An extract from my book on the green revolution:
Governments this century have taken to meet together to discuss how they can close down a large number of carbon based industries in their jurisdiction and how they can write off the asset values of all those deposits of fossil fuels and of all those businesses that process them or rely on them to power their activities. It is true they meet full of hope that the replacements they offer will unleash an offsetting wave of new investment and jobs. The EU itself as one of the leading architects of the green revolution is preparing programmes and subsidy budgets to tackle left behind communities that used to rely on oil wells and coal mines, on petro chemicals and on traditional industries like cement, steel and ceramics with a high use of carbon based energy. The transition will be difficult and painful for some.
As we have seen , the car and food industries are central to the changes. The existing car makers may not succeed in changing over to making enough of the new electric cars and may watch as rivals emerge with the winning products. Agriculture will take time for many farmers to convert from animal husbandry to the new crops and to tree growing. Many jobs and thousands of traditional factories will be lost as investment hurries into the new fields and as the new jobs are created for those willing to train and change.
Governments tell us there is an avalanche of investment money wanting to go into the revolution. Many of the large quoted companies of the oil and gas and other traditional sectors are keen to sell on some of their fossil fuel assets and move into the new green areas, further impelling valuations of the new upwards. This will assist governments in their quest for the new paradigm.
Meanwhile the questions posed about security of supply by events in September 2021 will need an answer. Governments need to tell us how they will fill the potential energy gap as we transition to a renewable system, and need to come clean on how they will raise taxes as fossil fuels run down and with that lose the heavy tax revenue they carry.
Above all the joint working of governments and companies needs to reveal the range of product and changes to lifestyles that will appeal and be willingly adopted and paid for by the public. Only if a top down revolution fires the popular imagination and becomes a bottom up revolution will the passage to a green future be possible. To succeed green products need to be cheaper and better than the products they wish to displace..
I am delighted to say that Build Back Green is now published and available. You can find it at:
November 30, 2021
Good morning.
Sorry, but I cannot see anything ? My Adblocker seems to have moderated it.
đ
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I counted five times our kind host has used the word, ‘Government’ in this article. Governments this, governments that ! I am reminded of a person I once worked with who came from a government / state background – Lots and lots of talk and calls for endless meetings, but little or no final product. Or if there was, it was usually copied from someone else, and / or late.
November 30, 2021
+1
Ooops sorry!
I just put similarâŠhadnât read yours.
Similar scams in film industry I think.
Glossy portfolio of films to invest inâŠthat NEVER get made!
November 30, 2021
Indeed & with similar totally misguided film production tax breaks.
What will turn the world green you ask? Well as it happens that is exactly what CO2 (plant, tree, seaweed & crop food) does wonderfully. So why exactly is the government have an expensive, job destroying and counter productive war against it?
November 30, 2021
+1
November 30, 2021
And in the meantime we freeze to death feeling hungry and unable to get to the supermarket.
Those pushing this nonesense carry on driving eating steak and using fossil fuels to heat their homes whilst lecturing us on how lucky we are.
Bovine excrement the lot of it.
November 30, 2021
+1
Avery bleak future.
November 30, 2021
Well done BorisâŠnobody is talking about illegal immigrants crossing the channel today
November 30, 2021
I doubt the world will turn green just because governments impose regulation and taxation to promote their pet projects. Customers will sit on their hands, decline new products if they fail to deliver their specific needs. An industrial wasteland beckons. As you have pointed out before product revolutions are driven by demand not government dictat- just compare the former Soviet world with the West.
November 30, 2021
Indeed demand not diktat nor driven idiotic taxpayer funded government subsidies.
There is lots of demand that this government abandons its absurd and absurdly expensive, job destroying, net zero, expensive & unreliable energy lunacy. But Carrie theatre studies and the two historians in charge of the UKâs mad energy agenda are clearly not listening.
November 30, 2021
It’s worth reading the transcript of Dr John Constable’s evidence to the House of Lords industry and regulator’s committee on 14th September 2021.
November 30, 2021
Mock beggar. Anything Dr Constable publishes is on the nail and always worth reading. He was a guest speaker at a conference I helped organize. Brilliant guy with a brilliant brain and so very knowledgable on renewables. Our dim politicians would do well to sit down and talk to him.
November 30, 2021
Our dim politians and in particular current leaders don’t think or reason like normal people and thus the idea would never occur to them and, if suggested, they would not understand any need to listen as common sense to them is ‘extremism’ which undemines their ideology.
November 30, 2021
Mockbeggar :
Thanks for this alert.
In fact I watched this Lords Industry and Regulators Committee meeting on Parliamentlive.tv where in the second part I learned to my surprise that Lord Adair Turner, the Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, is also âan adviser to a major Chinese wind turbine manufacturerâ (11:46).
November 30, 2021
The government has the power to force the ‘zero carbon’ transition into effect, and so it will happen. Whether it happens successfully now depends on the government supporting and directing it properly. They have an obligation to do so as this was their idea in the first place!
