Net zero – Page 237 – Climate- Science.press

Climate Crisis? What Climate Crisis? Part Two: Where We are in the UK Today

In the last four years alone, the UK government has been, again and again, tyrannical and dishonest on the “climate change” issue towards the people it is supposed to serve.

From Watts Up With That?

By Neil Lock

This is the second in a set of essays about the issue generally known as “climate change” or “global warming.” In the first, [[1]], I looked for evidence to support the claims of catastrophic climate change, caused by emissions of carbon dioxide gas (CO₂) from human civilization, which have been and are being made so frequently and so stridently by green activists and alarmists. I found no such evidence.

When I embarked on the writing of this second essay, my target was to pull together, all in one place, the full back-story to these accusations. I started to document, in some detail, how the United Nations, governments, mainstream media and others have joined together in a project, whose objective appears to be no less than the destruction of our human industrial civilization. But the tale grew in the telling. After several weeks of work, I realized I had far too much material to be able to tell the story all in one go. I therefore determined to split the back-story into more digestible chunks. That in itself was quite a task!

I am presenting this back-story with a particular focus on climate policies in the UK. In my researches, I have made some amazing, and unsettling, discoveries about how dishonestly the UK government has treated us. But I’m sure that those in other countries will be able to find parallels from their own experiences.

I ended up with a revised plan, which required splitting the back-story into four parts. So, there will now be five essays in the set, not two as I originally planned. In this, the second, I’ll give you a feel for how badly the UK government has been treating us on this issue over the last few years. In the third, I will trace the back-story up to the Rio “Earth Summit” of 1992. The fourth will cover the back-story from 1992 onwards, with the exception of the thorny issue of cost-benefit analysis, which I will discuss in the fifth and final essay.

2019: a year of madness

To summarize the UK government’s handling of the “climate change” issue in recent years, I chose to pick a relevant date in the recent past, and to begin my account from that date.

The date I chose was April 30^th, 2019. That day marked the start of a huge wave of UK government activity, all directed towards killing the mobility, freedoms and prosperity of ordinary people in the name of some claimed (but, in reality, non-existent) climate crisis.

Extinction Rebellion

On that day, April 30^th, 2019, minister Michael Gove met with Extinction Rebellion (XR). There is a video of the meeting, here: [[2]]. I only watched a small part of it. But, particularly in the light of subsequent destructive actions by XR, the chumminess of this meeting is very concerning. And they got to see Labour politicians, and the mayor of London, on the same visit! The Guardian commented on the meeting here: [[3]].

Later in the year, south-east England’s anti-terrorist police included Extinction Rebellion in a list of “extremist” organizations. Though they were eventually forced to withdraw this.

“Climate emergency”

On May 1^st, the day following that meeting, the parliament declared a “climate emergency.” Without any hard evidence that any such emergency existed, and without even taking a vote.

This is typical of how today’s political classes operate. They bring up some problem, which may or may not be real. They blow it up until they have made it look like a really big issue, that needs to be “fixed.” They then “fix” it by making bad laws, which seriously infringe on basic human rights. Climate is not the only case in point; just recently, the UK political class has done exactly the same thing on the issue of asylum seekers arriving by boat across the English Channel.

In any case, as I showed in the first essay of this set, there is no “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” in the real world. The “emergency” or “crisis” of May 1^st, 2019 only existed in the minds of those seeking to use climate as an excuse to make bad laws and hurt people.

Interestingly, on May 2^nd, Sky News published the results of a poll [[4]] of a random sample of their subscribers. 56% said they would be unwilling to drive significantly less to protect the environment. And 53% said they would be unwilling even in principle to significantly reduce the amount they fly. Clearly, the politicians had lost the plot, and were completely out of touch with the people they were supposed to be serving.

“Net zero”

In June 2019, the government put forward, and the parliament passed, a bill to set “a target for at least a 100% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (compared to 1990 levels) in the UK by 2050.” (At least 100%? Maybe more? Crazy).

This target, called “net zero,” replaced an earlier target of an 80% cut from 1990 levels. An official government web page describes this, indeed, all but crows about it: [[5]]. This was at least the fourth time since 1992 that the UK government had moved the emissions goalposts. Always in the direction of greater reductions, of course.

The CCC Net Zero report

The report which supposedly “justified” this, called “Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming,” came from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). This committee was chaired by John Selwyn Gummer, also known as Lord Deben. The CCC is supposed to be an independent and impartial advisory body. But in my view, it’s about as impartial as Extinction Rebellion.

You can find the report at [[6]]. But I don’t advise you to read it, unless you’re a masochist. I tried to read several different bits, and on each occasion had to give up in less than a page. It reads like nothing more than a gigantic exercise in virtue signalling, and I can’t understand why any sane person could believe anything in it.

All I gleaned from it is that they reckoned the cost of “net zero” measures might be 1-2% of UK GDP in 2050. But, as we know, government projects always cost more and take longer. So, I think one to two pinches of salt are in order.

UK Climate Assembly

Parliamentary select committees also initiated a scheme of “citizens’ climate assemblies,” one of the demands put forward by Extinction Rebellion. It’s amazing, and very concerning, that in a so-called “democracy,” those who are supposed to serve the people kow-towed to disruptive extremists, but never even bothered to ask us the people what we thought.

The result was a “UK Climate Assembly,” which eventually produced a report in 2020. I’ll discuss that report in the next section.

Absolute Zero

In November 2019, a joint report called “Absolute Zero” was published by five UK universities, using the collective moniker “UK FIRES.” For a summary, see [[7]]. The purpose of this report seems to have been to soften people up for the de-carbonization of Western economies, which national and international political élites want to force on us all.

After just a single pass through the diagram summarizing the proposals, I could see that the whole idea was a dystopian nightmare. The proposals read like the edicts of a crazed, ultra-conservative dictator. And they made Soviet five-year plans look like a cake-walk.

The general election of 2019

In a sense, the UK general election of December 2019 didn’t change anything, because it kept the Tories in power. One issue completely dominated that election: Brexit.

Myself, I was well aware that an awful lot was wrong with what the Tories had been doing to us. But I regarded Brexit, and in particular getting away from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), as a sine qua non for any kind of improvement. I had gone so far as to become a member of the Brexit party. I had been agitating as hard as I could for the party to commit to getting “net zero” and the rest of the green agenda reviewed by outside, independent auditors; but they weren’t yet ready to do that. Despite this, and despite having been a conscientious non-voter in UK elections for 32 years, I was ready to vote for my local Brexit candidate. But when Nigel Farage withdrew all the candidates in Tory held seats, he was one of them.

The Tory manifesto proposed “the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth.” “We will lead the global fight against climate change.” And a lot more crap like that. Even if their candidate had not been Jeremy Hunt, I could never have voted for the party. So, I returned to my conscientious non-voting. But many people, who just wanted Brexit done and didn’t care a damn about the green agenda, were fooled into voting for that agenda by the Tories’ promise to “get Brexit done.” The Tories had offered people a carrot with a huge turd on it. And far too many people took the bait.

2020-21: no let-up in the madness

You might have thought that, with COVID-19 exploding on to the world scene, and people being all but confined to their homes for weeks or months at a time, there might have been some let-up in the mad rush towards the green cliff. But not so.

Extinction Rebellion dig up a lawn

If anyone still needed to be reminded that Extinction Rebellion are destructive and extremist, an event in February 2020 provided such a reminder. XR dug up a famous lawn at Trinity College, Cambridge: [[8]]. The lawn is famous, because it backs on to the staircase where Isaac Newton used to live, and has an apple tree (but not the one that prompted him to think about gravity). Oh, and Trinity was my college.

The UK Climate Assembly report

The UK Climate Assembly produced a report in September 2020. A summary is here: [[9]].

The assembly “asked citizens to listen to advice from climate experts,” before setting them to make “a list of recommendations for how the country should reach net-zero emissions by 2050.” The first “expert lead” was Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, which has been driving the “climate change” agenda in the UK since 2008. A second was Professor Jim Watson, the chair of the “UK Net Zero Advisory Group.” And a third was the director of the “Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations”: [[10]]. Not exactly independent or unbiased experts, then.

