A little Christmas cheer for those of you who enjoy a good laugh.
The Duke of Gloucester has been given permission for four wind turbines to be built on his estate in Northamptonshire.
But in an interesting development which we've been carefully monitoring, the middle class mentalists of the nimby movement have been turning ever more radical. In the latest outbreak of nimby madness, a septagenarian nimby has suggested that the Duke - who is a cousin of the Prince of Wales - should be "lynched".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8946617/Duke-of-Gloucester-criticised-over-wind-farm-plan.html
We're not yet sure whether the Telegraph supports such calls for the slaughter of our royal family - it all sounds a little bit French for them, really. But it's an amusing twist in the saga of nimby idiocy.
To these nimbies - who invariably pour out the same discredited bilge ("spoil the landscape", "ruin the tourism industry", blah-de-blah-de-blah) - anyone who wishes to harness the unlimited and free resource known as "The Wind" to generate cheap, clean, green electricity for the good of their fellow man is a "villain". Be they farmer or Duke, conscientious co-operative or multinational, they are all "villains", each and every one.
The truth, of course, is that the real villains are the demented, bigoted liars and thugs who routinely object in a kneejerk fashion to things they don't want, don't understand and are incapable of being honest about.
And when these frauds start calling for the lynching of members of the (extended) royal family, maybe the average Briton can begin to see them for what they really are. Fanatical extremists, as bad as the Taliban, only their fanaticism is based on nothing more but the most deluded and misguided self-centredness. They are the Enemy Within, the homegrown traitors who hate everything about their country while pretending to be trying to protect some aspect of it or other. They are the lowest of the low.
Come the revolution, it won't be the Duke of Gloucester who'll be first up against the wall. It will be the evil-minded, selfish nimbies who have done so much to harm their communities and to hold Britain back. Let's hope that their days really are numbered.
Merry Christmas, one and all!!!!
Saturday 24 December 2011
Tuesday 20 December 2011
A CORRECTION (AT LAST!)
Seems the Christmas spirit has even percolated through to these maniacal grinches at the Daily Mail. The Mail, as you're probably aware, is the nation's chief inciter of silly middle-class panics. It "adjusts" its coverage of anything and everything in order to whip up pointless frenzies of needless hysteria. It's the rabble-rousing rag of Middle England.
And it's now admitting that it was WRONG about the impact of environmental policies on household energy bills. It was WRONG because it deliberately sought to mislead its readers into believing that green policies - like the elusive "subsidies" for windfarms in the UK - were driving up the average consumer's energy bills. It has now issued a modest correction:
http://www.actionforrenewables.org/blog/archive/201112/daily-mail-quietly-admits-green-technology-isn't-costing-you-much-it-claimed
This is a major breakthrough. The Mail really does not like apologising for its cavalier attitude to the truth and all the giant great testes of misinformation it routinely publishes. So, what on earth has prompted this rare crisis of conscience? What can have forced the atrocious Mail to admit that it was having you on about the costs of renewables?
Maybe they've decided to take the Wind of Change New Year's Resolution - you know, the one about not telling lies about windfarms any more - and have already turned over a new leaf.
Now wouldn't that be something?
And it's now admitting that it was WRONG about the impact of environmental policies on household energy bills. It was WRONG because it deliberately sought to mislead its readers into believing that green policies - like the elusive "subsidies" for windfarms in the UK - were driving up the average consumer's energy bills. It has now issued a modest correction:
http://www.actionforrenewables.org/blog/archive/201112/daily-mail-quietly-admits-green-technology-isn't-costing-you-much-it-claimed
This is a major breakthrough. The Mail really does not like apologising for its cavalier attitude to the truth and all the giant great testes of misinformation it routinely publishes. So, what on earth has prompted this rare crisis of conscience? What can have forced the atrocious Mail to admit that it was having you on about the costs of renewables?
Maybe they've decided to take the Wind of Change New Year's Resolution - you know, the one about not telling lies about windfarms any more - and have already turned over a new leaf.
Now wouldn't that be something?
Monday 19 December 2011
ANOTHER COVER UP
There's lying - an art that nimbies excel in - and then there's covering up the truth. Once-respected British newspapers have been doing both.
We reported recently on the YouGov poll commissioned by the Sunday Times which revealed a clear majority of British people support windfarms. It seems that more than half of all Britons want to see more of them and only a modest fraction of those polled wish there were fewer.
Sadly, the Sunday Times assumes that most of its readership is composed of deluded and fanatical nimbies, and so it buried its own survey:
http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/12/sunday-times-wind-farms/
Pandering to the barking tendencies of Britain's nimby minority is not exactly covering the news. Quite the reverse, in fact: it is an act of political propaganda designed to mislead the nation over a matter of the utmost importance. It is an act of treason, committed on behalf of an Australian-born resident of the United States of America whose grotesque media empire is making those who read its shoddy bilge and watch its viciously extremist news channels more and more stupid by the day. No state propaganda machine is as wildly out of control than Murdoch's Death Star of fake news and atrocious comment. And so, when it finds that the majority of Britons are enlightened and conscientious about renewable energy, it hides those findings and broadcasts yet another sickeningly misleading diatribe against renewables.
No wonder the nimby nutters of Olde Englande love the deranged dribblings of the right-wing press.
The news elsewhere is looking increasingly positive: Scotland is hailing 2011 as the "best year yet" for Scottish green energy, as well it might. £750 million worth of new green energy projects were switched on north of the border in the last twelve months, a worthy and magnificent achievement. South of the border, a survey carried out by the financial services firm Ernst & Young has revealed that businesses are showing increased confidence in clean energy technology but are losing confidence in the British government's monumentally inept approach to the green sector of the economy. Maybe the problem here is that so many government ministers are in thrall to the nuclear, oil and Murdoch lobbies, that David Cameron's claim to be promoting the "greenest government ever" has been exposed as cynical gobbledegook.
Wanna see a truly far-sighted green government? Look north. Scotland is leading the way.
Wanna see a government of muddled fools easily swayed by media demagogues and anti-renewables lobbyists? Look at Westminster.
They can't bury the truth forever, though. Let's all hope and pray that 2012 is the year in which even the crazed lunatics of Rupert Murdoch's evil empire and the craven hypocrites of the coalition government finally see the light, and stop dancing to the tune of the depraved, dishonest and utterly selfish nimbies who have been doing so much to harm our nation.
It might be our last chance to protect our "green and pleasant land" for future generations. Let's pledge to do everything in our power to follow Scotland's lead and tell the neo-fascist fringe of Tory ideologues, nimby maniacs and bigoted lobbyists what they can do with their self-serving lies.
Let's make 2012 the Year of Wind - for the good of everybody!!!
We reported recently on the YouGov poll commissioned by the Sunday Times which revealed a clear majority of British people support windfarms. It seems that more than half of all Britons want to see more of them and only a modest fraction of those polled wish there were fewer.
Sadly, the Sunday Times assumes that most of its readership is composed of deluded and fanatical nimbies, and so it buried its own survey:
http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/12/sunday-times-wind-farms/
Pandering to the barking tendencies of Britain's nimby minority is not exactly covering the news. Quite the reverse, in fact: it is an act of political propaganda designed to mislead the nation over a matter of the utmost importance. It is an act of treason, committed on behalf of an Australian-born resident of the United States of America whose grotesque media empire is making those who read its shoddy bilge and watch its viciously extremist news channels more and more stupid by the day. No state propaganda machine is as wildly out of control than Murdoch's Death Star of fake news and atrocious comment. And so, when it finds that the majority of Britons are enlightened and conscientious about renewable energy, it hides those findings and broadcasts yet another sickeningly misleading diatribe against renewables.
No wonder the nimby nutters of Olde Englande love the deranged dribblings of the right-wing press.
The news elsewhere is looking increasingly positive: Scotland is hailing 2011 as the "best year yet" for Scottish green energy, as well it might. £750 million worth of new green energy projects were switched on north of the border in the last twelve months, a worthy and magnificent achievement. South of the border, a survey carried out by the financial services firm Ernst & Young has revealed that businesses are showing increased confidence in clean energy technology but are losing confidence in the British government's monumentally inept approach to the green sector of the economy. Maybe the problem here is that so many government ministers are in thrall to the nuclear, oil and Murdoch lobbies, that David Cameron's claim to be promoting the "greenest government ever" has been exposed as cynical gobbledegook.
Wanna see a truly far-sighted green government? Look north. Scotland is leading the way.
Wanna see a government of muddled fools easily swayed by media demagogues and anti-renewables lobbyists? Look at Westminster.
They can't bury the truth forever, though. Let's all hope and pray that 2012 is the year in which even the crazed lunatics of Rupert Murdoch's evil empire and the craven hypocrites of the coalition government finally see the light, and stop dancing to the tune of the depraved, dishonest and utterly selfish nimbies who have been doing so much to harm our nation.
It might be our last chance to protect our "green and pleasant land" for future generations. Let's pledge to do everything in our power to follow Scotland's lead and tell the neo-fascist fringe of Tory ideologues, nimby maniacs and bigoted lobbyists what they can do with their self-serving lies.
Let's make 2012 the Year of Wind - for the good of everybody!!!
Thursday 15 December 2011
JUST SO YOU KNOW
Yesterday, we learnt that the majority of people in Britain want to see more windfarms and think that government subsidies to support wind energy is the right thing to do.
Today, we learn that certain highly irresponsible newspapers in the UK have been lying about the costs paid by the consumer for renewable energy.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent body. In a report released today, the CCC analyses the dramatic increase in the average household's energy bills.
In 2004, the average home paid £604 for energy. Last year, that had shot up to £1,060. But contrary to what the running dogs of the right-wing press would have you believe, that was not the fault of renewables.
The CCC has broken down that massive £455 increase to show that rising wholesale gas prices accounted for £290 of that. Only £30 went to investments in renewable energy (of which windfarms form only a part). £45 went to covering the costs of energy efficiency schemes. In other words, the consumer is paying 50% more to subsidise energy efficiency measures than they are to all renewables, and nearly TEN TIMES as much to cover the increasing costs of importing gas.
As usual, we find that all the demented claims about renewables being "inefficient", "too expensive", "totally reliant on subsidies" and a "massive burden on the consumer" are all tommy rot. They are lies. The nimby diddymen love to keep spouting this sort of gibberish, but gibberish it is. If you want to know why your bills are going up, look at the increase in wholesale gas costs and don't keep blaming renewables because only an idiot does that.
Oh, and by the way, the average household in the UK is paying £240 per year towards the costs of decommissioning useless nuclear power stations. That's £240 from every household going to NOT generating any electricity at all!! In comparison with which, £30 towards creating a level playing field for all forms of renewable energy is a pittance. The average consumer is paying over £500 extra per year for more expensive gas and the closure of nuclear power stations. Windfarm "subsidies" account for a few quid each year.
So, in the light of the CCC's report, which merely sets the record straight, we at Wind of Change are offering a humble suggestion to the right-wing press and the nimbies who read that rubbish for a New Year Resolution. Let's all promise to make 2012 the year in which we STOP TELLING LIES ABOUT RENEWABLES, shall we? Let's start getting properly patriotic and actually support the vital drive towards a sustainable, low-carbon future. Let's tell the truth about renewables so that tin-pot dictators in the Shires can't keep pulling the wool over everybody's eyes.
Let's stop being idiots and stand up for renewables!!!
Today, we learn that certain highly irresponsible newspapers in the UK have been lying about the costs paid by the consumer for renewable energy.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent body. In a report released today, the CCC analyses the dramatic increase in the average household's energy bills.
In 2004, the average home paid £604 for energy. Last year, that had shot up to £1,060. But contrary to what the running dogs of the right-wing press would have you believe, that was not the fault of renewables.
The CCC has broken down that massive £455 increase to show that rising wholesale gas prices accounted for £290 of that. Only £30 went to investments in renewable energy (of which windfarms form only a part). £45 went to covering the costs of energy efficiency schemes. In other words, the consumer is paying 50% more to subsidise energy efficiency measures than they are to all renewables, and nearly TEN TIMES as much to cover the increasing costs of importing gas.
As usual, we find that all the demented claims about renewables being "inefficient", "too expensive", "totally reliant on subsidies" and a "massive burden on the consumer" are all tommy rot. They are lies. The nimby diddymen love to keep spouting this sort of gibberish, but gibberish it is. If you want to know why your bills are going up, look at the increase in wholesale gas costs and don't keep blaming renewables because only an idiot does that.
Oh, and by the way, the average household in the UK is paying £240 per year towards the costs of decommissioning useless nuclear power stations. That's £240 from every household going to NOT generating any electricity at all!! In comparison with which, £30 towards creating a level playing field for all forms of renewable energy is a pittance. The average consumer is paying over £500 extra per year for more expensive gas and the closure of nuclear power stations. Windfarm "subsidies" account for a few quid each year.
So, in the light of the CCC's report, which merely sets the record straight, we at Wind of Change are offering a humble suggestion to the right-wing press and the nimbies who read that rubbish for a New Year Resolution. Let's all promise to make 2012 the year in which we STOP TELLING LIES ABOUT RENEWABLES, shall we? Let's start getting properly patriotic and actually support the vital drive towards a sustainable, low-carbon future. Let's tell the truth about renewables so that tin-pot dictators in the Shires can't keep pulling the wool over everybody's eyes.
Let's stop being idiots and stand up for renewables!!!
Tuesday 13 December 2011
MOST BRITONS SUPPORT WINDFARMS AND SUBSIDIES!!!
We all know that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are bad news for the planet. Methane, however, is worse - approximately 23 times as potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
So this story isn't good news:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html
Oh dear.
Still, fortunately there are some groups which, having taken the science of climate change onboard, have some solutions in mind. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), for example, recently released a report examining how the UK could source at least 60% of its electricity from renewables by 2030:
http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/positive_energy_final_designed.pdf
Of course, the UK would be off to a fairly good start because Scotland has already committed itself to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2020. Realistically, the rest of the British Isles ought to be upping its game so that Scotland doesn't leave us standing (Scotland can already foresee a net income of £2bn and world-leader status in new-energy technologies, as long as Westminster doesn't foul everything up for them). And, given the scale of the climate crisis we face, 60% renewable energy for the UK by 2030 should be thought of as a modest ambition.
However, here's some more bad news. Amply covered by the Telegraph, among others, the right-wing Adam Smith Institute has paired up with the anti-renewables, climate-change-denying Scientific Alliance to produce a thoroughly bogus report about renewables not being economically viable. There's nothing new in this report - in fact, it's the same old misleading hogwash advanced by lobby groups and right-wing ideologues that we've all grown so familiar and fed up with (unless we're raving nimbies). And it's not just the renewables industry that has attacked the wayward propagandists of the Adam Smith Institute over this blatantly inaccurate and unscientific report. The government has, too.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2131709/government-industry-attack-adam-smith-institute-anti-renewables-report
The big question is: how is all this playing out with the great British public? Well, as two recent YouGov polls show, the results are ... interesting.
For reasons best known to themselves, the Times and the Sunday Times have chosen not to publish some of the results of their YouGov survey, but you can see them here:
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/gm4jg0973n/Sunday%20Times%20Results%20111125%20VI%20and%20Trackers.pdf
First of all, the poll shows that a clear majority of those polled support the construction of a high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. So, that's one in the eye for those noisy anti-HS2 fanatics.
Then we discover that the majority of those polled - even among Conservative voters - feel that there should be MORE windfarms in Britain than there are at the moment. Yep, no less than 68% of those polled want to see more elegant, inspiring and impressive wind turbines quietly and harmlessly generating clean, green, cheap electricity.
Now, here's the really fun part. According to the Sunday Times poll, no fewer than 60% of those polled (Tory voters included) believe that the government is RIGHT to subsidise windfarms to encourage the use of wind power. No wonder these results haven't been published in the Murdoch press!! After all the insane exaggerations and blatant lies about windfarms and subsidies, it seems the majority of the Great British Public thinks that subsidies for windfarms are the RIGHT THING TO DO!!
What's this??? Can it be that the deranged anti-nowhere league which is currently marching, jackbotted and megaphoned, through this green and pleasant land of ours is simply an abusive and noisome minority of frauds and fools??? Could it be that most Britons can see sense and know that we need:
1) a High-Speed Rail Link
2) MORE windfarms
3) SUBSIDIES for those windfarms
Wow!
And then there's another YouGov poll, recently conducted for energy giant EDF:
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/o3ga459pt3/YG-Archive-EDF-final1005117UPDATED_v2-151111.pdf
This one's possibly more conclusive. The vast majority (72%) of those polled in 2010 were "FAVOURABLE" towards windfarms. That includes Conservative voters. By way of contrast, just 42% were favourable towards nuclear power stations and a measly 24% towards gas-fired power stations.
