Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Europe’s picturesque landscapes, adorned with sprawling croplands and pastures, have long been part of the continent’s agrarian identity. However, a wave of farmer protests have intruded on this peaceful scene and extended into cities.
Europe’s picturesque landscapes, adorned with sprawling croplands and pastures, have long been part of the continent’s agrarian identity. However, a wave of farmer protests have intruded on this peaceful scene and extended into cities.
From the rolling hills of France to the windswept plains of Poland, farmers have driven their tractors onto the streets, united in a fight against a threat to their livelihoods. As I write this, thousands of French farmers are on the outskirts of Paris, blocking roads in an act that has been dubbed the “siege of Paris.” The city of Toulouse, home to 800,000 people, was cut off from the rest of France due to protests.
Likewise, in cities across Belgium, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Germany, farmers have blocked roads and conducted targeted protests at public buildings. Tractor convoys, road blockades, and impassioned speeches reflect the agricultural community’s deep frustration with attempts to reduce farmlands and ban fertilizer use.
The primary policy target of farmers is a so-called Farm to Fork program that seeks to halve pesticide use, reduce fertilizer use, cut by at least 10% agricultural areas and mandate a conversion of 25% of the European Union’s agricultural land to “organic-only” farming. The initiative also includes removal of subsidies for agricultural diesel used in tractors and machinery.
Farmers argue that all these policies jeopardize food security and undermine the rich agricultural heritage that has defined European societies for centuries.
Behind all this is the EU’s climate change agenda’s obsession with reducing harmless industrial and agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases, which include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. Farm to Fork is a subset of the bigger Green Deal and Net Zero programs.
France’s largest farm union, FNSEA, says it wants a change in the “very philosophy of the Green Deal which assumes degrowth.”
“French farmers are united in their opposition to absurd, extreme and unworkable environmental policies,” said the president of Coordination Rurale, a French farming group. “Those in power do not spare a thought for the impact of these policies on the livelihoods of farmers, the food security of the nation and the cost-of-living crisis facing ordinary people.”
The farmer unions have a point, and a serious one. Reducing the use of fertilizers would require employing more land for agriculture, but the EU’s green policies intend to decrease the amount of farmland. This amounts to forced agricultural suicide that threatens hunger, death and societal collapse.
In other words, the fight goes beyond the immediate use of land and fertilizers and to the well-being of generations to come. Farm to Fork won’t be resolved until there is an end to the Green Deal and Net Zero programs.
The European agricultural crisis is a warning to citizens of other governments planning to adopt similar policies for agricultural production to avert a nonexistent climate crisis.
So called green policies would kill the greenest parts of our world as they destroy ordinary people’s dream of a decent life with access to basic necessities for living.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.
A few days ago both the Guardian and the BBC (the usual suspects, in other words) published articles on their websites about a recent Report by the Environment and Climate Change Committee of the House of Lords (its first Report of the 2023/24 session).
A few days ago both the Guardian and the BBC (the usual suspects, in other words) published articles on their websites about a recent Report by the Environment and Climate Change Committee of the House of Lords (its first Report of the 2023/24 session). Perhaps surprisingly, the Guardian went with the less sensationalist headline: “Make used electric cars cheaper and tackle battery fears, peers tell ministers – Grants needed towards buying EVs as well as a battery health testing standard to reassure consumers”. The BBC, by contrast, decided to focus on the “misinformation” angle: “Electric cars: Lords urge action on ‘misinformation’ in press”.
The Guardian article played it with a reasonably straight bat, highlighting some main points from the Report, such as (these are the views of the Committee, as reported by the Guardian – they are not my views):
The need for Ministerial intervention to boost the secondhand EV market, and to allay “uncertainty and concerns” over the health and longevity of EV batteries;
Measures should be taken to reduce the disparity between the upfront costs of ICE vehicles and EVs (by the use of “targeted grants”);
The subsidies could be “tapered away” when EV prices finally reach compatibility with the price of ICE cars;
Planning regulations should be reviewed to “turbo-charge” the rollout of charging infrastructure;
VAT rates should be cut for public charging to help those without access to off-street parking; and
Investment should made into UK battery recycling facilities.
A brief mention was made of supposed misinformation in the media:
The Lords said: “By emphasising the costs while failing to stress the benefits and robustly counter misinformation, the government is not building public confidence.
“The concern the government expressed to us about the scale of misinformation has not been matched by commensurate urgency in tackling it. Faced with conflicting claims and alarmist headlines, consumers need a go-to source of comprehensive, clear and balanced information.”
The BBC, by contrast, homed in on the suggestion of misinformation, not just in its headline, but in the body of the article, including (to make sure that readers get the message) in its opening sentence:
The government must do more to counter “misinformation” on electric vehicles published in parts of the UK press, a Lords enquiry has said.
The third paragraph stressed it too:
The Lords Climate Change Committee urged the government to build consumer confidence and push back against what it called mistruths on range and cost.
And then the bulk of the article also emphasised this angle:
Baroness Parminter, chair of the committee, told the BBC that both government officials and other witnesses to the enquiry had reported reading disinformation on the subject in national newspapers.
“We have seen a concerted effort to scare people… we have seen articles saying that cars are catching fire – but had evidence that the fire risk is absolutely the same as [petrol and diesel] cars,” she said.
The Lords committee did not single out any newspaper in particular.
Testifying before the committee, Richard Bruce, Director of Transport Decarbonisation at the Department for Transport, conceded there was a problem.