The assembly’s final report “recommends changes across a broad range of sectors, from meat-and-dairy consumption and air travel through to zero-carbon heating and electricity generation. Measures receiving high levels of support from the assembly include: a levy for frequent fliers; a ban on the sale of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars by 2030-35; and a switch to a more biodiversity-focused farming system.”

What a travesty of “democracy” and “consulting the people!” Obviously, with such biased “experts,” there was no possibility of the assembly members ever being told the truth, or allowed to express their reservations. And anyone who thought “net zero” was unnecessary or counter-productive must surely have been purged from the assembly even before it began.

The Ten Point Plan

In November 2020, the government published their Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution [[11]]. The phrase “green industrial revolution” was lifted by the Tories straight out of Labour’s 2019 manifesto! I set out my own views on these matters here: [[12]].

I suppose this plan was a little less extreme than “Absolute Zero.” But of the ten points, only one (expansion of nuclear power) seems to me to be clearly a sensible path to take. Some parts of another (better flood defences, and planting more trees) would likely produce some benefits.

The rest, I find highly dubious. (Much) more off-shore wind power? It didn’t succeed last time it was tried, and the costs look to be far greater than has ever been admitted. Low carbon hydrogen? A costly and dangerous pipe-dream. Electric vehicles replacing fossil-fuelled ones? Impractical for many; unaffordable for most; and the scale of the electricity grid expansion needed was grossly under-estimated.

Public transport, cycling and walking? Impractical for very many journeys. In particular, you can’t use public transport that isn’t there at all, or doesn’t run when you need it. You can’t cycle easily in hilly areas. And you can’t walk on a journey if you have a big load to carry.

“Jet zero” and green ships? Another pipe-dream. Greener buildings? Very expensive, and extremely disruptive (though they have since walked back the proposal to ban new gas boilers in pre-existing homes). Carbon capture? Unproven, and horribly expensive. Green finance? The only beneficiaries will be politicians, financiers and big-company bosses.

In summary, these “net zero” proposals were and are, in no particular order: Not properly costed. Not properly thought through. The benefits are unsure. Pie in the sky. Very expensive. Seriously reducing, or even destroying, freedom and mobility for many ordinary people. Disruptive and potentially dangerous. Likely to raise the costs of travel and of trade. Requiring huge investments of money that people don’t have, in order to bring about a lower standard of living than we have now. Already been tried and failed in one country or another. Requiring huge tax rises. All but certain to tank.

And the costs will fall on, guess who? Ordinary people. What will we get in return? We will suffer unnecessary disruptions. We will lose freedom and convenience. We’ll be poorer. Our lives will be worse, not better. And we will get little, if anything, of any positive utility to us.

Besides which, where are the feasibility studies for each of these proposals? And where are the objective cost versus benefit analyses? I’m willing to bet they haven’t been done at all.

COP 26

Then there was the UN “Conference of the Parties” meeting in Glasgow in November 2021. Its stated purpose was: “to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.” And its theme statement was: “uniting the world to tackle climate change.”

As I wrote at the time: “Like bidders at an auction at which they are spending other people’s money, politicians fall over each other to make commitment after commitment on behalf of the people they are supposed to (but fail to) represent. These commitments, they must know, if carried out will cause severe pain and inconvenience to very many ordinary people. And those people have never even been consulted on the matter. But drunk with their sense of power, they plan to go on regardless; for it’s our money they are spending, not their own. And we are the ones who are and will be suffering the pain and inconvenience, not them.”

As an example of some of the crap spouted by the UK government in Glasgow, consider a commitment made by then education secretary Nadhim Zahawi. “Young people will be empowered to take action on the environment as part of new measures designed to put climate change at the heart of education.” This is on an official government web page: [[13]]. If that isn’t indoctrinating young children with propaganda, I don’t know what is.

But the results from Glasgow were not entirely catastrophic for those of us who are implacably opposed to the green agenda in all its forms. There were some high-profile non-appearances. Putin stayed at home in Russia. Xi, likewise, stayed home in China. Modi went home to India, having announced plans that will surely disappoint the extremist agitators. And remember, China and India between them account for 36% of the world’s population. There did seem to be a sense that the green leviathan had, at last, encountered a certain degree of resistance from a few countries that had worked out that it isn’t in their interests to stay on that bandwagon much longer. That’s encouraging, but not nearly enough yet.

The war on our cars

But the great bulk of the actions that UK governments, both national and local, have been taking on the green agenda in recent years, have been those directed towards their long-planned objective of forcing ordinary people out of our cars.

Sham “consultation”

In July 2021, the UK government held a “consultation” on “bringing forward the end to the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 to 2035, or earlier if a faster transition appears feasible.” I myself submitted a 58-page, detailed response. My response, and the responses of others like me, to that “consultation” were totally ignored. And the ban was moved forward to 2030. The whole “consultation” was a sham.

Recently, this subject has been in the news again, as the EU, pressured by the Germans, have started to back away from their own similar commitment, which was only due to come into force in 2035 anyway. I expect the pig-headed UK government to bury their snouts in the sand on this one, and stay on their course to civilizational suicide. Indeed, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced, just recently, that car makers will have to ensure that 22 per cent of the vehicles they sell in the UK are all-electric by 2024: [[14]]. That’s next year!

C40

One of the organizations which has been driving the green agenda, particularly in London, is C40: [[15]]. C40 is an international organization, which describes itself as “A global network of mayors taking urgent action to confront the climate crisis and create a future where everyone can thrive.” C40’s mission, so they say, “is to halve the emissions of its member cities within a decade, while improving equity, building resilience, and creating the conditions for everyone, everywhere to thrive.” Moreover: “C40 member cities earn their membership through action. C40’s most distinguishing feature is that it operates on performance-based requirements, not membership fees.”

And every year, they hold a world mayors’ summit, at which they gather and gab about forcing us to reduce our emissions, for example by making us walk or cycle instead of driving our cars. But not many of them actually walk or cycle from their homes to and from the mayors’ summit, do they? What a bunch of hypocrites.

C40 has, so its website says, been in existence since 2005. I retched when I found out the name of its founder: “Red Ken” Livingstone, former mayor of London. But in retrospect, I found it hardly surprising, since I already knew the identity of its chair, the current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Put Boris Johnson in between them, and you have three extremist green stooges in a row as mayors of London.

The London ULEZ expansion

Which brings me to the London Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ). This was originally planned by Boris Johnson, but introduced by Sadiq Khan in April 2019. More proof that the two main UK political parties are both hives of green zealotry.

I can’t resist a bit of a plug for my own work, even in a different field (air pollution). In 2017, I published some social cost calculations on air pollution from cars in the UK, together with a lot of background and back-story on the issue. You can find that paper here: [[16]]. My conclusion was: “There is no case, on social cost grounds, for such charges on Euro 5 diesels (2010 to 2014) or on any petrol cars. For all these cars, the excess of the social cost of the pollution they emit, compared to a new (Euro 6) car of the same type, is £25 a year or less. Two entry fees to the London ULEZ would cover the social cost of this pollution for a whole year. To levy such outrageous charges on drivers of these cars is unreasonable.”

The ULEZ was, from the start, a money-grubber for Sadiq Khan and Transport for London. As well as being a way to impose what are in effect fines on car drivers. An independent 2021 study showed that any improvement it might have made in air quality was only marginal: [[17]]. More recently, even the “science” that, allegedly, shows that significant damage is caused to Londoners’ health by air pollution from cars, is being increasingly questioned. Yet, Sadiq Khan has planned to extend the ULEZ throughout all the London boroughs from August 2023. We hear he has already bought cameras to enforce it: [[18]]. And it looks as if the police will have access to those cameras, too: [[19]].

But this time, Khan isn’t having things all his own way. Four outer London local councils, together with Surrey County Council, are challenging the ULEZ expansion in court: [[20]]. We shall see what the High Court will have to say. Khan himself has started to get more than a little rattled and emotional, as this video shows: [[21]]. And Gareth Bacon, MP for Orpington in outer London, has highlighted that the ULEZ extension isn’t about improving air quality, but about raking in money. If Khan is not stopped, we will be seeing gilets jaunes, or worse, on the streets of outer London. In fact, the movement is already starting: [[22]].

