Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A right wing think tank with members from Chancellor Merkel’s own Christian Democratic Union Party has urged a radical change to German Climate Policy.
CDU right attacks Merkel’s climate crisis
Stand: 03.06.2017 17:19 h
Challenging Merkel: The right CDU-wing “Berlin Circle” denies loud ARD studio a “solitary role in the greenhouse effect” on global warming – and calls for a U-turn in climate policy of Chancellor.
By Arnd Henze, ARD-Hauptstadtstudio
Two days after the decision of US President Donald Trump to cancel the Paris climate agreement, the conservative wing in the CDU also demands a radical change in climate policy for Germany.
In a statement submitted to the ARD Capital Studio, the “Berlin Circle”, which includes numerous federal and communal politicians of the Union, calls for an end to “moral blackmail” by climate research and the “farewell to German special targets” greenhouse gases.
Doubt in scientific models
The declaration was presented today at an internal meeting of the “Berliner Kreis” in the parliamentary groups of the CDU / CSU in the Reichstag in Berlin. The authors, among them Philipp Lengsfeld and Sylvia Pantel, are contesting a “solitary role of the greenhouse effect” and oppose a one-sided negative view of the consequences of global warming.
Thus, “the opportunities associated with the melting of polar sea ice (ice-free northern passage, new fishing opportunities, raw material extraction) are probably even greater than possible negative ecological effects“. The world climatic IPCC had developed into a kind of “world salvation circus”. However, the “increasingly aggressive political objectives, in particular the CO2 reduction targets” were based on the model calculations.
…
Read more (original German): http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/konservative-cdu-klimawandel-101.html
Note: The above was translated with Google Translate, the title was hand tweaked to fix a grammatical mistake
Complaints about the economic and social impact of Germany’s radical green Energiewende policy appear to be on the rise. While it seems likely Energiewende still enjoys substantial public support, critics have blamed the policy, and the extreme electricity price rises driven by the switch to renewables, for hurting poor people.
Green Europe is Killing 40,000 Poor People a Year
by JAMES DELINGPOLE 30 Mar 2016
Europe’s suicidal green energy policies are killing at least 4o,000 people a year.
That’s just the number estimated to have died in the winter of 2014 because they were unable to afford fuel bills driven artificially high by renewable energy tariffs.
But the real death toll will certainly be much higher when you take into account the air pollution caused when Germany decided to abandon nuclear power after Fukushima and ramp up its coal-burning instead; and also when you consider the massive increase in diesel pollution – the result of EU-driven anti-CO2 policies – which may be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year.
But even that 40,000 figure is disgraceful enough, given that greenies are always trying to take the moral high ground and tell us that people who oppose their policies are uncaring and selfish.
…
Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/30/green-europe-is-killing-40000-poor-people-a-year/
Even the German Left is worried about energy prices, though they refuse to name the reason for the price rises.
Over 300,000 poverty-hit German homes have power cut off each year
2 March 2017
Each year between 2011 and 2015, electricity providers cut off power to at least 300,000 German households who could no longer afford to pay their bills, the government revealed on Thursday.
The number of houses which could not afford electricity payments varied between 312,000 and 352,000. The power cut-offs were normally due to poverty, with people on state welfare very often affected.
Meanwhile in 2015, 44,000 households had their gas supply cut off.
The government announcement – in response to a parliamentary question by Die Linke (the Left Party) – also revealed that between 15.7 percent and 16.7 percent of people in Germany are threatened with poverty.
“Energy poverty in Germany is a silent catastrophe for millions of people, especially in the cold, dark winter months,” said Eva Bulling-Schröter, energy spokeswoman for Die Linke.
…
Read more: https://www.thelocal.de/20170302/over-300000-poverty-hit-german-homes-have-power-cut-off-each-year
Der Spiegel didn’t pull any punches, back in 2013;
Germany’s Energy Poverty
How Electricity Became a Luxury Good
Germany’s agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor. Government advisors are calling for a completely new start.
By SPIEGEL Staff
September 04, 2013 07:15 PM
If you want to do something big, you have to start small. That’s something German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier knows all too well. The politician, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has put together a manual of practical tips on how everyone can make small, everyday contributions to the shift away from nuclear power and toward green energy. The so-called Energiewende, or energy revolution, is Chancellor Angela Merkel’s project of the century.
“Join in and start today,” Altmaier writes in the introduction. He then turns to such everyday activities as baking and cooking. “Avoid preheating and utilize residual heat,” Altmaier advises. TV viewers can also save a lot of electricity, albeit at the expense of picture quality. “For instance, you can reduce brightness and contrast,” his booklet suggests.
…
Chancellor Merkel and other European leaders who support green energy like to portray themselves as secure, a united front against climate skeptics. But the reality is green energy is failing to deliver affordable power, and shows no prospect of ever delivering affordable power.
It is only a matter of time until support for green power collapses world wide, even in committed countries like Germany. The only question is how long Germans and other Europeans will put up with large numbers of poor people and pensioners quietly freezing to death during their long, dark winters.
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I wish the Ontario government published up to date stats on the number of deaths because of energy poverty. They do not. I do know that last summer electricity providers had cut off power to 70,000 households. I have not idea how those households lived through the winter.
