Essay by Eric Worrall
Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer’s election campaign decision to cancel a pledge to spend £28 billion per year on green projects has rocked the British political landscape.
Kuenssberg: Are the politics of climate change going out of fashion?
By Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
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Politics has fashions too – what’s in and out. It’s not so long ago that world leaders were jostling to be pictured with celebs like Leonardo diCaprio, Stella McCartney or Emma Watson at the huge COP26 climate conference in Glasgow where Boris Johnson played host.
Then, it was hip to be green – being at COP in 2021 was the political equivalent of the fashion week front row. But with Labour shrinking away from its big £28bn commitments this week, and the Conservatives shifting tack and rumoured to be dropping the so-called “boiler tax”, there’s no doubt trends have changed.
What’s different?
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took the first steps back in September. He didn’t junk the government’s green commitments but slowed the pace of existing plans.
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The leaderships of both main parties have moved, but there isn’t agreement among their ranks either. On the right of the Conservatives, there’s pressure on No 10 now to ditch the so called “boiler tax” – planned fines payable by boiler makers if they fail to hit targets for selling new heat pumps.
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In 2020 that was followed by another target to cut emissions by nearly 70% by 2030.
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One of those involved in the decision told me this week: “We thought it was the right thing to do but we understood we didn’t have all the answers. It was a bit like when JFK said we are going to land a man on the moon at the end of the decade. He had no idea how he’d do it but it was a clear ambition.”
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68261445
Has Britain truly wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on useless green projects, because a bunch of British politicians wanted to feel like JFK?
Getting green energy to work, if this is even possible, is a different order of problem to the moon landing.
I’m not in any sense dissing the moon landing, it was a remarkable feat, decades ahead of its time, which to date only one great nation has achieved. But from the outset of the moon landing project, there was a plausible technological path to success. There were huge engineering challenges to be overcome along the way, like how to prevent the rocket engine from melting during a burn which lasted minutes rather than seconds, and how to build a structure which was lightweight enough to maximise rocket efficiency, yet sturdy enough to survive a rapid ascent through the atmosphere and acceleration G-forces. But in a very real sense, the Saturn V rocket which carried men to the moon was a massively scaled up version of genius American inventor Robert Goddard’s original Liquid Fuel Rocket.
During his life, Goddard’s breakthrough and claims attracted both excitement and criticism. In 1969, the New York Times published a posthumous “correction” to their 1920 critique of Goddard’s claim that rockets could work in space. The 1920 NYT article claimed Goddard’s assertion that rockets could work in a space was absurd, because in space there is nothing to push against.
Goddard knew better. Quite apart from Goddard’s knowledge of physics, an area of expertise which was clearly in short supply in the offices of the New York Times, Goddard had already tested his rockets in a vacuum chamber, well before the NYT article was published.
My point is, even in 1920, Goddard knew his remarkable technological breakthrough provided a clear path to spaceflight.
No similar technological path to success exists for creating a renewable energy powered economy.
How do we store energy for months, or years, to stabilise an expensive, intermittent source of energy which collapses in Winter, just when we need it most? Nobody knows how to affordably stabilise renewable supplies. There isn’t even an affordable answer to time shifting renewable energy into the evening demand peak, without burning lots of fossil fuel in the “backup” generators.
Hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayer funds have been wasted by politicians who wanted to feel like JFK.
Is this desire to feel like JFK David Attenborough’s fault? I say this, because Attenborough has spent the last decade trying to convince people to back his renewable energy Apollo programme.
I don’t know for sure that it was Attenborough who put this idea of being like JFK into the minds of British politicians, but Attenborough’s influence in Britain cannot be overstated. I’m not sure how influential Attenborough is in the USA, but in Australia and Britain, anywhere within the BBC’s sphere of influence, watching Attenborough nature films was a staple of our childhood.
It has to be said Attenborough once had competition for our hearts. BBC presenter David Bellamy‘s nature films were also a staple of our childhood. I don’t know for sure what soured the BBC’s relationship with Bellamy, but Bellamy dropped out of sight after he publicly criticised the climate crisis narrative.
How will future historians make sense of this blunder?
I wish future historians luck, I can barely make sense of it. Trillions of taxpayer dollars and pounds have been committed to the green energy dead end. The politicians who committed that taxpayer cash are only now starting to wake up to the scale of their blunder.
Will British politicians have the courage to admit they made a mistake?
I hope British and other politicians find it in their hearts to do the right thing. These days it is easy to be cynical, but I believe this disastrous course of action was embraced by politicians who thought they were doing the right thing for Britain and the world. Keir Starmer’s sensible downgrade of climate action in his election manifesto is a glimmer of hope Starmer won’t be the socialist disaster many fear. One of the supporting pillars of the green economy push, the claim green investment would create a domestic manufacturing renaissance, is also in tatters. Green energy powered Britain cannot economically compete with the coal powered slave labour factories of Xinjiang, especially with China also controlling the supply and sale of critical minerals required for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines and high efficiency electric motors and generators.
