There are things the government could do to speed it on its way towards net zero.
The Ā most obvious cause of more CO 2 being generated in the UK is inviting in 600,000 extra people in a year. Every person brings with them a carbon footprint. Putting in all the extra homes, surgeries, schools and infrastructure will require a lot of cement, bricks and energy for construction. Itās not sensible to get all of us to cut our CO 2 output if we offset that with large scale migration, driving UK figures up again.
The government should be more interested in cutting its carbon footprint. It could substitute more online meetings for many of Ā the trips abroad by jet plane. It could save more energy in public buildings with better insulation, usage patterns and controls. It could encourage more local food growing to cut food miles, instead of promoting wilding and imports.
The railway needs to cut its CO 2 per passenger mile travelled if it wants a green endorsement. It runs too many diesels, often leaving the engines running when stopped in stations. It runs too many near empty trains, upping the CO 2 per passenger substantially.
It is quite tempting to say we should have a few more net zero targets. Lower migration and lower inflation would be popular.
June 1, 2023
Good morning.
I can see where you are going with this, Sir John. You do not want to rock the boat so all you can do is highlight the contradictory nature of government policies such as today’s example.
The truth is, as we here have said, and I for one do not mind being the voice that says things that I know you cannot say, that MASS IMMIGRATION, NUT ZERO and CO2 levels have nothing to do with anything remotely sensible.
The danger lays in plain sight but few dare to speak its name.
June 1, 2023
The biggest savings would be to get fracking and drilling in the North Sea.
Building some SMRs and deporting those who shouldn’t be here.
Nothing so simple will be done, just building more useless windmills and trying to con people into buying heat pumps.
I see Germany has had to do a swift about turn on banning ice vehicles and imposing heat pumps from next year.
June 1, 2023
Spot on
June 1, 2023
Politicians are going along with the usual line on Net Zero ,CO2 etc.
Of course it is OK for people like John Kerry to fly around the world in a private jet telling us all to cut back.
Even when it hurts chances of re-election Conservatives will sit on their hands and do nothing. Maybe they are battle weary. Maybe they plan to jump ship before the next election. Either way, āCarry On Regardlessā is the current motto.
June 1, 2023
The policies to reduce CO2 in the UK result in an increase worldwide. JR is pointing out the hypocrisy and stupidity of these. Why then is Net Zero so slavishly followed?
June 1, 2023
Cynic
Because the fear agenda was so easy to deliver and sell to a apathetic electorate, kicked open the doors for the new world order to be welcomed with open arms by governments who had a lot to gain out of the process mainly control. The UN, WEF have chosen wisely this country as the weakest link. We will be left with nothing.
June 1, 2023
As an excuse to tax more, regulate more, control more, order people around and to virtue signal.
June 1, 2023
@Mark B; YAWN… What has immigration got to do with the level of worldwide CO2, it mattes not one jot if 600,000 people are here in the UK, France, the middle east or the African continent. If one is worried about world levels of CO2 and population numbers, rather than buy shares in some eco-worrying energy company it might be better to invest in a rubber or pharmaceutical company!
But unlike you @Mark B I for one do not mind being the true voice that says things that I know some capitalists won’t, the danger is indeed in plain sight; capitalist are talking up CO2 ‘project fear’ because they see opportunities and easy money cashing in on Net Zero and other green scams (such as set-aside), whilst socialists are talking up CO2 ‘project fear’ because they see opportunities to impose civil controls and stealth taxes (such as the London ULEZ), sometimes left and right see common goals, hence the rush towards EVs.
June 1, 2023
600,000 people living in hot climates with few mod cons move to cold climate with all mod cons.
Mmmmm, let me think.
June 1, 2023
@NS; “Mmmmm, let me think.”
Indeed you do need to think, and think hard, not just repeat from UKIP style (or worse) activist crib-sheets.
Many of the illegal migrants so often vilified have fled wars, so unless you’re going to suggest modern warfare is CO2 neutral. Then of course many of those 600,000 migrants within the latest UK data are here legally, with up to date visas, many coming to work or study from countries with comparable CO2 emission to the UK, whilst some have even worse emissions.
June 2, 2023
I didn’t know Italy, France and Germany were at war. Gosh …. you’d think the media would have mentioned that at some point instead of obsessing about Schofield.
June 2, 2023
Deliberately blinkered and sensationalist Jerry.
June 2, 2023
@NS; Indeed you, and @Donna, are being deliberately blinkered and sensationalist. Otherwise please be more specific as to where YOU believe those 600,000 migrants have arrived from.
June 1, 2023
+many
JR says a great deal in the most diplomatic way possible..but I do agree 100% with your point.
Actually at the mo it is so cold we should all probably call for a return to coal.
Maybe we need more carbon emissions not fewerā¦warm the planet up a bit!
June 1, 2023
Well firstly there is no need for the UK to cut CO2. Manmade CO2 is not causing a climate emergency anyway. Secondly the CO2 solutions the Gov. push wind power, solar, walking, heat pumps, public transport, burning imported wood (young coal) at Drax, EVs, importing gas, exporting energy intensive industriesā¦ do not reduce CO2 sig. the last four certainly increase World CO2. Thirdly China, India, Russia etc. will take zero notice and will rather sensibly continue with cheap on demand coal and gas energy anyway giving then a huge competitive advantage and ensuring more is made there.
If one really wanted to reduce CO2 plant, tree and crop food then ban private jets, first class flights and half empty planes, buses and trains. Then chop down all the mature trees and forests (as they no longer take CO2 in) use the wood to build or bury it and replace with new growing tree that do capture carbon. But as is clear to sensible scientists CO2 is not a serious climate emergency issue it on balance a net good. We have had far higher CO2 levels in the past. If anything we are in a relative dearth of CO2 currently.
June 1, 2023
LL,
All sensible ideas – although I’d leave mature trees standing as they have other benefits.
The elephant in the room here isn’t CO2 and global warming, it’s world population levels. It took recorded history to get up to 1bn people in the early 1800’s. Another 120 years and the human population doubled from 1bn to Ā£2bn by the mid 1920’s. In less than 100 years we are now over 8bn. This is the problem world leaders should address. Pollution, food shortages, mining damage, water usage, mass migration are all ultimately caused by having too many people on the planet.
June 1, 2023
The demographics show a horrific drop in population levels. Replacement is lots of European countries is 1.2. Look them up.
Women donāt want children when the future is so bleak.
June 1, 2023
True enough for Europe and North America. Not the case in South Asia and Africa though. Sudan’s population has risen from 6m to 47m in 70 years and we wonder why there are food shortages there.
June 2, 2023
Chinese population in serious trouble, India is now more populous than China. Albania in serious trouble – they need everyone we can send back!
June 1, 2023
Women mostly feel they can’t afford to take some years out bringing up children, and the child minding cost doesn’t make sense.
June 1, 2023
PeteB
Well said but in the past we had major conflicts across the world on a regular basis, which wiped out millions.
Before major conflicts we had drought , disease, fire and flood.
Sound familiar?
June 1, 2023
Perhaps we should line Putin and his family members up vis Zelenski and all his family members and let them slog it out in various contests; how will this end? We seem to get sanitised news about this conflict, death, and destruction. Kosovo, Serbia killing grounds, where is the UN? Oh, they’re too busy telling the Uk they have concerns over our out-of-control migration law – get real UN and go and deal with the real problems in this world!
Oh, and “11 May 2023 ā UK: Keep calm and respect diversity, says UN expert. Trans people and their allies protest in the UK.” 0.1% of the UK population, we, in the main, are very tolerant people; we do respect the freedom to wear a dress and a wig if you want to, or dress as a bloke and bulk up, we respect diversity, but the UN is getting its priorities wrong.
June 1, 2023
Even if man made global warming were a problem then removing atmospheric CO2 would not even be the best way to tackle this anyway. Far better ways to spend the money.
A new excellent book Best Things First Paperback ā 7 May 2023
by Bjorn Lomborg (Author), BjĆørn Lomborg (Author)
Though even he appears (wrongly in my view) to have accepted that CO2 is a problem. It is not a serious problem at all indeed it is a net benefit in the view of many sensible scientists. Far more worrying things to worry about than CO2 see āOn the Future: Prospects for Humanityā by Lord (Martin) Rees of Ludlow.
June 1, 2023
Good Morning,
Here’s a snapshot of the BENEFITS of CO2 and global warming, from NASA, (if one can believe them) showing we could be producing more of what we eat, and improve our wild areas.
Seems a shame it’s not being updated, wonder why that is…..
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1804/northern-greening
June 1, 2023
Well (almost) anybody can find the updated earthobservatory.nasa.gov
146296/global-green-up-slows-warming
148026/greening-landscape-changes-air-flow
June 1, 2023
King Canute, Playing God, trying to find solutions to problems that donāt exist ā trying to maintain an artificial level of CO2 is madness ā¦leave it allow, we still have the 4 seasons, lets enjoy what nature gives us ā¦.by all means lets clean the environment and the earth, but to attempt to change the āclimateā is a dream of world government
June 3, 2023
John why should a man who was all for closing coal mines suddenly wanting to frack.
Reply You had better ask him. I fought to keep mines open, including the successful reprieve of Tower colliery.
