In this newsletter:
1) Energy crisis bursts green shares bubble
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2022
2) World second largest wind turbine maker Siemens Energy declared “uninvestible” by analysts
Bloomberg, 20 January 2022
Bloomberg, 20 January 2022
3) Solar panels prices skyrocket 50-60%
Asia Times, 22 January 2022
4) U.S. Fossil Fuel Production Set To Hit Record Highs In 2023
OilPrice.com, 21 January 2022
5) Net Zero could cause more unrest and division than Brexit, Tory MP warnsAsia Times, 22 January 2022
4) U.S. Fossil Fuel Production Set To Hit Record Highs In 2023
OilPrice.com, 21 January 2022
Sky News, 21 January 2022
6) Andy Mayer: Stop posing. Start drilling
The Critic, 21 January 2022
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
8) Gavin Mortimer: The fate of the French Socialists is a warning for Boris Johnson
The Spectator, 21 January 2022
The Spectator, 21 January 2022
9) Book review: ‘Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America’
The Washington Times, 20 January 2022
The Washington Times, 20 January 2022
10) And finally: Face mask for cows among finalists for Prince Charles' climate crisis prize
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
Full details:
1) Energy crisis bursts green shares bubble
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2022
The energy crisis has burst a multibillion-pound bubble in green stocks as gas prices surge and the world confronts the true cost of net zero.
Shares in renewable energy companies have tumbled to their lowest level in 16 months, almost completely unwinding gains made during a stampede into companies aiding the shift away from fossil fuels.
It comes as new figures revealed that private equity snapped up oil and gas firms worth almost £12bn last year, a huge increase from £232m in 2020 as the sector ploughs investment into renewable energy.
A basket of global clean energy shares, which includes renewable giants Iberdrola, Vestas and Orsted, has tumbled 45pc since the record peak a year ago, wiping tens of billions of pounds off their “excessive” value.
Rising material costs, frothy valuations and escalating interest rates have dampened investor enthusiasm after a flood of money into the sector.
Surging gas prices are also thought to have raised concerns, because they highlight the challenge of ditching fossil fuels.
Stewart Cook, co-head of European markets at Berenberg, said: “Clean energy stocks were caught up in the record moves higher in non-profitable, almost concept-like themes such as ESG and electric vehicles. These moves and valuations were exaggerated by huge inflows to investors and liquidity chasing these relatively small, embryonic sectors.”
Renewable stocks have fallen by a fifth since the start of December after being hit by a wider shift by investors out of pandemic winners, particularly in tech, into more traditional sectors as interest rates rise.
Solar shares have slipped 45pc from their record peak, while wind firms have dropped by a quarter.
Mr Cook said there were some “excessive valuations and asset price moves” on wider markets that have “burst”. However, he added that many clean energy stocks still “have great fundamental reasons to own for the long-term”.
Analysts have warned that a rush into environmental, social and governance-friendly assets risks creating ethical stocks bubbles.
Buyout firms are cashing in on the gas price crisis by swooping in as listed companies flee the oil and gas sector in fear of climate campaigners.
Private equity firms spent £11.9bn on European oil and gas businesses in 2021, compared to just £232m in 2020, according to global law firm Mayer Brown. Deals involving UK firms were worth £2.4bn.
Full story
5) Net Zero could cause more unrest and division than Brexit, Tory MP warns
Sky News, 21 January 2022
Carbon emissions targets could be "bigger than Brexit" for the potential of causing unrest, and division in the country, an organising member of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs has warned.
7) Juliet Samuel: A ban on conservatories is exactly the sort of idiocy that could finish off Boris and ‘net zero’
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
Instead of kowtowing to eco extremists, the Tories should be taking practical steps to reduce energy costs
The clue’s in the name: the Conservative Party. How can the Conservative Party even think of banning conservatories? Did they miss the memo? How could they be unaware that an attack on conservatory-dwellers is an attack on everything it means to be a Conservative: aspirational, home-owning, family-oriented – and rather proud of the garden?
The proposed restrictions on conservatory building in the name of “net zero” are a red rag to the already enraged core of Britain’s Tory voters.
Such obvious facts are no longer visible from the inner ring of the death spiral that Boris Johnson’s premiership appears to have entered. Instead of throwing things desperately out of the tornado, in the hope that they will catch onto something – Boats! Sonic blasts! Ghana! The BBC! – No 10 ought to reflect upon why the Boris operation is so damnably short of grappling hooks.
Here and there it drifts, sustained only by the occasional outburst of brilliant oratory, like air blasted into a hot-air balloon. The only thing needed to burst the bubble was the pinprick of a scandal like Partygate and hey ho, down it goes.
Soon, however, if Mr Johnson can last that long, the party rage will be spent and he will have an opportunity to do something other than flounder. Here is something he could actually do that would genuinely improve people’s lives: he could start to solve the critical situation in our energy supply.
This situation, unlike supply chain congestion, is entirely a mess of our own making. Rising household bills are now one of the main contributors to inflation, which is outstripping wage growth. Later this year, in spite of the price cap, costs are expected to smash all records set over the last decade, taking us from an average annual bill of around £1,200 to one potentially over £1,500.
At present, the debate on what to do about this centres on fiddling about with VAT, which accounts for 5 per cent of your bill, or company profits, which account for 1-2 per cent. Thanks for nothing, Westminster.
Politicians could move the dial a bit by suspending various green levies and boiler schemes. But the “social” costs loaded onto consumers are in fact mostly made up of redistributive policies like giving discounts to poor households. That is not something it would be wise to suspend during a price spike.
By far the biggest share of our bills is made up of the simple cost of energy on the open market. If the Government is not prepared to pull any levers that increase our energy supply, then there is little it can do to bring down costs.
In fact, for 20 years, governments have been doing the opposite: shutting down coal generation and only partially replacing it with renewable generation, which depends on the weather. They claimed they were “diversifying” supply by building up our ability to import gas. But guess what: it turns out that when gas is choked off at one end of the European continent by pernicious Russian policy, it affects us at the other end, no matter how many pipelines and terminals we have built.
Fortunately for Boris, there is something he could do about this relatively quickly. He could put together a package of incentives to ramp up exploration and production of gas in the North Sea.
Gas producers wouldn’t be able to fill demand in time to affect prices this year, but they could almost certainly raise production enough in the next few years to take the pressure off households and stabilise energy costs for the next decade, giving us valuable time to build a large-scale nuclear energy programme to replace all those coal plants that were hastily shut down.
After all, Norway, whose gas explorers operate just the other side of the North Sea, has managed to keep its reserves steady over the past 30 years, while Britain’s gas industry, treated recklessly as a cash cow by successive governments, has gone into sharp decline.