So, how can they do so? By investing in the projects that will deliver it. Take energy. Nuclear power is now agreed (after decades of opposition by environmentalists!) to be ‘green’. Frankly, I’m delighted by this, as it can be developed to give us complete energy security and independence. But the government needs to fund it properly. The French government is investing FIVE TIMES MORE than the British government in the development of SMRs. It is a betrayal of Britain for Johnson, Sunak and Kwarteng to be so backwards about this. Rolls-Royce could have been the first to market, with the huge export potential that would have entailed, but our government of traitors refused to pump the money in and demanded that private investors do so – thus creating two years’ delay. And now the government is slowing the approval process, injecting another FIVE years’ delay. Madness and betrayal.
November 30, 2021
It isn’t a revolution, it’s simply gutless theft using thuggish State intimidation
November 30, 2021
+1
November 30, 2021
DOM, +1, agreed.
November 30, 2021
+1
Yes!
November 30, 2021
True.
So. All those cycle lanes that have taken over A roads. Will they be converted back to car lanes once we all have EVs ?
No. Of course they won’t.
This is about bicycles, rice and sitting in the cold at home on state handouts.
November 30, 2021
The circulation of the âMorning Starâ newspaper will increase as this government will ban all other newspapers due to their capitalist carbon footprint and our wellbeing
December 1, 2021
Little China 2.0
đ
November 30, 2021
+1
November 30, 2021
If Labour had been in government in the last decade and proposed a car ban in 8 years, I just wonder if the Tories would support or oppose it ?
November 30, 2021
In opposition it seems the Tories have for a long time been compliant with whatever labour propose – certainly the degree of challenge has been infrequently obvious
November 30, 2021
The very best way of getting rich during The Gold Rush was by selling basic goods to the miners.
And by selling shares in mines that did not exist or perform.
Gold Fever has morphed into Green Fever and so have the well known investment scams I dare say!
November 30, 2021
That is a good analogy with regard to Gold Fever and Environmentalism. We are the miners and the Chinese and Germans are the sellers of the goods. But that is what you get by having people with no business acumen run the country.
November 30, 2021
Technology and events move quickly these days. Much of your book is aready out of date. You have identified the problems, but fail to suggest solutions. The once in 60year shortage of wind in September did not cause the lights to go out and the fossil fuel industry price rises caused the failure of the UK energy supply industry..
November 30, 2021
September?? Hardly a time to worry when nobody was relying on their heating and so demand was low. Don’t forget that fossil fuels were still able to take up the slack as they constantly do. What happens when they are not there? We all know whaT the problems are dear but might I suggest it’s the green blob that haven’t come up with tge solutions yet. The only thing they’ve found the solution to is how to get rich quick at the expense of good industries.
November 30, 2021
Technology does indeed change but the laws of physics do not even if MPs think they can be. In the area of batteries and energy production progress has progress been fairly slow.
Read the book Sustainable Energy â without the hot air
Book by David J. C. MacKay (A Cambridge physicist) not much has changed since he wrote it, he explains all the practical issues with the green agenda though (he was rather a climate alarmist believer too) though he is honest in the book and crunches the numbers. Free on line.
What keeps the lights on and houses warm is mainly gas,coal, nuclear or young coal (wood) idiotically imported on diesel ships from the US & at great expense. Alas government keep destroying and banning these power stations – so soon they will not do. This especially as we will need loads more energy for EVs and heat pumps if they follow this absurd agenda. Yet another historian chairing the deluded Committee for Climate Change I note together with Kwartang and Hands at energy. Why historians get Lord Peter Lilley in to explain some reality to these dopes.
November 30, 2021
The solutions are simply gas, oil, coal, nuclear with some wind, tide and solar (where it can work without subsidies) in the short term. Better nuclear and nuclear fusion in the medium term. If we make breakthroughs in batteries or electrical energy storage etc. then great but until then the above is just fine.
November 30, 2021
Why do you think demand for gas and thus its price has recently risen SG?
November 30, 2021
@Peter2
Because Putin told Gazprom to quadruple the price of Russian gas in retaliation for Merkel’s refusal to certify the NordStream2 Baltic pipeline. Do try and keep up with the geopolitics around the fossil fuel industry and the tremendous subsidies they get
November 30, 2021
You are in denial SG
So many nations have reduced coal and nuclear and tried to substitute with prenewables.
At the same time they have reduced their own gas production and denied their own ability to exploit fracking under their feet.
The result has been increased world demand for gas.
And therefore its price.
November 30, 2021
I know I know
The demand has remained the same, however its future supply is in doubt due to governments signalling the end of fossil fuel over wind and renewableâŠtherefore scarcity rises the cost of gas â thereâs currently no scarcity but its all to do with confidence in the market
November 30, 2021
SG
“The once in a 60 year shortage of wind”
Really ?
Then we are told the weather and climate is changing, and we will get more and more extreme weather events, so perhaps we are going to need to turn off the wind generators, because the wind will be too strong, perhaps a few times in a year ?
November 30, 2021
Alan Jutson
Having lived with large windfarms just down the end of the glen I can assure you that it is far more than just a few times. The overall efficiency of the wind farm is 19 to low 20s%. Who in their right mind invests in a energy product with a 20% efficiency unless it is heavily subsidised? Dr John Constable Renewable Energy Foundation has been exposing the wind farm scam for years.
