Politics in the mainstream media is entirely seen through the prism of the relentless race to the right of the Tory leadership election. The only people who can vote are two football crowds worth of overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, comparatively wealthy, mostly pensionable, overwhelmingly southern, people.
Brexit and the folding of UKIP into the Tory Party has changed the membership profile of the Tory Party. There are not many Dominic Greive comparative liberals still hanging in there. The typical Tory member used to be somebody like Miss Marple and her friends at St Mary Mead. It is now the St Mary Mead racist pub bore with a Jaguar.
The racist is of course key. People here get very upset every time I point out the exhaustively documented fact that the major motive of those voting for Brexit was anti-immigrant. I certainly accept that not all Brexiteers are racists. But all racists are Brexiteers.
The farce of the Tory leadership contest is that the inane Liz Truss is bound to win because of her skin colour. It is an entirely pointless exercise.
The prism of the Tory leadership contest has led the media to devote many column inches to the question of whether the massive energy bill increases should be tackled in part by tax cuts (Truss) or “handouts” (Sunak). Actual solutions, like renationalising the utility companies and imposing a 4% price increase cap as in France, are scarcely mentioned. These need to be adopted now to cope with the immediate emergency and provide the long term way forward.
Mentioned even less is the most obvious and urgent part of the solution – to consume less energy, as climate change roasts the planet.
A massive emergency mobilisation of resource to insulate existing buildings is the obvious first step. Every building should be insulated, at government expense, to the maximum practicable level. The homes of the poor should be the first priority – and are in general the worst insulated. Such a programme, on a wartime scale of mobilisation, would pump demand into the economy as it plunges into recession and provide massive employment opportunity.
This is true of every stage – the tooling up of production facilities and creation of raw materials as well as the actual installation. It seems to me so obvious a move that it is beyond me why the only people pushing it have to glue themselves to roads to get attention.
There are obvious other things to do, like reinstate attractive feed-in tariffs for domestic solar energy backed by government loans to cover installation costs, and make conversion to heat pumps free for those on benefits.
The Overton window has shrunk so small, the intellectual reach of public discourse is so enchained by neo-liberalism, that there appears no ability of the mind to respond appropriately to crisis. No solution can be attempted unless it makes some billionaires immeasurably richer. Society needs to awaken; people need to shed their chains.
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All so glaringly obvious that people must see the logic, even those who oppose it. They would argue against it if they had any arguments. But they pretend not to see and the BBC et al are complicit.
We need XR and Insulate Britain to do their attention grabbing stunts and escalate or it would never get a mention.
XR and Insulate Britain are just the worst. Then again they completely illustrate the demographic that is to the fore on climate hysteria.
The same group that would sign away all of their liberty for some minor illness. That would sign away their security to promote a NATO proxy war. That would trample on womens’ rights to assert that men are women. That would deride themselves and their ‘race’ because of police brutality in Minneapolis.
Climate is the same record with the same outcomes. Quasi-religious fervour with political aims. And based on junk. Useful idiots for the world elites.
you’re a fool if you believe what you wrote.
You’re a fool if you believe what you wrote.
See what I did there?
– “See what I did there?”
Yes, I think I do; you repeated some viewpoints without considering evidence or justice.
The Arctic melts away for the first time in millions of years and you called the reaction hysteria. The death rate goes off the chart and kids start getting hepatitis and you called the cause a minor illness. People start challenging the gender roles expected of them and you called them bigots. People objecting to murder of oppressed minorities you dismissed as fools. Then you conflated all of them with warmongers to argue that they shouldn’t act politically to change such injustices.
Well said. It makes you a science-denying racist though, I’m afraid. And you’re not alt-right, you’re far-right in today’s money. And somehow denying warmongering fascists also makes you a fascist.
I guarantee you’ve been shadow-banned on a few platforms, labelled as a terrorist or worse. GCHQ and CIA Magdelene laundry nuns will probably have threatened you in a comment section somewhere too… for being a misogynist.
Yes, you made a stupid reply. You didn’t back up your ignorant and meaningless assertion that “climate is the same record with the same outcomes”, by which I take it you mean that the climate is not changing, despite the evidence.
Dear Pretzel, I think where you wrote evidence you meant propaganda. Please don’t bother with some cherry picked statements, because both sides can cherry pick.
Personally, I would be embarrassed to be on the same side as the BBC who are known liars.
Murray wrote above that “the major motive of those voting for Brexit was anti-immigrant”. Yes, that was one of the main ideological drives but Ashcroft’s super-poll in 2016 identified a few others when asking about ‘forces for good/bad in the world’.
These included (and thanks to ‘Davie’ for the reminder) environmentalism, feminism, and social liberalism. The ‘big hates’ however were indeed multiculturalism and immigration.
One can only wonder what would have been the case if ‘The Rona’ had happened in 2013 rather than 2020. What price Covid security, masks and all, would not have been ‘weaponised’ for Brexit?
“These included (and thanks to ‘Davie’ for the reminder) environmentalism, feminism, and social liberalism. The ‘big hates’ however were indeed multiculturalism and immigration.”
These things are not peculiar to the EU so what diference has Brexit made on them?
There are so many strawmen here Taxi. I’d consider myself relatively on-board and liberal with all of those issues. However:
Environmentalism does not mean panic at every sunny day or hair shirt measures that will achieve nothing. The climate has changed on earth for millennia and frequently through the course of documented human history. I’m only middle-aged yet can recall the coming ice-age in the 70s, acid rain in the 80s, the hole in the ozone layer in the 90s and ‘days to save the planet’ climate conferences in the 00s. Forgive me if I view the current incarnation with a degree of scepticism.
Not sure where my comment puts me at odds with feminism. If you’re conflating my observation about the trans-cult as being opposed to feminism/social liberalism then au contraire. It seems I’m standing four square with the feminists and if this is social liberalism then perhaps you have a point.
Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
6:08 PM · Aug 11, 2022
Boston Children’s Hospital (@BostonChildrens) is now offering “gender affirming hysterectomies” for young girls
These medical monsters are maiming autistic, gay and disturbed children and their days in court are coming ever nearer.
Immigration has lots of positives and negatives. It doesn’t play a prominent role in my voting preferences. Given the amount time I spend recreationally in Govanhill multiculturalism isn’t a trigger:)
I love (well, despise) the term covid security. Evil is always so benign. Was it secure for older people, especially in homes, to be deprived of all contact in their final years? Was it secure for children to be deprived of meaningful schooling and social interaction? Was it covid secure for the real workers of the world, the drivers, the food processers, the supermarket staff to continue to work as normal while the laptop class remained shuttered and served at home? Was it covid secure enacting the biggest wealth transfer to the rich in human history? Has it improved your security printing of billions of £s to enable people to not work leading to hyper-inflation? Enjoy your covid security on your next weekly shop.
I voted for Scotland to become independent on a socialist platform. I voted to remain in the EU (though am far from in love with the bureaucracy).
What we have witnessed in recent years is a hysterical group think on a number of issues that replicate religious crisis of the past. If you don’t give your heart and soul belief then you are wrong, most likely evil and should be shunned, shamed and probably killed. And if you think this is hyperbole think back only recently to the discourse and treatment relating to ‘anti-vaxxers’.
I’m a Jimmy Reid type socialist yet have become alt-right, covidiot, anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, transphopic, Trumpian, Putin’s useful idiot, climate denier all within the last few years. To misquote the man ‘I didn’t leave the mob, the mob left me’.
Davie quotes “libs of tik-tok”, thinking that is actually evidence. Jesus.
With sources like that, it’s pretty obvious how he became so profoundly deluded and mal-informed.
How about 4chan, 8chan, or even Qanon? Some really top-notch “evidence” to be had there too! Evidence of the gullibility, stupidity, and bigotry of its users, that is.
The climate has changed for aeons, not millennia, but never at anything remotely approaching the rate it is changing now (link one, link two), and not in human history – ice ages punctuated by interglacial periods is the current climate – or rather was, until humans changed it. Climate science in the 1970s did not predict an imminent ice age; that was just the usual bullshit sensationalism from the corporate media (search term). There really was acid rain in the 1980s, it extensively blighted European forests, and it was halted by environmental regulations (snark). There really was ozone depletion in the 1990s, and it was halted by an international treaty called the Montreal Protocol, but the corporate media had “moved on”, as usual.
Had you exercised scepticism you’d already know all this, so I can’t forgive you for what you haven’t bothered to do.
– “I’m a Jimmy Reid type socialist yet have become alt-right, covidiot, anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, transphopic, Trumpian, Putin’s useful idiot, climate denier all within the last few years.”
Well stop, then. Try the book Bad Science by Ben Goldacre; it teaches scepticism.
Davie, your source may be right that there is professionalised exploitative abuse occurring in a Boston hospital. However, (1) it would not discredit climate science or science in general, and (2) you have demonstrated a poor track record of sceptical examination of other issues, so please forgive me for not following your link; I’m busy, I have other things to look into.
Yes, the British government demonstrated massive incompetence, corruption and prejudice in its handling of the pandemic. Yes, neoliberalism uses all disasters and suffering to move yet more billions to those already richest; that is its purpose.
But scientists are not the elite. Your opinions about science are like claiming that the bin men aren’t really empting the bins, they’re just pretending to on behalf of their bosses, really they put even more rubbish in them to make it look like people produce far more rubbish these days.
Work does actually get done. You have to go and look at it to see what’s good and bad about it. Bad Science and then Bad Pharma. See how deception is really done.
In reply to Davie (August 12, 2022 at 11:00)
My original post was an attempt to focus on the consensus of ideas that informed the Brexit vote, and a gentle speculation that that consensus might have focussed on Covid-sceptics should the pandemic have predated the Brexit vote. My reading on this was light, as it seems not to have been widely investigated, however a paper by Levin and Bradshaw stated in its conclusion “Skepticism about COVID-19 and hesitancy regarding SARS-CoV-2 vaccination are highest among the political and religious right.”. That is meet with my own experience.