June 1, 2023
If CO2 were really an issue then you should also ban gyms, hobby cycling and jogging as these just waste (very inefficient, energy consuming & CO2 producing human food energy). Stationary bikes, rowing machines, treadmills, hobby cycling in loops etc. do not even get you to work using all this wasted energy! If you do the CO2 maths jogging is about the same as a small petrol car in CO2 terms per mile if on a typical UK diet. So a full car is far more efficient. Cycling a bit better per mile but even then a full car is better. Swimming and heated pools like Sunakās Yorkshire one too.
But clearly the CO2 agenda is just a ruse to tax, inconvenience and order people about even more. Not a real issue. Until the Politicians, Celebs and King Charles stop taking private jets and helicopters or they ban this for all we can be sure they are just lying grade one hypocrites and not remotely serious about CO2.
June 1, 2023
If CO2 from animals is a big problem as they make out, they wouldn’t consider cutting animals from our food chain first, would they?
June 1, 2023
++
Maybe also not fight warsā¦the present one has emittedā¦what? 100 million tonnes of carbon?
And the carbon footprint of all the putative warriors being imported into Europe.
June 1, 2023
If climate change is driven by man-made CO2, however did the earth climb out of the ice age when there were very few people on the planet compared to now?
June 1, 2023
What about a slight orbital shift that caused more solar radiation to fall on the Northern hemisphere (earth.columbia.edu, 25/06/2010 āAnswers to What ended last Ice Age may be blowing in the windā).
June 1, 2023
They were luckier in those days.
The earth used to orbit the sun, wobbling and tilting and altering the shape of its orbit.
So the earth got different amounts of sunlight as it wobbled etc. Weather!
Now of course the earth is fixed and likely to fry in the relentless sunshine.
We have all noticed the great heat over the past months.
I daresay that the Carboniferous period has been cancelled? šµāš«
June 1, 2023
The government taxes and ābribesā people to change their old cars to buy new EV cars actually increases CO2 emissions – in nearly all cases keeping you old car saves CO2.
Only about 4% of CO4 in the atmosphere is man made and the UK contribution is about 1%. Plus CO2 is not driving climate anyway – no recent sig. warming anyway. The net zero policy is insane.
June 1, 2023
Poor little CO2 ! Why do bullies pick on the little ones.
Time all this nonsense stopped, its world politics that are cause of all this fandango. So lets have less politicians and more comedians!
June 1, 2023
@LL; “If one really wanted to reduce CO2 plant, tree and crop food then ban private jets, first class flights and half empty planes, buses and trains.”
A half empty bus, train, even plane, are all still more efficient than tens of thousands of 3/4 empty private cars traveling daily between home and office twice daily. If the govt really wanted to cut CO2 emissions, far from denouncing WFH they would encourage it [1]; rather than mandate PV panels and heat pumps etc they would dust off the likes of the Parker Morris Committee report from 1961 and thus mandate proper space for home offices on new build and refurbishments, at the same time mandating the absolute right to a minimum 1Gbps full fiber broadband to every home. But that all costs real money, often cutting into company profits and dividends…
[1] many offices, and much office work, will likely become redundant anyway if AI becomes wide spread, why employ a human to compose letters, man call-centers, make decisions, when technology can do it cheaper etc, nor will such AI hardware be in the existing office, it will be in a 19″ rack along with the companies servers in a remote data centre.
June 1, 2023
@ Jerry “A half empty bus, train, even plane, are all still more efficient than tens of thousands of 3/4 empty private cars traveling daily between home and office twice daily”
Well not really average bus occupancy over the whole of the day can be a low as 6 plus they need a professional driver, take indirect routes and need connections, are large and cumbersome and stop every few hundred yards. A car trip might go door to door in 25 mins the bus might travel twice the distance and take 90 mins. Holding up other traffic at each stop. Train and Plane journeys often need double taxis (of wife) drop off journeys at each end too. When the full trip is considered not so clear. No doubt that private jets and first class flights are very many time less efficient than full economy flights.
June 1, 2023
@Gabe; So do please then explain how bus companies make money!
You also forget that buses might well travel a non direct route but they are picking up and dropping off fare paying passengers whilst doing so, whatever you thing, for those on the bus it is far from an indirect route.
Taxis and self-drive Hire (and car sharing) are far more efficient, whole of life CO2 wise, that the average privately owned personal chariot.
June 1, 2023
I’m afraid I have to disagree that half-empty buses are more efficient than a car. A 9-mile journey takes 19 minutes in a car with two people. The local bus takes 1 hour 20 mins same journey with two bus changes and only runs every 30 mins on the quarter hour. The buses were on strike for a whole month last year, and people lost income, having to take taxis or beg families for lifts. I bet the bus company still got their public subsidies.
Home working doesn’t cut energy as often the offices are kept on; instead of 10 people sharing one office, that’s ten homes requiring health & safety checks, fire extinguishers, suitable office furniture, the extra electricity and gas as people generally heat too many rooms, not only one they’re working all day in. Then there are security risks because you don’t know who has access to secure information in that home. Training opportunities are reduced, networking opportunities are reduced, I know people that homework. I see the advantages of walking the dog, washing in the daytime, picking up your own kids and not paying for after-school childcare.
Will our children and grandchildren be taught by AI, all getting the same lesson from their homes? Will AI be making first-line health diagnoses? We know it can already drive trains and tube lines.
June 1, 2023
@a-tracy; “A 9-mile journey takes 19 minutes in a car with two people..”
And in that sentence you prove how little you know about the efficiencies of the IC engine, and the causes of pollution, you do realize that 9 mile, 19 minutes, journey is far more polluting than the 1 hour 20 min bus journey you cite – and in any case, journey time is irrelevant to a debate about CO2 emissions.
With regards transport strikes and public subsidies, again, irrelevant to a debate about CO2 or indeed any other pollutants, such as NOx etc. Nice rant though!
As for the private home and H&S inspections were people WFH, get real!
WFH is nothing new and the HSE has never in its history shown the slightest interest in inspecting the home-office, any more than they wish to inspect the private homes of the self-employed.
The same security and employee efficiency risks are around any modern office, just as they are with WFH, probably more so when documents, laptops, tablets & smartphones legitimately travel out of the office with employees. Document and IT security, time management, training and networking, can all be dealt with via secure log-in, VPNs, disc encryption and non-printable documents, Microsoft Teams etc. You do realize many multinational companies have been successfully using such solutions since well before the pandemic to connect employees with remote offices, servers and clients in different parts of the world. Stop being such a modern day Luddite!
June 2, 2023
I use a battery car Jerry refuelled at night.
You get real! The business is obliged to do health and safety checks; they will all realise when the claims come in for unsuitable desks and chairs causing neck and back injuries start.
No, the security risks of someone not in your employ being able to access customers’ data is not the same in a secure office. Stop with your personal insults is that the only way you can usually aggravate people in person; it just makes me laugh at you.
June 2, 2023
@a-tracy; Oh right, so you use a modern EV, or have you repurposed an old milk float (joke…), you do realize the vast environmental and ecological damage being done to both nature and humans in certain parts of the world by the highly polluting effects of mining the elements required to manufacture modern EV traction batteries. Then of course, how is your electricity supply generated, more polluting PV panels perhaps, ecologically damaging wind turbines, or just good old oil and gas.
But as I’m sure you know, most people still use IC powered vehicles, so my points stands.
“[a] business is obliged to do health and safety checks”
Really? So if an employee receives out-of-hours emails or phone calls; a teacher is expected to mark course-work after school hours; when staff are traveling etc. their employer should have had H&S checks done on the employees sofa, the kitchen table, the garden bench; the hotel or B&B room. What about aircraft cabins, for the unlucky ‘red-eye’ business travelers who have to prepare for that 9am (local time) meeting. Who the hell abolished common sense, or perhaps some office managers are some simply inventing excuses as to why WFH can’t happen…
Even if you’re correct, post Brexit, surely such ridiculously over zealous regulations can now be changed or revoked. And even so, it might actually be cheaper for a company to provide ‘HSE complaint’ office desks and chairs etc, so people can work safely from home, rather than carry on paying rent and UBR on all their office space. If a company owns their office blocks there is added attraction of downsizing their core office requirements and cashing in on redevelopment income, given developers are having to look towards brown-field sites.
“the security risks of someone not in your employ being able to access customersā data is not the same in a secure office.”
99% of IT professionals would respectfully disagree, given many IT security threats are already external, meaning a companies IT security policy should already have measures in place to withstand external as well as internal threats, unauthorized logins, infected USB sticks, SD cards and email attachments etc etc.
June 3, 2023
Jerry are you being a Luddite now? Is that what Luddite means anti progress and new technology? Everything is a problem isnāt it. Seventeen year old diesel double deckers with five people on them arenāt environmentally good either. We need to make progress because we donāt all live in cities with electrified transport systems.
[a] yes they should. Just wait for the law suits to start. When the not for cost lawyers have finished with the diesel debacle and miss-selling theyāll move on to claims for homeworking and weāll see who is right. Iāve been studying employment law for 40 years. Mental health problems from isolation of lone working from home, etc. I hope theyāve checked theyāre all insured properly if theyāre working from home. Self-employed people like many IT professionals work under their own contracts and would have to cover themselves but employees are a different kettle of fish completely.
