Meme - "The Climate Confession Booth
CONFESS YOUR CLIMATE SINS HERE
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
SHARED EXPERIENCE INSPIRES COLLECTIVE ACTION"
Environmentalism is a secular religion
Germany’s Maxed-Out Power Grid Is Causing Trouble Across Europe - "The growing mismatch between Germany’s renewables capacity and the strength of its electricity network is leading to curtailment, crazy pricing and challenges for neighboring nations. Although Germany is generating record amounts of clean energy in the north, its grid is too weak to transport all the power down to load centers in the south — a longstanding challenge for the country that is only getting worse. One of the most visible effects of this renewable energy saturation on the German grid is negative wholesale electricity prices, times when consumers are effectively being paid to use excess power... To prevent neighboring grids from being overwhelmed, Germany is installing phase-shifters on interconnectors, allowing for the blocking of loads at times. Phase-shifting transformers are hardly an elegant solution to Germany’s grid capacity problems — but then neither are some of the other options on the table... The Bundesnetzagentur’s figures do not include instances where Germany paid foreign wind farms to shut down and allow its electricity to be exported... None of this would be needed, said Bach, if Germany had the grid capacity to export all its northern wind energy production to its industrial heartland in the south. The federal government is well aware of this and is working to push through grid-strengthening measures. But progress is hampered by local community resistance. “A lot of the lines will have to be underground,” explained Andrews. “This takes a lot longer, costs a lot more and potentially causes a lot more environmental damage than pylons.” Another option would be to introduce different electricity price areas across the country. Having cheaper electricity in the north might encourage large power users to set up shop closer to where offshore wind is generated, Bach said. Yet while electricity price areas are a common feature of Nordic energy markets, in Germany the idea of citizens in one place paying less for power than citizens in another is a political anathema, Bach said. One final way to deal with Germany’s energy conundrum would be to find a way of mopping up excess power in the north. “There are plans to consume excess renewable power by producing green hydrogen, which can be shipped via gas networks or stored for generation later"... Even with a big chunk of government money, though, it will take time for green hydrogen plants to flourish in the north of Germany. Until then, Germany’s neighbors will just have to put up with the country’s unruly energy antics. "
Too much energy when you don't need it, and not enough energy when you do. Excellent. The future looks bright
Green levies add £153 on to energy bills - "These levies help fund energy efficiency improvements and renewable projects, as well as social schemes such as the warm home discount... the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said it would “incentivise” people to switch to low-carbon alternatives, while making sure boilers are replaced in a way that is “fair, affordable and practical”. To help reach carbon emission targets, 600,000 heat pumps are to be installed each year by 2028. Hydrogen boilers have also been mooted as an alternative, but these devices are still in development. Air source heat pumps pull ambient heat from the air and increase the temperature using a compressor. This is then used to heat radiators and water. Ground source heat pumps are similar, but draw heat from pipes buried in the ground. These have higher up-front costs but run more efficiently. For many households, these devices are prohibitively expensive. While a replacement gas boiler can cost around £1,000, an air source heat pump full system installation can cost between £7,000 and £14,000, with ground source heat pumps costing between £15,000 and £35,000. Adding the current green tax burden on to gas instead of electricity could see bills rise for those who can least afford to make the switch."
If only most people realised how much feel-good environmental virtue signalling really cost them
SNP-Green net zero plans ‘could add £800 to energy bills’ - " Energy bills could be forced up by another £800 and homes rendered “unsellable” by the Scottish Government’s controversial plan to force home owners to rip out their gas boilers, an official consultation on the scheme has warned... The Scottish Government report also cited warnings “that there could be a substantial and sustained consumer backlash” against the plan, especially among “early adopters” of the new heating technologies who face “disproportionately higher costs”... Patrick Harvie, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, announced last week that more than a million homes must be converted to “zero emissions heat” by 2030 to meet the country’s greenhouse gas targets. All buildings are to be converted to “zero emissions” by 2045 at a total cost of £33 billion. However, Mr Harvie said the Scottish Government would provide an initial contribution of only £1.8 billion... The strategy admitted that the average cost of installing a heat pump, one of the most common forms of low emissions heating, is about £10,000, four times the £2,500 cost of replacing a fossil fuel boiler."
