JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
How the net zero economy is the answer to the UK’s flagging productivity: https://ca1-eci.edcdn.com/250224-ECIU-CBIE-2024-Net-Zero-Economy-FINAL.pdf?v=1740388273 Another glossy not worth the paper it is printed on – and of course, it is full-colour with photos and lots of white space (can you imagine how much energy would be saved if government reports were black and white only and no photos!)
Not one mention of ‘regulatory burden’ or ‘subsidy’ anywhere… confusing ‘the economy’ with ‘the private sector’ – without the flows to and from government, this is pointless. (and why aren’t they crowing about all the taxes being generated by this fantastic ‘net zero’ economy….?)
Multiple disclaimers are buried in the methodology, eg
As a result of this bespoke approach, findings from this report may not completely align with existing studies.
the linkages between sectors are based on the 2019 input-output table, but the model is based on the latest official data on employment and GVA. The use of the 2019 input-output table was chosen as the shocks of COVID-19 would have a multitude of impacts beyond the scope of the model.
and then this beauty: “The net zero economy comprises of relatively new types of activity and will continue to evolve as new technologies become available. This means that our definition of the net zero economy needs to evolve with it. At the same time, the techniques for identifying these businesses and the data sources which provide us with an understanding of their activity are also developing”
So they can’t define the net zero economy, but they are able to measure it accurately?
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Looking at who this Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit are I found they are funded by https://meliorefoundation.org/our-work
Really hard to figure out from their website exactly what these people do….but they do have a lot of interesting international jobs going: https://careers.meliorefoundation.org/
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Just go Nuclear. A great Baseload Energy source.
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Interestingly, they include Hinkely and Sizewell in the bucket of ‘renewables’ with solar and wind, rather than specifically identifying what is related to these v. large projects.
Not one photo of nuclear though – all wind turbines….
50
What “new technologies” are created in a country whose leaders have deliberately wrecked the economy? Isn’t wealth needed to create and utilise “new technologies”? Who will have the ideas and the drive to create “new technologies”? How many British politicians have any understanding of science, engineering or industry?
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Includes a German elections map: https://www.eugyppius.com/p/cdu-and-spd-condemned-to-betray-their
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The Europeans are suddenly seeking a Peace plan for Ukraine.
Can’t fight a war if the US won’t fund it.
Checked the daily weather almanac for my area:
Highest temp was in 1918
Highest minimum temp was in 1930
Ave YTD temp is 3.5 °F below record
I’m cold.
The Pope is in critical condition but answering children’s emails?
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Popebot?
40
When a King dies, it’s ‘Long Live the King’.
When a Pope dies, there is always another Pope.
50
Trump’s proposal for compensation from Ukraine was brilliant. It puts Zelenskiyy in the position of conceding to Russian demands to end the war or giving up its mineral wealth to the USA to keep getting weapons to fight the war. I think that is referred to as a rock and a hard place.
Maybe Zelenskyy should approach China for weapons because Europe is short on them.
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Could it be better? The answer is yes.
The proof begins with people who manage money. If anything is evident from this history, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular. Inadequacy is protected further, we have seen, by the fact that failure is almost never at cost to those responsible. More often it has been an interesting subject for discussion, something that has given an added dimension to personality.
Finally, in monetary matters as in diplomacy, a nicely conformist nature and a good tailor and the ability to articulate the currently fashionable financial cliché have usually been better for personal success than an excessively inquiring mind. Effective action and associated thought provoke fear and criticism. It is for these and not the result that the individual is likely to be remembered. So, in the management of money, as in economic management generally, failure is often a more rewarding personal strategy than success.
There is reluctance in our time to attribute great consequences to human inadequacy – to what, in a semantically less cautious era, was called stupidity.
J.K, Galbraith Money Whence it came, where it went 1975
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It’s all getting rather confusing here in the UK.
The BBC reported today that thousands of green jobs have been created, but list the following as examples of green jobs:
The BBC News covers green jobs in the UK, including roles in renewable energy, construction, and other sectors that help the environment.
What are green jobs?
Green jobs are roles that help restore or preserve the environment
They can be in traditional sectors like construction or manufacturing, or in new industries like renewable energy
In the UK, green jobs tend to pay higher wages and are less likely to be automated than non-green jobs
Examples of green jobs are:
Countryside ranger: Works on green spaces, such as planting trees to help reduce flooding
Ecologist: Helps restore environments like woodlands for plants and animals
Agronomist: Advises farmers on soil health and helps produce crops
Green jobs in the UK
In the UK, green jobs can be found in traditional sectors and in emerging industries. However, some groups, such as young people and women, are underrepresented in green jobs.