He said: “I do think there has been an impact from a concerted campaign of misinformation over the last 14 months or so that has been pushing consistent myths about EVs that people absorb and which is reflected in their appetite [for purchasing EVs].
“There is an anti-EV story in the papers almost every day. Sometimes there are many stories, almost all of which are based on misconceptions and mistruths, unfortunately.”
Baroness Parminter said the government needed to step in and provide reliable information to consumers.
Misinformation – nasty stuff. And then the Times went and ignored the misinformation angle and concentrated on the lack of EV sales instead, with a very different headline: “Private buyers slam brakes on electric vehicles”. The focus of the Times piece was very much on the fact that EV sales are now slowing rather than accelerating, especially among private (as opposed to fleet) buyers.
Paul Homewood responded quickly with a piece seeking to point out that much of the negativity in the media about EVs would more properly be labelled facts rather than misinformation. Commenting on Baroness Parminter’s claims about media misinformation, he asked:
Now I wonder what all this information might be?
The fact that EVs cost £10k more than an equivalent petrol?
EV manufacturers own data which says you only get a fraction of the mileage that their blurb claims?
The fact that it costs more per mile than a petrol car if you have to use a public charger, even after paying fuel duty?
The fact the second hand prices for EVs have fallen through the floor, making buying a new EV even less attractive?
The fact that, regardless of the number of public chargers installed, drivers without offstreet parking will face the prospect of queuing to use a charger?
Are these all facts that the good Baroness would like to suppress?
With so many different takes on the Committee Report, I thought it would be useful to take a look at what it did say, at least with regard to “misinformation” and communication strategies. We can probably most realistically see where the Committee is coming from just by looking at the title it used to front up the Report: “EV strategy: rapid recharge needed”.
Including the usual endpieces, appendices, summaries etc, the whole thing runs to 128 pages, so I will concentrate on only one aspect of the Report – the one focussed on by the BBC and by Paul Homewood, namely the question of “misinformation”. It is probably useful to start by asking what the Committee hoped to achieve by holding its Inquiry. Appendix 3, page 128 might be the best place to start. Here the Committee notes that “[t]he transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs) is central to the Government’s efforts to meet its target of reaching net zero by 2050, legislated in June 2019” and states that its aims are therefore:
To understand how the Government will achieve its upcoming 2030 and 2035 deadlines for the phase out dates for non-zero emission vehicles, with a focus on passenger cars, as well as exploring the main obstacles and barriers to meeting these targets.
To understand the costs, alongside the benefits, associated with the 2030 phase out date, and to understand Government progress towards decarbonising car usage by this earlier date.
To assist those supplying evidence, 34 questions were posed under six separate headings (“Government approaches”; “EV market and acquiring an EV”; “Experience of using an EV”; “End of life disposal of EVs”; “National and regional issues”; and “International perspectives”). So far, so sensible, and no complaints from me. The “misinformation” aspect picked up on so assiduously by the BBC might have stemmed from a couple of questions, namely question number 4:
Given that the Government should apply a behavioural lens to policy— which involves people making changes to their everyday lives, such as what they purchase and use—is there a role for clearer communication of the case for EVs from the Government? If so, who should take the lead on delivering that?
And question number 5:
What is your view on the accuracy of the information in the public domain relating to EVs and their usage?
For my purposes, the most directly relevant section of the Report is Chapter 2, headed “Strategic Approach and Public Messaging”. This runs from paragraph 10 to paragraph paragraph 31, so that is what I will talk about here.
This section of the report begins by fussing over “mixed messaging” and ‘a lack of clear and consistent messaging from the Government, which “provided a vacuum for inaccurate press reporting to fill the void.”‘ There then follow concerns expressed by people who seem to have a vested interest in promoting EV sales and the related infrastructure, such as Dr Chris Pateman-Jones, CEO of Connected Kerb EV Charging Solutions, who is worried about the pushing back of dates.
There follows a lot of heat and noise, but not a lot of light is cast on the issue of “misinformation”. We are told that alarming headlines in the media about the risk of EV fires are unjustified. The sole justification for concern about such headlines (which may be exaggerated, but which are not without a kernel of truth) is that “…as the Association of British Insurers told us, the fire risk of EVs does not exceed that of traditional ICE vehicles.” Possibly true, but valid concerns remain about the intensity of the fires when they do occur, and the difficulty of putting them out. That isn’t mentioned in the Report.
The Committee allows that there are some legitimate concerns about EVs “such as those suggesting some EV brands mislead customers about the range of their cars.”
Having conceded as much, the Report then subjects us to an array of witnesses complaining about misinformation, without actually citing any examples – Ford Motor Company “suggested” in written evidence the “apparent emergence” of a “vocal anti-EV campaign”, though if their written submission contained examples, the Committee doesn’t share them with us. Apparently, however, they think this “is due to the Government’s approach being insufficiently consumer-centric.” Several witnesses (Lauren Pamma, Programme Director at the Green Finance Institute; Mike Hawes, Chief Executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT); and Richard Bruce, Director of Transport Decarbonisation at the Department for Transport) told the Committee that media coverage of EVs was inaccurate and portrayed EVs in a disproportionately negative light. In questions and answers (the online report provides a link to them) Richard Bruce said (in the answer gleefully quoted by the BBC):
I do think there has been an impact from a concerted campaign of misinformation over the last 14 months or so that has been pushing consistent myths about EVs that people absorb and which is reflected in their appetite [for purchasing EVs]. There is an anti-EV story in the papers almost every day. Sometimes there are many stories, almost all of which are based on misconceptions and mistruths, unfortunately.
