General News Thread

[Bellend Sebastian]

I see Trump is going to be addressing the UN General Assembly today, very much looking forward to the world getting back on track as a result of an uplifting and inclusive message resonating around the globe

[Zear0]

2 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

I see Trump is going to be addressing the UN General Assembly today, very much looking forward to the world getting back on track as a result of an uplifting and inclusive message resonating around the globe

Sure it'll be very profound.

[ramboacdc]

6 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

I see Trump is going to be addressing the UN General Assembly today, very much looking forward to the world getting back on track as a result of an uplifting and inclusive message resonating around the globe

 

4 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Sure it'll be very profound.

I am sure it will mention the media a few times as he is having to get on to other peoples media channels to get heard. Since he has no press pool now, he was on Mandami's yesterday saying how the press aren't boycotting him and then later on giving a speech with no microphone as the pool wasn't there to set one up. Currently he is shouting into the void
 

 

[String fellow]

Back in the early Eighties, I learnt how to unscramble any Rubik's Cube in about 3 minutes - completely hopeless compared to the insanely short times that it takes these Chinese children to unscramble them now!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cmvgyzgnq9e3o

[davieG]

 

Wind Energy's Absurd ·

Follow

 

Yesterday, Allison Pearson had an article in The Telegraph - 'Net zero is a national suicide pact' with a sub-heading 'I implore Andy Burnham: please find just 30 minutes to watch this devastating analysis of Britain’s energy policy by the former head of MI6'.

That's Sir Richard Dearlove whose lecture we posted last week.

Burnham has been bumping his gums on net zero. Allison Pearson says:

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟓𝟎. “𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝… 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.”

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The PM might be new; the zealotry isn't. And neither is the disregard for security.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../net-zero-is-a.../...

'Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating (a new one on me), climate emergency, net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years. Who now remembers the briefly famous “hole in the ozone layer” caused when an entire generation of teenage girls tried to copy Farrah Fawcett’s iconic 1970s feathered hair and used several trillion cans of hairspray to unsuccessfully (in my case anyway) keep the flicked-back sides in place? Did the hole heal when girls moved on to imitating Jennifer Aniston’s “The Rachel” cut, which could be achieved without assistance from aerosols?

Admittedly, Farrah’s Fringe is not a scientifically proven explanation for the phenomenon, but, if you ask me, it’s every bit as plausible as some of the theories accounting for changes in what we used to call “the weather”. Anyway, after almost 20 years of hysterical banging on about the need to reach “net zero” by 2050 lest 70 million Britons start to resemble the crusty bits in a fish-fryer, a cross-party House of Commons committee this week recommended the Government stop using the phrase because it had become “toxic among the public”.

Well, hallelujah! Was this a rare and welcome outbreak of sanity among the climate cultists who were finally acknowledging that decarbonisation and running a successful G7 economy are not, given the present state of technology, compatible? Don’t get your hopes up, please. The committee of MPs suggested finding a new phrase for the same old nonsense. Because “net zero” no longer had a positive image with the public and consensus over the transition to clean energy had broken down amid “misinformation from sceptics”.

Gosh, cults are remarkably impervious to reason, aren’t they? If “net zero” has become toxic, it’s because, despite an overwhelming media consensus designed to stifle debate, the public has managed to pick up pieces of information from those pesky sceptics. People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills. They can see that the cost of electricity (among the highest in the world) is destroying manufacturing (Denby Pottery, established 1809, is only the latest casualty).

They also realise that reducing 0.8 per cent of the world’s CO2 – the UK’s puny contribution – is going to have no effect on the climate, not when our competitors are busy building coal-fired power stations and increasing their emissions like billy-o. As for paying Norway £20bn a year for oil and gas when we could drill our own in neighbouring North Sea fields, has any nation ever conspired so successfully in its own downfall?

Consumers, it turns out, don’t care to be patronised by scientifically illiterate MPs, mouthing the approved dogma, when people like me have been pointing out that green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies. As for what the Commons’ committee calls “tangible wins” such as new jobs – there are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where, unsurprisingly, the UK’s 2050 net zero target is hugely popular. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

Sir Richard Dearlove quoted that acrid line in his devastating lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (of which I am a board member) in London on Wednesday night. In “Energy Security: Blowing in the Wind”, the former head of MI6, who is one of our best geopolitical brains, outlined in excruciating detail the epic folly of British climate policy, which has failed to give sufficient weight to the strategic vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign manufacturing, imported components and a national grid that is increasingly at the mercy of whether the sun shines or the wind blows (but not too hard!).

The implications for national security are dire. Deindustrialisation, Dearlove pointed out, has not only led to the closure of vast tracts of our manufacturing capability. In the event of an emergency, we have lost much of the ability to rebuild our own energy infrastructure. (“Uncertain access to equipment and spares – for example, generators and transformers – is a graver and more chronic danger than a temporary shortage of gas.”) Should we experience the blackouts many experts predict for this winter, it won’t be the brief, homework-by-candlelight affair some of us remember from childhood. During the three-day week in 1974, thanks to the large interruptible load, a shortage could be absorbed by factories rather than households, but that ability has been lost in the reckless rush to decarbonisation.

After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year, it took approximately 23 hours for Spain’s electricity grid to be fully declared back to normal. There seems little hope that a Britain diminished by the destruction of its power stations (and the loss of its ability to make virgin steel at Port Talbot) in the cause of net zero would be able to rescue a similar situation that speedily. “We have very little industry left to protect and we cannot rebuild non-existent industries which lie in foreign jurisdictions,” was the former spy chief’s bleak assessment.

The well-informed audience was clearly shocked as Dearlove painted a humiliating picture of the UK having to join a queue for materials and components (“large-scale transformers ordered today now take two years to arrive”), often from “the very country which the director general of MI5 has identified as the most serious threat to Britain’s national security”.

The degree to which the United Kingdom has become China’s bitch should horrify us all. Dearlove would not use such vulgar language, of course, although his angry disbelief was felt in fact after damning fact; at one point, he did answer a question with a pithy: “We’re screwed.” Asked whether China could turn off the lights in the lecture theatre where we sat, he said they probably could, and he suggested PRC spies had infiltrated climate-change groups, just as Russian spies penetrated CND during the Cold War.

