There is a rogue element and an extreme element amongst the carbon campaigners. The rogue element trades in pardons and offers false reassurances that their goods and services are green. The extreme advocates demand lifestyle sacrifices well beyond what most people are prepared to consider, whilst often themselves disobeying their own strictures in order to attend another global conference or a City demo. They expect others to give up the foreign holiday in the sun and to abandon the family car, whilst they jet or drive to their important climate change events.
It is emerging that some people who claim to offer renewable energy in practice supply electricity from the general grid supply like everyone else, which still has a majority of power generated from non renewable sources. The attempts to hypothecate some renewable supply may entitle the renewable generator to earn a little more by offering a made from renewables certificate, but in most cases there is no dedicated cable to take that particular electricity to the end user.
The whole carbon trading scheme is designed to let companies that need to burn gas or oil to buy in or to be given permits to do so. The movement to “price carbon” can make things dearer and deprive more low income people of good products but it cannot transform the current state of technology or make people fall in love with green solutions they think are inferior. There is a danger that the richer people buy in to green theory in the knowledge they can still afford their petrol car and their jet flights whilst seeing the higher prices for carbon based travel or heating as the way to ration lower income families away from them.
The carbon revolution needs iconic and good products that people want to buy. Governments do not need to legislate or to subsidise to get people to buy smart phones and tablets. They do so because they like these products and the services they allow. Meanwhile in the UK many people will not even accept a smart meter offered with no specific charge to them for having one, such is the suspicion of the estabishment motives. We still do not see the iconic Mini or Beetle of the electric car world. Nor do we yet have the ubiquitous replacement for the domestic gas boiler that will take over our homes in the way tvs and washing machines did in the 1960s and 1970s. Revolutionaries need willing tidal waves of supporters which will only come from having superior products with something better more people want.
October 13, 2020
Good morning
Sir John.
These Environmentalfundalmetalists (now there’s a big word for a Tuesday morning) are Watermelons. Green on the outside, Socialist Red on the inside. They use, just like BLM and XR mob, these causes to promote their extremist Leftist agenda.
As I always say – Show me a Socialist and I will show you a hypocrite .
October 13, 2020
Maybe not hypocrites…because they actually have an agenda as you say.
Which may be to bring down capitalism…but who would pay their benes?
Anyway their vile rubbish wrapped in pink cellophane ( rudely a polished t***) is destroying everything.
Yes…very nice word!
October 13, 2020
We read a cock up in too much subsidy will cost us £5 billion more for wind machine energy!
We read Bank of England has written to all banks asking them to prepare for negative interest rates!
We SAGE says there is no benefit in 10pm curfew!
IDS made the point that death rate is 0.6 %.
Barrier going to ignore 15th October deadline for Brexit.
Unemployment going through the roof!
Just get Johnson out we can no longer afford is stupidity.
October 13, 2020
Oh, so socialists are not socialists then – none of them.
You’ve nothing to fear then, have you?
October 13, 2020
Have to wear a mask.
Can’t see whom I want to in the numbers I want to.
Much of ordinary family life is now criminalised.
Martin tells us to relax. It’s all OK.
Nothing to fear.
October 13, 2020
If you utilise long made-up words I guess this also gives you the latitude of spelling it howsoever you wish!
October 13, 2020
Indeed Mark and they have most of the media on their side.
October 13, 2020
Two articles today condemning Johnson bankrupting our country for no good reason. Littlejohn wrote a very good article. Kavanagh another. Time has caught up on Johnson’s Govt. No right minded person can give him the benefit of the doubt anymore when it is plainly clear his decisions and explanations are utter crap.
October 13, 2020
David
Very true
October 13, 2020
There should be no surplus or luxury in a socialist’s life.
October 13, 2020
Yes Denis Skinner was the only real Socialist I have ever come across.
October 13, 2020
+1
October 13, 2020
Frank Field, John Smith ?
October 13, 2020
Mark B
Absolutely correct.
October 13, 2020
Absolutely.
We know we’re being deceived and lied to by both central government and those who align with it and no doubt enjoy remuneration from them
Eventually, laws will be passed to ban ICE vehicles and any other product that is deemed to be contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy. Hayek did suggest this level of economic interventionism would herald the arrival of totalitarianism.
Once cash is abolished and cash will be abolished then our lives will become intolerable.
The political and cultural direction of travel is towards imposition, silencing, cancelling, denunciation and condemnation. All Marxist-Fascist in nature but hidden from view by our managed democracy.
And yet, the voter continues to endorse all that has gone before and is still occurring. The Tory-Labour alliance, for it is an alliance of a more nuanced kind, an understanding still dominates even after all the damage both parties have deliberately imposed upon us to nobble our democracy, crush our freedoms, smash our culture and expose us to real harm
I despair of the indigenous majority that they endorse all of this. The tyranny of the minority is upon us and both parties are lapping it up
How long before the majority wake up from their free-lunch snooze and realise they have walked into a carefully laid trap?
October 13, 2020
Sadly, a legitimate and necessary concern for the cleanliness and survival of the global environment has turned into a hysterical religious cause, and it seems to this cynical observer that this is a typical human behaviour trait.
In my lifetime, for example, I’ve seen it become effectively blasphemous to criticise the NHS; and public or previously private individuals have been viciously hounded via social media for remarks taken out of context or completely false sexual allegations.
Of course there’s nothing new in this, but what is particularly frightening is the way such hysteria is fed and encouraged by C21st technology.
Londoners of a certain age may remember a man who used to walk up and down Oxford St bearing large signs that said “The End Of The World Is Nigh”, and we used to laugh when we saw him. Nowadays, I have a certain sympathy with him.
October 13, 2020
But the point is that the world is still here and rotating, although maybe slightly off it’s axis. The green obsessives are the modern day man with the board except now its not allowed to criticise him.
October 13, 2020
The whole green scam is to make the general public poor in favour of the rich few.
It’s a wealth transfer scheme of humongous proportions.
How do you separate green electricity from ordinary electricity coming from the same transformer.
Windmills are environmentally unfriendly and each one takes hundreds of tonnes of concrete and copper plus they are generally manufactured overseas.
They are not lasting anything like the life projected and are a nightmare to recycle.
Still Boris wants to build more.
Yesterday they provided between 3 and 14% of power. Totally unreliable.
October 13, 2020
But bird mincing windmills make an awful lot of dosh for landowners etc.
If they’d ever worked (well) we would never have needed electricity?
October 13, 2020
Well said, Ian.
October 13, 2020
Just a reminder that I warned you about the traffic light system 3 weeks ago. Nothing to do with science, deaths or hospital admissions just the government planning project fear 2 to justify their failures.
Your hemorrhaging support due to the nonesense restrictions.
Tell me John, why does it start at medium risk which indicates that we can never relax social distancing or have more than a party of 6.
Don’t you think it is time we were allowed to make our own minds up.
Yesterdays deaths 71 out of a population of 70 million.
October 13, 2020
Todays tally for last 24 hours 54.
October 13, 2020
Ian, you are correct. This is now a national disgrace, a total failure in public health care policy and destruction of our economy.
IDS pointed out the 0.6% death rate. Doctors and nurses now feeling embarrased they were under employed with people suffering from deadly/terminal illness while being clapped!
The tax rises are going to be horrendous according IFS.
Ten times the death rate for influenza at the moment.
Witty and Valance’s doom mongering predictions a few weeks ago being ridiculed and shown to be utter nonsense, our top advisors! Why have they not resigned or been sacked? Perhaps their next job could be walking up and down with a bill board on their back saying the end is near- it would be more credible.
October 13, 2020
Ian Wragg, Indeed, windmills are unreliable because the wind is unreliable. That means there must be be dispatchable back-up for all Wind powered electricity generation.
At the moment Gas is used, typically CCGT (or faster CTG, due to steam turbine lag) because it can be kept idling and then ramped up in minutes. The only alternative is storage but that is either unavailable or expensive (or both): an example being the Dinorwig hydro pumped storage facility.
But what happens when Gas is banned? We will either have black-outs or we’re going to have to build a lot of Dinorwigs pretty damn fast – probably 300 or so within a decade just to keep half the Grid going for a day.
October 14, 2020
The govt has STOR agreement to use diesel powered generators! You could not make it up.
Germany is back to coal and 52% of Russian energy. No one seems to highlight how Germany makes gestures towards these green or woke initiatives but always puts their industry first before every other country or other country’s interest irrespective of what it says or demands of their coutries!
October 13, 2020
exactly
October 13, 2020
Covi 19 – follow the science – destroy the economy
Climate Change – follow the science – destroy the economy
Meanwhile the Global Elites fly by private jet to the World Economic Forum in snowy Davos and preach to us about Global Warming
October 13, 2020
The worm is turning.
October 13, 2020
Sir Patrick
Your brief points are well made. Some of us would like the freedom just to leave our county boroughs or in some cases our towns and cities.
