Can Solar & Wind Fix Everything (e.g., Climate Change) with a battery break-through?

Starex said:

Just more lies on top of lies on top of lies.
Trump has taught well.

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LOL. Lies? Please point out the lies, and back it up with actual facts.

As an example, here is a fact: How many unarmed people were murdered on Jan 6? I can name one. She was shot by a black cop in the neck, with no warning. She was an unarmed veteran named Ashli Babbit. Capitol police were standing RIGHT BEHIND HER on the stairs. Go watch the raw tape.

BTW, the dudes breaking the glass were found to be affiliated with Antifa. Others calling for violence were with the FBI.

Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam Of All Time​

President Joe Biden keeps lecturing corporate America to “pay your fair share” of taxes.

It turns out he’s right that some companies really are getting away scot-free from paying taxes.




But it isn’t Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley or the Wall Street financial company “fat cats” or big banks or Walmart.

They pay billions in taxes.

The culprits here are the very companies that President Biden is in bed with: green energy firms.

It turns out that despite all the promises over the past decade about how renewable energy is the future of power production in America, by far the biggest tax dodgers in the country are the wind and solar power industries.

Over the past several decades, the green energy lobby—what I call the climate-change-industrial complex—isn’t paying its fair share. That’s because the vast majority of these companies pay nearly ZERO income taxes.

But they wade in rivers of federal direct and indirect subsidies that keep these zombie companies alive. Over the past two decades, the renewable energy lobby has collected more than one-quarter trillion dollars in subsidies—payments that we’ve been assured over and over would be temporary. The argument for these grants, loans, tax abatements and other sweetheart kisses is that these were “infant industries” in need of a Head Start program for CEOs.

Except these companies have never even reached puberty after all these years.

What’s worse is that President Biden keeps spoiling the children with lavish gifts for bad performance.

A new report by tax expert Adam Michel at the Cato Institute finds the green energy subsidies—mostly created by Biden policies like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act—will drain the Treasury of as much as $1.8 trillion over 10 years.

The Cato report finds that since its passage, “the estimated cost of the IRA’s new and expanded energy tax credits increased dramatically.”

These tax shelters are just a form of Aid to Dependent Corporations. They never seem to want to cut the umbilical cord.

What have we gotten for this mountain of taxpayer-funded green energy largesse?

Nothing, really.

Today, we still get 80 percent of our energy in America from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Wind and solar are stuck at less than 10 percent. This is some investment we’re making.

Meanwhile, President Biden keeps railing against companies that pay no income tax. He’s advocated a mandatory 15 percent minimum corporate tax. But guess what industry is explicitly exempt from the minimum? The green energy lobby.

It’s just a reminder that a lot of people are getting really, really rich off climate change hysteria.

The “green” in green energy doesn’t stand for a cleaner environment.

It stands for the color of money. Yours and mine.

The Real Victors of the ECHR Climate Decision are Green Billionaires​

The old ladies of Switzerland have had their day in the sun – treble Factor 50s all round – but the real plaudits for the recent idiotic climate change verdict from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) belong to the elite billionaire paymasters behind lawfare activists such as Greenpeace and Client Earth. Greenpeace bankrolled the Swiss ladies and Client Earth supplied some of the legal arguments. The case is likely to throw a spotlight on the role that a few moneyed forces are playing in using the judicial system to enforce their insane Net Zero collectivisation on populations around the world. In Europe, the billionaires, who happily fund XR vandals as well as high-earning lawyers, are seeking to redefine the meaning of democracy. In the United States, as we shall see, extensive judge grooming is being undertaken to help the judiciary come to the correct political verdicts in the growing number of climate lawfare cases.

In its way, the ECHR verdict that politicians should somehow protect citizens from alleged human-caused climate change was a punishment beating handed down after a 2021 referendum in Switzerland rowed back on Net Zero. Jessica Simor KC represented the Swiss women and frequently acts for Client Earth. After the verdict she noted: “In Switzerland it’s particularly problematic because they have referendums… the people decided they didn’t want it. This is something that comes up all the time… the conflict between this idea of democracy as entailing… rights which matter irrespective of what the majority decides.”