Maybe, maybe not, but he didn’t enlighten us in his answer under questioning by the Committee as to what those supposed mistruths are. Nor did the Committee ask. But they happily printed the allegation in their Report.
Then we are told about areas of confusion and legitimate concern on the part of consumers – the misconception that ownership of petrol and diesel cars will be banned, not just the sale of new vehicles; concerns about critical minerals and their mining; limited understanding about recycling and end-of-life; and risks and health and safety. Unfortunately, other than labelling the first one as a misconception, the Committee doesn’t enlighten us as to which they think are legitimate concerns, nor do they explain why they lump legitimate concerns in with misinformation and misconception.
Next the Committee worries that consumers lack “clear and accurate information on the full life-cycle emissions of an EV to have confidence that they are purchasing genuinely environmentally-friendly products”. Amusingly, this is particularly important “following earlier policies that erroneously encouraged the uptake of diesel vehicles under the assumption that they were less damaging to the environment.” I wonder if that constituted misinformation at the time?
We are told:
The International Council on Clean Transportation reported in 2021 that full life-cycle emissions for battery electric vehicles in Europe (including the UK) are approximately 66–69 per cent lower than their petrol equivalents and that this is likely to improve with further improvements in battery technology and manufacturing.
No doubt it does, and I am no position to question its findings, but I do observe that it is an organisation dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, which partners with many similar such organisations. A look at its website suggests that it is massively enthusiastic about EVs. Admittedly I didn’t look very hard, but I couldn’t find any reference to e.g. rare earths and pollution associated with extracting the minerals needed for EV batteries. So far as I am concerned, any report on “clean” transportation should look at all aspects associated with the manufacture and use of vehicles, not just greenhouse gas emissions (after all, whatever the propagandists would have us believe, CO2 is not “dirty”).
Although the Report overlooks this truth here, it cottons on to the bigger point (that there is more to “pollution” than greenhouse gas emissions) in paragraph 18, saying that “[a]side from the drop in carbon emissions, many witnesses highlighted benefits EVs offer to public health including improved air quality and reduced noise.” Then we are told: “According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, road transport is the main source of air pollution from nitrous oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter”. A footnote at this point takes us to a short online DEFRA document (“What are the causes of air Pollution”). The problem here is that while a number of the pollutants are undoubtedly attributable to road transport (especially vehicles of the ICE variety), we are also told that “[r]oad transport gives rise to primary particles from engine emissions, tyre and brake wear and other non-exhaust emissions.” As Jit pointed out in No Smoke Without Tyres the particulates associated with tyres of heavier vehicles (often EVs) might be a substantial problem. However, the Report doesn’t mention this, for some reason.
Then we learn that:
Many witnesses called for an accessible and honest source of information on the EV transition: bringing together government and industry sources, addressing consumer questions, advertising current Government incentives, tackling misinformation and raising awareness about the benefits of EVs with the public.
Follow the footnote, and the witnesses in question turn out to be EV proponents, by and large (e.g. Carbon Copy; the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations; Connected Kerb; Electrifying.com). They are, of course, entitled to submit their views, but the Committee isn’t obliged to accept and regurgitate them unquestioningly.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the SMMT argues that more information is needed about the costs as well as the benefits of EVs, and that early adopters usually enjoy the benefits of off-street parking and home-charging, as well as having deeper pockets to pay for more expensive EVs. They argue that “more information and support is likely to be needed for those drivers for whom the benefit of making the transition is more marginal”. That sounds like a euphemism for the need to throw money at people who can’t afford expensive EVs and who will have to charge them at (expensive) commercial charging points. Credit to the Committee for inserting the point in the Report, but it’s worth noting that such a critical point merited only single short paragraph in their Lordships’ and Ladyships’ view.
Also of interest is the list of matters relating to EVs where drivers/potential owners require reassurance (in order, starting with the greatest concern): that the batteries will last; that charging will be convenient; that charging will be quick enough; that range would always be sufficient for any necessary journey; that EVs are as green as reported; that EVs will have decent resale value; the driving experience. Based on my limited experience, I think that only the last point is easily met.
Clearly cost is hugely significant in persuading the public to buy (or lease) EVs, as the Report briefly concedes:
Zapmap, an app which helps EV drivers search for available chargepoints, suggested that financial incentives and disincentives are more effective than environmental benefits in influencing the majority…
At this point, for some reason, the Report repeats the claim by Richard Bruce about “a very concerted campaign of mistruths and myths.” Again, no examples are supplied to back up this (repeated) claim.
Similarly, the claim by Anthony Browne that:
we have concerns about a certain amount of misinformation that is going on, and we will carry on playing the role, as Governments always try to do, of countering the misinformation and working with industry to do so. There is now quite a big industry, such as the charging operators, which has an incentive to ensure the successful take-up of electric vehicles, and we will work with them to try to diminish the misinformation
is repeated. But again, follow the footnote, and under questioning he was not asked to provide examples of the alleged information, and so the claim is slipped into the Report several times without the alleged misinformation ever being identified.
As if that isn’t enough, this sub-section of the Report concludes with four summary paragraphs (in bold print for emphasis) which make the same claim yet again.