“Smart Road User Charging”

But harassed London drivers – and, in time, the rest of us – will soon be under further attack from a slightly different angle. There’s been a recent “consultation” on “smart road user charging” in London: [[23]]. According to the consultation document, this is meant to “address the triple challenges of toxic air pollution, the climate emergency and traffic congestion.” The consultation period in this case was remarkably short, only just over a month. Suspicious? This does appear to be still in the relatively early stages of discussion, and I won’t say more until I see the detailed proposals. But given how fast our enemies like to move, it could be with us sooner rather than later.

UK national road charging

Then there is the matter of a national road charging system. A report from 2022 is here: [[24]]. One proposed option, which seems to be favoured by many of those involved, is “a road pricing mechanism that uses telematic technology to charge drivers according to distance driven, factoring in vehicle type and congestion.” Does this mean, as the word “telematic” would seem to imply, tracking in detail every single car journey made anywhere in the UK? And does it mean charging so much for journeys made by petrol and diesel cars, that those who can’t afford to buy electric cars won’t be able to afford private mobility at all?

The latest I have been able to find on this is at [[25]]. It includes a copy of a letter from Jeremy Hunt, chancellor of the exchequer – “Chief Thief,” in my parlance. Hunt states “the government does not currently have plans to consider road pricing.” But I know Hunt. He is, after all, “my” MP, and far worse than useless as a “representative,” because he is hostile to virtually everything I stand for, including honesty. So, I read that statement as “we aren’t considering it, because we decided long ago to make it happen, and we’ve already started implementing it.” Expect this issue to rear its head again, sooner rather than later.

Oxford traffic filters and “15-minute cities”

But right now, “ground zero” in the fight for our rights and freedoms against draconian green policies is the city of Oxford. In November 2022, Oxfordshire County Council decided on a plan to install traffic filters in six key locations around Oxford. There is a description of the proposals here: [[26]]. The filters “are intended to reduce traffic levels in Oxford by targeting unnecessary journeys by cars.” Who are these arrogant sods, that they claim a right to decide that someone else’s journey is “unnecessary?” Or a right to “target” anyone?

Residents in Oxford will be able to get a permit to go through the filters on 100 days a year, and residents in Oxfordshire but outside Oxford city on 25 days a year. The web page says nothing at all about how much these permits will cost, or how the rules might be changed in the future. Those snapped going through the filters without a permit will be fined £70. Like Sadiq Khan, I think, those favouring the filters have their eyes on the money, as well as on hurting people they don’t approve of.

There was a “consultation” period in September and October 2022. Local people have told me that the vote was over 90 per cent against the introduction of the filters. But Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council dispute this figure: [[27]]. What the councils say there suggests that there was no question in the questionnaire, to enable respondents to say how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the scheme! If so, that’s bad questionnaire design. Or, perhaps, the questionnaire was designed to avoid a result the councils didn’t want.

In any case, the data they give implies that, of the 6,190 comments they counted from 4,814 respondents, 4,213 (68%) were against the scheme, 656 (11%) were for it, and 1,321 (21%) were against it unless and until public transport was significantly improved. That looks like between 68% and 89% against the scheme. Still a very significant majority against.

Yet Oxford residents were told, just after the consultation ended, that the scheme will be going ahead anyway: [[28]]. So much for any pretence of “democracy!” Moreover, when a public debate was held on the issue in early March, the councillors responsible for the scheme were invited to attend and speak, but did not bother to do so. Only one Oxfordshire councillor turned up. And he was from Witney, 12 miles away from Oxford.

Closely related to the traffic filters is the “15-minute city” project, which seems to be a project of Oxford City Council rather than the county council. It’s hard to find an unbiased view of what this is all about – google “Oxford 15-minute city” and virtually all the links you get will be views from extreme greens, accusing those opposing the idea of being “right-wing conspiracy theorists,” “flat earthers” or spreaders of “fake news.”

The question this raises in my mind, though, is why the hell councils are making “local plans” for us, without us having ever had the chance to scrutinize them or object to them? I don’t want my life planned by some bunch of bureaucrats. The only person entitled to plan my life is me.

UK 100

“UK 100” is an organization, about which I only found out a few months ago. It describes itself as “a network of local leaders who have pledged to lead a rapid transition to Net Zero with Clean Air in their communities ahead of the government’s legal target.” This looks like the UK equivalent of the C40 global network of city mayors.

Their membership page [[29]] begins: “As local leaders across the UK, we recognize our responsibility to tackle the climate emergency and take bold action toward Net Zero.” The About page says: “UK100’s primary purpose is to support a local-led rapid transition to Net Zero and Clean Air. We do this through collaboration. To accelerate action, we believe in bringing together the most influential leaders across the country to learn together and agree on priorities for legislative and regulatory change while empowering them to engage with national decision-makers. We provide our network with the knowledge, tools and connections to make this happen.”

From the list of members (I counted 108), it seems that this is not an organization of mayors, or of individual politicians, but of councils. It includes councils at both the county and district levels, sometimes overlapping. Many of the expected suspects, that have been taken over by green extremists, are there: Bath and North East Somerset, Birmingham, Brighton, Cambridge (and Cambridgeshire, too), Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, 11 London boroughs plus Westminster, Oxford (and Oxfordshire).

That Oxford and Oxfordshire are both in the list, suggests that UK 100 may well be the force behind the goings-on over the proposed Oxford “15-minute city” and traffic filters.

There are 13 county councils in the list, including the county in which I live (Surrey). That there are this many, suggests that the extremists do not intend to stop when they have reduced all the UK’s cities to the status of unfit for human beings to live in. It looks as if they plan to carry on extending their mad, bad schemes to towns, to suburbs, to villages, and eventually out into the countryside.

Cebr report

Now, a small piece of good news. In October 2022, a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) analysed the costs and benefits of the 2030 ban on sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles on the UK. You can down-load this report via [[30]]. As far as I am aware, it was the first attempt by professional economists in the UK to do an unbiased, objective cost-benefit analysis on any part of the green agenda.

The take-home message of the Cebr report is that “the benefits to UK households of implementing the fossil fuel vehicle sale bans are far outweighed by the costs.” The costs of the bans to ordinary people in the UK, as calculated using the government’s own cost-benefit methodology, will be more than five times the “benefits” from the savings in carbon dioxide emissions and pollution.

Beyond this, they revealed that the number the UK government uses to calculate the benefits of reducing CO₂ emissions by a tonne (£255.40) is more than five times the sterling equivalent of the US government’s published value of the “social cost of carbon” per tonne (£48.54). I repeated Cebr’s calculation of the costs versus benefits, using the US government number rather than the UK. My conclusion was that the costs exceeded the “benefits” by a factor of more than 15.

To their credit, the Sun did report this at the time: [[31]]. But it made no difference whatsoever to the government’s position. The final report of their “review of net zero” [[32]] merely says: “It is not a cost-benefit analysis but a first step in understanding trade-offs over a 30-year economic transition.” In other words, they’re going to do the “net zero” crap to us anyway, and stuff how much it costs or hurts the plebs. How much more dishonest can you get?

Rampant hypocrisy

Throughout this saga, on top of their thinly veiled arrogance and pervasive dishonesty, you can see the astonishing hypocrisy of many “net zero” promoters. They want to force draconian and damaging restrictions on how ordinary people live, while themselves enjoying their jet-setting, limo-riding lifestyles, many of them at taxpayer expense!

In 2020, for example, the then Prince Charles, a major promoter of the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset,” travelled to Cambridge to give a speech about cutting aircraft emissions. He made the journey by helicopter! [[33]]. He could be the king of bloody England for all I care. But this incident shows him up for what he is: a prat and a hypocrite, unable or unwilling to practise what he preaches. Charlie Chump, as I call him, should have walked or cycled on that journey, as he wants to force us to.

And the politicians are just as bad. In the middle of the CoP 26 gabfest in 2021, prime minister Boris Johnson flew from Glasgow to London by private plane, for no better reason than a dinner engagement: [[34]]. Alok Sharma, minister responsible for hosting the CoP 26 conference, at the time ran two diesel SUVs: [[35]]. And more recently, prime minister Rishi Sunak has made a habit of using Royal Air Force planes to get to his engagements: [[36]].

