Will Shackel on X - "Australia’s climate tsar Matt Kean seemed shocked to hear that renewables were subsidised. This is the taxpayer funded activist who thinks Australia can run on solar and batteries and constantly attacks anyone who proposes adding nuclear power to a balanced energy mix."
Lachlan Phillips exo/acc 👾 on X - "I was in Extinction Rebellion for several years. I produced over 60 videos for them and helped with several protests. I can tell you directly: It was never about the climate. It was about controlling you. Specifically, it was about mobilising 3.5% of the population into permanent revolutionary protest in order to trigger a Communist revolution. (Per Trotsky, Sharp, Hallam, Mao) This was told to me directly by some of the leaders of the organisation. I tried to organise some programs to help businesses lower their carbon footprints without lowering profit margins or impacting the GDP, and I was told in no uncertain terms that *solutions* were counter to the goals of the movement and that I should stop. It was then that I started to realise their true motives, and understand that perhaps I was being taken for a ride. I learned that Communist countries have had some of the WORST environmental records in existence. What XR was proposing - degrowth, agitation, "decolonisation", post-capitalism and every other agitprop buzzword - would effectively drop civilisation back to a pre-renewable era and force developing nations into a protracted industrial age, leading to ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more carbon emissions than the incremental improvements found by market innovations. Population density is a critical function of renewable energy infrastructure. You don't have a factory. You have a market ecosystem. That's how technology works. It blew my mind that they didn't understand this. After years of pushing against fossil fuels, they were suddenly vehemently opposed to Elon Musk and his EVs. It was mind boggling to witness. I realised that Musk had singlehandedly done more to reduce emissions than the entire climate activist movement combined. And it's not close. Mentioning this, I was met with bewilderment and anger. It was very hard to come away from that experience with much sympathy for the activist left movement. At their best they were devoid of ideas and completely incapable of making meaningful technological or engineering innovations. At their worst, they were actively working against their own stated goals in order to maximise agitation and mobilise discontent toward a destructive revolutionary movement that would ultimately lead to measurably worse outcomes. Applying Occam's Razor, it became apparent to me that the goal is Communist revolution, and all these random causes - climate, gender relativism, immigration, BLM, defunding police, Islamisation etc etc etc weren't about triumphing over injustices, but about agitating blocs of useful idiots into a perpetual state of protest in order to seize power and control in the name of Marxist Revolution. I thought they were creators and visionaries. I was wrong. True change comes from the builders. Yes there are problems on this earth, but they'll only be solved by you tackling those problems, building useful things and helping to push the species forward. If you're smart enough to contribute, you belong amongst the builders."
Clearly, if you think climate change is an excuse to push socialism, you're a far right conspiracy theorist who believes misinformation
Judith Curry on X - "JP Morgan's annual energy report is always an excellent read. "after $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%–0.6% per year.""
