The Global Warming Policy Forum welcomes the decision by the new Government to abolish the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Both the GWPF and its chairman, Lord Lawson, have been calling for this much-needed rationalisation for several years.
As the new government under Theresa May focuses on the much more important issues of economic growth, international competitiveness and leaving the European Union, the decision will provide vital savings. It is hoped that the abolition of DECC will also encourage a new emphasis on cost-effective policy-making.
“Moving energy policy to the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should give ministers a fresh impetus to ensure that the costs for consumers and businesses are driven down, not pushed further up,” said GWPF director Dr Benny Peiser.
The newspaper The Independent” calls this a “…plain stupid’ and ‘deeply worrying’ move“, see below:
The decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been variously condemned as “plain stupid”, “deeply worrying” and “terrible” by politicians, campaigners and experts.
One of Theresa May’s first acts as Prime Minister was to move responsibility for climate change to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
Only on Monday, Government advisers had warned of the need to take urgent action to prepare the UK for floods, droughts, heatwaves and food shortages caused by climate change.
The news came after the appointment of Andrea Leadsom – who revealed her first question to officials when she became Energy Minister last year was “Is climate change real? – was appointed as the new Environment Secretary.
And, after former Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd announced in November that Britain was going to “close coal” by 2025, Ms Leadsom later asked the coal industry to help define what this actually meant.
Former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: “DECC abolition just plain stupid. Climate not even mentioned in new deptartment title. Matters because departments shape priorities, shape outcomes.”
Greenpeace said it was concerned that the new Government did not view climate change as a serious threat..
John Sauven, the campaign group’s executive director, said: “The voting record and affiliation with climate sceptics of key cabinet appointees are deeply worrying.
Full story here
No, what’s deeply worrying is that organization like Greenpeace have had so much power that they have effective infilitrated the government with activists. As far as I’m concerned, they have reaped the results of their years of overreaching alarmism, and the pushback we are seeing is the direct result of pushing too hard for things like the need to take urgent action when slow change would do. Perhaps if there had been some real investigative work done over Climategate, rather than the CYA whitewash job we saw from Muir Russell, DECC might not have got the total axe. Then of course, there is the added cost DECC was forced to reveal:
Closure of DECC is well deserved and well past due in my opinion.
Bold move, and they look prepared to take the heat – why can’t our government be as bold (maybe it will….)?
too much money to the ‘crony’ capitalists. check out how many retired military personnel get involved
with this hoax…a number of navy admirals etc…gov’t contracts.. spread the wealth of tax payer money to
political flunkies.
I would say that this is an example of British Un-obamination !
Good on ya Mates; I may just get out my British shingle I’ve been hiding, and polish it up a bit.
Hopefully the flies are not too thick in Europe this summer; because there’s a lot of folks standing around with their mouths wide open wondering ” Wot ‘appened ? ”
G
The British are famous for hemming an hawing (use your own speeling).
Telegram to Whitehall: ” Tiger eating Porter on Bombay railway station platform; please wire instructions ! ”
The (conservative) Republicans have been jawboning about eliminating EPA and dept of education and Dept of Agriculture since the last century; but they still can’t decide on what shape of table to sit down at to discuss it.
Europe better kick the British out pronto, so they can concentrate on getting their own houses in order, or they will be too late.
Well we’ll watch from over here, and think about it. Well I don’t know that Jerry Brown ever thought much about anything.
But then Joan Baez did do a 75th Birthday concert recently, so kumbaya, is still in vogue.
Duzz anybody remember Mary O’Hara, a wonderful Irish folk singer, who sung almost exactly like Joan Baez; except 20 years earlier ?? (played an Irish harp as well; ethereal)
G
https://youtu.be/oFpL-Zbbfcw
Many thanx Vuc.
I saw her in concert (well her and her harp) way back in the plasticine era; she looked as pretty back then too, although I remember the hair being a little bit redder. Probably lousy film.
G
Never heard of “hemming an hawing” but I do know about some other stuff …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE
US department structures are determined by congress, not by the administration.
You left out the word supposed in your statement.
My understanding is that, whatever supposed legitimacy it gained from the Congressional appropriation process thereafter, the EPA was created by a Nixon executive order.
I don’t particularly want to see the EPA abolished, but a 50% headcount reduction and a substantial narrowing of its remit would be just about right.
Rather unfortunate turn of phrase there “take the heat”, or are you an undercover warmista and mean it literally?
Missplaced. Refered to Taylor Pohlman post.
Brits rock! — Eugene WR Gallun
Ah…that would be Gibraltar. 🙂
Well the Barbary Apes are still there; so I guess it must be !
g
She doesn’t waist time! So yesterday’s article about only Trump denying CAGW is now outdated…
I personally hope she doesn’t waste time.
It’s past time for me to mind my waist.
The Ghost of Maggie !
G
and far more brutal than Mrs T ever was with her ‘vegetables’ , on a par with good old east European ‘чистка’.
Please, “waste” not “waist”.
Sorry, “take the heat” was an unintended Freudian slip, but now that I think about it, apropos. There may be political heat, but i doubt much thermometer heat…
You beauty!
