Trump's anti-sustainability agenda comes to Eurozone US President Donald Trump released a wrecking ball that smashed through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies stateside – and it's now swinging across the Atlantic, according to analysts. ESG has taken a significant backward step since Trump's administration took power in January. Diversity, equity, and …
Is El Reg suffering from TDS?
Good riddence to DEI and the eco looks who didn't care about the planet any more than 'pro Palestinian' marchers wanted peace.
Many readers will have personal experience of people being appointed based on racial or sexual characteristics rather than merit. A return to sanity, not to mention fairness, morality and economic growth by treating all humans equally, is much to be welcomed.
There's nothing wrong with DEI. In my experience, white, straight, native english speaking males are just as likely to be incompetent as anyone else.
The whole point of DEI isn't to hire based on race or sex, it is to hire based *only* on suitability for the role, and sadly, there seem to be a very large number of people unable to grasp this.
Unfortunately you are wrong - that was the original concept as understood by most people, called "Equality of Opportunity", the best person for the job regardless of who they are. But DEI has gone beyond that now to mean "Equality of Outcome" - the best person for the job won't always get it, as the hirer needs to ensure they meet what some consider to be "arbitrary" quotas of minority representation
See this for an example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66060490
There's no easy answer, which is why many of the world's advanced economies are tying themselves in knots over trying to figure out the best way forward
People doing a thing wrong doesn't make the thing wrong.
Over the decades I've worked for/with/employed people of many backgrounds/ages/colours/genders/etc. Not because of DEI, but because I try to treat others as I expect to be treated myself, I'm not claiming to be perfect, far from it, I just try not to be a cunt.
I've also seen racism, sexism, bullying and other nastiness - it goes on even in global companies with lots of DEI rah rah - over time I've reported a few for it.
DEI isn't the problem, people are, and some will exploit whatever the law is to their own ends.
100% agree that DEI isn't a problem - the issue is in the practicalities of implementing a system that is "fair to all", when even the term "fair to all" is subjective and in some cases highly polarising
Take an extreme of a company with 1000 employees, that has managed (somehow) to perfectly represent the demographic of it's city/region/country with the diversity of it's employees - then a deaf man resigns creating an opening - do you:
a) only offer that position to another deaf man, thus excluding all women, and anyone who isn't deaf? (Equality of Outcome)
OR
b) offer that position to whoever best fits the role, regardless of their demographic? (Equality of Opportunity)
The first option continues your perfect mirror of society, but is highly exclusionary, the second carries a high risk of your DEI policy slowing skewing towards whatever is the largest demographic of the people applying for the job, which doesn't necessarily mirror the demographic of your society at large and thus still leading to exclusion
Neither are perfect, but of course either option is better than simply green-lighting discrimination
b) offer that position to whoever best fits the role, regardless of their demographic? (Equality of Opportunity)
No, that isn't Equality of Opportunity. Equality of Opportunity takes into account the history of the applicant, and how they have dealt with the various challenges that have faced them, including previous opportunities, or lack of them.
Equality of Opportunity is bloody hard. It is not a tick-box exercise, nor is it about applying the same process to all candidates. Equality of Opportunity is about the hiring manager giving each candidate the opportunity to demonstrate why they are one of the best candidates for the job. That may include finding out how the candidate has dealt with challenges, what they have achieved against the odds, why they will be a great choice to do the job, etc. In your example, it is as important to question how the hearing candidate would make a difference to the company's success as it is to understand how the deaf candidate can contribute.
Hiring is never easy: you need to assess potential. What they have done before is part of that, but only a part. You need to assess what they will contribute in the future.
Yes, when you had to "rebalance the workforce" hiring more people from less represented "areas" - even if there aren't enough good candidates (see "affirmative discrimination" in other situations) it became idiotic.
Don't get me wrong - I would like to see more different people around - but society needs to remove obstacles **before**, not **after**. If women models are now idiotic "influencers" and the (social) media promote them as much as they can because, "hey, they bring in clicks!!", and Hollywood keeps on promoting "young, skinny women (brain not required)" only, we're not going anywhere. Same for people who looks only at sport players or rappers as their models - "hey, money for nothing, and chicks for free!" - and again, the (social) media will always show you how richly and nicely they live... why you should spend your time studying and learning something? Just kick or throw a ball - or look like a criminal while sputtering some words c'mon!!!
Politicians liked to have many future voters as much ignorant as they could - learned people are dangerous, you can't lie to them at will. So instead of improving education - especially for the non affluent ones, and working to change the young people models - cleverly - (but male politicians like young, skinny women too - brain not required, and sport...), they believed they could just force the hiring of new classes of voters, after all they got their seat withoutn any need to show skills and competence, so it should have worked...
It was silly, and it's ending badly - throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
Of course politician-like executive just paid lip service, hired some friends in new well paid roles, tortured employees with idiotic "DEI training" to show something was done, and kept on as before. Now they don't need even the lip service, they are quickly getting rid of it. Now they are even freer of treating employees like serfs...
"So instead of improving education"
It is worth pointing out that the US education system is dominated by the bluest of blue unionised Democrat supporters that you can find.
"Hollywood keeps on promoting "young, skinny women (brain not required)" only"
Where have you been? Did you miss the whole 'fat acceptance' thing?
Never said bad education is only a right-wing issue - it's across all the poliical spectrum. This era politicians need gullible voters, and the elites don't want to share lucraitve jobs with the plebs.
But the assault on facts, science and educationa and the deparment itself we saw under Trump is beyond any limit we had seen till now - eveb hipocrisy is removed.
Hollywood paid lip service too. Recently, there was casting for "Emily in Paris" estras in Venice - the requirements were for "young, skinny women" only.
Or just look a the new "female IT exper" in movies and series.... after all, casting has to be a "pleasure" for all those producers and directors - Weinstein was not and is not alone...
Sure, there could be someone in lesser roles to fill the DEI issue.... but mostly it was business as usual.
I think you need a new keyboard.
Something to note is that school funding is generally set on a state level, not federal. So tell me why some of the most highly funded schools in very blue cities within blue states produce children who are functionally illiterate and innumerate? You can't blame the GOP for that. This isn't caused by 'an assault on facts'. Nor is this new. It has been going on under multiple administrations. What is actually happening is there is an overriding factor at play which is culture. These kids don't want to learn. But no-one wants to admit that.
This is tarring and feathering everyone in a wide locale based on some highly specious Charlie Kirk grade arguments/pre-prepared argument points.
Bad example.. So once upon a time, Darth Biden gave a rather ominous speech and ranted about the dangers posed by extreme MAGA Republicans. That clarion call was of course picked up by the loony left, like the View, who repeated the mantra that MAGA was the greatest threat to Democratcy. Then of course a nutjob picked up on the messaging, picked up a rifle and assassinated Charlie Kirk. Of course that happened after a few other nutjobs had tried to take potshots at Trump.
With 'Our Democracy' being a dog whistle for 'Democrat only rule'.
Yep. Which became all the more ironic after the Night of the Long Knives and Biden being unceremoniously replaced by Harris. No Primary? No Problem! Then the way Harris managed to spaff $1.5bn on celebs in only a few months, and of course lost. And the DNC probably doesn't have the Clinton library funds to bail them out any more. Oh, and Biden's library is probably going to end up being a used mobile library because the slightly used President isn't having much luck with fundraising.
