Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
The Rest is Politics had an interesting conversation about this. Macron's parliamentary coalition was going to collapse in the autumn anyway. I think he just thought: 'merde, let's roll the dice and see what happens'.
It's what Sunak should've done in May. 2023.
But I am old enough to remember analysts telling us - about a week ago - that this was another genius move from the "audacious" French president, and he had wrong footed the far right and far left in one deft masterstroke. Instead he looks like coming last - while empowering the far left and far right. And he has also pushed France closer to civil conflict, there are hideous stories circulating on social media
To be fair, mind, most analysts I read said "what on earth is he up to? This seems daft." or words to that effect.
I'm with BenPointer on this. It was going to shit anyway.
Wasn’t the genius 7-D chess move supposed to be that this would put RN into power, show them up as incompetent and therefore smooth the path for Macron’s successor?
A dangerous game if true. Doesn’t usually work.
This much I know, complicated plans tend to fall apart. Keep it simple.
Just read Betfair T&C. Nothing to say that in placing a bet you're impliedly confirming it's on basis public domain knowledge only or anything like that.
The criminal law on cheating is quite different from the law of contract. People are supposed to know what is and is not honest. Those in the public sphere are also supposed (!) to know what is honourable. They certainly should know what looks sub-optimal on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Items in shops aren't labelled with the text of the Theft Act.
My (definitely non expert) view of this is that the law regarding the particular facts of these cases isn't entirely clear. The matter is almost certainly not going to be resolved before the election.
Issues involving abstract concepts like cheating, honesty etc can't be clarified in law for all cases -they are situational. Such offences generally require 'mens rea' - guilty mind, but also for a jury/magistrate to conclude that on all the facts the behaviour was in fact dishonest or cheating or whatever.
The ones here are of course legally trivial; it's in the big bank/finance fraud cases (LIBOR for example) etc that the lawyers, quite properly, pile in.
The Ivey case which is the only high profile case law (albeit civil) for cheating in gambling changed the ruling on dishonesty, so it may be interpreted differently for gambling.
"For 35 years, juries hearing cases involving dishonesty have been told that defendants should only be found guilty on the basis of the two-stage test set out in the case of R v Ghosh [1982]. The first stage in that test is whether the defendant’s conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary reasonable and honest people. The second stage is that the defendant must have realised ordinary and honest people would regard his/her behavior as being dishonest. However, in Ivey v Genting Casinos Ltd Crockfords, the Supreme Court removed the second stage of this test, therefore making what the defendant thought about how others would regard his actions as irrelevant. Instead, all cases should now be determined on an objective basis of whether the defendant’s conduct was honest or dishonest by the standards of ordinary people."
Yes, for criminal law see R v Barton and Booth. However this test doesn't change most things hugely except for people who have ideas of honesty diverging from the norm. The problem with a subjective test of course is that the worst of thieves may use the defence that they had no idea it was wrong or that anyone else did.
Gamblers probably do have different sense of fair play within gambling compared to most people. Not always stricter or more lenient, but based on common practice and etiquette.
Particularly bad recent examples are the criminalisation of opening accounts in other peoples names, which has been standard practice in the industry for decades and there is no way a jury of gamblers would have convicted.
"It was only when I won that they did any checks" is a bit of a standout quote there. This explains pretty fully why they don't investigate me.
Exam question: Could it be a crime to place a losing bet based on improperly used inside/embargoed/confidential information?
Yes, but you never hear about either losing bets or winning traders being checked. It's the flipside of if Nick Leeson had successfully chased his losses and made a mint for Barings he'd never have seen the inside of Changi prison.
The Conservative campaign’s pivot to messaging for farmers in the final fortnight is the right call, but it’s also mystifying that they didn’t *start* the campaign there, or indeed in any way change their governing approach.
My father-in-law very kindly keeps hold of his Farmers' Weekly so I can read them when we visit. Is it like that? Did someone in CCHQ suddenly go through the last year and go 'my god, these people hate us!'?
'Hate' is a poor choice of words, in that I think any serious acknowledgment of the problem, any effort at all to win these voters back beyond 'a cursory series of inauthentic mesages on our social media channel in the last fortnight' would have worked wonders.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
The Rest is Politics had an interesting conversation about this. Macron's parliamentary coalition was going to collapse in the autumn anyway. I think he just thought: 'merde, let's roll the dice and see what happens'.
It's what Sunak should've done in May. 2023.
Sunak should have waited until Jan 2025, just in case something showed up to save him or screw Labour - unlikely, but possible. Also Farage would have been off in America with Trump
Instead he went at the worst possible time, just before terrible migration stats and with Gareth Southgate as England manager
What is striking to me is that, despite a lacklustre Labour campaign, the Conservative campaign has been truly awful. I don't think it matters when the election was held, it looks like it would have been an awful campaign at any time.
That would suggest hanging on for as long as possible to maximise the time spent in office.
I'm looking forward to the inside scoop on why the election was called when it was. I'm sure there's going to be an almighty rush to sell the story by those in the know on July 5th.
Ooh Ed Davey is doing a stunt in our village tomorrow. I know what it is but probably shouldn't say.
This is what elections are all about.
As soon as I read this I immediately thought the stunt would be a recreation of the ending of the Wicker Man - with Ed Davey cast as the Edward Woodward character. No idea why - and no judgement of your village (which is I am sure lovely) - probably my twisted mind and the fact that it is Summer solstice.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
The Rest is Politics had an interesting conversation about this. Macron's parliamentary coalition was going to collapse in the autumn anyway. I think he just thought: 'merde, let's roll the dice and see what happens'.
It's what Sunak should've done in May. 2023.
But I am old enough to remember analysts telling us - about a week ago - that this was another genius move from the "audacious" French president, and he had wrong footed the far right and far left in one deft masterstroke. Instead he looks like coming last - while empowering the far left and far right. And he has also pushed France closer to civil conflict, there are hideous stories circulating on social media
I suspect rumours of the collapse of France will prove to be exaggerated.
Let's say Le Pen wins big and wins the Presidency next year, what then? When populism meets power its shallow, simplistic answers will be found out.
From a UK perspective if, as I suspect, Le Pen wins next year and it all goes spectacularly tits up it will scupper the hard right over here.
The next French presidential election is 2027 not 2025
Just read Betfair T&C. Nothing to say that in placing a bet you're impliedly confirming it's on basis public domain knowledge only or anything like that.
The criminal law on cheating is quite different from the law of contract. People are supposed to know what is and is not honest. Those in the public sphere are also supposed (!) to know what is honourable. They certainly should know what looks sub-optimal on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Items in shops aren't labelled with the text of the Theft Act.
My (definitely non expert) view of this is that the law regarding the particular facts of these cases isn't entirely clear. The matter is almost certainly not going to be resolved before the election.
Issues involving abstract concepts like cheating, honesty etc can't be clarified in law for all cases -they are situational. Such offences generally require 'mens rea' - guilty mind, but also for a jury/magistrate to conclude that on all the facts the behaviour was in fact dishonest or cheating or whatever.
The ones here are of course legally trivial; it's in the big bank/finance fraud cases (LIBOR for example) etc that the lawyers, quite properly, pile in.
The Ivey case which is the only high profile case law (albeit civil) for cheating in gambling changed the ruling on dishonesty, so it may be interpreted differently for gambling.
"For 35 years, juries hearing cases involving dishonesty have been told that defendants should only be found guilty on the basis of the two-stage test set out in the case of R v Ghosh [1982]. The first stage in that test is whether the defendant’s conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary reasonable and honest people. The second stage is that the defendant must have realised ordinary and honest people would regard his/her behavior as being dishonest. However, in Ivey v Genting Casinos Ltd Crockfords, the Supreme Court removed the second stage of this test, therefore making what the defendant thought about how others would regard his actions as irrelevant. Instead, all cases should now be determined on an objective basis of whether the defendant’s conduct was honest or dishonest by the standards of ordinary people."