The stupidity of the ECHR verdict need not detail us for too long since it has been widely discussed elsewhere. But it is surely relevant that most bad weather events have shown little discernible rise in frequency over the last 100 years, while mortality from these events has dropped by 99%. Quite why the United Kingdom is a member of this cultural dead-end of a court with its ‘jurists’ defining law to open borders and save us from the weather is a mystery, but again it need not detain us at this point. Suffice to say it suits Greenpeace, Client Earth and Jessica Simor KC to have a tame, like-minded body of legal social justice warriors to agree on their elite view of what matters, irrespective of how people actually vote.

Condemnation of the ECHR verdict has been widespread, with Net Zero Watch stating that climate catastrophism now represents a clear and present threat to the rule of law and democracy. Director Andrew Montford noted an astonishingly broad interpretation of existing human rights laws that had alarming parallels with what was seen in 1930s Germany. “The judicial activism of the European Court looks very much like the judicial activism under National Socialism,” he added.

As we have seen with attempts to groom journalists and politicians to catastrophise the weather and promote Net Zero, the same wealthy names crop up again and again. So it is with the growing number of lawfare outfits. Greenpeace bankrolled the Swiss case and it collects cash from wealthy donors and foundations around the world. It seeks to remove hydrocarbons from human energy supplies and it is against nuclear energy. It is not clear how the old ladies of Switzerland will survive winter when the wind stops blowing and the sun doesn’t shine in their icy mountain redoubt.

Client Earth has been heavily supported by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the activist vehicle of Sir Christopher Hohn, one time paymaster of eco-vandals and law-breakers Extinction Rebellion. Hohn is a big contributor to another funder, the European Climate Foundation. Contributions are also forthcoming from green billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Jeremy Grantham, while even the British taxpayer chips in with a contribution from the Foreign Office. Quite why the British Conservative Government is helping to fund an operation that is likely to sue it in the courts is, of course, another mystery.

But if it is bad enough in Europe, climate lawfare is rapidly escalating out of control in the United States. Numerous actions against oil and gas companies are ongoing in a judicial system that is more obviously political than its European counterparts. It might not be surprising to learn therefore that billionaires through their tax-efficient foundations are attempting to re-educate judges around the idea that the climate is collapsing due to the action of humans, and in particular the wicked actions of those that supply 80% of industrial society’s current energy needs.

Washington D.C.-based Environmental Law Institute is backed by billionaire foundation money and, according to Influence Watch, it received $500,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to set up the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP). According to Influence Watch, by May 2023 more than 1,000 judges have participated in the CJP program, which includes 13 curriculum modules. According to the CJP website, the goal is to provide “neutral, objective information” to the judiciary about the science of climate change as it is understood by the expert scientific community and relevant to current and future litigation”.

Needless to say, neutral and objective are not words that spring immediately to mind when examining some of the detailed curriculum notes. Misinformation is particularly rife in a module that suggests individual weather events can be attributed to longer term changes in the climate. The judges are told that it is now possible to use attributions techniques to link individual human-caused weather events to climate change. It is not, it is junk science from computer models and since any ‘results’ are unfalsifiable, they fail the first test of the true scientific process. The best known ‘attribution’ service is called World Weather Attribution and is partly funded by Jeremy Grantham. Despite this, CJP claims bizarrely that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change couldn’t hold the view that human influence has warmed the planet without the many attribution analyses that are said to underpin it.

The distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jr. is unimpressed with weather attribution work, noting: “I can think of no other area of research where the relaxing of rigour and standards has been encouraged by researchers in order to generate claims more friendly to headlines, political advocacy and even lawsuits”.

Paymaster Larry Kramer, President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is more supportive: “With the growth in climate related litigation, judges need this kind of education to be prepared to weight scientific evidence and make better informed decisions.”

“We need to be honest”: Building Renewables is Expensive​

Establishment energy players wriggling on the hook of their own flawed green energy narratives.

Your power bills are going up, according to one energy boss. Here’s why
By national regional affairs reporter Jane Norman
You came here for truths and straight talk, so, here’s a doozy.”
Standing on stage at the National Press Club — being beamed live into offices and lounge rooms across the country — one of Australia’s top energy bosses was preparing to say what few in the industry will acknowledge publicly.
Jeff Dimery — CEO of Alinta Energy — looked up from his notes on the lectern and delivered the promised doozy to the audience.
“Australians will have to pay more for energy in future,” he says.
“We need to be honest about that.“
…
Yes, renewables are the “lowest cost, new form of generation”.
But building the wind and solar farms at the scale required to replace coal, together with the batteries needed to store the power, and the new network of transmission lines to distribute that power to consumers will involve tens of billions of dollars’ worth of investment.
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s own figures suggest the transition will cost around $383 billion between now and 2050.
When asked who pays, Dimery replied: “it all comes from consumers, whether through the bill directly or through the tax base.“
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-12/power-prices-to-rise-in-clean-energy-transition/103696450

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This is a big change from previous claims that renewables would bring down near term prices.