So much for the Report’s claims of misinformation, so eagerly seized upon in the BBC report. It’s a little ironic then that a recent BBC website article headed “Rather than fearmongering putting people off e-bikes, reasonable cautions and supportive infrastructure would allow cities to reap the many benefits of e-bikes while protecting lives” then gives us this:
Third-party batteries are risky because “the way to ensure that these bikes are as safe as possible is to make sure that the battery, the motor and the charger were all designed to work together”.
Even if an e-bike kit is safe at the point of sale, later modifications can create incompatibilities. Mr Slone explains, “It could be a perfectly safe battery pack, but if it’s a mismatched charger that perfectly safe battery pack can become a very significant safety hazard and can go into what’s called thermal runaway.”
Thermal runaway is a kind of explosive chain reaction where a cell inside a lithium-ion battery overheats, which then spreads to the many other cells in the battery…
…To give people a chance of escape, any means of delaying the spread of a fire or toxic gas can help. “Even if someone doesn’t have a dedicated storage cabinet, if they have a room that’s enclosed with doors that’s away from where they sleep, that might be safer than leaving it in kind of a common area,” says Mr Slone. It can also help to keep e-bikes away from flammable materials.
The London Fire Brigade has advised riders to let their batteries cool down before recharging, charge on flat hard surfaces, avoid extreme temperatures, and keep fire alarms in good condition….
…Another frequently dispensed piece of advice is to never leave a charging battery unattended, especially overnight.
For a delivery cyclist working a 14-hour shift, “the most natural thing in the world would be to come home at the end of your shift, plug your bike in…right there at the door, and go to bed,” Mr Slone notes. But it can have tragic consequences…
It’s all right, though, because the article ends with this reassurance:
Rather than fearmongering putting people off e-bikes, reasonable cautions and supportive infrastructure would allow cities to reap the many benefits of e-bikes while protecting lives.
I was greeted this morning by a CNN headline saying “Critical Atlantic Ocean current system is showing early signs of collapse, prompting warning from scientists“. YIKES! Be very afraid.
A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others.
It’s the resurrection of another “tipping point” scare. And of course, despite the title, rather than being “physics-based” this study is actually “model-based”. It’s a study of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC). Here’s what the AMOC looks like.
Figure 1. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC). Red is surface currents, orange is descending, blue is deep return currents. Graph at the bottom shows the AMOC flow measured at 26.5°N, in units of Sverdrups (abbreviated “Sv”, 1 Sv = 106 cubic meters per second)
Well, actually, they do start out with physical measurements, viz:
Continuous section measurements of the AMOC, available since 2004 at 26°N from the RAPID-MOCHA array, have shown that the AMOC strength has decreased by a few Sverdrups (1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1) from 2004 to 2012, and thereafter, it has strengthened again.
Not mentioned is that this increase in the AMOC strength has continued up until the latest study in 2018. So in the real world, there’s no indication of any collapse in the AMOC. There’s no “tipping point” in sight, it’s actually slightly strengthening … go figure.
So why do they say there’s a possible tipping point that could lead to a collapse?
A model, of course. In this case, it’s the CESM, the Community Earth System Model. What they did was to start up the model, then add modeled freshwater very gradually to the modeled North Atlantic, presumably simulating a melting of the Greenland ice or somesuch which might shut down the AMOC. Here’s their description:
A quasi-equilibrium approach is followed by adding a slowly varying freshwater flux anomaly FH in the North Atlantic over the region between latitudes 20°N and 50°N. This freshwater flux anomaly is compensated over the rest of the domain, as shown in the inset of Fig. 1A. We linearly increased the freshwater flux forcing with a rate of 3 × 10−4 Sv year−1 until model year 2200, where a maximum of FH = 0.66 Sv is reached.
And what did they find? Well, they found that in the model year 1,758, which in our terms is the year 3782 AD, the AMOC fell off a cliff.
IMPENDING TIPPING POINT CATASTROPHE IN 3782 AD! EVERYONE PANIC!!!
Figure 2. Model results showing AMOC tipping point. Figure 1A from the study linked above.
Now if you follow my work, you’ll know that I often ask the most impertinent questions. So I got to thinking … just how much modeled fresh water have they added?
Trigger Warning: the next part involves that dreaded creature “math”, so if you’re allergic to math, just skip to the last line of the bold section below …
To continue with the mathiness, when the tipping point occurred in 3782 AD, they were adding 0.527 Sverdrups (“Sv”) of fresh water (top scale, Figure 2). That means on average over the entire period, they were adding half of that, 0.264 Sverdrups.
Now, a Sverdrup is a million cubic meters per second. So over the 1,758 model years from the start up to the tipping point, they’ve added a total of:
0.264 Sv * 106 cubic meters per second/Sv * 1758 years * 31,556,926 seconds per year / 109 cubic meters per cubic kilometer =
14,629,305 cubic kilometers of modeled fresh water added.
Now, fourteen million cubic kilometers of water, that’s a very big number. So let’s compare it to something that’s also very big … say the total volume of water in the entire Greenland Ice Cap. Here’s that comparison.
Figure 3. Comparison of the volume of water contained in the Greenland Ice Cap with the volume of freshwater added to the model from the start of the run until the tipping point.
