Meme - Normal person: "It's cold today"
Soyjak: "Yeah that's just weather"
Normal person: "It's hot today"
Soyjak: "That's catastrophic anthropogenic climate change"
Andy Burnham faces Labour civil war as energy crisis looms - "On the same day that he celebrated winning the Makerfield by-election, the Conservatives snatched from the SNP the erstwhile Labour seat of Aberdeen South by making the by-election a referendum on the future of North Sea oil and gas. Labour came into power with a manifesto pledge not to “issue new licences to explore new fields” but Reform UK and the Conservatives argue it is idiotic to run down Scotland’s North Sea energy sector while importing energy from Norway. Mr Burnham has said he has “something of an open mind” on North Sea drilling but a change of policy would open up warfare within Labour. The recent King’s Speech recommitted the Government to not issuing new licences to explore new fields. A radical change of direction would delight trade unionists who want to preserve well-paid jobs in oil and gas and be welcomed by business leaders and lobby groups that argue Britain is missing out on tax revenues by leaving these energy sources untapped. But Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband – a leading contender to be Mr Burnham’s Chancellor – has made the push to clean energy a personal crusade. Labour still faces significant competition on the Left from the Greens, and Mr Burnham will not want to look weak on climate change. But he also knows that floating voters will not give Labour a second chance at the next election if energy costs climb yet higher and the country looks even more vulnerable to its foes. At the very least, there will be hopes he will wholeheartedly support gas extraction from the Jackdaw field, east of Aberdeen. Champions of extraction claim it could meet 6% of the country’s gas needs and warn of the risk of shortages in the winter. The industry also wants the windfall tax replaced with a new pricing mechanism. If he fails to deliver on this in the autumn Budget, then he can expect cross-party claims he is consigning Scotland’s economy to swift decline. He would love it if scientists and engineers unlock plentiful and affordable supplies of clean energy during his time in Number 10. But if he presides over successive winter heating crises, then his prospects for staying in post may melt away."
Sander Tordoir on X - "There are two narratives doing the rounds. “Germany deindustrialised itself by pursuing the stupid green transition. China’s distortions have little to do with it.” And in the next breath: “China’s export surge is simply because Germany needs lots of clean technology.” Aha."
berenklauw on X - "Yeah, this is actually accurate and what happened. If you look at China they never even entertained the idea that they could have a "transition" to green energy. Coal has always been their mainstay and they've been very open about that. Germany by contrast keeps shutting coal...."
This is like saying it's a contradiction to say that a drug addict chooses to buy drugs even if his dealer doesn't push the product and that the drug dealer gets rich off selling his product
Jake Boys | Facebook - "A group of climate activists from a collective called Scientist Rebellion walked into the Porsche pavilion at Autostadt, a car attraction in Wolfsburg, Germany. Dressed in white lab coats, they were there to protest carbon emissions and demand the country move faster on cutting transport pollution. To make their stand, they took out superglue and stuck their own hands firmly to the concrete floor. Several declared they would stay put, some on hunger strike, until their demands were met. The staff had a simpler plan. They agreed they had a right to protest and just left them to it. And that is when the protest started to unravel. Within just a few hours, the activists took to social media to complain. The glue was hurting their hands. They were cold. They were hungry. They needed the bathroom, and said staff had refused to bring them bowls to relieve themselves. In one especially memorable moment, some complained that they couldn't order their own food and had to eat what Volkswagen provided, an odd grievance from people who had announced they were on hunger strike. Then the workday ended. Rather than negotiate, the staff simply switched off the heating, turned off the lights, and went home, leaving the activists glued to the floor in the cold and dark. The group then complained about that too, about the darkness, and about security guards doing their rounds with "bright torches." The whole demonstration collapsed in under 48 hours. The leader was the first to leave, after his glued hand swelled up and doctors warned of possible blood clots."
From 2022
Veterans For The Conservative Party of Canada | Facebook - "To those fools who go on about how Carney is more "Conservative". Everything being pushed under his administration is to further his fanatical passion for "green". So let's waste a bunch of money studying something that anyone with a lick of common sense knows is impractical and costly! Zero emission light armoured vehicles???