Your reply then mapped out a climate sceptic view that (as I am sure you anticipated) is – shall we say – controversial. I regret that cannot share your optimism. In respect of atmospheric climate in recent years, that is our lifetimes, strong variants have been experienced before a brief return to a degree of normalcy. However, deep sea temperatures are exceedingly long term stable, or were. Rising deep sea temperatures allied to observed atmospheric phenomenon, together with a substantive (well established) model carry the argument over the balance of probabilities. In such circumstances it seems prudent to do whatever we can collectively and individually to minimise the risk, providing doing so does minimum harm in the context of the magnitude of the threat. That seems to be an entirely rational position.
The reference to feminism was entirely in the context of the findings of Ashcroft (i.e amongst Brexit supporters, 78% of Brexit supporters “thought feminism a force for ill in the world”. In short, those who held that view were overwhelmingly likely to support Brexit. It wasn’t in response to anything you wrote.
I really should end there but I would like to formly disassociate myself from your views on gender dysphoria in children. I’m afraid to say that my real world experience of the issue has led me to a radical change of mind; parents facing this rare but extremely dangerous condition need, and I hope deserve all the support that they can get. Similarly, as one whose life has been irrevocably changed (for the worse) by Covid, I fear that despite our mutual admiration for Jimmy Reid, we seem to have little else in common.
Glen NL…you really are symptomatic of the malaise in current ‘thinking’. Shoot the messenger. I was well aware that the ‘libs of tiktok’ link would elicit this response and was dubious about posting. However I saw the video from other sources, it was on YouTube and the hospital have tried to destroy all evidence in a giant arse-covering episode. Libs has it captured though and that was the easiest platform to view it. Have a watch. Gut churning medical mispractice and child abuse. Does the site matter? Only to those wishing to obfuscate and avoid the point.
The whole furore about libs of tiktok is insightful mind. I’m sure she’s a pretty awful person but all she is doing is showcasing ‘leftwing’ (and they ain’t leftwing by my definition) videos placed online by the protagonists themselves. It’s hardly Alex Jones.
I also see you’ve called someone supporting my comment a flat-earther. Can I add that to the list of insults I’ve accrued? I do realise the attraction of taking corporate sponsored science at face value. Saves you exploring alternatives, means you’re with the crowd, you can voice your thoughts loudly and arrogantly in public with little pushback and deride dissent with ‘flat earth’ insults.
It isn’t like the prevailing scientific consensus has ever been misplaced. Is it?
Sure, you can have flat-Earther, Davie – you’ve earned it.
I like your argument that because science as it was understood was wrong at one point, it’s now all BS and can be completely dismissed in its entirety forever. Likewise, this laptop I’m using and the Internet itself – built upon many layers of technology (much of which didn’t work and went in the wrong direction at various points) must also be a complete con, a load of crap which doesn’t work at all and couldn’t possibly ever work. Makes sense!
Your arguments are a tiresome collection of the usual far-right clap-trap – a combination of denialism, bigotry and flat out untruths. Happy Trumping.
“because science as it was understood was wrong at one point, it’s now all BS and can be completely dismissed in its entirety forever.”
If you actually bother to investigate the science behind AGW, you will find that there is no “greenhouse effect” and that CO2 has no influence on the temperature of the planet. That’s science as in physics, mind you, not “science” as in “climate science”. “Climate science” is not science as it doesn’t follow the scientific method. It does not offer its theories and hypotheses to be challenged and possibly disproved by repetition of the experiments on which they were based (the Scientific Method). It does not welcome debate and scepticism, but hands down its statements as holy writ not to be questioned and denigrates scepticism with insults (denier, flat-earther). The man who originally came up with the idea is on record as saying that he would not produce the source material on which the whole theory was based, because someone would use it to try to prove him wrong, i.e. him being right was more important than the truth.
So you reckon you’ve “investigated the science” then, Bayard?
All I see from you is a standard collection of denials, dismissals and ‘scepticism’. Nothing of substance whatsoever.
What is your scholarship on the subject? Done any primary research yourself, or have you been examining the evidence of others?
Because we cannot repeat experiments – on the entire planet! – to prove various hypothesis, the whole thing can be tossed out, you reckon. That has to be the stupidest assertion I’ve come across for a while.
As I presume you have bothered to investigate the science behind the theory of AGW, Bayard, can I ask if you have a reference for Joseph Fourier not being willing to produce the source material on which his theory that carbon dioxide and water vapour in the air leads to increased warming of the atmosphere by incident sunlight? My French is a little rusty but I should just about be able to manage. As I’m sure you know, the first person to demonstrate that CO2 gets hotter than dry air when both are exposed to the same amount of sunlight was a woman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Newton_Foote
(I’ve replied to your reply to my comment about infantry tactics inter alia on the previous blogpost, in case you haven’t already seen it.)
Bayard, you can demonstrate the heat absorbing property of CO2 in your own kitchen; the internet can show you how. There’s no need for arguments about who has and who lacked scientific authority in bygone centuries, so arguments like that are obviously concocted to just to kick sand into our eyes.
“So you reckon you’ve “investigated the science” then, Bayard?”
Yes I have, the physics, that is.
“What is your scholarship on the subject? Done any primary research yourself, or have you been examining the evidence of others?”
A physics “A” level and, yes, I have been examining the evidence of others, starting with Sir Isaac Newton.
“Because we cannot repeat experiments – on the entire planet! – to prove various hypothesis, the whole thing can be tossed out, you reckon”
No, you reckon. You don’t have to do experiments on the entire planet. All the experiments which have produced the various theories on the behaviour of gases and radiation have already been done in the last five hundred years. All we need to do is apply those theories to the gases, liquids and radiation that we are studying. The whole theory of AGW is founded on the interaction of single carbon diioxide molecules with electromagnetic radiation, not the totality of the atmosphere.
“you have a reference for Joseph Fourier not being willing to produce the source material on which his theory that carbon dioxide and water vapour in the air leads to increased warming of the atmosphere by incident sunlight?”
Well no, because this isn’t about Joseph Fourier and you know that. In any case, any experiment that shows that carbon dioxide and water vapour in the air leads to increased warming of the atmosphere by incident sunlight doesn’t say anything about the role of CO2 on its own, does it?
“Bayard, you can demonstrate the heat absorbing property of CO2 in your own kitchen; the internet can show you how. “
How about a link?
Bayard: Ok, so now we’re getting to it. Armed with your physics A level, and in your spare time, you’ve investigated the evidence of all scientists since Newton ?
Glad we have your credentials on the table at last! Now I can properly weigh your dismissive attitude about climate science against the many thousands of highly qualified people who have dedicated their entire lives to the subject.
– “How about a link?”
How about using a search engine? There are quite a few available these days – which is remarkable in itself, considering that the entire technical community has apparently been crafting a grand coordinated, self-consistent web of lies since the time of Newton.
How about thinking about it? You’ll need two transparent bottles with stoppers, two thermometers, an incandescent desk lamp, and a source of CO2 such as a soda syphon cartridge or a fire extinguisher – I suggest you get the latter considering the current drought.
Bayard, since you seem to like reading about physics, here are a couple of physicists for you. In the first link, the second section “My Programming on Climate Change” is probably most relevant:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2021/12/my-brainwashing/
– “The final step is an understanding of heat transfer and radiative transport in the atmosphere—both of which I have enough personal context to comfortably assess and understand (believe?). Radiative heat transfer is dear to my heart, and I have made loads of personal measurements/confirmations of how this process works. I have thoroughly explored my world using a thermal-infrared camera, performing supporting calculations; dealt with cryogenics in which radiative heat transfer is an enemy that must be well understood/quantified; validated planetary surface temperatures based on this phenomenon; and obtained countless spectra of stars and galaxies that emit radiative power. No talking head can undo all that personal experience. Also, like all astronomers, my observations have been constrained by atmospheric transmission windows, and I know what happens when I try or hope to get infrared light through the atmosphere at absorbed wavelengths. Those absorption features are real and limit the wavelengths I could observe. It’s not just words in a textbook, for me, but direct experiences at observatories where I have (not) seen the blocked wavelengths with my own tools.”
And the physics of the various “CO2 can’t cause global heating” arguments:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2022/04/20/the-greenhouse-effect-2/
But this is all rather silly. The greenhouse effect is required for an understanding of the surface temperatures on all the planets, not just Earth, so unless the Earth scientists are conspiring to use fake physical constants or suchlike…
Thanks for your reply Bayard. As well as being the first to describe his eponymous series and transforms, Joseph Fourier is generally considered to be the first person to propose that gases in the atmosphere are making the Earth’s surface warmer than it should be – but if you’re not referring to him, can I ask who you are referring to?
Mrs Newton Foote first showed that CO2 alone became hotter than dry air when exposed to the sun’s rays. However, maybe it was a case of scientific fraud which has never been corrected. If you can show her results to be false, Big Oil would certainly be very interested, as would many other people because it would mean that we could keep burning fossil fuels at current rates for many more decades without any serious consequences.
“You’ll need two transparent bottles with stoppers, two thermometers, an incandescent desk lamp, and a source of CO2 such as a soda syphon cartridge or a fire extinguisher”
Well no. What you are trying to measure is the difference between the normal atmosphere, including its small percentage of CO2 and the same atmosphere with no CO2. So you need something to take the CO2 out, not put more in. Any experiment with many hundred times the concentration of CO2 that there is in the atmosphere such as you describe is meaningless, as it depends on extrapolation.
“The greenhouse effect is required for an understanding of the surface temperatures on all the planets, not just Earth, so unless the Earth scientists are conspiring to use fake physical constants or suchlike…”
Except that there is no greenhouse effect on Mars, despite there being more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is on Earth.
B:
“Except that there is no greenhouse effect on Mars, despite there being more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is on Earth. “
There is hardly any atmosphere on Mars.
Are you trying to be funny, or are you seriously this ignorant and arguing from a know-nothing position? You’re aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect, right? This is the kindest explanation for your output, at least on this subject.
TED-Ed: Why incompetent people think they’re amazing (David Dunning) – YouTube, 5m 7s
Venus is the best example. Did you know people like you used to live there? Republicans, oil industry AGW deniers and their useful, erm, people who helped them out? Sure. And now look at it, all down to global warming.
