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Divestment Snowflakes protesting at St Johns College Jan 30th
Students at St Johns College were protesting last week at the fossil fuel investments that help keep the College running. Even camping out in the quadrangle in the middle of winter:
“We are not going anywhere” – St John’s locked down over Climate Strike
The Oxford Student
Oxford students have occupied St. John’s College since Wednesday, demanding that the College divests its £8.1 million of disclosed investments in fossil fuel companies and all undisclosed fossil fuel investments from its £551 million endowments.
Dozens of students have set up camp in the front quad of St. John’s equipped with banners and placards, to demand that it takes the climate emergency seriously and measures to remove the social licence of fossil fuel companies.
As of Thursday afternoon, there are allegations that St. John’s College had disabled student’s room keys. Instead, they are allegedly doing manual Bod card checks, escorting students to and from their rooms, and are not allowing non-residents to enter the college. There are reports of students bringing protesters food as they have remained on the quad since yesterday.
A […]
It’s a moment in history. Congratulations to Nigel Farage.
Populism is becoming very popular
The Chairperson bureaucrat sums the petty pointlessness of the EU so well. As the Brits triumphantly and disobediently wave their flags, she tries to order them into submission: “Could we please remove the flags. ” “If you disobey the rules you get cut off” — she threatens to cut off the nation that’s celebrating that it has cut itself off.
Freed from the self-serving undemocratic conglomerate meddlers. Brilliant, and best wishes to the UK.
At long last, they’ll be able to buy whatever dang hairdryer they want…
…
With populist members lukewarm, The E.U. fast needs some reform, As the Brexiteers show, How to pack up and go, To the exits, could be the new norm. — Ruairi
9.7 out of 10 based on 132 ratings
Great news for Australia. Brilliant for the UK. The Brits have chucked out EU climate bunnies.
No one can deny the British want out. All the stupid parliamentary games, the attention-seeking mass rallies, and the fake concern about “threats to democracy” got knocked on the head. Finally the country will be able to follow the wishes of voters instead of the wishes of a few career pollies. In great part thanks to Nigel Farage.
Exit poll: Conservative 368, Labour 191, Liberal Democrats 13, SNP 55
If the exit poll results ring true, it will be the biggest Conservative general election win since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 triumph — and Labour’s worst result since 1935.
“Certainly this exit poll is a devastating blow,” said Labour trade spokesman Barry Gardiner. “It’s a deeply depressing result.”
–ABC News
The bloodbath in the UK marks the seismic realignment of the two major parties, with Labor losing working class seats that it has held for years, and the conservatives losing city seats that once were their strongholds. It seems the Labor alignment with the smarty-pants soy-latte set, foreign bureaucrats and immigrants instead of workers is fashionable but not […]
On fire — Ann Widdecombe lays out the situation.
The only kind of Brexit is a clean break.
October 18th 2019
“The Brexit party will take Leave and nothing else.”
“We gave Europe their freedom and in return they want to take ours.”
She’s 72, and has studied Latin, Philosophy at Oxford. She was a Minister in the John Major Government. What a powerhouse.
Bring on an election!
h/t Jim Simpson.
9.6 out of 10 based on 83 ratings
Turning up the screws
Ban cars to get better weather!
A UK committee of academics and one of MP’s say cars are not compatible with life as we know it:
Ditch cars to meet climate change targets, say MPs
Roger Harrabin, BBC
The Science and Technology Select Committee says technology alone cannot solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions from transport.
In its report, the committee said: “In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.”
It echoes a report from an Oxford-based group of academics who warned that even electric cars produce pollution through their tyres and brakes.
Naturally, after suggesting a preposterously large, transformative impossibility — the report then just says the government should spend more on more of the same: buses, trains, bikes and ride shares. See the segue? What starts as a huge mission to change the world morphs into an excuse to boost pet projects. The ridiculous gambit claims pave the way to make another round of “more, more, more” look reasonable.
Let’s join the dots that they won’t. How many storms exactly will 1,000 extra buses […]
Fragile grids
Over a million people customers lost power in the UK yesterday thanks to the sudden outage of a gas and a wind plant. Some of the country’s biggest railway stations were inoperable. Passengers were stuck on trains for up to seven hours. Others stayed in hotels, walked miles or paid “hundreds” for taxis. The outpatient sections of Ipswich Hospital were blacked out for 15 minutes when backup generators failed. “At the height of the Friday rush hour, all trains out of King’s Cross were suspended and remained so for most of the evening.” — BBC. Commuters resorted to using their phones as torches to get out of tunnels in the dark.