Yes, for criminal law see R v Barton and Booth. However this test doesn't change most things hugely except for people who have ideas of honesty diverging from the norm. The problem with a subjective test of course is that the worst of thieves may use the defence that they had no idea it was wrong or that anyone else did.
Gamblers probably do have different sense of fair play within gambling compared to most people. Not always stricter or more lenient, but based on common practice and etiquette.
Particularly bad recent examples are the criminalisation of opening accounts in other peoples names, which has been standard practice in the industry for decades and there is no way a jury of gamblers would have convicted.
FWIW it seems to me that opening accounts in multiple names, using agents etc is completely OK and honest as long as it is only and solely used for placing lawful bets in lawful circumstances. Ie, to stop them banning you because you win. I don't think any jury would regard that as a crime, even though WRT contract and civil law you no doubt will be breaking their rules.
It is exactly parallel to walking into lots of different shops with that old fashioned anonymised stuff called cash which some of us are old enough to remember.
But to do this for any other purpose - even small free offers - would not be honest, especially of course to hide that you were 'insider trading'.
Just read Betfair T&C. Nothing to say that in placing a bet you're impliedly confirming it's on basis public domain knowledge only or anything like that.
The criminal law on cheating is quite different from the law of contract. People are supposed to know what is and is not honest. Those in the public sphere are also supposed (!) to know what is honourable. They certainly should know what looks sub-optimal on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Items in shops aren't labelled with the text of the Theft Act.
My (definitely non expert) view of this is that the law regarding the particular facts of these cases isn't entirely clear. The matter is almost certainly not going to be resolved before the election.
Issues involving abstract concepts like cheating, honesty etc can't be clarified in law for all cases -they are situational. Such offences generally require 'mens rea' - guilty mind, but also for a jury/magistrate to conclude that on all the facts the behaviour was in fact dishonest or cheating or whatever.
The ones here are of course legally trivial; it's in the big bank/finance fraud cases (LIBOR for example) etc that the lawyers, quite properly, pile in.
The Ivey case which is the only high profile case law (albeit civil) for cheating in gambling changed the ruling on dishonesty, so it may be interpreted differently for gambling.
"For 35 years, juries hearing cases involving dishonesty have been told that defendants should only be found guilty on the basis of the two-stage test set out in the case of R v Ghosh [1982]. The first stage in that test is whether the defendant’s conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary reasonable and honest people. The second stage is that the defendant must have realised ordinary and honest people would regard his/her behavior as being dishonest. However, in Ivey v Genting Casinos Ltd Crockfords, the Supreme Court removed the second stage of this test, therefore making what the defendant thought about how others would regard his actions as irrelevant. Instead, all cases should now be determined on an objective basis of whether the defendant’s conduct was honest or dishonest by the standards of ordinary people."
Yes, for criminal law see R v Barton and Booth. However this test doesn't change most things hugely except for people who have ideas of honesty diverging from the norm. The problem with a subjective test of course is that the worst of thieves may use the defence that they had no idea it was wrong or that anyone else did.
Gamblers probably do have different sense of fair play within gambling compared to most people. Not always stricter or more lenient, but based on common practice and etiquette.
Particularly bad recent examples are the criminalisation of opening accounts in other peoples names, which has been standard practice in the industry for decades and there is no way a jury of gamblers would have convicted.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
The Rest is Politics had an interesting conversation about this. Macron's parliamentary coalition was going to collapse in the autumn anyway. I think he just thought: 'merde, let's roll the dice and see what happens'.
It's what Sunak should've done in May. 2023.
But I am old enough to remember analysts telling us - about a week ago - that this was another genius move from the "audacious" French president, and he had wrong footed the far right and far left in one deft masterstroke. Instead he looks like coming last - while empowering the far left and far right. And he has also pushed France closer to civil conflict, there are hideous stories circulating on social media
I suspect rumours of the collapse of France will prove to be exaggerated.
Let's say Le Pen wins big and wins the Presidency next year, what then? When populism meets power its shallow, simplistic answers will be found out.
From a UK perspective if, as I suspect, Le Pen wins next year and it all goes spectacularly tits up it will scupper the hard right over here.
I don't think Le Pen is hard right. Certainly Nativist and anti-immigration, but in terms of pensions, welfare etc RN policy is wanting to reverse Macrons reforms by reducing pension age etc.
RN appeals by combining social conservatism with old fashioned welfare statism, very different to Reform UKs social conservatism combined with smashing the welfare state.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
The Rest is Politics had an interesting conversation about this. Macron's parliamentary coalition was going to collapse in the autumn anyway. I think he just thought: 'merde, let's roll the dice and see what happens'.
It's what Sunak should've done in May. 2023.
But I am old enough to remember analysts telling us - about a week ago - that this was another genius move from the "audacious" French president, and he had wrong footed the far right and far left in one deft masterstroke. Instead he looks like coming last - while empowering the far left and far right. And he has also pushed France closer to civil conflict, there are hideous stories circulating on social media
I suspect rumours of the collapse of France will prove to be exaggerated.
Let's say Le Pen wins big and wins the Presidency next year, what then? When populism meets power its shallow, simplistic answers will be found out.
From a UK perspective if, as I suspect, Le Pen wins next year and it all goes spectacularly tits up it will scupper the hard right over here.
Your analysis of French politics is rather devalued by the fact you don't realise the next French presidentuial election in 2027, not "next year"
GC view would be void bet and report to employer and official bodies to take any further action. So report to IPSA, Cabinet Office and CCHQ for the politicans.
If they've bet on Betfair and profited, Betfair can void their individual bet and profit (Whilst also benefitting the layers of the individual bets); and no it doesn't matter if they've withdrawn the money as it's perfectly possible to have a negative balance with Betfair (I've had one myself in the past).
What are the grounds on which Betfair voids the bet?
Well they wouldn't unless... as I edited the post after to clarify, July layers would have to go to IBAS and point out the breach of rule 4a as @noneoftheabove mentioned for any lays on May 21st.
I can see that it falls foul of the spirit of 4a, but 4a needs to have statutory force or be incorporated into the contract and I don't see how that has happened. It's just a thing the GC doesn't much like the look of.
IBAS got involved with the Theresa May exit date farago on Betfair, this one's a bit different - but anyone who laid a July election on 21st May in their bet history could certainly ask the question.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
You point out the real reason for the Turbines and Solar Panels. Energy Security and minimising dependence on Vladimir and sundry Sheiks.
There are also the facts that climate change is a thing and fossil fuels are finite.
The first one I completely agree with and obviously the second is definitely true as well, but not relevant I believe. We will destroy ourselves before we run out of fossil fuels. We will find other sources and other ways of extracting it and the market will determine demand if at times it gets scarce before it all goes.
As someone young in the 60s there were two fears then (no not AI)
The Conservative campaign’s pivot to messaging for farmers in the final fortnight is the right call, but it’s also mystifying that they didn’t *start* the campaign there, or indeed in any way change their governing approach.
My father-in-law very kindly keeps hold of his Farmers' Weekly so I can read them when we visit. Is it like that? Did someone in CCHQ suddenly go through the last year and go 'my god, these people hate us!'?
'Hate' is a poor choice of words, in that I think any serious acknowledgment of the problem, any effort at all to win these voters back beyond 'a cursory series of inauthentic mesages on our social media channel in the last fortnight' would have worked wonders.
Given that the entire agricultural workforce is 1% or less, is that much different in Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, and how many Turnip Taliban Tories could that save from the combine harvester of history?