Clearly, even more money needs to be spent
Canadian man sentenced to 25 years for attack on Keystone XL Pipeline, US energy infrastructure - "A Canadian man has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for attacking energy infrastructure in the United States, causing $1.7 million in damages. A judge ruled that his crimes met the legal definition of terrorism. Cameron Smith, 50, originally from the Toronto area but living in Astoria, Oregon, was sentenced on Monday. In addition to prison time, he was ordered to pay over $2.1 million in restitution and $250,000 in fines. Smith also faces deportation upon his release... Smith’s defense attorney, Douglas Passon, pushed back, describing his client as a "hyper-aware individual wanting to create awareness about climate change" who intentionally chose remote locations to prevent harm to people. In the South Dakota case, Smith’s attack led to the shutdown of a Keystone XL Pipeline pump station, causing a leak that damaged surrounding land. In North Dakota, he damaged transformers and infrastructure at an electrical substation, leading to power outages for 243 customers. During sentencing, Smith told the court he had resorted to direct action out of frustration after years of attempting to raise awareness about climate change through legal channels. He pleaded for a lesser sentence, citing his autism and Crohn’s disease"
Climate change hysteria has very real consequences
EDITORIAL: Food for thought on climate change - "A recent report by the Fraser Institute points out that climate activists who demand governments cut greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural production risk world food security by pushing up the cost of fertilizer and other farming costs. “It turns out that the impact of cutting emissions harms food production much more than climate change does,” the report says. "Surprisingly, a green, low-carbon world produces less and more expensive food and makes over 50 million more people hungry by mid-century.” This becomes a more pressing issue now, with ardent “net zero” crusader, Prime Minister Mark Carney, at the helm... Claims that carbon cuts are a priority because climate change is causing world hunger are alarmist and far from true. “Over the past century, hunger has dramatically declined. In 1928, the League of Nations estimated that more than two-thirds of humanity lived in a constant state of hunger,” the report says. Since 2008, less than one-tenth of the world’s population has gone hungry, although the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have increased that percentage slightly from 7% to about 9% in 2023. “Since 1990, the average number of children dying has declined dramatically from 6.5 million to 2.5 million each year. This is an incredible success story,” the report says. Better farming techniques have resulted in the increased production of food at a lower price, the report says. While the impact of climate change is often depicted as being catastrophic, in reality it will have only a slight impact. “In reality, it means that things will get much better slightly slower.”
Time to blame 'greedy companies'
Pierre Poilievre vows to scrap industrial carbon tax - "If the party forms government, the Conservative leader promised to expand the clean technology and clean manufacturing investment tax credit to encourage companies to lower emissions. For example, he argued that cutting taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum production, which emits less carbon than that of foreign producers such as China, will push those foreign companies to move production here, lowering global emission in the process... Asked if he was prepared to commit Canada to any form of emissions target if he is elected prime minister, Poilievre demurred. “What would my emissions target look like? I treat this as a global problem. By bringing home production from more polluting foreign jurisdictions, we reduce global emissions while growing our own paycheques,” he said. In “axing the tax” on Friday, Carney was cribbing from Poilievre.. Multiple climate policy groups and researchers said Poilievre’s promise to abolish the industrial pricing scheme is misguided. They argue that it is in fact an effective tool to incentivize low-carbon investments in Canada. “ Dismantling industrial carbon pricing would be a mistake that robs Canada of a critical tool to attract billions in investment and create jobs across the country,” said Clean Prosperity President Michael Bernstein said. In a separate statement, the Canadian Climate Institute argued that the industrial carbon pricing system contributes to three times more emissions reductions than the consumer carbon tax and does not directly raise prices for the public."
Clearly imposing a tax attracts net new investment, and if consumers do not see direct price increases, the increases don't affect them (of course, they can just blame "greedy companies")
Two cross-country pipelines could've diverted $38.4 billion from the U.S., new study finds - "The tariff war with the United States could have been very different if Canada had decided to build the Energy East and LNG Quebec pipelines over the past decade, according to a new study by the Montreal Economic Institute. Both pipelines could have redirected $38.4 billion worth of energy products per year to markets other than the United States and the institute argues that the construction of pipelines between Eastern and Western Canada “would have helped diversify Canadian export markets” significantly. In 2023, Canada exported 97 per cent of its crude oil to the United States. “Canada’s high level of dependence on U.S. trade is not unavoidable. It is the direct result of years of policy decisions that have delayed or actively impeded major infrastructure projects,” said Gabriel Giguère, senior policy analyst and author of the report at MEI... both projects now receive a tremendous amount of support from Quebecers and both Liberals and Conservatives support pipeline construction in the context of a trade war with the United States. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently said that Canada should immediately build a pipeline “in the east so we can supply our own country with energy.” Mr. Harper was speaking Tuesday during a panel on energy at the Raisina Dialogue, India’s largest geopolitical conference. However, the costs of building such infrastructures have risen considerably."
