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By Jo Nova
The voter backlash begins
How much more would the car lovers and petrol-heads of Europe take? In draconian style, last February, the EU declared all petrol and diesel cars would be banned from 2035. It was their star policy for the Net Zero push. Car makers would have to cut their emissions by a shocking 55% by 2030 and an unthinkable 100% by 2035. It was to be the end of an era.
The idea was so big and embedded in the EU that only one month ago an insurance insider warned that his company was already devising elaborate plans for a world where everyone had an EV and the insurance giants and the government got access to all your data. Police would be issuing your speeding tickets while-you-drove, and insurance companies would be granting drivers a discount if they allowed them to sell all their data to the highest bidder. Indeed, the word was that insurance companies wouldn’t even insure petrol cars. Obviously only the rich were going to be able to afford a petrol car or an EV “with privacy”.
But now, the largest party in the EU is drafting a policy to ditch […]
By Jo Nova
Macron suggests the EU take a “break”from more environmental regulations
h/t To NetZeroWatch
The left side of politics is fracturing over climate and energy. The Green Party of France is calling Macron irresponsible and accusing him of “climate denial” for the sin of daring to suggest the EU already has enough environmental regulations:
[Macron] insisted that, when it comes to the regulatory side, the EU is “ahead of the Americans, the Chinese and of any other power in the world.” During a speech on how to revive the French industry on Thursday at the Elysée, President Emmanuel Macron called for “a European regulatory break.” “We have already passed lots of environmental regulations at European level, more than other countries,” he said. “Now we should be implementing them, not making new changes in the rules or we are going to loose all our [industrial] players.” — Politico
Macron was not suggesting anything as radical as actually unwinding Green legislation. But the mere act of not pandering 100% to sacred Green goals meant pushback for apostasy was swift and hard and a complete overreaction:
Gavin Mortimer, The Spectator
“…from […]
By Jo Nova
An expensive, razzle-dazzle climate referendum in Berlin aimed to bring forward “climate neutral” ambitions from 2045 to 2030, and no one even led a counter campaign, but it failed miserably:
Climate Referendum fails in Germany
Berliner Morgenpost
Berlin. The referendum for more ambitious climate goals in Berlin has failed. The state election authority announced on Sunday evening that the required minimum number of yes votes had not been reached.
An alliance “climate restart” wanted to achieve a change in the state energy transition law with the vote. Specifically, Berlin should commit itself to becoming climate neutral by 2030 and not by 2045 as previously planned.
Of 2.4 million voters in Berlin, the Yes camp needed 608,000 voters (or 25%) to turn up and agree in order to win. While 860,000 people turned up to vote, only 442,000 said “yes” and 420,000 said “no”. Essentially 82% of the total voter population either didn’t want it, or couldn’t be bothered turning up.
Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone reports it was a crushing defeat
He says “It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback”. Apparently the […]
If we measure the vibrancy of an economy by its energy use, the EU peaked in 2006 and is down 10%. The UK, alas has fallen even further and faster and is down 30%.
John Constable at the GWPF has produced a damning report on Europe’s Green Experiment and remarked that there hasn’t been a fall in energy this large “since the end of the late middle ages”.
Effectively, the EU paid €770 billion to export it’s carbon emissions and jobs to China and import nearly everything else.
The study shows that up until 2005 the EU’s energy consumption was on a rising trend, but it has now fallen by over 10% on the 2006 peak, and is now back at levels last seen in the 1990s. The UK is even more severely affected, with consumption falling by about 30% on its peak in the early 2000s and is now at levels last seen in the 1950s. Further analysis reveals that electricity generation productivity has collapsed, with system load factor falling from an adequate 56% in 1990 to a worryingly inefficient and expensive 37% in 2020. A trillion dollars in subsidies to renewables — mostly paid by the EU
It […]
It’s not even winter yet but suddenly all eyes are on the gas prices
Gas through the roof…
Thanks to fear of climate change voodoo many nations in the EU have effectively stopped exploring for gas and decided not to frack their shale deposits to get cheap gas too. (In Australia too). Vainglorious governments aimed to change the weather instead of having cheap electricity and lo, wind-towers were built everywhere.
What could possibly go wrong? Nearly everything.
Even the massive size of the European market hasn’t saved them from price rises so large that retail suppliers are collapsing, and fertilizer factories are closing.
Its a great way to give your enemies the upper hand
The wind drought in spring and summer meant that wind farms failed. Then the Russians squeezed gas supply in to the EU looking suspiciously like they were hoping to push up prices and pressure Germany into approving the controversial Nordstream 2 pipeline. Now the Kremlin is suggesting a quick approval will alleviate the gas shortage (they’re just trying to help). In the latest news one large interconnector between the UK and France has suffered a fire and broken down and won’t be restored til […]
God’s joke on governments that try to control the climate with their electricity grid:
Europe talks itself out of building gas plants in order to stop global warming, then after an extra cold winter, they also run out of gas, and now they have to go back to burning coal.
Spooked investors weren’t funding many gas plants now that the glorious renewable era was here and policy makers were all wearing their Hydrogen badges, and waving their carbon capture wands. In the last year all the geniuses of the European Investment Bank, the IEA, the European Commission were saying “gas is over” and it would be a stranded asset.
One month ago, Nina Chestney was predicting a gas supply crunch:
Gas faces existential crisis in climate wary Europe
May 14, 2021, , Reuters
Europe faces the prospect of higher electricity bills and a supply crunch, as utilities struggle to finance new gas-fired power plants unless they meet tougher emissions criteria imposed by banks pressured to stop financing fossil-fuel projects.
…Gas projects worth some 30 billion euros were cancelled, delayed or indefinitely postponed last year as they struggled to find funding.
