Let me emphasise from the start that I am absolutely all for the design and manufacture of vastly improved, cleaner, less polluting, more efficient machinery to make our lives better in every way. I’m delighted that I live in the 21st century and not in a prehistoric or medieval hovel as untold generations of our ancestors had to. We have all benefited from the fantastic ingenuity of human beings, often inspired in the face of adversity, and I have no doubt whatsoever that we can continue to be innovative. It would be insane to believe otherwise.
The reason we live better lives than we used to is in no small part, but not entirely, due to the simple principle that in a capitalist (i.e., natural) economy improved products sell themselves because they are generally better than what went before. If you think about it, that’s how evolution happens.
Turkeys, and there have been plenty of them, end up being kicked into the gutter of commercial oblivion because they weren’t good enough.
Several thousand years ago the use of stone tools gave way to copper and its alloy bronze because the new metallurgy made it immeasurably easier to manufacture a far wider array of implements and adornments. Iron, which took longer to learn to smelt, next transcended bronze for some of those purposes because it is far harder. Metals are just some of the materials human beings have developed which we take for granted but form the basis of everything we are.
No-one had to impose them through quotas. No-one went around making stone tools illegal to promote the interests of the bronzesmiths. Tribal chiefs didn’t fine stone knappers for selling too many flint axes.
Jump on to early modern times.
The industrialist entrepreneur Joseph Arkwright (1732-92) became phenomenally wealthy because his development of the spinning frame drastically improved the cloth manufacturing process by speeding up production of yarn from cotton. His genius was using water, and later steam, to power the frame (which he hadn’t actually invented). He wasn’t helped by Government quotas.
Arkwright’s genius extended to his vision of round-the-clock factory production at Cromford. His machinery and practices formed the basis of the modern factory system. We might regret many aspects of that world, among them the exploitation of labour and terrible working conditions, but the fact remains that virtually every part of our world relies on the template he established, not least the ability to manufacture on an epic scale. The spinning frame has gone the way of many older inventions, supplanted itself by better, more efficient and cheaper production techniques.
No prizes for guessing which very large Far Eastern country has taken factory production to levels Arkwright could only have dreamed of.
This process has continued to serve as the bedrock for the richer and more comfortable lives most of us in developed countries enjoy today. But all too often, Western developed countries have let other nations take advantage. And now it’s happening again, but this time it seems to be deliberate negligence.
It’s one thing for governments to incentivise and facilitate innovation and production, and also to pass laws imposing minimum standards of production, safety and welfare for those who work in industry. That’s what governments are for.
The world has changed though. Thanks to the cult ideology of Net Zero some governments, including our own, have started trying to destroy the entire basis of human brilliance and ingenuity in a way that has no parallel other than in totalitarian states.
If electric cars represented an overall improvement on internal combustion engine (ICE) cars by being collectively better to drive, cheaper to buy and run, at least as easy to ‘refuel’, had longer (or even equivalent) ranges, used less energy, lasted longer, had better resale value, were less environmentally damaging through being easier to make, using less metals and were easier to recycle, they’d sell themselves. Those are all minimum standards the Government could have set, but hasn’t.
In fact, even if EVs were more expensive to buy but all or most of the other improvements applied, we would go out and buy them because they’d be all the rage – just like iron was once, just like spinning frames were once, and radios, televisions and wristwatches rather than pocket watches (or no watch at all). But in most regards EVs fall flat (just like their batteries), not least the prospect now of having a punch-up at a motorway service station when an EV needs recharging.
Let’s take an example: the British motorcycle industry all but disappeared in the 1980s because Japanese motorcycle companies like Honda and Yamaha flooded the market with products that, while not perfect, outperformed British bikes with higher specifications and performance.
You can argue about the merits of the Japanese bikes all you like. The proof is in the pudding. My father, a dedicated rider of British bikes, laughed like a drain at my Honda 175 in 1978. “You’ll never get anywhere on that,” he mocked. A year later he bought his own and left his AJS to rot in the garden. He never touched another British bike.
What about heat pumps? Trust me, I’ve inspected two systems owned by neighbours and I had a quote for one. I gave up on the spot. I’d have to half-gut my 18th century house to have it caked in expensive and largely futile levels of insulation (which also means having to redesign every window bay in a house with thick stone walls), spend a small fortune (despite the grant) for the plant itself, give over a large part of the utility room to the collection of pipes, valves and tanks, see my electricity bill go through the roof, and all for the privilege of sitting in tepid despair and saying goodbye to hot baths. No thanks. What kind of a sales pitch is that?
Of course I’m not going to buy a heat pump as they stand. Just as someone in the eighth century BC would have turned down an iron sword if it was softer than a bronze one. In the days of the late Bronze Age the man with an iron sword was king.
You’ll see that thus far I have not mentioned climate change. I’m not going to engage with that directly because that’s not the point here, apart from the single consideration that if that’s the problem I am at a total loss to know how EVs and heat pumps on offer at the moment are going to make any difference.
It is preposterous to claim that panic-stricken measures thrown together with various arbitrary deadlines, compulsory quotas and fines are going to prevent us from falling over the supposed precipice and undo in short order the claimed consequences of well over two centuries of industrialisation.
Even if it’s as bad as we are being told, then it is already too late. How can switching to electric cars and heat pumps have any visible or detectable effect on the climate in our lifetimes, let alone those of several further generations? Especially in a country with a tiny carbon footprint?
Much worse, it is even more preposterous to believe that buying electric cars manufactured in China where carbon emissions are on an epic scale, dependent on electricity generated by burning fossil fuel and based on mining far large quantities of minerals than ICE cars, to say nothing of ripping up thousands of miles of pavements to kit houses out with the necessary cabling, is going to do anything to modify our impact on the environment.
Since by all accounts it looks as if most EVs will be scrap within 10 years of being made, their impact is going to be even worse, most of all because of the problem of recycling the batteries and having to manufacture even more cars to make up for their shorter lives.
With current EV cars likely to be unusable within a decade without a small fortune being spent on new batteries, they are the equivalent of an ICE car needing a complete new engine after the same interval. Tell that to my 33-year-old Volvo 740 which is still going just fine, thank you very much (with a carbon footprint a fraction of an EV car). In seven years, I won’t even have to pay any more road tax.
Likewise, it’s absurd to claim that manufacturing and installing complex heat pumps, also dependent on vast quantities of electricity to operate (I was quoted 10,000 kWh of electricity per annum to run one in my house) is going to make a difference.
Those are just two examples of producing new machinery which will come at huge cost to the environment on their own, to say nothing of the massive financial cost to those who buy them. Heat pumps of course cost more to service than boilers, and now we learn that EV owners are being hit with massive hikes in insurance costs (a story that originated in the Guardian, no less).
It’s also nonsense to suggest either EVs or heat pumps will represent permanent solutions to the supposed problem. One thing you can be sure of is that with so much money to be made, most will be obsolete by the time they are bought or installed, with the marketing of ‘upgrades’ following on their heels, to say nothing of the colossal impact of recycling car batteries and all the gubbins that make up a heat pump.
Worse, some of this new equipment is dangerous. The stories about electric cars spontaneously combusting are on the rise. Lithium batteries are not fully developed technology.
Thanks to the Government trying to enforce their sale in short order with deadlines and quotas there will be a huge problem with simultaneous breakdowns and obsolescence a few years down the line.
It’s inconceivable that there won’t one day be far better ways to make EVs or machines to heat our homes. But those improvements would arrive a lot more quickly if Government set minimum standards and manufacturers had to meet them to sell their products instead of being encouraged, even forced, to sell inferior goods by the state.
The plain and obvious fact is that whatever problems these innovations are supposed to be solving they are not up to the job. The technology is woefully behind the task it is being set. That doesn’t mean it won’t be one day. But right now it’s the stuff of dreams.
Therein lies the dangerous message of the Government’s new eco laws and deadlines: EVs and heat pumps don’t need to be good enough to be sold on their own merit. This totally undermines the claim that the green revolution is a fantastic opportunity to reboot Britain’s economy.
Currently they are being sold on the basis of moral blackmail pinned round an arbitrary deadline and imaginary precipice. Nor has the Government done anything like enough to install the support infrastructure – another reason why the take-up is so poor.
The Government’s solution is coercion, not improvement. The much-heralded recent rowing back on some of the deadlines was window-dressing, and only intended to target the next election. They’re a sham.
Even worse, it’s laid the whole market open to Chinese industry, which is the only outfit capable of supplying cheap second-rate products in volume to meet the deadlines (it’s the same with almost everything else so why should EVs and heat pumps be any different?) This makes it even less likely British industry will be able to produce innovations in a commercially viable way. Energy costs more in the U.K. than almost anywhere else.
In any case, as was shown the other day on this site, Britain’s reduction in carbon emissions has been achieved in no small part by running down industrial production (economic suicide). Therefore, claiming Net Zero is going to create a new industrial revolution with thousands of jobs is a total contradiction since the eco lobby will go mental if new factories result in any elevation in carbon emissions.
So, here’s the deal. I’d happily replace my rural house’s oil boiler with a heat pump if the latter was cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, more durable and better at heating my house. I’d happily replace my car with an EV if it was cheaper to buy, cheaper to run (which it might be at the moment – insurance aside – but soon won’t be when new taxes are imposed), had at least as good a range and was as easy to recharge as my ICE car is to refuel.
Almost none of these things is true, so until then I’m going to carry on for as long as I can with what I already have. In any normal marketplace we wouldn’t need the moral blackmail, deadlines and laws enforcing their sale because the EVs and heat pumps (or some alternative) would be so good that everyone would be queuing up to buy them. Normal competition would do the job.
I don’t doubt for one moment that ICE cars and gas or oil boilers should, at some point, go the way of steam engines and paraffin heaters. Of course they should. Life moves on. Innovation is what human beings are all about. But it’s a rum deal when the next generation of technology represents a backward step.
The only thing I am certain of is that the combination of inferior products, arbitrary deadlines, quotas, fines and legal sanctions will stifle the pace of development. A small number of people will make astronomical amounts of money before disappearing into the sunset with their swag. Vast quantities of EVs and their batteries will end up in scrapyards along with heat pumps before the next decade is out. And the public will have been swindled out of their savings to bankroll this chaos.
And if you want to know what happens to old wind turbines, just watch this video about dumped turbine blades in Australia by my old BBC colleague Nick Cater. Answer? Just chuck ‘em in the bush.
Worse, I can foresee a time when a new round of legal provisions will outlaw the current crop of EVs for having a devastating impact with the mining of minerals and damage to the environment because of their batteries, along with heat pumps for using far too much electricity.
Quotas, coercion, fines and arbitrary deadlines are the last refuge of political scoundrels, as perfectly exhibited by the old Soviet Union. They are a fast track to evasion, corruption, inferior products and squandered time, opportunity and resources.
Far from being grateful to us, future generations are more likely to curse our era for wasting untold quantities of resources on second-rate manufacturing and all for the sake of saving face because the Government failed to win its own argument.
Politics always was and always will be about the short-term. It’s no different with Net Zero, despite the Government’s claims and those of the useful idiots who egg them on, some of whom are champing at the bit at the chance to make a killing.
What a wasted opportunity. It’s a scandal.
I’m wondering what happens down the line when it finally becomes apparent that none of this has had any impact on the problem it was supposed to have? If anyone thinks we’re going to slide into a utopia of static weather patterns with no divergence from the ‘since records began’ mean, they’re going to be very, very disappointed. Then what?
My closing question then is, what’s the real agenda here? Somehow, just somehow, I feel sure it will involve following the money. ‘Twas ever thus.
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“Not up to the job” ???———— But what job are we talking about? Are we talking about the job of providing heat and transport or are we talking about the job of pretending to save the planet for political purposes? ——–No one had to be coerced into getting rid of their horse and buying a motor car did they? Governments never came along and offered you money for your old horse and 800 quid towards a new Ford. Because people know best how to spend their own money. Once government starts to spend it for you there may be trouble ahead.
Spot on mate
cheers
Anbd the conclusion? Matt Goodwin is right in saying a new elite has taken over which does not represent the rest of us and it has no sense. It only knows that it can (until stopped) use the power of the state to impose its own ideas, even if that bankrupts the country.
They believe they are morally and intellectually superior, everything will be done because they decide it must be so but techniology and facts are not playoing their game. They can and have distorted economics but that too will rebound.
Trouble is, like the EV billionaires, these politicians will not be seen again after it all goes wrong, except in the subsidised restaurants of the HoL and on the boards of anonymous quangos.
One possibility for the politicians at the end of this mess and all the targets are achieved or as far as it can go, is the potential for a type of the night of the long knives event. No longer needed, so remove any potential threat, as it always has been with any quick and major shift in power.
Why do you think we have been disarmed?
Quite right with that observation, but they also missed at the same time, that once they control everything, it is at that point they loose control.
“I’m wondering what happens down the line when it finally becomes apparent that none of this has had any impact on the problem it was supposed to have?”
Simple. We will be told we didn’t do Net Zero good enough or hard enough or soon enough or long enough, and even more quotas, coercion, fines and arbitrary deadlines will be imposed, along with ruinous “reparations” to the rest of the world.
Or – since the rate of global warming levelled off in the late 90s and started to decline slightly around 2008, they can fudge the numbers a bit, declare job done (see we told you it would work) pat themselves on the back all the way to the bank, and establish the new reality because we mustn’t let it go up again. And now for something completely different – to ban, breathing maybe.
Yes, that’s a plausible alternative as already tried with covid – look, the numbers went down eventually after we locked down, we told you it would work, now we can never unlock because it will come back and all our hard work would be wasted.
Ban breathing? They have already tried that.
Not being “up to the job” isn’t the most important point. What “problem” is being solved here?
What about heat pumps? Trust me, I’ve inspected two systems owned by neighbours and I had a quote for one. I gave up on the spot. I’d have to half-gut my 18th century house
I hope professed sceptics will require stronger evidence than “trust me”. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in an 18th century house – that’s for the elite. Heat pumps sometimes are a good solution and sometimes not. Also remember there are different types of heat pump – air to air, air source to water, ground source to water.
We installed air to air heat pumps last autumn – they are extremely effective and an order of magnitude cheaper than the all electric heating we had before. Our local Town Hall did the same as a cost saving measure – nothing to do with climate change and, being air-to-air, no grants. A friend replaced his oil fired boiler with an air to water heat pump in his 18th century house and is totally satisfied with the results and the cost savings.
But we’re supposed to trust you?
Nope. I added my personal experience which is just as invalid as the author’s experience. I expect true sceptics to ignore both.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Actually it is. Perhaps it would be better to say that generalising from an N=1 sample is unlikely to produce an accurate statistic for a population.
A minor point, but living in an 18th century house is not elitist. I live in an area where they are remarkably common – l lived in one myself. It was so unremarkable that neither it, nor the terrace it was in, were listed and were not of any architectural merit, and I paid peanuts for it (many years ago, but it was cheap even then.)
I know nothing about heat pumps. What I do think I know is that in general, free markets will decide on the best solution for problems. I’m chuffed to bits if people make heat pumps and sell them without any kind of subsidy or coercion, as long as I can still buy and fit a gas boiler.
You’re in good company then because the former Energy Security and Net Zero Minister (Grant Schapps) knew nothing about them either but he and his silly government (plus the opposition) would force one down your throat. —–Schapps was asked on GB News if heat pumps are any good and he said “I don’t know”———–. It doesn’t get much more absurd than that.
Lol, sums it up really. He’s probably just “following the science”.
I too loathe the expression “trust me”, which we hear constantly these days – though not usually in august venues such as the columns of the Daily Sceptic – rap over the knuckes Guy! Lol. Seriously though, it’s great to hear from you again MTF – this would be a boring place without your determination to stir up trouble (and nothing wrong with that), and with “Hux” and “Mogs” rushing to outdo each other every day, everywhere! (No disrespect to those two, but do they have time for anything else??)
So do I ‘trust’ Guy de la Bédoyère? Somehow, yes, I do – although yes, your examples of functioning air-to-air systems would seem at least to balance his examples. But your examples need more backing up; I’ve heard of a few apparently successful installations, but of a LOT of unsuccessful ones. Who’s right – I have no idea; but I’m always going to look unfavourably on evidence apparently based on sour grapes and class resentment; 18thC houses are for the élite indeed – that’s just chip-on-the-shoulder rot. I lived in an 18thC house for seventeen years until the cost of living in Kent drove me north. Nothing élite about me, I assure you, other than an ability to read and write (in 21st-century Britain). I bought it because it was in a bit of a state but was so much more appealing than one of the 2-up-2-down boxes infesting the land, courtesy of Able, Persimmon etc etc. I was no more capable of living in one of those than of drinking zero-alcohol wine.
Anyway, sorry – starting to rant.
a) provide more figures illustrating the successful/unsuccessful ratio – I’d be genuinely interested; and b) drop the ‘tude, dude – it sounds just awful.
Seriously though, it’s great to hear from you again MTF
Thanks. Actually I never went away. The pattern is I see something I badly want to comment on, pay up my £5, and then comment more friviously until the £5 expires.
My comment about 18th century houses for the elite was not meant very seriously. I just get tired of people like me being labelled as metropolitan elite when we are neither metropolitan or elite. Nevertheless I think you will agree that it is small minority of people who live in 18th century houses which is my main point.
I don’t propose to dig up data on the success of heat pumps. It isn’t worth the effort. The various anecdotes seem to establish they can work well but are not always a good solution which is actually what the establishment say.
To add to your experience.
We live in a newly built house, extremely well insulated with and air source heat pump (btw no gas in our area).
Works very well.
It is my understanding this solution works well in new, well insulated houses, but retrofitting these in old houses would be a nightmare both from a cost and disruption point of view.
During the Falklands war prefabricated houses were shipped out to the islands which were so well insulated the families living in them had to leave the doors and windows open in the middle of the winter to cool off.
A strong element of the solution to national energy security and expensive energy is not green energy but using less wasteful ways of living. [No solution is required for the non-existent ‘climate change’.]
So insulating our buildings will save a vast amount of energy.
Despite taking extensive measures to reduce electricity use it is difficult in my property to prevent a 24/7 background use of up to 165 watts = in 24 hours 3960 watts every day or 1,445,400 watts per annum [1.445 megawatts].
This amounts to 1/3rd to 1/2 of daily electricity consumption.
In comparison gas consumption has been dramatically reduced by heating the human and not the house. Gas is very little now compared to electricity.
All devices it is practicable to deal with have been and do not contribute to the background energy consumption.
If there was a way of reducing that for every household the national energy burden could also be substantially reduced.
We can all make the reductions but we need devices designed to minimise consumption and we do not have them.
No mention of the cost. (which is large and accompanied by re-decorating costs and floors and radiators ripped up) ———–People are being coerced into having smart meters and heat pumps and there is the threat of a 15,000 quid fine or a year in jail for not allowing a smart meter or heat pump in the latest energy bill. ——So if you want to install heat pumps (or smart meter) in your house that is your choice with your own money. But please don’t say none of this is about the climate. Ofcourse it is. The government are ok with you heating your house with anything as long as it isn’t fossil fuels.
Indeed. But as I said above and will say again, while it is interesting to debate whether heat pumps “work” or not, the point IMO is that people should be free to make and sell and buy and install whatever bloody heating devices they choose to – in general this will lead to the devices used being the most efficient and suitable for the purpose. As soon as the state intervenes in the market, I smell a rat. The same goes for EVs.
I agree with you. I don’t think you read what I said properly.
Sorry
Their overlords will not allow it.
And yet the government still lead their horse to the water and still try to get it to drink and will do so for time eternal. It’s bashing square pegs into round holes. It’s collectively insane. They are not interested in facts like ‘heat pumps don’t work’ they are only interested in achieving targets and notching up the rachet on the torture wheel of Net Zero. There’s a massive armada of glassy eyed indoctrinated apparatchiks, bureacrats and virtuous sounding lower class demons enabling all of this producing countless costing reports and myopic science papers and so so many ordinary people all lining up as if they are fighting the good fight. It’s a tsunami of righteousness that is almost impossible to stop. Hopefully there is still some common sense in the world and we can stop it before it engulfs us all.
It’s said that common sense isn’t very common. Amongst the green loonies responsible for the net zero garbage I would say it’s non-existent
The £5000 cost of insuring an electric car has killed EVs stone dead.
The cost of installing and operating heat pumps, added to remodelling your home with massive insulation kills these too.
The carbon zero plot, based on the lie that miniscule levels of CO2 are a pollutant, is crumbling rapidly.
The £5000 cost of insuring an electric car has killed EVs stone dead
UK: Plug-In Car Sales Increased By Over 70% In August 2023
https://insideevs.com/news/685276/uk-plugin-car-sales-august2023
Rich people’s virtue signalling toys, subsidised by the tax payer.
Company cars mandated by a virtue signalling senior management who are “saving the planet”
Well in the case of the firm I work for it’s simply a question of being able to offer a financial benefit to staff without it costing us anything.
And the percentage of these that were fleet deals?
I can’t find that data. Can you?
“Fleet buyers drive the majority of EV salesIn the first half of 2023, 60% of EVs were sold into the true fleet market while less than a quarter went to private buyers. For premium brands, the fleet sector is an even bigger driver of EV sales and accounts for around three in every four registrations.”
18 Aug 2023
Fleetnews.
Wasn’t very difficult was it?
Congrats. It was so easy I wonder why you asked me?
Anyhow, the figure is meaningless unless you know the proportion for non-EV vehicles over the same period. So that’s your next challenge
I don’t know much about fleet deals and don’t care much either. What I do know is that EVs are being heavily subsidized by the taxpayer so the market is distorted, and in 2030 4 out of every cars sold must be an EV of some kind and 5 years later I will no longer be able to buy a non-EV – that’s the plan. If EVs were better or even as good they wouldn’t need subsidies or coercion.
The EV in the drive next to my house went on fire. It burned the doors off their garage and I was lucky it did not set my garage alight as well. Fortunately it is brick built, but I do have the smoke stains on the top part which is wooden. It will become clear if EV’s cost more to insure because of these types of incidents. If people want to use their own money to buy things then that is up to them ofcourse, but they won’t be allowed to buy a petrol or diesel with their own money because those will soon be banned, and that is the trouble with everything GREEN. ——–It is always government and not you who ultimately decides what you can buy, all based on politicised assumptions and modelling of the climate, often referred to as “science”. ——Nope modelling isn’t science, and it isn’t evidence of anything.
I thought I would get a real quote for insurance for an electric car that is not in the luxury category. I found an all electric Kia Soul on Autotrader 2018 79,000 miles purchase price £8,990. I got a fully comp quote using all the same info that I use for my current car (except the car details obviously). Moneysupermarket.com gave me a mass of quotes – the cheapest was AA at £312 pa which is a lot cheaper than my Ford B-Max.
MTF, you must be bored, right? I mean, you make some interesting (but invariably countered) points in defence of what is ultimately a form of undemocratic, global, societal hijack. Certain powerful people don’t like the way the world is run and they’re determined we should suffer their vision of an alternative – no matter what the cost. I don’t know how many of your claims are justified – particular as regards such fascinating stuff as motor vehicle insurance premiums – but it’s clear that you have a great deal of sympathy for The Narrative, which is based on lies and distortions and will beggar the world for no good reason. Simple question: what is your motivation?
Simple question: what is your motivation?
A simple question but a complicated answer. I am not sure if anyone is really interested but I will explain just in case.
I am not bored, in fact rather pushed for time, but I am retired which gives me more control over my time. So why spend that time here?
I do have views that are closer to what you think of as “the narrative”, particularly with respect to climate change I don’t think those views are based on lies and distortion. If I read something here which strikes me as wrong or fallacious I often can’t resist the temptation to respond. There are any number of places on the internet where followers of this site can learn about opposing views, no doubt expressed much better than me, but I suspect that followers of this site dismiss those places because of the person or institution responsible (“it is the Royal Society/NASA/IPCC which are controlled by the elite so we can dismiss that”). If I write something here people who disagree are (marginally) more likely to actually read it. Also I often learn something from the response (I had no idea that even gasses such as oxygen and nitrogen have a very small greenhouse effect – I learned that here).
Does that help?
Nothing wrong with your reply and it’s civil – the least anyone can ask for.
Sorry to come back to this but actually I think my last comment was too accommodating. You are civil and you do make various good points, and as an occasionally decent person myself, I’m not intent on prolonging things for no good reason. But good reasons remain.
When you attribute sceptics, for example, with the opinion that…
“it is the Royal Society/NASA/IPCC which are controlled by the elite so we can dismiss that”
…are you quoting someone specifically, as your speech marks suggest? More importantly, why is it not reasonable to dismiss data produced by a body that is controlled by ‘the elite’? Followers of this site are presented with good and abundant evidence that, say, the IPCC is not a reliable source of of information; there is a general understanding (among sceptics) that the IPCC no doubt produces some valid data, but according to genuine experts such as Roger Pielke, not ‘enough’ – proceeding as it does from manifestly unrealistic computer models. This doesn’t mean that sceptics listening to the likes of Roger Pielke deny that the climate is changing – that would be foolish – but, when they add the fact of this plainly skewed data to the fact that governments across the world hang on every word emanating from the IPCC when making policy, why would they not dismiss every word? The question is really one of definition of this term “the elite”: I don’t picture a group of easily nameable people getting together in an evil huddle in the crater of an extinct volcano, Ernst Blofeld style, in order to subvert the world order; the links between individuals are diffuse and sometimes tenuous, making them difficult to establish – who wants to be easily accountable in such situations, right? – but multiple testimonies from dis-funded scientists, cancelled investigators, not-yet-cancelled investigators who produce far more concrete links between the various players than most Daily Sceptic followers can manage – this is not a lot of Scotch mist. A hypothesis is tested, evidence is adduced, conclusions are drawn: the IPCC is the instrument of “the elite”, which consists of nothing more definable than ‘those who benefit, usually financially, from a certain message’. Under these circumstances, given good evidence, dismissal in valid.
Yes I do think of current policies as forming a “Narrative”; we’ve heard from the IPCC and others that there is a ‘consensus’ among scientists and that one side of the debate ‘owns the science’. They say the same things over and over, about sea levels, hurricans, wildfires, global temperatures etc etc… Some of what they say is right, but much is wrong – it’s as simple as that.
Furthermore, prominent individuals from the past have plainly stated that a political intention lies behind the green movement; you must surely have come across these. Actual quotes available on request, of course. If this isn’t the basis of a planned and carefully executed ‘narrative’, I don’t know what is. And once the orders come down and are manipulated and managed by a thousand operatives, then a thousand more, they become harder and harder to identify as having come from a single, or at least much narrower, source – and hey presto it’s now easy to tar anyone who is still aware of that narrative as a “denier”, a far-right capitalist, a conspiracy theorist.
You may not think, as some do, that ‘official’ views about climate change are “based on lies and distortion”, and I’m not sure that I do either; not entirely, for sure – but this is a question of degree. I might say that the more extreme climate scientists have merely ‘got the wrong end of the stick’, for example – but I’d be charitable in saying so because it comes to the same thing in the end; inaccurate data. ‘Lies and distortion’? ‘Getting things unintentionally wrong’? – one is deliberate, the other is the result of incompetence. It doesn’t matter; put all these things together and you have something that can indeed, manifestly, be dismissed as a reliable source of information.
You wrote a great comment there. I am surprised no one has replied to you or given you a thumbs up, which I shall do right now. —-There we go —One thumbs up. ———PS try reading “Hubris” by Michael Hart. It is a very long and extensive book but worth it in the end. But since you seem to like long extensive stuff you might be happy to read it. I guarantee you will be glad you did.
Clive
I am having technical problems replying to this so I am testing with a very short reply.
That worked – so let’s see if the longer reply works here.
You asked me about my motivation for making comments here. I was only trying to explain why I repeat arguments that can be found elsewhere on the internet. Take the Royal Society as an example. It may or may not be justified for people to doubt the Royal Society on climate change. That is a different debate. My point is simply that while there are what I consider to be sound arguments on its web site, it is worth me repeating the same arguments here (in a concise form tailored to the discussion) because a lot of people on this site are unlikely to read the Royal Society web site because it is the Royal Society. If it is a sound argument then it should stand on its own merits whoever makes it.
There is of course a massive debate to be had about whether the IPCC and other establishment sources are to be trusted and whether there is an elite behind it all but I suggest this is not a good forum for having that debate.
The real Agenda is control; rationing; tax transfers and further enriching those in on the scam, including Charlie-Boy and William.
As I have been posting for months.
“My closing question then is, what’s the real agenda here? Somehow, just somehow, I feel sure it will involve following the money. ‘Twas ever thus.”
Population impoverishment and reduction. They hate us.
My closing question then is, what’s the real agenda here?
Depopulation. One World Government. Control of the masses. Theft of the Commons.
‘You will own nothing and be unutterably miserable.”
Bee in bonnet time. When will people learn that the proof is not in the pudding, it is in its eating.
THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING.
Does anyone remember when city centre heliports were going to revolutionise domestic transport as they didn’t need the massive runways and supplementary transport that conventional aircraft did.
I well recall the enthusiasm for the Fairey Rotodyne vertical take-off and landing airliner of the late 50s.It was cancelled a few years later.
British technical innovation struck again with yet another white heffalump.
They are not EVs, in fact there is nothing wrong with EVs, they are BEVs and the problem is with the B. You can’t get a quart into a pint-pot, and physics determines how fast you can charge it (not very) no matter how many Green incantations you chant about investment, future tech.
Air/water heat pumps work fine, but one size doesn’t fit all. How powerful, how big, how expensive, how much electricity it uses, will depend on how much space it has to heat. And also whether you have the space to accommodate it, and understanding neighbours who will have to listen to it drone all night particularly when the temperature drops low.
All the nonsense about insulation is based on everyone buying a standard relatively low power unit, otherwise purchase and running costs will be… discouraging.
I had one in France in a two hundred year old stone (former) farm house which wasn’t particularly well insulated, had tile floors with underfloor heating. It, the unit, was of a size and power output as recommended by the installer – it was big, two large fans and worked well with a three phase electricity supply. It kept the place cosy even down to temps of -9C. It replaced an oil boiler and so it better than halved running costs, but only because oil was so expensive. Piped gas was not available and I doubt a decent sized heat pump will be a saving on piped gas in the UK.
Yes, all the commentary is about BEVs, wholly reliant on external battery charging. EVs with modern petrol engines and relatively small traction batteries (roughly 1kWh) are more appropriate for the time being. I’ve become used to them since 2017 – both made by Toyota, classified as “HYBRID ELECTRIC” by the DVLA.
The best central heating we ever had (gas) is to be replaced with heat pumps or hydrogen all because government say so based on the climate scam……6 weeks ago the Energy Security and Net Zero Minister (Grant Schapps) was asked on GB News if heat pumps are any good. ——Here is his reply –“I don’t know but I am having one fitted in my house soon, so I will find out”———-WHAT ??????—– Is he out of his mind?— I notice he is at the Ministry of defence now. It must be the norm for people who don’t know what they are talking about to just be moved to other departments in the gravy train. I wonder if he knows if helicopters or tanks are any good. ——-But knowing things is not so important is it? All that counts is regurgitating junk science and junk policies all emanating from the pretend to save the planet people at the UN.
Following the money, the zeitgeist and getting a sulky Swedish teenager off their backs because she has a lot of arsey hangers-on.
4000-5000 years ago the earth was 2.5 degrees warmer than it is today.
Watch this short video 4 mins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmmmgiPha_Y
This is hard science => Climate change caused by CO2 warming is clearly nonsense.
I rang a local building firm and said I wanted a skip outside my house.
Bloke said “I’m not stopping you.”
Very good article clearly illustrating the mind numbing pointlessness and futility of this scam; except to remove our money, freedom, livelihoods and economy.