Posted on 04/04/2024 4:54:21 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Throughout the West, the cult of fossil fuel suppression presents itself as an orthodoxy from which no dissent is permitted.
In the U.S., there has been substantial and growing resistance to the enforcement of that orthodoxy, among Republicans in general and particularly from red and energy-producing states. By contrast, in Europe, there has been little push-back. Somewhere along the line, in country after country, the drive for Net Zero carbon emissions got the backing of an effective all-political-party consensus. In a gigantic political miscalculation, many mainstream center-right conservative parties got fully on board. That mistake now looks to destroy several of these parties in the major countries.
From when it was first proposed, Net Zero was something with which no rational right-of-center party should ever have associated itself. Whatever you think about whether carbon emissions from fossil fuels are “warming the planet,” or even causing a “climate crisis,” the proposed solution of building lots of intermittent electricity generation never had any chance of working at reasonable cost. This was always an unproven socialist central-planning scheme that could only succeed in driving up energy costs and impoverishing the population. Such utopian socialist schemes are the business of the left. If center-right political parties have any purpose, it ought to be to stand up against these kinds of schemes, and for the working and middle-class people who stand to be harmed by them.
But that’s not how it has played out. Consider just two of the leading countries, the UK and Germany.
In the UK, the Conservative Party jumped in with both feet to champion the Net Zero agenda. Although the first Climate Act got passed during a Labor government in 2008, in 2019 the Conservatives took the lead to amend that Act to set legally binding targets, and then doubled and tripled down with new targets and mandates. From a January 2023 House of Lords Report:
In 2021, the [Conservative] government set two additional interim targets to run a net zero power system and reduce emissions by 78% by 2035. . . . In the UK, the policy pathway to achieve net zero was launched in the ‘Net zero strategy’, published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in October 2021. Some of the key policies include:
- ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars
- promoting the use of sustainable aviation fuel
- investing in clean electricity and hydrogen production
- providing funding for households to switch to low-carbon heating systems
- incentivising farmers to use low-carbon farming methods
- planning to triple the rate of woodlands creation in England
To the surprise of no one who pays attention, the price of energy for UK consumers has soared. Greenmatch here in a piece from March 15, 2024 reports that the average annual electricity bill for a UK consumer rose from £764 in 2021 to £2000 in 2022. By 2023, the price per kWh for electricity for a UK consumer had hit an average of 27 p. That’s equivalent to about 35¢ U.S., or well more than double the average U.S. consumer electricity price.
There are surely other reasons for the current unpopularity of the Conservative government. However, this issue clearly ranks at or near the top. Here is a chart of polling for the next election from Politico’s UK branch:
It looks like the Conservatives are set up to get wiped out.
The situation in Germany is similar. The mainstream center-right parties, the CDU and CSU, under long-time Chancellor Angela Merkel, led Germany to the “Energiewende.” They got massive building of wind turbines and solar panels, and the closing of all their nuclear plants. Result: consumer electricity prices of triple or more the U.S. average. The recent news from Germany is that the CDU and CSU see their popularity fading, while a populist right-wing party called the AFD is on the ascendant.
There is a lesson to be learned here for U.S. Republicans. As the cost of crazy green energy schemes becomes more and more apparent, standing up against them looks to be increasingly a political winner.
Are there any real conservatives in Europe if they are not actively fighting this net zero stuff?
Manhattan Contrarian ping
What the hell is a “net zero”?
Solar and wind are cute but have never been the heavy lifters when it comes to energy.
For sustainable, scalable, energy... the best options I’ve seen are deep drilling geo thermal and hydrogen.
Using hydrogen to produce electricity in cars gives the best solution I’ve heard to date. The fact you can ‘hatvest’ hydrogen at home, off grid, is very exciting
Hydrogen isn’t an energy source, it is an energy transportation means. Discussing it in the same context and gas and diesel cars is absurd.