BTU?
Beautiful Thermal Units?
Over 100 Nobel Prize winners in science, including more than 40 winners of the prize in Medicine, have signed a letter slamming Greenpeace for its opposition to genetically engineered crops. Makes one wonder who the “science deniers” really are.
http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html
This was a weird piece because golden rice remains only theoretical. It hasnt actually been worked into a commercial product yet and greenpeace arent the ones blocking it, it just hasn’t worked yet.
You mean this Golden Rice?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ricephotos/9404587235/in/set-72157626241604366
Golden rice has been a reality for quite some time now. But activists have managed to prevent distribution; including inciting violent acts and sabotage against Golden Rice test plots.
Placing blame for malnutrition and starvation that golden rice could alleviate directly on activists and their supporters.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=193039
golden rice/golden corn
as below they managed to make it
eventually at a cost that would have done MORE sooner if used to grow normal high A crops suited to the areas
the problem is people have no money to BUY it..or much else.
vitA deficiency isnt the only lack in the kids simple poverty and malnutrition on many counts vit mineral etc etc
randy, randy, randy…
Who is scaring people about “frankenfood”(sic)? (Almost no vegetable you can find in stores is in its historical “natural” shape or DNA. I hope you knew that.)
Who is saying that making children eat food enriched with a vitamin precursor is dangerous and unethical? Do you really believe that giving pro-vitamins to children is dangerous or unethical?
Who is saying that GM technology in general is risky and harmful, based on exactly zero evidence? The anti-GMO crowd.
Who is defending the flawed (to say the least) work of G.E. Séralini? Who propagated the ugly images of rats with ridiculously big tumors? The anti-GMO crowd, notably the “greens”.
Who is destroying GM seed experiments in many countries? Who is calling these destructions “non violent acts”? Who is advocating this sort of “non violence” where you forcibly enter labs and destroy everything? The “greens”, the anti-GMO crowd.
randy, can you accept reality?
A hundred German physicists said Einstein was wrong.
Einsten said: ‘Why a hundred?
If I was wrong, one would be enough…’
Why any ? Don’t need to point out the obvious.
g
Comes down to who’s influencing or paying for your “science”. Similar to Rent-a-Mob. As in Rent-a-Scientist, LLC. Be surprised at what they’ll “discover” for you. As far as believing in the Nobelers? Everyone held their noses when “Peace is at Hand” Kissinger got one. But when Barry and polar bear Al got theirs, that award hit the credibility dust bin alongside the Pewlitzers.
That is TERRIFIC!!!
Oh, if only the U.S. Congress would abolish the federal EPA (and state legislatures their EPA’s, too) and repeal and rewrite acts such as the Clean Air Act.
The United Kingdom is leading the way! #(:))
EPAs are needed. But their charters should be substantially restricted.
Game: When a house has become as rat-infested, dry rot-eaten, and plumbing-failed as the EPA(s) have become, you don’t renovate — you tear it down and start from the ground up.
EPA (and several other agencies — along with their enabling legislation) are beyond remodelling. Costs less to build a brand new home than to remodel in many cases. This is one of them.
Semantics.
Same with IRS. Someone has to collect taxes.
I’m with the bunch who want to make the EPA a committee of state EPA organizations.
Game: Your dismissive “semantics” reveals that you are not distinguishing among the various U.S. administrative agencies according to their function. An EPA does not serve a basic government purpose like an agency like the IRS… but, why am I even talking to you….
If you could understand what I’m trying to explain, you would not have needed to be told…..
So, I’ll just drop this and say….
HAVE A GREAT LIFE PLAYING GAMES, you funny person, you! 🙂
*******************
Re: “committee” of state EPA’s — the states already HAVE their own EPAs. I advocate abolishing them, also.
Class action lawsuit lawyers would be more effective than the EPA, more specific in their targeting, and not cost the taxpayers a cent.
The federal government has a legitimate function in regulating interstate pollution.
“Oh, if only the U.S. Congress would abolish the federal EPA” is childish.
The Heartland Institute has plan to form an EPA committee composed of State EPA’s . could work and would handle the intrastate issues. https://www.heartland.org/content/new-policy-study
Ernest Bush July 14, 2016 at 3:29 pm
“I’m with the bunch who want to make the EPA a committee of state EPA organizations.”
Only if that is what the sovereigns, states, members of the USA republic want to do! There need be no zentral commissar. Michigan with the lakes has way way different EPA concerns than Iowa or Texas! If they wish not to step on the toes of each other fine. The US government need only deliver the mail, prevent the enemy from occupying, and stay the hell out of my life!
I don’t think we are, just following Russia, China and Australia etc, about half the world, seems the U.S. is well behind on climate change.
We need the same sort of Government action in New Zealand. Well done, Theresa May! She evidently understands that her duty is to implement the Brexit vote, and to ignore the sore losers!
Well I’ve been telling Jon Key for years now to go and tell Kyoto to go jump in the Tasman Sea.
But I guess his science advisor, a sir somebody, doesn’t agree with me.
