I recently visited the UK. At the conclusion of my visit, I had the pleasant experience of riding in the front passenger seat of an airport taxi with a friendly and chatty driver. His name was Jeffrey. He had all sorts of interesting things to say.
As we passed by recently vandalized roadside traffic-monitoring cameras and underpasses that had been spray-painted with “Stop ULEZ” graffiti, he filled me in on the current state of affairs on UK roadways.
“They’re trying to cut down on air pollution,” Jeffrey explained. “You have to pay a fee now to drive on these roads. The road fees used to be just for driving in central London, but now it’s spreading out here. And some other cities are doing it too. There’ve been all sorts of protests. A lot of people are against it.” We were about 40 miles outside central London. He described how his family-owned taxi business was being impacted by the new costs of doing business.
“You mean, it’s like a road tax?” I asked. “Like the road tax they’re doing in France?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Jeffrey replied. “You have to pay a road driving fee if you’re in a gas-powered car. It’s a big reason why EVs (electric vehicles) are so popular here now. EVs don’t have to pay the fee. Tesla was the number one selling brand here last year. We’re looking at replacing some of our taxis with Teslas.”
I paused to ponder this. You already know my opinion about electric vehicles being a scam. So, when I hear about government coercion that promotes EVs, my Spidey Senses start tingling. Before I could formulate my next question, which was going to be a pry into Jeffrey’s personal opinions about the new road taxes, he spilled the beans about his position. “I think it’s a good thing, overall,” he described. “We’ve got to clean things up. It’s our responsibility. Take the wind turbines, for example. There were all these backward people trying to block them from coming on shore here in the UK. Trying to keep all the wind farms out in the ocean. And they finally approved building them where we need them.” As he said this, he gave a head nod to a modestly-sized industrial wind complex off our left, just off the A25. I counted about a dozen visible turbines. “We’re thinking about installing solar panels for our home and our (taxi fleet) workshop,” he added.
Weighing In
I find it sad that everyday people like Jeffrey are being so thoroughly bamboozled. This poor guy was apparently in favor of taking one on the chin. So, I couldn’t resist weighing in a little.
“Solar and wind power generation makes good sense for residential applications,” I said. “It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t work well at scale.”
“What do you mean?” Jeffrey asked.
I replied, “Household-scale wind and solar power is pretty nice. You can harvest some energy and store it in batteries, and then tap into it whenever you wish, to supplement your draw from utilities. You take a hit on the battery inefficiencies – like you can’t ever extract from batteries all that you put into them – and you take a hit on the unnecessary DC-to-AC-back-to-DC conversions, but overall, it’s possible to get a net benefit. Industrial-scale wind and solar farms are tied into existing electrical grid systems, so it’s like a salmon swimming upstream to lay some eggs and die. You lose a lot of energy in all that swimming. So, it’s not really too effective.”
“I get it about the batteries. But, what do you mean about the AC-DC conversion and the salmon thing?” Jeffrey asked.
“Electricity is provided to homes and businesses as AC – alternating current – because it’s way more efficient to transmit AC power over long distances from power generation plants than it is to do it with DC – direct current. But everything we use, that plugs into our AC power outlets in our homes, gets converted to DC before it can actually be used. Like a microwave oven, a washing machine, a computer – or whatever – all of these things run off of DC. So, AC has to be converted to DC before we actually use it. And there’s an efficiency loss in the conversion. Let’s say it’s 20%. So, you pay your electric bill every month, but you’ve actually consumed only 80% of what you’ve paid for. The rest is lost to DC conversion. Solar panels or wind turbines or batteries that are located on your property are all DC power generation devices. So, there’s really no need to invert that DC power into AC power, since it’s only going to be converted right back into DC again. The only reason we do this is to match up with a convention that assumes AC power is being delivered to us from a power station that’s a long way’s away. So why not cut out the middle man? Why not localize your DC power generation and usage with wind, solar, and batteries at your home, and skip the whole DC-to-AC-back-to-DC conversion loss?”
“Hmmm,” Jeffrey said. “I never looked at it that way.”
I continued, “The real trouble with industrial-scale wind and power generation is that it’s being tied into a legacy electrical grid where it’s assumed that electricity is generated at central power station and then distributed out along an ever-expanding distribution network. A grid. The system as we know it now is like generating power at the base of a tree, and then sending it up the trunk, out through all the branches, then out to the twigs, and eventually out to individual leaves, where it’s used. If you place a wind turbine or solar panel out at one leaf, there’s really no need to send it all the way back down to the trunk again and hope to get some diminished echo back from it sometime later. You could just use it right where you generate it.”
“Hmmm,” Jeffrey said again.
Hope
I don’t know if what I said registered with Jeffrey at all. My hope is that it at least placed a little bug in his ear, gives him something to think about in the coming weeks, as he’s taxiing people to and fro.
