Is it time to start asking whether electric vehicles have any redeeming value in 2024? Given the recent spate of bad news surrounding them, the answer to that question is becoming clearer.
As RedState reported, Ford has cut the production of its “Lightning” electric pickup truck in half. Why? Mainly because no one wants to buy them. Why do they not want to buy them? Because they are overpriced, unreliable, and impractical.
Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal minister of natural resources and energy, has said that developing the clean electricity grid of the future — the cleaner and bigger grid we need to support a a net-zero economy — is a “nation-building project akin to the building of the railway.”
Comparisons to Canada’s great accomplishment of the 19th century require some caveats now. But setting aside the worst elements of the railway’s construction, the comparison suggests both the importance of the work and the effort that will be required to finish it. From conception to the last spike, the national railway project took 14 years to complete.
So how’s it going so far?
Rocked by two weeks of farmers’ demonstrations against cuts in diesel subsidies, Germany now faces hundreds of disaffected hauliers protesting, as they assembled in Berlin Friday morning to oppose plans for raising road tolls and carbon taxes on their industry.
Approximately 1,500 trucks paraded along the A13 road towards Berlin in a two-kilometre long convoy before paralysing the city centre on Friday afternoon. Truckers are getting organised against recent government tax hikes and foreign, predominantly Eastern European, drivers undermining wage rates.
The German farmers and truckers are still protesting against planned tax increases.
Do you support the farmers?
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) January 19, 2024
Speaking to a panel at the World Economic Forum, finance minister Chrystia Freeland characterized “decarbonization” as the singular issue defining the world economy.
“I think we are living in a moment that is comparable only to the industrial revolution itself in terms of energy transition and the way we need to retool all of our manufacturing,” she said.
“We have to hustle; we think this is the moment that cement is being poured for the new economy.”
Key member of the WEF's 'Board of Trustees' and deputy PM of Canada, Chrystia Freeland, asserts that the Net Zero "energy transition" is a "hugely transformative moment in the whole global economy", which will require us to "retool all of our manufacturing".
She goes on to… pic.twitter.com/c4hyjhtXKJ
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) January 19, 2024
An extreme cold snap which led to near minus 50 degrees Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures in much of Western Canada over the weekend, and nearly caused one province’s power grid to collapse due to a failure of wind and solar power, saw many call out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government’s green energy agenda which is looking to phase out carbon-based power in favor of “renewables.”
Frigid cold of historic proportions in western Canada has amplified the limitations of renewable energy in Alberta’s power grid and the potential for federal environmental policies to make matters much worse and possibly life-threatening.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had on Jan. 10 described the challenges her province faces stemming from Ottawa’s “dangerous ideological policies.” Her words proved to be prescient, as just three days later, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) told Albertans “to immediately reduce their electricity use to minimize the potential for rotating outages across the province.”
The Department of Fisheries is currently reviewing a taxpayer-funded electric auto battery factory in Quebec, owned by Northvolt, amid concerns of potential environmental impacts.
This review includes assessing the risk of wetland destruction and fish habitat harm, as first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s previous endorsement of the Northvolt plant as “the world’s cleanest,” these concerns bring a new dimension to the project.
In a two-hour video posted on YouTube in 2021, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam looks directly into the camera as he imparts a message to young people about the supposed reality of future climate change.
“What we are talking about here is a murder project,” he says calmly, “which is going to destroy the lives and livelihoods of your generation.”
As they were settling in to watch a hockey game on television just before 6:00 p.m. on Saturday evening, every Albertan with a cellphone received a message via the Alberta Emergency Alert system warning that record-breaking cold weather “resulting in high power demand has placed the Alberta (electric) grid at a high risk of rotating power outages.”
Far-right groups have discussed toppling the German government as they seek to harness the anger of ongoing farmer protests over subsidy cuts.
A protest took place in Berlin on Monday amid fears extremists are infiltrating the agricultural movement.
Our team Germany has been working with BBC Verify to build up a picture both online and on the ground.
While the far right is piggybacking on the row, a “Germany first” narrative appears to be gaining wider traction.
This is the same MSM technique we witnessed in Canada, one guy tries to make a poorly thought out point by waving a Nazi flag and the MSM pounces declaring all Truckers to be NAZIS.
The goal isn’t to discredit the “far right” but to discredit the farmer’s protest.
How many Swastikas have the Hamas supporters waved about? Why aren’t they called NAZIS? Why is the media for the most part treating them with Kid Gloves.
Thousands of tractors have brought Berlin’s city centre to a standstill as farmers from across Germany protested on parliament’s doorstep over rising costs and a plan to phase out agricultural fuel subsidies.
An estimated 30,000 protesters, including farmers supported by a wide range of representatives from other industries from fishing to gastronomy to logistics, blocked the streets around the government quarter on Monday with their vehicles, including lorries and forklift trucks, and even children’s toy tractors.
The global climate is always changing, but contrary to the popular narrative, the science on the exact causes is far from settled. Alarmists claim that humans burning fossil fuels for energy will catastrophically ruin the climate, and they demand a “net-zero” future to save the world.
What would happen if the climate alarmists actually succeeded in the United States?
Any feeling that the electric vehicle market was overhyped was confirmed this week when Hertz took the off-ramp on the EV highway. The car-rental giant plans to unload 20,000 cars, about a third of its American EV fleet, and make up the shortfall with regular gasoline cars.
Weak rental demand, high maintenance costs and low resale prices were behind the about-face. When Hertz began loading up on EVs – all of them Teslas – in 2021, the move was seen as a vote of confidence in zero-tailpipe-emission motoring for the masses. The reversal signals the opposite and Hertz is not alone. EV sales in North American, Europe and elsewhere are rising at ever-diminishing rates and China, the biggest EV producer, is stuffing thousands of unwanted battery-powered cars in fields, where they are left to rot.
Ryan Maue is a US weather and climate guy. From early last week he was forecasting the incoming polar vortex would bring abysmal cold to virtually all of North America. Unlike climate activists, he’s not an alarmist except when as he jokingly put it, the real ‘climate emergency’ that would unfold would be temperature in the minus 40s — which is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit — and colder!
As extreme cold temperatures hit a large part of Canada, including the Prairie provinces, the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan and Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre are ramping up their campaign against the federal carbon tax on home heating sources.
“It’s freezing in Thunder Bay and local Liberal MPs Patty Hajdu & Marcus Powlowski are making it worse,” Mr. Poilievre posted on social media on Jan. 12.
