Anyone who has lived through the nightmare of a nimby anti-wind campaign will know how quickly it gets out of hand. But then, if history has taught us anything it's that whenever people resort to lies - and especially the Big Lie - it always ends in tears.
Nimbies resort to lies from the outset because it's the only way they can hope to sway the public. If they restricted themselves to the established facts, their campaigns would get nowhere. Burton Wold (two posts below) is a golden, shining example of this: because the local residents know full well that there is nothing to fear, and everything to look forward to, from having a well-managed windfarm nearby, there have been no objections whatsoever to two extensions to the site, and Kettering District Council has sagely (and happily) granted planning permission to allow Burton Wold to become a windfarm of 22 utility-scale turbines.
(While we're on the subject - nimby idiots, who only steal ideas from each other, routinely refer to large turbines as "industrial". That is a fanatical misuse of language. There's nothing especially "industrial" about them, unless you are prepared to accept that they work - the actual meaning of "industrial" - and generate substantial amounts of electricity, some of which will be used by industry, which is a Good Thing. But no, large turbines are only "industrial" in the same that mindless nimbies want to misrepresent what they look and sound like. The proper term is "utility-scale", because each windfarm is an infrastructure project which generates considerable quantities of electricity for and on behalf of a utility. Next time you hear a nutty nimby calling them "industrial", tell him or her to get a life.)
Sadly, though, the nimby menace, once initiated, quickly leads to hysteria. It might be started by individuals who are insane - egotistical and psychopathic in their eagerness to use outrageous lies in order to cause panic and alarm - but it quickly transfers to ordinary people, some of whom become hysterical. They start saying really stupid things, like windfarms are the reason why bee populations in the US and the UK have been declining over the past 25 years. Of course, no one bothers to explain why those bee populations were declining before windfarms really got started, and why they're declining in areas where there are no windfarms. And recently published research shows that the worrying decline is actually down to the use of pesticides.
So, once again, windfarms get the blame for something that has got nothing at all to do with them, simply because some poor deluded souls have been whipped up into a frenzy of foolish hysteria by their vicious nimby friends.
Well, at long last, British Wind is fighting back. The nimby menace has got to be stopped. It is out of control (because it started out by telling lies, and that always leads to trouble) and is causing no end of harm, both to Britain's short-, medium- and long-term interests and to the lives of people who otherwise would not believe that they are suffering as a result of windfarms.
www.british-wind.co.uk has been established to set the record straight. This is particularly important where politicians are concerned, because some of them (especially on the Conservative backbenches) are not what we would call "thinkers" and they're as easily deluded by self-serving nimby claptrap as the most nervous of residents. When MPs and councillors start spewing out the same ridiculous myths about wind power as their nimby puppet-masters do, then we know we've got a problem. It could make all the difference between energy security and a low-carbon economy on the one hand, and more expensive, more polluting, imported fossil fuels and nuclear hazards on the other. So there's everything to fight for.
British Wind are quite rightly putting the patriotic aspect of wind power to the fore. Fighting a proposed windfarm development purely on the grounds that you think it might affect the view from the end of your driveway (and then spreading as many lies about wind power as you can to make it look like you've actually got an argument) is a profoundly unpatriotic thing to do. It is also sickeningly anti-social - just think, for a moment, of the harm you are doing to your community and your neighbours by lying to them incessantly about something that will actually no them a great deal of good.
So British Wind have compiled a useful checklist of the more common nimby myths, along with answers to some Frequently Asked Questions:
http://www.british-wind.co.uk/wind_myths.html
And before some rampaging, wild-eyed nimby fifth columnist starts bleating that the information has been provided by the wind industry, let's just point out that it makes much more sense hearing from the experts - people who actually know what they're talking about - than to get all your so-called "FACTS" from discredited sources and proven liars, like the nimbies do.
As a nation, we need to fight the nimby ideologues who, for the sake of their own self-importance, would happily drag us all back to the Dark Ages. We need to counter all their pathetic and unsubstantiated gibberish with genuine, proven, scientific facts. We need to stop them inflicting yet more damage on their neighbours and the British economy.
We need to stand up to the bullies and show the liars up for what they are: nimby maniacs without a shred of credibility or honesty, dedicated to harming their neighbours, their country and the planet we all live on, for no reason other than prejudice, intolerance and selfishness.
Good luck to British Wind! And please do visit their website.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Thursday, 29 March 2012
WHY WE DO THIS
First, the good news.
Figures released by the government show that greenhouse gas emissions in the UK fell by seven per cent last year (2011). A major part of the reason for this was a significant increase in renewables, which accounted for a record 9.5% of the UK's total energy mix (it was 7.5% the previous year). In all, renewable sources saw a 35% increase in the amount of electricity generated (up to 34.8 terawatt hours) while renewable energy capacity rose by 32% in 2011.
Wind energy production rose by a massive 54.5% (offshore wind went up 68%) across the UK, due to higher wind speeds and increased installed capacity (i.e. more windfarms).
In Scotland, the picture was even more extraordinary. Last year, Scotland smashed its green energy target for 2011 by achieving a 45% increase in the amount of electricity generated by renewables. This meant that 35% of Scotland's electricity in 2011 was renewable (the target had been 31%). Wind generation reached a record high (7,049 gigawatt hours), more than doubling the figure for 2007. Scotland also saw a 9.5% increase in installed renewable capacity and is well on its way to achieving its stated aim of 100% of its electricity needs from renewables in 2020.
This, folks, is more like it. But we cannot rest on our laurels. Regardless of the government's plans for hugely expensive (and unpopular) new nuclear, two of the Big Six energy companies have now withdrawn from nuclear power altogether. What is more, falling gas and oil production in the UK led to a worrying 36.5% net energy import dependency - the highest it's been since 1976, with net imports of gas rising to levels not seen since 1967. We're paying more and more to import fossil fuels, while nuclear gets more expensive and energy companies are dropping it like a hot rock (which is what, in fact, it is).
Thank God for renewables, which are actually becoming cheaper.
But here's the downside. As they lose the ideological battle over wind and other renewables, nimby campaigners have been getting dirtier, nastier and meaner. Nimbies are very bad losers, and as more and more good news about renewables rolls in, their squawking gets more and more aggressive and ludicrous.
Worse still, the nimbies are causing a massive amount of damage, in terms of energy efficiency and security, combatting climate change, time and money, jobs and - worst of all - human suffering. That is why we fight them.
Most nimby campaigns are started by people who know nothing whatsoever about wind power. They just don't want a turbine or two anywhere near them - end of. They seek only to preserve their supposed special privileges (i.e., we live in nice houses in exclusive areas where there isn't any riff-raff and where the views are uniquely unspoiled by thousands of years of human activity, so somebody else should get the windfarm; we're far too special to have to do our bit!)
That isn't really much of an argument against windfarms - although, if the nimbies were honest, it is the sole driver of their foolish campaigns.
So they resort to lies. Massive, outdated, repeatedly discredited, destructive, socially harmful, brainless lies.
When this is pointed out, they go berserk. Often, they threaten legal action (the first resort of the scoundrel), although this is just an empty threat, because if they had to defend their monstrous lies in court, they'd be exposed as the fraudulent dimwits they really are.
They do, however, show no qualms about subverting the democratic process and terrifying their neighbours into abject hysteria with their lies.
They do everything they can to find your weak point. Are you worried about the value of your house going down (wwwooooooooohhh! Negative equity!!)? They'll tell you the old lie about windfarms knocking 54% off the value of your property. It's utterly untrue - if anything, a windfarm nearby is more likely to increase the market value of your house - and they can only get away with that ridiculous claim by misquoting one report.
Are you worried about losing your peace and quiet? They'll lie to you about windfarms being "noisy", especially at night, and try to convince you that you'll never be able to sleep soundly again. If you're distressed or foolish enough to believe this lie, you'll imagine that you can hear windfarm noises in your bedroom, when in reality you can't.
Are you a mild hypochondriac? They'll produce false, bogus and unscientific evidence that windfarms cause health problems. At the same time, they will deliberately suppress the growing wealth of genuine evidence which proves that the fanciful so-called "wind turbine syndrome" is sheer nonsense designed only to scare innocent people. And once they've got you believing that load of old rubbish, you're buggered. At the first sight of a windfarm you'll start having palpitations. Not that it's the windfarm's fault. No: your nimby neighbours did that to you. They made you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.
This is becoming a national problem. The lies published and repeated and shouted and screamed by nasty nimby nutters are causing real pain, concern and alarm, and all for no good reason. People are being bullied, misled, threatened and brainwashed by members of their own communities into believing a pack of lies which can only cause them lasting suffering.
The nimbies only doing this out of selfishness and a misplaced right-wing belief in their own superiority. If they were honest, they would be giving you all the information - which contradicts everything they've been saying - or even just admitting that they don't much care for the look of wind turbines, which is fair enough.
But these people are not honest. They attack others and then cry foul when their attacks are reported. They tell masses and masses of lies about windfarms and then accuse everybody else of lying. They set out deliberately to create panic on no grounds whatsoever and leave a toxic legacy of division and phantom symptoms in their wake.
They are also holding Britain back from meeting its climate obligations and securing a clean, green, low-cost energy future.
But the worst of it is, they are harming their neighbours with their poisonous falsehoods. For that alone, they will be forever damned.
And for that reason, we here at Wind of Change will continue to expose their self-serving myths and lies, their disgraceful tactics, their exorbitant vanity and their treacherous intents. No matter how much they may threaten us, we will continue to stand with the victims of these vicious and unprincipled nimbies. We will not stop telling the truth, no matter how far some nimby groups may go in seeking to silence others.
We are doing this for Britain, and for the growing number of people who have been lied to, bullied and betrayed by nimby zealots.
Figures released by the government show that greenhouse gas emissions in the UK fell by seven per cent last year (2011). A major part of the reason for this was a significant increase in renewables, which accounted for a record 9.5% of the UK's total energy mix (it was 7.5% the previous year). In all, renewable sources saw a 35% increase in the amount of electricity generated (up to 34.8 terawatt hours) while renewable energy capacity rose by 32% in 2011.
Wind energy production rose by a massive 54.5% (offshore wind went up 68%) across the UK, due to higher wind speeds and increased installed capacity (i.e. more windfarms).
In Scotland, the picture was even more extraordinary. Last year, Scotland smashed its green energy target for 2011 by achieving a 45% increase in the amount of electricity generated by renewables. This meant that 35% of Scotland's electricity in 2011 was renewable (the target had been 31%). Wind generation reached a record high (7,049 gigawatt hours), more than doubling the figure for 2007. Scotland also saw a 9.5% increase in installed renewable capacity and is well on its way to achieving its stated aim of 100% of its electricity needs from renewables in 2020.
This, folks, is more like it. But we cannot rest on our laurels. Regardless of the government's plans for hugely expensive (and unpopular) new nuclear, two of the Big Six energy companies have now withdrawn from nuclear power altogether. What is more, falling gas and oil production in the UK led to a worrying 36.5% net energy import dependency - the highest it's been since 1976, with net imports of gas rising to levels not seen since 1967. We're paying more and more to import fossil fuels, while nuclear gets more expensive and energy companies are dropping it like a hot rock (which is what, in fact, it is).
Thank God for renewables, which are actually becoming cheaper.
But here's the downside. As they lose the ideological battle over wind and other renewables, nimby campaigners have been getting dirtier, nastier and meaner. Nimbies are very bad losers, and as more and more good news about renewables rolls in, their squawking gets more and more aggressive and ludicrous.
Worse still, the nimbies are causing a massive amount of damage, in terms of energy efficiency and security, combatting climate change, time and money, jobs and - worst of all - human suffering. That is why we fight them.
Most nimby campaigns are started by people who know nothing whatsoever about wind power. They just don't want a turbine or two anywhere near them - end of. They seek only to preserve their supposed special privileges (i.e., we live in nice houses in exclusive areas where there isn't any riff-raff and where the views are uniquely unspoiled by thousands of years of human activity, so somebody else should get the windfarm; we're far too special to have to do our bit!)
That isn't really much of an argument against windfarms - although, if the nimbies were honest, it is the sole driver of their foolish campaigns.
So they resort to lies. Massive, outdated, repeatedly discredited, destructive, socially harmful, brainless lies.
When this is pointed out, they go berserk. Often, they threaten legal action (the first resort of the scoundrel), although this is just an empty threat, because if they had to defend their monstrous lies in court, they'd be exposed as the fraudulent dimwits they really are.
They do, however, show no qualms about subverting the democratic process and terrifying their neighbours into abject hysteria with their lies.
They do everything they can to find your weak point. Are you worried about the value of your house going down (wwwooooooooohhh! Negative equity!!)? They'll tell you the old lie about windfarms knocking 54% off the value of your property. It's utterly untrue - if anything, a windfarm nearby is more likely to increase the market value of your house - and they can only get away with that ridiculous claim by misquoting one report.
Are you worried about losing your peace and quiet? They'll lie to you about windfarms being "noisy", especially at night, and try to convince you that you'll never be able to sleep soundly again. If you're distressed or foolish enough to believe this lie, you'll imagine that you can hear windfarm noises in your bedroom, when in reality you can't.
Are you a mild hypochondriac? They'll produce false, bogus and unscientific evidence that windfarms cause health problems. At the same time, they will deliberately suppress the growing wealth of genuine evidence which proves that the fanciful so-called "wind turbine syndrome" is sheer nonsense designed only to scare innocent people. And once they've got you believing that load of old rubbish, you're buggered. At the first sight of a windfarm you'll start having palpitations. Not that it's the windfarm's fault. No: your nimby neighbours did that to you. They made you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.
This is becoming a national problem. The lies published and repeated and shouted and screamed by nasty nimby nutters are causing real pain, concern and alarm, and all for no good reason. People are being bullied, misled, threatened and brainwashed by members of their own communities into believing a pack of lies which can only cause them lasting suffering.
The nimbies only doing this out of selfishness and a misplaced right-wing belief in their own superiority. If they were honest, they would be giving you all the information - which contradicts everything they've been saying - or even just admitting that they don't much care for the look of wind turbines, which is fair enough.
But these people are not honest. They attack others and then cry foul when their attacks are reported. They tell masses and masses of lies about windfarms and then accuse everybody else of lying. They set out deliberately to create panic on no grounds whatsoever and leave a toxic legacy of division and phantom symptoms in their wake.
They are also holding Britain back from meeting its climate obligations and securing a clean, green, low-cost energy future.
But the worst of it is, they are harming their neighbours with their poisonous falsehoods. For that alone, they will be forever damned.
And for that reason, we here at Wind of Change will continue to expose their self-serving myths and lies, their disgraceful tactics, their exorbitant vanity and their treacherous intents. No matter how much they may threaten us, we will continue to stand with the victims of these vicious and unprincipled nimbies. We will not stop telling the truth, no matter how far some nimby groups may go in seeking to silence others.
We are doing this for Britain, and for the growing number of people who have been lied to, bullied and betrayed by nimby zealots.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
BURTON WOLD SUCCESS!!!
Many moons ago, we reported on a visit to the Burton Wold Windfarm, a mere kilometre away from the village of Burton Latimer in Northamptonshire.
The journey over there was fraught. This was because most of those going had had their heads filled with arrant nonsense by the self-serving nimby liars of VVASP. They were therefore tetchy and apprehensive. But that changed as soon as they saw the windfarm.
Ten turbines, each 100 metres tall. The visitors wandered around the site (where crops were still being farmed, because wind turbines don't take up much land) and stood holding conversations - at normal volume - directly underneath the blades. It was a blustery day, and under the blades is the "noisiest" spot, but nobody had to raise their voices. Two hundred metres away, the turbines weren't really audible at all. A red kite put on an aerobatic display, flitting back and forth between the rotating blades. People were smiling. The homeward journey was friendly. All bogus concerns had been dispelled by the sheer majesty of an actual windfarm in operation. Everyone chatted and shared sweets.
That's the reality of windfarms. It's so easy to get the nimby lies out of your head. You just have to make an modest effort and find out for yourself.
Unless you're a district councillor. Members of Wychavon District Council's planning committee also visited Burton Wold, and apparently walked around with their eyes shut. At the special planning meeting for the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm, one council member argued that because the turbines at Burton Wold (ten of them) were 100 metres high, and the ones proposed for Lenchwick (five of them) were a little taller, then the two examples were utterly unlike each other. A case of brazen sophistry, if ever there was one.
Well, yesterday witnessed extraordinary scenes at Kettering Borough Council.
First, some background. Plans were already approved in 2007 to extend the Burton Wold windfarm by building seven more turbines to the north of the site. There had been no objections from the locals.
Yesterday, another five turbines, planned for the south of the Burton Wold site, gained unanimous approval from the Kettering borough councillors. There were no protests, no objections. One after another, councillors spoke in praise of the windfarm. The chair concluded the meeting with the remark: "this Council is leading the way, we are becoming the hub for renewables in the East Midlands".
A single turbine was also approved at the meeting for installation elsewhere in the district. The councillors - noting the provisions of the government's new planning guidelines and their presumption in favour of sustainable developments - agreed that all renewable energy helps the environment, no matter how small the contribution.
So, where did it all go right? After all, Burton Wold now has unanimous and enthusiastic permission to become a 22-turbine windfarm - the same number as turbines as will eventually be installed at Fullabrook in North Devon, where a small number of people are already complaining about "noise" which others cannot hear (see previous post).
