Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase - certainly that is what's happening in our epoch. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
Absolute delusional nonsense. A mix of conspiracy theory and unscientific wishful thinking. The sort of madness that makes you wonder if the poster would believe something even crazier, like… I don’t know… thinking Liz Truss was a good PM.
Edit: Hope they show some of the old Imagine films again - especially the Dave Gilmour one.
Every time I saw his name I thought "Yentob is Botney spelt backwards". Completely pointless & uninteresting, it's not as though "Botney" is even a word. But think of it every time I did
Wasn’t that Private Eye’s name for him? I admit I do the same.
Oh was it? Maybe I got it from there… although I’ve never read it. I think I initially just wondered if his name was Botney, but he reversed it as a stage name
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Edit: Hope they show some of the old Imagine films again - especially the Dave Gilmour one.
Every time I saw his name I thought "Yentob is Botney spelt backwards". Completely pointless & uninteresting, it's not as though "Botney" is even a word. But think of it every time I did
There is a “Botney Cut Formation” on the Dogger Bank.
Really sorry to hear about this diagnosis, Cyclefree. I know you will face it with the same strength and tenacity you have shown in your erudite and well-argued articles which are a welcome feature of this site. Wishing you all the best in whatever you choose now and in in the future.
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Most people's spending rises with their income, so they never feel rich. These people don't realise how silly they sound, but within their circle, the people they mix with, it probably doesn't feel that silly
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
Edit: Hope they show some of the old Imagine films again - especially the Dave Gilmour one.
Every time I saw his name I thought "Yentob is Botney spelt backwards". Completely pointless & uninteresting, it's not as though "Botney" is even a word. But think of it every time I did
"Botney" was the name of a character in "Absolutely Fabulous" and is a tribute to Yentob
Edit: Hope they show some of the old Imagine films again - especially the Dave Gilmour one.
Every time I saw his name I thought "Yentob is Botney spelt backwards". Completely pointless & uninteresting, it's not as though "Botney" is even a word. But think of it every time I did
"Botney" was the name of a character in "Absolutely Fabulous" and is a tribute to Yentob
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
I have always been rather against taxing the rich just because some of them are a bit disgusting and obnoxious but I am starting to change my mind.
I know some people with that sort of income, who quietly bring up their children, don't complain, don't talk about money and how poor they are, have lots of middle income friends, are interested in the welfare of not well off people, give lots of money away and think they are very fortunate.
The Telegraph article is just rage bait, no different to Sun articles about single moms getting 4 grand a month, or whatever, and moaning it isn’t enough.
I listened to a Bloomberg podcast this week that claimed the top 1% of all earners paid 29% of all taxes and over the last 40 years lower earners have paid proportionally less.
I’m not quite sure how much tax we expect people to pay. The well off clearly pay taxes and a lot of them.
But that buys into the narrative that they earn their money through their own skills and hard work alone.
Clearly most of the 1% wouldn't be earning anything like as much without all the work the rest of the population does. If they're paying much more tax proportionally, and yet, still appear to be getting wealthier, then it's a sign of a broken system, not of them paying too much tax.
If they're paying more tax, getting wealthier, while everyone else gets wealthier too, then there's nothing broken about that.
If some are getting wealthier while others aren't, despite economic growth, then that's a problem.
What about relative wealth or income? Depending on how you measure it, almost everyone is better off than we were previously even as inequality has grown. It's human nature to compare yourself to others and therefore resentment can grow even if, in absolute terms, your wellbeing has improved.
I think that's over-rated actually as people tend to compare themselves more against others they know, than those they don't.
How Musk, Gates, Branson, Charles III etc live doesn't really affect me as its abstract.
What matters far more is day to day realities. People having too much month at the end of their money. Couples who can't afford a home of their own despite the fact they both work full-time. Those are far more real concerns than abstract data analysis.
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Most people's spending rises with their income, so they never feel rich. These people don't realise how silly they sound, but within their circle, the people they mix with, it probably doesn't feel that silly
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
My father once explained to me his lack of savings as "I have always lived up to my income, and never bought a house that I could afford".
I have always been rather against taxing the rich just because some of them are a bit disgusting and obnoxious but I am starting to change my mind.
I know some people with that sort of income, who quietly bring up their children, don't complain, don't talk about money and how poor they are, have lots of middle income friends, are interested in the welfare of not well off people, give lots of money away and think they are very fortunate.
The Telegraph article is just rage bait, no different to Sun articles about single moms getting 4 grand a month, or whatever, and moaning it isn’t enough.
I listened to a Bloomberg podcast this week that claimed the top 1% of all earners paid 29% of all taxes and over the last 40 years lower earners have paid proportionally less.
I’m not quite sure how much tax we expect people to pay. The well off clearly pay taxes and a lot of them.
That's probably always been the case - those who have more should pay more. Proponents of flat taxes argue for simplicity but if everyone paid 25% income tax we know who the winners would be.
The bigger question is whether we tax income, consumption or wealth. There's a huge amount of wealth in this country - a lot of it is tied up in property for example. Previous Governments have moved from taxing income to taxing consumption and as we saw with VAT on fuel in the 90s there's huge resistance when you appear to tax the consumption of basics whether it be food or fuel.
There's huge resistance to further increases on fuel duty because a car is a necessity for many people but those who travel on public transport might have a different viewpoint given annual fare rises.
Yet we still live far beyond our means as a nation and no-one, it seems, wants to be the one left holding the expenditure or taxation hand grenade when the music stops.
The other factor constraining Reform or any other future Government wanting to take "radical" measures is the reaction of the international markets. Look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng, what would have happened to Corbyn and McDonnell, what might happen to Trump, what did happen to Mitterrand's socialism in the early 80s. If you go too far or too fast, the markets push back and you end up in a world of pain.
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Most people's spending rises with their income, so they never feel rich. These people don't realise how silly they sound, but within their circle, the people they mix with, it probably doesn't feel that silly
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
Yes. That can work both ways, though, as Mr Micawber pointed out all those years ago. Holding expenditure below rising income isn't easy but it's probably the secret to a contented life.
However, it's possible that the article that has triggered this conversation is absurd because it's not 100% factual;
Something fishy about this sob story (1) The photos are stock shots taken in 2012 and 2014, available from Shutterstock and Alamy—links below. (2) There’s no trace of bankers Al and Alexandra Moy anywhere other than the Telegraph 🤔
Edit: Hope they show some of the old Imagine films again - especially the Dave Gilmour one.
Every time I saw his name I thought "Yentob is Botney spelt backwards". Completely pointless & uninteresting, it's not as though "Botney" is even a word. But think of it every time I did
I remember the moment I realised the name "T S Eliot" is a perfect anagram and almost a palindrome of "Toilets"
It's kinda tarnished his work, for me, ever since. And I really like the Waste Land abd 4 Quartets etc
So when I read, with great appreciation, the words
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
A tiny juvenile part of me is always sniggering and thinking, Hah, that was written by ...Toilets
I have always been rather against taxing the rich just because some of them are a bit disgusting and obnoxious but I am starting to change my mind.
I know some people with that sort of income, who quietly bring up their children, don't complain, don't talk about money and how poor they are, have lots of middle income friends, are interested in the welfare of not well off people, give lots of money away and think they are very fortunate.
The Telegraph article is just rage bait, no different to Sun articles about single moms getting 4 grand a month, or whatever, and moaning it isn’t enough.
I listened to a Bloomberg podcast this week that claimed the top 1% of all earners paid 29% of all taxes and over the last 40 years lower earners have paid proportionally less.
I’m not quite sure how much tax we expect people to pay. The well off clearly pay taxes and a lot of them.
That's probably always been the case - those who have more should pay more. Proponents of flat taxes argue for simplicity but if everyone paid 25% income tax we know who the winners would be.
The bigger question is whether we tax income, consumption or wealth. There's a huge amount of wealth in this country - a lot of it is tied up in property for example. Previous Governments have moved from taxing income to taxing consumption and as we saw with VAT on fuel in the 90s there's huge resistance when you appear to tax the consumption of basics whether it be food or fuel.
There's huge resistance to further increases on fuel duty because a car is a necessity for many people but those who travel on public transport might have a different viewpoint given annual fare rises.
Yet we still live far beyond our means as a nation and no-one, it seems, wants to be the one left holding the expenditure or taxation hand grenade when the music stops.