I urge you to watch Dearlove’s powerful lecture for yourself. All I can say is he left those of us in his audience badly shaken. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK (he coined “net stupid zero”), is normally an upbeat fellow, but he confessed: “I am really anxious. It’s unreal how stupid our leaders have been for decades.”

Should there be significant power cuts this winter, Tice said Reform “will demand a general election and criminal prosecutions for negligence and malfeasance in public office”.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have sensibly said they will scrap Theresa May’s 2050 target made legally binding by the Climate Change Act 2008. Maybe then arguably the greatest act of national self-harm in the history of these islands can begin to be repaired. Except Andy Burnham said this week that the country must fully commit itself to reaching net zero by 2050. “I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected… I want Britain to believe in itself again.”

His ignorance is staggering. The Prime Minister was talking dangerous tosh, timed to woo Green voters in the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. For the same party-before-country reason, Andy has also postponed a decision to approve the development of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea.

“I urge our leading politicians to take very careful note,” Sir Richard Dearlove said. “We are not the victims of a conspiracy to make us vulnerable; we have quite casually done this to ourselves. We have, as a nation, negligently wandered close to a cliff edge and the adversaries I have described stand ready to help us over it; and the fragility of the present international order enhances the risk.”

Are you listening to the man who has forgotten more about national security than you will ever know, Prime Minister? You really should. The phrase “net zero” has not been discredited by “misinformation”, but by reality. Net zero will not happen by 2050, but the doomed pursuit of that target will cause untold economic damage, give comfort to our enemies and discomfort our own people. Don’t change the phrase, change the crazy policy. The cliff edge is frighteningly close.'

 

 

Thoughts?

 

[davieG]

Tee Hee!

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, davieG said:

 

Wind Energy's Absurd ·

Follow

 

Yesterday, Allison Pearson had an article in The Telegraph - 'Net zero is a national suicide pact' with a sub-heading 'I implore Andy Burnham: please find just 30 minutes to watch this devastating analysis of Britain’s energy policy by the former head of MI6'.

That's Sir Richard Dearlove whose lecture we posted last week.

Burnham has been bumping his gums on net zero. Allison Pearson says:

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟓𝟎. “𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝… 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.”

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The PM might be new; the zealotry isn't. And neither is the disregard for security.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../net-zero-is-a.../...

'Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating (a new one on me), climate emergency, net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years. Who now remembers the briefly famous “hole in the ozone layer” caused when an entire generation of teenage girls tried to copy Farrah Fawcett’s iconic 1970s feathered hair and used several trillion cans of hairspray to unsuccessfully (in my case anyway) keep the flicked-back sides in place? Did the hole heal when girls moved on to imitating Jennifer Aniston’s “The Rachel” cut, which could be achieved without assistance from aerosols?

Admittedly, Farrah’s Fringe is not a scientifically proven explanation for the phenomenon, but, if you ask me, it’s every bit as plausible as some of the theories accounting for changes in what we used to call “the weather”. Anyway, after almost 20 years of hysterical banging on about the need to reach “net zero” by 2050 lest 70 million Britons start to resemble the crusty bits in a fish-fryer, a cross-party House of Commons committee this week recommended the Government stop using the phrase because it had become “toxic among the public”.

Well, hallelujah! Was this a rare and welcome outbreak of sanity among the climate cultists who were finally acknowledging that decarbonisation and running a successful G7 economy are not, given the present state of technology, compatible? Don’t get your hopes up, please. The committee of MPs suggested finding a new phrase for the same old nonsense. Because “net zero” no longer had a positive image with the public and consensus over the transition to clean energy had broken down amid “misinformation from sceptics”.

Gosh, cults are remarkably impervious to reason, aren’t they? If “net zero” has become toxic, it’s because, despite an overwhelming media consensus designed to stifle debate, the public has managed to pick up pieces of information from those pesky sceptics. People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills. They can see that the cost of electricity (among the highest in the world) is destroying manufacturing (Denby Pottery, established 1809, is only the latest casualty).

They also realise that reducing 0.8 per cent of the world’s CO2 – the UK’s puny contribution – is going to have no effect on the climate, not when our competitors are busy building coal-fired power stations and increasing their emissions like billy-o. As for paying Norway £20bn a year for oil and gas when we could drill our own in neighbouring North Sea fields, has any nation ever conspired so successfully in its own downfall?

Consumers, it turns out, don’t care to be patronised by scientifically illiterate MPs, mouthing the approved dogma, when people like me have been pointing out that green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies. As for what the Commons’ committee calls “tangible wins” such as new jobs – there are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where, unsurprisingly, the UK’s 2050 net zero target is hugely popular. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

Sir Richard Dearlove quoted that acrid line in his devastating lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (of which I am a board member) in London on Wednesday night. In “Energy Security: Blowing in the Wind”, the former head of MI6, who is one of our best geopolitical brains, outlined in excruciating detail the epic folly of British climate policy, which has failed to give sufficient weight to the strategic vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign manufacturing, imported components and a national grid that is increasingly at the mercy of whether the sun shines or the wind blows (but not too hard!).

The implications for national security are dire. Deindustrialisation, Dearlove pointed out, has not only led to the closure of vast tracts of our manufacturing capability. In the event of an emergency, we have lost much of the ability to rebuild our own energy infrastructure. (“Uncertain access to equipment and spares – for example, generators and transformers – is a graver and more chronic danger than a temporary shortage of gas.”) Should we experience the blackouts many experts predict for this winter, it won’t be the brief, homework-by-candlelight affair some of us remember from childhood. During the three-day week in 1974, thanks to the large interruptible load, a shortage could be absorbed by factories rather than households, but that ability has been lost in the reckless rush to decarbonisation.

After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year, it took approximately 23 hours for Spain’s electricity grid to be fully declared back to normal. There seems little hope that a Britain diminished by the destruction of its power stations (and the loss of its ability to make virgin steel at Port Talbot) in the cause of net zero would be able to rescue a similar situation that speedily. “We have very little industry left to protect and we cannot rebuild non-existent industries which lie in foreign jurisdictions,” was the former spy chief’s bleak assessment.