Too bad climate change hysteria and sabotaging the economy was more important than performative patriotism by hating the US
Fury as Heathrow's lack of back-up power causes 'a contained version of 9/11': Small fire at power station leaves more than 200,000 travellers, and others forced to turn around in mid-air - "One industry source has claimed that Net Zero is to blame because Heathrow is moving from diesel back-up generators to biomass. Reform MP Richard Tice said: 'It appears that Heathrow had changed its backup systems in order to be, wait for it...Net Zero compliant’. ‘They had got rid of their diesel generators and had moved towards a biomass generator that was designed not to completely replace the grid but work alongside it. Their net zero compliant backup system has completely failed in its core function at the first time of asking’... Julian Bray, one of the UK's leading aviation experts said: 'We are all amazed that Heathrow does not have a viable standby independent of the grid emergency power supply but relies on the National Grid. It's not as if Heathrow is short of money - it has a substantial war chest for building the third runway'."
Meme - James Melville @JamesMelville: "The sheer lunacy of Heathrow airport swapping reliable diesel generators with a net zero biomass system."
"The Absurdity of Heathrow's Biomass Fiasco
The power outage that paralysed Heathrow on March 21, 2025, exposes a ludicrous twist in its Net Zero quest: swapping reliable diesel generators for an award-winning biomass system-powered by locally sourced wood chips- that takes hours to fire up. In 2012, Heathrow unveiled its Terminal 2 biomass Combined Heat and Power plant, a 10MW beacon of sustainability, cutting 13,000 tonnes of annually and lauded as the UK's largest "own use" renewable setup. By 2023, it celebrated further green strides, with solar panels and electric vehicles bolstering its eco-credentials. Yet, as an emergency backup, this biomass relic is a farce. Diesel kicks in within seconds, keeping runways lit and skies safe. Biomass dawdles-hours to reach full power, better for steady warmth than sudden blackouts. When a fire at North Hyde substation in 2025 felled both grid and backups, stranding 1,300 flights, it hinted this green darling couldn't cope. The 2023 fanfare over sustainability feels hollow now: Net Zero's noble pursuit has left Heathrow vuinerable, a global hub undone not by storms or foes, but by the folly of prizing untested green tech over proven resilience, leaving passengers to rue an award-winning dream turned nightmare."
Meme - Dangerously Right of Marx: "Literally from the same day."
"Earth is spinning faster than it used to. Clocks might have to skip a second to keep up."
"Melting polar ice is slowing the Earth's rotation, with possible consequences for timekeeping. A new study found that ice loss caused by climate change is redistributing mass on the Earth enough to alter its spin."
Trust the Science!
Darren Grimes on X - "Ed Miliband admits the solar panels he bought for English schools and hospitals are made in China… potentially using coal. So let me get this straight: Labour’s GB Energy is a vehicle for taxing Brits to import Chinese-made solar panels, manufactured with coal power and possibly slave labour? All so we can feel morally superior while shutting down our own industries? Make it make sense!"
Green energy tycoons go to war over Ed Miliband’s net zero grid - "Jackson’s key criticism of the UK’s current “crazy” power system is the way it has encouraged developers to build vast wind farms in Scotland, despite there not being power cables to transfer the electricity generated to customers. This leads to thousands of turbines being unnecessarily turned off, he says, costing billpayers millions of pounds in the process... Vince released a carefully crafted report warning that zonal pricing would be massively complex, delay the UK’s net zero programme and burden poorer households with extra charges. And that was before he launched a personal attack on Jackson. “I don’t understand why Greg Jackson is evangelical about it,” says Vince. “But part of me thinks that he’s looking for a cause to campaign for and make a name for himself because there are so many better things we can do to bring energy prices down.”"