Also rather amusing that documents recently released reveal that Ukraine was concerned about political corruption from the Biden family. Just how corrupt do you have to be for the most corrupt nation in Europe to be concerned that the Bidens might make them look bad?
"but society needs to remove obstacles **before**, not **after**" exactly this. I am in favor of investing more in the education of disadvantaged people, it would be a waste of talent if we didn't. What I am against is lowering the bar depending on someones background. You do not want to be doubting a professional's competence, just because their background could have given them a pass against lesser standards. In general I think equal opportunity is more important than equal outcome.
US/UK created a huge problem also when they decided that only poeple from elite universities deserved good jobs. If you look at the people who literally changed the world in the past century, many came from universities or other insituttion that today would be frowned upon... US/UK create a caste systems were brahmins from the "ivy leagues" system ensured only their caste - and a few approved one - could join them. Hence the desperate debts made by students to be able to become part of the caste - paying dearly for the privilege.
Of course HR departments found it the perfect way to avoid to have to work and select candidates understand their real skills, not from where they came only. And then you can offshore the lesser jobs to pay peanuts...
That's not how a good education system should work - and we have seen the effects. Tring to tape some more women or "minorities" to some jobs is not even a good workaround. it was just pleasing the media with fake changes, to avoid to address the root causes - which could really change society in a better way, but puts at risk the privileges of those at the top now.
A case study in Cambridge v’s scholarship to the local technical college and went from there to an apprenticeship at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich.
Didn’t help that Alan Turing had the very worst aspects of LGBT advocacy shouting for recognition of being gay and the states appalling treatment of him over his actual very significant achievements.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies
Sigh …. DEI is not about lowering the bar, it’s about enabling equity of access.
Take a look at the fuckwits Trump has assigned to High Office in the USA to see what happens when Meritocracy and DEI is bypassed by lowering the bar.
Same as in the Tory Party in UK where a presenteeism on Brexit being a good thing is a requirement for a shadow role.
It has long been acknowledged that 'affirmative action', the forerunner to DEI, has lowered the bar. Top universities, med schools etc. have required different SAT and GPA scores depending on race. Asian Americans having to get the highest scores of all.
A far better approach is to give kids equality of opportunity from early in life however this is being denied to them for 2 reasons. Firstly the US teachers unions that basically control schools are not teaching minority children to a similar level as they believe it is 'racist'. Secondly the culture of simply not going to school or causing trouble and not learning is not helping these kids either.
As for meritocracy, the Biden admin picked someone with a bad case of kleptomania, as well as some serious mental health issues, to look after the nuclear waste stockpile and an old man with a fetish as his head of HHS.
People make the same mistake about aptitude as they do about the money supply: it's not a fixed quantity.
Probably the best illustration of the various facets of Equality of Opportunity was during the Second World War. Women were called up en masse to do jobs for which men were suddenly unavailable (noting, initially, that women did not have the equality of opportunity to engage in combat). Many of them had no previous experience - necessarily so as they would have been denied the opportunity to do many of these jobs - and were often thrust into them with the minimum of evaluation, yet many of them demonstrated an aptitude and with experience became equally adept as the men they replaced across a whole range of manual, technical and professional roles.
And then at the end of the war those opportunities largely disappeared because the prevailing view was those jobs were "needed" by men. But we find today, despite a much greater population and higher retirement ages, most men and most women are now employed and there are still unfilled vacancies. Having the opportunity to work and earn results in a larger economy with more opportunities for everyone.
And this is the key point: you don't get to be good at something without having the opportunity to do it in the first place. We have a societal tendency to prefer to have people who are like us around us, particularly if we feel insecure about our own place in that society. When wealth is largely concentrated in one part of that society that a real problem, not only sociologically, but it's denying society as a whole the economic growth that would accompany wider participation.
A job that goes to a candidate who has aptitude but little experience does not permanently deny employment to someone with both any more than an increase in the minimum wage means a decrease in the maximum wage: skills circulate in the economy like money. The number of jobs is no more fixed than the money supply.
I think this is why the particular vitriol against "DEI" is correlated with the beggar-my-neighbour view of social welfare: people see the economy as a zero-sum game in which a benefit to someone else is an immediate loss to themselves. It's not how things work, despite what those with a vested interest in keeping the plebs warring amongst themselves might tell you.
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"Is El Reg suffering from TDS?"
Yes, it is. Has been for some time. One of the main reasons I don't bother reading it much any more. The commentards are even worse, and warn of coming "apocalypse" which has no basis in reality. Rational thought is lacking here, and when it comes to Trump people don't care what he actually says they just disagree with everything.
“The commentards are even worse, and warn of coming "apocalypse" which has no basis in reality”
I think if you looked at the percentage loss of biodiversity, the massive decline in non-human life forms, the massive ecological damage that we are imposing on the planet, all in a tiny tiny period of time, you would realise that we are well on the way to total ecological collapse.
You can remind us all again of how wrong we are when this finally happens - it shouldn’t be too long now
I agree with you. At least partially. But I don't think it's got much to do with carbon emissions, but more to do with unsustainable farming practices. As well as heavy industry. And building everywhere which takes away habitats. And deforestation. Just don't get carbon confused with pollution. Regenerative agriculture could help a lot. We're focusing on the wrong thing. We're not losing biodiversity because it's got a couple of degrees hotter.
We're not losing biodiversity because it's got a couple of degrees hotter.
Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns
You are reading The Guardian. That's your problem right there. They literally send journalists on year long "courses" to teach them how to catastrophise about the climate. The BBC are doing the same. They try to squeeze climate into into every possible news story, and even into soap operas and dramas in the case of the BBC. These people are true believers, and no amount of actual rational science is going to convince them that the whole thing is a bit overblown. Thing is we've been hearing this "tipping point" story since the 90s, and it keeps not happening. A bit like the guy with the sandwich board saying "The end of the world is nigh".
Of course they can find hundreds of scientists who will agree with them, especially when agreeing with them is what gets them funded.
If you simply stopped reading The Guardian then most of the climate catastrophe in the world would disappear.
Forget about junk ground based temperature measurements (that don't agree with satellite records)
Obviously The Guardian didn't employ 160 scientists to write the report and attacking The Guardian doesn't attack the validity of the report. Go to Google News and search for other media outlets which aren't The Guardian or the BBC or read the report yourself if the idea of The Guardian writing up a report is so offensive to you. However the sub-headline seems clear to me and it would be difficult to write that sub-headline if the report didn't come to the same conclusion.
That said you should read that article in The Guardian because it contains other viewpoints you might find more to your liking.
Also, the example I gave of climate-change driven biodiversity destruction was coral reefs, which has little do do with ground-based measurements, junk or otherwise.
"We're not losing biodiversity because it's got a couple of degrees hotter"
The contributing factors you highlight are definitely correct, but it's also not correct to dismiss a temperature increase as a contributing factor (the hotter air changes the amount of moisture it can hold, which then affects the rainfall patterns - amongst other things - which has a demonstrable effect on biomes and make some species unable to surive in the area they are in).
The people who disagree with Herr Trump have a point of view that is different to yours !!!
While they can argue WHY, the usual response is for the pro-trump person to attack the naysayer and never address the actual objection.
I can disagree with Herr Trump and articulate why ... please articulate the other side !!! ... That is called debate ... all other responses are 'Blind faith' against the 'Enemy' which is American tribal politics in a nutshell.