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
GC view would be void bet and report to employer and official bodies to take any further action. So report to IPSA, Cabinet Office and CCHQ for the politicans.
If they've bet on Betfair and profited, Betfair can void their individual bet and profit (Whilst also benefitting the layers of the individual bets); and no it doesn't matter if they've withdrawn the money as it's perfectly possible to have a negative balance with Betfair (I've had one myself in the past).
What are the grounds on which Betfair voids the bet?
Well they wouldn't unless... as I edited the post after to clarify, July layers would have to go to IBAS and point out the breach of rule 4a as @noneoftheabove mentioned for any lays on May 21st.
I can see that it falls foul of the spirit of 4a, but 4a needs to have statutory force or be incorporated into the contract and I don't see how that has happened. It's just a thing the GC doesn't much like the look of.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
Part of the mass increase is the battery and engine needed for hybrid. So the mass increase and economy are caused by the same thing.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
I totally agree with you on almost all of that besides the snide remark at the end. Putin's useful idiots are on all extremes of the spectrum.
And cutting off our nose to spite our face in cutting our production of oil, which can feed plastics etc as you say, is also playing into Putin's hands as you know.
We should be investing in renewables and our own oil. We should be investing in divesting from burning oil, as well as ensuring we don't need oil from Putin or OPEC.
The point is that oil is a finite resource. Should be we be squandering it by burning it as fuel now when we might be desperate for it in the future for more essential purposes? I say we should leave it in the ground, at least for now. Our children may be very grateful to still have the option of tapping it in the future.
Tapping some of our reserves now, so we can reduce imports and ensure neither Putin nor OPEC are enriched, is neither squandering our reserves nor consuming every last drop.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
No.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy, and major technological hurdles remain (social ones as well, but less so).
Whilst this is in progress and we need oil and gas, we should try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Whilst also going great guns towards both reducing the need for oil and gas, and also being greener.
The alternate view involves us buying the oil and gas we need from those very regimes you named. Except not in some hypothetical future, but right now.
(*) It is a crying shame that so many so-called environmentalists ignore this.
Ukraine are claiming to have hit a storage site for Russian drones. That's the value of a long-range strike capability that can hit targets deep in the enemy rear. You can destroy enemy equipment and ammunition before it reaches the front line.
Ooh Ed Davey is doing a stunt in our village tomorrow. I know what it is but probably shouldn't say.
This is what elections are all about.
As soon as I read this I immediately thought the stunt would be a recreation of the ending of the Wicker Man - with Ed Davey cast as the Edward Woodward character. No idea why - and no judgement of your village (which is I am sure lovely) - probably my twisted mind and the fact that it is Summer solstice.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
You ignore the coming rise of batteries which mean that we can charge batteries for cheap when the wind blows, and consume off batteries when it doesn't.
The economic costs for wind turbines etc, which is essentially electricity at next to no marginal cost of consumption, is fantastic.
The fact they need to be backed by gas currently, but won't in the future, is neither here nor there. They're still both cheaper and cleaner.
Batteries are the weak link in all this. They have far too little energy density, require rare earths in large quantities got in filthy exploitative mining operations and spontaneously combust if damaged.
The biggest mistake the rush to renewables made was piling in before a form of cheap, energy dense electrical storage was invented. Thats where all the billions of subsidies should have gone.
The developments in battery efficiency are welcome but not the game changer that is needed.
There is also the slight matter of where all the copper for these systems /electric vehicles etc is going to come from.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
I imagine also the battery in hybrids.
The last 3 cars I have had (2 Mid sized people carriers and now a mid sized SUV) have all got bigger on the outside and smaller on the inside (reverse Tardis). Only the latest is a hybrid, so I am guessing that is down to safety features as you say.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
I imagine also the battery in hybrids.
The last 3 cars I have had (2 Mid sized people carriers and now a mid sized SUV) have all got bigger on the outside and smaller on the inside (reverse Tardis). Only the latest is a hybrid, so I am guessing that is down to safety features as you say.
My last two cars have been french diesel hatches. Though they've been and still are on the smaller end of vehicles even they've not been immune from bloat over time. Still reasonably confident I'm causing fewer potholes and lower carbon emissions than most of what's out there mind.
Jesus Christ it's a beautiful day but it is very hard to be optimistic about the West at the moment
It's a glorious day here. A perfect summer's day. Light rain forecast overnight, warm and sunny again tomorrow. Which is as it should be in Dorsetopia.
Your pessimism for the future raises an interesting question: In how many periods through the past 125 years would we have been optimistic about the future? I would say all of those below in bold were as bleak as today.
1900-1914? Rising nationalism, arms race, strains of empire, etc. 1914-1918? No need to ask. 1919-1928? Briefly maybe but: Ireland, the pain of war losses, industrial strife. 1929-1939? God no. Depression, rise of Fascism, the Gathering Storm, etc. 1939-1945? Er... 1946-1956? Rationing, austerity, the Cold War, Suez... 1957-1966? Rock and roll! The swinging sixties, 1966 World Cup, the White Heat of Technology, the Space Race. Yay! 1967-1980? Vietnam, MLK, RFK assassinations, the Middle East, Norther Ireland, the energy crisis, industrial strife, Cold War, inflation. 1980-1990? More industrial strife. 1990-2008? End of the cold war, relative economic stability? 2008 onwards? The GFC, austerity, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine
But equally, all had reasons for optimism, as is the case today.
PS I appreciate none of this is black and white - it's all open to interpretation and argument.
"A dozen Labour candidates who the Guardian spoke to this week said that although Tory voters in their patches and elsewhere were hugely disillusioned and divided, they were encountering large numbers of undecided voters."
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
No.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy...
While that's true, we could have done (and still can do) quite a few things quicker.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, structure to meet offset-collision requirments, compulsory airbags catalytic converters etc.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (not mentioning it is for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty? It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
I'm also interested in whether wheel size has changed, and wheel size including tyres.
In my youth the 15" wheels on our family Saab were exceptional - my current Skoda came in 2018 with 17", 18" or 19".
Just read Betfair T&C. Nothing to say that in placing a bet you're impliedly confirming it's on basis public domain knowledge only or anything like that.
The criminal law on cheating is quite different from the law of contract. People are supposed to know what is and is not honest. Those in the public sphere are also supposed (!) to know what is honourable. They certainly should know what looks sub-optimal on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Items in shops aren't labelled with the text of the Theft Act.
My (definitely non expert) view of this is that the law regarding the particular facts of these cases isn't entirely clear. The matter is almost certainly not going to be resolved before the election.
Issues involving abstract concepts like cheating, honesty etc can't be clarified in law for all cases -they are situational. Such offences generally require 'mens rea' - guilty mind, but also for a jury/magistrate to conclude that on all the facts the behaviour was in fact dishonest or cheating or whatever.
The ones here are of course legally trivial; it's in the big bank/finance fraud cases (LIBOR for example) etc that the lawyers, quite properly, pile in.
The Ivey case which is the only high profile case law (albeit civil) for cheating in gambling changed the ruling on dishonesty, so it may be interpreted differently for gambling.
"For 35 years, juries hearing cases involving dishonesty have been told that defendants should only be found guilty on the basis of the two-stage test set out in the case of R v Ghosh [1982]. The first stage in that test is whether the defendant’s conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary reasonable and honest people. The second stage is that the defendant must have realised ordinary and honest people would regard his/her behavior as being dishonest. However, in Ivey v Genting Casinos Ltd Crockfords, the Supreme Court removed the second stage of this test, therefore making what the defendant thought about how others would regard his actions as irrelevant. Instead, all cases should now be determined on an objective basis of whether the defendant’s conduct was honest or dishonest by the standards of ordinary people."