The well-informed audience was clearly shocked as Dearlove painted a humiliating picture of the UK having to join a queue for materials and components (“large-scale transformers ordered today now take two years to arrive”), often from “the very country which the director general of MI5 has identified as the most serious threat to Britain’s national security”.

The degree to which the United Kingdom has become China’s bitch should horrify us all. Dearlove would not use such vulgar language, of course, although his angry disbelief was felt in fact after damning fact; at one point, he did answer a question with a pithy: “We’re screwed.” Asked whether China could turn off the lights in the lecture theatre where we sat, he said they probably could, and he suggested PRC spies had infiltrated climate-change groups, just as Russian spies penetrated CND during the Cold War.

I urge you to watch Dearlove’s powerful lecture for yourself. All I can say is he left those of us in his audience badly shaken. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK (he coined “net stupid zero”), is normally an upbeat fellow, but he confessed: “I am really anxious. It’s unreal how stupid our leaders have been for decades.”

Should there be significant power cuts this winter, Tice said Reform “will demand a general election and criminal prosecutions for negligence and malfeasance in public office”.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have sensibly said they will scrap Theresa May’s 2050 target made legally binding by the Climate Change Act 2008. Maybe then arguably the greatest act of national self-harm in the history of these islands can begin to be repaired. Except Andy Burnham said this week that the country must fully commit itself to reaching net zero by 2050. “I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected… I want Britain to believe in itself again.”

His ignorance is staggering. The Prime Minister was talking dangerous tosh, timed to woo Green voters in the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. For the same party-before-country reason, Andy has also postponed a decision to approve the development of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea.

“I urge our leading politicians to take very careful note,” Sir Richard Dearlove said. “We are not the victims of a conspiracy to make us vulnerable; we have quite casually done this to ourselves. We have, as a nation, negligently wandered close to a cliff edge and the adversaries I have described stand ready to help us over it; and the fragility of the present international order enhances the risk.”

Are you listening to the man who has forgotten more about national security than you will ever know, Prime Minister? You really should. The phrase “net zero” has not been discredited by “misinformation”, but by reality. Net zero will not happen by 2050, but the doomed pursuit of that target will cause untold economic damage, give comfort to our enemies and discomfort our own people. Don’t change the phrase, change the crazy policy. The cliff edge is frighteningly close.'

 

 

Thoughts?

 

... tell me that you believe none of that self aggrandising, scientifically illiterate, future-condemning bollocks, please. 

 

I mean, I can debunk it line by line if so asked, but I'd rather hope I wouldn't need to. 

[Brizzle Fox]

44 minutes ago, davieG said:

 

Wind Energy's Absurd ·

Follow

 

Yesterday, Allison Pearson had an article in The Telegraph - 'Net zero is a national suicide pact' with a sub-heading 'I implore Andy Burnham: please find just 30 minutes to watch this devastating analysis of Britain’s energy policy by the former head of MI6'.

That's Sir Richard Dearlove whose lecture we posted last week.

Burnham has been bumping his gums on net zero. Allison Pearson says:

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟓𝟎. “𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝… 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.”

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The PM might be new; the zealotry isn't. And neither is the disregard for security.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../net-zero-is-a.../...

'Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating (a new one on me), climate emergency, net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years. Who now remembers the briefly famous “hole in the ozone layer” caused when an entire generation of teenage girls tried to copy Farrah Fawcett’s iconic 1970s feathered hair and used several trillion cans of hairspray to unsuccessfully (in my case anyway) keep the flicked-back sides in place? Did the hole heal when girls moved on to imitating Jennifer Aniston’s “The Rachel” cut, which could be achieved without assistance from aerosols?

Admittedly, Farrah’s Fringe is not a scientifically proven explanation for the phenomenon, but, if you ask me, it’s every bit as plausible as some of the theories accounting for changes in what we used to call “the weather”. Anyway, after almost 20 years of hysterical banging on about the need to reach “net zero” by 2050 lest 70 million Britons start to resemble the crusty bits in a fish-fryer, a cross-party House of Commons committee this week recommended the Government stop using the phrase because it had become “toxic among the public”.

Well, hallelujah! Was this a rare and welcome outbreak of sanity among the climate cultists who were finally acknowledging that decarbonisation and running a successful G7 economy are not, given the present state of technology, compatible? Don’t get your hopes up, please. The committee of MPs suggested finding a new phrase for the same old nonsense. Because “net zero” no longer had a positive image with the public and consensus over the transition to clean energy had broken down amid “misinformation from sceptics”.

Gosh, cults are remarkably impervious to reason, aren’t they? If “net zero” has become toxic, it’s because, despite an overwhelming media consensus designed to stifle debate, the public has managed to pick up pieces of information from those pesky sceptics. People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills. They can see that the cost of electricity (among the highest in the world) is destroying manufacturing (Denby Pottery, established 1809, is only the latest casualty).

They also realise that reducing 0.8 per cent of the world’s CO2 – the UK’s puny contribution – is going to have no effect on the climate, not when our competitors are busy building coal-fired power stations and increasing their emissions like billy-o. As for paying Norway £20bn a year for oil and gas when we could drill our own in neighbouring North Sea fields, has any nation ever conspired so successfully in its own downfall?

Consumers, it turns out, don’t care to be patronised by scientifically illiterate MPs, mouthing the approved dogma, when people like me have been pointing out that green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies. As for what the Commons’ committee calls “tangible wins” such as new jobs – there are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where, unsurprisingly, the UK’s 2050 net zero target is hugely popular. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

Sir Richard Dearlove quoted that acrid line in his devastating lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (of which I am a board member) in London on Wednesday night. In “Energy Security: Blowing in the Wind”, the former head of MI6, who is one of our best geopolitical brains, outlined in excruciating detail the epic folly of British climate policy, which has failed to give sufficient weight to the strategic vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign manufacturing, imported components and a national grid that is increasingly at the mercy of whether the sun shines or the wind blows (but not too hard!).

