Category Archives: Climate change

Net zero tokenism

The UK, as grumpy has written before, seeks to be seen as a global leader in reducing carbon emissions. This is fine, as long as everyone clearly understands that it’s merely an exercise in showing that a relatively small country can do this.

However, the fact is that any action by the UK will have no material effect on climate change. Zero. Zip. None. So to that end, other than the ‘feel good’ demonstrator element, the exercise as things stand in the world, is utterly pointless.

According to EU figures, the UK didn’t produce 98.98% of world emissions in 2017. Yes, the UK’s contribution was 1.02% globally. If the UK produced 0% tomorrow it would have absolutely no material effect whatsoever on the climate change process. It’s best contribution would be, with others, to persuade the top 10 carbon produces to head to net zero. Diplomacy, not heat pumps, is what is required now.

Just four countries produce 55% of emissions, and none of them will be anywhere near net zero by 2040. The USA, no longer a member of the Paris Accord, has in fact been removing regulations which limit emissions for the past 4 years. Even with a new administration, could one imagine that the USA could, for example, introduce a ban on new gasoline powered cars and vans b y 2030 – or even 10 years later? Fantasy.

The issue here for plans for a ‘Green Economy’ is that they are very unlikely to result in lower costs for the average household – in fact, it is likely that house costs, heating bills, electricity costs, and transport costs will all rise significantly. Since all current political parties are committed to this path, the eventual outcome must be rising taxes, wage inflation and hence reactive price inflation. We’ve been here before. The wish to be ‘world leading’ in climate actions will in fact detract from our competitiveness globally.

Grumpy believes the UK has a promising future outside the EU. But there is a hangover in the DNA of the UK from our colonial past of ruling a quarter of the world’s land area, which shows in the inevitable political references to ‘world beating’ this and ‘world class’ that. The wish to be a nuclear power, and (announced by Boris) the largest military in Europe all shows this throwback mentality embedded in the political classes and probably in the Civil Service.

The UK does have world level assets in key areas, particularly research and innovation (although not in the exploitation of same). Having no natural resources to speak of, and too high labour costs to be in low tech manufacturing, the future has to be in services based on distinctive competences, coupled with high tech manufacturing associated with those.

Profits vs warming

Grumpy isn’t really a mobile phone person, and has to admit to never have taken a ‘selfie’. [In fact, for nerds, he is POP3 rather than IMAP based, and doesn’t even have access to e-mail on his phone. He uses it to , errr, make phone calls.]

However, from time to time he needs to install an App (for example for his alarm system), but on seeking to do so is informed that he should install a later version of Android. His trusty Samsung Galaxy S3 currently runs Android 4.3, however, and it cannot be updated, so no App.

Similarly, his iPad, an alternative vehicle for the alarm system App, gives a similar message; however, that too, running IoS 9.3.5 also cannot be updated.

So he owns two perfectly functional hardware devices (which in all likelihood have the potential for many years life in them) which have to be replaced. They are now effectively worthless, and their fate is inevitably disposal i.e. trashing. How can we, at this time in history, design (or even allow) commercial strategies deliberately calculated to create unnecessary waste?

There is a mismatch here between the mealy mouthed platitudes of corporates and governments with regard to their ecological credentials and the reality of policies which drive enforced obsolescence. If there really is an “emergency” which is shortly to result in the drowning of New York and London, and instigate global mass migration on a scale never before seen in history, it does seem anomalous that as a species we permit policies which are specifically designed to drive unnecessary mass consumption of resource, including the precious rare earth metals used in electronic devices.

The bottom line is that, whilst large swathes of the population pay lip services to the implications of climate change and cheer on Greta T, they are simply not prepared accept the radical and truly unprecedented changes to our way of life inevitably implied by it. Sadly, Donald Trump recognises this, and thus finds willing followers for his actions to roll back the tentative steps to mitigate warming already made in the USA, without whose full acceptance warming will take place whatever the rest of the world does.

It does not bode well.

