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Where does Governor Newsom think… — 71 Comments

  1. Every precious metal that goes into an EV battery must be mined.
    How will the Gov. mandate that.

  2. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles look like a much better idea than all those lithium batteries. These leftist “environmentalists” are going to have to embrace nuclear power to have any hope of going all-electric.

  3. Aside from all that… where exactly does a governor get the authority to broadly ban commerce? Can he sign an executive order to ban alcohol? or pork products? or tampons? or whatever?

    This sort of capricious nonsense needs to be put back in the box.

  4. Neo – I tell people what do Totalitarians try do to when they get power? 1) take away your guns so you can’t resist. 2) Then try and tie you to the land so you become in effect serfs with limited mobility. In Communist countries you had to have internal passports to travel. Think of the California wealth tax as a form of population control.

    That is why Totalitarians love mass transit. They can tell you where to go and when you can go and frequently what you can read and hear. Like you stated, we proletarians will be on bicycles and buses while the nomenklatura drive on the wide open roads in privilege ease. What’s not to like if you are part of the Technocratic Class as the Google, Apple, Oracle and Amazon crowd think they are and thus exempt from these directives.

    So Newsom can issue these grand proclamations to the applause of the naïve naïfs of the Green New Deal because in their mind, they can never comprehend that others can use these laws and proclamations against them. Historical ignorance is their coin in trade.

    As far as exploiting the land by mining well that comes from other areas that they will never have to travel to like Africa or the Amazon Basin. As long as it doesn’t impact their pristine vistas they don’t care. After all in the “Hunger Games” The Capital citizens never traveled to Section 12.

  5. The same place babies… Fetal-Americans come from. In Stork They Trust. Also, renewable, green, intermittent drivers. Disposable, Green (as in blight), low availability producers.

  6. At first I didn’t understand how a policy with such significant ramifications for the economy, the environment and general quality of life could be ordered at the swing of a governor’s pen. Then I read the order and all it does is set “goals” to the “maximum extent possible”. Just grandstanding.

    I know California also has a large number of matters settled by ballot initiatives, which is almost as crazy. What ever happened to legislation passed by politicians who can be held accountable on Election Day?

  7. precious metal that goes into an EV battery must be mined

    From recovery to reclamation, Green is less than green… gray, at best. They need to lose their quasi-religion, reject sociopolitical myths, and mitigate the progress of misaligned development that has put the environment, flora, fauna, and people at risk.

  8. WWGS? What Would Greta Say? How dare you!
    WWGS? What Would Gavin Say? It’s good to be the king!
    WWGD? What Would Gavin Do? Whatever, sucks to be you.

  9. Newsome must not have listened to Scotty when told Kirk about not being able to change the laws of physics. California now has the ability to make energy appear magically.

  10. The fundamental question is, “where does Newsom get the authority to do something like this by Executive Order?”.
    I would hope that someone with deep pockets sues him. I wish I had the wherewithal.

    I have posted before that my personal name for hm is “Gruesome Newsom”. I think he is the poster child for “Tin Pot Despots”.

  11. Organic matter accumulating on Golden State sidewalks is a potential energy resource. Accordingly, the Brown State has become a more appropriate nickname.

  12. California democrats have discovered that it is as easy to create energy and an energy-independent economy as it is to create votes. Their final results may not meet expectations.

  13. Plus, these goals include shoveling people into the mass transit containers which apparently killed a lot of people in metro NY/NJ during this epidemic. There will be another one.

  14. Another reason to vote straight Republican, all the way down to dog catcher.
    NEVER vote for a democrat again.
    Never give $$ to a democrat or any other organization that supports the democrats. I am looking at YOU PBS and NPR and Ford Foundation, ACLU, Sierra Club, NEA, etc, etc. I do not care about all the virtue signaling you spout for causes that appear good on the surface. You are ALL inherently evil and seeking to destroy the US.
    Vote AGAINST every proposition that promises aid to schools. The $$ will just go for more administrators and diversity enforcers.

  15. I think there is overreaction in conservative circles to this order. I agree more with Gothamite – nothing is actually outlawed by this, it’s just a statement of intent.

    There is nothing in it about banning gasoline-powered cars by 2035. When read more closely, it becomes clear the order sets as a “goal” that all new car sales should be zero-emission by then. Presumably Newsom is then content to let the used-car market in ICE cars and trucks wither away on its own. (Although, minor point of interest, the order has nothing preventing someone from going new-car shopping in Nevada, say, and coming home to Cali with a new ICE car. New-car dealerships in neighboring states may have just been handed a boon.)