Government does not like hard facts, it exposes their incompetence.
November 30, 2021
I read that the IPCC forecast that wind speeds may fall 10% in Europe. Since wind energy is proportional to the cube of wind speed that would imply 27% less energy generation. 100(1-0.9^3)
November 30, 2021
Sakara Gold :
âTechnology and events move quickly these days.â
I completely agree which is why the Governmentâs dash for net zero by 2050 before a fully workable, cheap and costed system to produce sufficient reliable green energy for our needs together with the necessary retail products is very, very risky.
It has the potential for us to spend ÂŁtrillions taking us down the wrong path only for a new technology to come along which our competitors will use to our great disadvantage.
It would be better to spend the money on R&D before making this leap into the unknown.
This is partly why China has set a date 10 years later for net zero and India 20 years later.
November 30, 2021
The solution is obvious âmore jam tomorrowâ
November 30, 2021
Sakara Gold :
âThe once in 60year shortage of wind in September did not cause the lights to go out and the fossil fuel industry price rises caused the failure of the UK energy supply industry.â
The lights did not go out because we still had fossil fuel generators, including coal, which could be turned on at a momentâs notice.
Wind energy in 2020 produced 24% of our electricity and electricity is approximately 20% of our total energy consumption.
So weâre going to need 4 times more wind farms for our electricity by 2035 and 20 times more for all our energy to be produced by wind by 2050.
Plus all the infrastructure and additional wind farms for the energy losses associated with the as yet non-existent and hence un-costed non-fossil fuel back-up system(s) when the wind isnât blowing.
Is this the plan ?
Nuclear energy, the most energy dense and safest of all fuels by deaths/TWhr, does not seem to be an important part of the plan, which for me evidences that this dash for net zero CO2 by 2050 has absolutely nothing to do with saving the planet.
November 30, 2021
The lights didn’t go out because there was 100% non renewable backup.
You really are a dimwit.
December 1, 2021
To keep the lights on during the wind ‘drought’ required coal to be burnt, OCGTs to be fired up and every interconnected to be exploited.
My worry is a major continental high pressure system establishing itself in January or February. They come with a blanket of low cloud.
JF
November 30, 2021
I suppose a quick way would be to issue those plastic specs with green cellophane lenses âŠand make them mandatory. Or green contacts lenses. Or green light emanating from security cameras.
Yellow and blue paint sprayed from helicopters maybe??
Ah noâŠgreen fluorescent masks. Yay!
November 30, 2021
Simple more atmospheric CO2 (plant & tree food) will do it nicely.
November 30, 2021
+1
Lol
Hehe!
THATâS the one they donât want to hear!
November 30, 2021
Just cut out the middlemen and governments and handover full control to the United Nations headed up by Elon Musk & Al Gore
November 30, 2021
+1
Yes..cast all the âuseful idiotsâ aside as in all revolutions.
Serve them right too!
November 30, 2021
The world will turn green because Greta speaks for a generation – including your grandchildren. And you lot ainât gonna stop them!
November 30, 2021
We’ll be dead before it happens. Thank God.
November 30, 2021
She says the world will end soon young andy.
Do you agree with her?
November 30, 2021
@ Andy – the fact that a generation allows that teenage exhibitionist climate alarmist to be its self-appointed spokesperson is indicative of an essential unsoundness. If a round of jazz hands coupled with a strident demand they cancel themselves is not enough to see them off, obliging them to confront the truth surely will.
November 30, 2021
They’re not stopping China
ââChina â set a new daily record for coal production in mid-November, according to statistics from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).ââ https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/30/economy/china-pmi-economy-intl-hnk/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0xOfgaci9nmW-wZoBwlA_wTFiresOObYDbQvoZtrtoWT9HHwPO01bV3oc
This is the real reason China didnât attend Cop26
November 30, 2021
Agree Andy. Having recently been aggressively questioned by Key Stage 4 and 5 pupils (14 to 18 years), who consider persons of my generation to be totally responsible for the worlds current problems. I surmised there would be little point in sending them any legacy party political election leaflets. They want something that doesn’t involve having MPs in parliament who are still there representing previous generations if not centuries. Sadly, they are currently out numbered but that will change; hopefully, before the next general election, assuming we are allowed to have one.
November 30, 2021
They are young acorn
Soon they will realise that to power modern democratic nations requires energy.
That demand will not be satisfied without nuclear and gas.
I hope you told them how the future might turn out without sufficient power.
November 30, 2021
“Agriculture will take time for many farmers to convert from animal husbandry to the new crops and to tree growing. ” More delusion, with famine in its wake.
November 30, 2021
Famine = population control.
November 30, 2021
It all sounds like a programme to export jobs and industry to China.
High energy products like bricks, cement, aluminium and steel will continue to be needed by the western world, so it will need to be imported from countries that haven’t bought into the green religion.
November 30, 2021
Don’t tell them such obvious facts it tends to confuse politicians.
When the West has handed all it’s heavy industries to China then we can become a major partner in the Belt and Road initiative because we won’t be capable of doing damned all against Chinese aggression.
November 30, 2021
+1
That and to protect those in the West who have heavily invested in China.
November 30, 2021
Only if âŠ
Indeed
It isnât going to happen.