Another factor contributing to this softening of political climate commitment might be the claim we have already breached 1.5C. I believe the claim we have already cross a threshold may turn out to be a massive propaganda mistake for the climate movement. Where are the promised climate disasters? Perhaps 1.5C will turn out to be an opportunity after all, an opportunity for everyone to come to their senses, and relegate climate change to its rightful place – a mildly beneficial long term change in the weather.
For anyone interested, The Smithsonian has a great writeup of Robert Goddard’s life and achievements.
“We thought it was the right thing to do but we understood we didn’t have all the answers” They didn’t ask anyone if it was the right thing to do, instead they vilified, demeaned, ridiculed, ostracized anyone who just wanted to talk about it and ask questions i.e. be scientific like real scientists and practical like real engineers. I have no time for them, even if they now see the error of their ways.
The BBC is one of the biggest pushers of climate change hysteria and the Net Zero nonsense. The BBC never misses an opportunity to stoke fear with their outrageous propaganda on pretty much every aspect of climate change, imminent environmental collapse, mass extinction, pandemics and anti-hydrocarbon rhetoric.
They long since gave up any presence of objectivity on these matters and for years have actively suppressed any debate or discussion because “the science is settled”! Every single day we are bombarded with their nonsensical doom-laden articles on the imminent collapse of the biosphere and their fanatical support of electric vehicles and “renewables”.
Their bias is painful to witness while all the time they pretend to be the purveyors of serious objective reporting. The BBC is a pale shadow of its former self and an embarrassment to the UK. It needs to be defunded.
And if you complain to the BBC asking them to correct an article linked to climate change, they simply ignore you.
I have an ongoing battle with the BBC over this article, which is pure propaganda.
Kenya’s Lake Baringo: Surviving hippo and crocodile attacks – BBC News
I’ve sent links to peer-reviewed papers showing they are wrong, but no, “environmentalists say…”, so the papers must be wrong.
It’s time the BBC were defunded
“… they simply ignore you….” You can no longer trust the BBC in anything.
Totally agree . .
I can’t forgive the British elite for sneering and belittling anyone who dared to question the CAGW narrative.
or that the non-vaccines vaccines are safe and effective
you can be sure not one of these climate alarmists would be spending one nickel of their own money
Totally agree . .
British politicians aside from being clueless non-. entities are generally over ambitious and under qualified – their ambitions are writing cheques that their abilities can’t honour.
So they won’t be admitting their errors and wastefulness any time soon.
You’d like to think that common sense would prevail but then sense isn’t common amongst the ruling non- entities.
Reform UK might just fix that – fingers crossed.
The rise of the reform party is almost certainly driving this shift
pollies want 2 things get elected and power (with perks like money from lobbyists )
The rise of Reform is unlikely to be having any effect on Labour’s policies. With Reform at 10 percent in the polls, Labour are 16-18 percent ahead of the Conservatives. All that Reform will do is to give Labour a bigger majority by helping Labour to win more seats from the Tories. As Reform’s main aim seems to be to give the Tories a thumping, a large Labour majority seems to be also what they want. Under our electoral system, Reform will win no seats on only 10 percent of the votes.
You are just as sad as the Tories who come on and plead ‘don’t vote Reform or Labour might win’. The response to which is ‘show us some conservative policies to get us to vote for you’. Deafening silence. And if you believe the polls will accurately reflect the election result then you have not been paying attention to the byelection votes. While the legacy media drone on about a ‘big swing to Labour’ staring you in the face is a static Labour vote or even a lower vote which to an intelligent person would tell you there is no great love for Kneeler Flip Flop Starmer and his party.
Is there any difference between Labour or the Tories ? What would Labour have done different the last 14 years?
I fear Reform on this as much as any of the other socialist parties. They want to nationalise energy in the UK. I remember the 3 day week of the 70s and sitting by candlelight. It will happen again soon whichever party wins the next election. It’s too late. The incumbents have destroyed our infrastructure and industry and imposed penury upon the populace. It’s not going to end well for the next government.
Bil, I too remember the three-day week. But, when reflecting on how our energy has been managed since Thatcher privatized everything, and how we’re no longer in control of our own energy supplies, I feel nationalising it is the only solution.
The point you make about the 70s, is a pertinent point. But perhaps you’d like to view this presentation by Lord Monckton, at Oxford University. The really significant bit comes about an hour in. What a dark horse he was! 😊
I’m afraid you’ll never convince me nationalisation isn’t one of the most evil things socialism has wrought. Thatcher did what she did because nationalised industries, and the unions, had brought the country to its knees.
Bil, they were nationalised before Labour got into power. Had they not been combined (especially electricity), we would’ve had a completely disjointed electrical system. As it was, when CEGB was broken up, those companies, had a ready-made infrastructure. And since then, we’ve seen those companies be taken over by foreign interests. And their main interest, has been to milk the UK, for their shareholders.
Aye, we disagree, but healthily.
BTW, did you see that Monckton video? The point you make about the unions, is more than it appeared.