The answer is simple. Burton Wold windfarm already exists. The locals know that the windfarm isn't noisy, nor is it unsightly. They can see it, but they weren't hoodwinked and brainwashed by nimby terrorists into believing that it would harm them. They know that the windfarm doesn't make you ill or massacre everything in its path. And far from hammering house values, estate agents marketing properties in neighbouring Burton Latimer routinely advertise proximity to the windfarm as a Unique Selling Point.
What is more, farmworkers actually live in cottages in the middle of the windfarm! Any complaints? Nope.
In other words, the disgusting nimby nutters could get nowhere in Kettering, with their foul and misleading bugaboo nonsense about wind power. They would have been laughed off the street.
Nimbies prey on the ignorant, the vulnerable and the easily-alarmed. They have achieved some success in North Devon where, though they couldn't stop the windfarm, they could at least trick locals into thinking that they can hear noises. But they wouldn't get away with that sort of unscrupulous and irresponsible behaviour near Burton Wold, because there, people know the convenient truth.
You won't hear much about the success of Burton Wold from your neighbourhood nimbies. They'll only want to tell you about the people they betrayed and damaged in Devon. Or about the piece written by two confirmed anti-windfarm campaigners which was published in the British Medical Journal. The nimbies will tell you that this "proves" a connection between windfarms and health issues (a connection which is only ever made in places where they depraved nimbies have already managed to convince people that they will get ill), although another piece, also published in the British Medical Journal, shows how biased and unscientific the nimby-friendly piece actually is (see here: http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1527/rr/572780).
Your local nasty nimbies nutters also won't tell you that their claims that windfarms will always need "baseload" back-up from conventional sources aren't true either:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy-futurist/why-baseload-power-is-doomed/445?tag=nl.e660
No, they'll just carry on spouting their incessant torrent of lies. But at least the good people of Kettering know that when a nimby opens his or her mouth, nothing but lies come spewing out of it. Otherwise, they might have objected to two - not one, but two - TWO - extensions to the Burton Wold windfarm site. But they didn't.
Because they know from experience that windfarms are fab. And luckily for them, no demented nimby hooligan got in there first with their atrocious and absurd stories about windfarms and health, house prices, noise, wildlife, emissions, baseload, subsidies, yadda yadda yadda ............
The journey over there was fraught. This was because most of those going had had their heads filled with arrant nonsense by the self-serving nimby liars of VVASP. They were therefore tetchy and apprehensive. But that changed as soon as they saw the windfarm.
Ten turbines, each 100 metres tall. The visitors wandered around the site (where crops were still being farmed, because wind turbines don't take up much land) and stood holding conversations - at normal volume - directly underneath the blades. It was a blustery day, and under the blades is the "noisiest" spot, but nobody had to raise their voices. Two hundred metres away, the turbines weren't really audible at all. A red kite put on an aerobatic display, flitting back and forth between the rotating blades. People were smiling. The homeward journey was friendly. All bogus concerns had been dispelled by the sheer majesty of an actual windfarm in operation. Everyone chatted and shared sweets.
That's the reality of windfarms. It's so easy to get the nimby lies out of your head. You just have to make an modest effort and find out for yourself.
Unless you're a district councillor. Members of Wychavon District Council's planning committee also visited Burton Wold, and apparently walked around with their eyes shut. At the special planning meeting for the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm, one council member argued that because the turbines at Burton Wold (ten of them) were 100 metres high, and the ones proposed for Lenchwick (five of them) were a little taller, then the two examples were utterly unlike each other. A case of brazen sophistry, if ever there was one.
Well, yesterday witnessed extraordinary scenes at Kettering Borough Council.
First, some background. Plans were already approved in 2007 to extend the Burton Wold windfarm by building seven more turbines to the north of the site. There had been no objections from the locals.
Yesterday, another five turbines, planned for the south of the Burton Wold site, gained unanimous approval from the Kettering borough councillors. There were no protests, no objections. One after another, councillors spoke in praise of the windfarm. The chair concluded the meeting with the remark: "this Council is leading the way, we are becoming the hub for renewables in the East Midlands".
A single turbine was also approved at the meeting for installation elsewhere in the district. The councillors - noting the provisions of the government's new planning guidelines and their presumption in favour of sustainable developments - agreed that all renewable energy helps the environment, no matter how small the contribution.
So, where did it all go right? After all, Burton Wold now has unanimous and enthusiastic permission to become a 22-turbine windfarm - the same number as turbines as will eventually be installed at Fullabrook in North Devon, where a small number of people are already complaining about "noise" which others cannot hear (see previous post).
The answer is simple. Burton Wold windfarm already exists. The locals know that the windfarm isn't noisy, nor is it unsightly. They can see it, but they weren't hoodwinked and brainwashed by nimby terrorists into believing that it would harm them. They know that the windfarm doesn't make you ill or massacre everything in its path. And far from hammering house values, estate agents marketing properties in neighbouring Burton Latimer routinely advertise proximity to the windfarm as a Unique Selling Point.
What is more, farmworkers actually live in cottages in the middle of the windfarm! Any complaints? Nope.
In other words, the disgusting nimby nutters could get nowhere in Kettering, with their foul and misleading bugaboo nonsense about wind power. They would have been laughed off the street.
Nimbies prey on the ignorant, the vulnerable and the easily-alarmed. They have achieved some success in North Devon where, though they couldn't stop the windfarm, they could at least trick locals into thinking that they can hear noises. But they wouldn't get away with that sort of unscrupulous and irresponsible behaviour near Burton Wold, because there, people know the convenient truth.
You won't hear much about the success of Burton Wold from your neighbourhood nimbies. They'll only want to tell you about the people they betrayed and damaged in Devon. Or about the piece written by two confirmed anti-windfarm campaigners which was published in the British Medical Journal. The nimbies will tell you that this "proves" a connection between windfarms and health issues (a connection which is only ever made in places where they depraved nimbies have already managed to convince people that they will get ill), although another piece, also published in the British Medical Journal, shows how biased and unscientific the nimby-friendly piece actually is (see here: http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1527/rr/572780).
Your local nasty nimbies nutters also won't tell you that their claims that windfarms will always need "baseload" back-up from conventional sources aren't true either:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy-futurist/why-baseload-power-is-doomed/445?tag=nl.e660
No, they'll just carry on spouting their incessant torrent of lies. But at least the good people of Kettering know that when a nimby opens his or her mouth, nothing but lies come spewing out of it. Otherwise, they might have objected to two - not one, but two - TWO - extensions to the Burton Wold windfarm site. But they didn't.
Because they know from experience that windfarms are fab. And luckily for them, no demented nimby hooligan got in there first with their atrocious and absurd stories about windfarms and health, house prices, noise, wildlife, emissions, baseload, subsidies, yadda yadda yadda ............
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
Want to know why anti-wind nimbies are evil? Dangerously, frighteningly, psychotically evil?
Because they want you to be ill.
Why do they want that? Because then they will have been proved right. Which is all that matters to them (try having a conversation with one - you'll never have the last word). So your job is to become ill when they want you to.
Here's how it works.
You hear that there are plans to build a windfarm near where you live. You don't know what that means, because you've never seen a windfarm. But you're concerned - naturally. Let's face it, we're only human, and any change, any mooted development, can be a cause for concern. Not just windfarms.
Now, if you were level-headed and grown-up, you might decide to visit a few windfarms to find out what they're like. But - NOT SO FAST!!!!! - some of your neighbours have already looked into it (so you don't need to find out for yourself). And what they've discovered is pretty worrying.
Apparently, windfarms are very noisy. They don't really work, of course, but somehow they still contrive to be very noisy, all the same. They keep you awake at night. And, what's worse, THEY MAKE YOU ILL!
Yes, there's evidence to prove it! Not very good evidence. Not really evidence at all, in the strictly scientific sense. In fact, it's a load of crap. But how are you to know? You're not a scientist. You trust your neighbours when they pretend to know what they're talking about. Of course, they're not going to let on that they got all their so-called "information" from a discredited nimby website, are they? No, they're going to pull the wool over your eyes by claiming to be giving you "comprehensive information" and they'll get you believing in conspiracy theories ("what the wind industry doesn't want you to know").
So there's the problem. Those arrogant, pompous, selfish bastards you call neighbours - who are only opposed to the windfarm because they don't want it affecting "their" view - have told you that it will be NOISY, it will KEEP YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT, and it will MAKE YOU ILL.
And you believed them.
This is becoming a major problem. Take the large new windfarm at Fullabrook in North Devon. It's not completed yet. But some locals are already claiming that it's noisy. One has even said that she can "feel the sensation from the blades turning through my pillow" (not really possible). Another has complained about the noise from the turbines' "motors" (ugh?). Someone has said that it is like having tumble driers in the bedroom so they're having to sleep on the sofa downstairs (so the "noise" doesn't reach downstairs - that's interesting).
All of these people can see the turbines - and there, dear friends, lies the problem. They were TOLD by their local nimby agitators that the turbines would sound like tumble driers (but only upstairs, apparently). They were TOLD that the turbines would make them ill. They were told that a magical-mystical thing called Amplitude Modulation would sound all swishy and bumpy, and that's what they're reporting. They even believed all the guff about infrasound (note to Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines: some sounds do not get louder as you move further away from the source - that's not physically possible. Get a grip).
The thing is, while some people are stressing about how "noisy" the windfarm is, others simply cannot hear it at all. A local councillor and Green Party candidate visited the site and was mystified by the lack of windfarm noise. "I am in receipt of criticisms (from people who don't like the wind-farm) but I get far more support from people who simply register confusion about the subject", he said. Like others, he had been totally unable to hear the phantom swishes, bumps and tumble driers. Because they weren't there.
Of course, being a Green Party candidate, the nimbies do not think that he's allowed to comment. Okay, so he checked out the site and couldn't find the problem. But he must be wrong BECAUSE HE DOESN'T AGREE WITH THE NIMBIES. And they're positively crowing about the strange, untraceable sounds that some locals are reporting.
Let's remember: the nimbies TOLD these people that windfarms are NOISY, they MAKE YOU ILL, and they KEEP YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT!!! They even told them what noises to expect (tumble driers, whoosing, swishing, bumping, and something called a wind turbine "motor"). And those people believed them.
Getting the picture? There's also the infamous example of Mr and Mrs Davis, who reported hearing "noise" in all sorts of strange situations - such as when their local windfarm wasn't even operational, or when they were miles away from it. When scrupulous and extended studies were carried out by noise experts, both for the local council and the windfarm operators, no trace of this "noise" could be found.
The Davises' case became a nimby cause celebre. Never mind the thousands of people living very happily near windfarms - statistically, the people most likely to support wind power. They don't count. But Mr and Mrs Davis - oh my God, we must never erect another wind turbine, ever!
(Even though the so-called "noise" could not be traced.)
Now, the nimbies have an answer to all this. Why, that is, most people, as well as scientific instruments, can't detect these phantom noises, let alone the more exotic infrasound and amplitude modulation. The nimbies argue that some people are more sensitive to this sort of thing than others. Notably, these hyper-sensitive souls tend to be those who can actually see the windfarm. And because some people are more sensitive than others, we must never erect another wind turbine, ever again!
Well, they're right in one respect. These people are more sensitive. By which we mean they're more suggestible. They're just the sort to be taken in by the rantings and ravings of a nimby liar.
They're the sort the nimbies like best. They're so easily programmable. You WILL hear the noise! You WILL be kept awake!! You WILL become ill!!!
And so they do, just as the nimbies told them to.
Shame, really. If they'd gone out and done their own research, they wouldn't be suffering now. Because they wouldn't have fallen for all that nimby bullshit in the first place.
So that's why anti-wind nimbies are so sickeningly, stomach-churningly, maniacally evil. They want you to believe the rubbish they're telling you. They want you to fall ill on cue. They want you to "feel" the distant blades pulsating through your pillows. They want you to find it so noisy that you have to sleep downstairs (an interesting example of the power of suggestion: you were TOLD that you wouldn't be able to sleep at night, which you subconsciously interpreted as "I won't be able to sleep in the bedroom"). They want you to hear tumble driers that aren't there, to hear forms of sound that are not detectable by the human ear, to hear swishes and thumps that not even the most sensitive acoustic equipment can't monitor.
They want you to suffer. Because then they can say: "Look, someone's suffering, ha, ha, ha, just like we told them they would! Ha, ha!! We were right! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!"
Sadly, though, it's your fault really, for listening to them in the first place. Next time, maybe you'll listen to someone who actually cares about you.
Because they want you to be ill.
Why do they want that? Because then they will have been proved right. Which is all that matters to them (try having a conversation with one - you'll never have the last word). So your job is to become ill when they want you to.
Here's how it works.
You hear that there are plans to build a windfarm near where you live. You don't know what that means, because you've never seen a windfarm. But you're concerned - naturally. Let's face it, we're only human, and any change, any mooted development, can be a cause for concern. Not just windfarms.
Now, if you were level-headed and grown-up, you might decide to visit a few windfarms to find out what they're like. But - NOT SO FAST!!!!! - some of your neighbours have already looked into it (so you don't need to find out for yourself). And what they've discovered is pretty worrying.
Apparently, windfarms are very noisy. They don't really work, of course, but somehow they still contrive to be very noisy, all the same. They keep you awake at night. And, what's worse, THEY MAKE YOU ILL!
Yes, there's evidence to prove it! Not very good evidence. Not really evidence at all, in the strictly scientific sense. In fact, it's a load of crap. But how are you to know? You're not a scientist. You trust your neighbours when they pretend to know what they're talking about. Of course, they're not going to let on that they got all their so-called "information" from a discredited nimby website, are they? No, they're going to pull the wool over your eyes by claiming to be giving you "comprehensive information" and they'll get you believing in conspiracy theories ("what the wind industry doesn't want you to know").
So there's the problem. Those arrogant, pompous, selfish bastards you call neighbours - who are only opposed to the windfarm because they don't want it affecting "their" view - have told you that it will be NOISY, it will KEEP YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT, and it will MAKE YOU ILL.
And you believed them.
This is becoming a major problem. Take the large new windfarm at Fullabrook in North Devon. It's not completed yet. But some locals are already claiming that it's noisy. One has even said that she can "feel the sensation from the blades turning through my pillow" (not really possible). Another has complained about the noise from the turbines' "motors" (ugh?). Someone has said that it is like having tumble driers in the bedroom so they're having to sleep on the sofa downstairs (so the "noise" doesn't reach downstairs - that's interesting).
All of these people can see the turbines - and there, dear friends, lies the problem. They were TOLD by their local nimby agitators that the turbines would sound like tumble driers (but only upstairs, apparently). They were TOLD that the turbines would make them ill. They were told that a magical-mystical thing called Amplitude Modulation would sound all swishy and bumpy, and that's what they're reporting. They even believed all the guff about infrasound (note to Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines: some sounds do not get louder as you move further away from the source - that's not physically possible. Get a grip).
The thing is, while some people are stressing about how "noisy" the windfarm is, others simply cannot hear it at all. A local councillor and Green Party candidate visited the site and was mystified by the lack of windfarm noise. "I am in receipt of criticisms (from people who don't like the wind-farm) but I get far more support from people who simply register confusion about the subject", he said. Like others, he had been totally unable to hear the phantom swishes, bumps and tumble driers. Because they weren't there.
Of course, being a Green Party candidate, the nimbies do not think that he's allowed to comment. Okay, so he checked out the site and couldn't find the problem. But he must be wrong BECAUSE HE DOESN'T AGREE WITH THE NIMBIES. And they're positively crowing about the strange, untraceable sounds that some locals are reporting.
Let's remember: the nimbies TOLD these people that windfarms are NOISY, they MAKE YOU ILL, and they KEEP YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT!!! They even told them what noises to expect (tumble driers, whoosing, swishing, bumping, and something called a wind turbine "motor"). And those people believed them.
Getting the picture? There's also the infamous example of Mr and Mrs Davis, who reported hearing "noise" in all sorts of strange situations - such as when their local windfarm wasn't even operational, or when they were miles away from it. When scrupulous and extended studies were carried out by noise experts, both for the local council and the windfarm operators, no trace of this "noise" could be found.
The Davises' case became a nimby cause celebre. Never mind the thousands of people living very happily near windfarms - statistically, the people most likely to support wind power. They don't count. But Mr and Mrs Davis - oh my God, we must never erect another wind turbine, ever!
(Even though the so-called "noise" could not be traced.)
Now, the nimbies have an answer to all this. Why, that is, most people, as well as scientific instruments, can't detect these phantom noises, let alone the more exotic infrasound and amplitude modulation. The nimbies argue that some people are more sensitive to this sort of thing than others. Notably, these hyper-sensitive souls tend to be those who can actually see the windfarm. And because some people are more sensitive than others, we must never erect another wind turbine, ever again!
Well, they're right in one respect. These people are more sensitive. By which we mean they're more suggestible. They're just the sort to be taken in by the rantings and ravings of a nimby liar.
They're the sort the nimbies like best. They're so easily programmable. You WILL hear the noise! You WILL be kept awake!! You WILL become ill!!!
And so they do, just as the nimbies told them to.
Shame, really. If they'd gone out and done their own research, they wouldn't be suffering now. Because they wouldn't have fallen for all that nimby bullshit in the first place.