A more interesting book would be âThe decline and fall of the Global Warming cultâ.
November 30, 2021
The Great Greening ( if there really were one) would have STARTED with âgreenâ goods being made widely available. Not that âgreenâ means anything anyway.
What is actually happening is that we are being stripped of basic freedoms and necessities without any viable replacements.
November 30, 2021
For three decades Oxfam have been pushing its âFair Tradeâ green products and yet it still remains a cottage industry because there just isnât the public interest or demandâŠ.now fast forward to this decade and our government subsiding green products and banning alternative â restricting our freedom of choice
November 30, 2021
+1
Absolutely.
November 30, 2021
The short answer is CO2 – plant food.
November 30, 2021
Correct
November 30, 2021
Globalist Eco Obsessives (UN, WEF, Eco “Charities”) are forcing this Agenda. They are devolving it to so-called Democratic countries using propaganda and CONsensus-style politics , which means voters are effectively denied any say in the matter.
The Governments implementing it aren’t serving their people, they are working for the Globalist Organisations and they really aren’t concerned about developing a range of products and changes to lifestyles which will appeal to the “peasants.” They will impose it via diktats; banning products they wish to eliminate; making it very difficult not to comply (ie imposing traffic-free zones); taxing and, it appears, using IT-based Chinese-style social credit systems.
The only way they can achieve their goal is through CONTROL. They are deliberately going to make people colder, poorer, less mobile, with poorer diets, restricted lives …… and make them pay for it.
As Peter Mandelson reportedly said around 15 years ago: “The age of democracy is over.” We are having an age of governance by Globalist Elites imposed on us.
November 30, 2021
Just a little green thought.
All this rot about dental practices taking oneâs temperature, wearing PPE, taking a covid questionnaire, not being allowed to use the loo, wearing a mask etc etc. AND with all other medical placesâŠ.
Why werenât all these virus-dodging methods in place BEFORE the umâŠPLAGUE?
A germ is a germ and a virus is a virus, they werenât suddenly discovered along with COVID19!! ( I see we are back to capitals). Surely they should have ALWAYS been excluded from a health setting??
What a load of utter b*ll*cks!!
Are MPs REALLY going to sit back and see the country further destroyed?
November 30, 2021
It’s the drip, drip, drip of ever tightening regulations that is forcing people down a green route they can’t afford to take. The housing market is a prime example. The government is bringing in regulations that mean a property can’t be rented or sold unless it has an an EPC rating of C or higher. I had one done 2 months ago and my property only attained a D rating even though it had a new boiler, double glazing, energy lightbulbs and thick loft installation. Many landlords are selling up now because they know they can never meet these standards. With one hand we have councils sending begging letters to landlords asking us to take in refugees but the stock of private rental properties is reducing all the time. This will escalate as the 2025 deadline approaches. The cost of changes to the council house stock will be born by the council tax payers. Has any politician looked at the cost of this and the ramifications? I doubt it very much. Sir John, we rely on sensible MPs like yourself to highlight issues like these before it’s too late.
November 30, 2021
This âgreenâ rubbish is detrimentally affecting everyone in business â the economy is not green
November 30, 2021
Sir John, do governments actually ‘need to tell us’ what they will do about the energy gap, or about anything else to do with the Green Takeover? I get the impression they need only do the bidding of the 1%, those who profit from it. If they needed to get the backing of the public, we would have had a referendum by now.
Over the last 20 months the state and its agencies, as well as the bought-and-paid-for media, have learned plenty about how to coerce the public into giving up their free choice and their rights. This will be put into effect with your so-called Green Revolution. Let us hope it will not be followed by the Green Terror, as other revolutions have been.
November 30, 2021
Excellent I will buy it. Does it include a summary of how much of total energy consumption electricity currently accounts for and of that how much of that electricity is generated by ârenewablesâ? (Global answers – 15% and 8%, i.e. about 1% of total primary energy consumption comes from the virtuous, heavily subsidised and much praised sources of wind and solar.) There is no coherent plan to change this. Just a lot of virtue-signalling and posturing.
November 30, 2021
Exactly. Like most things it seems to be driven by group think, virtue signalling, religion, scientific/engineering ignorance and above all vested interests, corruption and crony capitalism.
November 30, 2021
+1
I just bought it from Amazon âŠas a Christmas present.
Spread the word a bit about what they are planning.
November 30, 2021
Indeed. I read yesterday that our total contribution to so called climate changing gases(methane, CO2) is 0.9% of the global total. So all this nonsense is pure virtue signalling, whilst the Chinese, India and Russia prosper. No one with an ounce of sense will vote for this unproven science, whilst driving us into poverty. Reform Party is the only option short of real revolution.
November 30, 2021
Ask those in Cumbria who are all electric and have haddock power fot 4 days.
No Internet for Gretas smartphone. How will she manage.
November 30, 2021
Well no, it will not work because it is driven by Government, top down, completely against the laws of supply and demand which have driven human advance since we were hunter gatherers. If forced on us by our new socialist totalitarian masters it will result in hunger and poverty, in my opinion.
