Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Carbon taxes and more working from home, to disincentivize travel.
Reducing UK emissions Progress Report to Parliament
June 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed all of our lives. Its effects are far-reaching – its implications profound. Our 2019 report to Parliament urged Government to act on climate. “Now, do it” was our call. Twelve months on that remains our emphatic message, but with a new determination: we must seize the opportunity to make the COVID-19 recovery a defining moment in tackling the climate crisis. We say to the Government: “act courageously – it’s there for the taking”.
This report provides important new advice to Government on framing a recovery from Covid-19 that both accelerates the transition to Net Zero and strengthens our resilience to the impacts of climate change, whilst driving new economic activity. It builds on the six key principles for a resilient recovery which we outlined in our letter to the Prime Minister in May. We are pleased to see these principles guiding the growing momentum for a green recovery.
…
The review, and the response to the pandemic provide an opportunity to strengthen incentives to reduce emissions when considering fiscal changes. Many sectors do not currently bear the full costs of emitting greenhouse gases. Carbon pricing can be used, alongside other policies, to incentivise emissions reductions across the economy. Similarly, changes in tax policy can aid the transition to net-zero emissions. Revenue could be raised by setting or raising carbon prices (or other taxes, such as VAT) for these sectors. Low global oil prices and improved energy efficiency provide an opportunity to offset changes in relative prices without raising consumer bills.
…
b) Decarbonising transport: getting there sooner and other transport priorities – recommendations for DfT, supported by HMT and BEIS
The COVID-19 pandemic is already changing how people travel, and provides an opportunity to encourage sustainable behaviours such as working-from-home and active travel (e.g. walking and cycling). Some cities are already redesigning streets to encourage walking and cycling instead of car use. Without Government support in these areas there is a risk of lower use of public transport and increased use of cars, in the short-term.
The Government is currently consulting on bringing forward its ‘Road to Zero’ ambition to phase-out the sale of petrol and diesel cars. Our assessment is that the date should be brought forward to 2032 at the latest, as currently planned in Scotland. In the near-term, purchase subsidies should be maintained and planning for a transition to fiscally neutral incentives should begin now, for example through Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) that is more highly differentiated by CO2. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure will also require targeted support to continue.
Separately, a comprehensive framework for decarbonising HGVs, covering financial incentives, regulation and infrastructure is needed for the 2020s and should be planned for now.
…
Source: https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/reducing-uk-emissions-2020-progress-report-to-parliament/
I suspect if the UK government seriously attempts to impose these policies they will end up with yellow vest riots.
There are vast areas outside London where internet performance makes working from home a struggle. In my opinion the UK government has been breaking promises to upgrade internet performance for decades, so I don’t see why the cash strapped, resource constrained future will be any different.
As for cycling and walking, this might be fine if you live in central London, where there are plenty of late night cafes to break the journey, but outside the Westminster bubble things are very different.
There are a lot of lonely long poor quality roads on the outskirts of cities and in the countryside, which in winter become dangerous slush and ice covered death traps, risky even for automobile drivers, let alone pedestrians or cyclists.
The thought of cycling or walking for miles in such conditions on a regular basis is absurd.
The problem with WFH is that it will hollow out our cities. The services that supplied office workers will disappear and the demand for commercial property could slump resulting in loss of investment in places like London. The UK will degenerate into a 3rd world country sacrificed on the alter of climate change.
“The problem with WFH is that it will hollow out our cities. ”
Why is that a problem?
What’s so great about cities?
What we’re about to see is the productive people moving out of the cities and leaving them to the welfare class. Which is what usually happens as a society becomes too corrupt to survive.
This is the first time I have seen Simon express even the tiniest bit of sympathy for the wealthy.
Different guy?
Too cynical.
The ‘hollowing out’ of city centres has been a Science Fiction trope off-and-on for maybe 60 years. the usual thing is that the ‘inner city plebs’ are pacified with government issued ‘tranks’ and with lots ‘an lots of televised sport – the more violent, the better.
Typical socialist, other people have to suffer so that they can maintain their lifestyle.