The government’s latest attack on the north of England highlights the limit on freedom of movement. Soon they will all be able to sing from the same song sheet:
“We all live in a yellow submarine
A yellow submarine
A yellow submarine”
October 13, 2020
The arrogance is typical, but the privilege of the globalist elite/cabal is, I believe, ensured by UN Agenda 2030, which our government has signed up to. Simply put, the masses will be impoverished and the unaccountable elite will be greatly enriched, all in the name of “sustainability” and “social equity”. Trillions are at stake here, and we, the people, will be providing it.
Thus, the wealthy may well continue to feel entitled with their private jets and electric cars which by that time will have been priced out of ordinary people’s reach. As one commenter put it, we will be pushing bikes up hills.
I think the global warming agenda is a giant scam, involving trillions, and I believe President Trump will expose it for what it is. This US election is vital for the survival of the free world.
October 13, 2020
The only problem with that claim is that the science is “Settled” as far as Climate Change is concerned, yet the government can pick and choose which scientific claim they like in order to keep the country under lockdown (whether real or virtual). Note how muzzles were not recommend for general public use back in March, yet suddenly, they now are…
October 13, 2020
Yesterday’s deaths 50, down from 71 the day before. Covid found in 0.028% of population so we must all stay indoors.
0.004% of those catching covid die, quick shut down the country.
Who’s being had for mugs.
October 13, 2020
Agree complete hysteria – If we didn’t have the internet, we’d probably never even know there was a new virus and treated this as the normal flu
October 13, 2020
Politicians – follow the promises, destroy democracy.
October 13, 2020
As I said yesterday, government could fix this by borrowing and building 10 large nuclear power plants. We could all move to heating our homes with the latest convector heaters if there was enough cheap power.
Or, perish the thought, we could burn coal and use carbon capture to make the process clean. Mass transport – cars – seem to be a problem. If the government made enough cheap, lean energy available- hydrogen would be the solution.
The government seems to be sitting on the sidelines – passing laws to create targets – and just hoping someone else will come up with a solution. Well this is one of the situations where governyactually needs to do things – seriously and for the long term.
October 13, 2020
One day the physicists will manage to contain a nuclear fusion process long enough to produce more energy than it takes in. Meanwhile, Rolls Royce should be encouraged to produce their small nuclear power plants as the already do for submarines.
The other area that should be worked on is a nuclear power plant run on thorium rather than uranium which, after all, was only chosen over thorium so that more weapons grade material could be produced as a ‘by product’. Thorium is a lot safer and, I believe, there is much more of it than uranium and any power plant can be shut down with a meltable plug as the bottom of the reactor that will operate immediately should the plant overheat.
October 13, 2020
Good post
October 13, 2020
It would be interesting to know the figures for the Rolls Royce reactors.
October 13, 2020
Are the Indians and Chinese engaging in carbon capture in respect of their hundreds of coal-fired power stations? Is anyone anywhere doing carbon capture on an industrial scale? Where are they storing the CO2? The obvious purpose of the push for carbon capture and storage is to destroy the economic basis for fossil fuels.
October 13, 2020
Hydro power should be used as we are completely surrounded by water.We should build the stations using our materials, our labour and man them with British people.This would solve two problems.Firstly constant cheap,clean electricity and secondly helping our labour force.Its a win win situation and ultimately much more efficient way relying solely on nature without ever having to use windmills etc.
October 13, 2020
We could use home grown labour to carry the sea water up the cliffs and generate electricity as it comes down.
October 13, 2020
Are you planning to flood the Highlands with sea water to produce the upper reservoirs?
October 13, 2020
It’s not cost effective even in the best places – the mouth of the Severn, with the turbines rotating both ways (incoming and outgoing tides). Cecil Parkinson did an exhaustive study when he was energy minister.
Of course if you remove gas, oil, carbon from the mix and push energy prices (from windmills) to a level where only multi-millionaires can afford to put the lights on, it might become financially attractive.
October 13, 2020
Mike W, We may have no choice – due to the CO2 denialists – but to go for Nuclear. In which case the Rolls-Royce small modular reactors seems to be the best route. But as I said U238 has a half life of 4.5bn years, so I’d much prefer to use Gas, which is clean and pollution free, whilst developing Thorium cycle Nuclear reactors (in my view much more practical – and likely – than Fusion).
October 13, 2020
I wonder if the waste can be stored until space travel is so safe we could take it off the earth and send it to the sun.
October 13, 2020
Weren’t a lot of electric gadgets produced to simply sell electricity? And on the pretext of freeing up women ….to go to work!!
Then of course gadgets took over our lives because of their propensity for going wrong.
And two new industries were born… ie…repair followed by insure and maybe repair.
Almost organic.
Will this forced revolution be successful?
Do people want their lives further ruled by extreme tech when repair and customer satisfaction are things of the past?
And I doubt the powers that be really want any Volks Wagons! Just elite ones!!
October 13, 2020
As a woman, I have to say I’m very glad not to have had to trudge to a river 3 miles away to get drinking water and wash the family’s clothes. I’m very happy to have a vacuum cleaner rather than getting on my knees with a dustpan and brush to get the dogs’ hairs off the carpets. And I’m delighted to have electric mixers and blenders so that I can more easily feed family and friends.
Would you like to remove my right to vote as well?
October 13, 2020
Lol
You presume I am a man?
Talk about picking a fight.
Anyway I don’t think that our so called democracy has been a great success…do you?
October 13, 2020
Why not move closer to the river?
October 13, 2020
I didn’t take the comment like that, I felt that he is saying women have just swapped one sort of labour for another. As a career woman, I prefer to swap my freely provided home cleaning duties (with dustpan and brush and the washtub/board and dolly maid my Nan used to use) for paid labour as my husband does and share the earning and household work evenly between us using modern technology to speed things up and it’s amazing how when Men do get involved with cleaning they’re more encouraged to buy gadgets to help lol.
October 13, 2020
Doesn’t alter the fact that Edison ( a great entrepreneur who founded General Electric) wanted to sell electricity …and found ways so to do.
Many of these gadgets were sold as labour saving.
They were used, through advertising, to get middle class housewives into the workplace. This weakened the role of men, eventually reduced their wages and created more taxable workers.
It is why now, as you imply, it certainly does take two earners to buy and run a household. Whereas before a man’s higher wage freed up the woman to look after children and run the house.
My point was that a forced “green” revolution will not lead to a whole new breed of gadgets…just inferior variations on the theme.
Did you get your profiles mixed up?
October 13, 2020
Yes all these modern labour saving devices are great…. Washing machines, tumble dryers, vacuum cleaners, escalators, TV remote control, electric window winders etc. We save thousands of calories which enable us to have time to purchase expensive gym memberships which enable us to burn off all those saved calories.
It is a strange world isn’t it.
October 13, 2020
and we must be warned off fat, salt, sugar – – or else!
October 13, 2020
Agreed, the government is pushing ahead of the research and development of sustainable, well designed, reliable product development.
Of course the Government need to encourage development of the above, but push too hard with too shorter lead in, and you end up with unreliable gimmick products, which do not do what they say on the packaging.
Remember the unreliable first release of condensing boilers, the understated emission readings of some car manufacturers, as well as the overstated miles per gallon, or charge in the case of electric.
The charging by recycling centres for some household/DIY waste which then ends up dumped in hedgerows, only to be cleared later (if at all) at great cost by Councils.
The carbon swap/storage fiasco, and many many other examples.
Encourage people by reducing taxes on so called green products, but do not offer subsidies which confuse the market.
October 13, 2020
Precisely. If the population think its sensible they will do the right thing. They don’t think electric cars are sensible so they don’t buy them. End of.
October 13, 2020
According to European, sales of EVs has stalled but sales of SUVs has rocketed.
Trust the customer to know best.
October 13, 2020
I doubt that recycling centres dump waste in the hedgerows Alan. More like cowboys who don’t want to pay to dispose of their rubbish.
October 13, 2020
Why pay?
October 13, 2020
Govt should tax only bad things; not good things like useful work.
October 13, 2020
Governments shouldn’t tax things because they’re good or bad , they should only tax because there is a need to collect revenue
e.g income tax to pay military salaries to protect the UK…..not environmental tax on petrol cars to social engineer people into using electric cars
October 13, 2020
Exactly! 10% max.
October 14, 2020
Voters can decide what is bad. If Govt taxed only those things, it would have all the revenue needed plus a surplus to defend us for good.
October 13, 2020
I wonder if the developers who wrote the auto correct software for phones ever realise it has faults and correct them. I thought I had typed ‘government actually’ and my phone decided I was typing ‘governyactually’. I thought I had typed ‘clean’ and my phone decided I had typed ‘lean’. ‘c’ and ‘l’ are nowhere near each other on a keyboard.
October 13, 2020
With respects, could you not turn off auto-text and auto-correct?
