Did they reimburse the government for the £500k of legal expenses that they blew on that disciplinary fiasco involving Salmond? I rather thought that they hadn't.
Declared legal fees were £156k - (which is half the deficit), so it appears not.
Exponential is a very scary concept when facing a virus. If you start with 1 and have doubling every week can you guess how many weeks before the number is: a) Greater than the UK population b) Greater than the world population. ANSWERS at bottom of post.
Once a country loses control of the virus, the pandemic will knock over the hospitals / health service and crash the economy. Underestimate this at your peril. I am not one of those who think we should focus on protecting the economy. I think that the best way to help the economy is to go very hard against the virus. One thing that would help is to move life outdoors as much possible. In much of the country you can have a group of 6 indoors. I think this is a terrible mistake.
ANSWERS (Hope my maths is correct) 26 weeks = 67,108,864 33 weeks = 8,589,934,592
Ten doublings is about a thousand (1024 to be exact) is an excellent approximation to use for that sort of question. So ten weeks to a thousand, twenty to a million, thirty to a billion and so on.
Like amoeba reproduction - in just a few weeks they'll occupy all known space. Scary or what?
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
It's been a bit Biden-leaning throughout but to be honest if there is going to be a surprise next week I'd expect to see some evidence of it by now and I see very little.
What I am expecting is for the Betfair price to nosedive at some point, maybe when the heavy hitters move in closer to the day.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Shame that in the real world the market is catastrophically failing. Having been assured by free-marketeers that "greed is good", it turns out that greed is leading us to potentially the worst disaster in human history.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
It's been a bit Biden-leaning throughout but to be honest if there is going to be a surprise next week I'd expect to see some evidence of it by now and I see very little.
What I am expecting is for the Betfair price to nosedive at some point, maybe when the heavy hitters move in closer to the day.
Don't you mean "if there is going to be a surprise next week I wouldn't expect to see some evidence of it by now"?
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Shame that in the real world the market is catastrophically failing. Having been assured by free-marketeers that "greed is good", it turns out that greed is leading us to potentially the worst disaster in human history.
But yes to carbon taxes!
The market is not catastrophically failing and the market hasn't led to "potentially the worst disaster in human history". Humanity is emitting emissions whether they have a market economy or any other type of economy, the market is not and never was the problem.
The market though is developing the solutions. The solutions, the technology is being developed across the free world and will be exported to the rest of the world.
Ref: Exponential. The reason I posted was because I think that many people (possibly including our government) do not understand exponential. Of course continued doubling of the virus cannot happen in real life for many periods. (Not sure how long doubling is currently taking.) Many people can grasp linear growth but struggle with exponential growth. They are not the same thing.
The problem is not that people struggle with exponential growth but that it doesn't happen in the real world over anything but very short periods. The reasons for this are obvious when you think about it. Once everyone in a care home is infected who else do they infect? There are endless such "dead ends" well short of overall herd immunity. People also respond to a perceived threat so we had lockdowns, increased hygiene and other protections which reduce the efficacy of transmission.
What is needed is more sophisticated modelling that can account for the various countermeasures that are taken so that we can get the R rate below 1. That means that we need to know what works, what doesn't and how well any particular step works. We are still at the total guessing stage for this as far as I can see. We also need an effective track and trace system to increase the number of dead ends. Its deeply frustrating how poor the effort on this has been despite the money thrown at it but as @MaxPB was pointing out (again) this morning this is the only way to ultimately win, especially if vaccines prove to have limited efficacy.
I mentioned yesterday that, out of the top 10 TX counties by population, the top two counties with the highest early voting rates were both Trump strongholds in 2016. There could be several explanations for this but one is that Republicans may be very motivated to vote (and white non-college voters typically have lower voting rates). Conversely, heavily Hispanic counties were not seeing a surge in early voting.
There could be several explanations, and I'm not sure there's a very good way of telling until the actual result ?
It's worth pointing out that those two (Collin and Denton) together are only the same size as the fourth largest county by population, and although Trump won both by about 20 points, the gap was less than half that two years ago, for O'Rourke. Do all the extra voters this year skew Republican, and if so, by how much ?
It will be interesting to see how the state polling holds up in the face of what might be a record turnout.
The early turnout figures posted downthread look pretty tough for the dems for me.
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
There is the big caveat that we don't know how much is pull forward in terms of the votes and what represents new votes plus how independents split. But Nevada is one of those states where you usually have a very good feel as to the outcome from the early votes.
There is also the question of rejected mail-in ballots. Mrs Ed did her mail-in ballot for California and, on three separate occasions, she could have easily invalidated her vote because the instructions were unclear. One of the responses to the Ralston's tweet mentioned a lot of mail-in ballots in Clark were being cured because they didn't meet the signature requirements (which is why I think the Trump campaign has been focusing so much on court cases over Clark County mail-in ballots, namely to make sure they are not accepted).
Several posts from you a day suggest you are supportive of voter suppression, you luxuriate in it. It really is a sinister element to your online 'personality'.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
If Trump gets the election into the courts, he wins. The reaction to that in the US will, of course, be deeply unpleasant and probably very violent, but it will be interesting to see how the rest of the world handles it. Will countries recognise a victory secured on the back of decisions made by highly partisan judges - especially when these are likely to cause significant financial and economic hardships well beyond America's borders?
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
What you're saying has happened in this country though. Sane climate change mitigation has been depoliticised, which is part of what drives the far left so crazy is because this country actually has a fantastic record on climate change - but they can't admit that or give us credit.
The transformation in our power generation over the past decade from 2010 to 2020 is nothing short of remarkable, even the most optimistic of climate change activists wouldn't have realistically thought we'd have essentially eliminated coal and be routinely getting a majority of power from renewables in only one decade then.