The other factor constraining Reform or any other future Government wanting to take "radical" measures is the reaction of the international markets. Look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng, what would have happened to Corbyn and McDonnell, what might happen to Trump, what did happen to Mitterrand's socialism in the early 80s. If you go too far or too fast, the markets push back and you end up in a world of pain.
If everyone paid a flat 25% real tax rate then the biggest winners would be the working poor who are currently on an 80% plus real tax rate.
Edit: Hope they show some of the old Imagine films again - especially the Dave Gilmour one.
Every time I saw his name I thought "Yentob is Botney spelt backwards". Completely pointless & uninteresting, it's not as though "Botney" is even a word. But think of it every time I did
I remember the moment I realised the name "T S Eliot" is a perfect anagram and almost a palindrome of "Toilets"
It's kinda tarnished his work, for me, ever since. And I really like the Waste Land abd 4 Quartets etc
So when I read, with great appreciation, the words
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
A tiny juvenile part of me is always sniggering and thinking, Hah, that was written by ...Toilets
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
I have always been rather against taxing the rich just because some of them are a bit disgusting and obnoxious but I am starting to change my mind.
I know some people with that sort of income, who quietly bring up their children, don't complain, don't talk about money and how poor they are, have lots of middle income friends, are interested in the welfare of not well off people, give lots of money away and think they are very fortunate.
The Telegraph article is just rage bait, no different to Sun articles about single moms getting 4 grand a month, or whatever, and moaning it isn’t enough.
I listened to a Bloomberg podcast this week that claimed the top 1% of all earners paid 29% of all taxes and over the last 40 years lower earners have paid proportionally less.
I’m not quite sure how much tax we expect people to pay. The well off clearly pay taxes and a lot of them.
That's probably always been the case - those who have more should pay more. Proponents of flat taxes argue for simplicity but if everyone paid 25% income tax we know who the winners would be.
The bigger question is whether we tax income, consumption or wealth. There's a huge amount of wealth in this country - a lot of it is tied up in property for example. Previous Governments have moved from taxing income to taxing consumption and as we saw with VAT on fuel in the 90s there's huge resistance when you appear to tax the consumption of basics whether it be food or fuel.
There's huge resistance to further increases on fuel duty because a car is a necessity for many people but those who travel on public transport might have a different viewpoint given annual fare rises.
Yet we still live far beyond our means as a nation and no-one, it seems, wants to be the one left holding the expenditure or taxation hand grenade when the music stops.
The other factor constraining Reform or any other future Government wanting to take "radical" measures is the reaction of the international markets. Look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng, what would have happened to Corbyn and McDonnell, what might happen to Trump, what did happen to Mitterrand's socialism in the early 80s. If you go too far or too fast, the markets push back and you end up in a world of pain.
If everyone paid a flat 25% real tax rate then the biggest winners would be the working poor who are currently on an 80% plus real tax rate.
I was certainly looking to cover Income Tax, VAT and NI (it wouldn't be 25% obviously). You might want to add a property tax of some sort - after all, we have to cover £1,335 billion or something like that...
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why?
Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
You may as well ask why the Acts of Enclosure happened in the way they did.
Because it's profitable, and cements some peoples' power and privilege I suppose.
The difficulty is that the "proponents of X are always in it for personal gain" is always true of everyone. To an extent. So it's just as true of companies currently making decent profits from the hydrocarbon business wanting to minimise or deflect the effect of burning stuff on the climate.
In the meantime, Svante Arrhenius's model (which is over a century old, and back-of-an-envelope crude) is playing out pretty well.
But Shell's (or it could have been BPs) investors have actively and successfully lobbied the firm to do less exploration, because scarcity of the resource means higher prices and evidently far higher profits and dividends. So all have an interest in making energy very costly for consumers.
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Most people's spending rises with their income, so they never feel rich. These people don't realise how silly they sound, but within their circle, the people they mix with, it probably doesn't feel that silly
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
Yes. That can work both ways, though, as Mr Micawber pointed out all those years ago. Holding expenditure below rising income isn't easy but it's probably the secret to a contented life.
However, it's possible that the article that has triggered this conversation is absurd because it's not 100% factual;
Something fishy about this sob story (1) The photos are stock shots taken in 2012 and 2014, available from Shutterstock and Alamy—links below. (2) There’s no trace of bankers Al and Alexandra Moy anywhere other than the Telegraph 🤔
Maybe there are innocent explanations, but it's certainly rum.
I agree it is the secret to a contented life. My parents have done it all their lives and not had money worries for decades, despite never being big earners
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why?
Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
You may as well ask why the Acts of Enclosure happened in the way they did.
Because it's profitable, and cements some peoples' power and privilege I suppose.
No comparison; terrible analogy.
It was blindingly obvious that the Acts of Enclosure were going to help privileged landowners.
It is not blindingly obvious how restricting the speed people can drive generates profits for anyone - thought it does make our roads safer of course.
It is not blindingly obvious how the move to renewables generates profits for established businesses in say petrochemicals, automotive, aviation, etc. unless they are willing to adapt. If you wanted to protect the profits and privileges of these companies you'd need to squash the climate-change response.
And unsurprisingly many tried to do that, aided by useful climate-change denying idiots. Inconveniently, the climate did not play ball nor did reputable scientists, and in fairness, most respectable politicians listened, as did the great mass of the public.
I believe the profits of large petrochemical companies are at very healthy levels, as their product is still in high demand but scarcity has enabled them to make very big price increases and very big profits. A lot of small energy and oil firms are going out of business, but that’s less competition so it's all good.
Personally I wish more people in industry would fight back against Net Zero - it is becoming existential and everybody needs to do their bit.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
I have always been rather against taxing the rich just because some of them are a bit disgusting and obnoxious but I am starting to change my mind.
I know some people with that sort of income, who quietly bring up their children, don't complain, don't talk about money and how poor they are, have lots of middle income friends, are interested in the welfare of not well off people, give lots of money away and think they are very fortunate.
The Telegraph article is just rage bait, no different to Sun articles about single moms getting 4 grand a month, or whatever, and moaning it isn’t enough.
I listened to a Bloomberg podcast this week that claimed the top 1% of all earners paid 29% of all taxes and over the last 40 years lower earners have paid proportionally less.
I’m not quite sure how much tax we expect people to pay. The well off clearly pay taxes and a lot of them.
That's probably always been the case - those who have more should pay more. Proponents of flat taxes argue for simplicity but if everyone paid 25% income tax we know who the winners would be.
The bigger question is whether we tax income, consumption or wealth. There's a huge amount of wealth in this country - a lot of it is tied up in property for example. Previous Governments have moved from taxing income to taxing consumption and as we saw with VAT on fuel in the 90s there's huge resistance when you appear to tax the consumption of basics whether it be food or fuel.
There's huge resistance to further increases on fuel duty because a car is a necessity for many people but those who travel on public transport might have a different viewpoint given annual fare rises.
Yet we still live far beyond our means as a nation and no-one, it seems, wants to be the one left holding the expenditure or taxation hand grenade when the music stops.
The other factor constraining Reform or any other future Government wanting to take "radical" measures is the reaction of the international markets. Look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng, what would have happened to Corbyn and McDonnell, what might happen to Trump, what did happen to Mitterrand's socialism in the early 80s. If you go too far or too fast, the markets push back and you end up in a world of pain.
If everyone paid a flat 25% real tax rate then the biggest winners would be the working poor who are currently on an 80% plus real tax rate.
Interesting idea - it's got me thinking...
Putting aside the complications of the UC couples, child, and rent allowances - and assuming there's no UBI - if you make UC taper out at 25% and the ICT personal allowance equate to the point when UC has fully tapered to zero, then UC could be considered a negative ICT.
So, for a single person unable to work or temporarily out of work, with no income, for their UC to remain at today's £400 per month, £4800 pa, the ICT personal tax allowance would have to be £19,200. They'd effectively get 75% of every £ they earned by reducing their UC by £1 for every £4 earned. Once they get to earnings of £19,200 pa they'd receive no UC and pay no ICT. Above £19,200 everyone pay 25% of every additional £ earned in tax.
So yes, I think the working poor would be better off. Probably those just shy of the higher rate ICT threshold would be worse off though. I'm going to run up a spreadsheet...
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Politicians have a tendency to be authoritarian and want power, which is why too many want to remove hard won freedoms. They also want money to spend on their priorities, hence taxes.