From Blacklock's Reporter:
DND commissioned a $1.2 million study on the feasibility of zero emission light armoured vehicles. Managers said they remained committed to meeting climate targets despite research indicating green military technology is non-existent, too costly or impractical. “The current mandate from the Treasury Board in the Greening Government Strategy is for the department to reduce emissions from operations to net zero while continuing to provide Canada with effective operational capability,” management wrote in a notice to contractors. “To decarbonize operations, it is expected the national safety and security fleet departments will use more environmentally friendly technologies and low carbon fuels when available, affordable, compatible and operationally friendly.” “The scope of work for this contract is to employ industry experts to conduct a digital feasibility study for a solid state, hydrogen-powered light armoured vehicle with a maximum weight of 45,000 pounds,” said the notice Digital Feasibility Study. The department acknowledged there “are currently no zero emission platforms” in armoured vehicles, but that a report was due in 18 months. Results should be “generic enough to be shared with the public, Canada’s allies and partners,” said the notice. “This study is intended to be academic in nature.” The Army would never meet climate targets if it kept running on diesel and gasoline, said the notice. “Without the ability to operate and be sustained using alternate fuels, the Canadian Army has no pathway to procure and field zero emission platforms,” it said. The department under a 2018 Defence Energy And Environment Strategy proposed sweeping initiatives like installing wind farms on Army bases and encouraging staff to bicycle to work. “We have a responsibility to show leadership in environmental and energy sustainability as well as an obligation to manage assets efficiently on behalf of Canadians,” it wrote. “An effective and efficient approach to collective energy and environmental management is paramount.” Most targets lapsed without comment including a proposal to “use clean power at all bases” by 2025 and mandate a minimum 30 percent electric vehicle quota. “Defence continues to encourage carpooling, bike sharing, transit and multiple-use opportunities,” said the Strategy. Use of battery electric motors by the military was deemed costly and impractical in a 2019 report by a Crown agency, Defence Research and Development Canada. “The purchase of hybrid vehicles would be difficult to justify on cost alone,” said the report Feasibility Of Hybrid Diesel-Electric Powertrains For Light Tactical Vehicles: “It is not clear the fuel savings would compensate for the increased up-front costs over the lifespan of the vehicle.” Feasibility noted while the U.S. Army experimented with hybrid vehicles since 1998, “it is cost prohibitive” and impractical. “The issue of reduced battery capacity at low temperatures is well known,” wrote researchers. “To make this problem worse, unlike lead-acid, lithium-ion batteries have problems charging below zero degrees Celsius.”"
Alberta oil costs to rise to uncompetitive levels under MOU: report | National Post - "Conditions in the federal-Alberta memorandum of understanding to approve a new oil pipeline will raise costs on the province’s oil production that make it uncompetitive with other exporting jurisdictions, a new study by economist Jack Mintz finds. The higher industrial carbon tax requirement will also add $1 billion per year to the cost of producing electricity in Alberta by 2040... Mintz, the study’s author and an economist at the University of Calgary, said that the Trudeau Liberal government’s orthodoxy of taxing carbon had already hamstrung Alberta’s oil and gas industry without appreciably contributing to the global mitigation of climate change. “The Trudeau government was narrowly focused on calculating the impact of emissions in the country, and didn’t take into account the impact we could be having elsewhere in the world,” with exports displacing higher-carbon sources, said Mintz. Mintz said that things have improved under Prime Minister Mark Carney, but stressed that the numbers are still uncompetitive under Carney... The report says investors generally make decisions on expectations of tight margins, and without the policies, Alberta would be relatively competitive with U.S. producers, but the five-to-15 per cent increase in costs will make Alberta an uncompetitive high-cost jurisdiction. Mintz said that, left unchanged, the carbon tax will have the biggest impact on Alberta’s electric power industry, raising household electricity bills and slowing the development of AI data centres and other new industries. The study doesn’t directly calculate the impact of the $20-billion Pathways carbon capture project but Mintz says it will almost certainly weaken Alberta’s market position even further. “There’s no gain at all, from the producers’ point of view,” said Mintz. “Even if producers get (carbon capture) subsidies from the government and breaks on their carbon tax payments … there’ll still be a leftover cost,” said Mintz."