From cars to electricity to heating and everything that matters people are acting in environmentally sound ways and the transformation is simply happening - while keeping capitalism not dumping it. Hence the ever louder screechings by loonies like XR attacking clean electric public transport because climate change means clean electric public transport should be attacked apparently. 🙄
The RedGreen types are absolutely horrified by the prospect of a net zero carbon economy.
People say this, but I've been a member of the Green Party, I'm left-wing, I was arguing in favour of wind power on here back when Labour were in government and all the PB Tories were telling me they didn't work, and it's not a description I recognise.
There's perhaps a certain degree of cynicism about green-washing which obscures the reality that new capitalists replace old ones at a time of technological transition, so they find it hard to imagine it happening.
But I've never come across anyone on the Green Left who wouldn't be delighted if it happened. And there are plenty other ways that capitalism is dumping on the environment.
They are quite outspoken - I am rather surprised you haven't encountered them.
A friend got chased out of the Green party (was a parish councillor) by them. He was a Technological Green - a scientist, he had a list of solutions to each part of the Global Warming/CO2. His branch became very RedGreen - and they denounced him at every opportunity for not being anti-technology.
Although I disagree with your implication that pro-technology and capitalist are equivalent, I do agree that there is a rough distinction (in the UK at least) between Greens whose motivations and solutions are driven by science, and those who are driven by, erm how can I put it, by politics. An example of the split was the reaction to David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air". Many Greens rubbished the whole book based on the fact that part of it advocated using nuclear power. Rather than attempting to discuss the scientific details in the book, it was dismissed by many based on the opinion "nuclear is bad".
It's been a bit Biden-leaning throughout but to be honest if there is going to be a surprise next week I'd expect to see some evidence of it by now and I see very little.
What I am expecting is for the Betfair price to nosedive at some point, maybe when the heavy hitters move in closer to the day.
Don't you mean "if there is going to be a surprise next week I wouldn't expect to see some evidence of it by now"?
Correct Geoffrey. Please collect your Pedantry Award on the way out.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
The early turnout figures posted downthread look pretty tough for the dems for me.
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
There is the big caveat that we don't know how much is pull forward in terms of the votes and what represents new votes plus how independents split. But Nevada is one of those states where you usually have a very good feel as to the outcome from the early votes.
There is also the question of rejected mail-in ballots. Mrs Ed did her mail-in ballot for California and, on three separate occasions, she could have easily invalidated her vote because the instructions were unclear. One of the responses to the Ralston's tweet mentioned a lot of mail-in ballots in Clark were being cured because they didn't meet the signature requirements (which is why I think the Trump campaign has been focusing so much on court cases over Clark County mail-in ballots, namely to make sure they are not accepted).
Several posts from you a day suggest you are supportive of voter suppression, you luxuriate in it. It really is a sinister element to your online 'personality'.
It's one of the most disgusting* elements of the Trump campaign. Elections in Russia are better run than this one. The reason Putin wins by so much is because there's only his brand out and about. 85 -> 90% of republicans will stick with Trump at this election I think. If you're the only major brand in a country, no matter how bad you'll win due to the same phenomenon.
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Did they reimburse the government for the £500k of legal expenses that they blew on that disciplinary fiasco involving Salmond? I rather thought that they hadn't.
Declared legal fees were £156k - (which is half the deficit), so it appears not.
I'm amazed. Shocked and amazed.
More important , where is the £700K donated and supposedly ringfenced for referendum only.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
The property rights that can deal with environmental degradation and climate change are patents. They give businesses the incentive to invest in the R&D that will lead to the solutions we need. When the Tories were a pro-business party, they understood this. Now, though, populism combined with Cummings' data obsession means they have lost sight of it. You are seeing something similar in the US on both sides of the aisle, thanks largely to huge lobbying spends by Silicon Valley tech giants who see strong patents as a threat to their dominance. Ironically, China - where patents remain highly valued assets - may prove to the exception to the rue that delivers us the answers we need.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
That`s a superb post. Proper environmentalists - that is, deep ecologists - recognise the intrinsic value of nature and they despair over the annihilation of the planet, its flora,fauna and geology, by a strain of just one species: post agricultural revolution homo sapiens. Many such ecologists have given up.
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
Omaha will go for Biden.
Trump sure didn't help his own cause by turning up there.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
Omaha will go for Biden.
Would then be 270-268 in Biden's favour?
Unless Trump wins New Hampshire which is certainly possible, I think though the likeliest Biden pickups now are Wisconsin then NE02 then Arizona with Florida more likely to go to him than Michigan or Pennsylvania, making the Sunshine State the new tipping point state
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
I'm not saying the market doesn't work, I'm saying that taxation is a leftwards solution, and enforceable supranational regulations is another leftwards solution that would be necessary component of the traditional rightwards solution (property rights).
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
What you're saying has happened in this country though. Sane climate change mitigation has been depoliticised, which is part of what drives the far left so crazy is because this country actually has a fantastic record on climate change - but they can't admit that or give us credit.
The transformation in our power generation over the past decade from 2010 to 2020 is nothing short of remarkable, even the most optimistic of climate change activists wouldn't have realistically thought we'd have essentially eliminated coal and be routinely getting a majority of power from renewables in only one decade then.
From cars to electricity to heating and everything that matters people are acting in environmentally sound ways and the transformation is simply happening - while keeping capitalism not dumping it. Hence the ever louder screechings by loonies like XR attacking clean electric public transport because climate change means clean electric public transport should be attacked apparently. 🙄
The RedGreen types are absolutely horrified by the prospect of a net zero carbon economy.
People say this, but I've been a member of the Green Party, I'm left-wing, I was arguing in favour of wind power on here back when Labour were in government and all the PB Tories were telling me they didn't work, and it's not a description I recognise.