At the same time there is a shortage of skills in the building, plumbing and electrical industry that are needed if 1,500,000 houses are going to be built by 2030 (according to the government target.)
It seems that most of the real jobs in the electricity generating industry (solar and wind generation) are going to China, and at the same time North Sea oil and gas industries are being shut down.(No gas stoves or boilers allowed in new builds!)
We seem to be ‘going to hell in a handcart’, and this is before the new tax increases come into effect in April that will kill off any prospect of growth in the economy, except for government subsidised jobs.
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I think they count the garbos as ‘green jobs’ because …. recycling. Also the people who work at the tips are probably ‘green’.
I also think there is a lot of other greenwashing in their count. Eg Searching for ‘wind farm’ jobs it initially looks like there are 132 vacancies advertised: https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/search?loc=86383&p=1&q=wind%20farm
But, of these, 75 are hospitality and catering and 17 are healthcare and nursing.
Only 8 actually look like they are for skilled trades.
‘Nuclear’ jobs there are 308 vacancies – but only 105 are engineering jobs. https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/search?q=nuclear&loc=86383
I think many of the 1000’s of jobs they claim are likely media and PR!
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It’s often claimed that subsidy farms such as wind and solar plantations create a lot of jobs.
That may be true.
But it’s only because “green” energy is so remarkably inefficient. You need a huge amount of high maintenance short-lived infrastructure to produce a tiny amount of wildly varying output. This requires a lot of labour to maintain, contributing to the high cost of “green” energy.
Compared to a power station (coal, gas, nuclear, real hydro not SH2), you have a large, efficient, long-life machine providing constant output requiring relatively little maintenance and operational staff.
Mechanisation and economies of scale from the Industrial Revolution made far more efficient use of labour resources which meant people could work in diverse other industries. Thanks to the fantasy energy of the Left, we are now reverting to inefficient small machines with inefficient high cost utilisation of labour (except under TRUMP in the United States who are reverting to proper industrial power and energy production).
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Labor is full of Burkes and you can’t trust any one of them! Australia is in danger of going hard left!
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Elon Musk is one of the great forces of goodness in the world.
Obviously he is a force of goodness, because the Left hate him, even though they once loved him because he was making virtual signaling toys for rich woke Lefties (and now they boycott him and instead get their toys from China, made by slaves)
If he had not taken the huge financial risk of buying Twitter, which could have financially ruined him (and mightn’t ever be financially viable for the high price he paid), we would have never had a free speech platform which ultimately helped get TRUMP elected and which, after he removed censorship staff and policies, also helped expose Leftist lies and treachery in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world.
Musk even fought Australia’s e Safety Kommisar, a censor appointed by the fake conservative Liberal Party when she decided to censor the video of the terrorist attack against the Sydney priest even though he wanted it left up. In fact, it was censored in Australia, but she wanted it censored worldwide which was obviously beyond her jurisdiction. People in free countries can still see that video.
Had Musk not purchased Twitter, the world would be a much darker place today and would be rapidly descending into further evil under a Harris / shadow Obama US Presidency. The election of TRUMP, partly enabled by Twitter, allowed evil to be cast off in the United States, an ongoing process, and hopefully some of this will rub off in the rest of the West although we haven’t seen much change in our Uniparty policies in Australia and fake conservative Dutton has even bizarrely reiterated his commitment to the Paris Accords.
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meanwhile, this murderer is the hero of the left: https://freeradical.zone/@tek/114059934519948469
(I know, still not through court and innocent til guilty, but they are aren’t admiring him coz they think he’s not guilty….)
30
Yes.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione.
The Left loves their murderers and psychopaths.
And look how they revere people like Mao, Ho Chi Minh (Viet Cong), Pol Pot, Che Guevara, Stalin, Mullah Omar etc..
You see young Leftoids with t shirts bearing the likeness of Che Guevara, seemingly not understanding (or maybe they do) that he was a racist, misogynistic, hater of homosexuals, mass murderer, concentration camp overseer, adulterer, had numerous children by different women whom he didnt support, animal abuser, a pyschopath and even came from a privileged background.
Video about Guevara: https://youtu.be/puG4b3uO_Kk
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The public service are pretty cagey about their “expertise deficit” – there is a book out about it, but it is only available to subscribers to the Mandarin: https://www.themandarin.com.au/286539-webinar-bridging-the-public-service-expertise-deficit/
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This disclosure:
That’s rather a radical and inflammatory political position for public sector professionals to espouse and advertise.
Does the premier public service publication believe our government is illegitimate?
20
More on the decline of Once Great Britain.
Why do you need a military when you have already invited in the army of military age males who are fanatical followers of the seventh century warlord?
