An expensive, razzle-dazzle climate referendum in Berlin aimed to bring forward “climate neutral” ambitions from 2045 to 2030, and no one even led a counter campaign, but it failed miserably:
Climate Referendum fails in Germany
Berliner Morgenpost
Berlin. The referendum for more ambitious climate goals in Berlin has failed. The state election authority announced on Sunday evening that the required minimum number of yes votes had not been reached.
An alliance “climate restart” wanted to achieve a change in the state energy transition law with the vote. Specifically, Berlin should commit itself to becoming climate neutral by 2030 and not by 2045 as previously planned.
Of 2.4 million voters in Berlin, the Yes camp needed 608,000 voters (or 25%) to turn up and agree in order to win. While 860,000 people turned up to vote, only 442,000 said “yes” and 420,000 said “no”. Essentially 82% of the total voter population either didn’t want it, or couldn’t be bothered turning up.
Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone reports it was a crushing defeat
He says “It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback”. Apparently the promotion was intense: “more than a million euros spent in a massive run-up campaign that included plastering the city with posters, concerts by famous performers, huge support and propaganda by the media and hefty donations coming from left wing activists from the east and west coasts of USA.”
There was no leader of the “No” case, yet the No votes were almost equal to the “Yes”.
Predictably, the inner city voted yes, and the “rest” voted No or didn’t turn up.
Gosselin points out that the rich upper class supporters were in agony, calling people names like “climate destroyers”. Their bafflement makes sense if we assume the believers are in a sheltered cult where their news services are controlled and none of them have even met a skeptic. They’ve not heard a single reason why using power plants to command storms is a form of neolithic sorcery with computer support.
“The bubble has burst”
According to one German commentator Gosselin found, it’s a major victory over the Greens:
For this, even major international donors were landed, who were supposed to positively influence the opinion of Berliners about the referendum. And in the end you fail miserably. Not only was the quorum missed by a wide margin, but the number of no votes was only just below the number of yes votes. Nobody had led a counter-campaign against the “climate restart”. That makes the defeat for Neubauer and Co. particularly embarrassing.
They, mostly members of the upper middle class, have declared war on the lower and lower middle classes with destructive climate measures. Outside of the Berlin political bubble and the other urban feel-good oases of Germany, the Neubauers and Schramms of this world never had much support. And now the bubble has finally burst. In Marzahn, Köpenick and Lichtenberg, the majority of voters voted against the referendum.
Meanwhile, the EU has abandoned plans to ban traditional cars by 2035
After Germany, Italy, and five other nations opposed the ban, the EU had to concede and also allow the sale of ICE (internal combustion engine) cars that run on carbon neutral fuels. There is no such requirements for sacred EV’s, of course. Electric vehicles will be fine to run on coal fired electricity.
NetZeroWatch calls on the British Government to abandon similar plans which would destroy the British car industry.
The Wall Street Journal editorial says the Greens were aghast at this too:
Consumers will be allowed to buy internal-combustion autos as long as those cars can run on synthetic fuels, which are fuels made from captured carbon or renewable energy. Brussels still seems to hope that these cars will run only on such “e-fuels” by that deadline. But doubts about the technological feasibility of that pledge may explain why environmental groups were aghast at the weekend decision.
They always project their own flaws…
The usual suspects complain that this is another earth-destroying crony gift from Berlin to its auto industry—as if there’s no cronyism or corporate welfare involved in subsidizing electric vehicles that carry their own high environmental costs. The reality is that the big winners are consumers…
That’s a luxury consumers won’t enjoy in California, Oregon and Washington state, where bans on new cars with internal-combustion-engines remain on the books for 2035.
There is hope.
The Germans have experienced Stage 1 of the unreliables lunacy experiment and it appears that the sane ones want nothing to do with it….coal and nuclear keeps the lights on and the heaters working.
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Glenn. About three years ago i patiently explained….on this blog….that talking the talk might impress some folk, but that a simple glance would show there was no walking the walk….and would not be.