So that's why anti-wind nimbies are so sickeningly, stomach-churningly, maniacally evil. They want you to believe the rubbish they're telling you. They want you to fall ill on cue. They want you to "feel" the distant blades pulsating through your pillows. They want you to find it so noisy that you have to sleep downstairs (an interesting example of the power of suggestion: you were TOLD that you wouldn't be able to sleep at night, which you subconsciously interpreted as "I won't be able to sleep in the bedroom"). They want you to hear tumble driers that aren't there, to hear forms of sound that are not detectable by the human ear, to hear swishes and thumps that not even the most sensitive acoustic equipment can't monitor.
They want you to suffer. Because then they can say: "Look, someone's suffering, ha, ha, ha, just like we told them they would! Ha, ha!! We were right! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!"
Sadly, though, it's your fault really, for listening to them in the first place. Next time, maybe you'll listen to someone who actually cares about you.
DEMOCRACY IN PERIL
We here at Wind of Change have reported frequently on the tendency of nimby anti-windfarm campaigners to undermine local democracy. This ranges from the corruption of parish councils to the falsification of local opinion poll results.
Our own local nimby group - VVASP - did both. Parish councils were barracked and harrassed until well-meaning councillors stood aside. Their places were then taken by dedicated nimbies who had no intention of sticking to the guidelines. They established a fake "Windfarm Working Party" in order to subvert the surrounding parish councils, mislead officers and members of the District Council, and get their hands on public money which they channelled into their devious and dishonest campaign.
They also misrepresented the outcomes of three local surveys carried out by the parish councils, inventing a non-existent "75%" of opposition to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm in a parish which didn't even see 75% of the ballot papers returned (the real level of expressed opposition was 44%). The nimbies' falsified figures were later passed on to the local MP for Redditch, who foolishly read them out in the District Council planning meeting.
A triumph, then, on many levels, for those who would wilfully undermine local democracy in order to get their way.
Well, sadly, things have moved on. Donald "Trumpety" Trump has made a lot of money available to the fanatics of CATS ("Communities Against Turbines Scotland" - although it should be pointed out that when they say "communities" they actually mean "a few scattered idiots").
The Trump has done this because he wants to stop a very important offshore windfarm development which he knew was on the cards when he applied for permission to wreck the Aberdeenshire coastline with his ghastly "luxury" golf resort. So now we have an American citizen trying to undermine our democracy!
CATS has hinted that it will use some of Trump's ill-gotten gains to campaign against local councillors who support wind energy projects. Now, Scotland has plans for a lot more in the way of renewables, with about 20 gigawatts-worth in various stages of development, and over 11,000 jons already dependent on the renewables sector. So, by seeking to oppose and smear politicians who support wind power and other renewables, the crazy CATS are doing all they can to betray the interests of Scotland and the UK as a whole. But then, they are fanatics and fifth columnists who have completely lost the plot.
The goods news is that the Scottish Green Party has reported Donald Trump to the Electoral Commission over his grubby donation to the stray CATS.
Basically, Trump has determined to buy our political process. What he cannot achieve by bullying, lying and throwing screaming fits, he intends to achieve through the wholesale corruption of the democratic process - aided and abetted, of course, by the halfwits of CATS.
But political donations from overseas are not allowed under the rules governing public elections in the UK. The fact that CATS was prepared to divert Trump's dirty money into campaigns targetting pro-wind candidates for local government means that the rules have almost certainly been breached.
There will undoubtedly be a few maniacs in the UK who greet Trump's mind-bendingly selfish and intolerant stance as a breakthrough for the vicious and destructive anti-windfarm movement. But then, as we already know, such people don't believe in democracy, public opinion, science or the national good. They would be quite happy for an American billionaire to dictate who we can and cannot elect to represent us, just as long as it means that their blinkered and unpatriotic position on wind is the one that prevails.
Each and every single one of us needs to ask ourselves this:
Do you believe in democracy, freedom of speech, energy security for our children, lower electricity bills and a cleaner environment?
If you do, then you have a solemn obligation to fight the lying fascists of the anti-windfarm minority, their deranged propagandists and their monstrous paymasters, like Donald Trump.
Our own local nimby group - VVASP - did both. Parish councils were barracked and harrassed until well-meaning councillors stood aside. Their places were then taken by dedicated nimbies who had no intention of sticking to the guidelines. They established a fake "Windfarm Working Party" in order to subvert the surrounding parish councils, mislead officers and members of the District Council, and get their hands on public money which they channelled into their devious and dishonest campaign.
They also misrepresented the outcomes of three local surveys carried out by the parish councils, inventing a non-existent "75%" of opposition to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm in a parish which didn't even see 75% of the ballot papers returned (the real level of expressed opposition was 44%). The nimbies' falsified figures were later passed on to the local MP for Redditch, who foolishly read them out in the District Council planning meeting.
A triumph, then, on many levels, for those who would wilfully undermine local democracy in order to get their way.
Well, sadly, things have moved on. Donald "Trumpety" Trump has made a lot of money available to the fanatics of CATS ("Communities Against Turbines Scotland" - although it should be pointed out that when they say "communities" they actually mean "a few scattered idiots").
The Trump has done this because he wants to stop a very important offshore windfarm development which he knew was on the cards when he applied for permission to wreck the Aberdeenshire coastline with his ghastly "luxury" golf resort. So now we have an American citizen trying to undermine our democracy!
CATS has hinted that it will use some of Trump's ill-gotten gains to campaign against local councillors who support wind energy projects. Now, Scotland has plans for a lot more in the way of renewables, with about 20 gigawatts-worth in various stages of development, and over 11,000 jons already dependent on the renewables sector. So, by seeking to oppose and smear politicians who support wind power and other renewables, the crazy CATS are doing all they can to betray the interests of Scotland and the UK as a whole. But then, they are fanatics and fifth columnists who have completely lost the plot.
The goods news is that the Scottish Green Party has reported Donald Trump to the Electoral Commission over his grubby donation to the stray CATS.
Basically, Trump has determined to buy our political process. What he cannot achieve by bullying, lying and throwing screaming fits, he intends to achieve through the wholesale corruption of the democratic process - aided and abetted, of course, by the halfwits of CATS.
But political donations from overseas are not allowed under the rules governing public elections in the UK. The fact that CATS was prepared to divert Trump's dirty money into campaigns targetting pro-wind candidates for local government means that the rules have almost certainly been breached.
There will undoubtedly be a few maniacs in the UK who greet Trump's mind-bendingly selfish and intolerant stance as a breakthrough for the vicious and destructive anti-windfarm movement. But then, as we already know, such people don't believe in democracy, public opinion, science or the national good. They would be quite happy for an American billionaire to dictate who we can and cannot elect to represent us, just as long as it means that their blinkered and unpatriotic position on wind is the one that prevails.
Each and every single one of us needs to ask ourselves this:
Do you believe in democracy, freedom of speech, energy security for our children, lower electricity bills and a cleaner environment?
If you do, then you have a solemn obligation to fight the lying fascists of the anti-windfarm minority, their deranged propagandists and their monstrous paymasters, like Donald Trump.
Monday, 26 March 2012
BRITAIN'S SHAME
Ireland is about to achieve a historic reversal. Traditionally, the Emerald Isle imported fuel for energy. But the country is now on the verge of becoming an energy exporter.
How has it managed this? By building windfarms.
Like the UK, Ireland gets an awful lot of wind. Unlike the UK, Ireland's government is a major supporter of its burgeoning wind industry. A couple of days ago, the Irish Minister for Energy announced a new support scheme for renewable energy. The Irish Independent newspaper announced that "the proactive and strategic development of wind energy has a clear role to play in Ireland's road to economic recovery and in stimulating employment growth ...
"An opportunity is emerging; we must seize it."
Not quite the message that Britain's dog-eared right-wing press has been broadcasting. Over here, we're expected to believe that wind power doesn't work, that it's too intermittent, too inefficient and completely reliant on subsidies. The rest of the world, meanwhile, is busily striding forwards with renewables, and wind energy is one of the global growth industries. Denmark has just confirmed its commitment to getting 50% of its electricity from wind and other renewables by 2020; Scotland expects to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by then and still to be a net exporter of energy.
Ireland's encouragement of its own wind industry means that the Irish expect to be exporting an annual six billion euros worth of surplus wind energy within the next few years. Most of that will be exported to its nearest neighbour - the UK.
How ironic would it be if the country which likes to kid itself that wind power is useless ends up buying in wind-generated energy from Ireland and Scotland? This, it should be pointed out, is extremely likely in the very near future. Once again, we'll be losing out - paying other countries for the clean, green, cheap-to-produce energy that we couldn't be bothered to develop because we were so busy telling each other nimby lies about wind.
On the subject of cheap energy, an article on CleanTechnica.com presents some interesting facts. The French Court of Auditors recently found that nuclear power costs more to produce than French consumers are paying for it because no one had previously taken all the costs of nuclear into account. For a start, the costs of being nuclear plants has skyrocketed. In 1978, it cost the equivalent of 1.07 million euros per megawatt. By 2002, that had risen to 1.37 million euros per megawatt. Now, in the post-Fukushima world (which has seen Japan shut down all but one of its 56 reactors, with the last one scheduled to be switched off in May), the current costs of constructing a nuclear power station are an estimated 3.7 million euros per megawatt. Construction of the Flamanville nuclear plant began in 2006 - now completion has been put back to 2016 and the costs have gone up by 50%.
What all this means is that nuclear will cost about 102 euros per megawatt hour by 2020. By then, onshore wind will cost about 58 euros per megawatt hour, and offshore wind about 75 euros.
No marks for guessing which is the cheaper option. Or which is the cleaner, safer option. Or which takes the least time to get going. Or which does not leave tens of thousands of years of extremely hazardous waste to be dealt with and doesn't threaten to destroy everything within a radius of many miles.
All the same, we in the UK are continually bombarded by nimby nonsense and false figures produced by lobbyists for the fossil fuels and nuclear industries. We are allowing other countries - including our nearest neighbours - to steal a march on us. They will be the ones producing surplus clean energy, which we will have to pay them for. They will also be providing jobs and economic growth by investing in renewables - wind in particular - while we continue to grouse and gripe and spread silly stories which don't make sense.
Nimbyism is the cause of our growing shame in all this. Residents of fairly ordinary villages try to claim that theirs is a unique habitat which must never be "threatened" by anything as unthreatening as a windfarm. No, they shriek: put all the windfarms offshore!! But then the shore-dwellers kick up an unholy stink about offshore developments, like the breathtaking Atlantic Array in the Bristol Channel or the European Offshore Wind Development Centre, which Donald Trump and his hired gangsters are trying to stop.
So, if we were to listen to the nimby idiots of Middle England we'd get the bizarre impression that nowhere is right for windfarms. They're all so busy passing the buck, pretending to be all in favour of renewables just as long as it's somebody else who has to see them, that no one is allowed to help move Britain into the 21st century. Every single nimby campaign really does seem to imagine that one small group of rural arrivistes can be absolved from playing a necessary (and enjoyable) part in Britain's energy renaissance. It just so happens that wherever these maniacs live is so special, the view so staggeringly remarkable, that they should and must be excused from doing their bit. But what happens is, with everywhere going nimby mental these days, it turns out that everyone's view is more special than anybody else's.
And so they tell lies about wind energy in an attempt to deflect attention from their monstrous selfishness and crazed paranoia.
And those lies are what is holding Britain back. The rest of the world isn't quite so infested with self-centred, irresponsible nimby liars as our little isle. Which seemingly means that we'll all end up paying more for our electricity - expensive nuclear from France, cheaper renewables from Ireland and Scotland - than we need to. Because we were too busy lying about how important the view is: more important than anybody else's; more important than saving the planet.
Nimbies, eh? Traitors all!
How has it managed this? By building windfarms.
Like the UK, Ireland gets an awful lot of wind. Unlike the UK, Ireland's government is a major supporter of its burgeoning wind industry. A couple of days ago, the Irish Minister for Energy announced a new support scheme for renewable energy. The Irish Independent newspaper announced that "the proactive and strategic development of wind energy has a clear role to play in Ireland's road to economic recovery and in stimulating employment growth ...
"An opportunity is emerging; we must seize it."
Not quite the message that Britain's dog-eared right-wing press has been broadcasting. Over here, we're expected to believe that wind power doesn't work, that it's too intermittent, too inefficient and completely reliant on subsidies. The rest of the world, meanwhile, is busily striding forwards with renewables, and wind energy is one of the global growth industries. Denmark has just confirmed its commitment to getting 50% of its electricity from wind and other renewables by 2020; Scotland expects to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by then and still to be a net exporter of energy.
Ireland's encouragement of its own wind industry means that the Irish expect to be exporting an annual six billion euros worth of surplus wind energy within the next few years. Most of that will be exported to its nearest neighbour - the UK.
How ironic would it be if the country which likes to kid itself that wind power is useless ends up buying in wind-generated energy from Ireland and Scotland? This, it should be pointed out, is extremely likely in the very near future. Once again, we'll be losing out - paying other countries for the clean, green, cheap-to-produce energy that we couldn't be bothered to develop because we were so busy telling each other nimby lies about wind.
On the subject of cheap energy, an article on CleanTechnica.com presents some interesting facts. The French Court of Auditors recently found that nuclear power costs more to produce than French consumers are paying for it because no one had previously taken all the costs of nuclear into account. For a start, the costs of being nuclear plants has skyrocketed. In 1978, it cost the equivalent of 1.07 million euros per megawatt. By 2002, that had risen to 1.37 million euros per megawatt. Now, in the post-Fukushima world (which has seen Japan shut down all but one of its 56 reactors, with the last one scheduled to be switched off in May), the current costs of constructing a nuclear power station are an estimated 3.7 million euros per megawatt. Construction of the Flamanville nuclear plant began in 2006 - now completion has been put back to 2016 and the costs have gone up by 50%.
What all this means is that nuclear will cost about 102 euros per megawatt hour by 2020. By then, onshore wind will cost about 58 euros per megawatt hour, and offshore wind about 75 euros.
No marks for guessing which is the cheaper option. Or which is the cleaner, safer option. Or which takes the least time to get going. Or which does not leave tens of thousands of years of extremely hazardous waste to be dealt with and doesn't threaten to destroy everything within a radius of many miles.
All the same, we in the UK are continually bombarded by nimby nonsense and false figures produced by lobbyists for the fossil fuels and nuclear industries. We are allowing other countries - including our nearest neighbours - to steal a march on us. They will be the ones producing surplus clean energy, which we will have to pay them for. They will also be providing jobs and economic growth by investing in renewables - wind in particular - while we continue to grouse and gripe and spread silly stories which don't make sense.
Nimbyism is the cause of our growing shame in all this. Residents of fairly ordinary villages try to claim that theirs is a unique habitat which must never be "threatened" by anything as unthreatening as a windfarm. No, they shriek: put all the windfarms offshore!! But then the shore-dwellers kick up an unholy stink about offshore developments, like the breathtaking Atlantic Array in the Bristol Channel or the European Offshore Wind Development Centre, which Donald Trump and his hired gangsters are trying to stop.
So, if we were to listen to the nimby idiots of Middle England we'd get the bizarre impression that nowhere is right for windfarms. They're all so busy passing the buck, pretending to be all in favour of renewables just as long as it's somebody else who has to see them, that no one is allowed to help move Britain into the 21st century. Every single nimby campaign really does seem to imagine that one small group of rural arrivistes can be absolved from playing a necessary (and enjoyable) part in Britain's energy renaissance. It just so happens that wherever these maniacs live is so special, the view so staggeringly remarkable, that they should and must be excused from doing their bit. But what happens is, with everywhere going nimby mental these days, it turns out that everyone's view is more special than anybody else's.
And so they tell lies about wind energy in an attempt to deflect attention from their monstrous selfishness and crazed paranoia.
And those lies are what is holding Britain back. The rest of the world isn't quite so infested with self-centred, irresponsible nimby liars as our little isle. Which seemingly means that we'll all end up paying more for our electricity - expensive nuclear from France, cheaper renewables from Ireland and Scotland - than we need to. Because we were too busy lying about how important the view is: more important than anybody else's; more important than saving the planet.
Nimbies, eh? Traitors all!
Sunday, 25 March 2012
WINDFARMS AND HOUSE PRICES
The "Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines" website is a good example of ... well, of a nimby website.
It's not difficult to figure out what happened, because the pattern is more-or-less the same wherever it happens. A clean energy company, having carried out the various preliminary wind-mapping and pre-scoping stages, announced that it was considering the Dorcas Lane site as a potential windfarm development. Between them, the developers and their consultants probably accounted for several decades of experience in wind energy matters.
Within days of the announcement, a small but wealthy group of local sociopaths decided that they were the real wind power experts, even though it's highly unlikely that any of them had even seen a windfarm before. To prove that they had become overnight experts in the science and technology of wind energy, they put out anti-windfarm propaganda which they had simply culled from numerous identikit anti-windfarm sites. In other words, the nimbies did absolutely no research whatsoever, but still posed as "experts" on the subject of windfarms.
The gibberish they had raided from the other nimby websites was basically the standard pile of nonsensical garbage promoted by anti-wind fanatics and the hoodlums who instantly and unthinkingly object to something, regardless of its merits. The oafish claims made by the fools of "Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines" have all been discredited, over and over again. Abundant evidence has been released which disproves every single one of those tiresomely repetitive claims (including such hoary old chestnuts as the government guidelines on windfarms and noise, ETSU-R-97, being "out of date" and "unfit for purpose" because wind turbines are larger today than they were back in 1997 - they're also, by the way, very much quieter, indicating that if only the nimbies had brains capable of processing information they'd realise that ETSU-R-97 actually works rather well!).