Yes, for criminal law see R v Barton and Booth. However this test doesn't change most things hugely except for people who have ideas of honesty diverging from the norm. The problem with a subjective test of course is that the worst of thieves may use the defence that they had no idea it was wrong or that anyone else did.
Gamblers probably do have different sense of fair play within gambling compared to most people. Not always stricter or more lenient, but based on common practice and etiquette.
Particularly bad recent examples are the criminalisation of opening accounts in other peoples names, which has been standard practice in the industry for decades and there is no way a jury of gamblers would have convicted.
FWIW it seems to me that opening accounts in multiple names, using agents etc is completely OK and honest as long as it is only and solely used for placing lawful bets in lawful circumstances. Ie, to stop them banning you because you win. I don't think any jury would regard that as a crime, even though WRT contract and civil law you no doubt will be breaking their rules.
It is exactly parallel to walking into lots of different shops with that old fashioned anonymised stuff called cash which some of us are old enough to remember.
But to do this for any other purpose - even small free offers - would not be honest, especially of course to hide that you were 'insider trading'.
A perfectly reasonable approach but not a universal one. Some will think any deceptive breach of t&c is fraudulent, others will think bonus hunting is fair game.
So for the purposes of sending people to jail I prefer the higher bar of the two-stage dishonesty test.
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
Saw my first Tory posters last night. Nailed to a tree, so not obviously in someone's garden
They even hate their own symbol
Did you rip it down? The poster not the tree I mean.
Arguably that would be criminal damage
I'd still rip it down. I'd rip down any poster nailed into a tree to be fair. Tree comes first. Humans don't own them or any of nature for that matter.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
Jesus Christ it's a beautiful day but it is very hard to be optimistic about the West at the moment
I spent a lovely evening last night at my son's school concert in the neighbourhood church. Listening to beautiful music played by talented young people from our diverse local comprehensive gives me plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about the West, or at least our little corner of it.
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
No.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy, and major technological hurdles remain (social ones as well, but less so).
Whilst this is in progress and we need oil and gas, we should try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Whilst also going great guns towards both reducing the need for oil and gas, and also being greener.
The alternate view involves us buying the oil and gas we need from those very regimes you named. Except not in some hypothetical future, but right now.
(*) It is a crying shame that so many so-called environmentalists ignore this.
That view epitomises short-term thinking. We know that our reserves of fossil fuels are small compared to those of Russia, etc, and we also know that we will need a certain amount of fossil fuel for essential purposes for an indefinite period. Given those two facts, it makes no long-term sense at all to be exploiting our own reserves for non-essential purposes now. It's asking for trouble in the future.
As for going great guns, no. While we, as a planet, have made some progress towards reducing emissions, it has been pitifully slow, to the extent that there has thus far been no noticeable effect on the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, it is still accelerating. We are applauding our efforts while losing the war.
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
Cyclists cause next to zero road wear. Fourth power law.
So I'd be more than happy to pay my proportional road tax of £1 per annum.
@Luckyguy1983 the Supreme Court isn’t doing anything different to what the House of Lords judicial committee did before them. You need to educate yourself.
Exactly
It's an excellent decision. There was huge resistance from locals for extremely good reasons.
Fuck off @Luckyguy1983 with your business-rimming planet-wrecking bullshit
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
Cyclists cause next to zero road wear. Fourth power law.
So I'd be more than happy to pay my proportional road tax of £1 per annum.
Wouldn't a true fourth power law lead to utterly colossal duties on lorries though which could push up food inflation ?
In my youth the 15" wheels on our family Saab were exceptional - my current Skoda came in 2018 with 17", 18" or 19".
Its another safety feature.
Smaller wheels need to spin more often to travel at the same speed. Larger wheels spin less often to travel at the same speed. Larger wheel vehicles have a smaller breaking distance, which is important for safety ratings etc
As well of course as larger wheels having more stability and greater load capacity to carry the other safety features such as air bags and environmental features such as batteries etc
There are of course cons to larger wheel sizes etc too but all our increasing regulations demanding better safety and more environmentally friendly vehicles means the pros outweigh the cons so the market is responding to those regulations.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
No.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy, and major technological hurdles remain (social ones as well, but less so).
Whilst this is in progress and we need oil and gas, we should try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Whilst also going great guns towards both reducing the need for oil and gas, and also being greener.
The alternate view involves us buying the oil and gas we need from those very regimes you named. Except not in some hypothetical future, but right now.
(*) It is a crying shame that so many so-called environmentalists ignore this.
That view epitomises short-term thinking. We know that our reserves of fossil fuels are small compared to those of Russia, etc, and we also know that we will need a certain amount of fossil fuel for essential purposes for an indefinite period. Given those two facts, it makes no long-term sense at all to be exploiting our own reserves for non-essential purposes now. It's asking for trouble in the future.
As for going great guns, no. While we, as a planet, have made some progress towards reducing emissions, it has been pitifully slow, to the extent that there has thus far been no noticeable effect on the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, it is still accelerating. We are applauding our efforts while losing the war.
My mother told me the other day that in the late 1950s she missed out on a geography field trip to Italy as part of her degree because the airfare was £400 return (nominal, not equivalent of). Nowadays it's potentially £20. This seems wrong.
The question does arise whether a train would have been viable but it is sadly too late to ask
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
No.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy, and major technological hurdles remain (social ones as well, but less so).
Whilst this is in progress and we need oil and gas, we should try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Whilst also going great guns towards both reducing the need for oil and gas, and also being greener.
The alternate view involves us buying the oil and gas we need from those very regimes you named. Except not in some hypothetical future, but right now.
(*) It is a crying shame that so many so-called environmentalists ignore this.
That view epitomises short-term thinking. We know that our reserves of fossil fuels are small compared to those of Russia, etc, and we also know that we will need a certain amount of fossil fuel for essential purposes for an indefinite period. Given those two facts, it makes no long-term sense at all to be exploiting our own reserves for non-essential purposes now. It's asking for trouble in the future.
As for going great guns, no. While we, as a planet, have made some progress towards reducing emissions, it has been pitifully slow, to the extent that there has thus far been no noticeable effect on the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, it is still accelerating. We are applauding our efforts while losing the war.
No. My view epitomises both long-term and short-term thinking. What we need to do now, to get where we need to be in the future. You just want to give as much money as possible to bad/evil regimes now. Regimes who have no reason to advance a green future. Gradatim ferociter, as a certain billionaire might say.
" makes no long-term sense at all to be exploiting our own reserves for non-essential purposes now."
Gas and oil is used for essential purposes now. Even on a sunny day with some wind, gas is providing us with some power. Petrol and diesel is allowing most of us to get around. And you think that is non-essential?
As for your last paragraph: we as a country have been going great guns. The world might not have been, but it's crass to deny how much progress our country has made over the last two decades.
Enjoyed the debate about planning and climate change.
I live in an area with massive housing pressure, incredible rates of development of former industrial land in the city, and tens of thousands of new housing estates across the Lothians.
The main bottleneck is not planning regulations at all. It's the enormous stack of applications that our planning teams struggle to process.
This harms everyone. It means that development is slowed. It also means that substandard developments that will cost the city in the long run are let through the cracks. We built a hotel that looks like a giant dog turd.
If you're serious about both climate change and allowing as much appropriate development as possible, you should provide much more funding to our planning officers so mistakes aren't made as often, and applications processed more quickly.
Macron's brilliant 7D chess not necessarily panning out to his advantage
Latest major French poll (IFOP) for TF1/Le Figaro for National Assembly elections (1st round June 30, 2nd round July 7): Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally on 34% Leftwing Popular Front on 29% President Macron's “Together” centrists on 22%.