Now, to go back aways, VVASP lied - repeat: LIED - about the level of local opposition to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. They'd probably lie about the resuts of these YouGov surveys. But both polls are unequivocal: the majority of Britons are FAVOURABLE towards wind power, SUPPORT windfarms and believe that government SUBSIDIES for wind power are RIGHT.
It's not all good news, though. Constant right-wing propaganda is having an effect on these figures. In 2007, for example, 76% of those polled were favourable towards wind power. It's not the increase in the number of working windfarms which has brought this figure down to 72% because people tend to like working windfarms and only go a bit berserk about windfarms that don't exist yet. So the only explanation for the minor erosion in public support for windfarms is the incessant campaign of lies against them masterminded by weirdos and maniacs.
The same demented campaigning by dishonest, not-what-they-seem groups, like the so-called Scientific Alliance and the laughable Global Warming Policy Foundation, accounts for one of the most depressing figures in the EDF poll. Last year, for the first time in the surveys, more people thought that "It is not yet clear whether climate change is happening or not - scientists are divided on this issue" than "It is a serious and urgent problem and radical steps must be taken NOW to prevent terrible damage being done to the planet".
Seems the propaganda is working, in its insidious, drip-drip way. People are beginning to believe the anti-renewables, climate-change-denying lies. Thanks to the monstrous efforts of a tiny minority, the whole country is getting steadily stupider.
There's still hope, folks. But it's diminishing fast.
So this story isn't good news:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html
Oh dear.
Still, fortunately there are some groups which, having taken the science of climate change onboard, have some solutions in mind. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), for example, recently released a report examining how the UK could source at least 60% of its electricity from renewables by 2030:
http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/positive_energy_final_designed.pdf
Of course, the UK would be off to a fairly good start because Scotland has already committed itself to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2020. Realistically, the rest of the British Isles ought to be upping its game so that Scotland doesn't leave us standing (Scotland can already foresee a net income of £2bn and world-leader status in new-energy technologies, as long as Westminster doesn't foul everything up for them). And, given the scale of the climate crisis we face, 60% renewable energy for the UK by 2030 should be thought of as a modest ambition.
However, here's some more bad news. Amply covered by the Telegraph, among others, the right-wing Adam Smith Institute has paired up with the anti-renewables, climate-change-denying Scientific Alliance to produce a thoroughly bogus report about renewables not being economically viable. There's nothing new in this report - in fact, it's the same old misleading hogwash advanced by lobby groups and right-wing ideologues that we've all grown so familiar and fed up with (unless we're raving nimbies). And it's not just the renewables industry that has attacked the wayward propagandists of the Adam Smith Institute over this blatantly inaccurate and unscientific report. The government has, too.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2131709/government-industry-attack-adam-smith-institute-anti-renewables-report
The big question is: how is all this playing out with the great British public? Well, as two recent YouGov polls show, the results are ... interesting.
For reasons best known to themselves, the Times and the Sunday Times have chosen not to publish some of the results of their YouGov survey, but you can see them here:
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/gm4jg0973n/Sunday%20Times%20Results%20111125%20VI%20and%20Trackers.pdf
First of all, the poll shows that a clear majority of those polled support the construction of a high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. So, that's one in the eye for those noisy anti-HS2 fanatics.
Then we discover that the majority of those polled - even among Conservative voters - feel that there should be MORE windfarms in Britain than there are at the moment. Yep, no less than 68% of those polled want to see more elegant, inspiring and impressive wind turbines quietly and harmlessly generating clean, green, cheap electricity.
Now, here's the really fun part. According to the Sunday Times poll, no fewer than 60% of those polled (Tory voters included) believe that the government is RIGHT to subsidise windfarms to encourage the use of wind power. No wonder these results haven't been published in the Murdoch press!! After all the insane exaggerations and blatant lies about windfarms and subsidies, it seems the majority of the Great British Public thinks that subsidies for windfarms are the RIGHT THING TO DO!!
What's this??? Can it be that the deranged anti-nowhere league which is currently marching, jackbotted and megaphoned, through this green and pleasant land of ours is simply an abusive and noisome minority of frauds and fools??? Could it be that most Britons can see sense and know that we need:
1) a High-Speed Rail Link
2) MORE windfarms
3) SUBSIDIES for those windfarms
Wow!
And then there's another YouGov poll, recently conducted for energy giant EDF:
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/o3ga459pt3/YG-Archive-EDF-final1005117UPDATED_v2-151111.pdf
This one's possibly more conclusive. The vast majority (72%) of those polled in 2010 were "FAVOURABLE" towards windfarms. That includes Conservative voters. By way of contrast, just 42% were favourable towards nuclear power stations and a measly 24% towards gas-fired power stations.
Now, to go back aways, VVASP lied - repeat: LIED - about the level of local opposition to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. They'd probably lie about the resuts of these YouGov surveys. But both polls are unequivocal: the majority of Britons are FAVOURABLE towards wind power, SUPPORT windfarms and believe that government SUBSIDIES for wind power are RIGHT.
It's not all good news, though. Constant right-wing propaganda is having an effect on these figures. In 2007, for example, 76% of those polled were favourable towards wind power. It's not the increase in the number of working windfarms which has brought this figure down to 72% because people tend to like working windfarms and only go a bit berserk about windfarms that don't exist yet. So the only explanation for the minor erosion in public support for windfarms is the incessant campaign of lies against them masterminded by weirdos and maniacs.
The same demented campaigning by dishonest, not-what-they-seem groups, like the so-called Scientific Alliance and the laughable Global Warming Policy Foundation, accounts for one of the most depressing figures in the EDF poll. Last year, for the first time in the surveys, more people thought that "It is not yet clear whether climate change is happening or not - scientists are divided on this issue" than "It is a serious and urgent problem and radical steps must be taken NOW to prevent terrible damage being done to the planet".
Seems the propaganda is working, in its insidious, drip-drip way. People are beginning to believe the anti-renewables, climate-change-denying lies. Thanks to the monstrous efforts of a tiny minority, the whole country is getting steadily stupider.
There's still hope, folks. But it's diminishing fast.
Sunday 11 December 2011
NEWS FROM BRIDGNORTH, or: THE NIMBIES' DIRTY SECRET
In the real world, unnecessary aggressiveness coupled with bizarre, irrational and fantastical claims can be enough to get you sectioned under the terms of the Mental Health Act.
In the looking-glass world of nimbydom, it's called "protecting the countryside". Not protecting it for everybody, you understand - protecting it for the few who have bought a home (or a second, or a third home) in it.
A co-operative is proposing a community-owned wind development of two medium-scale turbines about three miles from the town of Bridgnorth in Shropshire. We've previously reported on the insanity of the claims being made by the anti-group (which has already learnt to repeat the nimby mantra of being "in favour" of renewables as long as nobody can see them). The gloriously mendacious "Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm" group announced that the trucks which carry wind turbine parts are "longer than an aircraft carrier". This is a very silly claim to make, not least of all because the turbine parts themselves are considerably shorter than any aircraft carrier. Someone, we are meant to suppose, is making lorries which are massively longer than is actually necessary.
But Wind of Change has now been informed that the liars of Bridgnorth have gone even further in their deep-rooted dishonesty. Not only will the turbine trucks be unrealistically long, but they will be trundling along the lanes around Bridgnorth for years on end and "most of the roundabouts in the area will have to be removed" to accommodate these apocalyptic convoys (which do not, in fact, exist).
That's just the start. Apparently, according to the Bridgnorth nimbies, wind turbines sound like a) a lawn-mower (they refuse to divulge whether this is a Flymo or a Qualcast); b) a chainsaw; or c) a helicopter taking off. Extraordinary, really, when you consider that no one has ever managed to record a turbine sounding like any of those things.
As usual, these innocent, community-owned turbines will ruin tourism in the area - just as other turbines have manifestly failed to destroy tourism elsewhere. They will lead to an increase in agricultural accidents and - horror of horrors! - provide an income for the farmer (which is "immoral", apparently). They will burst into flame and shower the populace with ice (?!?). Most terrifying of all, the electricity generated by these turbines might be used by people who don't even live in Bridgnorth!!
It's the end of the world as we know it.
Oh, and according to the raft of lies which is the protest group's website, wind turbines reduce local house prices by 40%. This is less than the insane claim made by VVASP in Worcestershire, that windfarms reduce local house prices by 54% - a claim they could only arrive at by deliberately misrepresenting the results of an RICS-sponsored study. Like all other studies, that report found no evidence of windfarms impacting adversely on house prices. It's yet another nimby myth that they do. Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm claim to have got their 40% figure from someone in Scotland (presumably, the same person who claimed that wind turbines sound like an aircraft taking off). Unfortunately, whoever this unidentified Scottish person was, they quite clearly don't live anywhere near a wind turbine or, indeed, planet Earth.
Overall, the maniacal nimbies of Bridgnorth really do seem intent on setting a new benchmark for nimby dishonesty. This is an interesting development. As if there haven't been enough mindless nimby myths spouted in recent years - with the connivance of right-wing newspapers that exist solely to frighten the middle-class with phantom bogeys - Bridgnorth has decided to invent a few more. More elaborate, more ludicrous ... and yet, nimbies being what they are, more perversely "believable". As our correspondent (who is neither for nor against the proposed turbines) has told us: "The word hypocrites keeps popping into my head for some reason."
Co-operatives, in the main, do not engage in anti-social activities. We pointed this out after the VVASP High Command visited a windfarm in Cambridgeshire and came back telling all sorts of silly stories about it. The windfarm was on land owned by the Co-Operative Group - Britain's largest owner of farmland - and the farm in question was awarded a Farmer's Weekly award in that very year, with a special commendation for the "beauty" of the farm.
But in the mad, mad, oh so very mad world of the nimby, a "co-operative" is presumably some sort of conspiracy dedicated to destroying the countryside, tourism, the property market and several roundabouts.
Our correspondent from Shropshire has pointed out to us that the hardcore of the Bridgnorth nimby loons actually live in the sort of houses "that could grace the cover of 'Country Life'" and makes the suggestion that the term NIMBY might be altered to "Not Near My Elizabethan Moated Mansion" (NNMEMM - it sounds a bit like the sort of noise a nimby makes when you challenge one of their absurd claims, but otherwise it doesn't really roll off the tongue).
Could this be the reason why Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm have gone further than anybody else to misrepresent wind turbines, mislead their neighbours and ride roughshod over such basic concepts as the truth and common decency? As our person in Shropshire has put it in respect of their "epic" nimbyism: "If Carlsberg made nimbyism, this would be it." Theirs is a sort of gold-standard nimbyism - more boorishly nimby than any other nimbies - and their extraordinary example has led us to formulating what we call the Wind of Change First Law of Nimbyism.
The purported hazards of a wind turbine are directly proportional to the average cost of houses in the area.
None of these hazards are real, of course, as anyone who has actually looked into the subject will know. They are invented hazards, fake bugaboos dreamt up by the weird minds of the nimbies and broadcast far and wide as if they had some credibility. But the point is this: the more expensive the housing is in an area where a turbine or two are proposed, the more vicious and dishonest will be the anti campaign.
Hence the Wind of Change First Law of Nimbyism. It certainly helps to explain why, when windfarms all over the country (and the rest of the world) have been getting on with generating lots and lots of clean, green, cheap energy at no risk to the surrounding population, places like Bridgnorth are being coerced into believing that they will suffer in ways that almost defy imagination.
It's got nothing whatever to do with the turbines. It has got everything to do with the evil mindset of the grasping, intolerant, demented types who have infested our countryside with their petty-minded selfishness and congenital thuggery.
Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm are proof of the First Law of Nimbyism. The more expensive their houses, the more extreme the lies they will tell about windfarms, and the more aggressively they will defend something they don't own against something they don't understand.
That's their dirty little secret.
In the looking-glass world of nimbydom, it's called "protecting the countryside". Not protecting it for everybody, you understand - protecting it for the few who have bought a home (or a second, or a third home) in it.
A co-operative is proposing a community-owned wind development of two medium-scale turbines about three miles from the town of Bridgnorth in Shropshire. We've previously reported on the insanity of the claims being made by the anti-group (which has already learnt to repeat the nimby mantra of being "in favour" of renewables as long as nobody can see them). The gloriously mendacious "Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm" group announced that the trucks which carry wind turbine parts are "longer than an aircraft carrier". This is a very silly claim to make, not least of all because the turbine parts themselves are considerably shorter than any aircraft carrier. Someone, we are meant to suppose, is making lorries which are massively longer than is actually necessary.
But Wind of Change has now been informed that the liars of Bridgnorth have gone even further in their deep-rooted dishonesty. Not only will the turbine trucks be unrealistically long, but they will be trundling along the lanes around Bridgnorth for years on end and "most of the roundabouts in the area will have to be removed" to accommodate these apocalyptic convoys (which do not, in fact, exist).
That's just the start. Apparently, according to the Bridgnorth nimbies, wind turbines sound like a) a lawn-mower (they refuse to divulge whether this is a Flymo or a Qualcast); b) a chainsaw; or c) a helicopter taking off. Extraordinary, really, when you consider that no one has ever managed to record a turbine sounding like any of those things.
As usual, these innocent, community-owned turbines will ruin tourism in the area - just as other turbines have manifestly failed to destroy tourism elsewhere. They will lead to an increase in agricultural accidents and - horror of horrors! - provide an income for the farmer (which is "immoral", apparently). They will burst into flame and shower the populace with ice (?!?). Most terrifying of all, the electricity generated by these turbines might be used by people who don't even live in Bridgnorth!!
It's the end of the world as we know it.
Oh, and according to the raft of lies which is the protest group's website, wind turbines reduce local house prices by 40%. This is less than the insane claim made by VVASP in Worcestershire, that windfarms reduce local house prices by 54% - a claim they could only arrive at by deliberately misrepresenting the results of an RICS-sponsored study. Like all other studies, that report found no evidence of windfarms impacting adversely on house prices. It's yet another nimby myth that they do. Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm claim to have got their 40% figure from someone in Scotland (presumably, the same person who claimed that wind turbines sound like an aircraft taking off). Unfortunately, whoever this unidentified Scottish person was, they quite clearly don't live anywhere near a wind turbine or, indeed, planet Earth.
Overall, the maniacal nimbies of Bridgnorth really do seem intent on setting a new benchmark for nimby dishonesty. This is an interesting development. As if there haven't been enough mindless nimby myths spouted in recent years - with the connivance of right-wing newspapers that exist solely to frighten the middle-class with phantom bogeys - Bridgnorth has decided to invent a few more. More elaborate, more ludicrous ... and yet, nimbies being what they are, more perversely "believable". As our correspondent (who is neither for nor against the proposed turbines) has told us: "The word hypocrites keeps popping into my head for some reason."
Co-operatives, in the main, do not engage in anti-social activities. We pointed this out after the VVASP High Command visited a windfarm in Cambridgeshire and came back telling all sorts of silly stories about it. The windfarm was on land owned by the Co-Operative Group - Britain's largest owner of farmland - and the farm in question was awarded a Farmer's Weekly award in that very year, with a special commendation for the "beauty" of the farm.
But in the mad, mad, oh so very mad world of the nimby, a "co-operative" is presumably some sort of conspiracy dedicated to destroying the countryside, tourism, the property market and several roundabouts.
Our correspondent from Shropshire has pointed out to us that the hardcore of the Bridgnorth nimby loons actually live in the sort of houses "that could grace the cover of 'Country Life'" and makes the suggestion that the term NIMBY might be altered to "Not Near My Elizabethan Moated Mansion" (NNMEMM - it sounds a bit like the sort of noise a nimby makes when you challenge one of their absurd claims, but otherwise it doesn't really roll off the tongue).
Could this be the reason why Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm have gone further than anybody else to misrepresent wind turbines, mislead their neighbours and ride roughshod over such basic concepts as the truth and common decency? As our person in Shropshire has put it in respect of their "epic" nimbyism: "If Carlsberg made nimbyism, this would be it." Theirs is a sort of gold-standard nimbyism - more boorishly nimby than any other nimbies - and their extraordinary example has led us to formulating what we call the Wind of Change First Law of Nimbyism.
The purported hazards of a wind turbine are directly proportional to the average cost of houses in the area.
None of these hazards are real, of course, as anyone who has actually looked into the subject will know. They are invented hazards, fake bugaboos dreamt up by the weird minds of the nimbies and broadcast far and wide as if they had some credibility. But the point is this: the more expensive the housing is in an area where a turbine or two are proposed, the more vicious and dishonest will be the anti campaign.