There are about 50 million registered cars in Germany. For the past 10-12 years there have been massive subsidies for Electric Vehicle buyers, plus huge numbers of charging stations…and the perfect environment (lotsa cars, and short distances) for EVs.
Of these 50 million cars, ONLY about 500,000 (1%) are EVs. After a decade of non-stop pushing.
The entire renewables fad is a dud. Always has been and always will be.
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Totally agree.
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The internet has enabled activists to exert power and influence far beyond their numbers. Couple that with social media, twitter etc and it is not until an actual vote that their small numbers can be seen.
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I’d say that ordinary corporate media have played a far bigger role. The indoctrination attempts are almost constant. So glad to hear that the sensible majority still exists.
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Radical Berlin Climate Referendum Fails to Garner Enough Support
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They’ll keep trying to get this insanity through.
Next I suppose they’ll reduce the required number of votes.
Then they’ll change the question to a misleading one plus not provide full disclosure of what they intend to do, just like we do in Australia.
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Net Zero not apropos.
Developed countries reduce emissions while China and India increase emissions.
Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions seems to work like Net Zero poverty. The target promises greater prosperity by increasing the cost of being poor.
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This news should be brought to the attention of “your” local member of Parliament, esp. as it won’t make most of the media.
I suggest a letter as they are required to reply, even if just a brushoff. But a 82% majority against is the sort of thing that attracts their attention. And it doesn’t take many letters to make them sit up.
My Federal member is a dyed in the wool believer (and reputedly on her last term) but the State Member will be more favourable so will direct my letter there also.
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The Green Energy Agenda Increases Poverty. It Must Stop.
The push to ditch reliable energy is out of control. Politicians are manipulating the energy market through subsidies, tax breaks, and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives in regulations and government pensions.
It’s also concerning that the “big three” investment institutions, which collectively hold over $20 trillion in assets, too often coerce the companies in which they have significant investments to bend the knee to their big-government political ideology, such as complying with the Paris Climate Accord.
Sadly, the result of this virtue signaling to prop up unreliable wind and solar comes at high costs for little benefits—if any benefits at all. And more than hemorrhaged taxpayer dollars are at stake: this green energy agenda increases poverty. It must stop.
While the media is constantly ringing alarm bells about the always-changing climate, not enough people are alarmed by the economic trade-offs these unreliable green energy initiatives create. But that requires an honest comparison of the climate change risks versus the economic costs, both of which impact future generations.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that there were an expected 20 million more people without electricity globally, totaling 775 million people, in 2022. Many of these people are in sub-Saharan Africa, who are facing increasing hardship due to rising costs for food, fuel and other necessities. This situation is made worse by the left’s insistence on unreliable sources of energy that have forced many Europeans to use wood for stoves and heat instead of much cleaner-burning natural gas.
Forcing some of the population to depend on energy sources that don’t work ultimately pushes them into hardship and poverty when those methods fail.
Texas experienced this problem in a tragic way two years ago during its historic weather event of freezing temperatures and accumulations of ice and snow that left thousands without power, contributing to an estimated 246 deaths.
Such a tragedy should never have happened in America’s energy capital, but these are gambles that politicians take when offering subsidies to unreliable variable energy providers that make it difficult for reliable thermal energy to compete, even though thermal energy is the most stable and reliable form.
More broadly, if every signatory of the Paris Accord, including India and China, decarbonized by 2050, the temperature differentiation by 2100 would be just 0.17 degrees.
And according to climate change activists, the cost to get there could be as much as $21 trillion through 2050.
Businesses attempting to go green would be forced to raise their prices significantly to make a profit, a normally tough task that’s only made harder by present-day sky-high inflation. But if subsidies and other artificial means of skewing the energy market continue, then businesses that don’t receive subsidies and can’t afford to “go green” simply won’t be able to compete. This would result in a massive reallocation of resources that will contribute to less economic growth, more poverty, and less energy stability.
Not only can over-dependence on unreliables lead to hardship, but it often counteracts the green energy innovation it wants to spur.