Read up and try to learn something before confidently and assertively talking utter rubbish:
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Greenhouse_effects_also_on_other_planets
OK Bayard, do that experiment instead. Then write it up and publish it; by overturning standard radiative theory you’ll stand a good chance of winning a Nobel prize.
If you disprove standard radiative theory but you can’t get it published “because of the conspiracy”, I shall attempt to replicate your results. There are multiple scientists and technical people who comment at this site; I’m sure they’d be interested in overturning an entire scientific paradigm too.
But for heaven’s sake do some experiment, rather than just repeating received “wisdom” you gleaned from marginal websites.
Bayard:
– “You don’t have to do experiments on the entire planet.”
But we effectively are doing an experiment on the entire planet. We’re finding out empirically what happens when we artificially increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration at breakneck speed.
And you cheated; you moved the goalposts. Your original claim was “there is no “greenhouse effect” and […] CO2 has no influence on the temperature of the planet”. That has since morphed into a variant of “the CO2 concentration is too low to make any difference”, standard doubt as manufactured by the fossil fuel companies.
– “Any experiment with many hundred times the concentration of CO2 that there is in the atmosphere such as you describe is meaningless, as it depends on extrapolation.”
No. For it to predict surface temperature would depend on interpolation which is far more reliable, but in any case I didn’t make such a claim, I merely used the experiment to disprove your original claim that “there is no “greenhouse effect” and […] CO2 has no influence on the temperature of the planet”.
– “there is no greenhouse effect on Mars”
Yes there is; about 6° centigrade.
Well said, Davie
Yes hear hear to Davie !
We seem to be living in crazy times, I wonder what other mind-altering drugs were incorporated into the Covid vaccines, so that the world has gone so mad.
Any Climate Change is due to natural forces, it is not in the gift of man to change it, not ever. Many are finally waking up to what is going on, although there are other useful idiots, some on this thread, who really don’t know any better but who really should do.
God’s sake… another flat-Earther.
Beats me how you hard-of-thinking people even manage to get online, with your rejection of science, reason, logic, or even the slightest abilty to show any sense or rationality.
Sooner or later, people like glenn_nl will wake up from their cognitive dissonance and realise they have been had all along. Fed lie after lie about climate change, global warming, ozone layer depletion, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, Martian invasions and the coming apocalypse and finally see it for what it all is – a money grab by the elite to make them richer and everyone else poor enabled by a massive con trick and self-inflicted group think. Do you think the Chinese or Indians give a frig about your climate change infatuation? They are laughing at you all the way to the bank. They mug you off, and you have no idea of the game they play with you. An innocent in the headlights.
Parky:
“Sooner or later, people like glenn_nl will wake up from their cognitive dissonance and realise they have been had all along.“
I have to admit in being in awe of people like you, Parky. You have uncovered any number of fantastic, world-wide conspiracies at so many levels. Entire branches of science and technology, through innumerous public and academic bodies, worldwide, and they’re _all_ lying. Every last one of them, at every level, all bought off. And you’ve seen through them all.
Happily, though, there are some brave little freedom fighters for the truth on your side! Those beset fossil-fuel industry philanthropists are putting the $2Billion/day they’ve been getting since the 1960’s to work – telling the Truth! Saying there’s really nothing to worry about. Thank God for them, and the Religious Right – that much put-upon group has also been on your side, calling out the lies. Lucky they’re so well funded, eh?
Mind you, the likes of Esso, Shell, and Exxon did put their own scientists to work decades ago, and they lied! They predicted there would be global warming! So obviously, even in such noble institutions, there are liars there too.
—-
I’m afraid it’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation with someone like you, Parky. You are so beyond reason, it’s utterly pointless. Have a good day.
One day the penny will drop, and you will see the light. For the moment, carry on being a useful idiot doing the bidding of the rich and powerful.
Of course. I aspire to your level of scholarship and enlightenment, and work towards it on a daily basis.
Climate change is a scientific fact: the planet is changing for the worse.
The right wing in the US have just removed womens rights: the same crowd who want walls built to keep out the imaginary hoards of non-whites. And the same crowd who support gun laws.
Justice is not something we can pick and chose. Yet that is exactly what the right-wing want to do. There is no doubt at all that the at least some police are motivated by racism. That includes killing people – murder.
Racism, climate change denial, lies, crocidile tears over rights are the all the right have.
Well said Davie!
Davie – you have hit the nail on the head there. Quite agree with you.
Completely agree. Even more astonishing is that the idea of insulating homes dates back to the 1970s at least. Many of us including Friends of the Earth were advocating government subsidies for insulating homes. FoE even provided admin support so that the Department of Energy didn’t need to use up so much staff time. The scheme provided work for the unemployed, reduced bills for the poorest and reduced imports of energy and of course helped to reduce the danger of climate change. The government provided a very small budget which limited the impact. So now we are in the fifth decade of governments failing to act.
“The racist is of course key. People here get very upset every time I point out the exhaustively documented fact that the major motive of those voting for Brexit was anti-immigrant. I certainly accept that not all Brexiteers are racists. But all racists are Brexiteers.”
Not all liberals are (Noble Savage) racists, but all (Noble Savage) racists are liberals. There – fixed it for you.
(Like Wings Over Scotland, I reserve the right to “return” to correct reactionary bullshit).
The idea of the ‘noble savage’ was based on indigenous Americans living as noble men, ie. spending their time hunting and fishing. The idea that the term suggests there is nobility in savagery was the same sort of mistake as thinking Lord of the Flies is about the natural tendency toward domination and violence, rather than an expression of the dominance and violence that shaped the boys at boarding school. When they ‘went native’ they took the British institution with them. Indeed, the people that we called ‘savages’ were arguably more socially advanced, and were largely responsible for our Enlightenment. This is especially hilarious as it means ‘the West’ need not feel guilty about our culture as we got it from ‘the savages.’ That is, we got the civilised bits from the savages, while maintaining the coercive bits from the past. I don’t think this can get any funnier
To be fair though hasn’t there long been some kind of insulation initiative already? I forget the details but I do remember being turned down for an insulation grant in 2012 because I had the wrong sort of roof.
The problems we face in UK today cannot be fixed by filling people’s lofts with fibreglass. The candidate finally declared as prime minister is going to be faced with “thinking the unthinkable” in respect of public spending and continuing support of the residential housing asset bubble.
Oh and abandoning the unwinnable dick-waving contest with certain foreign powers would be nice.
‘To be fair though hasn’t there long been some kind of insulation initiative already?’
Yes – loft and cavity wall insulation being the obvious schemes – and the low hanging fruit has been picked.
Neither are heat pumps a silver bullet for retrofit in existing properties. Space limitations, outside heat exchanger/fan unit (for air to water which would normally be the most appropriate), community systems for high density housing, low output temp (perhaps integrate with other heating systems), high cost ….
Easy spiels with limited practicality. Any funding scheme should be based on a competent assessment and report in their likely practicality/cost rather than a political ‘Arlene Foster’ decree.
I have a friend who was the victim of a scam perpetrated by a “here today, gone tomorrow” cavity wall filling company which filled her walls without considering the fact that her house was completely unsuitable for the procedure. She has had damp ever since and no means of redressing the wrong done as the company (fat with government subsidies) has melted into the earth. I am surprised the candidates are not supporting another insulation scheme, given that such profiteering is exactly what Truss and her acolytes admire. When these necessary steps are taken it must be strictly regulated – something I cannot see any of the current Parties supporting, given their hostility to anything cramping the freedom of the entrepreneur to make money however he or she chooses.
1. “Anti-immigrant” is not the same as “racist”.
2. “all racists are Brexiteers” is nonsense.
Ed Miliband, one of the better leaders of the Labour Party lately, admitted in February 2011 that permitting the unlimited immigration of eastern European migrants had been a mistake, arguing that they had underestimated the potential number of migrants and that the scale of migration had had a negative impact on wages.
The case for allowing mass immigration is a right-wing case: it lowers wages. We hear a lot of utter rubbish on the lines of “immigrants will do jobs that native-born Brits won’t do”. All that means is that companies and the government don’t pay enough for dirty or unpleasant jobs. Can’t find anybody from Britain’s 1.3 million unemployed to fill a job cleaning toilets at the local bus station? Offer the same salary as a backbench MP gets, and you’ll get plenty of applicants. That would be fair, the cleaning job is a lot more useful to society.
Funny how the people who loudly oppose immigrants/migrants ‘stealing’ jobs and exerting downward wage pressure never complain about neoliberal capitalism, which is based on competition and pitting workers against each other in a race to the bottom, and the political institutions that prop it up and keep it running. They also never complain when a company ‘downsizes’ and cuts wages or when the state relieves employer’s of responsibility towards their employees.
So someone who is genuinely concerned about the plight of the working class under neoliberalism (as opposed to a person who just doesn’t like ‘foreigners’ in their midst) would be complaining about a lot more than just immigrants.
Pointing the finger at ‘those people over there’ and blaming them for deep social problems is always ignorant or disingenuous (unless it is a group with real power over other’s lives). Your Polish plumber, the corner shop owner and the migrant scraping together a living doing menial jobs is not responsible for the destruction of the British working class and its social fabric.
But you can always count on demagogues and politicians avoiding their own culpability to enthusiastically encourage the scapegoating of the least powerful while deflecting attention from the powerful like themselves.
Completely correct in your analysis Roger, I fear Craig Murray had been inhaling a little too much of the Scottish mist before he dashed off this piece. It was telling that New Labour used the “jobs British people will not do ” argument over and over to justify open door immigration policies. What hypocrites they all are.
Liz Truss wil win cause of Russia Russia Russia. The British elite is a multi-generational hate fest of that land, so expect the usual. She is the wild rabid chihuahua with respect to Russia, and may even be better than Boris to strike a little continental war.
That is it.
Reasonable, Ali. But strangely enough, hating Russia, Russians, and all things Russian is not considered “racism”. Riddle me that.
Neither is hating America, Americans and all things American.
“Neither is hating America, Americans and all things American.
Hating America is hating the worst in us; it’s a start in putting things right.
