Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As pension and global warming fuel tax riots continue, French climate activists have expressed their anger at President Macron for failing to deliver on his climate promises.
Macron vows ‘fight of the century’ against climate change
Macron visits melting glacier, but opponents decry it as an electoral stunt.
France’s leader on Thursday called the battle against climate change and environmental destruction “the fight of the century”, after visiting a melting glacier in the French Alps.
…
But Macron faces vociferous opposition on multiple fronts over climate change. Activists say his lobbying for global action is not backed up by sufficient French government measures to curb the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. France is behind on its European renewable energy commitments, ranking second from bottom in the EU, according to Eurostat.
Macron has also delayed by 10 years plans to reduce the share of French energy derived from nuclear power from 71 percent to 50 percent.
Beyond the government, opponents in France’s yellow vest economic protest movement fiercely opposed Macron’s efforts to raise fuel taxes to combat pollution, complaining that the move penalised regular workers on tight budgets.
…
Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/macron-vows-fight-century-climate-change-200213191707107.html
Can anyone think of a single important policy initiative which President Macron has successfully introduced? Macron promised the impossible, but inevitably failed to deliver. Now pretty much everyone thinks he is a failure.
When it comes to supporting the Climate Change fraud, ‘Not doing enough’ is still too much……
“Macron has also delayed by 10 years plans to reduce the share of French energy derived from nuclear power from 71 percent to 50 percent.”
Well, I’d say that’s one good and important thing he has done! Now just go with the flow and delay some more…
Agreed, although increasing it to 80-90% would be even better.
Wind and solar are an environmental disaster and should be condemned.
UK relies on nuclear power from France, around 2GW.
The usual Green logic A: Downscale nuclear to reduce CO₂.
The usual Green logic B: Upscale expensive weather dependent power to de-industrialize.
The usual Green logic C: Minimize CO₂ to avoid a greener world.
In that respect Emmanuel Macron is not doing so badly. What if the greens had Charles de Gaulle instead?
Keep up the good work, Mano!
Sooner or later one of two things will happen: either the eco-cretins will finally understand that what they claim to want cannot be achieved in realistic terms without nuclear power or the rest of us (that haven’t realised it already) will understand the same thing and conclude the eco-cretins do not want what they claim.
At that point, hopefully, the message will finally get through that this has nothing to do with climate and everything to do with “unpicking the industrial revolution”!
Haste the day!!
What if France had remained under German Control since early 1940’s?
So long as we’re playing “what if,” what if Angela Merkel had been a swimsuit model?
If Angela Merkel were a swimsuit model
It will never be enough.
Paris is not enough.
It must be zero.
And zero means population control.
And population control means you know what . . .
… the same thing it has for a long time. The relationship of France to immigrants seems like the relationship of a very fat person to sweets. It’s so darn hard to quit them but they keep trying. link
And zero will also not be enough. There is ‘always more to be done’.
Pol Pot studied in Paris and he created Year Zero. There is a theme here.
The problem with pandering to the left is that no matter how hard you try, it will never be enough. Even if you meet every demand, they will just come up with new more extreme demands.
Stephen Skinner February 14, 2020 at 10:29 am
Pol Pot studied in Paris and he created Year Zero. There is a theme here.
____________________________________
As Deng Xiaoping famously said “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=it+doesn%27t+matter+whether+the+cat+is+white+or+black&oq=it+doesn%27t+matter+whether+the+cat+is+white+or+black&aqs=chrome.
The start of imperialism and monopoly capitalism through socialist revolution leading to “China as an emerging superpower.”
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ALeKk03zs8AIzhIZpgUrvzKGW4yQ0V6Eww%3A1582711575755&ei=F0NWXuzjLY3mmwXjvKmICw&q=china+as+an+emerging+superpower&oq=china+as+an+emerging+superpower&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
So amidst all the ruckus Monsieur Le President Macron se repose sans souci? Eh bien, c’est la facon de cette homme, n’est pas? Ca ne fait rien. Sans doute il represente sa joi de vivre.
Macron has also delayed by 10 years plans to reduce the share of French energy derived from nuclear power from 71 percent to 50 percent.
Yup , that’s the way to fight climate change, get rid of the 0 ghg emission power….
Hi David,
When nothing makes sense, you know that something else is going on.
The global warming scam was never about the climate – it has always been a false front for a Marxist takeover of the last democracies – the end of freedom.
ALLAN MACRAE
The Marxist march has already begun in the UK.
Within two months of securing a substantial majority in the House of Commons in the General Election, Boris Johnson announced to major policies to combat climate change:
1. He’ll bring forward the date at which petrol and diesel vehicles are banned from sale, from 2040 to 2035, only 15 years away. within a week or so, Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport announced that date will be 2032, now 12 years away.
2. Boris Johnson also announced that every Gas boiler (furnace) in the country will be replaced and every house super insulated, although no precise deadlines have been given to achieve this other than the usual Net Zero deadline, 2050.
Now, we all know about the problems associated with the EV scenario. 40% of British households have no access to off street parking. So that means either ripping up millions of pavements across the country to install high capacity cabling to service numerous charging points in just one street, potentially 100 or so in many of them. If that wasn’t bad enough, adding the extra load from every house having some type of electric boiler will mean upgrading every sub station in the country to handle the load.
There is also the very real problem of charging point allocation. Will households own one, and what if there’s more than one car per household? Or will they be ‘rationed’ on a first come first serve basis, in which case, Boris’ promise of 20,000 extra coppers on the street will need to be revisited to deal with the street brawls breaking out over who gets a turn at the charging point today.