G
That is what she is saying at the moment. Politicians who wanted to leave the EU are in a minority in her new cabinet.
Janice,
I agree! they should rewrite the clean air and clean water acts to remove all phrases that begin with “the Secretary shall determine…” Maybe they can replace it with “the Secretary shall recommend to the Congress possible additions to the law which Congress shall weigh the cost and benefit thereof and pass or decline as determined”. I would then remove all enforcement mechanisms from the EPA and turn them over the the Department of Justice and relegate what is left of the EPA to a role of maintaining and monitoring a network of environmental quality sensors and issuing status reports to Congress for possible changes in law and to the Justice Department for reported violations of law. Justice would follow their current process of trying cases of violation of Federal Law in Federal Court – no more administrative courts run by bureaucrats!
Rename it to the Environmental Monitoring Agency. Leave the “protecting” to Congress.
Owen! I think your ideas are great! I nominate Owen (down in Georgia) to the drafting committee for re-writing the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act (and lots of other acts)!
(P.S. What a JOY to be understood.)
And they only need monitor the air and water as they cross state borders. Anything confined within a state should be the responsibility solely of the respective states.
Only a few days before the referendum, MP’s nodded through further emissions control under the UK’s unique Climate Change Act. The new energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, at that time a Minister for Energy and Climate Change, was saying Britain could be zero carbon by 2050. Our politicians are as untrustworthy as yours, we have to stay vigilant.
The referendum result doesn’t mean we have left the EU and many politicians are trying to make sure it doesn’t happen. John Kerry doesn’t want us to leave either:
http://en.mercopress.com/2016/06/30/kerry-not-convinced-uk-will-finally-invoke-article-50-for-leaving-eu?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily
“London, Kerry explained, does not want to find itself boxed in after two years without a new association agreement and to be forced out of the EU without one. And, he added, Cameron “feels powerless, and I think this is a fair conclusion, to go out and start negotiating a thing that he doesn’t believe in and he has no idea how he would do it.
”And by the way, nor do most of the people who voted to do it,“ Kerry said, apparently referring to ”Leave“ campaigners such as former London mayor Boris Johnson, now the frontrunner to replace Cameron as premier. [update: he is the new Foreign Secretary]
Asked by the panel moderator if this meant the Brexit decision could be ”walked back“ and if so how, Kerry said: ”I think there are a number of ways.“
”I don’t as secretary of state want to throw them out today. I think that would be a mistake. But there are a number of ways,” he said.
Washington has long supported a strong role for its British ally in the European project, and was dismayed when British voters chose last week to quit the Union.”
Boris Johnson’s first Brussels appearance will be Monday at the Foreign Affairs Council
http://bit.ly/29wuiIq John Kerry will also be there.
Check out the “European Global Strategy”, the EU’s hegemonic vision of the future:
http://europa.eu/globalstrategy/en
The problem is EPA has already addressed the low hanging fruit. But they still have all of the mechanisms in place to increase regulation, so they are going after emissions that are less and less important and cost more and more to mitigate. So why do they continue to do this? Because 1) they can and 2) they can achieve other objectives unrelated to actual environmental impact, like revamping the entire energy sector.
Changing names is good for headlines but it doesn’t change the civil servants.
And remember, Amber Rudd has actually been promoted.
Don’t get carried away with adoration for the new UK Government.
Only Hammond has ever shown any sign of competence.
Quite right, MCourtney. But Greg Barker has a good history of supporting Fracking. But, wouldn’t you want to be a fly on the wall at a Cabinet meeting where Rudd and Johnson get to sit close (Home and FCO)?
Shame in that case, Harry, that it’s Greg Clark that is in charge, wouldn’t you say?
Indeed. The Climate Change Act 2008 with all its targets is still driving the ruinous policy.
Congrats, UK! Sanity finally prevails! No the US needs to wake up and give the boot to every idiot politician who supports “action” to “tackle” “climate change,” which is akin to attempting to stop the sun from rising and setting.
NOW, not NO
I hope it is a real abolition, not just moving the former bureaucrats into a different department with the same duties. I blame Nixon for the EPA, which attracted zealots and activists.
The story in the Independent says that no one has been fired, merely that DECC no longer exists as such, but as a sub-cabinet agency under a different department. So it’s only a first step.
The Independent is a bit left wing in its bias .
Here is the story by Delingpole who is a bit more on the reality side .
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/07/14/britains-new-prime-minister-drives-a-stake-through-the-heart-of-the-green-vampire/
…pay attention
Germany Votes To Abandon Most Green Energy Subsidies
Germany’s government plans to replace most of the subsidies for local green energy with a system of competitive auctions where the cheapest electricity wins.
Germany’s wind and solar power systems have provided too much power at unpredictable times, which damaged the power grid and made the system vulnerable to blackouts.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/10/germany-votes-to-abandon-most-green-energy-subsidies/#ixzz4EPHQGAW1
Achtung! 🙂 Great news, Latitude dude. Wunderbar!
LOL…..morning Janice!!!