Hence the Wind of Change First Law of Nimbyism. It certainly helps to explain why, when windfarms all over the country (and the rest of the world) have been getting on with generating lots and lots of clean, green, cheap energy at no risk to the surrounding population, places like Bridgnorth are being coerced into believing that they will suffer in ways that almost defy imagination.
It's got nothing whatever to do with the turbines. It has got everything to do with the evil mindset of the grasping, intolerant, demented types who have infested our countryside with their petty-minded selfishness and congenital thuggery.
Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm are proof of the First Law of Nimbyism. The more expensive their houses, the more extreme the lies they will tell about windfarms, and the more aggressively they will defend something they don't own against something they don't understand.
That's their dirty little secret.
Friday 9 December 2011
IF THEY CAN DO IT, WHY CAN'T WE?
Not all Lords are going out of their way to mislead the public about the climate crisis in the manner of Lord Lawson and his terminally dodgy "Global Warming Policy Foundation".
On last night's Newsnight programme, Lord Prescott pointed out how absurd it was letting "NIMBYs" decide where we can (or rather can't) put windfarms when wind is our "energy of the future". We in the UK get forty per cent of Europe's wind passing over us, and yet the swivel-eyed petty Hitlers of Middle England do nothing but tell idiotic lies to each other about wind turbines. Absolute madness!
Sadly, the madness shows no signs of abating. Thirty years of right-wing propaganda from Westminster and Fleet Street have created a generation of evil, so determined to cling on to their minor privileges with their cold dead hands that they are perfectly happy to betray all future generations and the vast majority of their fellow countrymen.
So we've decided - as it's Friday - to jolly things up a little. First, why not take a look at a whole array of new(ish) wind turbine designs. The Cretin School of Advanced Nimbyism can only huff and puff about wind turbines being "blots on the landscape" which are "destroying" our "green and pleasant land" (that's how hysterical our native nimbies are). But if you take a look at these, you'll see that wind turbines will soon be available in a range of shapes and sizes, and in pretty much any colour you fancy. You can even vote on which particularly design appeals to you the most:
http://www.oobject.com/category/beautiful-wind-turbines/
Yep - you read that right: "beautiful wind turbines". Which is what they are.
Having feasted your eyes on some truly innovative and spectacular turbine designs, and maybe got a taste of what a rich and exciting future there is in wind energy technology, now click on this next link:
http://inhabitat.com/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/
It's a fascinating little story. A small village in Bavaria is currently producing 321% of the energy it actually requires and earning the equivalent of $5.7 million in annual revenue from its home-produced renewable energy.
So, even if you're a deluded follower of Lord Lawson, you can still appreciate the ECONOMIC argument for renewable energy. Just as the people of Texas have done.
If you're a demented fraud determined to oppose anything and everything for no good reason, then you still won't get it. Besides, you're probably loitering around some village hall and winding yourself up ready for the latest Anti-Whatever-It-Is meeting. But if you have a brain, then there's a chance you might recognise the genius inherent in any community which can generate - cleanly and harmlessly - more than three times the energy it needs and sell most of it on, making a massive amount of money for the community without really having to do anything.
That's a real community at work. Not a toxic community of Me-Me-Me warthogs, recently arrived in their 4x4s and desperate to exercise their misplaced sense of superiority. A real community doing intelligent, far-sighted, socially and environmentally friendly things. And making oodles of money for being good. Oh, and keeping the place looking pretty, too.
Now that, dear friends, is what we call a no-brainer.
On last night's Newsnight programme, Lord Prescott pointed out how absurd it was letting "NIMBYs" decide where we can (or rather can't) put windfarms when wind is our "energy of the future". We in the UK get forty per cent of Europe's wind passing over us, and yet the swivel-eyed petty Hitlers of Middle England do nothing but tell idiotic lies to each other about wind turbines. Absolute madness!
Sadly, the madness shows no signs of abating. Thirty years of right-wing propaganda from Westminster and Fleet Street have created a generation of evil, so determined to cling on to their minor privileges with their cold dead hands that they are perfectly happy to betray all future generations and the vast majority of their fellow countrymen.
So we've decided - as it's Friday - to jolly things up a little. First, why not take a look at a whole array of new(ish) wind turbine designs. The Cretin School of Advanced Nimbyism can only huff and puff about wind turbines being "blots on the landscape" which are "destroying" our "green and pleasant land" (that's how hysterical our native nimbies are). But if you take a look at these, you'll see that wind turbines will soon be available in a range of shapes and sizes, and in pretty much any colour you fancy. You can even vote on which particularly design appeals to you the most:
http://www.oobject.com/category/beautiful-wind-turbines/
Yep - you read that right: "beautiful wind turbines". Which is what they are.
Having feasted your eyes on some truly innovative and spectacular turbine designs, and maybe got a taste of what a rich and exciting future there is in wind energy technology, now click on this next link:
http://inhabitat.com/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/
It's a fascinating little story. A small village in Bavaria is currently producing 321% of the energy it actually requires and earning the equivalent of $5.7 million in annual revenue from its home-produced renewable energy.
So, even if you're a deluded follower of Lord Lawson, you can still appreciate the ECONOMIC argument for renewable energy. Just as the people of Texas have done.
If you're a demented fraud determined to oppose anything and everything for no good reason, then you still won't get it. Besides, you're probably loitering around some village hall and winding yourself up ready for the latest Anti-Whatever-It-Is meeting. But if you have a brain, then there's a chance you might recognise the genius inherent in any community which can generate - cleanly and harmlessly - more than three times the energy it needs and sell most of it on, making a massive amount of money for the community without really having to do anything.
That's a real community at work. Not a toxic community of Me-Me-Me warthogs, recently arrived in their 4x4s and desperate to exercise their misplaced sense of superiority. A real community doing intelligent, far-sighted, socially and environmentally friendly things. And making oodles of money for being good. Oh, and keeping the place looking pretty, too.
Now that, dear friends, is what we call a no-brainer.
Thursday 8 December 2011
"PATRONISING AND WRONG"
If you're fundamentally selfish, and don't want to accept any responsibility - individual or communal - for the harm we have all done to the environment and the measures we must all adopt to limit the effects of our recklessness, then sooner or later you have to pretend that climate change isn't happening. Or, if it is, then it isn't our fault. No, sirree. So we don't have to do anything about it, right?
Ha! If only ...
It's just that sort of shifty thinking that mad groups like Nigel Lawson's "Global Warming Policy Foundation" are trying to encourage.
The BBC's highly-acclaimed Frozen Planet series came to an end with an episode in which Sir David Attenborough examined various kinds of proof that the Arctic ice is melting. He carefully avoided mentioning man-made climate change. All the same, the nutters attacked.
In its infinite wisdom, the BBC's Radio Times magazine invited Lawson to stick his oar in. This in the name of "balance" which, in all cases concerning climate change, means pretending that a few brainless statements have as much weight as a mass of detailed scientific evidence and data. It's oh so similar to the "debate" about wind energy and renewables in general. Lots of proper science completely drowned out by a few opinions falsely presented as "fact" and then foisted on anybody who'll listen.
Anyway, the Guardian has discovered that the BBC prepared a rebuttal to Lawson's stupid remarks. They had to be on their guard, because the loonies of the climate "sceptic" camp want everybody to believe that the BBC is guilty of "bias". Naughtily, you see, the BBC occasionally reports on the science. And that always infuriates the deniers. They're just like anti-wind nimbies, you see. Their opinion matters more than the evidence. If they had their way, the BBC (and all other media outlets) would be banned from covering hugely important issues like climate change and we'd all be none the wiser. As it is, any attempt by the BBC to report and explain the science leads to vociferous demands for "balance" and the "alternative" point-of-view. It's rather as if any programme about the Holocaust would have to be "balanced" by a noisy rant from the nutters who deny that the Holocaust ever happened.
Although the BBC haven't bothered publishing it, the response to Lawson's idiotic denialism they commissioned from Mark Brandon, an Open University polar oceanographer and scientific script consultant to the Frozen Planet series, was unequivocal. Lawson's attempts at undermining Sir David Attenborough, the BBC and the science of climate change were just plain wrong, "patronising in tone" and "the usual tired obfuscation and generalisation".
The BBC haven't dared to confront Lawson with the facts but the Open University has published a piece calmly explaining - using science - why Nigel Lawson was so stupefyingly wrong. It's here:
http://www8.open.ac.uk/platform/news-and-features/the-science-behind-climate-change-explained
The sad thing is that, for as long as wealthy but delusional twerps like Lawson and his climate change denying mates keep pumping out their inaccurate nonsense - like the "Renewable Energy Foundation" with its constant misleading attacks on windpower - the longer those few selfish types who don't fancy glimpsing a wind turbine from time to time can continue to convince themselves that nothing needs to be done. If there's no such thing as man-made climate change, then we don't need renewables, so we don't need a windfarm a couple of miles away from the gazebo. What Lawson and his drones are preaching is a great big dangerous lie, which helps to fuel all those other lies about windpower, recycling, sustainability, etc., etc.
We've said it before: the problem with one lie (climate change isn't happening) is that it leads to so many others (we don't need windfarms/windfarms don't work/it's all just a subsidy scam ...)
So here's an idea. Let's stop telling lies. Shall we, nimbies everywhere? For the good of everybody, and most of all our children?
Wouldn't it be lovely? - if the climate change sceptics and the anti-wind loonies and all the others who think they're more important than anybody else all just stopped telling fibs.
Then we might start getting somewhere.
In the meantime, here's Tony Juniper's response to the poorly-researched BBC Panorama programme from the other week about green energy. Makes you wonder in which direction the BBC really might be "biased".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28jjWyaeNUI&feature=youtu.be
Ha! If only ...
It's just that sort of shifty thinking that mad groups like Nigel Lawson's "Global Warming Policy Foundation" are trying to encourage.
The BBC's highly-acclaimed Frozen Planet series came to an end with an episode in which Sir David Attenborough examined various kinds of proof that the Arctic ice is melting. He carefully avoided mentioning man-made climate change. All the same, the nutters attacked.
In its infinite wisdom, the BBC's Radio Times magazine invited Lawson to stick his oar in. This in the name of "balance" which, in all cases concerning climate change, means pretending that a few brainless statements have as much weight as a mass of detailed scientific evidence and data. It's oh so similar to the "debate" about wind energy and renewables in general. Lots of proper science completely drowned out by a few opinions falsely presented as "fact" and then foisted on anybody who'll listen.
Anyway, the Guardian has discovered that the BBC prepared a rebuttal to Lawson's stupid remarks. They had to be on their guard, because the loonies of the climate "sceptic" camp want everybody to believe that the BBC is guilty of "bias". Naughtily, you see, the BBC occasionally reports on the science. And that always infuriates the deniers. They're just like anti-wind nimbies, you see. Their opinion matters more than the evidence. If they had their way, the BBC (and all other media outlets) would be banned from covering hugely important issues like climate change and we'd all be none the wiser. As it is, any attempt by the BBC to report and explain the science leads to vociferous demands for "balance" and the "alternative" point-of-view. It's rather as if any programme about the Holocaust would have to be "balanced" by a noisy rant from the nutters who deny that the Holocaust ever happened.
Although the BBC haven't bothered publishing it, the response to Lawson's idiotic denialism they commissioned from Mark Brandon, an Open University polar oceanographer and scientific script consultant to the Frozen Planet series, was unequivocal. Lawson's attempts at undermining Sir David Attenborough, the BBC and the science of climate change were just plain wrong, "patronising in tone" and "the usual tired obfuscation and generalisation".
The BBC haven't dared to confront Lawson with the facts but the Open University has published a piece calmly explaining - using science - why Nigel Lawson was so stupefyingly wrong. It's here:
http://www8.open.ac.uk/platform/news-and-features/the-science-behind-climate-change-explained
The sad thing is that, for as long as wealthy but delusional twerps like Lawson and his climate change denying mates keep pumping out their inaccurate nonsense - like the "Renewable Energy Foundation" with its constant misleading attacks on windpower - the longer those few selfish types who don't fancy glimpsing a wind turbine from time to time can continue to convince themselves that nothing needs to be done. If there's no such thing as man-made climate change, then we don't need renewables, so we don't need a windfarm a couple of miles away from the gazebo. What Lawson and his drones are preaching is a great big dangerous lie, which helps to fuel all those other lies about windpower, recycling, sustainability, etc., etc.
We've said it before: the problem with one lie (climate change isn't happening) is that it leads to so many others (we don't need windfarms/windfarms don't work/it's all just a subsidy scam ...)
So here's an idea. Let's stop telling lies. Shall we, nimbies everywhere? For the good of everybody, and most of all our children?
Wouldn't it be lovely? - if the climate change sceptics and the anti-wind loonies and all the others who think they're more important than anybody else all just stopped telling fibs.
Then we might start getting somewhere.
In the meantime, here's Tony Juniper's response to the poorly-researched BBC Panorama programme from the other week about green energy. Makes you wonder in which direction the BBC really might be "biased".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28jjWyaeNUI&feature=youtu.be
Tuesday 6 December 2011
WHO'S STEERING THIS SHIP?
Through much of the nimby madness of the Battle for Lenchwick Windfarm, the frothy-mouthed sclerotic terrorists of VVASP were praying for a Conservative victory in the 2010 general election.
They weren't taken in by David Cameron's everso slimy claims about leading "the greenest government ever". One would also hope that they weren't so completely bonkers that they actually believed their own guff about windfarms being part of some madcap leftwing conspiracy organised by Gordon Brown and the EU (although one can't be too sure - there were a lot of people believing a lot of very mad things back then). No. They wanted a Tory government - a) because most of them are Tories anyway, and b) because if you're looking for craven hypocrisy and outright opportunism, look no further than the Conservative Party of Great Britain.
Individual Tory MPs feel free to play both sides of the windfarm debate. Take Neil Carmichael, for example. The Tory MP for Stroud (sic) is smarmying up to his nastier voters by opposing a windfarm in Berkeley Vale. Meanwhile, the same Tory MP is actively trying to get a windfarm built on his own farm in Northumberland. He'd make money from it, see? So it's one rule for down south and another for up north - or, if you prefer, two different kinds of blatant self-interest: be against windfarms where there are votes in it for you, but be for windfarms where you stand to make a profit from them.
As we know only too well, other Tory MPs (such as the not-terribly-bright one for Redditch) are perfectly happy to stand up and spout lies handed to them by their local nimbies in the hopes of retaining their majority. Yes - lies. Falsified figures about public opinion. Lies.
Even Cameron himself has been known to spout the odd nugget of anti-windfarm gibberish to appease the Daily Mail readers, even though he's perfectly familiar with the convenient truth about windfarms (his father-in-law has one on the family estate, dontcha know?)
So the nasty nimbies of Lench reckoned they'd be onto a safe bet if the Tories got in at the last election. A little hypocrisy goes a long way, and a public servant who is prepared to lie to the planning committee, well, that's money in the bank to the nimbies.
But recent findings are showing just how out-of-control the coalition government really is. Thanks to a number of Freedom of Information requests submitted by Caroline Lucas (a real MP), we now know that the oil and nuclear industries have almost completely infiltrated the coalition government:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/05/energy-companies-lend-staff-government
More than fifty employees of the oil and nuclear industries have been working for "free" for periods of up to two years in the government departments responsible for energy. Not one of these "seconded" employees works for the renewables industry.
It is hardly a surprise, then, to discover that the government co-operated with nuclear power companies to "control" the UK news coverage of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima earlier this year. Nor that the government shared intelligence with nuclear power companies regarding its legal battle with Greenpeace. Nor that an unprecedented alliance of environmentalist and countryside groups has attacked George Osborne for putting the government "on a path to becoming the most environmentally destructive government to hold power in this country since the modern environmental movement was born".
Astonishingly, at a time when even insurance companies are beginning to respond to the problems of climate change (Boston Globe 30 November 2011) while hundreds of the world's biggest companies (including Tesco, Shell, BSkyB and Lloyds Bank) demand a global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the UK's Met Office releases the latest detailed and really rather scary studies of climate change in 24 countries (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/policy-relevant/obs-projections-impacts) and the BBC is about to screen Sir David Attenborough's Frozen Planet episode about the perceptable realities of climate change (the one that viewers in America are not allowed to watch), the renewable energy industry in the UK is struggling.
Increasingly, apart from a few barking exceptions like Nigel Lawson, the world is waking up to the enormous problems that lie just over the horizon. But what is our government doing? Letting the most polluting, most expensive and most dangerous of all the power industries dictate our energy policy.
Maybe that's why the nimby nutters were so desperate for a Tory government. After all, a bunch of myopic, money-minded, thick, selfish liars is bound to want a similar bunch to be their "democratically elected" representatives.
Who cares what it costs us all - the country, the future, our children, the planet - as long as our view of the Malverns isn't affected in any way? Just keep the lies and the backhanders coming, folks, and we can all go down together.