Twisted logic

Another Feminist has entered the battle – one assumes from a self publicity angle rather than ideological purposes – to make a London men’s club – the Garrick – accept women as members. This is Oxford PPE graduate Emily Bendel who has formed a lingerie company, and is being hailed as an example of the thrusting (is that he right word?) confidence of young female entrepreneurs. [Grumpy cannot help but comment that on-line lingerie merchandising is not exactly innovative as a business concept.]

In spite of her Oxford education and presumably lots of upper echelon contacts, Emily had no idea that men only clubs existed, or so she told the Daily Mail. Her attack on the Garrick seems to be driven by a philosophical feminist motive rather than any wish to actually join the Club. Her feminist credentials are underlined by her approach that seductive lingerie is not bought by women to be seductive, but for their own self-actualisation and the pleasure of (presumably) looking in themselves in the mirror. The ‘Social Responsibility’ page on the website states that ‘The Future is Female. ‘

She is seemingly one of the “my peep hole bras and crotchless panties have nothing to do with sex or titillating men” feminists. Oddly, she started off selling vibrators for Anne Summers, although this maybe underlines the ‘self love’ take on her frillies. However, her philosophy (in her own words) for the company is “to redefine sensuality. We design for spirited women that buy lingerie to please themselves and we have pioneered the ‘underwear as outerwear’ trend”. In common with most corporate mission statements this is essentially syntax without semantics, and the juxtaposition of the words doesn’t actually convey any understandable meaning about the company goals.

{Frankly, Grumpy wasn’t aware that the current trend was for him to put his M+S underwear on the outside of his jeans, but he probably moves in the wrong circles.]

However, to the point Grumpy wishes to make. Emily’s ignorance of men only clubs presumably extends to a lack of knowledge of a fast growing sector in London – women only clubs, of which an abundance can be found by a simple Google search. Their existence underlines the conundrum feminists like Emily today have to face; how to harass the gander with needing to having to do the same for the goose.

Normally the answer is to simply take the view that geese and gander don’t have to follow the same rules. Gender equality is a weapon against men but women (delicate flowers that they are) are excused. It’s the Stella Creasy MP school of logic where men will be jailed for misogyny but women are free to practise misandry at will. Similarly, check out Durham University’s student president – presumably elected to represent all students – who publicly declared that she was a ‘misandrist till I die’ as an example of this asymmetric breed.

Nevertheless, Grumpy wishes good luck to Ms Bendell with her lawsuit, but at the same time, for the sake of rationality, equality and one for the boys, he hopes the Judge consigns it to the waste bin of other ‘stunt’ actions.

More information :

The Bluebella website has the normal corporate dung about climate change on its “Social Responsibility” page, and the purely tokenist actions taken to salve their consciences for being in one the the major sectors contributing to warming, ecological damage and third world poverty – see link

See Grumpy’s justification for the ‘tokenist’ comment above here

.. and on Stella Creasy here

On the asymmetry of of female reactions to male ‘voyeurism’ vs the actions of women to deliberately titillate see here and here

Pointless climate actions

Rarely a day goes by without reading of some new UK initiative with regard to climate change. Sadly (as pointed out in several posts here) the vast majority are pointless, and often dumb, tokenism. Worse, there often seems to be a conflation with plastic pollution, when forces here often actually conflict.

What is now many years ago, right wing conservative politicians would rant against extreme left wing (normally in London) councils about their lack of financial probity, but, as with climate issues, the targets of their invective were generally wrong. They would, for example, call out a council for employing a poet (yes, those were the days ..) as trashing ratepayers money, but the reality is that in the scope of their total expenditure it was not a material matter. It was the wrong argument.

That error is being repeated in spades on the environment, and climate policy makers and pressure groups need to get real. The UK does not generate 98.8% of global emissions. The US, China and India alone collectively generate more than 50%, so just like the poet, expending effort on saving 10% of 1.2% which are UK emissions will not stop the oceans from boiling. Unless and until the aforementioned three become wedded to significant and prompt action, activities here will remain what they are i.e. pointless tokens by self- satisfied and smug people.

