Essay by Eric Worrall
They teach our kids – another green attack on Democracy, this time from University of Oxford Professor Stephen Lezak.
Why the US is letting China win on energy innovation
Published: August 2, 2025 1.32am AEST
Stephen Lezak
Programme Manager at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of OxfordDuring the cold war, the US and Soviet Union were locked in a desperate race to develop cutting‑edge technologies like long-range missiles and satellites. Fast forward to today and the frontiers of global technology have pivoted to AI and next‑generation energy.
…
Over the past six months, the Trump administration has upended half a decade of green industrial policy. It has clawed back billions of US dollars in tax credits and grants that were supercharging American energy innovation.
…
At the same time, household energy spending in the US is expected to increase by US$170 (£126) each year between now and 2035 as a result of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill, which includes sweeping changes to taxes, social security and more, will raise energy costs mainly because it strips away support for cheap and abundant renewables like wind and solar.
…China, with its authoritarian government, is less susceptible to the petroleum-obsessed dogma fueling the Republican party. It does not have prominent leaders like US politician Marjorie Taylor Greene, who previously warned that Democrats are trying to “emasculate the way we drive” by advocating for electric vehicles. Rather, China’s leaders are seeing green – not in the environmental sense, but in a monetary one.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-is-letting-china-win-on-energy-innovation-261109
…
Lezak has written some pretty diverse studies based on his Oxford bio. The first two papers cited in his bio relate to the Gobi Desert and Mongolia. He wrote a paper on climate change and Alaskan tribal politics in 2024. Since the election of Trump he seems to have refocussed on Britain and Oxford University.
Obviously the claim renewables are cheaper, which appears to be the basis of Lezak’s criticism of Trump, is total nonsense – otherwise California and Europe would have the cheapest energy in the world.
Lezak’s praise for authoritarianism in my opinion suggests shallow brochure thinking, accepting Chinese propaganda at face value. Such thinking ignores some ugly realities, such as China’s alleged extensive use of slave labor in their renewable industry, and authoritarian China’s chaotic mismanagement of domestic energy, centrally directed resource misallocation and self inflicted economic problems.
As for China’s lack of dissenting voices and alleged resistance to dogma, people who live in China who criticise dictator Xi Jinping’s policy ideas, sometimes they disappear. Some of them reappear a few months or years after their disappearance, if they are lucky. The people who reappear usually lead much quieter, less public lives than they did before disappearing.
Stephen Lezak may see this authoritarian willingness to intimidate and crush dissent as some kind of advantage. Luckily I live in a country where for now at least I am free to disagree with this opinion.
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Socialists dream of a world where nobody is allowed to disagree with them.
After all, they are special, and they have the participation trophies to prove it.
What Western socialists really want is a static society run by an hereditary nomenklatura.
It does take active measures to make sure everyone says wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuels or nuclear. Just like having everyone agree 2+2=5.
Oh and I thought 2+2=22 🤪🤣
there’s a funny video on that subject 😉
New math: 1+1=2,. how do you feel about that?
I’m like – that’s, like – amazing!!
Something new everyday 🙂
2+2 does equal 5 for very large values of 2.
2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8
Now round to the nearest integer:
2 + 2 = 5
QED
No it equals 22
Hurrah for New Math
RIP Tom Lehrer.
California and Europe aren’t using 100% renewable energy.
The article is not praising authoritarianism. It is criticizing the US’s response to China’s advancements in renewables production, which is mired in messy interparty politics that the Chinese government doesn’t have to deal with. It is saying that the US is stuck on fossil fuels for political reasons, not because they are more economically viable.
You think wind and solar delivers dispatchable power cheaper than conventional, just put up some numbers to show it. I suggest doing it for the UK, since all the data you need is publicly available. Read Paul Homewood’s pieces on total UK wind/solar costs and the auctions.
If you cannot or will not do this, stop making these silly assertions.
China is not ‘advancing in renewables production’, by the way. Its just making solar panels which are cheaper than those made in the West because they have no environmental safeguards and use slave labour. But even so, solar is still useless.
I don’t think this and have never said anything remotely suggesting that I do.
Put up those numbers or stop making silly assertions.
Not worth the powder.
Alan J is here to annoy others. In that he is succeeding. Playing ball with him results in the inevitable: a win for him, whether he loses or wins an argument. Simply ignore and the to and fro stops. Can YOU( and others) do that? Clearly not. Ad infinitum..
I am trying, with moderate success, to follow a policy of
“Do not engage in a battle of wits with the unarmed. He never knows when he has lost.”
