Grangemouth oil refinery could cease operations by 2025 - BBC News
There are only a few oil refineries left in the UK. The biggest is right near me in Fawley. As the cost of energy goes on increasing, how long before they all go the way of Grangemouth and we become dependent on imported oil products?
When you read the post below you have to ask - will the majority of the people accept it?
Cold, hungry, stuck at home: Net Zero’s drastic lifestyle changes (netzerowatch.com)
According to the Met Office, UK mean temperatures have been on the rise since about 1980. But during the exact same period sunshine hours have also been steadily rising. In a paper they published in 2006, the Met Office admitted there was not just a connection, but temperatures and sunshine were in fact strongly correlated. The paper, Climate Memorandum No 21, was an analysis of all climate trends. It has since disappeared from the Met Office website, but is fortunately still saved on Wayback:
It seems strange that the Met Office would remove a scientific paper from their website which is so important and relevant to one of the most contentious issues facing us today, except that it does not fit with the prevailing theme which is that CO2 is responsible for all the warming. Hiding evidence that does not support this contention is dishonest and begs the question - what else may be being hidden from us ?
The link below reveals a statement made by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change which makes sense when you realise the very damaging effect of the policy of net zero. What is surprising is that she feels so emboldened that she would make such a statement publicly. The fact that she did should be a wake up call for those who have, so far, been convinced that net zero is all about "saving the planet from a climate emergency."
U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare | Investor's Business Daily (investors.com)
These protests are being driven by the drive to cut CO2 emissions. For protests on this scale large numbers of people must be really angry and desperate. See the details here:
The title of this post refers to the case of Michael Mann, the scientist who produced the infamous Hockey-stick graph which denied the existence of the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc. and Mark Steyn, a journalist who 12 years ago wrote an article in which he basically said that Mann's graph was fraudulent in the strongest of terms, whence Mann sued Steyn for defamation. Now after 12 years of delay the case has finally come to court. You can keep up with the trial on Mark Steyn's website. Here are links:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury :: SteynOnline
. Week Two Begins :: SteynOnline
On the surface it seems that Mark has coped really well with all the pressure that he must be under. I gather he is representing himself in court, which is a very brave thing to do, although it should save him considerable costs and he is a very witty and confident speaker.
Mann has already sued another person for defaming him, scientist Tim Ball, and lost! Sadly Tim Ball has died and Mann has disobeyed the court by failing to pay Ball's costs. This time I hope to see Mann get what he deserves. It will be interesting to see if the case gets any major publicity here in the UK.
The articles below explain the problems the drive to net zero is causing the UK. This is before any large take up of heat pumps or electric vehicles has even started. The government claims that renewables will provide a reliable and cheap source of energy, but the evidence does not look good.
New homes may be delayed by power grid capacity - BBC News
Renewable energy projects worth billions stuck on hold - BBC News
Grid Capacity Issues Threaten Net Zero | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
Another good piece by Richard North packed with cold records all over the place. It's funny how silent the media are on reporting these weather events, compared with the vast coverage of any floods, droughts or wildfires.
Here is an astonishing finding which brings home to us all just how foolish our governing establishment is. The decision to go to net zero carbon dioxide emissions was taken on the strength of just one year's climate data. It is now clear that Parliament authorised Net Zero without any proper assessment. The public have been grossly misled, but where is the media scrutiny. There is no debate, no open discussion of what is going on. I suspect the government will wait until there is strong push-back from the public, as has happened in Europe.
The government would have us believe that achieving net zero can be done without causing major problems. As we see the reality, I doubt that many will believe this in future. Not only will thousands of jobs be lost, but the UK will no longer be able to make new steel. Instead we will have to import it from countries which are likely to emit just as much CO2 as we would have done had we made it ourselves. So the planet saves zero CO2, but the UK can claim to be nearer to net zero.
Tata steel: What do plans mean for UK's carbon footprint - BBC News
Surely this will spell disaster for the electric vehicle market. It is clearly down to the battery being so costly and having a limited life. Why would anyone buy a more expensive vehicle with such a limited life?
This article shows the actual data that was used to make the claim of the "hottest year ever". When you look at it you realise just how insignificant this claim actually is. We are led to believe that the world is warming as one and that this is a relentless process, but in reality the world is divided into a number of regions which are all warming at quite different rates. The difference between 2023 and the second hottest average year which was 2016 is only 0.15 degrees C.
2023 “Earth’s Hottest Year on Record” Claims Fail – Watts Up With That?
Paul Burgess has a new video explaining this very clearly. Here is the link:
This new video by Paul Burgess expands on the discussion on his most recent appearance on GB News. It contains some very interesting information, also featuring some clips from Tony Heller. The section on how the temperature data is manipulated by the various weather agencies.