The implications for national security are dire. Deindustrialisation, Dearlove pointed out, has not only led to the closure of vast tracts of our manufacturing capability. In the event of an emergency, we have lost much of the ability to rebuild our own energy infrastructure. (“Uncertain access to equipment and spares – for example, generators and transformers – is a graver and more chronic danger than a temporary shortage of gas.”) Should we experience the blackouts many experts predict for this winter, it won’t be the brief, homework-by-candlelight affair some of us remember from childhood. During the three-day week in 1974, thanks to the large interruptible load, a shortage could be absorbed by factories rather than households, but that ability has been lost in the reckless rush to decarbonisation.

After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year, it took approximately 23 hours for Spain’s electricity grid to be fully declared back to normal. There seems little hope that a Britain diminished by the destruction of its power stations (and the loss of its ability to make virgin steel at Port Talbot) in the cause of net zero would be able to rescue a similar situation that speedily. “We have very little industry left to protect and we cannot rebuild non-existent industries which lie in foreign jurisdictions,” was the former spy chief’s bleak assessment.

The well-informed audience was clearly shocked as Dearlove painted a humiliating picture of the UK having to join a queue for materials and components (“large-scale transformers ordered today now take two years to arrive”), often from “the very country which the director general of MI5 has identified as the most serious threat to Britain’s national security”.

The degree to which the United Kingdom has become China’s bitch should horrify us all. Dearlove would not use such vulgar language, of course, although his angry disbelief was felt in fact after damning fact; at one point, he did answer a question with a pithy: “We’re screwed.” Asked whether China could turn off the lights in the lecture theatre where we sat, he said they probably could, and he suggested PRC spies had infiltrated climate-change groups, just as Russian spies penetrated CND during the Cold War.

I urge you to watch Dearlove’s powerful lecture for yourself. All I can say is he left those of us in his audience badly shaken. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK (he coined “net stupid zero”), is normally an upbeat fellow, but he confessed: “I am really anxious. It’s unreal how stupid our leaders have been for decades.”

Should there be significant power cuts this winter, Tice said Reform “will demand a general election and criminal prosecutions for negligence and malfeasance in public office”.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have sensibly said they will scrap Theresa May’s 2050 target made legally binding by the Climate Change Act 2008. Maybe then arguably the greatest act of national self-harm in the history of these islands can begin to be repaired. Except Andy Burnham said this week that the country must fully commit itself to reaching net zero by 2050. “I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected… I want Britain to believe in itself again.”

His ignorance is staggering. The Prime Minister was talking dangerous tosh, timed to woo Green voters in the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. For the same party-before-country reason, Andy has also postponed a decision to approve the development of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea.

“I urge our leading politicians to take very careful note,” Sir Richard Dearlove said. “We are not the victims of a conspiracy to make us vulnerable; we have quite casually done this to ourselves. We have, as a nation, negligently wandered close to a cliff edge and the adversaries I have described stand ready to help us over it; and the fragility of the present international order enhances the risk.”

Are you listening to the man who has forgotten more about national security than you will ever know, Prime Minister? You really should. The phrase “net zero” has not been discredited by “misinformation”, but by reality. Net zero will not happen by 2050, but the doomed pursuit of that target will cause untold economic damage, give comfort to our enemies and discomfort our own people. Don’t change the phrase, change the crazy policy. The cliff edge is frighteningly close.'

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Tbh I stopped reading once I reached the words Allison Pearson...

[Zear0]

53 minutes ago, davieG said:

 

Wind Energy's Absurd ·

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Yesterday, Allison Pearson had an article in The Telegraph - 'Net zero is a national suicide pact' with a sub-heading 'I implore Andy Burnham: please find just 30 minutes to watch this devastating analysis of Britain’s energy policy by the former head of MI6'.

That's Sir Richard Dearlove whose lecture we posted last week.

Burnham has been bumping his gums on net zero. Allison Pearson says:

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟓𝟎. “𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝… 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.”

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The PM might be new; the zealotry isn't. And neither is the disregard for security.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../net-zero-is-a.../...

'Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating (a new one on me), climate emergency, net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years. Who now remembers the briefly famous “hole in the ozone layer” caused when an entire generation of teenage girls tried to copy Farrah Fawcett’s iconic 1970s feathered hair and used several trillion cans of hairspray to unsuccessfully (in my case anyway) keep the flicked-back sides in place? Did the hole heal when girls moved on to imitating Jennifer Aniston’s “The Rachel” cut, which could be achieved without assistance from aerosols?

Admittedly, Farrah’s Fringe is not a scientifically proven explanation for the phenomenon, but, if you ask me, it’s every bit as plausible as some of the theories accounting for changes in what we used to call “the weather”. Anyway, after almost 20 years of hysterical banging on about the need to reach “net zero” by 2050 lest 70 million Britons start to resemble the crusty bits in a fish-fryer, a cross-party House of Commons committee this week recommended the Government stop using the phrase because it had become “toxic among the public”.

Well, hallelujah! Was this a rare and welcome outbreak of sanity among the climate cultists who were finally acknowledging that decarbonisation and running a successful G7 economy are not, given the present state of technology, compatible? Don’t get your hopes up, please. The committee of MPs suggested finding a new phrase for the same old nonsense. Because “net zero” no longer had a positive image with the public and consensus over the transition to clean energy had broken down amid “misinformation from sceptics”.

Gosh, cults are remarkably impervious to reason, aren’t they? If “net zero” has become toxic, it’s because, despite an overwhelming media consensus designed to stifle debate, the public has managed to pick up pieces of information from those pesky sceptics. People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills. They can see that the cost of electricity (among the highest in the world) is destroying manufacturing (Denby Pottery, established 1809, is only the latest casualty).

They also realise that reducing 0.8 per cent of the world’s CO2 – the UK’s puny contribution – is going to have no effect on the climate, not when our competitors are busy building coal-fired power stations and increasing their emissions like billy-o. As for paying Norway £20bn a year for oil and gas when we could drill our own in neighbouring North Sea fields, has any nation ever conspired so successfully in its own downfall?

Consumers, it turns out, don’t care to be patronised by scientifically illiterate MPs, mouthing the approved dogma, when people like me have been pointing out that green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies. As for what the Commons’ committee calls “tangible wins” such as new jobs – there are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where, unsurprisingly, the UK’s 2050 net zero target is hugely popular. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

Sir Richard Dearlove quoted that acrid line in his devastating lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (of which I am a board member) in London on Wednesday night. In “Energy Security: Blowing in the Wind”, the former head of MI6, who is one of our best geopolitical brains, outlined in excruciating detail the epic folly of British climate policy, which has failed to give sufficient weight to the strategic vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign manufacturing, imported components and a national grid that is increasingly at the mercy of whether the sun shines or the wind blows (but not too hard!).