The best way to green the world is to release a bit more CO2 into the atmosphere, not less. The whole anthropomorphic climate change nonsense is a fraud, but hey, China and India will make up the CO2 in a couple of days, what the UK saves to impoverish ourselves!
November 30, 2021
What would turn the world green is more CO2, not less. The report now on NASA website, which is of course ignored by climate alarmists, shows that during the previous 35 years of increasing CO2 the green coverage of the globe has increased by 18m square kms, or twice the area of the USA. Yes, CO2 appears to trap heat but being essential to plant life the absorption by greenery offsets this to a significant amount.
I’m not a botanist but logic suggests that if we reduce CO2 we will make the planet less green !
December 1, 2021
Don’t forget the oceans. Phytoplankton like CO2. However, oil and surfactant pollution of the surface reduces wave action which stirs the gas and nutrient to where they can be used.
JF
November 30, 2021
Available on Amazon.
November 30, 2021
Ed Miliband has been appointed to the shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero.
The government doesn’t currently have a cabinet post with this precise title but apparently it feels it has found someone who will fit the bill – a chap by the name of Harry Potter.
November 30, 2021
Subsidies for the unproven new products, compensation for the proven old products !
The World has truly gone mad, with now the customers paying three times due to government interference.
Pay once with taxation for a subsidy, pay once again to the company for its present product, pay once again with taxation for compensation for a product now being discontinued.
Common-sense seems to have gone missing !
November 30, 2021
Alan Jutson
Common- sense
When and where did government’s ever apply that? Not in their DNA
November 30, 2021
I’ve been saying it for ages now, this government could’ve achieved more just by doing nothing….their interference is the problem
November 30, 2021
Just renewed our electricity contract. (old fixed deal running out)
Standing charge increased by 100%
Unit cost increased by 60%
Yes did shop around, just a few fractions of a penny between them all.
No more needs to be said really, other than demand seems to be exceeding supply.
I would hope at those prices the supply will be unbroken.!
November 30, 2021
get ready for a massive increase in inflation
November 30, 2021
aj, hopefully Bexley will provide a wake-up call on Thursday.
November 30, 2021
Short answer: MORE CO2
The more CO2 we have, the more our food supply grows – Remove it and we will be in short supply.
While governments make futile suggestions, they also impose futile efforts at stopping us living our lives and being comfortable – THAT IS WHERE THE PAIN COMES IN.
They make restrictions and demand we use new technologies that either fail us or are years away from being effective – THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE SYNDROME.
The pain caused can in no way be justified by the hype and propaganda, nor the exaggerated climate models, and without these things there is nothing to resolve.
November 30, 2021
We will have petrol car enthusiasts in a few years just as we have steam railway ones.
Many people will retain sentimental feelings about inanimate objects even after they have accepted that the world has moved on, and that on balance this is a good and necessary thing.
Progress itself is what will engender that acceptance, that is, turn people “green”. It doesn’t require zealous enthusiasm on their part at all.
November 30, 2021
That said, I am certainly going to install a log burner and keep a stack of nicely dried ones in the inglenook.
They will not be the normal means of heating at all, but a bit of resilience is always good in an emergency, such as brought storm Arwen to many.
And trees do regrow.
November 30, 2021
Please don’t light it in summer if you have close neighbours.
November 30, 2021
NLH. Trees do regrow, yes, we all know that but it takes years for hardwood trees to reach the size that are getting chopped down. Pine is quicker but is no good for the environment, wildlife or the flora and fauna of the forest floor.
November 30, 2021
N L H
Good luck with that one pal.
When you got the cost of flue exhaust filters and their maintenance, plus unless you own a wood the cost of the more efficient burning hard woods is constantly on the rise as demand is greater than supply. I own a 10 acre wood and it just logging the fallers it surprising how quick it gets used. It takes 30-40 years to grow a decent size hardwood tree.
November 30, 2021
I trust you’ll heed this advice, NLH.
âOur findings are a cause for concern,â said Rohit Chakraborty, of the University of Sheffield, who led the study. âIt is recommended that people living with those particularly susceptible to air pollution, such as children, the elderly or vulnerable, avoid using wood-burning stoves. If people want to use them, we recommend minimising the time the stove is open during lighting or refuelling.â
November 30, 2021
These ‘scientists’ are a bigger danger to humans and humanity than wood burners. Their published views and analyisis assumes humans have absolutely no resiliense and tolerance of fumes and particles. They dare not make such allowances as they are terrified of accepting risk.
We do and we can get on with our lives very happily.
November 30, 2021
Wow NLH, and there I was thinking you read the Graun
From 18 Dec 2020 “Wood burners triple the level of harmful pollution particles inside homes and should be sold with a health warning” and “The tiny particles flood into the room when the burner doors are opened for refuelling, a study found”.
Admittedly these are the views of scientists, but we follow the views of scientists on climate change, don’t we?
November 30, 2021
As I say, it’s for emergency use only, during a power cut, say, and not for normal heating.
It’s in a sparsely-built area too.
November 30, 2021
Log burners should be banned.
November 30, 2021
And people who demand a green revolution like NHL should be the first to set an example and give up these things.
Do as I say not do as I do, as usual with these enthusiasts.