Ironically, looking for a cause to campaign for and make a name for yourself explains climate change hysteria
Thread by @KallumPickering on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Net Zero = zero productivity? Today at @PeelHunt we publish analysis which challenges the government’s claim that there is no trade-off between Net Zero and economic growth. Two decades of experience suggests otherwise. A thread with lots of important charts
We begin our analysis with a simple observation - that the decline in UK electricity availability, which started in 2006, coincided with the start of structural weakness in UK productivity growth. Electricity availability has declined by 21% since peaking in 2005. This decline has occurred, by and large, due to the planned decommissioning of various types of electricity production facilities – most notably coal and oil, but also nuclear. The infliction point for electricity availability also coincided another trend - the UK became a net-importer of oil and gas in the early 2000s. At this point the story becomes a bit econ101. Declining supply of a key factor of production (energy) in an economy with growing demand. What happens next? Obvious, a precipitous rise in energy costs. Here are industrial energy prices - which had been steady until 2005. And here are consumer prices for energy. . . same story. Roughly stable until 2005, and then everything gets worse as electricity supplies begin to decline. The UK now has the highest domestic electricity prices in the advanced world
Next question - why care about productivity at all? That is easy. Productivity is the major driver of living standards - the broadest measure being GDP per capita. Here we see the same trend as we do in the productivity data - i.e. structural weakness since the mid-2000s. At this point we broaden our analysis to look at a broader sample of economies - 189 to be exact. Here is the relationship between per capita GDP and per capita energy consumption. The conclusion is clear - energy matters for prosperity. We then compare the UK to the US - here we see two very different choices in the recent past. While the US has been growing living standards while keeping energy consumption stable, the UK has been holding its living standards stable while cutting energy consumption.
Let us ask then, yes the UK has paid a price in terms of living standards - but it has it at least made a difference to global emissions? Sadly not. The UK has halved its territorial C02 emissions versus peak - but accounts for less than 1% of the global total... The UK’s decarbonisation efforts, so far, have resulted in weak economic growth, high energy prices, stagnant productivity and no significant impact on global emissions. The silver lining of hope is that official projections indicate a steady rise in electricity available into the middle of the century - which should ease this headwind and (hopefully) help to bring energy costs down. But it hinges on a successful build-out of renewables (and some gas capacity) - which so far have been hampered by planning delays and will require imports of critical minerals from far away places. It won't be easy"
Time to destroy the economy and impoverish everyone in order to virtue signal!
House Committee Says It Finds Evidence of 'Climate Cartel' - "The House Judiciary Committee said it’s found “substantial evidence of collusion and anticompetitive behavior” by the financial industry to “impose radical ESG-goals” on US companies. An interim report published by the Republican-led committee said “a cartel” of financial firms and climate activists sought to replace Exxon Mobil Corp. board members in 2021 after the company declined to make a series of climate pledges. “Unfortunately, the pressure campaign against Exxon Mobil isn’t an isolated incident,” the committee wrote. “Through coordinated shareholder pressure campaigns at US companies, the climate cartel seeks to use the trillions of dollars it manages to impose its agenda on the US economy and drain it of affordable energy.”... The judiciary committee, chaired by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, singled out groups including Climate Action 100+ and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero for leading what they described as a climate crusade... BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and State Street Corp. were sued by a group of states led by Texas for allegedly breaking antitrust laws by boosting electricity prices through their investments."
Tristin Hopper on X - "CANADA: "We have a shitload of natural gas we should sell it."
LIBERALS: "This European company said they'd build us a battery factory and all we have to do is pay for the entire thing."
CANADA: "Okay, but the gas .. "
LIBERALS: "We'll build our OWN auto sector!""
Meme - Chris Brunet @realChrisBrunet: "according to this chart, the entire nation of Canada just spent 5 whole years fighting over a carbon tax that crippled the nation's economy to offset just *37 hours* worth of China's carbon"
"how many hours does it take China to produce 50 Mt of CO2e, answer short"
"About 37 hours, based on China's 2023 emissions of 11.9 Gt CO2e annually."