It is against the law in several Cdn provinces to cut off power in the winter because of the large death toll that would be caused. I don’t have direct knowledge of Ontario, but expect it is the same. Hence the large amount of power being cut off in the summer. As soon as it is warm enough that people won’t freeze to death, power gets cut off in large numbers to households where the bill hasn’t been paid all winter.
As Canadians we live in the second coldest country in the world. Our grinning idiot in Ottawa wants to take away cheap energy, which we have in abundance. He is on the same track as the Wynne government in Ontario, the absolute most corrupt and incompetent government I have ever seen in my 60 years living in this country.
It is so bad,I am looking for another country to live in. The idiots who elect these idiots can pay for it and live with the results.
Before you leave Canada, use a sharp pencil to analyze the financials. Canadians, by and large, are better off than Americans. link
Lots of Canadians my age spend their winters in Florida, or Arizona, or Nevada, or even Belize. They always make sure they spend at least six months in Canada so they can keep their medicare. link
Even Canadian millennials are better off. link
If you’re not rich you are probably better off staying in Canada. YMMV I do know people (doctors, software geniuses, etc.) who can make bags more money in America. Canadians used to complain about the brain drain but the situation seems to have reversed in recent years. There is now a net flow of talent to Canada.
John, Ive been thinking about the same thing. commiebob has a point, but it may be a point that is dissolving with time with what has become of the politics in this country. Like what the Democrats have become, they get voted in but their real constituents are outsourced. They bought into this elitist European Nouveau Monde governance.
Ironically, though, Trump may save us in Canada, too by collapsing this Davos fantasy. Already rocked by Brexit it’s going to finish off the EU as an entity as well.
Listening to an unelected idiot like Junkers in Brussels running the show I thought it would have collapsed already. Only the UK, and I guess the Netherlands, has a real tradition of individual freedom. The continent is locked in some Marksy embrace they can’t get out of and failure is part of their tradition.
You’re right. It’s dangerous to fail to pay attention to what’s going on. If you bail out soon enough you have time to sell your assets for a reasonable price. If you bail out late, you’re just another homeless refugee.
Having said the above, I would say that it is possible to jump from the frying pan into the fire. As with anything else in life, YMMV. 🙂
Every Ontarian should have an exit plan. Start by looking for another province, and go from there.
I read somewhere that government unions are a big reason why leftists keep getting elected. There are so many government employees and family members + friends vote for whichever party promises to not get rid of their kin and pals. Obviously this can only go on for so long…
I was hoping to move to Canada as we have the same sort of idiot in charge here in OZ, now I’m in a quandary!!
Australia is unsurvivably hot. Canada is comfortably cool. For me, the choice is easy. 🙂
Canada benefits economically and culturally from its proximity to the United States. Australia is uncomfortably close to China. In fairness, China does not have a history of colonizing countries beyond its historic borders. It has usually been quite isolationist. Lately, however, it has discovered the benefits of international trade.
Here’s an example of what I’m worried about. In 2012 Chinese mining company wanted to use cheap Chinese miners rather than hiring Canadians for a project in Canada. It’s hard to see that their investment would benefit Canada at all. link It was a scandal and I’m not sure how it turned out.
…. It is so bad,I am looking for another country to live in ….
I’d invite you to mine – which is but a short drive away and is by far the most wonderful on Earth – ever! But if you don’t already know that, perhaps you’d better stay in the country which, post the traitor, Trudeau-Père, one has when one is not having a country.
What is the vertical axis?
Cost in cents per kilowatt/hour
Must be “cents/kilowatt-hour”, if “Trend = 0.02 cents/kilowatt-hour per additional kW of capacity”.
While the direction of the trend is clear, I would quibble with the actual numbers being about 33% higher for the Germany & Demark end of the trend. My fuzzy memory remembers numbers like 38 cents /kWhr for Germany and 42 cents/kWhr for Norway in studies that include all costs … Land use subsidies + plant construction (including investment tax credits) + plant operating costs + transmission costs + standby power costs + direct subsidies … which puts the multiplier between power costs in the US vs. the “Greenest of the EU” at 4x, not the 3x shown in the graph.
An important observation. I am not aware of any method that would compare cost of electricity truthfully. Germany, or the US, the cost changes from region to region, from season to season (8 cents to 14 cents in one year), the monthly bill contains a dozen of charges that have nothing to do with electricity – it’s the politicians way to collect money such as for renewables subsidies – residential rate, business rate, and dozen of other variables that may change from month to month, let alone year to year. Please someone enlighten me.
And yet, it is the person using electrical power who bears the burden and pays the bills.
A quick calculation puts Ontario close to the ‘man’ in Romania on this chart. Ontario has 4.5GW of wind, solar and bio capacity for 13.9million people. (323watts/capita) And before Premier Wynn’s election inspired “Fair Hydro Plan” discount tricks, the average rate in 2017 was 13.2 Cdn Cents/ kwh. (approx 10 US cents/kwh) Result seems low to me but these rates exclude delivery and regulation charges. Obfuscation is the name of the game with our Liberal government when it comes to electricity pricing. (Also on a PPP basis Canadian dollar is undervalued)
Actually more like 7 X compared to coal, NG, hydro, or nuclear which I believe are all in the 6 to 8 cents per KWH. The US is cost is inflated by our use of wind, solar etc.
In the long run, such policies lose support, and get reversed. But, as an economist wrote, in the long run, we are all dead.