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Great reply old mate!We have all gotten old watching this snake oil get pedalled to ” peak stupidity” especially here on OZ.lt must be 15 yrs since Joanne,Bob Carter,Plimer,Monckton, Anthony Watts, Jo’s hubby, Lindzen to name a few I remember- took a stand for the good of our country.We were no match for this $ trillion swindle.Nevermind the “voice” give Australians a vote and I’m certain it would be the same as the Germans.Hats off to this site for never giving up the fight!
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Electric Cars Are Bankrupting the Auto Industry
Only a government ban on cars can save them.
Ford reported that it’s going to lose $3 billion on electric cars in 2023.
Unlike most automakers, Ford reports its electric vehicle numbers separately, but experts estimate that most car companies are losing similar amounts on the dead end business.
Ford’s investment in Rivian’s electric cars can’t be helping. Last year the startup electric pickup truck maker was spending $220,000 to make the electric vehicles that it sells for $81,000.
That’s bad news for George Soros and for CalPERS: California’s massive public employees retirement fund and a ticking time bomb which owns hundreds of thousands of shares in Rivian.
GM and Ford both project that their electric cars will be profitable in a few years. Ford plans to make 2 million electric cars every year by 2025. That would be impressive considering that Ford only sold 61,575 of them in 2022. It sold 3,624 electric vehicles in Feb 2023.
That’s a long way from 2 million.
GM plans to sell 1 million electric cars by 2025. It sold less than 40,000 in 2022.
Projections like these might make sense if GM and Ford had hot products and untapped market demand. Instead there are too many electric car models chasing a tiny market. Electric car sales have yet to break the million mark. Most of the electric car activity continues to be concentrated in the luxury SUV market which only has so many buyers able to afford them.
Even the “affordable” electric cars, like GM’s Bolt, start at $30,000, and lose as much as $9,000 for the company.
The only way to create demand for electric cars is through government mandates.
After 2035, if you want to buy a new car in California, it’s electric cars or it’s nothing. California’s mandates that fined car manufacturers, forcing them to buy credits from electric car makers like Tesla, financed the electric car industry. By 2035, California will simply eliminate the competition.
New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington have also moved to ban the sale of new cars. About a dozen Democrat states have similarly decided to prevent residents from buying cars. Virginia’s House voted to drop its car ban, but the state’s Senate Democrats have kept it in place. Biden has proposed a similar ban nationwide following its adoption by the EU.
By 2040, GM expects to stop making and selling cars on the assumption of such a ban.
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A mess like this is all due to abondoning free market principles. The people might demand to be able to buy want they really want, but that will require honest elections and breaking the strangle hold on policy by unelected bureaucrats
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EVs Are The Yugo Of The 21st Century
I & I Editorial Board – March 28, 2023
Way back in the mid-1980s, communist Yugoslavia exported the Yugo, a compact car that sold for around $4,000. It was so poorly made that bumping into a pole at 5 mph could total it.
Fast forward to today, and a new class of cars has a similar problem. A minor accident can cause a total loss, even if the car’s been driven only a few miles. The only difference is that these cars aren’t cheap imports from some godforsaken socialist state. These are state-of-art electric vehicles that come with an average sticker price of $55,000.
Why are insurance companies totaling low-mileage EVs that have been in a fender bender? For the same reason you could total a new Yugo when backing out of a parking spot. The cost of repair is exorbitant.
As Reuters reported recently, “For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents,” which means the only viable option is to replace the battery, which represents about half the cost of the car.
Insuring an electric car is already 27% more expensive, on average, than a gasoline-powered one. If insurers keep totaling new EVs with minor damage, those rates will only go up.
This won’t be a problem just for EV owners. You can bet that the environmentalists pushing electric cars will soon start complaining that insurance companies are “discriminating” against EVs and demanding that they spread those costs around more widely – forcing owners of conventional cars to subsidize EVs.
In a normal market, carmakers would work out such kinks before mass producing a vehicle, much less converting their entire fleets over to a new and relatively untested technology. If they couldn’t resolve problems of affordability, reliability, and repairability to consumers’ satisfaction, automakers would scrap the effort and move on to something else.