The funny thing about the Red-Green Alliance, the bizarre association between the Left and followers of the warlord, is that once the followers of the warlord take over, they will not tolerate any of the Left’s “diversity”, women’s rights or LGBTQA+++ etc. which they pretend to support.
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They need the Diversity Officers to manage the upcoming conscription: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-army-conscription-update-as-ex-nato-chief-demands-return-of-national-service/ar-AA1zvOlM
I predict exemptions for those involved with the ‘net zero economy’ if they move to conscript….
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C. Northcote Parkinson – author of Parkinson’s Law etc – was in a combined Service Unit when the 3 heads (Army, Navy & Airforce senior officers) were away for 2 weeks. Within 2 days there was nothing to do for the remanding staff (secretaries, filing clerks. dispatch riders etc).
It bought home to him that Work Expands with increasing Bureaucracy and that increasing numbers never makes the economy grow.
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Sure the kiwis here will be interested to know that they are featured in a series on ‘pathways to positive public administration’ as ‘a government that is widely acknowledged to have proactively responded to the COVID-19 outbreak and effectively contained the virus for an extended period’ (see chapter 13)
https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook-oa/book/9781803929170/9781803929170.xml
“The ongoing pairing of public health official with the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister signaled that the response was not only political but rested on a range of partnerships, appealing to the public’s trust in non-political leaders. One expert, microbiologist Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles, who has won multiple awards for her science communication efforts and had previously given media interviews on infectious disease such as Ebola and Zika, decided her role would be as a communicator to the general public.“
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OK, I’ll be the first: Hissssss…
Ass. Pro. Siouxsie Pink-Haired Micro-Midget Muppet – thankfully we haven’t heard a squeak out of her since her bestest girlfriend fled to Boston, USA a few years back. May the Silence Of The Mutton continue.
20
She got a $20K settlement from her uni because they didn’t do enough to protect her from harassment. https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/auckland-university-ordered-to-pay-siouxsie-wiles-20-000-in-employment-case/ar-BB1pAxxQ
There is also a doco https://www.moviefone.com/movie/ms-information/mVd8516jpykJCIEroQKjq/main/
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9 March – the UK government is going to support a national ‘Covid-19 Day of Reflection’
https://dayofreflection.campaign.gov.uk/
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15 March – Beware the Ides of March.
Et tu Brutus?
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I have had a few years of reflection already – I think I might make 9 Mar a day off
Meanwhile: https://drdavidcartland.substack.com/p/breaking-the-silence-the-conversations-bdf
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Today’s quiz question.
Name the only even prime number.
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Answered by the AI brave browser
According to Open AI ‘2’ is also the number of men required to decide to nurture a child
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An even number precedes an odd number.
So is zero an even number? Has anyone ever asked zero if it ‘feels’ like an even number?
Does that mean that there are two even primes? And what about negative 2?
Does that mean that there are three even primes?
00
Influenza Like Illnesses (ILIs) https://trusttheevidence.substack.com/p/clearing-the-air-around-influenza-54b
What this shows is that there are many agents that cause Influenza-like illness (ILI). If projected on a population of 10,000 people of all ages, the incidence of ILI is 700/10000, and the majority of agents are currently unknown.
The list of agents includes:
Influenza (11%)
Respiratory Syncytial Virus: RSV (6.1%)
Rhinoviruses (3.3%)
Parainfluenza viruses (2,5%)
Other agents (9.1%). These are likely to include metapneumoviridae, coronoviridae and echoviridae.
Unknown (68~%)
As we shall see in the next post, there is a rather large ghost at the feast.
10
Unknown because nobody looked or unknown because the agent wasn’t found AFTER a thorough look?
Big difference. Is the answer in the next post?
00
Getting FERC to restore reliability just got a boost.
Will the President pursue grid reliability?
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2025/02/24/will-the-president-pursue-grid-reliability/
The beginning: “In an Executive Order (EO) the President is asserting a new degree of control over what are called the independent federal agencies. There are about 100 of these some of which have tremendous regulatory authority.
Of particular interest is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). A central mission of FERC is maintaining the reliability of America’s electric power grid. This mission has clearly failed as the grid has become dangerously unreliable.
The question is whether the President will use his authority to lead FERC to restore reliability? There are several ways he might do this which are discussed briefly below.
But first there is a much deeper issue that needs to be kept in mind, which is the questionable Constitutional legitimacy of these agencies. What are they independent of? The Constitution only provides for three branches of Government — Congressional, Judicial and Executive.
Claims that these agencies are somehow independent of these branches suggest a murky fourth branch which may be unconstitutional. In fact Justice Scalia said they were unconstitutional and we now have a conservative Supreme Court. So anyone thinking of suing to stop the President should be careful what they wish for.
