Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Griff; Greens claim they don’t want to take all the credit for the rise of European climate activist politicians; they believe the unfolding global climate catastrophe has provided its own momentum.
Greens grow in Europe, but politicians can’t take all the credit
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Thu 10 Sep 2020 14.00 AESTThe Greens swept to their best-ever results in the 2019 European elections. Winning nearly 10% of seats, the group were billed as kingmakers in a more fragmented European parliament, as the two largest groups, the centre-right and centre-left, saw their decades-old dominance collapse.
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But even the staunchest Green politician does not try to grab the credit. The green cause has been lifted by growing awareness of the unfolding climate emergency, as well as the school strike movement led by Greta Thunberg.
“We have a [European] commission that at least has green ambitions like no other commission before,” said Philippe Lamberts, co-president of the Greens in the European parliament.
“We are strong in the European parliament but don’t overdo it,” he added. “With 10% you get influence, but they can still decide to govern without you and that is what they basically did.” Despite being wooed with the European Green Deal, the Greens declined to support the commission led by centre-right Ursula von der Leyen.
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Despite these green shoots, the party is “still very much a north-western phenomenon”, said Pascal LeTendre-Hanns, who monitors European politics at Hanbury Strategy. “In southern Europe the focus has been so much on the economy and jobs, it has been hard for green parties to get much of a foothold,” he said, adding these countries lack “the historical legacy of anti-nuclear movements that helped push the Greens” elsewhere.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/10/greens-grow-in-europe-but-politicians-cant-take-all-the-credit
The fundamental problem with green victories is none of their ideas actually work. Sooner or later their fixation on ideology over pragmatism leads to green politicians breaking something important, like the stability and affordability of the local electricity grid.
Having said that, the inevitable failure of green political movements does nothing to mitigate the harm they cause while they are in the driving seat.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully support the right of voters to make a mistake. Sometimes people have to learn the hard way, that focussing on the “economy and jobs” is actually kindof important.
“The green cause has been lifted by growing awareness of the unfolding climate emergency”
Relentless unscientific fear mongering is what causes people to buy into that false narrative. The average Joe doesn’t have a frame of reference to understand complex atmospheric dynamics so continuous lies are accepted as truth.
Gyan1,
Weather and atmospheric dynamics are irrelevant, as they have no bearing on what the new steady state will be and only affect the path taken to get there. The chaos is in the path, not the endpoint, where the endpoint is a first order consequence of COE.
The bulk radiant behavior of the planet is simple and predictable. The unambiguous emissions sensitivity of the surface to forcing is 1.62 W/m^2 of surface emissions per W/m^2 of forcing and is a value that has remained unchanged since it was possible to measure and even monthly averages vary little from pole to pole. It’s also recently become clear to me that it’s the chaos in the path that drives this ratio to be within 0.5% of the golden ratio.
All Joules are the same relative to the work required to sustain the steady state temperature which is all that matters in the steady state. THERE”S NO POSSIBLE WAY FOR THE CLIMATE SYSTEM TO TELL THE NEXT W/m^2 FROM THE AVERAGE W/m^2. The ‘consensus’ claim that it will increase surface emissions by 4.4 W/m^2 (0.8C), rather than 1.62 W/m^2 (0.3C) is so wrong, it should be embarrassing to whoever came up with it, especially if they were an actual scientist.
The problem is that the true sensitivity is no where near large enough to justify the IPCC, UNFCCC and climate alarmism in general. So, they pile on complications to try to make a case that it’s too complicated to be that simple in order to fool people into thinking that their nonsense sounds plausible.
You make good points here Gyan.
A bit missing though is how the original 1.6 Watts/sq.m was calculated; for to do that the Planck coefficient of sensitivity would have needed to be known and where did that come from? It all gets a bit circular methinks.
There are a number of similar questions that need to be answered in the IPCC logical route to its pronouncements. For instance where do you put this 1.6 watts/sq.m into the Stefan- Boltzmann equation? You can’t add it to the insolation as that would assume that CO2 on earth somehow influenced the sun.
