From The Daily Caller
Michael Bastach 2:26 PM 12/05/2018 | Energy
- France might be ahead of the curve when it comes to climate policy backlash.
- President Emmanuel Macron caved to demands from “yellow vests” over planned carbon taxes.
- More backlash like this could be seen as countries try to phase out gas-powered cars.
The French love a good riot, but the political backlash to the French government’s plans to increase carbon taxes on fuel could be a harbinger of what’s to come in countries committed to the global warming crusade.
Calls from the United Nations and environmentalists for the world to “do more” to stem projected global warming might run up against economic realities. But France could be a taste of what’s to come if more governments try to tax carbon dioxide emissions.
“In some senses the French are ahead of the rest of the world on this,” said John Constable, energy editor at the Global Warming Policy Forum, a U.K.-based think tank. (RELATED: The UN Is Trying To Prime The World For More Carbon Tax Revolts)
Constable told The Daily Caller News Foundation because of France’s heavy reliance on emissions-free nuclear power, the government has to look beyond power plants to achieve its global warming goals. Macron raised fuel taxes already in 2018 to cut down on oil demand, but it’s hard for working-class people to sacrifice their livelihoods for speculative climate benefits in the future.
“France is now heading into the zone where the marginal cost of emissions reduction begins to increase sharply,” Constable said. “They’ve done the easy bit, electricity, and are now beginning to coerce the more difficult sectors such as transport, which of course is already heavily taxed.”
Carbon taxes on diesel and gasoline were set to take effect in January. French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to delay implementing the taxes for six months in the face of protests, but that might not be enough to satisfy demonstrators.
“The extra burden imposed by Mr. Macron has caused something to snap, not demand but the temper of the people,” Constable said.
“Broadly speaking, I would judge that French popular anger is the shape of things to come globally, as climate policies begin to move into more difficult sectors,” Constable said.
France is only the latest country to reject new carbon taxes. Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his conservative coalition were swept into power by Canadian voters in June on a platform that opposed carbon taxes.
Washington voters rejected a ballot measure in November to tax carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources in their state. It’s the second time Washington voters rejected a carbon tax ballot initiative.
Australian lawmakers voted to repeal their country’s carbon tax in 2014. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott led his conservative party to victory in the previous year’s elections on the promise to repeal the carbon tax.
However, France’s violent reaction to new carbon taxes is part of the country’s “romantic” view of political uprisings, according to an expert on French politics and history.
“In France the governments understand only violence, and since 1789, people have a romantic approach to ‘Revolution,’” George Chabert, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, told TheDCNF. “Apparently, it is working this time as well.”
Carbon taxes were the breaking point for the thousands of gilet jaunes, or “yellow vests,” who took to the streets in late November. But the protests, considered the worst to hit Paris in 50 years, were also fueled by years of pent-up resentment against Macron’s policies.
“Since Macron came to power, he has cut taxes for the rich, ‘simplified’ the Work Laws, cut on pensions, and added billions of euros of new taxes to the working class and middle class,” Chabert said.
“The new ‘ecological’ taxes, most of which was to be used in anything but ecology, are just one more,” Chabert said. “Many new taxes are programmed to come in effect until 2020.”
Many protesters also called on Macron to resign. Yellow vests say Macron is out of touch and centralizing power at the expense of working class citizens.
“Emmanuel Macron is a little boy who has always been told he’s the best, he’s always been idolised. He’s never been told ‘you shouldn’t do that’. The guy thinks he’s God!” Claudio, a 47-year-old Frenchman, told AFP.
“He deserves to have his head chopped off, symbolically,” said Claudio, who refused to give his full name to reporters.
Other protesters compared Macron to Napoleon and the pre-revolutionary Ancien Regime.
“He’s the king. It’s as if we’re in the Middle Ages!” echoed Philippe, a 74-year-old yellow vest leader.
Macron agreed to delay raising fuel taxes in January, but many protesters and political opponents don’t see the issue as settled. One self-proclaimed leader of the yellow vests said “we will not settle for crumbs.”
However, Macron is unlikely to abandon his green agenda. An ardent supporter of the Paris climate accord, Macron pledged to decarbonize French energy use by 2050 and was initially unyielding to protesters’ demands.
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We have morons in Congress pushing this stupidity right this minute, are we going to have to burn down DC bring this ignorant crap to a halt? Looks like it, voting it down simply gets ignored.
While the climate warriors plan to spend other people’s money, it turns out that the other people noticed. I recall another revolution that had something about “no taxation without representation” involved in the mix. How did that turn out?
I keep looking through the Constitution and can’t find the amendment that gives the United Nations authority to tax Americans, and yet Rs and Ds in our Congress keep trying to do the UN’s bidding on this carbon tax stupidity.
Crispin. I don’t like taxation “with” representation either.
Representation without taxation is equally bad.
Indeed. Sad to say, but none of the political problems of the West would exist today if only net taxpayers could vote.
As was predicted long ago, democracy could only last until voters realized they could vote themselves their neighbour’s money.
Vive les Giletes Jaunes!
In honour of “Les Giletes Jaunes”, below is posted an abbreviated French translation of our 2002 APEGA debate with the Pembina Institute, as published in La Presse on 28Nov2002.
Our Rebuttal was not published in French, but it contained perhaps the most important statements we made in 2002:
“THE ULTIMATE AGENDA OF PRO-KYOTO ADVOCATES IS TO ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS, BUT THIS WOULD RESULT IN A CATASTROPHIC SHORTFALL IN GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
This statement is still clearly true today – fossil fuels continue to comprise about 85% of global primary energy, virtually unchanged in decades despite huge growth in global primary energy. If fossil fuels were eliminated tomorrow as the greens insist, everyone in the developed world would be dead in a month from starvation and exposure.
We also concluded in the same debate:
“CLIMATE SCIENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE THEORY OF CATASTROPHIC HUMAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING – THE ALLEGED WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST.”
That statement is also true – all the observations point to a low climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2, no greater than ~1C/(2xCO2) [References: Christy and McNider 2017, Lewis and Curry 2018]. The IPCC’s climate computer models run much too hot, as they are designed to do to create false alarm.
In contrast, every scary prediction by the global warming alarmists in past decades has failed to materialize. Nobody should believe anything they say.
Au revoir, Allan
_______________________________________
“L’HOMME RESPONSABLE? NON”
Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson et Allan MacRae
La Presse, Montreal, 28Nov2002
M. Baliunas est scientifique principal au Marshall Institute et coprésentateur de TechCentralStation.com. M. Patterson est professeur de géologie (paléoclimatologie) au département des sciences de la Terre de l’Université de Carleton et M. MacRae est ingénieur, banquier d’affaires et environnementaliste.
Le Protocole de Kyoto soutient que l’activité humaine -notamment la combustion de combustibles fossiles pour le fonctionnement des automobiles ou des centrales thermiques- est la cause du réchauffement planétaire. En voici la théorie.
Les gaz à effet de serre, les nuages et les aérosols présents dans l’atmosphère retiennent quelques-uns des rayons solaires reflétés par la surface de la Terre, créant un «effet de serre» naturel qui réchauffe la planète et la rend habitable.
