As host of COP26, our Government wanted to be seen as “world leaders in reducing CO2 emissions”, and so before the meeting it announced the U.K. would ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030. It hoped it could then persuade other countries to follow our lead. It completely failed and no other major country went along with this: Germany, Japan, Italy and China do not propose a ban until 2035, France and Spain do not propose a ban until 2040 and the USA and India are not proposing any ban at all.
It is not hard to see why other countries were so unenthusiastic to inflict this policy on their population. Electric cars are so expensive. For example, Nissan’s basic electric car, the Leaf, has a recommended retail price (RRP) of £26,995, whereas its equivalent petrol car, the Micra, has an RRP of £16,685. The cheapest Tesla is the Model 3, which has an RRP of £45,990 or more, depending on the version. The petrol equivalent is a BMW 3 series, which has an RRP of £29,990 or more, again depending on the version. The running costs of electric cars are lower – charging a battery is cheaper than filling a tank with petrol – but for the average U.K. motorist, who has an annual mileage of 7,400 miles, these lower running costs will never compensate for the very high purchase price.
The lower running cost of electric cars is in any case largely an artefact of Government fiscal policy, namely the enormous amount of tax on petrol. Most of the cost of a litre of petrol is tax, whereas there is only 5% VAT on electricity. These very high rates of tax on petrol mean that if motorists switch from petrol to electric then the Government will face a black hole in its finances. The Government therefore will need to find a way of taxing electric vehicles to make up for this lost revenue. A plan under discussion is to install tracking devices in cars such that the Government knows how many miles you are driving and can then charge you a “per mile road tax”. If this happens, the running costs of electric cars will rapidly increase.
There are also serious questions about how ‘green’ electric cars actually are. The mining and processing of the rare earth metals used in the batteries is particularly energy intensive. A recent study by Volvo found that the manufacture of electric cars generated much more CO2 emissions than the manufacture of an equivalent petrol car. According to this study, the average motorist in the U.K. would have to drive an electric car for 10 years before it breaks even in its total carbon footprint (manufacture plus driving) with the equivalent petrol car.
In just over seven years’ time most of the world will still have the freedom to choose whether to buy an electric car or a petrol car. But in Britain the Government will be forcing us to buy extremely expensive electric cars that do very little to reduce overall CO2 emissions. This is to say nothing of well-known problems with range and charge-time, and whether the grid can cope with so many motorists charging their vehicles. Why is the Government in such a rush? Why not allow more time for the technology to develop and hopefully become cheaper and more efficient, and the country to be better prepared? After all, Britain only produces 1% of global CO2 emissions. Three countries produce half of global CO2 emissions; China produces 29% and is not intending to ban petrol cars until 2035, whilst the USA produces 14% and India 7% and neither country is proposing any ban at all.
John Fernley is a retired scientist.
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And down here in Australia, Mt Hotham in Victoria has just reached -7 degrees overnight, a record low for the state in the month of November.
In Central West NSW we had snow last week, and tomorrow’s maximum is 11 degrees.
Remember we’re nearing summer.
For the media luvvies, record cold is also due to burning fossil fuels, and can be prevented by signing up to whatever Klaus Schwab and the UN tells us to.
It can’t be true..! Antarctic’s population of Polar Bears has been decimated, just like penguins in the Arctic. Its proof of Man made Climate Change. Irrefutable proof…
<sarc>
For a moment I thought you were being serious, because, as we know, warmer than average temperatures are proof of global warming, and colder than average temperatures are proof of climate change.
Now you know that’s not true. They heard Al Gore saying that the Arctic would be ice free in the summer by 2012, so they all swam north in the Great Polar Bear Migration filmed by the BBC and David Attenborough. They just wanted a suntan and some vitamin D to ward off ursine covid.
Wonder when they will wise up and all migrate to Hawaii?
You may remember a few years ago when the Climate-tards boarded a ship and sailed into the melting Antarctic ice sheets…and got stuck. A 2nd ship to rescue them the same. It took a 3rd and helipcopters to rescued the idiots who lost no time in saying that due to warming their models predicted more ice….when in fact they were looking for the opposite.
There is no ‘science’ to this scam. The Arctic was to be gone in 2014. Greenland ice cores reveal that the current sheets are the most in 400 years. Antarctica expands. Attenfraud and friends will drop charges into crevices at the poles or in glaciers, remote detonate them and then declare that they are melting or calving. Fraud is now ‘the science’. Or maybe it is the $2 Trillion money sloshing around.
Climate change – like Rona,a cult of absolute stupid and corruption.
Had to look up ‘Rona’, hadn’t heard the term before. Quite true though. In the seventies the ‘scientists’ were saying we would be 6 feet under ice and snow by now and starving in our millions.
We are witnessing the birth of a new religion and I very much fear that no amount of facts or reasoning will deter those who are determined to impose this new religion on us.
It follows a familiar path building on the ideas left by the religions that have preceded it.
At the heart of this new faith is the notion that the human being is a flawed creature. We destroy the planet, we carry diseases that we spread to each other, we are bigots by nature that oppress each other.
But salvation is at hand if we openly accept our impurity and our inherent flaws and are prepared to change our ways.
As with other religions, those in authority and power seize control of the religion and use it as a means of controlling the population, imposing on it a series of behaviours and rites dictated by them.
