Climate Hysteria Is Killing Germany’s Car Industry
In this newsletter:
1) Green Suicide: Climate Hysteria Is Killing Germany’s Car Industry
Bloomberg, 9 September 2019
2) Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report
Michael Shellenberger, Forbes, 5 September 2019
3) BBC Exposes Britain’s Solar Panel Con
BBC News, 9 September 2019
4) James Cook University Ordered To Pay Peter Ridd $1.2m For Unlawful Dismissal
The Australian, 6 September 2019
5) Trump’s Science Advisor Says Climate Scientists Must Improve Climate Models
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor, 5 September 2019
6) Democrats Beware: Americans Won’t Pay Your Carbon Taxes
Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg, 8 September 2019
7) And Finally: Ship With Climate Change Warriors Caught In Arctic Ice, Warriors Evacuated
Maritime Bulletin, 4 September 2019
Full details:
1) Green Suicide: Climate Hysteria Is Killing Germany’s Car Industry
Bloomberg, 9 September 2019
German car output has slumped to the lowest level since 2010 as climate-change protests overshadow Frankfurt automobile show
Germany is at a crossroads, and nowhere will that be more evident than at the Frankfurt auto show this week.
Despite sleek new electric models like the Porsche Taycan, the traditional showcase of German automotive excellence risks becoming a platform for protest rather than preening, drawing attention to a generation of young consumers more likely to demonstrate against the car’s role in global warming than shop for a new VW, BMW or Mercedes-Benz.
Autos have made Germany into a global manufacturing powerhouse, but pollution concerns -- intensified by Volkswagen AG’s 2015 diesel-cheating scandal -- have sullied the reputation of a product that once embodied individual freedom. More recently, trade woes and slowing economies have hit demand. The consequence is Germany’s car production slumping to the lowest level since at least 2010.
“Investors have been fearful about the industry’s prospects for a number of years, and the list of things to worry about doesn’t seem to be getting shorter,” said Max Warburton, a London-based analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “There is a general sense that things are about to get worse.”
The end of the combustion-engine era and car buyers more interested in data connectivity than horsepower threaten Germany’s spot at the top of the automotive pecking order. Signs of trouble abound. In addition to numerous profit warnings this year, Mercedes maker Daimler AG delayed a plan to expand capacity at a Hungarian factory, parts giant Continental AG has started talks to cut jobs, and automotive supplier Eisenmann filed for insolvency.
Germany is teetering on the brink of recession, and the auto industry is pivotal to the economy’s health. Carmakers such as Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW AG as well as parts suppliers like Robert Bosch GmbH and Continental employ about 830,000 people in the country and support everything from machine makers to advertising agencies and cleaning services. With factories from Portugal to Poland, the importance of the sector radiates across Europe as well.
With CO2 emissions regulations set to tighten starting next year, concerns are mounting that companies across the country’s industrial landscape are ill-equipped to deal with the technology transition resulting from climate change and increasing levels of digitalization.
Full story
See also -- VW Warning: EU Climate Policies “Threaten The Very Existence” Of Germany’s Car Industry
You Won’t Have Much Luck Selling Electric Cars to Germans
2) Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report
Michael Shellenberger, Forbes, 5 September 2019
A new report by consulting giant McKinsey finds that Germany's Energiewende, or energy transition to renewables, poses a significant threat to the nation's economy and energy supply.
One of Germany's largest newspapers, Die Welt, summarized the findings of the McKinsey report in a single word: "disastrous."
"Problems are manifesting in all three dimensions of the energy industry triangle: climate protection, the security of supply and economic efficiency," writes McKinsey.
In 2018, Germany produced 866 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, a far cry from its goal of 750 million tonnes by 2020.
Thanks to a slightly warmer winter, emissions in Germany went down slightly in 2018, but not enough to change the overall trend. "If emissions reductions continue at the same pace as they did over the past decade, then CO2 targets for 2020 will only be reached eight years later, and 2030 targets will not be reached until 2046."
Germany has failed to even come close to reducing its primary energy consumption to levels it hoped. McKinsey says Germany is just 39% toward its goal for primary energy reduction.
Despite much hype, Germany still generates just 35% of its electricity from renewables. And if biomass burning, often dirtier than coal, is excluded, wind, water and solar electricity in Germany accounted for just 27% of electricity generation in 2018.
But McKinsey issues its strongest warning when it comes to Germany's increasingly insecure energy supply due to its heavy reliance on intermittent solar and wind. For three days in June 2019, the electricity grid came close to black-outs.