You’re right that she will win because of anti-Russia hysteria, possibly (disgracefully) boosted by being white.
But you’re wrong about the Brit elite having a multi-generational hatred of Russia. Hatred for Russia is recent, nurtured by the deluge of pro-NATO propaganda over the past several years.
Starting a war is also a standard way for politicians to improve their popularity. The fact that starting a war against Russia is the second most idiotic thing to do right now is irrelevant.
Increasing military expenditure to 3% of GDP, when the NHS is crumbling into ruin and physicians and nurses are shamefully underpaid, is also idiotic. But Liz Truss has presumably discovered that it will increase her support among the card-carrying members of the Tory Party.
“But you’re wrong about the Brit elite having a multi-generational hatred of Russia. Hatred for Russia is recent, nurtured by the deluge of pro-NATO propaganda over the past several years.”
The British elite have hated Russia since the Russian Revolution, because they feared the same thing happening here. Since the end of Communism in Russia, we have had NATO’s need for an enemy, as you point out. Even before the Revolution they weren’t very keen on Russia. Check out the causes of the Crimean War.
I’m not sure but Liz Truss as the acting PM could turn out to be as hilarious as the referendum result, which has had me laughing ever since. The only democratic vote allowed by the British state in my life and they lost. ;O)
Insulation is a good idea where it’s reasonably practical but should be set against an alternative of expanding renewable energy production based on what mix is most effective and economic. That’s a technical decision but neither approach is quick. The ideal quick fix is to replace rationing-by-price with rationing-by-rationing across Europe since it’s impossible to burn gas that doesn’t exist. For obvious reasons, the UK is on the sidelines here and rationing in the UK alone would barely affect market prices. The partial quick fix here is a windfall tax on oil and gas extracted within the UK with the revenue distributed through tax cuts and benefit boosts. Leaving the price mechanism in place to deter consumption but giving people a fairer chance of paying for what they really need. Sadly, since we are nowhere near self-sufficient, only a fraction of the price increases can be offset this way. Also sadly, the windfall tax that’s actually being imposed is derisory and riddled with loopholes so will hardly do anything.
The gas certainly does exist. Sadly, for the buffoons of the EU and Britain, they are slitting our throats for the sake of the US that is now eating Europe for lunch.
You’re right. It does exist but it can’t get here because Russia is choking it off and there aren’t sufficient pipelines, ports or LNG ships to bring it from elsewhere. You’d think the buffoons would have worked that out but then they wouldn’t be buffoons. There’s too many people in this world who imagine that you can always get anything with money alone.
Customers who are unable or unwilling to pay are a perennial problem with any business. You can’t just keep supplying them if they won’t put their hands in their pockets.
@Funn3r You’ve just defined shareholders.
“It does exist but it can’t get here because Russia is choking it off “
Didn’t we start out ‘sanctioning’ Russia by refusing to buy their gas? Now we’re complaining about Russia not selling us gas. It must be Russia that refused to allow Nord Stream 2 to be used. Of course you have to pay, in rubles. The stages of grief then;
Denial, anger, negotiation, depression, pay in rubles.
The UK imports 4% of it’s gas from Russia. A combination of increased imports from elsewhere and more careful use of the rest could easily make that up.
It doesn’t really matter that only around 4% of the UK’s gas comes from Russia, Pears, because around half of it still has to be imported from other countries (mainly Norway) at the market price. At the moment, this is rocketing because of anticipated high demand in the northern winter and traders believing there’s a good chance that supplies of Russian gas will soon be cut off to most, if not all, of Western Europe, which will only cost Russia around 1-2% of its GDP.
The UK is lucky in that it still gets around half of its gas from the British sector of the North Sea, so it’s possible that companies which are producing from fields there could be near-100% taxed on their excess profits compared to last year, and the monies raised used to enable people’s average predicted bills in 2023 to be reduced from around five grand to three grand (assuming no energy saving by households), which I suspect is what will end up happening under the populist Truss – otherwise it’s likely she’ll be out before the next election like Boris.
Alternatively, if we had been sensible about Russia, we could have been buying more cheap Russian gas instead of the insanely expensive LNG from the Middle East.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. At the minute, pretty much all gas contracts, be they for LNG or piped gas, are insanely expensive. If the Russians do switch the gas off to most of continental Europe (Hungary will probably be let off), then since the pipelines have to go through several European countries to get to the UK, we wouldn’t be getting any piped gas from Russia even if we were actually supporting the Ruskies in Ukraine.
“At the minute, pretty much all gas contracts, be they for LNG or piped gas, are insanely expensive”
Now, yes, but five, ten years ago, no they weren’t and we were still building LNG terminals.
“If the Russians do switch the gas off to most of continental Europe (Hungary will probably be let off), then since the pipelines have to go through several European countries to get to the UK, we wouldn’t be getting any piped gas from Russia even if we were actually supporting the Ruskies in Ukraine.”
“If”. Currently the only people switching off the gas (or not switching it on, which comes to the same thing), are the Germans, with Nordstream 2. It would be an interesting legal case if the UK was the only country paying for Russian gas and other EU countries stole that gas en route.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. When countries are trying to keep the lights on and stop mass rioting, I’d imagine that the niceties of international contract law will go out the window. I’ve had a look at the figures and it turns out that pretty much all of the Russian gas that the UK imported in 2021 was LNG anyway:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1121165/uk-lng-imports-by-origin-country/
“When countries are trying to keep the lights on and stop mass rioting, I’d imagine that the niceties of international contract law will go out the window.”
and who would be the bad guys then? It would be kind of hard for those governments to keep pretending it was the Russians.
” I’ve had a look at the figures and it turns out that pretty much all of the Russian gas that the UK imported in 2021 was LNG anyway:”
I think you missed the hypothetical nature of my scenario.
– “Alternatively, if we had been sensible about Russia, we could have been buying more cheap Russian gas instead of the insanely expensive LNG from the Middle East.”
If you remember, the gas shortage started before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia was having trouble fulfilling demand because its old supergiant gas fields (opened in the soviet era) are depleted and in terminal decline; they can now produce gas at around only a third of their peak production, which was decades ago. That’s why Russia was insisting on long-term contracts for gas, so that they could confidently invest in the new infrastructure necessary to exploit their other gas fields.
I doubt that European gas prices have dramatically increased in recent months because traders have suddenly become aware of the declining production levels of (some) Russian gas fields Clark. Two years ago the price of wholesale gas in Europe was about 10% of what it is now. Have a look at this chart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Natural_gas_prices_Europe_and_US.webp
The spikes will have occurred when traders believed that Russia might invade Ukraine imminently, and the gas to Europe could have been switched off overnight – the Russians had been building up their forces near the border for about a year before launching the invasion in February.
“The racist is of course key. People here get very upset every time I point out the exhaustively documented fact that the major motive of those voting for Brexit was anti-immigrant. “
No you miss the whole point – perhaps because you don’t live in one of the multi-racial areas that voted for Brexit.
It is all about wage inequality – a subject which is a) banned from public discussion as much as the topic of Ukrainian nazis
and b) is distracted from by the topic of minority inequality which allows the rich to feel proud they support a worthy cause which won’t cost them a penny in taxes.
Name a single wage inequality theme mentioned in public debate – there is only one – immigration.
Taxes, benefits, minimum wage – they are all off limits.
So guess what – Trump, Farage and Boris talked about immigration and were overwhelmed with support (despite having no intention of dealing with Taxes, benefits or minimum wages).
And the left called Racists racists racists (because they wouldn’t talk about taxes, benefits or minimum wages either)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2402045053153096&set=p.2402045053153096&type=3
The real reason to be against further immigration is that the UK is already about 350% overpopulated. That is, it has about 4.5 times as many people as it can sustain indefinitely.
And that’s before idiots start trying to reduce farmland. In 1945 Britain was self-sufficient in food. Today it imports about half of the necessary food.
Pause for a moment, if you are able, and imagine what will happen if any sizeable fraction of that imported food stops coming.
Immigrants exist and need to eat whether they are in this country or not. So I don’t see the force of your argument.
The UK isn’t fall, as a look at a map will show.
https://fullfact.org/economy/has-92-country-not-been-built/
I followed the link you provide, and soon found myself reading this: “Estimates of how much of the UK isn’t built on range between 88% and 99.9%”.
Very helpful indeed. I could provide an estimate of my own, if you like: let’s see, 61.9% seems like a nice plausible number. Seriously speaking, “between 88% and 99.9%” looks very much like one of the 97.3% of statistics that are made up to suit the writer’s argument.
Estimating the carrying capacity of the UK involves more than working out how many people, or apartment buildings, could be fitted in cheek by jowl. People need food, fresh water, sewage, fuels, transport, and many other services.
Have you the slightest idea of how much land it takes, on average, to feed one person healthily?
If you want to begin studying the facts and figures, here is a good place to start. https://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/countryTrends?cn=229&type=BCpc,EFCpc
” In 1945 Britain was self-sufficient in food “
Err, no it wasn’t. It was in a better position than it was in 1939 when something like 60% of food had to be imported but still nowhere near self-sufficient. It’s one reason why rationing got worse after 1945 and wasn’t ended until the early 1950s.
Whatever happens we’ll have to continue to import a lot of food because it simply won’t grow in the UK.
Re:
‘Have you the slightest idea how much land it takes, on average, to feed one person healthy?’
Around 200 square metres in the open air in northern England, Tom – possibly only 10 to 20 square metres, if you’re vertical farming indoors. Let know if you want me to run you through the figures.
” In 1945 Britain was self-sufficient in food. Today it imports about half of the necessary food.”
Britain imports food, not because there is not enough land to support the population, but because that land is not being used efficiently for food production. “Efficiency” in farming means producing the most food for the minimum cost, which is not the same as the most food from the minimum area of land. Britain could feed itself, but we would have to pay a lot more for our food and the food retailers would all go out of business and, most importantly, rents and therefore house prices would go down. 100 years ago the poor in the UK spent 30% of their income on rent and 50% on food. Now it’s the other way around.
