Wealth does not protect you from climate change is the message of the day.
Doubt Americans will listen though.
The only way we could meaningfully reduce carbon emissions enough to affect the climate in the next decade or so is nuclear war, otherwise they will continue to increase no matter what anybody in the west does.
But we've already meaningfully reduced carbon emissions, compared with a counterfactual where the world was still primarily operating on coal. Even China is 29% renewable now - we're on 42%.
Global CO2 emissions from coal are still growing. The climate doesn't care about counterfactuals.
The curious thing is the response we're seeing from our friends across the Atlantic. Now that renewable energy resources are super cheap, there are calls to restrict them by political fiat.
"Ban that cheaper clean thing so that my rich donors can keep getting richer."
It's nuts.
That’s today’s Republican Party for you. Screw the free market and dictate what people have to do.
The curious thing is the response we're seeing from our friends across the Atlantic. Now that renewable energy resources are super cheap, there are calls to restrict them by political fiat.
"Ban that cheaper clean thing so that my rich donors can keep getting richer."
It's nuts.
That’s today’s Republican Party for you. Screw the free market and dictate what people have to do.
Are you sure it isn't just because Trump had some wind turbines built in the view from his Aberdeenshire golf course? This is his revenge on the windmills.
The curious thing is the response we're seeing from our friends across the Atlantic. Now that renewable energy resources are super cheap, there are calls to restrict them by political fiat.
"Ban that cheaper clean thing so that my rich donors can keep getting richer."
It's nuts.
That’s today’s Republican Party for you. Screw the free market and dictate what people have to do.
Are you sure it isn't just because Trump had some wind turbines built in the view from his Aberdeenshire golf course? This is his revenge on the windmills.
A collection of Trump quotations on wind power…
“I know windmills very much."
“If it doesn’t blow, you can forget about television for that night.”
"If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill, because it’s a very sad, sad sight. It’s like a cemetery. We put a little statue for the poor birds."
“The windmills are driving the whales crazy."
"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations: Your house just went down 75% in value."
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
As a great man once said: 'If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.'
Wealth does not protect you from climate change is the message of the day.
Doubt Americans will listen though.
The only way we could meaningfully reduce carbon emissions enough to affect the climate in the next decade or so is nuclear war, otherwise they will continue to increase no matter what anybody in the west does.
But we've already meaningfully reduced carbon emissions, compared with a counterfactual where the world was still primarily operating on coal. Even China is 29% renewable now - we're on 42%.
Global CO2 emissions from coal are still growing. The climate doesn't care about counterfactuals.
Not least because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But it's all irrelevant, because the cost of solar panels continues to collapse.
Look at the amount of new solar being installed every year. And you know what? That stuff will keep generating power every year, without a single dollar being spent on it. That panel is a perpetual energy machine.
With coal, you need to dig it out the ground afresh every year. Plus, of course, coal fired power plants are maintenance nightmares.
TSE - I think it would help if you could explain the specific reason for the ban on discussing this specific issue. I know we have the OSA coming in but what makes this one issue a risk as opposed to any others?
For the final time.
One thing I would like to clarify is that the sheer number of legally problematic posts [on the grooming story] and the incoming OSA is why the discussion about grooming has been banned.
Even if the OSA wasn't coming into force I would have still put the ban in place, but making legally problematic posts is not only expensive but potentially to a criminal level with the OSA.
To be honest you have had to repeat this warning many times and still some posters still do not get it
I believe you should act from now on on anyone ignoring your warning and you will have the support of the vast majority of us
Have you thought about naming names? You can add me to your naughty list because I had a post pulled. I didn't realise I had breached the new rule, although I now stand corrected.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
California is a a very good example of the dangers of ballot propositions (i.e. referendum).
Voters continually vote for very dumb things: and insurance is one of the areas where regulation by referendum results is most dumb.
(Let's have a ballot proposition making sure there's more competition in the market to drive prices down! Oh, and we don't want to pay too much for the backup because that gets added to our bills, so let's have a ballot proposition on it!)
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
California is a a very good example of the dangers of ballot propositions (i.e. referendum).
Voters continually vote for very dumb things: and insurance is one of the areas where regulation by referendum results is most dumb.
(Let's have a ballot proposition making sure there's more competition in the market to drive prices down! Oh, and we don't want to pay too much for the backup because that gets added to our bills, so let's have a ballot proposition on it!)
Strange to see an example of a referendum causing issues. They have brought nothing but solid problem solving and political harmony in the UK…
Are there no limits? No check that the proposition is possible? How does one get one on the ballot? Could a politician have it voted through that black = white?
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
Nah. We can’t make the weather any more a no shouldn’t try. We should sit back, asses what’s on our national interest (not the interest of the objectively “good”) and then do that.
And any article mentioning “the British Commonwealth” has shown it doesn’t understand the world.
One poll, but I think what Labour and the Tories have to fear the most is a tipping point.
I mentioned this in the GE campaign . If there were to be a sustained period of Reform outpolling the Tories, such as the VI shown here, and particularly if say this is reinforced by Reform beating the Tories in Wales and Scotland in 2026, there could be a huge and significant shift in the Tory vote over to Reform, as the stop Labour, new party of the right.
I’m not saying it will definitely happen but it has to be plausible that we go into the next GE with a lot of voters who would have voted Tory reconciled to a Reform vote.
A hell of a lot of Tory voters, past and present, will still never vote for Reform.
At a certain point, negative polarisation will push up both the Tories and Reform.
I am not sure how you reach that answer. Please show your workings.
If Reform are around 30%, they will be ahead in swathes of 'Labour' seats so they will become the default anti-Tory vote. Meanwhile who do you vote for in non-Labour areas if you don't want Reform? Labour or the Lib Dems would be a wasted vote, so it's got to be the Tories. The future political map of Britain will be blue and purple.
But the Tories remain universally hated. Their salvation is a long way off.
Reform on the other hand offer Trumpian triumphalism, and are capturing the zeitgeist. If Trump crashes the World, Reform may suffer by association.
The world has changed. Thinking that people will react to Trump by wanting a return to left-liberalism is like someone in 1990s Russia hoping that people will come to their senses and vote the Communists back into power.