Simon likes cities, so the rest of you blokes must be forced to work in the cities.
I seem to remember him describing himself as wealthy – ‘made a ton of money on the free-market.’
Moving wealth from cities to the country is not going to make Britain a third world country.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed all of our lives. Its effects are far-reaching – its implications profound”
None more profound than atmospheric CO2 rising unabated right through the profound lockdown, the profound air travel collapse, and the profound crash in oil prices.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/18/12479/
I would have to say that the WuWHOFlu has seriously damaged, or increasingly damaged the minds of UK politicians and institutionalized educators and Enviro-wackos.
I was eating with some french friends a couple of days ago. One noted that computer models had been found to be totally inadequate and did not correspond to reality. They could not be relied upon.
I replied: this is what I’ve been trying to explain to you for the last ten years about climate. You have now been able to see it in real time in the last 3 months.
He said, ah, I see what you mean.
COVID-19 may well end up being a defining moment in tackling the “climate crisis”.
Recently posted:
wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/15/farmers-fear-the-european-green-deal/#comment-3022602
Notice how the global warming cabal have linked the climate crisis AND the Covid-19 flu? How child prodigies like Greta and academics in non-technical fields have spouted DRIVEL like “to tackle Covid-19 we also have to tackle climate change”? Remember this point!
We’ve demonstrated many times that alleged dangerous human-made global warming/climate change is not only false, it is fraudulent!
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
There is a similar high probability that the Covid-19 full-Gulag Lockdown is also a scam. We have experienced many flu epidemics that were more dangerous than Covis-19, with NO lockdowns. Why this flu? Why now? Read my post below for details on Covid-19.
Also, why are Antifa and BLM suddenly exploding onto the scene, trashing downtowns and terrorizing people, allegedly based on the police killing of career criminal George Floyd, who violently abused women? Much better people than Floyd die every day, and nobody cares.
HINT:
All these scams are related, concocted by the Marxist Dems, and have nothing to do with the climate, the mild Covid-19 flu or USA police violence. These are Democrat planned political events by paid demonstrators, intended to derail the investigations into the attempted coup-d’état of Trump via the Russia scam and the false FBI charges against Lt.-Gen. Flynn, and to steal the election so the treasonous acts of the Obama regime remain hidden.
It’s all a smokescreen to hide the criminal activity of the Dems – Try to focus on the big picture good people – It’s not all that complicated.
PLANDEMIC OR SCAMDEMIC?
IMPORTANT: Everyone should watch this video AND re-post it.
https://youtu.be/X6pzXrEBqR0
The full-Gulag lockdown was completely unnecessary and that was obvious by early-mid-March. I wrote then:
wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/21/to-save-our-economy-roll-out-antibody-testing-alongside-the-active-virus-testing/#comment-2943724
[excerpt- posted 21Mar2020]
LET’S CONSIDER AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH, SUBJECT TO VERIFICATION OF THE ABOVE CONCLUSIONS:
Isolate people over sixty-five and those with poor immune systems and return to business-as-usual for people under sixty-five.
This will allow “herd immunity” to develop much sooner and older people will thus be more protected AND THE ECONOMY WON’T CRASH.
rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/21/end-the-american-lockdown/comment-page-1/#comment-12253
[excerpt- posted 22Mar2020]
This full-lockdown scenario is especially hurting service sector businesses and their minimum-wage employees – young people are telling me they are “financially under the bus”. The young are being destroyed to protect us over-65’s. A far better solution is to get them back to work and let us oldies keep our distance, and get “herd immunity” established ASAP – in months not years. Then we will all be safe again.
__________________________________
Why did New York have so many deaths from Covid-19? Because New York Governor Cuomo ordered state nursing homes to take in 4,500 patients with Covid-19, the Associated Press reported. These patients infected other nursing home residents, resulting in many more deaths. Cuomo issued the order to nursing homes and other assisted living centers on March 25, 2020 according to AP. He did not reverse that policy until May 11.
__________________________________
Now Democratic Governors are delaying the lifting of the lockdown, to further harm the economy in hopes of defeating Trump in November.