Although neither left nor right can govern without him, unless they form some sort of bizarre non-centrist coalition.
Yes, it looks chaotic, tho remember there are 2 rounds, which will do a lot of sorting
Even the second round projections still have National Rally most seats but still short of an overall majority.
Which means Macron can appoint the NR leader PM but leave him to try and get legislation and policies through with no majority in the Assembly
Doesnt that depend on how Les Republicains do ? They have a sort of understanding with RN.
Only the Ciotti part of them do and currently the Ciotti backed LR candidates are polling below the establishment centrist backed LR candidates, 2% to 6% on the latest poll
"A dozen Labour candidates who the Guardian spoke to this week said that although Tory voters in their patches and elsewhere were hugely disillusioned and divided, they were encountering large numbers of undecided voters."
Yes, definitely true in Didcot and Wantage. They seem undecided whether to vote Labour, LibDem, Green, or not at all. It's unusually difficult, however, to find people who are openly Tory.
I don't want to add to the nest of quotes, but the person who inaccurately opined that oil coming from the KSA or the UK makes no difference to overall emissions does not inspire great confidence in their wider oeuvre.
I believe the least emission-heavy oil is actually by pipeline from one of the European providers - Norway? Second to that, North Sea Oil is the least emmissions-heavy. @rcs1000 provided a table. LNG by tanker is a very emissions-heavy process, which makes you wonder whether its seeming fans here really care about carbon emissions, or just flat out hate Britain.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
Cyclists cause next to zero road wear. Fourth power law.
So I'd be more than happy to pay my proportional road tax of £1 per annum.
Wouldn't a true fourth power law lead to utterly colossal duties on lorries though which could push up food inflation ?
Might make freight by rail more competitive as an alternative, but an implicit subsidy for food distribution didn't seem like a bad idea as such, what with a secure food supply being of such vital importance.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
The anti-renewables loons are Putin's little shills.
As well as being a big exporter of fossil fuels, Russia is one of the few countries that is likely to benefit from anthropogenic climate change, so it's in their interests to deter moves away from fossil fuel consumption. It is also in their interest for those countries with small reserves to squander them as quickly as possible on fuel production so that they will be dependent on countries like Russia for raw materials for plastics, etc, in the future.
There seems to be no shortage of useful idiots, especially on the right of the political spectrum.
Many of the rewnewables-or-nothing loons, like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, are Putin's little shills as well. He knows we will keep on buying fossil fuels for the immediate future, but the arguments between the anti-renewables and environmental extremists suit him, as they are very disruptive.
As for your last line: I might suggest that Just Stop Oil's behaviour over the last few days shows the useful idiots are also on the left of the political spectrum as well.
So you also believe that we should extract every last drop of UK oil as quickly as possible, thus leaving us at the mercy of Russia and Saudi Arabia in the future when it's all gone?
No.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy...
While that's true, we could have done (and still can do) quite a few things quicker.
With hindsight? Perhaps. But we could also have done many things that would have been absolutely disastrous to the economy. I think we've mostly done well and got the balance mostly right.
"A dozen Labour candidates who the Guardian spoke to this week said that although Tory voters in their patches and elsewhere were hugely disillusioned and divided, they were encountering large numbers of undecided voters."
Yes, definitely true in Didcot and Wantage. They seem undecided whether to vote Labour, LibDem, Green, or not at all. It's unusually difficult, however, to find people who are openly Tory.
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
Anyone who is interested in real travel rather than FAKE @Leon who sits in ka-ching hotel rooms getting pissed and glued to his iPhone trolling political betting pretending its travel
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates. An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
Paywalled. Care to give us a flavour of the article?
Here's possibly the key bit;
Citing a 2016 Ipsos study of people’s views on certain topics, he reminds us that ‘some of the most grievous UK misapprehensions concern how the country is changing as a result of immigration’. Britons thought 15 per cent of the population were Muslim when the real figure was 4.8 per cent, and that EU nationals also accounted for 15 per cent – three times the actual level.
Such distortions occur in many countries; but in the UK overestimates of immigration and misapprehensions about its negative impact have opened the way to harsh policies, such as the Rwanda deportation scheme for asylum seekers...
Sounds like something that Spectator writers, let alone readers, ought to have a thing about. I've got vague memories of a similar study of what the public think the government spends money on- massively overestimating Foreign Aid, Diversity Officers and Single Mother Welfare and massively underestimating pensions.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
My point is about government revenue raised from a source - ICE vehicles and their fuel use - which is gradually vanishing, and will need to be replaced. BEV or other EVs will be a part of that, I think. I'd say there's probably headroom to increase it, since the cost of motor transport has been falling for years in real terms.
It's axiomatic that the Public Highways network belongs to everyone, and is funded from general taxation - Council Tax, for example. It's also quite problematic to link "drivers" as a group to "motor vehicles", and try and hypothecate revenue or expenditure on that basis; that association does not exists afaics. "Drivers" are overwhelmingly also "pedestrians", use other forms of transport, and also use Public Highways for other purposes for which they are intended.
Jesus Christ it's a beautiful day but it is very hard to be optimistic about the West at the moment
I spent a lovely evening last night at my son's school concert in the neighbourhood church. Listening to beautiful music played by talented young people from our diverse local comprehensive gives me plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about the West, or at least our little corner of it.
Good for you. Seriously. I wonder if I have oversupped on horror - Ukraine etc
Jesus Christ it's a beautiful day but it is very hard to be optimistic about the West at the moment
This is one reason why I think providing Ukraine with as much support as required to achieve victory is of such importance. A victory for democracy against the Russian totalitarian dictatorship would give the democracies of the world a big boost of optimism, and the reconstruction of Ukraine would create numerous economic opportunities.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
Did you read what I wrote. I said wind makes sense on security but not economy or eco grounds.
Have you any idea how much it costs to build, maintain and decommision (both in £ and Carbon) enough gas power ststions to run the country when wind and solar produce nothing for a foggy still cold fortnight in December PLUS buil, maaintain and decpmmission a vast network of turbines , solar arrays and their associated grid wjring network that you would not need if you ran the gas power stations you already have full time?
So you say we need tidal power as well to be part of the baseline?
The technical term is Anticyclonic Gloom or Dunkelflaute.
Events that last more than two days over most of Europe happen about every five years
"A dozen Labour candidates who the Guardian spoke to this week said that although Tory voters in their patches and elsewhere were hugely disillusioned and divided, they were encountering large numbers of undecided voters."
Yes, definitely true in Didcot and Wantage. They seem undecided whether to vote Labour, LibDem, Green, or not at all. It's unusually difficult, however, to find people who are openly Tory.
The Liberal vote is the tactician's choice in D&W, Nick. At least according to the Betfair market. You need to soft pedal there as it's causing huge confusion on the ground.
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
Enjoyed the debate about planning and climate change.
I live in an area with massive housing pressure, incredible rates of development of former industrial land in the city, and tens of thousands of new housing estates across the Lothians.
The main bottleneck is not planning regulations at all. It's the enormous stack of applications that our planning teams struggle to process.
This harms everyone. It means that development is slowed. It also means that substandard developments that will cost the city in the long run are let through the cracks. We built a hotel that looks like a giant dog turd.
If you're serious about both climate change and allowing as much appropriate development as possible, you should provide much more funding to our planning officers so mistakes aren't made as often, and applications processed more quickly.
BiB: But the only reason planning teams need to process applications is because applications are necessary because planning regulations exist.
That's like saying falling from a height doesn't hurt anyone, only hitting the ground does. You can't really separate the two.
If you're serious about development, abolish the applications and let people build what they want within the law without having to apply for anything. You've identified a cost saving too, we can abolish all those people who are working in the planning team - win/win. Can either use that money on tax cuts, or on funding something with a purpose.