The implications for national security are dire. Deindustrialisation, Dearlove pointed out, has not only led to the closure of vast tracts of our manufacturing capability. In the event of an emergency, we have lost much of the ability to rebuild our own energy infrastructure. (“Uncertain access to equipment and spares – for example, generators and transformers – is a graver and more chronic danger than a temporary shortage of gas.”) Should we experience the blackouts many experts predict for this winter, it won’t be the brief, homework-by-candlelight affair some of us remember from childhood. During the three-day week in 1974, thanks to the large interruptible load, a shortage could be absorbed by factories rather than households, but that ability has been lost in the reckless rush to decarbonisation.

After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year, it took approximately 23 hours for Spain’s electricity grid to be fully declared back to normal. There seems little hope that a Britain diminished by the destruction of its power stations (and the loss of its ability to make virgin steel at Port Talbot) in the cause of net zero would be able to rescue a similar situation that speedily. “We have very little industry left to protect and we cannot rebuild non-existent industries which lie in foreign jurisdictions,” was the former spy chief’s bleak assessment.

The well-informed audience was clearly shocked as Dearlove painted a humiliating picture of the UK having to join a queue for materials and components (“large-scale transformers ordered today now take two years to arrive”), often from “the very country which the director general of MI5 has identified as the most serious threat to Britain’s national security”.

The degree to which the United Kingdom has become China’s bitch should horrify us all. Dearlove would not use such vulgar language, of course, although his angry disbelief was felt in fact after damning fact; at one point, he did answer a question with a pithy: “We’re screwed.” Asked whether China could turn off the lights in the lecture theatre where we sat, he said they probably could, and he suggested PRC spies had infiltrated climate-change groups, just as Russian spies penetrated CND during the Cold War.

I urge you to watch Dearlove’s powerful lecture for yourself. All I can say is he left those of us in his audience badly shaken. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK (he coined “net stupid zero”), is normally an upbeat fellow, but he confessed: “I am really anxious. It’s unreal how stupid our leaders have been for decades.”

Should there be significant power cuts this winter, Tice said Reform “will demand a general election and criminal prosecutions for negligence and malfeasance in public office”.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have sensibly said they will scrap Theresa May’s 2050 target made legally binding by the Climate Change Act 2008. Maybe then arguably the greatest act of national self-harm in the history of these islands can begin to be repaired. Except Andy Burnham said this week that the country must fully commit itself to reaching net zero by 2050. “I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected… I want Britain to believe in itself again.”

His ignorance is staggering. The Prime Minister was talking dangerous tosh, timed to woo Green voters in the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. For the same party-before-country reason, Andy has also postponed a decision to approve the development of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea.

“I urge our leading politicians to take very careful note,” Sir Richard Dearlove said. “We are not the victims of a conspiracy to make us vulnerable; we have quite casually done this to ourselves. We have, as a nation, negligently wandered close to a cliff edge and the adversaries I have described stand ready to help us over it; and the fragility of the present international order enhances the risk.”

Are you listening to the man who has forgotten more about national security than you will ever know, Prime Minister? You really should. The phrase “net zero” has not been discredited by “misinformation”, but by reality. Net zero will not happen by 2050, but the doomed pursuit of that target will cause untold economic damage, give comfort to our enemies and discomfort our own people. Don’t change the phrase, change the crazy policy. The cliff edge is frighteningly close.'

 

 

Thoughts?

 

That's an absolute classic.  Would usually ignore it but too many gems to just ignore.

 

• “Who now remembers the briefly famous ‘hole in the ozone layer’... Did the hole heal when girls moved on...?”.  It's amazing how you bring up an example that literally proves what you're arguing against.  Amazing how environmental problems can be fixed when you undertake global action isn't it?
• “Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating... net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years.”.  Tell me you're not a cretin by thinking that these five different things are the same.
• “People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills.”  Ofgem literally wrote in their price-cap increase this was due solely due to wholesale gas prices.  Again, way to make a point you're arguing against.
• “There are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China.”  Wanted to look this up myself giving I work in the power generation sector.  650000 UK jobs currently in the renewable sector.
• “After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year...” Again, love that people still blame renewables for that outage.

Thoughts?  Alison Pearson is a f**king dumbass

[st albans fox]

1 hour ago, davieG said:

Tee Hee!

If it’s no longer tied to nato membership then he’ll use that as his win 

[st albans fox]

2 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

I see Trump is going to be addressing the UN General Assembly today, very much looking forward to the world getting back on track as a result of an uplifting and inclusive message resonating around the globe

Wouldn’t surprise me if he tells them that the USA are reducing further their contribution to the UN and their agencies 

 

And tbh, I wouldn’t blame him as they are currently paying for approx 30% of the overall budget (according to my AI google friend) 

[MonkeyTennis?]

1 hour ago, davieG said:

 

Wind Energy's Absurd ·

Follow

 

Yesterday, Allison Pearson had an article in The Telegraph - 'Net zero is a national suicide pact' with a sub-heading 'I implore Andy Burnham: please find just 30 minutes to watch this devastating analysis of Britain’s energy policy by the former head of MI6'.

That's Sir Richard Dearlove whose lecture we posted last week.

Burnham has been bumping his gums on net zero. Allison Pearson says:

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟓𝟎. “𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝… 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.”

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The PM might be new; the zealotry isn't. And neither is the disregard for security.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../net-zero-is-a.../...

'Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating (a new one on me), climate emergency, net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years. Who now remembers the briefly famous “hole in the ozone layer” caused when an entire generation of teenage girls tried to copy Farrah Fawcett’s iconic 1970s feathered hair and used several trillion cans of hairspray to unsuccessfully (in my case anyway) keep the flicked-back sides in place? Did the hole heal when girls moved on to imitating Jennifer Aniston’s “The Rachel” cut, which could be achieved without assistance from aerosols?