Urgent Investigation called for into “fiasco”
According to headlines, at this early stage before the investigation all we know for sure is that wind power is definitely not to blame, but Boris might be. (Seriously, it’s the no-deal Brexit that hasn’t happened).
Officially, people are saying in solemn knowing tones that it is “extremely rare” for two generators to go out at once. But the odd thing about this is how small the loss was. Barfield Gas power is only a 730 MW generator, and Hornsea Wind […]
There’s a message to parties that ignore their base:
EU Election Poll Has Farage’s Brexit Party Beating Labour and Tories COMBINED
Jack Montgomery, Breitbart
New polling for the upcoming European Parliament elections shows another astonishing surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, while the governing Conservatives have crashed to fourth place on just 11 per cent.
The Opinium poll of 2,004 people, conducted online between the 8th and 10th of May, showed support for Mr Farage’s weeks-old party up 6 points to 34 per cent, more than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour — down seven points to 21 per cent — and Theresa May’s Conservatives — down three points to just 11 per cent — combined.
The remainers have their own splinter party… at 3%.
Change UK (CUK), comprised of EU loyalist defectors from Labour and the Conservatives, and intended as Remain diehards’ answer to the Brexit Party, is also struggling, down four points to a mere 3 per cent. The lack of CUK support is hardly surprising since they are competing with the Tories and Labor which both apparently stand for remainers. Brilliant Advert
This is the greatest Party Election Broadcast ever done. […]
In a win for the Summer Fashionthink Parade, the UK Parliament has declared a Climate Emergency
It’s has all the legal meaning of a Chastity vow, has no scientific definition and was not voted on. It’s purely symbolic — as such its main role is to add social pressure on weak minded M.P’s and be a shot-in-the-arm for green-group fundraising. It’s a PR achievement, a worthy footnote in Marketing 101, but what it isn’t, is democratic, rational or the voice of the people.
This is what you get when you let 16 year olds dictate national policy.
What does it mean? Whatever you want: What is a climate emergency?
Prof Chris Turney (of the $2.4m Antarctic stuck-ship fame).
While there is no precise definition of what constitutes action to meet such an emergency, the move has been likened to putting the country on a “war footing”, with climate and the environment at the very centre of all government policy, rather than being on the fringe of political decisions.
Nearly half a million Britons died in World War II. So far, man-made climate change has killed no one. The worst storm in British history was three hundred […]
How not to negotiate
Mark Steyn on Brexit the day after the last vote:
Last night, sixteen days before Britain supposedly leaves the European Union in accord with the people’s vote of three years ago, their elected representatives voted by 312 to 308 to rule out a “no-deal” Brexit – i.e. a straightforward walkaway – ever.
So the EU now has no incentive ever to reach a deal with Britain. The appalling “deal” Theresa May “negotiated” was for a wretched and humiliating vassal status with Brussels. Because for the Eurocrats, what matters is to teach the lesson the ingrate voters that you can check “Out” any time you like but you can never leave. Mrs May’s deal was meant to be a message to antsy Continentals that the citizenry’s impertinence must never happen again.
So last night the elites rose up and overthrew the masses….
Is May working for the EU or the UK?
Am I crazy? I’m hardly a foreign trade wizz, but I would have thought if you represent the fifth largest economy in the world, whose Monarch technically still heads the most widespread empire, culture and language on Earth* you arrive […]
Cropped from The Great Storm by Goodwin Sands, 1703
While we soak in storm footage this week, imagine this storm!
Back when CO2 levels were ideal, the UK was hit by a monster nine-day storm: at least 8,000 dead, maybe as many as 15,000 people. Some 2,000 chimney stacks were blown down and 4,000 oak trees were lost in the New Forest alone. About 400 windmills were destroyed, with “the wind driving their wooden gears so fast that some burst into flames”. The worst toll was probably on ships — with some 6,000 sailors thought to be lost. As many as 700 ships were heaped together in the Pool of London, one ship was found 15 miles (24 km) inland. A ship torn from its moorings in the Helford River in Cornwall was blown for 200 miles (320 km) before grounding eight hours later on the Isle of Wight.
Back then, people blamed the “crying sins of the nation” and saw it as punishment by God. The government declared 19 January 1704 a day of fasting, saying that it “loudly calls for the deepest and most solemn humiliation of our people”. Apparently, it remained a topic of preachy […]
…
No one needed a smart meter when we had smart baseload. Beware Australians, despite the promises and threats, smart meters may or may not make UK customers a paltry saving. When all is said and done it’s not even clear the benefits outweigh the costs.
People who have smart meters installed are expected to save an average of £11 annually on their energy bills, much less than originally hoped. A report from a parliamentary group now predicts a dual fuel saving of £26.