The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation, Oxford, 1990, 0-19-821946-6
Britain was far closer to self-sufficiency in food by 1980 due to there being a rigged market, part-financed by the EU. In 1945 Britain was importing huge amounts of food (as had been the case since about 1800) a matter accelerated by the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846. That being the case, what is your optimum population for Britain?
Thanks for taking a stance on this piecemeal approach of the Government and their penchant for privatising energy companies. Thatcher was wrong to do it and it’s about time they forget about her.
Building regulations, in the hand of councils who believe they know it all better and want to make you pay for any change, ideally, whilst stifling methods such a cheap straw bale housing, rainwater recovery systems and solar panels on every new-build house, the mandatory building of cheaper apartments for the younger generation, with every planning permission for projects over 50 houses. Building houses from sustainable materials that can and will be recycled, excluding plastics, should be a first step.
Modern systems should design and develop second and third uses of materials, creating a circular economic model that can survive with zero profits, rather than a linear model which can’t sustain us as it is promoting one-way processes.
To achieve this we have to stop pandering to political parties and support issue-based representation that keeps corrupt minds controlled.
Any working person can make a good representative, for four years only, before we choose another person of a different gender at the next random selection from NI numbers. No more election campaign lies, no more self-centered careerists/narcissists who believe that their sheltered upbringing and choice of school should make politics their personal chiefdom.
Representatives in Parliament would organise themselves around issues and urgent measures that are needed to find solutions. Illegal support for warmongers and preferential treatment, underwriting of risky arms deals and wasting money on keeping Nazis in power, does not make for a strong self-sufficient society.
Time to eschew arms and wars; we have more pressing problems to solve.
Supply is constrained so prices must go up so demand can balance supply. No amount of subsidies will change that, in fact they will all be pocketed directly by the natural gas suppliers. The issue is that in the neoliberal “there is no such thing as society” order, the way demand is reduced is for the poor to freeze to death while the well-off outcompete them for energy because of their higher ability to pay.
There are other ways to deal with this crisis that spread the pain more equitably. Wartime-style rationing is eminently reasonable and certainly more equitable, but requires IT infrastructure to manage it that simply would take too long to deliver. A much simpler solution is to cap the price for the first NNN kWh corresponding to basic living requirements, and allow the price to be much higher for consumption over that amount, which would basically boil down to the same thing as rationing, but in a way that is actually deployable quickly.
Thanks Fazal; a constructive approach. The balance (essentially a subsidy to all for the lower price) presumably is intended to be met by the Treasury; has anyone calculated what that subsidy might be in cash terms? Financing that from windfall taxes would seem a sensible way to part-protect the public purse albeit at the expense of energy market speculators.
The government has allowed energy companies to increase their prices then decided to subsidise the consumers bills. Why not just give the government money directly to the energy companies?
Controlled rationing would be much fairer than ‘rationing by price’ and I expect contingency plans exist as they did for petrol rationing in 1973. The major barrier would be how politically acceptable it would seen to be.
“Supply is constrained so prices must go up so demand can balance supply.”
The logical answer is then to increase supply, is it not? Prices are high because EU countries are refusing to buy gas from Russia. This is supposed to be to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. The result has been, actually, to reward Russia for invading Ukraine and to finance the very war the measure was supposed to stop. Western Europe is paying for both sides of this war, yet no politician considers that a stupid thing to do.
What punishment has ben imposed on the US boss class for its invasion of Ukraine in 2014? (this is a rhetorical question, obviously).
I think invaders of Ukraine are rewarded, not punished.
But that would be anti growth! And growth is our god in the West.
This is the best solution Fazal, and always has been, but it will never be adopted for the above reason.
As a scientist and engineer with ten years specifically in the insulation manufacturing sector, I’d question the utility of concentrating on retrofitting home insulation. The low hanging fruit has long been gathered.
Also, I doubt the practicality of heat pumps in Scotland except in peculiar geological formations (Grangemouth / Airth area I believe being one).
I’d concentrate on delivery of hydro pump storage. Six major schemes in Scotland have planning approval or are in the process of getting it. As far as I’m aware ground hasn’t been broken on any of these. The Glenmuckloch scheme on the Buccleuch estate has had planning permission since 2016 and is still stalled.
I suspect these projects are deliberately stalled to extort higher tariffs from the state. This is a common tactic most spectacularly deployed by EDF in relation to Hinckley Point C.
The solution would of course be for the state to bring the projects “in-house” and finance, build and operate them. This is of course ideologically unacceptable in our NeoLiberal hidebound world.
‘I’d concentrate on delivery of hydro pump storage.’
Hydro pump storage is not a primary energy source – it is used within the electricity supply network as a means of storing energy (as potential energy) already converted into electricity from the primary energy source and which can be converted back into electrical energy to support the supply/demand balance. Over a third of the originally generated electrical energy is lost in the conversion.
Of course such storage facilities are a necessity to support ‘intermittent’ type renewable electricity generation. They are significant undertakings. Hydrogen storage is an alternative but at much lower conversion efficiencies.
Energy efficiencies are one of the main reasons why diminishing returns (cost and environmental benefit) rapidly accelerate as intermittent sources are added to the electrical network. Solar is a particular offender for obvious reasons (my apologies, I know you didn’t mention it but easy for me to add it here).
Phase-change heat storage at point of use could be 100% efficient, because all inefficiency manifests as heat that goes to waste.
“Over a third of the originally generated electrical energy lost in the conversion” is actually about twice as efficient as converting heat into electricity.
“Over a third of the originally generated electrical energy lost in the conversion” is actually about twice as efficient as converting heat into electricity.
You miss the point Clark, you’ve gone off at a tangent. Pumped storage is a net user of electricity not a net source. Obviously net sources are required whatever their efficiencies irrespective of the use of pumped hydro. The latter is an aid to supply-demand balancing and necessary particularly where intermittent sources are used on the network. They are substantial installations at high capital cost but relatively efficient compared with alternatives – hydrogen would likely be lower capital/less efficient.
You’ve mentioned ‘phase-change heat storage’ before. It seems to be a hobby horse of yours but I’m not aware it has anything to do with electricity system energy storage (for reconversion back into electrical energy) – the subject under discussion.
A lot of demand for energy is for heating. Large amounts of heat are far easier to store than the corresponding electricity. So when there’s excess electricity, help balance demand by storing heat at places where it will be useful.
Clearly pump storage isn’t a primary energy source, although schemes may have a small catchment area that will provide some compensation for efficiency losses during the pumping phase.
My point is that thanks to the decimation of manufacturing industry, there’s a hell of a lot of buckshee energy from inflexible, renewable energy (primarily wind) at night. Crucially, every night.
Perhaps as electrical cars proliferate this will reduce.
Pump storage has a number of advantages over other proposed storage methods. It’s mature technology (Ffestiniog is nearly 60 years old). Efficiency losses are known and relatively low (in comparison to other exotic proposals such as compressed air reservoirs). Operating costs are low. Significant Capital costs can be offset by unmatchable lifespan (Ffestiniog again).
The Chinese are betting big on pump storage.
For schemes up and running > 1,000 MW, China has (44GW) 42% of global capacity.
For schemes under construction > 1,000MW, China has another 52 GW soon to be realised.
Of course highly technocratic, command economy China could have got it wrong while our profit driven, disaster economic model got it correct, but I know who I’d put money on.
Yes it is not surprising that China will be building substantial pumped storage schemes to support their wind generation. They are the best network storage systems operationally and of course their terrain lends itself to them.
Obviously you realise they are not an alternative to primary electricity generation which appeared (to me) to be the inference of your initial post.
Tidal energy, while intermittent, is a lot less random than wind or solar, as is hydroelectricity, but it is wind and solar that have seen all the major investments in the past decades.
Also whatever happened to Gravitricity, https://gravitricity.com/ ?
It’s all creation of a battery of potential energy to be realised by gravity whether it’s pump storage or “gravitricity”. Pump storage is certainly limited by geography and topography to North Wales and Scotland. Gravitricity May have a place in England.
Gravitricity has the advantage over pumped storage that its efficiency is the efficiency of the electric motor times the efficiency of the generator (i.e. the same bit of kit acting in different modes), whereas the efficiency of pumped storage is the efficiency of the motor times the efficiency of the turbine acting as a pump times the efficiency of the turbine acting as a turbine times the efficiency of the generator, which is a lot less. Unfortunately governments like projects that mean them giving large amounts of money to large landowners. Did I hear you mention the Buccleuch estate?
> I doubt the practicality of heat pumps in Scotland
Heat pumps are carazy expensive. And you have to have a place to put the heat exchanger; a good place is beneath a lawn.
But then you need a lawn; that’s a challenge for apartment dwellers. of course, you can get one of those box heat-exchangers that’s driven by a fan and hangs on the wall; but they are very inefficient, and you might well need more than one. And the freeholder or planning committee might refuse permission.
Heat pumps produce low-grade heat; if you are planning to install a heat pump to power central heating, you’ll probably have to replace all of your radiators, which were originally installed to run on high-grade heat from a boiler.
Heat pumps seem like a really good idea; instead of making heat by burning stuff, you just concentrate the heat in the environment. But that process of concentration needs energy itself. And you need a lot of low-grade heat to make a little high-grade heat, so you need to have your exchanger in contact with a lot of low-grade heat. An “efficient” heat exchanger needs real estate.
If “all racists are Brexiteers” how do you account for the Labour Right? Even Forde was forced to mention their racism and Islamophobia. That element were your most fanatical and unreachable fellow travellers in reifying the neoliberal, racist EU.
PS Take time at some point to look up the voting records of Grieve, Rory Stewart and co on housing, welfare benefits, asylum, climate change, tuition fees, schools, union rights, taxing bankers, foreign wars, you name it. They are virtually identical to Boris Johnson’s.
If energy bills rise as much as predicted, with the average annual bill predicted to rise to an eye-watering £4,200 by January, then go higher still, it almost goes without saying that that could have huge ‘Poll tax’ type political ramifications. For instance, making achieving Scottish independence a whole lot easier. Gordon Brown’s recent intense spasm of TV activity shows he’s certainly alert to the danger.
