Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; According to More In Common, the British expect “rocketing bills” will trigger misery, hardship, crime, and social unrest. But they blame energy company greed rather than Government Net Zero policies.
I PREDICT A RIOT
Worried Brits expect cost of living crisis to spark crime wave, deaths and riots
Jonathan Reilly
Kate Ferguson
21:01, 31 Jul 2022
Updated: 23:49, 31 Jul 2022WORRIED Brits expect the brutal cost of living crisis to spark a crime wave, deaths and riots, a shock poll reveals.
Families fear rocketing bills will plunge the country into misery and unrest.
Some 70 per cent of the public expect many to refuse to pay energy bills, 80 per cent expect more shoplifting and 51 per cent think riots will take place.
And three in four expect people will die of the cold this winter, unable to afford heating.
More than half of those polled (51 per cent) say energy and oil firms are to blame for the hike in costs — a day after Shell and British Gas reported record profits.
Nearly nine in ten (88 per cent) are worried the cost of living will directly impact their everyday lives.
…
Read more: https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/19379752/cost-living-riots-crime-poll-reveals/
Reporting record profits in the midst of energy bill misery is not a good look. But Brits are blaming the wrong people – British government policy is the real culprit behind the spiralling cost of living.
There is plenty the government could do, right now, to alleviate British energy bill misery. For example, WUWT has repeatedly reported on Caudrilla CEO Francis Egan’s dogged effort to bring cheap Lancashire shale gas to the people of Britain, and the British government’s refusal to issue permits and repeated threats to permanently shut him down.
Even small acts of mitigation were too much for the BoJo administration. The British Government has so far refused to cancel Britain’s green levy, which adds an estimated £153 / year to everyone’s electricity bills.
A year ago the British Cabinet actually discussed extending the green levy. According to Bloomberg Chancellor Rishi Sunak pushed to extend the green levy to Gasoline, but was blocked by the British Cabinet. Rishi Sunak is one of two final round candidates in the race to replace outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
I have hopes for Sunak’s opponent, Liz Truss, who has promised to scrap the green levy.
Until the British people wake up and hold the right people accountable for their pain, and demand solutions which address the real problems, there will be no resolution.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Net Zero is a tax on energy, production, delivery, and sales.
That billions in money your government(s) have taken from us to fund green policies, here’s our payoff.
Their payoff… no public or government agency is going to hold them accountable.
‘I have hopes for Sunak’s opponent, Liz Truss, who has promised to scrap the green levy’
Well, no actually: she promised to pause it for some unspecified period.
Sunak wanted to extend the green levy to gasoline. None of the Tory candidates are who I would want running a country, but out of the two finalists, Liz seems slightly more rational when it comes to easing up on Net Zero.
Not sure that she’s particularly rational about anything.
Once you said SHE, the rest is implied.
BUT, women make the best terrorists, so if she can get in, she may terrorize the left and greens.
…all in the dark of course
Cold showers, no lights: Europe saves as Russian gas wanes | AP News
It will be those that are used to a much warmer climate that will feel it most
hopefully theyll go back home and drop consumption and handouts quite a bit
Actually it is the action of individuals who expect government to fix things. If individuals felt strongly about the demon CO2 they would stop consuming just about everything. They would descend into a miserable existence, which is now in progress for the majority of people in the UK.
If you voted for any of the major parties at the last election you are getting what you voted for.
Unfortunately the British people and socialists in general have been indoctrinated to believe that the free market is evil and that government is good, pretty much since birth.
Let them suffer, same here in Australia and Germany.
people have to experience. Pain to change.
True it does seem that way 🙂
We’re all socialists?
We think we have a right wing populist government!
‘We’ do not think any such thing – you’re on your own there Griffy. It’s neither right wing nor populist – the only reason it got elected was that the alternative choices were truly appalling to contemplate.
No, YOU think we have a right-wing government, but when you’re left of Karl Marx, everyone is a right-winger
My understanding of the UK is that people are unhappy with Government policy. The Governing Conservatives are losing by-election seats that have been Conservative for generations.
Is the alternative better? Possibly with Johnson gone no, but there are simply too many snouts at the Renewables trough for Gov to change.
I expect the Conservatives to face a near wipe out ant the next election.
Same thing happening in Australia. Both major parties, including the Government, face extinction within a few years if they don’t start listening to the voters. Opinion based on primary votes.
There is no-one else to vote for. All three main parties Conservative, Labour and LibDem signed (yes – SIGNED!) a pledge in 2015 on climate change policies.
Cameron, Clegg and Miliband sign joint climate pledge | Climate crisis | The Guardian
All MPs have put climate change legislation through parliament without dissent – climate change act 2008 only had 5 votes against it. They are stupid beyond belief.