Cheers
Turning anything over to the government is always the worst option.
BTW, lack of control over your energy sources has nothing to do with who owns the power plants that burn those energy sources.
Hmmm, would you be happy, with the Chinese building and running a nuclear plant?
In their nationalisation idea they are playing to an audience that think this would be a good thing but are not very bright. It will never happen because Reform would have to buy the companies from their owners otherwise it would be theft and the UK would collapse overnight as a market for outside investment. There is no finance available to pay for them so it is just a soundbite for the ignorant that is no worse than the things spouted by the Uniparty members.
They did it with the railways, and they’re doing it again.
It was a perfect storm of nationalisation and strong, militant unions. Whether we have the same ingredients for a repeat is arguable.
In due course, the Greenhouse Effect™ will evoke a similar chuckle. But right now the nonsense is spread so thick through the Government Class that it could take more than 100 years before it gets laughed at.
The sad part in all of this is that the space agency that bears Goddard’s name is the major promotor of the GHE fantasy. I wonder how Goddard would respond to his name being used to spread consensus science.
Further to the notion of something to push against. Anyone can do a little test to understand the physics of rocket propulsion.
Get a garden hose with a good nozzle and set the flow to full bore. You will sense it takes some force to restrain the hose. Now place the hose into a large bucket or tub of water and sense the reduction in force.
The entrained flow from the surrounding water actually reduces the thrust.
Look at jet skis, the nozzle ejects above the water line when they are planing. If they worked better thrusting against something, then the nozzle would be below the water level.
An even simpler way to understand Newtonian Physics: imagine you are holding a brick while wearing rollerskates. You throw the brick horizontally – what happens?
Obvious to everybody except a journalist.
Observe, theorise, test. Scientists and engineers have been doing this for millennia.
Does this include climate scientists?
Nope! They theorize, ignore all the real world observations they don’t like, and insist their supposedly “settled” (pseudo)science requires no testing since they have “consensus” (fashioned largely in a fictional manner and by shouting down all dissent).
What about atmospheric rivers on the way up, and solar winds when they get up there? Maybe a spinnaker-rocket would be just the ticket!.
Cheers,
Bill
it could take more than 100 years before it gets laughed at.
If only we still had ‘Yes, Minister’. However, I see that the BBC has removed an episode from its archives. The reason: it dealt with Israel. So maybe they wouldn’t allow an episode that laughed at Net Zero.
The British Parliament spent only 88 minutes discussing Net Zero. They spent more time discussing dangerous dogs.
I am ashamed to be British.
https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/britains-disastrous-path-net-zero-warning-the-us
And:
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/12/20/britains_net_zero_disaster_and_the_wind_power_scam_1000250.html
Please. Just Stop Net Zero. https://juststopnetzero.com/
David Tallboys
You can only hope that when sense returns, it hits with devastating force and lasting consequence.
UK still have farm to sell and offshore buyers willing to buy a slice. That slows the slide into banana republic. And relative to US, UK bottomed in 2022. Since then, a relative bounce as Bidenomics have gripped USA.
And it was implemented via statutory instrument not primary legislation.
Statutory instruments are the most common form of secondary (or delegated) legislation.
The power to make a statutory instrument is set out in an Act of Parliament and nearly always conferred on a Minister of the Crown. The Minister is then able to make law on the matters identified in the Act, and using the parliamentary procedure set out in the Act. SIs may follow affirmative or negative procedure, or have no procedure at all, but which to use is fixed by the Act.
Aye David, and without a vote
And the Office for Budget Responsibility used RCP 8.5 to back the Government line.
Meanwhile Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Management) was given a net zero mandate which it’s CEO, Johnathon Brearly says
“underlines that net zero is the best option, not only from a climate perspective, but to ensure a low cost energy future” and
“sends a clear message we must end our historic dependency on fossil fuels”
Stupidity rules supreme.
David Bellamy announced his conversion to skepticism during Richard Black’s primacy at the BBC.
Black made sure sceptics rarely appeared on the BBC
Yeah, that went really well for Bellamy.
I’d not seen that. Very sad to see a man I thought was the real deal, so easily exposed. I guess that’ what happens when scientists step outside their field. And I am talking DB here. Very sad. At 8.50 he showed he had done no research at all and yet he appeared totally unprepared on national TV.
Now watch your hero Gavin Schmidt run away:
Pathetic:
Schmidt was pathetic. Get over it.
Really tell me why?
Schmidt ran away. Get over it.
He did what he agreed to do. That’s not running away.
In that case, why didn’t he stay to put Roy Spencer in his place? It should have been so easy for him, no?
There isn’t a shred of evidence to support your belief that Spencer takes his positions because of politics.
Going the other way, Schmidt’s job wouldn’t even exist if the global warming scam were to go away.
“Going the other way, Schmidt’s job wouldn’t even exist if the global warming scam were to go away.”
But it’s not going away is it Mark. Last year the warmest (by a mile) on record. All the time that happens, there will and should be, a focus asking the question … why?