Electricity prices predicted to fall as renewable supply increases, gas price falls
Posted Mon 21 Dec 2020 at 5:32am
Key points:

• Electricity prices are expected to fall by 9 per cent over the next three years
• More renewable energy production is behind the fall
• Power prices in Canberra are predicted to buck the trend

Household electricity bills are expected to fall by 9 per cent over the next three years as more renewable generation joins the grid.
A new report by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) predicts all states in the National Electricity Market — NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania — will have lower energy prices in 2023.
The residential electricity price trends report 2020, published by the advisory body today, projects the ACT will have a slight rise in electricity prices over the next three years.
…
The report says the main reason for the drop is lower gas prices and the introduction of new sources of energy generation like solar and wind.
It also says network costs and environmental costs are falling, too, although they contribute less to the overall reduction.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12...to-fall-as-renewable-supply-increase/12999538

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It is not just the ABC. The AEMO, the industry body tasked with regulating the East Coast Australian energy grid, has also frequently added to the confusion about the true cost of renewables;

Renewables push NEM electricity prices down to historical levels
23/10/2023
AEMO’s latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report shows that wholesale electricity prices averaged $63 per megawatt hour (MWh) in the September quarter, down 41% from the June quarter ($108/MWh) and 71% ($216/MWh) from Q3 2022.
By region, South Australia recorded the highest average quarterly price at $92/MWh, followed by New South Wales ($81/MWh), Queensland ($65/MWh), Victoria ($49/MWh) and Tasmania ($29/MWh).
Total electricity supply by fuel type saw renewables (wind, grid-scale and rooftop solar, hydro and other sources) contribute 38.9% of total supply, up 4.6%, while black coal’s share fell 3.4%, primarily due to the Liddell Power station closure, and gas fell 2.3%. Brown coal’s market share increased 1%, mainly due to fewer unplanned outages.
AEMO Executive General Manager Reform Delivery, Violette Mouchaileh, said that the growing influence of renewables in the NEM was apparent in the warmer September quarter as prices returned to historical levels.
“Record renewable generation output helped push down average wholesale electricity prices by more than two-thirds, double the occurrence of zero or negative wholesale prices (19%) and reduce total emissions by 11% compared to the previous September quarter,” Ms Mouchaileh said.
“Renewables also supplied a record 70% of total energy used over a half-hour period, with rooftop solar contributing 39%, again highlighting the likely benefit from coordinating rooftop solar and home batteries.
…
Read more: https://aemo.com.au/newsroom/media-...-electricity-prices-down-to-historical-levels

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There is no excuse for this confusing messaging about prices. Renewables were always going to be expensive. It was up to the industry oversight body to keep people informed. Does leaving out the bit about how much renewables cost seem like a reasonable effort to keep people informed?

According to the AEMO “Who we are” page, “… AEMO provides the detailed, independent planning, forecasting and modelling information and advice that drives effective and strategic decision-making, regulatory changes and investment. …”. Do articles like the fluff piece above, which somehow fails to mention that any renewable driven cost reduction is temporary, that someone has to pay for all the green infrastructure, does any of this seem like the AEMO is adequately discharging its duty to provide independent advice?

$383 billion is just under $15,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia, or $39,000 for every working person in Australia, just to pay for initial construction. All those extra transmission lines and renewable systems will have to be maintained, at a cost of billions of dollars every year in addition to the cost of maintaining existing infrastructure.

Australia’s peak demand was 31GW in 2023-24, serviced by a capacity of 55GW. According to Wikipedia, the capital cost of building new coal capacity is US $4,074 / Kw to around $1,201 / Kw for gas.

Isn’t climate change supposed to create superstorms and violent weather? If say a big hail storm comes along and wrecks a vast acreage of solar panels, as happened last year in Nebraska, well that will have to be paid for as well.

What are the alternatives to renewables?

