Utopia, you are standing in it!

Australian voters just shredded the notion that the proletariat is wedded to heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar.

Labor’s Bill Shorten sought to ram a 50% Renewable Energy Target down voter’s throats; a concept which the vast majority of them duly rejected.

Sure, there were plenty of other issues that sank the Green/Labor Alliance. However, it should be remembered that 2019 was billed as the ‘Climate Change Election’, with wind and solar pitched up as the only panacea to what has now become a ‘climate emergency’.

Pundits professed, with great certitude, the notion that the Australian public just can’t get enough intermittent, unreliable and unaffordable electricity. Well, that didn’t quite pan out. Bill Shorten slunk off the political stage, a wounded and embittered hero of renewable energy zealots and rent seekers, alike.

Another part of the meme was that the markets had already turned their back on fossil…

Several readers sent me this hit piece on Pinker in Current Affairs, written by Nathan J. Robinson, a Ph.D. student at Harvard in sociology and social policy. He also happens to be the editor in chief of the magazine, which explains how this profanity-laced piece got published.

Click on the screenshot below to read it.  One person also sent it to me because I am quoted in it, though the quote is used in a misleading way (more below). I suggest you read it yourself, and compare Robinson’s characterization of Pinker with what you know of Steve’s last two books, The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now. For if you haven’t read either or both of those books, you won’t be able to judge Robinson’s jeremiad.

The title alone tells you where the piece is going. Regardless of what you think of Pinker, he’s…

On this date in history: May 29, 1630. The birth of Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. On this date in history, May 29, 1660 the restoration of Charles II.


The future Charles II was born at St James’s Palace on May 29, 1630. His parents were Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland) and Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the youngest daughter of Henri IV, King of France and Navarre and Marie de’ Medici. This made Henrietta Maria the sister of the French king Louis XIII and aunt of Louis XIV. Charles was their second child. Their first son was Charles James, Duke of Cornwall born and died on March 13, 1629.


Charles was baptized in the Chapel Royal, on June 27, 1630 by the Anglican Bishop of London, William Laud. The three kingdoms were experiencing great religious diversity at this time. England was predominantly…

The wind and solar industries exist for one reason, and one reason only: massive subsidies.

There’s a reason that holidaying Sun-seekers rarely put Britain on their bucket list. Dismally short days during bitter winters suggest that the UK would be one of the last places anyone would contemplate any serious reliance on solar power. And yet, thanks to £millions in subsidies, solar power in Britain is a thing.

Of course, those subsidies are picked up by taxpayers and power consumers who are facing rocketing power bills, without any hope of respite. And, of course, when the sun drops over the horizon, power consumers are forced to look elsewhere to keep the lights on and boil the kettle.

With the costs mounting, the extent of taxpayer largess has probably been milked for all it’s worth. But, as usual, the mere mention that subsidies might be cut sends rent seekers rabid.

Critics…

The other day, in response to the Naomi Wolf situation, I tweeted in response to Heather Souvaine Horn, an editor at the New Republic:

After which she invited my to submit an essay to the site. It’s now been published as: Learn the Right Lessons from Naomi Wolf’s Book Blunder: Expertise matters. But lane-policing is counterproductive.

Patrick Honohan was the Governor of Central Bank of Ireland (2009-15) during the 2008 crisis which hit the economy badly. He has penned a book on his years at the central bank: Currency, Credit and Crisis Central Banking in Ireland and Europe.

He shares some lessons on voxeu.org:

As regular readers know, I tend not to be particular upbeat about the New Zealand economic story.  For anyone new, there should be a hint in the very title of the blog.  If, by chance, you are still attracted to an upbeat take, only last week in a post here I critiqued a recent book chapter taking that sort of view.

And so I was a bit surprised when, more than a year ago now, I was asked to write a chapter for a forthcoming book on aspects of policymaking, and associated outcomes, in a small state (this one).  In principle, the book sounded potentially interesting, and they were approaching a bunch of pretty serious and senior people to contribute.  But it wasn’t clear there was much in it for me, and since the plan was for the introduction or foreword to have been written by the head of the…