Nor would this approach mean junking the Government’s net zero aspirations. At present, we import more than a fifth of our gas in liquid form on tankers, one of the most energy inefficient and expensive ways to use the fuel. Domestic production would simply displace a large slice of that consumption and see us through to the low-carbon era.
In the long run, a far more ambitious nuclear programme, improvements in energy storage and a carbon tariff to prevent emissions being moved offshore would enable the UK to deliver lower emissions without becoming the poster-child for how to impoverish yourself through reckless green policies.
There is only one reason why a Conservative Government would shy away from this policy: it’s afraid of the environmentalist movement.
Green protesters are peculiarly parochial in their view of carbon emissions. They think that if the UK produces more of its own gas, it mechanically increases the amount of gas the world uses, ignoring the fact that markets are dynamic. There is no point trying to convince the most zealous of these believers. There will always be another bevy of them waiting to throw themselves onto motorways or block bridges. And if the Government gets serious about reviving domestic energy markets, you can bet the Extinction crew will stop at nothing to sabotage the plan.
Rather than cowering before their roadblocks, Boris should go into battle. It is unacceptable that a tiny minority should determine policy for the rest of the country when households are struggling to manage an extraordinary hit to living standards.
Voters want to see a Prime Minister willing to stand up for their interests with policies that will deliver a noticeable improvement to their lives. They would warm to someone who is tough enough to take a battering dished out by the green establishment. They are tired of instead listening to a dithering man without a plan promising he will “unleash Britain’s potential” by banning conservatories and kiboshing our gas hobs.
I’m among those who believe that a shift to “net zero” energy production is necessary and that Britain can benefit from being at the forefront of it. But there is no future for this agenda if it simply becomes a proxy for a sustained assault on our quality of life, first through our gas bills and then via our home improvements. And there is no future for a prime minister who follows up outrage and scandal with platitudes and joyless, environmentalist finger-wagging.
It’s time to stop telling us what we can’t do and start telling us what we can and will do to improve our lot. Otherwise, Boris might as well just give up now.
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2022
The energy crisis has burst a multibillion-pound bubble in green stocks as gas prices surge and the world confronts the true cost of net zero.
Shares in renewable energy companies have tumbled to their lowest level in 16 months, almost completely unwinding gains made during a stampede into companies aiding the shift away from fossil fuels.
It comes as new figures revealed that private equity snapped up oil and gas firms worth almost £12bn last year, a huge increase from £232m in 2020 as the sector ploughs investment into renewable energy.
A basket of global clean energy shares, which includes renewable giants Iberdrola, Vestas and Orsted, has tumbled 45pc since the record peak a year ago, wiping tens of billions of pounds off their “excessive” value.
Rising material costs, frothy valuations and escalating interest rates have dampened investor enthusiasm after a flood of money into the sector.
Surging gas prices are also thought to have raised concerns, because they highlight the challenge of ditching fossil fuels.
Stewart Cook, co-head of European markets at Berenberg, said: “Clean energy stocks were caught up in the record moves higher in non-profitable, almost concept-like themes such as ESG and electric vehicles. These moves and valuations were exaggerated by huge inflows to investors and liquidity chasing these relatively small, embryonic sectors.”
Renewable stocks have fallen by a fifth since the start of December after being hit by a wider shift by investors out of pandemic winners, particularly in tech, into more traditional sectors as interest rates rise.
Solar shares have slipped 45pc from their record peak, while wind firms have dropped by a quarter.
Mr Cook said there were some “excessive valuations and asset price moves” on wider markets that have “burst”. However, he added that many clean energy stocks still “have great fundamental reasons to own for the long-term”.
Analysts have warned that a rush into environmental, social and governance-friendly assets risks creating ethical stocks bubbles.
Buyout firms are cashing in on the gas price crisis by swooping in as listed companies flee the oil and gas sector in fear of climate campaigners.
Private equity firms spent £11.9bn on European oil and gas businesses in 2021, compared to just £232m in 2020, according to global law firm Mayer Brown. Deals involving UK firms were worth £2.4bn.
Full story
2) World second largest wind turbine maker Siemens Energy declared “uninvestible” by analysts
Bloomberg, 20 January 2022
“Siemens Energy is trapped in a narrative it cannot control, and this makes it uninvestible.”
Bloomberg, 20 January 2022
“Siemens Energy is trapped in a narrative it cannot control, and this makes it uninvestible.”
Siemens Energy AG fell the most in six months in Frankfurt after slashing its outlook due to mounting losses at its wind-turbine business, which warned that the soaring cost of raw materials would squeeze margins in 2022.
The German engineering firm said its revenue could slip by as much as 2% this financial year after previously seeing at worst a 1% drop. It also trimmed its operating profit margin forecast to a range of 2% to 4%, from 3% to 5% previously.
The downgrade comes after its Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy subsidiary reported a loss of 309 million euros ($350 million) for the first quarter of its 2022 fiscal year and warned that inflation will continue to weigh on margins.
Siemens Energy declined as much as 10% in Frankfurt, while Siemens Gamesa plunged as much as 16% in Madrid, its steepest intraday decline since July. Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S, one of Siemns Gamesa’s main rivals, slumped as much as 7.8% in Copenhagen.
Turbine makers are grappling with rising commodity costs and pandemic-related disruptions to supply chains. Surging prices for energy, steel and copper have squeezed profits for Siemens Gamesa and its rivals. That’s leading to difficult conversations with customers, who may not be able to cope with higher costs.
“We are increasing prices. The whole industry is increasing prices,” Siemens Gamesa Chief Executive Officer Andreas Nauen said during a call with analysts on Friday. “That brings business cases for customers to the limit or over the cliff.”
Project Delays
The renewable-energy firm also said it’s facing difficulties scaling up one of its new turbine models, known as the 5.X platform. Volatile markets have impacted investment decisions by some of its customers, resulting in project delays.
The issues at Madrid-based Siemens Gamesa already weighed on Siemens Energy’s results last year, frustrating the German firm’s management and fueling speculation the parent might try to buy out other investors to seize full operational control of the struggling unit.
“It would be nice to believe this is the ‘final’ writedown,” Berstein analysts led by Nicholas Green said in a note late Thursday. “Siemens Energy is trapped in a narrative it cannot control, and this makes it uninvestible.”
The German engineering firm said its revenue could slip by as much as 2% this financial year after previously seeing at worst a 1% drop. It also trimmed its operating profit margin forecast to a range of 2% to 4%, from 3% to 5% previously.
The downgrade comes after its Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy subsidiary reported a loss of 309 million euros ($350 million) for the first quarter of its 2022 fiscal year and warned that inflation will continue to weigh on margins.