With solar/wind accounting for less than 5% of worldwide energy usage after decades and $Trillions of investment the time has come to shit or get off the pot. Nothing is being saved and much is being wasted chasing “carbon reduction”. None of the climate horror stories have come to pass and nothing but energy poverty has been realized. Whether or not “Climate Change” is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scam or a real threat is meaningless as the alternatives don’t fill the void. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
Take a look at this recently published article: https://stopthesethings.com/2017/06/06/greens-founder-calls-germanys-renewables-policy-an-economic-social-and-ecological-disaster/
The science is weak. The uncertainty makes it a risk management problem. Instead, the consensus proposes to treat as a utility policy complete with tax and redistributive change.
If you kill the people, they won’t use energy. Leftists always kill people for the benefit of “The People.”
Or they kill themselves – https://youtu.be/bXEddCLW3SM
Trump is taking a lot of arrows on the Paris accords at the moment, but it’ll be interesting to look back in one year to see who decides to follow the USA.
So much for Obama’s morally bankrupt “leading from behind”.
And if you think green energy is expensive now, wait until energy infrastructure has to be manufactured and delivered with green energy.
The weakness of green energy is that, given today’s technology, green generation methods cannot produce their like replacements.
Exactly. It’s not…wait for it…SUSTAINABLE. The irony! LMFAO
…..And subsidies for green energy have to be paid using money that has been produced by economic enterprises who are being powered by green energy?……….
I would repeat my comment above, but I think the conclusions one should draw from your comment are self-evident. 😉
I don’t hear that point made enough. Renewables get a free ride off the baseload systems at the moment. They will never pay their way.
Nor will they or could they ever possibly be “base load” energy sources themselves, because of their very nature, that is…
NON-DISPATCHABLE
INCONSISTENT
UNRELIABLE
UNPREDICTABLE
NET NEGATIVE IN TERMS OF ENERGY YIELD
thereby making them what’s known as
USELESS!
“But the real death toll will certainly be much higher when you take into account the air pollution caused when Germany decided to abandon nuclear power after Fukushima and ramp up its coal-burning instead; and also when you consider the massive increase in diesel pollution…”
This is as much made up, modeled, exaggerated BS as anything from the alarmist camp. For instance, name one person ill or dead from coal fired stack mercury emissions or casual contact with coal or diesel particulate.
The death toll is an artificial construct, but it’s not complete BS. It really refers to lives estimated to be shortened. (Perhaps the number of shortened months is divided by (70 * 12) to get a statistical death.)
Roger based on what? Based on some government study making false linear assumptions of harm most likely.
Modern coal plants likely harm no one, ( other then industrial accidents) and certainly help plants grow.
Maybe some people die twice! Once from cold and then again from looking at a coal plant! I grew up in a cold part of Canada , right next to 2 coal power plants. I’ve probably died at least 3 times! Statistically.
Is there a warm part of Canada?
Don – yes, indoors!
Griff
We may have differences – but I like your repartee!
Auto
Heh, yes but ONLY when they don’t cut off your electricity and/or natural gas and/or heating oil because you haven’t been paying you bill because you can’t afford it because of stupid “climate change” based energy policies.
Nicholas’s, when I was a boy we played with mercury, had are cuts dressed with mercury chrome, our teeth filled with mercury amalgam, pilfered carrots and other vegetables from gardens (a lost pastime known then as garden raiding) from which we rubbed the dirt off with our fingers. I found a lead anchor on a tether used to keep a delivery horse from wandering (we got weekday delivery by horse and waggon of milk and bread and weekly of ice for the “icebox” – we also called refrigerators iceboxes for a decade or two after the real ones disapeared ). I melted the lead in a jam pail in our coal stoked furnace (I was the family stoker in the morning) and poured an assortment of things I had modeled in clay. One day, I found a large lump of hard black tar along the railway tracks. I broke a piece off and began to chew it. It wasn’t bad. I then broke it into small “chews” which I sold to friends for a penny a piece. We chewed and spit like champions. Our municipality was fogged regularly in summer with DDT mixed with fuel oil. Today, the environmentally conscious Winnipeggers don’t get that nice smelling fog, but, the topple over with lime disease and a scourge of mosquito fogs.
Now I don’t recommend such things be done, but, here I am starting my eightieth year this fall and I have two clients for my mining consulting business (one in the DR Congo) and two new requests. I think we have away overhyped everything. I like a cigar now and again and the only civiled places to do that are in Latin America.
The beauties of a simply life of a bygone era.
You failed to mention lead based paints and lead plumbing. In the UK all lead plumbing had to be replaced. However, the greenies failed to appreciate that given the characteristics of UK water, the lead pipes quickly became encrusted by a mineral layer such that the water was not in contact with the lead so in practice after about a year there was no leaching of lead into the water.
Most scares have a modicum basis in fact which is then over hyped.
Gary Pearse: Well said. I’m in my mid 80s too, so I can relate to what you experienced. I also chewed tar, and washed it down with chunks of ice from the St. Lawrence (polluted in those days). I started smoking at age 12 and didn’t stop until I was in my 40s. The only thing I feared was that it might “stunt my growth”. Most of the ads for cigarettes featured doctors in white lab coats with the mandatory stethoscope around their necks telling us that “Winston states good like a cigarette should”. I’ve seen these lemming-like movements come and go in my lifetime. DDT scares, birth control pills reduce the risk of breast cancer – no wait, they increase the risk of breast cancer. On and on it goes. Plus ça change …
Gary, I was brought up and lived in York, England at about the same time. Everything you described, I did, including chewing tar. I had lead toys. I also played with a discarded german five pound(?) bomb that fortunately was a ‘dud’, and with live ammunition jettisoned from the jammed gun of a german plane; one of those that strafed our street. I survived it all and am now 76 in in great health.