Left wingers are still apoplectic that Carney is not destroying the country as fast as Trudeau was
If Canada wants to be an energy superpower, we need to act like one | Financial Post - "The world is short on reliable energy and long on instability. Tankers edge through choke points like the Strait of Hormuz. Wars threaten pipelines and power grids. Markets flinch with every headline. As authoritarian regimes rattle sabres and weaponize supply chains, the global appetite for energy from stable, democratic, responsible producers has never been greater. Canada checks every box: vast reserves, rigorous environmental standards, rule of law and a commitment to Indigenous partnership. We should be leading the race, but instead we’ve effectively tied our own shoelaces together... we’re limiting where energy can leave the country. Bill C-48, the so-called tanker ban, prohibits tankers carrying over 12,500 tons of crude oil from stopping or unloading crude at ports or marine installations along B.C.’s northern coast. That includes Kitimat and Prince Rupert, two ports with strategic access to Indo-Pacific markets. Yes, we must do all we can to mitigate risks to Canada’s coastlines, but this should be balanced against a need to reduce our reliance on trade with the U.S. and increase our access to global markets. Add to that the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) which was designed in part to shorten approval times and add certainty about how long the process would take. It has not had that effect and it’s scaring off investment. Business confidence in Canada has dropped to pandemic-era lows, due in part to unpredictable rules. At a time when Canada is facing a modest recession and needs to attract private capital, we’ve made building trade infrastructure feel like trying to drive a snowplow through molasses... Canada is the most stable of the world’s top oil producers, but we are a puzzle to the rest of the world, which doesn’t understand why we can’t get more of our oil and natural gas to market. In recent years, Norway and the U.S. have increased crude oil production. Notably, the U.S. also increased its natural gas exports through the construction of new LNG export terminals, which have helped supply European allies seeking to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas."
Climate change becoming a major driver of child marriage across Asia and the Pacific
All the world's ills are due to climate change, and if you disagree, you're a climate change denier!
I wonder what else relevant about Bangladesh would be causing child marriage...
Chris Martz on X - "The New York Times reports that east coast beaches could disappear within 25 years. Oh wait, never mind, this was written 30 years ago. 🔗"
If you don't Trust the Experts, you're a Denier
Andy Mck on X - "China is installing much more renewable capacity than coal vs the past and they will de carbonise faster than us."
Andrew Neil on X - "This is typical of how Western Greens depict such a rosy picture of China’s energy policy. You wonder if Beijing bots are at work. Here’s a corrective: China is producing a massive oversupply of solar panels. Hence the dumping on every major market. Let’s not forget that very Chinese silicon smelter (silicon a key component of panels) has its own coal-fired power station. Chinese oversupply of EVs is gargantuan even though China buys more EVs than any where else and is dumping the rest abroad. EV battery packs are made using coal-generated electricity and charged on a coal-dominated grid. Yes China has added unprecedented solar and wind capacity last year. But its strategy is abundant energy of all types — which is why it also hit a 10-year high of new coal plant construction and remains the world’s top coal consumer, with fossil fuels supplying over 87% of its primary energy. End of"
John Lee Pettimore on X - "Contrary to common impressions, there has been no absolute worldwide decarbonization. In fact, the opposite is true. Absolute cuts in carbon emissions in large economies such as the EU (-23%) and the US (-9%) were far outweighed by massive increases in the world’s two largest industrializing nations: China (emissions rose 3.3 times) and India (threefold). Emissions also rose sharply for Middle Eastern hydrocarbon producers (Saudi Arabia’s about 2.3 times) and other smaller emitters. Between 1997 and 2022, annual CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion, processing, extraction, flaring, and pipeline leakage rose from about 25.5 billion tons to about 39.3 billion tons (a 54% increase). So, contrary to what many would like to believe, we are not making progress. Yet trillions have been spent—trillions of taxpayers’ money. For what? Food for thought on a snowy winters day."
