By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
Vauxhall Motors last week announced the closure of its Luton van-making factory, which employs 1,100 people directly and many, many more across local and national supply chains.
The news shocked Luton, once a major hub of the UK’s automotive industry. Vauxhall has operated in this Bedfordshire town for almost 120 years.
This is just the latest disturbing industrial closure driven in large part by the overzealous net zero policies of successive UK governments. Unless mainstream politicians are careful, this relentless pursuit of environmental goals will seriously alienate millions of voters across our industrial heartlands – in fact, it already has.
The decision to close Luton was taken by Stellantis – the world’s fourth-largest auto-making conglomerate, comprising European and US brands including Chrysler, Fiat and Peugeot, as well as Vauxhall.
Carlos Tavares, Stellantis chief executive, said earlier this year that the zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate was making carmaking in the UK economically unviable – which is obvious, to anyone who has been paying attention.
Much of our political and media class, protecting their eco-credentials and averse to awkward details, have waved away the warnings. But Britain’s net zero policies, not least ZEV, are now imposing existential damage on parts of the country least able to withstand major economic shocks……………
What with the closure of Port Talbot steelworks and the Labour’s ban on new drilling in the North Sea, net zero policies are now seriously riling the UK’s trade unions.
Gary Brown, head of the GMB, the UK’s third-largest union, says Labour’s green policies are “hollowing out working-class communities”. No wonder Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is now “listening” and has pledged to “consult” on these ZEV rules.
“It’s good the Government now recognises policy and reality have been moving in opposite directions,” says Robert Forester, co-founder of car retailing giant Vertu Motors, often a lone voice across a subsidy-hungry car industry reluctant to question net-zero.
“We need a plan driven by the market, not by government diktat, changing the percentage targets to slow the transition to 2035”.
But powerful vested interests and party donors – including the EV charging industry and its financial backers, along with power companies producing the most expensive electricity in the developed world – are pushing Labour to hold their nerve.
Britain’s net zero policies – particularly those relating to EVs – are a fiasco, now costing serious jobs and threatening entire regional economies. This is what happens when politicians think they know best – putting vanity and ideology above economic and commercial logic.
Read the full story here.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
December 1, 2024 at 04:45AM
Brace yourself for the end season hurricane propaganda push.
via CFACT
December 1, 2024 at 04:22AM
By P Gosselin
The period between 1250 and 1860 is also known as the Little Ice Age. We have already reported on it several times here. The Little Ice Age was the undoing of the Franklin expedition, among others. In search of the Northwest Passage, the crew failed because of the ice, even though they had set off in summer. Franklin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He paid with his death.
AI-generated Image. Source: Klimanachrichten
But what was the climate like at the time and what were the climate drivers? Volcanoes played a major role, but so did a minimum of solar activity. However, summers were by no means consistently wet and cool.
A study from 2022 looks at this topic. Here’s the abstract:
The Little Ice Age (LIA), which lasted from about 1250 to 1860 AD, was likely the coldest period of the last 8000 years. Using new documentary data and analyses of alpine glacier fluctuations, the complex transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the LIA and the ensuing high variability of seasonal temperatures, are described and interpreted for Europe. The beginning of the LIA was likely different in both hemispheres. The low temperature average of the LIA is primarily due to the high number of cold winters. Conversely many summers were warm and dry.
Important triggers of the lower temperatures were, primarily, the numerous clusters of volcanic eruptions and the weak solar irradiance during the four prominent Grand Solar Minima: Wolf, Spörer, Maunder, and Dalton. The drop in temperature triggered the sea-ice–albedo feedback and led to a weakening of the Atlantic overturning circulation, possibly associated with a trend towards negative North Atlantic Oscillation indices.
The statistics of extreme events show a mixed picture. Correlations with forcing factors are weak, and can only be found in connection with the “Years without a Summer”, which very often occurred after large volcanic eruptions.
We must always bear in mind that several factors came together in the middle of the 19th century. One of the coldest periods in the last 8,000 years was followed by a climatic counter-movement. In addition, the industrialization of the world and the massive use of coal began. Land masses were reshaped on a large scale, such as during the colonization of North America.
This period also marked the birth of modern meteorology. During the Crimean War, France lost large parts of its fleet due to a storm for which it was unprepared. As a lesson from this, weather forecasts were made on the basis of data, of course in no comparison to today. However, warnings of storms were also possible back then thanks to the use of telegraphy. So a lot of things came together.
A recent study on the subject found that volcanism was predominantly “responsible” (51% involved), but that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which particularly influences winters in Europe, was also involved and that the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) at the other end of the world was even involved (28%). In any case, we would do well to remember that nothing in nature is constant and romanticized images from the period before the mid-19th century should be viewed critically. So the next time we hear the phrase “before industrialization”, please remember this article.
via Watts Up With That?
December 1, 2024 at 04:04AM
