Essay by Eric Worrall
Lord Stern hopes artificial intelligence will play a role in achieving a green technology “tipping point”.
Climate targets ‘may mean higher taxes’
By Dharshini David
Global trade correspondent, BBC News…
Lord Stern told the BBC: “We must have growth and we must drive down emissions, and it’s investment in the new technologies that’s going to get us there.”
He added: “I’m not arguing for delaying investment in health and education. We have to pursue those at the same time.
“If we have to tax a little bit more, so be it. If we have to borrow a bit more for the really tremendous investments, then we should do that.”
His words come as the country grapples with a cost of living crisis and the UK is facing the highest taxes relative to income since the Second World War.
The government is also under pressure, from some quarters, to cut taxes.
However, Lord Stern says more public investment could help jobs and the environment.
…
He is optimistic that a tipping point in key green technologies – including energy generation, car batteries and fertilizer manufacture – is achievable within a few years, with artificial intelligence playing a key role.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64597981
In my opinion, the unaffordable utility bills Britons are paying today are Lord Stern’s fault.
In 2006, Lord Stern published the Stern Review, a report which convinced British politicians across the spectrum to embrace green policies, which led to the horrifying utility bills Britons are facing today.
By “artificial intelligence” I think he means magic – AI is rapidly becoming the magic sauce people advancing preposterously infeasible proposals use to make them seem plausible.
I’m not sure how the British people feel about more utility bills and taxes, on top of the eye watering rises they have already endured, but I suspect they will make their views known to Lord Stern and his friends in due course.
Don’t worry, Eric, we’re fine about it.
We’re looking forward to going back to the dark ages when all decisions are made for us and we’re told what we can and can’t do.
I’m mostly looking forward to trying the delicacy called “gruel”.
“Please, sir can I have more?”
Didn’t they have lots of pitchforks in the dark ages?
Yes …
but not the energy or the organization to wield them against the elites, who had crossbows & gunpowder.
Regardless, the peasants will revolt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt
Interesting how revolts start with imposition of a tax, and end up with a combination of peasants and senior government officials hung, speared, or heads on a post….
King’s Guard: “The peasants are revolting.”
King: “You can say that again.”
Wizard of Id
Taxation was MUCH lower.
They did, but had to burn the handles to keep warm.
Sri Lanka went full WEF on energy and farm policy. The Presidential Palace was stormed, and the former President is now in exile.
Yes, it was possible because Sri Lankan pesants haven’t got but pitchforks. If they had tractors, like in Europe, they wouldn’t have succeeded, as we have seen many times in the last few years.
The trick in the West is to divide the population into small groups. All of them too small to have any power.
What do you think a Federal Reserve System is ? A centrally controlled/socialist economic system. All those who blame capitalism should know that we haven’t had a capitalist system for a long long time.
Indeed UK annual CO2 emissions have fallen from 550,000 KT to 320,000 KT since 2008, in the same period China’s emissions have risen from 8,000,000 KT to 12,000,000 KT.
The UK GDP growth rate in the last quarter of 2022 was virtually zero after the previous three quarters of 0.5%, 0.1%, -0.2%, the GDP per cap. is now at the same level as 2005 i.e. nearly two decades of zero growth in standard of living, the currency has fallen from 2 USD to 1.2 USD since 2008 with a current inflation rate of 10% and the UK government debt has increased from 35% of GDP in 2007 to 100% in 2022.
Under the UK government’s current policies things can only get worse until as Eric says a tipping point is reached but not the one Lord Stern predicts.
Contrary to what Lord Stern claims, Britain’s carbon footprint has not fallen at all. We have just exported all of our heavy industry to countries which don’t care about global warming. We have replaced domestic co2 production with imported co2 production.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/21/britain-is-g7s-biggest-net-importer-of-co2-emissions-per-capita-says-ons
Both Chris and Bill have directly identified the most glaring problem with the CAGW Loonies assault against western culture: China not only has, but will accelerate and continue to do so, greatly increasing their “carbon” output to totally offset the Nut Zero route to economic destruction. If you are not changing anything why continue to damage your economy? What about greening of the earth? This is a double win for China.
Exactly- same here in Wokachusetts- where the state brags that it’s the most energy efficient with the lowest carbon footprint of any state per capita- because we no longer have any industry other than hospitals, universities and software companies. I keep replying to politicians when I hear this from state agencies- but they aren’t paying attention. We have to import almost every product we purchase- including wood products despite having several million acres of forest most of which is not managed- because the tree hugging climate whack jobs say we must not cut trees to save the planet- but of course it’s OK to import the wood from thousands of miles away.
Yes, like the recent Dilbert cartoon…it’s easy to have a low carbon footprint if you don’t do anything.
Alas, this simply confirms the equation:
Net Zero = The Stone Age
How did such an idiot become so influential ?
Our entire administration is packed with ignoramuses. Something has gone seriously wrong with our education system since the 1950s which with the benefit of hindsight appears to have been a golden age of educational achievement.
All thrown away from cultural complacency and the chasing of fashionable self indulgent ideologies.
How?
Banking
Central banking, i.e., creating money ex-nihlo to be precise.