Clearly, the West needs to slash emissions even more to compensate
Hospitals in England declare critical incidents as machines and IT fail in heat - "Doctors have set out the disastrous impact extreme heat is having on the NHS in England, with radiotherapy machines and MRI scanners failing, critical IT systems stalling and cooling units that serve entire hospitals breaking down. The hot weather has also prompted a surge in admissions and people arriving at A&E, causing severe overcrowding in some places and exacerbating heat-related pressures on infrastructure. “Lots of people, especially older patients, are turning up having collapsed or with dehydration,” one physician said. “In terms of inpatients, the conditions are awful due to overcrowding. Very few places have air conditioning and staff are really struggling.” Older patients in one geriatric ward had been forced to endure temperatures as high as 35C, a second doctor said. Even wards with built-in air conditioning were affected, as some units were shut down to prevent them from being damaged by the extreme heat. Another doctor said their workplace was “unfit to cope”, with patients and staff experiencing “awful conditions” in sweltering wards, clinics and corridors. NHS staff were also navigating the challenge of providing care while sleep-deprived. Like much of the UK population, many have struggled to sleep this week. Some medics were unable to work because their children’s schools had closed. Several NHS trusts in England have declared critical incidents as a direct result of the extreme heat. One hospital had done so after its machines failed in multiple areas, a doctor said. Labs used for testing were affected and two linear accelerator machines, used to treat cancer patients, had stopped working amid the high temperatures... The doctor also said their NHS trust had faced “major issues” with IT servers overheating on Wednesday. “We thought we were going to lose everything, so we were all asked to turn off non-essential computers and electrical equipment, including lights.” In Portsmouth, the Queen Alexandra hospital declared a critical incident after extreme heat caused cooling units to fail, leading to “elevated temperatures” across the hospital. The failure of the cooling units affected the hospital’s digital systems and critical clinical services, including operating theatres, cardiac catheter laboratories and diagnostic scanning facilities, Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust said... The London ambulance service said it had recorded the highest number of life-threatening emergencies in a single day in its history, driven by the extreme heat."
Clearly, installing air conditioning will make the problem worse. In fact, they need to ban air conditioning to solve the problem
GOLDSTEIN: Do the math, Liberals — we need fossil fuels | Toronto Sun - "Article content Computer science and artificial intelligence pioneer John McCarthy famously said that, “he who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.” He meant that when dealing with complex systems, decisions must be based on hard numbers and data, as opposed to ideology and emotion. That explains how Canadian energy policy became a train wreck under the Justin Trudeau Liberals, starting in 2015 when they took power. They subjected Canadians to a decade of propaganda about how the age of fossil fuels was ending, supported by government-subsidized environmental lobbyists, while a succession of Liberal environment ministers spouted absolute nonsense about how Canada was coming ever closer to achieving its farcical greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. They refused to do arithmetic, were doomed to talk nonsense, and subjected Canadian taxpayers to the consequences. A report by the Fraser Institute released this week based on the latest government data demonstrates just how much nonsense there was. It notes that between 1995 and 2024, despite earmarking more than $200-billion of federal taxpayers’ dollars to reduce Canada’s use of fossil fuels, they accounted for 76.3% of Canada’s domestic energy consumption in 2024, essentially the same as the 76.8% recorded almost three decades ago, in 1995. In terms of Canadian energy production, fossil fuels accounted for 88% of the total in 2024, up from 83.3% almost a quarter century ago in 2000. As for the endless Liberal hype about how wind and solar power are growing by leaps and bounds when it comes to energy production, in 2024 they accounted for 0.8% of total energy production compared to 88% for fossil fuels, 5.1% for hydro, 3.9% for nuclear and 2.2% for biofuels. In Canada’s three largest energy-consuming sectors of the economy — transportation, industry and residential construction — fossil fuels in 2024 supplied 98.7% of the energy consumed by the transportation sector, 74% by the industrial sector and 50.6% by the residential sector. Article content Every Canadian province relies on fossil fuels for most of its energy needs — 89.7% in Alberta; 84.1% in Saskatchewan; 78.7% in Ontario; 76.2% in B.C.; 73.7% in Nova Scotia; 72.6% in Manitoba; 69.6% in P.E.I.; 66.4% in Newfoundland and Labrador; 61.1% in New Brunswick and 54.6% in Quebec. It’s also vital to the rest of Canada that Alberta remains a part of Confederation, since it contributes 70.2% of Canada’s total energy production, according to the Fraser Institute study. Just three provinces, Alberta (70.2%), British Columbia (15.8%) and Saskatchewan (5.1%) produce 91.1% of Canada’s energy. No other provinces comes anywhere close to those numbers... Article content It’s significant that at long last Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carney, has dismantled some, but not all, of Trudeau’s economy-killing restrictions on energy production in Canada after a decade of utter stupidity in policy making. That’s assuming he actually believes in building new pipelines and fast-tracking new energy infrastructure “at speeds not seen in generations,” despite his pre-political life as the world’s leading corporate spokesman for higher carbon taxes. Had Canada had a wiser government over the past decade, as opposed to one that refused to do arithmetic and was thus doomed to talk nonsense, things could have been different today. We could, for example, be exporting our vast natural gas resources to global markets today beyond the current trickle, enabling other countries to replace their coal-fired electricity with cleaner burning natural gas — the single most effective thing we could be doing to help lower global greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously boosting our economy."