But our elites think they know better. And they want new cars to be 100% electric within a decade. So, carmakers feel like they have little choice but to plow ahead.
Which brings up another way that today’s EVs are like the Yugos of yesteryear.
One auto critic said of the Yugo that it “had the distinct feeling of something assembled at gunpoint.”
That was probably literally true in the case of the Yugo. But it is essentially the situation with EVs today.
Consumers aren’t banging on dealership doors demanding EVs. Ford reported last week that its e-car division is losing billions of dollars a year.
Car companies are pouring money into electric cars only because the government is holding a gun to their heads, saying build EVs or die.
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So Californias car dealers will all have to close. But i smell an opportunity to open dealerships in Utah selling petrol cars to californians to drive back home.
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“There is hope”.
More accurately – There is reality. It is certain that the dreamers will eventually confront reality.
Australia will be at the abyss by the end of April. Already talk that Eraring life must be extended beyond 2025.
Mainland Australia now has a perfect storm of Labor governments in power. They can no longer blame the Liberals for the delays in achieving nirvana.
There was an interesting interview with Chris Bowen and Albanese. On the question of energy costs, Bowen deferred to Albanese for the assurance that costs will come down. Bowen may actually be smart enough to realise he, or no one, can deliver the impossible.
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I doubt it.
He’s never had a proper job, which he would almost certainly fail at.
He’s only ever been a politician, or worked for one, or been a union official.
An entire life of having his snout in the trough.
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And he, Bowen, clearly buys his own shirts. I have never seen a scruffier neck line with floppy collar and badly tied tie than on this bozo. Surely an MP can afford to buy a decent shirt and present well when being interviewed. Or does he just not care.
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Reported on local radio this morning that to reach net zero we should invest in more wind and solar and for the times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine we should invest in more hydro. Just a tiny point that eludes me, doesn’t hydro require the building of dams? Now it seems strange that dams could NOT be built to conserve water, but must be built to conserve electricity. The stupid really does burn!
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The scientific and engineering illiteracy out there in Sheeple land is simply staggering.
Plus almost all economically viable dam sites in Australia and most Western countries have been used.
Hence we are left with non-economic pumped storage schemes such as Snowy Hydro 2, a net consumer of electricity if it ever gets built and a net consumer of taxpayer money.
Somebody has done calculations for the United States to demonstrate the infeasiblity of pumped storage dams for that country under a wind+solar scenario. It’s not viable, not even close. See https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
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“Plus almost all economically viable dam sites in Australia and most Western countries have been used.”
No really true,
There are lots of possible sites for good dams, its just that they have been deliberately locked up in National Parks.. eg Welcome Reef
Certainly, pumped hydro has basically nowhere where it would be economically viable, dam availability or not.
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There are viable places for Dams in Australia David, well physically viable but locked up by green governments and the misguided belief that even the rain that falls won’t fill our dams and rivers. Meanwhile most of the rain that has fallen here over the last few years has flowed out to sea, and when the inevitible next drought hits (proof of climate change, of course) there will again be too little water for our population that continues to grow while our dams built for a fraction of the current population run dry.
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Agreed William. I should have also qualified my statement with “available sites”.
The billions of dollars Australia has thrown away on useless solar and wind schemes and SH2 and Big Batteries should instead have been used for something useful like drought-proofing and flood-proofing Australia.
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“The scientific and engineering illiteracy out there in Sheeple land is simply staggering.”
There is a very large deficit in Energy Literacy throughout the population. TonyfromOz has alluded to this several times in his recent comments. There are very few in the media who understand – to give one very simple example – the difference between power (GW, for example) and energy (GWh, for example). This allows clueless (or malevolent) pollies, or industrialists with vested interests, to say literally anything they like about energy, confident in the knowledge that no-one in the media is capable of pointing out the flaws (or, frequently, the engineering impossibility) in their arguments. The obvious example here is energy storage, where the media frequently report on the development of “X MW of energy storage” without mentioning – or probably without realising – that they are talking about power and not energy, and that the storage capacity of the battery concerned would last for minutes up to maybe an hour or two if drawn down at the quoted power output (Hornsdale, SA, for example: ~ 200 MWh of energy storage and 150 MW, meaning maximum 80 minutes’ supply).