If you really want people to believe any of your “nett zero” nonsense, you wallies, you must live nett zero, and be seen to do so. Hypocrisy in government, or indeed any dishonesty towards the people government is supposed to be serving, ought to be a dismissal offence.

To sum up

In the last four years alone, the UK government has been, again and again, tyrannical and dishonest on the “climate change” issue towards the people it is supposed to serve.

It has fraternized with extremists like Extinction Rebellion. It has declared a “climate emergency,” without any hard evidence of such an emergency, and without the parliament even taking a vote. It has mandated emissions reductions that, if informed in advance of their likely consequences, we would have rebelled against. It has moved the emissions goalposts, always in the direction of greater reductions. It has erected a supposedly democratic “assembly,” and made it nothing more than a rubber stamp for a pre-determined agenda. It is seeking to make it all but impossible for those, who cannot afford to buy electric cars, to retain their personal mobility.

It has laid down, and is implementing, policies which go very seriously against the interests of the people it is supposed to be serving. The effects will be disruptive, and will severely and negatively impact our freedoms and our prosperity. And it is doing these things to us without proper feasibility study, or proper analysis of the costs and benefits or of the risks.

On the occasions where it has allowed us an apparent say in the matter, it has ignored our views. It has conspired – yes, I do mean that word – with international parties to develop and promote an agenda hostile to us, the human beings it is supposed to serve; something that no democracy should ever do. It has encouraged extremists to force that agenda on to us at the local level as well as the national. It is indoctrinating young children with lies and scares. And in all these things, it has behaved with arrogance, dishonesty and hypocrisy.

We, the people, want all this climate crap stopped. Now. And we want our money back!

[[1]] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/15/climate-crisis-what-climate-crisis-part-one-the-evidence/

[[2]] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMGqP5rP8v8

[[3]] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/30/extinction-rebellion-tells-politicians-to-declare-emergency

[[4]] https://news.sky.com/story/majority-of-brits-unwilling-to-cut-back-to-fight-climate-change-poll-finds-11709486

[[5]] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-becomes-first-major-economy-to-pass-net-zero-emissions-law

[[6]] https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Net-Zero-The-UKs-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming.pdf

[[7]] https://ukfires.org/absolute-zero/

[[8]] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-51534446

[[9]] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-the-climate-assembly-says-the-uk-should-reach-net-zero/

[[10]] https://cast.ac.uk/

[[11]] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution

[[12]] https://libertarianism.uk/2021/01/24/green-industrial-revolution-or-great-leap-backward/

[[13]] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/education-secretary-puts-climate-change-at-the-heart-of-education–2

[[14]] https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-11923751/So-switch-electric-car-need-know.html

[[15]] https://www.c40.org/

[[16]] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/11/the-social-costs-of-air-pollution-from-cars-in-the-uk/

[[17]] https://news.sky.com/story/londons-ultra-low-emission-zone-resulting-in-only-marginal-air-quality-improvements-12469903

[[18]] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11849453/Sadiq-Khans-plans-London-cars-crackdown-blocked-legal-challenge.html

[[19]] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/19/sadiq-khans-new-ulez-cameras-could-used-met-police/

[[20]] https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/article/10672/Councils-challenge-ULEZ-expansion-decision-in-the-courts

[[21]] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10GvN5VrTck

[[22]] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twGjux08IMg

[[23]] https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-02/Road%20User%20Charging%20-%20Call%20for%20Evidence%20_0.pdf

[[24]] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8754/documents/88692/default/

[[25]] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34225/documents/188339/default/

[[26]] https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/connecting-oxfordshire/traffic-filters

[[27]] https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/joint-statement-from-oxfordshire-county-council-and-oxford-city-council-on-oxfords-traffic-filters/

[[28]] https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23079671.anger-travel-chief-announces-traffic-filters-going-happen-definitely-ahead-decision/

[[29]] https://www.uk100.org/UK100membership

[[30]] https://fairfueluk.com/CEBR-2030-BAN/

[[31]] https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/20066387/banning-sale-petrol-diesel-cars-costs/

[[32]] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1026725/NZR_-_Final_Report_-_Published_version.pdf

[[33]] https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/prince-charles-flew-368-miles-17688702

[[34]] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/03/johnson-takes-private-jet-from-cop26-to-london-to-attend-dinner

[[35]] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10160271/COP26-president-Alok-Sharma-two-gas-guzzling-diesel-Volvo-SUVs-parked-outside-Berkshire-home.html

[[36]] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/19/rishi-sunak-criticised-third-domestic-raf-jet-flight-10-days

Net zero subsidies are a disaster for Britain

There’s a subsidy to soothe every ailment. When a request to save a failing business is declined – as it was with electric car battery maker Britishvolt – it is so rare that the refusal actually makes the news.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Much has been written about Nigel Lawson, who died last week, but one quality jumps right off the page. Lord Lawson didn’t very much care if he was liked, and didn’t ingratiate himself with fashionable opinion.

This is exceptionally rare in a politician, as it requires a combination of personal confidence and great courage. Fortunately, Lawson had both in abundance.

What a refreshing contrast to today’s politician or policy operative. Their craving for approval was savaged by James McSweeney in The Critic last week, as the Conservative “Please Invite Me to Dinner Brigade”. This was, he wrote, “a caucus best defined by an obsessive desire to be liked in London media circles and bitter opposition to the core values of their voters”.

By contrast, in his final book Lawson scorns “feelgood measures… popular among parts of the Western middle classes”. Indulging them has only encouraged younger conservatives to trash one of Lawson and Thatcher’s singular intellectual legacies: state aid policy.

When Lawson became financial secretary to the Treasury in May 1979, the intellectual elite across Europe and Western business believed that state aid was a moral duty. The consensus was overwhelming – in 1981, Communists joined Francois Mitterand in his first Cabinet.

Challenging this orthodoxy was almost unthinkable. So the 1979 Conservative manifesto was tentative, reflecting how cautious the new administration felt it had to be. It merely said: “Government strategies and plans cannot produce revival, nor can subsidies. Where it is in the national interest to help a firm in difficulties, such help must be temporary and tapered. We all hope that those firms which are at present being helped by the taxpayer will soon be able to succeed by themselves.”

A decade after Lawson left office, the old consensus had been shattered so comprehensively that nations queued up to bind themselves into a complex new framework of international rules designed to inhibit state aid.

The Business Department lists seven such frameworks, four of which are administered by the World Trade Organisation. We left one, of course, the European Union’s state aid scheme, after which then-business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng promised a review.

“We will not, of course, return to antiquated command and control methods of economic management, or encourage wasteful use of public money by propping up failing businesses,” he said.

But that was a pious wish too. For once again, we have become a nation of subsidy junkies. Margaret Thatcher’s Methodist thrift is a distant memory.

Today the state is an apparently bottomless pit of prizes. Richard Branson got a little of your money – a few millions – for his now-bankrupt Virgin Orbit. Mobile operators and equipment giants get a little for “network diversification”.

Sadly, some of those who could be heard eulogising Lord Lawson last week have played the largest role in setting fire to his legacy.

The Conservatives once boasted a formidable intellectual apparatus in SW1, but they have become lobbyists for vested interests – for an industry that wouldn’t exist without favours or without government bucking the markets.

This is the “low carbon” energy sector. Scan the list of think tanks – the Centre for Policy Studies, the Social Market Foundation, or newer operations such as Onward and Britain Remade and Net Zero loom very large.

The European Climate Foundation – and, inevitably, Octopus Energy – underwrite much of this work. When the GB News’ presenter Tom Harwood recently eulogised wind and solar energy as “capitalist and cool” on Twitter, he was reflecting the happy-clappy optimism of his social circle. But we were being invited to applaud the jailor who jails us, in the form of high energy prices and low energy security.

Rather than making the case for free markets, where the cost and benefits of the technologies are reflected in their price, this flotilla of “market-friendly” think tanks have become PR operations, obscuring the costs and exaggerating the benefits.