A sad crazy day - Paul Burgess Nana Akua Show 13th January 2024 GBnews (youtube.com)
Here is a lesson for those who believe that a grid reliant on wind and solar energy can cope when the wind drops away during cold spells. It is a situation that is becoming more and more likely as the gas generators are shut down. You cannot run a reliable grid without fossil fuel back-up.
When the TV news tell us that extreme weather is getting much worse due to "climate change" or "global warming", most people may think "it must be true", even though they don't feel it themselves. The link below shows a table from the IPCC report itself (not the Summary for Policymakers). You may be surprised to see that, as can be seen from the chart, there is no evidence of any increase or decrease, globally or by region, in the frequency, severity or extent of frost, mean precipitation, river floods, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, landslides, aridity, hydrological drought, agricultural or ecological drought, fire weather or wildfires, mean wind speed, severe wind storms or tornados, tropical cyclones or hurricanes, sand and dust storms, snow glacial or ice sheets, heavy snowfall and ice storms, hail, snow avalanche, relative sea levels, coastal floods, coastal erosion, marine heatwaves, ocean acidity, air pollution weather or radiation at earth’s surface.
The drive to reduce emissions of CO2 is now causing extraordinary decisions to be made. One glaring example is in the use of biomass to replace coal in the Drax power station in Yorkshire. The video below explains the details, highlighting the enormous costs and subsidies paid out in order to reach the mythical net zero. These costs are inevitably driving up the price of our electricity, and hence the cost of almost everything we produce here in the UK. Finally let's remember that the whole of the UK is alleged to produce less than 1% of the world's emissions, meaning that these huge costs are having no effect on either the temperature or the climate of the world.
It's amazing what the BBC and ITV news don't tell us. But they surely won't be able to continue to censor the people from the mass protests against net zero policies for much longer.
Some people think that wind turbines will produce cheap electricity, but as the article below shows, this is simply wishful thinking on a grand scale. In fact because of subsidies, wind farms rake in the money whether the wind blows or not; their price is guaranteed. It is reliable back-up generators, such as gas and nuclear, which have to pay for this market volatility, and in turn pass this cost on to the consumer, causing us to have expensive and less reliable electricity.
December 2023 CfD Subsidies | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
John Clauser is a retired experimental and theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in physics in 2022 for his work in Quantum Mechanics.
On June 26, Clauser stated, “I don’t believe there is a climate crisis.” Clauser went on to amplify his view in a lecture on November 14, 2023 by stating “The planet is not imperiled.” He recognizes the work of Will Happer, Arthur Robinson, Willie Soon, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, and many others. He also cited the work of a growing list of advocacy groups including the Heartland Institute, the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change, Access to Energy, the CO2 Coalition, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, and Clintel’s World Climate Declaration.Science is never settled. New discoveries have often changed our ideas completely so we must always keep an open mind. This new, longer video from Paul Burgess raises some interesting points:
Yes, that is another restriction that the Climate Inquisition have in mind for us!
Does the council have a workplace parking levy? This is one of the 90 questions used by Climate Emergency UK to "mark" councils on their ambition to achieve net zero. I doubt it would be very popular among the thousands of hard-working constituents in their authority area. No authority has introduced such a levy yet, for obvious reasons.
Following on from the last post, another question which councils are being asked is:
Is the council committed to making 20mph the standard speed limit for most restricted roads?
This question tells us just how restrictive these people want councils to be. I just wonder how many votes a candidate would get if they put a pledge to bring in 20mph limits in their election leaflet. Clearly this is the hidden agenda behind Climate Emergency UK. These limits are already being introduced in Wales by the Welsh Labour Government, so it is not far-fetched to believe it could be coming here soon.
Have you heard of Climate Emergency UK? They are a little known group of self-appointed inquisitors whose aim is to try and bully local councils into doing more to reach the mythical net zero. They have devised a set of about 91 questions to keep local councils tied up responding to them through using the Freedom of Information rules. Although many of the questions are reasonable, some are stretching the boundaries between normal council activity and outright activism. Here is a small sample of the latter with my comments in red:
Does the council include a policy in the Local Plan to create 15/20 minute neighbourhoods? These are controversial as they involve restricting the free movement of motor vehicles and have caused a lot of opposition where they have been proposed.
Has the Council approved a planning application for a carbon intensive energy system to be built or expanded from 2019? Presumably this would include any industry that required use of fossil fuels and so bring employment to the area. This is a political decision where a balanced approach is required.
Has the council's area wide carbon emissions decreased, according to UK Government data? This is beyond the powers of the local council.