I suspect that the principle of Ceteris Paribus attached to all equations is getting lost somewhere along the thinking
The 1.62 W/m^2 of radiant emissions per W/m^2 of forcing is trivially calculated. There are 240 W/m^2 arriving from the Sun and about 390 W/m^2 emitted by the surface consequential to its average temperature of about 288K. 390/240 = 1.625. Each of the 240 W/m^2 from the SUN contributes equally to the surface emissions. The next W/m^2 can only increase those emissions by the same amount as contributed by any other W/m^2. Note that this ratio is after all things characterized as feedback have already had their entire effect on all 240 W/m^2 of solar input. Even what’s mis-characterized as feedback can’t tell W/m^2 apart either!
Trenberth did a great disservice by bundling non radiant energy (latent heat, thermals) into the RADIANT balance. These, plus their offset to the surface have already had their net effect on the average temperature and its BB emissions. To the extent that a Joule originating from latent heat is radiated into space, a Joule emitted by the surface that would have otherwise been radiated unto space must be radiated back to the surface to offset the lost latent heat. This is such a basic concept that so many seem horribly confused about and I blame Trenberth’s highly misleading energy balance diagram.
@co2isnotevil “ To the extent that a Joule originating from latent heat is radiated into space, a Joule emitted by the surface that would have otherwise been radiated unto space must be radiated back to the surface to offset the lost latent heat. ”
This is a problem with the concept of “back radiation” to cause EXTRA surface warming.
Let’s say a Joule is radiated back to the surface to cause warming. The atmosphere cannot tell up from down, so emits a Joule upwards. That’s 2 Joules to get one back. The warmed surface re-radiates the Joule it had received, but the atmosphere doesn’t have the 2 Joules it needs to send 1 Joule back down.
The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect is a perpetual motion machine.
Jordon,
Your logic is incorrect. There’s no perpetual motion. Energy is conserved at all times. The Joules returned to replace excess emissions are the surface Joules emitted in excess of those that leave the planet. As long as Joules are leaving the planet at the same rate they are arriving, there’s no perpetual motion. It’s not the same Joules being recirculated between the surface and atmosphere, but new Joules from the Sun that arrived at the surface some time in the recent past. This is why it cools during the night as there is no new energy entering the system. The separation of time between solar in, surface out, atmospheric absorption and the return to the surface is why there’s no perpetual motion. It’s a passive feedforward system, not an active feedback system.
Of course, the way the IPCC frames this as an emissions sensitivity greater than 2 W/m^2 of surface emissions per W/m^2 of forcing does require creating energy out of thin air. This extra energy comes from the power supply that’s assumed by Bode’s feedback analysis that was misapplied to the climate by Hansen and Schlesinger, but is otherwise not present in the climate system.
“I suspect that the principle of Ceteris Paribus attached to all equations is getting lost somewhere along the thinking”
Ceteris Paribus is actually how the thinking gets lost. There are thousands of variables in continuous flux regulating climate. All other things are never equal or static. Pretending they are is the foundation for false attribution and false conclusions.
“Weather and atmospheric dynamics are irrelevant”
They are relevant to the point I was making. “awareness of the climate emergency” is largely driven by the attribution of perfectly normal weather anomalies to human emissions. This displays complete ignorance about the complex atmospheric dynamics which create individual events.
You know that, I know that, but they don’t know that. They aren’t being purposely obtuse, they really believe their own sales pitch. CO2 is up over 45% since 1850 and essentially nothing has happened but they listen to Jennifer Rankin & Greta and believe that an unfolding global climate catastrophe is under way.
Ask them if they believe the world’s energy needs can be supplied the solar panels and wind “turbines” and they will give you an assertive “Yes!”
UK CO2 output is back down to 1880 levels, thanks to green policies… 42% drop since 1990.
wind output this year reached 59.9% of demand at one point (yes, it was low demand: but it was in August)
Collapsing energy production and manufacturing, of course you celebrate that.
I was thinking the same thing is Griff actually that stupid to not understand what is happening
He reads the Guardian so is in a parallel universe. When Mark Twain made his famous comment about newspapers and mis-information, he hadn’t bargained for dross like the Guardian – or what the once revered Manchester Guardian has become.
Yep the greens got to a massive 10% which is annoyance level and in response all the right will band together and get to the same level and then the fun really begins.