I donāt agree with workers working from home on secure work. A friend or family member coming into the house that hasnāt been vetted are a security risk. The IT professional would be the person sued if GDPR is breached, security information gets out etc. an employee wouldnāt.
June 1, 2023
LL
Iām in competition agreement, well said
+hundreds
June 1, 2023
The Green and grey Hydrogen agenda will also save no CO2 when you calculate it fully. Even wind power causes large CO2 emissions in construction, maintenance, grid connections and the gas backup needed to cover intermittency.
Much talk of abolition of IHT. Of course this would be sensible but even if the Conservative promised to do it who would actually trust them. Osborne sensibly āpromisedā to raise the threshold to Ā£1m many years ago (so that Brown bottled his early election) but ratted on this. The threshold is still Ā£325k in real terms more like Ā£200K now.
June 1, 2023
IHT abolition. No way they would do that.
DO NOT TRUST THIS PARTY’S PROMISES HEREON IN TO THE ELECTION.
Go any way but the Liblabcon stitch up. Probably Green would be better if no other choice. At least they are sincere.
June 1, 2023
Sincere, well perhaps, but the greens are scientifically ignorant, socilaist and totally deluded.
June 1, 2023
Sensible countries do not have inheritance taxes or have higher thresholds (many millions) and far lower rates than 40%. Why would rich people move to a country that steals 40% more off you on death? So for the UK the rich leave and the poor (usually net benefit claimers not net tax payers) arrive.
Over 1 million last year. Net 750k most needed housing, schools, roads, police, doctors, universities, medical careā¦
June 6, 2023
Having been made aware from people in my extended family of a succession in France, I checked what the French system does (āDroits de succession: Que devez-vous payer sur votre part?ā, economie.gouv.fr, 04/12/2020.
First difference with the British IHT, the French IHT (droit de succession) is applied not on the estate of the deceased person but on the part of the estate that each individual beneficiary is about to get.
Second difference: For children (and father, mother) inheriting, there is a ā¬100,000 non-taxable threshold.
Third difference: once this non-taxable part has been subtracted, the IHT rate on what a child would have to pay is:
5% for a sum < ā¬8072
10% for a sum between ā¬8072 and ā¬12,109
15% between ā¬12,109 and ā¬15,932
20% between ā¬15,932 and ā¬552,324
30% between ā¬552,324 and ā¬902,838
40% between ā¬902,838 and ā¬1,805,677
45% for anything above ā¬1,805,677.
So as an example on a Ā£750,000 estate (with Ā£/ā¬ today at 1.16, the equivalent French estate would be at ā¬870,000), in the UK a single child would have to pay IHT at 40% on anything above Ā£325,000, ie Ā£170,000 where the same only child in France would only pay ā¬173,961.95 (=Ā£149,967.20).
For a single child, that only makes a ārelatively smallā difference between the UK and France. It makes a much bigger difference as soon as there is more than one child beneficiary as in France each benefits from a non-taxable ā¬100k and the part of the estate available to each while obviously smaller also gets a smaller IHT rate.
In the UK, a three-children IHT would still be Ā£170k, in France the three children would pay a total of ā¬109,191.95 (=Ā£94,131).
A naive question: why is the UK still stuck with the IHT on the total estate and not IHT on what each beneficiary is likely to get?
Is it related to the fact that in the UK it is still possible to disinherit children whereas in France this is very complicated as by default children are āhĆ©ritiers rĆ©servatairesā and can only be disinherited through a rare, long and costly legal process.
June 1, 2023
Are they Sir Joe? How do you come to that conclusion, I believe the Greens are a front for communism!
June 1, 2023
The Green’s Sir Joe, have you read their intentions:
“EC721 Our aim in individual taxation would be to replace this with a far simpler and fairer system of individual income taxation and social security support, but with the same aim of overall redistribution. This would have two principal elements:
Every citizen would receive an unconditional Universal Basic Income to secure their basic social security (see EC730ā733 below); and
All money of any kind received by an individual would be treated in the same way by a new Consolidated Income Tax.”
https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/our-policies/long-term-goals/economy/
EC722 Consolidated income will include all money received in a given year by an individual, and also benefits in kind and transfers of wealth….but will include:
earned income, such as wages and salaries;
income from self-employment after the deduction of reasonable expenses;
unearned income, such as private pensions, interest, rental income and dividends;
capital transfers, such as gifts and inheritance; and realised capital gains, though this list is for illustration and is not exclusive….EC726 As a consequence of the Consolidated Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, capital transfer taxes and Inheritance Tax will be abolished.
June 1, 2023
It’s all flimflam, would only last a year and the next government would send it soaring people can’t plan with just one year of changes.
June 1, 2023
The Net Zero lunacy isn’t supposed to restrict the lives of, or inconvenience, the “Elite” …. only the peasants.
But I expect Sir John knows that.
Sunak’s off to the USA to talk to Senile Joe, shortly after returning from Japan clocking up the air-miles in order to try and pretend he’s a Statesman and, he hopes, boost his doomed hope of winning the next General Election. (Hint – we’re not impressed by PMs who spend most of their time outside the country instead of doing what’s necessary to fix the mess they’ve largely created here).
And I wonder how many MPs – only too keen to virtue-signal about “saving the planet” when it comes to voting in the House of Commons – are going to stop flying off on their “fact-finding missions” overseas this summer in order to cut their CO2 emissions and save the planet?
Watch what they do …. ignore what they say.
June 1, 2023
Donna
ā Watch what they do ā¦. ignore what they say.ā
I learnt that lesson during the pandemic!
June 1, 2023
Donna
+1
June 1, 2023
@Donna; “Watch what they do ā¦. ignore what they say.”
All politicos can talk the talk, on the other hand Sunak walks the walk, just as Johnson did, just as Truss would no doubt have done had she not blown her chance as PM with that ill-advised Budget.
You appear to forget Truss attended the UN meeting in New York and visited the Czech Republic during her 49 DAYS in office, statistically a very high ratio of being out of the country. So indeed, perhaps weāre not impressed by PMs who spend most of their time outside the country instead of doing whatās necessary to fix the mess theyāve largely created here! š
June 1, 2023
LL
Iām in competition agreement, well said
+hundreds
June 1, 2023
Complete agreement
June 1, 2023
The clue perhaps is in the name they have given it, “MANMADE Climate Change”, the more people, the more they consume, and the more CO2 along with many other complex complications they will produce, in a whole variety of ways.
Is it any co-incidence that when the Worlds population has nearly doubled in the last 50 years we are having more problems with pollution, and shortages of many base materials in all of its forms.
Of course the activity phases of the Sun also may play a part in “Global Warming” yet another title.
June 1, 2023
Millions of factors affect the climate (most are not even very predictable) and certainly the suns activity does and will do – be it warming or cooling.
June 7, 2023
You mean the roughly 11-year cycle of the Sunās activity that contributes to about 0.1 degC between min and max?
I might be wrong but to me that signal looks like ten-twelve times smaller than what has been seen in the global annual mean temperature between 1970 and 2020.
June 1, 2023
Allister Heath today is surely right today
Humanityās annihilation is far more likely than anyone dares to imagine
The obsession with net zero has left elites bizarrely blind to the risks posed by AI, biowarfare and nukes
as is Ysenda Maxtone Graham
āThe spread of 20āmph zones is a conspiracy against the publicā indeed just a very inefficient mugging of motorists to raise even more taxes for the government to waste.
June 1, 2023
The AI bot that can weed my garden will come sooner than it takes over the world, and there’s no sign of that. If it can’t eradicate dandelions, it can’t eradicate man.
June 1, 2023
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tertill-Garden-Weeding-Robot-Automatically/dp/B08NXQPZPG
š
Why stop at robots in your garden? I’m surprised we don’t have robots that can cut verges on roads yet; they would probably do a better job than the humans do now.
June 1, 2023
Dandelions are being bought by garden designers ( reference Chelsea Flower Show) -we usually have some wonderful examples. The Government wilding is ahead of the curve – soon all the grass verges, cracks in paving, roadsides will be in riotous colour of dandelions.
Rolling Stones ‘Dandelion’ 1967.
Dandelion don’t tell no lies
Dandelion will make you wise
Tell me if she laughs or cries
Blow away dandelion, blow away dandelion
Though you’re older, now it’s just the same
You can play this dandelion game
When you’re finished with your child-like prayers
Well, you know you should wear it
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor’s lives
Rich man, poor man, beautiful daughters, wives
Dandelion don’t tell no lies
Dandelion will make you wise
Tell me if she laughs or cries
Blow away dandelion, blow away dandelion
Little girls and boys, come out to play, yes
Bring your dandelions to blow away.
June 1, 2023
Sir John – this is true – you obviously are no gardener or you’d be horror struck.
June 2, 2023
šš¤£you have no idea! In a test run they asked the AI to identify and obliterate a named threat. The AI identified the threat then found that the human operator could veto its obliteration of the threat, so it cut the communications lines with the human operator.
Lucky it was a test run ā¦
There is much more – Elon Musk does not scare easily. And heās scared.