Here’s his book. It certainly helps to understand why a guy who acknowledges that mans influence is there, it isn’t a reason to do anything because hell… the free market fixes everything.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/fundanomics-the-free-market-simplified/
I see he also believes in Intelligent Design. Something I would have thought a logical scientist would struggle with, but apparently not.
”Last year the warmest (by a mile) on record.”
And still within the realms of natural variability after exiting the mini ice age in the mid 1800’s… but oh the alarmism.
So Aussiecol. Why are we exiting an ice age? The sun is going through a dimming phase at the moment, so it’s not the sun. What is it causing this exit?
Oh dear. Well at least Bellamy had a doctorate from the time that a doctorate meant something, which means that he could think. Outside his field of expertise? Why do you think that ‘climatologists’ are not ‘outside their field of expertise’? Most of them are dilettantes on matters of basic physics. And what about Attenborough then who was good at narrating spectacular films but never produced any scientific treatise.
There are over 200,000 glaciers in the world, Monbiot stated that 88 are being observed and 82 are shrinking – from that ridiculous sample he concluded that 94% of all glaciers are shrinking. Bellamy was correct – the vast majority of glaciers are in Antarctica and are growing – Monbiot is an idiot and he should be given more time on the tv, possibly his own channel, so his drooling idiocy can be used to discourage idiocy in others.
His brother, Roger, wouldn’t agree with you.
Translation: reality begins to bite politically, even in the UK.
JFK’s moon ideal produced a great deal of useful new technology along the way. So in a sense, money well spent.
Renewables, nothing yet. In a sense, money ill spent. Windmills been around for centuries, even before Don Quixote jousted them. Photovoltaic cells were around before Einstein explained in 1905 how the physics worked (for which he won his Nobel prize).
Don Quixote knew that the wind did not always blow. Einstein knew the sun did not always shine. UK Labour just figured that out?
Unfortunately, reality only bites to those living in the real world….
Disagree. It is possible for those not living in the real world to ignore reality, but NOT the consequences of ignoring reality.
To understand the consequences requires some (remote) connection to the reality – that connection is not apparent in any British MP in the last 30 +years
The only technology that was developed explicitly for the moon shot was really big rocket engines. I’m not sure how many other industries need those things.
Everything else was either already in existence or already being developed. The best you can say about them is that the technology advanced a little bit faster than it otherwise would have.
There were a lot of technologies that were directly improved by the moon shot:
The list is endless. What technologies have been improved by the return to wind power?
The desire for smaller computers was already in existence. NASA spending money on them might have sped up their development by a few months. At best.
The capsules themselves were still using discrete transistor logic, for a very simple reason. NASA never used anything that was cutting edge in the manned capsules if they didn’t have to. Too much risk. NASA did buy a couple of mainframes for it’s Houston facilities. As to the critical calculations, those were still being done by hand. See the recent movie “Hidden Figures”.
Nutrition? Tang?
Are you talking communication satellites? Do you really believe those wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the manned space program?
Radio astronomy? Really? Do you really think the astronomers wouldn’t have demanded radio telescopes had we not gone to the moon?
Plastics were once again already being developed for the huge private market place.
The list is endless???? The list hasn’t started yet.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of manned missions, and I can’t wait for us to go back to the moon so that we can use it as a launching pad for missions to Mars and beyond. But doing it based on mythical claims of NASA driving technology is both wrong and short sighted.
Tang.
“Didn’t have all the answers”…They didn’t even understand the damn question, let alone have any of the answers. They just opened up the piggy bank and turned their heads while every grifter and their brother looted it.
The problem is that both major political parties in the UK are as batsh!t crazy about CAGW as Al Gore, and as removed from reality with “renewables”.
The UK has already de-carbonised for all practical purposes.
We are down to emitting less than 0.5% of global emissions – with a population of 70 million living a first world, G7, lifestyle.
The low hanging fruit are gone. The big, difficult actions have been taken.
Any further reductions suffer from the Law of Diminishing Returns. They will cost a disproportionate amount for the reduction.
So the need for more Green is now purely ideological. Almost every other priority on the public purse is more important now, even if you subscribe to the most terrifying climate nightmares. We just cannot save enough CO2 to make a further difference.
So, the Green policy changes are really about other things. What other things?
1) Manoeuvring to stop votes leaching to the Green Party by paying lip service the BBC’s religion. Both main parties do this.
2) Providing more cover for your own ideological demands. Whether that’s Keynesian investment – the end of austerity – for Labour. Or whether it’s cuts to infrastructure spending – a Hayekian reduction of the state – for the Conservatives.
3) Passing the threshold to be invited onto the BBC. The gatekeepers of acceptable public discourse in the UK.
Understand these three aims and you can understand what UK politicians are doing on the climate.
But also understand that Green is only important to a small minority who happen to have confluence in a few constituencies. They can give a result to a mina party (they won the Uxbridge Bye Election for the Tories) but it’s not the main issue for most voters. That’s the economy, the NHS and transport.