I’m surprised ANTHONY WATTS has not picked up on this yet….
(warming Will Rogers)
Well great; may not have to set fire to Valhalla after all, to warm the place up. Might save a lot of Rheingold too !
G
Pop Pop
Why do you think they made smart meters mandatory.
A very interesting overview of the technical problems a country will face when renewables will form a substantial part of the electricity production is given by the German Wolfgang Müller from the German EIKE – Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie.
In a lecture in Paris at COP 21: Day of Examining the Data with The Heartland Institute, he was giving a very interesting overview. One of the subjects: the exploding number of interventions to stabilise the grid. A must-see:
“What the world can learn from Germany”
Starts at 5:39:40
Pop Pop
I followed the link to the German original and I’m afraid it isn’t quite so rosy– the article is just discussing a PROPOSAL for a new law… the article is from April (7.4.16 in German…), as far as I can recall they haven’t voted on this yet… still, the fact that it’s be proposed is encouraging.
With Aussies leading the way, and now Great Britain, the Germans are quietly moving in the same direction in order to preserve their national economies from the stifling, hugely expensive, and completely worthless “combat climate change” regulations.
Trump is rising in the US polls and his election would produce similar common-sense roll-back of inane Obama-regime regulations from Energy, EPA, Defense, Commerce, and other Departments. And wouldn’t it be great to see NASA actually advancing space research and exploration and get them out of the Climate-change racket?
Dare to dream
inane Obama-regime regulations…
It’s amazing to me that a person was elected president…who’s only qualification was community organizer
….and no one realized what a community organizer does
create anarchy first…..
Read “Rules for Radicals”, aka the Obamabible.
g
His skin color.
Oh puh-lease! It is precisely because the “stupid party” decided to lose the election with Mr. Trump that we will NOT see any such reversal in the US. The Republicans took a dive, HRC becomes the Pres, and we will continue to destroy the energy sector and every other sector of the US economy.
Aussies may be leading the way but some are not leading in the right direction.
South Australia has the most ‘renewable’ power in Oz but the inter-connector to Victoria mentioned in the link is to bring brown coal poweredelectricity in to supplement our irregular wind and solar power.
Of course, our illustrious treasurer has his head in the sand and trots out several excuses over which he supposedly has no control. ‘Market forces, perfect storm, weather delaying works” and other reasons, just not the closing of base-load power stations due to the mad push for ‘green’ power.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-faces-years-of-power-prices-double-other-states/news-story/18d9236449dd7ee6c63b39841b401ce9
Also has the highest unemployment rate in Aus too.
I have repeatedly urged we remission NASA to do something really useful. I have no interest in sending a man to Mars, or using NASA scientists to push a political agenda.
What a waste of wonderful talent.
Let’s challenge them to develop new sources of cheap, reliable energy.
I disagree completely. NASA should focus on space as it is the National Aeronautics and SPACE Administration.
I agree that using NASA to push a political agenda is wrong–especially when that agenda is climate change.
BUT NASA needs to get back to it’s charter and start getting us back INTO space. IF that means developing cheap energy in order to power space craft–all the better and exactly what they do. Let’s get NASA back to doing what it does best….”thinking sh&t up” in order to use it to get people into space and back home again safely.
Why not let ENERGY COMPANIES develop new sources of cheap reliable energy.
After all, they have a real incentive to do that. Government has neither the incentive nor the brains, nor the means. Just get the hell out of the way, and let capitalism do it.
G
How about an “X-Prize” for energy.
A move that was long overdue. Theresa has gone up in my estimation.
Mine too.
She still a Social Justice Warrior (SJW) so I would not pay too much attention to this decision.
It is certainly good news that CC is now under Leadsom’s remit. But only if the former DECC budget of £5.7 billion is seriously cut will we know it is truely good news on the CC front. And only if present energy policies are seriously revised to enable economic flexible baseload CCGT will we know the UK is finally moving in sensible policy directions rather than toward killing winter blackouts. The grid’s spare safety margin is now zero for winter 2016-17. OFGEM was proposing ~£600 million in standby payments to past end of service life old coal and GT to bring the margin to 5% when it should be 12-15. Unreliable safety margin is no safe margin at all.
Leadsom has been promoted from energy minister to a full cabinet post as environment secretary DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs)
Not sure if this is a devious move on May’s part. Leadsom is pro fox hunting and fracking so whatever she does at DEFRA she will be shot by both sides.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/14/brutal-how-theresa-mays-cabinet-bloodbath-even-shocked-hardened/
To Andrea Leadsom, who had been Mrs May’s fiercest rival for Number 10, the Prime Minister awarded a promotion. Well, I say a promotion. The former junior energy minister was made Environment Secretary.
This job will, in due course, require Mrs Leadsom to explain to Britain’s farmers why they’re no longer receiving the subsidies they currently get from the EU – the membership of which Mrs Leadsom campaigned vociferously against.
I’m beginning to wonder which is worse. Being sacked by Mrs May, or being promoted by her.