Do you know what the expression, “not worth the powder means”?
It’s not available when the power is needed. Thet’s the very definition of useless.
Of course it’s useless. I await with glee your demonstration of solar power production at night. Zero is a number.
This is a summary from Grok. As I say, solar is useless, not fit for purpose. The examples are from domestic and pleasantly specific. Grid scale solar in the UK is the same. What the economy needs is reliable continuous supply, not something that turns off most of the time in the winter, only basically works at all between 10am and 3pm.
Its obvious. What do you expect the country to do? Hibernate in sleeping bags?
Solar electricity generation in the UK on December 21, or a similar day in the recent winter, varies significantly due to short daylight hours, low sun angles, and frequent cloud cover. Based on available data, here’s an analysis of typical solar generation patterns for a winter day like December 21, focusing on the UK’s conditions:
Key Factors Affecting Solar Generation
Daylight Hours: On December 21, the winter solstice, the UK has approximately 7-8 hours of daylight, with London receiving about 7.5 hours.Sun Angle: The sun is low in the sky, reducing the intensity of sunlight hitting solar panels, which lowers output.Weather: December often brings cloudy or overcast conditions, further reducing solar output to 10-25% of clear-day potential.Insolation: London receives about 0.52 kWh/m² per day in December, compared to 4.74 kWh/m² in July.Typical Solar Generation by Time of DaySolar generation follows a bell-shaped curve, peaking around midday when the sun is highest. For a typical 4 kWp solar PV system (common for UK households), here’s an estimated hourly breakdown for December 21 or a similar winter day, assuming partly cloudy conditions and south-facing panels at a 35-degree tilt:
06:00–08:00: 0 kWh (pre-dawn, no generation).08:00–09:00: ~0.05-0.1 kWh (sunrise, minimal output due to low sun angle and weak light).09:00–10:00: ~0.1-0.2 kWh (increasing light, but still low due to sun angle).10:00–11:00: ~0.2-0.3 kWh (approaching midday, output rises).11:00–13:00: ~0.3-0.5 kWh/hour (peak generation, sun at its highest, though still low compared to summer).13:00–14:00: ~0.2-0.3 kWh (output begins to decline as sun lowers).14:00–15:00: ~0.1-0.2 kWh (decreasing light intensity).15:00–16:00: ~0.05-0.1 kWh (nearing sunset, minimal output).16:00–18:00: 0 kWh (post-sunset, no generation).Total Daily Output: A 4 kWp system might generate 0.4-1.2 kWh on a cloudy December day, or up to 2-3 kWh on a rare clear day. For comparison, the same system could produce 20-25 kWh/day in summer.
Real-World Examples
A 4.5 kWp south-facing system in southeast England generated about 2 kWh/day on clear January days, with peak output around 2 kW at midday.A 6.5 kWp system in East Anglia produced 3.9 kWh on a clear Boxing Day (December 26), with output concentrated between 10:00 and 14:00.A Reddit user with a 4.8 kWp system reported 2 kWh/day on average in December, peaking at 7 kWh on a sunny day, with generation mostly between 10:00 and 15:00.Notes
Variability: Output depends on location (southern UK gets slightly more sunlight than northern), panel orientation (south-facing is optimal), and weather. Cloudy days can drop output to as low as 0.2-0.3 kWh for a 4 kWp system.Data Limitations: Exact hourly data for December 21, 2024, isn’t available in the sources, but the above estimates align with reported winter performance.
Rebuttal to Grok from Grok:
Your argument is basically: “Solar doesn’t work well in winter, so it’s useless year-round.” That’s like saying farming is pointless because crops don’t grow in December.
Yes, solar output is lower in winter—that’s known, expected, and planned for in every serious grid modeling scenario. But grid-scale solar isn’t meant to power the country by itself in every hour of the year. It’s part of a diverse portfolioof generation technologies—including wind, nuclear, hydro, batteries, demand response, and interconnectors.