"A dozen Labour candidates who the Guardian spoke to this week said that although Tory voters in their patches and elsewhere were hugely disillusioned and divided, they were encountering large numbers of undecided voters."
Yes, definitely true in Didcot and Wantage. They seem undecided whether to vote Labour, LibDem, Green, or not at all. It's unusually difficult, however, to find people who are openly Tory.
The latest Yougov finds 12% of voters still undecided, 17% of 2019 Tories are undecided but just 5% of 2019 Labour and 13% of 2019 LD voters are undecided
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
Cyclists cause next to zero road wear. Fourth power law.
So I'd be more than happy to pay my proportional road tax of £1 per annum.
Wouldn't a true fourth power law lead to utterly colossal duties on lorries though which could push up food inflation ?
Yes, if you implemented it as crudely as that. It would probably transfer goods into smaller vehicles, which would massively increase congestion and slow economic activity
What you want to do is make small improvements everywhere. Cargobikes instead of small vans. Hatchbacks instead of SUVs. Bicycles instead of cars.
The big issue is buses. Cause an awful lot of damage to the road, but are obviously incredibly important for reducing congestion. Difficult balance.
"What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British)"
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
You don’t have to spend too much time on history twitter so see stuff like this:
We are profoundly ignorant of our history, as a society. There was a survey doing the rounds around the D-Day anniversary the other week that said that supposedly half of the UK thought we had done the most, as a country, to win WW2.
I love my country, we have done wonderful things throughout history. But I wish we had a more grown up, nuanced understanding of our history and the things we have done, good and bad, and how that’s impacted other countries and peoples, for good or ill. That might help ameliorate the problems the column highlights.
I’m not holding my breath, the English, especially the elites, do so love their self-bestowed exceptionalism.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
My point is about government revenue raised from a source - ICE vehicles and their fuel use - which is gradually vanishing, and will need to be replaced. BEV or other EVs will be a part of that, I think. I'd say there's probably headroom to increase it, since the cost of motor transport has been falling for years in real terms.
It's axiomatic that the Public Highways network belongs to everyone, and is funder from general taxation - Council Tax, for example. It's also quite problematic to link "drivers" as a group to "motor vehicles", and try and hypothecate revenue or expenditure on that basis; that association does not exists afaics. "Drivers" are overwhelmingly also "pedestrians", use other forms of transport, and also use Public Highways for other purposes for which they are intended.
Yes fuel duty is being abolished but there is no reason why motorists should pay it when the fuel no longer exists.
If there's a gap in the government finances it can fix that through income tax or VAT or some other funding everyone has to pay. Why should motorists fix the governments finances?
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
All fossil fuel that is mined/produced will be burned. The increase in global temperature doesn't care if it is Saudi oil or US oil. By not stopping the production of oil the only remaining possible way to stop the global warming is through a very high level of carbon capture.
We need to stop the consumption of oil.
Production is a secondary matter.
We already consume more than we produce, which is a terrible failure. We need to work harder on reducing consumption, not production.
Globally we won't reduce consuming oil without reducing production. A reduction in consumption leads to lower prices which drives up consumption again. It is only when the price drops so much that the production becomes more expensive per unit than selling it does.
You are wrong, yes we will.
I changed my car last year. My old car was costing me ~£80 a tank of petrol which would last me 350 miles. My new car costs me ~£40 a tank of petrol which lasts me 350 miles. Does that mean I'm driving twice as many miles as I was to keep my expenditure the same? Of course it doesn't!
My oil consumption has come down by roughly 50% in that vehicle, not because of changes to production globally (of which OPEC of course adapts to keep prices where it wants it) but because I've adopted a technological change.
My old car was just petrol, my new one is not even a plug in, just a self-charging hybrid, that gets over twice the miles to the gallon as the old one.
We are seeing technological change like that on a micro and macro scale all over the planet. Over half my oil consumption has gone in my vehicle in one step and my intention is my next vehicle will be a net zero pure electric one, its just that's too expensive today.
Clean technology adaptation is the only way to solve the mess and clean the environment.
You are still destroying the planet.
...maybe, but only half as fast seemingly...
Are you saying - as per Zeno's paradox - he will never stop destroying the planet.
..wow, I had to google that.
If Barty kept buying cars which doubled his mileage on the same amount of fuel each time, then yes, I'd agree...
I have an 18-year-old car. The new version of the same car is more than twice as fuel efficient. Most new petrol cars sold now do 60mpg.
Imagine how much more that increase would be if FF cars had not increased in mass by perhaps 300kg over the period. That's an estimated figure - the overall is more like 400kg, but I can't find one with disaggrerated data by ICE vs Electric.
I expect most of the increase in mass is to do with "safety".
Most of the increase in mass is to do with the environment.
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
Since my comment relates to Fossil Fuel cars, it does not have much to do with batteries :-), which add even more extra.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, compulsory airbags and catalytic converters.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty. It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
~£2500 per annum from vehicles is nowhere near needed to maintain our roads, which is all that drivers should be paying for.
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
Cyclists cause next to zero road wear. Fourth power law.
So I'd be more than happy to pay my proportional road tax of £1 per annum.
Wouldn't a true fourth power law lead to utterly colossal duties on lorries though which could push up food inflation ?
The actual calculation is fourth power of axle weight, rather than of vehicle weight, which reduces the cost to lorries somewhat. But yes, you’d charge commercial vehicles on a different scale to private vehicles.
This appointed court is not a part of our constitution; it has no legitimacy, and it is effectively making up law. It needs to be binned.
Um no, it interprets the current law and generates a result.
The new Labour Government can change the law and fix the issue all the Supreme Court has done is combine the law as it currently is and come to (an admittedly unexpected) conclusion..
People like @Luckyguy1983 clearly have no understanding of our legal system whatsoever. This is how it has ALWAYS worked.
Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities. It is a complete abuse of "supreme court" powers to intervene on these spurious grounds, effectively to prevent any new oil wells being built in this country - economical self-harm which is for elected parliamentarians to inflict if they so wish, because they can be de-elected again. It's not for an appointed body to stretch its remit and make decisions like this.
They can intervene if the process was not followed properly. That’s a fundamental principle of the rule of law.
Their judgement is based upon a highly troubling interpretation of what that process should be - that's the point. The emissions involved in the set up and ongoing operation of the business were reported on in the usual way. The emissions generated subsequently were not, and I've explained why to demand that they are is deeply concerning in other posts.
I worry that this bit of the above… : “ Whether a new oil well can proceed legally is a matter for parliament and the appropriate local authorities”
…Shows a confusion between parliament and the executive.
Parliament makes laws. The executive (Government or SCC) makes decisions which should be legal, but if there is doubt the Judicial system will decide
This is part of the citizenship exam. Maybe it should be taught in schools too?
That's true but the court made a mistake in its ruling.
The emissions generated by the burning of the oil should not be counted as the net difference of oil burnt as a result of the well is zero.
Why zero? Because oil is fungible and had we not extracted from this well we'd have just imported from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else the exact same amount of oil.
So the total net emissions of a fungible product is zero, unless or until we start forbidding imports.
As pointed out by someone previously, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the issue, but only on whether the county council had considered the substance of the issue. Which they had not.
So your objection is not relevant, or in order, and we could expect that a revised planning decision from the country council, which did consider the substance of the issue, has a high probability of concluding that it shouldn't be a bar to approving the application, for the logical reasons you set out.
That outcome would be law followed, planning approved, everyone happy (especially the lawyers!)
Not the locals. Not people who care about the countryside. Not those who want to save the planet.
but, yeah, it was about legal processes at the moment
I want to save the planet.
To do that we need to follow science, not dogma.