In a different example, the illustrious leader of the Australian Greens recently demanded that we “stop opening up new coal and gas mines”. I have worked as a petroleum engineer for 40 years, the majority of the time on gas projects, and I can assure you that no-one produces gas from mines. Yet nobody pointed out that the Greens’ leader was clearly completely ignorant of the subject about which he spoke. Does nobody in the media realise that there is no such thing as a “gas mine”.
Until we can start to educate the population in matters of energy literacy, we will fall prey to manipulation by those who, for whatever reason, wish to destroy Australia’s capacity to produce reliable baseload power. How this could be achieved, I really don’t know. But I am increasingly convinced that such an education effort is of vital importance.
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Aldi has a special buy 3300W petrol generator for $399. Be prepared.
There is reasonable prospect of portable generators being in high demand on the East Coast by June.
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Yes, but that was last Saturday and sold out at all my local stores. Along with the 100Ah lithium battery.
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I bought a 5000 W generator after the last ice storm. The last ice storm was 2013. They occur about 10 years. I should test it to see if it still runs.
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My most loved reaction 😀
by Terli, the weather moderator at the ZDF TV, full on climate religion drug 😀
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If you hear a frantic swishing like sweeping frenzy this morning don’t panic. It’s not UFOs landing or Aliens advancing to attack you, it’s just the Australian media, dutifully assisted by the Labor / Green Coalition sweeping the news of the crumbling Climate Change BS in Europe, under a large green carpet.
By the way, the EFuel condoned by the German Greens / EU is ordinary fuel on which green Carbon Credits have been bought & paid for. They would have you believe that eFuel doesn’t emit CO2 as a result of buying Carbon Credits!
I wonder if there’s a “Credit” that one can buy to prevent BS artists in parliament from spreading BS.
Perhaps there’s a CO2 vaccine on the way!!😵💫😵💫
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The events in Germany are just a temporary setback for the eco-nazis.
Increasingly large sums of loot will be pillaged from the peasants to fund the next round. Enhanced “spillage” rates WILL apply.
This is a genuine cultural WAR. Leftists and other assorted totalitarian sociopaths CANNOT abide being mocked or ignored. There WILL be BLOOD.
Something about “History repeating, first as farce, then as tragedy”, springs to mind.
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Best news since a long time.
After living in Germany for some years I was very pessimistic about their sanity re Climate Laws. Their indoctrination was seemingly complete with any discussion re the futility of their actions being shutdown down with ‘barbaric uneducated stupid Australian’ reactions. It is with great Schadenfreud for the Greens that I read of the Berlin vote.
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Germany might want to rethink eFuels. Their economy can’t support the costs.
Germans now pay approx USD 7 / gallon for gasoline and USD 6.90 / gallon for Diesel (approx AUD 2.75/L).
Fischer-Tropsch synfuels using ‘green’ hydrogen from Wind/Solar electrolysis of water wastes 70% of the input energy.
Fischer Tropsch is 58% efficient from input energy to finished synfuel. Electrolysis of H2O into H2 is 52% efficient.
Net efficiency is .52 x .58 = 0.30 overall energy efficiency , at best.
So, Germans can expect to pay about 70% more for their eFuels: approx USD 12 / gallon ( AUD 4.76/L) for gasoline and about AUD 4.6 / L for Diesel. Could be more. This is the low end cost to expect. No account has been taken for plant amortization, labor or overhead costs. Final costs could be much higher for eFuels.
Ref: Life Cycle Analysis of Electrofuels: Fischer–Tropsch Fuel Production from Hydrogen and Corn Ethanol Byproduct CO2 , https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1807679
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Germany might want to rethink a lot more than eFuels, they might want to rethink everything.