Weird how China didn't get inspired by Canada to cut its emissions, as climate change hystericists claimed it would
A new energy model is here: ‘carbonizing’ - "When Canada’s next prime minister, Mark Carney, delivered his Liberal leadership acceptance speech on Sunday, the former captain of the United Nations’ climate action and finance squad and global champion of net-zero carbon emissions somehow failed to mention the subject he spent most of the past decade pursuing. The closest he came to referencing his plan to eliminate carbon emissions from the global energy system was a shot at his Conservative opponent, Pierre Poilievre, who Carney said would “allow our planet to burn.” Otherwise, Carney said he would make Canada “an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.” Never mind that envisioning Canada as an energy superpower is a concept stolen from former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, who invented the slogan 20 years ago. Could it be that Carney has checked out the latest state of the global carbon and energy situation and is now ready to endorse the growing realization that his net-zero carbon target is an impossible objective?... The emptiness of the net-zero crusade is on full display this week in Houston, Texas, where the world’s leading energy corporations and policy-makers are gathered for the annual CERAWeek conference. Ironically, one of the opening-day speakers was Larry Fink, head of the US$11.5-trillion investment giant BlackRock and one of Carney’s cronies who helped fund the 2020 Mainstream report. Fink made it clear on Monday that there is no cheap and fast route to net zero. Regarding decarbonization technology, Fink said the options are “highly inflationary” because of high startup costs. Across the board, “we have to be working side by side in trying to find ways of reducing the cost of wind and solar and other energy sources. But let’s be clear. We are going to be dependent on dispatchable power for a long, long time.” In other words, fossil fuels will be needed. Power companies and their investors, said Fink, are changing their plans as demand for electricity soars. “About four years ago, they would say, if we’re building a data centre, it must be renewables. About two years ago, they said we preferred renewables. And today, they care about power.” But that’s just a flutter of the commentary swirling around the CERAWeek conference that describes the crumbling foundations of Mark Carney’s anti-fossil-fuel campaign, a major inspiration for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax and other interventionist energy policies. CERAWeek, organized by S&P Global, is chaired by energy economist Daniel Yergin, who has been warning for years that soaring energy demand and growing geo-political conflict threaten to upset the much-vaunted global energy transition. Last year he warned about “The collision between energy and geopolitics, the struggle to define what (the) energy transition actually means and the turnaround on electricity.” That message looms even larger today. In a new paper on the energy transition crisis in the March-April edition of Foreign Affairs, Yergin and co-authors argue that the share of hydrocarbons in the global economy increased steadily over the past three decades, continuing to make up 80 per cent of global primary energy mix compared with 85 per cent in 1990. Instead of an “energy transition” we are in an “energy addition” with carbon-based energy sources growing in tandem with other sources. As energy demand grows due to tech requirements, political turmoil, mineral production demand and the desperate need for energy in under-developed nations, Yergin says the transition will need to be rethought. “Almost half the population of the developing world — three billion people — annually use less electricity per capita than the average American refrigerator does.” In coming years, Yergin’s paper concluded, “carbonizing” will need to precede “decarbonizing.” A more detailed recent report from JP Morgan by Michael Cembalest reaches similar conclusions... At CERAWeek, the CEO of Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, said that “the current strategy of prematurely switching to immature alternatives has been so self-destructive. New sources cannot even meet the growth in demand.”"
Dramatic cuts in China’s air pollution drove surge in global warming - "A recent surge in the rate of global warming has been largely driven by China’s efforts to reduce air pollution, raising questions about how air quality regulations are influencing the climate and whether we fully understand the impact of removing aerosols from the atmosphere. This extra warming, which was being masked by the aerosols, accounts for 5 per cent of global temperature increase since 1850."