Here’s why your argument misses the mark:
🔑 1. Solar’s winter dip is real—but manageable
UK solar still contributes ~3–6% of grid electricity even in winter months.In summer, it often supplies 20–30% of electricity demand during the day.Winter shortfall is covered by other sources (primarily wind, which peaks in winter), not sleeping bags.🔋 2. Low winter output doesn’t cancel solar’s massive summer benefits
Solar generates 3–5× more power in summer, right when demand for cooling and air conditioning rises.This reduces peak demand, cuts fossil gas use, and lowers wholesale prices.Every kWh of solar displaces expensive and polluting fossil fuels—that value doesn’t disappear in December.⚡ 3. We don’t require 24/7 output from every source
The UK doesn’t expect wind, nuclear, or hydro to be constant either.The grid is built to handle variable output. That’s why we use:Interconnectors (to import/export when needed)Batteries and pumped hydro (to store surplus)Flexible gas or backup (in worst-case scenarios)This is standard engineering, not a flaw.📉 4. Solar lowers electricity prices—even in winter
When solar is available, it bids into the market at zero marginal cost, pushing down prices.Analysis from the UK and Europe shows that adding more solar reduces average market prices, especially during daytime peaks—even in winter.🔐 5. Solar improves energy security
Solar is domestic, not imported.It has no fuel price volatility, unlike gas.It can be deployed faster than any other source and scales easily.🧠 Final Thought:It’s easy to cherry-pick a cloudy day in December and declare solar “useless.” But in the actual grid, the question isn’t whether solar can do everything—it’s whether it helps. And the data is clear: Grid-scale solar in the UK significantly cuts costs, reduces emissions, improves energy independence, and complements other renewables.
Calling it “not fit for purpose” is ignoring how modern energy systems actually work.
Let’s try to avoid having AI duke it out with themselves in the comments.
“That’s like saying farming is pointless because crops don’t grow in December.”
No it isn’t LiarJ
Take it up with Grok.
China’s solar sector shed 33% of its workforce in 2024. 40 plus solar companies have gone bankrupt. This followed years of rapid expansion sponsored by handouts from the Chinese government.
Like the ghost cities with no people there are lots of solar farms all over China which produce no electricity and are probably not even connected to the grid.
Not connecting useless assets to the grid is a wise action.
Solar is not entirely useless. It’s useful in remote locations that have no other sources of power and don’t need reliability.
It’s no surprise that China pretends to be all-in for wind turbines and solar panels.
They’re reeling in $billions every year from materials sales for taxpayer-funded w&s farms being foist upon western countries by their naive governments.
China plays a long game.
They will want to stretch out the product life cycle of w&s for as long as they can.
This necessitates even buying some of their own w&s products (even though they don’t really need them) to keep the gig rolling.
Oh Alan..you don’t need a 100% “renewable energy” (utter propaganda BS this term is by the way) to make energy more expensive.
Who taught you to do proper math was certainly not the teacher that got fired for insisting that 2+2=4 and not 22. But I kinda suspect who the pupil was 😉
You really are a useless parrot aren’t you?
Do you ever think logically or for yourself?
Here is a little exercise for you. Check which four European countries have the largest percentage of wind in their electricity generating mix. Also check which three countries have the lowest (or none), percentage of wind in their mix.
Then check which four countries have the highest consumer electricity prices and which three countries the lowest. Then come back on here with your answers and tell us again about cheap renewable energy.
You’re assuming that high wind penetration should mean low electricity prices, and that if it doesn’t, wind must be expensive. That’s a correlation fallacy (ironic how eagerly climate contrarians lean on it). These countries rely on natural gas for backup generation, which is expensive. Without renewables, they’d need even more gas, and prices would be higher. The volatility of global fossil fuel markets is one of the strongest arguments for accelerating the renewable transition in Europe.
Yes, the Nick Stokes argument. Adding wind and solar to the grid has positive ROI because it saves fuel.
But quantitative studies, even back of envelope analysis to support these assertions, is totally lacking.
Give some evidence or shut up.
You’re trying to subtly shift the framing. I did not say that adding wind and solar produces a positive ROI, I said that the marginal cost of wind and solar is not setting high electricity prices in the UK/Germany, it is volatility from gas imports. Renewables in these countries are actually helping to offset some of the cost of expensive gas. Whether wind and solar is an attractive investment is a matter of policy.
Do you know how many companies have gone bankrupt with that logic?
It usually goes like this, we have a great product we just need to the get the cost down so we are making a profit. They never stop to actually think can they really get the cost down.
The EU is basically backing out of renewables here is comedy gold for you
https://www.theenergymix.com/europe-launches-legal-action-while-countries-world-wide-fall-short-of-2030-renewables-goal/
Read it and laugh 26 out of 27 EU countries have “infringement procedures” being taken against them by there own authority … you can’t make this sort of comedy up.
That by the way is a story-tip for the moderators and editors.
Did you read what you posted with any sort of thinking about the logic behind it?