That is a defeatist view. UK can continue down the path of shifting its CO2 emissions to China as long as there are offshore buyers for UK property. Sell the farm to save the world.
UK could be a pristine paradise powered from eastern Europe using oil money from Arabia and manufacturing money from China so the locals can service the needs of wealthy foreigners.
UK is essentially a service economy now. UK manufacturing has been on life support since British Leyland failed.
Yep UK is 80% services and 20% manufacturing but the latter percentage is still declining.
The point is valid, the UK does do a trivial proportion of global emissions, but the real numbers are not quite as low as that. More like 1%.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6424b8b83d885d000fdade9b/2022_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf
2022 CO2 emissions were 331.5 million tons in 2022 out of around 37 billion globally, and UK CO2 equivalents were 502 million in 2021-22.
But the real test of decarbonization, whether its happened and, perhaps more important, how possible or impossible it is, is per capita emissions. The number for the UK was 4.7 metric tons per capita in 2022. If you look at the charts per capita emissions have fallen sharply, from about 9.9 tons per capita in 1991.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=GB.
You can get an idea of what other countries are doing here:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
The UK is relatively low, as developed countries go. Germany for instance is about double. Holland is higher. The US and Canada much higher. France about the same.
The question is, if the Net Zero project is to get this number to zero by 2050, is that possible, and if possible what will it cost, both in money and social costs? The UK political and media class seem to have avoided ever considering this question. If you look at where the reductions will have to be made, households are (from the ONS link above) the largest sector, 26%, followed by energy, 17%. The most carbon intense sector is agriculture.
Its quite correct that we are in the land of diminishing returns. The current hare-brained scheme for dealing with the numbers in the last para are to move house heating to heat pumps, transport to EVs and power generation to wind and solar.
No-one has a clue how to do this. There are no plans which will do it. The only way to even get close to it will be to close down the auto industry and make it too expensive to heat homes in winter. There is no developed country which runs on much less than 5 tons CO2 emissions per capita.
The real political problem in the UK is that the political class is unwilling or unable even to look at the problem like this. Instead Labour’s latest move appears to keep accepting the utility of the target, keep accepting that its possible, but defer action on the grounds of budget constraints.
When the plain fact is that no matter what your budget, its not possible to do without dropping living standards back to the 19c. But this is something no-one in the UK, except the Reform Party, is yet prepared to admit. They will get there though. Its just a question of how bad its going to be before they have to.
The political class: An interesting comment from Stanley Johnson (Boris’ dad), last year, when talking about net-zero, stated, he would be happy to see the UK population down to 15M, better still 10M.
That appears to be their agenda.
What kind of mentality thinks like that?
Those, who wish to turn the clock back over 400 years.
Strange then that Stanley had four children and Boris currently has eight with several partners 🙂
They want to reduce the rest of the population to make room for the next few generations of the Johnson clan!
The current occupant of the White house is committed to anti-fossil fuel policies. He needs to be voted out of office and moved from the White house to the nut house. Trump would save us from the lunacy of the left.
Trump might really try but even a little success is far from guaranteed.
Well, if he fired 99% of the federal government, that would be a start.
Unfortunately, current law does not allow the president to fire more than about 2 to 3% of federal workers.
Even if we could get congress to change that law, any firings would be fought in court and it would take years to resolve.
I agree with you that 99% need to be fired, but it’s not the easy and quick process you seem to believe it to be.
Firing them would not be easy but, if you shut down the agency and made them either redundant or say their jobs are being outsourced to Alaska and they have to move, then that might get around the problem.
Just do what Nixon did and hold the funds. They will eventually evaporate.
Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers for going on strike. Federal employees aren’t allowed to go on strike. I bet most of the federal government would go on strike if Trump was elected. Problem solved.
Can’t find the exit, can’t find the stairs, sniffs babies, he won’t make to the nut house.
…s#xually assaults his staffer Tara Reade, makes lewd suggestions to prepubescent girls (as well as sniffing their hair), showers with his daughter…
This makes my skin crawl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yPU_5a9R1s
Note the terror on the child’s face.
‘a bunch of British politicians want to feel like JFK’ seems to me to be the true summary of climate change alarmism in the uk . .
‘a bunch of British politicians want to feel like JFK’
What, they’re looking for a few grains of lead? (naughty I know).
Whoever drops the green lunacy first and hardest wins the next UK general election in a landslide. Rishi Sunak doesn’t have the nous or guts to do it, so like it or not the way is now clear for Keir Starmer. It looks like he has actually started to understand. NB. Understand the public, not energy or climate.
Some things never change.
This also reveals the politicisation of science and scientists. Anyone with a basic understanding of physics can work out that the energy storage needed to make renewables economically viable would require batteries decades away from development. In other words this is a problem way bigger than landing on the moon.
I knew this a long time ago along with numerous others, not least many of you who use this site. So how come these genius climate scientists couldn’t work this out? In truth, of course, they could, but that would be like turkeys voting for Christmas, so their principles went out of the window; and anyone who dared to challenge this nonsense was immediately kicked out of their job. It’s a classic case of that old fairy tale about the king’s invisible suit of clothes.