I won’t go into the issues with replacing our Gas/coal fired power stations with wind turbines, we are all familiar with that issue here.
However, I priced up the cost of replacing my gas boiler with a Ground Source Heat Pump (I’m fortunate enough to have a garden large enough to excavate and lay pipework), fully insulate the solid masonry Victorian walls and loft, whilst installing an essential whole house ventilation system and redecorate the whole house. The cost came to £70,000, and my house is a small, 3 bedroom cottage.
I wrote to my MP about this and he passed the letter onto a government department which wrote back, condescendingly, saying there would be economies of scale.
So, say those economies of scale amounted to £20k off the total cost of modifying my house. With approx 25 million homes in the UK the total amounts to some £1,250,000,000,000 (£1.25tn) every penny on which is taxable because much of it is labour and every component has a 20% VAT content.
And of course the businesses and individuals manufacturing the boilers, insulation, kitchens (which will all need to be ripped out) etc. down to the screw and nail manufacturers will also pay individual Income Tax, and the businesses Tax on their profits. The labour required to install the roadside charging points, upgrading sub stations, cable manufacturers, backhoe manufacturers and rental businesses will also pay Tax.
The treasury will be awash with so much Tax income it simply won’t know what to do with the money other than fuel an ever hungry welfare state.
As you can see, these policies have nothing whatsoever to do with reaching Net Zero, they are a Tax revenue raising exercise.
Coercive Marxist wealth redistribution, simple as that.
Nor does any government minister or department have a clue how much this will all cost. And I mean not even an inkling. One Cabinet member was interviewed on national radio last week and at the eight time of asking how much just the EV policy would cost he said sheepishly “It’ll be a Net Benefit”.
Sorry ‘two major policies’.
Hello HotScot my friend,
The huge Canadian National Railway has just been shut down by radicals, who are typically in the pay of the foreign Marxist elite – over $160 million has been spent by the Tides Foundation and others to sabotage the Canadian economy – and this sabotage has cost us over $120 billion to date.
More here:
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/shutdown-via-cancels-all-trains-cn-closes-eastern-rail-network
My response (below) to that article describes the Trudeau plan for a Marxist Canada, like North Korea – the same plan exists for the UK, the USA and the other few remaining free countries. That is the real agenda behind “carbon-free by 2050”, which cannot work, based on my considerable expertise.
“THE LIBERALS’ COVERT GREEN PLAN FOR CANADA – POVERTY AND DICTATORSHIP”
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., October 1, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/01/the-liberals-covert-green-plan-for-canada-poverty-and-dictatorship/
{Excerpt]
A highly credible gentleman wrote me as follows, concerning his recent conversation with an Ottawa insider.
The insider, he said, had been working on an advisory group to the Trudeau government. The group was not formed to discuss policy for the 5 year horizon that governments are usually interested in but to develop policies for the further future, 20 to 40 years out. The implication was that the group had concluded that the present economic model was flawed and had to be replaced. “Unregulated consumerism was unsustainable and people would have to learn to make do with less. The government would have to have more control over people to enforce their austerity and the wealth of developed nations would have to be redistributed to help undeveloped nations.”
Marxist? Just which version of Marxist are you claiming. I looked on wiki and understood nothing of Marxism!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/11/massive-government-cash-giveaways-needed-to-defeat-climate-change/#comment-2585722
Marxism made simple! For examples, consider current political cesspools Zimbabwe and Venezuela – and there are almost 100 similar failing leftist states.
The fearless leaders are Groucho Marxists – they want power for its own sake at any cost, and typically are sociopaths or psychopaths. The great killers of the 20th Century, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. were of this odious ilk – first they get power, then they implement their crazy schemes that do not work and too often kill everyone who opposes them.
The followers are Harpo Marxists – the “sheeple” – these are people of less-than-average intelligence who are easily duped and follow the Groucho’s until it is too late, their rights are lost and their society destroyed. They are attracted to simplistic concepts that “feel good” but rarely “do good”, and politicians’ promises of “lots of free stuff”.
One can easily identify crypto-Marxists – they are Democrats, Liberals, Greens, Socialists, Labourites, and today’s self-styled “Progressives”.
Almost 100 countries are now descending into the Marxist cesspool. Apparently, the untimely deaths of over 200 million innocents in the 20th Century were not enough. Do we really have to do this all again?
The great American statistician and philosopher George Carlin explained the appeal of leftist politics as follows:
Carlin said: “Think of how stupid the average person is; and then realize half of them are stupider than that!”
Marxists are always anxious to call themselves anything other than Marxist.
Hotscot
Regarding your boiler replacement. As a matter of interest how large in terms of output is your existing boiler and what area of garden needs to be dug up to support the pipework for a heat pump replacement?
Also are you fitting over sized radiators or does the cost including digging up the house floor as I understand heat pumps work best via under floor heating.
I think an article about the realties of this and the costs involved would be very interesting to WUWT readers.
Incidentally, bearing in mind most houses on new estate developments don’t have the garden space for a heat pump, presumably there would have to be a communal system taking up space otherwise used for additional houses. This would reduce developers profits and put up house prices, as would having to insulate homes to the standard needed.
Someone in govt has not thought this-or electric vehicles- through, but to combat it we need facts.
tonyb
My research into the subject ended when I got scared of going any further.