Has the council adopted a new governance or decision making process to put tackling the climate emergency at the heart of every council decision made? They seem to imply that net zero should come before any other policy. That is not necessarily what the majority of people voted for.
What percentage of the council's overall staff work on implementing their Climate Action Plan or other climate change projects? This question implies that councils should increase their workforce, ignoring the fact that they could be more efficient.
Have all senior management and councillors in the cabinet or committee chairs received climate awareness training? This assumes that they all agree with the premise that net zero is a sensible policy.
Has the council passed a motion in support of divestment from all fossil fuels from the councils' pension funds? This could interfere with the first priority of a pension fund to invest in the most profitable companies.
Has the council lobbied the government for climate action? It is not the job of local government to lobby the government.
Is the council working with external partners or other councils to seek to influence national governments on climate action, or to learn about and share best practice on council climate action? See previous answer.
Is the council working in partnership with schools or other education settings to deliver climate action that young people can engage with? Young people should be presented with balanced information when learning about controversial political matters.
Has the council passed a motion to ban high carbon advertising and sponsorship? Councils should not be interfering in the free market economy.
Do schools in the council area serve less meat in school meals? It should not be the job of the council to interfere in the diet of children or adults.
Has the council removed minimum parking requirements for new residential homes across their area? This would simply lead to more on-street parking which would be very unpopular.
As the deprivation caused by the net zero policy draws ever closer splits within the governing Conservative government are emerging with the minister for climate change resigning over the sensible policy of keeping the North Sea oil and gas industry going with new licenses being issued to drill. Those more sensible members of the government realise that living without any home-produced oil and gas is simply stupid. However some ministers seem to believe completely that there really is a climate emergency and that the UK can actually do something about it.
Every minister should read the book Not Zero by Ross Clarke to take them back to reality. I am currently re-reading after lending it to a friend. I will be putting up a few highlights from the book in the coming days.
Resigning ex-minister Chris Skidmore wrong on climate, says Jeremy Hunt - BBC News
Every passing storm is being enlisted as a "sign of climate change" in a desperate bid to convince the sceptic public that we are facing a climate emergency, when the data shows clearly that these storms are nothing more than the variable weather that the UK has always experienced. See the details in this article:
Swedish snow chaos leaves 1,000 vehicles trapped on main E22 road - BBC News
Extreme cold weather has hit parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway, and snow storms in Denmark have left drivers trapped on a motorway near Aarhus since Wednesday.
The Kvikkjokk-Arrenjarka weather station in northern Sweden recorded its coldest night for 25 years on Tuesday night, with temperatures dropping to -43.6C.
I know it's only weather, but it does not seem to be mentioned on the main TV news, so for "balance" I am mentioning it here.
As most of us are beginning to realise, getting to net zero is going to be very difficult (or more likely not possible at all), so the government will need to use tricky accounting in order to give an impression of success. One way of doing this is by excluding the emissions created by products manufactured overseas. They also exclude emissions from shipping and aviation.
By increasing taxes and levies on the CO2 emitted by UK businesses the government is driving them out and making their products more expensive than those from overseas. We are exporting our emissions and our jobs. but this all makes our CO2 emissions look as though they are falling more quickly.
Just to take one example the cost of electricity in the UK, according to UK steel was £46.60 per MWh in 2020/21, whereas even in Germany it was only £25, and £28.74 in France. We now import 61% of our steel.
According to this report some new cars in the new "digital age" will collect data on you and then pass it on. Read about it here:
You would hope that the government would protect us from this kind of thing, but in the ever changing world you should not trust anything.
Westminster Forum Projects | Next steps for the UK subsidy control regime
Areas for
discussion include the new application and self-assessment processes and
streamlined routes, and provisions placing increased responsibility on
businesses to analyse the potential contribution of their plans to policy and
public good goals. [ I did not know that businesses had a responsibility to help achieve "public good goals"]
"The conference will also be an opportunity to discuss the role
of streamlined routes in contributing to the UK economic
growth and wider policy goals, such as the transition to net
zero".
Subsidies, or grants, have always been an important part of
the funding for councils and so this puts a good deal of pressure on them to deliver the targets and policies of the national government, even if it is not an actual legal requirement.
As the cost of achieving net zero becomes ever more
expensive these subsidies will need to keep increasing as
councils try to keep balancing their budgets while cost
pressures in other vital areas keep increasing. For example,
we are currently experiencing a housing crisis and desperately need more council homes. How will the money be found to build them if the housing budget has to be spent on achieving net zero?
In the video below Paul Burgess rebuts climate alarmism on GB News.
Nana Akua Show 30th December 2023 - PUTTING RIGHT 2023'S ALARMISM (youtube.com)