Admittedly, Farrah’s Fringe is not a scientifically proven explanation for the phenomenon, but, if you ask me, it’s every bit as plausible as some of the theories accounting for changes in what we used to call “the weather”. Anyway, after almost 20 years of hysterical banging on about the need to reach “net zero” by 2050 lest 70 million Britons start to resemble the crusty bits in a fish-fryer, a cross-party House of Commons committee this week recommended the Government stop using the phrase because it had become “toxic among the public”.

Well, hallelujah! Was this a rare and welcome outbreak of sanity among the climate cultists who were finally acknowledging that decarbonisation and running a successful G7 economy are not, given the present state of technology, compatible? Don’t get your hopes up, please. The committee of MPs suggested finding a new phrase for the same old nonsense. Because “net zero” no longer had a positive image with the public and consensus over the transition to clean energy had broken down amid “misinformation from sceptics”.

Gosh, cults are remarkably impervious to reason, aren’t they? If “net zero” has become toxic, it’s because, despite an overwhelming media consensus designed to stifle debate, the public has managed to pick up pieces of information from those pesky sceptics. People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills. They can see that the cost of electricity (among the highest in the world) is destroying manufacturing (Denby Pottery, established 1809, is only the latest casualty).

They also realise that reducing 0.8 per cent of the world’s CO2 – the UK’s puny contribution – is going to have no effect on the climate, not when our competitors are busy building coal-fired power stations and increasing their emissions like billy-o. As for paying Norway £20bn a year for oil and gas when we could drill our own in neighbouring North Sea fields, has any nation ever conspired so successfully in its own downfall?

Consumers, it turns out, don’t care to be patronised by scientifically illiterate MPs, mouthing the approved dogma, when people like me have been pointing out that green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies. As for what the Commons’ committee calls “tangible wins” such as new jobs – there are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where, unsurprisingly, the UK’s 2050 net zero target is hugely popular. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

Sir Richard Dearlove quoted that acrid line in his devastating lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (of which I am a board member) in London on Wednesday night. In “Energy Security: Blowing in the Wind”, the former head of MI6, who is one of our best geopolitical brains, outlined in excruciating detail the epic folly of British climate policy, which has failed to give sufficient weight to the strategic vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign manufacturing, imported components and a national grid that is increasingly at the mercy of whether the sun shines or the wind blows (but not too hard!).

The implications for national security are dire. Deindustrialisation, Dearlove pointed out, has not only led to the closure of vast tracts of our manufacturing capability. In the event of an emergency, we have lost much of the ability to rebuild our own energy infrastructure. (“Uncertain access to equipment and spares – for example, generators and transformers – is a graver and more chronic danger than a temporary shortage of gas.”) Should we experience the blackouts many experts predict for this winter, it won’t be the brief, homework-by-candlelight affair some of us remember from childhood. During the three-day week in 1974, thanks to the large interruptible load, a shortage could be absorbed by factories rather than households, but that ability has been lost in the reckless rush to decarbonisation.

After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year, it took approximately 23 hours for Spain’s electricity grid to be fully declared back to normal. There seems little hope that a Britain diminished by the destruction of its power stations (and the loss of its ability to make virgin steel at Port Talbot) in the cause of net zero would be able to rescue a similar situation that speedily. “We have very little industry left to protect and we cannot rebuild non-existent industries which lie in foreign jurisdictions,” was the former spy chief’s bleak assessment.

The well-informed audience was clearly shocked as Dearlove painted a humiliating picture of the UK having to join a queue for materials and components (“large-scale transformers ordered today now take two years to arrive”), often from “the very country which the director general of MI5 has identified as the most serious threat to Britain’s national security”.

The degree to which the United Kingdom has become China’s bitch should horrify us all. Dearlove would not use such vulgar language, of course, although his angry disbelief was felt in fact after damning fact; at one point, he did answer a question with a pithy: “We’re screwed.” Asked whether China could turn off the lights in the lecture theatre where we sat, he said they probably could, and he suggested PRC spies had infiltrated climate-change groups, just as Russian spies penetrated CND during the Cold War.

I urge you to watch Dearlove’s powerful lecture for yourself. All I can say is he left those of us in his audience badly shaken. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK (he coined “net stupid zero”), is normally an upbeat fellow, but he confessed: “I am really anxious. It’s unreal how stupid our leaders have been for decades.”

Should there be significant power cuts this winter, Tice said Reform “will demand a general election and criminal prosecutions for negligence and malfeasance in public office”.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have sensibly said they will scrap Theresa May’s 2050 target made legally binding by the Climate Change Act 2008. Maybe then arguably the greatest act of national self-harm in the history of these islands can begin to be repaired. Except Andy Burnham said this week that the country must fully commit itself to reaching net zero by 2050. “I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected… I want Britain to believe in itself again.”

His ignorance is staggering. The Prime Minister was talking dangerous tosh, timed to woo Green voters in the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. For the same party-before-country reason, Andy has also postponed a decision to approve the development of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea.

“I urge our leading politicians to take very careful note,” Sir Richard Dearlove said. “We are not the victims of a conspiracy to make us vulnerable; we have quite casually done this to ourselves. We have, as a nation, negligently wandered close to a cliff edge and the adversaries I have described stand ready to help us over it; and the fragility of the present international order enhances the risk.”

Are you listening to the man who has forgotten more about national security than you will ever know, Prime Minister? You really should. The phrase “net zero” has not been discredited by “misinformation”, but by reality. Net zero will not happen by 2050, but the doomed pursuit of that target will cause untold economic damage, give comfort to our enemies and discomfort our own people. Don’t change the phrase, change the crazy policy. The cliff edge is frighteningly close.'

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Well, I think the underlying assumptions here that 1) the public don't want to shift to a zero carbon economy and, 2) doing so is a risk to national security, are both false. 

 

I think if you look around people are buying electric cars and getting solar panels fitted in droves because it is so economical. Frankly, I regret that I bought a petrol car last year and that I don't have much roof space, because I see friends selling energy back to the grid and running their cars for pennies. If this is 'net-stupid-zero', bring it on. 

 

Then I know a few people who work in this sector and they are largely running local businesses installing solar panels etc. That is clearly good for the economy and employment more generally, but also it totally increases our energy security at a personal and national level. 