On retrouve parmi ces gaz du dioxyde de carbone (CO2), du méthane (CH4), de l’oxyde d’azote (N2O) et de la vapeur d’eau (H2O). C’est la vapeur d’eau qui contribue le plus à créer l’effet de serre.
Au cours des 300 dernières années, les concentrations de CO2 dans l’atmosphère sont passées de 275 parties par million (ppmv) à environ 360 ppmv, soit une augmentation de 30%. Cette augmentation est en grande partie récente et causée par la combustion de combustibles fossiles et par la déforestation. Tous les scientifiques s’entendent sur ce point.
Cependant, ceux que préoccupe un réchauffement planétaire causé par l’homme croient qu’à défaut de diminuer les émissions de CO2, l’effet de serre s’intensifiera et réchauffera la planète, ce qui aura des conséquences désastreuses.
L’augmentation des concentrations de CO2 dans l’atmosphère est manifestement reliée à l’essor de l’économie industrielle dans les années qui ont immédiatement suivi la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Mais, contrairement à la rhétorique du protocole de Kyoto, cette augmentation n’est pas la principale cause du réchauffement planétaire. Voici pourquoi.
Changements climatiques et CO2
Au cours des derniers 150 000 ans, les niveaux de CO2 ont été en parallèle aux températures. Toutefois, une analyse approfondie a révélé que les niveaux de CO2 ont souvent grimpé et atteint un maximum plusieurs siècles après la température. Ce sont donc les changements climatiques qui ont un impact important sur les niveaux de CO2, et non l’inverse.
De plus, le climat s’est tantôt réchauffé, tantôt refroidi dans le passé, avant l’usage courant des combustibles fossiles. Par exemple, de l’an 900 à l’an 1300 de notre ère, il faisait plus chaud qu’aujourd’hui. Ces années furent suivies d’une période de refroidissement qui dura 500 ans, après laquelle la planète connut un autre réchauffement.
Les températures enregistrées au 20e siècle révèlent en effet trois tendances: tout d’abord, un réchauffement des températures d’environ 0,5C qui a atteint son maximum vers 1940; ensuite, une baisse des températures de 1940 à la fin des années 1970; et finalement une autre tendance au réchauffement. Mais 80% du CO2 généré par l’activité humaine a été ajouté à l’air après 1940. Cela signifie que les tendances au réchauffement et au refroidissement enregistrées respectivement au début du 20e siècle et après 1940 étaient en grande partie naturelles et non pas causées par le CO2.
Des simulations par ordinateur du réchauffement planétaire causé par l’homme ont pronostiqué un réchauffement important des températures, non seulement près de la surface de la Terre mais aussi à une altitude de deux à huit kilomètres dans une zone appelée la basse troposphère. Mais selon la NASA et la NOAA, la variation des températures de la basse troposphère est le résultat de phénomènes naturels. Malgré les données obtenues par ces simulations, aucune tendance au réchauffement significative attribuable à l’homme n’a été observée.
En effet, toutes les récentes simulations par ordinateur ont pronostiqué des tendances au réchauffement beaucoup plus marquées dans les dernières décennies que celles qui ont en fait été mesurées. Ces pronostics amplifient quelque peu le réchauffement en surface et de beaucoup celui de la basse troposphère. En d’autres mots, les modèles informatiques dont se servent les partisans du protocole de Kyoto pour prédire que l’activité humaine entraînera un réchauffement catastrophique de la planète n’ont jamais réussi à reproduire fidèlement les changements climatiques d’hier et d’aujourd’hui. Leur prédiction d’une catastrophe d’ici 100 ans est donc douteuse.
Si l’on se fonde sur l’analyse d’anciennes et de récentes données sur la température et l’atmosphère, les concentrations élevées de CO2 dans l’atmosphère ne sont pas la cause d’un réchauffement planétaire significatif. En outre, la preuve a été faite que les variations de la puissance énergétique du Soleil ont un impact beaucoup plus important sur la température de la surface que les gaz à effet de serre générés par l’homme. Les gouvernements des pays occidentaux devraient étudier encore davantage les causes des changements climatiques pour mieux comprendre avant de ratifier un protocole fondé sur des études scientifiques incomplètes et douteuses et qui risque d’avoir des conséquence graves sur l’économie.
____________________________
Originally published at:
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Now at:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
CONCLUSIONS FROM OUR REBUTTAL, APEGA DEBATE, 2002:
“THE ULTIMATE AGENDA OF PRO-KYOTO ADVOCATES IS TO ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS, BUT THIS WOULD RESULT IN A CATASTROPHIC SHORTFALL IN GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
“CLIMATE SCIENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE THEORY OF CATASTROPHIC HUMAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING – THE ALLEGED WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST.”
Google Translate (looks a bit rough – native French-speakers feel free to improve):
L’AGENDA ULTIME DE PRO-KYOTO ADVOCATES EST D’ÉLIMINER LES COMBUSTIBLES FOSSILES, MAIS CELA POURRAIT EN DIFFÉRER UNE SOLUTION CATASTROPHIQUE D’ÉNERGIE GLOBALE.
LA SCIENCE CLIMATIQUE NE SUPPORTE PAS LA THÉORIE DU RÉCHAUFFEMENT MONDIAL CATASTROPHIQUE HUMAN-FABRIQUÉ – LA CRISE DE RÉCHAUFFEMENT ALLÉGUÉE N’EXISTE PAS.
This is an English language website, heard of google translate?
WX – try reading what I wrote before commenting, mon osti de tabarnak! 🙂
“In honour of “Les Giletes Jaunes”, below is posted an abbreviated French translation of our 2002 APEGA debate with the Pembina Institute, as published in La Presse on 28Nov2002.”
Originally published IN THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH at:
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Now at:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
To paraphrase JFK, ‘Je suis un gilet jaunes!’.
Macron Antoinette and his fellow climatocrat elites have been telling the rest of us to eat cake for a long time.
Perhaps Macron will have Citroen produce a car that runs on Yellow Cake
Bryan,
You win +100 Internets for that!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
🙂
They are developing a taste for Macaroons.
The protest has spread to the Netherlands and the police have arrested an unnamed organizer:
https://www.infowars.com/police-arrest-leader-of-dutch-yellow-vests-ahead-of-nationwide-protests-against-political-correctness/
The authorities don’t mind so much when an immigrant murders a film producer, but preemptive detention is the remedy for those who are unable to embrace the communal orthodoxy.
Robert Stewart
And here I thought the right to peaceful protest is enshrined in democracy……..Oh wait, it was organised through FB so it’s subversive.
“Peaceful” my butt.
If it was your car or your business or your workplace going up in smoke, or your home being burned down, you would be so ludicrously and perversely ‘confused’ about the nature of this ‘protest’.
Apparantly now canceled, not just delayed.
I wonder how much this would have cost the average joe over a year?
I wonder if the British realise just how large a part of their home fuel bills are because of Green Initiatives?
Green levies currently cost us ~ £2.7 billion a year (https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/eciu-resort-to-outright-lies-about-power-bills/)
UK has ~ 30 million households
So handily that comes out at £90 per household, or about 10% of a household’s fuel bill.
