While here in the UK we diligently and piously refuse to increase the extraction of our own oil and gas resources and blow up our coal-fired power stations, over in china they take a somewhat different approach. See here:
When the Chinese leadership say they will achieve net zero by 2060, I wonder why our leaders believe them?
Cheap electricity is part of a bygone age. It has been replaced by the net zero driven age of greedy wind farms who sign contracts promising us cheap electricity, only to renege in favour of charging the "market rate". What a rip-off! Read about it here:
Wind farms can simply ignore agreed contracts and cash in big time, FOI reveals - Net Zero Watch
As we are forced to give up our gas boilers and our petrol cars, you can see how this is going. All our eggs are being forced into one expensive basket!
Richard North writes an interesting article on the latest incarnation of carbon capture and storage;
Climate change: the onset of madness revisited | Turbulent Times
I like his style. He begins with a statement I have often thought myself:
"Future historians are going to have as much trouble understanding this age as contemporary authors have in dealing with the Salem witch trials."
Great stuff!
Apparently the residents of Greater London are fighting against the extension of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone being brought in by the Mayor, Sadiq Khan. Direct action in a variety of ways is taking place. I thought this would happen after Extinction Rebellion and other offshoots were treated so lightly by the police. This is just the beginning, I suspect. As the authorities clamp down more and more on our freedoms and push up the price of travel, heating etc. ever higher we will end up more like the French.
Read it all here:
An article in the 20th March edition of The House magazine (for MPs) looks at how the government intends to "decarbonise" our heating system. There are two options being considered. One is to replace natural gas boilers with hydrogen gas versions and the other is to replace them with heat pumps.
The government's Energy Bill contains provisions for a new heat policy that will require boiler suppliers to sell a percentage of their output as heat pumps each year, much like the electric vehicle policy. This uses the salesmen to convince the public to buy them. This policy would push up the cost of gas boilers which would annoy the public when they found out, so it might not pass. If not, at present the government has no policy to roll out hydrogen so the article says, yet they are carrying out trials of hydrogen boilers right now.
You can read the whole article, and the whole magazine online at this link:
The House Live | Politicshome.com
I find it quite astonishing that the government is, on the one hand having to give subsidies to people and businesses because of the high price of electricity, while on the other hand they are themselves raising its price by adding extra charges to the producers. Why is this not being flagged up by the media? Why is no one questioning the minister? Here is an information-packed article from the great Paul Homewood:
Will Offshore Wind Lower Energy Bills? | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
By the way has anyone noticed the change of name of the former government department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). When you think about it, these two aims (energy security and net zero) do not seem to be very compatible. If, by secure, we mean reliable, then increasing renewables like wind and solar which are at the mercy of the weather, are not the way to go. Of course if reaching net zero is your aim, then wind and solar are the way to go. Interestingly energy security comes first, something a government minister pointed out to me recently. Is this a subtle hint at a change of emphasis? We can only hope!
On 16th March this blog reported on a stunning political upheaval in Holland, see here:
climate science: DUTCH FARMERS GAIN STUNNING VICTORY
Now I see the story is starting to get the mass coverage it deserves. See today's Daily Mail:
It seems clear that the major TV news outlets are determined to suppress this kind of story, but it cannot be maintained. The truth will come out and I predict that, if Western governments continue to pursue restrictive policies against the wishes of the majority of people there will be more and more rebellions. If democracy means anything, it means the majority will be heard, as Macron is finding out right now over his pension policies. In the end politics has to lead to a compromise, or defeat in an election.
We all know deep down that wind is unreliable. That is why ships stopped using it and turned to coal and oil, and windmills were replaced by motor-driven machines. I have often wondered why politicians rely so heavily on wind turbines to replace coal and gas power stations. Now a professor has done the maths:
But will those who make policy listen to the science?
I wonder why this has not figured in our news broadcasts?
Global warming theory does not predict this cooling of the Antarctic. It just shows how much we still need to find out about the causes of our changing climate. But our political leaders have set their policy and will not be interested in looking more closely at the science. The problem is that the policy is a disaster and very few people seem to realise what is coming in the next few years. However they will soon begin to understand as the cost of living keeps on rising.
Find out why from the short video in the link below from one of the most highly qualified climate scientists there is:
Isn't it extraordinary that such a highly qualified man is ignored by governments and by the mainstream media? He is one of many top experts who say the same thing. Yet the world listens to a school girl who has missed lessons to protest that more needs to be done to stop emitting CO2. This has nothing to do with science, it is simply politics. We are living in extraordinary times.
