This week

Is Net Zero desirable?

The world is waking up to the false gods of climate zealots. Europe is realising that its lemming-like dash towards energy poverty may not be a good idea. It has taken multiple hits to bring about a change in attitude. The rising cost of energy in countries with extensive renewables roll-outs was the first sign. But rich countries, like the UK and Germany, persisted, closing down coal-fired power and even nuclear reactors. Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of the Nord 2 pipeline and Russia's use of energy as a weapon. Most recently, there is the instability in the grid caused by too high a reliance on intermittent energy, the final nail has been the US' withdrawal from the Paris accord and the Net Zero target. 

Unfortunately, much of Europe had taken the Net Zero, renewable path many years ago, and it will take a long time to convince the populations that were fed the Net Zero cool-aid for years to change their minds. Worse still, if you have closed your coal-fired power stations or demolished your nuclear power stations, like Spain, it will take decades to replace them. So let's be prepared for a rather mixed message from the countries that thave progressed along this path, but remember that some 60% of the world's emissions are from countries that no longer have any commitment to Net Zero. 

So any country that is a minor emitter, eg UK (1%), Australia (1%) should, if common sense prevailed, drop the target. They are only damaging their own economies without any impact on the world climate.

Can the world live without fossil fuels, as the net-zero zealots advocate? No. Quite simply, the modern world is totally interdependent on the availability of fossil fuels. Our modern world has been built on many of the products of fossil fuels; asphalt for our roads, all plastics, fertiliser essential for food productivity, pharmaceuticals, and virtually every industry is dependent on fossil fuels. A world without fossil fuels would be a poor world, and could not support the current population of the Earth. 

Don't take my word for it. Here is a short video from Prager Can the World Live Without Fossil Fuels?

Well worth a view.

Activist media fight for the Left

The Left has captured the majority of Western media organisations. Today, this seems to be accepted not only by the Right but also by the Left. It has happened gradually over the last 2 decades. I still remember my TV and Radio stations of choice were Australia's ABC, the public broad. Many from that time have often commented that today's ABC is virtually unrecognisable in its consistently one-sided reporting on most political issues. I recall one ex-reporter explaining that in the 70s, admittedly 5 decades ago, using adjectives in news stories was banned. This was to ensure reporters' views were not allowed to intrude on straight reporting. Oh, how far have the standards strayed! Today's media fails to distinguish news from opinion, and news stories often include left-wing commentary. Without doubt, there are a few media outlets that clearly lean Right, so why am I complaining? Firstly, because there are many more left-leaning organisations than right-leaning. This naturally will have a disproportionate influence on political issues. But more importantly, the publicly funded ABC, whose charter required impartiality, has been so captured by the Left that there is not one right-leaning political commentator on its political programs. This fact has been pointed out many times over recent years, yet it continues. Labor governments welcome the ABC on their side, so they will not criticise them; that is not surprising. But then, the LNP coalition also fails to make this an issue, because the ABC carries so much influence that they do not dare to start a massive media-driven campaign against them. Yet there will be no change until we get a Trumpian coalition leader who calls out the 'Fake Media' in our midst.

Apropos Trump and the US media, the problem is the same. In some ways, much worse. Given Trump's whirlwind successes and a weak Democratic party, the media have gone all out to try to redress the balance. But of course, Trump is up for the fight. I only wish Australia had someone with the same strength.

Victor Davis Hanson has a short video on this issue that is well worth a view.

Is Albo Australia's Chavez?

After the Liberal National Coalition's devastating loss in last week's election, the coalition is in disarray. Just today, the Liberals elected a new leader, Sussan Ley, the party's first female leader. While she has been in parliament for 25 years, she has not had a big footprint. Most people don't know her at all. And this is despite her having been the deputy leader of the party and being virtually invisible during the recent campaign. In some ways, that tells the story, but you never know. I am always happy to give a new leader a chance to discard their past and grow into the new role.

The re-elected Labor party has shuffled the deckchairs with a renewed ministry. Some demotions have caused ructions, and some who kept their jobs should not have. But again, let's see how they perform.

The most ominous development has been the dominance of the Left wing of the party in the new ministry. Australia is now led by the most left-wing government ever. This flows against the tide of new right-of-centre governments in the Western world.

Many commentators predict that this will cause Australia to continue its downward spiral. Previous cycles have shown Labor federal governments wear out their welcome in two terms, and leave the country in a mess. Let's see.

Here is a piece by Topher Field who warns of Albo as a re-born Chavez who will bring disaster on Australia. I think Australia's Westminster system has more checks and balances, but forewarned is forearmed.