June 1, 2023
Lifelogic
20mph Zones actually increase air pollution, as the engine requires more revolutions (more exhaust fumes) in a low gear to cover the same distance, than if it were in a higher gear for the same distance, the stupidity of not understanding/thinking about, unintended consequences
June 1, 2023
yes – 20mph is very inefficient in ICE engines, and causes drivers to concentrate on speed signage and their speedo than being watchful of road conditions, pedestrians and the unexpected event.
Also most diesels on railways are left running – whether waiting to start a freight or passenger journey.
June 1, 2023
The optimal speed for a car in terms of fuel consumption is around 50mph – that is it burns the minimum amount of fuel to cover a specific distance at that speed. So all these 20 mph zones, which in my area includes main roads, are in fact *increasing CO2* and other emissions.
June 1, 2023
I’m often amazed when 30 mph roads change to 40 when 50mph would make better efficiency sense and no greater road safety risk.
June 1, 2023
For ages now the scientists and Save the World cult disciples all talk about man made CO2.
So how is it they keep blaming the human race and then in the next breath threaten strike action because our government what’s to stop illegal immigration?
For a small land mass island compared to many countries across the world it is not beyond reason and common sense that all these advisory panels and teaching organisations would have been singing from a different song sheĆØt and been condemning all aspects of immigration legal or otherwise.
If they had and government’s had grasped the nettle what a far better place we would be in today.
June 1, 2023
I urge the political State including consensus parties like John’s to continue with ever greater hast down the path towards Net Zero fascism. It is so important that the general population are economically damaged by this politics. Maybe then at some point they will wake up from their slumber and reject the detritus that push this authoritarian agenda by weaponising environmental considerations.
This blog accepts the CO2. CC narrative. I find that deeply depressing but then Tory, Labour, LD or SNP, it makes zero difference. They all piss into the same nasty pot and they’ll do it until the people kick back when the State steps over the line, which it will eventually in its pursuit of ever greater powers of control, monitoring and seizure
I’d rather have a politician look me in the eye and threaten to destroy my freedoms rather than one who pretends otherwise
Oxbridge parasites are destroying our nation with their fancy ideas
Reply You clearly have not read this blog as you misrepresent my views
June 1, 2023
I think there’s been a misunderstanding about Net Zero today. It’s so synonymous with climate change.
June 1, 2023
Well today it’s a bit confused because it contradicts yesterday’s. I think our host is playing along with the hypocrisy today to make a point. But this is dangerous because a net zero zealot will read it as acceptance of their POV and come up with *good* reasons for not targeting immigration, inflation etc.
June 1, 2023
Agree – its a dangerous game ….its also biennially, like brexit, you either believe the net-zero or you donāt ā¦thereās no sitting on the fence
June 1, 2023
binary
June 1, 2023
Iād like parliament to produce a list of those politicians that are either pro or against ānet-zeroā, the voting in the HoC would suggest a 90% consensus towards net-zero, but thatās voting the party line ā¦I like to see individual MP opinion
June 1, 2023
but glen 90%+ are just sheep anyway!
June 1, 2023
Stop acaring the hell out of the children with hell and damnation reports and tainted learning processes.
Teach them to respect and preserve what we have got. Teach them the other side of the renewable equation and the real impact it has on the environment and society and the cost of having a waste throw away society.
Designer clothes, toys, and electrical gadgets being driven everywhere, foreign holidays. If from the voice of the children they started to question their parents actions on a daily basis things would change.
June 1, 2023
Vast propaganda on Climate Change comes from schools, government, the BBC, politicians, charities, businesses with the ESG agenda. Lies, lies and more lies.
June 1, 2023
They wonder why the teens have got mental health problems when they’re told they’re the world’s problem by being alive; 50% of them believe the earth will cease to exist in their lifetime. They are frequently told we British are bad people; British people were slaves too; they just called us factory workers and servants. This generation of parents is letting the authorities get away with showing them the most alarming sex education pamphlets and younger and younger ages. I find it challenging to manage all the bad news that is spewed out daily. I seek real answers myself. This inflation of food prices is being exaggerated, why, perhaps so it gives the BoE an excuse to inflate mortgages.
June 1, 2023
The climate crusaders of the media and government are scarring young people, they believe their teacher, they believe the news channels, they believe the climate change committee and believe that any dissenting voice should be cancelled ā¦its under-the-table propaganda
June 1, 2023
Since people are the cause of increasing CO2, increasing the number of people here increases the already-increased risk of causing even worse.
June 1, 2023
But according to the UN IPCC itās a global issue therefore it doesnāt matter if those extra people are in the UK or China ā¦.theyāre extra people of the world producing CO2
Itās the same argument for producing oil & gas, it doesnāt matter if its produced here in the UK or imported somewhere else in the world ā¦unless our politicians are faking why we in the UK need targets but China doesnāt
June 1, 2023
The real problem is the worldwide birth rate. Until organisations like Governments, WHO and the like get on to the subject of promoting contraception- free pills, jabs, bribery, operations – then the alarming population and its implications keeps on growing.
June 1, 2023
We should all rember that we as individuals also generate CO2. It is surprising the amount per year.
How often do you see people sitting in their cars and lorries engine running playing on their phones in a car park or parked by the side of the road.
Do we know if it is just the CO2 we generate from burning fossil fuel that is soley causing climate change? Are there other more important and significant factors to consider?
Why are we not subjected to almost weekly Government adverts on TV or the other media explaining how CO2 is causing climate change. We are spending Ā£ billions on the net-zero project so should be easy to explain and demonstrate why. It’s suppose to be science is it not. But I guess you have the problem of whose science.
June 1, 2023
Here you go again, Sir John, with your common sense and joined-up thinking! Dear oh dear, this won’t do at all. The Net Zero Green cult needs our blind unthinking obedience and ritual worship, otherwise people would see through it.
June 1, 2023
Well this piece is unexpected. Many people do support net zero, especialy those who watched the outstanding BBC documentary (still on iPlayer) Big Oil v The World, describing how the fossil fuel industry lied about the results of their own research scientists, on the runaway greenhouse effect of burning their products and leaking methane from their facilities. The tobacco industry did the same thing, when for years they denied that smoking caused lung cancer
The latest fossil fuel bullshit which is being inserted into world media is the outright lie that 85% of the world’s energy is derived from fossil fuels. Nothing could be further from the truth. To put facts into the equation, penetration of renewable sources into the global energy balance is now 35% (source; NASA) and is increasing by 2.5% to 3.0% per annum. India, China, the USA and Western Europe are leading the charge, though India and China are still burning a lot of coal.
June 1, 2023
SG
Anthropogenic climate change is the greatest fraud of all time. 97% of scientists agree with their funders.
June 1, 2023
Well said BOF, people make statements without any sensible scientific base. When one looks at solutions proffered, they are not green either!
June 1, 2023
+1
June 1, 2023
So have the āmanyā sold their cars, stopped taking planes, thrown their phones and computers away, gone off grid re gas, oil and electricity. If not, then they DO NOT subscribe to net zero. You canāt āoffsetā – if you have money to offset and believe net zero is critical to āsave the planetā you spend ALL THE MONEY planting trees AND donāt take the plane.
June 1, 2023
The Lottery springs to mind. Why spend Government taxes on the so-called ‘Arts’ when the mugs buying the dream with their lottery money do most of it for them!
June 1, 2023
Many people do indeed support the deluded net zero religion. Indeed nearly all MPs who nodded Mayās moronic bill through without any vote for example. Almost all of them clearly have zero understanding of energy engineering, climate, CO2, energy economics, entropy, energy storageā¦ and similar. Almost none will even have Physics beyond O level or GCSE level. Many not even that. Other will have consultancies and vested interest in harvesting green crap tax payer grants.
Had they some real understanding they surely would never have done so unless they corrupt and one the make perhaps.
June 1, 2023
Strange figures there SG. Surely you’re not confusing energy with electricity?
At 9.30am Gridwatch indicates that Carbon Neutral is producing 39% of our electricity, plus more than 20% imported from unknown production, but as electricity is only around 20-25% of our energy needs this total equates to a maximum of 15% of our energy requirements i.e. 85% of our energy is from fossil fuels.
June 1, 2023
SG
I suggest you search “global energy mix” and read the many articles such as the one by World Data before you deny the vast majority of the world’s energy is derived from fossil fuels.
June 1, 2023
We haven’t quite yet been reduced to cooking with charcoal except for holiday barbecues. You do seem to live in an alternative reality that denies that Exxon’s climate forecasts were much more accurate than the IPCC’s, which is why they did not perceive a major climate problem, and where conspiracy theory pushed by the BBC that would put any flat earther to shame is your truth.
If NASA think that 35% of global energy comes from renewables I think I’d be inclined to be very wary about their other output. Of course, they suppressed the output from the CO2 measuring satellites because they didn’t like what it showed.
June 1, 2023
Last week I cooked on a barbie 3 nights running… I claim my ‘ Improving the Climate Crisis’ Medal.
June 9, 2023
āOf course, they suppressed the output from the CO2 measuring satellites because they didnāt like what it showedā. Really, anything goes, doesnāt it, Mark.