They weren't taken in by David Cameron's everso slimy claims about leading "the greenest government ever". One would also hope that they weren't so completely bonkers that they actually believed their own guff about windfarms being part of some madcap leftwing conspiracy organised by Gordon Brown and the EU (although one can't be too sure - there were a lot of people believing a lot of very mad things back then). No. They wanted a Tory government - a) because most of them are Tories anyway, and b) because if you're looking for craven hypocrisy and outright opportunism, look no further than the Conservative Party of Great Britain.
Individual Tory MPs feel free to play both sides of the windfarm debate. Take Neil Carmichael, for example. The Tory MP for Stroud (sic) is smarmying up to his nastier voters by opposing a windfarm in Berkeley Vale. Meanwhile, the same Tory MP is actively trying to get a windfarm built on his own farm in Northumberland. He'd make money from it, see? So it's one rule for down south and another for up north - or, if you prefer, two different kinds of blatant self-interest: be against windfarms where there are votes in it for you, but be for windfarms where you stand to make a profit from them.
As we know only too well, other Tory MPs (such as the not-terribly-bright one for Redditch) are perfectly happy to stand up and spout lies handed to them by their local nimbies in the hopes of retaining their majority. Yes - lies. Falsified figures about public opinion. Lies.
Even Cameron himself has been known to spout the odd nugget of anti-windfarm gibberish to appease the Daily Mail readers, even though he's perfectly familiar with the convenient truth about windfarms (his father-in-law has one on the family estate, dontcha know?)
So the nasty nimbies of Lench reckoned they'd be onto a safe bet if the Tories got in at the last election. A little hypocrisy goes a long way, and a public servant who is prepared to lie to the planning committee, well, that's money in the bank to the nimbies.
But recent findings are showing just how out-of-control the coalition government really is. Thanks to a number of Freedom of Information requests submitted by Caroline Lucas (a real MP), we now know that the oil and nuclear industries have almost completely infiltrated the coalition government:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/05/energy-companies-lend-staff-government
More than fifty employees of the oil and nuclear industries have been working for "free" for periods of up to two years in the government departments responsible for energy. Not one of these "seconded" employees works for the renewables industry.
It is hardly a surprise, then, to discover that the government co-operated with nuclear power companies to "control" the UK news coverage of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima earlier this year. Nor that the government shared intelligence with nuclear power companies regarding its legal battle with Greenpeace. Nor that an unprecedented alliance of environmentalist and countryside groups has attacked George Osborne for putting the government "on a path to becoming the most environmentally destructive government to hold power in this country since the modern environmental movement was born".
Astonishingly, at a time when even insurance companies are beginning to respond to the problems of climate change (Boston Globe 30 November 2011) while hundreds of the world's biggest companies (including Tesco, Shell, BSkyB and Lloyds Bank) demand a global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the UK's Met Office releases the latest detailed and really rather scary studies of climate change in 24 countries (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/policy-relevant/obs-projections-impacts) and the BBC is about to screen Sir David Attenborough's Frozen Planet episode about the perceptable realities of climate change (the one that viewers in America are not allowed to watch), the renewable energy industry in the UK is struggling.
Increasingly, apart from a few barking exceptions like Nigel Lawson, the world is waking up to the enormous problems that lie just over the horizon. But what is our government doing? Letting the most polluting, most expensive and most dangerous of all the power industries dictate our energy policy.
Maybe that's why the nimby nutters were so desperate for a Tory government. After all, a bunch of myopic, money-minded, thick, selfish liars is bound to want a similar bunch to be their "democratically elected" representatives.
Who cares what it costs us all - the country, the future, our children, the planet - as long as our view of the Malverns isn't affected in any way? Just keep the lies and the backhanders coming, folks, and we can all go down together.
Monday 28 November 2011
VICTIMOLOGY
The world of the nimby is an upside-down one.
They claim to be trying to "save" our "green and pleasant" land from the "curse" of windfarms. This is not to say that they are trying to protect the environment in any way, but rather that they are seeking to preserve the "landscape" - i.e., the view from the end of their driveways. And yet, every responsible agency recognises that the real threat to our environment, which includes the rural landscape, is posed by global warming and the attendant problems of climate change, to which windfarms are part of the solution.
In other words, rather like the American general who famously believed that it was necessary to destroy Vietnamese villages in order to save them, the nimby fringe is seeking to "save" the countryside by destroying it.
Much the same can be said of the rural communities into which most of these nimby loudmouths have recently moved. In order to "save" their communities (from windfarms which have a proven track record of benefiting local communities), they are willing to destroy those very communities by setting neighbour against neighbour, spreading unnecessary fear and confusion and driving down the local property market with their obscene and hysterical placards.
But perhaps nowhere is the paranoia of nimbydom, with all its logical inconsistencies, more apparent than in the determination of the nimbies to cast themselves as the victims.
Victims of what, you might well ask? Well, usually they try to present themselves as the victims of some terrible conspiracy. This involves energy companies (including the small, eco-friendly ones and the co-operatives), national government and the EU. Oh, and probably those parts of the media which do not constantly broadcast a shrill nimby message of inaccurate propaganda. And anyone else who disagrees with them (like the UN and the RSPB).
This myth of victimhood is remarkable for a number of reasons. Look at any nimby campaign - and the behaviour of VVASP (Vale Villages Against Scottish Power) in the Lenches is a typical, if somewhat extreme example - and you'll soon notice that the real aggressors are the nimbies themselves. They are the ones publishing lies with the sole intent of misleading and scaring other people. They are the ones bullying their neighbours into conformity with the "consensus" or silence if they happen to know what they're talking about. They are the ones holding noisy demonstrations, making false claims and misrepresenting the facts.
It could be argued that adopting the role of "victim" is all part of the inherent dishonesty of their campaigning tactics. They want people to form the impression that a small bunch of peace-loving villagers are being crushed under foot by powerful, nebulous and unaccountable forces. It's all nonsense, of course, but you could be forgiven for thinking that this is all part of the anti-progress, anti-common sense, anti-everything game.
But it's not as simple as that. The neo-conservative ideology that came in with Thatcher and Reagan and just refuses to go away excels in the paranoid artform of victimology. In the parallel universe inhabited by these reactionary fools, the aggressor is always the victim. There are, for example, those on the British right who like to believe that Britain is the only country currently doing anything to curb CO2 emissions by forcing non-existent subsidies down the throats of energy companies in order to crowd the landscape with windfarms that "don't work". It takes an enormous leap of faith and a blithe willingness to ignore all the reliable evidence to believe any of that. But that's just the point. In this weird age created by neo-conservative loonies, faith or opinion count for a great deal more than hard fact and actual evidence.
Indeed, the very word "fact" has been up-ended by the nimbies and their right-wing ideologues. Take the VVASP campaign again - it relied entirely on opinions which it claimed were "FACTS". The real facts - objective, demonstrable facts - were shouted down. What one deranged lunatic chose to believe, or simply wanted everyone else to believe, became the new FACT. Anything else, such as evidence, data and the personal testimonies of those who knew better, was descried as some sort of propaganda.
The reality is that the creation of an upside-down world in which the aggressors are the victims, opinions become FACTS and real facts are dismissed as proganda is essential to the nimby mindset. By and large, they are rather privileged people (of course they are: they've been able to afford to move into desirable rural areas, where many of them keep their second homes, which they visit only at the weekends, and by doing so they price the real local people out of the market). Quite how this degree of privilege (which, of course, they insist is solely the result of "hard work") equates with victimhood is hard to determine. Especially when they go on to victimise their new neighbours by imposing their own form of nimby martial law on the area.
The weird thing, though, is that these people actually do think of themselves as victims. Forget the fact that almost everyone else is suffering much more than they are, or that their acts of belligerence, intolerance and aggression create yet more suffering, and that their insistence on fighting anything which might affect the view from the upstairs windows of their second home will have grave consequences for the next generation ... no, all that matters to these selfish, self-important nimby types is that THEY are the REAL victims.
Sadder still, those communities which have ended up hosting windfarms have almost invariably accepted that they were wrong about such nimby myths as "noise" and the government's guidelines - ETSU-R-97 - being "out-of-date" and "unfit for purpose". They very quickly realise that real operational windfarms (unlike the mad dreams of the nimbies) are actually quite enjoyable. They bring tranquility to an area, enhance the landscape, and prove to be a financial boon to the immediate neighbourhood (all of these statements have been made by Britons living in close proximity to windfarms). Kids, in particular, love them. All the nimby lies turn out to have been nothing but lies - self-serving lies designed to prevent necessary, desirable and beneficial change.
Ultimately, this proves that one of the biggest nimby lies of them all is that anti-windfarm protesters are "victims". How can you be the victim of something that will bring real benefits to your local area while doing no quantifiable harm to anyone or anything?
How can you claim to be trying to "protect" the countryside (where you bought your second home a year or two ago) from something that will do more to protect the real environment than anything you will ever do yourself?
The answer to these questions can only be that telling lies, misrepresenting the facts and posing as something you are quite definitely not are all second nature to the nimby class in this country.
And yet we're letting these delusional, hypocritical, vicious and aggressive liars dictate our energy and climate change policies in the UK.
No wonder the rest of the world is advancing while we're pretty much staying put. Seems the nimbies are not just false victims - they're genuine traitors, too.
They claim to be trying to "save" our "green and pleasant" land from the "curse" of windfarms. This is not to say that they are trying to protect the environment in any way, but rather that they are seeking to preserve the "landscape" - i.e., the view from the end of their driveways. And yet, every responsible agency recognises that the real threat to our environment, which includes the rural landscape, is posed by global warming and the attendant problems of climate change, to which windfarms are part of the solution.
In other words, rather like the American general who famously believed that it was necessary to destroy Vietnamese villages in order to save them, the nimby fringe is seeking to "save" the countryside by destroying it.
Much the same can be said of the rural communities into which most of these nimby loudmouths have recently moved. In order to "save" their communities (from windfarms which have a proven track record of benefiting local communities), they are willing to destroy those very communities by setting neighbour against neighbour, spreading unnecessary fear and confusion and driving down the local property market with their obscene and hysterical placards.
But perhaps nowhere is the paranoia of nimbydom, with all its logical inconsistencies, more apparent than in the determination of the nimbies to cast themselves as the victims.
Victims of what, you might well ask? Well, usually they try to present themselves as the victims of some terrible conspiracy. This involves energy companies (including the small, eco-friendly ones and the co-operatives), national government and the EU. Oh, and probably those parts of the media which do not constantly broadcast a shrill nimby message of inaccurate propaganda. And anyone else who disagrees with them (like the UN and the RSPB).
This myth of victimhood is remarkable for a number of reasons. Look at any nimby campaign - and the behaviour of VVASP (Vale Villages Against Scottish Power) in the Lenches is a typical, if somewhat extreme example - and you'll soon notice that the real aggressors are the nimbies themselves. They are the ones publishing lies with the sole intent of misleading and scaring other people. They are the ones bullying their neighbours into conformity with the "consensus" or silence if they happen to know what they're talking about. They are the ones holding noisy demonstrations, making false claims and misrepresenting the facts.
It could be argued that adopting the role of "victim" is all part of the inherent dishonesty of their campaigning tactics. They want people to form the impression that a small bunch of peace-loving villagers are being crushed under foot by powerful, nebulous and unaccountable forces. It's all nonsense, of course, but you could be forgiven for thinking that this is all part of the anti-progress, anti-common sense, anti-everything game.
But it's not as simple as that. The neo-conservative ideology that came in with Thatcher and Reagan and just refuses to go away excels in the paranoid artform of victimology. In the parallel universe inhabited by these reactionary fools, the aggressor is always the victim. There are, for example, those on the British right who like to believe that Britain is the only country currently doing anything to curb CO2 emissions by forcing non-existent subsidies down the throats of energy companies in order to crowd the landscape with windfarms that "don't work". It takes an enormous leap of faith and a blithe willingness to ignore all the reliable evidence to believe any of that. But that's just the point. In this weird age created by neo-conservative loonies, faith or opinion count for a great deal more than hard fact and actual evidence.
Indeed, the very word "fact" has been up-ended by the nimbies and their right-wing ideologues. Take the VVASP campaign again - it relied entirely on opinions which it claimed were "FACTS". The real facts - objective, demonstrable facts - were shouted down. What one deranged lunatic chose to believe, or simply wanted everyone else to believe, became the new FACT. Anything else, such as evidence, data and the personal testimonies of those who knew better, was descried as some sort of propaganda.
The reality is that the creation of an upside-down world in which the aggressors are the victims, opinions become FACTS and real facts are dismissed as proganda is essential to the nimby mindset. By and large, they are rather privileged people (of course they are: they've been able to afford to move into desirable rural areas, where many of them keep their second homes, which they visit only at the weekends, and by doing so they price the real local people out of the market). Quite how this degree of privilege (which, of course, they insist is solely the result of "hard work") equates with victimhood is hard to determine. Especially when they go on to victimise their new neighbours by imposing their own form of nimby martial law on the area.
The weird thing, though, is that these people actually do think of themselves as victims. Forget the fact that almost everyone else is suffering much more than they are, or that their acts of belligerence, intolerance and aggression create yet more suffering, and that their insistence on fighting anything which might affect the view from the upstairs windows of their second home will have grave consequences for the next generation ... no, all that matters to these selfish, self-important nimby types is that THEY are the REAL victims.
Sadder still, those communities which have ended up hosting windfarms have almost invariably accepted that they were wrong about such nimby myths as "noise" and the government's guidelines - ETSU-R-97 - being "out-of-date" and "unfit for purpose". They very quickly realise that real operational windfarms (unlike the mad dreams of the nimbies) are actually quite enjoyable. They bring tranquility to an area, enhance the landscape, and prove to be a financial boon to the immediate neighbourhood (all of these statements have been made by Britons living in close proximity to windfarms). Kids, in particular, love them. All the nimby lies turn out to have been nothing but lies - self-serving lies designed to prevent necessary, desirable and beneficial change.
Ultimately, this proves that one of the biggest nimby lies of them all is that anti-windfarm protesters are "victims". How can you be the victim of something that will bring real benefits to your local area while doing no quantifiable harm to anyone or anything?
How can you claim to be trying to "protect" the countryside (where you bought your second home a year or two ago) from something that will do more to protect the real environment than anything you will ever do yourself?
The answer to these questions can only be that telling lies, misrepresenting the facts and posing as something you are quite definitely not are all second nature to the nimby class in this country.
And yet we're letting these delusional, hypocritical, vicious and aggressive liars dictate our energy and climate change policies in the UK.
No wonder the rest of the world is advancing while we're pretty much staying put. Seems the nimbies are not just false victims - they're genuine traitors, too.
Friday 25 November 2011
SUBSIDING SUBSIDIES
According to the new patron saint of nimbies, Philip the Intolerant, windfarms are "absolutely useless" and "completely reliant on subsidies".
You know, if you try asking a nimby about these subsidies, they tend to go a bit blank. Lots of waffle but no answers.
You'd think, would you not, that if the British government were so keen to subsidise wind power it would also be doing something to straighten out our crooked planning system, so that a small bunch of local loudmouths with honesty issues couldn't derail these important developments. Think about it: why would the UK subsidise windfarms if it can't be bothered to support them through the planning process?
Actually, there are no direct government subsidies for windfarms. There are no subsidies for windfarms during the planning stage, nor during the installation stage.
When a windfarm becomes operational and starts producing electricity, then - and only then - does it qualify for ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates). These are payable only on the basis of the amount of electricity actually generated (so windfarms have to "work" in order to qualify for these "subsidies"). And it's not a subsidy because it has nothing whatever to do with the taxpayer. The entire energy industry is reponsible for paying these ROCs (to all renewables, not just wind), which are funded by a small supplement on energy bills. So where's the subsidy?
Hmmnn ... interesting, isn't it? If windfarms really were "completely reliant on subsidies", then there would surely be some subsidies for them to be completely reliant upon. So when you find out that there aren't any - only a system whereby windfarm operators are compensated for the fact that other energy sources (gas, oil, nuclear) are or have been so heavily subsidised - then you do have to ask yourself, "What is all this nonsense the nimbies keep talking about subsidies???"
Another interesting fact about "subsidies" is that generally, nimbies are very happy to receive subsidies for their own things - such as the grants awarded to fund the Lenches Sports and Recreation Club - but totally opposed to subsidies for anybody else's things (such as ensuring energy security and low carbon energy sources for future generations). It's something of an age-old problem. The arch-reactionaries of Nimbyville want socialism for themselves and capitalism for everybody else. Subsidies for the things they want and a complete absence of subsidies for the things that don't appeal to them.