The […]
We all need some good news and who doesn’t like seeing overbearing-undemocratic-parasites lose? In terms of the cycle of civilizations, perhaps we are past the peak of Big Government, and headed for decentralization. As state entities grow too big and get too disconnected from the voters, they inevitably became overconfident, and overplay their hand — micromanaging hair dryers and droughts at the same time. But “the mood has changed”…
Nigel Farage predicts the EU will collapse within a decade.
Speaking to Fox Business, the former Brexit Party leader said that Brexit’s success will become a model for other European countries “impressed” by Britain’s life outside of the EU. He said that many in Europe were looking on in jealousy after much of the EU scaremongering about Brexit failed to materialise. “There is now a 70 percent approval rating for Brexit now. “
After seven years of trying to get Switzerland under tighter EU control, the Swiss have abandoned the talks.
The Swiss talks with Brussels collapse after seven long years
Damian Wilson, RT
Switzerland shocked Brussels by walking away from a closer relationship and into an uncertain future, but MP Thomas Aeschi says the Swiss will […]
Emden, Germany by Gritte
The supreme auditors of Germany warned about the costs of Green energy a few years ago, but now they are paying attention to energy security too, and with sudden alarm they’ve announced that Green energy poses “an existential threat” to Germany.
It’s something dumb bloggers have been saying for years. But this is good news that German bureaucratic numerical masters are on to it.
Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone, calls it “explosive”:
So explosive is the German Government Audit report that Die Welt and the government auditors see the Energiewende as a “danger for all of Germany”.
Daniel Wetzel at German national daily Die Welt reports on the latest German Federal Court of Auditors’ warning: “If things continue like this, Germany as a business location is in danger. The costs are out of control – and there is a growing threat of an electricity shortfall.”
The Bundesrechnungshof in Germany or Federal Audit Office sounds rather awesome — legislators can’t tell it what to do, and its exact position in the layers of power is disputed, which only makes it sound more significant.*
The Federal Audit Office sees the […]
Sep 19, 1992 Margaret Thatcher was Speaking to the CNN World Economic Development Conference
The Grocer’s Daughter on Facebook
Huge sums would have to be transferred from richer to poorer countries and regions to allow them to take the strain. Even then unemployment and mass migration across now open frontiers would follow. And a full-fledged Single currency would allow no escape hatch.
The political consequences can already be glimpsed: the growth of extremist parties, battening on fears about mass immigration and unemployment, offering a real — if thoroughly unwelcome — alternative to the Euro-centrist political establishment.
8.9 out of 10 based on 118 ratings […]
France (with nukes) and Germany (with a huge renewables component) used to forge ahead with climate panic in the EU while the Eastern block (like Poland, with more coal and less cash) reliably pushes back against it. But France is pushing everyone to meet the new sacred 1.5C target with the big Carbon-Neutral-By-2050 plan. It’s a target so wildly ambitious even Germany has pulled the pin on yet another fantasy deadline like the last ones it failed to meet. This is despite (or rather, because of) renewables overtaking coal in Germany in January. The more unreliables a nation has the more inefficient their whole grid is, and the more it costs to save each ton of carbon. Every extra wind turbine is more expensive at reducing CO2 than the last.
The EU Council has just released its summit statement— basically saying yes to all the IPCC favourite pet visions but not putting any dates on it. With no dates, it’s a meaningless wishlist.
But hey, it’s only the planet at stake, it’s not like there is a deadline that matters anyway eh?
The GWPF Calls it “Over” for the EU’s big carbon-neutral-by-2050 target
March 20: Tomorrow, the […]
Like Trump, and like Brexit, journalists did not see this coming. Centre right parties somehow expect to keep winning by adopting centre left policies. But politics is being transformed by parties brave enough to speak against political correctness.
In the Dutch provincial elections the Forum for Democracy (FDV) Party has rocketed to 12 seats from nothing. They only launched in 2016. The FDV campaigned against “climate change hysteria” and against immigration and for more direct democracy. The Financial Times calls them Eurosceptics.
For centre right parties there are many votes to be gained in being outspokenly skeptical of climate change — Abbott, Trump, Dean, and now “Baudet”.
Thierry Baudet, 36, heads up the FDV. The Dutch PM was and still is Mark Rutte (of the VVD supposedly a centre right party), and he has just lost control of the upper house. There are 75 seats all up, and FDV somehow looks like getting 12, the same number as the ruling VVD Party.
The “centre right” ruling party apparently now has to do deals with the Greens. Which tells us all we need to know about how not-right the centre-right is.
Far-right populists score stunning win in Dutch provincial […]
From the Facebook page: Movimento-de-Forconi
During the last couple of weeks, truck-drivers in an advanced western region with 5 million people have blockaded roads and ports protesting at the sudden 40% rise in the fuel price (due to taxes) which is wiping out their business. The fishermen joined in, so did farmers. The area is heavily dependent on road transport, and was apparently paralyzed for days with fuel shortages, and empty supermarket shelves. On the internet, people are describing this as a middle class uprising, and on the verge of revolt. Can you name the location?
…shades of a magna-carta type moment
Possibly not. The mainstream media are not describing this uprising at all … it’s o’ so unnewsworthy. And you can imagine that readers might not care if this were taking place in the back-reaches of Venezuela, the slums of Chad, or the dark corner of Uzbekistan. But it wasn’t. It’s was in the West, in Sicily. Who knew?
Word on the internet is that the middle class producers are rising up en masse. It’s known as the ‘Movimento dei Forconi’ or ‘Pitchfork Movement’. Just like the The Convoy of No Confidence in Australia last August, it […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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