Screw poor people. The "climate" is more important
We don’t have heat pumps, admit the Cabinet ministers telling the public to install them - "Not a single Cabinet minister has said they have a heat pump in their home, despite the Government launching a drive to get the public to adopt them this week. The Daily Telegraph approached all 30 Cabinet ministers either directly or via their press aides over the last 48 hours to ask if they had a heat pump at home. Every one of the ministers either declined to comment, despite repeated requests, or admitted that they had not converted to using heat pumps at home... Despite the Government’s pledge to end the sale of new gas boilers in just over 10 years, homes off the gas grid will be expected to wean themselves off fossil-fuel use nearly a decade earlier. Under the plans, more than one million, mostly rural, homes that use oil or coal will have to switch to low-carbon alternatives such as heat pumps when they replace old equipment from 2026. New homes built from 2025 will not be connected to the gas grid and will instead be expected to have heat pumps installed as standard. Heat pumps are designed to work best at consistent lower temperatures, and the Government wants all homes to reach an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of C by 2035 to help keep them warm. EPC ratings could therefore be linked to mortgages, affecting the two-thirds of homes currently rated D or below. Mortgage lenders will be expected to disclose the average EPC rating across their portfolio, with voluntary and potentially mandatory targets to achieve an average rating of C by 2030. This could mean more expensive mortgages for homes that perform badly, to encourage take-up of measures such as wall or roof insulation."
Man With Hospitalised Dad Hits Out At Insulate Britain Protesters - "An enraged man said he hopes Insulate Britain families get cancer so they understand the suffering they are causing people... in footage shared on social media, one man can be seen blasting the group, telling them that his father who is in hospital cannot be moved around because of their actions... The driver then pledged to stop recycling in protest against the group. But this is not the first time a member of the public has called out the group for affecting their day-to-day life and preventing them or their loved ones from getting the care they need. Earlier this month, a woman confronted protestors, pleading with them to let her pass so that she could get to her mum who had been rushed to hospital. In footage shared by LBC, the desperate woman can be seen crying, telling them: "She's in the ambulance, she's going to the hospital in Canterbury, do you think I'm stupid? "I need to go to the hospital, please let me pass. This isn't OK... How can you be so selfish?" Protestors in high-vis jackets could be seen speaking to the woman but they did not appear to let her through... She was also heard telling them she had a 'b****y electric car'. According to the radio station, the woman was later allowed through."
Imagine how much this would've been hyped for the narrative if this had been a protest the left disapproved of (e.g. the truckers' protest in Ottawa)
Mum Paralysed By Stroke After M25 Protest Delayed Hospital Trip
Weird how the media don't play this up
Moment angry man squirts INK in the faces of Insulate Britain protestors - "police held some of the drivers back and warned they could be arrested for assault if they touched the activists... another driver got out a set of bagpipes and played them in the faces of protesters until police stopped him. The man, who had a Scottish accent, said: 'They are holding up ambulances, fire trucks. Disgraceful. You're damaging your cause. What I was doing, obnoxiously, bagpiping in your face, is what you're doing to all this traffic - you're obnoxiously holding up people's lives. You're damaging your cause guys, you're actually damaging your cause.' As a further motorist tried to pick up the protesters, an officer told him: 'No, don't even think about it.' That driver was then heard saying: 'Get out of the road, we've got work to do. We're trying to earn money here. We've got people trying to get to school, we've got people going to school, get out the f***ing road.' He then tells the officer: 'Get them out the road, why ain't you nicking them?' But the officer tells him to 'get back in your car'. Another driver on the A40 today removed the group's banners, shouting: 'Get out the road'. While being filmed by Greatest Hits Radio, he added: 'Who's going to help me move them, someone help me move them?'... one teenage demonstrator in Dartford was overheard saying on Sky News just before he was pulled off the road by a police officer: 'I'm 18, I'm terrified of all the war that will happen because of the climate.'"
