The revolt against President Macron’s environmental taxes escalated today as protesters tried to block fuel depots around France. Lorry drivers joined the protest movement today as ministers struggled to restore order with at least 35 motorways partially or completely blocked, along with at least 18 motorway sliproads.
The revolt was sparked by Mr. Macron’s pledge to continue to increase the tax on fuel to cut pollution levels. That has since developed into a general rebellion against the rising fiscal burden on French households. —The Times, 19 November 2018
President Macron’s fuel tax rises caused chaos across France. The “yellow vest” demonstrators — named after the hi-vis jackets they have adopted as their emblem — promised to continue the disruption over the coming days and weeks. Their warning raised the pressure on Mr. Macron, who has swatted aside unions opposed to his reforms but is struggling to contain the rebellion that has crippled French highways. He has been criticized for failing to foresee that his efforts to counter President Trump by putting the environment at the heart of his agenda would so exacerbate anger in provincial France. —The Times, 19 November 2018
According to the IEA, France is sitting on 80% of Europe’s frackable gas – enough to keep the country self-sufficient in energy for centuries. But the Macron government has just banned, not only fracking but any extraction of any fossil fuels whatsoever on mainland France. It’s as if Marie Antoinette said: “Let them eat cake,” and then banned cake-making in France on the grounds that it was bad for the figure. —Geoff Chambers, Climate Scepticism, 17 November 2018
Electricity prices could double after the government suspended the UK’s system for ensuring there is a backup power supply, experts have warned. The wholesale power price could hit £121 per megawatt hour (MWh) by next winter unless the so-called capacity market is reinstated, according to a report — risking higher energy bills for millions. The government suspended the capacity market on Thursday after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found it breached state-aid rules. —The Sunday Times, 18 November 2018
Zhores A. Medvedev, the Soviet biologist, writer, and dissident who was declared insane, confined to a mental institution and stripped of his citizenship in the 1970s after attacking a Stalinist pseudoscience, died on Thursday at his home in London, where he had lived for decades. He had turned 93 the day before. With Roy Medvedev, the physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, the author Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn and others, Dr. Medvedev was a central figure in the seething intellectual dissidence that exposed, largely through underground literature known as samizdat, the repression of ideas, science and human rights in the Soviet Union. —The New York Times, 16 November 2018
Legitimate science clearly shows that the anthropological climate change is a fraud. However, it will not be science that finally ends the deception. What will end it are revolts against sky rocketing energy prices and unreliable power.
For Mr. Macron to base his policies on the effort to counter President Trump is the worst way to run a nation, especially a major industrial nation. He was acting on emotion.
Liberal Stephane Dion ran unsuccessfully for Prime Minister of Canada in 2008. His platform was an economic Green Shift, the environment above everything else. Where is he now?
Those who forget the past…….