__________________________________
The violent riots over the unfortunate death of career criminal George Floyd were the next act in this saga. Floyd was not a great role model – he had a long criminal record, which included holding a pregnant woman hostage by pointing a shotgun at her belly, but he was all they had – so a false narrative was constructed of what a great guy he was and how all blacks were faced with such horrific police brutality.
Unfortunately, the data did not support that false narrative – in 2019, 1004 individuals were shot and killed by USA police, but only 56 of them were unarmed, and only 15 of those were black (A whole 1.5%!).
washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/
It will soon become clear that Antifa are the paid and programmed violent shock troops of the Marxist Democratic Party, and this entire charade was choreographed by the Dems to try to steal the Fall 2020 election.
__________________________________
Once again, I appreciate your discernment, Allan.
People need to watch Millie Weaver’s undercover investigation to see for themselves how Antifa and the climate cultists are connected to the Democratic Party.
Thank you Sommer – Millie is great!
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/08/ross-mckitrick-this-scientist-proved-climate-change-isnt-causing-extreme-weather-so-politicians-attacked/#comment-2718916
Ever wonder why extremists attack honest scientists who oppose global warming and climate change hysteria? Ever wonder why extremists refuse to debate the science?
It is because global warming and climate change alarmism was never about the science – it was always a smokescreen for the political objectives of the extreme left.
The book “1984”, written by George Orwell in 1949, foresaw a time “when most of the world population have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation”(wiki).
Well here is the REAL “1984”, an interview that year with ex-KGB officer and Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov, who describes the slow, long-term “ideological subversion” of Western societies. Note Bezmenov’s discussion of ideological subversion. It’s all about manipulating the “Useful Idiots” – the leftists in the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&feature=youtu.be
One commenter on the video wrote: “this is f***ing crazy, almost everything predicted by this guy is already happening.”
AOC / KGB.
As I wrote recently:
“The Green movement is really a smokescreen for the old Marxists – and they are the great killers of our age.” – March 11, 2019
Best, Allan
” why are Antifa and BLM suddenly exploding onto the scene”
I believe that this is a symptom of a Marxist take over of the US Government and its people.
1. Look at the insanity of the Democrat party. Except if they are spear heading a Marxist take over its starts to make sense.
2. Who is financing Antifa and BLM? Check the website of BLM and you will see what sort of financing they are getting!
However both these organisations and others are there only until their communistic financiers what them to be.
However they are useful for scaring the normal population into silence.
3. Look at the Judiciary! Why for instance do top judges suddenly hand down irrational but Marxist decisions? Emmet Sullivan springs to mind.
4. The deep state which is even deeper than Donald Trump realized is really running the show.
5. Democratic Congress are simply ignoring ignoring real issues and are trying to usurp the election results or maybe worse.
Can Trump rely on the US Armed forces to snuff out the current rioting and unrest?
And so it goes on. If Donald Trump either loses the election or somehow doesn’t make it to November I believe we have a successful Marxist Coup on our hands – Just imagine the power of the US forces and installations if that happens?
Yes Roger – I agree, malheuresement. Welcome to North Korea.
Europe is already finished – So is Canada; maybe Alberta can be saved – But if the USA goes Marxist-Democrat in the Fall, it is the end of free societies all over the world.
wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/17/california-energy-policies-are-fueling-the-housing-crisis-and-homelessness/#comment-2896389
I agree Petit Barde – the proponents of the CAGW scam are totalitarians and many are Malthusians.
Regards, Allan
WHAT THE GREEN NEW DEAL IS REALLY ABOUT — AND IT’S NOT THE CLIMATE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., July 19, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/20/what-the-green-new-deal-is-really-about-and-its-not-the-climate/
[excerpt]
Radical greens have used wildly exaggerated scary stories of runaway global warming and climate change to stampede the gullible, in order to achieve their political objectives.
The absolute lunacy of the Green New Deal and its delusional acolytes is now clear – global warming alarmism and green energy nonsense was never about the climate – it was always a false narrative, a smokescreen for the totalitarian objectives of the extreme left. Once the left controls our energy supply, they control everything in our society – it will be “One Man, One Vote, Once!” – the end of freedom.