You cannot say 'listen to Herr Trump' and all will be explained ... I listen and hear 'Hate', 'Exclusion', 'Vengeance' and 'Greed' to name a few things !!!
Convince me, with words ... NOT attack me with hate !!!
:)
"The people who disagree with Herr Trump have a point of view that is different to yours"
Well, no. I don't agree with Trump on a lot of things. Most things. On his energy policy I think he's possibly on the right track. In some ways. We probably should look to cut carbon emissions though, and I think nuclear would help a lot with that. And gradually phase out coal and gas. Net zero by 2050 is commercial suicide and ONLY Europe and perhaps Aus/NZ are going down that route right now. China and India are totally undoing any progress on that front, and are benefitting from cheaper energy. If we impoverish ourselves, normal people are just not going to be able to afford to switch to electric cars for example. Especially if our electricity is 4x as expensive as other countries.
Point is I don't disagree with Trump on EVERYTHING. Some people disagree just because of who has said it, without actually listening to what has been said.
Europe are "leading the way". Unfortunately we're like lemmings jumping off a cliff, and the rest of the world aren't going to follow. (fortunately for them)
If you set a target that's easy to meet you aren't really accomplishing anything. There are lots of long range targets that are readjusted to reality - sometimes they are even pulled in when changes occur that make it easier or more financially desirable. If fusion became commercially viable in 2035 and was significantly cheaper at scale we'd hit 2050 without even trying because the economic incentives would be there.
There are always people who are against anything that tries to change the status quo in a way that has any sort of cost. People like you stood in the way of unleaded gasoline/emissions restrictions, public smoking bans, and a million other changes that made in the world a better place in measurable ways because you cared more that someone somewhere was inconvenienced or had to pay a bit more. Or more to the point that YOU would have to pay more.
Because that's always the conservative way. They don't care about a problem until it affects THEM or those they care about. Just look at Marjorie Taylor Green. She has been one of the loudest voices against Obamacare aka ACA and the additional subsidies put into place as part of Biden's "inflation reduction act". She happily voted for Trump's big bill that repealed those subsidies that had been approved through 2032 at the end of this year. Then her two adult children told her their health insurance bills were going to double, and suddenly she's speaking out in favor of those subsidies. Or look at all the republican voting soybean farmers who constantly epouse how much they hate welfare - unless the welfare is going to them that is, because they've got their hand out for a bailout to save them from the consequences of their votes for Trump!
I can disagree with Herr Trump and articulate why ... please articulate the other side !!! ... That is called debate
Please include in that debate objective, testable evidence -- too many recent speeches are contain assertions that have little basis in reality or are emotive, dodgy stories that are not representative of the wider picture.
The rejection of the scientific method by those who do not like what it shows is one of the worst changes in recent times.
"The rejection of the scientific method by those who do not like what it shows is one of the worst changes in recent times."
So true ... I agree with your overall 'high' aim.
But unfortunately 'Scientific debate' in politics is completely gone ... along with the dinosaurs.
'Scientific methodology/debate' in most things is ignored or possibly now 'unknown' as a process.
Social media has created the 'My opinion is equal to ANY scientific evidence' mentality, because people think that 'numbers of people shouting' equals 'degrees of truth'.
Knowledge is now a 'popularity contest' !!!
If enough people say the 'Sky is Orange with Yellow Clouds' then that becomes the truth.
[Perhaps 'that' is what 'AI' is being modelled on when it scapes the 'interWebs' !!!??? ... It all becomes clearer now !!!]
One expert/scientist cannot outnumber 10,000 idiots on social Media.
There can only be 'One True Opinion/Truth' which is the one you agree with, along with your 'tribe'.
Social media has created this, as every potential 'good' it may bring is balanced by 10s of downsides that no-one foresaw !!!
'Hip hip Hurrah .... Mediocrity has been democratised for 'ALL' ... We all Fail together in Solidarity!!!
:)
2016 study hints that paracetamol (Tylenol for you yanks) use in pregnancy might have a link to ADHD and no-one spergs out.
2025 people video themselves taking Tylenol and post it on the internet to show that it is safe cos someone the media told them to dislike the person who repeated the previously undisputed claim.
A misunderstanding of how studies work !!!
You have clearly stated the study 'Hints' at a possible harm.
'Hints' does not mean 'proven' == it means look at this again with a better focus or improved methodology. i.e. Another study. !!!
'Hints' means that there is NOT enough evidence to prove that it does harm BUT there is some data that needs to be examined further & it must be mentioned for completion & accuracy.[Part of 'Scientific Method']
An example of 'not enough evidence' is that the methodology used did not eliminate the possibility of errors or other factors being responsible.
The leap that is being made is that 'hints' means it is 'proven' but just not publicly confirmed.
It is totally common to find hints to things you were not expecting when you do experiments.
You repeat the experiments to verify the 'hints' then if verified you create better experiments to hone in on the things you are finding.
Often what the 'hints' are really highlighting is flaws in the methodology or your understanding which the study is based on.
A wrong premise is found and a new set of information allows the premise to be modified.
You cannot 'Cherry pick' the information you want to believe to prove a point or further an objective.
Studies/Experiments need to be repeatable/reproducible, by others ... to eliminate errors or bias on the part of the original team.
My point of view, as a techie from a scientific background, is do the study again and with better defined bounds etc to see if the 'hints' are still there ... if so then a new study needs to be defined to quantify/qualify is this a real risk/harm.
Until then it is not proven as real or even as a potential risk/harm.
(In science/engineering etc, 1 Study is not evidence of anything about anything ... does someone else confirm the findings??? ... ALWAYS.)
:)
> 2016 study hints that paracetamol (Tylenol for you yanks) use in pregnancy might have a link to ADHD
"Hints" == slight correlation is seen against the noise; put it in the pile of things to have a look at, whilst always remembering that correlation += causation
> 2025 ... person who repeated the previously undisputed claim
Nope. Person who took the above hints, still without any causation, and turned it into a strong claim, directly telling people that it was a cause of Autism - note that, a deliberate change from ADHD (which people get upset about but is considered, rightly or wrongly, to be "manageable" via nicely expensive drugs) to Autism (which is subjected to scare-mongering and nasty shit like those "Autism Speaks" bastards).
"and turned it into a strong claim, directly telling people that it was a cause of Autism"
False. RFK Jr did not say this. Or even imply this. You have been fed a lie by the media and swallowed it whole.
https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-trump-kennedy-autism-initiatives-leucovorin-tylenol-research-2025.html
https://www.doctorsteve.com/2025/10/04/transcript-of-the-rfk-acetaminophen-autism-announcement/
"The FDA is responding to prior clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes."
Note the words 'suggest' and 'potential'. RFKJr NEVER said there was a 'strong claim' as you put it. He also mentioned ADHD.
Note the words 'suggest' and 'potential'. RFKJr NEVER said there was a 'strong claim' as you put it. He also mentioned ADHD.
The response was also enlightening. Pregnant women taking to TikTok to chug Tylenol to 'prove' RFKJr wrong! Because taking unneccessary medication during pregnancy is always such a great idea.
For something not even implied, that press release stating that a physician notice will be issued and a safety label change for acetaminophen will be initiated seems rather a strong implication. It was enough for anti-vaxxers to throw their rattles out their prams.
Key point raised above.
Even if the words used were vague the 'Physician Notice' and the change to the 'Safety label' was a massive overkill for just a 'suggested Hint'.