Which should make them very happy with the lack of direct government subsidies for windfarms.
Still, that doesn't explain why the nutty nimby fraudsters keep banging on about the non-existent subsidies for wind power, does it? So what's going on?
It's a fact of life that if you tell one lie, you usually end up telling another, and then another, and then another one on top of that. Nimbies start out with the lie that windfarms "don't work" (or, in the language of St Philip of Little England, they're "absolutely useless").
At which point an intelligent observer might ask why so many parts of the world are investing so heavily in wind energy. If windfarms are "absolutely useless", why are countries like the USA, China, Australia, India, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Denmark, France, and so on, and so on, installing so many of them?
This must have stumped the manic nimby nonsense-mongers, until one of them came up with the magic answer:
Subsidies!!!
Windfarms are only built because of subsidies (which don't exist)!
Not the good subsidies, you understand - the sort that pay for all those lovely exclusive middle-class things that the nimbies want - but BAD SUBSIDIES, like the sort that go to asylum seekers, the jobless, or injured war veterans.
Unfortunately, the market doesn't seem to agree with these two-faced nimbies. Renewable energy is now the world's fastest growing energy sector. Which is a good thing, because without renewables, we are going to be in serious trouble.
Take a look at this:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2127695/iea-renewables-fastest-growing-energy-sector
Now ask yourself, how long has nuclear power been receiving huge subsidies? Why do governments subsidise the fossil fuel-based energy sector to the tune of $409 billion a year? And how impressive is it that relatively new renewable technologies are already achieving grid parity (i.e. cost effectiveness) in comparison with the dirty dinosaurs of gas, oil, coal and nuclear?
Like every other argument advanced by the lunatics of the NF (Nimby Fringe), the subsidies argument is nothing but hogwash.
Governments and markets all over the world have recognised a crucial fact: renewables are the primary energy resource of the 21st century and we'd better hurry up with them or else.
Which unfortunately leaves the nasty nimbies of Middle England barking at the moon and dragging us all down into the hell of their own narrow-minded selfishness and their insane willingness to terrorise their neighbours, just so that the view from their bathroom window is not in any way affected by the appearance of an elegant wind turbine quietly turning away in the distance.
It's sad, but true: nimbies are sick people. They're a danger to themselves and to everybody else. They should be locked in a room with Prince Philip and not let out, even when they're banging on the door and begging for forgiveness.
You know, if you try asking a nimby about these subsidies, they tend to go a bit blank. Lots of waffle but no answers.
You'd think, would you not, that if the British government were so keen to subsidise wind power it would also be doing something to straighten out our crooked planning system, so that a small bunch of local loudmouths with honesty issues couldn't derail these important developments. Think about it: why would the UK subsidise windfarms if it can't be bothered to support them through the planning process?
Actually, there are no direct government subsidies for windfarms. There are no subsidies for windfarms during the planning stage, nor during the installation stage.
When a windfarm becomes operational and starts producing electricity, then - and only then - does it qualify for ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates). These are payable only on the basis of the amount of electricity actually generated (so windfarms have to "work" in order to qualify for these "subsidies"). And it's not a subsidy because it has nothing whatever to do with the taxpayer. The entire energy industry is reponsible for paying these ROCs (to all renewables, not just wind), which are funded by a small supplement on energy bills. So where's the subsidy?
Hmmnn ... interesting, isn't it? If windfarms really were "completely reliant on subsidies", then there would surely be some subsidies for them to be completely reliant upon. So when you find out that there aren't any - only a system whereby windfarm operators are compensated for the fact that other energy sources (gas, oil, nuclear) are or have been so heavily subsidised - then you do have to ask yourself, "What is all this nonsense the nimbies keep talking about subsidies???"
Another interesting fact about "subsidies" is that generally, nimbies are very happy to receive subsidies for their own things - such as the grants awarded to fund the Lenches Sports and Recreation Club - but totally opposed to subsidies for anybody else's things (such as ensuring energy security and low carbon energy sources for future generations). It's something of an age-old problem. The arch-reactionaries of Nimbyville want socialism for themselves and capitalism for everybody else. Subsidies for the things they want and a complete absence of subsidies for the things that don't appeal to them.
Which should make them very happy with the lack of direct government subsidies for windfarms.
Still, that doesn't explain why the nutty nimby fraudsters keep banging on about the non-existent subsidies for wind power, does it? So what's going on?
It's a fact of life that if you tell one lie, you usually end up telling another, and then another, and then another one on top of that. Nimbies start out with the lie that windfarms "don't work" (or, in the language of St Philip of Little England, they're "absolutely useless").
At which point an intelligent observer might ask why so many parts of the world are investing so heavily in wind energy. If windfarms are "absolutely useless", why are countries like the USA, China, Australia, India, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Denmark, France, and so on, and so on, installing so many of them?
This must have stumped the manic nimby nonsense-mongers, until one of them came up with the magic answer:
Subsidies!!!
Windfarms are only built because of subsidies (which don't exist)!
Not the good subsidies, you understand - the sort that pay for all those lovely exclusive middle-class things that the nimbies want - but BAD SUBSIDIES, like the sort that go to asylum seekers, the jobless, or injured war veterans.
Unfortunately, the market doesn't seem to agree with these two-faced nimbies. Renewable energy is now the world's fastest growing energy sector. Which is a good thing, because without renewables, we are going to be in serious trouble.
Take a look at this:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2127695/iea-renewables-fastest-growing-energy-sector
Now ask yourself, how long has nuclear power been receiving huge subsidies? Why do governments subsidise the fossil fuel-based energy sector to the tune of $409 billion a year? And how impressive is it that relatively new renewable technologies are already achieving grid parity (i.e. cost effectiveness) in comparison with the dirty dinosaurs of gas, oil, coal and nuclear?
Like every other argument advanced by the lunatics of the NF (Nimby Fringe), the subsidies argument is nothing but hogwash.
Governments and markets all over the world have recognised a crucial fact: renewables are the primary energy resource of the 21st century and we'd better hurry up with them or else.
Which unfortunately leaves the nasty nimbies of Middle England barking at the moon and dragging us all down into the hell of their own narrow-minded selfishness and their insane willingness to terrorise their neighbours, just so that the view from their bathroom window is not in any way affected by the appearance of an elegant wind turbine quietly turning away in the distance.
It's sad, but true: nimbies are sick people. They're a danger to themselves and to everybody else. They should be locked in a room with Prince Philip and not let out, even when they're banging on the door and begging for forgiveness.
Wednesday 23 November 2011
DUPLICRACY - HOW IT WORKS
We saw recently how the Duke of Edinburgh had been doing his bit to preserve the duplicracy of lies when it comes to one of the most pressing problems we face in this country. But that was mere foolishness on the Duke's behalf. It was the kind of kneejerk prejudice that is spawned by ignorance. He opened his mouth and out came a load of poppycock.
Shame. But then, he is getting on a bit.
So now we turn our attention to some more dangerous groups - the sort who openly practice the arts of duplicity in order to maintain the duplicracy which keeps people here in the UK in a state of bewildered ignorance (like Prince Philip).
We've mentioned the hideously misnamed Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) before. You'd think that they were somehow involved in advancing the case for renewables, wouldn't you? But no: in the upside-down world of the duplicracy, REF seem to believe that all forms of renewable energy are equal, but some are more equal than others.
This appeared recently, and it's well worth a read:
http://www.eaem.co.uk/news/renewable-energy-foundation-front-biofuel-and-energy-intensive-industries-and-anti-wind-campaig
An interesting article, we're sure you'll agree. The Renewable Energy Foundation was founded by Noel Edmonds, who likes racing cars and helicopters. And its chairman and trustees all look suspiciously like the sort of people who - how shall we put it? - who might be quite eager to damage the reputation of wind energy. Having a go at the competition, you might call it. Lobbying for industries which don't do much to help our environmental problems is another way of putting it.
Then again, you could argue that simply by calling themselves the Renewable Energy Foundation and leaking biased, one-sided and woefully inaccurate information about windfarms comes under the heading of LYING. Posing as a charity - something which the Charity Commission has already had to have a word with them about - this group of oily industrialists feeds anti-windfarm claptrap to the right-wing press. Nimby groups up and down the country (some of which also play fast and loose with the rules governing charities) lap up REF's misleading nonsense. They quote REF's latest anti-wind gobbledegook and your average punter thinks, "Oooh, that came from the Renewable Energy Foundation, a serious-sounding organisation which by the look of it is in favour of renewables ... so it must be true!"
Well, folks, it isn't. REF is squarely at the heart of the duplicracy. It's a front for the very interests which are trying to destroy the wind energy sector.
Ever been had? If you believed anything you were told which came from the "Renewable Energy Foundation", then yes, you were.
Moving on. Here's a statistic. Climate Scientists who doubt that climate change is man-made: less than 1%. Members of the public who doubt that climate change is man-made: 60%.
60% of people don't believe the scientists. The scientists have been in a state of panic about rising global temperatures and the imminent problems that will cause for some time. But there are many dupes out there who actually think that there is some "uncertainty" as to whether climate change is even happening at all!
(Pretending that there is "doubt" about something or other is a standard nimby tactic. Remember the Beeston and Clifton wind turbine awareness group, which has set itself up to keep Nottingham people in the dark about wind turbines? They tried to make out that there was "conflicting" evidence about the impact of wind turbines on house prices. There isn't. But it is a duplicratic trick to make out that there is. If you can't prove your point, pretend that the jury is out. Confuse matters. Make false claims and then pretend that everybody's doing it. Nimby SOPs.)
Even the BBC is beginning to cave in to the dictats of the duplicrats. Sir David Attenborough's highly-acclaimed Frozen Planet series now exists in two forms. The United States has chosen to buy the slightly shorter version of the series, which omits the programme dealing with climate change. Mustn't upset the Tea Party Republicans, Fox News or the Christian Right - even if it is Britain's most revered and respected broadcaster presenting the facts in his calm, considered way. Duplicracy, see? Let Noel Edmonds fund an outrageously disingenuous 'foundation' dedicated to supporting anti-windfarm groups and the "noise consultants" who work for them, but on no account let Sir David Attenborough tell us about what climate change is doing.
One of the worst offenders for misleading the right-wing press and the public alike about the LOOMING CRISIS of climate change is Nigel Lawson's egregious Global Warming Policy Foundation. This godawful group exists solely to spread lies about climate change.
Even Energy Minister Chris Huhne has been moved to write to Lawson, telling him his bunch of duplicitous idiots is "misinformed" and "perverse". In terms of parliamentary language, that's pretty strong. What he meant, in plain English, is that they are a mixed-up, messed-up, dangerously deluded pack of liars.
Read all about it here:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2127189/huhne-blasts-lord-lawsons-misguided-climate-sceptic
Note that various stories given out by Lawson's crap-meisters and lovingly published by right-wing papers have then had to be corrected because they were untrue ("relying on overstated figures"). Go further down and you'll see that Lawson is related to Christopher Monckton, whose weird neo-fascist assaults on the truth go down so well in certain parts of the States and Australia.
Now, the whole point about science is that it should be queried, tested, checked and occasionally challenged. That's how science works. But then there's the Flat Earth approach, which chucks all science out of the window if any of it conflicts with its brainless absolutism. Nigel Lawson was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher and so he believes in rewarding the wealthy and pursuing unrestricted "economic growth" regardless of the costs. He doesn't want to believe that the irresponsible behaviour of the wealthy and the "economic growth" unleashed by an unregulated "free" market is causing catastrophic problems which are imperilling the very future of human society. And because he doesn't want to believe that his own actions have contributed to an unprecedented global emergency, he doesn't want you to believe in climate change either.
So he sets up a group which looks like it might be concerning itself with the evidence of global warming and the sort of policies we need to deal with those effects, but does the absolute opposite. He LIES to you about climate change. He tries to pretend that there is some "doubt".
That's duplicracy, that is. That's those with wealth and short-term outlooks masquerading as impartial experts and spreading lies so that they can go on behaving irresponsibly, making sure that the obvious, necessary, and indeed rather desirable solutions are not applied. Lying through their teeth to confuse you.
Welcome to Britain in the 21st century, where those with the financial resources to do so are determined to fool you into sacrificing your childrens' futures.
This is the age of duplicracy. The rule of the lie. The rise of the nimby.
Shame. But then, he is getting on a bit.
So now we turn our attention to some more dangerous groups - the sort who openly practice the arts of duplicity in order to maintain the duplicracy which keeps people here in the UK in a state of bewildered ignorance (like Prince Philip).
We've mentioned the hideously misnamed Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) before. You'd think that they were somehow involved in advancing the case for renewables, wouldn't you? But no: in the upside-down world of the duplicracy, REF seem to believe that all forms of renewable energy are equal, but some are more equal than others.
This appeared recently, and it's well worth a read:
http://www.eaem.co.uk/news/renewable-energy-foundation-front-biofuel-and-energy-intensive-industries-and-anti-wind-campaig
An interesting article, we're sure you'll agree. The Renewable Energy Foundation was founded by Noel Edmonds, who likes racing cars and helicopters. And its chairman and trustees all look suspiciously like the sort of people who - how shall we put it? - who might be quite eager to damage the reputation of wind energy. Having a go at the competition, you might call it. Lobbying for industries which don't do much to help our environmental problems is another way of putting it.
Then again, you could argue that simply by calling themselves the Renewable Energy Foundation and leaking biased, one-sided and woefully inaccurate information about windfarms comes under the heading of LYING. Posing as a charity - something which the Charity Commission has already had to have a word with them about - this group of oily industrialists feeds anti-windfarm claptrap to the right-wing press. Nimby groups up and down the country (some of which also play fast and loose with the rules governing charities) lap up REF's misleading nonsense. They quote REF's latest anti-wind gobbledegook and your average punter thinks, "Oooh, that came from the Renewable Energy Foundation, a serious-sounding organisation which by the look of it is in favour of renewables ... so it must be true!"
Well, folks, it isn't. REF is squarely at the heart of the duplicracy. It's a front for the very interests which are trying to destroy the wind energy sector.
Ever been had? If you believed anything you were told which came from the "Renewable Energy Foundation", then yes, you were.
Moving on. Here's a statistic. Climate Scientists who doubt that climate change is man-made: less than 1%. Members of the public who doubt that climate change is man-made: 60%.
60% of people don't believe the scientists. The scientists have been in a state of panic about rising global temperatures and the imminent problems that will cause for some time. But there are many dupes out there who actually think that there is some "uncertainty" as to whether climate change is even happening at all!
(Pretending that there is "doubt" about something or other is a standard nimby tactic. Remember the Beeston and Clifton wind turbine awareness group, which has set itself up to keep Nottingham people in the dark about wind turbines? They tried to make out that there was "conflicting" evidence about the impact of wind turbines on house prices. There isn't. But it is a duplicratic trick to make out that there is. If you can't prove your point, pretend that the jury is out. Confuse matters. Make false claims and then pretend that everybody's doing it. Nimby SOPs.)
Even the BBC is beginning to cave in to the dictats of the duplicrats. Sir David Attenborough's highly-acclaimed Frozen Planet series now exists in two forms. The United States has chosen to buy the slightly shorter version of the series, which omits the programme dealing with climate change. Mustn't upset the Tea Party Republicans, Fox News or the Christian Right - even if it is Britain's most revered and respected broadcaster presenting the facts in his calm, considered way. Duplicracy, see? Let Noel Edmonds fund an outrageously disingenuous 'foundation' dedicated to supporting anti-windfarm groups and the "noise consultants" who work for them, but on no account let Sir David Attenborough tell us about what climate change is doing.
One of the worst offenders for misleading the right-wing press and the public alike about the LOOMING CRISIS of climate change is Nigel Lawson's egregious Global Warming Policy Foundation. This godawful group exists solely to spread lies about climate change.
Even Energy Minister Chris Huhne has been moved to write to Lawson, telling him his bunch of duplicitous idiots is "misinformed" and "perverse". In terms of parliamentary language, that's pretty strong. What he meant, in plain English, is that they are a mixed-up, messed-up, dangerously deluded pack of liars.
Read all about it here:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2127189/huhne-blasts-lord-lawsons-misguided-climate-sceptic
Note that various stories given out by Lawson's crap-meisters and lovingly published by right-wing papers have then had to be corrected because they were untrue ("relying on overstated figures"). Go further down and you'll see that Lawson is related to Christopher Monckton, whose weird neo-fascist assaults on the truth go down so well in certain parts of the States and Australia.