THE LIBERALS’ COVERT GREEN PLAN FOR CANADA – POVERTY AND DICTATORSHIP
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., October 1, 2019
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.”
“Can Trump rely on the US Armed forces to snuff out the current rioting and unrest?”
Yes, he, and we, can.
What chance does Trump have against the lizard people? Unless of course he is one.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/how-spot-reptilians-runing-us-government/354496/
There was never a true pandemic in 2019. Rather, a panicdemic is what has happened:
https://hubpages.com/health/All-Cause-Mortality-Implies-2019-Virus-Crisis-Was-Hysteria-Crisis
Now people are trying to use the panicdemic in their favor. Researchers can now write grants to investigate better filtration technology and face-mask design. Manufactures of those filters and masks can now boost production with anticipated higher sales and resultant profit. Lawyers can accept more clients filing lawsuits for damages from lockdowns, consumer bias, etc.
It’s a money-making time of opportunity, so let’s not waste it, scumbags.
“Road to Zero” is an appropriate title for this economy wrecking proposal.
There is no climate crisis.
The idea that this will be embraced by the community is a fantasy.
Post CoVid-19, there are no trillions for what SR15 demands, “unprecedented changes in our lifestyle, energy and transport systems,”effectively a global economic and social revolution.
““Road to Zero” is an appropriate title for this economy wrecking proposal.”
That’s just what I was thinking when I read “Road to Zero”.
They are so sure of themselves, yet they couldn’t prove that CO2 is a threat if their lives depended on it, and they couldn’t find anyone in the world that could prove it, either. They have failed the basics and are completely oblivious to the fact.
Idiocracy. Mass Delusion.
Many human beings are easily led and misled. The majority of humans may not be misled by this Human-caused climate change narrative, but the political class in the Western Nations certainly is, even the United States. Trump is the only thing standing in the way of the U.S. going the same delusional way as the rest of the Western Democracies. Trump is the only realists of the bunch.
The data manipulation of the Climategate Charlatans has had widespred negative impacts on human life. They are Crimes Against Humanity. One of these days there will be a reckoning.
“Many sectors do not currently bear the full costs of emitting greenhouse gases.”
The Parliament should declare an eternal summer. Also good for bicycles.
The UK government is keen to direct public attention focused on its mis-handling of the covid-19 crisis toward reclaiming public interest in the fake ‘Global Warming/Climate Change’ scare which lacks public credibility. Unfortunately for the government people’s common sense allows them to discriminate between a real crisis and a fake crisis where nothing has happened in 40 years.
The Committee on Climate Change is a cross party Parliamentary group, not a Government committee. Unfortunately for the UK, there are very few MPs, of any party ,willing to point out the errors in the CCC’s claims.
Much has been made about the number of days, that the UK’s gone without the need for coal to generate electricity. Not a whisper that on the 17th & 18th of June, we needed some, as gas had maxed out, whilst wind dropped to virtually nothing & a nuclear station had been taken offline, to make way for wind, as the curtailment payments for that, would be less than those for taking wind offline.
That’s when demand is markedly reduced, due to it being summer & reduced industrial & commercial demand from lockdown.
Carbon Dioxide, CO2, an entirely beneficial trace gas is demonised & the ignorant call it “Carbon”.
This is stupidity
There are calls for zero “Carbon” emissions.
This is nonsense: animals produce 20 times the CO2 man produces; ~57% of the CO2 in our atmosphere is produced from the warm Pacific ocean. Shutting down the entirety of human industry will make hardly a dent in the CO2 in our atmosphere.
This is stupidity on steroids.
Dr. Tim Ball showed in his 2016 handbook for the layman that the motives of the monsters pushing this fraud are threefold:
A vast depopulation.
De-industrialisation.
A World Totalitarian Govt.
Book: Human Caused Global Warming The Biggest Deception In History
An easy weekend must-read.
A feudal future of Lords & just enough serfs to service them.
Dr. Tim names, among others, George Soros & the Rockefellers as chief among the multi-billionaires pushing this fraud.
JD.