December 1, 2021
I have not said that anyone at all should give up standby heating arrangements which would burn wood in an emergency.
Nor should the country destroy all its coal fired power stations for exactly the same reason.
However they should only ever be used as a last resort, which should mean hardly ever.
December 1, 2021
No I’m fully aware you haven’t said that NHL
I just think things like log burners and coal fires need to be banned.
Starting with green keen, net zero enthusiasts.
November 30, 2021
I can tell you. I have no sentimental attachment to my petrol cars. I’d sooner have no car at all (neither petrol nor electric) but the fact is that decades of successive Government policy has been to make us all car dependant, to fragment society, to destroy public transport, centralise healthcare and schools (away from most people) and to murder the high street and to give it all to the out-of-town shopping giants.
I can see where all this is going. They will not remove the cycle lanes or the flower box obstructions even if we all get EV cars tomorrow.
We are being subject to an extreme form of gas lighting.
Boris is going to make things hideously expensive for us and has delivered upon us a heap of bills we just weren’t expecting or planning for.
Already he has started the punitive taxation on ICE cars and when the alternatives aren’t even in place.
This along with:
Rice (vegetarianism)
Thought Control (Political Correctness/Equalities Act)
Bicycles (pricing the average person off the road)
And your masks and lockdowns fit into this agenda perfectly.
November 30, 2021
And what do you suggest we do with the 4.5 million unemployed people that worked directly or indirectly in the automotive sector…..4.5 million people – I suppose we could retrain them all to work on the collective farms like the Cambodia Khmer Rouge
November 30, 2021
Off topic.
I feel seriously concerned Sir John that the failure of the vaccines is not being called out by MP’s. People are being harmed and are dying but as the effectiveness of the vaccines wane and they then catch Rona anyway, and pass it on, the scandal is ignored by the media and Mp’s while the cry is for MORE vaccinations.
I have witnessed people coming in and out of my ward with serious side effects, post vaccination. That tiny microcosm must be multiplied many times.
November 30, 2021
“What would turn the world green?”
Us putting more of the plant food CO2 into the atmosphere !
I note you too have joined the fad of using the word ‘transition’ that seems to be the go to word for our broadcasters and politicians, we no longer move we transition , after putting up this post I will endeavour to transition to garden to pick up some leaves. In addition it would seem everything is in a state of transitioning, there is no steady state to our lives any more , you aren’t trying to normalise the act of transitioning are you? You can no longer allowed to be fixed in who you are, you must be in an act of transitioning.
November 30, 2021
Even were the green revolution driven and directed by highly astute people with well-grounded confidence in their predictions and capabilities, all the normal hazards of undertaking extensive upheaval laced with so many unknown unknows would make one hesitate to presume net favourable outcomes. Alas though, the astute seem absent. Henry Rearden and Dagny Taggart may save us eventually.
November 30, 2021
What would really turn humanity green isn’t even on the agenda. Population reduction.
In the UK The People opted for population reduction by having smaller families but the politicians reversed it. In fact the politicians started mass immigration during a baby boom and continued it long afterwards. They said it was because people didn’t want to do jobs but the truth is people no longer wanted to do those jobs for the wages on offer – a very different thing.
What seems to stop population booms is wealth. For some reason people have smaller families as they get wealthier.
So, following on these green policies, people are going to get poorer and have more children, either because the benefits system will reward having more children or because of the importation of people from cultures where they have more children.
None of this is about Green.
It is about the disenfranchisement disempowerment of the masses, by the destruction of consensus (nationalism) and the criminalisation of conservatism (small c).
It is now a crime to be conservative. The Equalities Act makes it so.
November 30, 2021
The answer John, is CO2.
The more CO2, the greener the earth will become.
Google ‘CO2 greening the Earth’ and see what NASA say….. after all, they can see how the planet has greened with more CO2 by inspecting their satellite photographs.
Commercial growers pump CO2 into their polytunnels and experience higher growth rates and yield.
November 30, 2021
Weâve moved from a paradigm when governments manage the economic and market led forces directed by the demand & choice of the people to a paradigm of command management
From capitalism to green communism in a single decade (under a Tory government)
November 30, 2021
Meanwhile, on Germany’s scrapping this month of three of its newest and best nuclear power plants, a quote from some Danish commentator named Peter Bardland (via Zerohedge) : –
“We see a slow disaster playing out with The Greens in the lead role as the crazy villain, hell-bent in their eagerness to wipe out life and prosperity.”
Quite!
November 30, 2021
The late Labour MP Gerald Kaufman described his partyâs 1983 election manifesto as âthe longest suicide note in historyâ.
This accolade now goes to the Conservative Partyâs âNet Zero Strategyâ where there is no plan or costings on how to produce all the electrical energy required from renewables and the technology on how to deal with their intermittency using non-fossil fuel energy sources does not yet exist.
It remains to be seen whether this unilateral net zero implementation will be the suicide of the Conservative Party or of the whole country.
November 30, 2021
Comparing deciduous to evergreen, which, and at what ages are the maximum absorption of CO2 achieved?
December 1, 2021
Answer: – While oak is the genus with the most carbon-absorbing species, there are other notable deciduous trees that sequester carbon as well. The common horse-chestnut.