I have read elsewhere that a very large chunk of the DECC budget is committed to the ongoing dismantlement of early and defunct nuclear power stations, so I don’t think we’ll see much of a cut in the near future.
Leadsom has nothing to do with it. CC comes under Greg Clark. A definite warmist
Good. Now perhaps they will turn Drax back into the efficient coal fired plant that it was rather than an inefficient wood stove. At some point the climate/weather/etc. is going to snap back to where it was in the 1970s or worse, the early 1300s. Mathematically chaotic systems with strange attractors do that sort of thing. For myself, I will augment my solar system with some ng fired generation for the crashing of the grid in the US.
“…for the crashing of the grid in the US”
Does your solar work when the grid is down? Most don’t.
“Does your solar work when the grid is down…?”
Here’s some food for the paranoid conspiracy theorists.
My solar array, which was installed in 2009, was designed to run off grid. To do that we had to install battery backup for the array controllers (Dual Sunny Islands), which manage failover during grid outages
For about 6 years they worked fine. In fact they still work fine if I test them by throwing the main breaker at the service entrance. They automatically switch to battery/array only, isolate service to an “essential loads” panel that only serves essential loads (obviously), then runs until the sun goes down and the batteries discharge to 50%, then manage a cuttover to a 15KwH propane generator that powers the property and charges batteries. When the batteries again hit 98% State of Charge (SOC) , they turn off the generator and go to batteries. The cycle repeats until the sun comes up or the grid does. These switchovers happen so fast I don’t need to reset the clock on my oven.
So here’s the beef; in 2011 my power company installed “smart” meters. Ever since, the system fails to provide backup power when the grid goes down. I have to go out to the shop and manually mess around with everything until it starts working again. It’s actually a black art and I can’t even write the procedure down. Hmm. Why? I’ve had experts out to look at the problem and they can’t figure it out either. As I say, when I throw the breaker it does everything right, it’s only when the grid fails all by itself that I have problems.
Maybe it’s just me, my system, and the fact these are moderately complex critters, but I find it interesting that it stopped working when the smart meters were installed. I’m an engineer and I do tend to ask “what changed” when doing failure diagnosis. Everything points to the grid operator. And these pieces of equipment (the meters, the islands and the inverters) are all able to talk to each other usint TCPI/IP over the internal power lines. Passing strange in my opinion.
will if you can isolate it from the grid.
Bartleby, thanks for the reply.
Interesting problem. Have you tried opening the main breaker at the service entrance when the grid goes down?
“the meters…are all able to talk to each other usint TCPI/IP over the internal power lines”
Your equipment can communicate with your Smart meter?
“So here’s the beef; in 2011 my power company installed “smart” meters. Ever since, the system fails to provide backup power when the grid goes down. I have to go out to the shop and manually mess around with everything until it starts working again. It’s actually a black art and I can’t even write the procedure down. Hmm. Why? I’ve had experts out to look at the problem and they can’t figure it out either. As I say, when I throw the breaker it does everything right, it’s only when the grid fails all by itself that I have problems.”
Could be that the smart meter isn’t totally killing your draw, just restricting the number of amps (possibly by “pulsing your power… lots of little cut offs then back on”)? Since you aren’t at 0 amps for long enough, the other circuit doesn’t realize that there is a problem.
If it’s something like that, then you need a smarter control circuit on the automated backup that realizes other undesirable behavior as the same as “off”, and take appropriate action.
Andrea Leadsom is Environment Secretary.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills becomes the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) department – led by Greg Clark, formerly communities and local government secretary
As a result, the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been scrapped, its brief folded into BEIS. Greg Clark is in charge of this expanded department.
So ristvan July 14, 2016 at 11:10 am seems to be wrong in stating “It is certainly good news that CC is now under Leadsom’s remit.”
Time will show if an element of sense has been injected into the new UK Government. Don’t hold your breath.
We need Trump to win the election and for GOP to retain control over the Senate.
Yes. I was going on earlier British press speculation some hours ago that energy would be left in BEIS whence it came, and CC would be moved back to Environment, whence it came when DECC was formed. Got that part wrong. Rest of comment seems OK.
The UK still has a legislated goal of reducing CO2 emissions under the Climate Change Act (I forget the real title,) so there is no immediate impact of this change. However, simply by aligning energy with business and industrial development it signals the intent that energy production has other imperatives than climate change.
Now, if they could only do the same with agriculture and food production (get them out of the environment department) we would actually be getting somewhere.
Thing is, Rob, if the UK Government failed to meet its target under the CC Act what would be the sanction? May could just raise her hands and say. ‘Sorry, we missed it’ – and nothing would be done about it. So, I hope she ignores the stupid Act.
Good point Harry Passfield,
And May has form for this. She was in charge of reducing immigration to the target level.
Complete failure (as everything else she’s tried).
But no matter.
ShrNfr
Unofficially the times they are a changing.
Green energy laws and regulations have produced a vicious increase in energy costs which have hammered manufacturing and industry in general. But with the EU, they were all in it together (more or less). Now GB and Germany are breaking ranks with the AGW scare.
Everybody is paying attention.
