Norway Hypocrites

Sick of listening to Norway telling everyone about their wonderful fleet of electric vehicles? I know I am. Norway would have you believe they're saving the planet.

Except, they're not. Norway are the biggest hypocrites you'll ever find. They've just announced huge new oil and gas investment. 

But don't forget, New Zealand did its part. Yes, that plucky little country in the South Pacific banned oil and gas exploration. James Shaw of the NZ Greens is very proud of that achievement no doubt. I wonder what he thinks about Norway erasing all those gains and then some? Hmm...

https://www.offshore-technology.com/news/norway-approves-18bn-oil-and-gas-expansion/

EV's: Hypocritical Norway

New Zealand is being urged to embrace the example of Norway when it comes to electric vehicles or EV's. Norway has a fast growing EV fleet and it's claimed that's because they tax dirty forms of transport. Maybe they do, I don't care, they have a growing EV fleet, good for them.

But what gets my goat is that the money to live their comfortable lifestyles comes care of North Sea oil revenues. They dirtied the planet and did their part in contributing to Global Climate Change but now they're pontificating worldwide about how great their environmental credentials are. What Norway and their boosters are saying, in effect, is don't do what they did; stay in your mud huts and live off renewables.

It's the new form of European colonialism. Having plundered the planet, everyone else with similar ideas has to stop that immediately and learn to live in the Third World as noble savages. Well I don't buy it and they can shove their ideas.

Here's what should happen to EV's. They should be taxed heavily. Don't tax the liquid fuels transport markets. Why? Surely the user should pay for everything. In this case the user should pay a charge to add to the generation capacity required to power the fleet. EV's were never envisaged when generation capacity was installed in the first place, and so EV users must add to that.

The EV user is also leaving the existing infrastructure which has been invested in for over a hundred years. They leave behind jobs and the capital invested in oil by moving to a parallel electrical infrastructure never planned for their arrival. They need to pay for that as well, call it an exit charge if you like. These two charges would amount to a ban on EV's as the cost would dissuade any potential user. That's as it should be, EV's are a total waste of time apart from the rather obvious example of novelty items like Lime scooters or bicycles.

Winter Olympics 2018

New Zealand has broken the drought with two more medals to add to the one it won 26 years ago in Albertville, France in 1992. That first medal was a silver in the slalom by Annelise Coberger. What this means is that New Zealand is now three times better than Denmark, a country that has still only won one medal. That's right, Denmark won their sole medal, a silver in curling in 1998.

But in 2018 the story of these games must be Norway. A tiny country of only just over 5 million people and they lead on the medal table with only a few days to go. How do they do it? It turns out to be all about money; they're rich and invest in their athletic programmes more broadly. Here's an interested article on the subject.

Oh and Russia has to be called Olympic Athletes from Russia, and they can't use their flag. It's like they're the only country that dopes their athletes. Oh right, pull the other one!! My take on this is very straightforward; the west owns the doping system and keep themselves one step ahead of the agency tasked with detecting abuse. Those outside the loop, like Russia, well they're kept guessing and thus they get busted more often. Just assume all athletes are doped one way or the other and let's move on shall we, I'm sick of the finger being pointed at Russia all the time.