Customer pays, but energy firms save more:
Customers have financed the smart meter programme by paying a levy on their energy bills, while suppliers have frequently blamed the levy for rising costs. However, the report claimed most of the eventual savings would be made by energy firms, rather than consumers.
It is an £11 billion programme. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears the country would be richer if the government just gave back £170 to each person instead.
Smart meter looks like a dumb elephant:
The report also said that:
More than half of smart meters “go dumb” after switching, meaning they stop communicating with the […]
According to the Met Office:
“Britain has enjoyed its sunniest and warmest May since records began in 1929, provisional figures show…”
The average daytime maximum temperature was 62.6F (17.0C), just beating the previous all-time high of 62.4F (16.9C) set in May 1992.
However not-so-provisional, long known and well studied records show that this May was just like a lot of other Mays. So far, this controversial and unexpected result has not been reported.
The Met Office appear to have lost the worlds oldest and longest temperature dataset. Luckily unfunded blogger, Paul Homewood of Notalotofpeopleknowthat, kept a copy of the historic Central England Temperature record on a spare USB stick and spotted that this May in England really wasn’t that unusual.
Warmest May “Evah”? No, That Was In 1833
Spot the warming effect of CO2 — Not:
Central England Temperatures
The legendary data appears to have gone missing sometime in the last three weeks:
Britain enjoying the hottest May since 1772
Tom Peterkin, Telegraph
The average temperature from May 1 to 10 was the highest ever noted since meteorologists first started gathering precise daily data in 1772.
If only all Met […]
Matt Ridley writes the letter Theresa May should send to the EU
For 40 years Britain has propped up the EU with nothing in return but complaints and insults.
The fifth biggest economy in the world can offer foreign aid to the failing EU but on the same terms as other needy states.
BRITAIN SHOULD GIVE THE EU £20 BILLION EXTRA AS AN ACT OF CHARITY
Dear Angela, Emmanuel and others (cc Donald, Jean-Claude, Michel),
I enclose a cheque for £40 billion as agreed. However, you will notice that it is post-dated March 30, 2019, and that it will bounce without a free-trade agreement between us, as I mentioned on the telephone. We are delighted to be in a position to be so unilaterally generous, and sorry that you find yourselves in such dire need of our help.
We cannot help feeling that a little more financial discipline on your part might have avoided the need for such a large sum.
For instance, we notice that all Eurocrats can draw generous final-salary pensions when they get to the end of their lucrative careers, throughout which they will have had handsome allowances and […]
Higher electricity costs mean more people turn off their heaters
There’s a big freeze coming to Britain with minus 12C temperatures possible in the next three weeks.
Last year in winter in England there was a remarkable 40% rise in winter deaths
David Archibald emails that last year was a mild winter for Brits, but the death toll rose from the normal 25,000 excess to 34,000 people. Remembering that it’s moderate cold that kills far more people than extreme temperatures. The UK government advises rooms be heated to at least 18C. (I’ve been in a Canberra house where the temperature fell to 11C indoors, and that was in May.) Despite all the newspaper headlines about outside temperatures, the big killer is indoors.
The big killer is indoor temperature and moderately cold, not extremes.
Campaigners demand urgent cuts to power bill after number of winter deaths among the elderly rise by 40%
Pensioner groups are demanding urgent measures to cut the cost of heat and light after official figures revealed a surge in deaths last winter. There were some 34,300 so-called ‘excess’ deaths during the cold months, according to new figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). […]
Who wants to wait for charging? Instead, just dump the flat batteries, pick up a new set. (See the youtube below).
Having a nation full of electric cars is fine as long as you don’t want to drive them.
Wind Farms would need to “cover whole of Scotland” to power Britain’s electric vehicles
By Paula Murray
Jack Ponton, emeritus professor of engineering at Edinburgh University, said another 16,000 turbines would be required in order to replace petrol and diesel cars with electric vehicles.
“If you want to do this with wind turbines, you are talking about 16,000 more wind turbines, four times as many as we have at the moment, and I’ve estimated that would occupy some 90,000 square kilometres, which is approximately the size of Scotland.”
The academic – a member of Scientific Alliance Scotland, a group which promotes open-minded debate on issues such as climate change – believes the plan is “unworkable”…
The UK plans to phase out combustion engines by 2032. What happens when surges of holiday tourists arrive in a town without enough charging points? “Charge-rage” and long queues. Lets spend our holidays waiting for […]
How fast can we burn millions of dollars trying to stuff a perfectly good fertilizer down a sinkhole? This fast…
Carbon capture must rank as one of the most flagrantly ridiculous ways to spend money (even more pointless than desal). To capture and bury the CO2 of a coal fired plant we have to spend around 60% more to build every new power station and then throw away 40% the electricity it makes. (See TonyfromOz’s calculations in the link below).