To show the scope of this problem, in recent weeks, Trump has turned his attention to ‘windmills’; “the energy is unreliable and terrible” (twitter) / “the noise causes cancer ” (speech, December 2019). We can set aside his bizarre statements at rallies, however, and look to actions. The EPA has been steadily rolling back on environmental protections implemented by Obama such as restrictions on coal fired power generation (June 2019), so Trump can get support from Wyoming miners. Screw the world, get elected for term 2.

China’s emissions, of course, are significantly impacted by the Western world exporting its own emissions by importing manufactured goods from China. Also, the UK is now the biggest net importer of CO2 emissions in the G7, through imports of foreign goods.

So enough of the token, back-slapping but pointless exercises. No more talk of dates to achieve something which are patent nonsense, as they are simply don’t impact at all on the global picture. There is an English (or should it be British) trait that somehow ‘we must do our bit’. This feels comforting and self-righteous, but is an intellectually bankrupt approach – the only way to counter global warming from a UK perspective is to support the facilitation of global agreements which the big three will subscribe to… and right now that looks a long way off.

Mindless (and wholly hypocritical) climate tokenism

Frances Corner is Warden of Goldsmiths College of the University of London. The College currently languishes as 99th in the Guardian rankings of UK Universities, and Grumpy might have thought that the Warden would be putting all her energies to improve that near to the bottom position rather than indulging in pointless token climate exercises which can have no practical impact other than as a PR project.

She has instigated an initiative in which Goldsmiths are (amongst other things) banning beefburgers (and all other beef products) and putting a 10p levy on bottled water on campus. [The College press release doesn’t state whether this applies to all bottles, including glass reusable ones, or just plastic bottles.]

Goldsmiths have jumped on the bandwagon of declaring a ‘climate emergency’, a meaningless term on which Grumpy has previously written much (see, for example) http://grumpy.eastover.org.uk/climate-impotence/extinction-rebels-2/ .

What makes Goldsmiths stand out is that the driver behind this is the new Warden. Corner has spent more or less her whole life associated with the fashion industry (and has penned a book, ‘Why fashion matters’). However, as the United Nations Environment Programme points out, the fashion industry “produces 20 per cent of global wastewater and 10 per cent of global carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping. Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally”. Her background in this Goliath polluting machine hardly makes her a poster girl for saving the planet.

Although the fashion giants’ PR machines issue butt covering statements on ‘sustainability initiatives’, the simple and undeniable fact remains that the very business model of many, if not most, of the multi billion dollar retain chains is based on high velocity turnover of essentially disposable clothing to drive constant repeat sales. As the UN also points out, “Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. If nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget.” Further, the low wage basis of the associated production systems condemns countless thousand foreign workers to a survival level existence.

Corner’s pathetic response to “take urgent action to cut carbon use” is to ban Big Macs. As the link above to a prior post notes, anything they do is pointless in in the sheer scale of its insignificance, and hence the accusation of hypocrisy. She would have far more effect on CO2 emissions if she banned wearing of all fast fashion (rather than fast food) on campus and insisted on a Chinese style uniform of unisex dungarees for all students on campus. This would have the benefit of finding out if students were really prepared to takes steps rather than just paying lip service to climate change and having a spider plant in their flats.

Wining ‘green gown’ awards http://francescorner.com/sustainability/ means nothing if you are still prepared to take Amancio Ortega’s shilling and support the fast fashion business model.

Ill informed Thunberg

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish student, and sometime mouthpiece for the Extinction Rebellion movement (“XR”). She has been in London this week (April 20th 2019), and making speeches to a motley crew of politicians, celebrities and others who see hanging on to her coat-tails as a way to increase their public visibility quota, and get ‘green’ pixie points to boot.