Underinvestment in Australia’s energy infrastructure has left most of it in a decrepit state. Lets assume for a moment we have to replace it all.

55GW x 1000000 (convert to Kw) x $4074 = US $224 billion to completely replace all of Australia’s coal capacity with coal. Multiply by 1.54 to get Australian dollars, and you have $345 billion – well short of the $383 billion Energy CEO Jeff Dimery estimated for renewables. If the coal plants use brown coal, which has zero value except as fuel to be shovelled into an adjacent generator, that is a saving of $38 billion in capital costs, + the system does not incur higher transmission line maintenance charges, and a massive cost every time. We save at least $38 billion, and since coal is dispatchable, we wouldn’t have to panic every time the wind dies.

And of course there is the very real risk the $383 billion costing is a massive underestimate. A lot of rather arbitrary assumptions go into calculating such numbers, such as the battery capacity required to accomodate renewable intermittency. Extreme excursions from normal weather conditions such as season long wind droughts over large geographical regions occur often enough to be a problem.

Even when the power doesn’t completely fail, economically damaging spikes in electricity prices can devastate the finances of energy intensive businesses. No energy intensive business can afford $5000 / MWh on a regular basis.

Hands up who still thinks renewable energy sounds cheap? How many people who voted for this train wreck of a left wing green government fell for their dubious claim that renewables would bring down prices? How many voters knew the true cost of green energy, before they cast their vote?

Green energy is a bottomless money pit, always was, always will be. It is time for politicians to be honest with voters, and put a stop this colossal waste of taxpayer resources, before they burn even more money for no benefit.

​

I know Will has stated in the past he doesn't like PHEVs as they kept all the problems with ICE. But fuel cells don't have the complex moving parts like ICE and for people that can't easily charge their car or don't want to wait for public rechargers on trips, I can see this as being a great vehicle if hydrogen is readily available. It's not ready for here today, but in a decade if Natural Hydrogen has supplanted normal gas stations... sure!

What do you think?

svetz said:

​

Honda’s Plug-In Hydrogen Fuel EV​ A PHEV is a car that has a gasoline engine, but it doesn't normally burn gas unless you're out of battery (or specifically switch to it). They typically have a range of ~300 miles, with 40 miles or so electric. Which means for the average daily they never burn gas. Which is a problem as gasoline is a weird mix of chemicals and loses it's octane rating over time (e.g., it goes bad). But Hydrogen doesn't go bad. So this move by Honda is in my opinion genius, even more so if "natural" hydrogen turns out to be real. @Hedges recently pointed out the FCEVs also have batteries, but currently they are around a KWh (~3 miles range). The current Honda PHEV CRV has an all-electric range of 50 miles, but the prototype driven (right) was only ~30.

First drive: Honda CR-V e:FCEV​

I know Will has stated in the past he doesn't like PHEVs as they kept all the problems with ICE. But fuel cells don't have the complex moving parts like ICE and for people that can't easily charge their car or don't want to wait for public rechargers on trips, I can see this as being a great vehicle.

What do you think?

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I know you have me blocked but what does this accomplish that current and better batteries can not?

The problem with phev or hybrids in general is dual cost over their life span. You eventually pay for both maintenance cost ev and ice.

Gas use to last a lot longer when originally formulated with lead. Also much longer before alcohol was added every 10th gallon of gas was gallon of cheaper priced alcohol charged at gas prices. Rip off. Alcohol is a problem in itself as it ages. Most likely govt doesn’t want ppl to store gas.

If ppl have not been paying attention the govt doesn’t want civilians the general population to be energy free and independent. They come up with ways to cancel independence at every turn. If shit was worth money then the govt at request of controllers would genetically alter poor ppl to not have an asshole. Another draw back Homo would have to pretend procreate in another manner. So they might be allowed an asshole.

Sooner or later the common person might figure it out. Most likely not. Majority of ppl are tribal and stupid

See? Driving ban is seriously being floated by these parasites (I am sure they will be exempt).
With CDBC and digital everything, this will be SUPEREASY! But most are still asleep to realize it!
Lets start with @svetz being banned from driving!



There’s been a drastic drop in the registration of new electric cars in Germany as sales of the “clean” electric cars have slumped nearly 30% compared to a year earlier, reports Germany’s online Blackout News here.



Also: Germany’s transportation minister, Dr. Volker Wissing, threatens weekend driving ban (Fahrverbot) in order to meet climate targets!