You're right that the Tories have an image problem, but in the scenario I outlined, it wouldn't matter, because the people who hate them would be voting Reform.
I don't see how that works. I don't dispute if Labour crack on as they are doing they will implode, but I just don't see the Tories being net beneficiaries. The situation you are suggesting would have RefCon combined on 55 plus percentage points. I just don't see if all the swivel eyed Tories decamping to Reform remaining Labour voters who haven't jumped ship to Reform will likely go LD, SNP or Green.
I see Reform as a clear and present danger, and in that case however I don't see the Tories troubling anyone.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
Nah. We can’t make the weather any more a no shouldn’t try. We should sit back, asses what’s on our national interest (not the interest of the objectively “good”) and then do that.
And any article mentioning “the British Commonwealth” has shown it doesn’t understand the world.
I wish I could I agree with you, but I think we're too small to simply sit back without getting blown over.
As mentioned, the choice may eventually come down to real absorption into the U.S, or closer links with Europe.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
Nah. We can’t make the weather any more a no shouldn’t try. We should sit back, asses what’s on our national interest (not the interest of the objectively “good”) and then do that.
And any article mentioning “the British Commonwealth” has shown it doesn’t understand the world.
I wish I could I agree with you, but I think we're too small to simply sit back without getting blown over.
As mentioned, the choice may eventually come down to real absorption into the U.S, or closer links with Europe.
If we’re “too small” then god help almost every other country on the planet.
Though I suppose there is logic in saying we’re in the unfortunate sweet spot of being a top ten nation and a nuclear power, too small to be unnoticed but not a superpower or part of a highly integrated block.
I still think you underestimate our ability to steer our own course, so long as we accept we can’t make the weather and sometimes we will be buffered by US/EU/Chinese economic decisions.
A reason to keep links with the U.S. and EU as fellow democracies where we can, of course; and to use emerging links with the likes of Japan and Korea, as well as the old ones with the likes of Can/Aus/Nz and the Arabs to build alliances and trade links as required.
Nut Zero is a total and complete waste of two trillion pounds or whatever the figure is which would be much better spent on rebuilding our armed forces and criminal justice system, filling our potholed roads and giving our over-taxed taxpayers and energy consumers a break.
You'd think we'd realise that having just about the world's most expensive energy is not exactly the way to improve the economy, but evidently it'll take a few more years of decline before the penny drops.
The crazy bit is that an 80% reduction is easy, particularly in electricity generation. And once we've done that, technology will have moved on, and it might turn out the next 80% is now easy too.
In general we take that into account already, I think - targeting the low hanging fruit first (unless it's transport or owner occupied houses).
eg the Net Zero House building regulations coming in in 2025-26 are framed such that the changes will achieve the majority of the saving, and it will roll upto net zero as electricity supply is decarbonised.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
From the "Visiting fellow at Birmingham City University's Centre for Brexit Studies":
As a first step, the EU and UK could contemplate setting up their own version of BRICS, such groups seem to be in vogue anyway. The new grouping could include all the countries directly threatened by the new Moscow-Washington power axis, to begin with the EU-27, the UK, Ukraine, Canada and Mexico.
He did offer a percentage of the proceeds. The council's position is it's legally their's if it's ever found
So the council doesn’t understand crypto then?
Did he use a password?
To be fair, I am making some assumptions about a man who was mining bitcoin in 2010, but I would make a decent sized bet that physically getting hold of his hard drive wouldn’t help you.
If we do hit brownouts then it's going to cause a further loss of confidence in UK plc which, you've guessed it will push gilts up again...
I'm not sure the UK can take another 4 years of this.
Yes, this week has been particularly bruising for the UK. We're adrift economically, there's a domestic political crisis that the PM has failed to tackle and will be dragged into kicking and screaming now that he's got dissent from within Labour itself and there's no end in sight.
I've said this before, I'm shocked as to how little homework Labour did in the run up to the election. They really seem to have thought that by not being the Tories they could magic up £150bn in additional corporate investment to fire up the economy. I really don't think they realised that raising taxes on businesses would tank economic growth because their utterances about going for growth but then also putting up NI by such a huge amount is diametrically opposed. It is the single most destructive tax on jobs and investment as companies claw back additional costs.
Add in to the equation Trump winning the POTUS and about to take office on a hugely inflationary budget, we have the perfect storm and an event on the 20th January with enormous worldwide implications
Reforms ascent may well continue, but also the trend across the west is towards right wing governments with only Starmer trying to stem the tide like Canute
I expect depressing times ahead for Labour and their supporters
Here's the thing though.
The rise of Reform may be bad for Labour. I certainly think it's bad for the country.
But it's a matter of life and death for the Conservatives. And at the moment, Conservatives don't seem to realise that following the talking points of the new right bubble (I hope that's neutral enough, it's not just That Thing) strengthens Reform at the Conservatives' expense.
The basic problem for the Tories is that their leader does not look "prime ministerial". Neither does Farage but that's not really such a problem for Reform. The Tory MPs mightily screwed up when they managed to exclude Cleverly. Kemi is William Hague mk 2 - very able, but simply not the right person for the times.
Would Cleverly be doing much better? He might have won a few more over from Labour but given Labour are already down to below 30% they have little further to be squeezed. Cleverly wouldn't have won over Reform voters anymore than Kemi is either.
Hague too did about as well as any Tory leader would have post 1997 as well, Clarke might have done a bit better but would still have lost heavily to Blair in 2001 and leaked more Tories to UKIP than Hague did
Cleverly I think would be doing much better by getting the basics right and have provided much more of a reset. Plus not doing the incredibly daft thing of repeating Reform's talking points when they don't make you look good either, and you know you can't go to the places they will.
Might not show up hugely differently now in polling now, but liable to create far fewer problems down the line instead of sugarrush opposition.
Badenoch's leadership to date is reminiscent of Ed Miliband but arguably worse. In that is following the same comfort zone strategy of ostensibly easy hits and going for your core vote and those who rejected you for what they believed were more radical options, without the logic that the Lib Dems were in government and there was that route to victory.
They're not going to win without convincing are both a serious government prepared to act with pragmatism, or the people who have rejected them they have fundamentally changed in important ways. Then they can look at tailoring some stuff to appeal Reform voters.