XR has, as one of its three stated goals, a target of having the UK zero net carbon by 2025, of which more later, in a second instalment on this group of fantasists.. First, however, consider Greta’s credentials for holding forth on the topic, especially considering the short time in her life she has had to master the myriad of multi-disciplinary complexities – technical, financial and political – of managing climate change.

In a speech in Hyde Park (where nearby XR followers were idly disrupting the capital’s operation), Greta stated “nothing is being done to stop an ecological crisis despite all the beautiful words and promises”, and “politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything.” Well, look at that damning assertion of complete inaction on carbon reduction, and check it against facts on the ground.

The UK has the two largest offshore wind farms in the world. 9,702 turbines have been installed to date. The UK is the world’s 4th largest generator of wind based renewable power , with around 20 Gw capacity. In November 2018, renewable power in total exceeded that produced by fossil fuels for the first time, a total of 42 Gw., and which now accounts for 30% of total demand. (All of which comes at a cost to the poor consumer, BTW, through ‘green’ levies).

Read these statistics again; by what rational interpretation can this achievement be described as “nothing” ? Greta Thunberg is either clearly ignorant of the facts of the topic on which she pontificates, or she sets out to wilfully misrepresent the current position. Given the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) focus on ‘fake news’ and misleading data, young Ms Thunberg should be one of their primary targets for naming and shaming, which is how DCMS tends to spend its time.

Sadly, one side effect of this “child as a role model” trend is that it corrupts other children from having a balanced view of a subject which is undoubtedly going to have a hugely significant effect upon their lives. Look at the picture at the head this article and one sees two small children – who can have no real understanding of the issues – parroting this inaccurate propaganda; being used as newsworthy pawns for albeit a valid cause – which incidentally is now in danger of being hijacked by the far left and the ‘back to ox carts’ brigade.

Pointless rebellion

It’s hard to know where to start with Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) proposals for ultra rapid transition to net carbon zero in the UK by 2025. However, merely browsing the links and references on their web site eases the need to spend much time reviewing it because it is patently not feasible – at least not without martial law, societal upheaval and unrest not seen for centuries. There is not the space here to provide an assessment of the claims and proposals made in any detail, but a flavour of the concepts are presented here.

The first issue, watching people with too much time in their hands disrupting the very economic activity to pay for the countless billions of government borrowing to fund their dreams, is that it is simply utterly pointless. Unless and until the USA, China and India make the same sort of commitments, if the UK didn’t emit a gram of CO2 from now on, the needle wouldn’t move on the global heat-o-meter. If you want to make changes, then you have to start with the most significant causes – and that means getting a President of the USA who has declared Climate Change to be a ‘Chinese Hoax’ to have a conversion which would make St Paul’s look insignificant. The simple and unavoidable truth is that it cannot happen by 2025, period.

The second issue is that the numbers quoted by XR just don’t add up. The web site points to the document “One Million Climate Jobs” published by the Campaign for Climate Change, and endorsed by the usual suspect list of Unions. Climate Change for them is a gift from above to propose measures which, in the absence thereof, would be consigned to the ‘nutters’ end of the political spectrum, or had them locked up for insurrection. Most of the arguments are old and tired, but have been regurgitated after a wash and brush up. They include ideas such as (on taxing the ‘rich’) “If they paid 50% of their income in taxes we could raise £12 billion a year … We can think of it not as a punishment, but as an honour, and an opportunity for the privileged and affluent to help the planet. ” Of course, there are not enough ‘rich’ to raise the amounts required, and really they mean ‘middle class’. The problem is that the middle class have a vote (as Mrs Thatcher reminded us), and they may be reluctant to see as an honour guaranteeing £30k jobs to anyone made redundant by the green policies. The reader can get the general gist from the above, but it involves wealth taxes, robbing corporate (but not public sector) pensions, removal of saving incentives such as ISA’s, etc etc.