To quit Private Frazer, we’re doomed
We haven’t got a ‘climate’’ Trump
Good posting, Eric, and I am horrified to see my genetic source spiraling into a delusional status. For instance, “carbon pricing” in England against a surge in coal-fired electricity generating plants in China? Who is the winner in that deal? The addition of bike paths has led to more bike-vehicle interactions of the negative sort, and the loser always seems to be the biker. Work from home? I’m a geologist and the saying in my business is “if you want to know the truth you must go to the field and see it”. This even applies to offshore black gold geologists as they need to visit type sections to understand what the geophysics and sequence stratigraphy are trying to tell them. Covid-19 is added to BLM riots in the USA, then blended with Climate Change into one Grand Unified Theory about how only Socialism can save us. Huh? I should pour something in my morning coffee to help me through the day. Stay sane and safe.
I’m pretty sure geology will be on the banned list, extractive industries bad you know. The handful of greens who are math literate avoid the question of where they will source the insane quantities of refined materials needed for solar panels and wind turbines if there are no extractive industries.
But Ron, there’s no need for geologists in the glorious carbon adverse feudal utopia that is being birthed. It will be sunny days, simple homespun sackcloth, no need for bathing, who needs any medical intervention, grow your own barley utter chaotic bliss!
Don’t worry, won’t be long before everyone is calling it Santa Covid. (Do you believe in Santa?)
Here is a scene from the near future:
Picture a small house, snow flakes drift down, it’s Yule. Pasted on the front door, we see an impending eviction notice. The camera moves inside. There is no food on the table, all possessions have been sold, the house is bare. On a broken couch what could be three small children huddle under a thin blanket, there are sounds of whimpering. Husband Joe pulls on his threadbare coat against the winter chill and says, “…Honey, I’m just going to have to go out and find some work somehow. We can’t go on like this…”
His loving wife draws closer to his forlorn figure and says, “Oh Darling, you haven’t eaten for days, you are so brave. But what about COVID-19?”
He tenderly embraces her and looks into her moistening eyes as the violins swell in the background and he says,
“F* COVID-19”
And that’s how it’s going to go, folks. The sooner we get there the better because that’s when we will move on from Orwell’s flu.
Dear Ecomentalists, FOAD!
Aside from their being no climate crisis, the UK is not even remotely contributing to rising CO2. As noted in the BP energy report flagged here yesterday, CO2 emissions have only risen in developing countries since the late 1970s. The developed world has been a non-contributor to rising CO2 for 40 years and is now only responsible 1/3 of global emissions.
All of which raises the question as to why the developing countries that make up 65% of emissions and are the only group of countries that have been increasing emissions for 40 years, are all exempt from binding cuts and penalties under the climate agreements and therefore continue onward and upwards ?. Of course all readers here know the answer to this question, but it’s never discussed in any MSM run climate change discussion. The very notion that further reducing the small emissions of the UK can make any difference to global CO2 , of which the developing countries add several times the UK’s contribution to the global emissions total each year, is a joke. The worse part of this sick joke is that the entire CC alarmist community knows exactly where the emissions growth is coming from, but deliberately obfuscates the truth for political gain, and all the while supported by indoctrinated politicians intent on helping destory the free world.
Cycling and walking to work, doesn’t it rain nearly every other day in Britain?
Soggy brits with footrot, excellent.
Back in 1963 in my gap year I bicycled 9 miles to a job in a chemistry lab.
Apart from the wind always seeming to blow in your face and the winter weather being mostly rain or snow or both, one arrived at work needing a shower and fresh set of clothes.
The past months since lockdown have been mostly dry and sunny, with only light winds most of the time.
If the weather had been like the previous two months then I think there would not have been much incentive to walk or cycle to work.
Meanwhile if the CCC want the UK to transfer to electric vehicles, then the government needs to build up strategic stocks of lithium, cobalt, copper, neodymium etc, as stated in a letter from the Natural History Museum to the CCC, the amounts needed will command most of the world’s production for some significant time. ( Buy now before prices go through the roof!)