There's perhaps a certain degree of cynicism about green-washing which obscures the reality that new capitalists replace old ones at a time of technological transition, so they find it hard to imagine it happening.
But I've never come across anyone on the Green Left who wouldn't be delighted if it happened. And there are plenty other ways that capitalism is dumping on the environment.
They are quite outspoken - I am rather surprised you haven't encountered them.
A friend got chased out of the Green party (was a parish councillor) by them. He was a Technological Green - a scientist, he had a list of solutions to each part of the Global Warming/CO2. His branch became very RedGreen - and they denounced him at every opportunity for not being anti-technology.
Although I disagree with your implication that pro-technology and capitalist are equivalent, I do agree that there is a rough distinction (in the UK at least) between Greens whose motivations and solutions are driven by science, and those who are driven by, erm how can I put it, by politics. An example of the split was the reaction to David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air". Many Greens rubbished the whole book based on the fact that part of it advocated using nuclear power. Rather than attempting to discuss the scientific details in the book, it was dismissed by many based on the opinion "nuclear is bad".
It was a great loss that he died so young. His book is available free to download. His father Donald MacKay had some explosive debates with Antony Flew which I witnessed.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
This is exactly the approach that I, as an environmentalist of the political centre, have been advocating for the past couple of decades. The main opposition has been not from the left, but from those of the right who refuse to countenance any new taxes. It's good to see that they are finally coming round to my opinion, though sooner would have been better!
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
I see that cotnrary to my post yesterday the ONS, NRS and NISRA weekly deaths figures are actually running above 2 week doubling - I had used just the ONS figure for the latest week not the combined UK figure. Latest week in the figures is 60% above the week before. The previous weeks has been a steady ~42% increase each week.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
Ads at this stage with less than a week to go will not make much difference, virtually everyone has made up their mind, what is more important now is rallies to fire up your base and get them out to vote and the Trump campaign has again been ensuring everyone who attends a Trump rally is registered to go out and vote next Tuesday.
Harris and Trump will be in Arizona later today
Of course leaving your supporters abandoned at the venue is not the best way to end it of course. Someone had a massive brain fart when arranging the transport
I doubt a few bus problems in Omaha will make much difference, even if Biden wins NE02 it is only 1 EC vote
I have always found political campaigns (no matter what party) to be very impressive considering what is required, I guess because people are very motivated. There can be no excuse about a 1 day delay; your target date is set in stone.
Every campaign has cockups but generally they do much better than can reasonably be expected.
There is a shedload of work involved, for sure. Even a humble little ward local council election campaign can, if managed properly, generate a serious amount of work; to mount something like a US presidential must involve a lot of professional (and expensive) project management.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
What you're saying has happened in this country though. Sane climate change mitigation has been depoliticised, which is part of what drives the far left so crazy is because this country actually has a fantastic record on climate change - but they can't admit that or give us credit.
The transformation in our power generation over the past decade from 2010 to 2020 is nothing short of remarkable, even the most optimistic of climate change activists wouldn't have realistically thought we'd have essentially eliminated coal and be routinely getting a majority of power from renewables in only one decade then.
From cars to electricity to heating and everything that matters people are acting in environmentally sound ways and the transformation is simply happening - while keeping capitalism not dumping it. Hence the ever louder screechings by loonies like XR attacking clean electric public transport because climate change means clean electric public transport should be attacked apparently. 🙄
The RedGreen types are absolutely horrified by the prospect of a net zero carbon economy.
People say this, but I've been a member of the Green Party, I'm left-wing, I was arguing in favour of wind power on here back when Labour were in government and all the PB Tories were telling me they didn't work, and it's not a description I recognise.
There's perhaps a certain degree of cynicism about green-washing which obscures the reality that new capitalists replace old ones at a time of technological transition, so they find it hard to imagine it happening.
But I've never come across anyone on the Green Left who wouldn't be delighted if it happened. And there are plenty other ways that capitalism is dumping on the environment.
They are quite outspoken - I am rather surprised you haven't encountered them.
A friend got chased out of the Green party (was a parish councillor) by them. He was a Technological Green - a scientist, he had a list of solutions to each part of the Global Warming/CO2. His branch became very RedGreen - and they denounced him at every opportunity for not being anti-technology.
Although I disagree with your implication that pro-technology and capitalist are equivalent, I do agree that there is a rough distinction (in the UK at least) between Greens whose motivations and solutions are driven by science, and those who are driven by, erm how can I put it, by politics. An example of the split was the reaction to David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air". Many Greens rubbished the whole book based on the fact that part of it advocated using nuclear power. Rather than attempting to discuss the scientific details in the book, it was dismissed by many based on the opinion "nuclear is bad".
The split is, ironically (for a party where the eco systems are valued), between those who understand that human culture is another complex, non-linear system and those who want to impose linear solutions.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
Omaha will go for Biden.
Would then be 270-268 in Biden's favour?
Unless Trump wins New Hampshire which is certainly possible, I think though the likeliest Biden pickups now are Wisconsin then Arizona and then NE02 with Florida more likely to go to him than Michigan or Pennsylvania, making the Sunshine State the new tipping point state
Trump's behind by more than 11pts in NH so I think scenario is quite unlikely.
@Philip_Thompson one piece of solar that people should consider in this country is solar thermal. Even in Scotland it can provide almost all of your hot water needs throughout most of the year, with the exception of the coldest winter months. All from 1 or 2 panels on your roof.
Oh indeed solar isn't a complete write off. If I was getting a new build home I'd certainly consider looking into the feasibility of solar panels and some form of storage to see how economic it might be.
But the simples maths are that solar works best in summer and demand is massively higher in winter. Solar is OK as far as displacing coal or gas is concerned, but for a long-term net zero solution we need a solution we can rely upon over the winter and that is not going to be solar in this country.