Our garden is approx. 30m long by 6m wide, and I was advised that was sufficient for a reasonable Ground Source Heat Pump. The alternative is to drill straight down into the ground which I understand is very expensive.
Our current gas boiler is 24Kw, but way over specified, and only about 4 months old!
Heat pumps do indeed work best with underfloor heating in a concrete floor as the material itself acts as a heat sink which remains at a stable, but low temperature.
I didn’t include the cost of new radiators or digging up floors (our kitchen is concrete, every other room has timber flooring) as the whole thing just got too complicated and expensive.
I understand there are communal options for efficient space heating, but these are usually confined to small green projects. And yes, new houses have tiny gardens these days.
I believe the current thinking for retro fitted heat pumps is to fit Air Source Heat Pumps. The problem with that of course, apart from the expense, is that on a housing development as small as 100 houses, there will be a raising of the ambient noise level with all these things running. And as they get older, with bearings beginning to rumble, dirt contamination etc, that level will only rise.
But the real problem, and a lot of the expense derived from a mechanical ventilation system. Bearing in mind that a great deal of the UK housing stock is Victorian, solid masonry buildings that relied on coal for space heating. Often a coal fire in each room.
For those to function properly a draughty house was essential for air flow. Sash windows and heavy doors were excellent ‘natural’ solutions as were floorboards that leaked air throughout the building.
To many peoples cost, they started ‘sealing up’ these buildings with double glazing, blocking up fireplaces and installing central heating in the 1960/70’s. The result was dampness from human occupation; cooking, drying clothes, bathing etc. which gets to unhealthy levels quite rapidly.
The solution is, of course, whole house ventilation, but virtually no one has done it in over 50 years because of the expense and disruption.
I applied an arbitrary figure of £10k or so for my house, I recall, but considering my new gas boiler was installed for the bargain price of £3,500 from a local company (British Gas quoted me nearly £6k for it) and took two days, you can probably imagine the figure I applied for ventilation is quite conservative.
Hot Scot
Thanks for this. So in effect the costs for you would be even greater, bearing in mind the need for under floor heating or failing that, over large radiators.
As you say its just all too complicated and expensive and the practicalities of removing one system and replacing it with a completely different system in a short enough time that you don’t freeze whilst it is being done, is another factor.
As you know some 60% of houses that will exist in 2050 already exist today. I do not think retrofitting to the standards necessary is an option for most people. Substantially improving standards for new homes is another matter, but that has serious consequences for cost and the practicality of providing the required solution in small homes with small gardens.
My understanding is that air source heat pumps are not very efficient so the need to upgrade the insulation standards of homes becomes even greater. This seems a pretty objective analysis of the subject. Well worth a read.
https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2014/08/the-running-costs-of-heat-pumps
I can see air source heat pumps working well when there is limited difference between external and internal temperatures, but in reality they are most needed when its cold. The total cost also seems high and the need for insulation is fundamental, the only thing that can make it practical is a good subsidy.
Our politicians are such idiots, although as Steve says below, it is unlikely that any of this will be done before Boris moves on so it will be someone else problems.
About £12-15k for externally insulating your standard 3 bed UK semi detached (more if you need/want to hit wall U values of 0.1, needed to hit/get close to Passivhaus standard). £10k+ for an air source heat pump system – assuming you’re not installing new radiators and/or underfloor heating. £6k for a MVHR system, likely more (never installed one).
Then you’ll need to replace standard double glazing with triple glazing, yet more loft/roof insulation (400mm+ of new fluffy stuff or some equivalent) and then look at sealing up those little cracks and holes that let in air.
Even if we ignore the additional power generation and upgrading needed to the Grid to cope with the additional load of EV charging, lack of parking spaces, the cost of the charging point and modifying your electrics, plus upgrading the earthing, realistically won’t be less than £1k, likely more.
Wouldn’t even bother with a solar PV array, your £8-10k would be better spent on that external insulation and the deterioration in performance over 20-25 years will make them nothing but not-so-pretty roof tiles.
HVAC guy I spoke to said he’s attended recently installed domestic MVHR systems that smell like bins/trash cans after a few months, indicating cross contamination from stale exhaust into fresh air – they are not proper AHU’s as installed in commercial, municipal or industrial buildings.
Air source heat pumps are the most cost effective retrofit but all source pump systems need regular servicing and sometimes ‘retuning’ (for the lack of a better phrase), usually by the system manufacturer’s own or approved subcontractors. Poorly installed, set up or maintained systems will cost you as much, if not more, to run than a conventional gas boiler system in an equivalent property. During a winter power cut, you’re going to get cold (though that’s true of all modern boilers too).
For a modest older property you could easily shell out £50k after all the making good has been completed, assuming it is permissible and practicable to do so. This stuff really lends itself to new builds over refurbishing existing dwellings.
Then we need to ask ‘Where are all the trades that are going to undertake all this work?’ Anyone who has looked to get work done will know how difficult it can be to find good builders and trades.
It just isn’t going to happen in a century, much less by 2050.
You are overthinking it.
BoJo is utilizing a tried and true politician’s trick … making promises that he won’t have to keep because he’ll already be out of office. He’s just kicking the climate can down the road for his successors to deal with. They’re the ones who will have to deal with the political fallout of breaking those promises, which they certainly will due to the economic and physical obstacles you have mentioned. BoJo knows his promise is completely infeasible, but it gets the activists off his back without any personal cost to him. Pity the poor sap who has his job in 2035.
I doubt economies of scale will make that much difference. Don’t forget that with every passing year your electricity bill will keep rising to form an ever larger part of your cost of living.