CO2 was first measured by a meteorological satellite (NOAA-10) between 1987 and 1991. Since the launch of Schiamachy (in 2002) there has been a quasi-continuous measurement of CO2 total column from various US, Japanese and European satellites.
If you want to see the data, right now you even have the choice of data from AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder, from 2002), OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory, from 2014) or OCO-3 (from 2019).
Data are available (for free, one just has to fill a form explaining the potential use of the data, public or private) from:
ā20 years of AIRS Global Carbon Dioxide Measurements, (2002-March 2022)ā at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov, 07/03/2023.
āOCO-2 Data Centerā, ocov2.jpl.nasa.gov.
āHow to access and visualise OCO-2 and OCO-3 dataā, 26/05/2022, appliedsciences.nasa.gov
June 1, 2023
I agree with netzerowatch:
āItās clear that there is a conspiracy of silence about wind power costs. Only strike prices and unverifiable industry claims can be mentioned. The fairy tale of cheap renewables is so central to the Establishmentās direction of travel towards decarbonisation that the facts simply cannot be acknowledged.”
netzerowatch dot com
June 1, 2023
SG : āThe latest fossil fuel bullshit which is being inserted into world media is the outright lie that 85% of the worldās energy is derived from fossil fuels. Nothing could be further from the truth.ā
I quote from the latest BEIS ENERGY IN BRIEF : Page 13 :
āIn 2021 the UK obtained 19.4% of its primary energy from low carbon sources, with 39% of
this from bioenergy, 30% from nuclear, and 17% from windā.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1130451/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2022.pdf
So 80% from fossil fuels in a country that is the āSaudi Arabiaā of wind, never mind the rest of the world.
SG, if youāre relying on the BBC for your information on energy it is no wonder you are totally misinformed.
June 1, 2023
Do not import extra carbon.
Where importing products (including oil and gas) produces extra carbon than producing it in the UK the import should be either banned or attract a punitive tariff. This could include workers, so it is MUCH cheaper to source, train and retain a UK based employee.
June 1, 2023
Speed it’s way to net zero?
What a lunatic aim and what arrogance to think that humans can control the planet. An example of just how out of touch and ignorant of reality politicians are. That is assuming they believe any of the BS. The more intelligent probably know very well that the whole climate agenda is about money and control. It has never been clearer that our representatives do not represent us at all, quite the reverse.
June 1, 2023
Yes, that is a teeny weeny but positive start.
They could make drax and others go back to burning local coal instead of wood chip from across the Atlantic. They could stop building any more rather useless wind turbines, using vast quantities of concrete. They could give the immediate go ahead for RR to build SMR’s. They could give the immediate go ahead for fracking, to save expensive and CO2 emitting imports.
Definitely, stop importing CO2 emitting migrants by the hundreds of thousands. Just stop all this. But they won’t.
June 1, 2023
Agree 100 % BOF
June 1, 2023
Net Zero is just a big con created in the 80s with the invisible ozone layer then more & more conās form governments around the globe to screw every last piece of silver from our shaking hands about a non existing situation which as happened millions of times in the past by the planet and weather on itās own, the fact is this government isnāt getting as much revenue from the tax payers to pay for there incompetence letting millions into our country illegal and legal, thereās a General Election just round the corner and if this government thinks that screwing us is going to favour them then they are living in cloud cuckoo land
June 1, 2023
One of the most depressing blogs from Sir John for quite some time. What politicians of all parties need to do is to accept the the doom forecasts of IPCC are just that, doom mongering. The longer this goes on the more people will realise that these forecasts are so wide of the mark and climate is changing by much smaller amounts than they claim. Together with the paranoia of attributing every routine natural disaster to climate change even though these disasters are no worse or more common than they have been for thousands of years. ‘Net Zero’ is an impossible dream and mankind cannot live in that situation. We are literally pouring zillions down the plug hole with no prospect that it will achieve the slightest.
Rather than all the suggestions you make in your blog Sir John the best one that can actually achieve something is just to stop all Net Zero aims and the unaffordable changes to our way of life it attains.
June 1, 2023
Yesterday you were crying for new houses.
Overnight conversion?
We don’t need to encourage more incomers by concreting over our country. Yes, the side effect is slightly less CO2 but that’s largely irrelevant and anyway CO2 can travel across borders the last time I looked. Although it seems under this government that CO2 can be kept out but not people. That’s the level of idiocy.
Get your message straight please! – fewer new houses to save our environment, and care not to waste fuel unnecessarily, but don’t go crazy with this asymmetric closing down fossil fuel outfits to waste money and decrease our productivity!
June 1, 2023
Well fewer people or more houses – or do we all have to live in bunk beds like battery chickens?
June 1, 2023
We hear a lot of late of the dangers of Artificial Intelligence taking over the world which is a proper concern. I can’t see that danger can (as many suggest) be overcome by regulations. If something is much cleverer than humans and wishes to take over it is not going to be stopped for long by any regulations.
However AI would overcome global warming. It would probably find a fairly simple way to (if necessary) reverse CO2 dangers by something like carbon capture. Furthermore it would be able (if necessary) to put on some sort of space suit type skin to protect it or maybe us from any atmospheric problems.
So we can emulate the Chinese and Indians if we quite reasonably leave it to AI to sort it out one way or the other and not bother ourselves with the possible future problems from global warming.
June 1, 2023
Insulating public buildings seems easy enough until you consider the Grenfell Tower fire and no doubt the insulation will manufactured and imported from another country.
Ok, just make sure the insulation is fire proof
June 1, 2023
It was thought to be…!
June 1, 2023
You say “cutting our carbon footprint” and then go on about the railways etc while shipping is ignored. We have a policy in place now to turn our back on our nearest neighbours but increase trade with countries on the other side of the world with all of the increased dioxides acids and other pollutants that that is going to throw up and not a word.
June 1, 2023
Rising energy costs and uncertainty over financial aid have put the future of Tataās steelworks in doubt. Around Ā£3bn is needed to decarbonise Port Talbot operations with Tata asking UK gov to provide Ā£1.5bn to help achieve this goal …utter madness
June 1, 2023
I will continue reading past the first paragraph, but first need to ask. Why do we even need to get to net zero? The CO2 in the atmosphere is way lower than itās been in the past!
In the mediaeval time especially it was way higher!
June 1, 2023
In medieval times (roughly 750-1350) the annual temperature was higher by 0.3 to 1 degC depending on location, the CO2 concentration was around 260-280 ppm, certainly not āway higherā than the present CO2 concentration (410ppm).
phys.org, 20/04/2021 āWhat was the Medieval Warm Period?ā
greenfacts.org, ā1000 years of carbon dioxide emissionsā.
June 1, 2023
Our local airport is continually landing and taking off long haul air cargo ‘planes that are providing all the out of season and luxury fruit and vegetable the supermarkets need to keep their sales up year round rather than just UK seasonal product, or is it because of our trade agreements that we are flying in so much produce or is because UK farmers can’t make a living producing food or is it because UK farmers get more for not making food or is it because foreign holidays have given the Brits the taste for the Mediterranean diet or is it because Brits don’t know how to feed their families on fresh seasonally available UK produced food?
Our elected representatives in the House of Commons, over the last 30 years, have completely lost the plot because they have been asleep at the wheel, sadly that includes you Sir John and your mates. People were outraged when Trump said “America first”, it’s about time our elected representatives put the UK first by not giving away the UK’s wealth to foreign entities. Inward investment huh!
June 1, 2023
UK first? what a strange idea…
June 1, 2023
Agreed, mass immigration makes a lie of Net Zero, the two policies cannot be squared with one another.
June 1, 2023
And in other news we are reminded of one of this governments great āliesā,the egregious Inheritance Tax. Osborne pretended to want to reduce/abolish it purely for political gain, zero intention to actually carry it out. Indeed the opposite is true. Now used as a cash cow.
I see it is being floated again by the Tories a clear sign you are in trouble.
As the Who said āwe wonāt be fooled againā
June 1, 2023
Nigl
Unfair as this tax is It will never be abolished, it brings in too much money for the Treasury.
If we are lucky we may get an increase in the threshold, but do not hold your breath.
So far we have waited with bated breath since 2008 for a change, with nothing yet even in the pipeline !!!
June 1, 2023
That the majorrity of people in the UK would probably welcome a less polluted atmosphere in it’s widest sense, they do not accept UK governments dogmatic and compulsive solutions. Solutions that would destroy mobility for the majority, a very dangerous route to go down. Solutions such as ULEZ are seen to be a money grabbing scam and therefore alienate all those who pay. What will they do for income when all vehicles are compliant, move the goalposts of course. If you wish to clean up our atmosphere then make it market led, encourage products that people wish to go out and buy. Compare the challenge with Covid. We encouraged Great Pharma to create a vaccine and science and engineering came up with answers. Parliament are so detatched from technology that they might have injected everyone with white wine vinegar. They are equally detatched from the technology to create clean transport, or home and industrial heating. They are PPEs and lawyers, what do you expect. You could not have a worse situation in the quality of UK governance were the task to be handed to the pupils of one of your sink schools.