Yes wouldn’t it be great if the ~ 10% of people who support the alt-left agenda had a whole country to themselves (say Greenland), and the ~ 1% of people who support the alt-right agenda could also have a whole country to themselves (say Nth Korea), and then the rest of us could be left alone to pursue the things that actually make our lives more fulfilling.
Oh, and the fringe dweller-countries could harbor ALL the world’s current mainstream media.
The alt-left *does have a country all of their own. It’s called California. And their ideology is finally starting to bit them in the butt. Blackouts/brownouts, uncontrollable wildfires, rampant homelessness, a deteriorating tax base, and illegal aliens destroying the wage base.
Oregon and Washington are right behind them.
Give’em one more year. It will be even worse.
Also Venezuela and Cuba.
Try to remember, in whatever train wreck you’re watching, that many participants did not shape the event. There are something like 30-50% of Californians who didn’t want any of this, but we were outvoted by the tyranny of the (slight) majority.
That’s called Democracy.
That’s why I’m a California climate policy refugee.
Picture a giant majestic bull elephant, roaming the Serengeti Plains, stopping for a moment, his tail lifts, as he prepares to evacuate his bowels. And now picture a tiny little gnat, attracted to the area by the powerful odors emanating from that area, flying around the giant anus and thinking in his little gnat brain, drop it there, drop it there, and then, after the elephant is finished and slowly wanders off, the little gnat is hovering over the fresh pile, congratulating himself on how powerful he is to get the elephant to put it right where he commanded as he’s diving down on his dinner. That’s sort of how I think about the European Parliament. Bon appetit, gentlegnats.
Hat tip to an previous comment – Jordan wrote: “The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect is a perpetual motion machine.”
Thanks, Jordan, I needed to smile this morning.
“they believe the unfolding global climate catastrophe ” …
WHERE IS IT ?
In their dreams ?
But Bob, you just don’t understand. With all of the CO2, plants are taking over the earth, crowding us out of the green areas, and we will eventually be forced to spend years wandering in the deserts. All of the additional shade will cause global cooling, and bring on the next ice age. Al Gore’s next movie, to be called “Little Planet of Horrors,” will feature scenes of supertrees toppled by hurricane force winds and able to demolish tall buildings with a single crash. The greens, who are taking over education, will be sure that all the schoolchildren see it multiple times and receive lessons on how to minimize their breathing and not emit as much CO2.
Oregon? California? flooded China? Typhoon hit SE Asia? The US coast where the cat 4 hurricane hit? The arctic, where sea ice is at second lowest in the record (last year being third lowest)?
It is called weather, moron, you already know that.
It’s only weather when it doesn’t support the official state religion.
Bob,
Many years ago I lived in England, I was going into pub with a friend and had a copy of the Guardian in my hand he refused to go in, saying if I brought that paper into this pub we would both come out on streachers,
There’s an important historical context here. All western European nations had large, well established Communist parties in the 1980s and before. They all crashed down in ruins with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the massive economic failure of the Soviet Union.
All those Communists had to go somewhere. They all merged with and took over the various budding Green parties throughout Europe. It’s hardly a coincidence that all the Green Parties in Europe are all well left of centre.
Cgh
Britain has never had a large communist party indeed we have never had one on the extreme right either.
The east European countries who were formerly communist invariably tend to have the smallest green parties. It is Germany and holland who tend to be greenest .
Mind you I do agree the communists went somewhere and I think that,as in America, they began their long march through the institutions, notably education
Tonyb
Tony you are wrong.
The Communist Party of Great Britain financed a lavish tomb for that monster Karl Marx in London. Followers of Karl Marx including Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others murdered over 100 million of their own citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Karl_Marx
In comparison, the tomb of the brilliant and ethical Adam Smith in Edinburgh fell into disrepair until my friend Bob Lamond donated funds for its rehabilitation.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/adam-smiths-grave-gets-facelift-2512583
Tony, you had Oswald Mosely of the British Union of Fascists. I subscribe to the notion that there is no essential difference between socialisms; they all end in the same place. I would suggest that Britain approached communism with the government of Clement Attlee.