The first country which reverses policy in a real and meaningful way will see a significant drop in energy prices. This will give them a big advantage in manufacturing and export relative to today. The other EU countries can not afford to just sit back and watch. They will be forced to act or go to ruin.
Some, no doubt, will choose ruin. The others may well start an energy war as they race to the lowest possible prices.
Looking at this from afar it seems that May is the most practical and forthright politician around.
By the powers vested in me, by me, I hereby declare Theresa May to be the leader of the Free World, (Obama, get a real job).
Yes, it’s early in the process but I’m willing to watch and look for practical decision making. Such practicality would be a real maverick approach in the race to zero competence elsewhere. Meanwhile Russia and China are busy with monumental land grab opportunities that I predicted with Obama’s first election.
Spot on analysis.
An early test for Theresa May’s new focus on the struggling masses will be the decision on Swansea Bay Tidal Power, billions for a piddling amount of intermittent electricity, to be paid for by the struggling masses, advocated by those parties who claim to support the struggling masses, but who clearly don’t, hence Brexit.
That and stupid Hinkley Point EDF.
Nope, ratify Iceland geothermal M.O.U. Build H.V.D.C. to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Quarter price of electricity and make Belfast/ Clydeside global centre of geothermal engineering.
Simple
YOU GO, ENGLAND! Keep the ax sharp.
Bravo! The next thing you know there will be some rational accounting of costs and rate impacts from all energy projects and program sources, including the EDF nuclear project.
… much-needed rationalisation…
I think you mean rationality.
: > )
What’s needed next is for Britain to hold hearings and sponsor debates on CAGW, to open the Overton window on global warming.
The minister who announces these hearings and debates, and maybe even opens a science court, or encourages universities to do so, should smooth the way by saying that “We all know climate change is real, but we don’t know how bad it will be. We’re debating about that, not AGW.”
The issue is much simpler. If green policies are good for us, why does the government feel the need to force them down our throats?
How is the UEA budget holding up and the BBC? While the money changers continue to fume, it would be a great break out opportunity to lead on some small and medium sized reforms where the cackle for their budget exposes them each in turn.
Wrusssr – uh, that is – you go United Kingdom. The UK hasn’t broken up into Northern ireland, Wales Scotland and England yet.
But it is encouraging that CC has been folded into business. Also, whether Environment includes any kind of CC stuff or not, it is also encouraging that Andrea Leadsom holds the environment remit. Maybe dredgers will be allowed to dredge rivers, rather than being stymied by EU regulations – which of course worsened the floods last year when everyone “left” was whining about climate change as the cause.
Politicians only do sensible things when general living conditions get worrisome … and then not always.
Since a lot of international orgs are based in Paris, it would be a good time to start reviews of each and the dues paid to them (IEA, OECD, and many more)
hardly the hair-cut money
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/14/french-president-francois-hollande-spends-11k-month—-his-hair/87078010/
Yes, but it’s a declining (receding) resource.
Any organization funded by governments has to try and inflate their importance to try and stay off the chopping block. And private companies inflate the importance of their services to generate more sales. So for us to take the recommendations of the IPCC as an unbiased evaluation of the situation with global warming does not make sense. If the IPCC says the truth, that global warming is not a serious issue, that we can easily adapt to the small warming influence man has on the climate, then they are essentially saying “Cut my funding, you can better spend your money elsewhere”. So this move to abolish the DECC will scare the pants off the IPCC. Expect a press release from the IPCC soon with a new level of fear tactics invoked, trying save their own cushy jobs as rock star earth savers who are paid to solve a non-existent issue.
I remember one of C. Northcote Parkinson’s ” laws” is that the main purpose of any organization is to perpetuate itself (and expand if possible). And if it is large enough, the members are kept busy with meetings among themselves with no useful work will leave the group.
just following comments…
The 24th August will become Britain’s Independance Day. I was astounded to see, of all people, the President of the United States of America in Britain telling us that we need not be a free, independent, self governing, parliamentary democracy. And did so four and ten score years after the battle of Yorktown.
Eleven score and fifteen years? 2016 – 1781 = 235
Obama was just trying to give you the benefit of his huge intellect. He’s generous like that. It does seem to rub some people the wrong way. Perhaps it is the arrogance.
Yeah, they’re a bunch of mass murdering crooks who deserved to lose their jobs 1000 times over.
I am astonished at their inability to find the actual temperature records, and learn that the climate is very, very stable. But while they have the wrong problem, they do have the RIGHT SOLUTION. And that is more important.
Paris was voluntary, which blunted their usual anti-Life (anti-fossil fuel) garbage. But they ALSO decided to sequester the carbon into SOIL instead of other approaches to the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. This, they can WIN at, and increase soil fertility, and in some local cases, improve climate (not annual temperatures, but rainfall and less variation–e.g. reducing 40-140 degrees F in a day to 60-90 degrees F in a day. Less extremes).