These things are not USUALLY changed for nothing, both in the US of A & the UK this is only supposed to be done on SOLID Proof.
This reaction is more a knee-jerk response that has ignored the usual protocols, why is a good question to ask !!!
Note:
In the Ars Technica article [link previously provided] there is mention of a 2025 literature review that was inconclusive as it included studies with significant limitations including missing factors such as genetics.
[Not forgetting that the person who compiled the review was part of a team that was trying to prove the link for legal reasons and would be biased to prove the point to win the case.]
The next paragraph mentioned a Swedish study of 2024 that used data from 2.4 Million children and was able to show that the 'hints' shown overall were eliminated when they compared siblings who had & had not taken (acetaminophen/paracetamol). This comparison of siblings lost the hinted at association to Autism.
"The null results of the sibling control analyses indicate that shared familial confounders were involved, but do not identify the specific confounding factors."
"Another factor to consider is that untreated fevers, and/or prolonged fevers during pregnancy—reasons to take Tylenol in the first place—are linked to increased risks of autism."
As I said you cannot 'Cherry pick' the things you want to believe to prove a point or advance an objective.
The proof is not 100% conclusive and the methodologies used are subject to some examination as to how comprehensive they were in eliminating other factors.
:)
> It is worth noting that the makers of Tylenol have for a long time stated 'consult your physician' in relation to use by pregnant women. The vast majority of drugs will state something similar.
It is true that Tylenol manufacturer Kenvue said: “We recommend pregnant women do not take any over-the-counter medication, including acetaminophen, without talking to their doctor first.”
Is that "worth noting"? In the US?
The US, where you could probably be sued for "giving her baby the autism" after suggesting a pregnant woman might want to wear a tartan beret (unless you were her appointed doctor, and even then)?
"Another factor to consider is that untreated fevers, and/or prolonged fevers during pregnancy—reasons to take Tylenol in the first place—are linked to increased risks of autism."As I said you cannot 'Cherry pick' the things you want to believe to prove a point or advance an objective.
Yet people do. It's one of those correlation & causation things that makes drug dealers billions-
Tylenol is a brand of medication, advertised for reducing pain, reducing fever, and relieving the symptoms of allergies, cold, cough, headache, and influenza. An active ingredient in these medications is acetaminophen (paracetamol), an analgesic and antipyretic, although other ingredients with significant effects (such as codeine, caffeine or diphenhydramine) are included in some variants.
1 pill cures all! Although 1 pill won't do anything because you need to take multiple pills over several days, even if they're extra strength Tylenol. 1 pill good! 2 pills better! And because it's flogged OTC, pop as many as you want! Just don't pop generic paracetamol that'll cost a few cents vs branded Tylenol that will cost a few dollars. But per your quote, it can be a symptom alleviator rather than any cure, so actual cause of the fever, especially any prolonged fever doesn't get properly diagnosed or treated, and popping pills might just result in more harm.
So correct response to a prolonged fever should be to go see your family doc or obstetrician who can draw bloods, get those tested, figure out what's causing the fever and prescribe a treatment. But that would probably cost >$100 vs $50 in Tylenol or $1 of Paracetamol. But then test results would also end up in medical databases, results correlated with autism incidence and maybe a causal agent found. So mothers infected with X might lead to a higher incidence of autism and better treatments for X found.
But at the moment, nobody seems to know. Some statements have been false, eg the claim that Cuba doesn't sell Tylenol and doesn't have high rates of autism. Except Cuba does sell paracetamol, even if it might not flog the branded Tylenol. Then if autism rates are underdiagnosed in Cuba and overdiagnosed in the US. Which is probably the good part of RFKJrs announcement.. let's try and find out. So proper trials, which are going to get complicated because any trials involving pregnant women just are. Or sometimes aren't, eg the rush to sell Covid shots to pregant women, even though there had been no complete trials, so no idea what the long-term effects might be.
But won't someone think of the profits?
Post being responded to: >>> 2025 people video themselves taking Tylenol and post it on the internet to show that it is safe cos someone the media told them to dislike the person who repeated the previously undisputed claim.
Corner's response: >> Nope. Person who took the above hints, still without any causation, and turned it into a strong claim, directly telling people that it was a cause of Autism
And now: > False. RFK Jr did not say this. Or even imply this. You have been fed a lie by the media and swallowed it whole.
Hmm. Here is a transcript of Trump's announcement from which one quotes "Acetaminophen. Acetaminophen. Is that okay? Which is basically, commonly known as Tylenol. Can be associated with a very increased risk of autism. So taking Tylenol is not good. I’ll say it, it’s not good." followed by the announcement of the FDA notice.
Sounds to me like a strong claim, by "someone the media told them to dislike".
Meanwhile, as you decided to bring up RFK jr out of nowhere, you'll enjoy his words from the same transcript: "Thank you, Mr. President. To meet the President’s challenge, I ordered HHS to launch unprecedented all agency effort to identify all cause of autism, including toxic and pharmaceutical exposures... Today, we are announcing two important findings from our autism work that are vital for parents to know as they make these decisions. First, HHS will act on acetaminophen".
Now, does that sound like he is talking about autism or not? And tying it into use of Tylenol? Do you see anywhere that he attempts to correct Trump or does he just wholeheartedly support Trump's words?
> You have been fed a lie by the media and swallowed it whole.
Maybe you'd like to reconsider - did you perchance mean to put the word "I" in place of the word "you" in that sentence?
The Singu post? Really? That is your source?
"And now: > False. RFK Jr did not say this"
And then you quote Trump.
Seriously, are you that stupid?
Still not a good source but:
https://www.rev.com/transcripts/autism-link-press-conference
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (04:37):
Acetaminophen.
Donald Trump (04:39):
Acetaminophen. Is that okay?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (04:41):
Yes.
Donald Trump (04:43):
Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol during pregnancy and can be associated with a very increased risk of autism. So taking Tylenol is not good. All right, I'll say it; it's not good. For this reason they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary.
So... yeah... Trump said the quote you quoted. Not RFKJr. You are fake news. And you know what, all the makers of this drug AND doctors actually state EXACTLY what Trump said about using it during pregnancy!
Trump loves the uneducated for very good reason. People like you try to defend him.
The makers of all damn drugs put cautions about use during pregnancy. Because they don't want to be sued just in case. This doesn't mean that a real doctor won't proscribe these drugs, just that they will be cautious when they do. There are, of course, some drugs that are absolutely prohibited during pregnancy but that's a different matter.
As for the made up claims about Tylenol causing autism, this is wholly made up and the blathering "press conference" of RFK and King Taco chatting about it in an office and deciding on it really shows this. It is total bullshit lapped up by the tragically unintelligent and/or gullible. Autism is not a fucking disease that can be caught or cured: it is genetic. The bit about it being genetic should be the clue, for anyone with any form of education, that it's not caused by Tylenol. Lots of studies have been carried out and what were the results? That there was absolutely no increased risk of autism through the use of Tylenol, the primary driver is genetics. There is a slight increase in chance of those with autism in the family through the age of the couple involved, with a bias towards the age of the man, but this is only when there is already a high chance of autism exhibiting in the child through family autism traits - age on its own has little impact. Drugs such as Tylenol have no impact whatsoever.
Two degenerates sitting in an office making up nonsense medical claims doesn't involve any evidence whatsoever. Even worse when they have absolutely no clue about anything medical whatsoever, their only skills are narcissism and lying - and when called out on lying their only response is to just lie more.