It’ll also make any Corbyn ‘Peace & justice’ new political party project a whole lot more viable, with the dreadful duo of Starmer and Reeves likely offering only sticking plaster, overly timid solutions through regulator Ofgem.
Sunak is married to the daughter of the sixth richest man in India and his wife is also incredibly wealthy. With the Sunak worth an est. £billion his ‘understanding’ of the plight of ordinary voters, will look pretty hollow if radical Macron EDF-type solutions aren’t forthcoming. As for Truss, she’s likely going to be even more tin-eared than Theresa May. By this time next year the only thing standing in the way of Scottish Independence may be Sturgeon’s bizarre timidity.
Putin has manufactured the energy crisis to destroy our society. There is no “market” solution. Ofgem, the Bank of England – all powerless in the face of global energy prices.
— Paul Mason @paulmasonnews 7:52 AM · Aug 11, 2022
So it was Putin who abolished our strategic reserve, forced through the 1980s privatisation agenda, and made the UK buy from the European wholesale energy pool to inflate company profits. This despite being self-sufficient in energy, and using very little Russian gas (3%). Thank god for people like Paul Mason, cutting through all the misinformation, disinformation online.
I’m surprised Paul Mason has the guts to appear in public?
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/06/13/paul-masons-collusion-british-intelligence-agent/
Mr Putin’s magical powers are truly astonishing. I remember, for instance, this poster before a Russian election:
https://i2.wp.com/theduran.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/We-elected-the-American-President.jpg?ssl=1
“We chose the American President; now let’s choose a President for Russia!”
They just had some former senior military person on Newsnight, talking about how the narrative must be maintained that energy problems, including price rises facing the UK, are entirely the fault of Russia and Putin! As if issuing talking points to presenter Mark Urban, who nodded along.
To be fair to Paul Mason he’s since retweeted this clarifying post by @TheCullObsidian :
Energy price rises:
Germany: +23%
France: +4%
EU average: +44%
UK: +215%
Half of UK gas supply comes from the North Sea, owned by the state and licensed by British companies.
—
Clearly, the UK should and could be entirely self-sufficient in energy. Short-termism, greed and the lack of sound planning, are the major causes of the currently looming price crisis.
“some former senior military person on Newsnight, talking about how the narrative must be maintained”
They tell people they’re going to be lied to, then they tell the lie, then the people believe it.
A lot of older housing stock would be unsuitable for the sort of heavy insulation suggested, solid walls with lime mortar need to able to ‘breathe’ besides which people can’t live in airtight boxes.
Heat pumps are OK, I know some people who have them, but the installation costs are high, all of the radiators have to be changed and where is all the extra electricity going to come from? Not to mention that required for electric cookers replacing outlawed gas hobs and 35 million electric cars. If nobody had noticed Hinkley B closed at the beginning of the month and in France, from where we import a lot of power, many of their reactors have serious corrosion problems. It just places more dependence on expensive (largely imported) gas. Warnings have been issued about planned power cuts and rationing this winter.
If anything good does come out of this crisis it’ll be the realisation that we cannot go on relying on fossil fuels but governments must invest in and promote alternatives; and quickly!
I guess you can insulate also solid walls but then you need windows that can be set to have some slack to allow the hot air out with the damp, while not losing too much when heating. Also `Stoßlüften` (German: turn down the heater and open all windows for a short while) comes to mind. On course, this requires a bit of experience.
Nevertheless we are sort of lucky here . There is no such thing as -35 degrees in winter, that I experienced in Germany in the 80s. And -20 degrees in not unusual there. Certainly, this does not suggest that we should not do better.
I agree with some of the comments here about insulation of older property, in a lot of cases it really wont help very much. A broad brush approach isn’t going to work, we almost need to create an entire new industry to deal with these long term issues. A house would need to be assessed individually and remedial work undertaken, it may not be more insulation, it could be the house needs its 25-year-old boiler replaced with a modern more efficient system, not every house will be suitable for heat pump technology, and pushing that because it’s the “in” thing will almost certainly leave people unable to generate enough heat in their homes.
When we changed our boiler for a new one it reduced our gas bill by over 30%, high-quality high-efficiency boilers are expensive and well beyond the reach of a lot of people, so real help needs to be provided there first. Whilst gas and carbon economy isn’t the future, we do not as a nation have the time to transition to a low- or zero-carbon economy. The issue of people not being able to heat their homes is going to start in a couple of months, we need to act within the technological limits we currently have.
The saddest part is that the people who will carry the can for this problem are the people with the lowest emissions and the lowest ability to upgrade to start with!
…not all Brexiteers are racists. But all racists are Brexiteers.
Sorry Craig. Alongside others, I have to dispute this one. Among the bienpensant Guardianista demographic there is a very substantial body of racists who absolutely despise the white British working class and are always ready to shower them in contempt for the crimes of being white and British and working class.
Ironically, these are the very same people who are to be heard endlessly trumpeting about what “we” did to the brownshirts at Cable Street, conveniently forgetting that their own grandparents were still kids at the time, and that the people who did do something to the brownshirts at Cable Street were overwhelmingly white, British, and working class.
I think the biggest draw or factor for the overwhelming working class area support for Brexit, wasn’t racism or anti-immigrant sentiment at all. Non-EU immigration (not affected by Brexit) was deliberately conflated with EU migration by a deliberately misleading Brexit campaign; but still, that wasn’t the main driver for Brexit support.
In my experience, people fell for the line that EU seasonal Labour migration flows were driving down local wages, mainly Eastern Europeans: Poles, Romanians; Latvians, Hungarians etc, coming here for seasonal work (warehousing and farm labour) and doing the jobs the UK’s young hate, like the ultra-low-paid deeply undervalued care sector esp. dementia care homes have an acute problem recruiting and retaining for obvious reasons. The often repeated line was that these worker flows were somehow driving down British wages. The truth is it’s more complicated than that; the Eastern Europeans would come to the UK, rent a property and near fill it, sharing the cost, taking all the overtime they could and quite frankly working their butts off. Comparatively, it is fair to say they were earning much more per hour than they could back home, back then in 2015-16.
“doing the jobs the UK’s young hate”.
A lot of people hate their jobs. They still do them though because they get paid. If people don’t want the physically difficult and dirty jobs, because the pay is too low. The solution is not to get the cheapest migrants you can find to put in those roles and then pat yourselves on the back for being heroes of multiculturalism. All the while ignoring that the employers are the ones that benefit most from having large numbers of desperate migrants to exploit. The actual solution is to have those jobs pay sufficient wages for local workers to consider doing them.
> like the ultra-low-paid deeply undervalued care sector esp. dementia care homes have an acute problem recruiting and retaining for obvious reasons.
I spoke with the manager of my local Tesco Metro this morning. She said she’s had vacancies open for three months; people aren’t applying. They closed for an hour on Saturday afternoon, because someone had gone sick, there was only one person left on duty, and they’re not allowed to stay open if there’s only one staffer on.
The shortage of workers isn’t just strawberry-pickers and carers; it’s retail staff, hospitality staff, policemen, nurses, doctors, software developers, all sorts.
There are not many unemployed. Raising pay isn’t going to drag loads of workers off the dole. I think only trades unions can effect a transfer of wealth from executives and shareholders to production workers.
And to be clear: I’m a Brexiter because I think the EU is incorrigibly corrupt. I think the Tory conflation of “freedom of movement” with “too many Poles and Bulgarians” is stupid; we need those people, provided they can show they have a job and somewhere to live.
Obviously, the “somewhere to live” bit is challenging, since we have a housing crisis.
Is it in any way helpful to describe those who show no concern for the white working class as racist? The spurious concern shown by the Conservative party with the talk of levelling up, as their policies increase levels of poverty, shows that appealing to nationalism with untruths about the ‘benefits of Brexit’ and the delight of having a blue passport (reportedly manufactured by a French company) may secure an 80 seat majority, but sustains the divide between rich and poor which Disraeli blamed the Conservative party for ignoring in the 1840s. It is clear that those pulling Truss’s strings want mass riots in England this winter, but what their agenda to stop these riots and civil disobedience will be, apart from hosting the Eurovision song contest, remains unclear. I hope Craig can give us his thoughts.
@David W Ferguson The working class is colourblind.
I think you’ll find that Kemi Badenoch was the Tory Party’s choice for new leader. Unfortunately, it wasn’t their choice. You can’t tar everyone with your racist brush. The rest of your post is equally “tin foil hat” drivel.
Sorry Goodwin, Craig’s drivel is far more informative than your two line spittle. How about leaving the self serving Tories?
I would like to hear an explanation of why Ms Badenoch isn’t a candidate.
It was because an insufficient number of Tory MPs voted for her in the fourth ballot of their leadership contest, Tom.
And why did enough Tory MPs not vote for her, when they knew that Party members preferred her? It’s almost as if they didn’t respect the democratic will of the people.
Indeed, the current system includes multiple obstacles to the will of the voters. Conservative MPs do not have to respect the wishes of party members, and those wishes may differ markedly from those of the voters at large.
> It’s almost as if they didn’t respect the democratic will of the people.
That would be an odd conclusion to draw, given that the people weren’t asked. What they didn’t respect was the will of about 200,000 Tory party members.
It’s customary for the leading parties in this country to select the party leader by a vote of party members, not a general plebiscite. And it’s customary for a party leader to be unseated by a vote of their parliamentary party, regardless of the views of the party at large.
So we now face having a new Prime Minister whose popularity hasn’t been tested in a general plebiscite. For the *third* time in a decade.
Representative democracy is all very well, until you get this sort of nonsense: we vote for our representatives, then *they* choose the leader, who then appoints the ministers. And the leader’s survivial depends largely on the support of his ministers, not on either the parliamentary party nor the party at large.
This seems to be roughly the same for the two major parties. It’s a mess.
Thanks for your reply Tom. MPs not reflecting the views of party members? I’m sure that’s never happened before. If Tory MPs respected the democratic will of the people, they wouldn’t have knifed Boris.
I honestly don’t think it is fair to equate anti-immigration with racism, which seems to be the common narrative.
Hear me out.