The all-EV folks never did address where all the electricity was going to come from to power the transportation system. Again, it is absurd this was allowed to happen. The policy makers pushing all-EVs are simply not serious people if they do not address this up front. And if the answer is “sustainable energy”, meaning wind and solar, they have doubled down on not serious. You cannot power modern civilization using wind and solar.
As gas and diesel cars
“Are there any real conservatives in Europe if they are not actively fighting this net zero stuff?”
There are lots of conservatives in Europe, but like many Republicans in the US regarding Trump (and you know who you are), they just cannot bring themselves to vote for a candidate as ‘brash and direct’ as the right-wing parties of Europe as their hate speech is off the charts such as: “We cannot save the planet without China being on board”.
It’s just too much for them to have to explain to others at their monthly Europhile social events. So, considering the horrific thought, it’s clear that starving and freezing to death is the preferred alternative.
“ Using hydrogen to produce electricity in cars gives the best solution I’ve heard to date. The fact you can ‘hatvest’ hydrogen at home, off grid, is very exciting”
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It’s a good thing that it doesn’t take energy to produce hydrogen. /sarc
The real scandal is that it is not ‘fossil’ fuel. That’s what underlies all this ‘net zero’ crap. First, they claimed the crude was a finite source of energy, when they found out it was infinite, they shifted to their present day carbon/environmental harm BS. The Marxist know they have to gain control over this plentiful carbon energy source in order to control mankind. How they are allowed to continue to get away with this anti-human lunacy is beyond me. They believe in science only if it supports their agenda. There was a great put down the other day by a head of state who responded to a Liberal reporter who tried to chastise him for his aggressive oil drilling policy. His argument was basically that carbon dioxide is needed for all planetary life and planting trees instead of deforestation was the solution, not banning oil drilling.
For sustainable, scalable, energy... the best options I’ve seen are deep drilling geo thermal and hydrogen.
Using hydrogen to produce electricity in cars gives the best solution I’ve heard to date. The fact you can ‘hatvest’ hydrogen at home, off grid, is very exciting.
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Why not nuclear — especially for Germany?
After betting their very existence on leaving the EU, and winning the bet, the Conservatives leaped joyfully into the cesspool of Green Energy, and they have done NOTHING consequential to stop boat loads of Muslims from crossing the Channel and requesting asylum.
Four years ago, the Muslim population of the UK reached 6.3%.
I have no idea how much higher it is today.
The freaking Conservatives just sat there and watched it happen.
This is the policy whereby any not 'elite' is forced into subsistence living, i.e., bugs for food, no medical care,
a tough shed for housing, an outhouse, water brought in from the community well, shoe leather for transportation, etc.
Therefore, 'net zero' impact on Mother Erf from the proletariat.
“Using hydrogen to produce electricity in cars gives the best solution I’ve heard to date. The fact you can ‘hatvest’ hydrogen at home, off grid, is very exciting”
Please do tell us how the hydrogen is produced? Hydrogen will not come from the ground and needs an energy source to produce it. Maybe wishes and unicorn farts?
Where does oil come from? It doesn’t just get scooped up and put into buckets.
Same with hydrogen.
Main difference is that hydrogen is the most plentiful element on the planet
The stupid, it hurts! Yeah, there's plenty of hydrogen on earth and it is in the form of, wait for it, water. It takes energy to break apart the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. That is like claiming CO2 is energy because the oxygen in it will burn if only we could sprig the oxygen from the carbon.
“You cannot power modern civilization using wind and solar.”
And, that is their goal...only elites will be able to access “modern civilization”...or so they believe.
As to those smooth brain people who want to “save “ mother earth...so many nitwits, so little time.
do you have any comprehension how much energy is required to drill and pump oil, transport it, refine it into gasoline, then transport that to the local gas stations around the nation?
of course not.
it’s quite a bit more than a small solar panel producing 1kg of hydrogen per day... collected into a home tank... and then used in your car, which has a 6kg / 400mi tank.
but hey, thanks for your 9th grade assessment of the situation.
you keep shilling.
i’ll go with hydrogen combustion engines and stay off grid.
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