Boris has caved. Goodbye Boris in 2024, or sooner. Trouble is he has an 80 seat majority and can do what he pleases. I found out recently that another Tory, Heath, abrogated political power of the UK to the EU in 1971/2, so it was a done deal even before 1973 and 1975.
Presumably this is John Gummer aka Lord Debben’s “Committee for Climate Change” who are making this ludicrous recommendation.
Follow the money……….there are several reported conflicts of interest between the committee members’ investments and sensible energy policy for the beleaguered UK.
The smell of corruption is strong in this committee.
The big problem in the UK is, there is no political party, apart from UKIP (who don’t have any chance of being elected) who have any different proposals. They are all green-washed. The so called conservative government who want to adopt these draconian ideas are de facto socialists.
The facts are, the UK has had no increase or decrease outside natural variation in temperature, pressure, dew point, RH, wind speed, sunshine, rainfall or rainfall duration for 22 years. The relationship between that well known gas CO2 has a slightly negative correlation with temperature. https://www.weather-research.com/weather-and-climate
Why do these people want to destory my country, and why are the MSM promoting this nonsense?
I did a lot of door knocking in the UK. The UK people don’t give up easily, that iron headed determination which built the British empire is still there. But the problem with determination is when a determined person is utterly, irredeemably wrong about something, determination can be a curse; they don’t know when to stop digging.
Field Marshall Montgomery used to classify his officers as being enthusiastic or lazy, clever or idiotic.
He said the best officers were the clever, lazy ones, and the most dangerous were the enthusiastic idiots.
Unlike Patton who wanted his officers to be like mad dogs.
I am intrigued! May I ask for what party or cause?
True of older generations but the UK gimme generation are too indoctrinated to even understand there are different views
“Why do these people want to destory my country, and why are the MSM promoting this nonsense?”
Those people and the MSM are one and the same. They have the same politics and the same destructive goals.
The MSM are not neutral arbiters, they have a leftwing political agenda. That applies to the MSM in all the Western Democracies. They are all in the Leftwing tank. They all serve as propaganda organs for the Left.
The Left would be nothing without their Propaganda Organ. It’s what they use to brainwash people into believing in the False Reality the Left promotes.
“destory” — dehistory is nearer the mark!
Your analysis is spot on. At the ballot box we can choose from mauve socialists (blue + red), scarlet socialists (red + red ) and orange socialists (yellow + red). And they all genuflect before the greens.
The problem is that most people in the UK get their knowledge about climate change from the media and from school.
They are unaware of the case against the CO2 hypothesis.
So they believe that there isn’t a case.
Which means that they don’t have to listen to climate den1ers.
So they remain unaware of the case.
When some prominent figure says that climate change is real and happening now, the impression is given that this didn’t used to be the case – that the climate used to be stable before man started putting CO2 into the atmosphere. No prominent figure corrects this impression and places the current changes into correct historical context . So, for the average “Joe”, it’s only necessary to demonstrate that the climate is changing for the debate to be won by the establishment. Anyone on the other side of the debate must believe that the climate isn’t changing and, as this is demonstrably wrong, they can be dismissed as climate den1ers. It’s difficult to see how to break this roadblock to understanding, especially as the alarmists have an iron grip on the education system.
I comment from the UK. From a UK perspective, it seems to me that the most immediate practical problem is how we get rid of this foolish and vested ‘Committee on Climate Change’. It represents a shocking breach of democratic process. There are those within the current Conservative Government who have the sense to know that ‘climate change’ is a scam, and I still hope that there may be some with the courage and wit to do something about it. Boris Johnson was once editor of one of my regular weekly reads, the ‘Spectator’, which is one of the few important publications in the UK that has taken a fairly consistently skeptical line on the climate scam. Other previous editors of the paper have been either robustly skeptical (see for example Nigel Lawson, now the most public face of the Global Warming Policy Forum, and Charles Moore), or at least agnostic; the current editor, Frazer Nelson, has written frequently on the subject. I seem to remember that even Boris, in his pre-prime-ministerial days, was a skeptic. My hope is that as the climateers over-reach themselves further and further, it will become a political and electoral relief to call out their stupidity. Surely Dominic Cummings must know that the green stuff, at least as it concerns the climate, is, as the previous prime minister David Cameron had it, ‘crap’
Sit back and munch your popcorn. Oh, and it will be hell for the poor people of the UK, but at least they can console themselves that they are paying an indulgence to make up for all that “white privilege”.