"Only short-term imports from neighboring countries were able to stabilize the grid," the consultancy notes.
As a result of Germany's energy supply shortage, the highest observed cost of short-term "balancing energy" skyrocketed from €64 in 2017 to €37,856 in 2019.
"It can be assumed that security of supply will continue to worsen in the future," says McKinsey.
Full post
3) BBC Exposes Britain’s Solar Panel Con
BBC News, 9 September 2019
Thousands of people who bought solar panels have complained to a financial watchdog that they are not bringing them the returns they were promised.
Many people took out loans to pay for panels on the promise they would save thousands of pounds in electricity costs and make money generating power.
They say they have not had the expected savings, and the Financial Services Ombudsman has had 2,000 complaints.
Barclays Bank has put aside £38m to deal with potential claims.
Brian Thompson from Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, told BBC Inside Out he was contacted by a salesman for PV Solar UK but told him he did not want to take a loan on as he was preparing for retirement.
He said he was told the move would provide money towards his pension, which persuaded him, and he took out a loan with Barclays of more than £10,000 over 10 years.
Mr Thompson said the payments he was getting back from the power his solar panels sent to the National Grid did not correspond with what he was told.
“I had to dip into my savings which I was putting away for retirement to pay the loan off. To me it was lies,” he said.
An independent survey of Mr Thompson’s system showed even after 20 years the income from the panels would not cover the cost of the loan.
Full post
4) James Cook University Ordered To Pay Peter Ridd $1.2m For Unlawful Dismissal
The Australian, 6 September 2019
James Cook University has been ordered to pay reef scientist Peter Ridd $1.2 million for unlawfully dismissing him after he publicly criticised the institution’s climate change science.
Scientist Peter Ridd questioned the science behind Great Barrier Reef legislation.
Federal Circuit Court Justice Salvatore Vasta on Friday handed down the penalty following hearings earlier this year.
He ordered the Townsville university to pay Dr Ridd $1,094,214.47 as compensation for past and future economic loss because of the unlawful sacking, as well as general compensation for more than “three years of unfair treatment”.
JCU will have to pay a further $125,000 as a way of penalty.
The judge lambasted the university, saying it had “failed to respect (Dr Ridd’s) rights to intellectual freedom”.
The physics professor, who specialised in marine environments and worked at JCU for 30 years, on Friday lamented the ugly affair, saying it was “a fight that should never have started in the first place”.
“I have worked for 35 years on the Great Barrier Reef, and my genuinely held belief is that there are systemic quality assurance problems at Great Barrier Reef science institutions,” he said.
“I had a right, a duty, to say this.
“JCU have still not accepted this fundamental right despite the importance of the debate to the north Queensland region.”
Dr Ridd said that if JCU appeals, which it can do within the next three weeks, it would cast doubt on the institution’s claim to uphold academic freedom.
Having already spent more than $200,000 of his own money fighting the legal battle, on top of $260,000 accumulated through a crowdsourcing campaign, Dr Ridd said he would need to ask for further donations to fight an appeal.
JCU is believed to have spent more than $600,000 in legal fees.
“My lawyers say it is a landmark case so it is imperative that we continue the fight if necessary,” Dr Ridd said.
Full post
5) Trump’s Science Advisor Says Climate Scientists Must Improve Climate Models
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor, 5 September 2019
American climate scientists must improve their climate models is one of the key messages in a recent memo issued by the Trump Administration.
Each summer the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy issue areas that the US Government would like to emphasis in the following year.
The memo is intended to communicate what the government wants and influence what government agency heads request leading up to the president submitting his budget to Congress in February.
The memo is co-signed by Dr Kelvin K Droegemeier took up the roll of Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy earlier this year. He is a former meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma. It is the first time the topic has been mentioned in these memos.
It reads:
“Knowing the extent to which components of the Earth system are practicably predictable -from individual thunderstorms to long-term global change-is vitally important for physical understanding of the Earth system, assessing the value of prediction results, guiding Federal investments, developing effective policy, and improving predictive skill. Departments and agencies should prioritize R&D that helps quantify Earth system predictability across multiple phenomena, time, and space scales.”
The memo also contains an implied criticism that the federal scientific community have not effectively communicated the limitations and uncertainties is using climate models for prediction.
“Additionally, agencies should emphasize how measures of and limits to predictability, both theoretical and actual, can inform a wide array of stakeholders. They also should explore the application of AI and adaptive observing systems to enhance predictive skill, along with strategies for obtaining substantial improvements in computational model performance and spatial resolution across all scales.”