October 13, 2020
hardly anybody does it would seem……they don’t trust their tiping or spellin! (intended).
October 13, 2020
I don’t know. Can you? I have an iPhone. As I type 3 words appear above the ‘keyboard’ and for some reason I have yet to fathom, one of them often gets selected and put in the typed text. I wish I could get rid of it.
October 13, 2020
I’m getting fed up with this intervention too. The ‘programmers’ know few English words it seems and limit all of us by default. Levelling down!
October 13, 2020
We need to get Boris and his advisers away from the levers of power as an issue of national emergency. (Richard Littlejohn sums it up today.)
As for green.
Is it not enough that people are going to be too impoverished to spend or put the heating on ? Does Boris really need to pile on the pressure like he is ?
October 13, 2020
Re your last question, NLA, yes. Johnson is following UN Agenda 2030 which he/our government has signed us up to.
The sooner people realise that and actually read what UN Agenda 2030 actually entails they might just see what is going on, and it is not reassuring. In fact it is frightening. All quietly set in motion using feel good language of sustainability, social equity etc. to justify what seems to be a massive transformation and impoverishment of society and a wealth generating (trillions) mechanism for the globalist cabal.
October 13, 2020
Johnson was actually pictured wearing an Agenda 2030 badge on his lapel the other day.
October 13, 2020
Exactly so.
As I have said many times ….the potential result of every Covid measure dovetails precisely with this scary agenda.
It is there for anyone to read.
It is not a conspiracy theory!
Apparently the globalist cabal have already made ££££££s untold out of what is going on!
Are MPs really happy with all this?
October 13, 2020
Just as Caroline Flint admitted freely that she had never read the Lisbon Treaty, I suspect many MPs haven’t even bothered to read the UN Agenda 2030. They apparently are all so anxious to court the votes of the green lobby at all costs, and to project a “caring” image, that actual principles and common sense seem to have been cast to the wind. They have completely fallen for the bait of the corrupt globalists, for it is a scam, I am convinced.
October 13, 2020
The problem is when you are bust-in hock to the globalist financiers-as the West is,you do as you told.
The East-Russia,China,India,etc have created their own financial architecture-multilateral institutions,banks,payment mechanisms etc and are working outside the western framework to their own agendas.The West will become irrelevant.
October 13, 2020
Ah..yes of course!
Follow the money?
October 13, 2020
All succinctly put Sir J and you rightly say ‘Meanwhile in the UK many people will not even accept a smart meter offered with no specific charge to them for having one, such is the suspicion of the establishment motives’. Indeed and with good cause, because each smart meter has an IP address and at its heart is a 100 Amp switch that can be remotely triggered to disconnect the house from the mains supply. Imagine what could happen if the provider software got hacked? The hacker could have a field day with disconnecting end users at random just for fun or some more sinister purpose. For those interested in monitoring their electrical consumption, just buy a cheap digital display monitoring advice where one simply, safely clamps a sender unit on the incoming cable. The device connects wirelessly to the to the display device. I have used one for 20 years now to monitor household consumption and have no intention of going anywhere near such a vulnerable device as a so-called smart meter!
October 13, 2020
Well Said, Martyn G.
What you said and;
Anyone remotely interested in energy efficiency will not need a ‘Smart Meter’.
The cost is being forced on consumers and please do not suggest that the cost is being absorbed by supply companies/government because there is no such thing as a free lunch. The main purpose is to save suppliers the cost of employing meter readers and to establish a form of remote control.
October 13, 2020
And when they start disconnecting one for the wrong political views!
October 13, 2020
Martyn We are being offered a smart meter every time I log into my account. There is no way we are having one even though it is being offered free. It’s another form of control. If I want to save on my energy bills I switch things off that I am not using. Simple. Mind you, at the moment it seems whatever gets switched off the bill goes up. My provider has increased their charges twice in a few months. What with insurances, council tax, water charges increasing and our static income only increasing a fraction I wonder how long it will be before we have to choose between heating and eating.
October 13, 2020
Agreed! Me neither ++
October 13, 2020
Martyn
Just refused a second so called meter upgrade to “SMART” for similar reasons.
If I want to know my usage I just look at the meter numbers, or study the past invoices a little more closely.
October 13, 2020
I was forced to have one but it did not work! So it acts as an ordinary meter. Waste of money, energy company compensated me for wasting so much of my time.
October 13, 2020
Me too but the ludicrously is the guy fitting it told us it wouldn’t work before he even fitted it (and it doesn’t) because the signal is rubbish down here in south west Cornwall but he had to fit it anyone because the government were telling them to.
October 13, 2020
to avoid compulsion – -arrange for a Faraday Cage (where the meter would have to be installed) to defeat internet – – -they will give up insisting.
October 13, 2020
Quite right Martyn G.
Smart meters will enable the government/electricity supply companies to cut off electricity to individual houses instantly when there is insufficient power available from unreliable green sources and also allow criminals to know when a house is unoccupied.
October 13, 2020
It has become a racket.
October 13, 2020
Quite – special interests abound.
Like language and now health the environment has become a means of controlling those with whom they disagree.
If climate change is so important why do we not impose punitive tariffs on those who do not adopt the same measures as us?
October 13, 2020
Big time racket
October 13, 2020
We do need to call out those rogue elements with false green products, typified by a major UK oil producer who, some years ago, spent millions re-branding their company in a tastefull green colour with a new logo in the shape and colour of a sun.
I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph. However, captalism has a habit of producing the right product at the right time. Many major car manufacturers, Toyota, BMW, Volkwagen, Nissan etc have EV’s in their product range and the numbers on our roads, particularly in cities, are gradually increasing. Worcester Bosch have a range of highly efficient electric boilers. For many years the construction industry has insulated new homes and office space to a high standard. Rolls Royce has a range of new, highly efficient aero engines – as well as a new, mini nuclear power station.
Maybe the government could let them build and install one as a demonstration plant at Wylfa, in place of the recently cancelled mega station?
October 13, 2020
About 11 small modular reactors would be needed to take the place of a Hinckley Point. As green hysterics would prevent any SMR from being built near a populated area, it would be a good idea to put them on existing nuke sites. As most of our nukes will be retired by 2030, we need to order some ASAP.
October 13, 2020
Mini nuclear power stations, similar to those in warships, are so obviously a good idea to trial fully.
October 13, 2020
The first Russian floating nuclear generating plant has been operational for some months now-I think it is stationed at Pevek on the extreme north-East coast of Siberia.Larry King on RT America had an interesting interview with the CEO of Rosatom,Russia’s state controlled nuclear energy giant (and the world’s biggest exporter of nuclear plants),a few weeks ago.
October 13, 2020
Just to identify VW(others may be similar) in your contribution, their cars are made in facilities powered by their own coal fired power stations. So is it the right product when in getting it to market it does more environmental damage than its life on the road.
Or is it a case the damage wasn’t in the UK, so it has no impact on the World. Like all green credentials created by the seller, they don’t even tell half the story.
October 13, 2020
Sakara Gold said: “Worcester Bosch have a range of highly efficient electric boilers”. Oh, God, stop it, I can’t even stay upright I’m laughing so much. Stick a heating element into the middle of some water and it will inevitably be near 100% “efficient” (there will be losses from the water to the environment of course). It’s the electricity itself which is “inefficient” – domestic electricity is 4 or 5 times the price of Gas, even when the electricity is produced from Gas fired generators. That’s how inefficient electricity is.
October 13, 2020
I have a 43kw gas boiler providing heat and water for a 4 bed detached. My current average bills are £1200 annually.
Change to electricity and that would be £6000.
October 13, 2020
Yes.
Also, gas boilers burning methane are many times more efficient than open fires burning coal – which is what preceded them – producing only a small fraction of the CO2, especially when combined with insulation, double glazing etc.
We need to stop beating ourselves up over this, and proceed pragmatically and moderately.
October 14, 2020
Methane burning boilers did not supercede open coal fires.
October 13, 2020
and where there is no gas supply?
October 13, 2020
There is a bumper bundle of C19 S.I. up for debate in the HoC today.
Revolution or Rubber stamp from our sovereign parliament? Check Hansard tomorrow.
October 13, 2020
The meek, compliant rubber stamp no doubt.
Economy and sanity can go hang!
October 13, 2020
I just found a gem on CW comments. This is what our Government defers to!
‘ The World Health Organisation. Lets put this “organisation” (and I use the term lightly) in perspective.
This is the same organisation that elected Robert Mugabe as it’s “goodwill ambassador”
Not even Hollywood’s finest could come up with a script like this.’
October 13, 2020
That’s pretty solid comment, I think John.
However, no doubt some of your commenters will caricature most sensible, moderate advocates of caution in environmental matters as belonging to the frauds or extremists that you identify, unfortunately.
Only outright rejection of the main body, of decades of climatology will satisfy them.