The massive sales drop is bad news for the current German socialist-green government, which aims to have 15 million vehicles on the road by 2030. Currently there are just 1.4 million!

The dismal trend underscores the unpopularity of electric cars and consumers’ hesitancy when it comes to purchasing them. Electric vehicles are plagued by limited range, sparse charging infrastructure, steep upfront purchase price and their huge environmental impact, which involves the largescale mining of rare earths.

“Their market share has fallen to just 11.9%. This casts a harsh light on the mismatch between Germany’s political goals and the reality of the automotive market. It is clear that political incentives and measures are inadequate,” reports Blackout News. “The abolition of the electric bonus at the end of 2023 has revealed another problem. The sector’s dependence on state subsidies became apparent. This has further exacerbated the crisis of confidence in the electric car market.”


Fahrverbot: Germany floats national weekend driving ban!

Another possible reason for hesitancy when it comes to purchasing a new car of any type may be partly due to the government’s general hostility to private mobility.

Germany’s federal minister of transportation, Dr. Volker Wissing, is threatening to ban driving on weekends by motorists in order othe country “to meet climate goals set forth by the Climate Protection Act.”

“A reduction in traffic to help meet the climate goals would only be possible through measures that are difficult to communicate to the public, such as ‘comprehensive and indefinite driving bans on Saturdays and Sundays,’ Wissing added,” so reports Politico here.
Germany’s transportation sector would need to reduce CO2 by 22 million tonnes to meet its climate goals.
So, what’s the point of buying a new car when drivers nay be forced to leave them in the garage every weekend? Germany’s economy and energy policy has turned into a circus run by clowns.

aenyc said:

See? Driving ban is seriously being floated by these parasites (I am sure they will be exempt)

Germany Electric Car Sales Plummet 30% As Country Floats Idea Of Weekend Driving Ban!

notrickszone.com

There’s been a drastic drop in the registration of new electric cars in Germany as sales of the “clean” electric cars have slumped nearly 30% compared to a year earlier, reports Germany’s online Blackout News here.



Also: Germany’s transportation minister, Dr. Volker Wissing, threatens weekend driving ban (Fahrverbot) in order to meet climate targets!

The massive sales drop is bad news for the current German socialist-green government, which aims to have 15 million vehicles on the road by 2030. Currently there are just 1.4 million!

The dismal trend underscores the unpopularity of electric cars and consumers’ hesitancy when it comes to purchasing them. Electric vehicles are plagued by limited range, sparse charging infrastructure, steep upfront purchase price and their huge environmental impact, which involves the largescale mining of rare earths.

“Their market share has fallen to just 11.9%. This casts a harsh light on the mismatch between Germany’s political goals and the reality of the automotive market. It is clear that political incentives and measures are inadequate,” reports Blackout News. “The abolition of the electric bonus at the end of 2023 has revealed another problem. The sector’s dependence on state subsidies became apparent. This has further exacerbated the crisis of confidence in the electric car market.”


Fahrverbot: Germany floats national weekend driving ban!

Another possible reason for hesitancy when it comes to purchasing a new car of any type may be partly due to the government’s general hostility to private mobility.

Germany’s federal minister of transportation, Dr. Volker Wissing, is threatening to ban driving on weekends by motorists in order othe country “to meet climate goals set forth by the Climate Protection Act.”

“A reduction in traffic to help meet the climate goals would only be possible through measures that are difficult to communicate to the public, such as ‘comprehensive and indefinite driving bans on Saturdays and Sundays,’ Wissing added,” so reports Politico here.
Germany’s transportation sector would need to reduce CO2 by 22 million tonnes to meet its climate goals.
So, what’s the point of buying a new car when drivers nay be forced to leave them in the garage every weekend? Germany’s economy and energy policy has turned into a circus run by clowns.

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No independence. Simple enough. Chinese north korea so on been living it some most still do. Big tech aka silicon valley already expressed jealous over covid control afforded by communism. They want that control here and world wide. Slaves are made great again.

svetz said:

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"flying on hydrogen will be more expensive than jet fuel"... 98% of hydrogen is made in a way that uses fossil fuels....

Now if bozo, gates, schwab and all the other dip-shits would take a test flight and there was a Hindenburg event great progress would be made.