Siemens Energy declined as much as 10% in Frankfurt, while Siemens Gamesa plunged as much as 16% in Madrid, its steepest intraday decline since July. Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S, one of Siemns Gamesa’s main rivals, slumped as much as 7.8% in Copenhagen.
Turbine makers are grappling with rising commodity costs and pandemic-related disruptions to supply chains. Surging prices for energy, steel and copper have squeezed profits for Siemens Gamesa and its rivals. That’s leading to difficult conversations with customers, who may not be able to cope with higher costs.
“We are increasing prices. The whole industry is increasing prices,” Siemens Gamesa Chief Executive Officer Andreas Nauen said during a call with analysts on Friday. “That brings business cases for customers to the limit or over the cliff.”
Project Delays
The renewable-energy firm also said it’s facing difficulties scaling up one of its new turbine models, known as the 5.X platform. Volatile markets have impacted investment decisions by some of its customers, resulting in project delays.
The issues at Madrid-based Siemens Gamesa already weighed on Siemens Energy’s results last year, frustrating the German firm’s management and fueling speculation the parent might try to buy out other investors to seize full operational control of the struggling unit.
“It would be nice to believe this is the ‘final’ writedown,” Berstein analysts led by Nicholas Green said in a note late Thursday. “Siemens Energy is trapped in a narrative it cannot control, and this makes it uninvestible.”
3) Solar panels prices skyrocket 50-60%
Asia Times, 22 January 2022
Solar panel prices are up 50-60% year on year as power shortages and now Omicron disrupt Chinese production
Chinese supply chains have been hit with a one-two punch: the country’s power consumption limits combined with lockdown measures against the highly contagious Omicron variant of Covid-19.
The Biden administration is now reportedly monitoring the situation in mainland China to see whether the government’s lockdown measures under the “dynamic zero infections” strategy will hurt the country’s industrial outputs – and pose a risk to the United States’ own supply chains.
However, diversifying supply chains in many sectors is easier said than done. That’s especially the case with solar panels, of which China currently supplies more than 80% of the photovoltaic modules to the world.
Even as most countries are trying to accelerate their plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, many of their solar developers have slowed down their own projects after solar panel prices increased by 50-60% from a year ago. The best they can hope for is that the problem will prove short-lived, with improvement showing as early as April or May.
Full story
4) Build Back Cheaper: U.S. fossil fuel production set to hit record highs in 2023
OilPrice.com, 21 January 2022
America’s production of fossil fuels is expected to hit a record high in 2023, as continued improvements in drilling efficiency in oil and gas and high enough oil prices will support increased output of all fossil fuels, including coal, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Friday.
The combined production of fossil fuels—natural gas, crude oil, and coal—rose in 2021 by 2 percent to 77.14 quadrillion British thermal units, following a decline in 2020, when the pandemic hit. The administration expects U.S. fossil fuel production to continue rising both this year and next, exceeding 2019 production levels and reaching a new record in 2023.
Last year, dry natural gas accounted for the largest share, 46 percent, of the total U.S. fossil fuel production. Crude oil accounted for 30 percent, coal for 15 percent, and natural gas plant liquids (NGPLs) for 9 percent. Those shares to remain similar through 2023, the EIA said.
Dry natural gas production rose by 2 percent last year in 2021, the administration estimates, and predicts that improvements in drilling efficiency and new-well production will contribute to production increases of 3 percent in 2022 and 2 percent in 2023.
Coal production last year is estimated to have jumped by 7 percent due to higher demand for electricity generation on the back of rising natural gas prices. This year, coal production is set to rise by 6 percent as coal-fired electricity generators rebuild inventory levels. In 2023, coal production will rise by only 1 percent as demand for coal in the electric power sector declines, the EIA said.
Full story
Asia Times, 22 January 2022
Solar panel prices are up 50-60% year on year as power shortages and now Omicron disrupt Chinese production
Chinese supply chains have been hit with a one-two punch: the country’s power consumption limits combined with lockdown measures against the highly contagious Omicron variant of Covid-19.
The Biden administration is now reportedly monitoring the situation in mainland China to see whether the government’s lockdown measures under the “dynamic zero infections” strategy will hurt the country’s industrial outputs – and pose a risk to the United States’ own supply chains.
However, diversifying supply chains in many sectors is easier said than done. That’s especially the case with solar panels, of which China currently supplies more than 80% of the photovoltaic modules to the world.
Even as most countries are trying to accelerate their plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, many of their solar developers have slowed down their own projects after solar panel prices increased by 50-60% from a year ago. The best they can hope for is that the problem will prove short-lived, with improvement showing as early as April or May.
Full story
4) Build Back Cheaper: U.S. fossil fuel production set to hit record highs in 2023
OilPrice.com, 21 January 2022
America’s production of fossil fuels is expected to hit a record high in 2023, as continued improvements in drilling efficiency in oil and gas and high enough oil prices will support increased output of all fossil fuels, including coal, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Friday.
The combined production of fossil fuels—natural gas, crude oil, and coal—rose in 2021 by 2 percent to 77.14 quadrillion British thermal units, following a decline in 2020, when the pandemic hit. The administration expects U.S. fossil fuel production to continue rising both this year and next, exceeding 2019 production levels and reaching a new record in 2023.
Last year, dry natural gas accounted for the largest share, 46 percent, of the total U.S. fossil fuel production. Crude oil accounted for 30 percent, coal for 15 percent, and natural gas plant liquids (NGPLs) for 9 percent. Those shares to remain similar through 2023, the EIA said.
Dry natural gas production rose by 2 percent last year in 2021, the administration estimates, and predicts that improvements in drilling efficiency and new-well production will contribute to production increases of 3 percent in 2022 and 2 percent in 2023.
Coal production last year is estimated to have jumped by 7 percent due to higher demand for electricity generation on the back of rising natural gas prices. This year, coal production is set to rise by 6 percent as coal-fired electricity generators rebuild inventory levels. In 2023, coal production will rise by only 1 percent as demand for coal in the electric power sector declines, the EIA said.
Full story
5) Net Zero could cause more unrest and division than Brexit, Tory MP warns
Sky News, 21 January 2022
Carbon emissions targets could be "bigger than Brexit" for the potential of causing unrest, and division in the country, an organising member of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs has warned.
Serial rebel, Brexiteer and Tory backbencher Steve Baker helped establish the group of around 20 MPs who are concerned about the costs of reaching net zero.
And his warning comes amid an escalating cost of living crisis.