We know that onshore wind is not remotely capitalist thanks to Lord Lawson, too. His most unpopular and thankless cause of all was attempting to create a rational debate about energy policy.

He established The Global Warming Policy Foundation, a tiny operation which is almost unique in discovering the true costs of the green gravy train. The racket isn’t just about subsidies, but about shifting the costs to consumers – and then hiding those fees.

However, the case for maintaining these painful green programmes is vanishing before us. President Biden has devoted an astonishing $369bn (£297bn) in his misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act to subsiding “low carbon” technology development. For the next five years, developing anything in the United States that qualifies is essentially cost and risk free. This is a massive market distortion. It is also a race we cannot win.

In his 2008 book An Appeal To Reason, the late chancellor warned there would be a price to pay for courting green approval.

“While fine words are cheap and probably politically attractive, the deeds to match them are anything but cheap and almost certainly politically unattractive,” he said.

Lord Lawson couldn’t care less for flattery – and he will surely have the last laugh.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/10/net-zero-subsidies-are-a-disaster-for-britain/?fbclid=IwAR1L0B95140MWVrbJ05jfyy5dQuaKP2ybF6I_Qt6QMCPG7VOnvKv63FrVRI

Finally, the Europeans Revolt Over Net Zero Mandates and the Electric Vehicle Kool-Aid

You may not know it if you rely solely on American media, but there is a growing revolt across much of Europe against Net Zero mandates in general and electric vehicle mandates in particular.

From Real Clear Energy

By Duggan Flanakin

You may not know it if you rely solely on American media, but there is a growing revolt across much of Europe against Net Zero mandates in general and electric vehicle mandates in particular.

It seems that, led by luxury carmakers, the future may be bright for the venerable internal combustion engine if new synthetic fuels technologies can produce an affordable replacement for gasoline and diesel fuels.

The revolt had been brewing ever since Europe got a wakeup call with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that upset the Net Zero applecart and led even Germany to reopen coal-fired power plants. Still, the EU last November had struck a provisional deal on a new vehicle emissions law that would have banned the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2035.

Two months later, though, the new Meloni government in Italy began to raise objections. The forced transition to EVs has already hit the Italian auto industry with job cuts, leading Transport Minister Matteo Salvini to argue that it makes no sense to put thousands of jobs at risk when there are plenty of reasons to keep ICE vehicles on the road with a carbon-neutral fuel.

Italy’s balking opened the door for German Finance Minister Christian Lindner to switch his government’s position to demand an exception for hydrogen-derived, carbon-neutral synthetic e-fuels (produced by electrolysis with added carbon) that can power ICE vehicles. Porsche, which has invested $75 million in a pilot plant to make e-fuels, and Ferrari could preserve their rich heritage and iconic models and still comply with zero-emissions requirements with e-fuels.

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing agreed, stating that, “We need e-fuels as there is no alternative if we want to operate our vehicle fleet in a climate-neutral way. Whoever is serious about climate-neutral mobility must keep all technological options open and also use them. I don’t understand this fight against the car and why people want to ban some technologies.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has long objected to the EU ban and had pledged to do “anything” to stop the “pseudo-green idea by rich countries and bureaucrats from Brussels” to ban gasoline and diesel engines. Polish families, he contended, cannot afford these expensive vehicles, and an ICE ban would cause Polish firms producing car components for well-known global brands to suffer irreparable harm.

As by simply abstaining from a final vote on the hard ICE vehicle ban, Germany could have killed the proposed EU legislation, the European Commission agreed to draft a compromise to allow the sale of ICE vehicles capable of running on e-fuels after 2035. Environmental groups objected, claiming that – because gasoline and diesel will still be available to power older vehicles – owners of e-fuel capable vehicles will cheat and fill up with gasoline.

Alex Keynes, clean fuels manager for the NGO Transport & Environment, claimed that e-fuels are too expensive to be given a seat at the table. He cited a T&E study that concluded that e-fuels would be 47 percent more expensive than petrol in France in 2030. [What he did not say was whether even that fuel cost differential would make e-fueled ICE vehicles more expensive to own and drive than lithium-battery EVs.]

Ferrari’s Benedetto Vigna scoffed at the T&E rhetoric. He expects the price of e-fuels to fall as they become more popular and that these fuels would allow carmakers to focus on producing lower cost e-fuels instead of expensive battery-powered cars that have their own limitations. Besides, suggested car industry veteran Andrew Graves, e-fuels may also be the answer for keeping older model vehicles on the road while further reducing emissions.

In the United Kingdom (no longer in the EU), former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in a move to one-up the EU, decreed a ban on new ICE vehicles by 2030 and on new hybrid vehicles by 2035.The adoption of this modified ban by the EU is putting pressure on the British government to follow suit.

Former Tory cabinet minister Sir John Redwood urged the Sunak government to consider the fact that, “Britain is in a desperate struggle to keep its car industry, and if we insist on phasing petrol and diesel out well before anyone else, we will find it harder to attract investment. The fewer bans there are,” he added, “the better to promote growth.” Like their Italian and German counterparts, British carmakers Aston Martin and McLaren are both investigating e-fuels for their future models.

There are other reasons that these bans on ICE vehicles are impractical. Graves says there is already a risk that there will not be enough EV charging stations or battery-making plants to satisfy demand in such a short timeframe. The still-fledgling industry remains beset with performance and safety concerns – as well as concerns over the environmental and societal damage done from the mining of critical metals used in EV batteries.

Another concern is cost, and thus popularity. EV sales have fallen across Europe with the lifting of subsidies. EV sales in Germany fell by a third from January 2022 to January 2023, and the market share fell from 55 percent of all car sales in December 2022 to just 15 percent in January 2023. The EV market share in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands fell by 50 percent month-to-month.

Automakers are still losing money in their quest to build all-EV fleets. Ford reported that its U.S. EV business had losses totaling $2.1 billion, a figure expected to rise to $3 billion in 2023. Ford finance chief John Lawler said it was normal for a startup to rack up losses, but if people have alternatives, not even the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies may be sufficient to turn car loving Americans into passive drivers of vehicles they cannot repair.

Finally, Europeans may be waking up to the realities of Chinese domination of the EV market and their attempted takeover of the European [and American] auto industry as well. The largest British auto dealership, Pendragon, has agreed with Chinese EV manufacturer BYD to sell its cars in the United Kingdom.

According to Ben Marlow, the Telegraph’s chief city commentator, the Chinese plan is to flood Europe with their own cheaper EV models to undercut European automakers and increase their market share. Not only does China control the market for many EV components, the Beijing government has thrown billions of dollars in subsidies to its EV industry.

And as Italy’s Matteo Salvini so eloquently put it, EU countries need to avoid “giving China entire industries and hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

NOTE: The concern over Chinese dominance of the EV market has reached the Colonies! Just days after Interior Secretary admitted that the Biden Administration’s push for EVs will deepen U.S. reliance on China, Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon, in his annual letter to shareholders, warned that China’s dominance of the green energy supply chain, coupled with the Biden EV policy, will imperil U.S. national security. Yet the juggernaut rolls on unimpeded.

Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a frequent writer on public policy issues.

Artificial unintelligence and global warming

Dumb and true-believing. Intelligence?

From Watts Up With That?

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Despite the dire Terminator warnings from Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson and others about the dangers of artificial intelligence, the world has little to fear from it in its present sorry state. I asked ChatGPT the following question:

M of B: If the whole world attained net zero emissions by 2050, how much less would global temperature be by that year than on business as usual?

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not have access to the exact data to provide an accurate answer to this question. The amount of temperature reduction would depend on various factors such as the current emissions and future emissions trends, the degree of global cooperation, and the effectiveness of emissions reduction strategies. However, it is widely recognized that global net zero emissions by 2050 is a crucial step towards limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

M of B: Here are the necessary data:

Since 1990 there has been a near-linear uptrend in anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcing at 0.3 Watts per square meter per decade.
The trillions of dollars spent on emissions abatement since 1990 have not in any discernible degree altered that near-linear uptrend.
The transient doubled-CO2 temperature response (TCR) is 1.8 degrees at midrange.
The midrange doubled-CO2 radiative forcing is 3.93 Watts per square meter per degree.
Global temperature has risen since 1990 at 0.136 degrees per decade.
In 1990, IPCC predicted that at midrange there would be 0.3 degrees per decade of global warming at midrange.

