Two blurbs today, before I get ready for this evening’s New Year’s celebrations.
Environmentally friendly cars as death boxes
First is that people who drive small cars in order to save the climate are seriously putting themselves at risk, or even dying if involved in a serious accident. That’s the result of newly conducted crash tests reported here at Spiegel. Citing crash test results from the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the EuroNCAP Test 2014, Spiegel tells us that the Mazda 5 fared the worst.
Also among the worst-performing cars were “environmentally-friendly” electric cars like the Renault Twizy 80, top-selling electric car Nissan Leaf, and the Nissan e-NV200 Evalia. People who drive such cars with the aim of not killing the climate are actually risking getting killed, because the cars don’t adequately protect the occupants.
Also potential death boxes exposed by the crash tests were a number of compact models, e.g. made by FIAT or Renault. Indeed drivers are far better off behind the wheel of a good German-built car, which today are also very fuel efficient.
White German Christmases not more seldom
On a different subject, Spiegel here reports on 5 myths concerning Christmas. One of them it turns out is that white Christmases are not less frequent today than they were 100 years ago. Spiegel writers Axel Bojanowski and Holger Dambeck tell us:
The longing for a white Christmas gets traced back to a postcard; indeed on Christmas Eve in the German lowlands it is traditionally green. Weather data show: Despite global warming white Christmases over the last 100 years have not become more seldom.”
The Spiegel authors write that the chances of a white Christmas in Germany as a rule increase the further inland one goes away from the North Sea. Chances of a white Christmas are especially high in the Alps. The idyllic impression of a German white Christmas stems from an 1863 Vermont (my home state) postcard, Spiegel writes. I checked the weather records myself and the frequency of a white Christmas at the northern port city of Bremen, for example, is roughly twice every decade.
A short post today, but certainly a couple of points here you can use to annoy the global warming family members, friends or acquaintances at this evening’s festivities.
Well, I see the sparkling wine is now getting close to the ideal temperature. HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, and cheers!
As you’re in Germany, I can wish you “Einen Guten Rutsch”.
2015 has arrived in all of (continental) Australia.
Congrats, Bernd! Happy New Year. Here we’ve got about 6 more hours to go.
Still 15.5 hours to go here along the USA’s Left Coast — but
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Cheers
Happy New Year everybody!
I saw a Twitzy in real life. It’s a great little go cart to roll around in a pedestrian area.
What we need are noddy car carriers for the Autobahn. Some kind of roll on roll of principle, Knight-Rider style.
Happy New Year ein Guten Rutsch to all who pass through here.
Happy New Year to all, and it looks like being an interesting one… beware the Inquisition!
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/12/30/pope-embraces-the-green-religion/
Happy New Year to all people of good will.
Every once in a while here in eastern NC, we see the tiniest blip of a car, the “Smart Car.” I’ve often wondered what would happen if they were ever to get into an accident… Especially on the Interstate, where the speed limit is 70 mph?
Happy, Prosperous, and Healthy New Year to all!
The original Smart Car was the only car known to be able to fall on its backside when breaking hard and losing control. The newer model is slightly longer. But lost the capability to park orthonally in a parking lane…
“park orthonally in a parking lane”
Obviously, standing on its tail would save a lot of space but is rather wearing on the paintwork. 😉
Prost!
Happy New Year from Belgium.
Snow in Algeria; looks like jetstream weirdness again.
http://iceagenow.info/2014/12/algeria-snowfall-leads-angry-protests/
Happy New Year All, Happy to report that 2015 has arrived safely in New Zealand. Wishing you the best for the year ahead.
Happy New Year everybody.
One question – if one of these “earth saving” cars runs into a climate model, which crumples first?
The model.
The car has at least some substance, albeit without reason.
Happy New Year from Norway too
My wish for the new year is that more “sleepers” will wake up to realisty.
Hmmm reality
Happy New Year!!
I’m looking forward to another year of your posts, Pierre!
Happy New Year … NY already past in the Antipodes, I can forecast the immediate future for others to the west of us. A new year is about to unfold for you; it will be heralded in with much festivity and fireworks. At least one person will kiss you and wish you a very Happy New Year! :-))
I protect myself with a V8 twin turbo diesel Landcruiser. Driving around alone in it really pisses Greenies off.
If you piss them Greenies off, they will retaliate.
Try http://wqyk.cbslocal.com/2013/05/13/leonardo-dicaprios-home-on-wheels-actor-hollwood-movies/
.
Happy New Year from Sweden.
You might think we have all white Chritsmas here in the North Europe, but fact is that its only a 50% chans in south part of Sweden.
http://www.smhi.se/polopoly_fs/1.19229.1418741813!/image/vit_jul_diagram.png_gen/derivatives/Original_1004px/vit_jul_diagram.png
White: 10 cm or more snow.
Red: 1 – 9 cm
Yellow: spots of snow
Green: no snow
Cities from North to South from the top.
A Happy New Year, Pierre, and to all commenters.
Off the top of my head, I reckon that here in Britain (climate very oceanic compared with mainland Europe) white Christmases probably have become a little more unusual than formerly. The main reason for that is, of course, that most of our English language white Christmas stories were written by Charles Dickens, based on his childhood memories of the winters here in the early 19th century when we were still experiencing LIA conditions. On balance, I’ll take now!
Not surprised about the uselessness of the “latter-day bubble cars” in crashes, though. What do people expect, when you’re crashing a small amount of thin tinplate into 30-40 tons of truck?!
Happy New Year, Pierre. I’m looking forward to a year in which you can report ever-increasing lunacies – such that even the willingly gullible warmists question their sanity.
Best wishes – MS.
The descent into lunacy is a selection process: At any given moment in time some more rational member of the cult will defect, leading to a concentration of lunatics as time goes by.
Unfortunately, as the remaining lunatics confirm each other, they might just be getting dangerous. Though none of them has as of yet proposed the wholesale annihilation of an entire continent’s population, like the acclaimed Fabian Bertrand Russell who suggested in 1945 to wipe out all of the USSR with nuclear bombs.
So they have a ways to go to reclaim their erstwhile ingenuity.
Happy New Year from Québec. Unfortunately, the provincial government voted a new tax on car fuel as a carbon mean to finance a Carbon Trade Exchange, the only province to join California Carbon Exchange in North America. I hope they both fail miserably, but what a useless lost of money.
Fortunately, I live near the province of Ontario, just across of the Ottawa River. I will then be able to buy my fuel in Ontario without participating in this stupid policy. I will not contribute to the supposedly 3 billion dollar tax imposed by the government on us, “Québécois”.
I will followup on that Carbon Exchange downturn (hopefully soon).
Thanks