“It’s there for the taking” – their money ” it’s there for the taking”-Higher taxes,more control,thou shalt, thou shalt not, “it’s there for the taking”
I want all of these people that believe the world would be better by restricting travel and shoot them back in time to say the Middle Ages. Lets see if they can survive 24 hours in any century besides the 19th or 20th century. Send them back to any time up to Victorian and see if they can survive what they are proposing.
The way forward is not by looking backward.
Walking and biking are great, not going to say they aren’t, but as a means of predominant travel in today’s world? I want to see them lug 2 gallons of milk 20 blocks in the summer and winter or try to ride their bike with enough groceries to feed kids for a week and see how far they’d get.
This is nothing more than the privileged mind running amok. Absolute rubbish! Just because they enjoy fast internet, grocery delivery (oh that would go bye bye too without cars), and other amenities of a modern world does not mean that everyone has that advantage.
We don’t even need to build a time machine—just send them to a place where all their “free” energy ideas are pushed onto people that have no electricity, no cars, and still have to haul their water every single day–and worry about it being clean.
Just send them to North Korea. That’s worse than the Dark Ages.
Or to rural parts of South Africa, where in 26 years the ANC government has still failed to supply clean water. Mind you, they DO have cellphones – but where to charge them?
The control freak left never lets any good disaster go to waste
Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” The corollary to this is, “We need to create some more serious crisis to abuse our opponents.”
Thus, global warming lies, Russian collusion lies, Covid 19 lies, ect., ect.
You think Conservative Lord Deben and engineer Baroness Brown are the “control freak left”?
Where does Ghengis Khan fit on your spectrum?
We’re in the middle of another Stanford experiment.
“Armed police check holiday let”. (BBC regions/cornwall).
If you’re in the UK and you haven’t already, sign the petition at:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300316
I would also recommend you email your MP expressing your concerns about committing economic suicide in pursuit of unicorns. I did so a couple of months ago and referenced a few articles here and at the GWPF, he replied saying he would read them “with interest”. I’ve not heard anything from him since, but at least I have let my views be known and he can’t claim that he’s not aware of differing opinions on “the science”.
Signed!
Thanks RHS – petition duly signed.
Eric
There are millions of Brits just waiting for the chance to cycle 40 miles to work, up and down hills in the cold, wet and dark. Millions of them. Probably tens of millions just itching to make the sacrifice for a climate we have so little impact on as our co2 emissions anyway are trifling.
I think they need to be speaking to China
tonyb
The problem is in a way millions of Britons do think they want this, otherwise they wouldn’t keep voting for politicians who push for it.
The problem is, like in Australia, it does not matter who you vote for the path is set.
Exactly-All the parties merely offer clothes that are the same shade of green
They want it for everyone else. Most people believe that an exception will be made for them.
Which party could they vote for which doesn’t support this nonsense and has any chance of winning an election?
UK Government: “we must seize the opportunity to make the COVID-19 recovery a defining moment in tackling the climate crisis”
Here is the Political Science lesson for today. The Committee on Climate Change are not the UK Government. They are not even part of the Government. The Government consists of the Prime Ministers and all the ministers he appoints (via the Queen). It is otherwise known as the Executive. Parliament is the Legislature. In the UK the members of the Government must be members of the Parliament (Commons or Lords) but the Executive is not the same thing as the Parliament, let alone a Committee of Parliament. Furthermore, the CCC is not even a Committee of either House of Parliament. It is far from being the UK Government.
The Committee on Climate Change is a statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008. This is the legislation which obliges the UK to commit economic suicide by, amongst other things, wrecking the energy generation capability of the country.