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Synthetic fuels – I found this little snippet:
“But the cost of producing synthetic fuels – expected, at least initially, to be between $4.50-$7.50 per litre – is suggested by motoring analysts as a reason to temper excitement.
Synthetic fuels are commonly made by combining carbon dioxide from the environment with hydrogen from water in an expensive, energy-intensive process with inefficient yield ratios.
International Council of Clean Transportation research shows 48 per cent of energy used in production of synthetic fuels is lost in the conversion process, with 70 per cent of energy in the fuel itself lost during combustion in the engine – a 16 per cent total efficiency.”
And you need to add to the cost of manufacturing the synthetic fuel the cost of transport, storage, profit margins for each step of the way until it gets to your ICE vehicle. Once again a manufactured problem with a “solution” that isn’t.
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The overall efficiency of Wind/Solar powered EVs isn’t that great, either.
solar panel efficiency: 13 to 23% efficient, avg is 18% https://www.solar.com/learn/solar-panel-efficiency/
Transmission/Dist losses : 8 to 15%, avg 10% https://blog.se.com/energy-management-energy-efficiency/2013/03/25/how-big-are-power-line-losses/
Li Ion battery efficiency: 78% https://www.genixenergy.com/battery-knowledge/what-is-the-efficiency-of-lithium-ion-batteries.html
.18 x .9 x .78 = .126 or 12.6% for an EV powered by Solar
Wind: .593 (betz limit) x .75 (avg real wind turbine mech. eff) = .44
.44 x ,9 x ,78 = .31 or 31% efficient for an EV powered by Wind.
If the generation mix is equal, the overall efficiency for an EV is 21.8% but this does not include backup energy, FCAS, storage, etc.
If AU went with eFuels from a Fischer-Tropsch + green H2 process, the costs would be around AUD 9 / L, minimum, and likely around AUD 15/L. Roughly 4 times current costs.
The only reason to use eFuels is if there is no other alternative and the input energy is irrelevant, ie a war footing.
The best use of H2 is to make Ammonia via Haber Bosch process and then use it as feedstock for fertilizers or as fuel in a modified Diesel engine or Fischer Tropsch synfuel gasoline. At least the base stock has utility in several areas, although the energy losses range from 20% to 200% to make, transport, and use H2.
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Trouble is Lance, you are too accurate, too financially factual. Remember, its not about reality, it’s the “vibe”.
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The physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, and electrical engineering, rule. No ‘vibe’ can oppose reality. Politics may mask reality, but sooner or later you run out of money, time, food, energy, etc and civil disobedience takes over.
I’m a realist. None of this green nonsense matters to the climate, earth, or humanity. The green nonsense is kabuki theater of the absurd being manipulated for power and control.
Everyone will clearly understand reality when they are cold, sick, hungry, and in darkness. And it is going to happen. Nobody can bugger up energy, economies, agriculture, supply chains, etc like they’ve done without enormous, uncontrollable, blowback. The only questions are when and how tragic.
As Ayn Rand said: ” You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality”.
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I can buy biodiesel today at 2,10 €/l from the local gas station. Natural oil based diesel is little less than 2€. These prices follow each other. Carbon source of this synthetic diesel is likely not CO2. European prices contain a lot of taxes.
Energy efficiency of the synthesis is not the most important thing. It is the consumer price. You don’t ask the cost per kWh when you buy a AAA battery.
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” Apparently the promotion was intense: “more than a million euros spent in a massive run-up campaign that included plastering the city with posters, concerts by famous performers, huge support and propaganda by the media and hefty donations coming from left wing activists from the east and west coasts of USA.”
There was no leader of the “No” case, yet the No votes were almost equal to the “Yes”. Predictably, the inner city voted yes, and the “rest” voted No or didn’t turn up.”
This sounds just like Elbow & The Voice! I expect it to be declared a ringing endorsement when exactly the same figures are returned.