Just when you thought that the non-stop reports of climate disasters might be given a rest the UN comes up with yet another:
UN climate report: Scientists release 'survival guide' to avert climate disaster - BBC News
Of course this was given the prime spot on yesterday's BBC news, complete with pictures of recent floods in Pakistan etc. The narrative is that all this extreme weather is due to "climate change" and it will get much worse, but there is still a chance that if we repent our wicked ways and stop emitting CO2 then we can save ourselves. Don't these people realise that by repeating this same message ad nauseum that many people will tire of it and simply turn off. Clearly not. This incessant message of impending doom is carefully designed to prepare us for the very costly and restrictive policies that will be foisted on us all.
But the public aren't fools, they will see that the climate they experience is changing very little. Sure, you get extreme weather, but that has always been the case. Pakistan has had many floods before. Most people will think the sensible way forward is for nations to adapt to try and protect people from these events. To try and claim that they are getting so much worse when the evidence does not support that is a very foolish strategy, for even if the media refuse to show the actual data which does not support this doom-mongering, the evidence will eventually come out via the internet and great websites like Not a Lot of People Know That and Watts Up With That.
No one is ever invited on to the news to suggest that any of these pronouncements made might be questionable. At one point the presenter said that the world was now warmer than for the past 125,000 years. I would say that is very contentious and there is a lot of evidence to counter it. For example how do they explain that a few years ago a melting glacier revealed beneath it the remains of ancient Alpine trees that were found to be about 400 years old, proving that only 400 years ago the Alps must have been warmer than they are today. Farming communities thrived on Greenland during what is known as the Medieval Warm Period. All this inconvenient material is swept under the carpet.
Such one-sided reporting is not normal in our open society, yet it is happening. In other less enlightened nations we call it propaganda. There is no discussion of the cost of the policies required to reduce our CO2 emissions to net zero versus the benefits to us. All we get is repetitive messages about how bad it all is and how we must do whatever it takes to get to net zero. No mention of the fact that we only emit 1% of the world's CO2 and so cannot achieve anything on our own and that nations such as China and India have no intention of reducing their CO2 to zero.
From the reporting the message seems to be that if we just drive a bit less and eat less meat, turn down the heating, then we can save the planet. Most of us know that this is nonsense, and our political leaders know it, but they just cannot bring themselves to admit it publicly.
Only three months ago the Credit Suisse bank issued its annual Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures report, promising to set the bank at the centre of the global Net Zero carbon trajectory.
Surely we should expect our state broadcaster to live up to the highest standards when reporting, yet in a recent article claiming that the current winter has been exceptionally dry, the BBC showed a photo of a reservoir with very low levels of water which was discovered to be taken during the height of a summer drought! Read it all here;
Read about it here:
It is no good political leaders wringing their hands and blaming it on Putin.
The problem for Western governments is that they have opened Pandora's box by bringing out laws to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 (legally binding in the case of the UK) and so climate activist groups are increasingly taking to the courts to force ever more severe policies to achieve this. See here:
Milieudefensie v Shell: Implications of the Dutch court ruling explained | Fieldfisher
If the courts uphold the activists claims then major companies and the government itself will become mired in a very costly stand-off until the law can be changed. What a mess!
Take a look at this:
Farmer's protest party win shock Dutch vote victory - BBC News
At last the fight-back begins against government plans to slash nitrogen emissions by dramatically reducing livestock numbers and buying out thousands of farms. How long before people fight back against ever higher fuel bills due to net zero policies?
That is what this recent poll says:
A majority of voters agree with a Republican presidential candidate’s criticism of climate change as a “religion” that isn’t really about the climate at all.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. voters agree – including 47% who Strongly Agree – with Vivek Ramasamy’s recent statement that climate change has become a religion that “actually has nothing to do with the climate” and is really about power and control. Thirty-five percent (35%) disagree with Ramaswamy’s statement, including 25% who Strongly Disagree.
Below is a link to a very interesting essay which includes a large list of reference links.
Climate Crisis? What Climate Crisis? Part One: The Evidence | Watts Up With That?
The US President has been forced to face reality and understand that oil will be essential to the USA for decades to come, if not longer. It's a truth that no leader of any Western nation can ignore in the end for all the fine green words they may spout, or else they will find the voters will turn on them.
Here is an extract from the Daily Telegraph to explain:
Joe Biden is facing a
showdown with environmentalists and leading Democrats after approving one of
the largest ever drilling projects on US land.
His administration gave the green light to the Willow Project on Alaska’s North
Slope, effectively reversing a policy pledge he made during the 2020
presidential election.
Having entered office vowing “no more drilling on federal lands, period”, Mr
Biden’s hand has been forced by soaring energy prices, which have fuelled
inflation.
