Seems to me that this will place Britain at the forefront of economic disadvantage.
You know, back in the day we had a similar problem like this where politicians ignored the people, and I think we rather pushed back against that sometime around 1776. Perhaps after a few years, we’ll see a repeat of that, but this time in Britain, rather than a colony.
I think some of the goals are impossible to achieve given Britain’s current direction and results, such as the folly of the wind power program.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/
In the Guardian article, I cringed over this, even though I have an electric car of my own.
The committee’s report says the new carbon deal will require that heat pumps will have had to be installed in 2.6m homes by 2025. It also says that by the same date 31% of new cars, and 14% of those on the road overall, will be electric. Experts say a total of £16bn of investment will be needed every year to meet the commitment. Some of this money will be raised through increases in electricity prices.
God help you all, at least until you throw the bums out. Full story here
h/t to WUWT readers PhilW, M White, Steve C, and Harry Trent
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Britain at the forefront?
Germany is also racing with Britain on the same track. Tomorrow I’ll have a post about what Germany’s leading political daily calls “a growing green tyranny”. Things are really getting bad here, too.
This is the Green 1933, and it’s not a time for Neville Chamberlains – speak to your US lawmakers about this danger. This green malignancy will spread well beyond Europe if given the chance.
Meanwhile in the Sunday Times today
“Business leaders force ministers into climate retreat
Industrial giants have threatened to move manufacture away from Britain if the government backs new limits on greenhouse gas emissions”
Also in the Sunday Times
“Secret tape puts heat on Huhne. A recording catches the minister repeatedly telling witness not to talk to media about allegations that he lied to the police”
But then the bad news from the Sunday Times…be very afraid.
“Take a deep breath: oxygen is declining. A dramatic decline in oxygen levels on Earth has a direct link with CO2 from burning of fossil fuels, according to a 20-year study”
It’s a all behind their pay wall, gasp, choke.
Austerity Power.
The future holds promise of wooden ships and stone cutting.
It is too late to ask God for help. The little gods want it their own way and their subjects have been convinced that God doesn’t exist. Let them get what is coming. Bring it on!
Yes. We have a penchant for long term decline here. The projected GDP for 2020 and 2040 – Britain will be overtaken by Brazil and Russia. Europe is in long term decline too. It is at the forefront of the misanthropic creed of human doom and green fever, as is already commented on.
However, the decline will be in all countries that believe in starving the economy for the sake of the global warming myth.
The last person leaving won’t even need to turn the lights off.
Finis.
“Seems to me that this will place Britain at the forefront of economic disadvantage.”
That’s the whole point.
Of course, the clowns who thought this up will never be at an economic disadvantage. They’ve planned it that way.
In Britain the enviro-bureaucracy feedback loop has gotten formalized on the budget:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/giving-money-lobbying-money
Nothing to be worried about, just a bit of Spin, this is merely about managing the message about the UK’s new Nuclear reactors which will be made next month…
“UK regulator’s latest quarterly statement of its pre-licencing evaluation of the Westinghouse AP1000 and EDF/Areva EPR reactor has laid out how it plans to deal with unresolved issues that spill over beyond its stated deadline of [30th] June 2011.”
The UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has stated that its target is a ‘meaningful’ generic design assessment of the two reactor designs by [30th] June 2011, at which point it would issue a so-called design acceptance confirmation (DAC).
http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q4-10.pdf
Will the last person to leave the UK please switch the lights off….
Oh no…. They will already be OFF..!!
Max_B says:
May 15, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Exactly. This article willingly misses the elephant in the room. What they are trying to “legally commit” to a new fleet of nuclear facilities build by our french neighbours. It is impossible to write about future nation energy plan without talking about what place nuclear has in it.
Wilful omition of the truth.
Usual pathetic reporting from The Guardian. This article is probably a reprint of the Downing St. press release.
“Take a deep breath: oxygen is declining. A dramatic decline in oxygen levels on Earth has a direct link with CO2 from burning of fossil fuels, according to a 20-year study”
====================================
The paper is from 1999…………
I wouldn’t call a 0.03% reduction, dramatic.
But the drama queens at the Sunday Times would……….
You get a much bigger reduction than that just going inside.
Atmospheric Oxygen Levels Falling
Environment News Service 1999, July 19,1999
Sydney, Australia
The “east Asians” aka Pakistanis will return home. Their comment will be that not only is Britain’s electricity supply just as bad as Pakistan’s, but the food rots too.