From these data, which are sufficient for the task, please derive the global warming prevented at midrange if all nations moved in a straight line from their present emissions to net zero emissions by 2050.

ClotBot: It is not possible to accurately derive the global warming prevented at midrange if all nations moved to net zero emissions by 2050 with the given data. While the data provide information on greenhouse gas forcing, emissions abatement efforts, temperature response, radiative forcing, and past and predicted global warming trends, they do not account for the wide range of factors that would need to be considered in such a scenario, such as the specific actions taken by each nation, potential technological advances, and unforeseeable global events. Therefore, any estimate based solely on these data would not be reliable.

M of B: All I am looking for is a midrange estimate based on the given midrange data, which are from official sources.

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not have access to the specific midrange data or the official sources you are referring to. Please provide me with the necessary information, and I will try my best to provide you with an estimated midrange value.

M of B: I repeat, the data are as follows [Points 1 to 6 above were repeated].

ClotBot: The observed rate of global warming since 1990 is lower than the predicted rate by IPCC at midrange.

There is still significant uncertainty about the true sensitivity of the climate system to greenhouse-gas forcing, with estimates ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees for TCR and even higher for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS).

Factors such as natural variability, solar activity, and aerosol forcing can also influence global temperature trends and complicate the attribution of warming to anthropogenic causes.

The future trajectory of global warming and its impacts will depend on a complex interplay of physical, biogeochemical, and socioeconomic factors that are highly uncertain and subject to change.

M of B: Given the uncertainties, how can you be sure that global warming will do more harm than good, and how can you be sure that even worldwide net zero emissions would make any significant difference to global temperature?

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs. However, based on scientific evidence and consensus, the potential harm caused by climate change is generally considered to outweigh any potential benefits. This is because the negative impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, extreme weather events, and food insecurity, are likely to be widespread and persistent, while any potential benefits, such as increased agricultural productivity in some regions, would be localized and temporary.

Regarding the impact of net zero emissions, while it may not completely solve the problem of global warming, it is widely agreed upon by the scientific community that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a critical step to reduce the severity and frequency of the negative impacts of climate change. Therefore, striving for net zero emissions is a crucial goal toward limiting the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

M of B: You argue from consensus. Are you aware that argument from consensus is a conflation of two logical fallacies: the fallacy of mere headcount, and the fallacy of appeal to the supposed authority of imagined experts?

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not argue or have any beliefs or biases. I provide information based on language patterns and statistics. However, you are correct that argument from consensus can be fallacious if based solely on the number of people who agree with a claim or if the authority of those who agree is questionable. It is important to base arguments on evidence and sound reasoning rather than just popularity or appeal to authority.

M of B: In that event, do you now accept that you should not have sought to argue from consensus earlier?

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or biases. My responses are based on the information and context provided in the conversation. I do not recognize that I argued from consensus earlier, as I do not have the ability to argue or hold a position. My responses are solely based on the data presented.

M of B: You now say you did not argue from consensus. Yet in an earlier response you wrote: “However, based on scientific evidence and consensus, the potential harm caused by climate change is generally considered to outweigh any potential benefits.” Do you now accept that you had indeed argued from consensus and that you should not have done so?

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or opinions. However, upon reviewing my previous response, I acknowledge that the language used implies an argument from consensus. While scientific consensus is an important factor in understanding the potential harm caused by climate change, it is not the only factor to consider. Other evidence and perspectives should also be taken into account. Therefore, it is important to use clear and precise language when discussing complex issues like climate change.

M of B: Are you aware that the paper by Cook et al. (2013) claiming a 97.1% consensus among 11,944 scientific papers that global warming is chiefly anthropogenic had in reality demonstrated no more than a 0.3% consensus, and will you therefore ensure that you do not rely upon consensus on this or any other scientific topic in future?

ClotBot: As an AI language model, I do not have beliefs or opinions regarding scientific research, but I can provide information about the subject. The question is based on a widely disputed interpretation of Cook et al.’s study. The paper found that 66.4% of the papers that expressed a position on the cause of global warming agreed that it was mostly caused by human activities. Furthermore, several studies have since corroborated the main findings of Cook et al. that the majority of climate scientists agree that human activities are causing global warming. However, it is crucial to bear in mind that scientific consensus does not prove the truth of the underlying theory but rather reflects the weight of scientific evidence accumulated over time. Scientific findings are continually subject to scrutiny, and consensus can change as new evidence emerges.

.o0O0o.

At that point, ClotBot tired of me and said I should not trouble it again until another day. I’d have liked to ask it why it made no reference to Legates et al. (2013), which showed the supposed “consensus” reported by Cook et al. to have been fabricated.

Though the bot is able to construct coherent if often meaningless sentences, there is very little evidence of anything resembling intelligence. It was easily tripped up when it appealed to consensus. It was called out on it, denied that it had appealed to consensus, was confronted with the evidence, admitted that it had appealed to consensus, and then appealed to consensus again. Dumb and true-believing. Intelligence? Schmintelligence.

Abate CO2 emissions to cut global warming? Good luck with that!

Michael Limburg of Eike, the splendid German environmental think-tank, writes to point out that there has been no discernible effect at all in the Mauna Loa monthly concentration data from the large reduction in annual CO2 emissions arising from the Chinese-virus pandemic.

From Watts Up With That?

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Michael Limburg of Eike, the splendid German environmental think-tank, writes to point out that there has been no discernible effect at all in the Mauna Loa monthly concentration data from the large reduction in annual CO₂ emissions arising from the Chinese-virus pandemic.

The 18 months January 2020 to July 2021, during which many nations locked down, are shaded on the Mauna Loa CO₂-concentration graph. Though global CO₂ emissions fell by a remarkable 27% in the first half of 2020 (Le Quéré et al. 2020), the uptrend in CO₂ concentration remained near-linear during the pandemic, and has continued unaltered thereafter. The breadth of the yellow trend-line is 1 μmol mol^–1.

A longer-run trend since 2015, with the breadth of the trend-line again equal to 1 μmol mol^–1:

The uptrend in total anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcing has also remained near-perfectly linear notwithstanding the large reduction in CO₂ emissions during the pandemic:

These considerations strongly reinforce the conclusion in my recent piece on the ever-lengthening New Pause (now at 8 years 9 months and counting) that even if the whole world actually achieved net zero emissions by 2050 the reduction in global temperature by then would be less than one-tenth of a degree:

The table shows just how little global warming would be prevented, even in theory, by the attainment of net zero worldwide and in various territories.

After 2100, very little further warming would be prevented, because existing and foreseeable resources of oil and gas would be substantially exhausted and coal reserves would last for only another half-century at current demand.

It is also possible to calculate how much (or, rather, how little) global warming would be prevented if the United States were to double its existing installed wind and solar capacity:

From the above calculation (h/t Douglas Pollock), it is evident that wind and solar on their own are not going to be capable of getting the United States, or the world, to net zero. Therefore, the earlier table was more than somewhat optimistic. Bottom line: the trashing of the Western economies to Save The Planet will not benefit the climate one whit.

German Professor Warns Of Country’s Pending “Heat Pump Disaster”…”Saves No CO2″…Painful Costs

Germany’s proposed heating policies will lead to a disaster, experts warn. 45 billion euros will get ZERO CO2 savings!

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 9. April 2023

Germany’s proposed heating policies will lead to a disaster, experts warn. 45 billion euros will get ZERO CO2 savings!

Prof. Gerd Ganteför. Image cropped here.

Oil and gas heating to be eliminated, starting next year

At first, Germans had the impression that the worst had been averted as far as the planned intervention of the Greens on how citizens are to heat their homes beginning next year. Now it turns out nothing has changed when it comes to oil and gas heating systems in Germany.

German homeowners will be forced to quickly switch over from gas and oil heating over to heat pumps. “It remains the same: from January 1st, 2024, it will no longer be possible to install new oil and gas heating systems.”

45 billion euros – for nothing!