Insulate Britain protester who glued face to road admits 'it wasn't one of my better moves' - "Wincing through attempts to remove him from the tarmac, he admitted that he regretted the idea. “It wasn’t one of my better moves,” he said as those around him used scissors to cut off hair that remained stuck to the road. When asked if he was worried if he would “snip himself” while being cut free, Mr Tulley said: “Well you’ll find out if there’s blood coming out.”... This was the fourteenth outing of the group which has brought chaos to the UK’s road network over the past two months... Liam Norton, from Insulate Britain, said: “We know that the public is frustrated and annoyed at the disruption we have caused. They should know that one way or another this country will have to stop emitting carbon. “If you know this and are not joining nonviolent civil resistance then you are complicit. We can’t be bystanders. Short term disruption or genocide - that’s your choice.” Videos on social media over previous weeks have shown motorists and members of the public becoming increasingly frustrated with the group’s antics, with some taking matters into their own hands by dragging activists out of the road."
Another two Insulate Britain protesters are jailed but seven walk free - "only one pair were handed jail terms of two months and 30 days while Lord Justice Dingemans and Mr Justice Johnson handed down two month suspended sentences to the rest. Some of the defendants had said they were prepared for time behind bars after defying court orders aiming to stop them disrupting traffic."
Imagine what would've happened if they'd been right wing protests
Why is Insulate Britain being allowed to cause so much disruption? - "Finally, Insulate Britain has raised a good point. Why aren’t we in prison, the protest movement is asking itself? Apparently the road-blocking middle-class irritants are in a state of ‘absolute disbelief’ that they have been allowed to cause so much disruption without being banged up. You and me both, lads. ‘We assumed that we would not be allowed to carry on disrupting the motorway network to the extent that we have been. We thought that people would basically be in prison’, a gobsmacked spokesman said. That sound you can hear is millions of people murmuring in agreement that it is truly bizarre that these eco-loons have been able to break the law and inconvenience vast swathes of the population without spending so much as a night in the slammer... For five weeks these agitators for the insulation of homes – vive la révolution! – have been holding up the M25, the Dartford Crossing, Old Street roundabout in London and other major throughways. They’ve blocked the paths of ambulances, prevented people from visiting poorly relatives, stopped deliverymen from carrying out their essential work. And yet no serious effort has been made by the state to clear the apocalyptic fantasists off the road. We were just ‘allowed to continue day after day’, says Insulate Britain’s bamboozled spokesman... ‘It’s a fucking ambulance, you stupid prick, get out of the road’, one of the heroic road-clearers said to Insulate muppets who were holding up the actual emergency services. This working-class revolt against the middle-class disdain and disruption that are so central to the environmentalist outlook was not only stirring – it was essential. The cops were twiddling their thumbs... At one of their protests on the M25 near Surrey, an officer could be heard saying to the assembled annoyances: ‘[If] any of you are in any discomfort or need anything, just let me know and we will try and sort you out in a nice way.’ Funny, I don’t recall police ever saying that to anti-lockdown protesters. Insulate Britain’s baffled spokesman reveals that the police have even ‘politely emailed’ the group asking for details of its future protests, while also pointing out that it is under no obligation to provide such details. It’s surreal. On another level, though, it feels entirely logical that these disruptors have virtually been given a green light by the powers-that-be. It’s because the state, from the political class to the police themselves, agrees with the grim ideology that is motoring this road-blocking movement. For all the radical, existential pretensions of Extinction Rebellion and its various offshoots, of which Insulate Britain is one, in truth these groups are but a more extreme, unsophisticated expression of an utterly mainstream political view: that the planet is doomed and human hubris is the culprit. They are the militant wing of the ruling class, the enforcers of bourgeois ideology masquerading as protesters. Their ‘protesting’ around COP will be pure pantomime. It won’t be a revolt against the Western powers gathered in Glasgow. It will be a noisy, slavish echo of the political prejudices held by those Western powers. It’s a form of assistance to the elites – ‘Do more, please!’ – not a rebellion against them. The UK criminal-justice system now applies an extraordinary double standard to protests. If your disruptive direct action is in the name of a cause the elites like, you’ll generally be okay. If it isn’t, you’re screwed. Just compare and contrast the way lockdown sceptics were roughly arrested by cops, and tamed with some excessive truncheoning, while Insulate Britain’s protesters are politely asked by officers if they are feeling okay. Or witness how Extinction Rebellion has essentially been allowed to block huge swathes of London in recent years. Do you think pro-Brexit agitators would have been allowed to take over Trafalgar Square and block Westminster Bridge? Get real. They’d have been bashed on the head, dragged off the streets, and whisked into court. And the media elites will have cheered. So, funnily enough, would most of the Insulate Britain lot. Ghastly Brexiteers inconveniencing the public? Heavens, no. What this essentially means is that we now live under a highly politicised police force. The police, and the broader criminal-justice system, now take it upon themselves to judge which protests are valid, and thus require a light touch, and which are too politically awkward and revolting, and thus demand a bit of the old baton-and-shield treatment. We know the police have become increasingly woke, as can be glimpsed in all their rainbow-flag, pronoun-promoting nonsense. And as a consequence, they now play an explicitly political role in controlling and crushing certain forms of political disgruntlement while essentially allowing other forms. This is entirely unacceptable. We cannot allow the police and the courts effectively to determine which political positions it is acceptable to take in public. We need to get the Insulate Britain hysterics off our roads, and get the cops out of politics."