Should we British not be out on the streets too? Is it too well hidden?
RS
You are too gutless just like us Canadians.
It really isn’t that Alan, the biggest problem is that the overwhelming majority of the British population (of all social and intellectual classes) simply has no idea there is even a debate to be had. Even worse, not one senior politician, nor one newspaper, nor one television channel nor major industrial figure (etc etc) will even dare to come out in public and express scepticism of the green narrative even if they think it, and AGW is now taught as gospel in schools, thereby brainwashing the younger generation. The British public at large therefore has no reason to think that there might be another point of view or another school of thought, or indeed any other alternative to windmills and similar for future energy supply, and we must all pay up regardless of cost.
I know this is mad, you know this is mad, everyone who reads WUWT knows it’s nuts but that is the reality for now. All we sceptics can do is keep spreading the word to all and sundry that there is an alternative train of thought. We’ll win in the end but god knows when that will be!
Television is government controlled there.
Not so, but the BBC has decreed that AGW is a fact (like gravity) and consequently anyone who disagrees is a total nutcase and should not be given airtime.
The Australian ABC has really gone to town today with an insulting attack on “climate deniers”. To think my taxes fund this leftist joke of an organisation makes by blood boil.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/climate-change-denialism-holocaust-david-attenborough-coal/10585744
Amen!
Vancouver Canada rally protest this Saturday. I would go to it but I don’t think I can ride my bike that far in our near record current cold conditions. Also I am usually still in bed by noon.
https://mobile.twitter.com/IdiotBuster2/status/1070546877509238784
Alan Tomalty
We have bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Our government is provoking Brexiters to try and understand what the reaction will be to cancelling Brexit altogether. They have tabled a number of options including cancelling the whole Brexit party, having another referendum (under the feeble premise that no one knew what they were voting for first time around), accepting a lousy deal etc.
The only options realistically available now are leaving with no deal which 17M+ Brexiters would be quite happy about or holding another referendum based on, of course, all the information we know now, which is no different to what we knew at the last referendum.
Move for another referendum and the tens of thousands of French demonstrators who took to the streets will be dwarfed by the 17M+ Brexit voters who will have been democratically betrayed by our government.
As the UK is the source of civilised parliament, the rule of law and democracy, this is a really big global deal. Screw this one up and our politicians are in for a very rude awakening.
If we do leave the EU with no deal, the will of the people will have been carried out as democracy demands. If not, the will of the people may well be conducted by violence and I sincerely hope the rest of the peaceful, democratic world would behind us in our desire to maintain the democratic will of the people.
I’ll add this. The last major confrontation between the UK government was the miners strike. Thatcher was well ahead of them. She recruited, provisioned and trained frontline cops in riot control. I was one of those cops and had no idea why I was being trained in riot control.
Successive governments have decimated police numbers in the desire to cost cut and, since 2008, for ‘austerity’. No one has considered there might be a good reason for people to take to the streets but the prospect is looming, possibly in a matter of weeks. Nor will they be restricted to London, many parts of the country voted to Brexit.
The police were overwhelmed during the Tottenham riots, properties burned and people injured over a week of civil unrest for a known drug dealer and gun runner who was shot and killed by the police.
We’ll wait and see how truly out of touch the British government is with the electorate, then we’ll see if the British public have guts.
Alternatively, Alan, if the UK crashes out without any agreement, which you apparently consider the ‘will of the people’, that is 52% of it, then, when the whole thing goes belly up and half a million people lose their job, then you may indeed see riots in the street. It won’t be pretty.
E J Zuiderwijk,
Most voters, voted to leave, 52 to 48 which equals about 1.4 million more leavers than remainers.
Most leavers wanted to leave – crashing out – as you call it onto WTO rules will be fine. 95% of UK companies do not export at all.
Our food will be cheaper, we will be able to do trade deals, arrange ‘most favoured status’ with countries who wish to do lots of trade with the UK.
The vast majority of countries the UK trades with, are governed by WTO rules, since the EU has so few trade deals.
Its a win – win for the vast majority of the UK population.
Will it be a bit bumpy for a few weeks after March next year?
Maybe, the French and Germans will want to do a quick deal once we stop imported French food and German cars.
The numbers on the trade imbalance are staggering.
We are in a comfortable position.
Steve,
If Gaia keeps warming up, Britain can make its own champagne.
Posted one yar go:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/03/brexit-horror-liberated-british-might-de-prioritise-climate-change/#comment-2226620
[excerpt]
On Europe:
Britain and the Magna Carta countries (the British Empire/ Commonwealth and the USA sacrificed the best of our youth to save Europe during two World Wars. I have a great-uncle buried in France, killed in action in the last days of WW1, and an uncle who was the only surviving officer of his unit at the Dieppe raid during WW2, where he rescued the only ten surviving enlisted men – of the 110 who landed on the beach.
We owe Europe nothing, and I would never support another rescue mission, which appears increasingly likely. Europe is failing due to imbecilic leftist politics, and does not deserve to be rescued again.
I just returned from Thailand, where I met a French citizen. We spoke all evening at a party where everyone else spoke Thai and/or English. He said he was completely finished with Europe, and will move overseas as soon as he can. He spoke of the creeping takeover of France by radical Muslims and their violence against civilians and the authorities. I ventured that Europe was failing, and in mere decades would become little more than a museum due to its foolish leftist politics – he enthusiastically agreed.
On Brexit:
Britain will be vastly better-off out of the EU. The economic future of Britain should reside in a new Free Trade Agreement with the USA and the Commonwealth – as we leave Europe to fail under its imbecilic leftist/green energy policies.
Best, Allan
Let’s get BREXIT out of the way first, Alan. Then we may have discovered our abdominal fortitude.
On one of the news programs it said that in France it would raise just the TAXES to $3.50 / gallon and total price to about $7.00/ gallon.
Stevecsd
We pay NZD$2.29 per litre here. Over half in duty/taxes
and at 3.785 liters to a gallon, is $8.66 per gallon
I paid 3.15 per gallon in Sonoma County CA last week and will refill at $2.95 per gallon (or .779 per liter) tomorrow in Sacramento for my return this weekend
Wow, California gas is expensive. I saw $1.98/gallon this morning
Glad I don’t fill up in NZ though. My 22 gal tank would be 83 liters. At 2.29 per liter, that would be a whopping $190.68 to fill my tank
Ben – gas is expensive here in most parts of Nevada – pretty much the same price as Kalifornia. We are building roads and infrastructure to support all the Kalifornians moving here, and in return, they are bringing their liberal ideals to Nevada in hopes of turning it into East Kalifornia. We just elected a Democrat senator from San Francisco who lives here just enough of the year so she doesn’t have to pay Kalifornia taxes. She’ll do her best to make Nevada the same kind of cesspool she just left.
We really should be spending money on building a wall to keep out Kalifornians.
TO Stevecsd,
Here in the uk petrol(gasoline in the us) is already in the region of £ 6per gallon. this at today’s exchange rate is $ 7.68it varies slightly depending on area,&location of garage etc.
Heh, I paid under US$2/gallon just yesterday.