October 13, 2020
The climate may well be changing – it always has and always will. That is not the argument. The argument is whether humans are causing it. The extremists can, I think, reasonably be compared to religious zealots. They believe fervently that they are correct and that their interpretation of the evidence is absolutely correct and beyond question.
I have an open mind on the subject. I think it is sensible to embrace clean energy simply because it is clean. If that energy is renewable, that would be ideal.
In terms of the small effect the actions of a small country like ours might have on a global issue, I am sure if we could move to completely clean, renewable, sustainable energy, other countries woul follow. In the meantime, let’s build nuclear.
October 13, 2020
Interestingly many of the same people who are fearful of our ability to survive and influence outside of the EU are crying out for unilateral self flagellation on climate from the UK.
Our affect on climate, if indeed we are affecting it, is miniscule. Go talk to China, India, Russia and the US. As we discussed yesterday this is a population problem.
October 13, 2020
Mike Wilson :
“The climate may well be changing – it always has and always will. That is not the argument. The argument is whether humans are causing it.”
Agreed.
The last glacial maximum was 22,000 years ago and the planet has been warming ever since with the last ice age considering to have ended about 11,500 years ago.
How do those who support the thesis that the current warming of the planet is man made explain how the planet began warming 22,000 years ago?
October 13, 2020
If something is wrong it is wrong. The fact that they will brook no argument and alternative views never get an airing says all you need to know – it is a weak argument. Unfortunately the green zealots are not sensible moderate advocates, they are obsessed and need to impose their views because sensible moderate people doubt them and they can’t stand that. A con is a con and you can believe it if you like. Some people at the heart of the anti carbon dioxide nonsense are making millions out of it.
October 13, 2020
Graham
And the quickest way to know if something is a con…is when no alternative opinion is allowed! Climate change, Covid ‘pandemic ‘…..
October 13, 2020
graham1946
Brilliant last comment. But people like us never get listened to .
The dice are loaded against common sense and the real truth
October 13, 2020
Climate/weather on this planet is cyclical for all timescales from a day to a millenium.
Societies that avoid the knee jerk reaction of trying to compensate for every uptick and downtick will come out ahead.
October 13, 2020
Martin, Yet you do not exercise the same caution in your own belief in CAGW, as you advocate others should do for failing to believe CAGW. This is part of the green hypocrisy.
October 13, 2020
As you infer the whole green business is largely hypocrisy. I am yet to be persuaded that carbon in all its forms is the devil as portrayed. If those who are concerned at the effect man is having on the planet actually identified the rectifiable, like all the detritus we put in the sea for instance, and lobbied to stop it, I would be more impressed. However they prefer to change the way we live by throwing us back to the dark ages. rather than encouraging science and engineering to solve the polluting problems.
October 13, 2020
Literally nobody is asking you to go back to the dark ages. Though, as an extreme Brexiteer, you have done a pretty good job of taking us there yourself.
October 13, 2020
And your second sentence is as absurd as the point you were replying in your first sentence. As I believe you have pointed out before, we have left the EU. No time travel so far.
October 13, 2020
Andy take away the electricity and you will soon be in a dark age!
October 13, 2020
As you keep reminding us Andy, we only voted to Leave. Therefore whether a Leave voter is ‘extreme’ or ‘non-extreme’ in your eyes has no bearing on what the Government actually does.
October 13, 2020
Andy isn’t this the problem most people aren’t sure what Greta and her gang actually want people and the government to do!
If it is to get out of cars and walk or go on a bike that is back to the dark ages. If she wants people not to have the freedom of travel around the United Kingdom and beyond to explore and see the World in person then that is the dark ages. People glued themselves from the movement to tube trains in rush hour – is that what they wanted – no one travelling everyone imprisoned at home, limited socialising – if so they’ve got what they want and the people don’t like it.
Google search what does Greta actually want people to do? There are lots of articles about her as a person, a BBC newsround article focuses just on her but not what she is asking these teenagers to do? Nor does it say what she is expecting our government to do.
I found one article low down in the search page 2 that said she wanted 1. “banks, firms & governments to stop investing in and subsidising fossil fuels” – how much does the UK, UK banks and UK firms invest in this?
She wants more investment in 2. “sustainable technologies, research, restoring nature in the UK”. How much investment does the UK make in these things in comparison to no.1? How much investment is spent in our Universities in research and developing these technologies? How much is invested by UK firms – their registered accounts will document this in R&D figures.
What emissions targets were set for 2020 in 2000, did we meet them, I thought I read we did and beyond?
October 13, 2020
Do stop spouting your rubbish about Brexit Andy. You lost the vote so get used to it.
October 13, 2020
I am used to it. And I am still amused that you all think you won something. Lorry parks maybe.
October 13, 2020
Andy, We did win something – independence. Something our forefathers fought and died for. Provided Boris does not capitulate any more, and provided he walks away from Theresa May’s WA which binds us to the EU for decades.
October 13, 2020
Literally some people are demanding we (at least us peasants) go back to the dark ages, Andy. Everyone who demands we run on intermittents like Wind and Solar does, whether they realise it or not.
October 13, 2020
And right on cue – see my comment above.
Thanks for proving me right, A.
October 13, 2020
If only you were as cautious in your own pronouncements, Martin, as you demand other people should be who do not buy into your mock greenery.
October 13, 2020
Cardiff is a great advert for Green over the years.
October 13, 2020
In a nutshell, sir John!
This ‘green’ revolution is being forced upon us.
And it is needing to be forced upon us, because it’s not real. As you say, elites can happily agree to it for ‘the peasants’ safe in the knowledge they won’t have to change their lifestyle one jot!
Even during a ‘pandemic ‘ advantage has been taken to block roads and road lanes to be at first to allow for ‘social distancing ‘ but now a busy road in my area has developed cycle lane signs on the cordoned off bit.
The whole ‘green’ economy/agenda is utterly dishonest. Much like the ‘pandemic ‘. That was/is still built on with lies, fear mongering and false data!
October 13, 2020
Here in Horsham we have a cycle lane in the centre of the town – have yet to see it being used in say the last three weeks but the congestion is great. Who comes up with these ideas?
October 14, 2020
We have hundreds of miles of empty cycle lanes up and down the country
October 14, 2020
but you would make the person who paints the cyclist stencil redundant?
October 13, 2020
Its not a green revolution of the people its a green revolution of the 1% elite who are enjoying the fade
October 13, 2020
Like much of human activity, green energy is likely driven partly by the desire for money, and power and control over others.
Changing a nation’s energy source by outsiders raises questions about motives, particularly when it is clear to most rational individuals that the changes are highly detrimental resulting in extremely expensive electricity with the strong possibility that the new arrangements won’t work as intended and will have serious technical problems.
That possibility is obvious in Hinkley Point, a nuclear power plant provided by EDF in conjunction with the Chinese. This project is dependent on Chinese expertise and might well incorporate covert control features as feared in Huawei 5G. It would be surprising if it didn’t.
As a potential aggressor, buying a nuclear plant involving and relying on Chinese technical input looks insane.
There is another interesting aspect to the current pressure chain for green energy which I’ll explain later, although you might find it too “thinking outside the box”!
Polly
October 13, 2020
We are being compelled to change from gas heating in normal city houses to using an air source heat pump. These at best operate at 4 output for the electricity put in and the temperature is around 40C compared to a gas boiler at 80C. This makes it necessary to greatly increase the house insulation and to double the size of the radiators. The cost of the heat pump is, £6-8k.The insulation and other materials will cost st least £20k. The current cost of electricity, which has risen 46% in ten years owing to the cost of renewables, is five times the cost of gas pet kWh. Work it out Boris.
October 13, 2020
When I compared tariffs recently, electricity was almost 6 times the price of gas. I must admit to putting the thermostat up a notch. I have a brand new, nice and clean boiler.
October 13, 2020
Indeed the UK government do not do simple sums alas otherwise they would not be doing HS2 or subsidising green crap.
It seemS there is warning of UK electric car shortage in 2021 as big firms focus on EU sales due to new EU regulations pushing them in the EU. Good let them buy these expensive white elephants with their premature technology. Best to keep you old car in general anyway.
October 13, 2020
According to Michael Kelly, Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge, fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, replacing the UK vehicle fleet with EVs will require between half to twice the world’s annual production of cobalt, lithium carbonate, neodymium and copper, all elements and chemicals currently essential for the production of EVs.
And this is before even considering the costs of producing and distributing the vast increase of electricity which will be required.
[Google “Electrifying the UK and the Want of Engineering”].
We’re going to need to either find new, cheaper sources for the elements and chemicals required for EV batteries or develop a new type of battery.
October 13, 2020
Plus heat pumps tend to take ages to warm up a cold house – so you have to keep it warm all the time. Thus wasting more energy as a result. Plus they use electricity so waste loads of heat at the power station and in the transmission wires.
