Wind turbines are 19th century technology. Biomass has been used for fuel throughout human history. The UN does not impress anyone any more. Some decades ago, there was perhaps some hope of a sensible, balanced global authority, but today it has degenerated into a money-grabbing mob. Some agencies are worth continuing, but the main organisation should just be abolished. Hopefully the UN will move to somewhere like Zimbabve, and we can forget all about them. Globalism is nothing new, it has ben with us for centuries in trade, and in power projection. But there is no evidence of global political systems being better than national ones.
And of course, as almost one third of all humans live in two nations that show absolutely no inclination towards a global state system, the whole idea is outdated. The wall will surely not be a problem in the future, right? Remember those exponential growth lessons? If you consume something at exponential rates you will have consumed just half of the resource one doubling before the end. Quarter the resource two doublings before the end. Do you think consumers of that resource will realize that the end is near 3 or 4 doublings before the end? It dramatically increased PV production and thereby accelerated the learning curve.
Other countries have been doing similar things to the same effect. You pay them via different channels. Since you are such a big fan of correlating things, guess how price of solar panels and solar panel installations in the first graph in this article correlate: The Kickstarter worked and we are will hit MW new installations in and the costs have become even lower. Solar is already cheaper than most newly build fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. So far no rolling blackouts that alarmists — like you skeptics clearly are — feared and warned us off.
Give us more alarmist strong words! You think price competetive MW wind turbines and cheap mass produced photovoltaics are an old thing? And more straw mans while you are at it! Continue as if there is no long term problem that needs fixing and completely ignoring the cost and new installations development. Even China realized that it needs to go forward to a cleaner, more sustainable future. Here is a visualization of the kind of problem especially Asia is facing: And what action would actually make a difference in changing the weather and glacier melt and sea level rise and hurricane intensities?
Started doing what too late? The Earth is greening. Greenland and Antarctica combined have contributed 0. Less than 1 species per decade has gone extinct this century vs. What are the alarmists telling us that we need to be alarmed about? Says the same person who claims 30, species are going extinct every year due to climate change…. We are already at or over that rate. Is it a curse word where you live? Is that why China is building more coal plants? The slight inconvenience of living with the consequences of continued warming. There will be no one moment when suddenly it becomes a problem.
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Here is — as an example — what the OECD think will be a problem: And you ask me about what we should do? That should be pretty obvious by now. Even to you … or is this another trolling attempt? Nothing to see here …. You have no idea what a learning curve is, right? You are still running with that made up story? How crazy is that? Ha, and now he gets pedantic about wording. Anyway, I was writing about PV. Another example of you picking out single words and ignoring the context they stand in.
Are they really doing that? China is adding as much PV to their grid as the rest of the world combined: Back in the s, governments were writing the same sorts of alarmist reports about the consequences of global cooling that you naively believe in today because of global warming. See, this was before the data was manipulated to show that the cooling never happened. Central Intelligence Agency, 1 http: Hubert Lamb—an outstanding British climatologist—22 out of 27 forecasting methods he examined predicted a cooling trend through the remainder of this century.
A number of meteorological experts are thinking in terms of a return to a climate like that of the 19th century. Europe could expect to be cooler and wetter. Central Intelligence Agency, 2 http: The stability of most nations is based upon a dependable source of food, but this stability will not be possible under the new climatic era. That is, the abnormal climate of agricultural-optimum is being replaced by a normal climate of the neo-boreal era. Because of the global cooling trend , the lower edge of the circumpolar vortex has in recent years stayed farther south during the summer, in the position shown by the smaller band near the equator.
It has kept the high pressure zones farther south too, blocking the monsoons out of regions where they are vital to the survival of hundreds of millions of people. Later, in the s, one nation after another experienced the impact of the climatic change. Early in the s, a series of adverse climatic anomalies occurred: Nothing like this had happened in the last years.
Within a single year, adversity had visited almost every nation on the globe. No, I asked what the effect of what you are proposing to do will have. What looming catastrophe will using more wind and solar than we do today mitigate? Quite familiar with learning curves. Why would extremely high energy costs with no CO2 emissions reductions be a model for other countries to follow? Why is it acceptable to purposely mischaracterize what I wrote? Lumping them together as if they're one in the same is exactly the kind of disingenuous behavior you are known on this site for.