    That said, where I would be more concerned is with respect to the employment of the regulatory state apparatus to force the oil production market to adapt to the state government’s wishes, as in section 8: “the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Natural Resources Agency, in consultation with other State, local and federal agencies, shall expedite regulatory processes to repurpose and transition upstream and downstream oil production facilities” etc. In other words, it seems as if the CA state govt. is seen by this part of the order as essentially being ordered to take steps toward making gasoline production – and potentially storage and transport as well (depending on how literal those regulators want to be and how hard they want to push) – ultimately illegal within the state. Perhaps not all oil extraction and processing, merely that industry will be forced to phase out a section of its business within California (and maybe elsewhere, if CA gets neighboring states to play along).

    Most of the rest of the order consists of directions to do things like “develop strategies,” “propose regulations,” and other such comparatively fluffy stuff. I think this section 8 and a couple of the other ones that touch on a direct, active role of the regulatory bodies in California are where the critical attention would be better focused.

    While it’s certainly a fair question to ask where all that juice for new EV cars is going to come from if the state can’t even maintain its existing power grid, screaming “Newsom wants to ban cars by 2035!!!!!!!!” is not a fair reading of this thing and is not going to get much sympathy from me.

  16. Phillip Sells:

    Gasoline, diesel, JP4, JP10, bunker oil for boats (sea going cargo ships). So are they all going to run on Unicorn farts? Planes, trains, automobiles, ships that sail in from across the seas. Well good luck finding any fuel in magic land of California. Welcome to the third world, burning cow dung will be a future not a feature. Certifiably insane.

  17. It’s a distraction, a deflection—and a pretty juvenile one at that:
    “I mean well, my motives are pure, I respect Mother Earth, I love Gaia. And all you deplorables can think about is that I’m destroying California??! What is WRONG with you Trump-lovers??”

    File under: Wanna buy a real cool, state-of-the-art turbo-train? I got one I can sell you. Cutting edge of GREEN. Great price. Hey, I’ll do you a real favor on this baby….

  18. “NEVER vote for a democrat again.”
    I did vote for Bernie in the March primary … but only to cause confusion on the Dem side (if you are registered IND, you can vote in the Dem primary). Otherwise, yes. Since the days of Ron.

    We live pretty simply. Eating out involves coupons. We have an electric car. We hang our laundry on a clothesline. I’m not opposed to harmony with Nature.
    BUT.
    This CA thing is so arbitrary and surface-only that it stinks.

    Bottom line: you could spend a billion dollars to make my little town of Sunnyvale pristine. Would not make any difference to our planet. You could spend a trillion dollars to make California pristine and green. It would not make a drop of difference to the ecological health of the planet.
    It’s virtue signalling and it’s wasted effort.

  19. Someone might say that CA’s extreme enviro posturing is the equivalent of a bucket of butterfly sneezes in terms of its actual influence on the world’s eco-system. BUT, that person might say, it could lead by example and get other states and even nations to follow along.

    Sadly … we see evidence that following along only makes it worse. CA is mandating “green only” energy as fast as it can. In practice that means that each day, when the sun goes down, CA has to buy energy from other states while it transitions to other power sources. The problem? The nearby states are often trying to go “green” also. So they don’t have energy to sell … just exactly at that time.
    A Mississippian Sierra Club supporter says “Be like California”.
    A knowledgeable Californian says “Don’t go there”.
    http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/californian-responds-to-mississippi-sierra-club-on-blackouts/

  20. Neswom is an ignorant cretin, albeit vile, and he appeals to that part of the wealthy CA population that also revels in ignorance.
    “where feasible”, he says. A huge hole to drive thru.
    “a car that doesn’t give your kids asthma… Cars shouldn’t melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines.” Cars do not give anyone asthma! Beaches and coastlines are the hangout of the wealthy, so must be preserved at all cost. The working grunts live inland.

    As a Statist, of course he wants to make the movement of people depend on permission, not liberty. And he wants the so-called poor to use bikes. Well, they use bikes already, for burglaries and such, because bikes can go where cop cars cannot. He wants the little old ladies to be “pedestrian” when going to get groceries, maybe wearing babushkas also. I guess “micro-mobility options” means scooters.