Intermittent renewables cause grid instability

Following the unprecedented blackout of Spain and Portugal, many commentators have been crowding the airwaves to put their particular spin. In my close circle, we have had multiple, let's call them 'discussions' on the reasons. You can take it as read that, like many groups, we have a mix of political viewpoints and are passionate in our arguments. Those with a firm belief in the "Climate Catastrophe" dogma are doing their best to interpret Spain's outage as an unusual one-off, not an intrinsic instability caused by too many intermittent energy sources trying to maintain power continuity to very tight constraints. Unfortunately for them, the indications are that there is a serious stability issue when there is a high proportion of intermittent sources. I posted one source last week. Here is another.

It is rather long around 50 mins, well worth the lot, but Spain is covered in the first 10 minutes.

the balance does cover a range of issues relating to Net Zero, nuclear energy, and problems with renewables. The context is UK but applicable in broad terms worldwide.

Climate myth busting

During my discussions about the Spain blackout, our friendly discussions strayed into many of the  Climate Emergency claims. Having covered this some time ago, I was reminded of the scientific paper that analysed many of the claims made by the Climate Emergency club. 

In my earlier post (see climate emergency claims debunked ), I provided a summary of the paper, which I reproduce here.

Climate change advocates' claims;-

• temperatures are higher than they have been in the last 200 years: TRUE.
• temperatures are higher than they have ever been. FALSE.   
• there are more hurricanes FALSE
• there have been more droughts: FALSE
• there have been more wet seasons: FALSE
• the strength of hurricanes has increased: FALSE
• the number of violent hurricanes has increased: FALSE
• CO2 is the major Greenhouse Gas: FALSE
• CO2 increases will drive temperatures to catastrophic levels: FALSE
• CO2 is the main driver of temperature increases: FALSE
• CO2 levels today are higher than they have ever been: FALSE
• sea level is rising: TRUE
• the rate of sea level rise is increasing: FALSE
• changes in solar irradiance can be ignored: FALSE
• we can ignore the effects of the sun: FALSE
• we can ignore sun spots: FALSE
• CO2 is a pollutant: FALSE
• Temperature and CO2 go up together: FALSE
• Models can be used to predict climate: FALSE
• the pause in temperature increases is not real.FALSE
• there is a 97% consensus that humans are causing the climate to change: FALSE

OTG WE 11 May 2025

The robots are coming.

As a technology freak, I keep abreast of new developments, especially in robotics. You will have noticed many articles that highlight recent milestones. The major leap in recent times has been the integration of AI with conventional Robotics. AI adds the brain to the robotic machine. The programming of conventional robots has required extensive time-consuming programming. Robots require function-specific programming to ensure the robot does exactly what was intended and nothing that was not specified. The need for each task to be programmed meant a drag on their use to repetitive tasks, where the cost of programming was justified through repetition. 

That is now changing. AI is providing the facility for the robots to respond directly to instructions from a human. The AI then programs the robot to execute what is required. While this integration is in its infancy, over time, it will enable the elimination of all manual labour. The Rosie robot of Futurama will become a reality. Of course, it will create significant challenges to human organisation, but is a topic for another day. 

Here is a recent video that highlights some of the most recent developments in robotics.

Is Musk's Starlink raining satellites?

Everything Musk is undergoing scrutiny. It's as if the once Dr Jekyll had turned into Mr Hyde following his taking a pro-Trump elixir. The most recent claim is that some 4 Starlink satellites are falling to earth every day. A rather stark and worrisome claim. Alas, as seems to be the case with every reason given for a new panic, there is more to the story. Once 'more' is explained, it is less worrisome. 

Let me not be the one to explain, just listen to YouTube physicist Sabine Hossenfelder.

Adolescent distractions

Given the many and diverse real social issues that pervade today's United Kingdom, it is shameful to focus the nation's attention on a red herring. Yet that is the case. The Netflix series 'Adolescence" has attracted widespread and high-level attention. Spoiler alert, while I have not seen the show, I believe the series tells the story of a young teenage boy bullied on social media, ending up knifing and killing a teenage girl.

The story seems to have struck a chord, with many talk shows raising the social issues it portrays. Some claim it as being a true story, a documentary, and politicians are asked how they will address social media epidemic that causes such breakdowns. Even in Australia, family members have raised it with me and one friend thought it was a true story. 