I agree with you entirely that they went into the halls of academia. When I was in university in the late 1970s, political science departments were riddled with communists; at least such was my impression.
Cgh
None of them ever gained power.
Alan
The financing came from communists all over the world, the British party never had a lot of money. Great to hear about Adam smith
TonybTony
Wrong. Clement Attlee was Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951. Do you need a list of the things he nationalized?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/29/hilarious-climate-advocates-try-to-harness-trump-derangement-syndrome-for-profit/#comment-2417440
[excerpt]]
I am reminded of Winston Churchill, who reportedly entered the men’s room at the House of Commons one day. He walked past his nemesis, Clement Attlee of the Labour Party, and unzipped at the distant end of a long line of urinals.
Attlee remarked “Feeling standoffish, are we Winston?”
Churchill growled back, “Well Clement, every time you Socialists see something big, you want to nationalize it!”
Quite a few of our trolls are still upset that some of the things Attlee nationalized aren’t still owned by the government.
In France the communist party was essentially the enemy of the ecoloons on the left. Now the commies are full climate alarmists, against international plane travel (except when they spend a week in NY), for most of the “green” ideas, against pesticides, etc.
When is the point that the people wake up and realize the “green revolution” has brought nothing but harm and broken promises? How many ‘catastrophes’ must come and go with no harmful results? People aren’t that stupid that this scam can go on forever without coming to fruition. And how long will it take for the people to understand that the country with the largest population isn’t contributing to reduce the scam but in fact is taking advantage of it to make it worse by their measurements?
The problem is that once the left gets into power, they re-write the rules in order to make any opposition to their power illegal.
Hmmm… the right is in power in the UK and is relentlessly pursuing green issues… also it seems to be writing law to break international law – an interesting development
International law which was created specifically to subjugate anyone who does not accept your leftist crap. Catch 22. Look it up, moron.
We are all cheering you on Griff you go save the world mate and when it all ends in tears don’t come crying to us. There is simply no compelling reason to change anything at the moment and nothing to be gained from the risk.
ROTFLMFAO Only would a Guardian reader claim that the right is in power in the UK. The buffoon Johnson is a centre-left metropolitan liberal and the majority of the party are all the same and would have been right at home in Blair’s Labour. The trouble is so many still think that the Blue Labour party is conservative – haven’t been since the slime Major took over – and so keep supporting and voting for this dead carcass of a party.
I am always fascinated how communists actually believe that anyone who isn’t a communist is some form of rightist.
Got to admit that ”centre right Ursula von de leyen ” line gave me a good chucle….
They are so far left that even the left are centre right to them, funny stuff…
Normally i just find them disgusting, but that was funny.
“Don’t overdo it” or you might get tagged with a policy fail with real impact, unlike modeled impact.
In the uk we have 650 parliamentary seats. Only one is held by the Greens. That is Brighton.
Perhaps Griff lives there as he does seem very keen on the climate although when the rest of us post facts to refute them he seems to disappear from the thread
Tonyb
And where is Comrade Griff … I thought he would be on this post like flies on sh!t.
I know that this is off topic but did anyone notice a small event at a cricket match between England and Australia last week. The Australian team refused to “Take a Knee” at the beginning of the match. Not a lot of publicity but a very significant event nonetheless.
Yes, I noticed that. They lost the series 2-1
Tonyb
Michael F, Well done to the Aussies.
In the mid sixties a young South African girl, Karen Muir, was breaking world swimming records. She was prevented by politics, cowardly politicians and activists from going to the Olympic Games and swimming for gold. She became a medical doctor and served people of all races in South Africa. Having watched her swim, I was saddened to learn of her cancer death at the age of 60.
Politics hurt many sportsmen and women in South Africa and continues to hurt a number of the best because sport is so highly politicized. The more politics is allowed to dictate to sport the more it will hurt sport. Activists do not care about allowing people to achieve through hard training and merit. They are obsessed with their ideology and have no shame in disparaging and hurting those who disagree with them. These activists are the same people who are obsessed with climate change and supporting the most harmful policies to achieve their goals – no matter how many people get hurt in the process.
Thanks to all the Aussies who want to put sport before politics and use it to build bridges.
