By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Heartland’s immediate success in the UK/EU reflects a ready opportunity to dial back climate exaggeration and undo forced energy transformation…. Call it “social justice,” a movement that DeSmog continues to promote (unintendedly) through its truth bombs.”
Great news! As reported by DeSmog, James Taylor and the Heartland Institute are off to a resounding start with their new offices in the UK/EU. What a return on investment for donors–and reason to attract more philanthropy to help consumers, taxpayers, and a greener environment.
As DeSmog previously reported, Heartland last December announced that the new branch would provide “resources to conservative policymakers throughout Europe.” And the early results are in, detailed by Sam Bright and Clare Carlile in “U.S. Climate Denial Group Using Far-Right to Attack EU Green Policies” (January 22, 2025). Excerpts follow:
The pro-Trump Heartland Institute claims it spearheaded opposition to a flagship European nature law.
In a post on its website published on 10 January, the Heartland Institute claimed that it helped to encourage Hungarian lawmakers to withdraw their support for the legislation in March. The Nature Restoration Law, which eventually passed in June, sets targets for restoring degraded ecosystems, habitats, and species across the EU.
The Heartland Institute claims that it was assisted by Austrian Members of European Parliament (MEPs) Harald Vilimsky and Roman Haider, who represent the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and have forged close ties with the institute in recent years.
Results!
Following several meetings between Vilimsky, Haider, and Heartland Institute president James Taylor, the latter was invited in March to speak in the European Parliament.
“During the session, Taylor explained why there is no climate crisis according to the best available data, and he warned of the economic, political, and geopolitical suicide that net zero would bring,” the Heartland blog post states. “After the session, Taylor met informally with many of the Hungarian MEPs, continuing the conversation over dinner.”
Csaba Molnar, an MEP for the Hungarian Democratic Coalition, told DeSmog it is “more than plausible” that Hungary withdrew its support for the Nature Restoration Law due to the influence of the Heartland Institute.
Continuing:
Vilimsky and Haider are vocal opponents of EU climate policies – known as the Green Deal – and have called into question long-established climate science. Vilimsky has called the EU Green Deal “eco totalitarianism” and has claimed its supporters are the “eco Taliban,” while Haider has called the climate crisis “conceited bullshit”….
The full article should be read. The bad guys and gals do not like Heartland.
Final Comment
Heartland’s project to export intellectual advocacy is still in early days, but its immediate success in the UK/EU reflects a ready opportunity to dial back climate exaggeration and reject forced energy transformation. The elitist Climate Industrial Complex is out of excuses for wasting resources in a false cause. Call it “social justice,” a movement that DeSmog continues to promote (unintendedly) through its truth bombs.
The Cato Institute has a Friedman Prize every other year for the international figure that has done most to advance liberty. With results like this, the responsible figure(s) of the Heartland Institute should be a candidate for the award for their US/UK/EU work on energy and climate.
Glad to see some positive action in the UK!!!
The UK is going down a steep hill faster than a trailer truck with no brakes!
Britain Could Rejoin Brussels’ Net Zero Climate Scheme – The Daily Sceptic
Wolf Creek Pass
C. W. McCall, 4 minute song on a truck with no brakes
Wolf Creek Pass – Colorado Route 160 Westbound
June 2916, Dashcam video over 10,800 ft high Wolf Creek Pass
Yet science clearly shows that the entire concept of Net Zero is faulted.
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023-02-23-Challenging-Net-Zero-with-Science.pdf
“Environmentalism”, or whatever one cares to call it, is a secular religion with a detailed theology. Opposing their sacred cause is rank heresy, and must be resisted by any means necessary.
Tom, I have always maintained a distinction between environmentalism, which is usually an emotional fashion trend, and real conservationism which is simply the practice of reasoned use of the world around me and trying to keep things as clean as possible while doing so. The former always seems to entail the use of force, while the latter entails the use of discipline. This is the difference between authoritarianism and responsible freedom.
Heartland is getting into the UK and Europe right at the time when the Net Zero insanity is beginning to bite the UK/European economy hard, with auto companies saying they may set up manufacturing in the United States!
So Heartland is getting there to give them an alternative to the Net Zero insanity. I imagine there are a lot of people looking for alternatives, as the situation cannot continue as it is.
High Costs/kWh of Wind and Solar Foisted onto a Brainwashed Public
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The three main subsidies are:
Federal and state tax credits and cash grants,
5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project
Deduction of interest of borrowed money
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The effect of the three items is to reduce the owning and operating cost of a project by 50%, which means electricity be sold at 50% less than it costs to produce.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
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Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, the current UK level:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement, about 2 c/kWh
– Traditional power plants quickly counteracting W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, about 2 c/kWh
– Traditional power plants providing electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings and at night, about 2 c/kWh
– W/S electricity that could have been produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more wind and solar systems are added to the grid
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in such big do-do
NEW ENGLAND 100% WIND AND SOLAR?