The really important word here is "displacing". Displacing the use of coal or gas to another part of the world has no impact on global warming at all. The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is completely independent from how much energy is produced by solar or by wind. Herein lies a huge problem, that the demand for energy, if it were free financialy and environmentally, is more or less infinite. By producing another 1TWh using renewables does not mean that 1TWh less worth of coal will be burnt. It does mean that the price of coal and oil will drop, but it will be bought and it will be burnt somewhere in the world. It is only once the price drops so much that it becomes economically unviable to extract the raw material, that increasing the supply of renewables will reduce the global usage of coal/gas.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
Sorry, my cynicism about the pollsters [Langer Assocs] who recorded +17 Biden for Wisconsin was unjustified. It seems they fly under the ABCNews/Washington Post flag and are A rated, so maybe they have picked something up.
By way of apology I will point out that you can still buy free money on the Betfair State betting for Wisconsin at about 33p per pound. Looks a decent buy to me.
Edit: Btw, I see Silver [Nate, not Long John] has dropped Trump's chances to 11% - or 8/1 in traditional bookies terms. Frankly I've backed better 8/1 shots than this. Show me 16s and I'll put some on if anyone out there has a book they want to balance.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Okay, so we've established that, say, a carbon tax is a bona fide right-wing way of tackling climate change. This raises two questions (one each for UK/US politics).
1. Why have the last four Conservative Chancellors made such a point of freezing fuel duty?
2. Why did the carbon tax and 100% dividend plan (which is even more right-wing as it stops the government from spending the carbon tax income) from Hansen and others get such a pasting from the right?
Oddly designed image there's a couple of subconscious things that make it look like good news for Trump, bad news for Biden. Eg the down arrow pointing at Biden and the up arrow pointing at Trump's numbers, also Trump look up and Biden looking down. Up generally considered to be good and down bad.
Good spot.
But Biden's expression is much better than Trump's. Biden looks contemplative yet resolved, Trump looks preening and waxy.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is that there have been serious disturbances in Philly - 30+ cops injured
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
Seems to be a no-brainer for new build, though, where you're already installing a roof and wiring. Even more so if integrated like the Tesla/Solar City tiles (though I haven't heard a lot about those recently).
On externalities and the tragedy of the commons, yes assigning appropriate property rights is sometimes a possible solution. But when it comes to the global atmosphere it is not one that can be applied without the intervention of demiurges or Greek gods.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
Why not look instead at Sweden's neighbours, Norway and Finland, which have had far fewer deaths and have suffered no more economic damage than Sweden?
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
Seems to be a no-brainer for new build, though, where you're already installing a roof and wiring. Even more so if integrated like the Tesla/Solar City tiles (though I haven't heard a lot about those recently).
Yeah but remember in this country most new builds are done by large builders and not to spec. You don’t get to choose whether they have solar panels are not - you get what you are given.
My house was built 2.5 years ago, with a south facing roof. It doesn’t have solar panels.
Stated registration lead of Democrats down 1pp to 8% (but with usual caveat re many older registered Democrats being Republican voters); Younger voters still under their share of the electorate - 24% vs 40%; Not much difference in the split by location (29% City voters - more Democrat, Suburban County 25%, Rural 19%) Black vote still trending slightly below share of electorate - 20% vs 22%
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right...
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Very interesting - which bank? That's the kind of thing that they don't tell you when you're considering switching.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
I "look at the evidence" regarding mandatory mask wearing in France Spain and the UK and am told I am intellectually challenged on this site. Its good to see that Julia is starting to wonder why cases have gone up so much despite mask wearing compliance being so high.
My approach is that I change my view when the facts change*. For example, I was very sceptical of masks back in May/June, and thought the big issue was fomites. When the science changed I changed my view. Same with herd immunity - I thought there might be something in that and now I can see issues with long Covid, reinfections and dwindling antibodies with very high death rates if left unchecked, I'm not.
Of course, if you do that, for an issue that's highly politicised, you can easily lose the respect of both sides: the sceptics will think you're a wet flip-flopper, and the lockdown hawks will gloat with "told you so".
(*I still challenge and test the policy responses regardless - accepting those facts - because I think it's good practice to have the trade-offs, assumptions and compromises challenged on something as awful as this.)
Agreed. A particular problem with politicisation is that it goes against the grain for most of us to admit that someone you really dislike may have a valid point, even if they're making it for political reasons. I discounted the early claims by the likes of Nick Griffin about exploitation of girls by Asian-led gangs in several towns, because it was obvious that he was making the claim to have a go at Asians.
On the other hand, if you totally depoliticise an issue it can become neglected. The care system is an example. Both parties have had a go at addressing the problem and been punished for it, so it's been shunted into the nebulous area of "Difficult, needs an agreed cross-party solution", which in practice has meant that absolutely nothing happens. The spur of parties competing to offer a solution can be healthy.
The problem with care policy is that the political opportunity from denigrating your opponents’ solution is way higher than the political upside for actually resolving the problem.
You could say the same about a fair few other difficult policy issues, not least taxation.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
Why not look instead at Sweden's neighbours, Norway and Finland, which have had far fewer deaths and have suffered no more economic damage than Sweden?
Because that wouldn’t justify the “If we had no restrictions, we’d be fine” meme. Regardless of the issues in real Sweden, or the restrictions in real Sweden, or the surge in cases in real UK when restrictions were lightened.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Okay, so we've established that, say, a carbon tax is a bona fide right-wing way of tackling climate change. This raises two questions (one each for UK/US politics).
1. Why have the last four Conservative Chancellors made such a point of freezing fuel duty?
2. Why did the carbon tax and 100% dividend plan (which is even more right-wing as it stops the government from spending the carbon tax income) from Hansen and others get such a pasting from the right?