Insulate Britain protester tied to railing with own banner by furious motorist
Insulate Britain protester Cameron Ford admits 'I'm not perfect' after photos emerge of his 10,000-mile holiday - "An Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain activist embarked on a 10,000-mile, four-month long holiday and toured across Europe in a diesel van last year, new photos have revealed. Cameron Ford gained infamy last month after spending his 31st birthday in a police cell after blocking roads on the M25 and being dragged away by officers... Mr Ford attended a series of XR protests hosted in the capital two years ago as part of the “community support team”, bringing nappies and bottles of water to the activists. Meanwhile, a Keynsham-based branch of XR gave their backing to Mr Ford, describing him in a Facebook post as “eloquent, reasonable and wholly on the right side of history”... Speaking from atop the roof of a garden shed, Mr Ford told the Telegraph: “If we start looking for anyone who is not a hypocrite we are not going to solve the problem. “I am not perfect, I want a future that is liveable. This is not about me.” He claimed the photos published by the Mail Online were an attempt to “demonise” him... Earlier this year, one of Extinction Rebellion’s founders admitted to driving a diesel car, with her co-activists conceding “we are all hypocrites”. Dr Gail Bradbrook claimed she drove the environmentally damaging vehicle because she could not afford an electric one... Jonathan Tassell, a XR volunteer and City recruiter, defended her actions – commenting “we are all hypocrites, we are in a system” – and claimed he could not afford solar power."
Only leftist hypocrisy is excusable, of course
Never has a campaign been as self-defeating as Insulate Britain's - "If the police won’t, or can’t, because of loony woke protocols, the rest of us will do it instead. So, earlier this week a bunch of burly blokes removed Insulate Britain criminals from the middle of Wandsworth Bridge, and waved the cars through. Good on ‘em. I punched the air as I watched the clip. Has any protest group ever matched Insulate Britain for achieving something so counter-productive, in double-quick time? They appear to have united and radicalised the country against them far more efficiently than their cousins at Extinction Rebellion. Nobody had heard of them until about three weeks ago. Now the very name makes people want to rip out their loft insulation. In fact, polling shows that the more we know about the group, the less supportive we become. Nearly 50 per cent of people say they oppose their efforts, with just 27 per cent in support. Well done, chaps. And when we’re not spitting with rage, we’re rolling on the floor laughing. Insulate Britain is a source of endless comedy gold, with spokespeople swinging from the aggressive and the hopeless to the bizarrely unhinged. Take Liam Norton, who was forced to admit on live TV that he hasn’t even insulated his own home – at which point he walked off the set in a gigantic huff. One day he’ll stop digging. What’s even more risible is that much of the country already agrees that we should insulate more homes, and that we must get on with it. So, why’s Insulate Britain banging on? They might as well sit on the M25 demanding the abolition of workhouses, press gangs and child chimney sweeps... Of course, Insulate Britain says it needs to happen more quickly. But by far the best, and certainly the most ethical, way to further that cause is by using law-abiding means of persuasion. Campaigners against smoking in pubs didn’t need to block motorways to achieve their objective, nor those in favour of no-fault divorce, or those wanting to leave the EU. It’s just wrong to suggest that the only way for a campaign to make an impact is to engage in criminal, harmful activity. Perhaps Insulate Britain prefers virtue-signalling to meaningful change. “Aggressors should never succeed and law should prevail over the use of force”, said Margaret Thatcher... And the alternative? Why, any old group, with any old bee in its bonnet, will have every incentive to bring the country to a standstill. Come to think of it, I’ve long thought litter louts should receive instant £500 fines. Anyone fancy joining me in the middle of the M6?"