None of that is about media influencers, it is about seriously deranged sociopaths lying for fun and profit. None of it is about medical experts and evidence, it is about "feelings". None of it is about autism, because it's not a fucking disease to be caught or cured.
It is sickening to see how the left is ignoring the terrible statistics of death and misery, because they dislike the messenger.
Autism is up many 1000% since 1970, Obesity in the US is 40%, US people are plagued with a cancer epidemic, US people are dying on a younger age compared to other developed countries, the cherry on the cake are the 100,000 people annually OD-ing due to the fentanyl crisis. These statistics of death ballooned under democrat presidencies. Bidens open border policies presented the US drug market to Mexican cartels on a silver plate. No democrat has ever spent time on these problems, except for ridiculing idealistic people like RFK who try to solve this human tragedy. Nothing new here, the disdain of the left for human life is proven over and over again in history, leftists sold death under the name of communism, Stalinism, Maoism and National Socialism. Today they have the audacity to call themselves Democrats.
Sadly you are dealing with the people who affirm grotesquely obese people (remember that rapper who was refused a Lyft and the lady who complained about airline seats being fatphobic) as 'healthy' and advocate for irreversible harm being done to children as somehow it will solve their mental health issues.
Something is very VERY wrong with modern society.
...except for ridiculing idealistic people like RFK who try to solve this human tragedy.
It's also not a uniquely American problem. DEI made 'fat shaming' verbotten, yet morbid obesity is a serious health condition and will result in avoidable deaths.. Which the US and countries that don't have socialised health care make worse. Get fat, get sick, suffer and die if you can't afford healthcare. Or just increase the costs of healthcare where it is socialised. Also strange that states don't go after obesity with the same zeal as they went after smokers. But also something RFK is trying to address, but is a huge problem. It's easy to say people should eat healthy, but hard to implement. Something I found bizarre in my travels around the US is that farming regions can also be food deserts. How can this be? But also an education issue given education standards have been lowered in the name of DEI, so students are graduating functionall illiterate & innumerate, and a lot of young people don't know how to cook a basic meal from raw ingredients.
But then a cynic might suggest that having a dumbed down, compliant population is the point. Because there's also the issue of unsustainable sustainability, eg-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn40y9yxkgvo
In a Dutch government TV campaign called "Flip the Switch" an actress warns viewers about their electricity usage.
"When we all use electricity at the same time, our power grid gets overloaded," she says. "This can cause malfunctions. So, use as little electricity as possible between four and nine."
It is the sign that, in one of the most-advanced economies in the world, something has gone wrong with the country's power supply.
Ya don't say, but then engineers have been warning about this for years. It's also something the Dutch should have been well aware of after turning their windmills into quaint homes after better power sources came along. And-
But for homes and companies who want to scale-up their use of electricity with a new or larger grid connection, that, increasingly, is just not possible.
So the Dutch following Germany's energewiende example and deindustrialising as a result. Kids shouldn't be worried about 'Global Warming', they should be worried about keeping warm or having jobs. Businesses are starting to realise that the 'sustainability' kool-aid has been nothing short of a disaster, especially when their competitors in countries like India, China etc value education and are going to keep on eating our lunch. And no amount of tariffs, sanctions or flailing around by polticians is going to save the West, at least not any time soon.
Not wishing to go too far off topic, although this is all about sustainability, many people on el-reg have highlighted the looming grid overload problem only to be countered by people relying on very long averages and the assumption that people with EVs will all charge overnight.
It has been known for decades that at half time of the big footie match or at the end of a particularly captivating episode of Coronation Enders loads of people will put the kettle on for a brew and putting a big demand spike on the grid. But somehow this got forgotten and the dash for renewables was all done with no real plan for the interconnections. Oops! Not just limited to UK/Europe. The US has its own share of issues due to the very odd billing schemes they used to get people to invest in hugely over-priced solar systems.
>"Autism is up many 1000% since 1970, Obesity in the US is 40%, US people are plagued with a cancer epidemic, US people are dying on a younger age compared to other developed countries, "
Most probably due to the American way of life where consuming an excess of highly-processed food is considered healthy...
Would not be surprised if some US food manufacturer is including fentanyl in their recipe to give some added "zing" to their otherwise tasteless product...
Oh dear, it's tragic the repeated failures of education and basic education that you are spouting out here. It's almost as if you are licking up the faeces from Fox and the current regime and using it with a crayon to type.
Autism is up many 1000% since 1970No, it is not. The reported numbers are up, but this is solely because of (a) improved testing and diagnosis and (b) a tweak to the definition as to what autism is. Don't worry though, the solution is easy! Stop testing - this was the great orange maggot's take on covid outbreaks - stop testing for it and there won't be a reported outbreak.
Obesity in the US is 40%Not sure what point you are attempting to make here, but doubtless it will be "der democratz dun it" or something equally moronic. How about decades of the promotion of fast food, huge portion sizes, adding huge quantities of sugar into absolutely everything and a ridiculous car dependency where one cannot go to a shop down the street without using a car. Essentially - crap food, too much food, and very little exercise. This has been worldwide knowledge about the USA for decades, but somehow it's now "duh democratz foolt". Maybe putting people first instead of profits and improving the quality of food, education and reducing the inane requirement to use a car to do what in any decent country can be done on foot or, at worst, on public transport.
US people are plagued with a cancer epidemicThat point above about putting profit before people? Here it is again. All kinds of toxic chemicals everywhere, whole ecosystems destroyed by factories and factory farms, yet surprise that somehow this is having a negative effect on health. The US approach to "just do it and if people are harmed they can sue, and only then consider stopping it" is completely to blame for this kind of thing. Civilised nations have companies prove, as much as possible, that something is safe. The USA puts the onus on the victim to prove that something wasn't safe.
US people are dying on a younger age compared to other developed countriesThere's this thing in civilised countries called social healthcare, but in the USA healthcare is purely about profit and any heath benefits are purely incidental - this is from insurance through care providers and drug companies - it is profit and shareholder return first and health last after everything else. The braindead gun lovers demanding more guns to "fix" mass shootings and murders are also behind the high death toll of younger people in the US. The US has more gun deaths of young people per 1,000 of any country in the world except actual fucking war zones or places with no government whatsoever. The solution to this is not more guns, to arm teachers or to turn schools into prisons. Many people outside of the US only believe that there are any schools in the US because of all the mass school murders. The USA is a third world country in first world clothes.
RFK is an object of ridicule because he is an utterly abhorrent dangerous self-serving retard. He spouts dangerous pseudo-science over and over, denigrates people who actually know what they are talking about and just pushes one retarded conspiracy after another - all sucked up by the disastrously uneducated, gullible or just full of hatred for others (MAGA). That occasionally he accidentally comes out with something sensible, such as wanting to lower toxic additives in food to the levels of civilised countries, is a good thing but it in no way counters or validates all of the other stupidity that he spews out regularly. A broken clock is correct twice a day after all.
The great orange maggot loudly pronounced that he loves stupid people, he loves uneducated people...
I think you’re coming from a positive place, so no downvote, but I’d argue that you’re basing your opinion on misinformation.
Anthropogenic Climate Change is real. We need to address it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, Climate Change will fsck you and your investments right up. Even the oil barons will have to pay in the long term - so I find it utterly shortsighted and baffling that anyone would dawdle about moving to a low carbon world.
