May 3, 2019
From Alberta to Australia, from Finland to France and beyond, voters are increasingly showing their displeasure with expensive energy policies imposed by politicians in an inane effort to fight purported human-caused climate change.
Skepticism about whether humans are causing dangerous climate change has always been higher in the United States than in most industrialized countries. As a result, governments in Europe, Canada, and in other developed countries are much farther along the energy-rationing path that cutting carbon dioxide emissions requires than the United States is. Residents in these countries have begun to revolt against the higher energy costs they suffer under as a result of ever-increasing taxes on fossil fuels and government mandates to use expensive renewable energy.
For instance, in France in late 2018, protesters donning yellow vests took to the streets—and have stayed there ever since—in large part to protest scheduled increases in fuel taxes, electricity prices, and stricter vehicle emissions controls, which French President Emmanuel Macron claimed were necessary to meet the country’s greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Paris climate agreement. After the first four weeks of protest, Macron’s government cancelled his climate action plan.
Also in 2018, in part as a backlash against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate policies, global warming skeptic Doug Ford was elected as premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. Ford announced he would end energy taxes imposed by Ontario’s previous premier and would join Saskatchewan’s premier in a legal fight against Trudeau’s federal carbon dioxide tax.
In August 2018, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was forced to resign over carbon dioxide restrictions he’d planned to impose to meet the country’s Paris climate commitments. His successor, Scott Morrison, announced reducing energy prices and improving reliability, not fighting climate change, would be the government’s primary energy goals going forward. Subsequently, Australia’s deputy prime minister and its environment minister announced the country would continue using coal for electricity and expand coal mining and exports.
The changes in 2018 were just a prelude for the political climate revolt of 2019.
In mid-March, the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a fledgling political party just three years old, tied for the largest number of seats, 12, in the divided Dutch Senate in the 2019 elections. FvD takes a decidedly skeptical stance on climate change. On the campaign trail, Thierry Baudet, FvD’s leader, said the government should stop funding programs to meet the country’s commitments to international climate change agreements, saying such efforts are driven by “climate-change hysteria.”
On April 14 in Finland, where climate change policies became the dominant issue in the election, support for climate skepticism surged. Whereas all the other parties proposed plans to raise energy prices and limit people’s energy use, the Finns Party, which made the fight against expensive climate policies the central part of its platform, gained the second-highest number of seats in the Parliament, just one seat behind the Social Democratic Party’s 40. The second-place finish was a big win for the Finns Party and its skeptical stance: just two months before the election, polls showed its support was below 10 percent. After the Finns Party made battling alarmist climate policies its main goal, its popularity soared. The New York Times credited the Finns Party’s electoral surge, in large part, to its expressed climate skepticism.
In Alberta, Canada, where the economy declined after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate policies took hold, voters on April 16 replaced Premier Rachel Notley and her New Democratic Party (NDP), which supports the federal climate policies, with the United Conservative Party, headed by newly elected Premier Jason Kenney, who vowed to scrap the province’s carbon tax and every other policy in NDP’s climate action plan. Among the other climate policies Kenny said he will reverse in an effort to revive the economy are NDP’s plans to accelerate the closure of the province’s coal power plants, and its plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions from the region’s oil sands. In addition, Kenny says he will challenge the federal government’s climate impositions in court and streamline regulations hampering Alberta’s critical oil and gas industry, including restrictions preventing pipeline construction imposed by NDP.
Even as daily headlines in the lamestream media become ever shriller, hyping climate fears based on projections made by unverified climate models, the public, especially the voting public, is becoming increasingly weary of the Chicken Little claims of impending climate doom. Voters in developed countries are saying “enough is enough” to high energy prices which punish the most vulnerable people in society and do nothing to regulate climate change.
- H. Sterling Burnett
SOURCES: CBC; Global News; New York Times; New York Times; Climate Change Weekly
About time to end this madness
All cults eventually burn out as they become more destructive.
Jasper Carrot was a cult…
It’s a British thing…
+10
I need to see heads on pikes, tnx.
I couldn’t agree more but Swamps worldwide are all the same. When threatened the Swamp Creatures emerge from the muck and fight back. Before the bureaucrats give up their honey money stream there will be blood spilled.
The ruling politburos around the world will not go down without a fight. This is the principle reason the ruling class wants guns out of the hands of its citizenry. They prefer to spill the blood not contribute it and in the U.S. they fear the 2nd Amendment even more than they pretend to fear CO2.
Most people, not even those who are seen to be pushing Global Warming/Climate Change really believe in the ‘required’ actions. The Alarmists are pushing the Agenda as they see it as a useful way to implement other, generally repressive and totalitarian ideas. Polls show low levels of public concern about Global Warming/Climate Change. When people are asked to prioritize issues, climate change does not rate highly. In 2014, just before the then President Barack Obama addressed the heavily publicized UN Climate Summit 2014 in New York City, Pew Research polling indicated that Americans did not consider climate change to be among the top six threats facing the country.
The UN’s own ‘My World Global Survey’ confirms that this is true internationally. Polling of 9.7 million people from 194 countries, in the survey, finds that the need for “action taken on climate change” rates last out of the 16 suggested priorities. Access to reliable energy, better healthcare, government honesty, a good education, etc., are of far greater concerns to most people across the world. Given time, common sense tends to break out when authority is not looking.
Aye, Nicholas!
Their “Noble Cause Corruption” is all movement towards many activists’ preferred socialist totalitarian government.
Their climate and environmental activism is:
A) political theater towards totalitarianism
B) government support for unscientific climate jobs without real responsibility.
C) financial support for journalists, English majors, pseudo climate studies and shallow psychology practiced by hacks.
Ignored are the lessons held in an Aesop’s old story “The boy who cried wolf”.
The more they loudly shrill climate urgency, without climate evidence everyone can acknowledge, the greater the damage to their alarmist claims.
That is; climate alarmists are well on their way to getting relegated to wearing sandwich signs on urban corners shrilling ‘imminent dooms’ and ‘repent’. In between pan handling for loose change and sleeping in cardboard boxes.
The USA should cancel all payments to any international group pushing climate alarmism.
I think this is generally true, but the alarmists keep coming up with new movements. In Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, the council was recently gulled into adopting a Climate Emergency Declaration, rejected by only two councillors.
The crescendo of Alarm from our politicians and government agencies,is a recognition of their propagandas failure.
Not sure I will get this across well, but here goes.
We skeptics are a tiny minority, who lean toward political awareness.
Most taxpaying citizens have very little free time on their hands and have learnt to ignore politicians and bureaucrats until these creatures put their demands in writing.
As preempting the endless catalogue of insanity, madness and perpetual motion that “policy makers” propose is an unrewarding and impossible task.Nothing is real,nothing can be argued, as the goalposts are fluid.