Concerning the oceans Droegemeirer adds,
“Departments and agencies should prioritize new and emerging technologies and collaborative approaches to efficiently map, explore, and characterize the resources of the U.S. exclusive economic zone. Departments and agencies should also focus on processing and making publically available data that characterize natural resources and human activities and on R&D.”
Heads of the US scientific agencies and their subservient administrations such as NASA and NOAA have been told there is no extra money for this so they will have to take money away from other areas.
6) Democrats Beware: Americans Won’t Pay Your Carbon Taxes
Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg, 8 September 2019
Resistance to the costs of taxes and regulations is likely to be a bigger obstacle to climate plans, in the end, than disbelief in global warming.
Much has been made of the willingness of Democratic presidential candidates to risk taking positions that aren’t popular with voters at large in order to boost themselves in the primaries. Democratic politicians and strategists are aware that most people don’t want to see private health insurance banned, for example, but such leading contenders as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have come out for it anyway.
There has been less focus on the political risks of the candidates’ approach to climate change. In part that’s because so many Republicans have taken their own unpopular stance on the issue: denying that there’s a problem. Gallup finds that nearly two-thirds of voters believe that human activity is causing the globe to get warmer, and that percentage has been rising over the years. Young voters are especially concerned about the issue. It’s part of the reason that some Republicans, such as Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, have broken with many of their colleagues on the matter. “I think history will judge very harshly those who are climate deniers,” he said.
But the Democrats may be getting overconfident. At last week’s “climate town hall” on CNN, Senator Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg all endorsed a carbon tax. Senator Kamala Harris did, too, although she called her tax a “fee.” All of these candidates are breaking with past Democrats. Neither President Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton endorsed a carbon tax. A memo for the Clinton campaign estimated that a carbon tax of $42 per ton on greenhouse-gas emissions would raise annual energy costs by $478 for the average household, and by $268 for the poorest fifth of households.
When considering that number, keep in mind another poll finding. In November 2018, the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ran a survey about climate change that found, in line with other polls, that most Americans believe it is happening and that human activity is causing it. Nearly half of respondents said that recent extreme weather events had influenced their thinking on the issue. But 68 percent opposed paying even $10 extra in their monthly utility bills to address the issue.
The Clinton campaign’s memo also noted that the revenues from the tax could be rebated so that only the highest-earning fifth of households ended up with a net tax increase. But this should be less reassuring to Democrats than it appears. For one thing, several of the candidates either aren’t promising to rebate the taxes or aren’t emphasizing the point to deflect the inevitable attack on them. When asked about carbon taxes, Warren and Biden didn’t say they would have a rebate. Harris said that some of the money would go “to empower those communities that for too long have been ignored,” which doesn’t sound like a tax rebate.
Even a tax increase on the top fifth of households is a heavier political lift than Democrats have been prepared for. A household with an annual income of $130,000 is in that fifth. The tax increases of the last two Democratic presidents kicked in at a much higher threshold. And the gross cost may matter politically, not just the net cost. Even if the Democrats promise a rebate, Republicans can sow doubt that voters will actually see one.
Washington State’s relatively liberal electorate has rejected carbon taxes twice in recent years. In 2016, a carbon tax was paired with a sales-tax cut and drew the opposition of 59% of voters. In 2018, on a generally good day for liberal causes, 56% opposed a carbon tax with no rebate.
You can approve or disapprove with the public’s low tolerance for higher costs in the fight against global warming. (I myself favor lower-cost alternatives to carbon taxes.) But even those who consider it shortsighted have to reckon with it.
Full post
7) And Finally: Ship With Climate Change Warriors Caught In Arctic Ice, Warriors Evacuated
Maritime Bulletin, 4 September 2019
Arctic tours ship MS MALMO with 16 passengers on board got stuck in ice on Sep 3 off Longyearbyen, Svalbard Archipelago, halfway between Norway and North Pole. The ship is on Arctic tour with Climate Change documentary film team, and tourists, concerned with Climate Change and melting Arctic ice.
All 16 Climate Change warriors were evacuated by helicopter in challenging conditions, all are safe. 7 crew remains on board, waiting for Coast Guard ship assistance.
Something is very wrong with Arctic ice, instead of melting as ordered by UN/IPCC, it captured the ship with Climate Change Warriors.
Arctic Tours ship MS MALMO, IMO 8667579, dwt 466, built 1943, refurbished in 2014, flag Sweden.
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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