Yes. “All lives matter” (using that a parallel to the DEI is bad schtick). But white lives aren’t particularly in danger - if you want to solve a problem you don’t do it by pointing to something that isn’t a problem. DEI is a good thing because it gets underrepresented groups into roles that they might not ordinarily be able to access, normalising it and increasing the pool of talent. Not diluting it.
Other valid points with the favourite bullshit counterpoints “I think the Israeli government is acting in an immoral manner” / “I’m telling on you - Miss, Miss, they’re being antisemitic”. “Social services is screwed up, I can’t get a hospital appointment” / “yeah, it’s the fault of all them immigrants”. “The Republican Party really isn’t acting in the best interest of America” or “Brexit was a really stupid idea” / “you lost, snowflake”.
"Anthropogenic Climate Change is real."
Yes, probably. But hugely exaggerated.
"We need to address it."
Eventually, yes.
"It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, Climate Change will fsck you and your investments right up."
Actually they have done studies on that, and the effects are tiny. Like a small % of GDP by the end of the century.
"Even the oil barons will have to pay in the long term - so I find it utterly shortsighted and baffling that anyone would dawdle about moving to a low carbon world."
Not "dawdle" but also not commercial suicide. Surely there's some middle ground? Current realistic forecasts aren't actually that bad. RCP8.5 is pretty bad, but highly highly unlikely. But that's still what the BBC and The Guardian regularly quote as "business as usual" without mentioning that context of how very unlikely that is.
Yes. The oil companies have done “studies”. Tufton Street has done “studies”. Meanwhile, real scientists have done real research and discovered that not only are we fscked but we’re considerably more fscked than we thought we were. May I remind you that tobacco companies did “studies” which demonstrated that smoking was good for you. They were wrong too. The difference is the anthropogenic climate change is considerably more serious, and the cheapest way to fix the problem is to start fixing it now, with all urgency. Sure, it’ll be expensive - but real research shows that it will be considerably more expensive to kick the can down the road. Never mind commercial suicide, kicking the can down the road would be global suicide.
Bjorn Lomborg calculated that if all countries in the world, including US, China and India, had signed up for the Paris Agreement and would stick to it, then the global temperature would be 0.17 °C less than if non of us did anything. It would have cost us our prosperity for an effect so small, you can hardly measure it.
By the way, in the UK alone 5 out of 10 official weather stations are not accurate to 2 °C (WMO class 4), and 1 in 3 don't even meet 5 °C accuracy (WMO class 5). They essentially have junk status. So keep that in mind when the Met Office announce a new heat record.
> It would have cost us our prosperity for an effect so small, you can hardly measure it.
You are so right.
We are doomed anyway, so we should just party now, part hard, dance like we'll never have the chance to dance again. Keep our prosperity, build it up, burn it all. Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. Sod anyone who has to live in the ashes, what did they ever for us, eh.
You don't appear to understand global temperature averages.
Few people do, especially any real relevance. But once you start going down that rabbit hole, you'd discover all sorts of scientific misconduct, like temperature records from weather stations that don't exist. Or just so badly sited that their reliability per WMO standards is only +/-5C, and should not be used for climatology... And yet they are.
>"May I remind you that tobacco companies did “studies” which demonstrated that smoking was good for you. They were wrong too."
The tobacco companies, just like the lead additive fuel producers, asbestos companies and now J&J with asbestos in Talc, all had research reports that positively demonstrated their product was bad for their users, which they carefully put in a locked cabinet and denied all knowledge of...
"Climate Change will fsck you and your investments right up"
What I find odd is that despite the billions spent on 'net zero' we saw the renewables companies struggling and bills rising ever higher. Claims that offshore wind being 9 times (I think that was the number) cheaper than gas have never actually come to reality.
So either the claims made are false OR someone in the middle is pocketing a nice chunk of money. I'm tending towards the latter.
Another thing worth noting is that the UK has halved its total CO2 emissions in the span of 40ish years. The EU27 is down by a third, held back by some of the more recent eastern countries to join who are still reliant on coal. Heck even the USA is down about 10% over the same time frame. Work has been going on for YEARS to reduce carbon emissions and it is working. Admittedly some of this in the form of offshoring CO2 intensive activities.
On the flip side China is something like 3-4x higher over the same period and India is something like 8-10x higher.
On the flip side of the flip side (no, it’s not the same side. Probably quantum or something), China is also the first country to increase its output whilst decreasing its CO2 emissions - is this a flash in the pan? Or has China reached peak carbon - and now decarbonising year on year, showing the way for the rest of the world. Only time will tell.
Um, the World Economic Forum is your source? The 'you will own nothing and be happy' lot?
So the headline is "Clean energy has caused China’s emissions to drop for the first time, but will they keep falling?"
Hmm... 'For the first time'. FIRST TIME? The implication is that they have never dropped year on year previously. It evens states that the drop is 1%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_China
This has a slightly wider range graph and almost almost the initially stated 40 year period. So less than 2 billion tonnes in 1990 to 12.6 billion tonnes in 2023. Hmm.. that is a 6x increase. My bad!
Now we look at the UK and we've gone from 650 million tonnes at peak and heading towards 300 now.
@45RPM
"I mean, you could look it up for yourself. But go on, just for you (and everyone else here)."
Cheers for that, all I could find were data points up to about 2023. The source report is interesting, apparently they made their coal plants more efficient (I wonder how they compare to what we had running), more gas and biomass generation, nuclear and some hydro thrown in there. The graph shows considerable improvements in the first quarter due to more efficient coal power.
MMCC Co2 believer or not that is impressive as a change.
> "I think you’re coming from a positive place, so no downvote"
You're being far more charitable than is warranted here. Anyone who starts off their "argument" by referring to "Trump Derangement Syndrome"- a made-up straw man term used by those on the right to mockingly attack their opponents- isn't here for a serious, good-faith debate or open to having their mind changed.
At best they're a sports-team-level partisan defending and point scoring for "their" side, regardless, and just as likely they're an outright troll.
I have from a career length of 35+++ years, of people being appointed on the basis of 'connections', 'being in the 'right' group' and NOT being a person with a 'tan' etc !!!
Racial bias AGAINST people was/is 100% real ... just not so blatant NOW and in your face. Racial bias is now very subtle, indeed !!!
I have NEVER experienced someone getting a promotion purely on the basis of DEI ... repeat NEVER !!!
The problem is that in the past the pro-white bias was the norm and when it was reduced (not eliminated) because society did change, the people who had the advantage noticed the change and called it a bias against them.
i.e. I don't have my advantage any more, I have to work harder to win !!!
The reason why the DEI bias appears to be there is that even with societal change thee is still a bias which makes the field 'not level'.
Bias is still there and more subtle, this is seen by 'some' to not be right so they have a compensating bias to 'level the field'.
This compensation is not 100% complete, comprehensive or effective.
Still some see the correction as against them ... as it is actually 'attempting' to make opportunities available for ALL.
Multiple generations of advantage has to come to an end at some time, Herr Trump has reversed the 'flow' for a while BUT the inequality is there and will not stop being noticeable !!!
Greed and advantage is his working style BUT will not work for everyone ... you cannot keep fighting everyone to get to the top.
The losers will not simply give up and the fight will go on and on and on !!!
America/Herr Trump likes the 'fight to get to the top of the pile' style of living/politics as it keeps the masses busy and protects the winners from the crowds.