Don't read me wrong, I think it's great technology is advancing; however I feel it's despicable it's being used for an agenda.

Why do electric car dorks think hydrogen and batteries are innovative?

Checkthisout said:

Why do electric car dorks think hydrogen and batteries are innovative?

Allis-Chalmers Fuel Cell Tractor

In its search to develop electric power through chemical reactions, Allis-Chalmers in 1951 began research on fuel cells. In October 1959 near West Allis, Wisconsin, this fuel cell tractor plowed a field of alfalfa with a double-bottom plow.

americanhistory.si.edu

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Even more funny. "Honda is really innovating on the hydrogen front"

First of all Svetz, honda had a fuel cell car 30 years ago.

2nd...bruh.

Your claims are so silly. Fuel cells are essentially nothing more than a battery with a constant supply of charged electrolyte until of course the tank supplying the electrolyte runs out.

Checkthisout said:

Even more funny. "Honda is really innovating on the hydrogen front"

First of all Svetz, honda had a fuel cell car 30 years ago.

2nd...bruh.

Your claims are so silly. Fuel cells are essentially nothing more than a battery with a constant supply of charged electrolyte until of course the tank supplying the electrolyte runs out.

Green Technologies: Electric Cars with Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Hydrogen is one of the most plentiful elements in the universe. It can be extracted from natural gas, coal, crude oil, etc., but water is the only pollution-free source of hydrogen. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water can be easily and cleanly split apart by electrolysis, ideally using...

www.wipo.int

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Yeah, I am waiting for the ION drive to hit the streets. I hear it makes a sound like george jetsons car.

This is how America is losing.


Look at price per kilowatt hr You can get EVE 304 ah cells from M8650 BATTERYSTORE for same money as the 280ah cells from Battery Hook Up.
Is the extra packaging worth it. Did you see that EVE factory in China?

42OhmsPA said:

"flying on hydrogen will be more expensive than jet fuel"... 98% of hydrogen is made in a way that uses fossil fuels....

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We can also make hydrogen from solar, wind, or nuclear energy. But, there are other problems with making it (e.g., source of water).
But Natural Hydrogen that has immense underground reserves larger than petroleum? Reservoirs that self-renew? Well, sounds to good to be true.

Sanwizard said:

Yeah, I am waiting for the ION drive to hit the streets.

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Doubt that will happen, but who knows. Interesting you brought up the Jetsons. It's not Ion propulsion, but you can order a Jetson One today. Ultralight, so no pilot's license needed and it is an EV.

Transport Minister Threatens Germans With an ‘Indefinite Weekend Driving Ban’ to Meet Mandated Emissions Targets​

This story has even made it into the Anglophone press, so you know it’s a big deal: “German transport minister warns of weekend driving ban,” says the Telegraph. “German minister threatens ‘indefinite driving bans’ on weekends,” proclaims Politico. “German transport minister under fire for weekend driving ban threat,” declares Reuters.

But no, despite the headlines, they are not going to take away our cars. Amazingly, not even the Greens want to do that. For once the story is not about German authoritarianism, or woke insanity or anything like that. Rather, it’s about how nobody can really bring himself to care about the climate anymore – not even our forward-thinking, progressively minded, environmentally responsible political establishment.

For the backstory, we must go all the way back to the pre-Covid era, when aggressive climate legislation was popular even with centre-Right CDU voters, and before the electorate had a taste of what Green policies like the draconian home heating ordinances really feel like on the ground.

Back in those halcyon days, when the child saint Greta Thunberg was cutting class to save the Earth, Angela Merkel’s Government passed the Climate Protection Act. The law mandates a 65% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to 1990 levels by 2030, an 88% reduction by 2040 and an utterly unrealisable carbon neutrality by 2045. In the near term, the Climate Protection Act also establishes maximum annual emissions levels for various economic sectors. Should a given sector exceed its maximum, the responsible ministry must submit an ominous “action programme” to bring things back on target.

The Climate Protection Act is archetypal climate nonsense. Politicians like to take credit for Doing Something about the climate, but because Doing Something amounts to massive economic restrictions and drastic interventions in daily life, they would prefer not to Do that Something themselves. Far better is to pass legislation committing future governments to Do Something and let them deal with the mess. Then you can reap the short-term rewards of being tough on carbon emissions, without bearing direct responsibility for all the chaos that actually being tough on carbon emissions would unleash. Alas, time marches forwards at a steady pace. I am sure that 2030 sounded like an unimaginably distant date when it was floated at the Paris Accords in 2015, but now it is a mere six years away. That is becoming a big, big problem for the climatists.