Many people do too. A lot of people have a dislike to others doing things they disapprove of and are quite happy to see rights taken away.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Now having said that the way to fight those who wish to abuse climate concerns to further their agenda, watermelon greens as I call them, which is a group which definitely exists, is not to deny climate change. It is to decouple concerns about the climate from their agenda. Embracing clean technologies and clean power means we can have as much consumption as we want, without damaging the environment.
If we can have a grid powered by renewables and batteries etc then there is no need to cut consumption and the watermelon greens lose the ability to abuse the environment to further their agenda.
Except that eg building far fewer windmills and battery parks throughout the country is a huge benefit in a smallish country, so using as little power as we need and being highly efficient is positive. I'm on with a mixture of renewables and mainly SMR backup.
Well you're standing with Luckyguy in opposition to windmills and batteries then.
I don't consider building less of anything is of any benefit, we have plenty of space, and the overwhelming majority of the country is undeveloped - windmills and batteries don't take much space either.
Take Runcorn and Widnes as an example, in the not very distant past if I used to drive back to Merseyside to visit my family I would get my car covered in soot from Fiddlers Ferry Power Station, which can't be too healthy for the people living there either.
Now the power station is decommissioned as we don't need the coal power anymore and instead if you drive down the M56 you're greeted with the sight of many windmills providing the power instead.
Those windmills are a lot more beautiful in my eyes than Fiddlers Ferry ever was and don't cover everything in soot.
Saving energy where it isn't a sacrifice, eg using efficient bulbs, is only sensible. But would I rather sacrifice by not using power, rely upon soot-based power, or rely upon windmills and batteries? Easily the latter. Especially given the latter is increasingly considerably cheaper too.
But as you have admitted, you like the windmills because to you, they signify clean, free power, modernity, optimism etc.
You see a cooling tower or a smoke stack as a horrible thing, belching out deadly fumes and destroying the planet.
A wind turbine could be seen as an oppressive blot on the landscape, a killer of precious bird life, and an un-ignorable symbol of a fraud perpetrated on our people, which we must not only pay for, many times over, we must also praise and applaud for fear of being othered.
And a smoke stack or cooling tower could be seen as a thing of industry and enterprise, beauty and power - employing people by adding real value, and giving out as a by-product a harmless gas that is absolutely necessary for life, making plants, trees and crops grow with greater vigour.
I was so unbelievably saddened to read your news this morning. I wanted to wait until I had a moment to write a response.
It all must have been such a shock. I have always read your articles. sometimes skimming through them, but often in full, and always admired your prose and unshakeable commitment to your beliefs.
I would classify you as one of those people who is just too intelligent to mess around with. A razor sharp mind and intellect, and someone who carries themselves with such integrity.
I will miss your presence on pbCOM. You added something that noone else did.
I really do hope that you find some peace, tranquility and real happiness in your days ahead. I also know that you will. You are one of life's formidables Cyclefree.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
I was so unbelievably saddened to read your news this morning. I wanted to wait until I had a moment to write a response.
It all must have been such a shock. I have always read your articles. sometimes skimming through them, but often in full, and always admired your prose and unshakeable commitment to your beliefs.
I would classify you as one of those people who is just too intelligent to mess around with. A razor sharp mind and intellect, and someone who carries themselves with such integrity.
I will miss your presence on pbCOM. You added something that noone else did.
I really do hope that you find some peace, tranquility and real happiness in your days ahead. I also know that you will. You are one of life's formidables Cyclefree.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
Good points all. I think there is a small but possible chance of the LDs firming up substantially, especially if Labour continue being both useless and Reformlite, perhaps to the point of being dangerous and shifting beyond the 100 or so posh seats where they contest things with the Tories.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". ...
"Believe" me when I say that most people think you have a problem with facts, not faith, when they say you are "in denial".
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". ...
"Believe" me when I say that most people think you have a problem with facts, not faith, when they say you are "in denial".
Yes, the words in and of themselves have that meaning, so I did think twice about posting that, but used in the context that they are in the debate, they are very much akin to accusations of heresy.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
Good points all. I think there is a small but possible chance of the LDs firming up substantially, especially if Labour continue being both useless and Reformlite, perhaps to the point of being dangerous and shifting beyond the 100 or so posh seats where they contest things with the Tories.
According to Electoral Calculus, the Reform vote share becomes very efficient, once they go beyond 25%.
A result of Reform and Labour 34% each, Con 12%, Lib Dem 11%, Green 3%, gives Reform 330 seats to 255 for Labour. The Conservatives get reduced to Harrow East!
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
Good points all. I think there is a small but possible chance of the LDs firming up substantially, especially if Labour continue being both useless and Reformlite, perhaps to the point of being dangerous and shifting beyond the 100 or so posh seats where they contest things with the Tories.
The Lib Dem's success is almost always simultaneous with Labour's success. That was even true of the last election, so it would take some convincing for me to see the Lib Dems as the big beneficiaries of Labour's demise.
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Most people's spending rises with their income, so they never feel rich. These people don't realise how silly they sound, but within their circle, the people they mix with, it probably doesn't feel that silly
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
You're also touching on a very important point there, and one that I think explains the difficulties our economies have had over the last 30 years - intertemporal disequilibrium. I've been thinking this through myself for years, and have just waded through a 600-page treatise on the subject.
Suppose there is a one-off favourable economic shock - in Britain, the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s, and in America the increase in productivity following the tech boom of the mid-late 90s, or in China for the 40 years following the opening in the mid-70s. The average person, feeling unfamiliar optimism, increases his spending, and the average businessman, likewise, increases investment. But in fact, because both think, not just that he's richer today, but he's likely to be richer tomorrow, by increasing amounts, he will increase his spending by MORE than his income increases.
That has a whole host of consequences, many of which we are still dealing with, and which we saw dramatically in the UK in the late 1980s, in America in the late 1990s and early 2000s and in China up to the pandemic. One is a credit bubble, because the person has to borrow to get his consumption up in advance of the increases in income. A second is that interest rates have to rise, otherwise you get asset bubbles, which again you saw in those same time periods. A third is big balance of payments deficits, as booming economies raise consumption and demand for investment goods long before the supply side can meet them. A fourth is a big increase in financial intermediation (i.e. a growth in the financial services sector).
These four consequences aren't damaging in themselves, but they all carry dangers for the economy as a whole, and need extraordinary skill and perspicacity on the part of Treasury officials and central bankers to manage, even if there aren't any external shocks, which of course there always are.
But they can be overcome if policy-makers think through the demand-side implications of supply-side improvements. It is the great tragedy of both Lawson and Greenspan that neither did so, and the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models so beloved of academic economists failed completely to help them, so we had large bubbles in the UK in the 80s, in the US before 2007 and even more in China until the pandemic, all of which burst painfully and undermined the productivity improvements that had caused them in the first place. And the only apparent answer to maintaining economic growth in such difficult times is big increases in government spending and ever-larger deficits.
A bit technical for this site maybe, but hugely important to understanding today's politics, so not entirely inappropriate.
“Last week Mauritius signed a partnership with Russia covering fisheries and marine research.
They pledged to “deepen collaboration” and “reaffirmed their commitment to advancing cooperation in agriculture, research, irrigation, and fisheries, and building on a longstanding partnership.””
Gee, look at that timing. Those pristine waters will now be plundered by Russian and Chinese ships
I struggle to find a word for this deal that doesn’t involve the concept of “treason”
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious.
Without knowing which sites are referred to, how do you know ?
It could be an entirely accurate characterisation.
Newcastle United lose to effing Everton of all teams. A mediocre side with nothing to play for, yet stumble into the champions league. Fucking Everton.
At least the red and white side of Tyne/Wear is not embarrassing the North East.
“Last week Mauritius signed a partnership with Russia covering fisheries and marine research.
They pledged to “deepen collaboration” and “reaffirmed their commitment to advancing cooperation in agriculture, research, irrigation, and fisheries, and building on a longstanding partnership.””
Gee, look at that timing. Those pristine waters will now be plundered by Russian and Chinese ships
I struggle to find a word for this deal that doesn’t involve the concept of “treason”
The Deal that's supposed to guarantee signals intelligence and military operation free from interference will shortly find both awash with interference as suspicious "fishing vessels" constantly plague Diego Garcia trying to find out what's going on, and hassling US/UK operations.
