Utopia, you are standing in it!

Some climate theories aren’t plausible either, including the one that thinks that atmospheric goings-on are more important than ocean dynamics like El Niño and La Niña. But the fear show must go on.
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Today the Hamburg-based Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS) publishes a new, essential study on climate futures, reports Phys.org.

The study represents the first systematic attempt to investigate whether a climate future with net-zero carbon emissions is not only possible but also plausible.

The authors examine plausibility from a technical-economic perspective, but also with regard to the societal changes necessary for such a future.

They conclude that deep decarbonization by 2050 is currently not plausible—the current efforts to bring about societal transformation need to be far more ambitious.

Clearly ‘net zero’ is just a game that only a group of wealthy countries with more money than sense, and a deluded belief in ‘temperature targets’, think they can afford to play.
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Sharp divisions between the major global emitters have emerged at a series of meetings designed to make progress on climate change, reports BBC News.

India lambasted the richer world’s carbon cutting plans, calling long term net zero targets, “pie in the sky.”

Their energy minister said poor nations want to continue using fossil fuels and the rich countries “can’t stop it”.

Andrea Vance, writing at Stuff, has taken the Ardern government to task for its media “management,” how ministers evade questions, how they deflect interviews and questions all, of course, in the name of the PM’s much-vaunted transparency.

Well, it seems she has stumbled on to something bigger than her focus on journalists struggling to get information.  From our inquiries we have found that heads of departments, ministries and agencies are facing something of the same challenge.

Firstly, ministers are said to be keeping permanent heads at a distance. Some find it hard to secure scheduled appointments.

In the good old days, the permanent head of each department saw his or her minister before Monday Cabinet meetings – and frequently in between.

Now there is a layer of “advisers” between them.

Turns out offshore wind power is more financial heartbreak than cash cow. Thanks to the phenomenal cost of repairing its undersea cables, Denmark’s Orsted is literally bleeding cash. The cost of fixing faulty cables connecting their turbines to each other and transmission facilities onshore is already in the hundreds of $millions, and set to rise rapidly over the next couple of years – estimated to be in the order of a further 3 billion Danish Kroner (US 491,434,000 or £350m) between now and 2023.

And Orsted’s costly cabling calamity isn’t limited to its Danish operations. It’s just bought into another financial disaster off Rhode Island, where the cost of cable repairs to keep a measly five wind turbine operation up and running is already north of $US80 million, and rising fast.

William Butler makes the connection between a brewing financial disaster and the dashed hopes of offshore wind power…

I did have to laugh at the news the other day that workers at the famed magazine, The New Yorker, are going on strike for more money for themselves and their oppressed co-workers.

Here’s the link to the NewYorkerUnion home page, and the associated Tweet is a doozy from a graphics point of view.

I didn’t know there was such a group but I do love their attempt to convert the famous logo of The New Yorker into a symbol of The Workers.

Yeah.. Nah!

That symbol has been the magazine’s brand since it was launched almost one hundred years ago and it’s of a “dandy”:

A dandy, historically, is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of self. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic…

A new Israeli coalition government is set to be invested with authority by the Knesset this coming Sunday. Once it is sworn in, it will end the consecutive twelve years of tenure by outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party. Netanyahu will remain in the Knesset as leader of the opposition.

The government is formed upon the agreement of eight parties, and will have as its parliamentary support the bare majority of 61 Knesset members. It is set up under the rotation provisions that were passed into the constitution (more technically, The Basic Law: Government) on the occasion of the formation of Netanyahu’s government arrangement with Benny Gantz of the Blue and White Party in 2020.

Under the agreements for this government, the first Prime Minister will be Naftali Bennett of the Yamina Party, while Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid serves as Alternate Prime Minister. The rotation will…

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There’s a saying – “Get woke, go broke.” If a media franchise, like a television or film series, adopts a social justice tone, things will go poorly. The saying draws attention to two issues. Being woke can alienate the fanbase and might also lead to reduced quality. The woke-broke hypothesis isn’t just idle internet chatter. Many in the business world worry about woke-broke because some brands have faced serious backlash over woke advertising or products. This Chartered Institute of Marketing website article has a succinct discussion of the issue. They note that there are definitely cases of woke-broke but other brands have done fine.

But is Woke actually Broke? Future marketing research…

Pin your power supply hopes on sunshine and breezes, and get prepared for mixed results.

South Australians, Californians and Texans know what comes from an overreliance on the unreliables, with plenty of experience of weather-related load shedding and mass blackouts.

Increasing dependence on chaotically intermittent wind and solar is the price we’ve paid for allowing ideology to ride roughshod over sound engineering and solid economics.

Once the engineers were relegated to the back office by wind and solar worshipping ideologues equipped with sociology or arts/law degrees, the end of reliably delivered power at affordable prices was inevitable.

This is the crowd that can’t tell the critical difference between ‘energy’ and ‘power’; that believes the yawning gulf between the promises made by the wind and solar industries and reality can be plugged by a few giant lithium batteries; who berates anybody who mentions sunset and calm weather and renewable energy in…

Milton Friedman on Government Regulations (1973) Capitalism and Freedom – Milton Friedman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDo642kuR7k

Milton Friedman was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy.

Top Milton Friedman Books:

1. Capitalism and Freedom: https://amzn.to/3lJ54bF

2. Free to Choose: https://amzn.to/3vRwTmG

3. Why Government Is the Problem: https://amzn.to/31hjeHi

In the past, as with now, it was not uncommon to find those trained in the practice of law seated on the benches of Parliament. In today’s blog Dr Vivienne Larminie, assistant editor of our Commons 1640-1660 project, looks into the tumultuous political career of one such lawyer in the 17th century, John Whistler.

With their expertise at a premium in the drafting of legislation, lawyers have always found a place in Parliament. When professional experience was combined with long service in the House and a reputation for learning, integrity or judicious pronouncements, a lawyer MP might command such respect that it was considered difficult to operate without him.This was the case with John Selden, a jurist with a European reputation who, when the Long Parliament assembled in November 1640, had the added kudos…

Over the years, I’ve shared some clever images, jokes, and cartoons to expose the flawed mindset of those who hope to achieve coerced equality of outcomes with redistribution and high tax rates.

The size of a pizza vs the share of a slice.

The modern version of the Little Red Hen.

Washington’s Byzantine welfare state.

Chuck Asay’s overburdened tractor.

A left-wing nursery rhyme.

The Wizard-of-Id parody.

Two pictures showing how the welfare state begins and ends.

A socialist classroom experiment (including a video version).

The economics of redistribution in one image.

As you can see, this is a common-sense issue. When you give people money on the condition that they don’t earn much money, you create a perverse incentive for them to be unproductive.

Especially since, when people work more and earn more, they get hit by a combination of fewer handouts and…

During the Obama years, I shared a cartoon strip that cleverly makes the point that some people will choose not to work if they can get enough goodies from the government.

That Wizard-of-Id parody has been viewed more than 56,000 times, which suggests many readers also thought it was worth sharing.

But it obviously hasn’t been shared often enough with the crowd in Washington. Politicians have created a welfare state that penalizes work and rewards dependency.

Especially now that there are bonus payments for staying unemployed. Which makes it hard to businesses to find workers.

Our friends on the left, however, think there’s a solution to this problem.

In his column for the New York Times, David Leonhardt says there is not a labor shortage because employers can simply raise wages.

The idea that the United States suffers from a labor shortage is fast becoming conventional wisdom. But…