The world’s soils have been largely KILLED by chemistry-based agriculture, especially the poisons used. Yields are still high with artificial fertilizers, (and increased CO2 in the air), but the food is less nutritious than it used to be, and soils are eroding. There could come a major world-wide disaster from all this. There WILL come a disastrous famine unless we wake up in time and use restorative agricultural practices to heal the land. I think we will wake up in time.
Regenerative agriculture produces better, more nourishing food. It can enhance the ACTUAL economy and ACTUAL biosphere, as opposed to the horrible results of attacking fossils. Therefore, it is something we can all get behind.
And best of all, we can turn a bunch of mass murdering crooks into productive people enjoying real success when they try to make a difference. People are precious. Let’s work with these people.
Well you only need water and rocks, and energy to make food. That is how Mother Gaia does it, so we can just do that ourselves.
g
The important thing now is for governments to spend a little money on some efforts to explain the lousy science that predicated the anti-AGW efforts in the first place. The Greens will fight every step backward tooth and nail. If governments give an inch they will be run over completely in public opinion. Can’t let that happen at this critical juncture.
Ding! Dong! The Wicked Witch is DEAD!
The ‘Independent’ – A paper that has proceeded the Grun in giving up and becoming a ‘blog’. Nobody in Britain wants to buy their ‘brand’ anymore.
What more could we ask for …
Out of The EU
The Left stuck with bleating on FB about the ‘injustice’ of it all.
The wankerati blowing fuses left right and center
I’m a happy 3×2 tonight.
Could they maybe show us how to get rid of the Department of Education?
I see south Australia is having problems with not enough power being generated now that they have extensive wind farms and closed down a major coal fired plant , seems the extensive green element in this state have now put the state in jeapordy of massive power cuts .
Another failed green experiment state that now relies on fossil fuel generated power from another state .
Australia should do what we Brits do to meet our local energy production shortfall & import their gas & electricity from abroad ……….
Not only that, the 6 bihhest employers in manufacturing have told the government the cost of electricity will force them to leave the state.
Link to this story up page at July 14, 2016 at 4:08 pm
Well it’s getting late here in The UK … Party must finish, I need some sleep.
Out of The EU and no more DECC … Can we have our colonies back? (worth a try – I’m feeling lucky. Perhaps I should get on the first available flight to Vegas) :^}
Do not read too much into this yet. Whilst on the surface it appears good news it is more of a trimming of a bloated department. The responsibilities of DECC are being transferred and the offices are likely to be freed up for the new “Ministry for #Brexit”. As of right now nothing has changed regarding policy.
The department is being merged with the old Business Innovations and Skills department under Greg Clark who has been appointed secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy
He’s a bit of a warmist.
Responding to Clark's appointment, Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), called Greg Clark an “excellent appointment”.
We will see.
If Mrs. May really felt our pain and understood our struggle to meet our bills she could start with the low lying fruit that is the climate levies on our electric bills and the massive increase in grid costs as transmission line are upgraded to accommodate the occasional pulses of wind and solar power that are costing us all so dear.
She might even recognise that the whole thing is a regressive tax for the benefit of the greedy upper class toffs of the Cameron era.
Or perhaps her accession speech was just another load of bullshit from yet another cynical politician.
Plus ca change.
Craig,
You may be right about Greg but he is in exactly the same boat as Boris, David (Davies), Dr Fox and others.
Mrs May has recently adopted a phrase much used by Jean-Luc Picard – “Make it so!”.
To those who said we would be better off out of the EU (my self included) she has said “OK, the job’s yours, make it so! – but make jolly sure we are better off!”
To Greg she has said “OK, you say industry can thrive in a low carbon economy, make it so! – but make jolly sure industry thrives”.
No mercy will be shown to anyone who is long on talk and short on delivery; so watch out warmists.
It’s a good start.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has been Brit-canned.
my twisted brain ….
Is there any hope of seeing Bryony Worthington locked up in the Tower of London?
Makes you think DECC is an acronym for “fifty lawyers wearing concrete overshoes at the bottom of the sea.”
Good move Mrs. May ! That one decision will save thousands of lives and begin to help restore common sense to environment and economic issues . Watch how fast other countries do the same . Long long overdue .
Protecting the environment doesn’t mean throwing your countries economy under the bus or killing people through abusive fuel poverty policies .
She has put the public interest first instead of ecovangilists dogma .
The BBC online actually gave the folding of the Department of Energy and Climate Change into
the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy a reasonably balanced report:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36788162
Even better would be if Bryony, suddenly overcome with gender confusion, had a sex change operation to become Bryan Worthington, who then fell madly in trans-hetero love with Naomi Oreskes, courted her and married her, and they both move to Tuvalu to document the sea level rise wiping out their new island home.
The Brits figured out the Socialist country killing agenda and gave it the boot….
Bravo!
I don’t know if Theresa May will be the next Margaret Thatcher,
but she is getting off to a Ronald Reagan start !!
Rocky days and treacherous knights lay ahead. Stay on course, T.
Mrs May is not Mrs Thatcher, she is Mrs May. Watch this space.
“Greenpeace said it was concerned that the new Government did not view climate change as a serious threat..”
Oh how I hope Greenpeace’s concerns turn out to be real.