Well these parasites have done so,in writing,in legislation taxing air in Canada,imposing endless regulations and costs worldwide.
Now the taxpayer will respond.
Because the naked theft of an emboldened Gang Green, is now real.
The government has boldly stated its incompetence and now demands its reward.
Of late the “reward” they receive from voters confuses them utterly.
I mean it this way,think how hideous it must feel to believe you are saving society from “Carbon pollution” And then be kicked out of office by a public who see you as another greedy gullible fool.
Polling your way to oblivion?
John Robertson,
Just to say WOw and Thank you,
Two things to consider:
Ask the “climate idiots” to explain the grass and tree samples retrieved after drilling 200 plus meters under the ice in “GREENLAND”
Flying from London UK to Auckland NZ is a 24 hour flight time ,,,,all over water !!!
All over water? I don’t think so.
Maybe they went round the Horn?
Or Round the Horne?
Sure, on the polar route, it is all over water, or can be, provided you make a little curve through the Bering Strait.
Of course, I think for safety reasons, airline flights are done over as much land as practical, or at least near to it, without going too far out of the way.
But if one heads due north from GB, straight up the Prime Meridian and then right down the International Date Line, it is pretty much all over water, except for a few islands, the Chuckycheese mountains, and a few more islands around Fun&Fruity and Fiji.
“Climate fears based on projections made by unverified climate models”: right on!
When are activists and governments going to promote nuclear power?
Until then we can be sure all this is not about reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions.
When the next person complains that corporate officers are paid too much, ask them about 2 things:
1: Are sports and movie stars paid too much.
2. Explain that ex-POTUS gave $1,000,000,000 to the UN Green Slush Fund, and had promised an additional $2,000,000,000.
Does anyone know what happened to that Billion dollars?
There seems to be total slilence about the UN Green Fund, it was hailed in the MSM as a great tool of cliamte rescue. But after severe internal fighting some time back, nobody wants to touch this sore subject. It would be great if some contributor here could do a bit of research and write a piece. The Green Fund looks like a huge UN scandal.
It will be dead later this year when they meet on it after it was held over from the last COP meeting because they could not reach agreement. All the human rights junk got gutted from the rulebook so there really isn’t much they can do.
The UN Green Slush Fund is the treasury for their world government project. Nothing to do with “climate”.
That is not correct. I live in France and have never heard Gillet Jaunes types talking about your emission controls.
It was mainly triggered by raising diesel fuel close to the same price as petrol ( gasoline ). It was traditionally about 33% cheaper. This hit working people at the bottom of the salary scale very hard. Though framed as a move against diesel pollution ( PM2.5 and NOX, not CO2 ) , it was really about the extra 3.5 bn euros it would raise which Pres. Macaroon needed to balance the loss of the wealth tax he had just abolished. The last 6c was “carbon” realted and was the straw which broke the camel’s back and got everyone out on the streets.
Neither have I seen anyone linking this explicitly to electricity prices, though that is part of the general decline in living standards, and problems making ends meet that they are fighting.
Presumably Heartland would be firmly in favour of Macaroon taxing the poor to abolish a wealth tax and “liberalising” the French economy. If Heartland want to be taken seriously they need to stop rewriting the facts to fit their agenda.
Yes , French protests not abou Climate Alarmism per se , but rather a consequence of over-taxation everywhere .
It was great to see a Gillet Jaunes spokesman on TV with the CGT Union rep. It was very clearly said there was “un accord tacite” , an implicit agreement , of the Gov. and CGT, which explains the CGT failure over decades. They do usefully run protection for the demos, but the top?
These “shared ideologies” are being forced into sunlight.
If Heartland was ever seen to favor Le Maron, well that would be just too bad.
Neo-lib or neo-con, they are all Mont Pelerin’s Milton Friedman, von Hayek lackeys.
Greg, I think you should give up your presumptions about the Heartland Institute. You sound like a 1970’s Earth Day promoter.
Is there anything connected to the UN that isn’t a huge scandal?
John F. Hultquist
The one-word answer to “Does anyone know what happened to that Billion dollars? is “overhead”.
It costs a lot of money for a100+ greedy countries to receive $1,000,000,000 (and you may have notice we’re based in Paris, not some shithole).
…and if you think it’s expensive to RECEIVE $1,000,000,000, wait untill you see how expensive it is to actually disburse the money…
No, but it sure changed the global temperature didn’t it? ( sarc )
Canadians like this little country’s big status on the world stage. We volunteered for every peace keeping gig we could. We mighty mites are in the G7 and G8, Nato, big on AID to 3rd World, etc., etc. We rush to drink the Koolade and fund all the workings of the UN global gov totes, ’cause we wanna belong. Being badly spoiled, we protest a lot, mainly our womenfolk.
Harper (former Conservative Prime Minister) ‘had the audacity’to lecture Europe on the truly ridiculous way they were running their economies and offered his formula for straightening themselves out. Harper is an economist, knows his stuff and Canada was the only member of G8(7) who didnt join our “betters” in the global economic swoon. He was a no nonsense prime minister who didn’t kiss babies, didn’t like fireside chats OR cardigan sweaters. He ran his Cabinet like a general. He gave the greens short shrift and gave Canadians a superior government.
Naturally, he was disliked so much by the Eurocentric totes that the UN frequently came over and incited Native Peoples to more disobedience, excoriated the gov on human rights, and the Euroboffins who give a scorecard to nations always ranked Canada as a place to live quite below a host of countries I certainly wouldnt want to live in. Denmark usually came first or Switzerland. I’m afraid for me the wide open places trumps amusement park like countries. One federal elecroral district in the rockies is bigger than Switzerland, has more mountains and is true wilderness. The federal electoral district of Nunavut, is the largest in the world, 9 times the size of UK and 3 times the size of Texas at over 2 million km^2. I wish I could induce half of Canadians to go to Denmark, Switzerland or Luxemburg to smarten the up.
Well … Canada does have a larger GDP than Russia. link
Canada has punched above its weight for many years e.g. WW2. And you’ve always done it politely ;-). How did a posturing princess like Trudeau ever get elected? Is he still hitting women?
We had a PM similar to that here. Tony Abbott. A very good man. He described the climate change religion as “crap”. He’s a volunteer surf life saver and a volunteer fire fighter. He raises money for charity with his “Pollie Pedal” bike ride. Even though he founded it over 20 years ago and has ridden every year, you have to search in depth to find a mention of his name. Ambitious and back-stabbing members of his party mounted a coup and got rid of him.
I found a mention of his name! He’s Frances Abbott’s dad.
“And you’ve always done it politely”
Have you seen them driving in US states?? Very un-polite!