That's why we largely assume that most of what you write is made up. Your track record is pathetic. What are you even talking about?! Are you just grasping at straws, any straws, to try to make yourself out to be a victim? These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than new coal plants at home and around the world , some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, an environmental group based in Berlin.
Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, roughly a fifth of these new coal power stations are in other countries. There has only been two tiny warming events in the last 40 years, both associated with El Nino events. Then we had a natural regional cooling period associated with ocean oscillations from late s.
Back in the s, governments were writing the same sorts of alarmist reports about the consequences of global cooling. Sure, if you say so. No, a learning curve in production has nothing to do with countries doing whatever other countries did. That increased their share by 0. And both of them are still growing exponentially. You may not realize it in your bubble, but this is how blogs like the one you are posting on are viewed. Misquoting, misunderstanding … all the time.
And searching that term online I can not find any positive examples. As with the rest of what you believe is happening or not, time will tell us if you were right or wrong. Hopefully the world is wise enough to ignore you and your ilk. There they all spoke of a consensus among scientists that the globe was cooling. The data showed that this had been the case for close to three decades. Even Leonard Nimoy produced a TV segment warning of a coming ice age. That standard applies to scientific papers.
I read skepticalscience routinely as a means of understanding what your side believes. I just roll my eyes, as do many of the readers here. It was a very widely held viewpoint, especially during the period. Um, yes, the action that would actually make a difference is the effect that what you are proposing to do will have.
Do you just do this sophomoric stuff for kicks? Here it says I apologize that I offended you. Wow, even Leonard Nimoy …. I have no problem with ignoring your nonsense and your insults. It was primarily about the ongoing cooling that had been taking place for decades, the negative impacts this cooling had already exerted on extreme weather patterns, on food production, etc.
Because when including the papers from the s and s that indicated the globe had cooled by Welcome to the world of normal people. Rolling our eyes at the nonsense posted on skeptic blogs since the beginning of time …. The same will lie to their graves even going so far as the lie themselves straight in to Hell because that is all they know of!!!
I just updated the post. While writing it became clear to me that Spiegel itself is very guilty of the hype that Boj accuses Munich Re, Bahn, etc.. So I added a chart at the end of the post depicting famous Spiegel covers. LOL…No hype there, right! Thank you again Pierre. This is great news. Slowly the winds are changing, and more and more of those who have been silent about their doubts of the climate disaster -self-imposed or otherwise- are now speaking out. Eventually, even politicians will see that there is no more to get out of this scare, and drop the whole charade. Still, this journalist has contributed some valuable articles about climate earlier too.
However, it is bit shocking to be reminded of the global warming alarmist front page from Nor does Spiegel seem to have applied any self-criticism. Converted To Blogger Template by Anshul. If you thought lizards under the north pole was an amusing conspiracy theory, you're gonna love this.
British American Tobacco has agreed to remove three letter abbreviations stamped on six brands of its cigarettes. Quite bizarre, as Snowdon remarked when this accusation was first levelled in October. I would like to comment on this, I really would, but the nutters have finally gone beyond the point at which I can even understand their arguments. My nearest guess would be that they think people will be 'lured' into taking up the smoking habit by seeing the letters 'LDN' on a cigarette.
That is so stark-staringly, fetch-the-tranquiliser-gun insane that I can only assume that there is another layer of wibble that I've missed. Now, it's just a hunch, but I reckon quite a few smokers read this blog. So, if you have any suggestions as to what this nudge-nudge wink-wink message for the sinister and mysterious 'brethren of the herb' might be, I'd welcome them. Having said that, now they mention it I'm seeing this subliminal message all over the place! Posted by Dick Puddlecote at One of the key planks of the push for minimum alcohol pricing is the claim - only believed by the gullible - that alcohol costs the country a massive amount of money.
As is the case with all public health agitprop, this cleverly-constructed lie ignores the many benefits of alcohol to society. And when professional prohibitionists gather up every conceivable and fantasy 'cost' many of which are not public costs at all it still isn't anywhere near the value we can put on the public's enjoyment of their chosen tipple. The value to the person purchasing the alcohol of purchasing the alcohol must be higher than the amount they spend on purchasing the alcohol. Now yes, this might be diminished by the costs they also bear in cirrhosis, drunken fights and waking up to one of the Two Fat Slags on vomit stained pillows.