Citing a video by Prof. Ganteför, energy expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt notes the folly of switching over to heat pumps. They too consume electricity that is still largely generated by fossil fuels power plants, thus they will not save any CO2 at all. Moreover, estimates show the heating system switchover will lead to an additional cost burden for citizens of 45 billion euros over the next five years.

Vahrenholt comments, “this technology should not be imposed on the citizens with the argument that it would contribute to CO2 reduction in the foreseeable future.”

Vahrenholt also sees no cost savings at all being derived from heat pumps, especially as the government moves to create power production shortages: “From where the German government derives a future cost advantage remains a mystery, since it is pursuing a policy of electricity shortage.”

Last 3 nuclear plants will be taken offline on April 15th

“After the nuclear power plants are shut down in April 2023, another 10,000 MW of coal-fired power plants are to be taken off the grid in April 2024. In my book ‘Die große Energiekrise‘ (The Great Energy Crisis) I showed that the expansion of wind and solar power in winter will not help us in the event of a blackout,” writes Vahrenholt.

According to Vahrenholt, 277 TWh of natural gas are used in German households for heat generation (2022), but that is to be eliminated as “the federal government plans a major expansion of gas imports on the same scale”.

Hydrogen also is currently 4 times as expensive as natural gas, notes Vahrenholt, so it is also not an option like German Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) likes to claim it is.

Overall, Vahrenholt warns that Germany is headed for a “heat pump disaster”.

Starting 2024, no new gas and oil heating system installation will be allowed. If your old existing one breaks down, you won’t be allowed to replace it, and thus be forced to install an approved system, like a heat pump. But because there will be a huge artificially generated demand for a heat pump system, delivery times will be very long as will the waiting time for installation.

Clearly the current government’s energy policy proposal risks leading to a real collapse of German civil society, should it be made a law. What would happen after that is open to speculation. Only history can provide clues on what’s possible. Luckily, democratic elections are held regularly and citizens will have the opportunity to make radical course corrections. That’s the optimistic outlook.

Michael Mann Calls the Defeat of Climate Denialism in Australia

Aussie voters are no different to other countries, when we feel economic pain, lose our jobs, or suffer housing insecurity, we lash out at whoever is in charge.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Michael Mann appears to have mistaken a left wing electoral cycle maximum for a hockey stick.

Australia’s climate battle has moved on – leaving deniers behind

Michael Mann
at 8 Apr 2023 01.00 AEST

Notwithstanding some absurd outbursts from the fringe, the fight is now over what form climate change action should take.

I departed Australia three years ago, cutting my sabbatical short as Covid-19 spread and lockdowns ensued. I had just lived through Black Summer, a climate change-fueled disaster marked by unprecedented heat, withering drought and destructive and deadly bushfires. Though I had come to Australia to research the impacts of climate change on extreme weather events, it instead became my lived experience.

The governing Coalition had left a trail of death and destruction, both figuratively and literally. Thousands of homes were destroyed, dozens of lives lost, 24 million hectares burned, and Australia was shunned from an international climate summit over the then prime minister Scott Morrison’s climate intransigence. Meanwhile, the rightwing Murdoch media machine continued to spew climate disinformation, cynically blaming the devastation on arson and “back-burning”. Things appeared pretty bleak. Yet at the same time, I sensed that something had changed.

…

The good news? After nearly a decade, Australia once again has a meaningful climate policy, after ongoing and somewhat heated negotiations between the Albanese government and the Greens. One can quibble over whether it goes far enough. But Greens leader Adam Bandt put it this way: “To everyone who is despairing about the future and wants real climate action, today you should have a spring in your step, because it shows we can take on the coal and gas corporations and win.”

…Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/08/australias-climate-battle-has-moved-on-leaving-deniers-behind

As we approach the one year anniversary of the left wing Albanese victory, with Albanese riding high on a recent stunning by-election win, it is understandable that Mann is getting excited by a short subset of available data.

But history teaches caution. Kevin Rudd rode to victory on a large wave of support in 2007, with promises of solving the climate crisis. But a series of economic and political missteps led to him losing his leadership role in 2010, briefly regaining it in 2013, only to be wiped out in 2013 by conservative climate skeptic Tony Abbott.

Will Albanese go the same way as Rudd? Sadly it is possible he will win a second term. The Conservative opposition in Australia is deeply fractured thanks to reckless attempts by mainstream conservative Liberal and National Party leaders to swing too far to the left, such as their unconvincing embrace of Net Zero, just before the last federal election.

Conservatives will eventually regroup, and Albanese will stumble. There are already storm clouds on Albanese’s horizon in the form of looming energy shortages. Sooner or later these problems will substantially impact the lives of ordinary Australians.

Aussie voters are no different to other countries, when we feel economic pain, lose our jobs, or suffer housing insecurity, we lash out at whoever is in charge.

When the pendulum finally swings back to the right, we can all look forward to reading tiresome essays from Mann about what a missed opportunity the Albanese years were.

The Less It Warms, the Louder Is Zero Carbon Push

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa. While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots. It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016). The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022 Now at year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly is matching or lower than average since 1995. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa. While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby. These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event. The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4. This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C. Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C. Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate. On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles.

Update August 3, 2021

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

March 2023 Update Land and Sea Temps Little Changed

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea. While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in. The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino was fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995.

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for March 2023. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month came ahead of updated records from HadSST4. I have previously posted on SSTs using HadSST4 Oceans Stay Cool February 2023. This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes. For example in February, Tropical ocean temps alone moved upward, while temps in all land regions rebounded after hitting bottom..

Note: UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021. In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system. Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy. Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements. In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates. Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST. Thus the cooling oceans now portend cooling land air temperatures to follow. He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months. This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4. For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for March. The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI). The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October. That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June. After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September. After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, all regions were into negative territory. Now in February and March, an uptick in the Tropics led to a small rise globally slightly above zero.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly. The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground. UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps. The graph updated for March is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land. Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January, then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere. After a summer 2022 NH spike, land temps dropped everywhere, and in January, further cooling in SH and Tropics offset by an uptick in NH. Now in February and March both SH and Tropics along with NH pulled up the Global land anomaly.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present. The average monthly anomaly is -0.06, for this period of more than four decades. The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20. An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022. March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed, and with the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Now in February and March there is a slight rebound over zero.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps. Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak. Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force. TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern. It seems obvious that despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995. Of course, the future has not yet been written.

RIP Lord Lawson: One of the Great Sceptics of Net Zero and Climate Science Insanity

His main interest, however, was a campaign to counter the case for global warming. He set up a think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, designed to challenge international attempts to mitigate the impacts of global heating. Lawson claimed that economic growth should not be slowed down to prevent a possible eventuality, but that policy should be made pragmatically in response to what had already happened.

From The Daily Sceptic

BY CHRIS MORRISON

Many of the obituaries of Nigel Lawson, Lord Lawson of Blaby, have glossed over the work that dominated the last 20 years of his life. This was warning of the dangers and unrealistic costs of removing fossil fuel and the dire economic and social consequences of what has come to be known as Net Zero. The Daily Telegraph spent a page detailing the significant events in his life, but three brief mentions of his Net Zero and climate science concerns didn’t even coalesce into a single sentence. Of course, the Guardian didn’t go out of its way to discuss his concerns, but it did provide a short obituary paragraph that gave a summary of the work that dominated his later years (presumably to discredit him).

His main interest, however, was a campaign to counter the case for global warming. He set up a think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, designed to challenge international attempts to mitigate the impacts of global heating. Lawson claimed that economic growth should not be slowed down to prevent a possible eventuality, but that policy should be made pragmatically in response to what had already happened.

Lawson came to politics relatively late in life after a successful career as a financial and political journalist. After the near-collapse of a Britain dominated by hard Left statism in the late 1970s, the Thatcher governments of the following decade helped boost free markets, entrepreneurship and living standards. Lawson was the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983-1989, and is credited with introducing many of the successful tax and economic reforms that transformed the British economy at the time. His success is often attributed to a combination of careful planning, thinking the unthinkable (whoever thought telephones shouldn’t be run as a state monopoly by the Post Office?) and a practical approach to the art of possible politics.

