The Right is Still Foolishly Rejecting Fossil Fuels
The fracturing of the Net Zero policy agenda continues this week, with a new report from the one-time Thatcherite think tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). With a press release boasting that it has been “endorsed” by Ed Miliband’s Conservative opposite, Claire Coutinho MP, the report, ‘Power to the Markets‘, claims to offer “a new centre-Right vision for energy policy”. And, in parts, it may well deliver. It even makes no fewer than 12 references to the late Nigel Lawson, whose anti-statist determination to remove government from industrial and energy policies are credited with producing the lowest prices for consumers. Surely, such a homage to the founder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Net Zero Watch represents a terminal point for the climate-Right-of-centre? Sadly, despite very many words spread over 112 pages, there isn’t much evidence of the Conservative-aligned think tank’s reflection on what it hitherto supported.
The report begins with a review of what went wrong. If there is anything interesting in this long-winded preamble through the history of Britain’s energy policy failures, it is nothing that could not have been read on these pages or offered by Net Zero Watch and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, or individual voices such as Kathryn Porter and David Turver, among many others. These independent perspectives were developing while think tanks, including the CPS, were urging Net Zero on on the Green Blob’s coin. And in the absence of much new amid so much waffle, I am forced to wonder, not just what is the point, but if the point is to convince you that a point has been made.
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Commonsense just isn’t very common.
Afraid you lost me at “The Right” and then the name “Centre for Policy Studies”, who have the Conservative leader splashed on their home page, and all their articles are just pointing out Labour’s failings, which the Conservatives all did identically.
“we must unleash an abundance mindset throughout the country, bringing factories to our shores and air conditioning to our homes”.
Air-conditioning my home in England? Might be quite nice on the odd occasion that it gets too hot here but a light curtain is equally effective. What’s an ‘abundance mindset’? Does it pay winter fuel bills?
Fossils don’t make hydrocarbons.
Dead Dinos don’t make hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbon energy is abiotic, renewable, natural and almost limitless.
Let’s get the right words in place. Fossils are made by large quantities of water mixed with sand.
Energy Policy in the UK and all across the western world gets away with its absurdity by confusing the public over two different things. (1) Good environmental stewardship, that brings clean water and air and (2) The Climate Agenda that puts CO2 at the centre of everything so that everything that people do must be filtered through what has been decided is true by the Technocrats at the UN and WEF and the Political Class in all the countries that choose to align with them. With the UK tragically World Champions at pretending to save the planet. This is done as if levels of CO2 is some kind of control knob for planetary health. So every policy now MUST be a Climate Policy. No matter the cost, every expense is justified. Questioning any of this is classed as a “dangerous” for the planet and for our “children and grandchildren” in a blatant attempt to make everyone feel guilt over and responsibility for what is a wholly MANUFACTURED CRISIS. We are now morally obliged to pay fortunes for electricity, use electric vehicles, heat pumps, hydrogen, turbines, solar panels etc and get our electricity from expensive land intensive part time sources (wind… Read more »
“The explicit goal should be energy abundance and enduring cheap prices…”
…Specialist subject the b. obvious.
‘The Right’ are still ‘The Wrong’. The have learnt nothing.
Name a party on the right which supports renewables. The author mentions the Tory party but they have not been, what is now referred to, as right of centre for decades. Remember too that all but five Tory MPs voted for the Climate ChangeAct on which all the subsidies and destruction of industry is based.
Climate alarmism magically ignores the falsehood upon which the anthropogenic global warming is based. This falsehood embodies the claim that danger from carbon dioxide requires that a vast array of eye-wateringly expensive actions be carried out to reduce the amount of this gas in the atmosphere. However, for the following reasons, none of these actions can make more than a scintilla of difference. First of all, carbon dioxide dissolves in water and the atmosphere and the oceans mix together over some 80% of the surface of the earth. Changes in pressure and temperature brought about by weather systems ensures that an overall equilibrium exists between the atmosphere and the oceans. The oceans dominate this equilibrium because they can hold at least 200 times as much carbon dioxide as the atmosphere. At present we add some 35 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year. This addition disturbs the equilibrium and causes roughly the same quantity to be absorbed from the atmosphere by the oceans. The present man-made CO2 content of the atmosphere, some 700 billion tonnes, is roughly the same amount as we have released over the past 25 years. Conversely, if we try extracting carbon dioxide and… Read more »
What “Right”? Does that mean the mis-named Conservative Party + cronies, the one led by Mistress Badenough (only Whites like her can be Nigerian) who assures us her Party has had a miraculous Damscene conversion and has seen the light, but nobody but the chronically stupid believes her? In a free market any business which cannot alter or plan production to follow demand, which has unpredictable, intermittent sales sometimes for part of the day, other times none at all, sometimes none for days or weeks on end, is not a visible enterprise. It cannot produce budget and cash-flow forecasts, or profit forecasts, therefore would not be able to attract investors or get banks to lend money or in any case stay in business for long. Nuclear and renewables cannot attract investors without Government guarantees of subsidies and above market prices inflation linked for lifetime of the installation. How is that “free market”? If an enterprise needs subsidies to “get it going” and a price-rigged market, then it is not viable to start with and will not magically become viable. Subsidies, with or without sunsets, are not part of the free market process, nor are fixed, guaranteed prices. “Fix prices — and… Read more »
one-time Thatcherite think tank the Centre for Policy Studies
As they say with financial products, past performance is no indicator that it will continue in the future. So a think tank that once had a grip on things is now no more relevant than a Conservative Party that is no longer conservative. And as for having the little bimbo Coutinho supporting the report, that should be warning sign enough that it is bollocks given the lies she spouts. So looking forward to her local Tory scum getting a kicking in May.
Climate neutral canned tomatoes are here! So that’s alright then
https://news.italianfood.net/2022/04/21/italys-cirio-launches-the-first-climate-neutral-tomato-pulp-in-the-uk/
“A climate-neutral and, therefore, 100% sustainable tomato pulp has been introduced to the British market by the Italian brand Cirio. Since last January, all 400g cans of Cirio Chopped Tomatoes – 100% Italian Tomato Pulp can boast the “Climate-Neutral” wording (clearly highlighted on the label), namely with a completely offset impact on climate change.”