But, because they did NO RESEARCH WHATSOEVER and only ponced the idiotic and wildly inaccurate claims made by previous nimby groups, the Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines psychos didn't bother to find out the facts. Why should they? They were arrogant and conceited enough to pose as "experts" in something they knew nothing about and selfish and evil enough to spread cretinous scare stories about wind to alarm and frighten their neighbours.
Those who actually did some research into windfarms - real research, that is - discovered that they're really rather great. And so they had to be bullied and victimised. Because once a handful of pompous bores have decided that they know all there is to know about windfarms (having trawled obsessively and exclusively through misleading nimby websites), no one is allowed to question their judgement or voice an alternative opinion.
Typical, then, to find that the morons of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines have run that fraudulent old myth about windfarms and house prices up the flagpole. Yep: they had the bad taste and breathtaking ignorance (or maybe just massive dishonesty) to claim that a study carried out by researchers based at Oxford Brookes University in 2006, and part-funded by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, found that house prices can fall by as much as "54%" in proximity to a windfarm.
Okay, so let's give the nimby nutters of Aylesbury Vale the benefit of the doubt and assume that they only made this claim because they didn't know any better (because they didn't actually do any research at all). The only alternative is that they knowing lied to their neighbours over something that was guaranteed to cause confusion and concern.
But let's assume that, because the Dorcas Lane nimbies didn't actually look into the issues, merely regurgitating the lies told by other nimby groups, they had no idea that no direct correlation has been found between windfarms and house prices. None. At all.
Fortunately, we have researched this subject in some depth. We have to, because the nimbies refuse to. They just repeat old, outdated, outworn lies. So we looked into it.
Luckily, so did Christopher Barclay, who drafted a briefing paper for the House of Commons Library (updated 11 February 2011) entitled "Do wind farms actually reduce house prices?" Christopher Barclay was forced to conclude that it would be difficult to agree compensation packages for residents living near windfarms because there is no actual evidence that windfarms have a negative impact on property prices.
Other studies have reached similar conclusions - apart from a couple of exceptions. These include the largest study yet carried out and point to something that even the nimbies, in the ghastly darkness of their black, black hearts, should find interesting:
Property values in relatively close proximity to windfarms tend to go up faster than in the case of comparable properties which are not so close to windfarms.
Yes. Fact. Windfarms are actually rather good news for the property-minded homeowners who would no doubt be delighted to know that a few turbines a fair distance away have increased the market value of their houses.
Overall, there is some evidence of a small dip in property values during the planning stage of a windfarm. But, of course, with no windfarm yet in the immediate vicinity, we have to question how a non-existent windfarm can have a minor impact on house prices. The answer, of course, is that the windfarm doesn't. Because it doesn't exist yet. What causes the slight fall in property prices is the nimbies themselves, who kick up such a fuss over nothing that they make their village an extremely undesirable place for a reasonable human being to want to live.
Then, when the windfarm becomes operational, the local house prices quickly catch up with what they were before the treacherous nimby idiots started their stupid campaign, and in many cases the house prices show a healthy increase over and above their normal rate. Because when people know what a windfarm is really like, they want to live near one. That's how it works.
The research we carried out into the matter of windfarms and property values (unlike the witless nimbies, who did no research at all) we freely shared with Yes 2 Wind. It now forms part of the "Expert" answer to the question of windfarms and house prices in the Windypedia section of their website. You can read up on our research by clicking here:
http://www.yes2wind.com/faqs/property-values/do-wind-farms-affect-property-values#
and selecting the "Expert" option.
You see, it takes work to become a real expert in wind energy and its associated issues. The self-serving idiots of Stop Dorcas Lane and all their clone-like nimby counterparts simply cannot be bothered to do that work. They reckon that just by looking up half-a-dozen nimby websites they can become instant experts entitled to fool, delude and mislead their communities and, indeed, their local councillors.
But they're actually being exceptionally stupid. Because what they say about windfarms is absolutely untrue. They're lying, and they either know that they're lying (in which case, they're liars) or they believe the nonsense they're talking (in which case, they're ignorant and very, very stupid). Either way, the last thing these people are is "expert" on the subject of windfarms.
Experts at spreading sickening lies, abusing their neighbours, bullying the smart people, telling more lies and generally being disgustingly aggressive and grossly irresponsible - yes. But experts on windfarms?
Don't make us laugh.
It's not difficult to figure out what happened, because the pattern is more-or-less the same wherever it happens. A clean energy company, having carried out the various preliminary wind-mapping and pre-scoping stages, announced that it was considering the Dorcas Lane site as a potential windfarm development. Between them, the developers and their consultants probably accounted for several decades of experience in wind energy matters.
Within days of the announcement, a small but wealthy group of local sociopaths decided that they were the real wind power experts, even though it's highly unlikely that any of them had even seen a windfarm before. To prove that they had become overnight experts in the science and technology of wind energy, they put out anti-windfarm propaganda which they had simply culled from numerous identikit anti-windfarm sites. In other words, the nimbies did absolutely no research whatsoever, but still posed as "experts" on the subject of windfarms.
The gibberish they had raided from the other nimby websites was basically the standard pile of nonsensical garbage promoted by anti-wind fanatics and the hoodlums who instantly and unthinkingly object to something, regardless of its merits. The oafish claims made by the fools of "Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines" have all been discredited, over and over again. Abundant evidence has been released which disproves every single one of those tiresomely repetitive claims (including such hoary old chestnuts as the government guidelines on windfarms and noise, ETSU-R-97, being "out of date" and "unfit for purpose" because wind turbines are larger today than they were back in 1997 - they're also, by the way, very much quieter, indicating that if only the nimbies had brains capable of processing information they'd realise that ETSU-R-97 actually works rather well!).
But, because they did NO RESEARCH WHATSOEVER and only ponced the idiotic and wildly inaccurate claims made by previous nimby groups, the Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines psychos didn't bother to find out the facts. Why should they? They were arrogant and conceited enough to pose as "experts" in something they knew nothing about and selfish and evil enough to spread cretinous scare stories about wind to alarm and frighten their neighbours.
Those who actually did some research into windfarms - real research, that is - discovered that they're really rather great. And so they had to be bullied and victimised. Because once a handful of pompous bores have decided that they know all there is to know about windfarms (having trawled obsessively and exclusively through misleading nimby websites), no one is allowed to question their judgement or voice an alternative opinion.
Typical, then, to find that the morons of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines have run that fraudulent old myth about windfarms and house prices up the flagpole. Yep: they had the bad taste and breathtaking ignorance (or maybe just massive dishonesty) to claim that a study carried out by researchers based at Oxford Brookes University in 2006, and part-funded by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, found that house prices can fall by as much as "54%" in proximity to a windfarm.
Okay, so let's give the nimby nutters of Aylesbury Vale the benefit of the doubt and assume that they only made this claim because they didn't know any better (because they didn't actually do any research at all). The only alternative is that they knowing lied to their neighbours over something that was guaranteed to cause confusion and concern.
But let's assume that, because the Dorcas Lane nimbies didn't actually look into the issues, merely regurgitating the lies told by other nimby groups, they had no idea that no direct correlation has been found between windfarms and house prices. None. At all.
Fortunately, we have researched this subject in some depth. We have to, because the nimbies refuse to. They just repeat old, outdated, outworn lies. So we looked into it.
Luckily, so did Christopher Barclay, who drafted a briefing paper for the House of Commons Library (updated 11 February 2011) entitled "Do wind farms actually reduce house prices?" Christopher Barclay was forced to conclude that it would be difficult to agree compensation packages for residents living near windfarms because there is no actual evidence that windfarms have a negative impact on property prices.
Other studies have reached similar conclusions - apart from a couple of exceptions. These include the largest study yet carried out and point to something that even the nimbies, in the ghastly darkness of their black, black hearts, should find interesting:
Property values in relatively close proximity to windfarms tend to go up faster than in the case of comparable properties which are not so close to windfarms.
Yes. Fact. Windfarms are actually rather good news for the property-minded homeowners who would no doubt be delighted to know that a few turbines a fair distance away have increased the market value of their houses.
Overall, there is some evidence of a small dip in property values during the planning stage of a windfarm. But, of course, with no windfarm yet in the immediate vicinity, we have to question how a non-existent windfarm can have a minor impact on house prices. The answer, of course, is that the windfarm doesn't. Because it doesn't exist yet. What causes the slight fall in property prices is the nimbies themselves, who kick up such a fuss over nothing that they make their village an extremely undesirable place for a reasonable human being to want to live.
Then, when the windfarm becomes operational, the local house prices quickly catch up with what they were before the treacherous nimby idiots started their stupid campaign, and in many cases the house prices show a healthy increase over and above their normal rate. Because when people know what a windfarm is really like, they want to live near one. That's how it works.
The research we carried out into the matter of windfarms and property values (unlike the witless nimbies, who did no research at all) we freely shared with Yes 2 Wind. It now forms part of the "Expert" answer to the question of windfarms and house prices in the Windypedia section of their website. You can read up on our research by clicking here:
http://www.yes2wind.com/faqs/property-values/do-wind-farms-affect-property-values#
and selecting the "Expert" option.
You see, it takes work to become a real expert in wind energy and its associated issues. The self-serving idiots of Stop Dorcas Lane and all their clone-like nimby counterparts simply cannot be bothered to do that work. They reckon that just by looking up half-a-dozen nimby websites they can become instant experts entitled to fool, delude and mislead their communities and, indeed, their local councillors.
But they're actually being exceptionally stupid. Because what they say about windfarms is absolutely untrue. They're lying, and they either know that they're lying (in which case, they're liars) or they believe the nonsense they're talking (in which case, they're ignorant and very, very stupid). Either way, the last thing these people are is "expert" on the subject of windfarms.
Experts at spreading sickening lies, abusing their neighbours, bullying the smart people, telling more lies and generally being disgustingly aggressive and grossly irresponsible - yes. But experts on windfarms?
Don't make us laugh.
Friday, 23 March 2012
NIGHTMARE ON DORCAS LANE
Once again, our British nimbies are proving that they are all cut from the same nasty cloth.
Proposals for a four-turbine windfarm a kilometre from the village of Stoke Hammond have been submitted to Aylesbury Vale District Council. The site is known as Dorcas Lane.
So, what have the local loons of the Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines nimby group done about it?
Well, same old, same old. The usual lies - about windfarm noise, for example, and the alleged - but now completely discredited - negative effects on health. They've even trotted out the old myths about windfarms and property prices, daring to quote the RICS-sponsored report which found no connection between windfarm proximity and house prices. But, oh no, the nasty nimby idiots fell into the old VVASP trap of quoting part of a sentence from that report which gives the misleading impression that the report concluded otherwise.
In fact, their website is a carbon copy job of old nimby myths from a few years ago - all the ridiculous, nonsensical claims which have been rubbished by the independent Advertising Standards Authority, amongst others, on the grounds that they are manifestly untrue. So, we come across tired old (i.e. lazy) references to the useless studies carried out by Dr Nina Pierpoint (married to an anti-wind power lobbyist) and Dr Christopher Hanning (who was fighting a windfarm proposal at the time), and no reference whatsoever to the wealth of properly scientific, peer-reviewed evidence which has since been published and which proves just how wildly unscientific and grossly misleading the "reports" of Pierpoint and Hanning are!
Equally brainless and predictable, they cite Jane and Julian Davis. Maybe it's time Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines updated their website to reflect the latest developments in that deeply suspect case.
Anyway. Okay, so their website is a pack of lies. What else?
Well, they flew a blimp. Good golly gosh, where on earth did they get an idea like that???? Oh, yes - every mind-bogglingly unimaginative nimby group does the same thing in order to show people exactly what a windfarm doesn't look like. Many groups deliberately fly their stupid blimps in places where the turbines wll not be standing, in order to create a false impression. Besides which, these blimps are effectively the opposite of what a wind turbine looks like. Their boringly repetitive use by nimby groups is essential proof of how dishonest those groups are. Blimps and windfarms look nothing like each other. Nothing at all.
Fine. So Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines have spread the usual plethora of lies, false and selective information in order to whip up hysteria based an a total misunderstanding of what windfarms are, and they've flown their idiotic blimp. What next?
Well, the obvious, sadly. They're attacking anyone who expresses support for the windfarm. It's the usual nimby bullying - hectoring, harrassing, intimidating, shouting, browbeating and lying - all in order to maintain the falsehood that nobody is in favour of the windfarm.
Anyone who is in favour is instantly accused of working either for the developer, Force 9, or the pro-wind advocacy organisation Yes 2 Wind. Again, how tiresomely predictable. Every rat-faced, brain-dead nimby in the country likes to pretend that only those who work in or for the wind industry are supporters of wind energy. Presumably, the nasty nimby idiots don't believe in opinion polls (apart, that is, from those whose results they shamelessly manipulate in order to create the misleading impression that they are in the majority).
But the attacks have now got personal and predictably nasty. It's the same old story. No one is allowed to express an opinion unless it's the nimby opinion (which itself is based on ignorance, prejudice and a willingness to believe any old codswallop as long as it's anti-wind). We saw it in the Lenches, when VVASP bullied and intimidated anyone who had found out the truth about windfarms or just didn't agree with their "rabid" behaviour and imposition of "mob-rule". And now, the evil dunces of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines are doing the same thing: bullying and harrassing anyone with a heart, a brain, a soul and a conscience.
This is what happens when you base your campaign entirely on lies.
Of course, like all nimbies, they try to pose as poor downtrodden church mice being "threatened" by some giant corporation. They claim to be all in favour of renewables (yeah, sure, where have we heard that one before?) but can't understand why the turbines have to be built "so close" to people's homes (i.e. a kilometre or so away from the nearest - so no likelihood of noise or even the dreaded "infrasound" that the nimbies want to believe in).
It's a bit like saying that you're all in favour of street lighting, but not within two kilometres of where anybody lives. It's an insane, unrealistic and thoroughly devious argument - a tactic favoured by the fundamentalist Christian Right in America: first pretend to be only being reasonable, and then propose something that is so blisteringly stupid it could never work.
As usual, Aylesbury Vale is quite simply more beautiful and "unspoilt" than anywhere else, and so its inhabitants shouldn't be required to do their bit to help combat climate change. No. Even though it will do them no harm and - as evidence from all around the UK has shown - benefit the community, the region, the nation and, of course, the planet. No. These people think they're special and are consequently absolved of all responsibilities, including those involving good neighbourliness, common decency and plain old-fashioned honesty.
The crazed frauds of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines are, then, simply doing what every single nimby group in the country does. Telling lies, misleading themselves and others, stomping squarely on the face of local democracy, denying others their opinions and clamping down hard on anyone who believes in science, free speech and clean technology.
Once again, the nimbies themselves have given the lie to the vicious slur made against this blog on the Green Building Forum by a deluded anti-wind activist a short while ago.
If anyone can find and provide us with a proven example of pro-wind campaigners or windfarm developers spreading out-dated scare stories and bullying and threatening anyone who disagrees with them, we'd like to hear about it. Good luck, though, because it's unlikely that you'd find any genuine examples of disgraceful, immoral, undemocratic and mindlessly aggressive behaviour by the pro-wind lobby (and we would require evidence; just bleating about windfarm companies being "bullies" merely shows that you're unbalanced, not that you have a case).
As for the nimbies of Middle England - well, we're forever finding that they are all the same. They all tell the same lies, and they all resort to the same kneejerk persecution of anyone whose opinion differs from theirs - especially when it's an opinion based on evidence. That really drives them up the wall.
So, to "Joiner" of the Green Building Forum, and to the vicious thugs and liars of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines, we say only this: we know your methods. You can delude yourselves, but you can't delude us. You are the problem. Your refusal to face facts, and your inability to see yourselves as you really are, will be your downfall. You are traitors to the nation.
And to Aylesbury Vale District Council we say this: we are watching. You know now what the dishonest nimby bullies are up to. We wait to see whether you will do the right thing and honour your obligations, or whether you will cave in to lies and threats from a dangerously unethical, self-centred and aggressive minority.
And so it goes on ...
Proposals for a four-turbine windfarm a kilometre from the village of Stoke Hammond have been submitted to Aylesbury Vale District Council. The site is known as Dorcas Lane.
So, what have the local loons of the Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines nimby group done about it?
Well, same old, same old. The usual lies - about windfarm noise, for example, and the alleged - but now completely discredited - negative effects on health. They've even trotted out the old myths about windfarms and property prices, daring to quote the RICS-sponsored report which found no connection between windfarm proximity and house prices. But, oh no, the nasty nimby idiots fell into the old VVASP trap of quoting part of a sentence from that report which gives the misleading impression that the report concluded otherwise.
In fact, their website is a carbon copy job of old nimby myths from a few years ago - all the ridiculous, nonsensical claims which have been rubbished by the independent Advertising Standards Authority, amongst others, on the grounds that they are manifestly untrue. So, we come across tired old (i.e. lazy) references to the useless studies carried out by Dr Nina Pierpoint (married to an anti-wind power lobbyist) and Dr Christopher Hanning (who was fighting a windfarm proposal at the time), and no reference whatsoever to the wealth of properly scientific, peer-reviewed evidence which has since been published and which proves just how wildly unscientific and grossly misleading the "reports" of Pierpoint and Hanning are!
Equally brainless and predictable, they cite Jane and Julian Davis. Maybe it's time Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines updated their website to reflect the latest developments in that deeply suspect case.