At the moment where do they end up in 2-3 years on this course? Still despised by those they used to have some appeal to but are appalled by populist right politics, or mistrusted by those holding on to nurse for fear of worse. Meanwhile, seen as not the real deal and a bit pathetic by those who actually want Reform or even the full fat far right Musk stuff.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
From the "Visiting fellow at Birmingham City University's Centre for Brexit Studies":
As a first step, the EU and UK could contemplate setting up their own version of BRICS, such groups seem to be in vogue anyway. The new grouping could include all the countries directly threatened by the new Moscow-Washington power axis, to begin with the EU-27, the UK, Ukraine, Canada and Mexico.
It's crudely laid out, but it may look a lmore plausible in a year's time than now. Obviously, if a real Washington-Misxow axis emerges, there may be no choice, but it may be more subtle.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
From the "Visiting fellow at Birmingham City University's Centre for Brexit Studies":
As a first step, the EU and UK could contemplate setting up their own version of BRICS, such groups seem to be in vogue anyway. The new grouping could include all the countries directly threatened by the new Moscow-Washington power axis, to begin with the EU-27, the UK, Ukraine, Canada and Mexico.
It's crudely laid out, but it may look a lmore plausible in a year's time than now. Obviously, if a real Washington-Misxow axis emerges, there may be no choice, but it may be more subtle.
The security of the western world is so integrated into the United States that if a “real Washington-Moscow axis emerges” we might as well all give up and go home.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
From the "Visiting fellow at Birmingham City University's Centre for Brexit Studies":
As a first step, the EU and UK could contemplate setting up their own version of BRICS, such groups seem to be in vogue anyway. The new grouping could include all the countries directly threatened by the new Moscow-Washington power axis, to begin with the EU-27, the UK, Ukraine, Canada and Mexico.
It's crudely laid out, but it may look a lmore plausible in a year's time than now. Obviously, if a real Washington-Misxow axis emerges, there may be no choice, but it may be more subtle.
The security of the western world is so integrated into the United States that if a “real Washington-Moscow axis emerges” we might as well all give up and go home.
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We could do something based on renaming the Commonwealth Realms (to avoid confusion with the full Commonwealth). We’d have to invite anyone that didn’t want the shared Head of State to leave quickly (or quickly redefine the unifying feature to exclude him), and be really clear the U.K. didn’t expect to run it, but you’d then have a sound base to develop something out of.
The values of those core counties are aligned. As is the language and the legal tradition.
Wealth does not protect you from climate change is the message of the day.
Doubt Americans will listen though.
The only way we could meaningfully reduce carbon emissions enough to affect the climate in the next decade or so is nuclear war, otherwise they will continue to increase no matter what anybody in the west does.
Even if a crash is unavoidable it still makes sense to brake. The do nothing argument is just plain daft.
The people who think climate change isn't real, and some sort of communist plot to trick the west into wasting vast sums of money, are unaware that China is spending vast sums of money because they know damn well that climate change is real, and will be a huge problem for a large and populous country.
Chinese energy production is driven by simple economics, that's why they've got caboodles of coal and solar. It's not the dogmatism of Miliband or Oklahoma saying we can't have this or that.
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome to the People’s Republic of California.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
He did offer a percentage of the proceeds. The council's position is it's legally their's if it's ever found
This story’s been running for years. Even if they find the disk, the chances of getting the data from it are pretty small.
He’s out of sponsors so is trying to get the council to put in the effort, to the tune of millions which they understandably don’t want to do! Landfill sites are carefully designed and managed to avoid waste gases and liquids contaminating the environment, it’s not a simple task to go searching through one.
If we do hit brownouts then it's going to cause a further loss of confidence in UK plc which, you've guessed it will push gilts up again...
I'm not sure the UK can take another 4 years of this.
Yes, this week has been particularly bruising for the UK. We're adrift economically, there's a domestic political crisis that the PM has failed to tackle and will be dragged into kicking and screaming now that he's got dissent from within Labour itself and there's no end in sight.
I've said this before, I'm shocked as to how little homework Labour did in the run up to the election. They really seem to have thought that by not being the Tories they could magic up £150bn in additional corporate investment to fire up the economy. I really don't think they realised that raising taxes on businesses would tank economic growth because their utterances about going for growth but then also putting up NI by such a huge amount is diametrically opposed. It is the single most destructive tax on jobs and investment as companies claw back additional costs.
Add in to the equation Trump winning the POTUS and about to take office on a hugely inflationary budget, we have the perfect storm and an event on the 20th January with enormous worldwide implications
Reforms ascent may well continue, but also the trend across the west is towards right wing governments with only Starmer trying to stem the tide like Canute
I expect depressing times ahead for Labour and their supporters
Here's the thing though.
The rise of Reform may be bad for Labour. I certainly think it's bad for the country.
But it's a matter of life and death for the Conservatives. And at the moment, Conservatives don't seem to realise that following the talking points of the new right bubble (I hope that's neutral enough, it's not just That Thing) strengthens Reform at the Conservatives' expense.
The basic problem for the Tories is that their leader does not look "prime ministerial". Neither does Farage but that's not really such a problem for Reform. The Tory MPs mightily screwed up when they managed to exclude Cleverly. Kemi is William Hague mk 2 - very able, but simply not the right person for the times.
Would Cleverly be doing much better? He might have won a few more over from Labour but given Labour are already down to below 30% they have little further to be squeezed. Cleverly wouldn't have won over Reform voters anymore than Kemi is either.
Hague too did about as well as any Tory leader would have post 1997 as well, Clarke might have done a bit better but would still have lost heavily to Blair in 2001 and leaked more Tories to UKIP than Hague did
Cleverly I think would be doing much better by getting the basics right and have provided much more of a reset. Plus not doing the incredibly daft thing of repeating Reform's talking points when they don't make you look good either, and you know you can't go to the places they will.
Might not show up hugely differently now in polling now, but liable to create far fewer problems down the line instead of sugarrush opposition.
Badenoch's leadership to date is reminiscent of Ed Miliband but arguably worse. In that is following the same comfort zone strategy of ostensibly easy hits and going for your core vote and those who rejected you for what they believed were more radical options, without the logic that the Lib Dems were in government and there was that route to victory.