The four European countries with the highest amount of ‘cheap’ wind in their electricity generating mix are the four countries with the highest domestic electricity prices. How come, please explain logically?
The three countries with little or no ‘cheap’ wind in their mix and therefore almost entirely reliant on ‘expensive’ fossil fuel generation are the three countries with the lowest domestic electricity prices. Again how is this possible, explain logically?
If the four countries scrapped their current mix and replaced it with a mix similar to the three countries with the lowest prices, what would happen to their electricity prices? According to you they would increase because they are replacing ‘cheap’ with ‘expensive’.
However, we know that is absolutely not true, we don’t have to guess or speculate (a favourite of alarmists), we know for sure what would happen because actual countries have actually done it, you know, reality and fact not models, and they can and do generate electricity at a lower cost than the ones using ‘cheap’ wind.
What say you Einstein?
AJ says “NetZero,” nahnahnah.
The countries with the most wind don’t have expensive energy because of wind. They have high retail prices due to policy-driven taxes, levies, and grid modernization, and were hit hard by the gas crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wind energy is zero cost and helps offset the high cost of imported gas.
The countries with the lowest prices, like Hungary and Poland, keep prices low with state subsidies and price controls, not because fossil fuels are cheaper. Their approach is fiscally unsustainable, and their delay in clean energy buildout will cost them more in the long run.
Wind Energy is not zero cost
The Seagreen offshore wind farm in the North Sea had its output curtailed 71% of the time in 2024 at a cost to electricity payers of £65m.
In its short operating life to then it had been paid £104m for generation and £262m to switch off!
This is not a symptom of wind power being costly, it’s a symptom of the system not being ready yet to handle the sheer amount of clean, cheap power it has access to.
Don’t just make stuff up! Typical know nothing parrot.
The cost of domestic electricity is not significantly related to the amount of energy taxes or subsidies.
The UK with the highest electricity costs in Europe, combined with being in the top four for wind in their generating mix, has comparatively low taxes on its electricity. The price is driven by generating cost not taxes.
This table shows the position in Europe.
https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/05/24/energy-bills-across-europe-what-share-of-the-cost-is-made-up-of-tax
This argument by the way was exploded by Paul Homewood, here:
https://paul-homewood.livejournal.com/1146230.html
….here I present a very simple, unambiguous and undeniable analysis which totally shreds such claims.
According to official data, in 2024 the UK used 179 TWh of natural gas for power generation.At the end of December 2024, the wholesale price of gas was 117 p/therm, or £39.93/MWh.The value of that gas was therefore £7147 million.Total electricity supply in 2024 was 303 TWh.The OFGEM price cap for April to June 2025 was 25.74 p/kWh, excl VAT, giving a retail value of £77992 million.In addition standing charges add approximately an extra £5 billion for domestic users, plus other users.We can therefore see that the cost of natural gas only makes up about 8% of the total retail value of electricity.
We can analyse these same numbers using 2019 prices.
The wholesale price of natural gas was typically around 50 p/therm, so the value of gas used in generation was about £3 billion a year; the rise in the price of gas since has therefore added about £4 billion to the cost of electricity.The OFGEM price cap in 2019 was 17 p/kWh, giving an annual value of £51 billionIn addition, standing charges were approximately £2 billion in 2019, compared to the current £5 billion.The total retail value of the electricity market would therefore be about £56 billion at 2019 prices.To summarise, the retail value of electricity has increased from £56 billion to £83 billion. Of this £27 billion increase, only £4 billion is due to gas.
That blog post completely misunderstands how the UK electricity market works.
The author is looking at the total cost of gas purchased, but that’s not what sets the price. The marginal pricing mechanism means that the high price of gas doesn’t just affect the cost of gas-fired power, it sets the wholesale price for all electricity sold at that moment.
So while gas might be a small part of the total generation, its high price is what drives up costs for the entire market. The reason UK bills aren’t even higher is precisely because renewables are helping to offset some of that expensive gas.
UK has plenty of its own gas, but its stupid anti-fossil fuels politics stops them using that cheaper source
“high wind penetration should mean low electricity prices”
No, this is an absolute FALLACY..
And I’m sure you know that is the case.
Wind energy is NEVER cheap… especially when its not the
Too much wind energy is also massively expensive because of the moronic agreements that governments make.
They aren’t doing 100% renewable now, but they claim that as their goal.
From post:”…advancements in renewables production,…”
Why should any person or country produce something that is useless when compared to what is already being used? The US is doing the correct thing by standing pat on fossil fuel.