Anyway. Okay, so their website is a pack of lies. What else?
Well, they flew a blimp. Good golly gosh, where on earth did they get an idea like that???? Oh, yes - every mind-bogglingly unimaginative nimby group does the same thing in order to show people exactly what a windfarm doesn't look like. Many groups deliberately fly their stupid blimps in places where the turbines wll not be standing, in order to create a false impression. Besides which, these blimps are effectively the opposite of what a wind turbine looks like. Their boringly repetitive use by nimby groups is essential proof of how dishonest those groups are. Blimps and windfarms look nothing like each other. Nothing at all.
Fine. So Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines have spread the usual plethora of lies, false and selective information in order to whip up hysteria based an a total misunderstanding of what windfarms are, and they've flown their idiotic blimp. What next?
Well, the obvious, sadly. They're attacking anyone who expresses support for the windfarm. It's the usual nimby bullying - hectoring, harrassing, intimidating, shouting, browbeating and lying - all in order to maintain the falsehood that nobody is in favour of the windfarm.
Anyone who is in favour is instantly accused of working either for the developer, Force 9, or the pro-wind advocacy organisation Yes 2 Wind. Again, how tiresomely predictable. Every rat-faced, brain-dead nimby in the country likes to pretend that only those who work in or for the wind industry are supporters of wind energy. Presumably, the nasty nimby idiots don't believe in opinion polls (apart, that is, from those whose results they shamelessly manipulate in order to create the misleading impression that they are in the majority).
But the attacks have now got personal and predictably nasty. It's the same old story. No one is allowed to express an opinion unless it's the nimby opinion (which itself is based on ignorance, prejudice and a willingness to believe any old codswallop as long as it's anti-wind). We saw it in the Lenches, when VVASP bullied and intimidated anyone who had found out the truth about windfarms or just didn't agree with their "rabid" behaviour and imposition of "mob-rule". And now, the evil dunces of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines are doing the same thing: bullying and harrassing anyone with a heart, a brain, a soul and a conscience.
This is what happens when you base your campaign entirely on lies.
Of course, like all nimbies, they try to pose as poor downtrodden church mice being "threatened" by some giant corporation. They claim to be all in favour of renewables (yeah, sure, where have we heard that one before?) but can't understand why the turbines have to be built "so close" to people's homes (i.e. a kilometre or so away from the nearest - so no likelihood of noise or even the dreaded "infrasound" that the nimbies want to believe in).
It's a bit like saying that you're all in favour of street lighting, but not within two kilometres of where anybody lives. It's an insane, unrealistic and thoroughly devious argument - a tactic favoured by the fundamentalist Christian Right in America: first pretend to be only being reasonable, and then propose something that is so blisteringly stupid it could never work.
As usual, Aylesbury Vale is quite simply more beautiful and "unspoilt" than anywhere else, and so its inhabitants shouldn't be required to do their bit to help combat climate change. No. Even though it will do them no harm and - as evidence from all around the UK has shown - benefit the community, the region, the nation and, of course, the planet. No. These people think they're special and are consequently absolved of all responsibilities, including those involving good neighbourliness, common decency and plain old-fashioned honesty.
The crazed frauds of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines are, then, simply doing what every single nimby group in the country does. Telling lies, misleading themselves and others, stomping squarely on the face of local democracy, denying others their opinions and clamping down hard on anyone who believes in science, free speech and clean technology.
Once again, the nimbies themselves have given the lie to the vicious slur made against this blog on the Green Building Forum by a deluded anti-wind activist a short while ago.
If anyone can find and provide us with a proven example of pro-wind campaigners or windfarm developers spreading out-dated scare stories and bullying and threatening anyone who disagrees with them, we'd like to hear about it. Good luck, though, because it's unlikely that you'd find any genuine examples of disgraceful, immoral, undemocratic and mindlessly aggressive behaviour by the pro-wind lobby (and we would require evidence; just bleating about windfarm companies being "bullies" merely shows that you're unbalanced, not that you have a case).
As for the nimbies of Middle England - well, we're forever finding that they are all the same. They all tell the same lies, and they all resort to the same kneejerk persecution of anyone whose opinion differs from theirs - especially when it's an opinion based on evidence. That really drives them up the wall.
So, to "Joiner" of the Green Building Forum, and to the vicious thugs and liars of Stop Dorcas Lane Turbines, we say only this: we know your methods. You can delude yourselves, but you can't delude us. You are the problem. Your refusal to face facts, and your inability to see yourselves as you really are, will be your downfall. You are traitors to the nation.
And to Aylesbury Vale District Council we say this: we are watching. You know now what the dishonest nimby bullies are up to. We wait to see whether you will do the right thing and honour your obligations, or whether you will cave in to lies and threats from a dangerously unethical, self-centred and aggressive minority.
And so it goes on ...
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
FLYING THE FLAG FOR WIND
This image will appear in an advert this week in the right-leaning Spectator magazine. The advert seeks to set the record straight and to remind certain addled Tory politicians of their patriotic obligation to support wind energy.At last, the renewables industry is fighting back against the tsunami of grossly-distorted misinformation which has been peddled by lobbyists for nuclear and fossil fuels and greedily lapped up by deluded nimbies and the foolish politicians who act as their mouthpieces.
A major part of the misinformation campaign has concerned the so-called "subsidies" for renewables. Quite apart from the fact that few, if any, of the Tory backbenchers who called upon the Prime Minister to cut the subsidies would be able to explain what those subsidies are (there aren't any direct government subsidies for wind power - none at all), the real situation is actually rather flattering to wind.
Figures from the regulatory body Ofgem reveal that the cost to the average household of the Renewables Obligation last year (2010-11) was just £15.15. What that means is that £15.15 from the average domestic bill for energy helped to level the playing field for renewables. All renewables. Onshore wind accounted for just £4.68. In other words, the average household paid - wait for it - nine new pence per week towards wind energy.
Not quite the hundreds of pounds claimed by the anti-wind Nazis.
Imported gas, meanwhile, added £120 to the average annual bill. So the rising cost of gas accounted for a 10% increase, compared with a mere 0.05% increase caused by onshore wind.
The high wholesale price of gas caused the Big Six energy companies to mothball gas power stations (too expensive) and revert to coal (very dirty).
And yet, 101 Tory morons told the Prime Minister they wanted "subsidies" to windfarms slashed. When windfarms are NOT the cause of fuel poverty and rising fuel bills!! Lordy, how stupid can some people be??
What is more, even though the coalition government is pretending that its proposed new nuclear power stations will be built without any public money, that's not quite the full picture. The tax-payer will, for example, cover the costs of connecting those power stations (if they ever get built) to the National Grid. If the developers had to do it themselves, the costs of nuclear power would be "uneconomical". And yet, strangely, windfarm developers have to pay the cost of connecting their turbines to the National Grid. The tax-payer doesn't subsidise them one penny!!
So where are all the subsidies going? Well, it sure isn't wind. Gas, coal, oil, nuclear, yes. But not wind.
It's good, then, to see the normally shy and retiring proponents of wind energy and other renewables finally standing up for Britain's best interests and countering the insane lies of the lobbyists for Britain's worst interests (fossil fuels and nuclear - the latter being French-owned; Cameron was silly enough to let Sarkozy flog them to him, after France decided to start winding down its nuclear operations).
But it's not just academics, green activists and representatives of the renewables industry who are behind the fightback. A huge number of letters have been sent to the Chancellor, George "Oik" Osborne, recently. They have come from blue chip companies and major industrial corporations - Shell, BT, Aviva, Diageo, IKEA, M&S, Pepsi, Siemens, Philips and Microsoft, to name but a few. Sir Richard Branson and the TUC have also got in on the act, along with the RSPB, WWF and Friends of the Earth.
This wide-ranging plethora of companies, NGOs and individuals have all called on the Chancellor to think properly about green growth. Osborne had given succour to the anti-green loons of the Tory backbenches by making ugly noises about green issues. The business sector has told him, in no uncertain terms, that green is good. Green is growth. Stop pandering to the lunatics of the anti-environmentalist movement. Get real about the business opportunities in clean technology.
It is extremely rare for the corporate world to criticise a Conservative Chancellor like this. But the business community knows that the idiocy of putting blinkered anti-green prejudices ahead of the economic and ecological needs of the nation is - well, it's dumb. And unpatriotic. And it's not what the public wants. A recent YouGov poll reveals that only 2% of people think that Cameron and his cronies are living up to their promise of being "the greenest government ever". Part of the problem being that the Treasury is seeking to make it easier for energy firms to build new gas-fired power stations - even though gas has been the real cause of the dramatic hikes in domestic energy bills recently!!!
Maybe that's why we've been hearing so much nimby-friendly false information about the illusory "subsidies" to wind power - the government wants more gas, which is massively more expensive, and somehow or other has to persuade the public that this makes sense. So, as usual, renewables get the blame for everybody else's problems.
In the face of that sort of madness, the advertisement in this week's Spectator will hopefully clarify the situation somewhat:
"Gas prices have trebled in Europe over the last decade and there is no reason to think they will decrease in future years", it will say. "The cost of wind once built is locked in. This is a British resource that can create a substantial number of new jobs and can provide an increasing percentage of UK electricity.
"Britain's inexhaustible wind energy supplies will be vital as we become increasingly dependent on foreign gas."
So, then - what's the patriotic thing to do? Buy in ever increasing, ever more expensive quantities of foreign gas? Or keep down our costs by relying more on our inexhaustible supply of British wind?
You'll have to ask the Tory politicians that question. To most of us, the answer's as clear as a bright blue sky.
Because there really is no doubt about it. If you want to fly the flag, you have to support renewables - wind power, especially.
Monday, 19 March 2012
101 HEROES
After 101 dimwits from the Conservative backbenches signed a very foolish letter to David Cameron a few weeks back, calling on the PM to wreck Britain's energy future, another letter to Cameron has now appeared. This one is signed by a much more diverse group of 101 public figures, with Sir Richard Branson high up on the list. Academics and scientists are represented, as are Lords and MPs. Not many Tories, though - although Rachel Johnson, whose Tory credentials are impeccable, is a signatory.
The letter calls upon David Cameron to do the decent, sensible, intelligent, forward-thinking and practical thing by supporting renewables properly:
http://www.blog.ewea.org/2012/03/richard-branson-and-100-other-public-figures-call-for-renewable-energy-support/#more-3049
That's more like it. It's a sad fact that the voice of the nimby minority, which is incapable of doing anything but opposing progress and telling lies about renewables - wind energy especially - is too frequently heard, because it is noisy, abrasive, aggressive and intolerant of other opinions. The Tory bigots who signed the letter to Cameron of a few weeks ago are symptomatic of the nimby insanity which has blighted this country of ours. Their arguments are fraudulent, their claims are ludicrous, and their interest in reality is minimal.
So let's be thankful to the 101 public figures from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines who have spoken up for renewables. These people have the facts at their fingertips and the interests of the nation and the planet at heart. Unlike their 101 doltish counterparts in the Conservative Party.
Oh, and another thing. We can't help but notice that one or two people have been finding this blog thanks to a wholly misleading comment on the www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk website. Evidently, there are some who use that site who don't believe in green building.
In the midst of a very silly discussion on there about a certain couple who claimed to have been driven from their home by a nearby windfarm (a complicated case, not made any easier by the fact that the couple insisted that they had "heard" the windfarm when it wasn't even operational, and when they were five miles away from it), one zealot posted a link to this blog. The zealot's accompanying remark indicated that he considered this blog "an unedifying example of the kind of brutish response anyone expressing concerns about a windfarm development is likely to encounter".
Well, let us set the record straight. The idiot who posted that link is without doubt a nimby - because only the nimbies are as out-of-touch with the real world as to imagine that brutish responses come from windfarm supporters. What such nimbies will never admit is that it is they who launch brutish responses to anyone who expresses support for a windfarm development.
If anyone doubts that, let them take a good hard look at their local nimby campaign. The people behind it, and those who get caught up in the fanaticism inspired by the false claims and moronic scare stories spread by the nimby leaders, will be the brutish ones.
Expressing concern about a windfarm development is not necessarily wrong, in our view. What is wrong is inventing concerns, forcing other people to invent false concerns, campaigning on a wholly unscrupulous platform of fake concerns, misquoting evidence to support those bogus concerns, intimidating anyone who has had the good taste and common sense to find out the truth about those silly concerns, and refusing point-blank to investigate legitimate concerns properly in order to put your mind at rest.
Those who have concerns about a proposed windfarm development are actively encouraged by us here at Wind of Change to find out more. Best of all, go visit a few windfarms. Don't take the word of your local nimbies for it, because they're self-serving liars. Do your own research, and don't restrict that research to other nimby groups' websites. There is a wealth of good, reliable information out there to help you get the measure of what a windfarm might mean for you (keeping it simple: you've got nothing to worry about). But most of all, go and get as close as you can to as many working windfarms as you can.
So, to the nimby fool who posted that link to our blog with his own bigoted comments, we say this: we are the ones who are exposing the fraudulent claims and the false statements, the intolerant behaviour and nimby madness of those who conjure up unnecessary concerns purely to force others into opposing harmless developments. They are the ones whose response tends to be brutish (as well as dishonest).
And if you were honest and clear-sighted, you'd know that. We've worked hard to supply the facts about windfarms - the real facts, that is, not the lunatic falsehoods peddled by the nimbies - and to address the legitimate concerns of the public. You, sir, are the sort who will happily whip up unnecessary fears for your own peculiar reasons. The "unedifying example" is your own. The "brutish response" is usually that of those you seem to agree with.
We will always deal as honestly and straightforwardly as possible with concerns about wind power. Unlike the sort of nimby crank who thinks that our approach is "unedifying".
Anyone, please now go and look at that letter (link above). It's pretty good.
The letter calls upon David Cameron to do the decent, sensible, intelligent, forward-thinking and practical thing by supporting renewables properly:
http://www.blog.ewea.org/2012/03/richard-branson-and-100-other-public-figures-call-for-renewable-energy-support/#more-3049
That's more like it. It's a sad fact that the voice of the nimby minority, which is incapable of doing anything but opposing progress and telling lies about renewables - wind energy especially - is too frequently heard, because it is noisy, abrasive, aggressive and intolerant of other opinions. The Tory bigots who signed the letter to Cameron of a few weeks ago are symptomatic of the nimby insanity which has blighted this country of ours. Their arguments are fraudulent, their claims are ludicrous, and their interest in reality is minimal.
So let's be thankful to the 101 public figures from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines who have spoken up for renewables. These people have the facts at their fingertips and the interests of the nation and the planet at heart. Unlike their 101 doltish counterparts in the Conservative Party.
Oh, and another thing. We can't help but notice that one or two people have been finding this blog thanks to a wholly misleading comment on the www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk website. Evidently, there are some who use that site who don't believe in green building.
In the midst of a very silly discussion on there about a certain couple who claimed to have been driven from their home by a nearby windfarm (a complicated case, not made any easier by the fact that the couple insisted that they had "heard" the windfarm when it wasn't even operational, and when they were five miles away from it), one zealot posted a link to this blog. The zealot's accompanying remark indicated that he considered this blog "an unedifying example of the kind of brutish response anyone expressing concerns about a windfarm development is likely to encounter".
Well, let us set the record straight. The idiot who posted that link is without doubt a nimby - because only the nimbies are as out-of-touch with the real world as to imagine that brutish responses come from windfarm supporters. What such nimbies will never admit is that it is they who launch brutish responses to anyone who expresses support for a windfarm development.
If anyone doubts that, let them take a good hard look at their local nimby campaign. The people behind it, and those who get caught up in the fanaticism inspired by the false claims and moronic scare stories spread by the nimby leaders, will be the brutish ones.
Expressing concern about a windfarm development is not necessarily wrong, in our view. What is wrong is inventing concerns, forcing other people to invent false concerns, campaigning on a wholly unscrupulous platform of fake concerns, misquoting evidence to support those bogus concerns, intimidating anyone who has had the good taste and common sense to find out the truth about those silly concerns, and refusing point-blank to investigate legitimate concerns properly in order to put your mind at rest.
Those who have concerns about a proposed windfarm development are actively encouraged by us here at Wind of Change to find out more. Best of all, go visit a few windfarms. Don't take the word of your local nimbies for it, because they're self-serving liars. Do your own research, and don't restrict that research to other nimby groups' websites. There is a wealth of good, reliable information out there to help you get the measure of what a windfarm might mean for you (keeping it simple: you've got nothing to worry about). But most of all, go and get as close as you can to as many working windfarms as you can.
So, to the nimby fool who posted that link to our blog with his own bigoted comments, we say this: we are the ones who are exposing the fraudulent claims and the false statements, the intolerant behaviour and nimby madness of those who conjure up unnecessary concerns purely to force others into opposing harmless developments. They are the ones whose response tends to be brutish (as well as dishonest).
And if you were honest and clear-sighted, you'd know that. We've worked hard to supply the facts about windfarms - the real facts, that is, not the lunatic falsehoods peddled by the nimbies - and to address the legitimate concerns of the public. You, sir, are the sort who will happily whip up unnecessary fears for your own peculiar reasons. The "unedifying example" is your own. The "brutish response" is usually that of those you seem to agree with.
We will always deal as honestly and straightforwardly as possible with concerns about wind power. Unlike the sort of nimby crank who thinks that our approach is "unedifying".