Most ordinary Aussies I know are pretty undemonstrative characters, keep their feelings to themselves, instinctively dismiss gestures such as “taking a knee” as American schmaltz.
“The Australian team refused to “Take a Knee” at the beginning of the match. Not a lot of publicity but a very significant event nonetheless.”
I think a lot of significant things are going on with relation to kneeling.
It appears to me that most of the members of the U.S. National Football League have gotten the message. The message being to separate the protests over racial inequality from the U.S. National Anthem and the Flag
I’ve been watching the beginning of the NFL season this weekend and last Thursday, and there has been no wholesale kneeling from the players. One or a couple of players have been seen kneeling, but the rest of the players are standing.
I think the players realize kneeling is stepping on the message they really want to get out. As soon as they try to connect the racial problems to the U.S. National Anthem, a certain percentage of people are going to tune you out after that and are not going to get your message.
I can live with the protest statements and other things the players are doing to express themselves and as long as they continue the way they have done the last few days, I will be able to enjoy the football season. I can’t see penalizing myself and 99 percent of the players when only one or two guys kneel and the rest stand.
This may just work out for the best. 🙂
And to the former coach turned commentator who says it’s not about the Flag. I have to differ. It is most certainly about the Flag to a certain segment of the population. If you don’t want to alienate them, then do your protests without involving the National Anthem and the Flag.
Fortunately, it looks like that is what they are doing. So far, anyway.
Nope, till all this racist crap is gone I am not watching sports. Just because a bunch of white people are pissed off because they hate themselves does not mean I am going to accept any of their crapspew or watch/listen/read any of it. As for nfl, removed steelers decal from vehicles, done with their crap. Spit on my country athletes, actors, and other entertainers? Screw you, your done.
I understand your sentiment. I feel strongly about it, too. My point was the vast majority of players are not spitting on the Flag.
They are not stopping it, that is the point. When Colon Kapadick took a knee the first time the large, rather dark complexioned lineman to his left should have snatched him up by his nappy, culturally appropriated braids and put him on his feet. After the game the rest of the team should have GI showered his a$$ and made his mind right, as Revs Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are known to say. Colon is the very definition of “white privilege”, he is only black when it serves his purposes.
The nfl, mlb, nba, nhl and even nascar have all surrendered to this racist crap. They can have it, I will not. Ever.
The EU can’t meet its phony Paris scam emission reduction targets even though these targets meant nothing to global outcomes. Sounds like a “green@ celebration of failure.
“The green cause has been lifted by growing awareness of the unfolding climate emergency”
That is what the climate scare is for.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/23/anti-fossil-fuel-activism-disguised-as-climate-science/
Here are some of the European Greens big ideas at the moment:
– Nuclear disarmament.
The older ones were most certainly CND supporters back in the day.
– The abandonment of the Nord Stream 2 project.
This is the 1200 km Russian gas pipeline which is nearly at completion. It is on hold at the moment due to American sanctions. The Germans need it as a replacement energy because they’re shutting down their nuclear power plants by 2022. This is obviously a political hot potato.
– Turn the EIB into a climate change bank. (European Investment Bank)
They want at least 50% of the banks activities to be climate related, with any loans being highly conditional of decarbonisation, which will affect any transport or infrastructure sector deemed a polluter.
– Hydrogen
Yes, but only if it’s produced 100% by unreliables. No fossil fuel hydrogen production. In fact no fossil gas, no bio-methane, and no carbon capture and storage (CCS).
…….oh and electricity 100% Europe wide by unreliables, yes that means no to nuclear.
Can you make silicon for electronics without coal?
Can you make steel without coal?
Just asking!
Technically, another carbon source could be used.
Steel needs carbon as a key component of the metallurgy, however, and silicon manufacturing requires carbon in today’s process, though a more expensive alternative process could be developed.
… yeah, use diamonds …
Seen on climatedepot (Reuters):
Added to the UK parliament, thirty free chest women with a banner reading “Can’t bare the truth?”.
Not sure what those words really mean.
Someone in the 1930s burned the Reichstag, now a more peaceful overtake of Parliament by sparsely closed, but painted women.
I have never objected to women going topless to protest about whatever it was they were saying…
Depends on the woman.