Amen to that!
It’s a small step in the right direction. It was ever likely to start this way.
The expensive green vanity-projects will slowly be washed away by more pressing, real, problems that most people really care about. Reality will have its say eventually, but probably quite slowly.
Does the UK gov really have a May, Hammond and a Clark(e)? Or is this a new Top Gear? 😂
The fever is beginning to break. Hopefully the CAGW sickness will be cleared (by truth and a return to science by Science) before it kills the patient.
An observation:
All of us here in WUWT blogosphere contribute our individual uniqueness to the question of climate change and all the related topics that come along. In that sense we are a Borg-like collective, providing ideas and insights that one (or a few experts) alone might not have. Yet, we are not assimilated. We are free to quit. We are free to disagree ( and we often do, thanks AW for allowing it). We are free to walk away from GroupThink. The Alarmist and Climate Change religion-like adherents are not allowed to express disagreement. Much to their detriment. Itcauses them to be slow to adapt, slow to change, only after defeat, usually by nature herself.
My insights mostly come from my experiences as a trained scientist in human immunology. I see these scientific questions of Climate Change through the filters of my own training. I also have a BS in Civil Engineering, and some graduate level courses in EE signals communications theory and system controls. All of that helps me to parse through what seems relevant to me and to the questions, that usually generate more questions. For left and the CC believers, there are no questions beyond their settled science dogma. Only further refinements and adjustments of epicircle descriptions.
My point is I bring a diverse set of skills and thoughts to these postings. Many, many others of you do as well, each of you with your own set of skills, knowledge, and decades of training in the sciences, engineering disciplines, and in your practical work life. It is the strength of this WUWT blog of the diversity of its commenters that feed in ideas, insights and analyses; a strenght that confounds the Alarmists in their GroupThink.
“Andrea Leadsom – who revealed her first question to officials when she became Energy Minister last year was “Is climate change real? – was appointed as the new Environment Secretary.”
She needs to be advised that that is the wrong question. The right one is, “Regardless of however the climate changes, is there anything the UK can do to ameliorate that change?”
The answer, of course, is no. Anything the UK did would affect the climate as much as making it illegal to p in the ocean would reduce SLR. Any money spent should be to help protect society from any future climate changes – hot, cold, floods, droughts, and storms. Eventually, the climate will change, and regardless of how it changes it will put pressure on our energy resources.
“Is climate change real? ”
“Is [man made] climate change real?”
We, of course, know the answer to that one.
I hope I’m wrong but I think all the euphoria about the current British government changes is premature. Remember, it’s the civil servants who run the government and its policy, not ministers. And the civil servants are thoroughly entrenched…
Don’t get too excited – UK is just sweeping carbon fraud under the carpet by changing the name on the door… No evidence the failed energy and climate policies will be anything other than more of the same insanity with a committed warmist in charge
http://eciu.net/press-releases/2016/comment-on-reshuffle-energy-and-climate-change
Buy a generator and some candles!
Yeah too right … “nothing to see here move on” ….
Where else could they generate the £46 Billion a year emission taxes from, contributed by my BS fairy gas taxed £505 Jeep Wrangler road tax … soon to be £515 :(All thanks to the madness of Ed Milliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act)
No wonder much of the land owning establishment were dead set against Brexit, as it may at some point threaten their 20 year contracted incomes from all the wind & solar they’ve installed, if we ever break away from EU driven green agenda ( from which they collected 363 billion euros last year … so I’ve read)
Still there is always hope !
“Oh joy! Rapture!The PM’s got a brain!”
(paraphrase from Wizard of Oz)
Hast she slain the Jabberwock?
…
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, only time will tell. If this means ‘global warming dogma’ is no longer Government policy, thank god for that. If it is saying: ‘having a department provides critics with an easy focal point, so we’ll bury things but keep with the programme’, less good.
Time will tell which it is….
Government closes Department of Fairy Tales. Harry Potter upset!
2011 numbers show the UK generated about 1.5% of the global CO2. Just how much money should be spent to reduce that number? It does not look like the UK can affect global CO2 concentrations in any statistical or meaningful way?
For those who believe in the AGW conjecture, the science is settled so there is no reason to research it any further. For those who do not believe, the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans and Mankind does not have the power to change it. Either way, it is pointless to spend all sorts of money studying climate change.
Now that the climate police have been dealt with in the UK how about bank officials acting as a
promoters for the climate “opportunity ” industry . Who exactly is Carney referring to when he says “we” when talking about missing climate goal’s ? Was it the UK his current employer ? Goldman Sachs or perhaps Canada who he also used to work for ?
The scary global warming industry hasn’t just missed it’s goal it is self destructing and taking $billions in unpaid tax payer loans with them . Is Carney talking about those types of “opportunities ” ? Why would a countries top banker promote any industry let alone
ones that exist largely because they are public funded leaches . Maybe he is just used to the bank bailout out way of doing business .
Stick to banking. They have enough problems .Unless of course bank bailouts were to be funded by a save the planet carbon tax . Now that is a banking opportunity .