It would still be @$6.50 at 3.8L/US gallon
The NY times reported that the tax increase was equivalent to 25 cents a gallon. That small tax increase isn’t nearly enough to apply the economic pressure necessary to stop people from using fossil fuel powered cars. The pro-carbon-tax website “carbontax.org” suggests 14 cents to start, then increasing by 11 cents PER YEAR, every single year after that, until emissions start noticeably dropping.
There’s no way those pushing carbon taxes would actually be able to sell them politically, if they advertised the cost up front. The only reason support for action on carbon emissions appears high in public opinion polls is because the questions don’t include the cost. “Would you personally pay $1.25 in additional gas tax per gallon, if it helped solve climate change?” I think support for action will drop to 10% or less. Only those that don’t drive (or drive electric cars) might still support it, provided they are also economically ignorant of how the tax will raise the price of every other good and service…
Yes Rocky: The UK government is more subtle than Macron. Our green taxes are served up by stealth.
While our energy bills show the VAT tax , they do NOT show the GREEN TAX element, now becoming a major constituent of the bill and likely to increase steadily as intermittent power increases. Hence there is no sudden trigger point to galvanise mass objection on the streets with any increases being laid at the door of the energy suppliers.
I believe there is a similar situation in the States where the subsidies are paid from federal funds so do not appear on consumer bills; but not sure about that.
Anyhow it keeps the great unwashed quiescent and all it does is moan about austerity.
But, of course, that is the name of the game: “Austerity Creation”
You are correct, many little green turds, er umm, easter eggs are hidden in utility bills and in add on taxes for various things. It is an effective way to bleed a victim till they are weak enough to control.
It seems to me, that this is not entirely, or even mainly, about the response to climate change. Rather, the Western European socialist experiment (government guarantee of old age retirement and healthcare costs) is on the verge of collapse. The driver seems to be demographic. There are simply not enough young people (due to birth control and abortion) to pay all the benefits that have been promised. There are perhaps 1 1/2 workers on the average, to support each old person and to supply the money needed for healthcare. This is unsupportable. The day of reckoning has been put off for the last ten years by making the real interest rate a couple percent negative. Now the accumulated capital of the middle classes has been drained and the interest rates are trending up. The only recourse is to try and raise the money by extortionate taxes on the productive middle class. I don’t see a way out and the crisis seems to be upon them.
The way out is dismantlement of the welfare granny state, but until there is massive deprogramming of the leftest way of thinking, that will never happen. I am afraid that the Judeo Christian culture is doomed.
The leftest view of the world is all wrong. They believe:
1)All cultures are equal in worth and values.
2) All religions should be respected.
3) There is an entity called free will in each human.
4) Equality of outcome should be aspired to
5) CO2 is a pollutant
6) Green energy is nirvana
7) A hard core criminal in most cases can be converted to change and repent if only through enough reeducation.
8) There are more than 2 genders
9) The main stream media is not biased towards leftest positions
10) The Chinese Communist party will eventually reform and stop its attempted domination of the world.
11) First past the post election systems are bad and everything should be proportional representation.
12) In past generations the non white world was noble and without violence nor discrimination (the noble savage hypothesis).
“2) All religions should be respected”
Except Christianity…
I’ll never understand…
we need to install foot baths and prayer rooms..
…and we need to take down the 10 commandments
Alan,
Why do you include this item in your list of leftist errors:
“3) There is an entity called free will in each human.”
How do you square this with the demands of “Political Correctness”? The left does not abide by those who disagree. So just what is this “free will” that you postulate? The left is seriously delusional, as you note in many of your items, but I can’t understand why you include free will as an example of something that is “all wrong”.
Consider the following two people:
1-an otherwise sane person who thinks he doesn’t have free will, and
2-a person in a mental hospital who thinks he is controlled by a device implanted in his brain by some malignant agency.
Which of these two is better off?
Answer: the guy in the psychiatric institution. He thinks his problem can be fixed–that the device can be removed.
Robert Stewart – December 6, 2018 at 8:27 am
Robert S, …. I can’t answer for Alan, ….. but I agree with his inclusion of said and my reason(s) are:
“Free will” is nothing more than a nurtured belief of an imaginary mental attribute that the “leftists”, the Christian Religion, the Freudian “psychobabblers”, etc., have employed as a means of convincing the gullible and not-so-gullible public that they possess a “free will” to do what is “right” …….. and that what is “right” is whatever the aforesaid “leftists”, Christian Religion and/or Freudian “psychobabblers” tells them is the “right” thing to believe or do.
If a person is nurtured, by a supposedly caring “mentor”, to believe they actually have a “free will” to make “personal” decisions, then that same person can be more easily convinced to “do or say” whatever said mentor wants them to “do or say”.
The “conscious mind” does not possess a “free will” ability, …… only a “choice making” ability.
And choice making is only applicable iffen their “subconscious mind” presents the “conscious mind” with more two or more entities to choose from.
Absent free will, how can there be personal responsibility? I think you have put the cart before the horse. We have free will, therefore we are responsible for our actions. It can not be otherwise.
I agree that the idea of responsibility and duty are absent in the therapeutic indoctrination that passes for a K-18 education in most of the U. S. But this doesn’t excuse the victims of this pernicious system from their responsibilities. It will come to them as time passes, hopefully not in a gulag. Perhaps in a gentler form like Venezuela’s descent into a tropical tyranny and mass starvation. But reality will endure the latest delusion of the masses, and there will be price to be paid.
The left, the progressives who think peace is the norm and we can outlaw war, take it for granted that soldiers can be held accountable for following “illegal” orders. If anybody is denied free will, it will be the soldier they decide to make an example of. So they agree to this notion, but they apply the principle with careful discrimination.
Robert Stewart – December 6, 2018 at 12:38 pm
Personal responsibility, …… “DUH”.
Are you per chance admitting that you actually believe a person, any person, who claims that …. “The Devil made me do it” ….. and therefore you believe they ARE NOT personally responsible for their words or actions?
Not so, Robert S, ……. “You are what your environment nurtured you to be”. And therefore your “conscious” mind is subservient to your “subconscious” mind.
Your mentors did a fine job of nurturing your belief in/of “free will”.
And otherwise or not, a person’s conscious mind does not have “free will”, …….. but said person is responsible for their own actions.
Samuel C Cogar –
If you do not believe in free will, you believe that all your actions were completely determined before you were born in a completely deterministic world or
there is an outside being of some sort controlling your every thought and you are essentially just a remote-controlled robot.
Even people who literally have guns pointed at their heads have chosen death and sacrificed themselves for others.
I believe there is always a choice. It is up to you to make the best life you can.
SocietalNorm – December 6, 2018 at 6:34 pm
SocietalNorm, ……. iffen you had stated that ….. “some actions are predetermined before you were born”, …… then you would have been 100% correct. 😊
And those “predetermined actions” are referred to as Inherited Survival Instincts and/or “hard-wired human instincts”. And they are “encoded” in the DNA that you inherited from your biological parents.