Yeah, but on cold days Eric, you’d get their points.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/as-green-energy-flounders-environmentalists-embrace-nuclear/
Don’t trust a Green or it’s voter.
“Greens claim they don’t want to take all the credit” No, they don’t want that Tar Baby smeared all over them, as they stand there with Tar Baby smeared all over them. Moronic leftards simply being moronic leftards. For the intentionally dense, the watermellons already see the political backlash against their moronic leftardism, they are desperately trying to put the blame on the people who have opposed their leftarded moronicy since they moronically trotted it out. Since they have the moronic media to tell their lies they think this will work. Wrong. Their target audience has already turned on them, their influence wanes, and they keep burning down the businesses and homes of black people, turning that demographic against them. The irony, it is sweet and delicious.
“Don’t get me wrong, I fully support the right of voters to make a mistake. Sometimes people have to learn the hard way”.
Can’t argue with you there. The US and UK provide ample evidence for that.
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
“the inevitable failure of green political movements”
I think you are dreaming, they have been around for nearly 30 years and although rarely get over 10% vote, the wealthy and inner city ‘progressives’ will continue to support them.
The rise of identity politics and brain dead University Marxists (many inside the Greens) will only fuel their support.
If we do not stand up to this madness then we only have ourselves and our apathy to blame when they become a serious political movement. Then we will find it all a bit too late.
I suspect it is already too late in Australia.
If you look at history it has always been like this. Fascism, pro-Soviet activism, Green activism. They rise, they gather academic cheerleaders, they mess up somehow, they fall. The secret IMO is to try to contain the scale of the mess.
The irony is that reducing the use of fossil fuels, which is agenda of many, will have no net effect on climate. The human contribution to planet warming is from WV which has been increasing at 1.5% per decade; mostly from irrigation. The WV increase has been faster than possible from feedback.
https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com
Remember that until the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in August 1968 (“the day that freedom died”) it was considered cool and humanistic to be a caring Communist amongst academics, union bigwigs, professors, manual workers, and left of centre politicians. The russkie tanks crushed that spirit and wrecked the image of the USSR as a happy smiling glorious hopeful place that was the coming future of all mankind. It was exposed as a nasty totalitarian state. The Kremlin then had to go underground to sow its influence, and did so by implementing various anti-West active measures campaigns focussed on the peace and environmental movements and also racial protests. Anything to cause friction in the West. Today’s Antifa, BLM, Greenpeace, etc have their roots in this 60s activism. The Kremlin also assisted all the terrorist groups, PLO, IRA, Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, all the Marxoid Africans, central Americans, etc. Also, very significantly, the influential Club of Rome was set up in 1968. A coincidence? I have my doubts. The Italian billionaire Agnelli clan was in deep with the Soviets/Russians and were amongst the founders of the Club. Very connected, hosting dinner parties with Kay Graham of the WaPo and Warren Buffett at their Upper East Side digs. Wasn’t their pad at 770 Park Avenue? There’s a duplex there listed today at $17.5 million. The Agnellis run their billions through a Dutch holding company for solid tax reasons. Of course if their car company Fiat needs a bailout, it’s the Italian government in Rome who are expected to cough up the cash. LOL.
The Agnellis also own the influential The Economist magazine, which pushes the climate change and green agenda ad nauseum in each and every issue.
Gotta watch these Italians… not having any natural resources or energy reserves of their own, they seem determined that we all have to share in a resources-scarce future and recycle our toothbrushes…
‘hat tip Griff’
y’all are welcome.
I routinely recommend Watts readers stay clear of the Guardian as it will get them unnecessarily het up – but I’m prepared to make the sacrifice of reading it for you.
(I mostly read it because its not paywalled like the Times…)
I read The Guardian most days Griff.
I find that the cartoons in my local rags are now so lame & sad they’re bordering on depressive.
So the only free place I can now reliably go to get my daily serve of chuckles is the good old Guardian.
(I do feel a bit guilty sometimes though, as I guffaw at an article and realize that it was actually meant to be a serious contribution to knowledge. But that’s only a momentary effect that soon passes.)
Macron closed the Fessenheim nuclear plant (2 PWR). (What Hollande proposed but managed to never do.)
The Greens were extatic, of course.