It is the same accounting as the anti-pollution Greens use. Sauce, goose, gander.
Oh, the ironing…
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/29/gas-cars-much-dirtier-expected/
These muppets couldn’t organise the proverbial pi55-up.
Diesels were encouraged because of low low CO2 emissions and the quest to make petrol ‘low emission’ has ramped up its particulate problem. Now= 100 times *worse* than diesel.
Wonder what Mad Hatter would say…….
“Pass the tea pot, please”
Auto
Interesting, but note the culprit is “Direct Injection” – which is something implemented in order to comply with Eco-Fascist regulations like CAFE and CO2 emission reduction BS.
“Direct injection allows more precisely controlling the fuel delivery process, leading to better fuel economy and lower carbon dioxide emissions.”
So you can thank all the tail-chasing due to government regulations (or threatened/proposed regulations) regarding fuel economy (CAFE) and CO2 emissions (“climate change” BS) for increasing REAL POLLUTION (i.e., particulates). In short, nothing like government meddling to turn a non-problem into a real problem.
‘Altmaier advises. TV viewers can also save a lot of electricity, albeit at the expense of picture quality. “For instance, you can reduce brightness and contrast,” his booklet suggests.’
Utter BS. Unfortunately most consumers don’t understand such things and will believe what they are told.
Switch the damnable thing ‘Off’.
Then you don’t have to watch/listen to/endure/be tortured by the programming.
Have any of you watched ‘The Only Way is Essex’ (aka TOWIE)?
Don’t.
Auto – simple solutions for serendipitous serenity-searchers.
My initial reaction too. I figured that changing “contrast and brightness” – if it affected energy consumption at all – would be so minimal as to be pointless.
Trump, Trump, Trump! It is remarkable and reassuring how fragile this ugly climate ideology /religion turns out to be. Contrary to all the smarmy smugness of the left sniping about America for the first time abdicating leadership in the world and leaving it to China, Donald Trump’s slapping down of the climate terrorists ranks with Kennedy’s Cuban crisis ultimatum and Reagan’s toppling of the Iron Curtain.
Indeed, the threat to the well being of the world by elitist тотал¡таяуаиs using climate as a weapon was more frightful than the Soviet Union which are a well educated, inventive, literate cultured people. Oh, the losers and their MSM propaganda sets will posture and strut and insult and even threaten and thousands of clever protest signs will be printed and handed out by the Marxbrothers Central Command to designer-brained drones coming out of broken educational institutions like harvard and the california lobotomous higher education ruins.
Trump is now on track to becoming the greatest president since Washington.
If the Pause has resumed statistically by 2020, Trump will look somewhat vindicated, and his critics will look like possible Chicken Littles. Then Trump will crow.
You’re slightly over cooking this one. Trump has NOT even done anything concrete yet, he’s just said he wants to “renegotiate”. It seems like there are an awful lot of people here reading what they want to hear into what he as actually said.
The only real way to kill this off is for US to make formal written withdrawal from UNFCCC. He has not even mentioned doing that.
You missed my point. Without the US the whole thing IS going to collapse. Two days after Trump’s speech, we’ve got the biggest climate country Germany – her own party going after Merkel. I hope you will not be surprised to see an avalanche of Europeans jumping out of this circus.
Australia may take longer. They have to undertake a reinvention of their governmental system first. With or without climate change you can’t have people vote somebody in and then have the party replace him with someone with no resemblance in policy prescriptions. This is ridiculous. Who else is there in this foolishness. The Chinese and Indians aren’t and the other 150 countries were bought out by promises that will not be honored. It is over!
The UN is on the way down to what it was formed for – a meeting place to try to avoid wars. It tried it’s hand at world government but that is now done. You don’t expect Bloomberg and Davos buddies to actually bankroll this do you? You don’t think state and municipal politicians to bilk their constituents for long do you? It’s over. The paperwork will take longer than the autopsy on the carcass
Well I certainly hope this whole anti-science con job does not fall apart. but making a statement in the Rose Garden instead of making a decisive legal move on paper, is a long way from making Trump ” the greatest president since Washington.”
That is what I said you were over-cooking.
He could just as well make another statement next week or decide to go along if the US only has to pay $2bn per year and claim he got ” a better deal for the US”.
So far he’s acting like shifty used car salesman , not the greatest president ever.
oops: …does fall apart
Failed to reform health care, US is still in NAFTA, no wall, he has not been able to untangle himself from all the Russia BS and seems largely hamstrung by his opposition. Not the greatest so far. Here’s hoping it will get better.
GP: “You missed my point. Without the US the whole thing IS going to collapse.”
It was going to fail anyway, Y’know. I think a lot of folks knew that but signed up anyway on the theory that by the time their inability to meet their goals became apparent, no one would take the agreement seriously.