The science is we need to transition away from consuming oil.
We still need oil for the transition though and there is no scientific reason why OPEC-produced oil is better for the environment than domestically produced oil.
If the world needs to transition away from consuming oil, then basic logic says that the world also has to transition away from producing oil. As a country, we should therefore transition away from both producing and consuming oil as well as appropriately taxing the import of oil and oil derivatives to encourage other countries to do likewise.
No. We should maximise oil production in democratic states in order to minimise the flow of cash to despots and dictators. As long as we need it, the "west" should produce it.
This.
Regdrding renewables. The economic arguments for wind turbines etc. are barking. They have to be backed 100% by conventional power stations (gas) to cover still windless dark cold periods.
The eco argument is equally ludicrous and industry destroying with higher costs when China and India etc extracting vast amounts of coal for cheap electricity.
There is an argument for it on security reasons, with our own oil running out thenturbines mean we need less gas/oil from Vladimir and Khassogis murderers.
But pointing that out would mean the politicians saying "we've cocked up energy policy, ours is running out and we've got to spend a fortune otherwise Vlad and Sundry Sheiks will have us over a barrel"
Far better to say "you wicked people, you are destroying the planet, we must go green to save it"
The downside of that is that the green zealots are as uncontrollable and destructive as any other zealot and they have been allowed within the citadel.
oh, ffs.
The anti wind argument again.
We should be moving toward a mixed energy source system, which for the majority of time would mean most of our energy being provided by wind/solar. In these times only a small amount is fossil fuel based. EG now we have 15GW wind/solar and 5GW gas fired. Sometimes that mix needs to change obviously, but overall the use of wind/solar reduces our need for gas on average.
Did you read what I wrote. I said wind makes sense on security but not economy or eco grounds.
Have you any idea how much it costs to build, maintain and decommision (both in £ and Carbon) enough gas power ststions to run the country when wind and solar produce nothing for a foggy still cold fortnight in December PLUS buil, maaintain and decpmmission a vast network of turbines , solar arrays and their associated grid wjring network that you would not need if you ran the gas power stations you already have full time?
I'd advocate a middle road, gas is a flexible enough power source and helps during cloudy blocked winter highs. We can turn them on and off when the turbines/solar aren't spinning - LNG logistics have improved since Russia's invasion. Nuclear and wind don't dovetail well to my mind as nuclear is inflexible compared to gas. Seeing as we've built plenty of wind and gas plants I'd keep those on/continue to build both
There is also the matter of base load. You need vast nuclear, coal and/or "traditional" gas power stations to provide that.
Otherwise after a national grid collapse (as happened in the 1987 storm) you would never be able to charge it (switch it on) again.
That is why Hinckley Point etc are being built at such eyewatering costs.
For the cost of another nuclear plant, you could have four tidal plants - producing 12 GW instead of 3 GW....
Yep. Good luck getting that past the nimbies.
Not the problem you think it is. The one at Swnasea had 80% local suppport through planning.
And the planning process takes a fraction of the time that a nuclear plant does.
Is @DoubleDutch some nutter returning to the site or a Russian bot with a new style of random abuse?
Good old fashioned and original troll in the sense of insinuating themselves into an online chat group with a seeming credible views on the topic and then sowing discord to get everyone fighting each other.
Enjoyed the debate about planning and climate change.
I live in an area with massive housing pressure, incredible rates of development of former industrial land in the city, and tens of thousands of new housing estates across the Lothians.
The main bottleneck is not planning regulations at all. It's the enormous stack of applications that our planning teams struggle to process.
This harms everyone. It means that development is slowed. It also means that substandard developments that will cost the city in the long run are let through the cracks. We built a hotel that looks like a giant dog turd.
If you're serious about both climate change and allowing as much appropriate development as possible, you should provide much more funding to our planning officers so mistakes aren't made as often, and applications processed more quickly.
BiB: But the only reason planning teams need to process applications is because applications are necessary because planning regulations exist.
That's like saying falling from a height doesn't hurt anyone, only hitting the ground does. You can't really separate the two.
If you're serious about development, abolish the applications and let people build what they want within the law without having to apply for anything. You've identified a cost saving too, we can abolish all those people who are working in the planning team - win/win. Can either use that money on tax cuts, or on funding something with a purpose.
That's where you differ from most of the population. Edinburgh Council are famously YIMBY - they simply can't knock down Georgian tenements and build giant dog shits quickly enough.
You'd love it. Move up here? We could go for a cycle down to Portobello together (via the Granton and Seafield megadevelopments).
Comments
And on that note, manana
@stephenkb
The Conservative campaign’s pivot to messaging for farmers in the final fortnight is the right call, but it’s also mystifying that they didn’t *start* the campaign there, or indeed in any way change their governing approach.
My father-in-law very kindly keeps hold of his Farmers' Weekly so I can read them when we visit. Is it like that? Did someone in CCHQ suddenly go through the last year and go 'my god, these people hate us!'?
'Hate' is a poor choice of words, in that I think any serious acknowledgment of the problem, any effort at all to win these voters back beyond 'a cursory series of inauthentic mesages on our social media channel in the last fortnight' would have worked wonders.
That would suggest hanging on for as long as possible to maximise the time spent in office.
I'm looking forward to the inside scoop on why the election was called when it was. I'm sure there's going to be an almighty rush to sell the story by those in the know on July 5th.
It is exactly parallel to walking into lots of different shops with that old fashioned anonymised stuff called cash which some of us are old enough to remember.
But to do this for any other purpose - even small free offers - would not be honest, especially of course to hide that you were 'insider trading'.
RN appeals by combining social conservatism with old fashioned welfare statism, very different to Reform UKs social conservatism combined with smashing the welfare state.
As someone young in the 60s there were two fears then (no not AI)
a) Nuclear destruction
b) We were going to run out of oil
Fortunately neither happened.
That is the legislation. If a bet is voided and the punter disagrees they could go to arbitration and/or court.
It's a matter of progress. We need to move towards green energy - and we've been doing that really, really fast (*). But there is a limit to the speed by which we can do that without ruining the economy, and major technological hurdles remain (social ones as well, but less so).
Whilst this is in progress and we need oil and gas, we should try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Whilst also going great guns towards both reducing the need for oil and gas, and also being greener.
The alternate view involves us buying the oil and gas we need from those very regimes you named. Except not in some hypothetical future, but right now.
(*) It is a crying shame that so many so-called environmentalists ignore this.
Which means Macron can appoint the NR leader PM but leave him to try and get legislation and policies through with no majority in the Assembly
Batteries are heavy. My hybrid needs to carry a battery, its predecessor did not [besides the 12V one of course].
The last 3 cars I have had (2 Mid sized people carriers and now a mid sized SUV) have all got bigger on the outside and smaller on the inside (reverse Tardis). Only the latest is a hybrid, so I am guessing that is down to safety features as you say.
Your pessimism for the future raises an interesting question: In how many periods through the past 125 years would we have been optimistic about the future? I would say all of those below in bold were as bleak as today.
1900-1914? Rising nationalism, arms race, strains of empire, etc.
1914-1918? No need to ask.
1919-1928? Briefly maybe but: Ireland, the pain of war losses, industrial strife.
1929-1939? God no. Depression, rise of Fascism, the Gathering Storm, etc.
1939-1945? Er...
1946-1956? Rationing, austerity, the Cold War, Suez...
1957-1966? Rock and roll! The swinging sixties, 1966 World Cup, the White Heat of Technology, the Space Race. Yay!
1967-1980? Vietnam, MLK, RFK assassinations, the Middle East, Norther Ireland, the energy crisis, industrial strife, Cold War, inflation.
1980-1990? More industrial strife.