The mind boggles … like I said, tipping is optional …
Not much else left to say about that. I’m reminded of two of Mark Twain’s quotes, viz:
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
and
The Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. . . . Its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present. …
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
In closing, here’s a bit of history regarding so-called “tipping points” from the unquestioned king of climate alarmism, NASA’s very own Dr. James Hansen …
Riiight …
Here in our redwood forest home near the Northern California coast, the giant storms of the Pineapple Express have rolled on by. Torrential rain, gale-force winds. We were without power for five days, trees and power poles down everywhere. Our fossil-fueled generator worked like a champ … and after the storm, today is sunny. So I climbed onto the roof, cleaned the gutters, and washed the skylights. What’s not to like?
My very best to all,
w.
As Usual: I ask folks to quote the exact words they’re discussing, it avoids endless misunderstandings.
The survey of over 300,000 vehicles found electric models suffer 79% more maintenance problems than gas-powered cars. Meanwhile, plug-in hybrids fared even worse — with a concerning 146% more issues reported by drivers.
A sobering new reliability report from Consumer Reports indicates electric vehicles still have a long road ahead regarding dependable performance.
The survey of over 300,000 vehicles found electric models suffer 79% more maintenance problems than gas-powered cars. Meanwhile, plug-in hybrids fared even worse — with a concerning 146% more issues reported by drivers.
The results portray an industry still struggling to iron out the kinks in new electrification technology — at a time when more environmentally friendly vehicles are sorely needed. As global temperatures rise, manufacturers race to deliver reduced emission models to market. But in this breakneck pace, reliability appears to be an unfortunate casualty thus far.
Across the EV options surveyed, three models stood out for their subpar owner experiences:
Chrysler Pacifica Plug-In Hybrid
The plug-in hybrid variant of Chrysler’s signature minivan scored dismally — a 14 out of 100! — in CR’s analysis. Owners reported an array of issues – from rattling noises signaling mechanical problems to outright transmission failure. After shelling out for the newest iteration, drivers were left with a supposedly high-tech van that all too often left them stranded rather than carrying the family.
Audi Q5
Audi’s luxury plug-in hybrid SUV fared a little better, earning well below average-marks for reliability. Owners detailed problems with the engine, electrical systems, and comfort features meant to elevate the driving experience. But all too often, the pricey vehicle’s complex technology failed – resulting in a trip to the shop rather than the open road.
Tesla Model 3
Once the poster child brand for EV adoption, even Tesla showed cracks in Consumer Reports’ assessment. While the company’s powertrains largely measured up, other components of supposed Tesla innovation — from touch screens to body panel alignment — disappointed. Paint defects, loose trim, and glitchy interfaces suggest Musk’s engineering wunderkinder still has work to do before EVs live up to their promise.
The results indicate lurking growing pains for an auto industry hastily undergoing an electric transition. And while some models showed EV technology can deliver durable transportation, they remain the exception rather than the rule. Until manufacturers remedy the root causes behind lackluster reliability, early adopters of electric vehicles may need to brace themselves for a bumpy ride — along with an occasional tow.
Millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince is urging Sir Keir Starmer to borrow billions of pounds to boost net zero and rid fossil fuels from Britain’s energy infrastructure.
Dale Vince
Entrepreneur Dale Vince argues that sustainable infrastructure will pay its own debt
Millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince is urging Sir Keir Starmer to borrow billions of pounds to boost net zero and rid fossil fuels from Britain’s energy infrastructure.
The electricity entrepreneur, who severed ties with Just Stop Oil last year as part of his commitment to Labour, said the party must not be “ashamed” of spending vast sums if it wants to instigate change.
Starmer confirmed on Thursday that Labour will now spend just £4.7bn a year on its clean energy policy as he blamed the Government for “maxing out the credit card”.
However, Vince argues that Labour should ignore the “public narrative mindset” that “borrowing is bad”, and instead push ahead with plans to spend.
He told The Telegraph: “Borrowing to invest is how you grow economies.
“Borrowing to invest in projects that pay their own debt, meet interest payments and make money on top of that, that is what businesses do.
“The money will allow us to invest in green technology that will pay for itself. For £50bn, we could power the entire country from wind and sun.
“There’s a contrast between borrowing to invest in infrastructure that makes things better for our country and borrowing for tax breaks like Liz Truss proposed to do, which was madness.”
Regardless of Starmer’s green U-turn, Vince remains committed to the Labour cause and says he will keep topping up the party’s coffers until the next election, which is expected later this year.
In 2023 alone, Vince gave £500,000 to Labour through his business Ecotricity, taking his total tally of donations in the past decade to at least £1.5m.
“There is a disparity of funding at the election and I will do whatever I can to close that gap,” he says. “It’s the most important election of our lifetime. It’s our last chance to take decisive action.”
Having also previously donated to the Green Party, Vince decided to back Starmer’s Labour out of a desire to oust the Tories.
A former New Age Traveller who lived off the grid for a decade, Vince made his fortune after founding Ecotricity, the UK’s first green energy company, in 1996.
“Our system will only enable one of the two main parties to form a Government and Labour is by a very long way the greenest option that we have,” he says.
Vince, who refuses to fly or eat meat, insists there is “clear green water” between the Conservatives and Labour, particularly since the Government diluted Britain’s net zero policies last year.
“That is one thing Rishi Sunak has done that I would congratulate him on,” says Vince. “He has gone in an anti-green direction, so at the election, it won’t be an argument at all over which party is the greenest.”
One policy that has infuriated Vince more than most in the past year is the Prime Minister’s decision to expand production in the North Sea.