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In the old days in East Germany when there was civil unrest the hierarchy would fly in bananas from Cuba. Regarded as a rare treat back then, people would be seen everywhere walking around eating bananas. Then the unrest would settle and life would go back to normal- or what resembled normal in the Berlin enclave of East Germany. So, a bribe. Which is what most western countries will see from now on regarding “Climate” policies and their governments. In Germany’s case obviously those bribes are not yet significant enough to sway peoples opinions. In the US the Biden administration is about to release enormous support programs to Agriculture, again in the name of “climate”. So rather than force landowners out of business like the Dutch Greens tried, Biden is going to try to bribe US farmers to reduce their carbon, nitrogen and water footprint with financial bribery. It’s only a few trillion dollars – who cares?
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the problem is with inflation and de dollarization the money will not actually buy anything!
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More good news and yet the losers still claim we have to tackle their CC BS and FRAUD?
BTW here’s the global co2 emissions from OWI Data and you’ll note that there has been SOARING co2 emissions since Dr Hansen’s BS speech in 1988.
And the OECD haven’t increased emissions over that time. THINK.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=~OWID_WRL
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That may be our future ICE cars, oecologic correct, wood based, no oil, no gasoline
Wood Carb
Some ancient cars
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No phone. No lights. No motor cars. Not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe it’s as primitive as can be.
Perhaps the Amish are ahead of the game.
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They would ban wood gas powered cars because of emissions plus various prohibitions on gathering firewood such as in the People’s Republik of Vicdanistan.
In any case it’s not about finding practical transport solutions.
The Left/Elites want us confined to our “15 min cities” which are just a re-invention of the Medieval idea of serf/slaves bound to their master’s land and living their entire lives within the confines of their village (i.e. 15 min city) without ever leaving it.
The Left truly do want a reversion to pre-Enlightenment, pre-Industrial Revolution times.
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In Berlin non voters played their part,
Along with NOs have upset the applecart,
As the YES fell far short,
It suggests they abort,
All plans for a ‘climate restart’.
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‘Tis obvious why the green GangGreen failed: ‘restart’ is not the officially sanctioned Schwab-sponsored word of the decade – should have been ‘climate reset’ and all would have fallen into line… commencing with Year Carbon Zero™.
Greenies are renowned for shouting – not so much listening nor observing.
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this is why they don’t let people vote for anything that matters.
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That picture in GP’s tweet above reminds me of all of the coverage when Brexit passed in GB. Sort of delicious. In a guilty way.
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Who is “we”? If Australia then there is no such thing – unless there is some change or addition to the constitution involved. The referendum-like thing we have is held every three years and policies are put forward for people to vote on.
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Except, of course, the policies which are not mentioned until after they are elected.
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And the policies of ALL parties are dictated by groups like the WEF, UN, IPCC etc, and very often based on far-left woke agendas (eg climate, trans, net-zero-supplies…)
There is basically no Rational Conservation party left to vote for.
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Great point
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1. only policies vetted by the puppet masters are put forward.
2. once elected policies are open to change
3. once elected policies never put forward at election can be legislated.
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Seeing the dismay on the faces of the two climate catastrophists in the photo is truly heartwarming! It looks like the young lady in the background is of the opposite camp.
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Climate/Carbon Neutral is utter rubbish. Only 3% of the CO2 in the air is from fossil fuels.
The other 97% is perfectly natural from the vapour pressure of the vast amounts of CO2 in the ocean where 98% of all CO2 lives. Any CO2 added to the system is also distributed 98:2 ocean to air. It disappears into the ocean quickly, half in 5 years.
Growing trees does not reduce CO2. More comes out to cover the loss. In fact NASA/CSIRO admit 14% new Green areas of the planet since satellites started in 1988, the area of Brazil and matching the 14% increase in CO2. So CO2 means more trees. More trees does not mean lower CO2.
Burying CO2 makes no difference but it is utterly unnecessary. Our tiny amounts are nothing on a planetary size and it all goes in the ocean. .
Bushfires? No sign of them in the graph of CO2. But a huge phytoplankton bloom in the South Pacific after the NSW fires. The CSIRO says it because of ‘nutrients’. The big nutrient is CO2. Phytoplankton already have plenty of water and sunlight.