And it would be right to take those costs into account as well. But as our first order estimate of the consumer benefit of alcohol our lower bound simply cannot be any lower than the amount that people are willing to spend on purchasing alcohol. Besides, what does the average credulous nodding-dog member of the public in favour of minimum alcohol pricing - or any other policy promoted by the public health cabal, come to that - think will happen to these mythical 'savings'? Do they seriously believe any of it will actually be re-distributed to them?
However, buried in the Home Office's consultation dossier for minimum alcohol pricing is something quite interesting. Implementation of a minimum unit price at any level will increase prices and therefore inflation. It goes on to explain that this is only an estimate, and could be higher if price differentials are kept for more pricey products which is a definite. So if you screamed about the VAT increase I'm looking at you, Labour then there should surely be at least a fifth of the same effort employed in opposition to minimum pricing.
Now, whether one drinks or not, inflation is used as a measure for increases in producer salary costs, for benefits and pensions, as well as being a prime factor in the deterioration of savings income. If the CPI increases by 0. Yes, even smug teetotallers! Curiously, the Regulatory Policy Committee who presented this document haven't even attempted to quantify the increase in welfare benefits which would result from the rise in inflation.
The two are inescapably linked, yet no mention is made of it as far as I can see. It's very odd, almost as if it could be as much again or greater than the costs foreseen to the exchequor.
Oh sorry, did I not mention that yet? We'll just add that to the deficit, then. Still, if it makes the finger-waggers happy, who cares, eh? Tim Worstall suggests an estimate of the total cost after benefits have been adjusted. Benefits are uprated for inflation. So, half a billion a year out of the public purse. So the rumours were true, today was the day the government announced it was going all-in on minimum alcohol pricing.
Tuesday, 27 November Cannabis Users: Stop With The Smug, Already. When viewing articles about smoking - particularly at the Guardian, funnily enough - I've always found it quite baffling to see some of the most vitriolic anti-smoking commenters are avid fans of cannabis. The only possible justification I can see for their stance is that they are either: Well, it looks like that last one could be off up the swanee, according to the Indy.
Is this the 'tobacco moment' for cannabis? For cannabis it is the "tobacco moment". The long-suspected link between consuming cannabis and developing schizophrenia has been repeatedly confirmed by recent studies. Observers say that for cannabis the present moment is similar to that half a century ago when scientific proof of a connection between smoking tobacco and cancer became so strong that no serious doctor or scientist could deny it.
Llewellyn Hinkes-Jones
What a bummer, man. This is just the first of what the Indy declares will be a 'four-part series' too, so there is a long way to go yet on this. If correct in their conclusions, it could be the beginning of the end for the more enlightened thinking of jurisdictions such as Portugal, Mexico and - more recently - Colorado and Washington.
At time of writing, the comment count just rocketed past the 1, mark, many of which are tokers stupidly pointing the finger at alcohol as being more harmful Perhaps, then, it's timely to yet again quote Crampton's inspired words from It's like a bunch of folks on the scaffolds complaining that the other guy's noose isn't quite tight enough. Y'all might instead direct your attention to the hangman sometime and try helping each other cut those ropes. Prohibition never works, we know that.
But - as John Stuart Mill once said - each measure against tobacco, alcohol, fast food, salt, sugar the munchies, anyone? I sometimes tire of repeating it, but unless you're prepared to defend all liberties - as I do, incidentally, for any potheads reading - against the collective arseholes who want to restrict them, stop bleating when someone sets out to demonise your particular preference. Illiberalism , Incompetence , Nanny State , Puritans.
There's been a flurry of activity on Twitter, with anti-smokers clambering over themselves in an ecstatic frenzy to tweet this little nugget, as ASH Wales have done. Tobacco industry claims that plain packaging will increase illicit trade are nonsense according to new report bit. So who is behind this holy grail of a report? Why, it's a Belgian named Luk Joossens. A guy as impartial as they come. Wanna know what he looks like?
Well, here he is pictured centre at the COP5 anti-smoking shebang in Korea earlier this month Pic from that nice Geoffrey Fong And they expect us to take his report seriously? As someone who operates in the same sector, it's always interesting to hear of developments from those in other areas of the transport industry to my own. Yes, this is another in an occasional series of transport posts at Dick's place, so if it's not your bag feel free to disembark here. Two years ago, I recounted a discussion with a London black taxi driver over the problems which the Mayor's Air Quality Strategy amongst other imposed regulations would present to their trade.