There’s a list of climate pledges at https://www.carbonbrief.org/paris-2015-tracking-country-climate-pledges Some will possibly be kept — especially those from places like remote Pacific Islands that would benefit financially from reducing their dependence on hydrocarbons they don’t have and must buy with foreign exchange they mostly don’t have either. They don’t use a lot of electricity now, and between renewables and improved technology like LED illumination, they might well burn considerably less oil.
But on the whole, the chances of most of these goals in larger countries being achieved look to be somewhere between slim and none. Does anyone with half a brain think that the US could have or would have reduced CO2 emissions to 74% of 2005 levels in the next 7.5 years? Most of the objectives for other nations seem equally improbable.
Coming from the UK, I do not understand the point of the wall.
To me it appears symbolic, and may possible hinder the flow of drugs but apart from that it is unlikely to do anything significant with regard to illegal migrants.
I may be mistaken, but do not most illegal migrants enter the US validly on a plane, or train or bus, and then simply over stay their visa? If most illegal migrants enter the country without walking across a boarder, how does a wall help?
I am a great fan of Trump. I see him as a glimmer of hope in a very troubled world, but the one policy I have problems with, is the wall. This appears to be style over substance, and therefore a waste of money, and Trump rightly does not like wasting money.
As regards the other critiques, no one said draining the swamp would be quick and easy. There is a lot of swamp draining to be done, and this will greatly hinder his presidency and delay progress. He needs to stay strong; one step at a time.
Yes. Many DO “overstay their visa’s” . Those need to be stopped as well.
But millions of others merely “Walk across the border.”
A “wall” has many bricks, many posts, many gates and many foundations. You need all of them to reduce the 30 million illegals now in the US. But they reliably vote democrat, and the democrats are hysterically defending every illegal alien to retain those votes.
No one knows how many but we have entire cities populated by illegal aliens. Undocumented/illegal aliens/immigrants that enter the country illegally do so predominantly through the Southern border of the US regardless of what country they are coming from. Those that enter legally are welcomed and given a Social Security number for tax purposes. The remainder and those that overstay their visas become a drain on the government systems supported by those taxes. Good workers, good people, but freeloaders.
“Coming from the UK, I do not understand the point of the wall.
To me it appears symbolic, and may possible hinder the flow of drugs but apart from that it is unlikely to do anything significant with regard to illegal migrants.”
Walls work very well in Israel and Hungary and many other places.
We could do a wall, or Trump can station a U.S border patrol agent every 100 yards along the southern border. Either way works for me. My bottom line is that illegal immigration be stopped using any way that is effective.
…”My bottom line is that illegal immigration be stopped using any way that is effective…..”
Illegal immigration across the US Southern border has slowed considerably starting this year due to the increase in deportations. Steel/concrete fences are symbolic but legal fences are effective.
“…You’re slightly over cooking this one….” So how much more money do you think will be coming from US funds for anything related to Climate Change?
@richardVerney “I do not understand the point of the wall.”
It’s the right‘s statist symbolism ( with associated cash flows ) .
Eg : Are they going to put the wall along the Rio or seal off the whole park : https://www.dallasnews.com/life/texas-travel/2017/04/14/savor-big-bend-national-park-like-fine-red-wine .
—
@GaryPearse ” It is remarkable and reassuring how fragile this ugly climate ideology /religion turns out to be. ”
Boy , I don’t see it that way .
It has diverted a painful yet to be remunerated amount my time because it offended my sense of physics and has been the center ring battle between liberty and rationality and global statist anti-science thuggery . And it has only been “won” by the remarkable wisdom of the statewise quantization thru the Electoral College allowing the sparser populations more directly tied to reality across the vast regions of the country to trump the urban herds who have never seen the Milky Way . And the Trump they trumped the urban majority with is an incredibly strong individual who has shown himself to be capable of standing up to the collected forces of the political class’s social consensus after a life of negotiating and effectively communicating with everyone from the laborers on his work sites to the New York City bureaucracy — to get his visions built .
( That said , I’m glad FDR scared us into putting 2 term limits on presidents . )
Bob Armstrong,
“@richardVerney “I do not understand the point of the wall.”
It’s the right‘s statist symbolism ( with associated cash flows ) .”
You hurling insults rather than actually making a rational argument induces me to suspect you profit off illegal border crossing, sir. It does not cause me to think your case is so good it need not be made, honest ; )
“Eg : Are they going to put the wall along the Rio or seal off the whole park”
It is not even close to logical, to my mind, that a wall being inappropriate is some areas means it’s inappropriate in all areas . . not even close, and you know that, I bet . .
richard,
“I may be mistaken, but do not most illegal migrants enter the US validly on a plane, or train or bus, and then simply over stay their visa?”
The term “validly” seems out of place there . . It ain’t “valid” entry if they are using that means to illegally migrate here, anymore than walking across the border is, just legal entry.
“If most illegal migrants enter the country without walking across a boarder, how does a wall help?”
Most is not all, and, if the laws begin being seriously enforced, many may prefer to enter covertly rather than announcing they have entered by using the visa process. And, many may wish to re-enter after being tossed out, if the laws begin to be seriously enforced … And there’s people who live near that border who have every right to be protected by the federal Gov. (specifically the Executive Branch/President Trump according to the Constitution) from some truly nasty blokes operating out of Mexico, who have become quite menacing of late.
“I am a great fan of Trump. I see him as a glimmer of hope in a very troubled world, but the one policy I have problems with, is the wall.”