SocietalNorm, prior to their birth, be it vaginal or caesarian, a fetus (baby) has no “conscious” memory simply because it’s “sense organs” have not been subjected to any environmental stimuli. But post birth, the sense organs begin “uploading” info/data which is stored in the DNA of the brain’s neurons with similar/associated data containing neurons being conjoined via a synaptic connection.
And it takes weeks, months and years for the child to acquire their “conscious” memory, And one’s “conscious” memory is buried deep within the dark recesses of the skull/brain and it has no direct link to any of the sense organs. The “subconscious” memory controls all the “data” transferred to or from the “conscious” memory. Thus the reason one does not have the “free will” to make conscious decisions.
“Yup”, and most mothers will put their own life in jeopardy if their child’s life is in danger. An inherited instinct characteristic of most females to guarantee survival of their offspring.
Samuel C Cogar,
Seems we agree that there is SOME free will and of course there is shaping by genetics/heredity, environment, teachings, etc. Perhaps we only disagree in magnitude.
Dismantling the granny welfare state” They wish to expand it on a global level, as described in this paper from the LSE in 2012:
London School of Economics and Political Science Law Department
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1719643
“The attempt to develop international cap and trade markets for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, ultimately aiming to determine a global price for carbon, is the most extensive attempt ever made to use market-mimicking mechanisms to deal with an environmental externality.
Addressed to the problem of climate change, it is an exercise in the adjustment of the social welfare function on a global scale, and it envisages expenditures which will run into trillions of dollars. “
The leftest view of the world is all wrong. They believe:
1)All cultures are equal in worth and values. Unless those cultures are white, in which case they are worthless and to be condemned as racist.
2) All religions should be respected. Except for Christianity, which should be reviled.
Fixed that for you
“I am afraid that the Judeo Christian culture is doomed.”
If the people I know online are anything to go by, it would seem that Christianity is growing fast; it’s just happening outside the church, because most churches have been infiltrated and perverted by the left, just like most of the other Western institutions.
Certainly I will be willing to believe in God if it turns out we are entering a new Little Ice Age right now, right as Global Warming Hysteria peaks.
Thats not exactly true Jim. If there isnt enough money coming from the middle classes (the situation now), then the first recourse is to cut budgets for services to the middle classes – again the situation now. This means that the middle classes pay again. When the books still dont balance then the next recourse is to frighten the middle classes and get them to pay down even more – whats happening in France big time and what is happening in the UK and the USA (+many others). There are not many recourses then left for government so the next recourse is the public taking action. Which I for one am convinced has resulted in Trump, Brexit and ‘Gilets Jaune’…… and not before time.
Once the status quo has been derailed it may take a while to get it back on the tracks again so I hope the political classes are taking note or they may be finding going out in public increasingly unpleasant
I don’t understand what you mean by direct taking. Would that be like confiscating retirement accounts? The French had a 2% tax on wealth that Macron removed. Is that the kind of thing that you mean? But, I am really concerned that there may not be a graceful way to resolve this kind of crisis. If you cut off old age government like social security or the French equivalent, what happens. Tens of millions are left without any means to obtain a livelihood since they haven’t saved enough and had enough kids to support them. I suppose that would mean revolution — your status quo derailed bigtime. On the other hand the government cannot extort enough money to pay for the benefits. Tough times. For reasons that I don’t completely understand the US is ten to fifteen years behind the French timeline.
You don’t understand what he means by “direct taking” because he never said anything about “direct taking”.
what he did say was:
1) if not enough money, first recourse is to cut budgets for services
2) the next recourse is to frighten the middle classes into paying more
3) not many recourses then left for government so the next recourse is the public taking action.
I think it’s that last bit that you misread/misunderstood. He’s not talking about government actions there, those were in points 1 and 2 (though I’d argue that 2 is usually governments first recourse, Governments prefers to expand, not cut, their size and expenditures), he’s talking the peoples response (ie the public) once government has gone too far. The people response comes in many forms, he listed a few:
1) Election of Trump (and Trump like politicians such as we saw recently in Brazil)
2) Brexit in the UK
and
3) the Gilets Jaune protests in France.
And what he maybe oughta said was ……….
“
1) if not enough money, first recourse is to cut budgets for services
2) the next recourse is to frighten the middle classes into paying more
3) the next recourse is to start printing “truckloads” of $500 and $1,000 bills (paper currency)
4) not many recourses then left for government so the next recourse is the public taking action.”
Well, the US did avoid Obama’s Clean Power Plan, sorta. It is rather like one of those villains in a horror movie that keeps coming back to life in the sequel.
Look for Nancy Pelosi to try to resurrect that beastie, despite anything that happened in France.
“Well, the US did avoid Obama’s Clean Power Plan, sorta. ”
I saw a news item this morning on tv that said Trump is increasing the amount of CO2 a coal plant can emit. That ought to go over well with Nancy.
on behalf of the world’s vegetation, thank you President Trump, the increase in plant food is much welcomed.
Paris is exploding in Katowice too!
6 Dec: Heartland Institute: PRESS RELEASE: Solidarity, Heartland Institute Sign Historic Climate Communique at COP24
By James Taylor, Jim Lakely
Polish labor union that stood up to the Soviet Bloc and changed the world joins Heartland on front lines of resistance to climate alarmism
KATOWICE, POLAND (December 6, 2018) – The Heartland Institute and representatives of Solidarity, the historic labor union founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa that helped bring down the Iron Curtain, signed a joint statement on Wednesday calling on the United Nations at COP24 to ensure the “restoration of the Scientific Method and the dismissal of ideological dogma at the United Nations.”
The joint statement, created at Solidarity’s prompting and written cooperatively between the two organizations on December 5, was submitted to the UN Conference of the Parties climate conference in Katowice today…READ ALL
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/press-release-solidarity-heartland-institute-sign-historic-climate-communique-at-cop24
Back when I was a kid, I’d occasionally see a bumper sticker that said, “US out of the UN. UN out of the US.”
I thought they were right wing nuts. Now I understand. They were correct.
The UN is a power-centralizer. The UN is undemocratic. The UN sustains the logic of rule by bureaucratic fiat. It is inevitably totalitarian.
The UN is a magnet for power-mad demagogues, collectivist tyrants, political grifters, and large-scale thieves.
The whole AGW madness exemplifies all of that.
My view now is that the UN should be terminated. No more US money at all. US as an observer only.
Close the NY office and export it to where it will be welcome, somewhere like Brussels or Beijing, where moralizing demagogy is politically normative.
I’d rather see an association of democratic republics, with strict entrance requirements. Anglophone countries (UK, post-Brexit only), Japan, South Korea, Israel, Chile, the free Eastern Europeans. No EU members.
True. Most EU members are no longer sovereign states, so shouldn’t qualify. Although its Eastern European members retain more independence. And even France closed its borders after the terror attacks.
I think the same. It’d free up a lot of parking in NYC. I think it would ease the traffic a bit too.
GET the US OUT of the UN! and GET the UN OUT of the US!
Instead of Brussels or Beijing , I think their model government would accommodate them, North Korea.
That or Venezuela
I think the same.
But I fear what could happen after we …….. GET the UN OUT of the US!