I’d be fascinated to know where they believe these “economies of scale” are going to come from.
Heat pump manufacturing is already big business with millions made every year.
The manufacture of insulation is also big business, just look at how many rolls are available at any do it yourself store.
On the other hand, the number of people who can install heat pumps and do the labor necessary to retrofit entire buildings is limited. To attract more workers into the field, especially in the short time period available, you are going to have drastically increase wages.
A crash program, such as they are describing, causes costs to go up, never down.
One thing I’ve noticed with most leftists is that they manage to learn one or two buzzwords, then convince themselves that they are experts in that field.
IMO, those in charge see no problem at all wrt the public having access to chargers.
I firmly believe that they have no intent allowing the average citizen to own personal vehicles. Oh, they won’t directly ban it; they will just make it too expensive. So no chargers are needed.
Look at all the problems they can resolve, and the cost savings, if private vehicle ownership were ended. No need for traffic enforcement, no more road construction, parking problems, etc. The leaders (in government provided vehicles) will no longer sit in traffic. Commerce will flow smoother. Less NHS costs resulting from fewer traffic accidents. How could all this not appeal to them? And climate change gives them perfect political cover (or so they believe). As far as loss tax revenues from sales of autos and petrol, they will simply raise taxes on everything else
Russel remarks, in the History of Western Philsophy, writing about St Augustine and the early Christian phllosophers and theologians, that as the Roman Empire crumbled under the invasions and civil wars, their finer minds spent their time trying to refine exactly in what virginity consisted and what would count as losing it.
France, and the EU generally, are in very deep trouble from three causes. The first is immigration of large numbers of people who are culturally incompatible with the native population and have no intention of integrating or accepting their values. The second is the precarious situation of the finance sector. The third is the lack of democratic accountability in the governing institutions.
The last is very important indeed because it means that there is nothing to correct Brussels. The head of the Commission does not run for office. The MEPs are sort of Piotemkin parliament, powerlessly moving between Brussels and Strasbourg every couple of weeks in a gesture of placation to the French that they are powerless to abolish.
The effects of the complete absence of democratic control are profound. One result of the resulting loss of legitimacy is to empower individual heads of state to take decisions with far-reaching effects on the EU as a whole, without there having been any EU wide decision or even debate on them.
You have to imagine a US in which any state governor can decide to open the border to Mexico, and in which there are no federal elections – the President is not elected by the people and the Electoral College but chosen in back room negotiation between the state governors and confirmed by Congress.
Now imagine that there is also no Senate, and that Congress, to placate the Governor of California, travels in a special train filled with computers and filing cabinets from Washington to San Fransisco every couple of weeks. And that Congress is powerless to change this idiocy.
The climate issue for Macron, indeed for the EU generally, is like St Augustine worrying about the marks of virginity while the frontiers fell to the Goths. And you notice that his critics are not even demanding that he do something about global emissions. No, its French emissions he is supposed to act on.
Which will have zero effect on global ones. To act on global emissions, the supposed drivers of climate change, he’d have to tackle China, India, Indonesia. Do they want that? Of course not.
This is what you get with two destructive wars in the 20c, killing the best and the brightest, and destroying the sense of legitimacy of the culture. You get the nonsense of post-modernism and total relativism, but you also get a complacent stagnation, a sort of collective shrugging of the shoulders, and a refusal to address any of the real and pressing problems. Problems which are reaching a scale and depth which makes them a real threat to the long term viability of the EU.
This is enough to make a wise person weep…
rip
Extremely thought provoking.
For a long time I have pondered over the number of astounding minds in colonial United States – Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, Payne, and so many more. The population at the time was about the same as Atlanta, GA (closest large city to me). Need I make a comparison between the two (and you could substitute any city for Atlanta, I fear)?
I have never considered the effect of WWII may have had on the intellectual development, and survival, of the best young minds. For that matter, I never considered that it may have had an impact on the gene pool. Those who were not mentally or physically fit stayed home and reproduced. Many who were fit and sound, died on the battlefield.
Thank you.
Actually, those figures are for electricity generation. When you google for energy in France, what you see is mostly about electricity. Still, the transportation sector relies mostly on fossil fuel. link For some reason, the linked article ignores agriculture.
Agriculture is highly mechanized and uses a lot of energy. Why would they ignore it?
Yeah and good luck getting the crops in with a battery powered combine harvester.
And you should see the kit that rolls through my village — some of it as big as my house!! And the French farmers love the stuff. I’m afraid that in France zero carbon would mean zero produce!
Agriculture uses a small amount of energy – crops don’t need electriciy to grow. One pass to plant and one pass to harvest requjires an insignificant amount of gas/diesel. Compare this to the daily
commute of milions of vehicles and one can see that agriculture’e energy use is tiny. Electric cars will reduce emissions (when backed by nuclear power) millions of times grfeater thananything that can be obtained by agriculture, which will, via electric pickup trucks reduce its tiny amount of energy to total insignificance.
Energy does not mean solely electricity. The battery has not yet been designed that would fit in some of these things AND power it for more than half an hour. And farming is not simply a matter of sow it today harvest it in August.
The emissions of power plants is already so low that it doesn’t matter.
will be difficult to convert to solar & wind:
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ALeKk02vvYVJiqTbwk5yL3p9I4uKwanYXw%3A1582712206315&ei=jkVWXovmEqSvmwX-qKmgBA&q=Paris+food+markets+logistics+tv+documentaries&oq=Paris+food+markets+logistics+tv+documentaries&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
Destroying France’s nuclear power industry is about as stupid as one can get if you believe in the CO2 climate scam.