    What a fine guy Newsom is! Grew up in Pelosi-land. Is it a sin for me to hope their forest fires go unquenched and burn up some more vineyards, and pollute SanFran air?

    He is really slamming it onto the poor. And Hollywood applauds.

  21. I was once in a San Francisco writing group and one member worked with Newsom’s office when he was mayor of San Francisco. She was plenty liberal/progressive but even she joked about how dumb Newsom was.

    I don’t remember anyone in San Francisco being impressed by Newsom, but somehow he was next in line when it came to picking a governor. I assume connections were involved. It’s not unlikely that Willie Brown played a role.

  22. Newsom is a total schmuck.
    if someone were truly scared about CO2 emissions , the petzel wouldn’t be closing Diablo Canyon

  23. When did governers get the right to make laws by writ? That feature is not constitutional, at least not ours… maybe when kings gave out such titles…

  24. Well Covid19 (aka the ChinaVirus) gave them the taste of absolute power, for our own good, of course.

  25. Philip Sells said ” I think there is overreaction in conservative circles to this order. I agree more with Gothamite – nothing is actually outlawed by this, it’s just a statement of intent.”

    Yes it’s just a philosophical aspiration. That’s why they call it an ORDER. They have similar ORDERS in place within the European Union right now, except they are more aggressively stated, the last time I checked. So much Philosophy! So little detail.

    Where will the rare earth minerals for the batteries come from? Elsewhere!
    Where will the electricity to charge them, come from? Elsewhere!

    Newsom is the personification of modern political arrogance. Good Hair and a Handsome Profile are all that is apparently needed to stop thinking in its tracks, for the voters.

    Good Luck, California! Good Luck. It will be interesting to see how this plays out with Interstate Commerce law in the next few – say, 4 – years.

  26. This isn’t new. Jerry Brown made similar mandates.
    __________________________________________

    In January 2018, Gov. Jerry Brown signed an executive order setting ambitious targets of 200 hydrogen fueling stations and 250,000 electric vehicle chargers to support 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roads by 2025.
    __________________________________________

    I have no idea how much or little progress has been made. It strikes me as magical thinking that if California (and Germany and Wisconsin, etc.) step up, the world steps up and bingo! problem solved. We put a man on the moon that way, didn’t we?

  27. The real story according to real Google engineers who want to save the planet with renewables:
    __________________________________________

    At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope …

    Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

    –“Shocker: Top Google Engineers Say Renewable Energy ‘Simply won’t work'”
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/

    __________________________________________

    If one follows the link to IEEE study written by the Google engineers, it has the tantalizing title, “What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change:
    Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?”

    But there is no meat on that bone. The engineers just throw their hands up to the sky and hope:
    __________________________________________

    We’re not trying to predict the winning technology here, but its cost needs to be vastly lower than that of fossil energy systems.
    __________________________________________

    Duh. What a shuck, Google boys.

  28. Hey, I know a way to make the state of California really enviro-friendly – zero carbon footprint all day! Just get rid of all the people! And you don’t even have to use any bullets to do that – just ramp up all the tax rates to 100% and destroy the economy! 🙂

    Oh, I guess there would be some emissions from the crematoria… well, TANSTAAFL, right?

  29. huxley:

    The costs don’t have to be vastly lower than fossil fuel systems, because green socialism is magic (cue the unicorns). What will power the Google server farms? Cow dung futures for California.

  30. physicsguy, IIRC you once said that you are from Colorado. Did you ever have any interaction at U Colorado with Bill Wood, who carved out a distinguished career in molecular and cell biology? Bill Wood also performed on Joan Baez’s first album, when she was a young folkie in Cambridge and Bill was an undergrad at Harvard.
    Bill Wood & Joan Baez.

    links not working

  31. He’s a bit Libertarian there: How many Libbers does it take to change a light bulb?

    None! The Free Market will take care of it!

    The world needs nuclear power, from fission, until fusion or other better tech comes on line. Tho not just for climate change.

    Why doesn’t Gob. Gruesome sign an Executive Order to end wildfires? (had Gob., then Gov., then back to Gob.)

    … because all who know, know that means controlled burns. Lots of them. NOT natural, uncontrolled fires, whether from lightning or arson.

    There might be global warming – of 6 or more degrees – in 300 years. Not 100 years. (How much data is needed to see the difference, starting in 2000, or 1990?)

    There WILL be, always, climate change. Sometimes even more than seasons.