Mr Baker told Sky News: "I genuinely believe that when the full costs of net zero start hitting us, if people have never been given a choice at the ballot box, we could end up with something bigger than the poll tax, certainly bigger than Brexit, because the numbers of people hit by it and their inability to cope will be huge.
"I am sick to death of people talking to me about food and fuel poverty, and then piling costs on the poor.
'MPs know this is going to hit all voters and hit them hard'
'Without coal this area cannot exist': The impoverished who rely on India's mining industry after COP26 pledge to go net zero by 2070
"I've started three big projects of MPs on the issue of the day - one on Brexit, one on COVID, which of course affected everybody, and one on net zero.
"Of the three of them, the one that grew fastest by miles was net zero, simply because members of parliament know this is going to hit all voters and hit them hard and hit them fast and they aren't going to like it."
Mr Baker's warning comes as the prime minister is fighting another significant division - battling to regain support from within his party as it responds to the ongoing "partygate" scandal.
The Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which includes former cabinet minister Esther McVey MP, recently signed an open letter demanding the government scrap green levies on energy bills and increase the amount of gas extracted from the North Sea.
But the larger, greener wing of the Conservative party sees things very differently.
Its members point out that some of those belonging to the Net Zero Scrutiny Group are affiliated with the Global Warming Policy Foundation which has been described by scientists as a climate-sceptical organisation responsible for pushing misinformation, something it has denied.
Mr Baker is a trustee of the foundation.
Conservative Environment Network member Chris Skidmore MP said warnings of social unrest over net zero were irresponsible and populist.
In line with Boris Johnson, he and his colleagues see the prospect of a "green industrial revolution" and the massive investment it will require as fundamental to driving opportunity and stability in the decades to come.
They also view the net zero strategy as the answer to the energy price crisis that is helping to drive up the cost of living, arguing that the switch to renewables and nuclear will eventually provide a greater degree of energy sovereignty and reduce exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices.
Mr Skidmore told Sky News: "My greatest fear is that we end up with this race to the bottom, of… parties wanting to politicise energy prices, politicise net zero, and the only sort of winners in that are going to be the populists.
"We do need to look at making sure that we do tackle the issues around cost of living, that we do make sure that we argue the case that actually net zero is not just about going green, it is about supporting jobs for the future, actually creating an entirely new economy.
"It will be painful and difficult, but we don't, as a result, want to have a reaction that throws it entirely out of the window."
Full story
6) Andy Mayer: Stop posing. Start drilling
The Critic, 21 January 2022
These simple truths of Net Zero are met with a wall of denial akin to utopian communism
And his warning comes amid an escalating cost of living crisis.
Mr Baker told Sky News: "I genuinely believe that when the full costs of net zero start hitting us, if people have never been given a choice at the ballot box, we could end up with something bigger than the poll tax, certainly bigger than Brexit, because the numbers of people hit by it and their inability to cope will be huge.
"I am sick to death of people talking to me about food and fuel poverty, and then piling costs on the poor.
'MPs know this is going to hit all voters and hit them hard'
'Without coal this area cannot exist': The impoverished who rely on India's mining industry after COP26 pledge to go net zero by 2070
"I've started three big projects of MPs on the issue of the day - one on Brexit, one on COVID, which of course affected everybody, and one on net zero.
"Of the three of them, the one that grew fastest by miles was net zero, simply because members of parliament know this is going to hit all voters and hit them hard and hit them fast and they aren't going to like it."
Mr Baker's warning comes as the prime minister is fighting another significant division - battling to regain support from within his party as it responds to the ongoing "partygate" scandal.
The Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which includes former cabinet minister Esther McVey MP, recently signed an open letter demanding the government scrap green levies on energy bills and increase the amount of gas extracted from the North Sea.
But the larger, greener wing of the Conservative party sees things very differently.
Its members point out that some of those belonging to the Net Zero Scrutiny Group are affiliated with the Global Warming Policy Foundation which has been described by scientists as a climate-sceptical organisation responsible for pushing misinformation, something it has denied.
Mr Baker is a trustee of the foundation.
Conservative Environment Network member Chris Skidmore MP said warnings of social unrest over net zero were irresponsible and populist.
In line with Boris Johnson, he and his colleagues see the prospect of a "green industrial revolution" and the massive investment it will require as fundamental to driving opportunity and stability in the decades to come.
They also view the net zero strategy as the answer to the energy price crisis that is helping to drive up the cost of living, arguing that the switch to renewables and nuclear will eventually provide a greater degree of energy sovereignty and reduce exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices.
Mr Skidmore told Sky News: "My greatest fear is that we end up with this race to the bottom, of… parties wanting to politicise energy prices, politicise net zero, and the only sort of winners in that are going to be the populists.
"We do need to look at making sure that we do tackle the issues around cost of living, that we do make sure that we argue the case that actually net zero is not just about going green, it is about supporting jobs for the future, actually creating an entirely new economy.
"It will be painful and difficult, but we don't, as a result, want to have a reaction that throws it entirely out of the window."
Full story
6) Andy Mayer: Stop posing. Start drilling
The Critic, 21 January 2022
These simple truths of Net Zero are met with a wall of denial akin to utopian communism
The current energy crisis, with domestic bills set to rise some 50 per cent in April, has confronted Net Zero-loving Westminster elites with the stark reality of the choices they’ve made.
Twenty-five retail energy companies have gone bust, another has been nationalised, along with a fertiliser plant — so that it can produce carbon dioxide for fizzy drinks — all now featuring as extra costs on either bills or taxes. We are shipping fracked gas from the United States while banning fracking here, and we have undermined investment in the North Sea, while allowing Putin to use Nord Stream 2 as a bargaining chip over the future sovereignty of the Ukraine. It is literally the case that we are using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2, while claiming to lead the world on tackling climate change. Unsurprisingly, no one is following.
This mess is a feature not a bug of Net Zero, or more accurately the ideology that the driving mission of the British Government should be domestic decarbonisation, at any price.
This wasn’t always the case. British energy policy, in recent memory, used to be far more pragmatic. In the 1980s and 90s we led the world in liberalising markets, ending the dominating role of dirtier coal as the dash for gas reduced both costs and the environmental impact of generation. Governments didn’t pick winners; consumers and companies did, and as a result they chose the best and cheapest technology first.
As climate change rose as a concern, we adopted the energy trilemma as our guide. We understood that there were no easy choices and there would always be trade-offs between security of supply, affordability and decarbonisation. We further understood that that was the order in which they should be prioritised when making those choices.
Without security of supply, we don’t have affordability. We end up paying peak capacity prices of £2,000/MWh or more (as we did in November) to stop the lights going out.
Without affordability, we decarbonise more slowly.