Having long campaigned against fossil fuels, including participating in Just Stop Oil’s protests last summer, Vince wants Labour to revoke new drilling licenses if it wins power – something Starmer has so far vowed not to do.
Vince accepts that Labour is “trying not to appear too radical and threaten to rip up everything”, although he has doubts over such a cautious approach.
“It’s potentially a mistake as it gives the Tories carte blanche to make a number of commitments that Labour will have to inherit and run with,” he says. “There’s a degree where they can say ‘we will come in and question everything’.”
A cornerstone of his thinking is to expand a windfall tax on oil giants, which chimes with Labour’s ambitions. He says BP and Shell have been able to rake in record profits on the back of unaffordable energy bills but he believes Labour will put a stop to this by expanding the windfall levy.
Given his faith in Labour’s green agenda, Vince says he will not have to restart his donations to Just Stop Oil.
In September last year, John Ridgway published here at Cliscep a piece titled Burn the Witch!, about an article written by climate scientist Patrick T Brown in which he (Dr Brown) suggested “that journals such as Nature and Science were biased towards articles that are focussed upon a particular narrative.”
In September last year, John Ridgway published here at Cliscep a piece titled Burn the Witch!, about an article written by climate scientist Patrick T Brown in which he (Dr Brown) suggested “that journals such as Nature and Science were biased towards articles that are focussed upon a particular narrative.” In particular, as John reported, Dr Brown said:
I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell. This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society. To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.
Inevitably, perhaps, those comments met with quite a backlash in climate-concerned circles. Whether the original claim, or the backlash against it, is more justified probably lies in the eye of the beholder, but at the time the wagons were vigorously circled in defence of the integrity of climate science. The claims made by Dr Brown were denied in a most determined way.
A few months later, and the Observer published an article with the heading “‘The situation has become appalling’: fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point – Last year, 10,000 sham papers had to be retracted by academic journals, but experts think this is just the tip of the iceberg”.
In fairness, the claims about “fake scientific papers” were of a different order to the candid confession made by Dr Brown last September. As described by the Observer, the situation is truly dreadful. Tens of thousands of bogus papers are being published every year, and their number is increasing.
Medical research is being compromised, drug development hindered and promising academic research jeopardised thanks to a global wave of sham science that is sweeping laboratories and universities.
In 2023, so we are told, for the first time research journals retracted more than ten thousand papers in a year. “Most” analysts believe this is just the tip of an iceberg of scientific fraud. Professor Dorothy Bishop of Oxford University is quoted as saying:
The situation has become appalling. The level of publishing of fraudulent papers is creating serious problems for science. In many fields it is becoming difficult to build up a cumulative approach to a subject, because we lack a solid foundation of trustworthy findings. And it’s getting worse and worse.
The problem started in China, apparently, because promotion for young doctors and scientists working there depends on them having published papers. And so “paper mills” cashed in by supplying fake scientific papers for publication. And now the problem is spreading like a plague – to India, Iran, Russia, former Soviet Union states and to eastern Europe. Journal editors are being bribed, and the paper mills themselves have established their own agents as guest editors, thus facilitating the publication of yet more false work.
The next quote is from Professor Alison Avenell of Aberdeen University, who says:
Editors are not fulfilling their roles properly, and peer reviewers are not doing their jobs. And some are being paid large sums of money. It is deeply worrying.
The article concludes with another quote from Professor Bishop in Oxford:
People are building careers on the back of this tidal wave of fraudulent science and could end up running scientific institutes and eventually be used by mainstream journals as reviewers and editors. Corruption is creeping into the system.
I am grateful to the Observer for bringing this to our attention. I do have a question, however. Is this problem one that relates only to the particular area discussed in its article, namely medicine and drug development? Professor Bishop referred to “many fields” and said that “it’s getting worse and worse”. Also, we are told that it is likely to be only the tip of an iceberg. Could it affect climate science? And if not, why not? Why is climate science so special?
Instead of three co-equal divisions of government, the powers and functions of America’s Legislative and Judicial Branches have steadily been subsumed into an ever expanding, progressive and aggressive Executive Branch. Many legislators and judges have acquiesced or actively participated.
Supreme Court should end “Chevron deference” to restore checks, balances and reality
Paul Driessen
The left end of the political spectrum is relentlessly pursuing the transformation of America’s society, history, economy, speech, borders, governing systems, healthcare, energy and living standards. What it cannot secure via the ballot box and alliances with the legacy media and academic institutions, it works to impose through rule by unelected, unaccountable Executive Branch bureaucrats, collusive sue-and-settle legal actions, and court decisions that too often rubberstamp agency rules.
Instead of three co-equal divisions of government, the powers and functions of America’s Legislative and Judicial Branches have steadily been subsumed into an ever expanding, progressive and aggressive Executive Branch. Many legislators and judges have acquiesced or actively participated.
The federal workforce has swollen to two million non-military employees, who “liberally” interpret, apply and enforce laws and policies. The Federal Register of regulations, explanations and justifications has ballooned from 50,998 pages in 1984, to a Jabba-the-Hutt 90,402 pages in 2023. Few can read, much less comprehend and comply with the intricate edicts.
Members of Congress want to be seen “doing something” to address perceived problems, often by passing new laws and spending more money. However, instead of actually tackling difficult, controversial issues, they frequently make policy declarations, enact deliberately ambiguous statutory provisions, and rely on Executive Branch cohorts to interpret, stretch or even rewrite the vague language, mostly advancing agency powers and agendas.