:)
Kash Patel was a tiktoker for christ's sake, and now he's the head of the FBI. His only qualification for the job is he wrote some kid's picture books about Trump...
And this might be why people from the far-left aren't taken very seriously. They can't even drive wiki-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kash_Patel#Career
So he couldn't hack it in the bilge beneath the lowest rung of the legal profession, took 12 years to notice he wasn't getting anywhere, and so he moved to back-room politics where the only skills you need are those required by the world's oldest profession, which he is apparently *really* good at?
What is this an argument for, exactly?
So the only possible explanation for someone opposing the policies of Donald Trump is that they are deranged?
Sir! Put down the straw and back away slowly! But it's one of those correlation & causation things that lefties often get confused about when trying to construct an argument. But a handy guide here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqDVbRYoOZE
A Florida woman who apparently wanted to have a 'conversation' with an elderly man who happened to be wearing a MAGA hat, assaulted him and ended up in cuffs. Of course being a very small sample, this isn't to say that all people with technicolor hair, a strong sense of entitlement, an ignorance of the law and a hatred of Trump are deranged.. But this one clearly was.
And if you're not keen on racism then you must be a supporter of terrorism?
Again with the straw. But this time you seem even more confused. So supporters of DEI can often be racists. After all, their idea of 'diversity' is actually quota filling. Pretty much anything than a meritocracy is fundamentally racist. Pointing out this dichotomy might get you called 'MAGA' and assaulted by 'anti-fascists', which can mean some DEI advocates are both racists and terrorists.
Plus the DEI bubble started to burst after the Bud Light fiasco, which happened on Biden's watch.
> Many readers will have personal experience of people being appointed based on racial or sexual characteristics rather than merit.
Can't say that I have. In my experience the people who are passed over for an apparent minority member are either retarded and refuse to admit it and the DEI-like hire is better than them, or the DEI-like hire is equally retarded but hiring one retard is no worse than any other retard and he/she juices the stats a little better than yet another insecure middle aged white twat. I've never seen anyone who wasn't an idiot passed over in favour of someone who was.
The "stupid but white" category is one we all could do with removing support for. Besides, they're not what you'd call a minority.
We really bury our heads firmly in the sand for us to hide from the coming apocalypse.
In some new future geologic era, the newly emerged sentient beings will start digging up these fossilized heads from sand-become-stone and wonder why these heads were stuck upside-down in the sand. They will have wonderful theories about these creatures and certainly a well formed picture of how they went extinct.
This guy sounds like the unhinged loons we are happy to push away from our lives.
He added: "In the 2024 US election, obviously sustainability, ESG, especially DEI, became toxic political footballs thrown around in the American culture war, and in the aftermath of that election, vendors are terrified to even use that language."
DEI was a toxic political football before 2024, all Trump did was pop that toxic ball so it wouldnt keep being kicked about and used to attack people. It is deluded to suggest it wasnt a toxic political football in 2020 when Biden expressed his choice of VP and Supreme Court candidate as DEI hires. Both cases being a demonstration of how damaging DEI is and what poor choices they were. The 'sustainability' madness that moves from the good intentions to the hell of bureaucracy choking the life out of the economy wont be missed either.
So what you're saying is that it's far better to have an abusive, misogynistic, lying, incompetent white male felon as president than anybody who might tick any diversity boxes?
Are there any grounds on which we can deport you to the US, to live out your remaining years in the anti-woke paradise that your orange god is busy creating?
I think many will voluntarily move to the USA because the retards in Europe are shooting themselves in the foot.
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/climate-lunatics-in-hamburg-pass
Energy prices are getting so ridiculously expensive, not because of AI datacentres, but because of so-called green policies. Otherwise those energy prices would also be just as expensive in the US, right?
No, energy prices has raised because the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the speculation that followed. The way gas prices are set is foolish, but since many are making a lot of money, and are "friends" to politicians, it cannot be touched. Reneable energy is still sold at the same prices - the rules that promoted it when it required investments were left when they were no longer needed - again a lot of money for companies and executives that are close to politicians.
They are bashing "green" efforts just because they don't want that people look behind the finger, and discover what is keeping prices high.
@kmorwath
"No, energy prices has raised because the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the speculation that followed"
Unfortunately that doesnt account for the rising energy prices (I am UK based) before that issue. Instead 25% of our energy bills were green sin tax. Billions 'invested' into our energy and we have less energy security and higher prices due to the green policies.
"Instead 25% of our energy bills were green sin tax."
Former energy company employee here: Simply as a matter of factual note, the majority of the circa £400bn that has been invested in greening the UK energy system since 2010 hasn't been funded by the declared eco levies. Most of it has been mandated by government through regulators, changes to system codes, and direct subsidies. These are added to bills as part of network costs or as part of commodity without any real visibility for customers as to what's net zero, and what's demand growth, new capacity, or asset renewal. The green levies of around 13% are added on top of those, and VAT at 5% added to the whole. Probably relevant to clarify that roughly half of the green levies (officially policy costs) are actually for social schemes to give away or subsidise insulation, better gas boilers and now heat pumps to those deemed "in need". In practice a very big chunk of that has in practice been a big fat handout to landlords.
Some other European countries have been much clearer about the costs of "energy system transition", and German experience suggests that the costs of net zero represent just short of 50% of the total domestic electricity bill. A further point of relevance is that we're nowhere near even starting a transition away from gas heating, and industry experts (eg Cornwall Associates) are clear that to cause that even more needs to be added to bills or imposed on consumers or property owners over the next twenty years.
"Billions 'invested' into our energy and we have less energy security and higher prices due to the green policies."
That is the expected outcome of government policies of the past thirty years or so.
>". Billions 'invested' into our energy and we have less energy security and higher prices due to the green policies."
Trouble is once again, its the people at Westminster messing things up to benefit their mates and themselves rather than deliver a workable green energy roadmap and set of policies for the nation.
Don't see any of the parties present in Westminster being able to deliver anything actually workable given the UK is a net importer of energy and without orders of magnitude reduction in consumption, is going to continue being dependent upon a favourable world for at least the next 20 years (not sure how many nuclear reactors we are going to get built and online in the next decade or so, that aren't dedicated to AI bit barns)...
It was very easy for us to become reliant on imported energy, especially electricity. 1) it offshores the CO2 and 2) its someone else's problem!
One of the arguments made by the green lobby is that 'it is always sunny/windy somewhere' and that has formed the cornerstone of the green energy model whereby if we can't generate enough of our own we just get it from someone else. What has not really been factored in is if the other source doesn't have any spare.
>"Energy prices are getting so ridiculously expensive, not because of AI datacentres, but because of so-called green policies."
Err no.
Remember the UK played the market and built its energy purchasing strategy on short-term contracts and lastminute deals - which did serve us well for some years, whereas Europe went for long-term deals which like fixed rate mortgages tend to be more expensive than variable rate mortgages but do give some level of certainty, until your main supplier decides to invade a neighbour...
@Like a badger
"So what you're saying is that it's far better to have an abusive, misogynistic, lying, incompetent white male felon as president than anybody who might tick any diversity boxes?"
No you said that. Read my comment to read what I said.
"Are there any grounds on which we can deport you to the US, to live out your remaining years in the anti-woke paradise that your orange god is busy creating?"
Do I guess you are one of those 'tolerant' lefty?
Once again ... don't argue your case with words ... just abuse the 'other' to score points with your 'tribe'.