 

And then I think even the most sceptical people look at the summer just gone, and the fact that it is 25 effing degrees today, in September, and think, maybe we don't need to be burning that oil. 

 

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Wouldn’t surprise me if he tells them that the USA are reducing further their contribution to the UN and their agencies 

 

And tbh, I wouldn’t blame him as they are currently paying for approx 30% of the overall budget (according to my AI google friend) 

Yes, because the nation with the greatest capacity to drive essential global cooperation projects turning their back on it in that way in favour of further nationalist division with all the fun that inevitably entails is such a positive and agreeable message for the future of our species. 

[davieG]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

... tell me that you believe none of that self aggrandising, scientifically illiterate, future-condemning bollocks, please. 

 

I mean, I can debunk it line by line if so asked, but I'd rather hope I wouldn't need to. 

No I don't but i've got to the stage where I have no confidence in anything I read on the internet even the stuff I believe in which can also be over stated.

 

Although I have and still do have a big interest in new inventions, discoveries and technology, although a lot is now beyond my comprehension I have lost trust it that it will benefit mankind as much as it should as it so often is used for bad. But i guess that's always been the case but the bad now seems to have a greater impact.

[MPH]

A group and song that was WAY ahead of its time.

 

alternatively,  an ongoing series of events we seem determined to keep repeating..

 

 

[st albans fox]

16 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yes, because the nation with the greatest capacity to drive essential global cooperation projects turning their back on it in that way in favour of further nationalist division with all the fun that inevitably entails is such a positive and agreeable message for the future of our species. 

Not disagreeing with that but other wealthy nations should surely pay more ??

 

 

 

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, davieG said:

No I don't but i've got to the stage where I have no confidence in anything I read on the internet even the stuff I believe in which can also be over stated.

 

Although I have and still do have a big interest in new inventions, discoveries and technology, although a lot is now beyond my comprehension I have lost trust it that it will benefit mankind as much as it should as it so often is used for bad. But i guess that's always been the case but the bad now seems to have a greater impact.

That scepticism is well founded tbh. 

 

That being said, what you've said here is a sad consequence of the proliferation of digital misinformation - lack of trust in even close to basic scientific facts. Which isn't good. 

 

4 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Not disagreeing with that but other wealthy nations should surely pay more ??

 

 

 

Depends on whether one thinks the payment should be based on % of world GDP.

 

In which case, the US are paying less than their fair share right now anyway. 

 

If the US want to bring things more in line with something like that, then fair enough - but it's clear that they don't, they simply want a game of nations where they dominate, and it's pretty bad faith to claim otherwise tbh. 

[st albans fox]

39 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Depends on whether one thinks the payment should be based on % of world GDP.

 

In which case, the US are paying less than their fair share right now anyway. 

 

If the US want to bring things more in line with something like that, then fair enough - but it's clear that they don't, they simply want a game of nations where they dominate, and it's pretty bad faith to claim otherwise tbh. 

They’re not far from their global gdp percentage of 26% 

 Must admit I was pretty surprised that 1 in every 4 dollars generated in global gdp is in the USA 

[leicsmac]

Just now, st albans fox said:

They’re not far from their global gdp percentage of 26% 

 Must admit I was pretty surprised that 1 in every 4 dollars generated in global gdp is in the USA 

My source (IMF projected 2026 figures) indicated 32.4%.

 

 

Though, once again, the whole idea of the US apparently simply wanting a more level playing field is a complete red herring anyway. 

[leicsmac]

Well, that could have gone better, but it certainly could have gone worse too.

[FoyleFox]

12 hours ago, davieG said:

Aren't all Landlines being phased out?

 

I see others have covered this. My plug in was a few years back now, we didn't have mobile coverage so, the plug in phone was an essential for any communication or in an emergency. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

8 hours ago, davieG said:

 

Wind Energy's Absurd ·

Follow

 

Yesterday, Allison Pearson had an article in The Telegraph - 'Net zero is a national suicide pact' with a sub-heading 'I implore Andy Burnham: please find just 30 minutes to watch this devastating analysis of Britain’s energy policy by the former head of MI6'.

That's Sir Richard Dearlove whose lecture we posted last week.

Burnham has been bumping his gums on net zero. Allison Pearson says:

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐛𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟓𝟎. “𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝… 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.”

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The PM might be new; the zealotry isn't. And neither is the disregard for security.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../net-zero-is-a.../...

'Greenhouse gas effect, global warming, climate change, global heating (a new one on me), climate emergency, net zero. The terms for the forthcoming apocalypse change every few years. Who now remembers the briefly famous “hole in the ozone layer” caused when an entire generation of teenage girls tried to copy Farrah Fawcett’s iconic 1970s feathered hair and used several trillion cans of hairspray to unsuccessfully (in my case anyway) keep the flicked-back sides in place? Did the hole heal when girls moved on to imitating Jennifer Aniston’s “The Rachel” cut, which could be achieved without assistance from aerosols?

Admittedly, Farrah’s Fringe is not a scientifically proven explanation for the phenomenon, but, if you ask me, it’s every bit as plausible as some of the theories accounting for changes in what we used to call “the weather”. Anyway, after almost 20 years of hysterical banging on about the need to reach “net zero” by 2050 lest 70 million Britons start to resemble the crusty bits in a fish-fryer, a cross-party House of Commons committee this week recommended the Government stop using the phrase because it had become “toxic among the public”.

Well, hallelujah! Was this a rare and welcome outbreak of sanity among the climate cultists who were finally acknowledging that decarbonisation and running a successful G7 economy are not, given the present state of technology, compatible? Don’t get your hopes up, please. The committee of MPs suggested finding a new phrase for the same old nonsense. Because “net zero” no longer had a positive image with the public and consensus over the transition to clean energy had broken down amid “misinformation from sceptics”.

Gosh, cults are remarkably impervious to reason, aren’t they? If “net zero” has become toxic, it’s because, despite an overwhelming media consensus designed to stifle debate, the public has managed to pick up pieces of information from those pesky sceptics. People can see for themselves the effect of net zero in their vertiginous energy bills. They can see that the cost of electricity (among the highest in the world) is destroying manufacturing (Denby Pottery, established 1809, is only the latest casualty).