    It was great to visit CA last year. Beaches in August are still fantastic – can’t get the Pacific Ocean anywhere in Europe.

    Dead Kennedys nailed it:
    “It’s the suede denim secret police.
    We have come for your uncool niece”.

    BLM rules, ’cause it’s cool. Sort of like how Flying Skulls rule (Beavis and Butthead).

    Cool and anti-hero, rather that square, has been the biggest culture change negative influence, that is destroying responsible, square, uncool, civilized life.

    We can live with “conservatives are uncool”
    Our civilization can’t survive “conservatives are evil” by more than about 2 or 3%.

    In the upcoming Rage Fest (“I was raped by Trump’s TBD nominee! Believe me!”) over the SC nominee, remind your friends that it’s not Trump, it’s the nominee. Barrett? (YES!) or less known Barbara Lagoa? (Fine, too).

  32. Public Transport is not hell in mono-ethnic reasonably high IQ nations which have avoided debasing their culture. I’ve been in a few. I live as a tolerated resident alien in one.

    Come the supposed Melting Pot and the gleeful junking of even the most basic standards for public conduct and Hell really *is* Other People.

    There are other powerful motivations for automobile possession, not least SEX. Plus cars are just such amazingly convenient freedom machines, plus our built environment is now so adapted to them that going back is not a sane choice.

    All the above practicalities are of course meaningless to a Progressive for whom Practicality is just Details Schmetails. Ideas, Ideas!…

    As for Really Minor Details like Base Load Capacity, Energy Density of Materials… well that’s stuff for the appropriate annoying Little People to sweat out in the way that Little People must do. Obviously if you have the Correct ‘Scientific’ Ideas it will all just happen perfectly. So if it doesn’t work, all that’s necessary is to find the delinquent Little People concerned and punish them. Simple really! Really Simple.

    Started out in life as an Electrical Engineer. Forgotten it all bar the maths these days… but the ability to do Back of the Envelope Gedanken Experiments and smell BS from the next galaxy over never leaves one… Well not until my neurons make like Joe Biden.

  33. Prof. John McCarthy, a computer pioneer who invented big chunks of computer science still vibrantly alive today, turned me around on nuclear energy. As along as we are willing to use nukes, we have enough fuel for millions of years.

    http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html

    If one is concerned about CO2, nukes are the ticket until we find something better. That the climate change movement with a few exceptions (Stewart Brand, James Lovelock) refuses to consider nukes, blows the bottom out of their arguments.

    No energy source is perfect, including nuclear, but if climate change is truly about to end human civilization, compromises are in order.

    But no, unless the solution conforms to Leftie Green Utopia, forget it. They have their priorities straight.

  34. @Tom Grey:He’s a bit Libertarian there: How many Libbers does it take to change a light bulb?

    None! The Free Market will take care of it!

    I guess I fail to see the joke. If I offer $50 to someone to change my light bulb, I’ll probably get it changed, and that person may or not a be a libertarian, they might be a Bernie Bro and a Marxist.

    Yes, the free market already does take care of light bulbs being changed. If you work in an office building there are people taking care of that in exchange for money…

  35. @Francesca:

    Who needs a Government to restrict people’s right to travel? In the USA, various payment processors can unilaterally decide that you are a ‘Right Wing Extremist’ and shut down your ability to make or receive payments. Tried purchasing a plane ticket or renting a car with cash lately?

    Pretty much all of us carry around our own personal highly-addictive dopamine-hacking surveillance device 24/7. We pay for them out of our own pockets and update them every year or two to keep up with fashion. Amazing when you think about it.

    As for China and the social control it exercises through the ubiquitous WeChat app, that’s relatively new and utterly dystopian. But control over movement itself is nothing new. Since not long after the revolution, the Hukou residence permit system has been used to control who can live where. In theory today, anybody can move from a rural village to live in first world Shanghai. Sure they can. But without an impossible to get Shanghai Hukou, they won’t be able to use public hospitals or educate their children in public schools… or access *any* social services — all of which are tied to said ambitious peasant’s rural village Hukou.

    The Chinese at least understand that unrestricted internal migration would swamp the best cities in a tide of rice-guzzling fellaheen. They’re not about to to let that happen — although they’d be happy to to facilitate it happening to your neighbourhood 😛

    No fan at all of the CCP. Utterly detest them. The tragic thing is that they are much saner than Western Progressives.