I can hardly believe that I’m living through a period, which historians will look back on with incredulity. How is it possible that so many people can be hoodwinked into believing this stuff? As for the BBC, they’re literally no better than the propaganda machines in North Korea, along with all the other mainstream media run by woke idiots.
I will give my take on this.
The UN is infested with failed politicians. It is where the charmless but power hungry souls go to mull over their lost opportunities. The problem for these individuals is that the UN is beholding to their more charming and voter friendly politicians for funding. That annual cap-in-hand fronting of the General Assembly is a tough ask for would-be dictators.
The UN has proposed various means of securing self-funding. In the 1990s they latched on to email as a potential funding source. They are mostly old school and stuck in old ways so missed opportunities like search engines and social media. Email postage fee was going to deliver the much needed steady income stream suited to an unelected global bureaucracy.
The email postage failed about the time Climate Change™ was getting traction and the UNIPCC was formed. The momentum gathered pace in a virtuous supportive framework of UN, national governments, academia and mass media. Climate Ambition™ is now the target for that no strings funding. Just take an administrative cut from the Climate Ambition™ pool.
Fortunately, Climate Ambition™ has not lived up to its promise – nothing new in the Climate space. It is failing as technical reality presents a serious road block. The nations that promised Climate Ambition™ are facing serious reality checks at home as none of the “renewable” stuff promised by academics is viable. So there has been an unprecedented waste of resources on stuff that is useless. Developing countries need to be making steel not relying on a solar panel and battery to provide a bit of light so they can read an outdated book.
‘The UN is infested with failed politicians. It is where the charmless but power hungry souls go to mull over their lost opportunities.’
Good points. The UN is also a well-feathered Elba for somewhat more charming and successful power hungry politicians to exile their potential rivals.
If only it were St Helena
I wouldn’t mind an email charge of say a tenth of a cent per e-mail. It would put most of the email scammers out of business. Their business model involves sending out millions of emails, in hopes of catching one or two suckers.
With the money going to the internet provider, not any government.
It is only speculation that such batteries could ever be developed. Much of 19th century science was spent closing in on the maximum efficiency of various thermodynamic processes, adding another decimal point, at best, to how much technology could move operation towards that limit. One can speculate that maybe there will be insights that the distance between how humans think the universe works and how it actually does work that will open up major potential increases in efficiency but there isn’t currently much evidence to support such ideas.
When you compare battery technology to electronics industries, and microminiaturisation. Batteries haven’t progressed much from the Leclanché cell.
require batteries decades away from development.
Worse than that. At present there is no known technology that is capable of fulfilling these requirements. It would take multiple, complete breakthroughs in battery technology before such batteries would be possible. Such breakthroughs might happen tomorrow. Or they might never happen.
Starting to build a renewable infrastructure, knowing that you are relying on a technology that does not exist, and may never exist, is so far beyond stupid that it leaves me speechless.
I note today that the Royal Navy aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were both forced to withdraw from NATO exercises due to being laid up for mechanical issues. Rather a national embarrassment one would think. But then again both the Tories and Labour can take pride in the UK being at the forefront of tackling climate change. Rule Brittania.
Might as well send them to Sandringham then, to recuperate.
“Goddard had already tested his rockets in a vacuum chamber,
My point is, even in 1920, Goddard knew his remarkable technological breakthrough provided a clear path to spaceflight.”
Exactly! The Gov Green also had the option, no! the obligation to experiment and pilot test the the renewables path to power a modern society. To admit now “We thought it was the right thing to do but we understood we didn’t have all the answers. ”
Most engineers understood early on that there would be problems. A billion dollar pilot plant operating for three yrs would have nixed the notion and saved about 4 trillion dollars. God only knows what the opportunity cost has been (a cost measured by what might have been gained by an alternative $4T investment). I hope they understand that all these are sunk costs that can’t be salvaged. Scrapping all the renewables is the cheapest way to get back to dispatchable reliable affordable power.
For the past two years UK GDP growth has been virtually zero and has gone negative again in the latest quarter.
Referring to Trading Economics UK’s economic problems: poor economic growth poor productivity growth and ballooning government debt to GDP ratio, all began around 2008 – 2010 when the country legislated the Climate Change Act (2008).
The financial illiteracy of Britain’s MPs is terrifying. Many of them probably think the problem is not enough green energy investment.
Watch “Britain’s Trillion Pound Horror Story” (you can find it online). During one segment, the show narrator quizzes British MPs to see if they know anything about the state of British government finances. The handful who had any idea of the relevant numbers, most of them confused the national debt with the annual deficit.
‘The financial illiteracy of Britain’s MPs is terrifying.’
Ditto for most US House and Senate members. If they’ve had any economic training at all, it was probably some variant of Keynesianism, where GDP = G + C + I + NX, with a special emphasis on increasing G.
There is no climate crisis, CO2 is not the control knob for our climate and we will not reach a tipping point and suffer irreversible global warming. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators and build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators. Remove all wind and solar from the grid.