New England would need a minimum of 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to the HV grid, and a sufficient capacity, MW, of wind and solar systems to serve demand 24/7/365
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Batteries would supplement wind and solar, as needed, 24/7/365
Wind and solar would charge excess output into the batteries, 24/7/365
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Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
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The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be at least 10 TWh / (0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 18.5 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet.
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The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 18.5 billion kWh = $11.1 billion, about every 15 years.
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THE ANNUAL ACHIEVABLE THROUGHPUT IN REAL LIFE IS AT MOST 40%
At 40% throughput, the cost of sending electricity through the batteries is about 38 c/kWh, 2024 pricing
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This is on top of the cost of wind and solar going through the battery.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
Maybe running turbines off the inevitable battery fires could help offset the costs.
The blades would melt or burn or both.
I was really pleased to see the launch in the UK. There were a number of politicians who turned up. Nigel Farage, of course, but also Liz Truss and Sir John Redwood. I wonder if Graham Stringer managed to sneak in at the back door?
We are at a key point in putting the pressure on Ed Miliband and on Labour to sack him for his disastrous Net Zero push. I’m sure that the Heartland Institute will be able to help with that and building a coalition of common sense with those already fighting these battles.
It Does Not Add Up,
I fear the Net Zero has too much inertia in the U.K. Parliament, it will take a huge push to slow it down.
The Climate and Nature bill second reading has merely been postponed and that is Net Zero plus.
If, as I have done, pointed out the whole fallacy of it all, you just get back a quote from their hymn sheet with no attempt of logic or reason.
How long can Whitehall allow criticism of their Climate Hoax policies, and rational explanations of the slow motion car crash that is the British economy!? Although I don’t eat it anymore, I sure wish I had invested in popcorn futures!
Climate Denial Group Using Far-Right
I thought they claimed the far right uses…. others
These guys consider people who want to slow the movement towards socialism, not stop it, just slow it down, to be right wing.
Musk had this little diagram.. Its not that Heartland is far-right.. which it isn’t…
Its that the left has gone totally loony ultra-left.
Don’t be surprised if the establishment aka the institutions now all left wing and proud to say so, bring in a new hate crime and jail time setting examples, for those of us pointing out the truth about climate change and our insignificant part in that natural variation of climate.
Let no one be tempted to wear high heals and roll a wheely bin in the direction of a riot police storm trooper, when on a truth march, you get 2 years and 8 months for that.
This article is a nothingburger.
Heartland patting itself the back for some minor accomplishments
“Taylor, the latter was invited in March to speak in the European Parliament”
A transcript or video of that presentation is needed. Where is a link? I want to see their science and how persuasive the presentation is.
Google broken for you again?
I did view a Taylor video of about 27 minutes from about seven months ago. I had assumed the EU presentatio was recent, not so long ago.
It does not matter.
Taylor is a terrible spokesman for refuting climate scaremongering.
He could not debate his way out of a paper bag.
His main stupid argument is that the climate is actually cold now because Earth was warmer long ago. I could out debate Taylor with half my brain tied behind my back, as Rush would say.
Taylor is so stupid that he argues we do not have a climate crisis now.
That is NOT what leftists claim.
They claim a climate crisis is COMING in the future.
The debate has to be on the ability to predict the future climate. And that predictions of a climate crisis have already been wrong for the past 50 years. Over Taylor’s head.
You don’t think saying the oceans are boiling doesn’t constitute a current climate crisis? My God, those waters were almost 30 C! Children near the Equator won’t know what snow is!
How close to the edge do you think Gutierres want to live?
(Sorry – a mix of snark, sarc – and truth mixed together.)
Some politician saying the oceans are boiling is just stupid. The actual claims by scientists is a coming global warming crisis that must be stopped.
What they are claiming has to be summarized first, and then refuted.
You don’t refute a prediction by saying Earth is cold now compared to long ago.
Climate change from leftists is not about the past climate. It is scaremongering about a news climate change variable, CO2, that has contributed to global warming since 1975.
It does not matter what happened 10,000 years ago before there were any manmade CO2 emissions … that raised the CO2 level +50% since then
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Climate change is predictions
There is some settled science
Not much
The predictions are not science.
The limited science does not support the predictions. The actual climate change since 1975 does not support the predictions of a future climate crisis.
“Taylor is so stupid that he argues we do not have a climate crisis now.
That is NOT what leftists claim.
They claim a climate crisis is COMING in the future.”
No, the leftists don’t. They claim they see CO2-derived climate change in every current extreme weather event. They claim the recent wildfires in Los Angeles were caused by CO2.
The “Views” climate expert, Joy Behar, swears by it!
That is NOT what leftists claim.
Just read this morning – note the first sentence:
Climate change is already destroying homes and communities. But by 2055, net property losses from climate change will reach $1.47 trillion
I patted Heartland on the back, not Heartland. Great news is great news, right?
The UK Climate and Nature Bill is not yet dead, just lying dormant ready for the next opportunity for its revival. I hope Heartland are watching closely.
God bless the Heartland Institute, they are doing the heavy lifting.
James Taylor played a part in getting the EU to dump the net-zero mandate by talking to the Hungarians.
James Taylor – What climate alarmists are hiding from you