Everything we know says that Nett zero is a mad piece of Green accounting with nothing to do with reality. A sort of creeping around quietly which will cripple our standard of living, our incomes and our jobs. And countries like Japan for whom we supply 70% of their thermal coal needs. We have had problems with the Japanese before when we cut off raw materials.
It’s all Green insanity. Not a scientist in the Greens as Dr. Patrick Moore said. No idea of physics or chemistry. Just emotional wailing about problems which don’t exist. Greta Thunberg is typical, along with almost all of Hollywood.
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But – BigGirlsBlouses Lies Matter!
B-grade theatrics going on in NZ’s hoar-house of Parliament this week with Green members wailing and whining over Climate Crossdressing Calamities (R18).
Thanks for your concise writing TdeF, I take notes to arm myself against the relentless beliefs of CCCcult followers, comes in handy when they begin preaching nonsense.
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Yes ME TOO Greg.
Thanks TdeF you are certainly one in a million.
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Is that for real? Only 25% need to vote yes for yes to win? Seems a very low bar.
Is that because voting isn’t compulsory and only if the 25% achieves a majority of those who voted?
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They need to get over 25% to reach a quorum. So I assume the Yes camp needed to get more votes than the No camp AND get over 25%.
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Exactly
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Unfortunately Australians have not had it hard enough yet with the reckless renewables.
Once the blackouts start and power bills double again there will, like the Germans, be little stomach for this ridiculous experiment in an alternative reality.
A friend of mine, who thinks like me and most of those here is now happier than he has been on this for a while. With Labour now in charge everywhere it will be completely obvious that they are the only ones to blame when things fall over badly, and the speed of the collapse will be much faster. Peter Dutton has been stupid, in my view, but his strategy (he has said privately that he does not support Net Zero and would agree with most here) is to just let Labour hang themselves. (and stuff all those businesses and livelihoods ruined…)
I am angry that years ago the LNP did not stand up for reality and fight back on this issue, and in the end they will be seen to be part of the problem.
Roll on a Meloni style party or Sweden Democrats to appear here and seize the chance. This disaster will only benefit such a party.
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Forget those parties. Renounce allegiance to the British throne, and make me King of Australia. I would sort things out, and do it with dignity and correct grammar.
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Referendums like this and elections like the 2016 US election will not to be tolorated by the globalists elites. Hence honest elections are undangered. In the past election integrety was brought back by a free press in the free world. They couldn’t really get away with cheating, at least not for very long. But when you have no longer have free speech you can simply cancel those who disagree.
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Elementary blunder on the part of the German authorities. Never hold a referendum unless you know you will get the answer you want.
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… or you are the one doing the counting!
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The great German silent majority has spoken and the pissed off members upset enough to vote have voted NO. Not enough votes cast to call the referendum it is the greatest silent protest seen in a while. The Woke crowd will worry their pet policies will be ignored.
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California is headed for interesting times, should their vehicle policies become realities large enough to [Literally] drive a truck
through. It’s quite a distance from the port of Oakland or LA to the Nevada border. If only EV’s are permitted in CA, one can envision
semi’s down to their last volt creeping to the state line, where a diesel cab picks up the load to serve the rest of the country, and
there the truck remains, probably recharging on the Nevada side given the probable paucity of the California grid. The EV then picks up a waiting backhaul,
or not, and creeps back to port, to repeat the charging cycle. This reminds one of borders where different gauges of rail met, and the cars had
to have their under-carriages swapped to continue their journey, as this, as bad as it was, beat transloading the cargo.
Of course, for this to play out, someone will have to make an EV semi that can pull a full load from the port to the border, an item
still missing from the vehicle inventory. No one in Ca has noticed that it might be easier for shippers to avoid the mess, but the eastern port where I live is
building its second new container crane, it’s four year old first being fully occupied. It looks like CA will get rid of much of its truck
traffic , one way or the other.
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I posted this on “No Tricks Zone” yesterday (US time):
As CS Lewis said:
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