They're not going to win without convincing are both a serious government prepared to act with pragmatism, or the people who have rejected them they have fundamentally changed in important ways. Then they can look at tailoring some stuff to appeal Reform voters.
At the moment where do they end up in 2-3 years on this course? Still despised by those they used to have some appeal to but are appalled by populist right politics, or mistrusted by those holding on to nurse for fear of worse. Meanwhile, seen as not the real deal and a bit pathetic by those who actually want Reform or even the full fat far right Musk stuff.
I'm inclined to think that from (my view of) a Conservative point of view, someone needs to be a Plan B in case all the wheels fall off.
Front benchers such as Bobby Jenrick and Chris Philp seem to be me to be completely looping the loop, and the jury is still out on Kemi.
It may not work (personally, I hope it doesn't as I think a Tory party pandering-Right would be poisonous for UK politics), and in that case there needs to be someone left to pick up the pieces.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
Nah. We can’t make the weather any more a no shouldn’t try. We should sit back, asses what’s on our national interest (not the interest of the objectively “good”) and then do that.
And any article mentioning “the British Commonwealth” has shown it doesn’t understand the world.
I wish I could I agree with you, but I think we're too small to simply sit back without getting blown over.
As mentioned, the choice may eventually come down to real absorption into the U.S, or closer links with Europe.
If we’re “too small” then god help almost every other country on the planet.
Though I suppose there is logic in saying we’re in the unfortunate sweet spot of being a top ten nation and a nuclear power, too small to be unnoticed but not a superpower or part of a highly integrated block.
I still think you underestimate our ability to steer our own course, so long as we accept we can’t make the weather and sometimes we will be buffered by US/EU/Chinese economic decisions.
A reason to keep links with the U.S. and EU as fellow democracies where we can, of course; and to use emerging links with the likes of Japan and Korea, as well as the old ones with the likes of Can/Aus/Nz and the Arabs to build alliances and trade links as required.
The CP-TPP trade agreement is a good starting point for this, as is the AUKUS defence treaty.
Meanwhile, Europe - all of Europe, including you Ireland and you Switzerland - needs to up their defence game, and think smart and to the future in doing so. No 20-year projects, but lots of cheap stuff that can be made in months.
Wealth does not protect you from climate change is the message of the day.
Doubt Americans will listen though.
The only way we could meaningfully reduce carbon emissions enough to affect the climate in the next decade or so is nuclear war, otherwise they will continue to increase no matter what anybody in the west does.
But we've already meaningfully reduced carbon emissions, compared with a counterfactual where the world was still primarily operating on coal. Even China is 29% renewable now - we're on 42%.
Global CO2 emissions from coal are still growing. The climate doesn't care about counterfactuals.
Not least because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But it's all irrelevant, because the cost of solar panels continues to collapse.
Look at the amount of new solar being installed every year. And you know what? That stuff will keep generating power every year, without a single dollar being spent on it. That panel is a perpetual energy machine.
With coal, you need to dig it out the ground afresh every year. Plus, of course, coal fired power plants are maintenance nightmares.
And even ignoring the CO2, particulate emissions from coal kills millions.
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome to the People’s Republic of California.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
California's insurance regulations, and the problems they creat, go back a long way, to the time when it was a Republican state. (For example Prop 103 in 1988.)
As with their taxation system, much of it is constrained by Propositions, passed by popular ballot rather than legislators, which have been in place for many decades and are exceedingly hard to repeal.
No snow in London, but very very chilly, here. The house opposite is roaring with smoke from the chimney, and wifh long icicles hanging over a pipe, it all looks a bit of a Victorian scene.
I don't remember this kind of sustained cold here, for years.
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome to the People’s Republic of California.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
California's insurance regulations, and the problems they creat, go back a long way, to the time when it was a Republican state. (For example Prop 103 in 1988.)
As with their taxation system, much of it is constrained by Propositions, passed by popular ballot rather than legislators, which have been in place for many decades and are exceedingly hard to repeal.
California's insurance regulations have nothing to do with the elected politicians.
They the consequence of a system where politicians hands are tied by often contradictory ballot propositions.
Ballot propositions demand lower insurance rates, better schools, more money for the police, subsidies for electric vehicles, lower taxes, and a balanced budget. And politicians struggle to manage the state, knowing that courts will often overrule them on the basis they haven't been carrying out the will of voters, as determined by ballot propositions.
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome to the People’s Republic of California.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
California's insurance regulations, and the problems they creat, go back a long way, to the time when it was a Republican state. (For example Prop 103 in 1988.)
As with their taxation system, much of it is constrained by Propositions, passed by popular ballot rather than legislators, which have been in place for many decades and are exceedingly hard to repeal.
California's insurance regulations have nothing to do with the elected politicians.
They the consequence of a system where politicians hands are tied by often contradictory ballot propositions.
Ballot propositions demand lower insurance rates, better schools, more money for the police, subsidies for electric vehicles, lower taxes, and a balanced budget. And politicians struggle to manage the state, knowing that courts will often overrule them on the basis they haven't been carrying out the will of voters, as determined by ballot propositions.
Did I mention that oftentimes state level ballot propositions will directly contradict county and city level ones?
No snow in London, but very very chilly, here. The house opposite is roaring with smoke from the chimney, and wifh long icicles hanging over a pipe, it all looks a bit of a Victorian scene.
I don't remember this kind of sustained cold here, for years.
2010/11, I want to say, when it went down to about -9 and stayed there through the whole of December and a large chunk of January.
Ed Miliband remains the most dangerous man in the country.
How many billions are being paid to subsidise EVs, heat pumps, and insulation?
The rush to 2030 is unsustainable and extending the transition period is inevitable
All three reduce total energy usage. You can quibble with EVs and heat pumps on the basis the grid isn’t ready. Though oddly enough those who say the grid isn’t ready also seem to say we should stop investing in new renewable generation. Which would make it even less ready.
But insulation? It reduces waste. It reduces all domestic energy usage, whether electric or gas. There is no universe where more insulation isn’t a good thing.