But then again it is France. The Germans bent them over hard in 1940 on their egalitarian ways. Why should this century be any different?
Indeed. The French have had decades of reliable power from nuclear so much so they even export it. No serious accidents either. It is truly insane!
The most serious reactors incidents and accidents were with the older enormous low density reactors relying on high speed CO2. Great in theory but the flow can be blocked accidentally and then bad stuff happens.
If we look at how France generates its electricity, https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/eco2mix-mix-energetique-en , they’ve the least amount of fossil-fuel generation in Europe.
electoral stunt? Yellow vests actively oppose climate policies and the rest of voters do not really care. Studies show that people see climate action not important.
We need to teach the politicians not to care the bullying of the activists and media. Special interest groups that are on the receiving end of the climate policies may have influence on electoral funding though.
Politicians, activists and media. are all puppets/ Brown Shirts of the wizard behind the curtain/Big Brother One World Order system. Those who really don’t like it normal people have any power or freedom they can’t control. They also don’t like our big numbers now we no longer are needed as cannon fodder.
“Yellow vests actively oppose climate policies”
Nope; they oppose policies that hurt them. They applaud these policies for other people.
As usual.
They want less taxes for them, more for others, and more public services.
Macron is a typical French poseur. All he cares about is looking good, while doing bugger all.
This was sufficient to get elected. Many people want to be seen as voting for someone who “everyone else” (= their buddies in their social circles) says looks good and is intelligent (really, there are people who find Macron intelligent).
C’est une farce.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/02/dutch-mega-dam-scheme-raises-awareness-of-climate-crisis/
‘The dams, one between Scotland and Norway and one between France and the southwest of England, would make the tides disappear and eventually turn the North Sea into a fresh water lake and nature and the fishery industry would undergo a major change,’ Groeskamp said.
‘The cost and the consequences of a project like this are huge. But the costs of doing nothing will be higher still. This dam shows what the consequences of the most pessimistic forecasts about rising sea levels will be: 10 metres by 2500. This dam is a call to action. If we do not stop climate change now we may well have to build the dam after all.’
So far the attempt by the scientists to raise awareness has resulted in a flurry of international press attention, including the Guardian and the Daily Mail.
https://www.nioz.nl/en/news/een-dam-dwars-door-de-noordzee-waarschuwscenario-voor-klimaatverandering
10 metres by 2500 = 2cm/ year
Then it really should start accelerating.
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control so there is nothing that anyone can do to change it, even the President of France.
“France is behind on its European renewable energy commitments, ranking second from bottom in the EU, according to Eurostat. ”
“Macron has also delayed by 10 years plans to reduce the share of French energy derived from nuclear power from 71 percent to 50 percent.”
These two sentences sum up the complete stupidity of the climate movement. If Macron reduces the emissions-free nuclear % from 71 to 50% and meets the RE target, France will add more CO2 to the atmosphere overall. Perhaps the real agenda of the climate movement is to kill the western economies by removing access to affordable and reliable energy ?
Never forget the left in France is allied with the greens, their project is to destroy nuclear energy, and Macron is part of that left (bourgeois left).
One defining property of the left is to assume it is more intelligent, and Macron said he couldn’t give a 14th of July traditional interview because his thinking is too “complex”. I’m not making that up!
Macron exhibits typical leftist traits.
When I see Macron, I’m ashamed to be french. I didn’t vote for him. Yesterday, he came to the Mer de Glace to see the “reality” of global warming and to present his green program and green fanatic activists said it’s not enough ! All these guys are completely mad and my country is going to a new dark middle-age (and communist) ! He didn’t go to the Pré de Madame Carle, where we can see the effects of the cooling period after the medieval optimum, much more warm than today (It’s very beautiful if you come to France !).
See : https://www.risoul.com/site-naturel-pre-de-mme-carle.html (in french).
French. I’m a 68 year old US citizen that has had the privilege to visit your beautiful country twice. I encourage those I know that can afford to visit to do so. Now I advise them to do so as soon as possible before it comes apart. It will be a terrible shame if that happens.
Thank you. As climate and euro skeptics, we are now entered in a new Resistance against the lunatics who are governing our country, just like my father during the WWII ! I hope we shall win…
All American citizens (except climate fanatics…) are welcome at home !
One concrete (but hard) thing you can do: ask people to name one moment where Macron allegedly ridiculed MLP in the debate where allegedly Macron was a genius and a teacher and crushed MLP the whole time; or one notable, serious, or unpardonable error from MLP.
I asked and asked and asked and nobody could cite anything.
The French people have been c*cked by the MSM they despise while sucking up to them. The “fact checkers” (propaganda peddlers) wrote MLP said lots of ridiculous things so they repeat that. Not two “fact checkers” could even agree on these alleged facts!
The mental process of victim blaming is at play error: knowing Macron would win, the French people admitted without any evidence that Macron was by far superior in the whole debate. The mental process that makes us accept the “unavoidable” and pretend it’s fine.
William Haas February 14, 2020 at 2:06 am
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control
————————
The sun is in a cool period – but we are warming
The sea adds no energy into the system that is not put there in the first place (no net change in energy) the sea can have only cyclical effects. so what do you predict the peak of this cycle will be – there seems no levelling off yet before the cycle fall.
Do you have scientific evidence for your statement?