I can imagine now better than ever what it must have been like to be part of some primitive society living a free life and then have some group of people come along, tell you are a sinner, that every Sunday you have to go and listen to a man tell you how to save yourself, that instead of choosing a partner with which to create a family as you might have done earlier, you now had to follow a special ritual that allowed you to do that. Your offspring also had to follow a series of rituals to make sure they were properly imbued with the ideas of the religion.
It’s probably an uncomfortable comparison for those who have religious faith. But the parallels are undeniable.
…and then the man in the pulpit puts your money in his pocket…
Sounds very much the same.
And molests your children.
Actually, now you mention it…
We need to have the courage to voice our convictions in a non-confrontational way, not stay quiet. Little things like using cash I find helps boost morale.
And ofcourse in all religions you must give “offerings”. Except in our religion we decide for ourselves what we put in the collection plate. But with the globalist religion the government decides for us what ges in the plate, and we are not even allowed to not attend the church of global warming, because if we don’t attend our money still goes in the collection plate anyway. Climate Change then is a compulsory religion where even the heretics must contribute.
Maybe now. I don’t think adherence to religion was very optional in many places in the past, say, Spain in the 16th century, or in some places in the present like Saudi Arabia or Iran.
I don’t think what you said should be uncomfortable for those who have the right kind of religious faith, because there is good religious faith and there is bad religious faith.
The parallels (at least to Christianity) are even stronger than you’ve stated.
We used to live in paradise, the Garden of Eden or some pre-industrial society that was magically in tune with nature.
We desired knowledge, either by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge or through the enlightenment and the industrial revolution.
This led to our fall from grace and the end of paradise on Earth.
A select few have be vouchsafed knowledge that can lead to our salvation, either the true followers of Christ or scientists with their “all knowing” computer models and the eco-zealots of extinction rebellion, JSO etc.
We are facing the end of days which will see the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse:-
famine, pestilence, war and death as described in the Book of Revelations.
Alternatively climate change will lead to mass crop failure (famine) the spread of diseases such as malaria (pestilence) societal breakdown and competition for scarce resources (war) and the population being reduced to 1 billion or less (death).
The only difference is that environmentalisms preaches that the end days can be avoided and salvation can be had in this world, whereas Christianity preaches that the end times are inevitable and salvation can only be found in the next world/afterlife.
I can actually remember the first Earth Day in 1970….we did a project at school!!
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/04/23/happy-earth-day-none-of-the-eco-doomsday-predictions-have-come-true/
Happy Earth Day! None Of The Eco-Doomsday Predictions Have Come True
Plus ca change!!
This is surely “conspiracy theory” and cherry picking of data. Because I have seen for myself on the SKY NEWS Daily Climate show the little digital thermometer at the back of the presenter ticking up up up up up slowly ticking upwards as we face this apocalypse and viewers can see the “global temperature” on their TV set steadily climbing. We must act now and save our grandchildren. We must spend one and a half trillion on Net Zero. We must get rid of affordable energy and replace it with unaffordable energy. We must pay a trillion to poor countries to help them do eh do eh. , well I am not sure what exactly they are going to do with that money, but we must give them it anyway and only then will the planets thermometer on SKY NEWS start to slow down and we will have saved the planet.
What is perhaps disappointing is that so few of the Nett Zero-ers have realised that if we are nett zero, we reduce CO2 emissions by about a sixth of China’s annual rise, or Indias annual rise. As China and India are promising little and doing less, anything we ‘save’ is pointless as whatever was going to happen if we didn’t get to Nett Zero is still going to happen, with or without our ‘contribution’.
Indeed no-one seems to ask the question, if we are all to die in a fiery famine in 20 years time, why do half the world not seem to care. Do they know something we don’t..?
If something is “pointless” and will have no effect on global climate then why do it? ————-The answer is very simple. It is not and has never been about the climate. It is about the worlds wealth and resources. The climate is just the excuse for the eco socialism
Well, earlier this year, Queen Elizabeth sat on her own, mourning the death of her husband.
Meanwhile, back in Downing Street, Boris, Carrion and a host of Civil “Servants” were partying.
Someone knew that all the restrictions and shroud waving were bollox. Now, would that be our beloved Queen, or our Beloved Leaders?
Zero Covid, Zero Carbon.
Two cheeks of the same gargantuan, flabby, stinking arse.
Very good article – thank you.
They told us we were facing a climate apocalypse. They didn’t tell us it was going to be a cold one.
I’m wouldn’t be in the least surprised if climate alarmists sounded the alarm bells because they couldn’t find any polar bears in the antarctic…
Oh I see that point has been covered already…oh well. In that case, they might get upset to find absolutely no evidence of penguins in the arctic!
Grand solar minimum will occur from 2025 to 2053, this will create cooling of ~1C average for the planet. The first effects will begin to be felt after the solar maximum of solar cycle 25 which is expected in mid-2025. So far cycle 25 is fairly weak, the weakest since the early 20th century. Cycle 26 looks likely to be weaker still.
Wrap up warm!
12,000 years ago, North America was under hundreds of feet of ice and sea levels were 350 feet lower than they are today. Without any help from humans it warmed up a whole bunch which allowed humans to thrive. What actually causes the Earth to get warmer and colder? The distance from the sun as its orbit changes. Yes, it will get very cold again and there is nothing humans can do about it. It is pretty silly to believe humans can alter climate to any significant degree… Even if you believe the alarmists, they are talking about a sea rise of 4 to 12 feet at most and temperature increases of less than 10 degrees… that’s nothing. We will be happy to be starting from there when we go into the next ice age.