The Willow Project, which has been led by oil behemoth ConocoPhillips, could
produce more than 600 million barrels of crude oil over the next 30 years.
It is understood that the president will try to soften criticism by imposing
strict restrictions on offshore drilling and strengthening protection on more
than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
This is unlikely to satisfy critics who are pressing the administration to honour
its pledges at a raft of global climate summits.
Environmental groups estimate that the Willow Project will add more than 250
million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the next 30
years, equivalent to the annual emissions of 66 coal plants.
Annually, it would equate to adding nearly two million cars onto US roads.
Only last week, nearly two dozen Democrat members of Congress – as well as
independent Bernie Sanders – wrote to Mr Biden urging him to kill off what they
described as an “ill-conceived and misguided” oil and gas drilling project.
Anthony Watts has introduced a new feature to show what global warming actually looks like in the real world. It's something that is needed to help the general public understand how small the actual warming is. Take a look at this link:
New WUWT Global Temperature Feature: Anomaly vs. Real-World Temperature | Watts Up With That?
The Met Office are at it again trying to scare the public into believing that rainfall is going to become dramatically heavier due to global warming. Luckily there are records kept which show that such events are not unprecedented, but have in fact occurred periodically over many years (and no doubt even before records were kept). Here is the evidence:
Extreme Rainfall In 1937 | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
Could we soon be seeing labels on our parcels revealing
their carbon footprint? Industry professionals and politicians in Germany are
calling for CO2 labels on all parcels, as part of its forthcoming postal law
reforms. Where Germany goes, Britain may need to follow, says the UK-based
international delivery expert ParcelHero.
ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks
M.I.L.T., says: ‘Germany is considering radical postal and parcel reforms, in
what is expected to be the biggest shake-up of services in 30 years.
Its Federal Ministry of Economics is reportedly weighing up
legislation to introduce CO2 emissions information. The SPD MP Sebastian
Roloff says: "Everything that focuses on more climate protection in
parcel delivery is worth considering… There should be more transparency for
consumers."
So how do they expect consumers to react? Do they think they will stop ordering items?
Here's another bit of good news that won't appear in the main TV channels. “88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted. It is noteworthy that no island larger than 10 ha decreased in size. These results show that atoll and island areal stability is a global trend, whatever the rate of sea-level rise.”
Read it all here: Science Yields Surprises! Island Nations Growing… “Atoll, Island Stability Is Global Trend”! (notrickszone.com)
BlackRock’s tyrannical ESG agenda - UnHerd
As the ESG agenda took hold, the individual investor increasingly found himself shunted aside. The roots of this shift lay in the early Eighties, when federal proxy voting rules were changed to allow fund managers such as BlackRock to vote on behalf of their clients.
UK could U-turn on 2035 gas boiler ban as heat pumps cost 'many times more'
Daily Express, 1 March 2023Madness on stilts: Hydrogen boilers might need ‘four-inch holes in walls to prevent explosions’
The Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2023There are three major difficulties with the claim that sea level rises are accelerating.
Below is an in-depth look at the details and finance needed to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 in the USA. It is a fascinating read which re-enforces the work of other experts in concluding that the policy is impossible to achieve and that attempting it is likely to lead to severe hardship for a majority of the population. Here is the link:
Feasibility for Achieving a Net Zero Economy for the U.S. by 2050 | Watts Up With That?
Press Release
The government should reject the wind industry’s crude blackmail
and cancel contracts that appear to have been obtained on the basis of false
representations.
London, 3 March - Further details are now emerging of the offshore wind
industry’s attempt to obtain additional support for unbuilt projects,
first reported by the Financial Times, and the subject of a Net Zero
Watch statement (“Demands for more subsidy expose the illusion of falling wind power
costs”).
The Times is
now reporting that the Danish state-controlled wind giant Ørsted is threatening to cancel the £8 billion Hornsea Three wind farm,
the world’s biggest, unless it is given more UK government support through
“enhanced capital allowances”.
Hornsea Three was amongst five projects that bid very low prices for UK
government Contracts for Difference in 2022. Ørsted claims that it is not
alone, and that all these projects are now “in jeopardy”.
The justification offered for this threat is that the company is facing “very
extraordinary circumstances” that have increased its costs.
However, since the contracts are inflation-linked in any case, and world steel
prices have actually fallen since Ørsted submitted its CfD bid for Hornsea 3,
Net Zero Watch does not accept this explanation.
In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – to be “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”.
Some village people are being asked to take part in an experiment to swap their natural gas boilers for hydrogen gas versions and many of them are objecting. Perhaps they have safety fears, or fear that their bills will go up after the end of a two year deal to keep them the same. Read the details here:
