Europe is revolting against the tyranny of electric cars - "The rest of Europe, Remainers like to tell us, is forging ahead into a glorious green future while Brexit Britain is stalling, the government backsliding one by one on its net zero commitments. It is hard to square that narrative with what’s really going on across the channel. In March, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, registrations of new electric vehicles plummeted by 11.3 per cent. In Germany – the grown up country that’s supposed to show childish Britain how it’s done – the drop was even more precipitous at 28.9 per cent. Apparently it’s not just Britain where motorists have gone distinctly cool on electric cars. The electric vehicle industry appears to going the same way as one of its own products when the battery charge lowers: it’s slowing rapidly to a crawl. And it’s plain to me that the reasons in Europe are the same as they are here: electric cars are too expensive to buy, and too fussy to recharge. They have a niche as local runabouts for people with their own off-street recharging facilities, but little appeal otherwise. Enthusiasts will point to the example of Norway, where the vehicles have a 90 per cent share of the market, but that exception merely demonstrates what has been clear for a while: people buy electric cars when the government rigs the market in their favour In Norway, buyers of EVs pay less VAT, are given access to bus lanes or free parking in various regions, pay lower road tolls and are given the right to charge their vehicles if living in apartments. Add to that the government mandating that cars purchased in public procurement need to be zero emissions, and it’s not hard to see why sales are high. Elsewhere, however, takeup is more moderate, and the EU’s dislike of cheap Chinese imports certainly isn’t going to help... the EU is telling motorists that it wants them to go electric, but when cheaper imported products arrive on the market making it slightly more affordable for them to do so, it it cracks down on those imports... Germany has a net zero target date of 2045, five years earlier than Britain, yet it has reopened coal mines. Moreover, it’s wriggling out of its electric vehicle targets. Thanks to German carmakers, internal combustion engines will still be acceptable so long as they are capable of running on biofuels or synthetic fuels. And thanks to German homeowners, the ban on gas boilers were also watered down. The problem, in other words, is not that Brits are lousy environmentalists. It’s that once again, Net Zero is collapsing as the public refuses to impoverish itself."
Electric cars sold at record discounts as demand plunges - "Almost eight in 10 new electric cars are being sold at a discount as the industry reels from falling consumer demand. Some 77pc of new electric vehicles (EVs) listed on Auto Trader were advertised at a discount last month, up from 55pc a year earlier, data from the company shows. The degree of discounting is also on the rise, with the average reduction now standing at a record 11pc. It came as Tesla announced a string of price cuts in China, the US and Europe following a slowdown in sales... the Government, which scrapped plug-in grants for households two years ago, said it saw no need to reintroduce incentives for EV buyers. Andrew Bergbaum, a global automotive expert at AlixPartners, said the winding back of incentives had “led to a significant reduction in affordability”. This created overcapacity, with manufacturers forced to slash prices to sell down their inventories, he added."
EVs are a Trojan horse for the destruction of driving - "If motorists just don’t want to buy electric vehicles, what are manufacturers to do? They can’t carry on cutting the prices of electric cars to the point they are selling them at a massive loss, and nor will they be able to afford to pay penalties of £15,000 for every petrol or diesel car they sell over the limit. Buyers of luxury cars might not mind paying that kind of surcharge, but motorists who want mass market hatchbacks certainly will. The only real option car-makers will have is to stop us buying petrol or diesel cars by withdrawing them from the market – as Ford has already done with the Fiesta. I wouldn’t be surprised if some car-makers chose to give up on the UK market altogether. What’s crazy about the ZEV is that motorists have shown themselves to be happy buying hybrids. They don’t mind electrical traction; it is just that they don’t want to suffer the hassle of relying on public charging points or risk being stranded. Hybrids should have been the way to clean-up the car industry, allowing motorists steadily to move in the direction of electric vehicles. That would have allowed the recharging infrastructure to be built up over time – and who knows, maybe there would have come a point when EVs became good enough that people no longer saw the need to have an engine on board as well as batteries. But the government undermined the whole process by announcing that hybrids, too, will be banned, and trying to force us to leap to full electric vehicles in one go"
$57 billion to EV automakers: good investment or risky gamble? - "Ontario’s Ministry of Mines announced that an agreement was signed with Marten Falls and Webequie First Nation to develop road and community infrastructure to support the Ring of Fire mineral extraction and the livelihood of residents. However, these projects have historically been plagued by delays... Despite an announcement last week that EV automaker Tesla would be shedding more than 14,000 jobs due to dropping sales, Bloomberg is predicting the electric vehicle market will increase by 22 percent this year. Critics, however, say that billions of EV subsidies serve to increase the growing deficits at both levels of government and is a risky and ultimately harmful use of Canadian tax dollars. “We have the federal government giving a $2.5 billion tax credit to a massive international Fortune 500 company, Honda,” Jay Goldberg, Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told The Hub. “They’re punishing everyday Canadians by asking the middle class to pay for it.” The Hub has calculated that the federal government and the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec have publicly offered more than $40.59 billion in subsidies and tax credits for EV manufacturers in the past two years. This represents 15 percent more than the companies themselves have put forward for their investments in Canada’s EV sector. Using numbers from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, it is estimated that the three major EV manufacturing projects in these two provinces—Volkswagen (headquartered in Germany), Stellantis-LGES (headquartered in the Netherlands and South Korea), and Northvolt (headquartered in Sweden)—will actually cost Canadian government as much as $50.7 billion after accounting for the cost of public borrowing to finance the massive public subsidies and forgone corporate tax revenues from the tax abatements. According to the federal government, Honda’s Alliston project will create 1,000 permanent manufacturing jobs. However, during media availability following the announcement, neither Trudeau or Ford would put a price on how much the government paid, through their investments, for each of those jobs... both governments are effectively paying $5 million per directly created job. “They talk about indirect jobs but that’s never a full guarantee. We have no actual clear numbers,” he said. Goldman said the government's focus on specific sectors of the economy ignores potential gains for employment made by lowering corporate and small business taxes. “If they’re putting $5 billion towards the one plant, imagine what $5 billion of tax relief could do to attract companies of all shapes and sizes from elsewhere,” he said."
RCMP warns push to switch to electric vehicles faces 'significant challenges' - ""We do fully anticipate that there are significant challenges with electric vehicle range for a lot of our units," said Sgt. Shaun Vickery, who works in the RCMP's national traffic programs and operational technologies unit. "We don't want to put them into a situation where they will fail and put a member at risk or the public at risk because a piece of equipment didn't do what it was supposed to do... As the boots-on-the-ground police in eight provinces, all three territories and 150 municipalities, the RCMP covers vast portions of the country — including many remote and rural areas with limited charging infrastructure and strained power grids... "Responding to a call may require driving at a higher speed, which is going to consume more battery and decrease your range," said Vickery... Outfitting the vehicles with policing equipment has also turned out to be a challenge. Andres Casimiri, manager of the Mounties' national fleet program, said the force basically had to gut the inside of the Teslas to make them into usable police cars."
Is the move to electric cars running out of power? - "In the UK, analysts say strong EV sales in recent years were fuelled by company car purchases, thanks to generous tax breaks. But the household market is proving a tougher nut to crack, with people saying they are mostly put off by the high cost. The average price of a new EV in the US is over $60,000 (£47,433). Prices are similarly high in Europe and the UK. Large state subsidies and greater production efficiencies mean the average cost to a Chinese consumer is just $30,000. And BYD's Seagull hatchback sells for less than $10,000... Here is the dilemma for European and US politicians. They want cheaper EVs to facilitate the climate transition, but not at the cost of undermining their own car manufacturers - the likes of Ford and Volkswagen - and local jobs. In fact, the talk is actually of raising tariffs and other trade barriers on imports to keep out ultra-competitive Chinese EVs."
End Wokeness on X - "BREAKING: Far-left extremists just tried storming a Tesla factory near Berlin:"
i/o on X - "The far-left has conducted a campaign of vandalism against industries associated with fossil fuels for decades. An industry emerges that builds cars that don't require fossil fuels. The far-left attacks it. This suggests motives that are more nihilistic than idealistic."
Visegrád 24 on X - "German far-left vandals break through police lines and run for Tesla’s Gigafactory, hoping to disrupt production. These people clearly hate both fossil fuel cars and electric cars. They are modern-day luddites"
Germany: Sabotage case launched against Tesla protesters
Dr Jordan B Peterson on X - "The leftist plan to oh so virtuously deindustrialize will devastate the poor and do nothing but damage to "the environment" (whatever the hell illusory god that is). The evidence is clear from the example, for example, of Germany: "green" policies produce:
More poverty
More reliance on foreign energy
More environmental degradation ( as the bloody German greens have now been driven by their own stupidity to burn lignite)
How is that serving the interest of anyone but the moralizing narcissists? "I'm saving the planet!" Yeah: I don't think so, sunshine. The Cost of Mass Poverty - It's Not Good https://youtu.be/UirQmnGRo7Y?si=cmY4EsFmtk7NhYZe via @YouTube"
Just Stop Oil on X - "🚨 BREAKING: JUST STOP OIL BREAK MAGNA CARTA GLASS 🔥 Reverend Dr Sue Parfitt, 82, and Judy Bruce, 85, then glued their hands together, demanding an emergency plan to just stop oil by 2030. ✈️ Donate to help us take action at airports this summer —"
Left wing neuroses strike again
The vanity of the global climate talks - "this follows a pattern of climate policymaking in which, without much public debate or democratic input, targets are increased and brought forward. Some might think this shows a government getting serious about planning for the future. But what this on-the-hoof policymaking really reveals is a chaotic government that is struggling to cope with a climate agenda that is out of control, has no chance of success, and will create hardship for millions... The new UK policy looks like an attempt to steal back the climate-champion thunder from the US, where Biden has reversed the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement. Or perhaps the green policy wonks advising the governments on both sides of the Atlantic believe that they can lure other national governments into their bizarre bidding war, in which national populations’ material interests are sold out to a global carbon bureaucracy. The UK’s bid will impose the most stringent emissions-reduction targets – and by extension, the greatest constraints on economic activity – in the world. Thanks, Boris! But while Boris Johnson is keen to elevate himself as the global climate champion, and Biden is equally keen to mark the end of the Trump years, other global leaders are not joining in. Despite Western pleading, India has ruled out committing to a Net Zero target, on the basis that it would clearly cause too much economic harm. China, which has pledged to reach peak emissions by 2030 and to aim for carbon neutrality by 2060, has also signalled it is unlikely to be increasing its green ‘ambitions’ any time soon... the consequences of imposing harsh climate policies on an unwilling population are plain for all to see, including the governments of developed economies. Just look at the year-long protests on the streets of France that were initially provoked by green taxes. The revolt may have been subdued by the Covid-19 lockdowns, but they have made a Marine Le Pen victory at the next presidential election more likely than ever before. The rising costs of energy have already started to push industrial production away from Europe – a suicide mission that the US is set to follow. Mass protests, high energy prices, economic decline and deindustrialisation… these are the fruits of the climate agenda in the richest countries. Why would poorer countries want to follow suit?... What is really being sought at these talks? An agreement to save the planet? Or an agreement to boost the egos of leaders in London, Brussels, Washington, Paris and Berlin? After all, how would Boris be able to ‘build back better’ – a slogan he shares with Biden – were it not for a global ‘emergency’ to elevate the buffoon to the status of planet-saving superhero? Ditto, the gaffe-prone cipher in Washington is casting himself as mankind’s last hope for survival. Don’t forget the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who barely won an election in which she was the only candidate. She too claims to represent civilisation’s last chance for escape from doom."
From 2021
John McGuirk on X - "The new Dutch government is essentially to bin the green agenda entirely: Cuts to farming gone. Fuel taxes cut. Subsidies for heat pumps and insulation gone. Electric car subsidies cancelled. 4 new Nuclear plants. They're tossing the whole thing in the trash."
James Melville 🚜 on X - ""Bill Gates is backing the first high-altitude experiment of one radical climate change solution. Creating a massive chemical cloud that can cool the earth. It’s called solar geoengineering and it’s highly controversial.” ~ CNBC"
the Rich on X - "doomers: “we’re all going to die there’s nothing we can do besides socialism for some reason”
smart people: “okay let’s try using technology so we don’t die”
doomers: “no no science only socialism”"
Climate change hysteria is not about climate change
Meme - "WHY DON'T YOU TRUST THE EXPERTS?"
Medical Expert: "WE, THE EXPERTS, WERE WRONG..."
"NOw DO CLIMATE CHANGE."
Opinion | It Seems Odd That We Would Just Let the World Burn - The New York Times - "“Here is what this movement of millions should do, for a start,” Malm writes. “Announce and enforce the prohibition. Damage and destroy new CO2-emitting devices. Put them out of commission, pick them apart, demolish them, burn them, blow them up. Let the capitalists who keep on investing in the fire know that their properties will be trashed.” The question at the heart of Malm’s book is why this isn’t happening already. “Were we governed by reason, we would be on the barricades today, dragging the drivers of Range Rovers and Nissan Patrols out of their seats, occupying and shutting down the coal-burning power stations, bursting in upon the Blairs’ retreat from reality in Barbados and demanding a reversal of economic life as dramatic as the one we bore when we went to war with Hitler,” he says... As to whether blowing up pipelines would work here, and now, Malm is less convincing. The likeliest outcome is that a few dozen climate activists would be jailed for years (as some already have been) and a wave of laws criminalizing even peaceful protest would sweep the nation. He has no answers for those who fear the probable political consequences: an immediate backlash that sweeps enemies of climate action into power, eliminating even the fragile hopes for policy progress... Elsewhere in the book, Malm is firmly opposed to tactics that could signal contempt or hostility for the working class. But the consequence of a wave of bombings to obliterate energy infrastructure would be to raise the price on energy immediately, all across the world, and the burdens would fall heaviest on the poor. Malm tries, at times, to resolve this tension, suggesting that perhaps the targets could be the yachts of the superrich, but in general he’s talking about pipelines, and pipelines carry the fuels for used Nissans and aged ferries, not just Gulfstream jets."
Climate change hysteria is about imposing an elitist, globalist agenda to destroy society because of left wing neuroses. Terrorism is good when it pushes the left wing agenda
Thread by @cremieuxrecueil on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "2024 is the hottest year on record, and it's been hotter than 2023 in part because of a global ban on shipping fuels containing sulfur dioxide. Problem: SO2 causes acid rain, but it cools the globe. How can we just stay cool? A new company might have found the solution. 🧵 Acid rain has been on the decline for many years, but in order to finally put the problem to rest, it'll be crucial to knock out sulfur dioxide emissions from shipping. Globally, those emissions have been concentrated in these boxed-in regions where ships go to-and-fro. When the International Maritime Organization 2020 regulation went into effect, roughly 80% of sulfur dioxide emissions from international shipping went away overnight. If those sulfur emissions weren't stopped, sulfate aerosols would have acted to change the Earth's energy balance, cooling it down. Think of this like sunscreen for the planet. Because shipping-related emissions were spread out over so wide an area, their cooling effect was pretty sizable despite being only a fraction of global sulfur emissions. The resulting rise in global temperatures when these went away inspired @ASong408 to think: How can we keep the cooling while doing without the acid rain? Watch this video. What you just witnessed was a balloon containing sulfur dioxide. You just witnessed a stratospheric aerosol injection, AKA, a controlled sulfur release in the stratosphere. This part is critical: the stratosphere. The reason the stratosphere is so critical is that, if you release sulfur dioxide up there, it distributes widely and makes minimal acid rain. There's no weather that far up, so there's nothing to bring it back down right away! Because there's nothing to bring the sulfur dioxide (+/as byproducts) back down from so far up, you can also consider this "sunscreen" extra long-lasting. In other words, stratospherically-injected sulfur dioxide has a long "residence time." The residence time isn't forever, it's a few years. So in order to ensure the world doesn't face an acid rain problem, the release has to be done in controlled amounts. Luckily, modest amounts meet our goals: they cool Earth, stabilize her climate, and produce minimal acid rain The reason this works so well is that, when the sulfur is distributed so high up, it does better at cooling. Accordingly, we can continue to fight sulfur dioxide emissions on the ground while moving smaller amounts into the stratosphere to keep our planet cool. That's what @ASong408's company does, and, man does it work. To hammer in just how well it works, check out these calculations:"
This doesn't push the left wing agenda, so climate change hystericists won't like it