Sputnik News reports on the second collapse of UK funding for Carbon Capture:
The UK Government has wasted US$123 million on a competition to develop technology that will capture carbon emissions. The project was cancelled according to a report, after the Energy Department failed to agree the long-term costs of the competition with the Treasury.
Concerns over the price to consumers led to the competitions demise, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
The report, which was produced by the NAO, warned that it was “currently inconceivable” that the CCS projects would be developed with government support, and that the competition costs did not achieve value for money.
This is not the first time a competition run by the government […]
(More at the Daily Mail)
UPDATE: Full GWPF report (PDF) A bargain at half the price
The geniuses in the UK government decided to take £10,800 from every UK household to cool the world by a figure which, rounded to the nearest tenth of a degree, is 0.0 degrees C a century from now.
The Daily Mail:
Hot air: Bombshell report shows green levies backed by government will cost the economy £319bn by 2030 The radical shift to green, renewable energy will have cost £319bn by 2030 The huge sum is three times the annual NHS budget for England The policy will be adding an average burden of £584 a year to every household by 2020 and £875 by 2030 Shocking report takes its calculations from official figures issued by government
The real cost to poorer families paying vastly higher electricity bills might be measured in terms of people choosing second best health options, putting off treatments, foregone holidays, going cold, and for some on the brink, perhaps divorce or worse. (It’s hard to imagine how forcing people to do £10k of pointless work will improve mental health stats). If the UK government came knocking at doors asking for […]
Only higher education could produce something this silly.
The University of Sussex gets the credit for a paper that argues that countries that are committed to nuclear energy are progressing slower towards the holy grail of meeting “climate targets”. This discovery coincidentally comes exactly as the UK Hinkley Point “hangs in the balance”. What were the odds?
The Newspeak starts in the headline — what’s a “climate target”. My personal climate target is to move into the tropics each winter, but the EU climate target is not about reducing temperatures over Spain, but about “more windmills”. The climate target of the EU has apparently got nothing much to do with the climate:
…the EU’s 2020 Strategy — to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, increase the share of renewable energy to at least 20% of consumption, and achieve energy savings of 20% or more by 2020…
They cluster countries in to 3 groups and discover that the countries that plan to maintain or expand nuclear energy (eg Bulgaria, Hungary and the UK) are not cutting emissions as fast as countries that have no nukes (Denmark, Ireland, and Norway).
Could it be, I wonder, because […]
Don’t underestimate the Brexit effect. The landscape is shifting.
The Paris agreement just became less likely. The UK Dept of the environment will submerge, and Boris Johnson, the outspoken skeptic and Brexit figurehead, has been promoted to foreign minister.
James Delingpole says: Britain’s New Prime Minister Drives A Stake Through The Heart Of The Green Vampire
Britain no longer has“the greenest government ever.” This is good news. Very good news. The agonised screeching of all the usual suspects in the Environmental movement will be enough to sustain many of us in lols for weeks and months to come.
Five years ago, could we imagine an “infamous climate denier” like Boris rewarded in any Western Government? There were closet skeptics in the cabinet, but that’s not the same. In Australia, Tony Abbott once said climate change was “crap” and somehow still managed to become PM, but once he was, his official line was the permitted global warming story. ( He pandered, but in the most sensible possible way. And because he did not flagrantly add to the climate slush fund they still called him a “denier” but he rarely said anything openly skeptical.).
To have Boris in such an […]
The fifth biggest economy in the world suddenly frees itself from worlds biggest bureaucratic basket case, and everyone else is knocking at the door?.
Daily Mail: Countries are lining up to enter trade talks with Britain in the wake of the decision to leave the European Union, it was claimed last night.
American politicians are clamouring for an agreement, while talks could soon begin with Australia, South Korea and India.
Otherwise, Brexit is a disaster. Indeed it is so unthinkable, half the pundits are still thinking up reasons why it might not happen. Today uncertainty is what Tony Blair wants, and for as long as possible — “Let’s keep the options open” he says, as he thinks up a list of excuses to ignore a Yes:No vote, like an opinion poll. “People can change their minds” he points out. And they do, which is why we elect governments then throw them out two weeks later when their polls fall below 50%.
On the Twelth Day of Brexit the excuses are hitting the Orwellian-Turbo-Booster: If Britain leaves the EU it will lose sovereign control says some guy in Ireland. Black is white. Up is down. And […]
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