The government is bound by the Climate Change Act to achieve certain stated emissions reduction targets and the Committee on Climate Change advises them how to do it and monitors progress. The Committee is very much more than a lobby group. It is difficult to see how the government could ignore their advice. Of course, the ideal solution would be to repeal the Climate Change Act. Instead, we are more likely to see the Pigs (Flying Backwards in Formation) Regulations 2020.
Seizing the opportunity in South Australia-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/big-tesla-battery-expansion-set-to-go-online-within-weeks-boosting-power-output-by-50-per-cent/ar-BB15Xfyn
The first battery cost AUD $90 million and taxpayers are chipping in $23 million to double it despite us being told what a ripper return the first lot got us?
As they say-
“We’re learning not only technically how it works, but financially how it works so in the future the people making these investments will get an understanding of whether they can make enough money to make the investment worthwhile,” [how much graft the pals need to make it completely risk free]
No worries if you’re getting handouts like that and here’s how it works-
“By combining a battery with a wind farm, when the price in the market is very low because there’s a lot of supply and not a lot of demand, rather than keeping the price very low what you could do is store some of the electricity for when the price is higher.”
You can see the fallacy of composition that comprehensive wind and batteries couldn’t all cream off the top like that but the secret is to hop in for your chop early providing FCAS. Nothing like getting paid handsomely to dig holes and fill them in again.
Translation: “Here’s something we can shamelessly exploit.”
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have internet access. Thanks to the so called “renewable” energy, you won’t be able to afford the electricity needed to run your computer. If there is any available electricity in the first place.
So do we start calling UK residents crash test dummies of the new green society?
Where Newton stood on the shoulder of giants, climate “scientists” stand on the piles of COVID dead.
This quote from H.L. Mencken has probably already been repeated many times. But in light of this post about the U.K. govt’s plans to address the climate alarmist narrative, the quote bears repeating yet again:
“..The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary…”
–H. L. Mencken
With Brainless Boris in charge nothing is too stupid or too ridiculous
Sorry to say that mental virus has spread across the pond. And China wins again while watching the fallout from a great distance.
So, to sum up, they want to take the would-be recovery, beat, thrash, and torture it, then tie rocks to it and sink it in the ocean.
Good plan.
“we must seize the opportunity to make the COVID-19 recovery a defining moment in tackling the climate crisis”
Yes, and how is a country which does 1% of global emissions going to do that?
By sacrificing their children to Moloch, obviously.
“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind” ― Robert Oxton Bolton
The sort of thing I am reading here, is why I left the UK in the firstplace.
Watching my suspicions being acted out, makes me have some sort of wry satisfaction I was right all along, but unable or unwilling to watch the train crash without whincing.
I can see it starting to happen in my own back yard as well.
I honestly thought with USSR memories too fresh in minds, they might be cured of this illness, but sadly apart from Poland and one or two others…..well they even forced us to adopt the EURO and close Ignalina…
WFH was a novelty, but many I speak to are now sick of it, for some it has affected their mental & physical health for the worse, team bonding varies but again novelty has now disappeared; if companies start using it to save office running costs it may well unknowingly (at first) affect their long-term business performance.
Also it depends on motivation, those who live further away from place of work obviously & initially see a benefit to save a few hours travel, some admit they sleep more, but the end up groggy & performance has dwindled. Personally prefer a half-way house, go into office occasionally at least once a week, or for important team reviews/meetings, or as I originally suggested a few years ago to local UK MP before this Covid-19 scenario occurred divide week so surnames beginning A-E Mondays, F to J Tuesdays, K to O Wednesdays, P to T Thursdays, U to Z Fridays WFH (or now flip to go in office)?
Certainly for my job most can be done at Home for now, but contacting colleagues is harder & some don’t reply to email chasers, when we could have walked up to their desk & asked a question, pointed to the screen, I’ve had many I.T./laptop issues and many I talk to are now working longer hours & not at all saving time; HR I suspect are totally unaware of this, and could be a proverbial ticking time-bomb.
The company I work for did a survey, but that was to determine who can WFH (not who wants to).
All this is NOT to save CO2 emissions (the good output of FF burning) but to reduce real pollution and road congestion.
As with all generalisations they don’t work for all situations, just an idea for discussion or pondering….