Hickory, dickory, dock – has NetZero done run out the clock? Damn near, it’s starting to look like.

With the fits and spurts of disastrous wind farm auction news leaking out, the trials and tribulations of the wind energy sector itself as it implodes under the weight of over promises, under delivery, and rising inflation, the Ukraine War’s impact on fossil fuel resources that back-up the Green dreamer rush to renewables – reality be damned – and the crushing impact of it all – with more draconian regulations coming – has the average British/European consumer finally said enough/genug?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement last week, delaying or completely revamping vast swaths of the UK’s NetZero targets was the first big crack in the official Wall O’ Unicorn Farts and done so in an attempt to placate an increasingly restless and more vocal public.

They’re totally over the nonsense.

…Plans to force the replacement of domestic oil boilers with heat pumps after 2026 and of petrol or diesel cars with electric vehicles (EVs) after 2030 annoyed millions. The gulf between airy, excited talk of saving the planet – which, to politicians, is free – and the hard here-and-now, day-to-day cost, particularly to poorer people, of the remedies allegedly needed, gaped wide. This public annoyance was predictable and – by most of us associated with the GWPF – had been long predicted. Now it had arrived, we rejoiced.

…Yet if I were a net zero believer, I would be highly alarmed that Mr Sunak’s changes will ramify much wider than he claims. Even if he sincerely accepts the 2050 destination and is simply adjusting the means of getting there, he is in fact breaking the all-party consensus that has already done us so much harm.

For the first time, a party leader is raising seriously the question of cost. This should be asked of literally all political projects but, on this subject, it has been consistently suppressed. Green zealots, aware of cost horrors, have structured the five-year carbon budgets in order to protect them from democratic scrutiny. It was important that Mr Sunak said the public have been “misled” about cost. Who misled them? The list is long, but it includes every prime minister this century, Tory and Labour.

Once cost is at issue, net zero is, barring a technological miracle, bound to lose. The “behaviour change” required by the Climate Change Committee to achieve emissions reduction is, in its prescription, a bigger element than is “green energy”.

People must be charged more for living as they currently choose to do and/or be banned from doing so.

Mr Sunak is now highlighting this problem. Green energy is unlikely to make nearly enough of a difference. No bids were made in the Government’s latest auction of offshore wind rights: without government subsidy, the business won’t pay.

For all the howls of righteous Gaia loving outrage and wails of existential threats raining about their heads, contrary to every exhortation of the foaming-at the-mouth environmental crowd – including Sunak rival Labour leader Keir Starmer, who’s already measuring drapes at 10 Downing Street – it seems Sunak scored himself some points. Significant points.

Nightmare for ‘unpopular’ Starmer as lead over Tories plummets in shock new poll
A new poll out this morning shows a significant swing to the Tories over the past 10 days, a period that covered both Rishi Sunak’s big net zero announcement and Labour rows over migration and Brexit.

Do tell! They were already tired of being poor paying for iffy electricity, being charged to drive their cars into the city, and being directed by the government to completely retrofit their homes to certain specifications or they’d be fined and not permitted to either rent or sell the property until it was up to government snuff.

There were also – still are, as a matter of fact – some pretty authoritarian environmental enforcement laws about to be on the books that would make Brown Shirts proud. Green goon squads will have the authority to literally kick your door in to ascertain themselves you have switched to the government approved energy efficient appliances for your home.

…So it is perhaps not surprising—though it is certainly chilling—that a new energy-regulation law, set to be passed by the UK parliament, will allow a future green-zealot government to impose these dictates by force. The mammoth bill includes all manner of things, from provisions on licensing, to carbon capture and storage to establishing an Independent System Operator and Planner (ISOP), a non-governmental body responsible for regulating the energy companies and the energy supply.

The section on “Energy Smart Appliances,” household appliances like fridges, dishwashers, tumble-dryers, heaters, and air conditioners, is worrying indeed. The idea behind “smart” appliances and smart metres is that they allow households to reduce their energy bill by using energy when the grid is less busy. In order for that to happen, however, they have to be able to receive signals from the energy grid. These “load control signals” are a digital message sent to an appliance, typically by the energy supplier, in order to adjust an appliance’s energy usage.