Because fuel duty already exists and at a massive level already. It doesn't need to keep increasing every year, it is already there. The fuel price escalator of course was introduced by Lamont and abolished by Brown so this isn't a left/right issue but having a high and frozen fuel duty has enable the market to take into account the externality of fuel and people are switching to more fuel-efficient or electric vehicles already.
The US right is FUBAR'd right now and not especially right-wing economically. The centrish Democrats are closer to the UK's right than the GOP is. Biden is closer to a Tory than Trump is.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
Classic example of a scientist being pushed by interviewer to given an opinion on something not in area of expertise.
(paraphrasing) "I'm doing studies on England, we are showing that infection is spreading rapidly, so however many people are immune by whatever means it's not enough to solve the problem" "What about Sweden?" "I'm not an expert on Sweden" (admits he doesn't know current death rates) "But you're an epidemiologist, answer!" "Well, possibilities are low population density, they do have much higher rates than comparable neighbour countries" (Ignores that answer) "But people are living normal lives there" (not true)
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
The property rights that can deal with environmental degradation and climate change are patents. They give businesses the incentive to invest in the R&D that will lead to the solutions we need. When the Tories were a pro-business party, they understood this. Now, though, populism combined with Cummings' data obsession means they have lost sight of it. You are seeing something similar in the US on both sides of the aisle, thanks largely to huge lobbying spends by Silicon Valley tech giants who see strong patents as a threat to their dominance. Ironically, China - where patents remain highly valued assets - may prove to the exception to the rue that delivers us the answers we need.
Patents are highly honoured in China - in the blatant use of patented designs etc in products without compensation to the patent holder.
As to the rest of the world - in the US patent trolling harms innovation, not helps it.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is that there have been serious disturbances in Philly - 30+ cops injured
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
Seems to be a no-brainer for new build, though, where you're already installing a roof and wiring. Even more so if integrated like the Tesla/Solar City tiles (though I haven't heard a lot about those recently).
Yeah but remember in this country most new builds are done by large builders and not to spec. You don’t get to choose whether they have solar panels are not - you get what you are given.
My house was built 2.5 years ago, with a south facing roof. It doesn’t have solar panels.
I'd fit them if I were you. No free money involved any longer but satisfying as hell. If I didn't need a vehicle which can tow stuff it would be amazing to have a little electric car and pump sunshine straight into it.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is that there have been serious disturbances in Philly - 30+ cops injured
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
What you're saying has happened in this country though. Sane climate change mitigation has been depoliticised, which is part of what drives the far left so crazy is because this country actually has a fantastic record on climate change - but they can't admit that or give us credit.
The transformation in our power generation over the past decade from 2010 to 2020 is nothing short of remarkable, even the most optimistic of climate change activists wouldn't have realistically thought we'd have essentially eliminated coal and be routinely getting a majority of power from renewables in only one decade then.
From cars to electricity to heating and everything that matters people are acting in environmentally sound ways and the transformation is simply happening - while keeping capitalism not dumping it. Hence the ever louder screechings by loonies like XR attacking clean electric public transport because climate change means clean electric public transport should be attacked apparently. 🙄
The RedGreen types are absolutely horrified by the prospect of a net zero carbon economy.
People say this, but I've been a member of the Green Party, I'm left-wing, I was arguing in favour of wind power on here back when Labour were in government and all the PB Tories were telling me they didn't work, and it's not a description I recognise.
There's perhaps a certain degree of cynicism about green-washing which obscures the reality that new capitalists replace old ones at a time of technological transition, so they find it hard to imagine it happening.
But I've never come across anyone on the Green Left who wouldn't be delighted if it happened. And there are plenty other ways that capitalism is dumping on the environment.
They are quite outspoken - I am rather surprised you haven't encountered them.
A friend got chased out of the Green party (was a parish councillor) by them. He was a Technological Green - a scientist, he had a list of solutions to each part of the Global Warming/CO2. His branch became very RedGreen - and they denounced him at every opportunity for not being anti-technology.
Although I disagree with your implication that pro-technology and capitalist are equivalent, I do agree that there is a rough distinction (in the UK at least) between Greens whose motivations and solutions are driven by science, and those who are driven by, erm how can I put it, by politics. An example of the split was the reaction to David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air". Many Greens rubbished the whole book based on the fact that part of it advocated using nuclear power. Rather than attempting to discuss the scientific details in the book, it was dismissed by many based on the opinion "nuclear is bad".
It was a great loss that he died so young. His book is available free to download. His father Donald MacKay had some explosive debates with Antony Flew which I witnessed.
A brilliant book ... that is the way to do popular science.
But even better is "Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms" (also viewable online).
There is a super problem on the cack-handed use of statistics by the lawyers (who else?) in the OJ Simpson trial. When you try and look up it in the index of the book you get
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
Seems to be a no-brainer for new build, though, where you're already installing a roof and wiring. Even more so if integrated like the Tesla/Solar City tiles (though I haven't heard a lot about those recently).
Yeah but remember in this country most new builds are done by large builders and not to spec. You don’t get to choose whether they have solar panels are not - you get what you are given.
My house was built 2.5 years ago, with a south facing roof. It doesn’t have solar panels.
I'd fit them if I were you. No free money involved any longer but satisfying as hell. If I didn't need a vehicle which can tow stuff it would be amazing to have a little electric car and pump sunshine straight into it.
Having worked in the solar industry, I have no desire to fit them.
Is anyone getting a bit bored of the repeats being run by the denialists?
Back in March, we had “Aha, so why aren’t there any deaths yet?”
Then, when that became untenable, we had “Ah, but they’re not EXCESS deaths, because the ONS figures [for February] don’t show a spike.”
We had “Most of us have already got immunity.”