Treasure expended on overpaying for already redundant “green crap” cannot then be expended on innovation for cheaper better stuff in future.
With more expensive insecure energy, we cannot competitively manufacture energy intensive products, including the component parts of wind turbines, nuclear power stations and solar panels.
Net Zero ideology creates a “green growth paradox” where measures designed to encourage export-led green growth instead deliver imports and offshoring to regimes with lower efficiency and higher emissions. That is why global emissions are still rising despite the West’s self-flagellation.
These simple truths of Net Zero are met with a wall of denial akin to utopian communism that believes the only real problem is that we haven’t been pure enough. A typical response to concern about current gas prices for example is to claim that we are suffering due to a failure to invest fast enough in new nuclear and renewables decades ago.
Neither proposition stacks up. Nuclear is the little train that couldn’t. Our early experience of trying to “lead the world” in nuclear is a legacy for which we are still paying the bills today. We repeated the mistake recently by signing off Hinkley Point C, despite spiralling costs (£50bn more than claimed) and delays (the Finnish sister plant is ten years late). Nuclear power is not dispatchable; it’s baseload. In the UK this means the maximum contribution of nuclear power to the grid is close to the 20GW of capacity required in summer, not the additional 40GW needed for winter.
Most renewables (wind and solar) provide neither baseload nor reliable dispatchable power. They are weather dependent, meaning they need storage or back-up plants to provide security of supply. It was the fall in wind that caused last year’s price spike through the capacity market. It also takes 5-7 years to plan and deploy. Alongside nuclear, you would need at least 160GW of wind power with 40GW of back-up solutions to ensure security of supply from this source.
The only option for that back-up now, and for at least the next 20-30 years, is gas. Hydropower is geographically restricted, tidal power is hopelessly expensive, battery storage even more so with questions about the availability and sustainability of the materials used to make them. Adding carbon capture and storage to gas power just makes it less efficient, requiring even more to be burnt to create the same output.
Connecting all this together requires reinventing the national grid as a smart network, capable of two-way transmission, with storage options. As a result, grid costs are also rising. This is before we get to heat, where 85 per cent of us are reliant on gas boilers and can’t easily switch to expensive heat pumps, which would increase pressure further on power generation. Or transport where electric cars do the same.
The Government’s plans to change all this, merely by imposing bans and targets by fixed dates, are delusional. That’s not how innovation works, and we simply don’t know what the best solutions might be without allowing consumers to pick the winners for themselves through markets. They need time to test the best by trial and error, allowing change to emerge sustainably. An accelerated shut down of gas heating for example, will at some point cause the collapse of the grid, as each exit renders the cost to those remaining marginally higher, until it isn’t economic to maintain. This blinds us to whether we might need the pipes for biogas or something else.
So, we need gas, and will need gas for at least the next 20-30 years, possibly longer. We’re sitting on vast stockpiles of the stuff: the North Sea is far from drained, and domestic shale reserves are waiting to be tested. There is no sensible ecological or scientific objection to either. “Leave it in the ground” is a morally vacuous pose, that in the absence of alternatives leads to endorsing imports. Claiming those alternatives are just around the corner is clearly dishonest. Claiming we must signal our support for those alternatives by importing not investing is clearly mad. Windfall taxes on the one thing we need right now, are psychotic.
The low carbon transition is going to happen, but it would happen faster and do less harm if we stopped posing and started drilling. What on earth are Parliament waiting for?
Andy Mayer is the COO and Energy Analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs and has 20 years experience working in and commenting on energy matters.
Twenty-five retail energy companies have gone bust, another has been nationalised, along with a fertiliser plant — so that it can produce carbon dioxide for fizzy drinks — all now featuring as extra costs on either bills or taxes. We are shipping fracked gas from the United States while banning fracking here, and we have undermined investment in the North Sea, while allowing Putin to use Nord Stream 2 as a bargaining chip over the future sovereignty of the Ukraine. It is literally the case that we are using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2, while claiming to lead the world on tackling climate change. Unsurprisingly, no one is following.
This mess is a feature not a bug of Net Zero, or more accurately the ideology that the driving mission of the British Government should be domestic decarbonisation, at any price.
This wasn’t always the case. British energy policy, in recent memory, used to be far more pragmatic. In the 1980s and 90s we led the world in liberalising markets, ending the dominating role of dirtier coal as the dash for gas reduced both costs and the environmental impact of generation. Governments didn’t pick winners; consumers and companies did, and as a result they chose the best and cheapest technology first.
As climate change rose as a concern, we adopted the energy trilemma as our guide. We understood that there were no easy choices and there would always be trade-offs between security of supply, affordability and decarbonisation. We further understood that that was the order in which they should be prioritised when making those choices.
Without security of supply, we don’t have affordability. We end up paying peak capacity prices of £2,000/MWh or more (as we did in November) to stop the lights going out.
Without affordability, we decarbonise more slowly.
Treasure expended on overpaying for already redundant “green crap” cannot then be expended on innovation for cheaper better stuff in future.
With more expensive insecure energy, we cannot competitively manufacture energy intensive products, including the component parts of wind turbines, nuclear power stations and solar panels.
Net Zero ideology creates a “green growth paradox” where measures designed to encourage export-led green growth instead deliver imports and offshoring to regimes with lower efficiency and higher emissions. That is why global emissions are still rising despite the West’s self-flagellation.
These simple truths of Net Zero are met with a wall of denial akin to utopian communism that believes the only real problem is that we haven’t been pure enough. A typical response to concern about current gas prices for example is to claim that we are suffering due to a failure to invest fast enough in new nuclear and renewables decades ago.
Neither proposition stacks up. Nuclear is the little train that couldn’t. Our early experience of trying to “lead the world” in nuclear is a legacy for which we are still paying the bills today. We repeated the mistake recently by signing off Hinkley Point C, despite spiralling costs (£50bn more than claimed) and delays (the Finnish sister plant is ten years late). Nuclear power is not dispatchable; it’s baseload. In the UK this means the maximum contribution of nuclear power to the grid is close to the 20GW of capacity required in summer, not the additional 40GW needed for winter.
Most renewables (wind and solar) provide neither baseload nor reliable dispatchable power. They are weather dependent, meaning they need storage or back-up plants to provide security of supply. It was the fall in wind that caused last year’s price spike through the capacity market. It also takes 5-7 years to plan and deploy. Alongside nuclear, you would need at least 160GW of wind power with 40GW of back-up solutions to ensure security of supply from this source.
The only option for that back-up now, and for at least the next 20-30 years, is gas. Hydropower is geographically restricted, tidal power is hopelessly expensive, battery storage even more so with questions about the availability and sustainability of the materials used to make them. Adding carbon capture and storage to gas power just makes it less efficient, requiring even more to be burnt to create the same output.