“It is saying that the US is stuck on fossil fuels for political reasons, not because they are more economically viable. “
Which shows just how twisted from reality Lezak is.
USA uses fossil fuels because they are the most reliable and accessible form of energy.
Wind and solar only exist because of political idiocy providing massive subsidies.
“Uses” and “stuck on” have different meanings.
And wind and solar are often totally USELESS.
They are NOT alternatives to dispatchable power from fossil fuels.
Renewables plus storage are the alternative.
A very expensive “alternative”…
And there we have it – the man has used the word storage, by which he surely means batteries . . . and therefore the man’s an idiot.
Current combined UK wind and solar facilities have an installed capacity of 53GW. And over the last 12 months these facilities have delivered 11.4GW, so they’ve operated at a load factor of 21.5%. Bloody brilliant, isn’t it!!
Right now, if there’s a week of dunkelflaute conditions, when wind and solar facilities will deliver rather close to nothing, then battery backup would need to deliver as a minimum 11.4GW for the period of a week. That’s 1,915GWh.
The weight of an LFP battery with that capability would be 14.8 MILLION tonnes – the equivalent of 228 Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers – and would cost £173 BILLION.
That’s at current wind and solar installed capacity . . . and that’s only one week of backup!!
But UK electrical generation will be carbon free by 2030 . . . won’t it?!
So, by then, assuming there is no increase in normal demand of, say, 30GW, with fossil fuels and biomass gone – biomass produces more CO2 and particulates per kWh than coal – and with nuclear providing say 4.5GW, and then if we’re hit by a dunkelflaute week . . .
Well, battery backup would have to deliver 25.5GW over the period of a week, which is 4,285GWh. And it would weigh 33.1 MILLION tonnes (the same as 510 Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers) and would cost . . . over £500 BILLION!!
The man’s a complete and utter idiot.
The Biden admin tried shut down free speech on climate change
That and several other topics.
If the costs – benefits case for wind & solar was a no-brainer, that’s all the promoters would have to present.
No need for denigration of everyone who doesn’t buy the proposition.
And yet, all the w&s promoters seem to do is spend all their time & energy in split-flecked, wild-eyed, finger-wagging ranting about “deniers”.
(maybe they all attended a class somewhere on “How to Deliver Speeches” by A. Hitler?)
Another socialist academic sophist.
One wonders if they actually believe the lies they tell, and if so, how they manage to dress themselves in the morning.
I believe some are deeply anti fossil fuel
They THINK they are, until they have to go without it, then they realize their HYPOCRISY.
Respectfully J Boles … Nope, never. That’s what their cognitive dissonance is for.
The tone of Lecturer Lezak’s article is no surprise since Lecturer Lezak is at Oxford, and could not be there otherwise. He claims this is an era of intellectual ferment, due to the energy transition, but the era is about to be extinguished by political development elsewhere than in England.
He should look at the data.
The redoubtable IEA published this graph a few years back.
Rather than an intellectual explosion, the energy transition has brought an intellectual termination.
After all, the renewable energy transition is about relic technologies with little upside, pushing a decimal point, rather than about innovation. Real innovation is being starved by lack of $ aimed at progress. The decline began in 2010, more than 15 years past. Energy transition funding grew exponentially, while science innovation was dying since funding required ‘climate change’ in the title – the Lysenkoism of the energy transition. This may be about to change in the US, at least.
University of Oxford
The Indoctrinarium of Oxford.
In case you didn’t know, the goose is well and truly cooked.
Highly on-topic: In 1989, Miliband gained four A Levels—in Mathematics (A), English (A), Further Mathematics (B) and Physics (B)—and then read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Yep the guy was doing alright with his A levels, and then look what happened to the poor bloke.
This guy should do a sabbatical at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.
The average temperature in Winnipeg in January is -20° to -10° C. With wind chill, the temperatures can be even lower. Solar panel don’t work in winter when they are covered with snow.
The engineers should inform him that there will never ever be any energy transition in the heavy industry and the heavy transport systems.
I think that guy might be stone deaf…like so many others nowadays. So let him freeze pleeaze 😉
Wind mills don’t work when covered by ice either.
Yes, there are ways to keep wind and solar ice/snow free, however those methods cost a lot of money, make wind/solar installations heaver, more expensive to operate and less efficient.
Of course none of that is reflected in Alan’s precious LCOE “papers”.
I wonder what the chemical composition of de-icer is and how it is produced, transported, and applied.