Anyone, please now go and look at that letter (link above). It's pretty good.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Thursday, 15 March 2012
LIVING IN THE PAST
The National Trust has gone all nimby.
True, it's chair, Simon Jenkins, has sounded off about wind turbines at every available opportunity, even going so far as to make out that his own blinkered opposition to wind power is shared by the charity he chairs. This outrageous slur was countered by a statement from the National Trust explaining that Jenkins's backward views are his own and have nothing to do with the official stance of the Trust itself.
But now the National Trust has revealed itself as nimby to the core. It has shown that it makes the same fundamental mistake - following the same fallacious logic - as the nimbiest of nimbies.
After an appeal hearing, an inspector from Her Majesty's Planning Inspectorate has given the go-ahead for the four-turbine Barnwell Manor windfarm in Northamptonshire. The National Trust is up in arms about this, because the turbines will be visible from the Grade 1 listed Lyveden New Bield, a property belonging to the National Trust.
The seventeenth-century lodge and gardens were never finished, largely because Sir Thomas Tresham, who was building and landscaping the site, died in 1605. His son Francis inherited the estate but then got mixed up in the Gunpowder Plot and died in the Tower of London before the year's end.
Unsurprisingly, on the day of the planning inspector's unaccompanied visit to the site, the dimwitted nimbies of the Stop Barnwell Manor Wind Farm campaign group flew a blimp. This has become standard practice among nimbies - which just goes to show how little imagination these fruitcakes have, not least of all because you'd have to be pretty stupid to believe that the blimp demonstrates anything at all. Windfarms and blimps have very little in common, and it is far from unusual for the nimby idiots to fly their wretched blimps in places that are, shall we say, somewhat removed from the intended site of the windfarm, purely to create a false and misleading impression (as happened at Gartree). The routine flying of blimps is simply nimby agitation with no relevance whatsoever to the issues involved.
Neither the nimbies nor the National Trust seem to have worried about the airfield which is somewhat closer to Lyveden New Bield than the windfarm, and from which gliders and tow aircraft take off throughout the summer, when the vast majority of visitors to the National Trust property actually turn up. There were few enough aircraft and gliders around in Sir Thomas Tresham's day, and so you'd think that the nimby nutters would be honest enough to admit that the area is scarcely "untouched". But you'd be wrong.
The nimbies of Stop Barnwell Manor Wind Farm came out with all the usual nonsense to oppose the windfarm, pretending that the area was not windy enough (i.e., not windy enough for a windfarm, but windy enough for gliders) - the planning inspector saw through that one. There was also the usual fuss made about bats, but the council had withdrawn this as a basis for its original refusal of planning permission, almost certainly because it was a red herring. It usually is.
Overall, the planning inspector accepted that 10MW of installed wind capacity at Barnwell Manor takes the region a few steps closer to meeting its commitments, and any supposed or alleged "damage" done to local heritage had to be offset against that useful development.
The National Trust, though, is unhappy. Regardless of airplanes and gliders flying past Lyveden New Bield, the Trust believes that the gardens and lodge which were left unfinished four hundred years ago are so important to the fate of our nation that they should have had priority over an important clean-tech development.
This is the mistake they're making. It's the same mistake as that made by most nimbies.
Forget all the guff about windfarms not being "economically viable" - which is a joke - or them having an illusory "adverse effect" on health or property prices. Forget all the mendacious gibberish about windfarms doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions or their supposed impact on bats - whether or not there are any bats in the area. What it all boils down to is the view.
It is a truism of planning and property ownership that you cannot own a view. And yet, when the nimbies bought or built their houses in the country, they really do seem to believe that the "view" came as part and parcel of the title deeds. It didn't, of course, and deep down in their black hearts, they know this. Which is why so few of them are honest about it, and why we routinely get such a torrent of dishonest rubbish peddled about wind power. Of course, we hear all sorts of nonsense about "visual amenity", but it tends to be buried underneath a pile of spurious objections concocted out of subsequently retracted stories published in the Telegraph - that most Delingpole of "newspapers" - and the sort of garbage that nimby groups raid from each other's nimby websites, even if the claims have previously been scorned by independent analysts at the Advertising Standards Authority.
Like the accursed nimby blimp (boring, boring!), these made-up stories just keep doing the rounds. They've been proven false time after time, but cretinous groups of self-centred nimbies rehash them endlessly. They have to, because otherwise they'd have to admit that their only real objection is that the proposed windfarm will "spoil their view". Which isn't really an objection at all, is it? Because the view isn't theirs to begin with.
The National Trust has walked into the same trap. They seem to think that "their" property - Lyveden New Bield - will be "damaged" by having a windfarm some distance away from it. There will be no noise impact (unlike with the airfield) and no nuisance. But the Trust, idiotically, imagines that because it runs the Grade 1 listed property, it must also own the view.
See? Same foolish mistake as the nimbies. The "view" does not belong to them, and it does not belong to Lyveden New Bield. So, realistically, they do not have the right to try and stop a vital, beneficial, harmless green energy development simply because they don't like the look of it. The Trust seems to imagine that anybody visiting the gardens (which were never finished) should be able to look out over a landscape which bears very little resemblance to the way it looked in the days of Sir Thomas Tresham. They're trying to flog a false view of history, and putting their preserved-in-aspic piece of it ahead of a development which is vital and necessary for the nation's future.
So, too, are a number of Tory and Lib Dem MPs - 44 of them, including most of the more fanatical anti-windfarm loonies on the government's backbanches (the self-serving Cash, the reckless Heaton-Harris, the odious Leadsom) - who leaked their "secret" letter to the PM to, where else, the Tory Telegraph. These "Protect My Privileges At All Costs" hypocrites have decided that economic recovery can wait. What really matters to them is "their" view.
No one, but no one, should be allowed to build anything where a complacent Tory backbencher, a raving nimby or a visitor looking around a National Trust property can see it, apparently. Which is about as insane as you can get.
This monstrous special pleading on behalf of vested interests must stop! It is holding Britain back, denying us a safe clean future, all because a few very selfish individuals think that they own something they don't. The National Trust does not own the view from a four-hundred year old garden that was never finished. The grasping frauds of the Tory backbenches do not own the views from their country piles. The average swivel-eyed nimby does not own the view from the house they bought four years ago. None of them owns the view. And none of them has the right to advance the preposterous argument that the "landscape" has remained unspoiled and will now be "adversely affected" by a windfarm on the horizon. It's a favourite argument of the nimby class, and it is utterly bogus.
We can do better than this. We can preserve our heritage without trying to live in a false past which never existed, and without insisting that the National Trust, hard-right Tory extremists or tin-pot little nimbies are the Lords of All They Survey. We can start being reasonable, rational and honest. We can admit that, a) windfarms are not a "blot" on the landscape - they are elegant, efficient and essentially noiseless technological marvels, and b) they are the future.
So, for God's sake, Britons - stop living in the past (especially one that never existed in the first place)! Stop putting your own narrow-minded and misplaced self-interest ahead of the national good! Stop pretending that you own something you don't!
Get real or shut up, basically, before you do any more harm to this country of ours. And let's allow the 21st century solution to our problems, rather than sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that we still live in feudal times.
True, it's chair, Simon Jenkins, has sounded off about wind turbines at every available opportunity, even going so far as to make out that his own blinkered opposition to wind power is shared by the charity he chairs. This outrageous slur was countered by a statement from the National Trust explaining that Jenkins's backward views are his own and have nothing to do with the official stance of the Trust itself.
But now the National Trust has revealed itself as nimby to the core. It has shown that it makes the same fundamental mistake - following the same fallacious logic - as the nimbiest of nimbies.
After an appeal hearing, an inspector from Her Majesty's Planning Inspectorate has given the go-ahead for the four-turbine Barnwell Manor windfarm in Northamptonshire. The National Trust is up in arms about this, because the turbines will be visible from the Grade 1 listed Lyveden New Bield, a property belonging to the National Trust.
The seventeenth-century lodge and gardens were never finished, largely because Sir Thomas Tresham, who was building and landscaping the site, died in 1605. His son Francis inherited the estate but then got mixed up in the Gunpowder Plot and died in the Tower of London before the year's end.
Unsurprisingly, on the day of the planning inspector's unaccompanied visit to the site, the dimwitted nimbies of the Stop Barnwell Manor Wind Farm campaign group flew a blimp. This has become standard practice among nimbies - which just goes to show how little imagination these fruitcakes have, not least of all because you'd have to be pretty stupid to believe that the blimp demonstrates anything at all. Windfarms and blimps have very little in common, and it is far from unusual for the nimby idiots to fly their wretched blimps in places that are, shall we say, somewhat removed from the intended site of the windfarm, purely to create a false and misleading impression (as happened at Gartree). The routine flying of blimps is simply nimby agitation with no relevance whatsoever to the issues involved.
Neither the nimbies nor the National Trust seem to have worried about the airfield which is somewhat closer to Lyveden New Bield than the windfarm, and from which gliders and tow aircraft take off throughout the summer, when the vast majority of visitors to the National Trust property actually turn up. There were few enough aircraft and gliders around in Sir Thomas Tresham's day, and so you'd think that the nimby nutters would be honest enough to admit that the area is scarcely "untouched". But you'd be wrong.
The nimbies of Stop Barnwell Manor Wind Farm came out with all the usual nonsense to oppose the windfarm, pretending that the area was not windy enough (i.e., not windy enough for a windfarm, but windy enough for gliders) - the planning inspector saw through that one. There was also the usual fuss made about bats, but the council had withdrawn this as a basis for its original refusal of planning permission, almost certainly because it was a red herring. It usually is.
Overall, the planning inspector accepted that 10MW of installed wind capacity at Barnwell Manor takes the region a few steps closer to meeting its commitments, and any supposed or alleged "damage" done to local heritage had to be offset against that useful development.
The National Trust, though, is unhappy. Regardless of airplanes and gliders flying past Lyveden New Bield, the Trust believes that the gardens and lodge which were left unfinished four hundred years ago are so important to the fate of our nation that they should have had priority over an important clean-tech development.
This is the mistake they're making. It's the same mistake as that made by most nimbies.
Forget all the guff about windfarms not being "economically viable" - which is a joke - or them having an illusory "adverse effect" on health or property prices. Forget all the mendacious gibberish about windfarms doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions or their supposed impact on bats - whether or not there are any bats in the area. What it all boils down to is the view.
It is a truism of planning and property ownership that you cannot own a view. And yet, when the nimbies bought or built their houses in the country, they really do seem to believe that the "view" came as part and parcel of the title deeds. It didn't, of course, and deep down in their black hearts, they know this. Which is why so few of them are honest about it, and why we routinely get such a torrent of dishonest rubbish peddled about wind power. Of course, we hear all sorts of nonsense about "visual amenity", but it tends to be buried underneath a pile of spurious objections concocted out of subsequently retracted stories published in the Telegraph - that most Delingpole of "newspapers" - and the sort of garbage that nimby groups raid from each other's nimby websites, even if the claims have previously been scorned by independent analysts at the Advertising Standards Authority.
Like the accursed nimby blimp (boring, boring!), these made-up stories just keep doing the rounds. They've been proven false time after time, but cretinous groups of self-centred nimbies rehash them endlessly. They have to, because otherwise they'd have to admit that their only real objection is that the proposed windfarm will "spoil their view". Which isn't really an objection at all, is it? Because the view isn't theirs to begin with.
The National Trust has walked into the same trap. They seem to think that "their" property - Lyveden New Bield - will be "damaged" by having a windfarm some distance away from it. There will be no noise impact (unlike with the airfield) and no nuisance. But the Trust, idiotically, imagines that because it runs the Grade 1 listed property, it must also own the view.
See? Same foolish mistake as the nimbies. The "view" does not belong to them, and it does not belong to Lyveden New Bield. So, realistically, they do not have the right to try and stop a vital, beneficial, harmless green energy development simply because they don't like the look of it. The Trust seems to imagine that anybody visiting the gardens (which were never finished) should be able to look out over a landscape which bears very little resemblance to the way it looked in the days of Sir Thomas Tresham. They're trying to flog a false view of history, and putting their preserved-in-aspic piece of it ahead of a development which is vital and necessary for the nation's future.
So, too, are a number of Tory and Lib Dem MPs - 44 of them, including most of the more fanatical anti-windfarm loonies on the government's backbanches (the self-serving Cash, the reckless Heaton-Harris, the odious Leadsom) - who leaked their "secret" letter to the PM to, where else, the Tory Telegraph. These "Protect My Privileges At All Costs" hypocrites have decided that economic recovery can wait. What really matters to them is "their" view.
No one, but no one, should be allowed to build anything where a complacent Tory backbencher, a raving nimby or a visitor looking around a National Trust property can see it, apparently. Which is about as insane as you can get.
This monstrous special pleading on behalf of vested interests must stop! It is holding Britain back, denying us a safe clean future, all because a few very selfish individuals think that they own something they don't. The National Trust does not own the view from a four-hundred year old garden that was never finished. The grasping frauds of the Tory backbenches do not own the views from their country piles. The average swivel-eyed nimby does not own the view from the house they bought four years ago. None of them owns the view. And none of them has the right to advance the preposterous argument that the "landscape" has remained unspoiled and will now be "adversely affected" by a windfarm on the horizon. It's a favourite argument of the nimby class, and it is utterly bogus.
We can do better than this. We can preserve our heritage without trying to live in a false past which never existed, and without insisting that the National Trust, hard-right Tory extremists or tin-pot little nimbies are the Lords of All They Survey. We can start being reasonable, rational and honest. We can admit that, a) windfarms are not a "blot" on the landscape - they are elegant, efficient and essentially noiseless technological marvels, and b) they are the future.
So, for God's sake, Britons - stop living in the past (especially one that never existed in the first place)! Stop putting your own narrow-minded and misplaced self-interest ahead of the national good! Stop pretending that you own something you don't!
Get real or shut up, basically, before you do any more harm to this country of ours. And let's allow the 21st century solution to our problems, rather than sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that we still live in feudal times.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
NEWS FROM LIE-CESTERSHIRE
Parish Councils are supposed to be a cornerstone of English democracy. But when a bunch of nimbies go berserk, parish councils are too easily hijacked and subverted.
We saw it during the Great Lenchwick Scandal. A deranged nimby mob obstructed parish councils, preventing them from going about their lawful democratic business (the self-important leader of the nimby group refused to rein in their excesses - but then, he was largely responsible for the lies that had got them going in the first place). The parish councillors resigned en masse. Then, with the collusion of a District Councillor, a new parish council was created and packed with signed-up members of the nimby mob.
Other parish councils were attacked. Some stood their ground. Others, like Harvington, in which less than a third of the inhabitants were bothered about the proposed windfarm, decided to suck up to the devious traitors of Church Lench anyway.
Local democracy had been overturned (as a lifelong resident of Church Lench reported). The nimbies threw out the rule book for parish councils, diverting public money into their insane and fraudulent anti-windfarm campaign. Even the supposedly neutral councils - like Norton & Lenchwick - were quietly hijacked by nimby liars. Regardless of what the local people actually felt, their representatives objected. All the councils submitted the same objection, a poor-quality hatchet job done by a local solicitor and paid for by parish money.
But we were not alone. In the East Midlands, Lubenam Parish Council also decided that it was not a legally constituted democratic body but the political wing of the Stop Gartree Wind Farm group. The parish council duly published the usual insane misinformation and collected signatures on pro forma letters at various public events. Thirteen months later, these letters were retrospectively dated and the planning application case number added on.
That was illegal. Worse, many of those letters came from residents who had no intention whatsoever of objecting to the Gartree Wind Farm. The parish council was engaging in fraud!
Harborough District Council accepted all those letters. The chief executive of Harborough DC has since stated that "In principle Harborough District Council would not accept forged letters of representation." Whatever "in principle" means. The fact remains, thanks to the unlawful and undemocratic behaviour of the maniacs on Lubenham Parish Council, the District Council was sucked into the fraud.
Something very similar happened in Lenchwick, where Wychavon District Council signally failed to put its foot down. The nimby liars and frauds were allowed to run amok, taking our parish council money and diverting it into their cretinous, treacherous, vicious campaign. Wychavon, though alerted to the outrage, did nothing.
A very detailed account of the misbehaviour of Lubenham Parish Council and Harborough District Council in this matter of the utmost national importance can be read here:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1M8O6n2n4Q5NTkxOWFiMjAtYzNjMS00NzI3LWI3ZDYtZWY0Y2M1ZjA1YzI4/edit?pli=1
Sadly, it appears that the nimby maniacs are back in force in Leicestershire. We mentioned in our last post a planning application which has been submitted for a single 20-metre turbine in Horninghold. Not a windfarm, a moderately-sized individual turbine. But, buoyed by the success of Lubenham's law-breaking antics, the nimby nutters of Harborough have swung into action, determined to stop one man's efforts to combat climate change and create cheap, clean energy.
Bilston Parish Council turn out to be the villains on this occasion. We can comfortably assume that - in defiance of the proper behaviour of parish councils - the loons of Bilston had made up their minds long before this application was submitted (indeed, the proposed site of the turbine was moved 60 metres to accommodate local concerns).
The parish clerk of Bilston is quite possibly as dishonest and slippery as some of the clerks we got to know and loathe during the Lenchwick Scandal. A letter has been submitted to Harborough District Council from this "person", who can barely avoid spuming their frothy-mouthed rage all over the letter.
The letter starts with a bit of creative language: "Comments have been received from the majority of householders within the Village [shades of The Prisoner, for those who remember it] and with the exception of one household all other comments received objected to the proposal."