Connecting all this together requires reinventing the national grid as a smart network, capable of two-way transmission, with storage options. As a result, grid costs are also rising. This is before we get to heat, where 85 per cent of us are reliant on gas boilers and can’t easily switch to expensive heat pumps, which would increase pressure further on power generation. Or transport where electric cars do the same.
The Government’s plans to change all this, merely by imposing bans and targets by fixed dates, are delusional. That’s not how innovation works, and we simply don’t know what the best solutions might be without allowing consumers to pick the winners for themselves through markets. They need time to test the best by trial and error, allowing change to emerge sustainably. An accelerated shut down of gas heating for example, will at some point cause the collapse of the grid, as each exit renders the cost to those remaining marginally higher, until it isn’t economic to maintain. This blinds us to whether we might need the pipes for biogas or something else.
So, we need gas, and will need gas for at least the next 20-30 years, possibly longer. We’re sitting on vast stockpiles of the stuff: the North Sea is far from drained, and domestic shale reserves are waiting to be tested. There is no sensible ecological or scientific objection to either. “Leave it in the ground” is a morally vacuous pose, that in the absence of alternatives leads to endorsing imports. Claiming those alternatives are just around the corner is clearly dishonest. Claiming we must signal our support for those alternatives by importing not investing is clearly mad. Windfall taxes on the one thing we need right now, are psychotic.
The low carbon transition is going to happen, but it would happen faster and do less harm if we stopped posing and started drilling. What on earth are Parliament waiting for?
Andy Mayer is the COO and Energy Analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs and has 20 years experience working in and commenting on energy matters.
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
Instead of kowtowing to eco extremists, the Tories should be taking practical steps to reduce energy costs
The clue’s in the name: the Conservative Party. How can the Conservative Party even think of banning conservatories? Did they miss the memo? How could they be unaware that an attack on conservatory-dwellers is an attack on everything it means to be a Conservative: aspirational, home-owning, family-oriented – and rather proud of the garden?
The proposed restrictions on conservatory building in the name of “net zero” are a red rag to the already enraged core of Britain’s Tory voters.
Such obvious facts are no longer visible from the inner ring of the death spiral that Boris Johnson’s premiership appears to have entered. Instead of throwing things desperately out of the tornado, in the hope that they will catch onto something – Boats! Sonic blasts! Ghana! The BBC! – No 10 ought to reflect upon why the Boris operation is so damnably short of grappling hooks.
Here and there it drifts, sustained only by the occasional outburst of brilliant oratory, like air blasted into a hot-air balloon. The only thing needed to burst the bubble was the pinprick of a scandal like Partygate and hey ho, down it goes.
Soon, however, if Mr Johnson can last that long, the party rage will be spent and he will have an opportunity to do something other than flounder. Here is something he could actually do that would genuinely improve people’s lives: he could start to solve the critical situation in our energy supply.
This situation, unlike supply chain congestion, is entirely a mess of our own making. Rising household bills are now one of the main contributors to inflation, which is outstripping wage growth. Later this year, in spite of the price cap, costs are expected to smash all records set over the last decade, taking us from an average annual bill of around £1,200 to one potentially over £1,500.
At present, the debate on what to do about this centres on fiddling about with VAT, which accounts for 5 per cent of your bill, or company profits, which account for 1-2 per cent. Thanks for nothing, Westminster.
Politicians could move the dial a bit by suspending various green levies and boiler schemes. But the “social” costs loaded onto consumers are in fact mostly made up of redistributive policies like giving discounts to poor households. That is not something it would be wise to suspend during a price spike.
By far the biggest share of our bills is made up of the simple cost of energy on the open market. If the Government is not prepared to pull any levers that increase our energy supply, then there is little it can do to bring down costs.
In fact, for 20 years, governments have been doing the opposite: shutting down coal generation and only partially replacing it with renewable generation, which depends on the weather. They claimed they were “diversifying” supply by building up our ability to import gas. But guess what: it turns out that when gas is choked off at one end of the European continent by pernicious Russian policy, it affects us at the other end, no matter how many pipelines and terminals we have built.
Fortunately for Boris, there is something he could do about this relatively quickly. He could put together a package of incentives to ramp up exploration and production of gas in the North Sea.
Gas producers wouldn’t be able to fill demand in time to affect prices this year, but they could almost certainly raise production enough in the next few years to take the pressure off households and stabilise energy costs for the next decade, giving us valuable time to build a large-scale nuclear energy programme to replace all those coal plants that were hastily shut down.
After all, Norway, whose gas explorers operate just the other side of the North Sea, has managed to keep its reserves steady over the past 30 years, while Britain’s gas industry, treated recklessly as a cash cow by successive governments, has gone into sharp decline.
Nor would this approach mean junking the Government’s net zero aspirations. At present, we import more than a fifth of our gas in liquid form on tankers, one of the most energy inefficient and expensive ways to use the fuel. Domestic production would simply displace a large slice of that consumption and see us through to the low-carbon era.
In the long run, a far more ambitious nuclear programme, improvements in energy storage and a carbon tariff to prevent emissions being moved offshore would enable the UK to deliver lower emissions without becoming the poster-child for how to impoverish yourself through reckless green policies.
There is only one reason why a Conservative Government would shy away from this policy: it’s afraid of the environmentalist movement.
Green protesters are peculiarly parochial in their view of carbon emissions. They think that if the UK produces more of its own gas, it mechanically increases the amount of gas the world uses, ignoring the fact that markets are dynamic. There is no point trying to convince the most zealous of these believers. There will always be another bevy of them waiting to throw themselves onto motorways or block bridges. And if the Government gets serious about reviving domestic energy markets, you can bet the Extinction crew will stop at nothing to sabotage the plan.
Rather than cowering before their roadblocks, Boris should go into battle. It is unacceptable that a tiny minority should determine policy for the rest of the country when households are struggling to manage an extraordinary hit to living standards.
Voters want to see a Prime Minister willing to stand up for their interests with policies that will deliver a noticeable improvement to their lives. They would warm to someone who is tough enough to take a battering dished out by the green establishment. They are tired of instead listening to a dithering man without a plan promising he will “unleash Britain’s potential” by banning conservatories and kiboshing our gas hobs.
I’m among those who believe that a shift to “net zero” energy production is necessary and that Britain can benefit from being at the forefront of it. But there is no future for this agenda if it simply becomes a proxy for a sustained assault on our quality of life, first through our gas bills and then via our home improvements. And there is no future for a prime minister who follows up outrage and scandal with platitudes and joyless, environmentalist finger-wagging.