Ken Harvey says:
May 15, 2011 at 12:49 pm
When I was born Baldwin was the British Prime Minister. They have had some poor Premiers since then but in my opinion, Cameron has the weakest intellect of the lot.
——————————————–
Gordon Brown wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box.
Why are the politicians being blamed?. Politicians have to follow advice. A politician has to rely on respected authorities, such as the Royal Society. However the poor politicians will be excoriated by historians if it turns out bad. A commenter on J Curry’s blog pointed out that the respected authorities such as the RS, APS,,, dont have any accountability. The politicians are accountable. Dont blame politicians, feel sorry for them. There should be a method to make the Royal Society and its counterparts like the APS responsible for the consequences of mistaken advice.
It is not true that all the UK political parties support this madness. UKIP for one doesn’t. More than 2 million people voted UKIP at the last euro election and the recent voting at local elections suggests that support at a Westminster election right now would be well over a million.
Unfortunately the support is pretty evenly spread so that in the absence of proportional representation it does not translate into seats. However we should not despair. A little extra push may tip the balance and start yielding loads of seats.
The only trouble is that Huhne will now, with his plan approved, go ahead with deals guaranteeing electricity floor prices to nuclear producers, renewable obligation certificates and feed in tarriffs for solar and wind producers and so on. Each of these deals when signed locks us in contractually to paying for high cost power right through to 2035, whether we want to take the power or not.
While everyone else is enjoying cheap shale gas, thorium based nuclear or whatever other cheap new technology comes along, the UK will be left mired in the high cost mess left to us by Huhne.
Even if we did elect UKIP in 5 to 10 years time, they by then would face a huge problem in getting us out of all Huhne’s disastrous contracts and we would probably be stuck with most of them through to 2035. Our country it appears is doomed to future poverty and apart from emigrating, I can’t really see a way out.
On Jo Nova’s blog a while ago she reported that sceptical Aussies were ‘up in arms’ about their proposed carbon tax – the proposal – a mere 5% reduction by 2020.
I commented that their eco-nutters weren’t even in the same league as our eco-loons in the UK, and went on to acquaint them with Ed Miliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act. This requires, BY LAW, an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 against a 1990 baseline, 34% by 2020. You couldn’t make it up!
I was hoping that the whole thing would be quietly forgotten because of the huge deficit problem that we have. But no, the eco-fascists seem to have prevailed.
I despair!
It is solemnly hoped that this:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/8514500/Chris-Huhne-warned-witness-to-stay-silent-over-speeding-offence.html
– is going to be sufficient to cut this vile little creature Huhne, off at the knees, rendering incapable of delivering to Parliament his disastrous “news” of this devastating agreement. It may, however, render his “victory” somewhat more bitter than he foresaw.
It is also deeply depressing when one realises that all political parties here in the UK subscribe wholeheartedly to the fallacy of CAGW, we are unable to vote out the greens, they have infected everywhere.
The Finns are getting ready to throw the bums out.
In the recent elections, the True Finns party (Perussuomalaiset) rose from almost nothingness to 19% of the vote and won 39 seats in our 200 seat parliament on a platform promising a declaration of independence from the EU and no increasing the price of energy on he basis of dodgy climate science.
The Establishment did all it could to vilify them as isolationists, xenohbes and rasists, but it backfired.
As the True Finns could not agree with the intent of the other parties to fork out billions of euros to support foreign banks, which have lent to PIIGS countries, they are in opposition. WAIT IN FOUR YEARS’ TIME…
There’s more to this than meets the eye….. Time will tell.
I expect we will see a massive exodus of the best/brightest out of the UK to these shores, or elsewhere. They’ve already lost some great talent abroad. Reminds me of Rhodesia….errrr, sorry, Zimbabwe.
This is very good news indeed, as it will drive investment in the technologies of the future, rather than those of the Victorian era, such as the internal combustion engine and coal and steam driven electricity generation. It’s the countries that lag behind that will have to import these new technologies from us, and they are the ones that will be economically disadvantaged.
Political posturing is all it is. They say one thing and do another.
You get what you vote for. This was not imposed by an evil outside dictator, it came from within. Self inflicted. No prayers for the Brits.
We have our own disaster(s). We voted for “hope and change”, we got trillions in new debt. According to the folks at Pimco, our Fed is buying (read printing) 2/3 or more of our new debt. Which can have only one outcome. And it ain’t pretty. Can you spell “Weimar”? (which had a less pretty outcome)
The folks on the east side of the pond aren’t the only ones in trouble.
Frakking for Shale Gas is all good and well, energy independance and all that. But do I really want to heat my home with flammable tap water?