The US Supreme Court’s landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council expanded this centralization of power even more significantly.
The “Chevron deference doctrine” holds that – when faced with regulations that are based on ambiguous, or nonexistent, statutory text – lower courts should always defer to administrative agencies’ interpretations of the text, as long as the interpretations are “reasonable.”
Chevron deference has let federal agencies expand their domain and control in hundreds of instances. Affected citizens often have little recourse, as long as the impact of an individual rule can be viewed as small and the agency interpretation as not patently unreasonable.
In those situations, the 2022 Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA is of little help, because it only addresses “major questions,” agency decisions that have “major” economic or political significance.
However, the Court recently heard oral arguments on two cases that give it an opportunity to curtail or end this wholesale deference to federal agencies. Both cases ask whether small fishing boats can be required to pay $700 per day to take observers along with them, to ensure the boats are following fisheries rules. Relevant law allows the government to require fishing boats to carry observers – but does not say the boats must pay for them, and Congress never appropriated any funds to cover observers.
So, on its own, the National Marine Fisheries Service decided it had the authority to compel boats to shoulder the cost. The case could have enormous implications for the perpetually expanding Deep State.
The Justices could rule in favor of NMFS, even though monetary impacts that are small by federal governing and budgetary standards are major, even potentially ruinous for fishing boats.
They could hold that the agency interpretation in this single instance was “unreasonable” – and overturn this single rulemaking out of thousands issued since 1984, while leaving the Chevron doctrine intact and available for future abuse.
Or they could overturn Chevron. Doing so would end the appalling deference to powerful government agencies; reduce the growing imbalance between the Executive and Legislative Branches; and make it harder for circuit and appellate courts to support activist regulators.
A reversal might even prod Congress to enact laws that tackle hard questions, use precise language, and tighten the reins on unelected regulators, especially when they serve presidents who want to “fundamentally transform” our energy use, immigration system, economy and military.
It’s certainly true that most federal actions taken to “save our planet from the existential threat of manmade climate change” are “major” or “significant” in their societal, economic, ecological and national security impacts – and thus subject to the Supreme Court’s “major questions doctrine.”
However, that Court has not defined “major.” Moreover, even actions that most Americans would call “major” can end up being upheld, and agencies can claim significant actions are actually “minor” or can simply ignore court decisions that don’t apply explicitly to the agency or action in question.
Even in the climate and energy arena alone, hundreds of “minor” decisions can coalesce into massive disruptions and costs. It’s certainly reasonable to argue that questions of Chevron deference should examine the totality of impacts – and whether a decision can actually pass a rational, evidence-based “reasonableness” test. To cite just a few examples, is it reasonable to defer to federal agencies that:
* Impose government-wide mandates to terminate America’s coal, oil and natural gas extraction and use, based on computer models whose scary forecasts: (a) are built on the assumption that climate change and weather events are driven by fossil-fuel-related carbon dioxide and methane, which together represent barely 0.042% of Earth’s atmosphere; and (b) are not supported by actual, real-world data on temperatures, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, droughts and sea levels?
* Keep oil and gas locked in the ground before they have any workable plan for replacing feed stocks for plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and thousands of other vital products?
* Compel families and businesses to replace gasoline vehicles and gas ovens, stoves, furnaces and water heaters with electric models – while regulators replace reliable, affordable fossil fuel power with intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar power?
* Close down coal and gas-fired generators before sufficient, reliable, affordable replacement electricity is available – and before a single project anywhere in the world has demonstrated that wind, solar and battery electricity alone can power even a small village?
* Demand that families purchase supposedly energy- or water-efficient washing machines and dishwashers, even though the new machines must run longer or even twice to get clothes or dishes clean – thereby requiring more electricity and water?
* Effectively mandate electric vehicles before there are sufficient charging stations, electricity for those stations, or even metals and minerals to manufacture all the EVs, charging stations, wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines?
* Assert that wind, solar and battery power are clean, green, renewable and sustainable, while ignoring the monumental amounts of mining and processing – and attendant habitat and wildlife destruction, toxic air and water pollution, and child labor – involved in obtaining the nonrenewable metals and minerals for those technologies?
* Insist that the United States slash or eliminate its fossil fuel use, while China, India and 100 other countries (including Germany) are extracting and burning more oil, gas and coal every year?
Courts should not view government actions in a vacuum. Many agency decisions are reasonable only in an alternative universe where individual and cumulative economic, ecological and social realities play no role. The era of Chevron deference should be brought to a close.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor to the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, pollution, climate change and human rights.
Mark Steyn loses in Washington D.C. in the defamation trial surrounding Michael E. Mann’s unbelievable temperature ‘hockey stick’, while President Biden cannot be criminally charged for taking home state secret papers on the grounds that he is gaga. Only in Democrat America.
Mark Steyn loses in Washington D.C. in the defamation trial surrounding Michael E. Mann’s unbelievable temperature ‘hockey stick’, while President Biden cannot be criminally charged for taking home state secret papers on the grounds that he is gaga. Only in Democrat America. There was initial relief in the usual quarters at the slaying of Steyn, but the ‘settled’ climate science crowd is now stuck with the ghastly Mann and his ludicrous hockey stick. That should be punishment enough for anyone saying the debate about climate change is over.