Now, the whole point about science is that it should be queried, tested, checked and occasionally challenged. That's how science works. But then there's the Flat Earth approach, which chucks all science out of the window if any of it conflicts with its brainless absolutism. Nigel Lawson was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher and so he believes in rewarding the wealthy and pursuing unrestricted "economic growth" regardless of the costs. He doesn't want to believe that the irresponsible behaviour of the wealthy and the "economic growth" unleashed by an unregulated "free" market is causing catastrophic problems which are imperilling the very future of human society. And because he doesn't want to believe that his own actions have contributed to an unprecedented global emergency, he doesn't want you to believe in climate change either.
So he sets up a group which looks like it might be concerning itself with the evidence of global warming and the sort of policies we need to deal with those effects, but does the absolute opposite. He LIES to you about climate change. He tries to pretend that there is some "doubt".
That's duplicracy, that is. That's those with wealth and short-term outlooks masquerading as impartial experts and spreading lies so that they can go on behaving irresponsibly, making sure that the obvious, necessary, and indeed rather desirable solutions are not applied. Lying through their teeth to confuse you.
Welcome to Britain in the 21st century, where those with the financial resources to do so are determined to fool you into sacrificing your childrens' futures.
This is the age of duplicracy. The rule of the lie. The rise of the nimby.
Tuesday 22 November 2011
NIMBIES ACQUIRE ROYAL PATRON
That old North-South Divide just keeps on widening, folks.
Inspite of local opposition, the Scottish Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing, has given the go-ahead for the 33-turbine Strathy North windfarm in Sutherland. It will generate enough electricity to power twice the number of homes in Inverness and pour some £3.5 million into the local community (yes, the community that objected!), in addition to creating about 100 jobs. It will also help towards achieving Scotland's goal of achieving 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020.
Fantastic.
Just don't tell the Duke of Edinburgh. The good ole boy has not abandoned his predilection for insulting Johnny Foreigner. One of the latest victims of his atrocious lack of politesse was Esbjorn Wilmar, who introduced himself to Phil at a reception in London. As soon as the Duke heard that Mr Wilmar works for Infinergy, building and operating wind turbines, the gnarly old codger let rip. Apparently, the Duke of Edinburgh thinks windfarms are "absolutely useless" and "completely reliant on subsidies". Oh, and they "never work" and they're a "disgrace".
Now, maybe the Duke has got it in for onshore windfarms. The Crown Estate doesn't seem to have too many qualms about offshore windfarms. And perhaps the old boy had been chatting to his eldest son and wanted to get a bit of social-conscience-environmental-stuff off his chest. Then again, maybe he just reads the Daily Heil.
But Philip's ludicrous outburst only highlights the growing gap between Scotland (where renewables are going from strength to strength) and England (where nimby nutters rule). As the Duke of Edinburgh, of all places, we might have expected a more enlightened attitude - one based on what windfarms are actually doing, as opposed to a complete ignorance of wind power reality - but that might be too much to hope for. Prince Phil excels in being casually offensive. It's what he does. Otherwise, he's "absolutely useless" and "completely reliant on subsidies".
The Duke's witless remarks sparked a very interesting investigation of windfarm facts on the Guardian website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/nov/21/prince-philip-windfarms-useless
It's worth a look because it does delve into the FACTS behind the Prince's GUFF. Best of all, though, it includes a link to a very useful document. We'll put the link here for you:
http://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/file/common_concerns_about_wind_power.pdf
It's a report published by the Centre for Sustainable Energy and it examines some of the "common concerns" about windfarms.
Now, before any passing nimby goes a bit berserk because the report is published by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (as opposed to, say, the cynically misnamed Renewable Energy Foundation), let's be clear. The report is based on the latest peer-reviewed scientific and academic studies. It is probably the best resource for factual information - i.e., the sort that nimbies can't stand - about windfarms.
For example, it gives a good, clear and concise overview of the research into windfarms and property prices, thereby showing up the criminal irresponsibility of nimby groups who like to make out that windfarms are disastrous for the local housing market.
If only the Duke of Edinburgh had bothered to read something as informative as the Centre for Sustainable Energy's publication before shooting his mouth off. If only ...
Sadly, though, what passes for a "debate" about windpower in England is nothing of the sort. You get a few old farts talking idiotic claptrap. And then, too often drowned out by the wailing of the nimby fringe, there are the facts. Or "Scotland", if you prefer.
Inspite of local opposition, the Scottish Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing, has given the go-ahead for the 33-turbine Strathy North windfarm in Sutherland. It will generate enough electricity to power twice the number of homes in Inverness and pour some £3.5 million into the local community (yes, the community that objected!), in addition to creating about 100 jobs. It will also help towards achieving Scotland's goal of achieving 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020.
Fantastic.
Just don't tell the Duke of Edinburgh. The good ole boy has not abandoned his predilection for insulting Johnny Foreigner. One of the latest victims of his atrocious lack of politesse was Esbjorn Wilmar, who introduced himself to Phil at a reception in London. As soon as the Duke heard that Mr Wilmar works for Infinergy, building and operating wind turbines, the gnarly old codger let rip. Apparently, the Duke of Edinburgh thinks windfarms are "absolutely useless" and "completely reliant on subsidies". Oh, and they "never work" and they're a "disgrace".
Now, maybe the Duke has got it in for onshore windfarms. The Crown Estate doesn't seem to have too many qualms about offshore windfarms. And perhaps the old boy had been chatting to his eldest son and wanted to get a bit of social-conscience-environmental-stuff off his chest. Then again, maybe he just reads the Daily Heil.
But Philip's ludicrous outburst only highlights the growing gap between Scotland (where renewables are going from strength to strength) and England (where nimby nutters rule). As the Duke of Edinburgh, of all places, we might have expected a more enlightened attitude - one based on what windfarms are actually doing, as opposed to a complete ignorance of wind power reality - but that might be too much to hope for. Prince Phil excels in being casually offensive. It's what he does. Otherwise, he's "absolutely useless" and "completely reliant on subsidies".
The Duke's witless remarks sparked a very interesting investigation of windfarm facts on the Guardian website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/nov/21/prince-philip-windfarms-useless
It's worth a look because it does delve into the FACTS behind the Prince's GUFF. Best of all, though, it includes a link to a very useful document. We'll put the link here for you:
http://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/file/common_concerns_about_wind_power.pdf
It's a report published by the Centre for Sustainable Energy and it examines some of the "common concerns" about windfarms.
Now, before any passing nimby goes a bit berserk because the report is published by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (as opposed to, say, the cynically misnamed Renewable Energy Foundation), let's be clear. The report is based on the latest peer-reviewed scientific and academic studies. It is probably the best resource for factual information - i.e., the sort that nimbies can't stand - about windfarms.
For example, it gives a good, clear and concise overview of the research into windfarms and property prices, thereby showing up the criminal irresponsibility of nimby groups who like to make out that windfarms are disastrous for the local housing market.
If only the Duke of Edinburgh had bothered to read something as informative as the Centre for Sustainable Energy's publication before shooting his mouth off. If only ...
Sadly, though, what passes for a "debate" about windpower in England is nothing of the sort. You get a few old farts talking idiotic claptrap. And then, too often drowned out by the wailing of the nimby fringe, there are the facts. Or "Scotland", if you prefer.
Saturday 19 November 2011
TRUTH & LIES
We had such a positive response to our use of a quotation from Thomas Paine recently that we decided to treat you to another quote. This one's from Voltaire. We want to remind all those head-in-the-sand nimbies out there that a thing called the Enlightment happened. It ushered in the Age of Reason. The nimbies won't know much about that because they don't believe in reason or enlightenment. They believe in prejudice, lies and DO AS WE TELL YOU OR ELSE!!!
The first part of Voltaire's quote undoubtedly applies to the dreadful nimby movement which is allowing fanatics and demagogues to dictate their prejudices to all around them. We've seen recently how a handful of anti-wind nutters are trying to persuade their neighbours in Shropshire that the "Lorries carrying wind turbine parts are longer than an aircraft carrier." That, dear friends, is an absurdity. It is so untrue - so painfully, maniacally untrue - that only a complete idiot would believe them. But sadly, there are idiots aplenty in this country of ours. Some poor folk will trust their neighbours on this. They will endeavour to believe the (obvious) lie that vehicles longer than aircraft carriers will deliver wind turbine parts to their destination and probably damage your petunias in the process.
Another absurdity preached by the Shropshire loons is that wind turbines sound like aircraft taking off (we noted that the nimbies of Bridgnorth seem to have the hots for aircraft). Well, here's some lovely proof that the barking progress-deniers of Salop are lying through their sharpened fangs. No wind turbine sounds like an aircraft taking off. Check it out:
The windfarm shown here is a prime example of the positive benefits windfarms can bring to the countryside and the community. It's worth a watch for those of you who have not yet been fortunate enough to have a tour of an operational windfarm. Of course, there will be nimby lunatics who try to claim that the sound on this video has been artificially engineered somehow or other, by some process currently unknown to science, so that the turbines sound so blissfully quiet. But the truth is that windfarms are quiet - surprisingly so. And kids love them.
So the "making you believe absurdities" part of the story is plain for all to see. Anti-wind nimbies lie, and their lies aren't even very good lies. They're ridiculous. Which means that you'd have to be ridiculous yourself to be taken in.
Another example? Okay. Here's a mad group from the Nottingham area. Nottingham University is eager to install a couple of wind turbines which will do precisely what they're meant to do: generate lots of lovely clean, green energy, thereby saving a fortune and cutting down on CO2 emissions (which, in case you've been living in a nuclear bunker for the past decade or two, is what we are all meant to be doing). Typically, a few fruitcakes are trying to stop this perfectly sane and sensible development, and they're using all the usual dishonest tactics to further their grotesque ends:
Now, let's not bother with their hysterical attempts at investigative journalism regarding Yes2Wind. Let's just go to their "Why Should I Care?" link and click on "Property Prices".
Whoosh! Dear oh dear, what an astonishing outbreak of phoney do we find there? "There is a great deal of conflicting evidence regarding the impact of wind turbines on property prices", or so they tell us.
In fact, there's no conflicting evidence. There is the evidence - which is, as numerous surveys show, that windfarm proximity does not tend to have any long term negative impact on house prices and, if anything, benefits the local property market. And then there is the sort of gibberish that the nimbies come out with.
Take a look: they've even quoted that part of the RICS report which VVASP quoted as "evidence" that windfarms drive property prices down. VVASP were told by the Advertising Standards Authority that they could not continue using that same quote to make that same claim because it wasn't true! But the nimbies of Nottingham do not care that they are deliberately misleading their neighbours, making claims that other nimby groups have been banned from making. They want all and sundry to Believe an Absurdity.
Now, some of us know only too well what the Absurdity-Believers are capable of. And maybe Atrocities is a strong word. But when, as per VVASP, they form mobs, browbeat and intimidate their neighbours, deny open debate and forbid free speech, force democratic bodies to dance to their lunatic tune, and ruin their own communities by creating unnecessary fear and division, well, that kind of comes under the heading of "Atrocities". Atrocities all inspired and fuelled by Absurdities (or lies, as we prefer to call them).
And then there's the greater Atrocities, which are to do with the planet (our real home, as opposed to the expensive monstrosities with views of "unspoilt" countryside which the nimbies think of as their exclusive homes) and with future generations. Lying your head off in order to prevent urgent action being taken and thereby stopping harmless, beneficial developments which will improve matters considerably for the current generation and those yet to come ... that's an atrocity.
The children of the future will not thank you for having lead such a perverse and deluded crusade against the solution. Why should they? You preached absurdities in order to make others commit atrocities. And that's how you will be remembered.
Of course, it's always extremely difficult to figure out why these headcases continually argue against something that is so good for the environment (near and far), so good for local business, tourism and the property market, so good for kids (remember, VVASP kept trying to drop weird hints about the proximity of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm to a primary school, even though they could not prove that the turbines would pose any kind of threat whatsoever to the children), so good for everybody, in fact. Why would any sane (?) individual oppose - so fanatically, and so dishonestly - such a worthwhile thing?
This might suggest an answer:
That's it. Wind turbines are symbolic. Of the future. Of a better world.
And that's why the fascist fringe, the self-important nimby nutters of the world, are so dead set against them. All the Absurdities about noise, health, house prices, subsidies, intermittency, blah blah blah are simply sideshows - bogus excuses for opposing a Good Thing. The real reason they don't like them is because wind turbines remind them of their own failure to protect the countryside they claim to love and the children they pretend to be worried about.
Wind turbines simply remind these fools that driving gas-guzzlers, commuting stupid distances because you want to work in a city but boast that you have a place in the country, and all those other insanely wasteful activities are wrong.
In the mad world of the nimby, it's better to tell loud lies about the solution than admit that there's problem. And if that means tricking your neighbours into committing atrocities, well, so be it.
Monday 14 November 2011
MARKET FORCES
We've heard it all before. Wind power is "Too Expensive". Wind turbines are "Inefficient". You know the rest.
What is so odd about these pronouncements so routinely yelled out by the anti-wind mafia is that they take no account of the way things work. Technology develops (especially when there is a pressing and growing need for it to do so) and markets adjust. So that when the nimbies cry out that wind power is "Too Expensive", not only to they fail to explain what that means (too expensive compared with what?) but they also try to give the impression that this is a fixed thing that can never change.
Well, a report just published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows how fast things are changing. With the costs of wind power falling rapidly (in the US, for example, wind turbines are now thirty per cent cheaper than they were three years ago) and improvements in design increasing the load capacities of modern turbines, wind power is now rivalling fossil fuel-based generation. Read all about it:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2124487/onshore-wind-reach-grid-parity-2016
Basically, this means that it's getting more and more difficult for the nimbies to justify their sweeping statements about windfarms being "too expensive" and "inefficient", on the grounds that they are neither. They are becoming as cheap as the alternatives. Indeed, if the hidden costs of carbon emissions are factored in, wind power is already as cheap as, if not cheaper than, gas. And wholesale gas prices have been shooting up, lately, so wind power is extremely likely to become much cheaper while gas-fired power stations are only going to get much more expensive. That's called market forces. The nimbies want you to believe that windfarms are part of some woolly-minded green socialist conspiracy run out of Brussels. The market is deciding that they're not.
Meanwhile, a study carried out for Ofgem has considered the strange imbalance in the costs of accessing the National Grid in different parts of the UK. In short, the peculiar pricing structure that currently exists benefits southern England while making it more expensive for renewables in northern Scotland to access the grid. The study reveals that levelling the playing field would reduce the "costs" of windpower still further while undermining the case for new nuclear power stations in the UK. (See BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-15711200)
Once again, we find that the so-called subsidy argument that the nimbies keep blowing out of their holes doesn't stand up. What's really been happening is that the UK government has been subsidising power stations (fossil fuel and nuclear) in southern Britain and making renewables more expensive because of issues which have nothing to do with real, inbuilt costs and everything to do with skewing the market. Make access to the National Grid the same across the whole of the UK, and the "costs" of renewables go down.
It seems that, one by one, the fake and phoney arguments against renewables in general, and windfarms in particular, are falling like dominos. Which probably means that we're going to be hearing some even more ridiculous claims from the nimbies in future (such as "Lorries carrying turbine parts are longer than aircraft carriers").
What is so odd about these pronouncements so routinely yelled out by the anti-wind mafia is that they take no account of the way things work. Technology develops (especially when there is a pressing and growing need for it to do so) and markets adjust. So that when the nimbies cry out that wind power is "Too Expensive", not only to they fail to explain what that means (too expensive compared with what?) but they also try to give the impression that this is a fixed thing that can never change.
Well, a report just published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows how fast things are changing. With the costs of wind power falling rapidly (in the US, for example, wind turbines are now thirty per cent cheaper than they were three years ago) and improvements in design increasing the load capacities of modern turbines, wind power is now rivalling fossil fuel-based generation. Read all about it:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2124487/onshore-wind-reach-grid-parity-2016
Basically, this means that it's getting more and more difficult for the nimbies to justify their sweeping statements about windfarms being "too expensive" and "inefficient", on the grounds that they are neither. They are becoming as cheap as the alternatives. Indeed, if the hidden costs of carbon emissions are factored in, wind power is already as cheap as, if not cheaper than, gas. And wholesale gas prices have been shooting up, lately, so wind power is extremely likely to become much cheaper while gas-fired power stations are only going to get much more expensive. That's called market forces. The nimbies want you to believe that windfarms are part of some woolly-minded green socialist conspiracy run out of Brussels. The market is deciding that they're not.
Meanwhile, a study carried out for Ofgem has considered the strange imbalance in the costs of accessing the National Grid in different parts of the UK. In short, the peculiar pricing structure that currently exists benefits southern England while making it more expensive for renewables in northern Scotland to access the grid. The study reveals that levelling the playing field would reduce the "costs" of windpower still further while undermining the case for new nuclear power stations in the UK. (See BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-15711200)
Once again, we find that the so-called subsidy argument that the nimbies keep blowing out of their holes doesn't stand up. What's really been happening is that the UK government has been subsidising power stations (fossil fuel and nuclear) in southern Britain and making renewables more expensive because of issues which have nothing to do with real, inbuilt costs and everything to do with skewing the market. Make access to the National Grid the same across the whole of the UK, and the "costs" of renewables go down.