Iffen the Democrat lefties take control of the House, Senate and POTUS …. they would shur as shootin turn control of the UN building in NYC over to the DHS to be renovated into “rent free” apartments for illegal immigrants and family members …… with a Voter’s Registration and a Driver’s License issuing offices situate in the main entranceway of the building. 😊 😊
Oh yeah, and would make room in the main entranceway for an official Voting Precinct …… for whenever elections are held.
France contributes about 1% of global CO2 emissions, thanks mainly to generating electricity from nukes. How much are they supposed to sacrifice for the proverbial drop in the bucket?
Canada’s carbon policies border on suicidal — especially if you believe “all politics is local.” It’s a resource-based economy, much more than France. It’s also a much smaller population, and among the coldest of all major countries. If anything, Canada stands to benefit from global warming. There’s already evidence that farming is moving north in Canadian prairies.
What are they supposed to do — impoverish Canada’s 1/2 of 1% of global population in order to reduce their drop in the bucket to half a drop in the bucket?
The way China’s growing, they’ll be able to buy most of Canada’s significant assets pretty soon, maybe turn the whole place into a colony, with Australia thrown in. Does that benefit Mother Earth? Or anyone?
Even if all the top 620 emitters of ghg in Canada switch to a non carbon generating fuel, the climate in 100 years will only have a reduction in temperature of 1/1000 C. That will be Canada’s contribution after 4 years of a total of $5 billion in carbon taxes. Madness.
I should add that if they all switch the taxes dont get paid but the expenses go up because the non carbon fuel is more expensive. Thus when they pass on the extra expenses to the consumer, inflation goes up anyway. In that case without any taxes that will be paid the government wont have any money to send out the rebate cheques to the population. Thus inflation will go up for nothing and the people will be stuck with the extra prices.
To make it worse BC has just announced that they will force the oil and gas producers in their province to switch to electricity to produce their commodities. However the grid hasnt been built to handle the increased use of electricity in the nortern ares where the oil and gas is produced.
this a warning shot across the alarmists bow. They have conducted themselves as if thy have nothing to lose in their bid push to reduce us all to grass skirts and algae cakes. The have now reached the first barricade where real resistance occurs. The zealots will push on regardless. Cooler heads recognizing they have far more to risk will begin to moderate their rhetoric. Which will win? That will depend on how many cities go up in smoke.
Macron will most likely go down in history as another state leader falling victim to the Assad-curse, dragging his idiotic climate change policies down with him.
Macron was busy and ready to bomb Assad, but got blindsided. The other bomber “coalition” is tottering on an edge. Looks like Carbon and Bombs are two sides of 1 coin.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s , to God what is God’s , 2 sides of a Roman Denarius, comes to mind, except Macron thought he covered both bases.
There has been a long building anger as France’s economy (for working class people) has not improved and taxing the heck out of energy is going to make it collapse.
The flame is lit. It looks like there will be more protests this week. The protestors have sent a list of 40 demands to the French government.
Marcon has caved. His government has formally removed the future fuel tax.
Marcon is also talking about re-instating the wealth tax.
Marcon is also talking about bringing out armoured vehicles to protect French monuments for the Saturday protests.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46466268
Taxing wealth is one of the quickest ways to crash your economy.
Macron was a tough guy.
How tough does Macron look now?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/macron-paris-climate-accord-agreement-trade-deal-us-trump-un-nicaragua-a8554916.html
Macron rejects trade deals with countries outside Paris climate accord
The French president is calling on other countries to join him in refusing to sign new deals with ‘powers that do not respect’ the Paris Accord
Chris RiottaNew York @chrisriotta
Tuesday 25 September 2018 18:47
Remember when he tried to squeeze Trump’s hand?
Remember when Trump brushed dandruff off Macron’s shoulder in front of the news cameras?
Macron can’t control his own damn country but somehow expects Trump to listen to him, and worry?
Effing pipsqueak.
After the way Trump pwned him with the dandruff maneuver, there was never any chance of Trump listening to him.
In Canada our national propaganda wing of the Liberal party called the CBC is 24/7 on about carbon pollution and the un reports on said “pollution”. It is so over the top that is obviously propaganda. The average person sees higher taxes for no reason but all of
the media says the world is burning and this is in a country that is frozen 2/3rds of the year.
We are already moving into a Maunder Minimum in sun spot activity which is highly indicative of a new Little Ice Age. The thermosphere is cooling per NASA, glaciers in Iceland have stopped shrinking and for the first time in 20 years they have started to grow and right now the amount of North Hemisphere land under snow is two standard deviation units above it’s 20 year average. Time to look to Florida for any good farmland for sale before the Cinese beat us to it.Global warming is a myth !
There is a lot more to the French protests than just climate policy, and they should not be viewed through that narrow prism. The last time a poll showed Macron wih 50 percent public support was in May, and that was an outlier — and we are talking dozens and dozens of polls over months. The last time a poll suggested a credible 50 percent support was in January.
It took less than a year for the majority of French people to realize they had fallen for a con and had elected a globalist, big-banking puppet.
Some of my French friends have said to me “We knew he was not a real politician, just a figurehead, but we truly believed that his advisers would be serious people who knew what they were doing. And then they were appointed…”
The recent protests have had an impact. But just imagine if the banlieus (Paris ‘suburb’) dwellers had used the opportunity joined in — it would have been a catastrophe. But the taxes did not affect them.
President! The people can not afford diesel for their cars.
Let them buy Teslas
France is ahead of most as it is mostly zero CO2 nuclear plus hydro, where italready made the big cuts in CO2 emissions that are possible in generation. So cutting means messing with transport and heating, making them more expensive for no benefit of any kind for the people paying. This cost better hidden in electricity renewable subsidies, so dumb people don’t realise what the cost of pointless CO2 reduction is, and tha renewables can’t even deliver this, as they depend upon 100% fossil backup..
Other countries who are close to this position of zero CO2 generation are Paraguay and Sweden. But are their government and people stupid enough to agree to sign up to expensive transport and heating to subsidise what can’t work for no actual climate change reason, to prefer belief in the most extreme versions of an unreliable model prophesy, from an overpaid group of UN gravy train riders, that the IPCC itself says cannot be considered a reliable predictor of future climate.
“The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” IPCC https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/501.htm …
However, France is looking to cut back on their nuclear (from the currently 70-something% of their power down to 50% in the coming years). If CO2 reduction truly is the goal, then leaving the nuclear power alone and concentrating on the less than 30% of non-nuclear would make more sense.
Bring it on!
I am 97% certain that this need for enviro-taxes arises not from any environmental considerations but from the need to feed the multitude of non-productive individuals recently arrived in France.
I think it stems from their need to pay their share of Europe’s Climate Reparations funds to the Klimate Kash Kleptomaniacs at the UN
It will not be complete until Macron and Philippe are gone as a show of force from the people.
Not just France relying on the nukes.
UK has been pulling a rock solid 2GW out of the French interconnect for the last week and another 1GW out of the Dutch.
And what the Belgies, are 5 of their 7 nukes still offfline? Such a shame they didn’t learn from Ancient Romans on how to mix concrete.
Not just in Belgium either:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46454844
And I can 3 fossil stations from my little house here and they’ve been puffing away little steam trains for the last week also….