How climate change alarmists are actually damaging the planet - "“You’ll die of old age, I’ll die of climate change,” reads a typical poster held by teenagers in climate rallies across the world. The media, activists and even politicians are unabashedly indulging in climate alarmism, stoking the fears of millions. Books on the impending implosion of civilization due to climate change line shelves in bookstores across the world. Media outlets have changed the name of climate change, calling it the “climate emergency” or even “climate breakdown.” The cover of Time magazine tells us: “Be worried. Be very worried.” Unsurprisingly, this causes most of us to brood about a future that we’re being told will be calamitous. Children are growing up terrified, with six in ten American teenagers now afraid of climate change. The scaremongering has reached such a crescendo that now half the world’s population really believes climate change will likely end the human race. This alarmism is not only false but morally unjust. It leads us to make poor decisions based on fear, when the world not only has gotten better, but will be even better over the century. Remember that the world today is much better in almost every measurable way... The UN Climate Panel’s middle-of-the-road estimate for the end of the century is that we will be even better off... one of the UN Climate Panel authors warned against this: “We risk turning off the public with extremist talk that is not carefully supported by the science.” How is it possible that the media’s portrayal of the impacts of climate change are so vastly removed from reality? Because simple, moderating factors are left out. Last year, a paper generated lots of headlines and clicks claiming that future sea-level rise would flood 187 million people. But it was spectacularly misleading. It had to assume no one would adapt over the next 80 years. Actually, the research showed that as people obviously adapt, just 0.3 million people will have to move. The scary number is 600 times too large. This trumped-up rhetoric leads us to make unrealistic promises. We have mostly failed our climate promises for the last thirty years, and we are poised to fail our Paris climate promises by 2030 as well. It also leads nations to make exorbitantly expensive promises of carbon neutrality by 2050, something that will be more costly than permanent coronavirus shutdowns. Only New Zealand has asked for an independent assessment of the cost of its climate policy. It will cost 16 percent of its GDP each and every year by 2050, making it more costly than the entire New Zealand public expenditures for education, health, environment, police, defense, social protection, etc. Spending 16 percent of a nation’s income to solve a smaller part of a 3.6 percent problem is bad policy. Moreover, it is unlikely to happen. We need smarter solutions."
Thank climate change nutsos for New York's summer blackouts - "The green fanatics have been so successful at crippling the Empire State’s power infrastructure that now a minor heat wave, just three straight days with temps only above 95 degrees, could plunge the state into darkness. The grim news comes from the New York Independent System Operator, the nonprofit that runs the local power grid: In those near-inevitable circumstances, the NYISO warns, the system will be short more than 1,400 megawatts... How have they done this? By demanding that the state switch generation away from tried-and-true sources like natural gas and oil (and nuclear) to wind and solar — except that the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow and the state’s solar and wind buildout is nowhere near sufficient to meet its massive, growing energy demand. Yes, New York is shooting for an insane goal — cutting CO2 emissions 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050 — and immiserating its citizens along the way. Pointlessly: Even if New York somehow hits this target (it won’t), the overall impact on climate change will be null, thanks to committed emitters like China and India — both still building coal plants by the dozens. They know better than to try and choke off the carbon-based fuels that power the modern world — and will need to keep powering it until we get the only truly sustainable solution, nuclear energy, off the ground. Indeed, the Green New Dealers’ brainless strategy here, i.e. calling for transition before wind and solar can possibly get built out enough, has rendered New York City’s grid “dirtier” than Texas’ and the US average. The only thing the green drive will achieve is depriving Empire State families of the blessings of modernity — like refrigeration and AC. Not only will the juice not be there, the cost of trying to build enough wind and solar guarantees massive rate hikes. With every new absurdity, climate fanaticism is revealed more and more as a quasi-religion, not a rational response to the risks of a warming world. Not that the true believers (or the politicians who pander to them) will pause to face these inconvenient truths. Remember who to thank when you’re plunged into darkness in this summer’s dog days."