I would argue that like the WFP many of these subsidies are going to the well off who can afford to pay for them, so maybe all these subsidies should be means tested
The vast majority of EVs and heat pumps are outside most people budgets, so frankly it is a bung that we cannot afford
Same applies to insulation and solar panels
I have both, plus a new A rated gas boiler and I paid for all of them without any help from my fellow taxpayers
These are questions that should be asked
It's hard to argue too much with heat pumps: they're amazingly efficient systems compared to what they replaced. Our electricity bill dropped by more than a third when we got rid of our old air conditioning units and replaced them with heat pumps. That they also heat efficiently is just a bonus.
The problem in the UK is that existing housing stock is not suited for heat pumps at all. We had a quote for our place, we were quoted tens of thousands for all of the necessary changes to the property plus the heat pump itself. We both decided it wasn't worth the hassle and we'll just hold onto our gas boiler until it craps out then switch to a three phase electric boiler.
We've got UK Power Networks coming to split the incoming supply between ourselves and our neighbour. We'll get the lesser supply as they have car charging. We're we to declare we would likely get heat pumps in the near future, the situation would be reversed.
Small example of the power network not being set up for this 'dash for solar' all the way from 400KV distribution up to the final cable from the edge of the curtilage. Seems politicians have great ideas but little concept of the realities on the (literal) ground.
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome to the People’s Republic of California.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
California's insurance regulations, and the problems they creat, go back a long way, to the time when it was a Republican state. (For example Prop 103 in 1988.)
As with their taxation system, much of it is constrained by Propositions, passed by popular ballot rather than legislators, which have been in place for many decades and are exceedingly hard to repeal.
California's insurance regulations have nothing to do with the elected politicians.
They the consequence of a system where politicians hands are tied by often contradictory ballot propositions.
Ballot propositions demand lower insurance rates, better schools, more money for the police, subsidies for electric vehicles, lower taxes, and a balanced budget. And politicians struggle to manage the state, knowing that courts will often overrule them on the basis they haven't been carrying out the will of voters, as determined by ballot propositions.
So who’s going to take the loss on thousands of burned-out but uninsured houses?
The individual residents/homeowners? - many of whom are well-known and have a loud voice. The banks that lent mortgages? - in which case no house in LA is ever getting a mortgage again. The City or County of LA? - can they afford it financially? The State of California? - can they afford it politically?
We know it won’t be the Federal government, if only becuase the incoming President has spoken several times about how LA was a massive fire waiting to happen because of mismanagement, and even under the current administration no more than token amounts of money were ever paid to disaster victims.
Is it not correct that LA has some of the highest property tax rates in the country, as well as some of the highest property prices?
Lots of lip-readers are having a good day. What are Obama and Trump laughing about?
Kamala Harris glaring at them too 😂😂😂😂
Not a good day for Harris, also blanked the Biden’s too.
Jill Biden and Kamala Harris clearly have quite the mutual dislike between them, that’s several times now they’ve had to put up with being seated next to each other at events. There’s definitely a book or two to be written about the White House in the summer of 2024. The Bidens don’t seem too bothered that Trump rather than Harris won the election.
OK, it is only the parliamentary sketch but this sort of language debases politics.
He did sound like a sort of overbearing headmaster type who is telling his pupils they know jack shit. The speed at which he spoke covered for extreme nervousness imho
Ed Miliband remains the most dangerous man in the country.
How many billions are being paid to subsidise EVs, heat pumps, and insulation?
The rush to 2030 is unsustainable and extending the transition period is inevitable
All three reduce total energy usage. You can quibble with EVs and heat pumps on the basis the grid isn’t ready. Though oddly enough those who say the grid isn’t ready also seem to say we should stop investing in new renewable generation. Which would make it even less ready.
But insulation? It reduces waste. It reduces all domestic energy usage, whether electric or gas. There is no universe where more insulation isn’t a good thing.
I would argue that like the WFP many of these subsidies are going to the well off who can afford to pay for them, so maybe all these subsidies should be means tested
The vast majority of EVs and heat pumps are outside most people budgets, so frankly it is a bung that we cannot afford
Same applies to insulation and solar panels
I have both, plus a new A rated gas boiler and I paid for all of them without any help from my fellow taxpayers
These are questions that should be asked
It's hard to argue too much with heat pumps: they're amazingly efficient systems compared to what they replaced. Our electricity bill dropped by more than a third when we got rid of our old air conditioning units and replaced them with heat pumps. That they also heat efficiently is just a bonus.
The problem in the UK is that existing housing stock is not suited for heat pumps at all. We had a quote for our place, we were quoted tens of thousands for all of the necessary changes to the property plus the heat pump itself. We both decided it wasn't worth the hassle and we'll just hold onto our gas boiler until it craps out then switch to a three phase electric boiler.
They'd be shit in my house.
I'm spending thousands of pounds for my family to be cold.
My pic for today. Solar has a further to go, as this farm in rural Spain shows. Passed it a couple of weeks ago. Relatively small footprint but quite an array. There was a connection to the local grid nearby.
Ed Miliband remains the most dangerous man in the country.
How many billions are being paid to subsidise EVs, heat pumps, and insulation?
The rush to 2030 is unsustainable and extending the transition period is inevitable
All three reduce total energy usage. You can quibble with EVs and heat pumps on the basis the grid isn’t ready. Though oddly enough those who say the grid isn’t ready also seem to say we should stop investing in new renewable generation. Which would make it even less ready.
But insulation? It reduces waste. It reduces all domestic energy usage, whether electric or gas. There is no universe where more insulation isn’t a good thing.
I would argue that like the WFP many of these subsidies are going to the well off who can afford to pay for them, so maybe all these subsidies should be means tested
The vast majority of EVs and heat pumps are outside most people budgets, so frankly it is a bung that we cannot afford
Same applies to insulation and solar panels
I have both, plus a new A rated gas boiler and I paid for all of them without any help from my fellow taxpayers
These are questions that should be asked
It's hard to argue too much with heat pumps: they're amazingly efficient systems compared to what they replaced. Our electricity bill dropped by more than a third when we got rid of our old air conditioning units and replaced them with heat pumps. That they also heat efficiently is just a bonus.