There was/is a monument in a field at what was Ft. Devens, MA where Goddard did some of his launches.
“No similar technological path to success exists for creating a renewable energy powered economy.”
So what do you think will happen when the world runs out of fossil fuels? Given that the earth has a finite volume that is bound to happen at some point. And then what?
This is great horse manure crisis thinking, people in the late 1800s worrying about how people in the mid 1900s would deal with mountains of horse manure which would foul the streets.
There are plenty of technologies which could solve this problem, such as Thorium fission – there is enough Thorium to power the world for 10s of thousands of years. After which frankly it’s someone elses problem.
Nobody has demonstrated a working Thorium fission plant. And if if it did work that would still result in an almost 100% electrically power society. So if we can run on electricity generated using nuclear then surely it is possible to run on electricity generated by other means?
There are a number of extremely safe Uranium fission reactors in use and in testing.
There are large amounts of Uranium in sea water, albeit at extremely low concentrations.
When that runs out, viable commercial fusion will only be 50 years away.
Liquid fuels can be synthesised now. Sufficiently cheap electricity and more expensive natural hydrocarbon fuels would make synthesis commercially viable, at least until readily available Mr Fusion units are available for our flying DeLoreans.
“Nobody has demonstrated a working Thorium fission plant” – not true
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAMINI <= experimental Thorium plant.
India has shedloads of Thorium but very little Uranium, so they are putting lots of effort into developing Thorium technology.
Thorium can also be mixed with Uranium, which will stretch available Uranium reserves without significant technology breakthroughs.
As for running on all electricity, see above. Not a problem which needs to be solved today, For applications where batteries cannot be used, Thorium nuclear power could be used to synthesise fossil fuel.
People like you don’t need to worry about where our energy, minerals and metals are going to come from. You’ve never had to worry and if you do now, please don’t try to help.
This is why the inept write and analyze things and terrorize folk. Ehrlich, for example who isn’t equipped to bring anything but apriori reasoning to the topic (the kind a teenager has to use to argue with parents because he doesnt have empirical knowledge yet.
BTW, that is what you bring to the table, too. You are on a science site here, and your welcome, but up your game a little and learn.
India & China would disagree.
“how people in the mid 1900s would deal with mountains of horse manure which would foul the streets.There are plenty of technologies which could solve this problem, such as Thorium fission”
How would Thorium fission solve the problem of mountains of horse manure ???
A biomass unit would be more appropriate !
Not to worry, Izzy, your friends at ‘Science’ magazine insist that the world will end in 3782 CE. You need to make more of an effort to keep up with developments in the alarmist narrative.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/11/tipping-is-optional/
My world will end somewhat before that time so go for it!
I think mine, will, within the next 10–15 years. So I’ll get my panicking over and done with now.
Inevitably it will be a market solution. Not one of government organised crime through subsidies.
There is enough carbon based fuel to power the global economy for at least 1000 years. That guarantees ongoing increase in biomass productivity. Photosynthesis could take a more immediate role in satisfying global energy needs. Imagine farm and forrest productivity 2 to 3 times current level.
Finland is one of the few places where the timber industry supports a variety of industry including electricity and heat production.
Hydro and biomass are presently the only proven economic sustainable energy source. Wind and solar generation in its present form is unsustainable. There hardware is an energy sink not source. In the UK it is smoke and mirrors. The smoke goes up in China and the politicians look into mirrors to preen themselves so they can claim they have reduced CO2. They haven’t. They have just pushed the cO2 production to China.
It is the role of BBC to proclaim disaster at every change in the weather so that no one questions the 1.5C mark as the end of civilization.
Their only qualm about pushing Starmer is that he’s not quite Corbyn. They know he’ll cave to the green blob when pressured. He has to get elected first.
Well the politics of virtue signalling is hanging in there but it’s just the economics of it that’s going down the gurgler fast-
Another blow for hydrogen power as energy giant closes refuelling stations (msn.com)
You get that with technical and engineering illiteracy and only the feels that everything will run on e-motion. Look on the bright side with shocking EV depreciation climate changers. It could be a Mirai and completely worthless although no doubt they were almost all taxeater cars.
I find it most amusing that The New York Times’ assertion that Robert Goddard’s rockets would not work in a vacuum because “there was nothing to push against”. It seems NYT journalists were scientifically illiterate even then.
Has Britain truly wasted hundreds of billions of dollars
Not many, Benny
The BBC has long outlived its usefulness.
It is now a hotbed of the woke left as its news, programming schedule, and output agenda daily portrays. There is no balance. There is no perspective. There is no room for doubt. There is no perception of depth as everything is treated superficially as its ‘fact verification unit’ suggest and portrays despite the revelations of its unfitness. You can get away with anything by being superficial.
Even the BBC’s very humble beginnings have been revised and updated to fit the agenda. The BBC came from an age when anything was possible and would simply never happen now as the UK suffocates under airless and thoughtless regimes disinterested in quality and driven by misguided agendas that do not even survive very scant inspection but somehow cannot die in the BBC. the newer stations e.g.GB News at least strive for balance even if they often fall short.