We had “It only affects old people”
We had “Sweden has no restrictions and no deaths or infections and is doing great in comparison to everywhere else.”
And like a bad TV series rerunning the worst repeats again and again, they’re all coming round for a second go, undaunted by being completely wrong the first time.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is that there have been serious disturbances in Philly - 30+ cops injured
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is the incident in Philly - mentally ill black man shot dead in cold blood by the cops. 14 slugs, point blank range.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
Seems to be a no-brainer for new build, though, where you're already installing a roof and wiring. Even more so if integrated like the Tesla/Solar City tiles (though I haven't heard a lot about those recently).
Yeah but remember in this country most new builds are done by large builders and not to spec. You don’t get to choose whether they have solar panels are not - you get what you are given.
My house was built 2.5 years ago, with a south facing roof. It doesn’t have solar panels.
Yep, you'd need some kind of forcing of it in building regs or similar - and yes I can see potential problems... All south facing roofs must have solar panels, suddenly all houses have east-west facing roofs! But requiring all new builds to have x-watts solar panels per squ m roof area? Would need some careful drafting, to be sure and doubtless a list of exceptions.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is that there have been serious disturbances in Philly - 30+ cops injured
One thing that might influence the vote in PA is the incident in Philly - mentally ill black man shot dead in cold blood by the cops. 14 shots, point blank range.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
@Philip_Thompson one piece of solar that people should consider in this country is solar thermal. Even in Scotland it can provide almost all of your hot water needs throughout most of the year, with the exception of the coldest winter months. All from 1 or 2 panels on your roof.
Oh indeed solar isn't a complete write off. If I was getting a new build home I'd certainly consider looking into the feasibility of solar panels and some form of storage to see how economic it might be.
But the simples maths are that solar works best in summer and demand is massively higher in winter. Solar is OK as far as displacing coal or gas is concerned, but for a long-term net zero solution we need a solution we can rely upon over the winter and that is not going to be solar in this country.
The really important word here is "displacing". Displacing the use of coal or gas to another part of the world has no impact on global warming at all. The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is completely independent from how much energy is produced by solar or by wind. Herein lies a huge problem, that the demand for energy, if it were free financialy and environmentally, is more or less infinite. By producing another 1TWh using renewables does not mean that 1TWh less worth of coal will be burnt. It does mean that the price of coal and oil will drop, but it will be bought and it will be burnt somewhere in the world. It is only once the price drops so much that it becomes economically unviable to extract the raw material, that increasing the supply of renewables will reduce the global usage of coal/gas.
Indeed that is an excellent point and precisely why the hairshirts are nonsensical and why the market solution is the only solution.
The idea that we will eliminate emissions from aviation by simply not flying is insane - the impact of us not flying is negligible as China, the USA etc will continue to do so. The impact of us helping to develop a "jet zero" clean aircraft industry is immense and that can be exported.
The idea that we will eliminate emissions from consuming less electricity is insane - the impact of us consuming less is negligible. But our work on wind power is helping mean that wind now can be cheaper than digging out and burning coal, so suddenly China and the USA etc are interested in it too. Texas is getting immense amounts of wind generation built not because of hairshirts but because it is economical to do it.
Better technology isn't just the right solution, it is the only solution.
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Odd! Possibly worth checking the specialist banks dealing with currency exchange like Starling. I've been considering opening an account with them because a quarter of my income comes in Euros and Swiss francs (mostly translation), but First Direct who I bank with just vaguely say they're using the current exchange rate, and I'm not clear whether Starling is really better (does anyone know?). They definitely do business banking, though.
Stated registration lead of Democrats down 1pp to 8% (but with usual caveat re many older registered Democrats being Republican voters); Younger voters still under their share of the electorate - 24% vs 40%; Not much difference in the split by location (29% City voters - more Democrat, Suburban County 25%, Rural 19%) Black vote still trending slightly below share of electorate - 20% vs 22%
What percentage of registered Democrats in NC do you think are Republican voters? And what percentage of early voters who are registered Democrats are Republican voters? I reckon neither number is very high, and the latter lower than the former.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
That`s a superb post. Proper environmentalists - that is, deep ecologists - recognise the intrinsic value of nature and they despair over the annihilation of the planet, its flora,fauna and geology, by a strain of just one species: post agricultural revolution homo sapiens. Many such ecologists have given up.
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
The actual problem is back to good old PC - the developed world population is stable/shrinking. The developing world is still expanding, generally.
Which means that advocating population control is to advocate less of....
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
I "look at the evidence" regarding mandatory mask wearing in France Spain and the UK and am told I am intellectually challenged on this site. Its good to see that Julia is starting to wonder why cases have gone up so much despite mask wearing compliance being so high.
It is either intellectually dishonest or there is a shortfall in understanding for anyone to suggest that you can take a few select countries, identify one amongst a vast array of independent variables, and draw a firm conclusion on what has happened with a dependent variable. This whole "but Sweden" business is a toxic slurry of conclusion seeking, cherry picking, wishful thinking, reductionism, and, sadly, partisanship, ad hominem, and in the saddest of all cases, tu quoque.
What's with every poll now having explosion emojis?
There's nothing explosive about that poll. Labour up within margin of error, all coming from other parties, still a Tory lead. That's in line with almost all other polls, completely mundane.
The early turnout figures posted downthread look pretty tough for the dems for me.
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
There is the big caveat that we don't know how much is pull forward in terms of the votes and what represents new votes plus how independents split. But Nevada is one of those states where you usually have a very good feel as to the outcome from the early votes.
There is also the question of rejected mail-in ballots. Mrs Ed did her mail-in ballot for California and, on three separate occasions, she could have easily invalidated her vote because the instructions were unclear. One of the responses to the Ralston's tweet mentioned a lot of mail-in ballots in Clark were being cured because they didn't meet the signature requirements (which is why I think the Trump campaign has been focusing so much on court cases over Clark County mail-in ballots, namely to make sure they are not accepted).