This is tricky writing. It's designed to give the (false) impression that the entire village is opposed - apart from that one accursed household. But evidently there are villagers - the parish clerk was extremely careful not to indicate how many - who either hold no form opinion or are actually in favour of the windfarm but are too scared to speak out (it happens: it happened in Lenchwick).
Neither did the huffing and puffing parish clerk have the grace to admit that the "one household" which expressed support for the wind turbine happens to be the home of one of the UK's pioneers of wind energy, a man who probably knows more about wind power than anyone else in Britain. He is also the professor who so thoroughly debunked the insane bilge published in the nimby Bible - a useless piece of phoney research entitled The Wind Farm Scam. Copies of this cheap publication were bought in bulk and distributed by our local fanatics as part of their drive to "educate" the District Council, in that oh-so Stalinist sense of the word.
Having tried to give a false impression of the strength of local opposition - without admitting that Bilston Parish Council has completely ignored the advice of a genuine wind power expert who lives on their doorstep - the clerk goes on to make some claims which would be bold if they weren't so stupid.
Naturally, the countryside around the Village is the most beautiful anywhere on God's green earth, and that would be ruined forever and a day if a single 20-metre turbine was allowed. People using the footpaths would be "adversely affected" (what does that mean? They'd be mugged? Mildly inconvenienced? Prone to cricked necks because of their inability to look at anything other than a medium-sized turbine?).
The gibberish continues, as Mr Pompous-Arse assures his District Council that the one turbine would play havoc with the ecology of the area and frighten the horses. Did he check with the British Horse Society, who know a thing or two about horses and wind turbines? Probably not. Just the usual rampant prejudice inspired by stupid nimby rumours.
But what really gets this idiot's goat is that people who don't live in the Village have commented on the proposal, expressing support for this sensible, necessary and harmless development.
It doesn't concern the parish councillors that objections have been solicited from absentee nimbies as far afield as London and - yes - Main Street, Church Lench. No, they're just spectacularly unhappy that democracy is being seen to be done.
Of course, when you happen to live in an area which already has a reputation for fixing up letters of objection under false pretences and submitting forged letters of representation, you really should expect that those in this land who still have a heart and a soul will stand up for Britain and support this worthy wind turbine. But - like every nimby everywhere - their countryside is theirs, it's "particularly attractive", and only the people who happen to agree with their blinkered and foolish stance should be allowed to express an opinion. No wind turbine experts, no supporters of green energy, no one who actually wants the turbine to be given the go-ahead should be heard from. End of.
That's how the nimby Nazis think. They, and they alone, are allowed an opinion - even if their opinion is based on lies, misinformation, prejudice, ignorance and overwhelming intolerance.
Don't these morons realise what is happening? We are facing a crisis - a crisis made of several crises all bundled into one to make the perfect storm. Climate change (a hosepipe ban in March - nice work, mortals!), energy shortages, resource shortages, ever-increasing domestic bills thanks to the coalition government's love-in with the lobbyists for gas and nuclear ...
AND THESE MENTALISTS OF BILSTON DON'T WANT ONE MAN TO PUT UP A TURBINE BECAUSE IT MIGHT "ADVERSELY AFFECT" SOMEBODY WALKING ALONG A FOOTPATH???
How insane, how blisteringly out-of-touch, how disgustingly self-important must you be to be that divorced from reality?
So, Harborough District Council now has to decide what democracy means. Typically, the nimby fools of Bilston Parish Council are invoking the "terms" of the Localism Bill. They should be threatened with a nuclear power station on their doorstep and forced to decide between that and a 20-metre wind turbine!
Can Harborough DC redeem itself, after its blatant collusion in fraud over the Gartree Wind Farm? We'll know soon enough.
(If you want to leave a supportive comment for the 20-metre wind turbine, please email us here at wind-in-the-orchard@hotmail.com before Tuesday 20 March and we'll send you the link)
We saw it during the Great Lenchwick Scandal. A deranged nimby mob obstructed parish councils, preventing them from going about their lawful democratic business (the self-important leader of the nimby group refused to rein in their excesses - but then, he was largely responsible for the lies that had got them going in the first place). The parish councillors resigned en masse. Then, with the collusion of a District Councillor, a new parish council was created and packed with signed-up members of the nimby mob.
Other parish councils were attacked. Some stood their ground. Others, like Harvington, in which less than a third of the inhabitants were bothered about the proposed windfarm, decided to suck up to the devious traitors of Church Lench anyway.
Local democracy had been overturned (as a lifelong resident of Church Lench reported). The nimbies threw out the rule book for parish councils, diverting public money into their insane and fraudulent anti-windfarm campaign. Even the supposedly neutral councils - like Norton & Lenchwick - were quietly hijacked by nimby liars. Regardless of what the local people actually felt, their representatives objected. All the councils submitted the same objection, a poor-quality hatchet job done by a local solicitor and paid for by parish money.
But we were not alone. In the East Midlands, Lubenam Parish Council also decided that it was not a legally constituted democratic body but the political wing of the Stop Gartree Wind Farm group. The parish council duly published the usual insane misinformation and collected signatures on pro forma letters at various public events. Thirteen months later, these letters were retrospectively dated and the planning application case number added on.
That was illegal. Worse, many of those letters came from residents who had no intention whatsoever of objecting to the Gartree Wind Farm. The parish council was engaging in fraud!
Harborough District Council accepted all those letters. The chief executive of Harborough DC has since stated that "In principle Harborough District Council would not accept forged letters of representation." Whatever "in principle" means. The fact remains, thanks to the unlawful and undemocratic behaviour of the maniacs on Lubenham Parish Council, the District Council was sucked into the fraud.
Something very similar happened in Lenchwick, where Wychavon District Council signally failed to put its foot down. The nimby liars and frauds were allowed to run amok, taking our parish council money and diverting it into their cretinous, treacherous, vicious campaign. Wychavon, though alerted to the outrage, did nothing.
A very detailed account of the misbehaviour of Lubenham Parish Council and Harborough District Council in this matter of the utmost national importance can be read here:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1M8O6n2n4Q5NTkxOWFiMjAtYzNjMS00NzI3LWI3ZDYtZWY0Y2M1ZjA1YzI4/edit?pli=1
Sadly, it appears that the nimby maniacs are back in force in Leicestershire. We mentioned in our last post a planning application which has been submitted for a single 20-metre turbine in Horninghold. Not a windfarm, a moderately-sized individual turbine. But, buoyed by the success of Lubenham's law-breaking antics, the nimby nutters of Harborough have swung into action, determined to stop one man's efforts to combat climate change and create cheap, clean energy.
Bilston Parish Council turn out to be the villains on this occasion. We can comfortably assume that - in defiance of the proper behaviour of parish councils - the loons of Bilston had made up their minds long before this application was submitted (indeed, the proposed site of the turbine was moved 60 metres to accommodate local concerns).
The parish clerk of Bilston is quite possibly as dishonest and slippery as some of the clerks we got to know and loathe during the Lenchwick Scandal. A letter has been submitted to Harborough District Council from this "person", who can barely avoid spuming their frothy-mouthed rage all over the letter.
The letter starts with a bit of creative language: "Comments have been received from the majority of householders within the Village [shades of The Prisoner, for those who remember it] and with the exception of one household all other comments received objected to the proposal."
This is tricky writing. It's designed to give the (false) impression that the entire village is opposed - apart from that one accursed household. But evidently there are villagers - the parish clerk was extremely careful not to indicate how many - who either hold no form opinion or are actually in favour of the windfarm but are too scared to speak out (it happens: it happened in Lenchwick).
Neither did the huffing and puffing parish clerk have the grace to admit that the "one household" which expressed support for the wind turbine happens to be the home of one of the UK's pioneers of wind energy, a man who probably knows more about wind power than anyone else in Britain. He is also the professor who so thoroughly debunked the insane bilge published in the nimby Bible - a useless piece of phoney research entitled The Wind Farm Scam. Copies of this cheap publication were bought in bulk and distributed by our local fanatics as part of their drive to "educate" the District Council, in that oh-so Stalinist sense of the word.
Having tried to give a false impression of the strength of local opposition - without admitting that Bilston Parish Council has completely ignored the advice of a genuine wind power expert who lives on their doorstep - the clerk goes on to make some claims which would be bold if they weren't so stupid.
Naturally, the countryside around the Village is the most beautiful anywhere on God's green earth, and that would be ruined forever and a day if a single 20-metre turbine was allowed. People using the footpaths would be "adversely affected" (what does that mean? They'd be mugged? Mildly inconvenienced? Prone to cricked necks because of their inability to look at anything other than a medium-sized turbine?).
The gibberish continues, as Mr Pompous-Arse assures his District Council that the one turbine would play havoc with the ecology of the area and frighten the horses. Did he check with the British Horse Society, who know a thing or two about horses and wind turbines? Probably not. Just the usual rampant prejudice inspired by stupid nimby rumours.
But what really gets this idiot's goat is that people who don't live in the Village have commented on the proposal, expressing support for this sensible, necessary and harmless development.
It doesn't concern the parish councillors that objections have been solicited from absentee nimbies as far afield as London and - yes - Main Street, Church Lench. No, they're just spectacularly unhappy that democracy is being seen to be done.
Of course, when you happen to live in an area which already has a reputation for fixing up letters of objection under false pretences and submitting forged letters of representation, you really should expect that those in this land who still have a heart and a soul will stand up for Britain and support this worthy wind turbine. But - like every nimby everywhere - their countryside is theirs, it's "particularly attractive", and only the people who happen to agree with their blinkered and foolish stance should be allowed to express an opinion. No wind turbine experts, no supporters of green energy, no one who actually wants the turbine to be given the go-ahead should be heard from. End of.
That's how the nimby Nazis think. They, and they alone, are allowed an opinion - even if their opinion is based on lies, misinformation, prejudice, ignorance and overwhelming intolerance.
Don't these morons realise what is happening? We are facing a crisis - a crisis made of several crises all bundled into one to make the perfect storm. Climate change (a hosepipe ban in March - nice work, mortals!), energy shortages, resource shortages, ever-increasing domestic bills thanks to the coalition government's love-in with the lobbyists for gas and nuclear ...
AND THESE MENTALISTS OF BILSTON DON'T WANT ONE MAN TO PUT UP A TURBINE BECAUSE IT MIGHT "ADVERSELY AFFECT" SOMEBODY WALKING ALONG A FOOTPATH???
How insane, how blisteringly out-of-touch, how disgustingly self-important must you be to be that divorced from reality?
So, Harborough District Council now has to decide what democracy means. Typically, the nimby fools of Bilston Parish Council are invoking the "terms" of the Localism Bill. They should be threatened with a nuclear power station on their doorstep and forced to decide between that and a 20-metre wind turbine!
Can Harborough DC redeem itself, after its blatant collusion in fraud over the Gartree Wind Farm? We'll know soon enough.
(If you want to leave a supportive comment for the 20-metre wind turbine, please email us here at wind-in-the-orchard@hotmail.com before Tuesday 20 March and we'll send you the link)
Monday, 12 March 2012
LIARS, TRAITORS, KNAVES & FOOLS
Telling lies comes naturally to anti-windfarm fanatics. In fact, they find it almost impossible to tell the truth.
One small example: our local gang of demented nimbies (VVASP - short for "Vale Villages Against Scottish Power", although a more accurate name would have been Half-a-Dozen Selfish Maniacs Willing to Spread Unnecessary Fear and Alarm Through a Vicious and Thoroughly Dishonest Campaign) claimed that they were giving local people "comprehensive information" about the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. In reality, their "comprehensive information" was wildly inaccurate - in some instances, 180 degrees wide of the truth - and, what's more, it didn''t even begin to tell half of the story.
They claimed to be a "pro-renewables" group who just happened to think that the area was not right for a windfarm of five turbines. Either they didn't know that Worcestershire County Council had conducted a study which concluded that the area was just perfect for a windfarm of six turbines, or this was just one piece of valid information which fell through their "comprehensive" net. Along with the information that the thuggish ringleaders of the protest group had lied about the potential impact on house prices and a host of other stupid claims.
But they were a "pro-renewables" group, right? This was, of course, a blatant bit of PR guff. They weren't pro-renewables at all. But they had to say it, because it made them look reasonable.
You get this a lot with the madcap nimby fringe. It's not the turbines they're opposed to, see - it's the pylons. They're not against windfarms per se, only against anything that might happen to appear on the horizon.
Interesting, then, to note that one of the evil-minded anti-wind nimbies of Church Lench has objected to a small development in Leicestershire. A planning application has been submitted to Harborough District Council for a single 20-metre wind turbine on private land. The nimby idiot of Main Street, Church Lench won't be able to see it because it's many, many miles away. But, all the same, an objection has been lodged.
Why? Didn't this lunatic read the VVASP publicity about them being "pro-renewables"? Didn't they realise that the official line was "we're only against wind turbines where we might be able to see them"? What on earth has this cretin got against a single 20-metre turbine on the other side of the Midlands?
Ah, but of course, the twisted ones only pretend to be "pro-renewables" when it suits them to do so. The rest of the time, they show their true faces - they are deluded, deranged and absolutely committed to bringing our country to its knees. They have no sense of proportion or perspective and are complete incapable of facing facts and telling the truth.
They're not against renewables as such; they're just against any form of renewables in practice. And it's not just within a few kilometres of their miserable carcases that they oppose harmless, green, efficient turbines - they oppose them everywhere. And they're willing to tell lies about them, regardless of where they are (which is why you'll find some nimby morons telling you that Australia has imposed a mandatory two kilometre buffer zone around windfarms; for the record, Australia has done no such thing).
So now we find out that VVASP's cretinous "2km OK" campaign really meant "Windfarms are okay, maybe, but only if they're 2km from the centre of the Sun and absolutely nowhere on this planet".
And to think, some idiots took these people seriously, with their two-faced pretence of being just worried residents who were "pro-renewables" but not here. One Wychavon district councillor even tried to insist that these liars, hypocrites and bullies weren't nimbies. But they were. And they still are.
There are some people who will one day have to pay for encouraging these dangerously foolish and treacherous nimbies. They include right-wing commentators and nonsense-peddlars of the Delingpole school, money-grubbing lobbyists masquerading as charities (REF, GWPF) and certain desperately stupid Tory politicians, like the 101 dimwits who recently tried to persuade David Cameron to kill off the renewables industry in this country. These people are traitors, pure and simple.
Their self-serving treachery is foolish because it is diametrically at odds with the flow of history and the best interests of the nation. You can tell them by the company they keep: the monstrous Donald Trump, throwing a tantrum and trying to bully the Scottish government; the despicable Rush Limbaugh claiming that there are no solar or wind industries in the United States (when in fact there are over 400 wind power manufacturing plants across the US, and in the last four years wind has supplied over 35% of new electricity in the States - more than coal and nuclear combined). If you find that the people championing your cause are exteme right-wing lowlifes like Limbaugh and Trump, then your cause must be truly evil.
The anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, however, has seen a massive increase in lobbying and PR gibberish from the nuclear industry. This is the source of a lot of the nonsense routinely spouted by nimby idiots. As Renewable Energy Focus has now suggested, we should brace ourselves for a welter of misleading anti-wind power stories (along the lines of "the end of renewables is nigh") put out by the professional liars who work for nuclear and gleefully repeated by the brainless muckspreaders of the nimby class.
Yes - as the nuclear industry begins (thankfully) to breathe its last, starved of the astronomical amounts of public money which have fed its greed for so many years, expect a torrent of lies about windfarms. The nimbies will love it - because lies are their currency. "Born to Lie" might as well be tattooed on their furrowed brows (and on those of certain politicians who defend their despicable tactics and grossly unpatriotic behaviour).
Fortunately, there's still a little bit of sense left in our government. Ed Davey, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, announced over the weekend that windfarms are good for communities. He quite properly insisted that it would be a "monumental national folly" to turn our backs on windfarms - onshore and offshore - and other renewables.
That's good - a politician talking sense (unlike the dribblers who signed that mindblowingly stupid letter to David Cameron the other week - some, like Bill Cash, wouldn't know the truth if it took off all its clothes in front of him, but others, like Karen Lumley, have had occasional glimpses of the truth, such as in the High-Speed Rail Link debacle, and so she should be ashamed of herself).
We can't afford to let down our guard. After all, a person of conscience and principle in Leicestershire is trying to do his bit for energy efficiency and to combat climate change. And a thick yobbo many miles away in Church Lench is trying to stop him.
That's what comes of telling lies, you see. Sooner or later, you get caught out. The wind power industry is going from strength to strength, generating more and more clean, green energy and doing barely any harm at all. Not many liars working in renewables. But a helluva lot of liars ganging up to betray Britain's best interests by pretending to be "pro-renewables" and then campaigning - noisily, dishonestly, viciously and stupidly - against them.
By the way, Harborough District Council, which will soon be considering the application for the single 20-metre turbine, has form. In another case a year or two back, the council knowingly accepted 2,310 fraudulent letters of objection to a windfarm proposal, thanks to a corrupt parish council establishing an anti-windfarm group (sound familiar?). The nimbies sent in letters from people who did not object - a criminal offence. But, rather like Wychavon D.C., Harborough failed in its duty to uphold democracy and the law.
