The Return of the Dark Ages

[rangerrebew]

The Return of the Dark Ages
Erick Erickson
September 14th, 2022 4:39 PM
Text to Speech

 
 
Population declined. Global temperatures rose. Migration of people from destabilized regions increased. Wind and solar energy supplied the planet all its power. On Sept. 4, 476, Romulus Augustus stepped down from the throne of the Western Roman Empire and the world entered the Dark Ages, which lasted until around the year 1000. Now, 1,022 years after the end of the Dark Ages, as populations decline, temperatures rise and people move restlessly about the planet, environmentalists are plunging the world into a new dark age of wind and solar dependence.

Much of what environmentalists claim is climate change is actually caused by inept, corrupt and inefficient policies often pushed by progressive politicians. California, beginning this new dark age with blackouts and energy strain, prioritized moving to wind and solar power instead of prioritizing power grid infrastructure upgrades and baseload power. The state's power suppliers could not cover the costs of keeping their power lines in good condition lest they be fined for not moving fast enough to “clean energy.”

The reality, however, is that the environmental policy is inherently Malthusian. The entire and entirely unspoken premise of this movement is that humanity must suffer so the planet survives. There must be less of us living and those who survive must live in more miserable conditions to save the planet. Progressives will object, but few will see or hear their objections in the darkness to come. There will either not be enough power or it will be too expensive to regularly use.

Wind and solar power are not baseload power. Baseload power is power that can be flipped on as demand rises. Wind and solar are inefficient power sources fully dependent on the wind blowing and the sun shining. While environmentalists claim batteries can store excess power to use when wind turbines do not spin and the sun does not shine, there is not enough lithium nor enough batteries to actually meet the demand in reality.

 https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/erick-erickson/2022/09/14/return-dark-ages

[The_Reader_David]

Actually, the Dark Ages in Western Europe did not begin with the retirement of the last Western Augustus to a villa near Naples in 476.  Visigothic Spain, Ostrogothic Italy and Merovingian France were all fully literate societies.  The real cause was the rise of Islam which destroyed the papyrus trade across the Mediterranean, leaving the extremely expensive velum as the only material on which to write until the introduction of paper, and disrupting cultural contacts with the still-functioning Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople. This view was first put forward by the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne and was controversial given the hallowed status Gibbon's interpretation of events had at the time.  Archeological finds since Pirenne first advance the view have supported his these.