It's one of the most strategically naive pieces of real politik in my lifetime.
“Last week Mauritius signed a partnership with Russia covering fisheries and marine research.
They pledged to “deepen collaboration” and “reaffirmed their commitment to advancing cooperation in agriculture, research, irrigation, and fisheries, and building on a longstanding partnership.””
Gee, look at that timing. Those pristine waters will now be plundered by Russian and Chinese ships
I struggle to find a word for this deal that doesn’t involve the concept of “treason”
But surely Trump wouldn't be happy with something that was to the benefit of Russia?
The problem is that whilst the whole thing looks incompetent it isn't really registering with the international commentariat. I've been following quite a few securocrats since 2022 and they've had nothing to say on it.
They will, once the real-world effects become clear and someone breaks cover first.
This is like Biden being senile and everyone denying it.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
All this would seem perfectly reasonable criticism if Reform had our current PM broken so many pledges made in opposition. Why should Reform be treated any differently?
Why do people volunteer to be written about in those sort of articles?
It is for the Telegraph so the pitch is that they are writing for other high-earners with several holidays and three lots of school fees – their own tribe, if you will.
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Most people's spending rises with their income, so they never feel rich. These people don't realise how silly they sound, but within their circle, the people they mix with, it probably doesn't feel that silly
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
Yes. That can work both ways, though, as Mr Micawber pointed out all those years ago. Holding expenditure below rising income isn't easy but it's probably the secret to a contented life.
However, it's possible that the article that has triggered this conversation is absurd because it's not 100% factual;
Something fishy about this sob story (1) The photos are stock shots taken in 2012 and 2014, available from Shutterstock and Alamy—links below. (2) There’s no trace of bankers Al and Alexandra Moy anywhere other than the Telegraph 🤔
Maybe there are innocent explanations, but it's certainly rum.
I agree it is the secret to a contented life. My parents have done it all their lives and not had money worries for decades, despite never being big earners
I agree it is the secret of a contented life however for many no matter how much they tighten their belts they will never be able to make their spendings less than their income without going cold and hungry or ending up homeless. The simple fact now is for far to many rent + bills + tax + transport + minimum food > working income
If Farage is the answer, then I think we're asking the wrong questions.
My problem with Farage is his unwillingness to criticise Trump in any way, and his half hearted mealy-mouthed criticisms of Russia and Putin.
I don't want a country run by someone like that.
I hope that something will turn up, because I really don't think we want to find out the answer to what a Farage premiership would look like.
Farage’s attitude towards Putin is what deters me from supporting Reform. Pretty well everyone I befriended through the Conservatives has now joined Reform.
I don't know if you consider me a friend or not, but I haven't.
I think they live in an economic fantasy world and, in power, would be like the ERG on acid.
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
Good points all. I think there is a small but possible chance of the LDs firming up substantially, especially if Labour continue being both useless and Reformlite, perhaps to the point of being dangerous and shifting beyond the 100 or so posh seats where they contest things with the Tories.
The Lib Dem's success is almost always simultaneous with Labour's success. That was even true of the last election, so it would take some convincing for me to see the Lib Dems as the big beneficiaries of Labour's demise.
Not so in 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2017, 2019...
In every one of those general elections the LD vote share went in the opposite direction to Labour's.
Newcastle United lose to effing Everton of all teams. A mediocre side with nothing to play for, yet stumble into the champions league. Fucking Everton.
At least the red and white side of Tyne/Wear is not embarrassing the North East.
They've won a trophy and got Champions league football..so nothing to complain about really..😏
WRT Reform v Conservatives, organisations and states, at a time of crisis, are so often led by incompetents, and/or people who prefer tearing chunks out of rivals, rather than taking on the existential enemy.
So, the Roman Empire got Honorius and Valentinian, and their useless courtiers, in the Fifth century crisis.
The Liberals of the Twenties got Lloyd George and Asquith and Samuel, who actually had ability, but couldn’t stop putting the knife into each other.
The Conservatives have had a run of poor leaders, who get undermined in turn, by a cabal of MP’s who plainly hate each other.
And yet, when things are going well, treachery and incompetence are survivable. There are broader shifts in allegiance and outlook that threaten the Conservatives, just as they did the 1920’s Liberals.
I don't see any party willing to level with the voters, and nor do the voters wish to be levelled with.
We're chronically short-termist in our decision making and addicted to spraying around cash benefits to the non-working who feel supremely entitled to them and plead poverty whenever they are questioned.
I want both to change, but I see no party able to offer it or lead the voters in a direction they don't want to go.
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
Can one dispute Evolution? The Second Law of Thermodynamics?
Only with a better theory. Good luck with that.
Arrhenius's maths is not difficult. Where did he go wrong?
Feel free to argue over political decisions - indeed, I would probably do so too - but you can't just assert that physics is wrong without a LOT of evidence.
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Because those families aren't whining about their lifestyle being affected by tax. A company I was working at in the late 80's had a letter published one of the senior people working there earning 50k ( a huge amount late 80's) that was moaning about some change and how he and his wife had to cut back to only dining out 5 nights a week. Luckily we had internal company mail and so many mailed him a penny to help out with his living costs
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
Mustapha seems to be the one in "denial" with being so defensive..more people are realising what a con job "Net Zero" policies are so hardly surprising that confidence will continue to be shaken..🧐
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
It looks very much like a totally made up article. Possibly AI?
It is a worrying development. The Telegraph may well be one sided and partisan but actually publishing fiction as news, just for a bit of rage bait? Not good.
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Because those families aren't whining about their lifestyle being affected by tax. A company I was working at in the late 80's had a letter published one of the senior people working there earning 50k ( a huge amount late 80's) that was moaning about some change and how he and his wife had to cut back to only dining out 5 nights a week. Luckily we had internal company mail and so many mailed him a penny to help out with his living costs
Many people who pay for their kids to go to private school make sacrifices. The fees are high enough that you have to have quite a high income to afford them in the first place, and there's no getting round that: independent schools can't do it for free and so they have to charge a fee. Meanwhile, parents who opt for that are donating the free state school places for their own kids to someone else, and increasing the funds going into the education sector as a whole.
I view this as being altruistic and noble, rather than selfish and indulgent, and I find it fascinating that politically it's viewed the other way round - but that's where notions of envy and class war do their work.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
First, all of that is ancient history.
Second, other parties said they would hold a referendum and didn't.
Third, it's been your beloved Conservatives who have spent much of the last decade botching the implementation to such an extent they suffered the worst defeat in their history last year and are still going backward.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
First, all of that is ancient history.
Second, other parties said they would hold a referendum and didn't.
Third, it's been your beloved Conservatives who have spent much of the last decade botching the implementation to such an extent they suffered the worst defeat in their history last year and are still going backward.
Ancient history: the last 17 years.
And in the same breath you turn to what the Conservatives have done over the last 10.
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Because those families aren't whining about their lifestyle being affected by tax. A company I was working at in the late 80's had a letter published one of the senior people working there earning 50k ( a huge amount late 80's) that was moaning about some change and how he and his wife had to cut back to only dining out 5 nights a week. Luckily we had internal company mail and so many mailed him a penny to help out with his living costs
Many people who pay for their kids to go to private school make sacrifices. The fees are high enough that you have to have quite a high income to afford them in the first place, and there's no getting round that: independent schools can't do it for free and so they have to charge a fee. Meanwhile, parents who opt for that are donating the free state school places for their own kids to someone else, and increasing the funds going into the education sector as a whole.
I view this as being altruistic and noble, rather than selfish and indulgent, and I find it fascinating that politically it's viewed the other way round - but that's where notions of envy and class war do their work.
Then you missed the point I was making, the reason for the opprobium is because they are whining they can no longer take 5 holidays a year because of tax. You know most people in this country barely get one holiday a year and it will be a cheap one?
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
Good points all. I think there is a small but possible chance of the LDs firming up substantially, especially if Labour continue being both useless and Reformlite, perhaps to the point of being dangerous and shifting beyond the 100 or so posh seats where they contest things with the Tories.
According to Electoral Calculus, the Reform vote share becomes very efficient, once they go beyond 25%.
A result of Reform and Labour 34% each, Con 12%, Lib Dem 11%, Green 3%, gives Reform 330 seats to 255 for Labour. The Conservatives get reduced to Harrow East!