Insulate Britain is in bed with the establishment - "The tabloids have had a field day with the revelation that an Insulate Britain activist is married to a director of Transport for London (TfL). Cathy Eastburn of Insulate Britain has been busy trying to bring transport to a standstill. She has been arrested four times for acts such as blocking roads and gluing her hands to a train. Meanwhile, her husband, Benedict Plowden, is in charge of ‘getting London moving after the pandemic’. The press is finally starting to realise that Britain’s green road-blockers are drawn from the upper echelons of society. The rag-tag crusties of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain might present themselves as the political establishment’s opponents, but they have always been its bedfellows. Literally, in this case. Not every green activist is married to a public-sector executive on £170,000 per year. But most do come from households that bring home many times the average family income. They come from a class of people for whom it is relatively easy to take activist sabbaticals. They can afford to pause their vegan yogurt-weaving workshops and take to the streets whenever it takes their fancy. The class make-up of the green movement helps to explain why the police and courts have so much difficulty bringing an end to the disruption these activists cause. Were these protests populated by the lower orders, they would be cleared from the roads without hesitation. Those engaged in the protests would be charged, sentenced and put behind bars in short order. But the police and the courts are reluctant to use their powers against retired doctors, vicars and the grandchild of a baronet. Green protesting has become a hobby of the leisured classes, drawing ‘nice’ people to it who present well in court. Their legal teams have the resources of billionaire-backed NGOs. Celebrity scientists fly across the Atlantic to give evidence in their defence. MPs and journalists intervene, declaring it a travesty that such well-meaning people are being tried as criminals. Of course there is no equivalent sympathy for the ordinary people whose lives are being disrupted and who are prevented from working. Ordinary people need to be able to get to work. Society needs them to get to work. That’s why the police and the courts are usually expected to facilitate this. Benedict Plowden’s job at TfL is supposed to facilitate this, too. Yet Plowden, like his wife, has a long history of trying to stop people from getting from A to B. Before joining TfL on a hefty salary, Plowden was director of the anti-car Pedestrians Association, which was later renamed Living Streets. It styles itself as ‘the UK charity for everyday walking’. In fact, plenty of one-time anti-road anarchists from the 1990s have somehow made it as well-paid suits in the 2020s. Green activists have been turned from Swampies into civil-service bosses, instituting elite green ideology within our institutions. Plowden and Eastburn’s marriage, then, is not quite so bizarre as it seems. TfL may not quite be signed up to every Extinction Rebellion pledge. But despite being in charge of keeping London moving, it is forever designing new policies to prevent Londoners from driving anywhere. Green ideology comes ahead of the transport needs of Londoners... We might expect important public officials to serve the public’s needs and wants but, like the green activists on the streets, they are more interested in constraining us."
'You're making people hate you': Angry motorist clashes with M25 climate protestors
Bjørn Lomborg - Posts | Facebook - "We are constantly being told that wind and solar has become cheaper than fossile fuels. Why is Germany then spending €18 billion on subsidizing renewables? In reality, there is a bit of truth and a lot of misdirection in the current conversation on renewables. It is true that in the best case scenario, wind and solar energy is cheaper than e.g. coal. But this has a condition: that the sun is shining and that the wind is blowing. Inconveniently, the sun mostly shines mid-day and most wind energy mostly arrives at night. This means cheap energy for a short period, whereafter other sources must supply energy. This variability is actually driving the price of other energy sources up, because they constantly have to adjust to the uncertain stream of solar and wind energy."