  36. Newsome may be stupid enough to believe his public assertions. I think it more likely that he knows just how impractical his ‘order’ is and has another motivation.

    Namely, self-promotion to the leftist base as a serious fighter for their aspirations.

    All in service of adding to his credibility as a presidential candidate in 2024.

    Think about it, of the democrat candidate field in 2020, who will have a higher profile in 2024 with the leftist base than Newsome?

    And, conveniently, that ‘goal’ of 2035 will still be on a distant horizon.

  37. Philip S: ” … zero carbon footprint all day! Just get rid of all the people!”

    Or, as a proof of concept, we could “get rid of” the illegals and see if it moved the needle in the right direction.

  38. You have to have some liquid fuel for energy in planes. Jet fuel is perfect because it has the most energy per unit volume. Liquid hydrogen works in a jet engine but it takes much more volume to store per unit of energy. One could use energy from wind or solar or hydro to do electrolysis on water to get the hydrogen. And this makes sense but this is only about 40% efficient. Intense work is being done now trying to find catalysts to improve this efficiency. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is also exactly what chlorophyll does in plants, but this is also not very efficient…surprisingly.
    There are some ways to store hydrogen in powdered metals that allow it to be contain more energy per unit volume. These studies are ongoing now too. In the far future, I think we are also going to see tiny controlled plutonium nuclear reactors driving turboprop planes. The plutonium pit in a nuclear weapon is pretty small—like a grapefruit—and we may figure out some unequivocally safe way to do this—but it would have to use some intermediate fluid like water that would have to be recycled. Tough engineering. I think we are going to have a hydrogen economy in the mid range future…like >30 years. Of course there could be some revolutionary new batteries or fuel cells but this chemistry has been extensively explored and the low hanging fruit is well known already.

  39. Zaphod: “Plus cars are just such amazingly convenient freedom machines, plus our built environment is now so adapted to them that going back is not a sane choice.”

    Just so. Back before cars, the horse was a passport to freedom. The big reason they hung horse thieves.

    The automobile is such a great instrument of freedom and individuality. During TEA Party protests I used to love watching the amazing variety of vehicles that drove by our protests. Such an amazing advert for free markets, freedom, and individuality.

    They started putting in charging stations for EVs along I-5 in WA about 2008. My wife scoped one out near the mall. We watched it whenever we went by there to see if anyone was using it. Nada, nope, not in use. I’m sure hope springs eternal in Olympia though. A s it is in Sacramento.

  40. “What ever happened to legislation passed by politicians who can be held accountable on Election Day?” – Gothamite

    To ask the question is to answer it.

  41. Virtue signaling propaganda. How do I know? As someone above says, it is a statement of intent, not definitive action with absolute objectives. Also, it includes the nice phrase “where feasible” that will enable them to abandon some or all of the intent expressed.

    My question is this, where are all the folks that are committed to follow the science?

  42. @Frederick, do you think you are Libertarian?

    Most Libbers understand the political problem of explaining how (Adam Smith’s) “invisible hand” actually does work, in practice, to do things people want done. When they want them done enough to pay for them.

    How about this joke:
    How many Feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
    .
    .
    .
    One.
    And it’s NOT funny!

    The joke is that so few feminists have a sense of humor. The Libber joke is that Libertarian politicians are trying to solve problems, politically, by making it easier for somebody else to solve the problem, at a profit. Or else the problem is not yet “worth” enough to solve.

    Excellent example about paying somebody $50 to change the light bulb – if you want it done, enough, voluntarily pay somebody, enough, to do it. Win-win. Peacefully. You get what you want done; the worker gets enough money.

    “There’s no such thing as a Free Lunch”.
    Globally true – but NOT locally. Everybody has had many lunches that somebody else paid for – meaning it was free, for them.

    Politics has degenerated to most, or at least very many, voters wanting somebody else to pay for their Great Global/National Solution.

    Related – “sustainability” can be quite easily measured for business.
    It’s called profit.
    Those without it are not sustainable.

    Newsome wants a Free Lunch on energy, with “somebody” else paying for it.
    Ain’t gonna happen.
    Tho stupid laws are all too likely; many have already happened.

  43. I’ll agree to take global warming seriously the day the greens agree to a nuclear powered grid. It’s the obvious solution, with significant benefits to air quality even if the CAGW thesis proves to be nonsense. Some have (see Michael Shellenberger’s “Apocalypse Never” to see a rational analysis from a lifelong environmentalist), but it hasn’t reached the level that could drive political acceptance.