It’s time to stop telling us what we can’t do and start telling us what we can and will do to improve our lot. Otherwise, Boris might as well just give up now.
8) Gavin Mortimer: The fate of the French Socialists is a warning for Boris Johnson
The Spectator, 21 January 2022
A party which ignores its base is destined for extinction
The defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour has put a spring in the step of the left-wing party. Apparently it marks the start of their revival. Give it two years and Keir Starmer will be waving from the steps of Number 10.
That’s one scenario. A more likely one is that the good people of Bury South will unseat Wakeford at the next general election as Labour suffer another humiliating defeat.
What so many in the Westminster bubble don’t get is that for the average voter in Bury, Basildon or Blyth Valley, ‘partygate’ is not top of their grievances with Boris Johnson. It’s often immigration, tax rises and the nonsense of net zero.
The PM has it within his grasp to launch a spectacular revival of his own if he admits he got it wrong with what David Cameron described as ‘this green crap’.
Johnson, and Keir Starmer, should look to France as a warning of what happens when a political party ignores its base.
Three years ago, I wrote that the Socialist party ‘no longer exists as a coherent political force in France’. The 2022 presidential election campaign has borne that out. Frankly, it’s becoming embarrassing for the Socialists.
Anne Hidalgo is polling at three per cent and the announcement that Christiane Taubira, a former minister in François Hollande’s government, will stand as another left-wing candidate has not set the left alight either.
Small wonder. For many working-class voters she embodies the smug progressive wing of the party, which caused them to abandon the Socialists when she was Minister of Justice. [...]
The defection of Christian Wakeford isn’t the start of a Labour revival. He and his new friends on the backbenches can wear as many Union Flag face masks as they like but they won’t fool the working-class nor make them forget Labour’s position on Brexit.
Their votes will go to the party which ditches the ‘green crap’, does something about illegal immigration and pushes back the progressives. It’s why they voted for Johnson in 2019; it’s why they are so angry now. Hell hath no fury like a voter scorned. And don’t the French Socialists know it.
The Spectator, 21 January 2022
A party which ignores its base is destined for extinction
The defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour has put a spring in the step of the left-wing party. Apparently it marks the start of their revival. Give it two years and Keir Starmer will be waving from the steps of Number 10.
That’s one scenario. A more likely one is that the good people of Bury South will unseat Wakeford at the next general election as Labour suffer another humiliating defeat.
What so many in the Westminster bubble don’t get is that for the average voter in Bury, Basildon or Blyth Valley, ‘partygate’ is not top of their grievances with Boris Johnson. It’s often immigration, tax rises and the nonsense of net zero.
The PM has it within his grasp to launch a spectacular revival of his own if he admits he got it wrong with what David Cameron described as ‘this green crap’.
Johnson, and Keir Starmer, should look to France as a warning of what happens when a political party ignores its base.
Three years ago, I wrote that the Socialist party ‘no longer exists as a coherent political force in France’. The 2022 presidential election campaign has borne that out. Frankly, it’s becoming embarrassing for the Socialists.
Anne Hidalgo is polling at three per cent and the announcement that Christiane Taubira, a former minister in François Hollande’s government, will stand as another left-wing candidate has not set the left alight either.
Small wonder. For many working-class voters she embodies the smug progressive wing of the party, which caused them to abandon the Socialists when she was Minister of Justice. [...]
The defection of Christian Wakeford isn’t the start of a Labour revival. He and his new friends on the backbenches can wear as many Union Flag face masks as they like but they won’t fool the working-class nor make them forget Labour’s position on Brexit.
Their votes will go to the party which ditches the ‘green crap’, does something about illegal immigration and pushes back the progressives. It’s why they voted for Johnson in 2019; it’s why they are so angry now. Hell hath no fury like a voter scorned. And don’t the French Socialists know it.
9) Book review: ‘Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America’
The Washington Times, 20 January 2022
Failing to convince adults of a climate crisis, the sky-is-falling tale is targeting school kids
By Anthony J. Sadar
Apparently, not enough students are getting the message of an impending global climate disaster, or if they are offered the message, not enough of them are buying it.
This essentially is the conclusion of the book “Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America” by Katie Worth. Miseducation blames a usual suspect, of course, Big Oil. Ill-informed parents are also to blame. And conservatives, especially conservative Christians, are culpable.
It seems left-wing ideology that permeates and controls much of the climate science narrative and that constantly broadcasts the earth’s dire future via media, higher education, entertainment, environmentalist literature including pedagogic material, and non-stop activism is not working to enlighten the masses to an ostensive obvious truth.
So, failing to adequately convince adults of a climate crisis, the sky-is-falling tale is targeting school children.
But more must be done. Children, who have a limited perspective and are more prone than most adults to think with their emotions, are the clear target for the nasty-climate narrative.
Yet, the issue is how science is viewed today and then shown to students as a settled fact to be believed and acted upon. In a still free society, sensing indoctrination rather than education, parents all the more want to be in charge of their children’s education. So, society has a lot to say about what goes into textbooks and what is taught in class.
When it comes to educating American children, Miseducation seems to lean to the “experts know best” mindset, whether the experts are in science, education, or politics. So, unquestionable “settled science,” professional education opinion, and leftist government policy should dictate what parents’ children learn.
Miseducation covers many in-school observations of climate-change education, from interviews with teachers who are skeptical or hesitant about teaching the climate issue to those who are champions of final-form climate science. The book provides a wide-ranging analysis of climate content in textbooks and curriculums. Noted is the well-known fact that the teacher’s attitude and depth of knowledge are exceptionally important to the intake of information, especially by younger students.
Miseducation admits, “research shows that even teachers who accept the science often do a subpar job of teaching it, particularly if they don’t have a good grasp of it themselves.” This is an important finding since the less a teacher knows about a topic, the more they need to trust leftist-sanctioned experts and simply disseminate facts that may be saturated with ideology. Such teachers are ill-equipped to evaluate and develop the climate information being taught.
Nevertheless, in the end, it all apparently comes down to time and money. Miseducation supports the idea that decades-long assault from Big Industry has infiltrated what should be common knowledge.
Ostensible common knowledge consists of “five big facts”: the climate crisis is real, humans cause it, it’s bad, all agreeable scientists agree, but there’s hope. Okay, I made up that “all agreeable scientists agree” point. The book identifies that “fact” as “Experts agree.”
Nuance on the “facts” seems to be disallowed along with independent thinking. “You’re in, or you’re out” on this climate disaster thing.