But they only have a week or two to drive all the way to Miami and back for their winter vacation. That is a long way!
When I was a Kid in the 60’s our family traveled from Virginia where we lived to Miami where my grandparents lived for Christmas break. We were on the Florida turnpike, daytime speed limit at I think 75 MPH, and were passed by a Canadian plated station wagon, remember those?, pulling a boat. They were flying, probably over 100 MPH. About an hour later we saw smoke up ahead and about 30 minuted later we passed the same rig. The boat was on fire, the fire started at the front of the boat. All we could figure was that the exhaust from the car must have started the fiberglass boat on fire since the front side behind the exhaust pipe was mostly gone when we passed.
Have been to Canada, Montreal, 2 times in the last 3 years. Drove there last fall. The roads are a joke. I understand frost heave and all but the roads in NY just across the border are way better. Then the speed limits are so SLLLLOOOOWWWWW. I had to set the cruise control to keep from go too fast, driving the speed limits felt unnatural. No wonder they let it all hang out on US highways!
That must be eastern Canada. I have been on Highway 1 from BC to Alberta several times and with the exception of Calgary (no east-west freeway/expressway you literally have to drive through downtown) the speed limit was 90-100kmph. (55-60). Or are you used to going 80 in a 55mph zone?
Drake you are so misinformed. Bad roads are part of a comprehensive Canada-wide plan to phase out fossil-fueled transportation. By making driving unpleasant, drivers will use their vehicles less. Combine that with the carbon tax to make their fuel more expensive, and we will achieve a 0.000017% reduction in global carbon emissions, the Canadian way!
Makes you proud, eh?
BTW if you think roads in southern Quebec are bad, try driving the Trans-Canada Highway in northern Ontario (there are two of them, so you can make it a round trip).
You can’t drive if the car is in the shop to have the suspension fixed.
Have you seen the Drivers in NY NY, They are just trying to Blend In
One of the first science conferences I attended was in Toronto and , not having been to Canada before , or met many Canadians, I remarked to an American delegate how polite and just, well “nice” Canadians were, certainly compared to Londoners where rudeness is (or was) a survival mechanism.
He agreed and said, as an illustration , if a Canadian entered a room and fell over the hat stand he would apologise to the hat stand, where as an American would sue the hat stand, or its owner.
I would like to think that in the intervening years (decades even ) nothing has fundamentally changed in Canada.
Yeah even the muggers say please, as in ”stick em up please”.
Hmm, as a 57 y/o (as of yesterday) American, I have never sued, or threatened to sue, anyone.
I have, in fact, been injured by a hat stand! Some idiot in the office across the hall was rearranging and placed the stand in the perfect place for me to run into it as I stepped out my door. The blow and resulting cut was good enough for a trip to get stitched up. There I made my real mistake – I went to the base clinic instead of the civ ER. I was on the Captains XXXX list for 6 months
The only appearance to Americans being Sue Happy or even overtly litigious lies in the presumed benefit of Free Money. (And the mass quantities of Class Action Suits where the Lawyers make Billion$ and the affected parties make Thousand$)
Any Law Suit Sellelment money is not taxable.
True. It helps that there are way more lawyers than doctors and, now I think, more lawyers than nurses, *plus* you can hardly go anywhere without seeing a lawyer’s mug on a billboard. You can find a few doctor’s mugs on billboards, mostly cosmetic surgeons. Unless it has changed, those are not paid by third parties; so must compete on price. I have noticed that it is rare now to see an opthamologist’s mug. I understand Lasik is cheap.
In the financial markets buying frenzies are the sign that “Everyone is in” and it can be described as “Ending Action.
Then comes the falling prices with dismay and recrimination.
In the political arenas, control freaks have, well, gone out of control.
“Ending Action”.
When does the political fury actually end?
Subject for another note.o
Sorry folks, I was in the middle when one of those cofconfunberd ads wiped me out. When I restarted threy did it again. they fid it agaiThe Microsoft new management bteam neefs this treatment sapp;ied directly bto trhem I will finish this comment in Word and transfer it over. Arno.
My secret decoder ring exploded on that one.
Microsoft just came out stating that after 10 years, they will no longer offer support for Windows 7
In Australia, most polls show voters ARE worried about climate change and are looking for a party that has strong policies to deal with it, ie, reducing “carbon” emissions via some sort of carbon permit trading system and ruining the economy along with mandates for a 45% reduction of “carbon” emissions and investment in renewables and encouragement of the use of EV’s. All three major parties, ALP (Democrat), LNP (Republican) and Greens (Communist) are on board with this and more. All the while Australia is the biggest exporter of coal and gas.
Funny that none of the current bunch of politicians choose to portray Australia as “the clever country”.
Correction – not funny, just sad.
Patrick MJD: “In Australia, most polls show voters ARE worried about climate change and are looking for a party that has strong policies to deal with it…”.
Yes, well we Australians get to vote on this at Federal elections in a couple of weeks. Polls have the two major parties (including the estimated contribution of their respective Left and Right fellow-travellers) neck and neck. However, for the first time in quite a few years the two major parties have distinctly different policies on some major issues (including ‘climate change’), although the average punter might have trouble discerning this due to poor reporting and virtually no in-depth analysis by the MSM.
I personally believe that the ‘average Aussie punter’ has a fair bit of common sense and is likely to decide that the world is not “going to end in 12 years” and vote accordingly. Hopefully the incoming government will have a workable majority, rather than struggling to get any legislation, sensible or not, though a hung parliament. Then we may know whether our voters ‘are worried about climate change’, or not. Let the people speak.
I am hoping for that too. I have lived in Sydney for 15 years and in those years I have seen some of the worst politics evah! At least Shorten isn’t doing the ALP any favours, but neither is Morrison for the LNP.
Ya reckon?
Abbott was elected with a very healthy majority after campaigning against a CO2 tax
Turnbull has twice been outed as leader of the Liberal party, for supporting such action.
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/10/80-of-australian-dont-want-the-government-to-put-renewables-ahead-of-costs-health-housing-jobs-etc/
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/04/new-poll-54-of-australians-are-still-skeptics-of-man-made-climate-catastrophe/
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/04/poll-shows-australians-are-more-skeptical-of-extreme-drought-flood-and-fire-voodoo/
I am not so sure. With the Abbott-Turnbull-Morisson pantomime and all. We’ll see in 12 days.
I just worked out that if Australia cuts its emissions by 50% over the next 25 years we will reduce the average global temperature (if you believe the co2 thing that is) by a stupendous 37/10,000th of one degree. I’m buying myself a wool coat!
Well, Mike, if you include the “forcing”, that .0037 drop will take things down to…what, like absolute zero, or something, so your wool coat might not be enough.
