Utopia, you are standing in it!

Bigger energy bills and decreasing reliability of energy supply are the only guaranteed results of climate-obsessed policies.
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With an energy cost crisis now striking Europe and to a lesser extent the U.S., some cracks have begun to appear in the “net zero” utopian dreams being pursued almost universally by Western politicians, says the Manhattan Contrarian.

Nevertheless, at this writing, the rapid elimination of use of fossil fuels, supposedly to fight “climate change,” remains official government policy throughout Europe, at the federal level in the U.S., in most blue American states, and as well in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The wind industry sets the benchmark for systemic government corruption; backslapping, gladhanding and bottomless bags of cash are just the beginning.

And, when it comes to bent corporate/government dealings no Australian State does it better than Queensland. Whether it’s the constant sunshine or something in the water, who knows?

But there is absolutely no contest to the Labor government’s ability to look after its own, particularly when favours are needed to get thoroughly un-commercial wind and solar power projects off the ground.

The connections are insidious; the deals are dodgy and the players come straight out of mafia central casting.

Former lord mayor Jim Soorley was previous consultant to windfarm company that later got $150 million Queensland government power deal
ABC
Rory Callinan
11 Mar 2022

Former lobbyist Jim Soorley chaired state-owned corporation CS Energy when it agreed to purchase $150 million worth of power from a wind farm company…

In our latest blog we’re returning to the ‘Recovering Europe’s Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700’ project. Since autumn 2021, we have been working with the University of Oxford and the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Oxford to put together series of blogs that explore European Parliamentary Culture. The series is focused on the Early Modern period – roughly 1500-1700 – but they have ranged more widely, seeking to bring in some scholars of the more recent past to provide different perspectives and insights that might stimulate new thinking. We’re reposting some of the blogs here, with thanks to the CIH and to our colleagues who have commissioned, edited and authored the blogs. To find out more about the exciting programme of work and conferences over the coming year, head to the CIH website.

This blog was originally posted on 13 December, written byWilliam J…

Summertime [image credit: BBC]
What evidence is there that such powers do exist? An air of unreality is palpable here, with talk of extreme dangers and use of decimal point temperature statements while brushing aside all uncertainties. Endless alarmism creates fatigue, not the fear they crave.
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UN scientists have unveiled a plan that they believe can limit the root causes of dangerous climate change, says BBC News.

A key UN body says in a report that there must be “rapid, deep and immediate” cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.

Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century.

All of a sudden, energy security and affordability is the new black. The Russian onslaught in Ukraine has focused thinking on energy supplies, like nothing before.

The West has taken its energy advantages for granted, for far too long. But, the energy pricing and supply calamity that’s followed Vlad’s aggressive bid for territorial expansion, has drawn attention to just how delusional is the claim that we’re well on our way to an all-wind and sun-powered future.

That purported ‘transition’ now looks more like a pre-determined pathway to abject poverty.

Viv Forbes spells it out for the uninitiated, below.

Power not poverty
Spectator Australia
Viv Forbes
16 March 2022

‘The past was green and fuzzy – the future is black and ominous.’ – Richard Sebrof

The green fairy-tale is over.

Even the green cheer squad in the bureaucracy and the media can sense the change. The sudden end was signalled by…

Next week, I am teaching collusive agreements in my price theory class. I decided to take a different approach to the discussion than the one usually found in textbook. The approach consists in showing how economic thought on a topic has evolved over time. For collusion, I decided to discuss George Stigler’s 1964 article on the theory of oligopoly published in the Journal of Political Economy.

Simply put, Stigler proposes a simple approach for stating how collusive agreements can break apart by asking how much extra sales a firm can obtain by cutting its prices without being detected by other firms. Stigler argued that detection got easier as the number of buyers increased or as concentration increased. He also argued that detection became harder if buyers do not repeat purchases and if there is growth in the market through the addition of new customers as firms are not able to…

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG PC (August 26, 1676 – March 18, 1745) was a British statesman and Whig politician who is generally regarded as the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Walpole was born in Houghton, Norfolk, in 1676. One of 19 children, he was the third son and fifth child of Robert Walpole, a member of the local gentry and a Whig politician who represented the borough of Castle Rising in the House of Commons, and his wife Mary Walpole, the daughter and heiress of Sir Geoffrey Burwell of Rougham, Suffolk. Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole was his younger brother.

As a child, Walpole attended a private school at Massingham, Norfolk. Walpole entered Eton College in 1690 where he was a King’s Scholar. He left Eton on April 2, 1696 and matriculated at King’s College, Cambridge on the same day.

Robert Walpole Prime Minister…

Anyone who still believes in an ‘inevitable’ transition to wind and solar, clearly hasn’t been paying attention.

The same crowd tells us that ‘coal is dead’, ignoring the fact that coal demand continues to rise and the record prices paid for the black stuff is through the roof.

The Russian advance on Ukraine has only added to the demand for coal, along with the demand for oil and gas; nuclear power is back in vogue, too. What Vlad’s attack hasn’t done is, create any additional demand for wind turbines and solar panels.

It seems like only yesterday that Elon Musk was telling us that, by adding a few trillion-terawatt hours’ worth of his lithium-ion batteries, the wind and solar transition was a shoe-in.

Now Musk and his rent-seeking buddies seem to be running a mile from their wilder claims about our wind and solar-powered future.

Paul Murray picks up the…

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]
Re-writing the laws of physics is not an option. The only thing accelerating at the moment is the downward spiral into energy poverty for ever larger numbers of the population, in manic pursuit of the mystical ‘net zero’ climate target. Another trip to cloud cuckoo land beckons for these blinkered climate obsessives.
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The Environmental Audit Committee announced the inquiry in response to the rise in fossil fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued speculation on what will be included in the government’s Energy Security Strategy, reports Energy Live News.

The Committee believes protecting consumers from high fossil fuel prices and fuel poverty while ensuring security of supply and continued progress towards net zero is critical for any strategy on energy security to be successful.