It has hardly begun, but now there is a new breath of life for the once ubiquitous poster temperature scare that was centre stage in the 2009 Climategate scandal, and has been stinking up the science joint ever since. With Net Zero coming apart at the seams as reality about mass deindustrialisation and starvation beckons, the politicised science stories forecasting climate Armageddon are starting to attract wider public scepticism. As all cults eventually find, the sandwich-board fearmongering starts to wear thin when the forecast disasters fail to come to pass. Self-appointed promoters of irrationality descend into wilder and wilder flights of fantasy to re-capture the fleeting moments when their emotional rantings offered them a temporary place in the spotlight.
Last week a jury in Washington D.C. awarded Mann $1 million in ‘punitive’ damages against Mark Steyn, although damages for Mann’s reputation was set at a derisory $1. In itself, this should see the larger award set aside, since in recent times the Supreme Court has been cracking down on punitive awards more than nine times the damage amount.
The disconnect between the two awards hints at the political nature of the case. Steyn and a fellow writer Rand Simberg had criticised the hockey stick which abolished the Medieval Warming Period. Running a 1,000-year slightly declining temperature line until a sudden claimed human-caused spike in the 20th century removed the concept of natural climatic variation for a whole generation. The court heard evidence from a senior statistician working at Mann’s own University of Pennsylvania that the graph was “manipulated”. First published in 1999, Mann spent years denying requests from other academics for information about his methods. The Climategate leak with emails referring to “Mike’s Nature Trick” and “Hide the decline” blew all that apart. At the end of the recent trial, his lawyer told the jury that Michael Mann was tired of being attacked. “You have the opportunity to serve as an example to prevent others from acting in a similar way,” he added.
The distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jr. attended the trial and he has concluded the mistake Steyn and Simberg made was thinking that it would be sufficient to win by proving their case. Steyn’s frequent contention has been that the graph was fraudulent. “The case, at least in this particular venue, was simply unwinnable no matter what cases were put by the prosecution and the defence. Mann simply had to show up,” observed Pielke.
In a statement, Mann said: “I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech.” Pielke comments that he would not be surprised to now see a flurry of lawsuits against people who have been critical of climate science and climate scientists. “Such legal action may not be limited to climate – debate over COVID-19, also presents a target rich environment for unwanted speech to silence.”
Dr. Judith Curry blames Mann for destroying her academic career at Georgia Tech when he called her a “serial climate disinformer”. Her crime was to challenge the idea of a consensus around the science of climate and the involvement of humans in causing most if not all temperature change. After the verdict was announced, she tweeted that there was no justice from a Democrat, “climate-concerned” jury. “And a huge blow for freedom of speech,” she added.
She is right of course. The seven figure punitive damage was sought not to compensate Mann for any loss of reputation, but to deter anyone else arguing that the ‘settled’ climate activists backing the collectivist Net Zero project are wrong. For Steyn and Simberg to have lost an American defamation case, actual malice, defined as not believing what they wrote about Mann, needed to be proved. The reason many neutral observers of the case believe the result is perverse is that Steyn has spent over two decades criticising the methodology of the hockey stick, and no evidence has been presented that he doesn’t believe every single word he has written.
In commentary posted on Steyn’s website, it was noted that he was a member of the media and “supposedly afforded” First Amendment protections. “If a member of the media is no longer protected, what do you think that means for everyday citizens? And it doesn’t matter if you are in D.C. or Montana – anyone can file in the jurisdiction of his or her choosing.” It was noted that in 2019 the Supreme Court decided not to allow the case to be tried in the higher District of Columbia Court of Appeals, but there was a dissenting verdict from Judge Samuel Alito. He felt the case went to the “very heart” of the U.S. constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and the press. While not making any specific judgements on the case, he identified that the matter at issue was the “protection afforded to journalists and others who use harsh language in criticising opposing advocacy on one of the most important public issues of the day”.
The learned judge was also aware of the pitfalls of installing a jury to decide on the matter, noting, “the controversial nature of the whole subject of climate change exacerbates the risk that the jurors’ determination will be coloured by their preconceptions on the matter”. Climate change, he continued, has staked a place at the very centre of the nation’s public discourse. “The core purpose of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression is to ensure that all opinions on such issues have a chance to be heard and considered,” he said.
Not if the fake Nobel laureate Michael E Mann has anything to do with it, it might be said. A consistent abuser over the years of climate ‘deniers’, he was recently part of a gang of activists and journalists who persuaded Nature Springer to retract a paper by four Italian scientists who had investigated past weather data and concluded there was not a climate ‘emergency’.
Whether Mann gets his $1 million remains to be seen, but his trip to the libel courts, which has been spun out over a decade, will not cost him a cent. Wealthy benefactors are available to fund all his costs. Not so Mark Steyn.
Just over a year ago Steyn was in fine form on GB News serving up a scintillating prime time show on the fledgling channel – with a subversive subtext telling the state regulator of cable news to get stuffed. It was compulsive viewing, although it was never going to last in the highly-regulated Ofcom world of U.K. television. The same man, who in your correspondent’s view is incapable of writing or telling an uninteresting line, is pictured above outside the Washington D.C. court building. It might come as a shock to readers who remember him on U.K. screens as a dapper, bustling presence. Life has not been kind to Mark of late with rising legal bills and three heart attacks. White-haired, gaunt and confined to a wheelchair from which he conducted his own three-week defence in the trial. He clutches a Liberty hockey stick, a fund raising device. The stick has now sold out, but readers can provide support here.
Bravo Mark Steyn, a true radical, free thinker and brave defender of free speech.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
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