    I always wonder to what extent the anti-nuke movement was driven by the Soviets for their own reasons, but the greens have done enough harm to the environment through their successful opposition to nuclear power to outweigh any other gains they have made since the 60s. It was emotionally driven nonsense when I was debating energy policy in high school in the 70s, and the track record of the industry since then only reinforces that.

  44. Gringo, I was traveling yesterday (a bit of normalcy… a week at OBX) so did not see your question until this morning. I did undergrad at CU (70-74) but was fairly isolated in the physics building. The MCDB building was right across the street, but I never really had much interaction with that faculty at all.

  45. Newsome’s Plan (and that of the Calif. State Legislature).

    Drive out industry and the middle class (mostly white folks; that is, non hispanics).
    Increase the price of energy, autos (used and new) , gasoline, natural gas, water, electricity, etc. by forcing it’s importation into Calif. from the surrounding states, and thereby increase the cost of living even more.

    This will force the citizenry, that still remains, to change their behavior and to allow greater control by the state govt. of the citizenry. Of course, the ruling elites will enjoy greater liberties and material benefits that will be denied to the average Jose and Conchita.

    Increase to the greatest extend possible the number of indigenous illegal immigrants from Central American and Mexico and immediately issue them voter ID cards and driver’s licenses.

    Finally, when Calif is mostly composed of indigenous , spanish speaking folks, secede from the USA, claim that Calif was stolen from Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American War, and establish the new nation of Mexifornia.

    Think about it; if millions of folks are protesting in the streets, how on earth do you stop it or control it?
    Further, expect the UN to urge and vote for the USA to respect the wishes of “freedom seeking people to pursue their own destiny.”

    Think I am nuts?
    Check out La Raza.
    Oh, and Newsome and his progressive acolytes, like all progressives, hates everything about the USA, so the idea of Calif. jumping ship is a very attractive option.

  46. First, I agree that banning all gas cars is premature. However, that is not what Newsom’s order states. People are not banned from owning or buying gas cars; they just can’t buy NEW cars in California. They can go to neighboring states to buy a new car or buy a used car. Equating this order with turning California into old Communist China is sensationalism and just as fake as lots of other “news”. I would like to read objective articles about self-driving cars, better batteries, and the real cost of alternative energy. Labeling each other and our leaders is not productive.

  47. Nothing to see from the Aerialist because we haven’t enough evidence about all his topics already and how ready they are; self driving cars and air bags, batteries and and their environmental costs, battery charging infrastructure, the power grid to charge said batteries, alternative energy -see the power grid except at night, and of course our esteemed government plans – Solindra, High Speed Fail, etc. But it’s all good as gold in the leftist future. Cow dung future.

  48. Aerialist:

    And why wouldn’t your esteemed non-communist Newsom or his hair (or heir) ban cars from the rest of the country? He wouldn’t do something so rash? Really? Again?

  49. Arealist:

    When the Calif. politicians see that their citizens are buying new gasoline powered cars out of state and “importing” them into Calif., the next step by the state politicos is clear as day.
    1. When registering a gasoline car purchased out of state, the cost of registration each year will be several times that of a non-gas , Calif purchased car; say,
    $3,000 per year.
    2. Increase gasoline taxes so that gasoline is , say, $10 / gallon, or more.
    3. Any gas car purchased out of state and registered in Calif., will have a one time “excise” tax (actually a tariff) of, say, $10,000 or more.

    If anybody thinks the Calif. politicians – all socialists and communists – are going to allow folks to circumvent their laws, well, one has to have their heads way up their ass.

    The sole purpose of Newsome’s mandate, like all laws /rules imposed upon the citizeny by progressives, is CONTROL of the people.
    This is obvious, really, to any idiot.

    The City of Berkeley just passed a law prohibiting the sale of “non healthy” food items at grocery stores!! Progressives see nothing wrong with sort of stuff.
    Whatever increases their power and control over the “unwashed masses,” progressives will utilize.

    Wake up.

  50. Aerialist

    Equating this order with turning California into old Communist China is sensationalism and just as fake as lots of other “news”.

    Newsome’s “executive order” is more like a decree: an order having the force of law. Commies and other dictators rule by decree. I want it so, and so it shall be.