October 13, 2020
Also radiators working at such a low temperature will rust out quicker. I have radiators that are 40 years old (I put the system in myself) and I have always run them at high temperature because it more efficiently heats the space as well. I have never replaced one whereas friends of mine who run their boilers at a low temperature have. Low background heat 24/7 will never be as comfortable as being able to set the temperature required when the heating is required. This is just going backwards just to do some virtue signaling, whilst making no difference at all to the planet.
October 13, 2020
Indeed the extent of left-green humbug is a wonder to behold. The problem is the basic facts. Despite billions in subsidies and laws and regulations to their great advantage, ‘renewables’ account for about 40% of electricity generation. Electricity is about 20% of total energy consumption. So even in this rich and green-minded country, over 80% of our energy needs are met by fossil fuels. It’s the same in other rich countries, and in poor countries of course they pay no attention at all to this. The worst offender of all is China, praised – amazingly and absurdly – by green leftists, which derives 66% of its power and 57% of its total energy from coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels.
But it is seemingly impossible to get green virtue signalling politicians, including Conservatives, to address these basic facts. A rational discussion of the actual facts would lead to the conclusion that if we really want to go green – and electrify homes, industry, and transport and therefore generate the 3x increase in electric power we would need to do that, the only possible non or lower carbon solutions currently available are nuclear and natural gas. But ‘greens’ oppose both.
October 13, 2020
Excellent post Richard.
Thankyou.
October 13, 2020
Once you have got rid of the home gas boiler – then that leaves mainly electricity. With a Smart meter – that can charge you whatever they want whenever they want – I have heard that the power can be switched off remotely. No Gas, no Electricity – in Winter? Total Control – exactly what the govt want. Cashless society ( suddenly the very convenient virus can last 28 days on cash we are told ). Again Total Control. Glad I’m old – it is only going to get worse as this island is turned into a 3rd world hell.
October 13, 2020
Obviously very old and bitter. What absolute dystopian rubbish, have you actually been to a third world?
October 13, 2020
Oh yes! You just need to get off the tube at Tower Hamlets.
October 13, 2020
Cashless payments are third world? Do you think you may be being a bit of a drama queen?
October 13, 2020
I guess you do not know about third world cashless payments. They are very common, and done by phone.
October 13, 2020
Mark
“I guess you do not know about third world cashless payments.”
He doesn’t know about anything, don’t waste your time.
October 13, 2020
Yes, I had been amazed how many Kenyan people of all kinds were using M-Pesa on their mobile phones when I spent almost two months over there in 2014, not only in big towns like Nairobi but in places one would think away from the well-known tourist traps/tracks (places like Kisumu, Eldoret). It appears to replace a rather inexistant traditional banking system.
October 13, 2020
Andy, Don’t you think you’re being a bit myopic? A cashless society is open to manipulation and bank/government control in a way that a cash-is-king society is not. And the comment about third world was in connection with control (dictatorship), not purely about the actuality of cash or cashless society, anyway.
October 13, 2020
I’m old too. Maybe we’ll miss the revolution when it comes. Mind you they make such a poor job of teaching history these days, maybe future generations won’t realise we used to be free.
October 13, 2020
+1
Sadly, sadly.
Yes.
October 13, 2020
@Bigneil ++
That is a perfectly valid point — With smart meters they will know too much about you, and you run the risk of becoming a non-person with health passports which would surely stretch to turning off your energy supply.
October 13, 2020
We have one chance, bigneil, and that is President Trump. I believe that he is going to expose the greenery for what it is, one giant scam.
I believe it is a massive wealth generating mechanism for the globalist cabal who have masterminded the UN Agenda 2030, an agenda which provides a powerful mechanism for establishing control of the populace and for impoverishing that populace. UN Agenda 2030 is frightening, and our government has signed up to it. That explains the green madness.
October 13, 2020
Original Chris
True. We seem to sign up to everything that is detrimental to our country – ECHR, Paris Agreement, Migrant Global Pact, UN Agenda 2030….and goodness only knows what else!
Why did we vote to be sovereign and independent if our government sign us up to all these global initiatives without even being asked?!
That just shows the disconnect between ‘them and us’.
October 13, 2020
We need to stop it, not just for ourselves but for our descendants both living and yet to be born.
October 13, 2020
They can be turned off remotely but it will be a brave energy supplier who does that. What if they remotely turned off grandad’s respirator pump or someone left the gas ring turned on or the electric oven/grill on, when they turned everything back on again.
Smart meters have to be able to take pay-as-you-go voucher numbers and switch off when they run out, just like the old key meters.
More seriously, there are few that are fitted with isolating switches between the meter and a consumer unit inside a house that a Fireman could use for instance.
October 13, 2020
graham1946
Brilliant last comment. But people like us never get listened to .
The dice are loaded against common sense and the real truth
October 13, 2020
Indeed. However whatever their motives a momentum has been created from which there will be no turning back, Lifelogic and the green cr*p deniers, time to move on.
It was one of the worlds hottest years recently caused by heat trapped by emissions in the atmosphere so action has to be taken.
The technology needed from relying on ‘the internal combustion engine’ based on fossil fuel is still relatively new but who would have thought that renewable energy or electric cars would have made the progress they have, even 5 years ago.
Vodafone as an example has started to look at its energy management and apart from saving umpteen millions of CO2 cue Lifelogic sigh, it has already saved £10 million p.a so there is also an economic benefit both to them and less pressure on energy generation.
As an oldie I am excited by the final realisation that the planet needs more care and attention than we have given it previously and very proud that the U.K. is taking the lead.
Of course to all the people who excuse their dinosaur type approach because other countries aren’t doing it or as quickly, our lead is an anathema but who would have thought even five years ago that China would declare its sim to be carbon neutral?
Of course a juggernaut takes decades to turn around but if we don’t try the alternative does not bear thinking about.
October 13, 2020
Ps sorry umpteen thousands of tons
October 13, 2020
The global warming scam is run for the same reasons as the virus scam. Money and power. That is the reason that government, banks, big business and big media exist. To increase their power and wealth at everybody else’s expense.
October 13, 2020
With the big American investment banks at the heart of it-and supplying central bankers and finance ministers to the G7 nations .One of their CEOs even claimed to be “doing God’s work”a few years ago.Louis XIV had nothing on these people.
Revolution now!
October 13, 2020
They are selling Smart Meters on the basis of being able to watch your electrical usage . if I wanted to do that I could go and watch the spinning disc going round in my old meter. I don’t believe people are interested in watching how many Watts they are using , most wouldn’t know what it meant.
This claimed need is not a need , so there must be another reason they are pushing it, and that is minute by minute online pricing, their intention to make electricity so eye wateringly expensive you have to eek out how much you use, and as others have said being able to shut your electrical supplies down at the flick of their switch.
I have no wish to go down this route, I don’t trust the Greta groupies at the heart of the British establishment , and I will fight to keep my old meter in protest against this attempt to coral us into their green nightmare , and in keeping my old electric meter it blocks them from carrying out their grand objective.
October 13, 2020
nationalgrideso.com has information on the way things are headed. National Grid ESO is a legally separate business within the National Grid Group. Their ambition is to be able to operate the GB electricity system carbon free in 5 years time. ESO means electricity system operator . They dont own the transmission infrastructure . This does not mean the system will be carbon free but they have to overcome the difficulties in operating such a system as it develops ( 2050 target ??? )
The future of battery storage – on their website states-
EV owners will be encouraged to keep their vehicles plugged in. A smart charging
system will decide the best time to charge based on time of use tariffs encouraging charging when there is excess renewable energy and to avoid charging at peak demand times. At this time Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) would supply energy back to the electricity grid . This looks like an essential feature to keep the lights on !!
October 13, 2020
If anything needs a referendum to instruct the Govt in what we we want them to do, decarbonisation is it. Let us all campaign for such a referendum for the people to decide if they want it or not and a new real actually Conservative Party could emerge. Abandoning domestic gas boilers and other internal combustion engine for most vehicles is practical and economic lunacy. Stopping all trading in Carbon futures, permits etc would also send a clear message that there is no money to be made in peddling the fake green religion of the closet socialists.
October 13, 2020
It’s a scam. Confidence tricksters from the PM down through all levels of authority and administration, and frightening and fooling ordinary innocent children.
Shame? They do not understand the meaning of the word.
October 13, 2020
1. I’ve never liked carbon trading, much prefer carbon tax with dividend and border adjustment (for the sake of argument accepting CO2 is bad).
2. Getting rid of legacy gas boilers is a big task. To fit wet underfloor heating, a heat pump, put back a hot water tank in that space that has been so useful since getting a combi, these are not easy transitions, they have a hassle barrier. It’s just not like buying a phone, even if I were convinced. Does a plug and play green replacement for a gas combi exist?
October 13, 2020
Carbon trading – biggest scam ever
October 13, 2020
yep – – total nonsense.