Several posts from you a day suggest you are supportive of voter suppression, you luxuriate in it. It really is a sinister element to your online 'personality'.
Without a decent dose of voter suppression Republicans cannot win national elections these days. Ergo all Republicans worth their salt are in favour of voter suppression. It's just a matter of whether they admit it or not.
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Have you looked at doing the international payments via TransferWise? I've only done payments with them from the UK to Japan not the other way around, and this was for my personal account not my business one, but they were pretty great at what I tried, and it looks like they do handle money coming in as well: https://transferwise.com/gb/request-money
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
That`s a superb post. Proper environmentalists - that is, deep ecologists - recognise the intrinsic value of nature and they despair over the annihilation of the planet, its flora,fauna and geology, by a strain of just one species: post agricultural revolution homo sapiens. Many such ecologists have given up.
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
The actual problem is back to good old PC - the developed world population is stable/shrinking. The developing world is still expanding, generally.
Which means that advocating population control is to advocate less of....
Fewer humans in the developing world would be great. Fewer humans in the developed world would be even greater, as they use more resources.
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Odd! Possibly worth checking the specialist banks dealing with currency exchange like Starling. I've been considering opening an account with them because a quarter of my income comes in Euros and Swiss francs (mostly translation), but First Direct who I bank with just vaguely say they're using the current exchange rate, and I'm not clear whether Starling is really better (does anyone know?). They definitely do business banking, though.
Only used their personal account but revolut have been both very good value and easy to use, they also offer business banking with multi currencies, according to their own blurb at "always at the real (interbank) exchange rate" but do check the small print.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
The UK goverment have not been terrible over Climate Change, but they haven't been great either. The market responds to government rules. Remove the Feed In Tarriff and fewer solar panels will be installed, cancel the tidal project or the carbon capture and storage project and we'll continue using fossil fuels longer. I'm afraid that Cameron's getting rid of 'green crap' means that the Tories merit only a 'C+' on climate.
We don't need 'green crap' that doesn't work, we need green solutions that do work.
Solar panels were always the wrong priority for this country. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a cold, northern hemisphere, winter country that doesn't require air condition but does require heating. Solar panels are wonderful in Australia or California where demand peaks in the summer when air cons run full blast and the solar panels operate with peak efficiency.
Our electricity demand peaks in the winter and as we transition from gas boiler to more electric heating that is going to transform even further the gap between the seasons. Solar panels are least efficient in the winter.
We don't need green crap we need green solutions that work. The government rightly recognised a decade ago that wasn't bribing people to put on solar panels that would never provide a solution to electricity in this country - it was wind power. Wind works in the winter in a way that solar never will as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Solar panels and the feed in tariff made a negligible impact in our power generation - the past decade has seen a mammoth transformation far outstripping anything the feed in tariff ever achieved.
They've gone for solutions that actually work. A- (the only reason its A- was saying no to the tidal lagoon).
100% agree with you on solar, as someone who used to work in the renewables industry. The advocates for solar are those on the legacy subsidies, which were huge.
This is not a left/right issue by the way.
Currently supplying around 6.5% of our demand. It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
It’s not useless, but without subsidy the “pay-back” is 25-30 years. Too long for most people. The panels only have a 25-30 year lifespan!
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
Seems to be a no-brainer for new build, though, where you're already installing a roof and wiring. Even more so if integrated like the Tesla/Solar City tiles (though I haven't heard a lot about those recently).
Yeah but remember in this country most new builds are done by large builders and not to spec. You don’t get to choose whether they have solar panels are not - you get what you are given.
My house was built 2.5 years ago, with a south facing roof. It doesn’t have solar panels.
I'd fit them if I were you. No free money involved any longer but satisfying as hell. If I didn't need a vehicle which can tow stuff it would be amazing to have a little electric car and pump sunshine straight into it.
However they are as ugly as sin and make your house look shit.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
Comments
Anyone hired temporarily for the General Election would appear in the salaries but not the headcount presumably?
What I am expecting is for the Betfair price to nosedive at some point, maybe when the heavy hitters move in closer to the day.
But yes to carbon taxes!
In Michigan voters trust Trump on the economy more than Biden 48% to 44%, in Wisconsin voters trust Biden on the economy by 52% to 44% for Trump.
In Michigan suburban voters favour Trump by 49% to 46% for Biden, in Wisconsin by contrast suburban voters favour Biden over Trump 56% to 44%.
Non college educated whites in Michigan favour Trump by 56% to 38% for Biden, in Wisconsin they favour Biden by 49% to 48%
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/covid-surge-hurts-trump-wisconsin-biden-leads-closer/story?id=73834112
Trafalgar also now has Trump ahead in Michigan but Biden ahead in Wisconsin so it is a general trend
The market though is developing the solutions. The solutions, the technology is being developed across the free world and will be exported to the rest of the world.
What is needed is more sophisticated modelling that can account for the various countermeasures that are taken so that we can get the R rate below 1. That means that we need to know what works, what doesn't and how well any particular step works. We are still at the total guessing stage for this as far as I can see. We also need an effective track and trace system to increase the number of dead ends. Its deeply frustrating how poor the effort on this has been despite the money thrown at it but as @MaxPB was pointing out (again) this morning this is the only way to ultimately win, especially if vaccines prove to have limited efficacy.
It's worth pointing out that those two (Collin and Denton) together are only the same size as the fourth largest county by population, and although Trump won both by about 20 points, the gap was less than half that two years ago, for O'Rourke.
Do all the extra voters this year skew Republican, and if so, by how much ?