The problem in the UK is that existing housing stock is not suited for heat pumps at all. We had a quote for our place, we were quoted tens of thousands for all of the necessary changes to the property plus the heat pump itself. We both decided it wasn't worth the hassle and we'll just hold onto our gas boiler until it craps out then switch to a three phase electric boiler.
They'd be shit in my house.
I'm spending thousands of pounds for my family to be cold.
But how is Ed Miliband supposed to meet his Net Zero targets, if your family are allowed to be warm in winter? You should be buying more jumpers and be damn happy he lets you have any heating at all.
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We should have done this from the 1960s onwards rather than pursue fantasies of a federal Europe.
Canada is one of the most socially advanced countries in the world, and I'm a big supporter of closer links with it too, but the reality now is the support of the combined Franco-German economic and military heft is greater, and needed by us.
Ed Miliband remains the most dangerous man in the country.
How many billions are being paid to subsidise EVs, heat pumps, and insulation?
The rush to 2030 is unsustainable and extending the transition period is inevitable
All three reduce total energy usage. You can quibble with EVs and heat pumps on the basis the grid isn’t ready. Though oddly enough those who say the grid isn’t ready also seem to say we should stop investing in new renewable generation. Which would make it even less ready.
But insulation? It reduces waste. It reduces all domestic energy usage, whether electric or gas. There is no universe where more insulation isn’t a good thing.
I would argue that like the WFP many of these subsidies are going to the well off who can afford to pay for them, so maybe all these subsidies should be means tested
The vast majority of EVs and heat pumps are outside most people budgets, so frankly it is a bung that we cannot afford
Same applies to insulation and solar panels
I have both, plus a new A rated gas boiler and I paid for all of them without any help from my fellow taxpayers
These are questions that should be asked
It's hard to argue too much with heat pumps: they're amazingly efficient systems compared to what they replaced. Our electricity bill dropped by more than a third when we got rid of our old air conditioning units and replaced them with heat pumps. That they also heat efficiently is just a bonus.
The problem in the UK is that existing housing stock is not suited for heat pumps at all. We had a quote for our place, we were quoted tens of thousands for all of the necessary changes to the property plus the heat pump itself. We both decided it wasn't worth the hassle and we'll just hold onto our gas boiler until it craps out then switch to a three phase electric boiler.
We've got UK Power Networks coming to split the incoming supply between ourselves and our neighbour. We'll get the lesser supply as they have car charging. We're we to declare we would likely get heat pumps in the near future, the situation would be reversed.
Small example of the power network not being set up for this 'dash for solar' all the way from 400KV distribution up to the final cable from the edge of the curtilage. Seems politicians have great ideas but little concept of the realities on the (literal) ground.
That sounds unreasonable TBH, and a pain in the long term.
Why not install your own charge point whilst partial grants are still available?
One problem may be that if you need to upgrade it later, you could in some circumstances be "eligible" to pay part of the cost of upgrading the supply - since at that point an upgrade will be for your benefit alone.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We should have done this from the 1960s onwards rather than pursue fantasies of a federal Europe.
Canada is one of the most socially advanced countries in the world, and I'm a big supporter of closer links with it too, but the reality now is the support of the combined Franco-German economic and military heft is greater, and needed by us.
Do you actually understand how deep in the shit France and Germany are ?
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We should have done this from the 1960s onwards rather than pursue fantasies of a federal Europe.
Canada is one of the most socially advanced countries in the world, and I'm a big supporter of closer links with it too, but the reality now is the support of the combined Franco-German economic and military heft is greater, and needed by us.
Do you actually understand how deep in the shit France and Germany are ?
Indeed, just like us. But they also have a much larger combined economy, military, and population, and France is also a genuine ndependent nuclear power, unlike ourselves. We need their co-operation.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
The US has been in de facto control of the UK and Canada (and to an extent the EU) for decades.
And it now parts of it want full, untramelled control.
Untramelled control is the type of control it has at present. As we were discussing a couple of weeks ago, if Britain were to become the 51st state (or the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th) we would have comparatively more rights within the US structure than we do at present. At the moment all it takes is a Skype from the President to the PM. Don't get me wrong, I don’t want either situation, but those are the facts.
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We should have done this from the 1960s onwards rather than pursue fantasies of a federal Europe.
Canada is one of the most socially advanced countries in the world, and I'm a big supporter of closer links with it too, but the reality now is the support of the combined Franco-German economic and military heft is greater, and needed by us.
Do you actually understand how deep in the shit France and Germany are ?
Indeed, just like us. But they also have a much larger combined economy, military, and population, and France is also a genuine ndependent nuclear power, unlike ourselves. We need their co-operation.
France will never cooperate with us as long as Macron is in power.
The future Europe is likely to be dominated by three women on the Right - Meloni, LePen and Weidel.
The hamstrung Commission will contribute little and nation states will be focussed on sorting their own problems out. We need to do the same but have had governments this century who screw things up.
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We should have done this from the 1960s onwards rather than pursue fantasies of a federal Europe.
Canada is one of the most socially advanced countries in the world, and I'm a big supporter of closer links with it too, but the reality now is the support of the combined Franco-German economic and military heft is greater, and needed by us.
Do you actually understand how deep in the shit France and Germany are ?
Indeed, just like us. But they also have a much larger combined economy, military, and population, and France is also a genuine ndependent nuclear power, unlike ourselves. We need their co-operation.
France will never cooperate with us as long as Macron is in power.
The future Europe is likely to be dominated by three women on the Right - Meloni, LePen and Weidel.
The hamstrung Commission will contribute little and nation states will be focussed on sorting their own problems out. We need to do the same but have had governments this century who screw things up.
Macron was at Chequers with Starmer, just yesterday, discussing closer links. What that will amount to yet, I don't know, but the two men do have a certain amount in common.
No snow in London, but very very chilly, here. The house opposite is roaring with smoke from the chimney, and wifh long icicles hanging over a pipe, it all looks a bit of a Victorian scene.
I don't remember this kind of sustained cold here, for years.
Don't worry, somebody will be along from the Smokeless Zone Enforcement Team to put a hose down that chimney.
"Put that fire out out! Don't you know there's a war on carbon?"
I first mooted the idea of an Anglo-Canadian community on here in April 2022 as liberal and democratic hedge against an increasingly illiberal USA.