Certainly an all electric, no oil, system is used. /sarc
OT: Having lost one SMR outfit…
Great British Energy – Nuclear (not to be confused with the inexplicably separate quango Great British Energy) is searching for a new chairman. ‘GBE-N’, as it is known in the ever growing domain of government bodies poking around in the energy industry, is in charge of delivering small modular reactors (SMRs) in the UK, among other things. That programme has been ongoing since at least 2015…
Now Red Ed is looking for a new head for the organisation – and a live job advert shows a cool salary of more than £203,268 per annum for just three days a week.
https://order-order.com/2025/08/04/milibands-nuclear-quango-chief-in-line-for-200000-for-working-three-days-a-week/
In an authoritarian world every new problem is dealt with by the handful of people with the authority. In a capitalist world, every new problem is looked at by millions upon millions of people who will try and solve it in myriad ways. Patents will be filed, businesses launched, and the vast majority will fail. But the really good solutions will survive and prosper.
What socialists don’t understand is that a handful of authoritarian bureaucrats have a vanishingly small chance of coming up with on of those really good solutions. Which is why nearly all the advances in those countries are based on IP stolen from capitalist economies.
I’ve given up trying to explain history to the socialist useful idiots. I’m trying pure logic instead. Sadly, I think that too will fail.
Furthermore, that small group of people were selected not for their abilities or knowledge, but because of their relationships with other powerful people. Their goal is not to solve the problem, but to protect the interests, power and wealth of those in power.
So according to this prat “It does, however, have an energy cost problem combined with a growing climate change crisis.” Just another third-rate academic.
If solar and wind were cheaper (and dispatchable as needed), China would not build a single new coal-fired generating plant.
They literally have the cheapest available turbines and solar panels since they have the lowest transportation costs from the nearby manufacturing facilities.
I don’t care what your LCOE calculations show. When the people that actually pay for the electricity generated from the plants are choosing to build over 100 coal-fired plants a year, I know which plant is cheapest!
Anyone who thinks China has he right ideology and the best system AND believes their own country should be more like China should immediately relocate to China and exist there for 5 years before trying to change their own country.
Well they can have a little SIP on China first-
Australia’s biggest battery now on standby to prevent NSW power blackouts
China is the place where a team will go to auto accidents to cover up the brand of car involved – remove vehicle badges and throw a cover over the car. Xi and his family own some of certain auto co.s and the government does not want pictures taken or the public to see the cars. Unbelievable but true.
Regardless of any obsessions, they haven’t kept the country from being the global leader in carbon emissions, coal consumption and coal-fueled electricity generation.
China is playing the nitwit Western “leaders” like a fiddle (except for one).
“…[strips away support for] cheap and abundant renewables like wind and solar…”
What? Ba-hahahahahahahahaha!
What a maroon.
Lots of w & s crap installed…
.. for way too often little to no supply.
Be thankful people like him are on their side and not ours. It appears Oxford has gone to hell.
Amen. If you look at the full original article in Conversation you will be struck by the utter witlessness of most of the commenters.
All-world intellectuals and experts in “climate” today, tariffs tomorrow, Ukraine the day after and Palestine the day after that and ad nauseam? But if they had a Witless Party, they wouldn’t vote for it.
A great deal of education is necessary to be that dumb:
Climatism has generally been taken up by the left, but its actually a very conservative doctrine.
If you were deconstructing it you would say that the result of it is to stop worrying about class, inequality, workers rights, any of those other boring things that the left used to worry about. Instead start demonstrating for saving the planet by reducing economic activity. Its a great distractor.
Notice that by the way, reducing it. This is not Kruschev proclaiming the superiority of the Soviet Model as producing increased growth. ‘We will bury you’. Remember that?
This is a bunch of rich kids telling you not to worry about class, distributing the benefits of economic growth or the structure of society, instead get out there and save the planet. Yes, one understands why you would be pleased at that.
Once you start to ask what the latest manias distract from, things start to look rather different.
Even with NVES penalties for plant food the pesky deplorables still want ICE backup-
Plug-in hybrids speed up, EVs slow down in record month
If only we could be like the Commies they mutter while salivating over Hamas.
These people have one problem only. They believe fanatically in their own hype.
This guy likes authoritarians because he IS an authoritarian.
The Chinese Great Leap Forward that never happened. Or backflipped.
“Fast forward to today and the frontiers of global technology have pivoted to AI and next‑generation energy.”
Windmills and solar panels have been around for a long time. It’s stupid to consider them next gen like AI.