My own Conservative MP actually replied to me “we must take action quickly to reduce GSAT [global surface average temperature], something the government is committed to doing through its commitment to net-zero and a green agenda”.
I replied by pointing out that if the UK ceased to exist in 2012, by 2050 using the same models predicting thermageddon, the impact on global temperature would be 0.006 degC, an unmeasurable change and less than the atmospheric lapse rate from surface to 1m.
They are unhappy because the PM lied… a lot. Some are unhappy because of Brexit. Some are unhappy over govt allowing building in ‘green belt’ (a sort of barrier no build zone around existing built up areas, for you Americans). Everyone is unhappy about energy prices.
The left can’t be unhappy abut energy prices, but they don’t want to show how happy they are.
The left hate poor people. That is why, like you, they want to spend trillions on unreliable generation that requires 100% backup.
They should fear, the idiotic “elites” over there purposeful destroyed their own country!
If we follow the steps of Sri Lanka … dont expect diferent results: misery, poverty and death.
Add fear of market clearing and the IMF to the list….
IMF tell Europe to let consumers bear the brunt of higher energy bills (cnbc.com)
Soaring bills entirely because of natural gas prices.
Given the wholesale price driven up by gas is now higher than their ‘strike price’, many UK renewables sites are actually paying money back…
Natural gas prices high because the left has stopped all drilling in the UK.
Why the hate of the poor, and the working middle class.
You are right that the immediate cause is a rise in gas prices, and this is in large part due to the Ukraine war. So you may be tempted to think there is nothing to see in the way of green and renewable programs, time to move on.
You’d be wrong. The reason is that the role of gas has changed because of an energy policy that is directed at the futile and useless goal of getting Britain to Net Zero.
The rise in gas prices has occurred in a situation in which coal has been taken out of the generating mix, and in which hugely expensive and unreliable wind and solar have been substituted. Backed up by… gas.
You have to plan the energy policy of the country. Germany, for instance, planned to move to large scale dependence on Russian gas, and close down its coal fired and nuclear generation. It is wrong to say that the only problem Germany has is a rise in the price of gas and a looming shortage of it. And that the Energiewende has nothing to do with either.
The Energiewende is the reason why the price rise and the shortage will have such a catastrophic effect on Germany this winter. Yes, strictly speaking, in the short term the immediate cause of the disaster is the price rise and the shortage. But the reason they are so disastrous is the overall policy framework.
Exactly the same thing applies to the UK. The only sensible solution to the UK energy problem is to do two things. One is build more modern coal fired generation capacity. The second is invest in nuclear. One is long term, the other short term. In the short term, its going to be either coal or rationing.
This winter, household heating bills for the 85% of the country that is heated by gas are going to rise enormously – by about 4 times compared to pre-crisis levels. But the reason this is going to have such bad effects are that all the money that could have been available to mitigate it has been squandered on the idiotic renewables program. And the country, in its crazed quest to get away from fossil fuels (while having no meaningful alternatives) has closed down its coal fired power stations AND its gas storage, thus rendering itself dependent on the spot gas market.
The other thing the UK should do is reverse its push for renewables. Abolish contracts for difference, abolish the compulsory purchase obligation, abolish the renewable levy on electricity bills. If wind is still competitive in a totally deregulated market, fine, let people build it. None will. Simply follow the Chinese example, reverse the whole nonsense, and build out as quickly as possible modern high efficiency high temperature coal fired generation. Then, over a ten or fifteen year period, plan on supplementing this will nuclear.
This is not going away, and its not going to be solved by any amount of wind. And Net Zero is going to end. The only question is how messy its going to be before a reversal is forced.
I don’t expect riots. It will be fairly cold, and getting colder, when the pain of the price rises makes itself felt. But there will be a very long cold winter, and it is highly likely that, when the usual blocking high comes and wind falls to very little and solar to almost nothing, there will be blackouts.
The problem is that 85% of households in the UK are on gas heating. Gas is very difficult to cut off because of the problem of restarting it safely. So it will be business gas use that will be cut. When it comes to electricity power cuts however, they will be regional.
People are going to die this winter in England in pursuit of saving the planet by getting the country to Net Zero. It could all have been avoided by having a sensible grid with modern coal fired power stations. But idiot politicians bent on grandstanding…
And yes, as someone below points out, if Britain ceased to exist and took all its emissions with it, it would make no difference to global temps.
Liz Truss will have the peculiar distinction of taking office as prime minister of Great Britain, and then leaving office as prime minister of England.
Only really need to get rid of Scotland to get to a conservative Parliament.