Id bet they chose young areas nd worded the Q carefully to get that response
in rural areas theyd get an earfull
7of the current local members running for election, from 13 ,are antiwarming
pretty good, thats up from 4 brave enough to speak up last time
All polls showed Hillary with a commanding lead just days before the election.
+100
Surely Luvvie Emma Thompson (Dame, sorry) could go on a world tour to guide the masses on the horrors of “carbon”… For the common good you understand.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6993173/Actress-Emma-Thompson-spotted-carbon-spewing-BA-plane-jetting-New-York.html
As a Finn I would say the success of the Finns Party was NOT “in large part” due to climate skepticism. True that there was an attempt to make it a “climate election” as it was called and true that FPs stance was different from the other main parties. However, the climate issues were quite soon swamped by other more pressing domestic politics issues and there never was much serious discussion about climate.
A misinterpretation by NYT, possibly deliberate. They just did not want to admit that we did not see the climate as nation’s #1 concern after all.
As another Finn, I have to disagree. I believe that all the fuss about “climate election” / “climate actions now!” early in the campaign was decisive for many voters who would not otherwise consider supporting the Finns Party. Furthermore, while the climate themes were not the main point closer to the election day, there were still tons of stupid suggestions from mostly green-left side, like increased taxes for meat and dairy products, flight tax, banning internal combustion engines etc.
So, I would like to say that NYT was quite correct – the climate madness was the most likely reason for the result.
As a third Finn I agree with ksee. I wonder does JR live in Finland at all?
From an electrician in Melbourne about charging electric cars:
I recently did some work for the body corporate at Dock 5 Apartment Building in Docklands to see if we could install a number of electric charging points for owners to charge their electric vehicles.
We discovered:
Our building had no non-allocated parking spaces (i.e. public ones). This is typical of most apartment buildings so we cannot provide shared outlets. The power supply in the building was designed for the loads in the building with no spare capacity.
Only 5 or 6 chargers could be installed in total in a building with 188 apartments!
How do you allocate them as they would add value to any apartment owning one?
The car park sub-boards cannot carry the extra loads of even one charger and would have to be upgraded on any floors with a charger, as would the supply mains to each sub-board. The main switch board would then have to be upgraded to add the heavier circuit breakers for the sub-mains upgrade. When Docklands was designed, a limit was put on the number of apartments in each precinct and the mains and transformers in the streets were designed accordingly. This means there is no capacity in the Docklands street grid for any significant quantity of car chargers in any building in the area. It gets better.
The whole CBD (Hoddle Grid, Docklands) and Southbank is fed by two sub-stations. One in Port Melbourne and one in West Melbourne. This was done to have two alternate feeds in case one failed or was down for maintenance. Because of the growth in the city/Docklands and Southbank, neither one is now capable of supplying the full requirement of Melbourne zone at peak usage in mid- summer if the other is out of action. The Port Melbourne 66,000 volt feeder runs on 50 or 60 year old wooden power poles above ground along Dorcas Street South Melbourne. One pole is located 40 cm from the corner Kerb at the incredibly busy Ferrars St/ Dorcas St intersection and is very vulnerable to being wiped out by a wayward vehicle.
The infrastructure expenditure required would dwarf the NBN cost excluding the new power stations required. These advocates of all electric vehicles by the year 2040 are completely bonkers. It takes 5-8 years to design and build a large coal fired power station like LoyYang and even longer for a Nuclear one (that’s after you get the political will, permits and legislative changes needed ). Wind and solar just can’t produce enough. It’s just a green silly dream in the foreseeable future other than in small wealthy countries. It will no doubt ultimately come, but not in the next 20 years. So don’t waste your upcoming vote in the federal election on the Greens or Labor because electric cars won’t be happening for a long time yet!
Warren, you should contact Neil Mitchell or Tom Elliot and put this to air before the election so 1000’s of people hear it.
Shorten is getting away with too much! This could cost many 100’s of billions (it won’t happen of course) but in the meantime places like China will have a decided advantage as they build their thousand’th coal fired plant.
Warren, Most people think electricity comes out of a socket in the wall – their knowledge extends no further.
What you have raised are the very real and practical implications of of electrifying loads which are currently born by fossil fuels.
If we all switch to electric cars & transport, the electricity supply infrastructure will need to more than double.
If we all switch to electrical heating (in colder climates) that too will require nearly as much as the existing infrastructure can supply.
So for our future nett zero carbon future how on earth are we going to triple our electricity generation infrastructure.
And if the goal of doing the impossible immediately is not stupid enough, we are expected to do it with wind and solar neither of which are actually self-sustaining technologies.
Engineers are the oompa loompa’s of science, we do what is practically possible within the laws of physics.
This impossible “Energiewende” is an inconvenient truth never addressed by our thermogeddonist friends – all of whom posses no practical engineering knowledge of the subjects they pontificate on.
As you say , most people do not understand electricity .
In the UK , total generation capacity is about 55 GWH .
In 2016 a study was done for the idea of all electric domestic heating . The conclusion was that , if houses were insulated up to the standard of Austrian homes , [ where it can get very cold in the Winter ], it would only need another 200 GWH of generation capability .
With Electric cars , if they all plugged in at once , it would need another 150GWH of generation , and about the same again if commercial vehicles went electric .
So the whole idea is fantasy , & will never happen . But the green loonies will still claim it is necessary to ” SAVE THE WORLD “
As you say , most people do not understand electricity . Including you. Get your units right!
RB , are you some sort of pedant . Just because I wrote GWH instead of GWh.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Gigawatt_hours_(GWh)
Does not matter what the units are if you make the right connection it still hurts. 13a, 240v/ac. Haven’t tried 63a 415v/ac yet, but I have seen it go bang
Oh boy… GWh is work. Once you consume the work it is gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy
What you mean is power which is “rate of doing work”. Its unit is watt or in your case GW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(physics)
So it isn’t clear, what your numbers mean. Did you mean GW or had you left out “per day”, “per month” or “per year”?
OK , not pedantic , just ignorant . Are you sure you are not Griff under another name , because that is the sort of clueless stuff he would post .
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Gigawatt_hours_(GWh)
As can be seen from this link , GWh is a measurement of ENERGY , & is the normal way of describing large outputs of ENERGY from power stations Etc , & is the normal way of describing total ENERGY needed or being used in a country at any one time .
Interesting that the current science adviser to the Australian Govn’t is a qualified electrical engineer.
“Ken Irwin May 6, 2019 at 12:20 am
Warren, Most people think electricity comes out of a socket in the wall – their knowledge extends no further.”
It’s similar to food. many people never equate that a clingfilm wrapped pack of beef, say at a supermarket, was actually a living beast at one point in time and had to be slaughtered then cut up to feed us.