If countries like Bhutan, or Bali, or wherever, have strict immigration policies because they want to preserve a national identity and without having their traditional way of life corrupted by outside influences – McDonald’s, Starbucks, and western holidaymakers or expats, we respect that do we not?
But when it comes to the lower white classes of England must we not allow them the same argument?
Actually, squirrel, I think one would find that the majority of nations would fall into your category of “countries like Bali, or Butan, or wherever”. Japan and China, certainly. India, to a greater extent than many might think. Pakistan and all other hard-line Muslim countries, unless the proposed immigrants are also hard-line Muslims. Even tolerant, liberal Russia insists on the ability to speak, read and write Russian, awareness of the important laws and customs, etc.
The USA was the first “synthetic nation” held together by no ethnic, religious, linguistic or historic ties but only by a common government and a somewhat deranged reverence and lust for money. Somehow that has become a template for the “ideal nation”, and the UK is being retrofitted to the model.
‘Wherever’ is a highly inclusive category and that was how the phrase was intended.
You could apply the same description to India (22 languages) and China (in the hundreds).
Well hello a return to one of my favourite subjects.
BREXSHIT.
There are these who will claim that BrexShit cant possibly be due to racism – because many multiracial areas voted for it. To them I will say ‘fuck you condescending pricks, if you think people of every ethnicity are incapable of being racist’.
Sunak,Javid, Patel the high profile Tories were put in place and used at the last election to get traditional Labour voting Asians to not do so again, by spreading the Antisemitism lies about Corbyn and to ignore the manifesto and that would have saved a lot of the poorest from where they are now at – because a nonblairite nonneocon would have led to ‘Ruining all our plans’ Dearlove of MI6 and ‘Gauntlet’ Pompeo interfering in our elections and the self congratulatory twat, Bolton, who boasted of being a genius planner of coups…so we get Ukraine and the end of the unipolar world which has fooled the 15% of the worlds ‘first’ world population into decades of believing in their superiority over the other 85% of humanity. That carpet is being pulled from under our collective feet.
That is where continuing Covid, Climate Change, XR and GND grand narratives are there for. Same with all and anything that divides us – ‘gender’, ‘monkeypox’ …round and round we go. The Dollar is a dodo. The WB,IMF capos can’t threaten any more (though they are trying in Africa again this week). The WEF and its networks of blackmailers are done but we not give up. Happily punching us, their ‘citizens’ in the face to show the Rest of The World, that they should carry on being abused otherwise this punishment will carry on – it really is three stooges unfunny.
Yeah peoples buttons are easier to press through politically imposed AUSTERITY then tell them it’s some ‘others’ fault and hey presto you get them marching off to a war. Of BrexShit or hanging toy meerkats ffs.
The Gas and Electricity price crises has fuck all to do with lack of supply except what is self induced. The same for the petrol prices and beer prices. Which have been set on course to increase since spring of 2021, so that the interest rate genie can be released.
Which will lead to mass defaults and bankruptcies and negative equity of all these lured into the bubble with the latest BOE cancellation of Affordability criteria.
See the pattern? Austerity, causing genuine suffering for the poorest. Interest rates causing suffering to mortgagee’s- to be solved by putting the blame elsewhere through RACISM – which is clearly what is being done to all things RUSSIA and next CHINA.
It is how to get boots on the ground and mass canon fodder and war crimes whilst thinning the herd of potential Revolution at home. It’s been happening for centuries why change a winning formula? Especially when it is so easy to get dumb fucks willing to play and parrot their part for some petty silver.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Sunak or Truss – because Starmer has guaranteed a very Loyal government. My money is still on Sunak because of the wider geopolitics of encouraging India from jumping away into the SCO and away from three hundred years of fealty.
I think you could equally definitively say that all remainers are racist. Hatred of the English (particularly white working class ) is also presumably racist.
Hatred of the working class, I’m shocked Geoffrey, how dare you be so impertinent.
The only thing remainers can’t accept is that the working class has a vote, and voted to stuff liberal elite arrogance up their liberal elite methane.
Equating anti immigration with racism is an ignorant argument…_
Like Donald I am proud to tweet
Against the ‘liberal elite’.
People who do not understand
The truth recycled by Ayn Rand.
Fraternity, Equality
Are busted flushes. I am free
And, just to show I have more fun.
I’ll say f**k off and shoot my gun.
Of course the “working class” is entitled to its vote. But votes have consequences which in this case can’t be undone in less than decades. Spite is a pretty poor excuse.
@Steve Hayes,
“Of course the “working class” is entitled to its vote”
… and it doesn’t matter if you are blue collar, white collar or professional working class, we are all equal in freely deciding for ourselves how we vote. There is no right or wrong way to vote.
Democrats live with the result. We don’t start bitching that free citizens opted to vote the wrong way, we leave that to tyrants and dictators…_
And we leave those voters to face the consequences of their own votes, for however many years they persist. Unfortunately the same consequences hit everyone else.
“The only thing remainers can’t accept is that the working class has a vote, and voted to stuff liberal elite arrogance up their liberal elite methane.”
..had a vote.. The establishment is not going to make that mistake again in a hurry.
But, yes, thanks for pointing out that a large proportion of the Leave vote was working class people voting against the government, something that neither Leavers (“the people have spoken”) nor Remainers (“it was all racist Little Englanders”) are prepared to contemplate.
@Bayard
“working class people voting against the government”
That’s me, that is.
How does it feel to be airbrushed out of history?
I was never painted into it. I’m still here though like the bloke in Invisible Man (1952)
Instead of doing what needs to be done the “beholden to their masters” candidates resort to window dressing.
I thought Ofgem acted in the interests of thwe consumer…it must have been privatised
I get more annoyed by it daily. The inability to get a reasonable voice which disagrees with the current way of thinking. News stories of import being ignored. Propaganda passing for news and the war on journalists, ACTUAL journalists, continuing apace. I always read RT online (much better than the TV channel for their take on the reports I read/saw in the mainstream). They would give the Russian POV but also report the other side too. (NB I’m aware of how repugnant their OPs are). It was more reasonable in its approach than the BBC as it acknowledged that there was another view and it said what it was. They shut down the TV channel despite it having broken no rules but the website continued but then the US shut down their site, then the French and, some time later, I was unable to access the UK site. I’m not aware of it having been officially banned though and Ria Novosti (Russian version of Fox News) is still online with their preposterous nonsense. Why? I accessed RT via TOR, although you have to change your identity sometimes. So, in UK at least, it is the BROWSERS that have stopped access to it. I’m reminded that you ‘don’t know what you don’t know’ and this kind of censorship is exactly what we expect from the Russians. No doubt many are unaware of this and that’s the point. We are being kept in the dark and fed bullshit as in the old ‘mushroom management’ joke..
You can’t go to : https://www.rt.com/ ?
It opens fine here England, UK. By ‘browsers’ do you mean certain ISPs are preventing name resolution?
Maybe clear your DNS cache, or use a different DNS provider other than that provided by your ISP if that’s the case? You can even use DNS over TLS (port 853) using the loopback feature 127.0.0.1, there are even uncensored DNS providers, or DNS provided through port 443 the most commonly used port for outgoing HTTPS traffic – apparently the bane of Chinese authorities and their Great Firewall (lesson there for western politicians). The Chinese use 443 to connect to DNS servers based outside the country, to get access to things like uncensored google. The Chinese people see defeating the firewall as a bit of an ongoing game.
“The Chinese use 443 to connect to DNS servers based outside the country, to get access to things like uncensored google.”
How do people outside China get to access uncensored google
Can access RT via Safari and Firefox. What browser are you using?
Firefox opens it OK, for me, using Cloudflare DNS, but if I try just to ping rt.com, the name isn’t being resolved. So, I’m being screwed by my ISP.
Globalitis has boiled the heads of the energy industry.
The vast salaries of the managerial classes which enable them to purchase all the latest electronic gadgetry, has convinced them of the necessity of protecting our electrical installations from lightning strikes.
The entire world survives without feeling the need to install a protective earth, to stop people getting killed by old electrical equipment, but the knobheads in power don’t have that particular problem since all their appliances are Amazon fresh.
The only thing that interests them is the one in a million chance their £5000 TV might get struck by a thunderbolt.
The only thing they want to insulate is their money-obsessed brains from the imminent threat of nuclear war.
An electrical industry that wants to apply the standards required to maintain a TV studio to domestic houses of ordinary people is not an industry I am prepared to waste my valuable time on. Some solar panels I recently installed managed to keep an evaporative air cooler running continuously in 40 degrees C.
Ye Olde Worlde England baby boomers are now so affluent that they give not a milliseconds thought to fuel.poverty.
A similar insulation scheme known as ‘The Pink Batts Scheme’ was implemented by the Labor government of Kevin Rudd in Australia some years ago. It did indeed lead to huge employment opportunities. However those employment opportunities led to ‘cowboys’ putting untrained young people into peoples roof cavities and in turn 4 deaths from those young people driving nails through the silver lining prior to batts laying, and also through electrical wiring. The scheme was quickly withdrawn under constant harrassment of the Liberal opposition.
Most of your commentators don’t really seem to get that we are plunging into a global catastrophe. You think it’s hot now? In ten years time people won’t even remember that there used to be such things as garden hoses.
You really think people are going to vote for Liz Truss because of her policies not her skin colour?
Get with it.
“Most of your commentators don’t really seem to get that we are plunging into a global catastrophe.”
Probably because we aren’t.
“Most of your commentators don’t really seem to get that we are plunging into a global catastrophe.”
@Bayard “Probably because we aren’t.”
How can you be so sure? The average global temperatures are rising (erratically – maybe, but rising; see graph) The planet’s surface is 71% ocean, and water expands when heated. Not by a lot per litre and 1.5°C, but when you multiply that by 320 million cubic miles of seawater which can only expand in one direction, you can see that the current coastal regions of the planet, and their large areas of highly populated cities are first in line for inundation.
And no one seems to mention the signs that the Gulf Stream is weakening –
Science Daily: Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium (25 Feb 2021)
If it were to change to an extent which cut off the Northeastern Atlantic from its influence, then the UK population would discover the real meaning of “climate change”. Something slightly colder than currently experienced in Iceland is likely. Parts of the North Sea would likely freeze in winter, and most of our seas would not reach more than 10°C in the middle of summer.