It seems that, one by one, the fake and phoney arguments against renewables in general, and windfarms in particular, are falling like dominos. Which probably means that we're going to be hearing some even more ridiculous claims from the nimbies in future (such as "Lorries carrying turbine parts are longer than aircraft carriers").
Sunday 13 November 2011
GETTING THE WIND UP
As we reported earlier this year, when Wychavon District Council met to consider plans for a windfarm at Lenchwick in Worcestershire, all bar one of the councillors voted against.
The one who was happy to approve the plans was familiar with windfarms. The others were not. They even considered their visit to an operational windfarm as irrelevant when it came to weighing up the merits of the Lenchwick proposals. Apparently, a successful, soon to be expanded windfarm of ten 100-metre turbines could not be compared with a potential windfarm of just five 125-metre turbines. Five wind turbines would have a much bigger impact than ten, obviously. It was, quite simply, not comparing like with like.
Those councillors who had read the nimby literature with which the protesters of VVASP had saturation bombed them lined up to reel off all the usual myths. There was the all-too familiar competition to see who could make the most rabid and implausible claims about windfarms. It seems likely that the councillors had decided beforehand who would lead on what piece of nonsense - "You do the silly one about people in Cornwall having to move to the Midlands to escape the horror of the turbines; I'll do the old phoney one about subsidies". That way, each councillor could deliver his or her own example of nimby doublethink and there would be no unseemly repetition.
One of the falsehoods spewed out by a councillor who should have known better was the hoary old yarn about Denmark.
Denmark, of course, has been a world leader in the development of wind energy. So nimbies in the UK and elsewhere are forever trying to make out that Denmark has failed. The result is the strange assumption that the Danes have somehow or other given up on wind power.
Some have been keen to quote Aase Madsen, Chair of Energy in the Danish Parliament, who branded windpower a "terribly expensive disaster". The problem there is that Madsen, who represented the far-right Dansk Folkeparti, left Danish politics in 2005.
A more up-to-date source would be the new Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. In October of this year (2011), Thorning-Schmidt announced that wind power would provide 50% of Denmark's electricity by 2020.
Fifty per cent is a lot. The European Commission envisages nearly 50% (actually, 49%) of Europe's electricity coming from wind power by 2050: wind will be the "biggest source of electricity in the bloc by 2050, outstripping both coal and nuclear power." Denmark will be way ahead of the game, though, anticipating a fossil fuel-free electricity generating system by then.
By the end of last year, Denmark's 3,752 megawatt installed capacity meant that wind power was meeting 25% of Denmark's electricity needs. That, it would seem, is set to double over the remainder of this decade. As the Danish Wind Industry Association was proud to announce, "The ambitious targets place Denmark in pole position on renewables among the developed countries".
In 2005 - the year in which the right-winger Aase Madsen left Danish politics - Denmark was sourcing 17.9% of its electricity from wind power (at that time, no other European country had broken the 10% barrier for wind energy). So, somehow or other, during a time when (if the nimbies were to be believed) the Danish people were donning sackcloth and lamenting their poor choice of renewable energy - a "terribly expensive disaster" - the Danes actually managed to increase their wind energy output significantly and are committed to raising it enormously.
Quelle surprise!! While English nimbies (and the councillors who represent them) were kidding themselves and each other that Denmark was a glaring example of a country which tried windpower and didn't like it, the Danes have kept on going for more and more windpower.
When you think that important planning decisions in the UK have been based an a total misunderstanding of how another country is dealing with the issue, you do have to ask yourself some deep and searching questions. Like: how can a council member on a planning committee be so wrong? Where the hell did he get his "facts" about Denmark's supposedly embarrrassing windpower misadventure, and why did he not bother to look into this before confidently misleading the rest of the room? And is such an individual the sort of person who really should be entrusted with important decisions, when he can't tell the difference between a nimby lie and a European wind energy success story?
Could it be that the false "facts" about Danish windpower came - like so much other nonsense - from the anti-wind crazies, the deliquents of VVASP, who exercised mob-rule over their own communities and imposed a blanket ban on the real facts so that only their laughable false facts were heard?
Probably.
And this is just one example of a fake, inaccurate, made-up and demonstrably untrue "fact" being used to justify opposition to a very sensible, desirable and necessary development.
Let's be clear. The real facts are that Denmark remains a world leader in renewable energy, and in windpower in particular, and the notion that the Danes had a change of heart about windpower is just yer typical nimby lie. The Danes are way ahead of us now and they will be for the foreseeable.
Whether or not the nimby nutters and the councillors who strive so hard to please them will accept the facts or keep regurgitating their own gibberish remains to be seen.
The one who was happy to approve the plans was familiar with windfarms. The others were not. They even considered their visit to an operational windfarm as irrelevant when it came to weighing up the merits of the Lenchwick proposals. Apparently, a successful, soon to be expanded windfarm of ten 100-metre turbines could not be compared with a potential windfarm of just five 125-metre turbines. Five wind turbines would have a much bigger impact than ten, obviously. It was, quite simply, not comparing like with like.
Those councillors who had read the nimby literature with which the protesters of VVASP had saturation bombed them lined up to reel off all the usual myths. There was the all-too familiar competition to see who could make the most rabid and implausible claims about windfarms. It seems likely that the councillors had decided beforehand who would lead on what piece of nonsense - "You do the silly one about people in Cornwall having to move to the Midlands to escape the horror of the turbines; I'll do the old phoney one about subsidies". That way, each councillor could deliver his or her own example of nimby doublethink and there would be no unseemly repetition.
One of the falsehoods spewed out by a councillor who should have known better was the hoary old yarn about Denmark.
Denmark, of course, has been a world leader in the development of wind energy. So nimbies in the UK and elsewhere are forever trying to make out that Denmark has failed. The result is the strange assumption that the Danes have somehow or other given up on wind power.
Some have been keen to quote Aase Madsen, Chair of Energy in the Danish Parliament, who branded windpower a "terribly expensive disaster". The problem there is that Madsen, who represented the far-right Dansk Folkeparti, left Danish politics in 2005.
A more up-to-date source would be the new Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. In October of this year (2011), Thorning-Schmidt announced that wind power would provide 50% of Denmark's electricity by 2020.
Fifty per cent is a lot. The European Commission envisages nearly 50% (actually, 49%) of Europe's electricity coming from wind power by 2050: wind will be the "biggest source of electricity in the bloc by 2050, outstripping both coal and nuclear power." Denmark will be way ahead of the game, though, anticipating a fossil fuel-free electricity generating system by then.
By the end of last year, Denmark's 3,752 megawatt installed capacity meant that wind power was meeting 25% of Denmark's electricity needs. That, it would seem, is set to double over the remainder of this decade. As the Danish Wind Industry Association was proud to announce, "The ambitious targets place Denmark in pole position on renewables among the developed countries".
In 2005 - the year in which the right-winger Aase Madsen left Danish politics - Denmark was sourcing 17.9% of its electricity from wind power (at that time, no other European country had broken the 10% barrier for wind energy). So, somehow or other, during a time when (if the nimbies were to be believed) the Danish people were donning sackcloth and lamenting their poor choice of renewable energy - a "terribly expensive disaster" - the Danes actually managed to increase their wind energy output significantly and are committed to raising it enormously.
Quelle surprise!! While English nimbies (and the councillors who represent them) were kidding themselves and each other that Denmark was a glaring example of a country which tried windpower and didn't like it, the Danes have kept on going for more and more windpower.
When you think that important planning decisions in the UK have been based an a total misunderstanding of how another country is dealing with the issue, you do have to ask yourself some deep and searching questions. Like: how can a council member on a planning committee be so wrong? Where the hell did he get his "facts" about Denmark's supposedly embarrrassing windpower misadventure, and why did he not bother to look into this before confidently misleading the rest of the room? And is such an individual the sort of person who really should be entrusted with important decisions, when he can't tell the difference between a nimby lie and a European wind energy success story?
Could it be that the false "facts" about Danish windpower came - like so much other nonsense - from the anti-wind crazies, the deliquents of VVASP, who exercised mob-rule over their own communities and imposed a blanket ban on the real facts so that only their laughable false facts were heard?
Probably.
And this is just one example of a fake, inaccurate, made-up and demonstrably untrue "fact" being used to justify opposition to a very sensible, desirable and necessary development.
Let's be clear. The real facts are that Denmark remains a world leader in renewable energy, and in windpower in particular, and the notion that the Danes had a change of heart about windpower is just yer typical nimby lie. The Danes are way ahead of us now and they will be for the foreseeable.
Whether or not the nimby nutters and the councillors who strive so hard to please them will accept the facts or keep regurgitating their own gibberish remains to be seen.
Thursday 10 November 2011
AND THE WINNER IS ...
"Winner of what?" we hear you ask. Well, Winner of the Best Nimby Whopper This Week, of course!
As ever, it's been almost too close to call. But, step forward the Belligerent Bigots of Bridgnorth, who are opposing a community wind energy project with all the contempt for the facts and their fellow man that characterises your average nimby protest.
So, wait for it ... Are you sitting comfortably? Here goes:-
Lorries carrying turbine parts are longer than an aircraft carrier.
We think that a pause for applause is called for.
For a little more information about the project to which these zombies are opposed, and the zombified reasons they have given for their zombified opposition, go to: http://www.sharenergy.coop/crida/thescheme/opposition. If you fancy a giggle, that is.
For now, though, let us just contemplate the VVASP-scale mendacity and idiocy of the award-winning statement above. "Lorries carrying turbine parts are longer than an aircraft carrier." Maybe the cretinous nimbies are hoping that the majority of Britons will soon have forgotten how big an aircraft carrier actually is (three cheers for the defence cuts, eh, folks?). But, for the record, the Ark Royal is 210 metres in length. The lorries which transport turbine parts to windfarm sites are, at most, 30 metres in length.
So, the truly, outrageously INSANE comment of the Bridgnorth protesters really should be revised to read:
Lorries carrying turbine parts are, at most, one-seventh of the length of an aircraft carrier.
But no, in the mad, mad world of the nimby (otherwise known as the Land that Time Forgot), it doesn't matter what you say, just as long as you reinterpret wind energy as the Devil's work.
Let us not imagine that the statement to which we have awarded the Wind of Change prize for nimby Lie of the Week is a rogue occurence. Rather, it is on a par with practically every other nimby pronouncement (and the same goes for the artificial arguments being deployed against other vital infrastructure projects, like HS2) - an absolute lie dressed up as a fact with the intention of fooling those of a nervous disposition.
Because, let's face it, the vision of something longer than an aircraft carrier trying to negotiate your narrow lane or street is quite alarming. Fortunately, it's blatantly untrue, when you think about it. But they don't want you to think about it. They want you to believe it. Crazy, hunh?
(The same bunch really do have a thing for aeroplanes: they're also trying to pretend that wind turbines sound "like an aircraft taking off" - which just shows that these protesters are barmy, and if they're not certifiable, then they are deliberately telling GREAT BIG LIES to their neighbours. So, which is it? Mad or bad? You decide.)
No, the sad fact is that lies are the nimby currency. Here's another rather sad example. We reported recently on those Leicestershire villagers who, plagued by nimby liars, formed some rather bizarre prejudices towards their local windfarm. Then, when the windfarm was installed and started operating, those same villagers were willing to admit that they had been wrong (or, rather, misled by deranged nimby fanatics) - see the article here: http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/wrong-turbine-noise-admit-protesters/story-13713002-detail/story.html.
It's a hugely reassuring, heartwarming piece. Those who had been forced by the usual redfaced crazies into believing all manner of nonsense about a forthcoming windfarm discovered, much to their delight, that having a windfarm nearby is not a pain at all - in fact, it's a pleasure.
The article was accompanied in the same local newspaper by an editorial opinion piece:
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Leicester-Mercury-Opinion-Wind-farm-positive/story-13713025-detail/story.html
In its way, this piece is even better. It's unusual to find a local paper which supports windfarms (they usually pander to the prejudices of their Daily Mail-type readers), but here we find an editor praising those good villagers who have admitted that they were wrong ('misled' - ed.) about the turbines and welcoming this development as having been good for the area and a potential bonus to other communities. Why? Because a community which now knows, and is prepared to admit, that the nimby maniacs who tell lies about windfarms were wrong can only be good for the country as a whole (too late for the muppets of Wychavon DC and their VVASP puppet-masters, of course, but there's still hope for others).
Look at the bottom of that pleasant op-ed piece, though, and you'll see that two of the usual fruitloops latched onto the story instantly, spreading their sickening bile. One of them might seem rather familiar to anyone who's been following the Action for Renewables blog in recent months (www.actionforrenewables.org). Quite simply, a good article appears in which locals explained that they had been wrong to argue so fervently against their proposed windfarm on the basis of false facts and the swivel-eyed nimbies, predictably, lose their rags.
A measure of the contempt in which these nimby nutters hold their fellow man. First, they lie to you. Then, when you see through their lies, they go berserk. The willingness of the Leicestershire villagers to admit that they were wrong (misled!!) is offensive to the fanatical anti-windfarm fringe. Don't those villagers realise that they were meant to obey orders without question, believe whatever idiotic lie they were told (lorries longer than aircraft carriers!) and shut up about the realities of windfarms, never, ever admitting that they're actually quite nice and attractive and harmless and quiet?!?
That's the nimbies for you. People of Bridgnorth, beware! They're lying to you now, and when you find that the "forest of turbines" - well, two actually - turn out to be both charming and harmless, they will shriek and shout at you if you so much as mention that fact to anyone.
In the meantime, anyone spotting a lorry that is longer than an aircraft carrier is warmly encouraged to contact us here at Wind of Change immediately. We'd love to see what it looks like!
As ever, it's been almost too close to call. But, step forward the Belligerent Bigots of Bridgnorth, who are opposing a community wind energy project with all the contempt for the facts and their fellow man that characterises your average nimby protest.
So, wait for it ... Are you sitting comfortably? Here goes:-
Lorries carrying turbine parts are longer than an aircraft carrier.
We think that a pause for applause is called for.
For a little more information about the project to which these zombies are opposed, and the zombified reasons they have given for their zombified opposition, go to: http://www.sharenergy.coop/crida/thescheme/opposition. If you fancy a giggle, that is.
For now, though, let us just contemplate the VVASP-scale mendacity and idiocy of the award-winning statement above. "Lorries carrying turbine parts are longer than an aircraft carrier." Maybe the cretinous nimbies are hoping that the majority of Britons will soon have forgotten how big an aircraft carrier actually is (three cheers for the defence cuts, eh, folks?). But, for the record, the Ark Royal is 210 metres in length. The lorries which transport turbine parts to windfarm sites are, at most, 30 metres in length.
So, the truly, outrageously INSANE comment of the Bridgnorth protesters really should be revised to read:
Lorries carrying turbine parts are, at most, one-seventh of the length of an aircraft carrier.
But no, in the mad, mad world of the nimby (otherwise known as the Land that Time Forgot), it doesn't matter what you say, just as long as you reinterpret wind energy as the Devil's work.
Let us not imagine that the statement to which we have awarded the Wind of Change prize for nimby Lie of the Week is a rogue occurence. Rather, it is on a par with practically every other nimby pronouncement (and the same goes for the artificial arguments being deployed against other vital infrastructure projects, like HS2) - an absolute lie dressed up as a fact with the intention of fooling those of a nervous disposition.
Because, let's face it, the vision of something longer than an aircraft carrier trying to negotiate your narrow lane or street is quite alarming. Fortunately, it's blatantly untrue, when you think about it. But they don't want you to think about it. They want you to believe it. Crazy, hunh?
(The same bunch really do have a thing for aeroplanes: they're also trying to pretend that wind turbines sound "like an aircraft taking off" - which just shows that these protesters are barmy, and if they're not certifiable, then they are deliberately telling GREAT BIG LIES to their neighbours. So, which is it? Mad or bad? You decide.)
No, the sad fact is that lies are the nimby currency. Here's another rather sad example. We reported recently on those Leicestershire villagers who, plagued by nimby liars, formed some rather bizarre prejudices towards their local windfarm. Then, when the windfarm was installed and started operating, those same villagers were willing to admit that they had been wrong (or, rather, misled by deranged nimby fanatics) - see the article here: http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/wrong-turbine-noise-admit-protesters/story-13713002-detail/story.html.