“It’s similar to food. many people never equate that a clingfilm wrapped pack of beef, say at a supermarket, was actually a living beast at one point in time and had to be slaughtered then cut up to feed us.”
I find that pretty hard to believe. Can you name any of them? Show me the bodies.
Plenty. Food programs that the audience, when asked, stated honey comes from bears. And so on…
I am hunter, hiker, camping, and fisher when I am in the back country. Most (>99.999%) of every living thing on the planet feeds on other living things –> not sure what your point is here. Plants used to be alive, the wood in your home used to be alive and then cut up to serve as a resource to us. Most of the water we use is purged of all living things – violently and harshly. Do you want us to stop that as well?
The layman archeologist in me thinks this is why our ancient selves prayed too so many “gods”. As they knew that for them to live something had to die and they wanted to give thanks. You seemingly suggest that humans are evil yet these predators lions, wolves, bears, birds( very few birds are not predators ), etc are doing the same actions.
To me not eating meat is ignoring several millions worth of evolution borders on the side of anti-science.
The unfortunate pragmatic side-effect us living, same with every other life-form on the planet and in the universe, something has to surrender theirs.
******
To the Mod: I am business traveler with multiple devices and locations so my IP always changes and sometimes VPN.
I see no evidence that governments intend for the average person to own cars after 2030. It seems their proposed policies will only work if private transportation is restricted to government officials. Clearly, they can achieve this without a direct ban on ownership, which would be met with by riots.
There are no plans for charging stations, reinforcing the grid, or greatly increasing the generation of electricity, yet some governments have already legislated the ban on ICE vehicles within the next decade or two. They allow the assumption of EVs as replacements, but aren’t supporting the development of the required infrastructure.
As for me, I’ll get rid of my ICE vehicles just as soon as the military get rid of theirs.
As I watch (from across the border) the American Democrats posturing at the far left with amazingly out to lunch proposals (Green New Deal etc) it seems apparent they are intent on re-electing Trump in 2020.
The only chance they have in 2020 is to run a center candidate with center policies on everything including climate change.
The only leftist loon who currently stands a chance against Trump is Andrew Yang, and the MSM is ignoring him. No wonder, in many ways he talks like a conservative.
The Democrat nomination campaign is going to be very entertaining.
The Democrats made a strategic mistake. They cultivated the vote of idealistic and enthusiastic young people whose strident demands are offensive to some of their older voting blocs. The assumption was, the blue-collar, middle-class voter was on the extinction list, and were no longer needed. They were (barely) wrong when Trump was elected, and he has greatly increased their numbers.
If the Democrats now nominate and old, white, male, moderate (Biden), the face the real possibility that blue-collar voters will still vote for Trump, while the disillusioned young stay home. Nominate a Socialist, and those middle class voters will definitely vote for Trump.
If the economy continues as is, I think Trump will easily be re-elected, perhaps using the slogan, “If you like your job, you can keep you job.” Those in the US will understand the implied insult to Obama.
“purported human-caused climate change”
Really? I didn’t think any serious observer disputed this.
We have observed human-caused (I assume you mean GLOBAL) climate change? Got any evidence to support that statement?
Lloydo, there´s nothing to observe. We have a very dangerous crisis going on. Climate is changing, but there is no way to observe that. Only thing which is possible to see is less hungercrisis, great greening – which means food. Rising CO2 has made this planet much better place to live. And more CO2 is more better.
I`m sure that serious observer would not dispute this. Only greenalarmistwackos have different opinion. Of course, if you are in that camp, there is no cure.
Problem in climate change is only in wackos head. World is fine, and it would even better if these wackos live like they preach. Like normal people do.
Climate is always changing. The easiest way to prove that the current climate change is not dangerous is to point out that during the age of the dinosaurs the global average temperature was 80F (vs 58F today) with nearly the whole planet tropical or sub-tropical. And life *flourished*!!!
We’ve still had 20 years of pause – with no meaningful change in temperature. That is 20 years since the clean air acts removed the cooling causing SO2 between 1970-2000.
So, yes ENVIRONMENTALISTS are responsible for warming … because THEY removed the COOLING SO2, but there is as yet absolutely no evidence the rest of us have had any impact on general climate.
What they dispute is the magnitude of human caused CC. What proportion of the rise in CO2 is man made and what is its contribution to the modest warming we are enjoying.
I wish. As I see it in most European countries the climate change gospel has been swallowed hook, line and sinker by politians and the media. Most public don’t care or go along with it.
There is little said on the uselessness of windmills and electric cars. CO2 is demonized. A Swedish 16year old is feted as a 21st century Joan of Arc. The government says we have to reduce emissions to meet our ‘international’ obligations.
School books treat it as fact.
I would like to help organise a campaign like Heartland of sending material to teachers.
So, loydo, please show us the Physics Proofs of that assumption……. Model don’t count because they never carry Data. Brett
Re. the coming Federal election here in Australia , yes the Climate
change issue is a red button one , with emotive statements like “:Our Angry Summers””.
Never mind that when one moves from the coast, where the sea does keep things a little cooler, inland it can reads 45 C for many days in a row. But its a very dry heat, and thus bearable. And its all normal in this country.
The present Liberal National Government, i.e. Conservative, has made itself unpopular, by letting big business get away with far too much. The recent “”Royal Commission”” which they bitterly opposed for months, exposed the Banks in particular as appearing to ripe off most of their customers.
They the government were also exposed as having been far too soft on the big multi nationals in regard to their paying their fair amount of tax.
So while Climate Change makes the headlines, it is a “”Its time”
factor as well. But if the soon to be PM carries out his promise of a 50 % green renewable by 2030, then I think the people will revolt.
At present he in common with PM Morrison is promising millions for everything demanded by the people.
Don’t ask where the money is to come from.
So far he matter of “”Climate Change” has since the 2007 Federal election has brought down five Prime Ministers and one opposition leader. So why do the politicians continue to run with it ?
MJE VK5ELL
mate they didnt “appear” to rip us off they bloody well DID!
and the admissions were made on record
charges to dead people fees for doing nothing etc were proven
and theres prob still a lot kept hidden out of the fringes of the enquirys set asks.
from the peple speak to an d personally a LOT of us are going to be voting to get independants in to make damn sure neither gets total power, and in rural vic greens would be lucky to get 50 votes from the 1k or so around here, and theyre city blowins.
First rule of politics , get elected , second rule stye elected . Break those rules and lose of never get power .
And to meet these rules offer the majority voters what they can ‘like ‘ and ever increasing energy prices do not get ‘liked.