Deciduous trees like oaks tend to absorb about 50% more carbon than a conifer like a pine tree.
November 30, 2021
I see adverts in the box for the BMW i4. Looks good. Itâs over ÂŁ50k. If it was ÂŁ30k, I would buy one. Why are EVs so expensive? They have a lot less moving parts and a motor is a lot simpler than an ICE. It strikes me as a racket.
November 30, 2021
Ouch….Andy wants you to have one, when he said for a year over and over that it was the best car he ever owned, he lied. He just realised it was a hybrid when he noticed a petrol filler cap.
So your investment required doesn’t make sense, but go with the flow – ÂŁ50k ? small change to most of us!
November 30, 2021
Batteries + Investment in new tech’ and manufacturing. The price ‘may’ come down but that is no guarantee.
November 30, 2021
For a more accurately titled book replace the word ‘Green’ and insert the word Marxist.
And I see the Socialist organisation namely Labour’s NHS and the Tories captor is now telling the public they mustn’t ‘socialise unnecessary’. One trip over to Toby Young’s website to read the unleashed response from its readers will tell the political class all they need to know about what they think about this advice from jumped up petty bureaucrats
November 30, 2021
Dom, you keep using this word Marxist and I just would like you to precis what this green agenda this government is pursuing has to do with ‘build back green’?
The biggest problem this government has now is the ‘do as I say’ not ‘do as I do’ objections. Why have us keep going for jab after jab after jab if scientists like Harris is not confident they will work? Boris and Carrie broke the rules last Christmas people that followed those rules weren’t happy.
November 30, 2021
Sorry âbuild back greenââŠ. Marxism?
December 1, 2021
a-tracy
I know this was directed at, Dom but I doubt he will answer your question.
If I may, I think you have to understand that, Marxism is not natural to human nature. Marxism requires ALL those under it to be altruistic which we are not. So for Marxism to succeed it has to play tricks on us to surrender our wealth and our freedom. One of those tricks is the use of guilt. Capitalism, they the Marxist / Environmentalist say,
“Is destroying our planet. You by supporting Capitalism in ALL its forms are therefore complicit. Either you are for saving the planet, and with us, or, you are with Capitalism and against us !”
The Tories believe, like Theresa May MP, that they are the Nasty Party and that they must somehow purge themselves of their so called rotten past. They have allowed themselves to be captured by the Marxist Playbook of Dirty Tricks.
December 1, 2021
Mark, good point about Theresa May. Until she mentioned it, it was doubtful that many people outside of the Westminster bubble had ever heard it but she made it mainstream. I certainly had never heard it before. Bullet in foot etc.
December 1, 2021
Thanks, Mark, if I get time over my Christmas break I must look up this Marxism.
If people supporting Marxism truly believe that everyone is altruistic then Fundraising sites would provide sufficient to meet their core wants.
I find many of the guests on Dewbs & Co frustrating because when they talk about wanting this, that and the other funding Michelle never asks them who should pay for it. One guy said he wants to pay more tax, well the government set up a site to collect funds to spend on their pet projects, insulating homes, accommodation for asylum seekers, .
November 30, 2021
All over europe the electric prices are all up massively and look to continue to rise, why? Mr Putain in short term, meeting his contractuals at a bare minimum, plus spot markets tightening globally? So thanks awfully to EU gas contractual negotiators and to Mrs Merkel, great legacy! Thanks too to successive UK Governments for their energy policies to rely more on gas spot market prices and interconnectors… dafties, we still need SECURE domestically produced gas for a good 15+ years yet, till the nukes start operating.
As we move to EV cars and heat pumps (some) Grid demand will also increase massively, but the cost/benefit will REDUCE as prices go north of 23p/KWH …. expensive electrickery will put folk off, so I agree with those on here who talk about logburners.
Why aren’t petrol prices down today, now oil has slipped to $70 dollars a barrel, from $80+ where is my 15% cut in petrol prices back to ~ÂŁ1.30? I think we should be told! Come on your supermarkets, begin a price war at the pumps please!! Remember the recent shortage of petrol………LOL
November 30, 2021
‘What would turn the world green’, SJR? Envy, of course!
Sheer envy at how brilliantly this country will be doing in a few years’ time under your government’s bold leadership, with wind farms producing all the energy we need, electric cars taking people as much as 15 miles from their home (if their QR codes are in order), smart meters allowing us to heat our homes for a few hours off-peak, and an amazing range of carbon-zero food available from our local research laboratory.
By 2030, the Chinese, the Indians and the rest of the world will be desperate to enjoy all this for themselves. Won’t they?
November 30, 2021
The push and rush to green policies just aren’t working
”The latest estimates predict taxpayers will fork out ÂŁ3.2 billion for the 25 energy companies that have gone bust in just the last three months” The FT
November 30, 2021
glen, why should taxpayers pay for the energy companies? Especially all those customers who stuck loyally with British Gas? Who do they have to pay ÂŁ3.2 billion to?