June 1, 2023
Adendum,
A government that cannot give us pothole free roads is in no way fit to dictate how we create a clean atmosphere.
June 1, 2023
In Wokingham the Libdems are trying to tell us the pothole problem is being solved.
Yes, really.
June 1, 2023
Not really, some people came in my street with some gauge, the depth of the pot holes was measured, some pot holes
(the worst) were marked with white paint, the others less deep were not. Within two weeks, the worst ones have now been filled, with seemingly another type of tarmacadam.
It is to be seen whether these patches will be of better quality than previous attempts and in which state theyāll survive next winter.
June 1, 2023
A prime example – Lodge Road, Hurst….the stretch from Sawmill to the Elephant.
Almost all the join between sides of the road is breaking up. Deep potholes are frequent, and some have now had spray around them. Due to be filled at some stage? By then the others will be deep enough for repairs too. Why not relay the stretch – the diversion using Sawmill instead of that stretch would be fine. Bodge and Leggit called in.
June 2, 2023
The atmosphere in our towns has already been substantially cleaned. Pollution levels are dramatically lower than they were, and significant amounts of the pollution we see in fact come in on the weather (e.g. Sahara dust), so there is nothing we can do about it. There are some exceptions of course – such as the London tube. That few think of it as an area of higher pollution shows that the standards already being met above ground are more than adequate. There is a lot of very bogus data that is frankly not properly substantiated or quoted with proper uncertainty bounds pretending that pollution is a problem. Any serious statistician who looks at it knows that the claims of large numbers of pollution caused deaths are simply false, based on a model that has been shown to be wrong, and not reality.
June 1, 2023
The biggest environmental problem is war. Blast after blast. If the European Leaders were worried about saving the planet and achieving net zero they would stop arming Ukraine – as Borrel says āthen the war would be over in a day.
June 1, 2023
Lynn, what would that war’s outcome be in a day? Would Ukraine concede the land and coast to Russia?
June 1, 2023
Sir John, in professor role: “There are things the government could do to speed it on its way towards net zero….”
Contributor, in undergraduate role: “I’ve been through all of the things it could do. It either can’t do them or won’t do them. I’ve concluded that Net Zero is a pie in the sky, unachievable dystopian fantasy. It does not include any element of joined up government. It pains me to say it, but I sense that it’s driven by a sole agenda to ruin quality of life for us plebs in developed Western democracies, while an unelected globalist elite lives the high life.”
Sir John: “Best answer I’ve heard so far. You’re on course for a distinction in your finals.”
June 1, 2023
The comments made about the CO2 effect of the growing size of the world population are absolutely right but unfortunately the UN and other organisations dominated as they are by the third world will never admit it is a problem. So much more convenient to blame the West and blackmail us into paying for everything.
As far as the UK is concerned, it is absolutely the case that whatever we are told we have to do to reduce our personal carbon footprint is completely undermined by the explosion in our population. We can so easily see the effect before our eyes : only yesterday, I started out to go to a specialist firm some 6 miles away to buy some components for a project I am working on at home, only to find the roads so congested that I turned round, went home and ordered the same parts from Amazon !
I tend to do that a lot these days because a) I already know that the item is in stock and b) it saves me a lot of time and the expense of driving my car.
June 1, 2023
Does anyone know what the carbon footprint of the average person is in England?
Almost all the immigrants arriving in the UK settle in England, so it is valid to consider the effect on emissions just in our country.
Our population is 56,536,000, and last year it increasing by 1.07% with net migration at 606,000 people.
That must therefore lead to at least a 1.07% increase in our emissions, probably more, because all of the arrivals need to be housed and given other services in the same year, all of which will have increased total emissions disproportionately.
Far easier on our wallets to cut immigration which would ease the amount all political parties want to spend on their ludicrously unaffordable path to Net Zero.
June 1, 2023
12.7 tonnes CO2e (CO2 equivalent) per average UK subject (pawprint.eco, Beth Kayser, āWhat is the average carbon footprint per person in the UK?ā)
June 1, 2023
Thanks Hefner.
So that’s an extra 7,695,200 tons of CO2 generated because if net migration, and never mind the cost of all the extra infrastructure needed. Scandalous.
June 1, 2023
Sir Redwood,
You are absolutely right, but it will take a really harsh long winter, with long periods of light winds to create a crisis.
When that happens, it may change the opinions, when energy supplies lower us to third world state, even the āeliteā will suffer and we may have food riots.
The main problem is the capture of most media by the green cult, when the hurt is sufficient, when many people and children die from cold, the mood will change.
We can see it in the JSO hooliganism, people are getting out of their cars and dumping these idiots in the ditch.
Elli
June 2, 2023
In Germany the Police dug around the hand of a Stop Oil fellow who glued hand & sand to the tarmac. But didn’ t free the hand – great idea.
June 1, 2023
@Ian B
A real option would be tons and tons of cheap electric power produced and owned within the UK. Something that after 13 years of knowing it, talking about it, that this Conservative Government as custodians of our security have failed to do. It was a massive problem 13 years ago it hasnāt gone away. All that has happened to date is that the Conservative Government has ensured that the UK is under the control of the Foreign States that own and provide UK power.
June 1, 2023
Wrong wrong wrong, you only need to control CO2 if you believe the assessment of the UN IPCC reports that the sea levels rise will result in biblical armageddon
June 1, 2023
As a professional scientist and engineer I finally had enough of this man-made climate change nonsense that I’ve been observing of the last decades and FOI’d the government to provide a list of procedures and reports where they had validated and verified the science behind Net Zero (the climate change part) under general engineering principles to be safe to apply to the public. They came back with links to the IPCC which isn’t what I asked.
I asked for their own work to made QA and safety standards applying this to the public. All they provided was a link to theoretical and speculative science.
The trouble with following science alone is that:
a) Conclusions and projections are predicated on assumptions in the field and in the papers that have little to no applicabilty to the real world
b) Peer review does not mean something is correct in the sense that everyday people know it is “correct”. Many times scientific papers contain fundamental errors that may not have been caught. Papers are often cited purely for use of a certain method or to show how not to do something.
c) Very little if any pure science makes it to the real world without radical change.
Correctness in the everyday sense is repeatibility, minimising of assumptions, testing of assumptions, adequacy of measurements to hypothesis. None of this applies to climate science as their source data precision is very bad. The AGW hypothesis is so full of holes and lack of characterisation of processes it is a joke. For 60 odd years they’ve been trying to push this and reality keeps intervening. Well, how about we just use political will instead.
As a direct example of the inapplicabilty of climate science, the temperature anomaly record is a hypothetical construct laid out clearly in the papers about it (e.g. Sea Surface temperatures – HADSST from the Met Office). 70% of the global temperature is from sea measurements.
They assume that the underlying uncertainties of measurement processes such as taking reading from a bucket of water on a boat, or the inlet temperature of a boat pipe, have random errors. They can then average the errors out.
The trouble is for validation this fails. The tools were not designed for that level of precision. A first validiation step is to show you have designed, characterised, calibrated and maintained your measurement equipment for the use intended. And it wasn’t intended to read temperatures to a precision of less than 0.1 degrees which is what the climate theories demand.
In reality the average temperature has errors +/- 1 degrees at least which makes it useless for any applicability to the real world. It stays purely as conjecture.
But for some reason, politicians like yourself John, who are sane on a lot of things, seem to fully drink the Kool Aid and look like a fool on this. But a dangerous fool who if was working in an engineering firm and pushed out products that were not validated and verified, would face possible criminal negligence charges.
The government and the stupid Climate Change Act do the same. They make British politicians and leaders look like the Emperor and his subordinates from a tale by Hans-Christen Anderson. But at least they didn’t destroy society in the process.
June 8, 2023
mhcp, Not quite true (in fact, absurdly wrong), sea surface temperature (SST) is mainly obtained from multi-spectral infrared measurements from satellites, compared to various buoys, ābucketā, ship measurements (in-situ but also using radiometry) and XBTs (Expendable Bathythermographs).
The main source being from satellites means that it is the same instrument measuring over the whole globe. When several satellites measure the same surface temperature, it allows a proper sampling of a potential diurnal in the surface temperature, itself āgroundedā by in situ buoy/ship measurements.
To make a long story short, the accuracy of monthly mean SST used in long-term time series used for climate-related statements is at better than 0.1 degC.
You need to be better informed if you want to criticise. It is particularly strange to read your comment given that measuring SST has been one of the first reasons (with presence of cloudiness) why operational meteorological satellites were started in the 1970s.
June 1, 2023
How exactly would you ban ‘half-empty trains’? Are you saying that people should turn up at a station and be told their train isn’t running because there aren’t enough people waiting for it? This wouldn’t work anyway because the train runs to a diagram and has to go to its destination so it can form a new service from there. Would you also ban three-quarters-empty cars which form a large part of road traffic, or ban empty taxis from cruising for custom?
June 2, 2023
I think reducing the off-peak number of trains, ensuring more reliable running and needing fewer drivers is a sound route to follow. Cruising taxis are not efficient, ordering by telephone much more sensible.
June 1, 2023
Sir John
Each day you articulate and reason with immense logic the woes confronting the UK. But somehow it misses the real problem and it is the same problem for everything
My understanding in part of how UK Democracy works, is we have general elections to select which party takes up office and is empowered to run the UK. Those Parties then select/elect their Leader, whom by default becomes the PM of the Country.