Australia’s ‘sun tax’ warning for Britain’s solar panel owners - "For years, solar panel owners in countries across the world received generous payments for exporting electricity they did not use back to the grid. The reasoning was simple. If governments wanted to meet their net zero targets, incentives were required to encourage homeowners to make a significant upfront investment in green technology. But as solar panels became more widespread, countries with the sunniest climates started to notice a problem. When solar power generation peaked in the middle of the day, demand for electricity was at its lowest. This placed the energy grid under significant strain as excess power pushed up voltages to levels that threatened network blackouts. In Australia, a crude solution was devised by the national energy market body. At certain times of the day, rather than paying solar panel owners for their excess power, they would be charged instead. Called the “sun tax”, it was hoped that the intervention would encourage solar panel owners to shift their demand to off-peak times to dodge the fees, alleviating pressure on the network. While Britain might have worse weather and fewer rooftop solar installations than Australia, there is growing concern that our energy network might soon suffer from the same frailties. In April, Britain’s National Energy System Operator (Neso) warned that it would be forced to use “more tools, more often” to keep power networks stable when sunny weather caused surges in energy generation... Australia leads the world in rooftop solar due to the rapid pace of solar installations across the country since the early 2010s, which were initially encouraged by generous government subsidies. Today, more than four million homes – roughly four in 10 – have solar panels. As early as 2017, the national body responsible for setting rules in the national electricity market, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), expressed concerns about the impact of surging solar power on the grid. Gabrielle Kuiper, an energy expert, said: “Around 10 years ago, people were really worried. They talked about reverse flows through substations or the potential for the grid to fall over.” In 2021, the AEMC decided to act, proposing new powers for network providers to introduce what it called “two-way pricing”. This would better reward solar panel owners who released energy to the grid at peak time but would also penalise those who did so at times when more electricity was not needed. As well as shifting consumer behaviour, the charges were intended to provide money for grid upgrades so that the network could handle more solar power in the future. Heidi Douglas, of consumer group Solar Citizens, said: “The only thing you could do to avoid the charge was to shift your demand – put your washing machine on or cook a roast dinner in the middle of the day. But that obviously was not convenient for the majority of people.”... Last year, the number of solar panels installed fell to its lowest level since 2018, according to Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator... The Government says that it has no plans to introduce a “sun tax” in Britain. But former energy secretary Ed Miliband has openly praised Antipodean energy policies in the past and he describes Chris Bowen, the Australian climate minister, as a “friend”. While the sun tax in Australia was proposed by the independent AEMC and not the national government, solar export payments in Britain are assured by the “smart export guarantee”, a government-backed scheme. Currently, suppliers must always pay solar panel owners for excess energy they release back to the grid. But Labour has looked to Australia for inspiration in a number of policy areas in the past two years, most recently announcing it would introduce a ban on social media for children aged under 16... Britain’s shift to solar comes at the same time as Neso’s warning that gluts of solar power and “low demand” periods were making the grid more difficult to manage. There are also signs that Britain is already moving in the direction of a “sun tax” to manage periods of excess solar energy, according to Jason Howlett, of trade body Energy Storage Association... Despite strongly pushing solar power, the Government has been less ambitious about rolling out batteries to store surplus supply. Under updated housing rules, developers building new homes will almost always have to install solar panels but batteries have not been mandated in the same way. The warning signs are clear and a lack of battery storage combined with surging solar exports to the grid could at some point force the Government to reconsider its commitment not to introduce a sun tax."
Climate change hystericists still claim that solar energy is "free" - because they ignore system costs (not to mention capital costs). And of course they are ignorant or lying about Australia's tax for overloading the grid