The wizards behind the curtain. They were able to print all they needed to buy/corrupt the system with fiat monopoly ‘money’. Those who we vote for are just their puppets.
Nothing has gone wrong with education since the 50’s – it’s a feature.
More taxes?
One way of pushing dedevelopment – and that with energy rationing is the aim
In a country where energy costs have trebled what we really need now is an uplift in taxation beyond the record high UK level we are already at here in 2023.
Yup, that will have a positive effect on how people view Climate Alarm policies….. Higher prices for basic energy, higher inflation and higher taxes what more could anyone ask for?
Mr Stern is an ignorant fool. And so is anyone who listens to him.
Eric, regarding your last sentence, the British public won’t make their views known because the MSM hasn’t, and won’t, tell them the truth about the reasons.
Yes, sadly things will get worse before most people start looking for answers.
Apparently the British people are begging for higher taxes; the Labour Party is currently at 48% in the opinion polls. The Green Party is on 6%. That makes more than half the British people saying that they want higher taxes. Or do they have the deluded belief that these parties won’t put up taxes?
I suspect they are looking for someone to get net zero right, and are willing to give labour a go.
Sadly BBC propaganda has ensured most people still believe renewables are cheaper.
If you start from this false premise, the obvious conclusion given power bills are skyrocketing is that the Tories have either botched the transition or they are corrupt, and are stealing from ordinary people’s utility bills.
I’m not sure what will happen when labour fails to improve the situation.
In some ways the Tory party seem like the US Republicans. Given a mandate by the electorate they choose to squander it by not addressing the issues that people actually voted for. Labour will probably be worse until the other side gets their turn again.
When will people realise that high energy bills and falling standards of living is caused directly by greentard policies? Possibly never.
It is indeed depressing. The best we can hope for in the mean time is defunding of the BBC. But what government and MI5/MI6 security service wants to disband an intel-gathering resource that spans the globe?
But the Tories are ALSO a high tax party having delivered us the highest tax burden in a generation thanks to millionaire PM Sushi and millionaire chancellor kHunt.
In Canada, in 2014 Turdeau promised “a little bit higher taxes on the rich” and was elected primarly in large population centers. So it’s not that “voters” want higher taxes…”voters” just want someone other than themselves to be taxed more. If “voters” were restricted to “taxpayers and landowners” the story would be much different. But Condo renters, 17 year olds, basement dwellers, and those with jobs where customer contact is through a take-out window or a chat line, all want someone else to pick up the tab.
They are not aware that “they” are paying those taxes …
blissful …
Climate targets ‘may mean higher taxes’
May?
For some reason, debt enslavement is more palatable than tax enslavement.
Yeah my first thought is “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
Followed by “you forgot impoverishment, malnutrition and forfeiting freedoms you’ve taken for granted your entire life – and all to “achieve” ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.”
Liberal elites simply don’t understand wealth. Wealth is not some blessing from God that must be equitably distributed among mankind. It is a concept created by mankind that results from the product of labor exceeding the cost of making it. This is true, whether it is mining gold, extracting oil, producing power from wind turbines, writing code, or farming corn. History has proven – endlessly, that spending wealth faster than creating it simply inflates the currency of the spender. We are proving this (again) today in the US.
More proof that the trillions we’ve spent on “education” has been a complete waste. We live in the most technologically advanced civilization ever, and yet people, and even our supposed leaders are waiting on magic ideas to save us. Pathetic.
Stern was just another useful idiot, entrusted by Blair specifically to counter a more measured House of Lords report that didn’t fit in with Blair’s agenda. He can take his higher taxes and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine.
Twiggy Forrest knows all about getting money for not working and changing the climate-
Andrew Forrest says signing Yindjibarndi royalty agreement will lead to Alice Springs style chaos (msn.com)
What a shock that government wet dream schemes will raise taxes. Who could have predicted that?
” Climate targets ‘may mean higher taxes’ ”
…
“May” ???
Let the Russians figure it out after they take over management.
And all these taxes will fall on the less well off. The rich with either evade taxes or up sticks and head off to the sunlit pastures of a low tax country.
Higher Taxes ? What do we think printing fiat currency (inflation) is ?
with artificial intelligence playing a key role
AI is still bound by the constraints it’s programmed with. If those constraints are based on fantasy rather than reality, it doesn’t matter how “smart” the AI is, its solutions won’t work.
Is AI becoming the new religion?
There is definitely a role for AI in replacing bad leadership and calling out green greed.
may mean?
Raising taxes never solved a damn thing. Any politician who advocates for higher taxes should be fired on the spot. We tax payers will let you know when we think our taxes need to be raised.
Mo taxes…mo gubment….mo debt….mo money printing….yeah that’s the ticket….that will fix things up!
Too late, progressive prices are embedded, and forward-looking.
Investments that are forced are not investments.All investments require independent due diligence for risk/reward..Forcing people to “Invest” is theft.
What do AI and Crypto have in common, both consume huge amounts of energy. So suggesting AI will be a Green saviour is a rubbish idea that like all Green policies does the opposite of what is intended.