The Conservative Party, the one that got elected with a massive majority has yet to select or elect its leader. What we have is a group of people thinking they have a mandate to run a Country when at best they were chosen by themselves, the Collective āBlobā, But, not the electorate, not the party. So on normal parameters this Conservative Government has no legitimacy, There is your fault line, the people in power have no mandate from the electorate or their own party.
If the Media is to be believed this Conservative Government has been warned by the āBlobā that they will Strike if this Conservative Government brings in things they donāt agree with. – its the same fault line as all other UK ills. All members of the HoC not just those in the Conservative Party should be concerned with these events. If MPās have no purpose other than take orders and create income for the āBlobā, why do we even have elections let alone MPās?
Immediately the Conservative Party has been given the power by the electorate to select/elect a āConservativeā leader. Their failure or refusal wont go unnoticed, by the electorate or those hard-working volunteers that rally behind the āConservativeā massage at election time.
Until the mess of who gets to Governs the UK is cleared up and we can get back on to a legitimate democratic path, these endless situation you discuss will keep arising and the answer will stay the same, the refusal to āmanageā
June 1, 2023
None of it matters – It’s not going to make any difference to the future of the UK, no matter how close we get to net-zero. The whole thing is just an excuse to destroy our future and impose a new dark ages on us.
Without net-zero, we still have the GREAT RESET and the NEW WORLD ORDER…..
Very soon now we will see our government give away yet another vital element of power to the WHO. The WHO don’t do things by half, and their plans are very clear – a medical dystopian hell awaits us.
We hear so often that our constitution is supposed to protect us, the people, but it has failed to get to grips with rogue parliaments…. There is no chance that all the alleged checks and balances in the system will save us, not when Parliament has so fully resigned itself to abject cowardice and total surrender.
June 1, 2023
1st Establish if there is indeed a problem ā the worlds scientist are split with half cancelled out
2nd Measures the size and magnitude of the problem if indeed it exists ā have we installed any new sea level monitoring devices around the coast of the UK
3rd Be transparent and ask the people in a referendum if they wish to pursue a policy of net-zero or not ā¦its their decision in a democratic society and, as stated, this is a world changing event
NONE OF THE ABOVE HAS NOR WILL HAPPEN
June 1, 2023
Sir John,
“The government…could substitute more online meetings for many of the trips abroad by jet plane.”
Why not start with COP 28 in the UAE later this year. That is if they really are concerned about the climate and not just virtue-signalling on the world stage. Or, move the conference to somewhere a bit cooler in December. I would suggest Kiev. Then they could virtue-signal and show support for Ukraine at the same time, thus saving air miles.
June 3, 2023
Starting with banning attendance by rich celebs with nothing substantial to contribute.
June 1, 2023
Our population growth is overwhelming and so are the knock-on consequences . Sunak shouts about his priorities but there is little to show that anything is working . Words are no good – actions speak louder . Councils are allowing building sites all over the place with no effective supporting infrastructure . Roads are not able to deal with the traffic volume and blockages are everywhere . Towns are short of shops and prices everywhere are sky high . What else can I say to describe my despair and disgust at this Government . As a voter I am powerless – the system has to change – the sooner the better .
June 3, 2023
I have often wondered whether there should be a mechanism for voters to be able to call a general election. Correct me if I am wrong but as far as I know there is not and never has been. The power has always been reserved to MPs of one sort or another.
June 1, 2023
Agreed. A pity more of your colleagues in Parliament do not see this.
June 1, 2023
The proportion of co2 in the atmosphere is about 400ppm, (dangerously low). Plants get stressed below 300ppm, and photosynthesis stops at about 180ppm.
We do NOT need to achieve net zero.
Even if by some miracle we could, the rest of the developing world would make up the difference in about a fortnight, while laughing their heads off at our woke stupidity. While we freeze and starve.
June 1, 2023
NetZero is a conspiracy by academics, socialists and sociopaths to control the population because democracy is not going their way.
We see the same anti-democratic minds trying to suppress free-speech, AI and criticism of Government policy. France has just reintroduced a law from the 1880s banning free speech out of fear of revolution. Canada and the UK are going down the same route.
People call this woke – I call it sociopathy.
June 3, 2023
So, if you give open slather to AI how would you stop it getting into the hands of ‘academics, socialists and sociopaths to control the population’?
June 1, 2023
…and near-empty subsidised buses
June 1, 2023
…..and completely empty taxpayer funded Ā£4bn cycle lanes
June 1, 2023
empty of cycles around Wokingham – but sometimes you see a walker or jogger.
Funny that they used to make do with what we called a pavement.
June 1, 2023
āGovernment considering intervention in food prices despite supermarkets rowā
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/31/food-prices-cap-plan-defra-supermarkets/
āThis Conservative Government is hiring researchers to create a āsingle food price modelā, which would help ministers find the best ways of āinterveningā to deal with rising food costs.ā Yes, hiring more people, because the people already there are not fit for purpose. More tax wasted, more tax needed, but as this PM says high taxes are needed to control inflation. You donāt need to intervene, when there is a āfreeā market
The āConservativeā way is to cut bureaucracy, tax and enhance competition(real competition) permit a proper free market. This ConSocialist Government way is about sound bites, dictates, control and above all as with CO2 reduction is import āfirstā. Farmers get paid more to re-wild than to produce. Food manufacturers are sold off to foreign entities in the name of consolidation only for the production to be moved abroad and then re-import the finish item.
This Conservative Governments imposed taxes/levies on energy, this Conservative Governments 70 year high of taxation and a whole bundle of Socialist doctrine of course has nothing to do with pushing up prices. This Conservative Governments refusal to āmanageā cut its spending culture in line with what the Country has the ability to earn has nothing to do with a generation high inflation.
Vote Conservative and get the āBlobā ConSocialist. You couldnāt make it up. The HoC, the Conservative Party need to get a grip, they ultimately are the problem by letting this nightmare continue.
June 1, 2023
We allegedly have a competition authority *and* a body to regulate relations between supermarkets and suppliers. If supermarkets are fattening their margins, and if some UK farmers gave up growing/keeping X because supermarkets became too greedy, how is this working?
As a specific example of a food I eat regularly … Switzerland has recently had 2-2.5% inflation. But Gruyere cheese has risen in price 50% or more in two years. It can’t be the price of animal feed; the milk comes from cattle which are only fed on grass or hay.
I don’t want the Prices and Incomes Board back. But as Mr A Smith said, free markets have to be regulated or capitalists will establish a private monopoly and screw the consumers.
June 3, 2023
Although there are decidedly socialist inclinations among Conservative mps, Sunak himself is a technocrat. He looks first for technical solutions such as a powerful model food pricing. In theory, given the sophistication and power of modern computing techniques, it should be more successful than Soviet Five Year Plans. But it will probably fall short in political and human factors and therefore be wrong. You know what corrective action will follow. It won’t be a change to the model.
June 1, 2023
Sir John,
Let us not forget that it was Margaret Thatcher (with a degree in Chemistry) in the late 1980s who raised the issue of climate change on the world stage. Here is a quote from her speech at the UN in 1989:
“What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rateāall this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.”
We have tackled many other global environmental issues in my lifetime, such as acid rain (by insisting on sulphur removal from fuels) and closing the hole in the Ozone layer by banning CFCs. Both examples raised economic costs at the time and continue to add costs – but the overall benefits are clear now.
Reply That was not one of her speeches that I advised. She was right about degrading land and dirty water.
June 1, 2023
Where did she mention climate?
June 1, 2023
Wasn’t it Lord Mockton, and isn’t he now of the opinion global warming has peaked?
June 1, 2023
sorry, Lord Monckton.
June 2, 2023
Lord Moncton is speaking of a mini-ice age. This is his specialist subject.
June 1, 2023
I read this and I thought but the Tories have been putting in changes to slash emissions and get to net zero why do you think we’re driving around at 20mph and 50mph on empty motorways?
Rudd was said to have halted subsidies for wind farms back in 2015, saying they should stand on their own feet, did the subsidies stop? Are Labour promising to spend our taxes on that again? Did onshore wind farms get halted from 2015?
Since 2010 how much was spent supporting the solar power sector? There was mention of a Ā£1.5bn overspend on support schemes by 2020.
Did Javid sell off 70% of the Green investment bank, it cost Ā£3.8bn of public money to set up how much was it sold for?
What is the UK legislation for net zero?
Net zero target – In June 2019, the UK government legislated a net zero emissions target by 2050. In 2021, the government set two additional interim targets to run a net zero power system and reduce emissions by 78% by 2035.10 Jan 2023 (parliament UK). How is this going?
How far is this along?
What is the UK environmental policy 2023?
We will: grow a sustainable and long-term UK timber supply by investing in tree planting, skills, innovation and capacity, as well as improving regulatory processes. publish a baseline map of soil health for England by 2028 and bring at least 40% of England’s agricultural soil into sustainable management by 2028.7 Feb 2023 gov UK
People talk as though the Tories have done nothing, what have your party done?
