LIAR, LIAR, FALSE MESSIAH!

"World's leading economies to push for action on clean energy". That's a headline in Renewable Energy Focus. Energy ministers from 23 of the world's leading economies will be meeting in London later this month to work together on accelerating the transition to clean energy technologies ahead of a major sustainable development conference this summer. The energy secretaries of the US and the UK will co-chair the London event, during which the UK and Brazil are expected to sign an agreement on clean energy.

That'll be good. Brazil, one of the fast-growing BRIC ecomomies, is already making great leaps forward with wind power. Britain, meanwhile, held the lead at an early stage, then fell back a bit, but is now doing rather well with offshore wind. So the agreement is likely to be good for the economies of both countries, not to mention the wider environment.

Oh, but all this marvellous and much-needed progress will be knocked on the head if one wild-eyed and grossly-misinformed supernimby has his way.

Anyone who regularly visits green and renewable websites in order to keep up with developments in sustainability will probably have come across David Ramsbotham. Having fought a single wind turbine in Norfolk (yes: just one!), Ramsbotham has decided that it is his mission to get a petition signed by as many boobies and sheeple as he can, with the aim of forcing a debate in Parliament on the issue.

He is the master of the cut-and-paste job. Clearly, he hasn't been getting enough support for his bonkers e-petition from those who are actually interested in green energy, so he's now targeting parish councils - which, as we know, can be extremely unrepresentative of their local areas. So parish councillors have lately been treated to the selfsame message of idiocy as the green website browsers have become all-too familiar with.

Let's see how many lies, myths and false beliefs Mr Ramsbotham has managed to cram into his witless emails, shall we?

First of all, he plays the contemporary nimby gambit: "Are you disillusioned by rising energy prices"? Well, if you care to check out our previous post (below), or any reliable source on the current household costs of energy, you'll know that if you are disillusioned about rising energy prices, your best bet is to back renewables - onshore wind power especially. It's the cheapest and least subsidised form of energy on the market, as well as being one of the cleanest.

But if you happen to be as deluded - or Delingpoled - as Ramsbotham is, you'll try to pretend otherwise. You will also insist on putting the word "green" in quotation marks. Clearly, Mr Ramsbotham doesn't believe in "green". To him, it's some sort of madcap conspiracy involving those usual suspects so loathed by the fanatical right-wing: the Government, the EU, international corporations ... Of course, if you're that mad, you will gladly imagine that "wind energy is a big scam". Such a "big scam" that it is currently providing five US states with more than 10% of their electricity (in fact, if Texas was a country, it would rank sixth in the world for wind energy production).

Ramsbotham, of course, only reads what he chooses to believe in. And he believes some very weird things, for which he has no actual evidence. He believes, for example, that the "British public want to make the Government aware of their feelings and objections to these monstrosities which are beginning to blight our green and pleasant land" - aaaarrrrrggghhhh!!! He said it! The nimbies' favourite cliche!! What a dolt!! - and he believes that "our elected representatives are completely out of touch with the electorate on this issue."

Now, this all depends on what you mean by "the electorate". If you mean Ramsbotham, Il Duce of Nimby, then maybe he's right. Even you mean the people who actually live in the British Isles, then he's way off. As we know, opinion polls have, over a number of years, consistently shown that the vast majority of Britons support wind power.

Ramsbotham has got his head rammed right up his bottom on this one. He's got nimby fever big time, and so he assumes that, because he's so out of touch with reality, "the British public" and "the electorate" must be behind him. Even though they're not. Not by a long chalk.

He clearly hasn't done any research at all or made the slightest effort to keep up with developments (which is odd, given his propensity for trolling green business and sustainability websites - evidently, he doesn't read the articles he comments on with his cut-and-paste nonsense). For that reason, he actually thinks that wind farms are "uneconomical and inefficient". This is one of those nimby myths that just never goes away. He also, natch, insists that they are "highly subsidised by the taxpayer". When in reality, they're not subsidised by the taxpayer at all.

Still, all this - in the weird and whacky world of Ramsbotham - is just part of the "green" dream. A statement which throws up all sorts of existential issues. Because it's Ramsbotham who is dreaming - dreaming that he is the voice of the Great British public (the majority of whom disagree with him), that "wind energy is a big scam" (which is sheer bullshit), that "wind turbines are highly subsidised by the taxpayer" (when they're not, neither highly nor lowly) ... the list of his delusions just goes on. In this case, the "electorate" seems to be fairly wide awake. Only Ramsbotham is tossing and turning while the voices in the radiator tell him strange stories.

He also feels that there is some sort of "social injustice" at work here. People, he says, are worried about "noise, health and safety problems, damage to bats, birds and other wildlife, the visual intrusion on a historic landscape, the devaluation of their properties and their human rights". Well yes, of course some people are worried about some or all of those things - BECAUSE IDIOTS LIKE EL RAMSBOTHAM KEEP GOING ON ABOUT THESE ILLUSORY, FATUOUS AND NON-EXISTENT "PROBLEMS"!!!!! Ramsbotham's thinking is about as circular as you can get! It's goes something like:

Myself and a few other woefully misinformed fanatics told some people that windfarms are noisy, that they harm your health, they blow up bats and "other wildlife", intrude visually on "historic landscapes" [not sure what they are] and devalue property prices - EVEN THOUGH THEY DON'T! And when the people heard these stupid lies, they got worried!! And because those people are worried (because me and my nimby mates lied our heads off to them), SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!

(Note: Ramsbotham got started on his utterly misguided campaign because of a single turbine mooted for his "beautiful, unspoilt, and historical landscape". We're used to nimby claims that their local landscape has somehow managed to avoid thousands of years of human activity and is completely untroubled by roads, hedges, ditches, drains, pylons, houses, barns, fields, or anything else - but this "historical" nonsense is relatively new to us, and seems to be the latest development in deluded nimby thinking.)

He is very unhappy about the fact that residents are not offered "compensation" for all these made-up problems the nimbies lied to them about "if" - repeat IF - "these fears materialise". In other words, the problems alluded to by Mr Ramsbotham don't actually exist, but if by some strange quirk of fate it turns out that they DO exist, where's the offer of compensation then, eh? Eh? If any of the claims the nimbies have been worrying their neighbours with actually turn out to be true at some point in the future, what then? Eh? EH???

We'll not tire you with any more of his gormless dribbling. Rather, we'll just celebrate the fact that Ramsbotham and the real world seldom come into contact with each other, and out there in the real world, renewables - and wind energy in particular - are proving their worth over and over again. The "green" dream, as Ramsbotham likes to put it, is just about the only thing that stands between us and complete catastrophe, and thankfully windfarms are demonstrating how much they can contribute to that "dream", benefitting their communities, the nation and the planet. Unlike the conventional sources of energy, they do not cost the earth (or receive taxpayer subsidies).

Wake up, Mr Ramsbotham. And prepare yourself for a shock when you do. While you were sleeping, you accidentally tried to plunge Britain back into the Dark Ages and destroy the planet.

Must have been quite a dream!