October 13, 2020
Well I cannot understand the last sentence of the second paragraph (no dedicated cable). Does Sir John think that gas from BG, e-on, NPower, SSE … all available in the Wokingham area are distributed by company-dedicated set of pipes?
And BTW there is a e-Mini already available for £24,900 from UK Mini dealers, there will not be an electric Beetle but a VW e-MiniBus will hit the road in the States and Germany in 2022.
October 13, 2020
Brilliant assessment. As well as facts and theory, which men are generally good at assessing, you display a very rare quality in men, an understanding of what makes people tick. Only other political man I have ever known with that insight was EP.
October 13, 2020
An excellent post John. I have said for years that nobody gets green electricity. It’s all a mix. The way the suppliers advertise their energy makes people think they are receiving just green power and that’s wrong. Until we have faith in our whole power system people won’t want to buy electric cars. They are not reliable enough and are too expensive for Joe Bloggs. For many of us running a car is essential, not a luxury. People have all kinds of commitments these days which means they need transport which is convenient. We are all fed up of the so called elite telling us what we should be doing while they enjoy every luxury going. The government needs to give up on all these bicycle lanes and start working on roads which are fit for purpose and thinking seriously about where our power is going to come from in the future. Wind farms will not cut it.
October 13, 2020
Well said JR – Excellent points.
Of course we mistrust the ‘establishment’ – it has done nothing but make life worse for us, especially when it dictates to us. Our concerns are dismissed so easily, and they often are unable to provide any evidence that what they are demanding of us will help in any way.
If we are to have a bright green future then technology must drive it – NOT bombastic political pygmies that are waving the green flag for their own promotion.
There is only so much socialism we can take.
October 13, 2020
Slightly O/T (but the powers that be like to link Covid with climate change and green issues):
President Trump:
“The World Health Organization just admitted that I was right. Lockdowns are killing countries all over the world. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. Open up your states, Democrat governors. Open up New York. A long battle, but they (WHO) finally did the right thing!”
October 13, 2020
Facts:
as of 9.10/13th October.
23GW – UK demand for electricity.
Coal: 0GW. Nuclear 27 GW. Solar 0GW. Wind 6GW. Oil 26 GW.
Nuclear produces 27%, oil produces 26%, Wind 23%. Three quarter of our supply are not wind. Thank you Mr Johnson.
https://gridwatch.co.uk/?old=
October 13, 2020
Ouch! Wind 26GW!
October 13, 2020
Wind is a renewable is often reffered to as free energy and sustainable….so why aren’t our electric household energy bills cheaper
October 13, 2020
TODAY IS A CRUCIAL DAY FOR BREXIT — Boris must walk away on WTO terms
No further extension – No more concessions.
The French are very good at one thing – complaining – They now say that many French fishermen will lose their livelihoods if banned from British waters because they have over-fished French waters…………… Not a bit of consideration was given to British fishermen when the EU took over our fishing grounds, and so many British fishermen lost their livelihoods
October 13, 2020
Why don’t we just tell the French that they can fish in UK waters after paying for a licence, fishing to our quotas and landing it on our side for checking? Then they can sell it where they did before taking it by lorry or boat.
October 13, 2020
Stred
I’d prefer we just tell the ungrateful sods to ‘go away’ in no uncertain terms & be done.
October 14, 2020
Insist they dock at Newquay, join a 5 day queue for catch inspection of legitimate fish, and pay weight fees before sending them on their way against the tide.
October 13, 2020
It would appear the French are claiming rights over the UK territorial water within 12 miles of the UK coast. Then suggesting only the EU can be the arbiter of what fish are caught in this area.
Some of that is the arrogance of the EU, they are our master and must stay in control and we must never be allowed to forget that. Then you get the irony in Exclusive Economic Zones terms the French holds the largest territory in the World, yes that does mean it has control of more of the sea bed than the USA. Does the UK get access to that?
The EU keeps saying the UK must compromise yet each one of these compromises on their list is the EU passing down the laws, rules and regulation of what happens ‘inside’ the UK. More irony they wont permit the UK to have a similar say in EU affairs.
From the EU position this is not a Trade Negotiation but how they can flex their muscles to keep control of the UK.
Walk away, that was the only decision made 4 years ago. The more these egotistical bullies keep shouting their ‘we are your Lord’ mantra the more they show disrespect of democracy. With less than 8% of our GDP having anything to do with their Empire I cant see how any self respecting UK politician can even pass the time of day talking to them.
There of course will be no decision this week or next. Boris has already let the People of the UK down by not doing as promised in June. These talks as then are the same talks with the EU insisting they are in control and to prove it once again they will ignore a Boris deadline.
October 13, 2020
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has guidelines that fisheries management must follow – strange it is NOT the EU but the UN
Countries with the Largest Exclusive Economic Zones
Rank Country Exclusive Economic Zone Area ( km2)
1 France 11,691,000
2 United States 11,351,000
3 Australia 8,505,348
4 Russia 7,566,673
5 United Kingdom 6,805,586
6 Indonesia 6,159,032
7 Canada 5,599,077
October 13, 2020
Absolutely, no consideration for British people. Ever.
October 13, 2020
Bryan Harris
And nothing was ever done about the french attacks on British fishing vessels.
This government should not even be contemplating negotiation with that ungrateful lot.
October 13, 2020
No need to walk away as long as Boris formally notifies the EU that we will be trading with them on WTO rules after Dec 31st and commences preparation on our side. If the EU then has an epiphany and decides we CAN have the same FTA as everyone else then that is fine. The alternative is that Boris allows the EU to run down the clock and force him to beg for another extension, which the EU have already said will be two years. As for the fishing, we should accept that the French will break international law at the start of next year, but as long as the outcry forces the Government to lay down and crew the new fishery protection vessels we should be building now there won’t be too much harm done.
October 13, 2020
Let science and engineering resolve our future. Government should only intervene to control any excesses and prevent people being ripped off. The future of the country should not be surrendered to the swamp dwellers.
October 13, 2020
Earlier this year I was amazed to see live Air Traffic on a world globe that showed thousands of planes in the Air lit up like stars in the web and did wonder how long as could keep this up. Now it would be rare to see all but the most essential e.g cargo flights and military defence flights in place. The USA, EU and Middle East were main hubs whilst Africa was quiet by comparison.
There are more planes seen at scrap -yards today than at many airports and it is very sad for all those who have lost their careers and jobs. Seeing multiple Jumbos awaiting their fate gives you an idea of the daunting task ahead and the gigantic but to the world’s economies!
A sensible and balanced approach by all is required and it would help by celebrities leading by example as they are the most hypocritical such as Harry and his wife.
As for the XR trendies they do not really care about other people they damage and hurt and ignore the isolation rules on top – which tells me all I need to know. Fanatics and one trick ponies if they can ever grow up. They would not see daylight in Russia, China and many countries outside Europe.
October 13, 2020
Excellent piece – unfortunately the CP have fallen for this con hook, line and sinker.
October 13, 2020
Every group want a headline
I see saga yesterday being a bit selective, they kept on making comparisons with France quoting their relatively high numbers – they didn’t quote Germany with only 2 deaths nor Denmark with also only 2 deaths
Just like the media they went for the big headline and hysteria – that not science
October 13, 2020
The Smart Meter, like the Smart Motorway doesn’t save or contribute any thing on any level for society. They are State Control systems, that’s not a conspiracy theory. To the consumer they introduce hazard to be navigated around, adding to cost and danger for the taxpayer.
While I would agree that for the energy company to have a meter that sends them a reading is efficient, that is all it should do. For a Smartmeter to monitor and control remotely what goes on in the family home at the behest of the State is very 1984.
Their advertising for these devices surely contravene advertising standards. They cant at any stage save the consumer money, but that is what they state. Unless they mean they will turn your power of if it serves their purpose. The Energy Companies have already proposed that when they are failing in their supply obligations they want to selectively to facilities of within the home, starting with power for all those battery cars. Surely if they are not in a position to supply energy 100% of the time they should not also be committing their customers to contracts. At the very least there should be an offer of compensation to permit the fully funding of an alternative supply.
I am remind of a few years back with British Gas campaigning to save their customers money. I read through their advice and it concluded you will use less gas if you turn your facilities off, nothing else offered – I would never have thought that.
October 13, 2020
I should add that in the main the UK’s power supply companies are foreign owned and foreign government owned on top of that. In their own Countries they are subjected to stricter price controls than in the UK. It boils down to the UK taxpayer is subsidising the power in other Countries.
EU – level playing field
October 13, 2020
You’re quite right to say that the desired end goal should be great clean products available at great prices. But they don’t currently exist. A carbon tax or similar system seems like a sensible way to reduce negative externalities in the short-term and to capture revenues that can be invested in better solutions for the medium-term.
October 13, 2020
“There is a danger that the richer people buy in to green theory in the knowledge they can still afford their petrol car and their jet flights.”