The third, and most unrealistic issue, is the time frame. The document mentioned in the prior paragraph acknowledges the size of the challenge, but at least gives a time frame of 20 years to effect (but which again doesn’t add up with the resources described). XR’s proposal implies (with a credibility testing 4 times rapidity) installing of the order of 150,000 new wind turbines, converting more than 30m homes from gas firing to electricity (at no cost to the home owner), insulating (including double glazing) up to 40m homes where needed, mammoth transportation infrastructure changes and so on – in 60 months. For comparison, it will have taken Crossrail almost 3 times as long to build). It omits to deal with the issue that electricity is 3-4 times more expensive than gas per KWH, and would still be so with the plan envisaged. Home bills would rocket, and the consequent social impact would be enormous.

16 year old Greta Thunberg, is fresh from lecturing Eurocrats and in particular British politicians on these goals. They (including, one hopes , Gove, who attended) will no doubt give it lip service to brighten their green credentials. But they know, and the Civil Servants behind them know, that it is a formula for hyperinflation, substantial, if not catastrophic, reduction in living standards, toxic for all but a portion of industry, and most of all, inherently dangerous to the stability and balance in civil society. It is a whimsical fantasy, and one which must be named for what it is, if our masters have the political courage.

Footnote 1 : To paraphrase Mrs Thatcher (“all hail Margaret”), such policies are fine “until other people’s money runs out”

Footnote 2: In December 2018, TfL reported that 140 tube drivers earned more than £80k per annum (some getting £100k), and the average pay was circa. £70k. Of course, they can retire at 60 on an inflation proofed, RPI (not CPI) linked, pension. The fact is that it’s no good taxing the few bankers that get £x million per year because there are not enough of them, and it’s likely the drivers would fall into the ambit of these plans. One has to wonder if the late Bob Crow would be honoured to see up to 50% of that go in tax.

Blackout oddity

The UK suffered a significant power failure in August 2019, bringing considerable disruption to travel for thousands of commuters and other travellers, leaving some stranded overnight hundreds of miles from home. However, the Director of Operations at national Grid said on television that the systems “worked well” following a “rare event”. Huh?

This event will no doubt be investigated by those who understand how the system should work and by politicians, who don’t understand, but who love to point fingers accusingly so they are seen to be ‘holding people to account’. Grumpy, from a uninformed position, found it rather odd.

Two power stations had problems, the combination of which resulted in huge disruption. One was at Little Barford, powered by two gas turbines generating 740MW in total. The other was the Hornsea wind array, which is under construction, but some turbines were connected to the grid in early 2019. It’s unclear from public sources what power was available, but only 28 out of 174 turbines slated for phase I of the project had been connected by May 2019. Since the maximum theoretical output of phase I is 1.2GW, on the generous side it might be concluded that Hornsea could have been adding around 195MW to the grid. The total from the two plants was thus a maximum of 740+195 = 935MW.

This needs to be put in context, as it implies that a loss of input of less that 1GW of capacity could severely disrupt the country. Peak UK demand varies between 55GW to 6oGW, so that’s just a loss of 1.6% of total generation capacity to cause huge disruption at substantial cost to individuals and business.

On the face of it, that seems like an incredibly narrow safety margin. Consider then, that a single typical coal fired station can generate 2GW, twice the loss of power for this incident.

The question which comes into Grumpy’s mind is whether this perilously small safety margin has been brought about by the rush to close coal fired stations in accordance with the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive, which is a death knell for such plants. Under this another 6GW will be taken out by 2020. Given that one sixth of that just stopped most transport in the Capital, it would seem both rash and premature.

Germany, on the other hand, has plants which still burn substantial quantities of even dirtier Lignite, and does not plan to close them all before 2038. Their government estimates that 40 billion euros will be paid to operators alone in compensation.

Given that the EU largest member is taking a more relaxed and pragmatic approach to complying, Grumpy suspects that the UK’s penchant for gold plating EU directives at an unwarranted cost to the economy has led to a situation where one of the most fundamental of all public utilities can be knocked out by lass than a 2% loss of generation capacity. Stock up on candles.