Handy UK grid status report here, and yes, at the moment, it indicates 2 GW being imported from France:
http://gridwatch.co.uk/
“Let them buy a Tesla” is the modern version of “let them eat [cake]”
Well, it is Le Pen next then.
Kudos to the French public, but I wonder if the public in other countries, including the US, have enough courage to resist the eco-loonification that’s going on. The looney-indoctrination has been taking place for a long time….
It starts in school with teachers accepting the Green bible, as in Australia:
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2018/12/young-minds-filled-with-toxic-green-mush/
We haven’t had to riot to prevent such inane government programs because unlike the French, we didn’t vote politicians into office promising to enact such inane programs.
The Democrats took control of the House in the last election.
It won’t take much of a shift in public sentiment to bring the insane completely into power again.
If 2 or 3 percent more of the population can be convinced to believe that it’s ok to tax those who have more than you do, so that you can have more free stuff, then it’s all over.
That’s why the left hates the Electoral college. It’s easy to convince large segments of the urban poor to believe that, it’s not as easy to convince as large a percentage of the rural middle class of that.
Viva la France et le gilet jaunes!
+100
Oui Oui!
What has been the attitudes of the French people when it came to making the promises of reducing CO2 emissions? What was the general flavor of comments directed towards Trump for pulling the US out of the Paris accords? Is this not what the people of France asked for! Did they think it was free?
The next move will be for the UN to coordinate revisions to the accords whereby countries back off their expensive commitments in exchange for doing something a lot less expensive. That is, instead of spending $100 billion on windmills and raising taxes, they can simply pay $5 billion per year into a reparations fund.
That will be checkmate. Countries have backed themselves into a corner and the only way out will be to do the only thing that the UN actually cares about — wealth transfers.
There is a better than 50-50 chance this is not over in France. Macron caving on the carbon tax may not be an end but a beginning. New demands are being made now and the threat of violent protests coming this weekend is serious enough the government is discussing how to react if Paris burns again.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46466268
“According to French media, Mr Philippe will decide on Saturday whether to deploy armoured vehicles to clear roads in Paris if barricades are erected. Such a deployment has not taken place since 1968.”
Putin would probably gladly supply RPGs to the protestors.
Just wait, the French government will discover that Russia is behind it all. Well they will if they take a page out of the lefts playbook here in the states.
Trump and Putin are surely to blame for anything bad which happens in France.
Idiotic technocrats, not so much.
John Tillman
Thousands of ambulances blocked the streets of Paris last week, a largely unpublished demonstration.
Mr. Philippe’s going to have one hell of a problem if they deem it appropriate to do the same on Saturday. His armoured vehicles wouldn’t be able to move and he’s liable to need those paramedics.
Additionally, one police union, Vigi, called for a strike of its administrative staff working in the interior ministry on Saturday, the riot police would be immobilised.
I suspect as they won the major battle of fuel price increases any more protests will be much smaller and quieter.
The president and prime minister however are willing to rely on the armed forces and national security apparatus if necessary. The regime will bill any such move as restoring order and protecting monuments, businesses and lives.
Why do you think the police and army will fight against their own people?
Macron and co want the EU army because foreigners will be far more likely to work to keep Macron in control, rather than side with the people of France.
I don’t know about the police.
The army will obey. Elements of it rebelled when de Gaulle ended the Algerian War, but it historically obeys the President of the Republic.
Napoleon rose to power by firing on Parisian protestors.
The army of the revolutionary First Republic slaughtered hundreds of thousands of French citizens in the rebellions of the 1790s.
Police were apparently out in force today, across the country, and with their own armored vehicles, so no call yet for the armed forces.
Of course French gendarmes are heavily armed compared to other countries’ police.
Just checked the bebe and it appears the festivities carried on well into the night, with Macroon still in hiding. Most likely behind the skirts of his vieille mere. (I hate that my keyboard won’t let me properly spell things in other languages!)
The Green Elite must fall!
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé…
Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Blood thirsty song but a great marching anthem.
Attempts to desanguify it have so far failed.
The blood in the furrows need not be specifically monarchist, Prussian, Austrian, Russian, British or even literal human blood.
Of course the Revolution ended up bathed in French blood. But it became an anthem against tyranny in general:
Well, I’ve been doing my best to get it started here in Oregon.
Not much success, so far.
In Oregon and Washington, at least voters can reject carbon taxes via the Oregon system of direct democracy, ie referendum, initiative and recall.
And Washington voters did just that this past election.
Washington voters rejected Measure I-1631 (a carbon tax). Voters rejected this proposal by 56%. It would have become the first carbon tax in the nation.
The problem is the left just keeps trying until they succeed, as a similar carbon tax was defeated in Washington previously.
That’s what I had in mind.
OR politicians have tried to get a sales tax numerous times, but it’s always voted down.
Now we have to worry they’ll simply put in in place through legislation – which is much more likely. It’s not as if any of those doing so have to worry about being voted out of office.
That’s why my great-granddad and his colleagues in the OR Senate voted for the Oregon system, which includes ballot initiatives. The political class might resist with every possible legal means keeping a measure repealing carbon taxes off the ballot, but unless the OR Supreme Court knowingly violates the law, opponents will eventually run out of shenanigans.
Props to your great-grandfather. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
He also supported good roads, votes for women and the direct election of US senators, ie the Populist or Progressive agenda.
Direct elecction of senators isn’t looking like such a good idea right now. Constitutional amendment approved same ominous year, 1913, as income tax and the Fed.
What’s the price tag to clean up the toxic site at Solo Power?
A lot more than the money thrown away on it by Portland and Oregon already.
Idiocracy.
In france, we pay thousands of Euros on the price of each new car diesel or petrol. Upto €10000.
Macron claimed he was like General de Gualle when in fact he is the complete opposite. We want him and his cronies out.
The suspension of taxes, probably to July, is not good enough. One of his party was asked by a gilet jaune how much the minimum wage was SMIC. She didn’t know and just started screeching at them. They walked out of the studio.
“liberty, equality, fraternity”
Off with their turbines and battery terminals!!
French diesel price by the end of Nov. had gone up 23% in the year 2018. What irritated many in the country & it’s territories was that at that same point in time a barrel of oil had gone up 14%.
The ongoing protests threatening have roots in other issues than indefensable fuel price trend, which the “yellow vest” delegated commentators raised the last week in Nov. The core demands, as I understand them, are : lower the retirement age, rescind employer tax credits, raise the minimum wage, institute a maximum monthly income limit (€14-15,000) & enforce a rent control. A bit later jumping in with other demands are those insisting on sustainable transportation, no work out-sourcing, solve homelessness, make social security universal, government ministers paid only mininal salary, close nothing (nurseries, post offices, train stations, etc.), & even anti-GMO/glyphosate.
When the price of crude tanked (so to speak), fall in French gasoline price barely budged:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/598028/unleaded-gasoline-prices-france/
Please delete “fall in”. Distracted in mid sentence.
All those social goodies can only be achieved if power is abundant and cheap, which requires a fusion-power breakthrough, which requires—or would greatly benefit from—increased public funding.