Oops. Clearly, the West needs to cut its own emissions even more to compensate and destroy its economy even faster, as China builds more coal plants
Andrew Neil on X - "The nauseating hypocrisy of E Miliband is jaw-dropping. He and his kind across the political class — Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, SNP — promoted the very energy policies that lumbered Britain with the highest industrial energy costs in the world, making industries like steel uneconomic. They tolerated no dissent from their net zero nonsense even as deindustrialisation gathered pace. And now Miliband has the audacity to pose as the saviour of British steelworkers! In truth, the British political class has shamefully failed them, none more so than net zero zealot Miliband."
The death of the carbon tax - "The carbon tax, once hailed as the simplest approach to curbing GHG emissions — even by the oil and gas sector — is now on life support. And perhaps deservedly so, given its political mismanagement... The carbon tax was also undermined by a growing hodgepodge of federal and provincial regulations, mandates and subsidies to decarbonize the economy. Why tax carbon, people rightly asked, if we have all these other policies to reduce emissions?... Will EV mandates, low-carbon fuel regulations, oil and gas emission caps and clean electricity rules be next for the chopping block? Ottawa’s latest “net-zero accountability report” lists 100 federal regulations, grants, codes and other policies — of which a fifth, including the oil and gas cap and clean electricity regulations, are facing implementation hurdles. On top of this, the federal government has failed to model projections, indicators, a timetable and key measures to reduce emissions. No surprise here — the net-zero agenda is basically unmanageable."
GM to halt EV van production in Ontario to adjust for market demand
The use and abuse of climate science - "Steven E Koonin: Weather is not climate. Weather is what happens every day. It is highly variable – it changes from one day to the next. Climate, according to official definitions, plays out over decades. It changes slowly. When a scientist sees an extreme-weather event, his first instinct is to ask, how unusual is that? Have we seen similar events before, say in the 1950s, when human influences on the climate were pretty darn small? If so, we might wonder if it’s due to humans at all, or if humans have only a moderate role. Long, precise records are really important in understanding how the climate is changing. In New York City, we had record rainfall in Central Park a couple of weeks ago. We don’t have good hourly rainfall data going back 150 years, but we do have good daily rainfall data. It shows that this rainy day was only the fifth rainiest day in New York City’s history. The rainiest day happened in 1879. There were many other pretty rainy days that were spread out over the past 150 years. So it was not an obvious change in the climate. You can do the same sort of thing for record-high temperatures, which are not increasing over the US as a whole. This is all quite contrary to what you would take away if you were just reading the newspapers or listening to weather presenters.
O’Neill: One of the clearest examples of a presumption people make about climate events is around the question of melting ice sheets. When I speak in schools in the UK, I always see kids’ paintings of a polar bear standing on an ice sheet, looking very hungry, sad and lonely. There’s a kind of morality tale – that if only we would change our behaviour to become more eco-friendly, we could save the ice sheets and the polar bear. But you argue that, for example, Greenland’s ice sheet is not shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago. So how true is the claim that all the ice is melting and that it’s going to cause huge tidal waves across the world?
Koonin: It’s certainly true that as the planet is warming, we expect ice sheets on land to start losing mass. On the other hand, as I mention in the book, the rates at which Greenland is losing ice are highly variable. They were high in the 1930s. And then they were low. And then they were high again. This happened even as the globe was warming steadily. So there is most likely a large natural variability in the ice sheets. You have got to take that into account as a scientist if you are going to say that humans are causing the recent melting. Of course, people who want to create alarm about the climate will point to the past couple of decades and how the melting rate has gone up. But they don’t have an explanation for why it was also going up 80 years ago... If you look at [the IPCC's] most recent report, it features a discussion of sea-level rises. The important thing to understand about sea levels is not that they are rising – they have been doing that for 15,000 years. The real question is whether they are rising more rapidly in recent decades because of human influence, as opposed to the natural rate. The IPCC talks about how the rate in the past few decades has been a lot greater than the average for the 20th century. But it entirely fails to mention that around 1940 it was rising almost as rapidly as it is today. And then it went down. I would fail a student if they did what the IPPC did, because it is not at all an honest presentation of the data."
