For roughly three hundred years, the Western world – meaning Western Europe and its former colonies – has dominated the world.
The European powers (notably Britain, France and Spain) were dominant from the early 1700s to the early 1900s. And the U.S. has been dominant for most of the 20th century. Western power reached its apogee in the year 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Two years later, Francis Fukuyama could refer to the “end of history”.
Yet the era of Western hegemony may now be coming to an end.
This is not because the West suffered some obvious strategic defeat. It is simply the inevitable result of population growth and economic development in other parts of the world.
As the populations of non-Western countries have grown, and as their economies have developed, their share of global GDP has risen. In 1990, the West accounted for 60% of global GDP. Over the last two decades, the West’s share has fallen to around 45%. And it will decline further over the next two decades.
Why does this matter?
Although some countries punch above or below their weight, a country’s power can be roughly approximated by its share of global GDP. The U.S. and China have by far the largest economies, and they are the two most powerful. Large economies can afford to spend more on their armed forces, thereby projecting greater military power. They also have more leverage in the economic sphere, where sanctions and trade deals are the tools of statecraft.
Liechtenstein may have the highest standard of living, but it doesn’t get a major say in world affairs because its overall economy is tiny.
This year, challenges to Western hegemony have been more apparent than in any year since the end of the Cold War. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most obvious example. But there was also China’s response to Nancy Pelosi’s “provocative” trip to Taiwan, and Iran’s decision to supply Russia with attack drones for use in Ukraine.
Just as revealing as what these three ‘revisionist’ powers have done, is what most other countries around the world have not done, namely sanction Russia. Despite considerable diplomatic pressure from the U.S., they’ve opted to maintain normal economic relations with Moscow.
Meanwhile, the BRICS alliance has sought to expand its membership, as it develops an alternative reserve currency to rival the dollar. And OPEC openly defied the U.S. by announcing oil production cuts at precisely the moment that benefits Russia.
The challenge facing the U.S. and its Western allies is illustrated in a recent report by Roberto Foa and colleagues. Using data from several international surveys, these researchers examined public perceptions of Russia, China and the U.S. in different countries around the world.
Their main finding was as follows. Although most countries have favourable views of the U.S., outside the West most countries also have favourable views of Russia and China. This finding is shown in the chart below.
Developing countries – which account for roughly half of global GDP – view Russia and China just as favourably as the U.S. It is only among developed countries where opinion of Russia and China has grown substantially less favourable.
Given how difficult it proved for the U.S. and its allies to isolate Russia (a declining power), isolating China will be all but impossible. Most countries simply don’t want to pick sides. As China’s economy grows, it will therefore be increasingly able to challenge Western hegemony.
The world, it seems, is returning to multipolarity. And Western countries may just have to live with it.
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My son was telling me that a lot of terraced houses near him in London would need planning permission for a heat pump as they are too close together to be allowed a heat pump under current permitted developments, this article explains the situation;
https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/news/why-terraced-homeowners-may-need-planning-permission-for-heat-pumps
In addition where heat pumps have been installed in terraced housing it has lead to environmental noise complaints.
There may be some electrical people on here who know more about this than I do? but I gather that installing a heat pump requires the electrician to get permission from the electric supplier? As heat pumps use a compressor motor, even though they may not have a very high consumption once in use, they have a high start up current draw such that some planned heat pump installations have been refused because the local electric supply infrastructure cannot handle the demands of heat pumps.
I can only say Steve, that the above tale reminds me of Spike Milligan’s superb book: ‘Adolf Hitler. My Part in His Downfall.’ In the prelude to his Army call up, he speaks to an uncle who fought in WW1, asking him, “What was it like?” His uncle replies, “Like? Like son? It was like one big fuck up.”
It might depend on the rating of the proposed pump, but if it’s around 10Kw (some seem to be), it could fall foul of the same issue with home charge EV battery chargers. That is, because they are more or less constant loads at around 43A, the BS 7671 won’t allow them to be counted as a “diverse load” (like other domestic heaters, cookers etc). The matter under discussion could be as to whether air source pumps behave like storage heaters, or more like EV chargers. I’d have thought that if air pumps tend to run continuously over several hours, they would refuse to treat them as diverse loads. I’m guessing, so we’ll see.
So they have to tot them all together, and for many groups of houses, it would exceed the rating of the distribution cable, local transformer etc. That would certainly be the case in my street – I know the cable’s rating, as it was only installed a couple of years ago to replace some older kit that had failed.
Thus its possible that the District Network Operator (DNO) would say no, unless they are prepared to upgrade their system (digging up the roads, installing larger cables, then higher capacity transformers etc). Someone has to pay for that, of course.
Now imagine the headache for the DNO if each of those terraces also want to run a 7.5kw ev charge point as well.
The focus has been on electricity generation and none of the idiots in charge have considered the huge grid upgrade and upgrade to power distribution in homes and buildings.
Worst case scenario is everyone’s heat pump starting at the same time after one of the power cuts that a recent electricity supplier leaflet told me to expect because of adverse weather events.
Now imagine they all have an EV charging point on the go as well.
Won’t they be powering the grid via their smart meters?