The chattering class elite cannot get you elected , although they have power beyond their numbers thanks to being the very establishment they often claim to dislike. No matter how happy they are to buy into the ‘green ideals ‘ knowing they will have limited effect on their own lifestyle . The rich are simply out of the game , either way makes no difference to them and their numbers are tiny , so that leaves the ‘ordinary joe’ who does have to worry about ‘heating and eating ‘ before ‘saving the planet ‘
The end of the game would always have been seen through the political area , and you can notice throughout the world in election after election ‘climate doom’ has come nowhere when it comes to ‘things the voters care about ‘ .
New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had a (nuclear ) moment and banned all new offshore oil and gas exploration.
This was done to signal to the UN and to the world that New Zealand is serious about climate change .
Very short sighted as a lot of industry in the North Island depends on the Taranaki Gas fields and gas produces lot less CO2 than burning Coal .
The Green party (communist ) are part of the government and are always coming up with loony tune initiative’s to cripple the countries economy.
Unfortunately the conservative National Party seem to have lost their way with very weak leadership and it looks very possible that we will have a two term Labour coalition Government .
Our news media is very left wing, both news papers and TV stations and we are constantly blasted with climate change stories from around the world that are usually hyped up nonsense .
There is no balance and a free weekly national paper that was distributed free to all rural homes in New Zealand called ” The New Zealand Farmer ” was withdrawn from circulation as it allowed some skeptical view points about climate change .
Doug Edsmeads wrote a regular column pointing out the flaws in the whole climate change scam , and he told me that pressure was put on the publishers to shut down the publication because the skeptics had far better facts than the believers and won the debates .
Doug Edsmeads told me that he was told not to mention climate change in his column and just write about non controversial subjects .
Readers still sent in letters about climate change and the paper was withdrawn
I am sure the political scene would be different in NZ if it were not for MMP, the “basterdized” version of the proportional representation system in Germany introduced in NZ in 1996. I was there! And now NZers have a Govn’t with minority parties formed with, currently Labour and NZ First with Winston Peters. I will be brutally honest here. I have seen “parliamentarian” Peters (Bully boy IMO) pissed out of his small mind, throwing punches (Wish I had a camera) on Courtenay Plc at a taxi rank in Wellington, just a short stumble, usually for him, from “The Backbencher” pub in Throndon, where the “Beehive” is.
Don’t get me started on Nandor Tanczos, the skateboarding MP, living in taxpayer funded accommodation along Oriental Bay.
A lot changed in NZ when the UK broke economic relations with NZ when the UK entered the Common Market in 1973. Heath has a lot to answer for. NZ, and as NZers are resilient, worked through it and, eventually, gave the UK the bird. Best country in the world to live in IMO, if you can live with the odd volcano and many earthquakes.
I met with the son of the PM in 1996 and we both agreed the destruction of NZ is largely a leftist cause. The destruction of, what was once the best healthcare system in the world, by Helen Clark in the 80’s. And she became PM! Thought people earning NZ$60,000 (Back in 2000-ish) were “rich”, so direct income tax went up.
Jacinda will be out the next election, but she and her family will be sorted for life thanks to taxpayers. NZ MP’s back in the late 70’s IIRC saw Australian MP’s were granted life benefits, pension, health, travel, for life. NZ MP’s followed, in secret. Australian MP’s realised that was a punch on the nose to taxpayers and was changed in 2004 IIRC. NZ ex-MP’s still have their golden plated benefits.
So, Jacinda can do what she wants. Mother. Wife, to be? Leader for her nation? Hummm…
The common theme with climate change policies is that they are falsely sold to the naive voting public as wealth creating and lifestyle enhancing. However, once enacted the realisation of the opposte reality bites hard and the backlash begins.
I think the South Australia experience is worth a mention, because it kind of bucks the backlash trend, but for all the wrong reasons, and might be seen as the end to a means for many left wing governments.
For SA, it all started a few years back when the left wing Labor state government consumed way too much green cool aid and went the whole hog, removing 100% of the cheap coal and replaced it with wind, solar and batteries. The resulting price spike put electricity out of reach for all but middle income and above households, but in SA most households are low income with many people are on welfare. Ironically, in a state where huge numbers of people can’t afford electricity, the government then borrowed even more money to promise virtually free home solar and batteries to allow households to escape paying the high wind generation prices.
Now in SA the people are trapped in a green sh..t sandwich, too scared of losing the subsidised free solar package, so they keep voting Labor. Due to the absurdly high grid power of >50c kw/h, most large employment generating business has shut down and the number of low income people needing subsidised power is rapidly escalating. It’s a crazy situation but this could happen to any state or country. Once you force people onto the welfare trap then they keep voting for you until you run out of other people’s money at which point we get the Greece or Venezuela experience.
We should get rid of UN. It was important organisation after WW2. Now it makes itself important by producing endless “catastrophes” with only one solution. It´s human made for humanity. Now it´s an organisation against humanity (ozone, DDT, new ice age, and this AGW). This time people are beginning to see because now it has too big cake to bite.
If this “storyline” ends, next one is ready to roll. Waiting for that…
The next one is herbicides like roundup, which they will try to ban and thus drive the world into serious food shortages which, guess what, will need a world government to tackle.
Very difficult to get rid of the UN, it is built in to the government so many ways.
The UN also does a wide range of stuff from practical good to pure political social justice and identity politics. Very hard to separate those.
If you cut funding, they will cut monies spent to practical work, so some other entity needed to take over. In priciple, I believe defunding them would do good because the UN is an undemocratic entity, partly taken over by totalitarians in human rights questions, so defunding would do only good there.
I always wondered: just what does the UN actually do? Any good at all?
There may have been a time when the UN did some practical good. That time ended about 50 years ago.
If you cut funding, they will cut monies spent to practical work, so some other entity needed to take over
Best, than, to give that funding that would have gone to the UN to that some other entity.
“This time people are beginning to see because now …..”
They know that the truth will be on Page 10 of Google, but can find it, or something similar easily, since they know they’re being lied to on pages 1 through 9.
Well also, the parasites of humanity have tried the “ocean acidification” meme and the “polar bear” meme has died a death opposite to the one that polar bears actually have themselves.
They need more glue …….
The problem with the climate – is that if we live long enough – we can see whether it is really changing as we were told it would, we can see whether it is causing more/less floods more/less storms, etc. as we were told it would.
And whilst 9 out of 10 “scientists” prefer alarmist tripe (or we were told 97%) … the proof of the pudding is in the eating and not the endless publicity that is poured through conduits like the Biased Broadcasting Corp.
It is going to change. We have quiet sun and AMO is switching to cool very soon. They know it, that´s why we have only 12ish years left.
Sun is the power, and oceans are the thermostat. Our part is unmeasurable.
Voters in developing countries….. indeed!
If you ask an African what they really need, you get a simple answer. The men say: give us decent jobs so that we can care for our loved ones. The women say: give us a fridge and a washing machine so that we have time for education. Both depend on in particular one thing: a reliable energy infra structure, ‘real electricity’ from power plants.