COVID-19 happened at that age when a national broadcaster could be exposed as a complete and utter shambles, as a thoughtless and empty entity with nothing to say except what the agenda scripted it to say. It was even contemptuous of those who pay for it, and disinterested in objectivity in everyday matters. As with climate change the science was settled as the UN and the WHO reneged on the hitherto sensible bullet points.
Attenborough is just one of many things wrong with the Corporation. He may once have been a satisfactory commentating voice-over for programmes about nature (e.g Planet Earth), but he was never the heroic environmental character he has been made out to be. He is one of many poor quality ‘stars’ and ‘sponsors’ that the UK has elevated in importance on our woke left guided trip to insanity. Hopefully it is not too late to see the error of our ways which stretch way back to (even) before Thatcher and recover all those qualities that once made us great in potential if not always delivery.
For Attenborough read this (and support Susan Crockford):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fallen-Icon-Attenborough-Walrus-Deception/dp/0991796691/ref=sr_1_1?crid=J6NDAKU3BMOX&keywords=fallen+icon&qid=1707729138&sprefix=fallen+i%2Caps%2C356&sr=8-1
The reason given by Keir Starmer for dropping the pledge to spend 28 billion on green projects is that there is no money to do so. I suspect that he still believes in the climate alarmist fairy tale. If the Labour party gets into power, he will come under enormous pressure from the hard left in his party to spend gigantic amounts of money on a large number of pet Labour party projects including green nonsense. Of course, the only way to do this is to raise extra taxes which is almost certain to happen, regardless of his promises.
There was no money left after the previous Labour government but that didn’t stop the psuedo-Conservatives from carrying on spending.
Some more good news coming out today, The BBC’s printed propaganda partner the Guardian has again had a massive financial loss for the year. So far £39 million in 9 months with the final loss expected to come in around the £40 million for the past 12 months. 🙂
Now rejoice at that news….
Yippee!
A newspaper’s greatest asset is its integrity. The Guardian and the BBC have forgotten that. People are no longer prepared to pay to be lied to.
Unfortunately, the Guardian can make losses indefinitely because it is supported by the Scott Trust which has over a billion pounds in assets. This means that the Guardian is under no pressure to gather new readers by telling the truth or providing actual journalism. So it looks as if we are stuck with the Guardian’s misinformation for ever.
Well the Guardian editors would like to think that is the case, but with the downturn in click revenue continuing, even the deepest pockets are forced to question the wisdom of their gifts to the woke promoters.
NB Never click on a Guardian link it only encourages them and increases their click count.
True, but even a billion pounds won’t last long with losses of around £40 million per annum. The Guardian management is clearly aware of the danger as it has already parted company with hundreds of employees recently.
It would last a quarter century.
There aren’t many businesses as secure as that.
“Will British politicians have the courage to admit they made a mistake?”
Not a ‘cat in hell’s’ chance. They know what they’re up to, they won’t be satisfied until they’ve wrecked this country. As an example, spiteful May, before she resigned, in 2019, passed through (without proper debate or a vote) an amendment to the original Climate Change Act 2008. Committing us to net-zero by 2050.
The sting in the tail, was that during the Brexit negotiations T&A, there was an article stating, any legislation passed before the actual leave date, could not be removed after. Otherwise, the EU, would take legal action.
For readers, not UK based, know that, our politicians are more concerned with their image on the global political stage, than doing what is right and best for this country.
What they do seem to fail to grasp, is that their global reputation is nothing better than treacherous laughingstock.
Only a handful of MPs voted against the Climate Change Bill, of whom I think (happy to be corrected) only Graham Stringer (Lab) remains an MP. He has, inevitably, taken flak from others on the left for being a ‘climate denier’.
It is time now for some bright jounalist, or team of journalists, to start writing the history of this multinational travesty and boondoggle. Create a timeline, collect quotes and interview the major and minor players. Everything from climate gate to the censorious nature of social media around the “wrong messages.” Are Woodward and Bernstein still alive?
Yes, it’s important to do so while the guilty parties are still in the land of the living and before they bury the evidence.
Of course the concepts of climate change and especially net zero are being revised since they are radically faulted, are costing the world ridiculous amounts of money and governments (like the UK and Germany) are already winding down their policies. Sunak has already started for the Tories and Starmer is panicking that Labour must urgently follow suit.
“hip to be green”
Sums it up nicely. Net zero and all the global warming hype are paths chosen essentially as fashion statements among the privileged elites and over protected, under experienced younger generations who lack critical thinking. Going “green” is a decision made with as much deep thought as choosing a nose ring or an iPhone cover. It’s all about appearances and nothing to do with outcomes. The sudden change of direction among the political class is likely the result of a sharp jolt from the shock collar of physical and economic reality which point toward political oblivion for those who destroy the lives of the voters. Decisions have consequences and bad political decisions exact a penalty that even the most foolish politician doesn’t wish to pay.