It will be interesting to see how the state polling holds up in the face of what might be a record turnout.
https://twitter.com/omaha_scanner/status/1321230069940031490?s=21
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
The reason Putin wins by so much is because there's only his brand out and about. 85 -> 90% of republicans will stick with Trump at this election I think. If you're the only major brand in a country, no matter how bad you'll win due to the same phenomenon.
* Fascist might be a better descriptor.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Would then be 270-268 in Biden's favour?
https://order-order.com/2020/10/28/political-party-2019-finances-revealed/
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/28/trump-omaha-supporters-stuck-cold/
It's not useless at all - and as installation costs go down and panel efficiencies up, will provide a bit more. Possibly a lot more in the future when large North Africa interconnects are built.
But yes, from the UK POV, wind and tidal are where it's at.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1321423104565039104?s=20
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1321424145524162560?s=20
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1321387318670991361
Installation costs cannot go down much more. Almost all the cost is in scaffolding and Labour. The panels are dirt cheap. Trust me, I used to write proposals (both domestic and commercial) for solar systems.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/new-hampshire/
The really important word here is "displacing". Displacing the use of coal or gas to another part of the world has no impact on global warming at all. The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is completely independent from how much energy is produced by solar or by wind. Herein lies a huge problem, that the demand for energy, if it were free financialy and environmentally, is more or less infinite. By producing another 1TWh using renewables does not mean that 1TWh less worth of coal will be burnt. It does mean that the price of coal and oil will drop, but it will be bought and it will be burnt somewhere in the world. It is only once the price drops so much that it becomes economically unviable to extract the raw material, that increasing the supply of renewables will reduce the global usage of coal/gas.
If it's effective vs. England numbers, I think we might see one in England before Christmas.
Of course it will probably need to be longer than 2 weeks now for England.
By way of apology I will point out that you can still buy free money on the Betfair State betting for Wisconsin at about 33p per pound. Looks a decent buy to me.
Edit: Btw, I see Silver [Nate, not Long John] has dropped Trump's chances to 11% - or 8/1 in traditional bookies terms. Frankly I've backed better 8/1 shots than this. Show me 16s and I'll put some on if anyone out there has a book they want to balance.
1. Why have the last four Conservative Chancellors made such a point of freezing fuel duty?
2. Why did the carbon tax and 100% dividend plan (which is even more right-wing as it stops the government from spending the carbon tax income) from Hansen and others get such a pasting from the right?
But Biden's expression is much better than Trump's. Biden looks contemplative yet resolved, Trump looks preening and waxy.
UK deaths per million 667
Sweden 585 deaths per million
Germany 122 deaths per million
My house was built 2.5 years ago, with a south facing roof. It doesn’t have solar panels.
https://twitter.com/OldNorthStPol/status/1321417482851278851
Stated registration lead of Democrats down 1pp to 8% (but with usual caveat re many older registered Democrats being Republican voters);
Younger voters still under their share of the electorate - 24% vs 40%;
Not much difference in the split by location (29% City voters - more Democrat, Suburban County 25%, Rural 19%)
Black vote still trending slightly below share of electorate - 20% vs 22%
You could say the same about a fair few other difficult policy issues, not least taxation.
Regardless of the issues in real Sweden, or the restrictions in real Sweden, or the surge in cases in real UK when restrictions were lightened.
Narnia fantasists going to Narnia fantasise.
(paraphrasing)
"I'm doing studies on England, we are showing that infection is spreading rapidly, so however many people are immune by whatever means it's not enough to solve the problem"
"What about Sweden?"
"I'm not an expert on Sweden" (admits he doesn't know current death rates)
"But you're an epidemiologist, answer!"
"Well, possibilities are low population density, they do have much higher rates than comparable neighbour countries"
(Ignores that answer) "But people are living normal lives there" (not true)
As to the rest of the world - in the US patent trolling harms innovation, not helps it.
But even better is "Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms" (also viewable online).
There is a super problem on the cack-handed use of statistics by the lawyers (who else?) in the OJ Simpson trial. When you try and look up it in the index of the book you get
Simpson, O.J., see wife beaters.
Back in March, we had “Aha, so why aren’t there any deaths yet?”
Then, when that became untenable, we had “Ah, but they’re not EXCESS deaths, because the ONS figures [for February] don’t show a spike.”
We had “Most of us have already got immunity.”
We had “It only affects old people”
We had “Sweden has no restrictions and no deaths or infections and is doing great in comparison to everywhere else.”
And like a bad TV series rerunning the worst repeats again and again, they’re all coming round for a second go, undaunted by being completely wrong the first time.
At least the False Positives! meme was new.
The idea that we will eliminate emissions from aviation by simply not flying is insane - the impact of us not flying is negligible as China, the USA etc will continue to do so. The impact of us helping to develop a "jet zero" clean aircraft industry is immense and that can be exported.
The idea that we will eliminate emissions from consuming less electricity is insane - the impact of us consuming less is negligible. But our work on wind power is helping mean that wind now can be cheaper than digging out and burning coal, so suddenly China and the USA etc are interested in it too. Texas is getting immense amounts of wind generation built not because of hairshirts but because it is economical to do it.
Better technology isn't just the right solution, it is the only solution.
Which means that advocating population control is to advocate less of....
This whole "but Sweden" business is a toxic slurry of conclusion seeking, cherry picking, wishful thinking, reductionism, and, sadly, partisanship, ad hominem, and in the saddest of all cases, tu quoque.
There's nothing explosive about that poll. Labour up within margin of error, all coming from other parties, still a Tory lead. That's in line with almost all other polls, completely mundane.
https://transferwise.com/gb/request-money
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1321430459050381313
I'm obviously not a woman but I'd have though most women nowadays work themselves let alone their husbands?
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
https://twitter.com/aliciaparlap/status/1321079765437157377