Now, one reason that the iconic 'jelly-mould' black cab has changed little in sixty-odd years is because they were originally built to last as long as possible. That is, to do the job intended for them, for a long, long time. As a result of cabbies driving the same taxi for decades, which was cost-effective, it wasn't as lucrative for new models to be produced for taxi drivers as it was for the domestic market. Such was a unique London sight created. By placing a time limit on their use, a raising of overheads will be created for cabbies, and thousands of vehicles will be rendered obsolete overnight.
In pursuit of a cleaner engine, waste is being encouraged and producers incentivised to skimp on reliability, thereby leading to more manufacturing err, bad for the environment?
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At a friendly gathering yesterday, I saw him again and was updated on progress or, more accurately, erosion for London hansom cabs in the intervening period. Just as in my part of the industry, taxi driver associations lobbied hard for a rethink. The result was the black taxi trade being afforded an extra 5 years , meaning that cabs built before are now not permitted on London streets. As we have come to expect whenever some remote state employee puts ideological pen to paper, the unintended consequences are coming home to roost.
Most London taxi drivers rent their vehicles due to the prohibitive cost of purchase, and this market has been skewed dramatically by government intervention. Demand is out-stripping supply and rental charges have almost doubled in places. There is still the option to buy, of course, since the Mercedes Benz Vito is in production It doesn't take a genius to work out that this relentless pressure on overheads must eventually lead to higher fares than they already are in London. And don't think you can escape the increase in costs if you use a minicab firm, either.
They are also subject to the MAQS and are forced to ditch their vehicles after only 10 years , along with many other new restrictions and regulations, all of which have their roots in Brussels. I found this to my cost last month when quotes for an uptown 2. Of course, Boris's insistence on green policies doesn't just end with this. Last month I reported on one of the many who his London Emissions Zones legislation had put out of business, with its resultant addition to the ever-increasing welfare bill.
And it's not as if any of this is going to do diddley squat for the planet, anyway. The last two exited our premises today Two others have been taken to Ireland, with the last of the five now somewhere on its way to Zimbabwe! It would appear that although the UK has very strict emissions regulations to save the impending environmental catastrophe, they don't seem to be as harsh elsewhere. I'm not too sure how this helps protect the polar bears, myself, unless the countries mentioned are somehow using a different atmosphere to us. Nope, I simply can't work out how re-arranging the planet's vehicular furniture is going to stop global warming.
I fully expect now redundant black taxis follow a similar export route. Now, I'd like to lay the blame squarely at the door of Boris, his enviro-loon advisers and those who nag them, but it's a wider problem. We now have local legislators councils , just beneath regional legislators like, err, Boris , along with state legislators Westminster , and supra-national legislators the EU Commission. There is never going to be a day where they turn up to 'work' and see no 'problem' to fix, simply because that way leads to the dole and a possible cancellation of the conservatory Mrs Pen-pusher had her heart set on.
As such, we're actually paying these people out of our taxes Probably why an institution as vast, wasteful, and corrupt as the EU declares - with a straight face, apparently - that it cannot identify even a single euro to cut from its budget. When even a group as fundamentally working class as London taxi drivers are being beaten into submission by ill-conceived, dogmatic governmental interference - for no reason better than public sector smugness and self-enrichment - it's clear that the whole system is desperately messed up and no longer seeks to serve the public as it is supposed to do.
And just to round this all off with some high comedy, you may be interested to know that one politician was particularly annoyed about how London taxi drivers are being forced - by Boris Johnson's air quality strategy - into a position where there might be a shortage of black cabs this Christmas. He was quite livid, so he was. The name of this determined champion of the black taxi trade?
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Friday, 23 November Those Multiple Signatures: With all this week's new information on how the plain packs campaign has been desperately conniving to ignore the half a million or so signatures against their barmy idea by saying they were 'rigged', it's well worth looking back at their own side's dodgy practices. You'll remember that in October I described how a request for clarification from Forest was all it took for the tobacco control mendacity machine to kick into action. Refresh your memories by clicking here.
This was before discovery of an e-mail which was unashamedly encouraging plain packs supporters to submit multiple signatures, highlighted at the time by Deborah Arnott. How long after the original corrupt encouragement was a corrective email sent? How many people received the original email? How many acted on the email before being notified not to? How many forwarded the original email to how many others?