1990-2008? End of the cold war, relative economic stability?
2008 onwards? The GFC, austerity, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine
But equally, all had reasons for optimism, as is the case today.
PS I appreciate none of this is black and white - it's all open to interpretation and argument.
"A dozen Labour candidates who the Guardian spoke to this week said that although Tory voters in their patches and elsewhere were hugely disillusioned and divided, they were encountering large numbers of undecided voters."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/20/polls-mask-many-undecideds-and-fuel-labour-worry-about-mobilising-voters
https://x.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1803858674454307143#m
there is a really good docu out about the origins of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Very interesting and well researched too with scientific data. All the things FAKE LEON hates.
An amazing island and well worth visiting for genuine travel experiences.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020545/easter-island-origins
"If only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad
If the country were a person, it would need its friends to sit it down and deliver it a few home truths about its damaging behaviour to itself and others, says Michael Peel"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/if-only-britain-knew-how-it-was-viewed-abroad/
The author of the book is a former FT journalist.
The non-battery weight increase is very much to do with safety and also emissions, and came earlier - things such as door girders, structure to meet offset-collision requirments, compulsory airbags catalytic converters etc.
More recently it is batteries, but also marketing of larger vehicles as "safer" (not mentioning it is for those inside them, not outside).
One interesting question for the future is whether we actually need the huge batteries, never mind the tonka-tanks to carry them around in.
I wonder if once Sir Kier gets around to addressing Excise Duty etc on electric vehicles, and where the ~£2500 per year he needs from every vehicle to maintain revenue is going to come from, there will be a weight component in excise duty? It could be arguably justified on either environmental or safety grounds.
I'm also interested in whether wheel size has changed, and wheel size including tyres.
In my youth the 15" wheels on our family Saab were exceptional - my current Skoda came in 2018 with 17", 18" or 19".
So for the purposes of sending people to jail I prefer the higher bar of the two-stage dishonesty test.
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.
True of countries as much as people. Also, not that hard to achieve if one has the inclination.
Here’s a photo I took during their annual festival when everyone gets naked, smokes dope, and has sex
Actually to be fair cyclists and most public transport use the roads too, so drivers should only be paying a proportion of road costs.
Vehicles should not be treated as a golden goose to be plucked for unrelated taxes. Everyone should pay their taxes equally, not just drivers.
New cold war feared to unfold on Korean Peninsula following Pyongyang-Moscow treaty
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/06/120_377160.html
As noted yesterday, they may now consider supplying arms directly to Ukraine.
All is good.
In terms of S Pacific islandmanship I have been to Nuku Hiva, Fatu Hiva and Hiva Oa.
As for going great guns, no. While we, as a planet, have made some progress towards reducing emissions, it has been pitifully slow, to the extent that there has thus far been no noticeable effect on the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, it is still accelerating. We are applauding our efforts while losing the war.
So I'd be more than happy to pay my proportional road tax of £1 per annum.
Smaller wheels need to spin more often to travel at the same speed. Larger wheels spin less often to travel at the same speed. Larger wheel vehicles have a smaller breaking distance, which is important for safety ratings etc
As well of course as larger wheels having more stability and greater load capacity to carry the other safety features such as air bags and environmental features such as batteries etc
There are of course cons to larger wheel sizes etc too but all our increasing regulations demanding better safety and more environmentally friendly vehicles means the pros outweigh the cons so the market is responding to those regulations.
The question does arise whether a train would have been viable but it is sadly too late to ask
If you are even her dad that is
" makes no long-term sense at all to be exploiting our own reserves for non-essential purposes now."
Gas and oil is used for essential purposes now. Even on a sunny day with some wind, gas is providing us with some power. Petrol and diesel is allowing most of us to get around. And you think that is non-essential?
As for your last paragraph: we as a country have been going great guns. The world might not have been, but it's crass to deny how much progress our country has made over the last two decades.
I live in an area with massive housing pressure, incredible rates of development of former industrial land in the city, and tens of thousands of new housing estates across the Lothians.
The main bottleneck is not planning regulations at all. It's the enormous stack of applications that our planning teams struggle to process.
This harms everyone. It means that development is slowed. It also means that substandard developments that will cost the city in the long run are let through the cracks. We built a hotel that looks like a giant dog turd.
If you're serious about both climate change and allowing as much appropriate development as possible, you should provide much more funding to our planning officers so mistakes aren't made as often, and applications processed more quickly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_French_legislative_election
I believe the least emission-heavy oil is actually by pipeline from one of the European providers - Norway? Second to that, North Sea Oil is the least emmissions-heavy. @rcs1000 provided a table. LNG by tanker is a very emissions-heavy process, which makes you wonder whether its seeming fans here really care about carbon emissions, or just flat out hate Britain.
Citing a 2016 Ipsos study of people’s views on certain topics, he reminds us that ‘some of the most grievous UK misapprehensions concern how the country is changing as a result of immigration’. Britons thought 15 per cent of the population were Muslim when the real figure was 4.8 per cent, and that EU nationals also accounted for 15 per cent – three times the actual level.
Such distortions occur in many countries; but in the UK overestimates of immigration and misapprehensions about its negative impact have opened the way to harsh policies, such as the Rwanda deportation scheme for asylum seekers...
Sounds like something that Spectator writers, let alone readers, ought to have a thing about. I've got vague memories of a similar study of what the public think the government spends money on- massively overestimating Foreign Aid, Diversity Officers and Single Mother Welfare and massively underestimating pensions.
It's axiomatic that the Public Highways network belongs to everyone, and is funded from general taxation - Council Tax, for example. It's also quite problematic to link "drivers" as a group to "motor vehicles", and try and hypothecate revenue or expenditure on that basis; that association does not exists afaics. "Drivers" are overwhelmingly also "pedestrians", use other forms of transport, and also use Public Highways for other purposes for which they are intended.
Events that last more than two days over most of Europe happen about every five years
https://qz.com/can-europe-survive-the-dreaded-dunkelflaute-1849886529
https://archive.ph/Ccl1J
That's like saying falling from a height doesn't hurt anyone, only hitting the ground does. You can't really separate the two.
If you're serious about development, abolish the applications and let people build what they want within the law without having to apply for anything. You've identified a cost saving too, we can abolish all those people who are working in the planning team - win/win. Can either use that money on tax cuts, or on funding something with a purpose.
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Sky_VI_240618_w.pdf
What you want to do is make small improvements everywhere. Cargobikes instead of small vans. Hatchbacks instead of SUVs. Bicycles instead of cars.
The big issue is buses. Cause an awful lot of damage to the road, but are obviously incredibly important for reducing congestion. Difficult balance.
You don’t have to spend too much time on history twitter so see stuff like this:
We are profoundly ignorant of our history, as a society. There was a survey doing the rounds around the D-Day anniversary the other week that said that supposedly half of the UK thought we had done the most, as a country, to win WW2.
I love my country, we have done wonderful things throughout history. But I wish we had a more grown up, nuanced understanding of our history and the things we have done, good and bad, and how that’s impacted other countries and peoples, for good or ill. That might help ameliorate the problems the column highlights.
I’m not holding my breath, the English, especially the elites, do so love their self-bestowed exceptionalism.
If there's a gap in the government finances it can fix that through income tax or VAT or some other funding everyone has to pay. Why should motorists fix the governments finances?
Currently, a big artic pays £850 in VED, and trucks pay less if they have more axles.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ca1f035c2e6f0013e8d967/v149x1-rates-of-vehicle-tax.pdf
No doubt breathless Tory ramper @Mexicanpete will be diving in and collecting all he can?
As if we need any help in doing that.
You'd love it. Move up here? We could go for a cycle down to Portobello together (via the Granton and Seafield megadevelopments).