Problems? It ain’t even your country . . He campaigned heavily on that issue, and I suggest that glimmer has a lot to do with him doing what he said he’d do . .
Not true at all. The US system is not compelled to uphold any of the Paris Accord at any moment in time, and has nothing to do with renegotiating it. It doesn’t even need to be renegotiated as it’s not a binding legal agreement as it was never ratified by anyone.
It’s rubbishy legalism that cons people into believing they need to comply with the Paris Accord in the US.
“You’re slightly over cooking this one. Trump has NOT even done anything concrete yet, he’s just said he wants to “renegotiate”.”
He has pledged to withdraw. Perhaps the letter doing so hasn’t been sent yet, but presumably it will within a week or two. He’s said that once the U.S. is out he’ll be willing to re-enter it after renogotiating the terms. He isn’t staying in and asking for new terms. Lowering the U.S.’s pledged commitment isn’t allowed from within the Accord. (See comments on this matter on the Climate Etc.’s latest thread.)
He’s playing this like he is negotiating. Delayed statements, no legal commitment , it drags on.
How about one if his Oval Office exec. order signing sessions? That would be showing leadership. I would not presume to know what he will “presumably it will within a week or two”. He probably has not figured that out himself yet. He’s testing the water.
The Germans have already said that renegotiating is not an option.
Trump played a blinder with that statement since he knows that no one will renegotiate a deal that is acceptable to the US. Look at the difficulty that lay behind making a deal that was unattractive to the US. Now consider what would be involved in making a deal that is attractive to the US.
Of course Trump has not said what would be an acceptable deal, but reading between the lines, it would require China, at the very least, to commit to making the same reduction to its CO2 emissions as the US is committed to. Anything else would not be a level playing field and would result in US job losses to China.
There is no prospect that China and India will commit to CO2 reductions, and thus there is no prospect of a deal even leaving aside the issue of payments in to the climate reparation fund. No other country is going to step up to the plate and shoulder the burden of significant funding.
One should also not overlook the basic facts. The US is in an enviable position in that it could reduce its CO2 emissions without destroying its economy/industry because of shale, which is decarbonisation. The US does not actually have to cut back on its energy usage to deliver reduction in CO2, it merely needs to carry on with the switch to shale.
The Paris Accord is much worse for the remainder of the developed world since they are not so lucky given that they do not have ready access to cheap shale gas. Presently, the developed world has not yet thought about how it can actually achieve and deliver on its commitments. When it actually addresses this point, it will see the impossibility of making substantial cuts without cutting back on energy usage, and cutting back on energy usage will destroy their industries and economies.
If Trump by pulling out of the Paris Accord forces the other political leaders of the developed world to reconsider their position and to actually ponder on how they can actually deliver the fanciful commitments undertaken in the Paris Accord, they may wake up from the trance and appreciate the impossibility of this. Trump may be saving the developed world from this pie in the sky madness. By making America great again, he may also help save the developed world, and if so, the developed world will owe him a debt of gratitude.
Gary,
Thank You,
Well, it’s about time for there to be some mainstream dissent in Germany. Perhaps there’ll be more of it in other lemming countries, now that Trump has broken from the pack.
All of Europe will follow the Germans. Even the U.K. can’t rock the boat until a trade is completed. If the AGW facade breaks down there I think it’s dead.
I think you vastly overestimate the hand the EU is holding.
Loss of UK revenue threatens the whole European project – one third of the income will vanish and with it the ability to bribe enough people to keep the thing together.
Loss of (part of) the UK market if a reasonable trade deal is not struck is even more damaging.
Behind the posturing, the reality is that the EU is in a total state of panic.
If they try and punish the UK for having the temerity to leave, no one will want to join anymore. If they give the UK a good deal the other nations will want the same.
It’s a catch 22.
The final reality is, behind the rhetoric, and a few edge cases, the European Union offers nothing of any value at all to the peoples of Europe.
It’s a mafia, a cartel, a self legalising protection racket.
Donald Trumps meme, which amounts to essentially. ‘well I’d love to go along with Climate Change if it weren’t so expensive’ is a neat piece of political spin. It achieves the desired result – ditching pointless and expensive renewables – without actually claiming to disbelieve climate change.
Just as the Tory meme with windmills in the Tory shores was always ‘we believe in renewable energy, just not here’ do Donald Trump has sidestepped the real issue, to achieve the desired result.
He too believes in renewable energy, just not in the USA.
“a self legalising protection racket. ”
That’s about it.
Self-legalising loan sharks. What was done to Greece and is still being done to Greece would be illegal predatory loans in any other context.
MODERATORS: why had WUWT ( WordPress ) started sending me notifications every time there is a post here? I have checked my WP options and don’t see anything related. How can I turn it off?
[Usually, there are two different “Notify me” buttons on the bottom of the page when you reply. One for replies to that thread, one for replies to all threads. Check those when you reply again to be sure they are “off”. But different browsers behave differently. Check also your higher-level WordPress settings on your account. Those may over-write the local reply settings. .mod]
Thanks Mod. I checked ‘new comments’ box once on WUWT and will never do it again 😉 That brings in more emails than signing up to the linux kernel M.L. !!
I’ve also checked by WP account settings and could see nothing related but wondered whether they had done Facebook style overnight rules change.