Where’s this warming you keep talking about? It’s been cooling for the last 3 years.
However the seas have cycles, which always count as CO2 when on the warm side, and just weather when on the cool side.
More evidence than for any of your claims.
You jest I hope? Using satellite data:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-january-2020-0-56-deg-c/
Temperature certainly not cooling for the last 3 years!!
The sea cannot create sufficient energy to actually warm the earth – basically it is heated by the sun and cooled by evaporation and heat transfer. There will be heating caused by friction as the spin speed changes but this is small
What would your sea heating source be?
Reading is not your strong suit I see, I never said anything about seas causing actual warming. I said that the warm side of existing cycles was claimed to be caused by CO2 while the cold side was dismissed as weather.
You should spend your time at skepsci. They are more your speed.
Who are you addressing?
Ghalfrunt. I think.
Setting a point in the future as 2035 or 2050 for elimintionm of gas powered vehicles is nothing more than silly PR – no automaker will be manufacturing gas powered cars anywhere near that distant time period. VW, GM and several other automakers have already committed to go all electric by 2025 even before any f these silly time periods were mentioned. Only an ignorant fellow thinks that there will be any gas powered vehicles still in showrooms by 2035.
There will be no combustives in showrooms – they will be on a streets. Showrooms are for EVs.
Look at his gentlemen: Robert Murray-Smith from YT, he is “producing” carbon batteries for green revolution.
They are much better than Litium-ion and cost nearly nothing, unfortunately no one has seen one working in real conditions.
I’m still waiting on his Twizzy going 1000 miles, or going anywhere at all.
Why do you keep repeating this lie?
Only the totally ignorant actually believes that EVs will be the only cars sold, ever.
It all depends on how dictatorial the Big Brother state becomes and how much more damage they want to do to the economy. For the moment they have created a big group of supporters , Climate Jugend/Brownshirts, who approve this suicidal path. History has shown that things can go horribly wrong in a ver short moment of time when the wrong people get in power. And with today’s digital technology it could make the horrors of WW2 look like happy days.
PS: If VW and GM really were going to go all electric in 5 years, they would have already shut down their ICE lines in order to start the conversion.
Do you really believe they can just throw a switch and overnight change what model of car a factory builds?
As a result of the 1974 decision, France now claims a substantial level of energy independence and almost the lowest cost electricity in Europe. It also has an extremely low level of carbon dioxide emissions per capita from electricity generation, since over 90% of its electricity is nuclear or hydro.
France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over €3 billion per year from this.
Ref: WNA – Home / Information Library / Country Profiles / Countries A-F / France
The original motivation for nuclear power plants was energy security and and a well enducated lot of engineers.
In 1999 the official view was very different. At that time the conclusion was than nuclear was the best base-load option has and it was not smart to phase it out with natural gas as this was more expensive and with fluctuating prices.
So do we have to change infrastructure every decade, for something that takes many decades to build? – Of cause, that is the politically easiest way to de-industrialize and create the feudal society.
“Setting a point in the future as 2035 or 2050 for elimination of gas powered vehicles is nothing more than silly PR – no automaker will be manufacturing gas powered cars anywhere near that distant time period. Only an ignorant fellow thinks that there will be any gas powered vehicles still in showrooms by 2035.” ColMosby
Only a person ignorant of the mineral resource requirements needed to massively increase the number of EVs by 2035, the environmental restrictions involved in mining and processing these resources, and the time frames involved in developing new mineral resource projects would make such a delusional statement.
How do you know those in power want you to have a car? Only the privileged few will be permitted to leave the city. And with current technology, this could already be implemented when cash is eliminated and your digital money can only be used within your authorized zone. Of course you could do virtual traveling. You could be virtually on the beach or visit the Grand Canyon.
Soylent Green
starring Charlton Heston Leigh Taylor-Young. Edward G. Robinson
Plot
In the year 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution and some apparent climate catastrophe has caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. There are 40 million people in New York City alone, where only the city’s elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water and natural food, and even then at horrendously high prices. The homes of the elite usually include concubines who are referred to as “furniture” and serve the tenants as slaves.
“Robertvd February 14, 2020 at 10:31 am
And with current technology, this could already be implemented when cash is eliminated and your digital money can only be used within your authorized zone.”
I believe this is already being thought about (Trialled?) being used on people who draw welfare benefits in Australia. They do not get “cash” they get transaction cards that can only be used in certain retailers (No alcohol etc). Its the brave new world fortunately, I will be long gone before we see the fullest implementation.
Macron can’t pull down the nuclear power plants because he has to sell the energy to neighbouring countries which happens quite often, especially when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind has calmed down. In contrast to these Stone Age power sources, nuclear power is reliable and produces high amounts of energy.
Of course, nuclear power does have its shortcomings, but maybe the fourth generation can fix these:
https://dual-fluid-reaktor.de/en/
That’s one constant with the left, no matter how much you do for them, it’s never enough.
Like a cancer. They just know how to grow bigger as long as there is a blood supply/funding from the money changers from the Temple.
Looks like the face of a man that has never gotten underneath a car to fix something….
The only thing this guy has ever fixed were taxes.
If Macron has delayed by 10 years reducing the contribution of France’s nuclear plants to electric power from 71% to 50%, he should be congratulated by the global-warming crowd. Those nuclear plants do not emit any CO2, so that if some of them were taken offline, the power they generate would have to be replaced, and wind and solar would not be nearly enough, so the replacement power (likely from natural gas from Russia) would increase CO2 emissions. But “les Verts” don’t have the scientific training to realize this.