The Tory and Labour seat shares get increasingly existential threatening below 20% (although Tory 20 LD sub 10 and they'd start picking up the blue wall again). I was playing earlier when bored with scenarios where the Tories are reduced to LD 2015/17 seats, where do they cling on? NW London - Harrow and Ruislip are probably the last redout. By far their best 'seat' on May 1st was Rushcliffe which they don't even hold now. Reform threaten Labour everywhere outside inner London that was previously red rosette donkey territory and 2024 shows us nothing is now sacred blue either. UNS models are probably all but useless
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
First, all of that is ancient history.
Second, other parties said they would hold a referendum and didn't.
Third, it's been your beloved Conservatives who have spent much of the last decade botching the implementation to such an extent they suffered the worst defeat in their history last year and are still going backward.
You think brexit was the primary cause of the tory defeat?
WRT Reform v Conservatives, organisations and states, at a time of crisis, are so often led by incompetents, and/or people who prefer tearing chunks out of rivals, rather than taking on the existential enemy.
So, the Roman Empire got Honorius and Valentinian, and their useless courtiers, in the Fifth century crisis.
The Liberals of the Twenties got Lloyd George and Asquith and Samuel, who actually had ability, but couldn’t stop putting the knife into each other.
The Conservatives have had a run of poor leaders, who get undermined in turn, by a cabal of MP’s who plainly hate each other.
And yet, when things are going well, treachery and incompetence are survivable. There are broader shifts in allegiance and outlook that threaten the Conservatives, just as they did the 1920’s Liberals.
I don't see any party willing to level with the voters, and nor do the voters wish to be levelled with.
We're chronically short-termist in our decision making and addicted to spraying around cash benefits to the non-working who feel supremely entitled to them and plead poverty whenever they are questioned.
I want both to change, but I see no party able to offer it or lead the voters in a direction they don't want to go.
No-one has recently tried a politics of speaking human, admitting fallibility, confronting reality, explaining government's limits, trying to manage what the state manages excellently well, avoiding soundbites, speaking through parliament and not 'gotcha' style interviews, not passing silly acts of parliament, explaining how a national economy/fiscal/financial system works, simplifying rather than complicating tax and welfare systems and explaining that sometimes taxes rise, and displaying a bit of gravitas and dignity.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
Rather amusing
It is odd that the LDs were probably at their best when they were busy wrecking themselves for it.
WRT Reform v Conservatives, organisations and states, at a time of crisis, are so often led by incompetents, and/or people who prefer tearing chunks out of rivals, rather than taking on the existential enemy.
So, the Roman Empire got Honorius and Valentinian, and their useless courtiers, in the Fifth century crisis.
The Liberals of the Twenties got Lloyd George and Asquith and Samuel, who actually had ability, but couldn’t stop putting the knife into each other.
The Conservatives have had a run of poor leaders, who get undermined in turn, by a cabal of MP’s who plainly hate each other.
And yet, when things are going well, treachery and incompetence are survivable. There are broader shifts in allegiance and outlook that threaten the Conservatives, just as they did the 1920’s Liberals.
I don't see any party willing to level with the voters, and nor do the voters wish to be levelled with.
We're chronically short-termist in our decision making and addicted to spraying around cash benefits to the non-working who feel supremely entitled to them and plead poverty whenever they are questioned.
I want both to change, but I see no party able to offer it or lead the voters in a direction they don't want to go.
No-one has recently tried a politics of speaking human, admitting fallibility, confronting reality, explaining government's limits, trying to manage what the state manages excellently well, avoiding soundbites, speaking through parliament and not 'gotcha' style interviews, not passing silly acts of parliament, explaining how a national economy/fiscal/financial system works, simplifying rather than complicating tax and welfare systems and explaining that sometimes taxes rise, and displaying a bit of gravitas and dignity.
Isn't that the problem though - planning as to how to do politics rather than actually doing it?
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
First, all of that is ancient history.
Second, other parties said they would hold a referendum and didn't.
Third, it's been your beloved Conservatives who have spent much of the last decade botching the implementation to such an extent they suffered the worst defeat in their history last year and are still going backward.
That event in 2005 is the primary reason I won't vote LD. I don't think I'm typical, mind.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
First, all of that is ancient history.
Second, other parties said they would hold a referendum and didn't.
Third, it's been your beloved Conservatives who have spent much of the last decade botching the implementation to such an extent they suffered the worst defeat in their history last year and are still going backward.
No party has a decent long term record in relation to the EU and its predecessors. This is one of the reasons why it's the greatest post war political failure (until Trumpism came along to smash the reliability of NATO).
Whether it is entering on a false prospectus, leaving on a false prospectus, Cameron's betrayal by resignation, refusing to hold referendums on critical matters, failing to shape the EU in our long term interests when we could do so, confusing a trade organisation with a political project, it's been a mess for decades.
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
We're not good enough for the likes of him.
Actually they were much better today and Amorin omitting Garnacho and Onana from his squad is sending the message
I believe he will succeed once he has got rid of the deadwood which includes at least 8 players
Getting rid of the Glazers and Ratcliffe could also be an excellent move
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
The Heartland Institute is generally the source.. A curiously opaque organisation.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
Mustapha seems to be the one in "denial" with being so defensive..more people are realising what a con job "Net Zero" policies are so hardly surprising that confidence will continue to be shaken..🧐
Net Zero Policy is a response to a threat. There are many possible responses.
I guess It’s the art of the possible again. I’m totally open to solutions. I’ll take them all and run with anything that mitigates and minimises risk.
I’d prefer a policy that works. Keeping fossil fuel in the ground and stopping eating beef is not popular. Please give me an easy one.
AMOC has stuttered in the past. Are you feeling lucky?
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
We're not good enough for the likes of him.
Actually they were much better today and Amorin omitting Garnacho and Onana from his squad is sending the message
I believe he will succeed once he has got rid of the deadwood which includes at least 8 players
Getting rid of the Glazers and Ratcliffe could also be an excellent move
Unfortunately, for the manager to be able to get rid of the Glazers and Radcliffe, we needed a certain type of Italian appointment.
All the best @Cyclefree . Lobular breast cancer is a bugger. My wife had it and was very lucky (If you can call it that, with the diagnosis). She went for her very first screening 15 years ago. It failed to pick it up. Fortunately it did pick up something else that was, it turned out, benign for which she was called back. An MRI failed to pick it up also, but someone wasn't still happy and further investigation found it. If it wasn't for the benign finding getting her called back the unrelated cancer would have been missed. The decision as to what to do was also difficult because of the vagueness of this cancer. A small op was an option, but she decided to go for the full mastectomy. Rather be safe than sorry. It was particularly difficult because the consultant was unable to even give any percentage probabilities so we were flying blind. Clear now for 15 years.
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Would you favour higher property taxes on more expensive homes, instead of VAT on schools/education ? I would make that trade.
Extreme power over-generation today. Exporting everything we can via interconnectors, stocking up dinorwig and still a negative price per mwh of -£4.60.
This is where we need way more batteries, and that new 30gwh pumped storage facility in Scotland will help.
Wind 16.45gw, Solar 8.70gw. An all time point record.
Pretty much perfect conditions today- breezy but not crazily so, plenty of clear skies and about a month from the solstice. And there is the gradual steady increase in areas of solar panels and numbers of wind turbines.
The next bit- which is going to be genuinely interesting to watch- is when there is enough "please, take it off us" electricity on enough days for a business ecosystem to grow around it. I suspect we're getting close, which is why domestic batteries are becoming popular, but not quite there yet.
EDF have given us, for the third Sunday in a row, free electricity from 8.00am to midnight because, wait for it, we have a smart meter. !!!!
Wonderful news - I believe you missed my question about whether this generous act had driven your energy expenditure down below pre-crisis levels, so I'll give you another chance to answer it now.
Free energy is fine. A square metre of ground gets about a KW in full sun.
The problem driving climate change is CO2. It keeps that KW of heat in. And the extra 41 billion tons of CO2 we produce this year isn’t gonna help next year.
That needs to change.
Renewables can make the change profitable for some and the loss of fossil fuel survivable for the rest of us.
I don’t understand your opposition.
I believe the effect of man-made Co2 on warming to be exaggerated. I find it more likely that the correlation between Co2 and warm periods that we observe from the past is because the warming causes the Co2, not because the Co2 causes the warming. It seems natural to me that as the planet warms, surface activity grows, and emissions increase. I'm happy to debate it further (as we do), but it's far too much for a single post.