November 30, 2021
The government underwrites their contracts to ensure consistency of energy supply to customers until move to new provider and offset any price disparity
This government encouraged new suppliers into the sector to show competition, it didnât work….it wasn’t a real market nor real competition
November 30, 2021
a-t, if the ÂŁ3.2bn is correct, this will be the amount owed by the 20+ energy companies that have gone bust and basically is the amount that their customers will have saved by being on fixed price contracts. The cash will have to come from tax payers or some sort of hidden levy on all energy customers and it would come as no surprise if it is the latter.
The larger energy companies would doubtless have hedges or future contracts in place, which in the normal course of events would cost money, to cover their liabilities on fixed price deals with their customers. Despite many arguments to the contrary this would appear to be in part a failure of regulation as Ofgem issue the licences and you would expect them in some way to ensure that the licence holders are running viable businesses similar to the way insurance companies and banks are overseen.
December 1, 2021
Thank you mm and glen.
Ofgem – that’s a new one for me. So we have Ofwat not protecting our rivers and seas and now Ofgem allowing people to trade insolvently.
I completely disagree that other customers loyal to British Gas, Scottish Gas etc. should have to pay for this debacle.
I think I’m the only person I know who didn’t get a PPI payout yet I took out mortgage protection insurance, this is just another version of that and it was the regular clients of the banks that got stuffed for that payoff. I felt more secure with British Gas and have their full home cover (a problem recently with poor service) now to be mugged again.
November 30, 2021
Well JR, it doesnât really matter because your moronic government is continuing to DESTROY the economy for no good reason. Low or high tax doesnât matter when there wonât be anything left to tax. Useless, pathetic, spineless, incompetent, cretinous government which should be terminated â completely beholden to CARD CARRYING COMMUNISTS.
How can you expect this cowardly, useless government to improve the economy when they are so ridiculously risk averse!!
Zorro
November 30, 2021
Canât argue with that
November 30, 2021
The Governmentâs âNet Zero (CO2) Strategyâ is promoting âactive travelâ (walking and cycling) and the increased use of public transport as ways to save the planet by reducing our CO2 emissions.
So it would appear that the Government has learned nothing from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Firstly that when these pandemics occur, and they will, public transport is to be avoided. So increasing public transport increases our vulnerability to virus attacks.
Secondly, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased home and distributed working and except for journeys in densely populated towns, public transport does not work.
It either cannot provide the journeys required, or the frequency and start and end times are very limited, or the vehicles are empty for most of the time.
No public transport can ever compete with fast door-to-door, load-carrying, virus-safe private vehicles.
December 1, 2021
Net Zero has nothing to do with saving the planet and has everything to do with State Control.
November 30, 2021
23/09/2021 âCarbon-free high-loading silicon anodes enabled by sulfide solid electrolytesâ, Science, 2021, vol. 373, issue 6562, 1494, doi: 10.1126/science.abg7217.
Or a shorter read for journalists âA new solid-state battery surprises the researchers who created itâ, D.H.S. Tan et al., sciencedaily.com
And no Li in such a battery.
December 1, 2021
For the unscientific – – Pros and cons, please!
December 2, 2021
Pros: Higher energy density (x 2.5) than lithium-based batteries, limited risk of heating up, prototypes able of charge at 80+% retention after 500 recharging cycles, no lithium, no cobalt. (Also but still experimental, likely to produce (slightly) smaller and lighter batteries, likely to be faster charging).
Cons: still at the prototype phase in various labs, unlikely to be commercially available before 2028/30. Technology even more costly than lithium-based batteries at present.
Toyota, BMW, Volkswagen, Ford are considering future EV models using ASSBs and are supporting various research into those (U.Calif.San Diego, U.Oxford, Oak Ridge Nâal Lab, CSE/CNRS).
November 30, 2021
I see that the government’s own lawyers have agreed in court that the NI Protocol IS contrary to the Act of Union, but they argue that it has supremacy. (https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/courts/ni-protocol-has-primacy-over-act-of-union-court-of-appeal-told-41103868.html). So there you are: a Conservative AND UNIONIST government has decided that subjugating part of our country to the EU should take supremacy over upholding the Union. Is is any wonder I call him Boris the Traitor? What else can any patriot conclude except that Boris prefers to betray his own country and his own people rather than stand up to foreign tyranny?
December 1, 2021
Parliament is supreme in the UK constitution.
Therefore any decision that it makes can never be a betrayal.
And NI is doing better economically than any other nation or region of the UK for some reason.
Maybe it’s being a member of the SM and CU?
Just a thought.
November 30, 2021
Neanderthal’s died out and left their hand paintings as much as 60,000 yrs ago. We will also die out and our world will gain a natural balance again .Evolution doesn’t stop with us.Perhaps the next sentient beings will also have a better sense of responsibility and less of a drive for money.
November 30, 2021
Zorro couldn’t have put it better myself. Throw in a few ‘muppets’ and ‘numptys’ next time.
December 2, 2021
”What would turn the world green?”
Er – carbon dioxide, perhaps?
December 2, 2021
In answer to your question Sir John. More carbon dioxide rather than less would make the world a greener place.
December 2, 2021
Do the Government not realise that most of us think of an investment as something that generates more revenue in the long run than the initial capital cost? In that sense, ‘investment’ in services that are subsidised or free at the point of use are not investents at all -e.g. HS2, NHS, social care, expensive energy.