Facebook - "China: not yet green
China's renewable fraction (biomass, hydro, solar, wind etc) 40% in 1971 when poor (wood, dung)
As average Chinese got 35x richer over the period, fossil fuels maxed at 92% in 2011, now at 88% in 2019"
Sweden is a leader in the energy transition, according to latest IEA country review (2019) - "Sweden is a global leader in building a low-carbon economy, with the lowest share of fossil fuels in its primary energy supply among all IEA member countries, and the second-lowest carbon-intensive economy."
Sweden’s Biggest Cities Face Power Shortage After Fuel-Tax Hike (2019) - "Sweden’s introduction on Thursday of a tax aimed at phasing out the nation’s last remaining coal and gas plants to curb global warming comes with an unintended consequence for some of its biggest cities."
Shortage of electricity capacity in several Swedish cities (2020)
Swedes Scoff as State TV Urges Not to Use Vacuum Cleaners Amid Severe Power Shortages (2021) - "The request from the national broadcaster to refrain from using electrical appliances for the sake of the environment amid freezing temperatures and record-high consumption has triggered an online “vacuum cleaner revolt”. Amid record-high power consumption and skyrocketing electricity prices, exacerbated by a cold spell over most the country, several Swedish companies have limited their output to save money. This includes the forestry company Holmen, which shut down some of its paper mills to save money. After rising for an entire week, the price of electricity jumped 200 euros per megawatt hour, compared to the normal 30 euros... Sweden is not fully self-sufficient in terms of electricity, but exports 25 terawatts a year, which corresponds to the annual production of three nuclear power plants. Sweden's imports are mostly hydropower from Norway, but on days with peak consumption even coal power from Germany and Eastern Europe, much to the dismay of Swedish Greens and climate activists. The country's power grid doesn't allow electricity transfer from Norrland, its northernmost region, to the south. This is why northern electricity is sold to Finland, while the south has to import. It also leads to significant price differences between various areas of Sweden. Following the first major nuclear accident at the power plant on Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979, Sweden decided on a gradual phasing out and decommissioning of nuclear power in a 1980 referendum. The process is still ongoing and has become an apple of discord in Swedish politics."
BIG SUCCESS!
Sweden starts up oil-fired power plant to alleviate Polish crunch - "Poland's grid operator PSE confirmed that the country was facing difficulties in balancing the system on Monday due to low wind generation and outages of several units."
Pharaoh Blames Plague Of Locusts, Water Turning To Blood On Climate Change | The Babylon Bee
Rex Murphy: It's a miracle! Apparently climate crusaders are immune to COVID! - "the 30,000 attending from all over God’s plague-pocked world (the number has jumped from 25,000) “will not need to use the Scottish government’s vaccine passport system to enter the conference.”... Glasgow is about the environment. Glasgow is about global warming. What are vaccine mandates and passports and crowd limitations when the right people in all the self-applauding glow of their fierce certitudes gather mid-pandemic from every corner of the known world? Perhaps a precedent was set when more than 1,000 doctors called on authorities in an open letter to not suppress Black Lives Matter protests in the name of public health. Who will dare suggest COP26 in Glasgow, the Woodstock of the global warming movement, should, as it were, “take a knee” to COVID alarms?"
Bjorn Lomborg on Twitter - "New UN report claims climate-related disasters have doubled. The report is incompetent and wrong on pretty much all accounts. The report should be withdrawn... even the report's own data shows the number of climate-related dead has *halved*... Death data is relatively robust. Instead, almost all non-death data is much better reported towards the present. That is the main reason the UN finds an increase in numbers. Yet, they simply wave it away.
Not only has *actual* death data halved. Because population increased by 73% over 1980-2019, death risk has dropped by almost two-thirds"...
The poor UN report is really just a re-run of previous climate alarmists claiming incredible disaster increases with EM-DAT, when the database shows "human impacts". Their researcher says "you cannot claim trends in numbers""
Altmaier’s planned ‘turbine-free zones’ could halve Germany’s wind energy potential - "Proposals to introduce a minimum distance of 1,000 metres between wind turbines and buildings have attracted fierce criticism from the German environment ministry, which said the draft new rules would derail the country’s plan to boost renewable energy by 2030... The aim of the new minimum distance requirement between wind turbines and buildings is to avoid citizen protests against new wind projects... the [European] Commission itself proposed a distance of 700 metres for free-standing wind turbines, particularly for the large and noisy ones."