We should have done this from the 1960s onwards rather than pursue fantasies of a federal Europe.
Canada is one of the most socially advanced countries in the world, and I'm a big supporter of closer links with it too, but the reality now is the support of the combined Franco-German economic and military heft is greater, and needed by us.
Do you actually understand how deep in the shit France and Germany are ?
Indeed, just like us. But they also have a much larger combined economy, military, and population, and France is also a genuine ndependent nuclear power, unlike ourselves. We need their co-operation.
France will never cooperate with us as long as Macron is in power.
The future Europe is likely to be dominated by three women on the Right - Meloni, LePen and Weidel.
The hamstrung Commission will contribute little and nation states will be focussed on sorting their own problems out. We need to do the same but have had governments this century who screw things up.
Macron was at Chequers with Starmer, just yesterday, discussing closer links. What that will amount to yet, I don't know, but the two men do have a certain amount in common.
Thats Macron seeing what he can get from the UK when it suits him, it's not cooperaion.
This seems to be a new publication, but the line of thinking of this article, shared quite widely on different social media sites, seems fairly reasonable.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
The US has been in de facto control of the UK and Canada (and to an extent the EU) for decades.
And it now parts of it want full, untramelled control.
Untramelled control is the type of control it has at present. As we were discussing a couple of weeks ago, if Britain were to become the 51st state (or the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th) we would have comparatively more rights within the US structure than we do at present. At the moment all it takes is a Skype from the President to the PM. Don't get me wrong, I don’t want either situation, but those are the facts.
No. We still have very different policies on guns, healthcare, welfare and monarchy, and those would all go or change if we became a state of the U.S.
Just been reading up on the California fire insurance comedy.
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests.... 2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices... 3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome to the People’s Republic of California.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
California's insurance regulations, and the problems they creat, go back a long way, to the time when it was a Republican state. (For example Prop 103 in 1988.)
As with their taxation system, much of it is constrained by Propositions, passed by popular ballot rather than legislators, which have been in place for many decades and are exceedingly hard to repeal.
California's insurance regulations have nothing to do with the elected politicians.
They the consequence of a system where politicians hands are tied by often contradictory ballot propositions.
Ballot propositions demand lower insurance rates, better schools, more money for the police, subsidies for electric vehicles, lower taxes, and a balanced budget. And politicians struggle to manage the state, knowing that courts will often overrule them on the basis they haven't been carrying out the will of voters, as determined by ballot propositions.
Did I mention that oftentimes state level ballot propositions will directly contradict county and city level ones?
In the novel Friday, Heinlein speculates that (in the future) these contradictory ballot propositions will have led to a collapse in the government of California.
It still exists, but is so silly and contradictory that it is more of a carnival sideshow than anything.
House here in the Lakes (snow outside and -3) has a heat pump, oodles of insulation, efficient glazing, UFH and solar panels, with more to come + battery. There is no gas here.
Works v well and our baths and showers are hot. But the house was effectively rebuilt from scratch. Retrofitting on existing houses without other changes is a very different exercise.
Mind you, we are both old-fashioned enough to wear vests, snoods and wrist warmers in cold weather, as well.
Comments
https://www.statista.com/statistics/784682/worldwide-co2-emissions-from-coal/
“I know windmills very much."
“If it doesn’t blow, you can forget about television for that night.”
"If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill, because it’s a very sad, sad sight. It’s like a cemetery. We put a little statue for the poor birds."
“The windmills are driving the whales crazy."
"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations: Your house just went down 75% in value."
"They say the noise causes cancer."
“I never understood wind."
(But some here will still defend him.)
1) Regulate the maximum prices for fire insurance. Because people hate expensive insurance. So the rates are apparently about 1/3rd of a floating rate. So people can build wooden houses in forests....
2) fail to regulate the insurers who will insure at these rates. Yes, strangely low on assets, or even offices...
3) A state run backup with only 200 million in the kitty. Which when it fails, puts the burden on the all the private insurers in the state....
What could possibly go wrong?
But it's all irrelevant, because the cost of solar panels continues to collapse.
Look at the amount of new solar being installed every year. And you know what? That stuff will keep generating power every year, without a single dollar being spent on it. That panel is a perpetual energy machine.
With coal, you need to dig it out the ground afresh every year. Plus, of course, coal fired power plants are maintenance nightmares.
"The U.S. is now in full.imperial mode
The U.K. and the E.U must lead the resistance."
https://tomorrowsaffairs.com/category/politics
Voters continually vote for very dumb things: and insurance is one of the areas where regulation by referendum results is most dumb.
(Let's have a ballot proposition making sure there's more competition in the market to drive prices down! Oh, and we don't want to pay too much for the backup because that gets added to our bills, so let's have a ballot proposition on it!)
https://twitterwrapped.exa.ai/
Are there no limits? No check that the proposition is possible? How does one get one on the ballot? Could a politician have it voted through that black = white?
And any article mentioning “the British Commonwealth” has shown it doesn’t understand the world.
I see Reform as a clear and present danger, and in that case however I don't see the Tories troubling anyone.
Roberts and Coney Barrett vote with the three Liberals.
A reminder never to be too certain what might happen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2v2exxn72o
As mentioned, the choice may eventually come down to real absorption into the U.S, or closer links with Europe.
Though I suppose there is logic in saying we’re in the unfortunate sweet spot of being a top ten nation and a nuclear power, too small to be unnoticed but not a superpower or part of a highly integrated block.
I still think you underestimate our ability to steer our own course, so long as we accept we can’t make the weather and sometimes we will be buffered by US/EU/Chinese economic decisions.
A reason to keep links with the U.S. and EU as fellow democracies where we can, of course; and to use emerging links with the likes of Japan and Korea, as well as the old ones with the likes of Can/Aus/Nz and the Arabs to build alliances and trade links as required.
He has a bit of human sympathy, but the proposal is nuts.
eg the Net Zero House building regulations coming in in 2025-26 are framed such that the changes will achieve the majority of the saving, and it will roll upto net zero as electricity supply is decarbonised.
As a first step, the EU and UK could contemplate setting up their own version of BRICS, such groups seem to be in vogue anyway. The new grouping could include all the countries directly threatened by the new Moscow-Washington power axis, to begin with the EU-27, the UK, Ukraine, Canada and Mexico.