Day trips to the beach in June/July would take on a much different feel with a maximum of 11°C and a 30mph sea breeze blowing. (I am trying to resist comparisons with present day holiday resorts, because no doubt the self appointed comedians will love this stuff).
The truth is that no one really knows what will happen, therefore glib remarks with no factual backup are to be discouraged.
“How can you be so sure?”
There’s lots of archaeological and historical evidence that Northern Europe, at least has been warmer than this in the past without any of the catastrophic consequences predicted for this warm period: the reason why so much time, money and lives were wasted looking for the North-East Passage in the C18th was that in earlier centuries, when the planet was warmer, it had been open. The Norse settlements in Greenland were wiped out by climate change, except in those days the change was negative. The Romans were able to grow grapes for wine outside at the latitude of York. Until the end of the C14th, all the white wine drunk in England was grown in England. Etc etc.
Bayard, you’ve listed a load of regional variations and used them to claim that “in earlier centuries, […] the planet was warmer” (my emphasis).
Well it can’t have been or sea level would have been higher, and as you yourself have pointed out, CO2 concentration would have been higher too.
Your basic problem seems to be that for reasons you haven’t explained, you regard all contributions to climate science as the work of some massive malign conspiracy. You stated that here:
– “Climate science” is not science as it doesn’t follow the scientific method. It does not offer its theories and hypotheses to be challenged and possibly disproved by repetition of the experiments on which they were based (the Scientific Method). It does not welcome debate and scepticism, but hands down its statements as holy writ not to be questioned and denigrates scepticism with insults'
And you say that the greenhouse effect is disproved by physics. That is not the case and you can read about decades of scientific discussion on the subject here, but would I be right that you’ve been paying most of your attention to physicist Fred Singer? He has certainly been given a lot of publicity.
“Bayard, you’ve listed a load of regional variations and used them to claim that “in earlier centuries, […] the planet was warmer” (my emphasis).”
Is that not a reasonable hypothesis? How do you know that the warmer temperatures in the northern hemisphere didn’t reflect warmer temperatures elsewhere? What was the mechanism that warmed the north at the expense of the south and why isn’t it still doing it?
“Well it can’t have been or sea level would have been higher, and as you yourself have pointed out, CO2 concentration would have been higher too.”
Well, since we are only talking millimetres in the case of the sea level, how do we know that they weren’t?
“And you say that the greenhouse effect is disproved by physics.”
No, it is disproved by eliminating some wrong assumptions. Basic physics says that the surface of a planet will warm (or cool) to the temperature at which is emits as much radiation to space as it receives from space i.e. from the Sun, that is its ‘effective temperature’. Let’s look at solar radiation first. We are looking at ‘effective temperature’ so we also have to look at how much solar radiation the ‘effective surface’, that is the surface which the incoming solar radiation first encounters, a mixture of clouds and land/ocean, absorbs. We do this by reducing solar radiation by the amount reflected (by the ‘albedo’). The weighted average albedo of the effective surface (⅔ clouds and ⅓ oceans/land) is 0.3, so we reduce incoming solar from 342 W/m2 to 239 W/m2. This number has been estimated at anything between 235 W/m2 and 240 W/m2. This seems sensible, and nobody has seriously challenged it.
The effective surface is absorbing 235 – 240 W/m2. We know the temperature and emissivity of both parts of the effective surface (oceans/land and clouds (typical altitude 5km and typical temp 255K)), so we can calculate how much radiation each is emitting using Stefan-Boltzmann formula and adjusting for emissivity. We then take a weighted average of both, and we find that the effective surface’s emissions are slap bang in the middle of the 235 – 240 W/m2 range. Yes, there are approximations and uncertainties involved at all stages of this, many of which would cancel out, but the broad point is that the 30K discrepancy that is the “greenhouse effect” is not there. Yes, the land/ocean is warmer under the clouds on average than it is where there are no clouds, but this isn’t true of where there are no clouds, so it is obviously a mechanism entirely caused by clouds.
I agree with most of your comment Bayard, but I can’t follow the final paragraph where you state the 30 Kelvin discrepancy that comes from the Earth’s greenhouse effect isn’t actually there. Let’s try to go through the maths – I’ll try to avoid using formulas, symbols and scientific notation as much as possible to make it easier for non-scientists to follow.
As you said, the energy radiated by a planet’s surface must be equal to the solar energy absorbed by it, otherwise the planet would keep getting hotter and hotter.
The Stefan-Boltzmann equation can be expressed as follows:
Energy flux radiated per square metre of surface = Stefan-Boltzmann constant x Average Surface Temperature to the power of four (in Kelvin)
So to work out the surface temperature of a planet without any greenhouse gases in its atmosphere, just divide the energy flux absorbed per square metre (equal to the energy flux radiated per square metre) by the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and then take the fourth root of that.
The Stefan-Boltzmann constant is 0.0000000567 and, as you noted, for Earth the absorbed solar energy flux is 235 watts per square metre, so:
235 / 0.0000000567 = 4,140,000,000
Earth’s calculated Average Surface Temperature without a greenhouse effect would be the fourth root of the above value, i.e. approx. 254 Kelvin
This is 33 Kelvin lower than the Earth’s actual average surface temperature of 287 Kelvin (14 Celsius), which can be accounted for by the greenhouse effect.
Simples.
“Earth’s calculated Average Surface Temperature “
The problem is what you mean by “Surface” in “Average Surface Temperature”. As far as incoming radiation from the sun is concerned and therefore as far as the outgoing radiation is concerned, the “Surface” is what the radiation is first incident on, and what it radiates from, i.e. the surface visible from space (the “visible surface”). 2/3 of this is the upper surface of clouds. Under those clouds the “hard surface” (land and sea) is warmer than the “visible surface”, so if you calculate the average surface temperature of the “hard surface”, it is warmer than the average surface temperature of the visible surface, the difference being the “greenhouse effect”.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. You seem to have accepted that clouds – which are made up of small droplets or ice crystals composed of triatomic H2O molecules – can absorb solar radiation and re-radiate it, but for some reason you’re convinced that triatomic CO2 molecules in the air can’t absorb radiation from the Earth’s surface and then re-radiate it, contributing to a greenhouse effect. Can I ask if you have a grounding in molecular spectroscopy?
LA:
“Can I ask if you have a grounding in molecular spectroscopy?”
Bayard claims to have an A level in physics, and says this has enabled him to examine the work of all scientists since Newton. (I’m not sure if this means he’s actually done so, or means he thinks he’s up to the job). Please don’t laugh… I’m not finished here.
He has said some remarkably stupid things (such as thinking any feedback loop would quickly result in an unchecked extreme condition – if CO2 causes warming and makes the sea release more CO2, then the sea ought to – literally, I kid you not – be boiling by now, thus allowing him to deny that particular feedback loop exists), but despite this, he’s obviously not a complete idiot.
The conclusion for me is that he has some ideological aversion to the idea that AGW exists, and ties himself in knots to deny it.
It’s quite a shame, because he’s apparently willing to sacrifice intellectual honesty in that pursuit. Perhaps it’s personal, or religious, or he has grandchildren he cannot bear to think about in what is rapidly to come, or simply is in denial of the greatest horror a humanitarian could possibly contemplate – which is the kindest explanation, and the one I prefer to attribute to Bayard.
Who thought up this new class, the “white” working class, and what agenda does this supposed distinction serve except divide and rule?
If someone owns nothing to sell or rent out except for their time and labour, they are working class, no matter what colour their skin. Consequently their autonomy is appropriated by those who do, no matter the colour of their skin, nor where on the planet any of these people happen to be.
It’s the latter who are orders of magnitude more likely to be on a passenger jet to somewhere else, from where they can afford to move on at will and hence don’t get labelled “immigrants”.
YES
“The farce of the Tory leadership contest is that the inane Liz Truss is bound to win because of her skin colour. It is an entirely pointless exercise.”
Maybe so….then again people with brown skins have filled a number of prominent political positions in UK since Obama’s double career success in the US, (where the Dems and their footsoldiers in ANTIFA and BLM STILL scream about white racism!)…… mayor of London, f.ex..
The TRAGEDY of the contest is that whoever wins, it will surely make not one whit of difference to the man/woman/whatever on the street.
The reason being that all of these political creatures appear to have been co-opted by the globalists, IMHO – we haven’t had a patriotic prime minister since Harold Wilson mysteriously resigned part way through his term.
Thatcher kicked it off in UK, selling the oil and coal resources and utilities monopolies to rapacious corporations, and it has just gone downhill from there.
I see a lot of Russia scapegoating in the press, which ignores the fact that energy prices were already rising rapidly in 2021. And in the alternative press there are dark suggestions that mr global (DAVOS, WEF, WHO,UN etc., is forcing these unaffordable conditions onto us as part of a strategy to reduce our numbers, and to provoke a violent public reaction in order to justify tyrannical control measures.
Who knows…but it is for sure that we already had a taste of tyranny during the COVID pandemic, which most people accepted!
Truss is now pushing for Fracking. She can frack right off!
Fracking has ruined the US’s water supply in many areas. The risks of earthquakes are well known; they use millions of gallons of a nasty mix they pump in and that can pollute the drinking water aquifers (body of rock and/or sediment that holds groundwater). This is a common problem in the US. And the chemicals used are dangerous:
Sulfuric acid – corrosive to all body tissues. At a lethal dose of between 1 teaspoonful and 1.5 ounce, it is classified as a probable carcinogen. Many more chemicals can be found in the fracking process such as fuel oil, kerosene, hydrofluoric acid, and boric acid.
I insulated my house externally in 2012. I gave talks on it to promote it. It was costly but what annoyed is that I had to pay 20% VAT. I made all the same points, that it would be all over the country, it could use local labour which would improve the local economy but also some of the work does not need much training. It can be a starter for further training in greater skills up to R&D on materials and installation techniques. I even put comments in the Guardian and other media on these very points in the hope politicians would steal the idea. No big rush sadly, not enough central control I guess or bungs for friends.