Don’t know what triggered this but it’s annoying.
Thanks Mod. I checked ‘new comments’ box once on WUWT and will never do it again 😉 That brings in more emails than signing up to the linux kernel M.L. !!
I’ve also checked by WP account settings and could see nothing related but wondered whether they had done Facebook style overnight rules change.
Don’t know what triggered this but it’s annoying.
OK I found I had a follow on this site for some reason. Maybe a false mouse click somewhere while a page was jumping around during loading. I’ve turned it off, Should be fixed.
The brother in arms of Merkel , the German CSU will be deciding the fate of the halfgreen Lady .
In essence they are very conservative and Trumps bravado could ignite them .
German exceptionalism will not stop at this point.
As Chancellor Merkel announced “Nothing is able to stop us.”.
Last time when a German chancelor expressed such views Europe had to be rebuild.
It’s a crack in the dam. But a dozen cracks are needed. Or a financial crisis 2.0, or just an EU / euro crisis. That would give EU governments “cover” to scale back their goals, at least in practice.
Roger, prayer is all that’s left and they’ve become atheists so there is no comfort for them. Merkel s speech about being left to their own devices was a depressing acknowledgement that it (the bigger ‘it’ that Leo Smith above is talking about, not just wimpy climate change) is all over.
All that was needed was the boat to be rocked by Trump on the climate for them to acknowledge the terrible state of affairs they are in on all fronts. Merkel had willed out of site the very unhappy ending she now accepts. Деиуаl is a bitch.
The problem is that the costs and blackouts haven’t really bitten yet in the U.S. So numerous states and cities—containing maybe even a majority of the U.S. population—are going to commit to Accord-like goals. I’ve been predicting that here from the end of May onward. So the green tide will likely roll on here for another two years at least. Maybe four. Then the wall will be hit.
What I see as our main hope for a quicker halt are the forthcoming papers by Watts (2012) and Monckton (especially). If he has truly found miscalculations that underly all the models, that’ll be a major blow. My secondary hope is for a big La Niña next year.
Oops—I’ve been predicting the greens will move to pressure localities onto the Accord since the middle of May. I hope our side can field some skeptics to testify to state legislative committees.
“The problem is that the costs and blackouts haven’t really bitten yet in the U.S. So numerous states and cities—containing maybe even a majority of the U.S. population—are going to commit to Accord-like goals.”
Those accord-like goals are going to require that the local taxpayers fork over a bunch of money. I’m skeptical that many taxpayers are eager to increase their payments to the government. Some will, some won’t.
These local politicians are going to answer to their constituents about these issues. It won’t be unelected UN bureaucrats deciding these issues, it will be citizens who are going to have to pay for these CAGW delusions with their hard-earned money. The local politicians better have some good talking points. I have a feeling they are going to be challenged.
What a lovely graph. /s
Fitting a trend line through a pair of clear outliers is a technique we expect to see from the other side. Great shame. It MIGHT have been just acceptable as a visual illustration without the trend line but as there are many other factors affecting actual electricity prices in different countries apart from renewables capacity it’s still rather dubious. What do you think the data was before renewables were a thing? They would obviously still have shown a widely scattered picture.
The graph plots the relationship between installed capacity and the price of electricity and perfectly reasonably shows the relationship to be the more you have, the more you pay. It doesn’t aim to show the previous costs, but be our guest.
The important point is that the cluster of countries at the lower left use more traditional means to keep their citizens from dying of hypothermia in winter – mostly coal and don’t charge them a fortune since many of those nations are still emerging from a dictatorship of the kind the climate alarmist community would lik to impose on them again and they can’t afford another bout of collective insanity.
I’d love to see a graph of the actual gap between installed capacity and actual delivered power by country. That probably would be a real eye-roller.
Its not really a mystery why Germans are paying more for electricity.
Source https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power
And Germany has hit the buffer with its CO2 reductions. last year it increased its CO2 emissions. See:
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Germany-2016-GHGs.png
By contrast, due to shale, US is reducing its CO2 emissions, see:
The great irony is that even though the US is exiting the Paris Accord and being criticized for that decision, the US will reduce its CO2 emissions more effectively than any other developed country between now and 2030.
Oh for a rational debate, and the light shone by looking at real and actual facts.
That’s alarming,the Germans are paying more for the renewable surcharge than they are for the actual electricity!
Paul and Trebla, yes, Ontarians also pay more for renewable subsidies than for actual electricity. The wholesale price is only 2-3 cents per kWh but we pay a good 6-12 cents or so in renewable surcharges. Madness!
What you say may be true mathematically, but watching Ontario electricity rates double over the past 10 years while they only rose slightly in bordering Quebec can only be attributed to the headlong, reckless adoption of renewables by Ontario.
These two points are not outliers.
Remove them, run the regression analysis and you will get a straight line with the same slope and same R squared value.
It is a lovely graph and perfectly legitimate. No /s here.
The earth has a fever fraud is based loosely on highly inaccurate mathematical equations and incomplete data sets that are proven to spew out inaccurate garbage . How could they be otherwise ? No scientists claim to know how to accurately calculate temperature forecasts derived from the overwhelming influence of natural occurring climate variables . But some how a trace gas representing a fraction of 1 % of the atmosphere is predictable and causing the earth to have a fever ? People we are in a lot of trouble if that nonsense is bought .