French economic policy has not always been wise (particularly bringing in lots of Algerians during the 1970’s under Giscard d’Estaing, and nationalizing major industries under socialist Mitterrand in the 1980’s), but France’s nuclear power plants were developed under the leadership of Charles DeGaulle in the 1960’s, and have sheltered France from upheavals in the energy markets since then. Germany’s shutting down their nuclear plants was suicidal to its economy–France should learn the lesson from Germany and keep their own nuclear plants running.
The so-called “yellow jacket” (gilets jaunes) protests against increasing gasoline taxes were well-founded. I lived in France from 1985 through 1995, and even then, taxes on gasoline were so high that the total price of gasoline was 3 times higher than in the USA, so that raising the taxes further would be intolerable to low-income people.
But protests in France tend to be infiltrated and hijacked by rent-a-mob provocateurs and “casseurs” (vandals) who take advantage of any protesting crowd as an excuse to riot, by smashing windows of nearby shops, and setting tires and cars on fire, in order to portray the legitimate protesters as violent and provoke retaliation by the police, who often have trouble figuring out who’s who. Then some innocent bystander gets a bloody nose from the police, who is all over lefty TV the next day complaining of police brutality and fascism, while the provocateurs and rioters (the French equivalent of Antifa) disappear into the night.
President Macron is discovering what previous French Presidents have dealt with since 1968–governing a country where mindless mobs like to sow chaos can be very hard! A melting glacier is the least of his worries!
The Macron gov is transparently supporting Watching Giants, the branch of online thugs who harass corporations who pay for ads in “extremist” (= conservative) publications.
Macron loves the ANTIFA attacks, as they let him misrepresent all “gilets jaunes” as violent.
An elected leader of a major cop union, Linda Kebbab, published a ridiculously fake video mixing peaceful protesters that the police attacked with a grenade (some of these contain 4 g of TNT) and unrelated violent protesters. Miss Kebbab is probably a good representation of what the French police is becoming.
The French police went for extremely popular after the terror attack – popular for no reason what so ever has the police and gendarmes (military corp civilian police) armed with assault rifles stayed at the door of the Bataclan (while the people in the Bataclan had they eyes popped and balls cut and bellies etc. that why the family couldn’t obtain the bodies) – now it’s extremely unpopular following police thuggery.
The French police is not a police to protect the people but the State. Protecting the people was a side effect.
A lot of people now say police = Macron militia.
To make French people accept that sorry state, the commentariat either insinuates or plain how state that in the US the police routinely fires at unarmed protesters.
Also the Bataclan was never investigated. Like Notre Dame. Like all tens of burnt churches.
Like the worst industrial explosion in France, the AZF explosion (2001-09-21).
France does not have a Justice that seeks the truth.
“The Macron gov is transparently supporting Watching Giants”
Wrong!
The Macron gov is transparently supporting Sleeping Giants!!!
“Watching Giants” opposes the “Sleeping Giants” thugs. My bad.
“France’s nuclear power plants were developed under the leadership of Charles DeGaulle in the 1960’s”
Incorrect. All EDF reactors are Westinghouse like (the newest designs are a lot more advanced than the original Westinghouse of course) relatively small water-water reactors are from the later conservative presidents.
De Gaulle supported the French specific huge graphite-CO2 reactors, pretty similar to “Chernobyl”-like design in the huge size, use of graphite and natural U (but unlike “Chernobyl” with the boiling water problem and hence variation of moderation).
Two of these reactors, in the same plant of Saint-Laurent des Eaux had fusion accidents with lack of cooling and destruction of assemblies and some spreading of plutonium in the Loire river for the second one.
The French and UK initial fission choices were vaguely similar but different and incompatible and both are dead, and everyone uses some kind of water under pressure and no graphite for new projects.
[Unmoderated reactors are an entirely different story and the Macron gov closed that chapter for now by officially killing the sodium reactor project of the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique) which was going nowhere as the CEA may in fact be as productive as the US Department of Energy.]
Bloody nose? What the hell are you babbling about?
26 eyes destroyed. Hands exploded and amputated. Feet. Permanent earring destruction… An attempt by two policemen to destroy the teeth of a woman by “accidentally” dropping her face on a metal pole.
One old lady closing her window was killed by the police. (Officially the current French illegitimate occupying power claims she was killed by surgery. Of course. Usually it’s the other way around: when a surgeon destroys your health, it’s the fault of a pre-existing condition.)
Generalize police thuggery. The French people now despise part of the police!
“Bloody nose”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQo4XYKWAAEAMmc?format=jpg&name=900×900
So far, my prediction that going forward, Nothing is Going to be Done à la Paris Agreement, except a crescendo of ‘talk’. Virtue signaling is even going to attenuate and walking back on the science has begun (Richard Betts of the UK Met Office a month or so ago said a 2C rise wouldn’t be catastrophic – but try to find a link in this ‘alarmist climate’!).
Macron shows that his advisors are telling him to drag his feet, particularly on the idiocy and irrelevance vis à vis nuclear shutdown . He knows nuclear has been getting more support from greens and he’ll stand pat on their world’s best nuclear fleet. It is a potential big industrial plus for France when the rest of the world comes around to going nuclear. The man has gone up in my estimation, but ‘Trumpian” Marine Le Pen seems ready to take over government anyway.