It is certainly not a true story, nor is it representative of the types of problems teenagers face. I don't have the statistics, but the much more common knife crime in the UK, and other Western cities, is teenage gang members knifing each other. Yes, the television series has exposed our feckless media once again, chasing illusive problems while ignoring the very real problems staring them in the face. 

Here is Konstanti Krisin summary. Konstantin is always entertaining.

  

You cannot trust polls!

Given their lack of success over many elections, it is surprising that anyone would trust a poll. Just think of the 2016 US Presidential election, which Hillary would win by a country mile, or even the recent 2024 US presidential election, which the pollsters had totally misjudged. In Australia, too, the pollsters are not much better with multiple failures at National polls. The election of 2019, where the Opposition leader was predicted by pollsters to "walk it in",  but ended up failing. Came close, but "no cigar".  

I accept that predictions are subject to error, and we cannot assume a poll will give an accurate prediction. However, given that the results in these elections were far outside the predicted error in the polls, we have to ask why. Why does this keep happening, and why do these pollsters keep their jobs? 

The recent 100-day milestone of Trump's second presidency has seen the media engage pollsters to apply a popularity gauge to Trump's performance. This resulted in many polls declaring a loss of support for Trump. But can we trust these polls? It seems not.

Victor Davis Hanson provides some insight into why many polls are just producing what the anti-Trump media wants to promulgate.

Here is the short video, well worth a watch.

Is China in chaos due to Trump's Tariffs?

The Trump China tariff battle is still in progress. I can't keep up with the numbers. However, at this stage, new very high reciprocal tariffs have been imposed on goods being transferred between the countries. Trump's argument is that this has a greater impact on China as it benefits more from US purchases. There are already some exceptions, and more will follow. Trump has already softened his position on this. We can expect more changes. 

But already I  am seeing multiple YouTube videos highlighting the impact on China of these tariffs. The videos claim panic as orders are being cancelled and exporters are going broke. Surprisingly, I am not seeing corresponding reports from our mainstream media. So I am somewhat skeptical, but we will see.

Here is one of these videos.

Shocking abuse by unhinged radicals

Given the distractions of our recent general election, we have forgotten about the extremists who held their repeated demonstrations at our Universities. Perhaps one may have thought it was all in the past. But no, Avi Yemini of Rebel News recently posted a shocking video of the vile abuse screamed at Mark Leach, of Never Again is Now, as he and his daughter were at a University Campus. This occurred about 4 weeks ago, during the election campaign, but that is no excuse. 

While I am reluctant to give more 'air' to such vile events, we do need to remember these hateful people are amongst us. 

Here is the video.

But there is something to celebrate in the election results. The Greens, the hate-filled party stoking the type of bullying and abuse demonstrated in the above video, have had a major electoral setback. Adam Bandt, the party leader, has lost his seat, and all the Greens' lower house seats are currently in doubt. This is a resounding rejection of their hateful policies. Something to celebrate!

Is Spain the canary in the renewables coalmine?

The recent Earth day, 22 April, was especially significant for Spain. It national grid had managed to run 100% renewables for the first time just 6 days earlier on 16 April.  (See Spain hits first weekday of 100% renewable power on national grid). However the celebrations did not last long, just a week later Spain & Portugal were hit by a massive blackout.  

"A massive blackout has caused mayhem along the Iberian Peninsula, stranding passengers in trains and hundreds of elevators and leaving millions without phone and internet coverage in Spain, Portugal and – briefly – south western France.

A state of emergency was declared in Spain in the wake of the major outage, which the country’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said occurred when about 15 gigawatts of electricity – more than half of the power being consumed at the time – “suddenly disappeared” in about five seconds."  Ref Spain blackout, News.com.au

Electricity blackouts are not generally reported in headlines, certainly not worldwide. So why was this, admittedly serious, blackout so significant? It is recognition that the 100%-renewables target of much of the Western world may be flawed. 

Of course, the climate zealots are looking at other explanations. Indeed several were posed by operators. Be it some technical mumbo jumbo that the average pundit cannot follow, or "very rare and unusual environmental circumstances", these causes do right the ship of doubt. If these events have occurred, they can occur again, so the unavoidable conclusion is that the new renewables grid is unstable. Moreover, the greater the proportion of renewables in a system, the less stable the grid becomes to unexpected fluctuations. 

This video provides a more technical analysis of the issues, and well worth a view.

It seems the blackout in Spain is an early warning of a serious flaw in the strategy of decarbonization by using Wind and Solar. That is a difficult conclusion for the many countries that are busy trying to transform their countries' electricity grids to renewables. Hopefully they are watching!