Time to burn more wood to be "green"
Clearly the ignorant citizens' protests must be ignored in pursuit of the greater good
Lack of forest management allowed 'fuels to accumulate', expert says - "a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Forestry and an Oregon State College of Forestry professor agreed that better forest management can reduce the severity of fires.Right now, nearly one million acres are burning across Oregon and entire communities are flattened in some cases."
Damn climate change!
Did you hear the one about California fighting wildfires by banning gasoline cars? - "California Gov. Gavin Newsom made headlines by signing an executive order Wednesday banning the future sale of new gasoline-powered cars and trucks. In the wake of the devastating California fires, he said more ambitious steps are needed to reduce climate change. Banning gas transport, he said in a statement, “is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change.” Poetically, he stressed that “our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse.”... It is misleading to claim that the ban will achieve more than a 35% reduction in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Since the ban will only take effect in 2035 for new cars and trucks, it will have very little impact for the next 15 years. And after that it will only slowly phase in a reduction.Moreover, this claim assumes that banning gasoline transportation and switching to electric cars will entirely eliminate all transportation emissions. That is wrong. All of California’s on-road transportation emissions made up 36.5% of the state’s emissions in 2017, its latest published year. But the ban only comprises about 26 percentage points of the emissions, leaving most of the rest from heavy-duty trucks to be banned 10 years later (and even then, it is unclear if such a ban is realistically possible). Electric cars still cause emissions, especially from the production of their batteries. They also cause emissions while running off electricity, unless this electricity is entirely zero-emissions. Using the International Energy Agency’s latest estimates of emissions from gasoline and electric cars and adjusting to the lower carbon intensity in the California grid, a gasoline-powered car will over its lifetime emit 34.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalents. An electric car with an 80 kWh battery using California electricity will emit 20 tonnes over its lifetime. A switch will not eliminate transportation emissions, but reduce them by less than half and over many decades... But surely, governor Newsom’s edict would still help reduce emissions substantially in decades from now? Well, his own press release undercuts that claim by suggesting, not implausibly, that “by the time the new rule goes into effect, zero-emission vehicles will almost certainly be cheaper and better than the traditional fossil fuel-powered cars.” In that case, rational consumers will pick the cheaper and better electric cars. The emission reductions claimed by Newsom will instead be caused by simple and straight-forward technological innovation.But not only is Newsom’s analysis seriously flawed, his policies are egregiously inefficient. Tax credits and rebates can cost the public up to $10,000 per electric car in California, not including the added benefits of access to high-occupancy lanes, free parking and free electricity. Yet, it cuts at most 20 tonnes of greenhouse gases over the vehicle’s lifetime. We can achieve a similar cut much cheaper on the world’s regional carbon trading exchanges. In the Northeastern U.S. exchange known as Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, for instance, you can pay power plants to cut global emissions by 19.6 tonnes for less than $125. Paying $10,000 to achieve the same benefits that $125 can buy is a bad deal. Moreover, his claim that this will meaningfully help tackle future California wildfires is absurd. He is right that global warming creates a more favorable fire environment by increasing hot and dry conditions. But some experts estimate this plays a minor role. The much more important factor is the way we manage lands.California used to burn much more before global warming... When we keep suppressing fire, we ask for bigger and fiercer future fires. We know how to fix this: We have to make many more prescribed burns that eliminate the built-up fuel. This is doable, smart and it would actually help reduce fire risks in just a few years. Unfortunately, because of popular opposition, legal challenges and regulatory limits, according to research published in Nature, California manages prescribed burns for less than one-thousandths of what is needed... Newsom should fast-track prescribed burns to actually tackle wildfire over just a few years. But he wouldn’t get as many headlines."
Environmental virtue signalling strike again
Bjørn Lomborg - "Electric cars net-bad everywhere Switching from gasoline to electric means less CO₂ but electric cars 500kg+ heavier and therefore deadlier in accidents Using realistic carbon cost at $68/ton (EU) more deadly outweigh less CO₂"