Of course, climate change hystericists will pretend that this is because they haven't built enough renewable capacity, since everyone Knows that renewables are the cheapest form of power
Collapse of projects shows again that wind power is not affordable - "The renewable-power fantasy is being blown apart by furious financial headwinds. Already this year projects have tumbled in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and now Danish wind-power giant Ørsted has canceled two wind farms in New Jersey. Over and over, the litany of causes is the same: inflation, higher interest rates that drive up capital costs and severe kinks in the supply chain. These same problems are slamming proposed offshore-wind projects in New York as developers make final decisions on whether to start building turbines or cut their losses before they get worse... The four companies behind these prospective wind farms have all taken big hits to their balance sheets. Equinor has written its value down by $300 million. Its partner, BP, wrote off more than $500 million. Eversource sliced $300 million off its portfolio’s value. And Ørsted took a sledgehammer to its accounts, wiping out a whopping $5.6 billion. Its stock plunged more than 20%. All this chaos caused a top BP executive to lament that the offshore-wind industry is “fundamentally broken.” Indeed — and yet this broken industry is what New York’s climate activists have pinned their clean-energy hopes on. If offshore wind had to compete on the free market, we wouldn’t even be talking about it. The levelized cost of energy from natural gas is around $37 per megawatt hour. The contracts the wind-energy companies struck with the state sets offshore wind’s price at $118 per megawatt-hour, three times as expensive as gas but still not enough to make turbines turn a profit. To get out of the red, the firms had begged the PSC to jack up the price to between $140 and $190 per megawatt-hour... This is the danger of letting the government pick winners and losers. Watch the show “Shark Tank,” and you’ll see real investors having to decide whether to risk their own bankroll. When experienced people are playing with their own money, they don’t care whether an idea sounds exciting or ticks the proper ideological boxes. They only care whether they’re likely to make money off it. But when government provides subsidies to businesses, the investment decisions are made by folks who get to play with other people’s money... while an investor will walk away from a project that’s going down the tubes, government agencies will keep throwing good money after bad — there’s no cost to them, and it hurts to publicly admit you’re wrong."
Trudeau minister warns your summer road trip will burn the planet - "In an incredibly bizarre outburst in the House of Commons this week, Health Minister Mark Holland described family road trips as if they were a trip to hell. It all started with Conservative MP Rachael Thomas asking a benign question that should have resulted in a forgettable answer from the government. Next week the Conservatives have a motion coming forward for a vote to take 35 cents of tax off the price of gas so that Canadians can get a break. Thomas was asking the government if they would support the motion and described why they should... A question like that should have resulted in Holland, or some other minister, standing up and saying that they are concerned about affordability issues and the government working hard to address them. If Holland had done that, no one would have noticed the exchange, instead he had a meltdown like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation finding out he’s been enrolled in the Jelly of the Month Club. “Mr. Speaker, there is good news for kids,” Holland said. “They can take a summer fun-time vacation where they are locked in a car for 10 consecutive days non-stop, with no bathroom breaks, and the Conservatives have a plan for them to have that summertime fun.” If that sounds like Holland didn’t have good experiences with road trips as a kid, you might be right. But the health minister was just getting started with his unhinged response to an innocuous question, he still had to explain that road trips kill Mother Earth. “What is the cost?” Holland asked of the road trip. “It is to give up the future of the planet! Kids do not have to worry about climate change. They do not have to worry about taking action on the planet. They can enjoy their 10 hours in the car and let the planet burn.” Did you hear that kids? Going to see Grandma or visiting a national park will kill the planet. Driving anywhere will make the earth burn. Unless that driving, or flying, is done by Mark Holland and he does a lot of both. The MP for Ajax spent more than $65,000 in travel through his MP’s office budget in the first three quarters of the 2023-24 fiscal year and more than $85,000 the previous year. As Minister of Health, Holland has flown to Deer Lake, Newfoundland; Moncton, New Brunswick; Regina, Saskatchewan; White Horse, Yukon; Vancouver, British Columbia and Iqaluit, Nunavit. And that’s just in the month of March. Holland also represents a government headed up by Justin Trudeau, who took close to 20 flights in the month of May alone. Yet this government wants to tell Canadians that their summer road trip will destroy the planet? Beyond the hypocrisy, there is the bizarre description Holland has for road trips. He describes being locked in a car for 10 hours a day, for 10 days, with no bathroom breaks."
First, they came for the flights. Next, they came for the road trips...