It is more than just that. Ask, who is making money from green energy? Who has the land to accommodate solar panels and wind turbines? Who earns a fortune travelling the World giving speeches or making documentaries using their elite born privilege? Who gets to travels across cities quicker because the poor are priced out of their cars?
Where is the condemnation from these people against the World’s biggest polluters? Where is their warning about the human population explosion?
It’s the old adage “Do as I say, not as I do”.
By the time the populace has woken up to this and see that they have been played, it will be too late. We will have lost our freedom and right to free speech.
October 13, 2020
The 1% dictating to the 99%
But that 1% includes MPs, the media and the green lobby
October 14, 2020
All subsidies are actually taxpayers money being diverted to those that can afford something being paid by those that can’t.
October 13, 2020
JR: “Meanwhile in the UK many people will not even accept a smart meter offered with no specific charge to them for having one, such is the suspicion of the estabishment motives.”
Quite right too. We have been forced to pay £billions through our energy bills to have these meters fitted only to find that if energy provider is changed they don’t work. They offer no real advantage to consumers but plenty to providers. The way politicians fall for all these virtue signalling mad cap schemes is appalling. If they really think that they can control the temperature of the earth, as if they were adjusting a home thermostat, they are totally deluded. The latest wheeze is to replace oil and gas with hydrogen. Putting aside what is involved in terms of emissions when producing the hydrogen, if they then intend that we should burn it in order to reduce CO2 emissions do they realise that the most abundant ‘greenhouse gas’ is water vapour which is produced when hydrogen is burnt. Replacing one greenhouse gas with another, already far more abundant one, sums up the idiocy of these climate change political fanatics.
The taxpayers’ and consumers’ money they waste is a scandal. Does anyone in Parliament care or are they just happy drawing their good salaries and expenses?
October 13, 2020
The only currently deasible way of making enough electricity to power all of this target-setting is through nuclear power. One could cancel HS2 and build 8 or 10 nuclear power staations instead.
SARS, Foot-and-Mouth, climate change, swine flu, Y2K, Covid19, global warming, bird flu, CJD… All these things about which I should be terrified enough to render myself unfree and overtaxed – they don’t turn up. (Note: most of the scares are to do with unprovables – climate and respiratory infections – against which is brought into play the specious drivel aka the Precautionary Principle.
October 13, 2020
How can you take precautions against something unless you know what it is and when it is likely not that easy. It might well get colder over the next 100 years and not warmer, it might be huge volcanic activity and thus clouds of particles in the air, some new bacteria, swine flu, some asteroid impact, unusual sun spot activity, some huge tsunami or just a tile falling on your head. Plus the more you waste on say “renewables“ (that save little or no CO2 plant food anyway) the less you have to spend on hurricane or earthquake proof building, or flood protection schemes, or checking damn safety like the Whaley Bridge one that nearly hundreds of people.
The governments pandemic planning was totally incompetent and yet here it was fairly obvious what might or even was likely to be needed. Have any heads rolled for this negligence? I assume not.
October 13, 2020
hear hear – well said
October 13, 2020
Kill all tax payer subsidies and market rigging for green crap and renewables, people will buy this gear if and when is meets their needs at a sensible price. Sensible R&D makes sense and roll it out when it works and is cost effective.
The roll out of premature technology using subsidies is idiotic and economic lunacy.
October 13, 2020
Now thats a vote winning comment
Just wish I knew of a political party with those views
October 13, 2020
Lifelogic
+1
October 13, 2020
You can realistically argue that anything picked up as a theme is someone some where trying to profit.
So whether its Green, Corvid, WOKE, Cancel Culture, Xr and all the other minor moans picked up. It is people championed by the MsM and followed by a clueless government that are contriving to control and manipulate the people as a whole.
Science in layman’s terms is when you look outside and see rain, then go and stand in it and get wet. You have peer reviewed it and had confirmation. It wasn’t a formulae in an Excel spreadsheet it was a provable fact, any thing else is a guess sometimes its right mostly its wrong. That is why the majority that play the lottery each week lose money otherwise we would all be millionaires.
From the BBC re Government science
Revelation from BBC medical corr @deb_cohen ‘We had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO who did not deny’. So much for WHO’s new pro-muzzle ‘advice’.
Political lobbying? more MsM hype diligently followed by Government as a way to stay popular and relevant.
October 13, 2020
An excellent summary Sir John. The promotion of green energy on price comparison sites still leads people to believe that they are getting energy directly from “renewables”, where in fact those companies simply supply their subsidised energy to the grid and it enters the mix.
The big confidence trick is in the substitution of “Carbon” for Carbon Dioxide and the acceptance of a “carbon footprint”. We do not need, nor can we afford a “low CO2” economy.
The Big Lie is that CO2, at 0.041% of the atmosphere, is a control switch for the temperature of the planet. Global temperature is controlled by the absorption of the sun’s radiation by the oceans and the re-distribution of that heat around the world with the assistance of water vapour, the main “greenhouse gas” at up to 4% of the atmosphere, although the atmosphere does not behave like a greenhouse. Excess heat is lost to space.
Global temperature is self regulating, but climate cycles take place over millennia, not decades. The claimed temperature rise of 1 deg C from before the industrial revolution, the definition of which has changed several times to suit the narrative, is within the range of natural variability.
Temperatures were warmer in the 20’s than the 60’s, before increases in CO2 were deemed to be dangerous, 1961-90 had some of the coldest years in the UK record, with rising CO2, but is still used as the base line “normal” when claiming global warming, or climate change, or as the Head of the Climate Impacts Division of the Met Office would have it, global heating, a phrase beloved by the Guardian. September just gone is 111th warmest in the 362 year UK CET record.
The government is fond of claiming to be “Leading the World in Controlling Climate Change”, by pushing an agenda of supposedly green energy and electrifying everything. If it were true that CO2 drives temperature, the UK produces just 1% of global emissions. Net Zero Carbon means we export our emissions to China and import the energy intensive products that we need.
We have the Climate Change Act driving them on, led by the Climate Change Committee, composed of people whose jobs and livelihoods depend upon the promotion and public financing of so-called green energy. The result will inevitably be severe blackouts of the sort suffered by the current Paragons of Green, California and South Australia.
Meanwhile China, India and the rest of SE Asia continue to use the coal and natural gas that lies at their feet to produce cheap energy. Coal pollutants such as soot and sulphur are controllable, CO2 is not a pollutant.
As an aside, I see that recently an electric Mini has been announced, with a range of 145 miles. Mini car, mini distance.
October 13, 2020
Well done for exposing the fraud of energy companies claiming 100% renewable electricity. How they have avoided the Advertising Standards Agency’ wrath is a mystery – or perhaps not. I complained to the ASA about the preposterous claims for smart meters that they “save polar bears” but it wasn’t upheld, though the ASA acknowledged there had been other complaints.
What does “renewable” mean? Clearly it doesn’t mean “green” or good for the environment as wind turbines, solar, burning wood pellets in power stations and electric cars are all harmful to the environment.
October 13, 2020
‘One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy … One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore .’
Ottmar Edenhoffer, UN IPCC official, 2010
October 13, 2020
I have always thought it must be tempting to run a cable from the house next door and use it to claim a solar feed in tariff subsidy at double the cost. Not that I would of course – but some must surely be tempted? Or use natural gas to power a generator sell that back to the Gris and use the heat for heating the house.
October 13, 2020
LL
“Or use natural gas to power a generator sell that back to the Gris and use the heat for heating the house.”
Good idea ! depending of course how much they’d pay you.
October 13, 2020
When you sell to the grid you only get one tenth of the price you pay when they supply you from the grid. So having a gas powered generator would make no sense.
October 13, 2020
The Spanish have already done it. They were caught after generating solar electricity after sunset, with a diesel generator. 🙂
Connecting the electricity supply of two adjacent houses would be dangerous as they would be on different phases of our three phase supply and would have a 415 volt explosion.
It should be every third house, but any electrical connection between dwellings is dicing with DEATH. Just DON’T do it!
October 13, 2020
Excellent article but can you make Boris & Co. sit up and take notice? They have tasted a level of control unprecedented in recent times and like it. They will not give it up easily.
October 13, 2020
Mock Tories. Mock Labour. These two stains on our nation have been betraying our decency and loyalty for far too long.
Stop endorsing the Tory-Labour stranglehold before it’s too late. They have wrapped and muzzled the decent majority in a web of oppressive laws while thugs and fascists from BLM and indeed Stonewall are endorsed by Johnson and Starmer
Are there any depths to which your party and that filth opposite will not sink?
October 13, 2020
+1
October 13, 2020
DOM
+1
October 13, 2020
Well said Sir John.
You are indeed a little light in the extreme darkness of your Government.
No doubt you can see by just what the writers are talking about, there is not much love for your party.
Far far to much Government, not only that but also too much utter rubbish from people with not the slightest Common sense
October 13, 2020
Indeed “Far, far too much Government, not only that but also too much utter rubbish from people with not the slightest common sense”.