They also realise that reducing 0.8 per cent of the world’s CO2 – the UK’s puny contribution – is going to have no effect on the climate, not when our competitors are busy building coal-fired power stations and increasing their emissions like billy-o. As for paying Norway £20bn a year for oil and gas when we could drill our own in neighbouring North Sea fields, has any nation ever conspired so successfully in its own downfall?

Consumers, it turns out, don’t care to be patronised by scientifically illiterate MPs, mouthing the approved dogma, when people like me have been pointing out that green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies. As for what the Commons’ committee calls “tangible wins” such as new jobs – there are, indeed, thousands of green jobs. Unfortunately, most of them are in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where, unsurprisingly, the UK’s 2050 net zero target is hugely popular. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

Sir Richard Dearlove quoted that acrid line in his devastating lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (of which I am a board member) in London on Wednesday night. In “Energy Security: Blowing in the Wind”, the former head of MI6, who is one of our best geopolitical brains, outlined in excruciating detail the epic folly of British climate policy, which has failed to give sufficient weight to the strategic vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign manufacturing, imported components and a national grid that is increasingly at the mercy of whether the sun shines or the wind blows (but not too hard!).

The implications for national security are dire. Deindustrialisation, Dearlove pointed out, has not only led to the closure of vast tracts of our manufacturing capability. In the event of an emergency, we have lost much of the ability to rebuild our own energy infrastructure. (“Uncertain access to equipment and spares – for example, generators and transformers – is a graver and more chronic danger than a temporary shortage of gas.”) Should we experience the blackouts many experts predict for this winter, it won’t be the brief, homework-by-candlelight affair some of us remember from childhood. During the three-day week in 1974, thanks to the large interruptible load, a shortage could be absorbed by factories rather than households, but that ability has been lost in the reckless rush to decarbonisation.

After a major blackout in the Iberian peninsula last year, it took approximately 23 hours for Spain’s electricity grid to be fully declared back to normal. There seems little hope that a Britain diminished by the destruction of its power stations (and the loss of its ability to make virgin steel at Port Talbot) in the cause of net zero would be able to rescue a similar situation that speedily. “We have very little industry left to protect and we cannot rebuild non-existent industries which lie in foreign jurisdictions,” was the former spy chief’s bleak assessment.

The well-informed audience was clearly shocked as Dearlove painted a humiliating picture of the UK having to join a queue for materials and components (“large-scale transformers ordered today now take two years to arrive”), often from “the very country which the director general of MI5 has identified as the most serious threat to Britain’s national security”.

The degree to which the United Kingdom has become China’s bitch should horrify us all. Dearlove would not use such vulgar language, of course, although his angry disbelief was felt in fact after damning fact; at one point, he did answer a question with a pithy: “We’re screwed.” Asked whether China could turn off the lights in the lecture theatre where we sat, he said they probably could, and he suggested PRC spies had infiltrated climate-change groups, just as Russian spies penetrated CND during the Cold War.

I urge you to watch Dearlove’s powerful lecture for yourself. All I can say is he left those of us in his audience badly shaken. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK (he coined “net stupid zero”), is normally an upbeat fellow, but he confessed: “I am really anxious. It’s unreal how stupid our leaders have been for decades.”

Should there be significant power cuts this winter, Tice said Reform “will demand a general election and criminal prosecutions for negligence and malfeasance in public office”.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have sensibly said they will scrap Theresa May’s 2050 target made legally binding by the Climate Change Act 2008. Maybe then arguably the greatest act of national self-harm in the history of these islands can begin to be repaired. Except Andy Burnham said this week that the country must fully commit itself to reaching net zero by 2050. “I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected… I want Britain to believe in itself again.”

His ignorance is staggering. The Prime Minister was talking dangerous tosh, timed to woo Green voters in the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. For the same party-before-country reason, Andy has also postponed a decision to approve the development of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea.

“I urge our leading politicians to take very careful note,” Sir Richard Dearlove said. “We are not the victims of a conspiracy to make us vulnerable; we have quite casually done this to ourselves. We have, as a nation, negligently wandered close to a cliff edge and the adversaries I have described stand ready to help us over it; and the fragility of the present international order enhances the risk.”

Are you listening to the man who has forgotten more about national security than you will ever know, Prime Minister? You really should. The phrase “net zero” has not been discredited by “misinformation”, but by reality. Net zero will not happen by 2050, but the doomed pursuit of that target will cause untold economic damage, give comfort to our enemies and discomfort our own people. Don’t change the phrase, change the crazy policy. The cliff edge is frighteningly close.'

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Lost me when she attributed the hole in the ozone layer to hairspray. If anything the repair of the ozone shows that massive societal change works.

 

Then the Gosh (how very middle England) sentence about cults. It might be fine to refer to people of differing beliefs as cults, down at the pub, but it's not going to win over anyone in a serious news article.

[Trav Le Bleu]

7 hours ago, MPH said:

A group and song that was WAY ahead of its time.

 

alternatively,  an ongoing series of events we seem determined to keep repeating..

 

 

There's a naked Tess Daly in the original video for this.

Edited Tuesday at 21:57 by Trav Le Bleu

[Trav Le Bleu]

7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Yes, because the nation with the greatest capacity to drive essential global cooperation projects turning their back on it in that way in favour of further nationalist division with all the fun that inevitably entails is such a positive and agreeable message for the future of our species. 

I'd argue that they are the nation that most needs NATO. They're certainly the only nation that's ever used it.

[Trav Le Bleu]

7 hours ago, davieG said:

No I don't but i've got to the stage where I have no confidence in anything I read on the internet even the stuff I believe in which can also be over stated.

 

Although I have and still do have a big interest in new inventions, discoveries and technology, although a lot is now beyond my comprehension I have lost trust it that it will benefit mankind as much as it should as it so often is used for bad. But i guess that's always been the case but the bad now seems to have a greater impact.

1886 - car invented.    1916 - tank invented

1903 - 1st powered flight  1914 - 1st fighter

1926 - liquid fueled rocket 1944 - v2

 

The jet engine was created to make fighters go faster and atomic power to kill millions.