"Green" policies are destroying this country

The concern around Green politics in general is the zealotry that can attach to it. It's no great leap to believe that some would look at environmental concerns over ever thinking of how that might affect people. In that respect it's good that their absolute aims are tempered by the need to compromise to get into power.

Yes, but persuading people over using a dogmatic approach is much more effective in the long term. Most people have other priorities to worry about apart from the environment.

How would you suggest the greens pursuade people? What would they need to do differently?

Nonsense. It's the free market capitalists who ignore science when there's money to be made. The scientific consensus is that climate change is a massive problem that needs to be addressed urgently. It's extremely time sensitive

Threats of electricity shortages and blackouts this winter and the "green" solution is for people to consume ever more electricity (EVs, heat pumps, no gas for cooking etc) as well as unfettered development of data centres all while we are looking to remove reliable energy generation in favour of the intermittent wind fantasy. Absolutely comical if it wasn't so serious.

So how do you purify the water?

And yet if you dare to suggest that nuclear energy is a solution that could deliver a zero CO2 grid, 11 years from now, rather than the current baseless aim of 28 years which has no actual plan behind it, your Greens go into a mental meltdown trying to argue against the idea. Greens don't want practical solutions, they want impractical green nonsense solutions that don't exist except as un-costed and untried ideas. Greens don't seem to genuinely believe in the time sensitivity because they are prepared to wait for idealised solutions which may never be achieved rather than practical ones that can deliver results in a far shorter time frame.

Greens want solutions based on hopium. Vast quantities of offshore wind generating large quantities of hydrogen and everyone lives happily ever after on fairy farts. This little vision of energy nirvana has never been achieved by any country, even those with vastly more impressive technical capabilities, like the US, UK, Germany, Sweden, Japan, South Korea. No one has done it because the economics are a nonsense and the technical hurdles are massive. Saying X,Y and Z are investing 'n' amounts into H means nothing, other than they are looking into it. It doesn't mean or guarantee that economic and practical solutions will result, any more than the billions invested in pursuing nuclear fusion ever guaranteed a working result.

The free market capitalists adhere religiously to science, that's why none of them would be stupid enough to build an offshore wind farm or an even more ridiculous onshore solar farm with a capacity factor of 14% in a country with the least direct sunlight hours in all of Europe and the greatest cloud cover. The only way capitalists would ever entertain building such stupidities is if even greater economic stupidities are committed by governments to provide them the incentives to do things which make no technical or scientific sense.

When it comes to getting their way I don`t see much tempering of the zealotry when you see the chairperson of the party, and some of their supporters here, being of the belief that not getting the cut in cattle numbers they wanted was a reason to bring down a government. We have also seen the same calls being made if they do not get their way on LNG. For a party where opinion polls have their vote percentage within the margin of error, politically that is zealotry at child tantrum levels.

A dogmatic approach is the certainty that your beliefs are right and that others should accept them without paying attention to evidence or other opinions. It is a description that fits the greens to a tee. It is also a dogma that we have seen in our recent history that caused a lot of suffering on this island being used for political gain and a lot of uncertainty as to where that is now taking us as well.

Tempering absolute aims to get into power is a smoke and mirrors exercise pursued by zealots with little or no regard for the common good.

Point out to people exactly what's in it for them. People veer from off white to pure green in terms of their environmental interest. All people hear are carbon taxes, get on a bike, opposition to cheaper energy and potential congestion charges. The early COVID communications to the public were an excellent examples of this, clear, concise and calm.

So between silver mines and the existing and planned interconnectors we have an output of 2.5GW yeah?

Demand at the moment is 5.5 GW which means we are 3GW short if we have low wind in winter yeah?

Let’s say offshore wind gives us 1GW in the low wind scenario- we are still 2GW short.

Are we hoping green hydrogen will cover that (at least) 2GW?

Do you see the problem dacor?

Science moves forward by consensus. You havent a clue what you're talking about

There are 2.5gw of battery storage coming online in the next few years

these would be used to peak shave, ie they charge off peak or when there's surplus energy and then sell back to the grid at peaks times.

Science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics and religion.

Just because consensus can change doesn't mean that scientists don't operate on consensus. Scientists cannot do every single replication study to verify everything for themselves. When the weight of evidence is high enough on one side scientists accept the scientific consensus is formed

If a scientist wants to challenge the scientific consensus they need to provide evidence and if they are successful the consensus will change.

There is an extremely strong scientific consensus that natural selection is how speciation occurs and that creationism is nonsense. This means scientists don't have to bother debating creationists apart from when some idiot politician tries to corrupt the education system

Doesn't mean scientists can't study the mechanisms in natural selection or that there won't be discoveries that change our understanding in the future