Or a pledge from the Obama podium to sling more funds
They should set up a central fund subscribed to by anyone interested in emissions reductions, to fund such.
Hate to nit-pick but the vests seem to be somewhere between yellow and green, which after a bit of research, might more correctly be called chartreuse.
(Don’t even ask me to research what color mauve is).
I know what color recessions are.
But France could be a taste of what’s to come if more governments try to tax carbon dioxide emissions. – Article
Could we just start by taxing all the politicians for emitting CO2 every time they give a speech, on TV or otherwise?
That might cut CO2 emissions drastically in the blink of an eye. The proposal stars, of course, witht anyone who gives a speech at these climate conferences has to pay for the privilege according to the volume of CO2 s/he’ll produce during the speech, as well as the CO2 volume produced by anyone at all who listens to the speech. I think this could produce a sizable cash volume that could be applied to useful things, such as updating housing insulation and improving access to clean water. Just thinking out loud – er, electronically.
I wonder what happened to those American scientists who fled the US because Trump had made it so dangerous and sought refuge in France.
Good question…..at the beach with the other elitists no doubt
Burn the required vests in large bonfires when this is all done.
Send in the Green Terminator to crush the resistance. He’s in Poland right now.
Unfortunately, he’ll be back….
“France is now heading into the zone where the marginal cost of emissions reduction begins to increase sharply,”
Sacre bleu! Marcel assume was just changer ze luminaire bulbs and ze shower heads et dim ze luminaires for ze hour un time per year.
ABC now confirming that the carbon taxes on fuel are not just postponed, but cancelled:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-leading-protest-activist-macron-speak-59624047
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-protests-security/france-to-deploy-89000-security-personnel-ahead-of-saturday-protests-idUSKBN1O52BS
At what point did the Gandarms turn against the French monarchy or at least stand down as in the LA riots?
Maybe President Macron could impose a carbon tax on Molotov Cocktails to curtail their use???
He imposed taxes on anything auto, did’nt stop them burning though.
The ‘protesters’ as expressed in the Paris streets were not so much protesters as anarchistic rioters, vandals and criminals. I see no reason to honor them regardless of their asserted claims and gains or economic suffering.
People’s expensive, hard-worked for and won private property was randomly destroyed by bands of vile criminal thugs, and public property was destroyed wherever possible as well.
In 1989 a Polish shipbuilding yard went on strike for over18 months and managed to collapse the political will and authority of the Polish government, and collapse Eastern European support and imposed order of Soviet Union, which then bought down the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet’s ‘Evil Empire’, and all the communist governments. It wasn’t the only factor but it was a major trigger.
They simply withdrew their labor from a corrupt rotting system.
What these French ‘protesters’ did were vile criminal tactics and a total disgrace to civilization, and I do not want to be associated with their brand of politics or thuggery, no matter what their dismal excuses or policy gains since.
They are in the wrong, just as much as Macron is a deluded fruitcake, and France, and Europe as a whole, is very much the loser from here.
According to my observations all large demonstrations or political movements are subject to hijacking (or attempted hijacking) by extreme fringe elements – even climate change skepticism.
The middle ground is the hardest to hold.
Regards
M
WX,
Most of the violence has been by Communists piggybacking on the peaceful protests by Yellow Vest movement demonstrators, mainly middle and working class nationalists and patriots.
The police and firefighters’ unions have joined the latter in solidarity, recognizing that it is not they who have committed vandalism and uncontrolled rioting.
The regime has tried unsuccessfully to tar all protestors with the brush of destruction wreaked by the few. Among the violent, bad actors might well be agents provocateurs in the pay of Macronistas.
John
I’m french and the situation is not what some of you describe, the violent protesters seem to belong to minority groups of “ultra left” and “ultra right” who disguised themselves in “Gilets Jaunes” to commit destructions.
As I said in other comment, the real “Gilets Jaunes” are in the largest majority peaceful, but the media do not show them because it is not marketable …
Claude
Claude,
Your comment is in line with mine.
The original yellow vest protestors were peaceful demonstrators, except for blocking some streets and roads, not vandals.
Since you cannot build a wind turbine without a heavy investment in steel and concrete, then these necessarily have a large CO2 footprint (even if it may occur elsewhere). So why not tax the windmills instead?
In fact almost everything created by our industrialized nations is built upon fossil fuel use, so he could tax anything he wants, which he should like, as that was probably the main point of the whole exercise.
Hello,
I am French and I am aware of living a period uncontrollable and critical for the moment but important for the next events.
Macron, our president, was elected by default and deluded for a few months.
I said that I did not vote for him and that I deposited a blank ballot in the ballot box.
70 to 80% of the population currently reject it by supporting the “Gilets Jaunes”, but only for questions of insufficient minimum income and for his arrogant and contemptuous speeches that he addresses to the poor French.
The exponential growth of taxes to reduce the CO2 footprint “the gas of life” ridiculous with regard to France (1%) triggered this revolt. (net minimum wage in france = 1173 € = 1333 $)
Nevertheless, the spirits of the French remain predominantly impregnated by the belief in anthropogenic global warming supported by politics and the media.
The realistic climato: https://www.climato-realistes.fr/, of which I am a part, are very few to dispute the assertions of the IPCC.
We organize conferences, create websites, distribute books, etc. … with the help of French, European, Canadian and American scientists to inform our compatriots about certain realities that go against the theories of the IPCC.
I am very sensitive to your comments that I find quite informed and relevant in their majority.
We often visit the website of Anthony Watts whom we thank for his work.
Sincerely,Claude
Excuse me for the Google translation …
Claude,
Thank you for posting your comments. We are glad to have brothers-in-arms in this battle against ignorance, fear, and manipulation.
rip
A French commentator well-versed in English and in American politics:
https://nypost.com/2018/12/07/in-france-les-deplorables-strike-back/
I wonder if the regime will reveal the backgrounds of the “demonstrators” arrested for violence. Earlier this year there were protests and arrests associated with clearing out migrant camps in and around Paris. Migrants and their supporters might have availed themselves of the opportunities presented by massive protests by French citizens to wreak revenge.
As Claude has noted, the worst outrages appear to have been perpetrated by politcally strange street-fellows of the Far Right and Left.
Thank you Rip,
I forgot to mention in my commentary, given the current political uncertainties of France, that I wished, of course, that everything be resolved calmly. It is not won with regard to the day of tomorrow.
As always, the media only retransmits sensational and deceptive images, while the “Gilets Jaunes” are, for the most part peaceful, it is important to specify …
Claude
You have Trump on your side – see his Tweet to his “friend” Macron to return those taxes to the people.
Les Gilets Jaunes look like recovering their government of the people, by the people, for the people, not of the banks, for the banks, by the banks, all 4 of them.
As a great candidate said, Paris talks of the end of the world, the provinces of the end of the month.
bonbon
Exact, the end of the month against the end of the world …
His majesty Macron has been thinking for more than a week to know what he will be able to announce tomorrow. This exercise will be very complicated because it is now unbelievable.
Canada now has its Gilets Jaunes. Of course we have a French connection. However, I think this thing will go global. Its too good a symbol to not go around the world.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-yellow-vests-in-canada-you-better-believe-it