You could say that Merkel’s Climate Protection Act bequeathed the hapless Scholz Government a small collection of ticking time bombs, which they’ve developed a considerable interest in defusing. One way to do this, is to revise the Climate Protection Act and remove its strict sector-based emissions limits before anybody is forced to field a climate-saving ‘action programme’. In the meantime, they’ve been studiously ignoring the requirements, which is why our Minister of Economic Destruction Robert Habeck could be found complaining back in June that no cabinet ministers were complying with Climate Protection Act emissions limits.

The fly in the ointment is the Green Party, who are as crazy as their oblivious out-of-touch upper middle-class urbanite constituents, and who have thought it best to block government efforts to (however temporarily) defang Merkel’s odious law. In a fit of frustration, the liberal Transport Minister Volker Wissing therefore warned that if no Climate Protection Act reforms were possible, he might be forced to impose “drastic interventions” on motorists:

In the dispute over a reform of the Climate Protection Act, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has warned of drastic cuts for motorists – including weekend driving bans. This is according to a letter from Wissing to the heads of the SPD, Green and FDP parliamentary factions. It was made available to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Thursday…
The letter states that if the amended Climate Protection Act does not come into force before July 15th, the Ministry will be obliged under the current law to present an action programme to ensure compliance with the annual emission levels for the transport sector in the coming years.

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And just like that, the climatists are falling all over themselves to reassure Germans that no, don’t worry, driving is fine, nobody wants to take away your cars:

The Federal Environmental Agency believes [driving bans are] unnecessary. “Of course we don’t need driving bans. Nobody is even discussing such a ban; this is frightening people for no reason,” said [Green-affiliated] President Dirk Messner. Instead, he once again suggested a general speed limit on German motorways …

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There is more, there is always more:

The SPD also criticised the proposal: “Scaremongering with far-fetched proposals won’t help climate protection in the transport sector at all, quite the contrary,” SPD Bundestag faction leader Detlef Müller said… “The proposal does not further our common goal of reducing CO2 emissions, but to unnecessary uncertainty for people in our country.” The SPD Bundestag faction clearly rejects driving bans for cars and lorries. Such manoeuvres would hardly advance the ongoing deliberations on the Climate Protection Act in the Bundestag, said Müller.

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I like this paragraph so much that I’ve read it five times. It’s just so entertaining to read some right-thinking lunatic like Müller insisting up and down that literally banning driving “does not further our common goal of reducing CO2 emissions.”

Along with the Green Party and Greenpeace, the environmental organisation BUND has also criticised Wissing’s statements on the threat of driving bans. BUND transport expert Jens Hilgenberg said: “It fits the picture that this Minister, of all people, who blocks every measure, no matter how easy to implement, such as a speed limit on motorways, is now playing on people’s fears.” He is only doing so to further increase the pressure on the coalition partners, Hilgenberg says. “This is a shabby tactic.”

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We must add avoiding political suicide to the long and growing list of things – from the rights of Palestinians to the threat posed by “disinformation” to third-world poverty – that are more important than climate change. This is becoming a very long list indeed.

So what are the solutions, if we’re not going to ban driving on weekends, and the Greens insist on blocking reforms to the Climate Protection Act? Well, aside from the speed limit, which has the same attraction for the Left in Germany as banning guns does for the Left in the United States (and about equal chances of achieving any of the stated goals), the experts have nothing but the same tired nostrums: We need more public transit! We need more electromobility! We need more expansions to the electric vehicle charging networks! The problem is not only that none of this amounts to an ‘action programme’ to sink vehicle emissions posthaste; it is also that there is no money for any of this. Electric vehicle subsidies have been withdrawn since the courts blew a 60 billion dollar hole in the Government’s budget. Far from expanding public transit, we’re fighting to maintain the decaying rail network we already have. And nobody believes that more charging stations will save the planet.

This is late-stage climatism and it will linger for a long time. There await years, if not decades, of haggling over the ambitious goals set by past governments, years of fig leafs and excuses, years of relaxing restrictions in elaborate ways so we can pretend we’re still doing something. It is going to be very tedious, but also, I suspect, occasionally entertaining.