I guess my conversation with Jeffrey is a fair representation of my tactics of late. Rather than tackling a big issue directly – which, in this case is the climate crisis hoax – I try to chip away at smaller issues in conversations. Issues that are more personal. I’m hoping to come across as more of a non-confrontational, practical thinker than a conspiracy nut. I try to place bugs in ears, in hopes that it leads to deeper thinking and questioning of mainstream narratives. I believe that people can figure everything out for themselves if they have a decent starting point.
But it’s pretty clear that a lot of people have been properly propagandized on a number of issues. Jeffrey, for example, has already absorbed the rap about how “it’s our social responsibility as individuals to pay more taxes in order to help save the planet.” He’s accepted this at face value as a top-down message. He’s not alone.
So, I plan to continue with my bottom-up approach whenever a conversational opportunity presents itself.
But I have to say: If a bottom-up, individual-by-individual campaign was all that was in play, I think I’d feel rather hopeless. It would be like bringing knives to gun fights.
Thankfully, it appears that a few top-side voices are slowly emerging. This is extremely encouraging.
For example, in the U.S., we have presidential candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy junior who are out there, in wide-open public space, punching holes in the mainstream narrative. There are some emerging voices in Europe as well.
Ramaswamy recently declared in the first Republican debate that “The climate change agenda is a hoax. And we have to declare independence from it. And the reality is that the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy.” So true! (A deeper dive is presented here.) Ramaswamy was roundly booed by the audience for saying this out loud at the debate, but at least he had the guts to say it. Who knows? Maybe some people heard that, and will now start to wonder about it, look into it a bit more.
Kennedy (a Democrat) has been a long-time defender of children’s rights in the face of creepy, mandated childhood vaccine schedules, and has written a book, titled The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, in which he lays bare (with extensive, cited documentation) the sad reality of vaccine agendas. Recommended reading for anyone who dares. Again: This sort of thing receives loud boos from many. But isn’t it a peach to know that it’s out there for people to see and wonder about?
Voices from the Other Side
Christine Anderson is a member of the European Parliament from Germany. She recently spoke at a meeting about the World Health Organization. Libertarian economist, podcaster and author, Tom Woods, provided a transcript. Speaking about herself and her allies, Anderson said the following:
“We just need to find a way to wake the people up. Because the point is simply this. It comes down to a choice. It’s either freedom, democracy and the rule of law or enslavement. There is no such thing in between. There is no such thing as a little freedom, a little democracy, a little rule of law, just as there is no such thing as a little enslavement. So that’s . . . that’s the choice it comes down to. It’s either the globalitarian misanthropists, or the people it comes down to. It’s either us or them. And that’s, I think, what this really is all about.
Now, when my colleagues and I were elected to this parliament, there was no question about it. We were on the side of the people. Because the people actually pay us to act in their best interest. That’s our job.
And once again, I will say to every single elected representative around the world, to every single member in every elected government around the world: if you do not unequivocally stand with the people and serve in their best interest, act in their best interest, you have no place in any parliament or in any government. You belong behind bars. You may even rot in hell for all I care at this point, because that’s exactly what you deserve if you sell out the people.
Now I would like to make a promise to the people, and I’m pretty sure I can speak or speak on behalf of my colleagues. We will continue to stand with you, the people. We will continue to fight for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. We will not shut up and we will not stop going after those despicable globalitarian misanthropists.
But we would also like to have you make a promise to us. You may have heard it’s all coming back. The first countries are already starting about talking mass mandates in Israel. They’re already imposing it. I’ve heard of a few universities in the United States. They’re already bringing it all back. And I would really like for you the people to not go along, simply say no.
They want you to wear a mask. Say no. They want you to put in another shot. Say no. They want to impose a curfew on you. Say no. That’s really all you have to do and it might sound a little . . . a little hard, but it’s actually not that hard because once you’ve made it clear to them that you will no longer go along, once you’ve let them know, they cannot scare you anymore. Because as long as you’re afraid of what they might do, if you don’t comply, they have power over you.
Take the power away from them. Simply say no. Once you do that, they don’t have power over you anymore. You will feel so free. Simply say no. And considering what we’ve heard today and considering what we’ve seen in the last three years, considering what we know they want to implement, heck, you might even be well within your right to tell them to screw themselves and go to hell. That’s where they belong.
What will you get out of that?
I can tell you, once you’ve done that, once you’ve told them to just go to hell, they no longer have power over you. You will have an incredible feeling. Kind of like a sensation of freedom will flood through your body. I promise, you will feel so relieved. And this is the state of mind that I would ask all of you to get to.
Simply don’t let them grind you down anymore. You are worth it. You are deserving of just standing up for yourselves and tell them all to go to hell. Thank you very much.”
Phil’s Two Cents
Wow.
Now, if that’s not a breath of fresh air, I don’t know what is!
Hope springs eternal, eh?
– “Phil”
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