Perhaps your case is weak and you need to hide behind the abuse to prevent it becoming apparent to all.
Perhaps you just like abusing the 'others' !!!
I am sure you will let use all know ... real soon !!!
:)
> "Do I guess you are one of those 'tolerant' lefty?"
"So much for the tolerant left!!!!!!111", amirite?
> "DEI was a toxic political football before 2024, all Trump did was pop that toxic ball so it wouldnt keep being kicked about and used to attack people"
But wouldn't popping the ball let all the toxicity out?
I mean, I don't see how that works at all, was the ball only toxic when it hits people and does it stop being toxic when it bursts? That really doesn't make sense.
Are these toxic footballs UEFA approved or are they manufactured in China and full of illegal levels of heavy metal?
And were you chewing on the remains of one of them to come up with an analogy that brain damaged? :-)
This is just normal "Gartner Hype Cycle" type stuff - we've moved on from the "Peak of Inflated Expectations", we're now in the "Trough of Disillusionment", and in a few years sustainability being integrated into products and services will simply become the norm, and we'll reach the "Plateau of Productivity"
Ideology alone can never beat reality. If being "sustainable" means your product or service costs twice as much, then your investors will eventually dry up and look elsewhere for returns...
I can't comment on the US or UK politics that some other posters are fixed on as I don't follow them due to lack of interest or any real relevance to me (I don't live in either place).
However, I think you're spot on with regards to the current trend being purely due to it becoming apparent that reality wasn't measuring up to "sustainability" hopes and claims, and people were being disillusioned with it.
A lot of the hype quite frankly was simply PR green-washing all along with no real intention of meeting what were quite frankly unrealistic expectations.
At its heart "climate sustainability" comes down to more electrification, with that electricity coming from either hydroelectric or nuclear sources. If you look at actual carbon emissions, then wind turbines and solar are just green-washing gas turbines and there is no path to "net zero" from that angle, just ever more gas turbines burning ever increasing amounts of gas.
The only real solution is nuclear power, and that will take a couple decades to implement as a solution in those countries who ran their nuclear industry down. It also is something that the hype merchants have deliberately denigrated and find it difficult to reverse themselves on now.
Another thing that was oversold was minute by minute bidding markets for electricity (the ENRON model) and economists are coming to see what a dire influence that has been on both prices and reliability. It locked the market into a series of very short term solutions that delivered sub-optimal long term results. The people who promote it are fixated on ideology rather than results and their influence has set back the pursuit of real solutions by several decades.
Another thing that was oversold was minute by minute bidding markets for electricity (the ENRON model) and economists are coming to see what a dire influence that has been on both prices and reliability. It locked the market into a series of very short term solutions that delivered sub-optimal long term results. The people who promote it are fixated on ideology rather than results and their influence has set back the pursuit of real solutions by several decades.
Enron has a lot to answer for given they created a lot of the hype that ended up with regulatory capture and market 'reforms'. It's also debateable if those have delivered sub-optimal long term results given subsidy farmers have been given 25yr contracts locking in massive profits. But a lot of this garbage is based on a very old concept. Been boinking the servants? Just give money to the church, and all your sins will be forgiven. Been sinning against the planet? Just buy some carbon credits or offsets and all your sins will be forgiven. Trillions of dollars diverted into 'sustainability' scams that's just been wasted on virtue signalling and imposing inefficiencies on businesses. Ironically, that isn't sustainable as CSOs are finding out. Companies can save a few million cutting that position and won't have to listen to CSOs talking about how the business should knit the next datacentre out of recyled water bottles.
But there's also been a problem with capture in the 'education' system, with a lot of people here seemingly convinced that they're doomed, doomed I tell you, if temperatures rise by half a degree. And that's being reinforced by the usual barrage of press releases that come out every year ahead of the COP jolly. This time, in Belem, Brazil where an airport has been expanded and a road widened through Brazil's rainforest so that 30K+ troughers can jet in for the latest circle-jerk. The planet is dying! Give the UN EP $100bn a year and they'll have a lot of fun saving it!
Part of that is non-science like this-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd05mdz9pdo
Australia's tropical rainforests have become the first in the world to release more carbon than they absorb, in a trend linked to climate change, a study has found.
...With fewer new trees, the report found that the trunks and branches of dead trees - known as woody biomass - became carbon emitters, rather than carbon absorbers, about 25 years ago.
Australian 'scientists' rediscover the carbon cycle. More news as it happens.. Or bad news for the US west coast states who've got millions of dead trees due to mismanaging their pine borer problem.
>"Enron has a lot to answer for given they created a lot of the hype that ended up with regulatory capture and market 'reforms'. It's also debateable if those have delivered sub-optimal long term results given subsidy farmers have been given 25yr contracts locking in massive profits."
I think you are confusing two different things here. firstly we have the electricity market as established by the Conservatives along "the ENRON model", on to which was grafted the 25 year subsidy scheme. The irritation of the subsidy scheme is that it wasn't given a definite and short life ie. it was intended to kick start the construction of renewable energy farms/generators, however it has morphed into a cash cow for savvy investors cloaked as corporate welfare...
it was intended to kick start the construction of renewable energy farms/generators, however it has morphed into a cash cow for savvy investors cloaked as corporate welfare...
Corporate welfare and shady trading & lobbying really was the Enron model. Admittedly I had a bit of inside info when Enron wanted to headhunt me for their telco division. That had ambitions to develop bandwidth trading in much the same way as their energy divisions did and they talked about 'shaping the market'.. in their favour. But despite the very generous pay offered (£175k!) due dilligence tripped my BS meter and I passed. But had some friends who did go there, and when it did implode, I ended up with some Enron mugs as souvenirs.
But then Enron also bought, or were going to buy the Rough(?) gas storage field to play the gas market, and the bankruptcy auction also revealed some other curious assets.. Like they owned a lot of forest land, and far more than was needed to provide wayleaves/cable routes. But Enron was also part of a group nicknamed the 'Denver Mafia' which invested in a lot of ventures. Also characters like Bernie Ebbers, who was buying up a lot of forests, which then blew up after his margin call & took WorldCom with it. And that was largely due to Enron & some others pushing for the carbon offsetting wheeze, and having a trading desk to flog those offsets & earn commissions. Hence the need for trees because that was easy money. Or just wide open for fraud and the curious way trees became like gold.. So 1 physical tree could be hypothecated & rehypothecated to generate multiple offset products.
One of those dubious bits of business where there were literal magic money trees.
God felt the need to invent the Ostrich.
And, yes I know they don't really bury their heads in the sand. They stick their beaks into the ground to turn their eggs. I have no idea why they turn them but, there they are.
Icon, because it's my way of burying my head in the sand or more likely, the bog when I meet huey!
Ishy
"I have no idea why they turn them"
Think heat ... think where they are (Geography ???) and the climate !!!
More technical:
Prevent the embryo sticking to the side of the egg ... can cause deformities or hatching difficulties.
Redistribution of Nutrients in the egg.
All birds do it ... AFAIK !!!
:)
...A pendulum is a device made of a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely.
When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position sanity, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity reality that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position.
When released, the restoring force forces of competing diametrically opposed but equally strong and harmful idiocies acting on the pendulum's mass cause it to oscillate about the equilibrium position long dead and forgotten point of sanity, swinging back and forth.
The time for one complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period term.
The period term depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing how much they can get away with and is likely to increase towards infinity.
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