Getting back to FERC the question is whether the President will get them to take the steps needed to restore grid reliability. I have previously written about two approaches which might work.
The first is very simple in that FERC merely declares a moratorium on connecting to the grid those large generators that are unpredictably intermittent by design. The increasing fraction of grid connected generators that are systemically intermittent is a major factor in the loss of reliability. See my “A simple way to save the grid from more wind and solar” here: https://www.cfact.org/2025/02/17/a-simple-way-to-save-the-grid-from-more-wind-and-solar/
A more elaborate approach is to activate FERC’s reliability regulation system in new ways. This system has failed to date but maybe it can be made to work.”
Lots more in the article. Please share it.
President Trump is now testing his authority to fire independent agency commissioners which could be needed at FERC. Stay tuned!
David
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They have a right to FERC the grid?
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There is an international blood transfusion organisation that is aiming to organise a network of like individuals for supplies of blood from individuals not vaccinated with mRNA covid vaccines.
https://safeblood.net/
The default site is in German but there’s a drop down menu to select English.
In Nanny State Australia, you cannot do a directed blood donation to avoid blood tarnished by mRNA covid “vaccine”.
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TRUMP still has a lot of work to do to eradicate wokeness from his land.
10
FWIW
“A Visit From Starmer’s ‘Have You Accepted Labour As Your Lord and Savior’ Goons”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/02/24/a-visit-from-starmers-have-you-accepted-labour-as-your-lord-and-savoir-goons-n3800143
Starmer is due to visit Trump – what odds he gets a “trumping”?
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FWIW
“new preprint study published last week on OSF titled, “Conflicts of Interest, Funding Support, and Author Affiliation in Peer-Reviewed Research on the Relationship between Climate Change and Geophysical Characteristics of Hurricanes.” You’ll never believe this one. Well, you probably will believe it, but still.”
“What they did find was, and maybe you should sit down for this: “Non-governmental organization (NGO) funding was a significant predictor for an article to find a positive association between climate change and geophysical characteristics of hurricanes as a research outcome.”
USAID? The NIH? In other words, were the NGOs that funded the climate studies reaching the approved conclusions themselves funded by the United States taxpayer? I’d bet a lot. I’d even bet your money (after all, that’s what they’re using).
This study was just the latest icicle hanging from the expanding snowball of the great scientific deep freeze—where progress hibernates, and inconvenient truths are buried in snowdrifts of pre-approved conclusions. It is devilishly hard to have progress when the outcomes are predetermined and frozen in place, and where pseudoscience gets paid— leaving real scientists freezing in a ditch.”
More at
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/blowback-monday-february-24-2025?
Followed by a look at Amish and autism
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FWIW
Instapundit lead-in “ANALYSIS: True.”
“I’ve said it again, I’ll say it again. Taxpayer-funded NGOs function as a parallel government.
Even worse, many sitting members of Congress are directly involved in them. They see themselves as the real government, prioritizing debates with other bureaucrats on the global stage over serving the people they represent. ”
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1894050491912622543
Via https://instapundit.com/704694/#disqus_thread
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The leftist attacks on Elon Musk are a great example of how delusional they are. The man’s accomplishments speak for themselves:
1) Invented EVs, satellites and brain implant chips
2) Staunchly against any and all government subsidies, handouts, government contracts or government mandates
3) Extremely level-headed
4) Very much against climate change and those that take advantage of climate change hysteria (e.g. green battery claims)
5) Fun fact: one of the best video gamers which he explicitly stated in his Joe Rogan interview
6) A big proponent of the nuclear family
And despite all these accomplishments, he’s very low key and does not like to have the spot light on him.
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British Petroleum BP was founded by substantial money spent by one William Knox D’Arcy drilling for oil in the deserts of Arabia.
The money came from his investment in the copper and gold mine at Mount Morgan, inland from Rockhampton, Australia.
Brings to mind the old saying of problems for those who fail to learn from the lessons of history.
BP was created with money from mining and natural resource extraction and use. BP grew into a global leader from natural resources. BP might release that its future lies with resource use. That is where it has expertise, not in solar panels or windmills.
My employer company operated the mine and stood the whole cost of rehabilitation once it closed, paying the bills for 100 years of predecessors.
Another beneficiary of Mount Morgan money is the world famous Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute. It set them going until they became famous. I have enjoyed meals with friends in the old home where Walter and Eliza lived at Mount Morgan. It is all a lovely history that illustrates some of the diverse benefits from mining.
So far, I am still looking for social or commercial benefits from green schemes that seem to appeal to some sad people who cannot face reality and consume other people’s money rather than adding to it. Geoff S
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