How do the Greens think that those Africans see Al Gore or Greta? As green messiahs showing them a promised land? Of course not. What they see is well-fed and well off whites telling them that they can’t aspire to that same standard of living. Just like in the good old colonial days.
No wonder they say: sod it.
They said much more at the Abuja Conference – let’s build the Transaqua Chad-Congo Project, originally an Italian Bonifica plan, delayed for decades by EU inaction. Of course China is onboard.
Agreed. My experience in Africa too. And almost all of my Ethiopian friends I met in 2006 are now in the US!
The Finns Party didn’t get a surge of votes by itself; rather, it had difficulties to get voters to vote it. It is probable that massmedia helped it massively by pushing climate agenda on daily basis. One of most serious offender was state owned national broadcaster Yle News, which pretty much has copied the approach of others, particularly that of BBC’s. The Finns party, which is mildly conservative, center party in economical questions, got a number of votes because of that. However, it is improbable that it could make any effect after the election as number of other parties have declared it verboten since it’s current chairperson, Jussi Halla-aho, has managed to burn all bridges to the ‘large’ leftist parties, i.e. the hard-socialist Vasemmistoliitto and the elite-socialist Green Party. Even central-left parties (countryside party Keskusta, liberal Kokoomus and center-left socialist party SDP) have all declared difficulties which co-operating with Halla-aho.
It is not like Halla-aho is hard to work together with. It is rather that his old, a bit colorful blog writings have tainted him. He also criticized the Prosecutor General in Finland which didn’t end up well. He was sentenced to remove some parts of his blog and to pay fines. But the real penalty was that wrongthinking and some foul language got him effectively listed as a taboo person. His worst crime was to call the pr-ophet a child molester with good reasoning behind – but not good enough to set him free; he also had a few other similar rhetorics that were basically taken out of their fair context and then used against him.
The larger reason behind his success has been the privacy laws in Finland combined with anti-racism, which lead to large scale suppression of speech in a few African migrant / refugee crime cases. Where Americans publish a mugshot as soon as possible, the Finnish media are not willing to or capable to publish information on migrant suspects before the trial, and after the trial it is (a) not news (b) not news for race reasons.
He got publicity because readers of his blog had uncovered how a large portion of the media were not reporting, thinking probably that reporting would fuel racism. This ended up, of course, if something, fuelling racism and further suppression of free speech. The story as whole has lots of common with similar movements in Sweden, Denmark and other European countries.
Refugee politics and climate politics are two large areas where the state-owned Yle News has publicly announced its goal is not to publish news from all perspectives, but rather to push a certain view. The Finns Party has got votes, but not enough to change the course. The story is the same as everywhere. If you are against letting everybody from Middle East in and setting them free, you are a r*cist. If you are against stupid climate policies, you are a d*nier. They don’t ask you what your opinion is, it is enough that you do not support the full ‘official’ set of policies, you will be excluded the right to get your word out.
All this extraordinaty suppression of opinion in public has been adding the voters’ interest into the Finns Party – which is by way fundamentally changed during the last four years. Before, it was just a center populist party. Now it is more of a new party that is searching for itself. In a way, the Finns Party is (by Finnish terms) far-right. It’s supporters support things like freedom of expression, equality of opportunities, and realism instead of radicalism and activism. The party has also supporters who support Isr*el, Chr*stianity and traditional European values. Basically none of its voters support letting Isl*m spread in Western countries. In climate questions, it’s supporters don’t feel mitigation would do any good, especially ambitious EU-only or Finland-only measures are considered harmful. Some of its supporters are clearly d*niers (they have to vote for somebody, don’t they), but most probably think a mild global warming is probably both unavoidable and positive, and that the means Greens have been pushing (electric cars, solar and wind, palm oil, recycling consumer plastics for example) are immature, costly measures that will do more harm than good.
As @Greg pointed at above, the Gillet Jaunes are skeptical of the neo-lib economics of Paris, over decades, before CO2 war even a meme. The Heartland Inst. bases itself on exactly these neo-lib policies of Milton Friedman of the Mont Pelerin Society. See “The ugly truth about Milton Friedman”.
It is odd that “CO2 or NOX” is used to gas-light the polulation into accepting Mont Pelerin junk economics. Well it is not working in France.
There are green slush funds that have billions of dollars. Don’t underestimate the potential impact that can have when spent on lobbying.
Do you think that the people in California will become unwoke when gas hits $5/gal and actually use their brains on election day?
Everyone wants to “save the world” or “help the poor” when it’s free, but when they realise these things cost them something, they suddenly lose interest. They may still talk big because that today gives you a moral superiority, but their actions show that they don’t care.
Like greens who preach about flying destroying the world, but then fly like crazy themselves.
Will there be any sane politicians on the ballot? CA is virtually a one-party state.
And that’s what the Dems having been fighting tooth and toenail over the past several years to create in the whole country, a one party state.
That’s why they changed the primary system to ensure that the two candidates that survive the primary will always be Democrats.
Unfortunately, it’s only just kicking off here in Ireland. Over the past, maybe five or six years, it has been gaining momentum. With local and Euro. elections about to happen, virtually all parties and independents have attached themselves to the Climate change agenda. It’s nearly impossible to vote for someone, without giving a mandate for the lunacy.
However, on the news today, the reporter, who usually wets his pants with excitement when reporting on climate change, was getting excited instead about the impending doom of species extinction. He concluded his report by saying that it is even more serious than Climate change.
More to follow no doubt.
Eamon.
When talking about the strength, or lack thereof, of climate “skepticism”, my first thoughts go to California. I’m surprised this subject has not come up here.
My basic premise is that democracy is climatism’s greatest enemy. The ordinary voter has to be convinced that climate change will effect him or her negatively in a substantial way – otherwise climatism will lose in a democracy. So far, climatism as a movement has failed in the U.S.
California is conducting an fascinating experiment to determine if climatism will fly in a democracy. It has aggressive de-carbonizing programs that, along with a expanded welfare state, has proved and will prove very costly to the taxpayer. It is a state with vast natural resources, including fossil fuels, and the political climate is such that these resources have become much more expensive. Climatism is also a social phenomenon that aligns itself with modern liberalism, political thought that seems to control California.
If this success of climatism and liberalism in California continues, then there’s reason to believe that climate skepticism is not the strong force we think it is. In the simplest terms, this a battle between practical self-interest and altruism, and altruism has held its own, so far, in California. Yes, California is different because of its demography and a peculiar poltical coalition that aligns with altruism. But it’s very expensive.
How long will it last? To me this is the test of climatism in the U.S.
