GOVERNMENT SNAPS BACK

Out of touch. Ideologically blinkered. Irrationally opposed to the nation's best interests. And, in some cases, plain stupid.

That's the 101 dimwit MPs who wrote to David Cameron recently, calling on the Prime Minister drastically to reduce the "subsidies" to onshore windfarms ("subsidies" which do not actually involve the tax-payer and pale in comparison with the subsidies to nuclear and fossil fuels) and to make it easier for dangerously dishonest groups of local fanatics to stop vital low-carbon ecenomy infrastructure projects (windfarms) being built.

You can't get much stupider than that. What those human failures are calling for is a complete up-ending of democracy (most Britons, it has been proven time and time again, support wind power) and a world in which the lies of the nuclear and fossil fuel lobbyists are given more credence than empirical facts (renewables have had little real impact on domestic energy bills, and those who protest against such elegant and necessary structures as wind turbines as basically chronically selfish and incapable of honesty).

Look at it this way. Last year (2011), EU countries added a total of more than 6.9 gigawatts of installed wind capacity - an increase of 11 per cent on 2010, and enough to supply more than 6% of the EU's electricity demands. The United States also invested heavily in wind energy - although China went further. Indeed, in the States wind overtook nuclear. In France, meanwhile, the costs of nuclear are about to exceed those of wind energy. Thanks, in part, to the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, global renewable energy deals saw a massive 40% increase last year (source: PriceWaterhouseCooper). There simply is no argument - renewables are the way forward, and anyone who tries to pretend that they're not is deluded.

David Cameron has been in talks with offshore wind power companies to try and ensure that wind turbine parts are built in Britain. This is to overcome one of the nonsensical arguments against windfarms in Britain - that they are often owned by foreign concerns (this isn't something that usually worries the Tories, who happily sold off our utilities to foreign firms, so it's obviously yet another made-up reason to oppose windfarms when no good reasons to do so exist).

The DECC has also just announced that 155 community energy projects have been awarded a share of £5.1 million to support small-scale renewable energy and energy efficiency schemes.

So, it's comforting to know that the government has reacted both dismissively and angrily to the backbench morons who thought that Chris Huhne's departure from the DECC was their chance to betray the national interest in favour of those oil, coal, gas and nuclear lobbyists who've been lying to us for so long. The first response from the government to the letter signed by 101 right-wing nutcases was a statement that onshore wind power is "a cost-effective and valuable part of the diverse energy mix". Note that "cost-effective". Even by appealing to the narrowest of financial arguments, the madcap nimby nutters don't have a case.

RenewableUK - the voice of the renewables industry in Britain - issued a press release which tried, once again, to awaken these Tory quislings to a few basic facts:

http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20120206.html

Nick Clegg also showed that he'd grown a pair by fighting back against the right-wing loonies trying to plunge Great Britain into the outer darkness. The "choice for the UK is simple," he has said: "wake up, or end up playing catch up. In today's world the savviest states understand that going for growth means going green. Low-carbon markets are the next frontier in the battle for global pre-eminence."

Clearly, though, the argument has boiled down to an ideological one. Or, to put it more clearly, an argument between bigots on the one side and science, rationalism, objectivity and common sense on the other. Looking at the list of MPs who signed that idiot letter to David Cameron we spot a number of crazies, racists, Europhobes, nutters and thickos - just the sort to swallow the propaganda of the fossil fuel and nuclear lobbies, by way of propagandist organisations like the Renewable Energy Foundation, and to think that because they don't like the look of something it must be "inefficient". Those people are pretty empty-headed, but that just means that there's more space in their heads for their own stupid slogans to go round and round and round.

On the other side of the argument are those who know what the UK needs, those who know the most cost-effective and efficient options, those who actually care about wildlife, the environment and our childrens' futures, those who have a genuine sense of the aesthetic and can understand a scientific report. Grown-ups, in other words.

The 101 Abominations who signed the Cretins Charter, addressed to David Cameron, are the public faces of The Enemy. Those who hate Britain enough to want to destroy jobs, growth and energy security. Those who would only tell the truth if you paid them enough to do it, and even then would probably get it wrong. They are the champions of the nimbies, and between them they could possibly muster 100 brain cells - just.

For once, though, the government is sticking with the facts ... and so the UK's renewables industry and our fine fleet of wind turbines will continue to grow and provide us with the clean, green energy we so desperately need.