Perhaps more importantly than that, the decarbonisation agenda is being driven by a club of very wealthy individuals, Governments and companies who are committed to removing hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes, moving toward a vision of a bleak, impoverished (for most), socially immobile and tyrannical world that I simply don't want to live in.
It's really not about global warming - because when they want to make it harder for you to have or drive a vehicle, run a business, or frankly do anything to prosper, suddenly you see bait and switch, and when the Co2 argument doesn't work, suddenly its all about clean air and polluting the lungs of children, or running people over by going at 30mph, etc. etc. etc. The stated goal of the 'transition' is not a reduction in global temperature - it is the transition itself.
I understand that many very well-meaning and concerned people are caught up in this guff, and have a lot of sympathy with them and their efforts to make the world a better place. However, I think they're very deceived, and perhaps want to be, because they alternative is to believe that people with a lot of power do not have our best interests at heart, and that is a scary paradigm shift to make.
But why? Why would governments and companies want to remove "hard-won freedoms and hard-earned money from the middle and working classes"? What possible motive is there?
Could be in fact that you're simply searching for* reasons to support your climate-change scepticism?
(*Aka 'making up')
Imagine if we determined that increasing GDP by 100% by 2035 was imperative for national survival. Would the best way to achieve it be to implement a mandatory GDP target or would that create the wrong incentives?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
The point is that someone who thought that a mandatory GDP target was a wrongheaded idea wouldn't be "anti-growth" and the same applies to scepticism about climate targets.
Absolute nonsense. @Luckyguy1983 is sceptical about the cause of climate change, worse still he believes the cause is in fact just a side-effect.
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
I have no idea whether Luckyguy1983 is correct or not, but his case is not equivalent to your example, as climate change is a multi faceted and not well understood phenomenon well outside our ability to model with reliability.
No, it isn't outside our ability to model with reliability.
I think it may be worse than that. I think we are about to look away.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened. And I don’t blame them for that.
I'm glad you're polite, that's nice.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
The Heartland Institute is generally the source.. A curiously opaque organisation.
That sounds a considerably more cynical organisation than a mere 'denial site'. Denial, but with a commercial motive.
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian 501(c)(3) nonprofit public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
We're not good enough for the likes of him.
Actually they were much better today and Amorin omitting Garnacho and Onana from his squad is sending the message
I believe he will succeed once he has got rid of the deadwood which includes at least 8 players
Getting rid of the Glazers and Ratcliffe could also be an excellent move
He's staying. Fine. As you say, start selling players. Onana would be my first out the door.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
@Casino_Royale I totally agree with your 2nd and 3rd paragraph and not something I am proud of as a LD and didn't agree with at the time. I believe one of the motives was to get the leaver vote as well by being the party to offer a referendum.
The Liberal Democrats are a supremely cynical and disingenuous party.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
The LDs were right though.
If Labour had held an EU referendum in 2005, as demanded by the LDs, Remain would have won and put Farage in his box forever. The LDs were ahead of the curve. New Labour dropped that ball.
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
We're not good enough for the likes of him.
Actually they were much better today and Amorin omitting Garnacho and Onana from his squad is sending the message
I believe he will succeed once he has got rid of the deadwood which includes at least 8 players
Getting rid of the Glazers and Ratcliffe could also be an excellent move
He's staying. Fine. As you say, start selling players. Onana would be my first out the door.
United finishing the season with yet more controversy. Amorim to address Old Trafford after the final whistle. Genuinely want him to walk. Not because he's a poor manager - the opposite.
We're not good enough for the likes of him.
Actually they were much better today and Amorin omitting Garnacho and Onana from his squad is sending the message
I believe he will succeed once he has got rid of the deadwood which includes at least 8 players
Getting rid of the Glazers and Ratcliffe could also be an excellent move
He's staying. Fine. As you say, start selling players. Onana would be my first out the door.
Selling Onana is an open goal.
Putting Onana in the net is also very often an open goal...
Belated due to a reasonably sunny day and gardening, today's Rawnsley:
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
Interesting. It seems to me that Labour, as things appear now, could probably beat an opposition consisting of strong Reform and strong Tories, and they can certainly beat the Tories, but they can't beat Reform once the Tories are not seriously splitting the vote.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
I think one of two things happens:
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
Good points all. I think there is a small but possible chance of the LDs firming up substantially, especially if Labour continue being both useless and Reformlite, perhaps to the point of being dangerous and shifting beyond the 100 or so posh seats where they contest things with the Tories.
The Lib Dem's success is almost always simultaneous with Labour's success. That was even true of the last election, so it would take some convincing for me to see the Lib Dems as the big beneficiaries of Labour's demise.
Not so in 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2017, 2019...
In every one of those general elections the LD vote share went in the opposite direction to Labour's.
Otherwise, very good point.
The Liberal Democrats didn't exist as a party in either 1983 or 1987, so that's your "argument" off to a cracking start.
Vote share is interesting but success is measured in seats, not votes, as small parties will tell you.
In 1992, Labour and the Lib Dems both rose in votes and seats. In 1997 they both rose significantly in seats. In 2001 they both remained at high points. In 2007, they both decreased in seat count - though I will still give you this one as a counter-argument, because I think the Lib Dems really did get votes at the expense of Labour due to their principled stance against the Iraq War. 2015 both went down. 2017 they both gained - again, wtf are you basing your arguments on? 2019 they both went down. 2024 they both went up.
Apart from that, great argument petal.
So back to my point, the Lib Dem's success is almost always simultaneous with Labour's success, with a major reason to my mind being that they usually both benefit from anti-Tory sentiment and a shared soft-left voter base that is pretty good at voting for whoever is best placed to beat a Tory.
Divergent results to this appear to have come about when the Lib Dems benefited from Labour's disastrous Iraq War policy, and when the Lib Dems did badly after being in the coalition. Both of these broke the soft-left coalition, once in the Lib Dem's favour, once against it.
Currently, the Lib Dems are polling quite well, but I don't see that they have a clear ideological separation from Labour with the Lib Dems on the more popular side, as with Iraq. Therefore I predict that the Daveygasm is somewhat illusory. Hey, I could be wrong.
So sorry to hear this from Cyclefree today. I’m as atheist as they come, but I still said a prayer to something when I read the thread header this morning
I’m not convinced this rates as the worst example of Man’s inhumanity to Man.
On the other hand, am I aware of several friends where both parents earn six figure salaries, who have large five bedroom houses, don't send any of their kids to private school, and are consequently able to go on four to five holidays each year, and luxury ones at that.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Because those families aren't whining about their lifestyle being affected by tax. A company I was working at in the late 80's had a letter published one of the senior people working there earning 50k ( a huge amount late 80's) that was moaning about some change and how he and his wife had to cut back to only dining out 5 nights a week. Luckily we had internal company mail and so many mailed him a penny to help out with his living costs
Many people who pay for their kids to go to private school make sacrifices. The fees are high enough that you have to have quite a high income to afford them in the first place, and there's no getting round that: independent schools can't do it for free and so they have to charge a fee. Meanwhile, parents who opt for that are donating the free state school places for their own kids to someone else, and increasing the funds going into the education sector as a whole.
I view this as being altruistic and noble, rather than selfish and indulgent, and I find it fascinating that politically it's viewed the other way round - but that's where notions of envy and class war do their work.
"Supremely cynical". Please, they are mere dilettantes.
This is how it's really done.
MIKE JOHNSON: We are not cutting Medicaid in this package
TAPPER: 1.4 million people in your home state of Louisiana are on Medicaid. Is it your contention that if any of those Louisianans lose their benefits, it's because they shouldn't have been receiving them?
WRT Reform v Conservatives, organisations and states, at a time of crisis, are so often led by incompetents, and/or people who prefer tearing chunks out of rivals, rather than taking on the existential enemy.
So, the Roman Empire got Honorius and Valentinian, and their useless courtiers, in the Fifth century crisis.
The Liberals of the Twenties got Lloyd George and Asquith and Samuel, who actually had ability, but couldn’t stop putting the knife into each other.
The Conservatives have had a run of poor leaders, who get undermined in turn, by a cabal of MP’s who plainly hate each other.