How did the claimi of accurately forecast the earths temperature from a trace gas even get
lift off ? The only “fever ” in the scary global warming industry is gold fever as the grant seekers and flim flam global warming salesmen try to cash in .
The notion ” the science is settled ” is a hoax .It is a false malicious deception intended to mislead
as are similarly false statements like “the planet has a fever ” . This repetitive form of lying , over and over
displays an intent to mislead and the motive not surprisingly is financial gain .
Any serious cut back of CO2 will do virtually nothing to alter the course of temperature caused by natural variables . On top of the giant leap in believer faith one must have to buy the scam the biggest hypocrites are promoting it.
Mt. Trump was far to kind in referring to the scary global warming heist as a hoax .
Merkel is just a left over East German communist in Western Democratic garb! She’ll only be happy when the entire country is reduced the basket case that was East Germany!
Streetcred,
You left out that she has not a mirror in the house.
( she does not need one as she employees a full time dressmaker )
East Germany wasn’t even that. They were short of baskets.
These policies are voted for by electorates. I know this view is not popular but that is the truth, if the issue of expensive energy was really vital then the leaders who advocate would never get into office. Clearly then wearing a hair shirt appeals to many.
No comment
We know you’re feeling the cold Mediterranean climate folks and struggling to get out of bed in the morning, but don’t worry as we’re predicting warmer than usual winter as usual-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/coldest-start-to-winter-in-south-australia-for-35-years/news-story/a584b6fc8c8a894011a5da0f23a52b6d
And they wonder why the average bloke is switching off to their climate change meme and treating it as weather-
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/alberta-man-casually-mows-lawn-while-huge-tornado-swirls-behind-him-i-was-keeping-an-eye-on-it
Cold or hot -the zealots will still claim its human caused climate change that is causing it-whatever “it” is
Belief in human induced climate change is a theory for all seasons and reasons- so they cant lose the argument with that cockeyed logic
“But the real death toll will certainly be much higher when you take into account the air pollution caused when Germany decided to abandon nuclear power after Fukushima and ramp up its coal-burning instead”
hmm-
“Life expectancy in Beijing and Shanghai has reached 80 years and it’s 82 in Hong Kong. All have massive pollution problems. Life expectancy in Berlin is 79.8, San Francisco and New York are barely 80 and the list goes on”
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-health-miracle
“But the real death toll will certainly be much higher when you take into account the air pollution caused when Germany decided to abandon nuclear power after Fukushima and ramp up its coal-burning instead”
hmm-
“Life expectancy in Beijing and Shanghai has reached 80 years and it’s 82 in Hong Kong. All have massive pollution problems. Life expectancy in Berlin is 79.8, San Francisco and New York are barely 80 and the list goes on”
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-health-miracle
Pollution stay at Real Death Toll as CO2 stay at Man Made Climate Changes.
Were those figures from independent sources, or the Chinese government?
Being somewhat of a cynic,and old enough to remember the height of the USSR, I suspect any figures released by government agencies unless independently verified.
I always wondered how the very clever numbers folk separated out the deaths due to smoking from general air pollution- http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
Not to mention the dope smokers who also imbibe their drug of choice via burnt vegetable matter. Perhaps these very clever statistical pollution folk have an intimate professional relationship with climastrologists.
Disclaimer: I must fess up to being an old diehard reformed smoker. I have seen the light and been vaping for some two and a half years now, ostensibly to cure the Gummint of their addiction to tobacco excise among other worthy outcomes.
Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear power was actually reached years before Fukushima, which merely expedited that commitment.
This collection of unrelated snippets makes a case which simply isn’t justified…
“While it seems likely Energiewende still enjoys substantial public support,..” – the ‘energy transformation’ enjoys overwhelming support across all German political parties except the fringe AfD.
This Berlin Circle have no real influence…
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/german-wingers-urge-switch-climate-change-policy-47820812
“The Berlin Circle, which has criticized various Merkel policies, includes a clutch of lawmakers in her Christian Democrats but not the party’s heaviest hitters. It’s been fairly isolated so far.”
Bear in mind in German politics consensus and coalition are needed. Even a minor U turn on energienwende is unlikely – especially after the recent reforms.
I see again no mention is made that Germans use much less electricity than US households, or that they are much more likely to have solar panels an/or a share in a community renewabales scheme (must German renewables are not owned by power companies). German’s also have well insulated homes and community heating so aren’t particulaly reliant on electric heating
Delingpole’s article does not reflect the Focus article it quotes, which does not ascribe fuel poverty to renewables, but rather to the 2008 financial crisis. He wilfully misleads on winter deaths by quoting the’ excess winter deaths’ figures which are mainly flu related and have a very low proportion attributable to cold homes. The German figure is much better than the UK figure, proportionately, despite Germany being generally colder.
Germany continues on with renewables and shutting down nuclear – 4 of the 8 nuke plants were offline in early spring with no ill effects on the grid -the world’s most reliable with some areas already 70% plus running on renewables. They just approved their first offshore wind farm with no subsidy needed whatever and set a new record for % electricity from renewables for 1 day.
Don’t call Delingpole’s comment misleading if you are going to hail Germany’s expansion of renewables but ignore their increase in coal-fired power.
They haven’t increased coal power.
Their new coal plant programme is complete and replaced some older plant… they are now retiring coal plant.