Might not show up hugely differently now in polling now, but liable to create far fewer problems down the line instead of sugarrush opposition.
Badenoch's leadership to date is reminiscent of Ed Miliband but arguably worse. In that is following the same comfort zone strategy of ostensibly easy hits and going for your core vote and those who rejected you for what they believed were more radical options, without the logic that the Lib Dems were in government and there was that route to victory.
They're not going to win without convincing are both a serious government prepared to act with pragmatism, or the people who have rejected them they have fundamentally changed in important ways. Then they can look at tailoring some stuff to appeal Reform voters.
At the moment where do they end up in 2-3 years on this course? Still despised by those they used to have some appeal to but are appalled by populist right politics, or mistrusted by those holding on to nurse for fear of worse. Meanwhile, seen as not the real deal and a bit pathetic by those who actually want Reform or even the full fat far right Musk stuff.
Obviously, if a real Washington-Misxow axis emerges, there may be no choice, but it may be more subtle.
Let's wait and see.
The risk for the UK is protecting its own democracy from the backwash as the U.S. increasingly heads down a route of oligarchy.
Countries in broadly similar positions, and with whom we ought to be collaborating include many in the EU, Australia/NZ, and yes, Canada.
The values of those core counties are aligned. As is the language and the legal tradition.
While the Chancellor is China-bound, Darren Jones and his attendant toads prove themselves the smug embodiment of ‘they don’t get it’ Labour
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/09/rachel-reeves-darren-jones-starmer-labour-economy/ (£££)
OK, it is only the parliamentary sketch but this sort of language debases politics.
Whoever might have thought that government regulating the price that can be charged for insurance, would see insurance companies exit the market rather than accept the losses, a decision proven to be absolutely the right one by events of this week?
So now we have a State-backed scheme with at best 1% of the funds it needs to pay for the damage caused by these fires, the political fallout is going to be fun to watch. Presumably the banks that advanced billions in mortgages on property are going to be suing the arse out of everyone involved in the State insurance scheme.
Just feel terribly sorry for all of the people caught in the middle, many of whom have lost their houses and contents and will have to rebuild from scratch, no doubt accompanied by months of wrangling over the cleanup and planning process. Oh, and being Hollywood, there’s going to be a fair few people with a high public profile affected, who can make a lot of noise. In Maui, Hawaii, where they had fires last year, there’s still no rebuilding started yet.
He’s out of sponsors so is trying to get the council to put in the effort, to the tune of millions which they understandably don’t want to do! Landfill sites are carefully designed and managed to avoid waste gases and liquids contaminating the environment, it’s not a simple task to go searching through one.
Front benchers such as Bobby Jenrick and Chris Philp seem to be me to be completely looping the loop, and the jury is still out on Kemi.
It may not work (personally, I hope it doesn't as I think a Tory party pandering-Right would be poisonous for UK politics), and in that case there needs to be someone left to pick up the pieces.
That could be Cleverly, and a few others.
Meanwhile, Europe - all of Europe, including you Ireland and you Switzerland - needs to up their defence game, and think smart and to the future in doing so. No 20-year projects, but lots of cheap stuff that can be made in months.
https://x.com/villagewest14/status/1877376199418384649
Lots of lip-readers are having a good day. What are Obama and Trump laughing about?
Glad it's a still day. Weather (BBC) reckons -10C, feeling like -15C. The snow's frozen solid, but luckily it's not as bad as walking on ice.
(For example Prop 103 in 1988.)
As with their taxation system, much of it is constrained by Propositions, passed by popular ballot rather than legislators, which have been in place for many decades and are exceedingly hard to repeal.
I don't remember this kind of sustained cold here, for years.
They the consequence of a system where politicians hands are tied by often contradictory ballot propositions.
Ballot propositions demand lower insurance rates, better schools, more money for the police, subsidies for electric vehicles, lower taxes, and a balanced budget. And politicians struggle to manage the state, knowing that courts will often overrule them on the basis they haven't been carrying out the will of voters, as determined by ballot propositions.
Small example of the power network not being set up for this 'dash for solar' all the way from 400KV distribution up to the final cable from the edge of the curtilage. Seems politicians have great ideas but little concept of the realities on the (literal) ground.
Not a good day for Harris, also blanked the Biden’s too.
The individual residents/homeowners? - many of whom are well-known and have a loud voice.
The banks that lent mortgages? - in which case no house in LA is ever getting a mortgage again.
The City or County of LA? - can they afford it financially?
The State of California? - can they afford it politically?
We know it won’t be the Federal government, if only becuase the incoming President has spoken several times about how LA was a massive fire waiting to happen because of mismanagement, and even under the current administration no more than token amounts of money were ever paid to disaster victims.
Is it not correct that LA has some of the highest property tax rates in the country, as well as some of the highest property prices?
How many fanbois of his are let on here?
"Musk trying to oust Starmer as he believes 'Western civilisation is threatened'"
Canada is well and good, but we fairly urgently need some form of closer co-operation with Europe, to have any hope of retaining some autonomy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14268969/Elon-Musk-pushing-oust-Keir-Starmer-claims.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton
I'm spending thousands of pounds for my family to be cold.
Why not install your own charge point whilst partial grants are still available?
One problem may be that if you need to upgrade it later, you could in some circumstances be "eligible" to pay part of the cost of upgrading the supply - since at that point an upgrade will be for your benefit alone.
The future Europe is likely to be dominated by three women on the Right - Meloni, LePen and Weidel.
The hamstrung Commission will contribute little and nation states will be focussed on sorting their own problems out. We need to do the same but have had governments this century who screw things up.
What that will amount to yet, I don't know, but the two men do have a certain amount in common.
"Put that fire out out! Don't you know there's a war on carbon?"
https://x.com/popbase/status/1877549891565617184
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1877562311960867002
NEW THREAD
https://www.westyorksfire.gov.uk/news/man-jailed-following-serious-fire-marsden-moor
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/arsonist-mohammed-zulkifl-sentenced-starting-16800857
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/two-men-charged-arson-after-19704740
etc.
It still exists, but is so silly and contradictory that it is more of a carnival sideshow than anything.