…To ensure this happens, the government can designate “enforcement authorities”—essentially, Net Zero police. These government enforcers will have powers to enter people’s homes, “including by reasonable force.” While there, they will have powers of “inspection, search, and seizure” and powers to “require the production of information” from residents, presumably to find out how much energy a household is using. They can even stop people from modifying appliances and recall those that are non compliant. Citizens who do not obey these rules are liable to receive a civil penalty of up to £15,000, and perhaps more should the government deem it necessary to recover further costs.

Who WOULDN’T want to live in such a Green utopia?

NO ONE EXPECTS THE NET ZERO POLICE!!!

John Kerry wets himself just thinking of such power and authority. “Would it were so here.”

Keeping one’s humble abode warm – which has been an expensive problem – is a struggle shared with their European neighbors. The revolt is spreading to the continent, even as reliably pliable as Europeans tend to be when directed what to do. Of course the twist is, especially in Germany, anytime there’s grousing among the public at the atrocious results of liberal/socialist failed policies, the Lefties trot out the “right-wing” bogeyman in attempts to stifle the protestations, and keep implementation on track

It’s not working this time.

Europe is facing a battle over gas boilers with a ban on the item threatening to cause major rebellions.

The EU is considering a ban on the sale of stand-alone fossil-fuel-powered boilers from 2029. But the prospect of a ban has triggered fury among countries across Europe.

…Germany was forced to row back on their support for the plan in the wake of massive government infighting and public outcries.

The backlash coincided with a boost in popularity for far-right party AfD.

Earlier this month, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner told Politico that stricter energy efficiency rules for buildings could fuel the rise of the far-right, amid growing apathy across Europe over plans to reach net zero.

Meanwhile, economist Jean Pisani-Ferr explained: “In Germany, we wanted to proceed with a ban without providing budgetary resources.

“So people revolted. We cannot put people before an equation without a solution.”

The tittering Teutonic twits who snickered their way through Donald Trump’s UN warning about reliance on Russian gas…

…and shut down their last nuclear reactors even as a ruptured Nordstream pipeline blew their energy security into the ozone are now staring down the face of a long march to deindustrialization. All thanks to their innate and exuberantly misguided sense of superiority.

I’ve been writing about it for months, but it’s so obvious now, even the AP roused itself enough this weekend to ask, “Whut happened?”

For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.

Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.

No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.

It follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the loss of Moscow’s cheap natural gas — an unprecedented shock to Germany’s energy-intensive industries, long the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe.

An “unprecedented SHOCK” It wouldn’t have been, had they not snickered at the Orange Man.

No worries. They’ve learned nothing. God willing, they’re going to take a shellacking come elections, but it’s going to be a tough slog – if ever – to reverse the damage done by a complacent populace allowing it to begin with, not to mention the European Union’s role.

In a pragmatic moment, France’s Emanuel Macron has completely shelved a gas boiler ban. I’m assuming he feels he has enough burned out buildings to contend with already. No sense in annoying anyone any more than he has to.

And they may yet have a cold winter. Europe was largely spared that misery last year.

It’s no wonder the UK and Europe are so desperate to shut down avenues like X and Rumble to impede the free flow of information. It simply won’t do to have unhappy citizens learning that the reasoning behind their colorless, prison-colony-like lives is vacuous, empty lies, specious, manipulated data, and never-ending, ego-stroking grift for a tiny cadre of self-anointed, authoritarian patricians who play at being gods.

…All of this means that, on a cold, windless winter’s evening someday soon, the Net Zero Police may come knocking. “We’re here to inspect your house’s energy-smart compliance,” an officer might bark. Sensing danger, John, the homeowner, might shut the door—after all, he needs his heater for little Danny, who’s been unwell, and the heat-pump central heating isn’t working. Grimly, the officers might then decide to break down the door. They might search the house and confiscate the offending heater, terrifying little Danny as his dad watches helplessly. Before the door is even mended, a letter will arrive in John’s cold hall informing him that he’s received a £15,000 fine for his trouble.

Perhaps this sorry episode will be filmed. It may even make the news.

But when the government of the day is pressed over why the Net Zero Police are breaking into people’s homes, a dead-eyed spokeswoman will simply respond with a prepared statement: “Energy Smart Regulation enforcement decisions are taken by the independent Net Zero regulator in order to meet our statutory climate targets.” Then she’ll add: “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

An Englishman’s home is his castle? In the Net Zero police state, not so much.

If they don’t fight the Green goon squads over there, you know we’ll have to here.

At least we still can protect our castles, humble as they may be.

Let it die.