Many of us “subject-matter experts” who have some qualms about climate hysteria know that the climate has warmed, fossil-fuel burning has likely contributed substantially to the warming, climate modeling is a helpful but imperfect tool to project future climate conditions, and mitigation of and preparation for future effects are warranted.
Holding advanced degrees in science and education and retired from a 40-year career in atmospheric science, I have a personal interest in the attacks on settled-science challengers tendered in Miseducation. The book seems to imply that those who are skeptical of the climate change consensus are shills for big money interests.
For the record, I have never been funded by Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Environment, Big Grant Money, or Big Anything Else. However, I may have some culpability concerning Big Government since the largest portion of my career involved working for a local government agency partially funded by the federal government. (Oh, and I occasionally enjoy a cigar, but that’s my closest affiliation with Big Tobacco.)
Regardless, like practically all scientists — and yes, even those who work for the industry — I have maintained the highly cherished characteristic of integrity.
Of course, it’s integrity that activists and their organizations, referenced in Miseducation, imply is lacking in those who challenge the status quo on climate change.
That reflexive denigrating of veracious atmospheric scientists who challenge the established narrative of calamitous climate change is perhaps the most disturbing action of leftist activists.
• Anthony J. Sadar, a Certified Consulting Meteorologist, is the author of In Global Warming We Trust: Too Big to Fail (Stairway Press, 2016).
The Washington Times, 20 January 2022
Failing to convince adults of a climate crisis, the sky-is-falling tale is targeting school kids
By Anthony J. Sadar
Apparently, not enough students are getting the message of an impending global climate disaster, or if they are offered the message, not enough of them are buying it.
This essentially is the conclusion of the book “Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America” by Katie Worth. Miseducation blames a usual suspect, of course, Big Oil. Ill-informed parents are also to blame. And conservatives, especially conservative Christians, are culpable.
It seems left-wing ideology that permeates and controls much of the climate science narrative and that constantly broadcasts the earth’s dire future via media, higher education, entertainment, environmentalist literature including pedagogic material, and non-stop activism is not working to enlighten the masses to an ostensive obvious truth.
So, failing to adequately convince adults of a climate crisis, the sky-is-falling tale is targeting school children.
But more must be done. Children, who have a limited perspective and are more prone than most adults to think with their emotions, are the clear target for the nasty-climate narrative.
Yet, the issue is how science is viewed today and then shown to students as a settled fact to be believed and acted upon. In a still free society, sensing indoctrination rather than education, parents all the more want to be in charge of their children’s education. So, society has a lot to say about what goes into textbooks and what is taught in class.
When it comes to educating American children, Miseducation seems to lean to the “experts know best” mindset, whether the experts are in science, education, or politics. So, unquestionable “settled science,” professional education opinion, and leftist government policy should dictate what parents’ children learn.
Miseducation covers many in-school observations of climate-change education, from interviews with teachers who are skeptical or hesitant about teaching the climate issue to those who are champions of final-form climate science. The book provides a wide-ranging analysis of climate content in textbooks and curriculums. Noted is the well-known fact that the teacher’s attitude and depth of knowledge are exceptionally important to the intake of information, especially by younger students.
Miseducation admits, “research shows that even teachers who accept the science often do a subpar job of teaching it, particularly if they don’t have a good grasp of it themselves.” This is an important finding since the less a teacher knows about a topic, the more they need to trust leftist-sanctioned experts and simply disseminate facts that may be saturated with ideology. Such teachers are ill-equipped to evaluate and develop the climate information being taught.
Nevertheless, in the end, it all apparently comes down to time and money. Miseducation supports the idea that decades-long assault from Big Industry has infiltrated what should be common knowledge.
Ostensible common knowledge consists of “five big facts”: the climate crisis is real, humans cause it, it’s bad, all agreeable scientists agree, but there’s hope. Okay, I made up that “all agreeable scientists agree” point. The book identifies that “fact” as “Experts agree.”
Nuance on the “facts” seems to be disallowed along with independent thinking. “You’re in, or you’re out” on this climate disaster thing.
Many of us “subject-matter experts” who have some qualms about climate hysteria know that the climate has warmed, fossil-fuel burning has likely contributed substantially to the warming, climate modeling is a helpful but imperfect tool to project future climate conditions, and mitigation of and preparation for future effects are warranted.
Holding advanced degrees in science and education and retired from a 40-year career in atmospheric science, I have a personal interest in the attacks on settled-science challengers tendered in Miseducation. The book seems to imply that those who are skeptical of the climate change consensus are shills for big money interests.
For the record, I have never been funded by Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Environment, Big Grant Money, or Big Anything Else. However, I may have some culpability concerning Big Government since the largest portion of my career involved working for a local government agency partially funded by the federal government. (Oh, and I occasionally enjoy a cigar, but that’s my closest affiliation with Big Tobacco.)
Regardless, like practically all scientists — and yes, even those who work for the industry — I have maintained the highly cherished characteristic of integrity.
Of course, it’s integrity that activists and their organizations, referenced in Miseducation, imply is lacking in those who challenge the status quo on climate change.
That reflexive denigrating of veracious atmospheric scientists who challenge the established narrative of calamitous climate change is perhaps the most disturbing action of leftist activists.
• Anthony J. Sadar, a Certified Consulting Meteorologist, is the author of In Global Warming We Trust: Too Big to Fail (Stairway Press, 2016).
10) And finally: Face mask for cows among finalists for Prince Charles' climate crisis prize
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
The Prince of Wales’ prize to save the planet has unveiled its 20 finalists, including a funeral reef, seaweed paper and a face mask for cows.
The Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2022
The Prince of Wales’ prize to save the planet has unveiled its 20 finalists, including a funeral reef, seaweed paper and a face mask for cows.
The Terra Carter Design Lab, launched by the Prince and Sir Jony Ive, has whittled 125 submissions from students down to a final list of ideas to best solve the “climate crisis”.
They include a computer game to simulate saving the arctic ice, a new textile to make environmentally-friendly sports clothes and technology which mimics how Saharan silver ants keep cool in the desert.
One project, called ZELP, involves a “wearable device” for cows which looks like a face mask covering the animal’s nose. It is designed to “neutralise methane emissions in real time” for some of the 1.6 billion cattle on Earth.
Full story
They include a computer game to simulate saving the arctic ice, a new textile to make environmentally-friendly sports clothes and technology which mimics how Saharan silver ants keep cool in the desert.
One project, called ZELP, involves a “wearable device” for cows which looks like a face mask covering the animal’s nose. It is designed to “neutralise methane emissions in real time” for some of the 1.6 billion cattle on Earth.
Full story
The London-based Net Zero Watch is a campaign group set up to highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. The Net Zero Watch newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.netzerowatch.com.
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