And yet, when things are going well, treachery and incompetence are survivable. There are broader shifts in allegiance and outlook that threaten the Conservatives, just as they did the 1920’s Liberals.
I don't see any party willing to level with the voters, and nor do the voters wish to be levelled with.
We're chronically short-termist in our decision making and addicted to spraying around cash benefits to the non-working who feel supremely entitled to them and plead poverty whenever they are questioned.
I want both to change, but I see no party able to offer it or lead the voters in a direction they don't want to go.
No-one has recently tried a politics of speaking human, admitting fallibility, confronting reality, explaining government's limits, trying to manage what the state manages excellently well, avoiding soundbites, speaking through parliament and not 'gotcha' style interviews, not passing silly acts of parliament, explaining how a national economy/fiscal/financial system works, simplifying rather than complicating tax and welfare systems and explaining that sometimes taxes rise, and displaying a bit of gravitas and dignity.
That's all true. There's a lot to be said for brave and courageous leadership, and selecting politicians on talent and that alone.
I'd probably only put Tony Blair and William Hague into that category atm, and they're both now out the game.
Comments
We are all guilty of this. We overestimate how typical we, and our friendship group, are. Birds of a feather flock together. At elections we see whole streets of yellow diamonds. We discuss cricket and pizza on PB, or alternatively racing and Radiohead. We knew about pension changes so the Waspi women must have done. Likewise we surely speak for the silent majority on Ukraine and Palestine and Chagos – and the Maldives and Marlborough.
Apparently.
It is similar to expectations of a football team or political party; Arsenal fans seem disappointed to have finished 2nd in the PL and semi finalists in the CL, yet three years ago that would have been a dream. Reform may end up disappointed to finish 2nd in vote share at the next GE, yet this would have been about 100/1 18 months ago
At Sir Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with morose Labour MPs...the prime minister told them that “the Conservatives are not our principal opponent. Reform are our main rivals for power.”
In terms of parliament, it isn’t. When the next election doesn’t have to happen before 2029, it is reckless to draw firm conclusions, but this is not deterring ministers from rushing to judgement.
There are tactical incentives for Sir Keir to talk up Reform. While its surge troubles Labour, it poses a potentially existential menace to the Conservatives. Sir Keir’s strategists also think Mr Farage is a potent bogeyman to instil fear and quell division in Labour’s ranks.
Starmer loyalists will say that acknowledging the rise of Reform is embracing reality and preparing Labour for a new kind of struggle. Others think it dangerous to give a helping hand to Mr Farage’s mission to obliterate the Tories. One cabinet member calls it “a risky bet on the roulette wheel” to depict Reform not as a protest party, but as a contender for power. Building him up in the hope of knocking him down is quite a gamble. Perhaps a bigger one than they yet know.
How Musk, Gates, Branson, Charles III etc live doesn't really affect me as its abstract.
What matters far more is day to day realities. People having too much month at the end of their money. Couples who can't afford a home of their own despite the fact they both work full-time. Those are far more real concerns than abstract data analysis.
The bigger question is whether we tax income, consumption or wealth. There's a huge amount of wealth in this country - a lot of it is tied up in property for example. Previous Governments have moved from taxing income to taxing consumption and as we saw with VAT on fuel in the 90s there's huge resistance when you appear to tax the consumption of basics whether it be food or fuel.
There's huge resistance to further increases on fuel duty because a car is a necessity for many people but those who travel on public transport might have a different viewpoint given annual fare rises.
Yet we still live far beyond our means as a nation and no-one, it seems, wants to be the one left holding the expenditure or taxation hand grenade when the music stops.
The other factor constraining Reform or any other future Government wanting to take "radical" measures is the reaction of the international markets. Look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng, what would have happened to Corbyn and McDonnell, what might happen to Trump, what did happen to Mitterrand's socialism in the early 80s. If you go too far or too fast, the markets push back and you end up in a world of pain.
However, it's possible that the article that has triggered this conversation is absurd because it's not 100% factual;
Something fishy about this sob story (1) The photos are stock shots taken in 2012 and 2014, available from Shutterstock and Alamy—links below. (2) There’s no trace of bankers Al and Alexandra Moy anywhere other than the Telegraph 🤔
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asian-family-enjoying-walk-summer-countryside-177006692
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-portrait-of-chinese-boy-and-girl-sitting-in-park-together-54246752.html
https://bsky.app/profile/ianfraser.bsky.social/post/3lpyolfrkpk2a
Maybe there are innocent explanations, but it's certainly rum.
It's kinda tarnished his work, for me, ever since. And I really like the Waste Land abd 4 Quartets etc
So when I read, with great appreciation, the words
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
A tiny juvenile part of me is always sniggering and thinking, Hah, that was written by ...Toilets
Chris Spargo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9cKLSFiSZA
In your example the equivalent would be someone who thought GDP growth just happened without productivity gains or more people working harder, indeed that productivity gains were caused by growth.
Personally I wish more people in industry would fight back against Net Zero - it is becoming existential and everybody needs to do their bit.
I hope to read her book one day. Best wishes with her illness.
Putting aside the complications of the UC couples, child, and rent allowances - and assuming there's no UBI - if you make UC taper out at 25% and the ICT personal allowance equate to the point when UC has fully tapered to zero, then UC could be considered a negative ICT.
So, for a single person unable to work or temporarily out of work, with no income, for their UC to remain at today's £400 per month, £4800 pa, the ICT personal tax allowance would have to be £19,200. They'd effectively get 75% of every £ they earned by reducing their UC by £1 for every £4 earned. Once they get to earnings of £19,200 pa they'd receive no UC and pay no ICT. Above £19,200 everyone pay 25% of every additional £ earned in tax.
So yes, I think the working poor would be better off. Probably those just shy of the higher rate ICT threshold would be worse off though. I'm going to run up a spreadsheet...
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/19/china-clean-energy-gop-megabill-debate-00355229
Within a very few years, that won’t turn out well for them.
Reform have, for now, decided that facing WWC/poorer/pensioner voters they are old Labour promising that nothing is too good for them, and facing the materialist middle class that Reform are the Singaporian small state low tax buccaneer party.
As all their policies are fantasy, and most supporters just protesting, this won't get examined much except by anoraks.
The president’s billionaire backer was ever-present at the start of Trump’s term but is now pulling back from politics – and Republicans want to keep it that way
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/25/elon-musk-trump-politics
You see a cooling tower or a smoke stack as a horrible thing, belching out deadly fumes and destroying the planet.
A wind turbine could be seen as an oppressive blot on the landscape, a killer of precious bird life, and an un-ignorable symbol of a fraud perpetrated on our people, which we must not only pay for, many times over, we must also praise and applaud for fear of being othered.
And a smoke stack or cooling tower could be seen as a thing of industry and enterprise, beauty and power - employing people by adding real value, and giving out as a by-product a harmless gas that is absolutely necessary for life, making plants, trees and crops grow with greater vigour.
They are all just perceptions.
I was so unbelievably saddened to read your news this morning. I wanted to wait until I had a moment to write a response.
It all must have been such a shock. I have always read your articles. sometimes skimming through them, but often in full, and always admired your prose and unshakeable commitment to your beliefs.
I would classify you as one of those people who is just too intelligent to mess around with. A razor sharp mind and intellect, and someone who carries themselves with such integrity.
I will miss your presence on pbCOM. You added something that noone else did.
I really do hope that you find some peace, tranquility and real happiness in your days ahead. I also know that you will. You are one of life's formidables Cyclefree.
Carpe diem Cyclefree. Carpe diem.
And I think the climate scientists have been downsizing their results for decades. There’s this thing about not wanting to give people really bad news. Always with the conservative estimates, always cautious.
I am now expecting a decade of announcements that start ‘oooh that’s a bit worse than we expected’.
I chair a climate change committee and that places me as an authority of evil to some, I get quite a lot of correspondence, often in a combination of capital letters, cut and paste diatribe, genuinely angry and upset comment about how I’m part of a deep state repressing the truth, and then it’s all topped off with weird links to denial sites.
It’s distressing to negotiate. I answer them. And I try to stress the precautionary principle. Quite often it becomes a conversation. I’m very polite, but firm, and I try to be gentle because their faith is strong.
I think they are frightened.
And I don’t blame them for that.
1. Reform consistently poll 30%+, and as the next election approaches, they gradually draw in support from remaining Conservatives, moving up to 35%+.