Managing it via “smart” meter equipment, maybe. Read the official bumf here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulations-electric-vehicle-smart-charge-points They’re not advertising it, but it could be that customers might notice that they can’t actually charge their car when they want to, because someone else wants to (perhaps at a higher price) so as limit the total load. Regulations like that could be exploited to minimise installing upgraded distribution kit, e.g.
She’s made the fundamental error of not being friends with MTF.
And for those stupid enough to fall for the heat pump con what next? Oh, your exterior walls must be double insulated with all-weather treated kingspan to a depth of three foot and foam backed exterior doors. And while we are at it triple glazed windows.
On and on it will go until we are broke and broken.
Windows? Certainly not! Viewscreens showing a rural idyll (no cows, obvs) with government approved information channels.
Some older houses insulation in the walls causes more damp. Walls need to breathe.
I know. My first house was solid walls. British Gas called to offer advice on extra insulation. The young girl’s face was a picture when I explained that cavity wall insulation was not an option.
I had the same when I was called up by my energy company to say that “my smart meter was ready for me”. ——-They were rather bemused when I told them that it isn’t my smart meter, it is theirs.
Your heat pump will keep you warm ————Except as usual the small print says “”It will keep you warm if you wear 5 pullovers and stuff every crevice in your house with foam”
“So you must also spend a fortune on sealing your house from all possible draughts. “
That is only useful for half the year. The other half a house needs to get rid of heat.
I am passing by two old houses every day which have been modernised and thoroughly insulated during the last 2 years.
They have mold all over their facades now. Inside, it’s even worse.
The advise of a friend who is in the profession is: a) don’t (over)insulate your old house b) do nothing if you can on the heating system side, just wait. Because if one must eventually go for a heat pump in a few years, the pumps then will be able to achieve 70-80 degrees and a moderately sensible and affordable heating can be achieved by just creating more heating surfaces in the house in conjunction with them.
Of course, nothing beats the current setup with efficient gas boilers.
The laws of thermodynamics says that there is a hard limit to how much heat you can efficiently extract with an air source heat pump. No technological improvement will ever change that.
“… the pumps then will be able to achieve 70-80 degrees…”
So the laws of physics will be changed?
Is there no-one in government who is literate in science, engineering or even plumbing?
Even if they were, they don’t care
No, the number of MPs from STEM backgrounds is tiny. Most are humanities graduates. And it shows!
The state has no business dictating how people heat their homes
The state has no business, full stop!!
Or if they smoke a fag!
If we had proper health insurance, a smoker could simply pay higher premiums. That way, the state keeps out of it!
Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. Sig B Mussolini.
That is absolutely the way we are going and have already gone. It has been done gradually so most people have not noticed. We need a “great reset” – just not the one the WEF want…
Rather than muckraking about renewables, electric cars and heat pumps, how about some constructive stories about potential new sites for fracking, coal mines and North Sea oil and natural gas?
SHHHHHHH —-Or you will be dragged off to the climate change gulag, and you will never be heard off again. ——-If you think this is me making a little joke then think again. Reducing emissions of CO2 is enshrined in law. Breaking the can and will lead to imprisonment and fines. ——Green=Tyranny on a massive scale.
You would think that the Energy Security and Net Zero Minister would know something about heat pumps. After all him and his government want to coerce everyone into getting one and be rid of the 21 million gas boilers in this country. But alas he KNOWS NOTHING about them at all. The now former Minister Grant Schapps was asked on GB News “Are heat pumps any good” ——-He replied “I don’t know, but I am having one fitted in my house so I will soon find out”——-How totally absurd. He wants to force a heat pump on everyone without knowing or even caring if they are any good. It turns out they are heap of .s..t, but all that matters to these imbeciles is implementing pretend to save the planet mandates from the One World Government people at the UN.
Hydrogen? Why does this keep coming up as planet-saviour.
The atmospheric gas… about 2%, but variable across the globe… is the ‘greenhouse gas’ which keeps the Earth warm, unlike Mars with 93% C02 and no water vapour.
The Climatrons in fact say it is the indirect effect of CO2 attenuation of outgoing long wavelength I/R, which causes an increase in heat content of this water vapour, which in turn causes more water to evaporate and atmospheric content to increase. It is this feed back, or climate sensitivity/radiative forcing, that will lead to run away global warming and boiling planet.
Now. Hydrogen burnt in air ‘only’ produces… water vapour the very gas which mostly directly regulates the heat budget.
So to replace a gas that doesn’t actually directly regulate the heat budget, they favour one that does.
The madness of the climate change hoax.
£7,500 in grant money. 25 years from now, ten times that much in compensation money for people who fitted crap machinery to their homes.
The illustration at the top of this article apparently shows an air source heat pump, but it could just as well show an air conditioning unit. As I understand it an air source heat pump makes the inside of a house hotter. Meanwhile an air conditioning unit makes the inside of a house cooler. Thus air conditioning units are causing exterior warming, if the Second Law of Thermodynamics is still true. So vast numbers of such units as one finds in large glass faced office blocks, and more widely in hot countries on every house, must be contributing to urban warming. So to help achieve net zero they should be banned. This would have course reduce the electricity grid load, allowing people to use electricity to charge their explosive cars. Would someone please put me out of my misery and explain why I am wrong?