    As California currently imports about a quarter to a third of its electrical energy, Newsome’s “executive order,” a.k.a. decree, flouts reality. How is a state that is far from self-sufficient in electrical energy, going to supply the vastly increased need for electrical energy that this decree implies?

    I am reminded of Mao’s decree that certain bird species, because they had been observed eating grain planted in fields, should be hunted down. Guess what? Because those birds also ate a lot of insects, fewer birds caused insect populations to zoom upwards, resulting in devastated grain crops. Set the stage for the great famine.

    As both the Governor and Mao have issued decrees that flout reality, I find the comparison apt.

    I would like to read objective articles about self-driving cars, better batteries, and the real cost of alternative energy. Labeling each other and our leaders is not productive.

    If you haven’t already noticed, Huxley provided a link.

    –“Shocker: Top Google Engineers Say Renewable Energy ‘Simply won’t work’”

    Have you taken the effort to read it? Inquiring minds want to know.

  51. All these Governors and Presidents churning out all of these Executive Orders lately… very strange. Is this now the preferred method of governance?

    I suddenly wondered why Newsom chose this route that we have been discussing by which to kneecap the fossil-fuel economy on the West Coast. Did he feel the state legislature would be insufficiently compliant as a means to enact this program by normal means? Why, since CA is so left as it is? Maybe it just seemed more efficient to him to do it this way. Maybe there were other, higher-order effects that he wishes to cause by this method. I don’t follow his entire history of ruling by executive orders, so maybe there’s some kind of inside baseball background here.

  52. In Newsom’s mind, most likely, the only reason we don’t have plenty of clean energy from some perfect source with no bad side effects is that Evil People…probably the oil companies…are blocking it. No need to worry about details of technology and economics, just get rid of those Evil People, and all will be well.

  53. Even for people who are a lot smarter and more thoughtful than Newsom, the problems of electricity supply and demand seem hard to understand. Few seem to understand just how hard and expensive it is to store large amounts of electricity.

    The authors of almost all articles about energy fail to comprehend the difference between megawatts and megawatt-hours, which is all-important when one is talking about energy storage. To state the storage capacity of a battery or other energy storage system in megawatts is like stating the capacity of your car’s gas tank in horsepower; it is a category error. This is true not just of general journalists but of busines and ‘technology’ journalists as well.

  54. Being led by experts and technocrats who are manifestly ignorant, could that be a problem? Not when we have executive orders, one party governments, and and a rouge and out of control bureaucracy. History shows they can engineer a famine, worsen a natural disaster, or magnify a contagion; but can they actually do good? Nope.

  55. Hi, David Foster – your point makes me wonder how much technical or scientific competence it is reasonable to expect from our officials, elected or otherwise. (Maybe it is possible to justify differing levels of comprehension when comparing certain kinds of elected vs. unelected officials. Say, legislators should have such-and-such minimum knowledge or learning-ability basis, whereas judges maybe a little more or less, depending.)

    I separate this question from expertise in one or more technical fields.

    As I write, for example, I’m listening to a technical presentation about an important project related to my work. No way a Congresscritter would have the remotest hope of grasping this material – okay, maybe in the most superficial, general way, but no more than that, I’m confident. But is it really reasonable or appropriate to expect them to have that ability, I ask myself?

    Now if it is reasonable to have some such expectation, how is the public supposed to screen candidates for that when the MSM has no competence in whom it pushes? This aside from the painfully obvious factors among the voting public such as innumeracy. I think this is an area in which the existing de-facto mechanisms of our particular system of government are hitting a wall these days.

  56. Philip Sells:
    As I write, for example, I’m listening to a technical presentation about an important project related to my work. No way a Congresscritter would have the remotest hope of grasping this material – okay, maybe in the most superficial, general way, but no more than that, I’m confident. But is it really reasonable or appropriate to expect them to have that ability, I ask myself?

    One possible exception: the Sununu engineer politician family in NH.

  57. Gringo, how neat! Actual engineers. That makes me feel a little better. I didn’t know about their backgrounds. I remember Vern Ehlers had a degree in physics, I believe it was, but he was in Congress a good while ago – that was why I felt safe in saying “a” Congresscritter, attempting to confine the question to the present membership of that august body by implication. But I was also wrong there!

  58. om on September 25, 2020 at 11:53 am said:
    Speaking of idiots, where is Montage on this topic? Riding his magic bicycle down by the beach?

    Montage’s higher self is in therapy sessions with Ymar’s higher self. They getting a good lecture by now.

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