The main centre-left party (probably Labours), starts to cannibalise centre-left support in turn. The Greens, in particular, get squeezed right back to 2-3%.
2. The mainstream parties simply introduce PR. Reform are the biggest party, but get shut out of negotiations for the next government, which is some form of traffic light coalition.
We're not good enough for the likes of him.
However, your use of the phrase 'denial sites' suggests to me that sadly you have become religious. One disputes facts and science. One denies "the true faith". On this subject, any site that takes a divergent view would automatically be a 'denial site' however slick its presentation, cogent its arguments, and however many scholarly works it has used to put its case. That's not a healthy state of affairs, and it is hardly surprising that people are exasperated by it.
Perhaps you should visit some of these 'denial sites' to test your arguments, because it surprises me how consistently specious the arguments made in favour of Net Zero are. I tend to think undeniable truths don't need people to dissemble, obfuscate, conceal, and as a last resort, other those who oppose them as 'deniers' to be successful.
A result of Reform and Labour 34% each, Con 12%, Lib Dem 11%, Green 3%, gives Reform 330 seats to 255 for Labour. The Conservatives get reduced to Harrow East!
Suppose there is a one-off favourable economic shock - in Britain, the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s, and in America the increase in productivity following the tech boom of the mid-late 90s, or in China for the 40 years following the opening in the mid-70s. The average person, feeling unfamiliar optimism, increases his spending, and the average businessman, likewise, increases investment. But in fact, because both think, not just that he's richer today, but he's likely to be richer tomorrow, by increasing amounts, he will increase his spending by MORE than his income increases.
That has a whole host of consequences, many of which we are still dealing with, and which we saw dramatically in the UK in the late 1980s, in America in the late 1990s and early 2000s and in China up to the pandemic. One is a credit bubble, because the person has to borrow to get his consumption up in advance of the increases in income. A second is that interest rates have to rise, otherwise you get asset bubbles, which again you saw in those same time periods. A third is big balance of payments deficits, as booming economies raise consumption and demand for investment goods long before the supply side can meet them. A fourth is a big increase in financial intermediation (i.e. a growth in the financial services sector).
These four consequences aren't damaging in themselves, but they all carry dangers for the economy as a whole, and need extraordinary skill and perspicacity on the part of Treasury officials and central bankers to manage, even if there aren't any external shocks, which of course there always are.
But they can be overcome if policy-makers think through the demand-side implications of supply-side improvements. It is the great tragedy of both Lawson and Greenspan that neither did so, and the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models so beloved of academic economists failed completely to help them, so we had large bubbles in the UK in the 80s, in the US before 2007 and even more in China until the pandemic, all of which burst painfully and undermined the productivity improvements that had caused them in the first place. And the only apparent answer to maintaining economic growth in such difficult times is big increases in government spending and ever-larger deficits.
A bit technical for this site maybe, but hugely important to understanding today's politics, so not entirely inappropriate.
At least I was right in thinking that the Toon would lose today. The Mancs did them* a big favour.
*I can't saying "us" these days.
It could be an entirely accurate characterisation.
At least the red and white side of Tyne/Wear is not embarrassing the North East.
The Deal that's supposed to guarantee signals intelligence and military operation free from interference will shortly find both awash with interference as suspicious "fishing vessels" constantly plague Diego Garcia trying to find out what's going on, and hassling US/UK operations.
It's one of the most strategically naive pieces of real politik in my lifetime.
This is like Biden being senile and everyone denying it.
I think they live in an economic fantasy world and, in power, would be like the ERG on acid.
In every one of those general elections the LD vote share went in the opposite direction to Labour's.
Otherwise, very good point.
We're chronically short-termist in our decision making and addicted to spraying around cash benefits to the non-working who feel supremely entitled to them and plead poverty whenever they are questioned.
I want both to change, but I see no party able to offer it or lead the voters in a direction they don't want to go.
They don't attract anything like the same opprobrium.
Only with a better theory. Good luck with that.
Arrhenius's maths is not difficult. Where did he go wrong?
Feel free to argue over political decisions - indeed, I would probably do so too - but you can't just assert that physics is wrong without a LOT of evidence.
They promised an EU referendum in 2005 on democratic grounds and, indeed, staged a walkout of parliament when they didn't get it but this was entirely in bad faith.
Their expectation was that they smash it 60-70%+ and could reap the plaudits for it.
When one was actually held, and they lost, they then tried everything possible to stop it and then Revoke it, without a referendum, with some fantastic dissemblement to attempt to justify it.
They are the little shits of politics.
It is a worrying development. The Telegraph may well be one sided and partisan but actually publishing fiction as news, just for a bit of rage bait? Not good.
I view this as being altruistic and noble, rather than selfish and indulgent, and I find it fascinating that politically it's viewed the other way round - but that's where notions of envy and class war do their work.
Second, other parties said they would hold a referendum and didn't.
Third, it's been your beloved Conservatives who have spent much of the last decade botching the implementation to such an extent they suffered the worst defeat in their history last year and are still going backward.
And in the same breath you turn to what the Conservatives have done over the last 10.
Lol.
Reform threaten Labour everywhere outside inner London that was previously red rosette donkey territory and 2024 shows us nothing is now sacred blue either.
UNS models are probably all but useless
I don't think I'm typical, mind.
Whether it is entering on a false prospectus, leaving on a false prospectus, Cameron's betrayal by resignation, refusing to hold referendums on critical matters, failing to shape the EU in our long term interests when we could do so, confusing a trade organisation with a political project, it's been a mess for decades.
I believe he will succeed once he has got rid of the deadwood which includes at least 8 players
Getting rid of the Glazers and Ratcliffe could also be an excellent move
A curiously opaque organisation. Net Zero Policy is a response to a threat. There are many possible responses.
I guess It’s the art of the possible again. I’m totally open to solutions. I’ll take them all and run with anything that mitigates and minimises risk.
I’d prefer a policy that works. Keeping fossil fuel in the ground and stopping eating beef is not popular. Please give me an easy one.
AMOC has stuttered in the past.
Are you feeling lucky?
Good luck @Cyclefree . I wish you all the best.
I would make that trade.
Denial, but with a commercial motive.
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian 501(c)(3) nonprofit public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute
"Britain | Bagehot
A world without Nigel Farage
British politics hinges on one man’s survival" (£)
https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/05/14/a-world-without-nigel-farage
If Labour had held an EU referendum in 2005, as demanded by the LDs, Remain would have won and put Farage in his box forever. The LDs were ahead of the curve. New Labour dropped that ball.
Vote share is interesting but success is measured in seats, not votes, as small parties will tell you.
In 1992, Labour and the Lib Dems both rose in votes and seats. In 1997 they both rose significantly in seats. In 2001 they both remained at high points. In 2007, they both decreased in seat count - though I will still give you this one as a counter-argument, because I think the Lib Dems really did get votes at the expense of Labour due to their principled stance against the Iraq War. 2015 both went down. 2017 they both gained - again, wtf are you basing your arguments on? 2019 they both went down. 2024 they both went up.
Apart from that, great argument petal.
So back to my point, the Lib Dem's success is almost always simultaneous with Labour's success, with a major reason to my mind being that they usually both benefit from anti-Tory sentiment and a shared soft-left voter base that is pretty good at voting for whoever is best placed to beat a Tory.
Divergent results to this appear to have come about when the Lib Dems benefited from Labour's disastrous Iraq War policy, and when the Lib Dems did badly after being in the coalition. Both of these broke the soft-left coalition, once in the Lib Dem's favour, once against it.
Currently, the Lib Dems are polling quite well, but I don't see that they have a clear ideological separation from Labour with the Lib Dems on the more popular side, as with Iraq. Therefore I predict that the Daveygasm is somewhat illusory. Hey, I could be wrong.
I’m definitely going to try the recipe
LOL
Please, they are mere dilettantes.
This is how it's really done.
MIKE JOHNSON: We are not cutting Medicaid in this package
TAPPER: 1.4 million people in your home state of Louisiana are on Medicaid. Is it your contention that if any of those Louisianans lose their benefits, it's because they shouldn't have been receiving them?
JOHNSON: Yeah. Every district in America has people who are on the program who shouldn't.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1926628569666449864
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20xvnge3qno
I'd probably only put Tony Blair and William Hague into that category atm, and they're both now out the game.