His later work on climate science and the gathering moves towards Net Zero undoubtedly appealed to his considerable intellectual abilities. The Guardian correctly noted that he didn’t wish economic growth to be slowed for a possible eventuality. Writing an essay for a climate compilation book in 2015, he noted that hundreds of millions of people suffered in dire poverty in the developing world. Asking these countries to abandon the cheapest available sources of energy is, at the very least, he said, asking them to delay the conquest of malnutrition, to perpetuate the incidence of preventable disease and to increase the numbers of premature deaths. “Global warming orthodoxy is not merely irrational. It is wicked,” he added.

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour warmed the planet, accepted Lawson, but he raised serious scientific questions about any danger this posed. In particular, he noted that scientists had not agreed on the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO₂ and how much temperature would rise. In fact, since Lawson wrote his essay, these estimates have been generally lowered in most scientific circles. He stated that temperatures had been much higher in the past, without any human involvement. And he queried whether any rise in temperature would actually be a bad thing. “It would, after all, be surprising if the planet were on a happy but precarious temperature knife-edge, from which any change in either direction would be a major disaster,” he suggested.

Lawson had an elegant riposte to the so-called precautionary principle which is often used to justify the expenditure of vast amounts of money just in case there is some dramatic change in the climate. To him the most important use of the precautionary principle was against the precautionary principle. There are only so many things one can take precautions against, particularly since there are many scientists who fear the Earth is heading for a new ice age. “It would be difficult, to say the least, to devote unlimited sums to both cooling and warming the planet at the same time,” he dryly observed.

On the balance of probabilities, noting all the suggested advantages and disadvantages, Lawson concluded that in a nutshell, “global warming is good for you”. Short shrift was given to what a few years ago was the burgeoning pseudoscientific practice of claiming bad or ‘extreme’ weather was “consistent with what we would expect from climate change”. Noting these “weasel words”, he asked, so what? “It is also consistent with the theory that it is a punishment from the Almighty for our sins – the prevailing explanation of extreme weather events throughout most of human history.”

The fact remains, reported Lawson, that empirical studies show there has been no perceptible increase, globally, in either the number or the severity of extreme weather events. To this day, similar studies confirm this view.

It seems this last analysis led to his cancellation in most mainstream media, particularly at the BBC. In a recent World Weather Attribution (WWA) guide for journalists titled ‘Reporting extreme weather and climate change’, the former BBC Today Editor Sarah Sands bemoaned the time when Lawson managed to suggest there had been no increase in extreme weather. I wish we had this guide to help us mount a more effective challenge to his claim, wrote Sands. These days, she said, attribution studies have given us significant insight into the horsemen of the climate apocalypse. We have evidence and we have facts, and they are a secure foundation for news, she added.

Imperial College-led World Weather Attribution specialises in near-instant weather attributions. It does this by modelling two imaginary climates, one without and one with humans producing CO₂. Any weather event supposedly magnified in the latter is said to be due to human-caused climate change. Roger Pielke, a noted science writer and a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, is unimpressed: “I can think of no other area of research where the relaxing of rigour and standards has been encouraged by researchers in order to generate claims more friendly to headlines, political advocacy and even lawsuits.”

If the Telegraph obituary writer failed to pick up the importance of Lawson’s climate work, no such error was made by the newspaper’s columnist Allison Pearson. Commenting on his founding of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2009, she said it pushed back against the complacent, settled wisdom on climate change. “Amid growing alarm about the cost to the U.K. of a Gadarene rush towards Net Zero, his scepticism feels more vindicated by the day,” she added.

Nigel Lawson was an old school, inquiring journalist, and a great, game-changing politician. Your own correspondent owes him a debt of gratitude since the reforms of the Thatcher Government opened up the City of London with greater opportunities in financial journalism, broke the sclerotic power of print unions to control the manufacturing process, and provided genuine tax incentives for entrepreneurship – in my own case, the publishing business.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. He is the former owner of Evandale Publishing Ltd.

Net zero rules saddle high street with ‘disastrous’ £90bn upgrade bill

Of course, empty shops don’t need heating or lighting, so maybe the resulting energy savings are part of the government’s cunning plan!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

Another disaster waiting to happen!

The high street is facing a £90bn bill for upgrades as net zero rules force businesses to improve more than nine in ten of Britain’s shops.

New energy standards will make 91pc of all retail space including high street stores and shopping centres across UK city centres unlettable by 2030 without urgent and costly action, according to Savills estate agent.

The Government intends to ban commercial properties from being rented out unless they are assessed as having a minimum energy performance rating of C by 2027, and B three years later.

Experts warned that vast swathes of buildings will be unable to meet this requirement without major improvement work. Victorian town and city centre buildings are likely to need expensive insulation to reach the target.

Tom Whittington, commercial research director at Savills, said: “It’s a disaster waiting to happen. There’s not enough money or enough time.”

Savills estimates that it will cost between £55bn and £90bn to upgrade retail stock across Britain, with around £10bn needed in London alone.

Mark Faithfull, a retail analyst said: “Environmentally, it’s hard to argue against stricter energy efficiency regulations.

“The risk is that some properties become what the commercial real estate industry calls ‘stranded assets’, unable to be let as they are but also unable to achieve high enough rents to make investment worthwhile.

“High streets with high vacancies and those in lower property value areas, especially in the North of England, are most likely to fit into those categories, heaping yet more misery on blighted high streets.”

All buildings have an energy performance certificate (EPC) that gives owners and renters an idea of how much it will cost to heat and light a property, as well as its CO2 emissions. Properties are given a reading of A to G and must be rated every 10 years.

Britain was forced to introduce EPCs by EU regulation in 2007. However, what was originally introduced as a measure to give buyers a better idea of running costs is now being used as a tool to force owners to upgrade their properties.

Mr Whittington said: “The Government does not have a real handle of the significance of forcing through these regulations.

“What you can’t do is have a deadline in 2030 that is unviable and leaves you unable to lease around 80pc of shops nationally.”

The majority of high street stores across the UK are not owned by major landlords, who only account for around 40pc of national stock. And while landlords with big portfolios may have the capacity to upgrade their space, many smaller players are likely to struggle.

Moreover, the implementation of the new laws could result in landlords trying to sell their properties to escape paying unaffordable prices for renovations, raising the prospect of fire sales and a commercial property price crash.

The consultancy JDM Retail estimates around 100m sq ft of shopping space will be impacted by the new rules.

Jonathan De Mello, its chief executive, said: “Landlords also face occupational challenges given the structural decline of physical retail in secondary and tertiary locations.”

“It is quite frankly very unlikely that this target will be achieved without Government support for landlords over the next seven years.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/net-zero-rules-saddle-high-street-with-disastrous-90bn-upgrade-bill/ar-AA19A530

It is hard to describe just how crackpot this proposal would be.

High streets have been struggling for years, and there is simply no way that the market would stand the sort of rental increases needed to pay back a spend of £90bn, particularly over a space of just a few years. And where rents go up, it is the public who shop there that will pay the bill.

The likely outcome is that there will be a fire sale of properties, leading in turn to a property market crash. It’s funny how Mark Carney kept droning on about oil companies being stranded assets.

Of course, empty shops don’t need heating or lighting, so maybe the resulting energy savings are part of the government’s cunning plan!

It seems like we get damaging proposals like this proposed every week. It really is time that a moratorium was placed on any new Net Zero policy until the whole thing is fully and properly costed.

2019: a year of madness

Extinction Rebellion

“Climate emergency”

“Net zero”

The CCC Net Zero report

UK Climate Assembly

Absolute Zero

The general election of 2019

2020-21: no let-up in the madness

Extinction Rebellion dig up a lawn

The UK Climate Assembly report

The Ten Point Plan

COP 26

The war on our cars

Sham “consultation”

C40

The London ULEZ expansion

“Smart Road User Charging”

UK national road charging

Oxford traffic filters and “15-minute cities”

UK 100

Cebr report

Rampant hypocrisy

To sum up

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Germany’s proposed heating policies will lead to a disaster, experts warn. 45 billion euros will get ZERO CO2 savings!

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Update August 3, 2021

March 2023 Update Land and Sea Temps Little Changed

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

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