“How long will it last?” …. Until the Progressives are voted out in California ….. don’t hold your breath. But even in California there are cracks showing in the Progressive way of life. They now own 1/3 of America’s homeless due to a social justice attitude about “repressed” people and a willingness to support them and anyone “unwilling” to work. More people are complaining about wind mills and PV panels spoiling the countryside and their neighborhoods. Adding CC taxes to an already heavy tax and then using it to support welfare isn’t going unnoticed when the state is always one step away from bankruptcy due to a bloated state retirement system that is not sustainable. Electricity rates keep climbing to new heights. An open border and sanctuary cities are taxing the infrastructure, water and housing supplies, the school system, and health cost and delivery. California is as close as you can come to a Socialist/Marxist state and still call itself a Democracy….. that’s what will eventually end it like all Socialist/Marxist governments.
I agree with your characterization, but the fact is the majority of Californians have gone along with it, and have done so longer than I would have thought.
Prop 13, the first Calif. revolt that I remember, was passed in 1978, over 40 years ago. I don’t see signs that there’s been any followup to that sentiment.
While there might be a lot of bad information on the internet, overall it is providing an abundance of information to more populations in time to prevent major policy mistakes like the Climate Policy Crusades.
Preventing one major global policy mistake is worth trillions of dollars and millions of lives. What if the internet had been invented soon after Maxwell’s publication on EM instead of numerous delays from world wars and other policy wrong turns?
What if the internet had been invented soon after Maxwell’s publication on EM
Even in the best possible world we would not have had the internet in the 1800s (ie shortly after Maxwell’s 1864 publication). It takes time for theory to move to simple practical applications, and time to go from simple practical applications to more complex ones. At best you could have shaved a couple of decades off the developments that lead to the internet. But would the swinging sixties really have been ready for the world wide web? Imagine the chaos if the hippies had social media.
An excellent post from H. Sterling Burnett at the Heartland Institute!
What climate change. My family , cousins and friends have farms. Hard to find a profit when bumper harvests (proxy for the climate) around the world are keeping prices low.
Oh and the planet and deserts are greening from the extra CO2.
I agree. I want and ask people who believe in AGW ( how do you believe in science and data or in the case here lack of robustly collected and validated data) to show me where the climate, globally, has changed.
They often confuse environmental industrial damage as climate change. Not the same thing and we, as a species, are making amends. It’s the effort, coupled the mindset, coupled with the results.
Most people are sceptical that raising prices on fossil fuels will solve Climate Change.
We have had decades of rising fuel prices. Consumption has never been greater and we are told Climate Change is worse than ever.
Clearly raising prices have not worked. Yet this is the solution the government proposes.
Reminds me of mounted horsemen charging into battle against machine guns. Fighting the war using the wrong weapons.
Good observation. Fuel demand has little price elasticity. Avoiding fuel costs is difficult and if people succeed with that government will find another way to tax them.
‘Climate Change’ is not ‘The War’. It is a ’tilting windmills’ charade, just one front in the war being pressed by socialist globalism. The war is against socialist globalism. If you would win the war, you must identify and spotlight the true enemy. Is ‘Climate Change’ a fraud? Largely, yes! But it is just one of the fronts behind which the true enemy is pressing their attack…. and taking territory.
+1
Fill up your car with gasoline in Vancouver. You will quickly become skeptical the government has a clue.
Canada has one of the largest proven reserves of oil in the world. Yet we send hundreds of billions of hard earned money to foreign despot to import high priced foreign oil.
That money should stay in Canada to build roads, bridges, schools, hospitals.
Instead the government would cut off its nose to spite its face. The government in the east hates the idea of making the west rich bybusing domestic oil. They would rather make the Saudis rich than see some other Canadian do better than them.
This is just the beginning. People start to realize that they come close to not being able to afford life anymore. Years ago, energy poverty was a topic that got no attention by the political class. Today you ignore it at your peril. Their solution is new subsidies but this also only works to a point. Ever more money out also means that budgets get squeezed and even with all their accounting tricks and cooked books, they cannot make ends meet anymore. So subsidies must go down. And as it’s the majority population that suffers most, and they make or break governments, you may guess twice what is going to happen. Europe especially will have some hardcore climate skeptics in parliament and sometimes in government. New wind energy plants are not being constructed anymore in Germany – we seem to be close to peak BS.
Think about a citizen in the North. Would you double your energy bill to prevent winter nights to become 0,5 C milder? So that government can send the money to other countries who just keep the money and continue life as usual. And CO2 will make Sahara greener and Tuvalu will float on the Pacific as before. Or would rather save a little in your heating bill.
France has the lowest CO2 emissions in Europe, from its electricity generation, due to going heavily into nuclear energy in the 1970s. They also have had some of the cheapest electricity in Europe too.
However, Macron still wants to reduce the amount of nuclear in France’s energy mix despite the protests over high energy costs. He plans to reduce it (from it’s current 75%) to 50% of the mix by 2035 (a delay from his predecessor’s plans of 50% by 2025).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-nuclear-energy-emmanuel-macron-reactors-environment-global-warming-a8654371.html
Watch out, Extinction Rebellion (XR) is coming for you, with the complete support of the UK political establishment. Frightening.
The AfD (Alliance for Deutschland) says that without coal and nuclear Germany will become dependent on energy imports as renewables cannot fill the gap. The Telegraph reports that, “Rural protests against wind farms are increasing in Germany…. Even without the slowdown in wind energy, Germany is certain to miss its target of a 40 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by the end of the decade”.
Many German’s surely realize they will become more dependent on Russia for gas as they phase out coal. A large percentage (30%?) of German’s must be realists? The AfD, famous for their hard line on migrants, is now gaining support as the only major political party clearly against wind power and supportive of coal. The AfD is probably the only hope the German people have for bringing an end to the huge developing economic disaster from the $billions being wasted on wind and solar.
Weather stations at Airport are based there is given local information related to flying conditions. They are not designed to tell you about a wider area, and never have been. Their use in this role came about because they were ‘better than nothing ‘and in the old days of weather and it was accepted that is was ‘unsettled science ‘ the problems this caused where just part of the game . But in the new world of ‘settled science ‘ all that happened is that the measurements are sold as ‘unquestionable ‘ despite the reality that the old problems remain.
In addition as airports have got bigger with lots more hard standing, if you worked in such environments you will be aware hot these can get and moved from probs to jets , and stand behind a jet taxiing and you will feel a ‘wave of hot air ‘ passing over you. These problems may have got worse from when the stations where first set up, often in WW11.
So we have poorly sited weather stations, not designed to be use in the way they are, whose ‘problems ‘ have grown for a number of reasons over the last fifty years.
As H.L. Mencken said, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
Let’s hope time is running out on this particular hobgoblin.