With a few notable (almost saintly) exceptions (perhaps 50 MPs or so currently) people with common sense and honesty rarely choose politics (or get elected if they do). It is a profession in which lying, playing the evil politics of envy, promising what you know you cannot deliver, playing on fears and people’s irrational emotions and greed is in the job description. It was made far worse when they started paying MPs. What would draw a normal person to this profession if you were honourable, capable, numerate, modest had a grasp of science and were honest – unless like JR you are very self sacrificing indeed.
I say fifty but almost all of these voted for or supported the Climate Change Act and Net Zero Carbon insanity.
October 13, 2020
All very awkward. Producing big energy without making pollution is difficult. We don’t even have the physics let alone the engineering or the economics. As for carbon capture, we don’t have the fundamental chemistry with usable energetics. Pumping gas into the ground is OK – until it starts fizzing up and the pumper has gone bust.
Electric cars are a very poor idea, carting all that energy around like a snail shell means a very heavy car. We would be better off with some artificial magical fluid that could have its energy extracted without making a mess. But we don’t have the fundamental physics or chemistry to make this happen either. And no, hydrogen is not a panacea.
Similarly with Covid, we are a bit stuck. Would accepting an extra 10,000 deaths lead to policies that allow economic activity to return to near normal? No, we don’t know of any policy that would be worth it, we don’t know if the sacrifice would stop at 10,000 and our continental neighbours would probably close the ports if we tried.
Which leaves politicians with an awkward problem, how to manage a long period of stasis whilst allowing life to go on. Meanwhile noisy fractious parliamentary and journalist children make noisy trouble – do tell them ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth …..’.
October 13, 2020
Not only mock greenery, but mock disease control by this Cons government. Richard Littlejohn in The Daily Mail sums up the government’s justification for its current disease control policy:
“I can only say I’ve never come across such a disingenuous load of old flannel as the Government is using to trash the economy”.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8832693/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Driven-fear-dodgy-science-bound-end-tiers.html
October 13, 2020
Important O/T message for Tory Mps and government, P Trump’s popularity is off the radar, and those ministers reportedly panicking and meeting up with Biden and team because they think Biden will win, should pay heed to this video.
Tweet by Brian Fraser bfraser747 contains video. This was from the rally in Florida last night which P Trump led. The crowds and their enthusiasm are just wonderful. He has shown to the world that there is treatment for Covid, and that you have to get on with life. He has taken steps to get emergency authorisation for the medication that he was given to be available FREE to all Americans. He loves his people and he loves his country. No wonder the Dems hate him.
October 13, 2020
“willing tidal waves of supporters which will only come from having superior products with something better more people want”.
At what cost ?
Electricity is already four times the cost of gas per Kw/hr yet we are all supposed to be switching by 2030. The idea of only being able to install a non-electric boiler in our homes from 2025 is a joke. Very few could afford to run one, let alone the purchase price of the alternative : a future-proofed gas/hydrogen boiler.
October 13, 2020
“Meanwhile in the UK many people will not even accept a smart meter offered with no specific charge to them for having one, such is the suspicion of the estabishment motives.”
I don’t accept a smart meter for the same reason many others working from home will not: the ability of the provider to simply turn off the user’s electricity or ration it through smart devices without (if the electricity company’s bill gets through) any compensation for their failure to supply. If loss of power disabled my business, I would certainly have to pay compensation to my customers, not to mention the potential damage to components, technology, and loss of materials.
This could potentially kill older folk over winter with the push towards electrical heating, anyone relying on CPAP or other medical equipment at home (and no, they should not have to disclose medical conditions to an electricity supplier to stay alive!), and cost livelihoods for those whose jobs rely on active technology, computers, etc.
October 13, 2020
John, as an aside, do you support the Facts4EU three important points?
1. Repudiate the Withdrawal Treaty (including the Northern Ireland Protocol) on the grounds that the EU has acted in bad faith during the entirety of the negotiations.
2. Stand firm and refuse to compromise on any trade deal involving a watering down of the UK’s sovereignty and independence of action.
3. Start communicating effectively to the British public and to the rest of the world.
If indeed you do, what demonstrable activities are taking place to enforce these three imperceptives?
Thank you in advance
Reply I want us to end the talks today assuming no agreement on an FTA and claim bad faith, then move to create an independent UK
October 14, 2020
Thank you John, you have our support!
October 13, 2020
From the Guardian
He noted that Johnson had twice previously suggested that the UK needed the certainty of a deal by a specific date, only to later backtrack. “It is the third unilateral deadline that Johnson has imposed without agreement,” Barnier was said to have remarked.
Does the UK need more humiliation?
The EU will keep calling the shots and remain in charge all the time we don’t get ‘The Clean Break’ we voted for
October 13, 2020
We have apparently committed ourselves to a self destructive energy policy, based on the language and intellectual rigour of a religious cult.
October 13, 2020
The Withdrawal Agreement – negotiated by Brexiteers – sold by Boris Johnson as ‘oven ready’ in a general election he won on that message. And then voted into UK law almost exclusively by Tory MPs last January – is a legally binding international treaty.
Perhaps Mr Duncan Smith and the others who are now moaning about it should have read it before they voted for it?
October 14, 2020
Andy, The Withdrawal Agreement was negotiated by Remains – Ollie Robbins and Theresa May principally. We did read it – and it keeps us a colony of the EU, as some EU employees confirmed. Any treaty can be abrogated.
October 13, 2020
According to DD they should be ready to settle at the last moment- which is now- but I don’t see it. So it look’s like we’ll have no option but to walk away
October 14, 2020
hurrah!
October 13, 2020
Sir John . The post and most of the replies are very focused on the green myths.
All the time people talk about “heating” In the majority of properties the biggest heating load is hot water. In this time of CV 19 a basic ingredient in the fight against it is hot water.increased insulation and and better building standards in tighter air loss performance requires a very small output to meet the steady state heat loss of the property whether it be by gas, oil or electric but small output rated appliances do not have the ability to give fast recovery times on hot water demand. It is a basic principle of heating design is to ensure a fast hot water recovery capability. To achieve this you need output power no matter what type of system is installed.
October 13, 2020
Sir Redwood
A very well written and informed article I must say. A pleasure to read.
I find much interest in your last paragraph, where you mention smart meters. Indeed most people I speak to don’t want one of those for two reasons, firstly their poor reliability and secondly as you point out; lack of trust.
On the subject of boilers it seems to me someone has jumped the gun. There is no domestic HW & CH technology that can efficiently and cost effectively replace gas. Government has legislated for the obsolescence of gas boilers before replacement technology exists. I see this decision being reversed some time in the future.
October 13, 2020
14th October tomorrow…
the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, gave a defiant interview in the Mail on Sunday, in which he said that the UK refused to accept the EU’s current conditions on a trade agreement which he said would result in the UK becoming a “client state” of the EU. Boris Johnson then ratcheted up the rhetoric, stating that, if no trade deal was agreed by mid-October, there would be no trade deal with the EU at all.
Sadly I have no fireworks and no cannon to fire. We might raise a glass and toast.
October 14, 2020
+1
October 13, 2020
One interesting way ahead is hydrogen. Make it via offshore wind farms. Can potentially be used for cars, trains and even domestic central heating supply.
It is new technology, at the early Research & Development stage but is one that ought to command attention.
I don’t like carbon trading, to me it is a distraction. Companies instinctively want to use less oil etc anyway. Government should be getting things greener by easy wins plus pushing R&D and getting costs of technology down.
There are some old technologies that need revisiting. The old-fashioned trolley-bus is one example.
A lot on here talk about sovereignty etc, and yet they want to keep dirty imported coal and middle-east heavy crude imported oil industries alive.
October 14, 2020
+1
October 14, 2020
Martin, Sovereignty is not isolation. Importing (and exporting) is normal in peacetime and does not affect sovereignty – unless we give sovereignty away to the EU, in return for trade, something a lot on here oppose, of course, unlike you. And where have “a lot on here” demanded we use imported coal? I don’t think anyone has. As it happens we have plenty of domestic coal. And plenty of gas via fracking too.
October 13, 2020
The green agenda will be very quickly reversed when voters find their electricity supplies are intermittent, unreliable and expensive.
October 14, 2020
There is a green housing policy available if you want to pursue it.
(1) Put a tourniquet on immigration, aiming at ZPG, and raise interest rates in order to force house prices down.
(2) Reinforce this by adding 2 new Council Tax bands, I and J, at respectively 2X and 4X the band H rate. Asset rich, income poor owners will have to sell some of their property – that’s intentional.
(3) Put the emphasis on replacing thermally inefficient homes with new, insulated homes.
(4) Convert surplus office and retail space into homes. In the short term, don’t be too fussy about complying with building regulations.
(5) Favour brownfield site redevelopment, offering grants where appropriate.
October 19, 2020
Nicely put. Thanks!
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