June 1, 2023
In the light of vast imported population,house price explosion, nimbyism, planning or lack of it, and the impossibility of average young people to start on the housing ladder , I have been giving it some thought.
You can buy a two bedroom, en suite bathroomed, fully fitted mobile home for about Ā£55,000. They are only mobile in that they arrive on site on the back of a lorry.
Local councils should use land they own or can acquire, put in the services infrastructure, and demand a modest service charge for the space to site such a home, parking for two cars and a small garden.
Homes I have seen at the above price level on the internet may require additions such as, better insulation, solar panels, air conditioning, but this should all be possible for less than Ā£100,000. This would make them viable for most people in work.
If the homes are production line built, quality is assured, and serious volume is attainable.
It may require some creative thinking in planning departments, mortgage companies, and essentially in government, but we are dealing with a real crisis where muddling through is not an option. We need lots of first time buyers on the property ladder and I offer you the first rung. Go forth and facilitate it.
June 1, 2023
I’ve always thought that 3-story, 3-bed homes in terraced style rows with parking for two cars is a better option than bungalows that take up too much land. You couldn’t put many park homes in Manchester, Liverpool or London.
When they start charging land taxes, people with gardens and parking will get angry.
June 1, 2023
They are angry already with no prospect of buying their first home. Cities are far too expensive for people to live in , three storey terraces or anything else. There are plenty of places around Manchester for instance in which mobile home parks could be created. I was specifically thinking of the young would be home owners of Devon and Cornwall who cannot compete with the demand for holiday homes.
June 1, 2023
I know young people buying agricola, without parental help, they did without holidays, saving their deposits, some working a couple of jobs, they buy in areas that arenāt the current ālocation, location, locationā, have to fix them up and travel a bit further to work which is a downside.
Iām not a fan of holiday homes unless theyāre fully rented out when the owners arenāt in residence. I hate waste so I donāt understand people who buy for a few weeks each year.
June 1, 2023
you could stack the mobile ‘homes’ three high and have an outside metal staircase.
A lot of young people starting out might go for the idea.
June 1, 2023
Carefully designed 40 foot ISO shipping containers created for stacking would be perfect.
June 2, 2023
Would you like in one?
The noise disturbance from neighbours would drive me mad.
June 2, 2023
They are insulated – heat and sound.
June 3, 2023
Would you live in one Lynn? I paid for a night in one that was rented as insulated, I was told never again, the noise disturbance kept him awake for most of the night.
June 1, 2023
JR commented ‘Putting in all the extra homes, surgeries, schools and infrastructure will require a lot of cement, bricks and energy for construction’
No problem [sarc.]. On current trends the cement, bricks and steel will be made abroad, counting towards somebody else’s emissions. Only the transport to building sites will count towards UK statistics. Some of these vehicles might be electric, though not I think 100% by 2050.
I think the 2050 target of a 100% cut is OTT. The 2008 policy of a 80% cut might have been feasible had training programmes been implemented immediately. Of course, they weren’t. The blind are leading the blind. Yet back in the 1980s/90s we knew how to implement energy efficiency policies which delivered real benefits. Extraordinarily, we’ve regressed.
June 1, 2023
The following question needs to be answered before we continue down the slippery and stony track of Net Zero. “Is there any need for us to reduce our CO2 emissions?”
We should remind ourselves that it is generally accepted, even I believe by the IPCC, that the alarming predictions of global warming are not due to the DIRECT effect of an increase in atmospheric CO2 above THE CURRENT LEVEL, but from a HYPOTHETICAL major net positive feedback from water vapour vastly amplifying CO2’s small direct effect.
What concerns me most of all is the lack of any debate in the MSM on the causes of any change in our climate. It is like going to a football match where one side wins easily because the other team, the one which I support, wasn’t allowed on the pitch.
The Conservative Party, of which I am a member, needs to tread very carefully on this issue. I foresee a situation where all three of the main parties continue to be publicly committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050. This would provide a not to be missed opportunity for Reform &/or Farage which I believe they would take. Although they would gain votes from all the main parties, they would inflict by far the most damage on the Conservative Party, even though they may not win any or many seats.
Looking further ahead there are the USA elections in November 2024. I am hoping that the Reds, where there is a lot of climate scepticism, sweep the board (preferably without Trump). I believe that a Republican Administration, House and Senate could well put a brake on the drive to reduce CO2 emissions which would strongly influence the global direction of travel. Unfortunately, by then we are likely to have had our next General Election.
June 1, 2023
agricola
But Governments and Local Authorities did all as you suggest after the second World War, with thousands of prefabricated houses erected on small but rapidly cleared plots of land, and which many tenants loved at the time, then they stopped, not aware of the reason.
We now have Park Homes run by private owners , some with all sorts of onerous terms and conditions.
I see now there are a couple of companies who are turning shipping containers into small homes.
Where there is a will there is a way, but for too many there is no real will at all, and certainly little money or common sense.
The solution is staring people in the face, but then when 600,000 or more people arrive every year, the problem will never be resolved, as you cannot make more land unless you reclaim it from the sea, or repurpose it, and we cannot be bothered to protect the existing coast line we have from flooding, let alone reclaim what we have lost.
June 1, 2023
HOT TOPIC.
The government is to launch a legal challenge over the Covid inquiry’s demand for WhatsApp messages and documents. Officials missed a 16:00 deadline to disclose messages between Boris Johnson and his advisers during the pandemic, as well as his diaries and notebooks.
The government has refused to disclose some of the material, arguing it is not relevant to the inquiry’s work.
But the inquiry’s boss says deciding what is relevant should be her job. Crossbench peer Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chairwoman, says she needs to see the messages to see if they are relevant to the inquiry’s investigation into how the government handled the pandemic.
But the government says handing over the requested material would undermine ministers’ right to privacy when discussing policy matters.
The Cabinet Office, which is taking the lead for the government, has said it will apply for a judicial review. This means a judge will decide whether the inquiry had overreached its legal powers to demand evidence.
June 2, 2023
JRM addressed this on his show last night MT; the complete set of messages aren’t her remit and would be a distraction and lengthen the investigation. Can you imagine the outcry if any boss could ask their employees for all their whatsapps business and personal messaging.
June 2, 2023
One more thing will she ask all the advisors whatsapps like Whitty, Harris and Van-Tam, will she ask for all those working on the project in Downing Street cabinet staff, every single person involved in SAGE and backupSAGE?
June 2, 2023
She should. The cost of their decisions was monumental and we need to be absolutely sure that the decisions were ALL properly taken. Else Parliament must have the power to pass āEnabling Actsā removed.
June 3, 2023
Well if she doesnāt whatās the point of it, just a politician bashing exercise. Who would want to work in politics. The C4 boss can earn over a Ā£1, BBC boss, Council bosses earn more than our PM when do you ever hear them held to account. (Although our PMs always do seem to get very rich once theyāve left office!)
June 1, 2023
But why should we worry about the level of CO2 emmissions? I’ve yet to see scientifically peer group verified proof to confim that we humans are the cause of temperature increases across the globe.
One Larry Vardiman PhD (in Atmospheric Science) shows us, with verified graphs, the natural phenomena that causes the changes in temperature. I’ve not found any one to contradict his finding with equally good scienfic evidence.
So why is our Government wasting OUR time and OUR money on false premise and what are their ulterior motives?
https://www.icr.org/article/does-carbon-dioxide-drive-global-warming/
June 1, 2023
Agree – We still have the four seasons and if you look out of your window you’ll notice that nothing has changed
June 2, 2023
nothing has changed except the uncertainty of weather over much of the UK.
June 3, 2023
It has actually. If you actually go outside and observe. Migratory patterns of birds and sea creatures have changed, tree growth has changed, seasonal cycles have changed. There is uncertainty about the causes, but none about change – if you actually go outside and observe.
June 1, 2023
Tee Hee!
But what we ought to be told clearly is whether you believe ‘climate change’ caused by us all is true or not.
Too risky?
June 1, 2023
Lets face it, parliament arenāt doing ānet-zeroā and ārestricting CO2ā for the UK people, theyāre doing it for the international community
June 2, 2023
JR, forever the politician , thereagain he has had 34 years of programming. Why not just come out and say it is all TOTAL BS. WE know it is!!!!
June 2, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
Probably because he is not a scientist and wants policies, formulation of which is beyond the scope and capacity of climate scientists, that are proportionate to what is known: the earth is warming but we don’t by how much nor its effects in the future, not whether the current trend will reverse or when. We know that human activity probably contributes to warming but not by how much. We can also be sure that in future better technologies will be available and there is time so precipitate damaging and costly action that is not necessary should be avoided. So Sir John’s approach is simply commonsense.
June 3, 2023
This is controversial but working from home also cuts CO2 emissions. It is only controversial because some see it as being abused in a way that is believed to make government policies harder to implement. It is in truth a matter for managers of office workers. In fact it provides a means of cutting the overhead of expensive office space because there are many types of work that do not require a person to be in any particular physical location. It also cuts disruption of mental work, and cuts inefficient meetings.
Obviously WFH does not suit every type of work or organisation. Neither should it be permanent, some physical get togethers are necessary. But reducing CO2 is a legitimate additional advantage.