metals to produce solar panels and batteries, and destroy vast tracts of land through mining. Due to future growing demands for rare earth metals, we are now about to embark on a major exploitation of deep ocean beds which will devastate this so far untouched and poorly understood region of the planet.

And yes I do understand these climate models, and unlike the so-called climate scientists who promote their 'simple' model predictions, I have observed, measured, monitored, analysed and even modelled (as a last resort usually) the impacts that have occurred on the water cycle in both rural and urban environments. I, unlike most climate change cultists, have read the original 1956 paper (and many more) that first proposed the potential theory of carbon dioxide's role on the "Greenhouse Effect", and understand its limitations. It's still an unproven theory and indeed, while rarely exposed, these "super dooper" climate models can only run, when their master's manipulate the real-world data before it is fed to these highly complex and inherently unstable climate models.

Our lives are busy, what with the pressure of work, family, bills, social media. It's too easy just to accept what the environmental studies teacher feeds your kids at school, what David Attenborough et al entertain us with between dinner and bed and what the politically correct media present to us "24/7/365".

Hey, and if a 16-year-old girl on the autism spectrum with a "how dare you" attitude is confirming the "end of days" which is the older generation's fault, it's all just too hard. Well I would say it's not too hard, and in the long run, like most easy options, it will end up costing you dearly. Step back, do a bit of "balanced reading/investigation", talk to people who have different opinions. But please don't accept the dogma of elitist bullies such as the Greens, IPCC, Greta et al and most definitely not Extinction Rebellion.

I started this article with a mundane story about two wide-eyed, enthusiastic and naive young 23-year olds. We are now approaching 60,  ie middle age! I am glad for having chosen a career focused on understanding and managing water cycles. If I had chosen renewable energy, I might have been wealthier, but would be dissatisfied at being involved in a very destructive and ultimately unworthy industry. That's not to say solar and wind is not valuable, but rather that it has, like climate change cultism, not served the world fairly or equitably.

Over the last 20 years I have focused on the need for water recycling and, in particular, potable water recycling. Yes, treating wastewater to drinking water standards (and beyond). "Catchment to tap", "Toilet to tap" and "Yuck Factor" are all terms I deal with on a daily basis. Media, bureaucrats, vested interests and politicians routinely squirm at the thought, and nearly all recoil when you offer them a drink of purified water in a glass, even though it may be 100-1000 times purer than 1^st world tap drinking water in their own homes! At the beginning of the 2000s, the NSW Government Minister for water proudly shouted (Greta style) to the media that "the people of Sydney will not drink sewage", in the middle of what was colloquially known as the 'millennial drought'. In 2004, the Premier of NSW had been lauded by the Greens for damning desalinated water as "bottled electricity", that would cost the climate dearly! A year later the Minister signed a contract for a $3.2 billion desalination plant that sat idle (costing $200m per annum in maintenance fees to deliver no water!) for over 10 years until 2019.

For those of you with an interest in the future of this planet, please consider doing something constructive. Protest, violence and the inevitable descent into eco-terrorism that often follows is not going to save the planet. Only hard work, examination and thoughtful deliberation will do that, and don't accept anyone's opinion when it's tainted with catchphrases like "the science is settled". That is the opposite of good science and if we were to accept that catchphrase, then we would still believe the earth is flat and the moon made of cheese.