Truth be known, we didn't really have much of an inkling, nor would the plain packs campaign or the Department of Health be likely to tell us, even if they knew themselves. It is not clear when the retraction was sent out or to whom , but fast forward three weeks to 10 August the closing date of the consultation and poor old Deborah is called into action again. Was the original email still doing the rounds?
Three weeks of exponential forwarding to multiple addresses reaches one heck of a lot of people. Just think of the last forwarded e-mail joke you received with around a dozen previous forwarders still messing up the message, and multiply; multiply; multiply. So this call to corrupt a public consultation process - originating in a supposedly respected public health institution - could have reached many thousands of people, a good proportion of which could have lazily clicked all the handily-supplied links without a care.
In light of this, I don't think Andrew Black should be too worried about a rogue and now discounted signature gatherer filling in a couple of names on a sheet outside Waterloo station, do you? Simon Chapman would be shocked at this news, I'm sure. He'd probably tweet something like this. Thursday, 22 November It's A Miracle! We've come to accept that if someone from the tobacco control industry writes or speaks it's most likely bollocks, but their eagerness to make stuff up seems to be getting the better of them.
And how did they collect the data for this study? Through a crystal ball? Do they have a Tardis? Not one other country has mandated plain packaging except Australia, and even their regulations only kick in on December 1st. Yet Smokefree Action are claiming a "greatly reduced" number of smokers in countries plural before plain packaging has even been tried. These people are truly miraculous, perhaps we are witnessing the second coming of the Messiah here.
I mean, how else can one explain such awesome Mystic Meg-esque knowledge? The local MP is very impressed, so he is. Mr [Rob] Wilson said: Not to mention impossible. Forget about something as irrelevant as being ahead of the game on smoking prevalence, Rob. If those statistics are true, the United Kingdom has just scooped the entire planet and invented time travel, or an indisputable method of predicting events which haven't yet occurred. It's the most stunning scientific advancement of the past couple of centuries! Rob Wilson, for your information, is a Conservative. Katie Hopkins was prominent on BBC outlets yesterday.
Not heard of her? Well, she was once a contestant on The Apprentice and pops up occasionally with controversial views. Her website describes her as partly a social commentator, and I think her appearance on The Daily Politics can be placed quite firmly in that category. Have a watch of this in case you missed it.
I'll wager there are many of you bouncing off the walls like a Tasmanian Devil after seeing that, eh? Hey, we knew Alcohol Concern were short of money now they've been dragged kicking and screaming off the taxpayer teat , but how about this for a scam! Tuesday, 20 November Don't Mention Religion! I understand that it's usually considered inadvisable to discuss religion, but on a day like this I've written extensively - from experience - about how poor some of its priorities appear to be.
I'm not going to bore you again, just go click the education tag for back story. But this week presented a very ugly deja vue experience, which I first described in Arrived back home and the boy 9 , who has just decided to get into football, was watching the England match. After a few minutes the crowd started singing the national anthem so I hummed along. A mad thought entered my head Did he know the words? Did he know what the tune was?
See a Problem?
Did he know it was the anthem of our country? Well, he had heard it before matches during the World Cup but Asking downstairs, the same responses from the girl How fucking shit is that? A tip for new or prospective parents. Don't expect state education to teach your kids anything. Instead, assume the worst and do it yourself. My point back then was that you would expect them to be taught the basics, Lord knows we pay enough for it. I've left it mostly alone since, but - in the week following Remembrance Sunday - they have both been given homework from two different schools related to some guy who they instantly know as being called Siddartha Gutama.
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I had a very good education, and am the go-to guy when things get a bit tough for their pretty paltry, it has to be said homework. But I don't know the guy. Turns out he's an icon of the Buddhist faith. So I asked a very simple question, you would think, of a 13 and nearly 12 year old in Britain.
Do they know the words of the Lord's Prayer which was said during last Sunday's ceremony? I even gave them the first three lines. They not only didn't know the words, they had never even heard of it. But they are both intimately knowledgeable about some guy who lived two and a half thousand years ago and is followed by just about no-one in this country.
Listen, I'm not religious in the slightest, despite Irish ancestry, but surely the Lord's Prayer should be at the forefront of religious education in a state which is supposed to be a little bit CofE? You know, having a Queen which is the head of state and the church, and all? How in buggery have they not been taught of the Lord's Prayer's existence after 8 or 9 years of state education, yet they know all about Sikhism, Hinduism, Islam and even the primary Buddha as if they're chums? I despair sometimes, I really do.