It's a hugely reassuring, heartwarming piece. Those who had been forced by the usual redfaced crazies into believing all manner of nonsense about a forthcoming windfarm discovered, much to their delight, that having a windfarm nearby is not a pain at all - in fact, it's a pleasure.
The article was accompanied in the same local newspaper by an editorial opinion piece:
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Leicester-Mercury-Opinion-Wind-farm-positive/story-13713025-detail/story.html
In its way, this piece is even better. It's unusual to find a local paper which supports windfarms (they usually pander to the prejudices of their Daily Mail-type readers), but here we find an editor praising those good villagers who have admitted that they were wrong ('misled' - ed.) about the turbines and welcoming this development as having been good for the area and a potential bonus to other communities. Why? Because a community which now knows, and is prepared to admit, that the nimby maniacs who tell lies about windfarms were wrong can only be good for the country as a whole (too late for the muppets of Wychavon DC and their VVASP puppet-masters, of course, but there's still hope for others).
Look at the bottom of that pleasant op-ed piece, though, and you'll see that two of the usual fruitloops latched onto the story instantly, spreading their sickening bile. One of them might seem rather familiar to anyone who's been following the Action for Renewables blog in recent months (www.actionforrenewables.org). Quite simply, a good article appears in which locals explained that they had been wrong to argue so fervently against their proposed windfarm on the basis of false facts and the swivel-eyed nimbies, predictably, lose their rags.
A measure of the contempt in which these nimby nutters hold their fellow man. First, they lie to you. Then, when you see through their lies, they go berserk. The willingness of the Leicestershire villagers to admit that they were wrong (misled!!) is offensive to the fanatical anti-windfarm fringe. Don't those villagers realise that they were meant to obey orders without question, believe whatever idiotic lie they were told (lorries longer than aircraft carriers!) and shut up about the realities of windfarms, never, ever admitting that they're actually quite nice and attractive and harmless and quiet?!?
That's the nimbies for you. People of Bridgnorth, beware! They're lying to you now, and when you find that the "forest of turbines" - well, two actually - turn out to be both charming and harmless, they will shriek and shout at you if you so much as mention that fact to anyone.
In the meantime, anyone spotting a lorry that is longer than an aircraft carrier is warmly encouraged to contact us here at Wind of Change immediately. We'd love to see what it looks like!
Wednesday 9 November 2011
IT'S A GAS, GAS, GAS!!!
One of our regular correspondents has been telling us about a day he spent at a documentary production company back in the 90s. The head of that independent documentary company had previously been in charge of the BBC's Panorama slot, and he freely admitted that the editorial team at Panorama would say: "Right - who are we going to get, this week?"
This week, Panorama "got" renewables. Specifically, offshore windfarms. And boy, have they stirred up a hornet's nest!
First fact: the Panorama programme modelled its argument on an energy report drawn up by KPMG. This report has not been published yet, and there is some doubt as to whether or not it will be (see: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2123108/wind-power-sector-slams-flawed-kpmg-energy-report). The KPMG report seems to have argued that renewables will force energy bills up, leading to increased levels of fuel poverty, and that new nuclear and gas-fired power stations would be cheaper.
This is a very odd claim, and one wonders whether KMPG's findings are in any way related to the fact that it has recently secured lucrative employment advising the Russian gas giant Gazprom on its gas pipeline exporting gas to Western Europe (http://www.globalgastransport.info/archive.php?id=2358). Or, to put it another way, while a company is making money out of a Russian gas pipeline, can that same company be trusted not to try and push gas as the "best" form of electricity generation in the UK?
It's a valid question, because Ofgem currently recognises that no less than 56% of the average consumer's bill is based on the cost of wholesale gas. In other words, half of your energy bills cover the costs of importing the gas which is burned to create electricity. That cost is set to rise, probably dramatically, as international demand for gas grows (in Japan, for example, where their nuclear embarrassment has led to a "dash for gas"). Already, wholesale gas prices for this winter are 40% higher than they were last winter, and those costs will be passed on directly to the consumer.
By contrast, renewables (that's ALL renewables, not just wind) account for no more than £20 per year on the average bill for domestic energy use. The average domestic gas bill, meanwhile, increased by roughly £170 last year. So which is the most expensive source for electricity, at least as far as the consumer is concerned? Well, it's gas, obviously.
Which KPMG are trying to argue is "cheaper" than renewables.
Go figure.
Second fact: the Panorama programme was presented by Tom Heap, who happily describes himself as an "Eco-Sceptic" (http://tomheap.com/?page_id=196). In plain English, this means that Tom Heap does not much care for environmentalists or anyone who is growing increasingly concerned about climate change and our irresponsible attitudes towards sustainability. In this, Heap seems to be at odds with the global scientific consensus and the International Energy Agency, which is now warning that we are rapidly running out of time to deal with the terrifying problems of climate change (http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2123758/world-headed-irreversible-climate-change-iea-warns). In the face of these scientific warnings, Heap's one-sided approach to pressing issues is astonishingly irresponsible.
Usually, the BBC is constrained by the slightly difficult concept of "balance". It is this very "balance" which often confuses important debates - for example, even though the vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is happening and it's probably down to humankind's activities, the rules of "balance" mean that some crackpot has to be interviewed to represent the opposing viewpoint of a tiny and deluded minority.
But Heap didn't bother with balance at all in his Panorama puff-piece for the fossil fuel industries (gas and nuclear). Not one activist, campaigner, expert, representative, lobbyist or scientist was allowed to argue the case for renewables. Not one.
So - a reporter who does like the green movement bases a totally one-sided piece based on a skewed report written (but not yet published) by an accountancy firm with an interest in fossil fuels. In the circumstances, there's hardly any wonder that Heap and the Panorama team did not dare to interview anyone from the pro-renewables side of the argument. If they had, the "reporter" and his silly claims would have been made to look extremely stupid. But, as we've noted elsewhere, the anti-renewables loonies don't like debate. It scares them. If you trying to defend an indefensible position, do not open it up for debate. Simples.
Fortunately, it looks like many individuals, groups and organisations are preparing detailed complaints to the BBC over this outrageously lousy piece of reporting. The question is, will it make the slightest bit of difference? The BBC has colluded in a rather blatant attempt to shackle the UK energy consumer to a generation source that is not renewable, will only go up in cost and will do nothing to help curb global warming - and for whose benefit?
Answer: KPMG and its clients, of course.
This week, Panorama "got" renewables. Specifically, offshore windfarms. And boy, have they stirred up a hornet's nest!
First fact: the Panorama programme modelled its argument on an energy report drawn up by KPMG. This report has not been published yet, and there is some doubt as to whether or not it will be (see: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2123108/wind-power-sector-slams-flawed-kpmg-energy-report). The KPMG report seems to have argued that renewables will force energy bills up, leading to increased levels of fuel poverty, and that new nuclear and gas-fired power stations would be cheaper.
This is a very odd claim, and one wonders whether KMPG's findings are in any way related to the fact that it has recently secured lucrative employment advising the Russian gas giant Gazprom on its gas pipeline exporting gas to Western Europe (http://www.globalgastransport.info/archive.php?id=2358). Or, to put it another way, while a company is making money out of a Russian gas pipeline, can that same company be trusted not to try and push gas as the "best" form of electricity generation in the UK?
It's a valid question, because Ofgem currently recognises that no less than 56% of the average consumer's bill is based on the cost of wholesale gas. In other words, half of your energy bills cover the costs of importing the gas which is burned to create electricity. That cost is set to rise, probably dramatically, as international demand for gas grows (in Japan, for example, where their nuclear embarrassment has led to a "dash for gas"). Already, wholesale gas prices for this winter are 40% higher than they were last winter, and those costs will be passed on directly to the consumer.
By contrast, renewables (that's ALL renewables, not just wind) account for no more than £20 per year on the average bill for domestic energy use. The average domestic gas bill, meanwhile, increased by roughly £170 last year. So which is the most expensive source for electricity, at least as far as the consumer is concerned? Well, it's gas, obviously.
Which KPMG are trying to argue is "cheaper" than renewables.
Go figure.
Second fact: the Panorama programme was presented by Tom Heap, who happily describes himself as an "Eco-Sceptic" (http://tomheap.com/?page_id=196). In plain English, this means that Tom Heap does not much care for environmentalists or anyone who is growing increasingly concerned about climate change and our irresponsible attitudes towards sustainability. In this, Heap seems to be at odds with the global scientific consensus and the International Energy Agency, which is now warning that we are rapidly running out of time to deal with the terrifying problems of climate change (http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2123758/world-headed-irreversible-climate-change-iea-warns). In the face of these scientific warnings, Heap's one-sided approach to pressing issues is astonishingly irresponsible.
Usually, the BBC is constrained by the slightly difficult concept of "balance". It is this very "balance" which often confuses important debates - for example, even though the vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is happening and it's probably down to humankind's activities, the rules of "balance" mean that some crackpot has to be interviewed to represent the opposing viewpoint of a tiny and deluded minority.
But Heap didn't bother with balance at all in his Panorama puff-piece for the fossil fuel industries (gas and nuclear). Not one activist, campaigner, expert, representative, lobbyist or scientist was allowed to argue the case for renewables. Not one.
So - a reporter who does like the green movement bases a totally one-sided piece based on a skewed report written (but not yet published) by an accountancy firm with an interest in fossil fuels. In the circumstances, there's hardly any wonder that Heap and the Panorama team did not dare to interview anyone from the pro-renewables side of the argument. If they had, the "reporter" and his silly claims would have been made to look extremely stupid. But, as we've noted elsewhere, the anti-renewables loonies don't like debate. It scares them. If you trying to defend an indefensible position, do not open it up for debate. Simples.
Fortunately, it looks like many individuals, groups and organisations are preparing detailed complaints to the BBC over this outrageously lousy piece of reporting. The question is, will it make the slightest bit of difference? The BBC has colluded in a rather blatant attempt to shackle the UK energy consumer to a generation source that is not renewable, will only go up in cost and will do nothing to help curb global warming - and for whose benefit?
Answer: KPMG and its clients, of course.
Saturday 5 November 2011
DUPLICRACY
For those who chanced to see it, it was a chilling moment.
January, 2011. Outside a District Council offices in the English Midlands. A lone supporter of a windfarm planning application explains to a local TV news reporter that the planning committee meeting which is about to start will be the first open debate about the proposed windfarm in over two years. An anti-windfarm protest group had actively prevented any form of intelligent, rational, informed debate from taking place. That sole supporter was instantly jeered, heckled and insulted by the crowd of 100+ anti's, all gathered around him in a semi-circle, all wearing their screaming yellow T-shirts and brandishing banners.
It went out live on the lunchtime news. The mob-rule, which residents of the village of Church Lench had complained of, was momentarily visible for the whole of the region to see. Anyone who expressed a divergent opinion was shouted down. There had been no debate. The majority of the protesters were protesting against something they did not understand because their leaders had ruthlessly misinformed them, heightening their ignorance, and had systematically obstructed any real facts from getting through.
That is how the anti-windfarm minority conducts itself. It refuses to allow any form of debate. Rather, it heckles, hectors, harasses and harangues. It doesn't want to discuss. It merely shouts.
This is becoming a major problem. If you visit an anti-windfarm (or anti-renewables) website and try to leave a pro-wind comment, the chances are that the "moderators" of that site will block it. If you visit a pro-wind (or green business) website, you will find that deranged souls have been trolling that site, plastering their nonsensical, unsubstantiated and waywardly inaccurate anti-wind power claims all over it.
One would hope that those who want to get the latest news about developments in the world of renewables would be able to do so without risk of harassment or having to wade through the sick dribblings of the anti-wind loonies and the demented climate change deniers. No such luck. Question those mentalists on their own websites and they'll silence you. But on pro-renewables websites, the same mentalists consider it open season.
This tells us a lot about the state of play in the great windfarm "debate". Keep an eye on what's happening around the world and you'll quickly realise that renewables are the primary energy source of the 21st century. That's what's happening. But there are some very twisted souls who don't want that.
Some are no doubt working for the fossil fuels/nuclear lobbies. Some are just opinionated weirdos who won't shut up. Some got a bee in their bonnets over a local windfarm application and now see it as their mission to oppose wind turbines anywhere and everywhere. Some just read useless right-wing scare-sheets and believe all the rubbish they're told. But they all have one thing in common. They believe that their opinions are right and that no one else should be entitled to one.
It's interesting to see how the nimbies exploit the notion of democracy. If a windfarm is refused planning approval, they declare a victory for "democracy" (regardless of the fact that they themselves are in the minority). Alternatively, should a local council go with the science, the evidence, the clear and pressing need and the majority opinion, these same witless dupes announce that "democracy" has counted for nothing.
Their notion of democracy means one thing and one thing only: it's what they want, irrespective of what everyone else wants.
To achieve their ends, they wilfully undermine all forms of democracy. In the battle of Lenchwick, parish councils were attacked: one was forced to resign and was replaced with representatives of the fraudulent protest group VVASP. Independent parish councillors were warned that they were "not allowed" to express their opinions in public, while the VVASP parish councils could make their feelings known whenever and however they felt like it. Public money was appropriated under false pretences and diverted into a political anti-windfarm campaign. The district council was tricked by these same single-issue "parish councillors" into hiring a noise consultant who regularly works for an anti-windfarm lobbying organisation. Local surveys were grossly misrepresented, and the falsified figures read out at the planning meeting by a pet Tory MP. Lies were published, and when those lies were successfully challenged, more lies were told. Any local resident who went "off message" and pointed out a fact about windfarms - such as, they're not noisy at all - was victimised. Some were threatened.
Lies, falsification, thuggery and mob rule have no place in democracy. You either believe in free speech or you don't. Anti-wind nimbies don't. They'll demand it for themselves, but they'll prevent others from exercising the same rights.
They'll interfere with green websites to spread their deluded nonsense but they won't allow any genuine facts onto their own websites, in spite of their duplicitous claims to be giving out "comprehensive information". They'll tell lies about local supporters, windfarm developers, governments and scientists, but they won't allow the other side of the story to be told. They'll squeal to the local papers and the police if their grotesque protest signs are removed from public property, while at the same time removing and destroying any pro-windfarm signs that might appear in appropriate places.
The whole windfarm debate is not a debate at all. It's a one-sided slanging match conducted by idiots who don't want their neighbours to hear the facts. They make up facts which aren't true and then accuse the other side of lying. They pretend that they are the victims of a multi-national green conspiracy while they victimise their own neighbours for expressing honest opinions. They will purposefully undermine local democracy and then declare a victory for local democracy.
Any country which allows this sort of behaviour to succeed is in big trouble. Naturally, the Tories pander to these lunatics because the majority of them are Tory voters. But in doing so, they are sanctioning the mindless destruction of democracy by an unscrupulous minority of fanatics. Those MPs who thoughtlessly offer support to these fascist mobs and their despicably selfish and deceitful ringleaders are guilty of undermining what little we have left in the way of democracy.
Perhaps the tide is turning. Even climate change skeptics are finally realising that, yes, the Earth is warming up - see here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/dr-mullers-findings-on-global-warming.html?_r=3
That's a good thing, because it shows that, after too many years of denial, even the skeptics are beginning to acknowledge the truth. The next step is to accept that we need to be implementing strategies to curb the worst effects of global warming. And that means two things: sustainability and renewables.
The arguments against windfarms are fading thick and fast - largely because those arguments were bogus and dishonest in the first place. Anti-windfarm protesters fall into two categories: those who are merely opposed to change in any form whatsoever, and those who have been terrorised by the first bunch into believing a pack of lies about windfarms. We should feel sorry for the latter group and do our best to enlighten them with the evidence. The first bunch are the real enemy, for it is they who systematically destroy local democracy and their own communities in order to force others to obey them.
We have a moral duty to oppose these deluded fanatics at every turn. Okay, so we in the pro-wind camp are not afraid of open debate, while our nimby opponents are terrified of open debate. Okay, so we believe in free speech while the nimby nutters in our midst absolutely oppose it. And okay, so we champion democracy while the anti's seek to destroy it, because that's the only way they can force their petty-minded, greedy, stupid, arrogant views on everybody else.
Because they refuse to play by the rules, we have to be ready, willing and able to stand up to their meaningless lies, their bullying tactics, their evil intentions. They demand free speech for themselves and deny it to everyone else. So we must exercise our rights to free speech in order to come down hard on their crazy insinuations, their false evidence, their scaremongering gibberish.
We can't expect them to debate the issues with us. They don't want a debate. It would make them look foolish. They can only prevail if no one gets to hear the genuine facts.
Which is why we must lose no opportunity to expose them as the unprincipled liars they are, again and again and again. Free speech is a precious thing. We mustn't let them abuse it on order to shut down the debate.
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