Marine Le Pen would LOVE many of Bernie’s policies that don’t involve the border or immigration in general. State of control of energy? She is for it. State control of railways? Of course! Forbidding buses from opening lines that “steal” travelers from the national railway? More that absolutely obvious choice! For the “far right” workers with quasi civil servants status is good, unions that can paralyse the country are OK and free choice is dangerous.
MLP is aligned on a lot of policies with the French communist party of the 80ties (the communists at the time consider mass immigration as having reached the maximum that was bearable for French workers; workers and family immigration only accelerated since).
MLP is the absolute anti-Trump on anything economic. She despises economic liberalism and considers it as bad as communism and fascism.
MLP thinks state money is free money. She wants to abolish the Euro not because it’s a bad idea but because it’s a good idea, because it’s a currency that local politicians can’t use to fund their pet projects.
She managed to lose all supports from the French centrists by doing the belly danse around Marxists of the party of Mélenchon; but the Mélenchonists still despise her.
MLP and the the “far right” formerly Front National, now Rassemblement National are Keynesian like 99% of French politicians. She wants to control the New French Franc to have a supply to do great stuff, probably like AOC but with more hydrogen cars.
MLP would still forbid fracking like Macron. She would be more strongly against glyphosate as Roundup is American and French leftists and “far right” politicians are extremely anti-US (although they weren’t anti-Irak of Saddam – you can’t have too many subjects of regime hate I guess).
MLP might love a lot of things in the Green New Deal.
The French “nationalist” parties side more with apiculture than agriculture (except expensive non realist “agriculture bio” = organic). They ate the “Gaucho and Régent TS are killing bees” mantra and so French outlawed both, and apparently bees don’t feel better so that wasn’t the cause. Now I guess Roundup is killing the bees, when neonics haven’t already killed the bees. MLP would probably side with the MSM against agriculture and outlaw these (the pesticides not the bees).
All the French “nationalist/patriotic parties” are worshiping the General De Gaulle which gave away power to the communists just a few years after the time they were working against the French army. De Gaulle created the Sécurité Sociale with its “universal” non universal, domain specific coverage with its many “special status”. De Gaulle also betrayed the French people of Algeria and forced the army to let them be killed, in order to gave good relation with future independent Algeria. De Gaulle was as “nationalist” and patriotic as the Clintons.
De Gaulle introduced the confusion that hating UK and US was nationalism and independence and pride.
French politics is hopeless. The so called conservatives either waste their energy fighting gay mariage or they embrace mass immigration.
MLP and her so called “extreme right” party are just awful.
Anyway, the non democratic French institutions are so openly biases against the “extreme right” (for my entire life, I have not heard a debate about the change of the election system where many participants weren’t focuses on finding an election system that gave almost no representatives for a party with 15% – 30% of the electorate).
http://Www.klimatupplysningen.se Sweden where invited to french envirommental minister Brune Poirson end 2017. She was very intested to hear the information from professor Stilbs and chairman Per Welander. https://www.klimatupplysningen.se/2017/10/23/breaking-news-klimatupplysningen-pa-klimatmote-med-fransk-minister/
For about teen years ago I spoke to person working close to Sweden envirommental minister Carlgren. The women said “we don’t know and are afraid not to follow The climate agenda. At the same time our climate minister says” new scientific information global warming worse than before” in News papper.
President Macron have all information and know that climate change may not be
caused by co2.
This is The bame of The Game.
Dan
Why is a it a ‘good’ thing to spend money which France does not have (see French riots about attempts to raise the pension age because the France has reached the limit of borrowing) on a ‘Green’ ‘plan’ that will never work.
Comment: Ignoring the fact the IPPC science is 100% incorrect. So it is stupidity squared.
This is the UK Green Mob’s plan of what it would take to enable the UK to reach Absolute Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
Some Key Points:
The Uk Electrical grid must be expanded by a factor of three and magically start to produce 100% CO2 emission free power by 2050.
Free unlimited batteries. (The Green Mob, call their magic engineering assumptions such as Free batteries and free power lines a “Smart Grid”).
Green stuff can be built with no energy, no mining, and no cement.
All of the stuff which we purchase from other countries must be made from the same magic energy source and must be transported by wind powered ships.
In the study it is noted that the following will be banned by the government to reach Absolute Zero UK CO2 emissions.
No airplanes, no air travel
No hydrocarbon powered ships
No mining
No Cement
No Hydrocarbon Industry and energy
Has anyone run this by the general public?
What we have allowed the Green Mob to do, is make up the Greta paradigm which is that all we need to do is tax the heck out of hydrocarbon consumption…
… and spend a gazillion dollars on stuff that Germany has proven stops reducing CO2 emissions at the point where power storage is required.
… and this spending will do anything beyond making electricity very expensive and cause environmental damage.
http://www.ukfires.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Absolute-Zero-online.pdf
Absolute Zero Carbon Emissions UK Study
http://www.ukfires.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Absolute-Zero-online.pdf
“en même temps” progressist Macron gov confirms the closure of the historical and historically well functioning nuclear plant (Westinghouse style) of Fessenheim:
Marine Le Pen reacted:
https://twitter.com/MLP_officiel/status/1230109024286322689
“La fermeture de la centrale nucléaire de #Fessenheim est une aberration sur le plan écologique”
=
Closure of Fessenheim nuclear plant is inept from an ecological POV.
Seems c’est notre projet
https://www.google.com/search?q=macron+notre+projet&oq=macron+notre&aqs=chrome.
there’s tszoris too !