That's where the lies which fuel the nimby nutters lead us - lawlessness, thuggery and the breakdown of democracy. And a Britain which won't be able to keep the lights on. Never, ever let a selfish and misguided nimby pretend to be acting in the interests of the country (or the countryside). The road they have taken is the road to Fascism. It's the road of lies. We must do everything in our power to stop them taking Britain down that road with them.
A sustainable future is what we need. Not the horrifying nightmare which rides on the back of nimby madness.
One small example: our local gang of demented nimbies (VVASP - short for "Vale Villages Against Scottish Power", although a more accurate name would have been Half-a-Dozen Selfish Maniacs Willing to Spread Unnecessary Fear and Alarm Through a Vicious and Thoroughly Dishonest Campaign) claimed that they were giving local people "comprehensive information" about the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. In reality, their "comprehensive information" was wildly inaccurate - in some instances, 180 degrees wide of the truth - and, what's more, it didn''t even begin to tell half of the story.
They claimed to be a "pro-renewables" group who just happened to think that the area was not right for a windfarm of five turbines. Either they didn't know that Worcestershire County Council had conducted a study which concluded that the area was just perfect for a windfarm of six turbines, or this was just one piece of valid information which fell through their "comprehensive" net. Along with the information that the thuggish ringleaders of the protest group had lied about the potential impact on house prices and a host of other stupid claims.
But they were a "pro-renewables" group, right? This was, of course, a blatant bit of PR guff. They weren't pro-renewables at all. But they had to say it, because it made them look reasonable.
You get this a lot with the madcap nimby fringe. It's not the turbines they're opposed to, see - it's the pylons. They're not against windfarms per se, only against anything that might happen to appear on the horizon.
Interesting, then, to note that one of the evil-minded anti-wind nimbies of Church Lench has objected to a small development in Leicestershire. A planning application has been submitted to Harborough District Council for a single 20-metre wind turbine on private land. The nimby idiot of Main Street, Church Lench won't be able to see it because it's many, many miles away. But, all the same, an objection has been lodged.
Why? Didn't this lunatic read the VVASP publicity about them being "pro-renewables"? Didn't they realise that the official line was "we're only against wind turbines where we might be able to see them"? What on earth has this cretin got against a single 20-metre turbine on the other side of the Midlands?
Ah, but of course, the twisted ones only pretend to be "pro-renewables" when it suits them to do so. The rest of the time, they show their true faces - they are deluded, deranged and absolutely committed to bringing our country to its knees. They have no sense of proportion or perspective and are complete incapable of facing facts and telling the truth.
They're not against renewables as such; they're just against any form of renewables in practice. And it's not just within a few kilometres of their miserable carcases that they oppose harmless, green, efficient turbines - they oppose them everywhere. And they're willing to tell lies about them, regardless of where they are (which is why you'll find some nimby morons telling you that Australia has imposed a mandatory two kilometre buffer zone around windfarms; for the record, Australia has done no such thing).
So now we find out that VVASP's cretinous "2km OK" campaign really meant "Windfarms are okay, maybe, but only if they're 2km from the centre of the Sun and absolutely nowhere on this planet".
And to think, some idiots took these people seriously, with their two-faced pretence of being just worried residents who were "pro-renewables" but not here. One Wychavon district councillor even tried to insist that these liars, hypocrites and bullies weren't nimbies. But they were. And they still are.
There are some people who will one day have to pay for encouraging these dangerously foolish and treacherous nimbies. They include right-wing commentators and nonsense-peddlars of the Delingpole school, money-grubbing lobbyists masquerading as charities (REF, GWPF) and certain desperately stupid Tory politicians, like the 101 dimwits who recently tried to persuade David Cameron to kill off the renewables industry in this country. These people are traitors, pure and simple.
Their self-serving treachery is foolish because it is diametrically at odds with the flow of history and the best interests of the nation. You can tell them by the company they keep: the monstrous Donald Trump, throwing a tantrum and trying to bully the Scottish government; the despicable Rush Limbaugh claiming that there are no solar or wind industries in the United States (when in fact there are over 400 wind power manufacturing plants across the US, and in the last four years wind has supplied over 35% of new electricity in the States - more than coal and nuclear combined). If you find that the people championing your cause are exteme right-wing lowlifes like Limbaugh and Trump, then your cause must be truly evil.
The anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, however, has seen a massive increase in lobbying and PR gibberish from the nuclear industry. This is the source of a lot of the nonsense routinely spouted by nimby idiots. As Renewable Energy Focus has now suggested, we should brace ourselves for a welter of misleading anti-wind power stories (along the lines of "the end of renewables is nigh") put out by the professional liars who work for nuclear and gleefully repeated by the brainless muckspreaders of the nimby class.
Yes - as the nuclear industry begins (thankfully) to breathe its last, starved of the astronomical amounts of public money which have fed its greed for so many years, expect a torrent of lies about windfarms. The nimbies will love it - because lies are their currency. "Born to Lie" might as well be tattooed on their furrowed brows (and on those of certain politicians who defend their despicable tactics and grossly unpatriotic behaviour).
Fortunately, there's still a little bit of sense left in our government. Ed Davey, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, announced over the weekend that windfarms are good for communities. He quite properly insisted that it would be a "monumental national folly" to turn our backs on windfarms - onshore and offshore - and other renewables.
That's good - a politician talking sense (unlike the dribblers who signed that mindblowingly stupid letter to David Cameron the other week - some, like Bill Cash, wouldn't know the truth if it took off all its clothes in front of him, but others, like Karen Lumley, have had occasional glimpses of the truth, such as in the High-Speed Rail Link debacle, and so she should be ashamed of herself).
We can't afford to let down our guard. After all, a person of conscience and principle in Leicestershire is trying to do his bit for energy efficiency and to combat climate change. And a thick yobbo many miles away in Church Lench is trying to stop him.
That's what comes of telling lies, you see. Sooner or later, you get caught out. The wind power industry is going from strength to strength, generating more and more clean, green energy and doing barely any harm at all. Not many liars working in renewables. But a helluva lot of liars ganging up to betray Britain's best interests by pretending to be "pro-renewables" and then campaigning - noisily, dishonestly, viciously and stupidly - against them.
By the way, Harborough District Council, which will soon be considering the application for the single 20-metre turbine, has form. In another case a year or two back, the council knowingly accepted 2,310 fraudulent letters of objection to a windfarm proposal, thanks to a corrupt parish council establishing an anti-windfarm group (sound familiar?). The nimbies sent in letters from people who did not object - a criminal offence. But, rather like Wychavon D.C., Harborough failed in its duty to uphold democracy and the law.
That's where the lies which fuel the nimby nutters lead us - lawlessness, thuggery and the breakdown of democracy. And a Britain which won't be able to keep the lights on. Never, ever let a selfish and misguided nimby pretend to be acting in the interests of the country (or the countryside). The road they have taken is the road to Fascism. It's the road of lies. We must do everything in our power to stop them taking Britain down that road with them.
A sustainable future is what we need. Not the horrifying nightmare which rides on the back of nimby madness.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
WHITHER NUCLEAR?
A year ago today, Japan was visited by three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. An earthquake, followed by a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown which - but for several massive strokes of luck - very nearly wiped Tokyo off the map. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes. It is unclear when they will be able to return.
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear had been enjoying something of a renaissance. Not so since. Germany responded to public pressure by voting to phase out nuclear power. Switzerland and Italy similarly turned their backs on nuclear. Even France, which relies on nuclear for 80% of its electricity (which has meant that, whenever rising summer temperatures force the closure of nuclear plants, France has bought its electricity from the UK), the frontrunner candidate for the presidency has vowed to shut down nearly half of France's 58 reactors by 2025.
Britain has decided to forge ahead with new nuclear, even though successive governments have had to misrepresent the need for these accidents-waiting-to-happen to parliament. And even though the government has a report of its own which indicates that most of the civil nuclear sites in the UK are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.
The government insists that the new nuclear power stations will have to be constructed entirely with private money - but this is a smokescreen. Should anything go wrong, it will not be the shareholders who cover the costs of the emergency. It will be the taxpayer. Nuclear developers can, in fact, only build nuclear power stations these days where there is a strong central government (like in China, where no new nuclear plants were commissioned last year) and where the public will pick up the tab in the event of a catastrophe, like in Britain.
All the same, the start-up date for the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset has already been put back two years, from 2017 to 2019, partly because of safety concerns. It's also worth pointing out that two other nuclear power stations currently being built by the French-owned EDF are years behind schedule and massively over-budget.
Hinkley Point is in fact the new front line in the battle to oppose the most expensive and dangerous source of electricity around. Protesters there are currently fighting EDF's attempts to cut down trees in preparation for the groundwork. Apparently, it's okay for the immediate environment to be wiped out by nuclear power station developers (and Donald Trump with his crappy Scottish golf resort), but windfarms are not allowed to affect anything. No, nothing at all. Ever.
Double standards? You bet. But then, there are still plenty of fantasists willing to claim that nuclear power is "cheap" and "safe" - and to make outrageous claims about wind energy being "expensive" and "unreliable". The United States suffered more nuclear power station outtages than ever, last year. A couple of years ago, the UK's newest nuclear facility produced absolutely no electricity at all for more than seven months. When Japan was hit by the tsunami, only one wind turbine stopped working. And there are some freaks and frauds out there who want you to believe that windfarms are dangerous!
The reality is that - as various recent headlines in the Telegraph (the native habitat of the lesser-witted Delingpole and the purveyor of silly anti-windfarm stories which then have to be retracted), the free-marketeering Economist magazine and the Guardian, for example, make clear - nuclear is now a mug's game. Japan, which knows more about nuclear catastrophe than most, wants rid of the reactors. The British government is trying to induce private investment in nuclear by artifically raising the carbon floor price. But even so, the costs of nuclear energy are growing all the time. Additional safety measures are just part of the reason for this. The simple fact is that nuclear has always been enormously more expensive than its proponents were willing to admit - as the French government recently let on.
Nuclear therefore joins the other fossil fuel sources of electricity (message to Vince Cable: nuclear is a fossil fuel-based source and is not renewable!) in being an ever-increasingly expensive form of electricity generation. It's not reliable, it's certainly not safe, and it's only going to get more expensive. Scotland won't accept any new nuclear power stations. As is so often the case, Britain (i.e. England) seems to be flying the flag for a dying source of energy.
This has to stop. More importantly, the entire balance of our electricity generation needs to shift. It is atrocious that new nuclear power plants can be foisted on communities when windfarms - which do no harm, cost a tiny fraction of what nuclear costs, and then run practically for free - can be successfully opposed by a handful of demented, selfish nimbies who are willing to whip up a barking mob by spreading lies about wind turbines. Such a situation - so very British in its perversity - is absolutely at odds with the national interest.
All over the world, renewable energy technology is advancing. New developments in this country - such as a computer programme that resolves the difficulties radar could experience with turbines - offer to clear away many of the obstacles to a sustainable future. Multiple reliable reports have been published indicating that we in the UK could be getting at least 80% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Scotland plans on being 100% renewable sooner than that.
The answer is staring us in the face. Plans for new nuclear should be put on hold indefinitely. Old nuclear stations are being decommissioned (Oldbury in Gloucestershire shut down last week), the costs of which currently soak up more than half of the Department for Energy and Climate Change's budget. Whoever said nuclear was "cheap"? We're paying vast amounts of public money to shut the damned places down!
Instead of investing trillions in delayed, overpriced, expensive and unreliable nuclear power plants, we should be making use of the fantastic natural resources we enjoy in the UK. 40% of Europe's wind passes over our isles. The sea around us offers oodles of wave and tidal power. A broad mix of renewables - onshore and offshore wind, hydroelectric, solar PV, tidal, wave, biomass and geothermal - would easily provide for all our needs while doing no significant harm to the planet (something that no "conventional" source can claim). Private homes and local communities can generate their own electricity from these abundant, free resources and sell the surplus on to the National Grid - after all, most of Germany's renewable energy is generated, not by utility-scale developments, but by communities.
Anyone who tries to make out that this is cloud-cuckoo-land is a liar. It is do-able. It just needs the political will. Which means that the cretinous, treacherous, devious and evil nimbies who automatically oppose any wind turbine because it might affect "their" view need to be silenced, once and for all. The lobbyists for oil, coal and nuclear (yes, Lord Lawson - we're looking at you) need to be silenced, too. Any right-wing rag like the Telegraph, the Mail and the Express, which wilfully spreads ludicrous anti-windfarm stories purely to stoke up fear and loathing should be heavily penalised.
The British government should do what the French do: just build the windfarms. Protracted planning delays caused by mindless nimby liars need to be curbed. Britain has promised to hit ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions, and renewables are one of the ways to do it.
So stop flapping, Britain, and get real. If a mad, deluded nimby tries to tell you stupid lies about wind power, shout them down. Do it for your country, for your kids, and for this wonderful natural world of ours, which the nimbies - and the nuclear power they pretend to love - will only destroy.
Let's get serious about renewables, before it's too late. Let's do the right thing. Let's abandon the nuclear nightmare and invest in windfarms.
It's the sensible thing to do.
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear had been enjoying something of a renaissance. Not so since. Germany responded to public pressure by voting to phase out nuclear power. Switzerland and Italy similarly turned their backs on nuclear. Even France, which relies on nuclear for 80% of its electricity (which has meant that, whenever rising summer temperatures force the closure of nuclear plants, France has bought its electricity from the UK), the frontrunner candidate for the presidency has vowed to shut down nearly half of France's 58 reactors by 2025.
Britain has decided to forge ahead with new nuclear, even though successive governments have had to misrepresent the need for these accidents-waiting-to-happen to parliament. And even though the government has a report of its own which indicates that most of the civil nuclear sites in the UK are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.
The government insists that the new nuclear power stations will have to be constructed entirely with private money - but this is a smokescreen. Should anything go wrong, it will not be the shareholders who cover the costs of the emergency. It will be the taxpayer. Nuclear developers can, in fact, only build nuclear power stations these days where there is a strong central government (like in China, where no new nuclear plants were commissioned last year) and where the public will pick up the tab in the event of a catastrophe, like in Britain.
All the same, the start-up date for the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset has already been put back two years, from 2017 to 2019, partly because of safety concerns. It's also worth pointing out that two other nuclear power stations currently being built by the French-owned EDF are years behind schedule and massively over-budget.
Hinkley Point is in fact the new front line in the battle to oppose the most expensive and dangerous source of electricity around. Protesters there are currently fighting EDF's attempts to cut down trees in preparation for the groundwork. Apparently, it's okay for the immediate environment to be wiped out by nuclear power station developers (and Donald Trump with his crappy Scottish golf resort), but windfarms are not allowed to affect anything. No, nothing at all. Ever.
Double standards? You bet. But then, there are still plenty of fantasists willing to claim that nuclear power is "cheap" and "safe" - and to make outrageous claims about wind energy being "expensive" and "unreliable". The United States suffered more nuclear power station outtages than ever, last year. A couple of years ago, the UK's newest nuclear facility produced absolutely no electricity at all for more than seven months. When Japan was hit by the tsunami, only one wind turbine stopped working. And there are some freaks and frauds out there who want you to believe that windfarms are dangerous!
The reality is that - as various recent headlines in the Telegraph (the native habitat of the lesser-witted Delingpole and the purveyor of silly anti-windfarm stories which then have to be retracted), the free-marketeering Economist magazine and the Guardian, for example, make clear - nuclear is now a mug's game. Japan, which knows more about nuclear catastrophe than most, wants rid of the reactors. The British government is trying to induce private investment in nuclear by artifically raising the carbon floor price. But even so, the costs of nuclear energy are growing all the time. Additional safety measures are just part of the reason for this. The simple fact is that nuclear has always been enormously more expensive than its proponents were willing to admit - as the French government recently let on.
Nuclear therefore joins the other fossil fuel sources of electricity (message to Vince Cable: nuclear is a fossil fuel-based source and is not renewable!) in being an ever-increasingly expensive form of electricity generation. It's not reliable, it's certainly not safe, and it's only going to get more expensive. Scotland won't accept any new nuclear power stations. As is so often the case, Britain (i.e. England) seems to be flying the flag for a dying source of energy.
This has to stop. More importantly, the entire balance of our electricity generation needs to shift. It is atrocious that new nuclear power plants can be foisted on communities when windfarms - which do no harm, cost a tiny fraction of what nuclear costs, and then run practically for free - can be successfully opposed by a handful of demented, selfish nimbies who are willing to whip up a barking mob by spreading lies about wind turbines. Such a situation - so very British in its perversity - is absolutely at odds with the national interest.
All over the world, renewable energy technology is advancing. New developments in this country - such as a computer programme that resolves the difficulties radar could experience with turbines - offer to clear away many of the obstacles to a sustainable future. Multiple reliable reports have been published indicating that we in the UK could be getting at least 80% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Scotland plans on being 100% renewable sooner than that.
The answer is staring us in the face. Plans for new nuclear should be put on hold indefinitely. Old nuclear stations are being decommissioned (Oldbury in Gloucestershire shut down last week), the costs of which currently soak up more than half of the Department for Energy and Climate Change's budget. Whoever said nuclear was "cheap"? We're paying vast amounts of public money to shut the damned places down!
Instead of investing trillions in delayed, overpriced, expensive and unreliable nuclear power plants, we should be making use of the fantastic natural resources we enjoy in the UK. 40% of Europe's wind passes over our isles. The sea around us offers oodles of wave and tidal power. A broad mix of renewables - onshore and offshore wind, hydroelectric, solar PV, tidal, wave, biomass and geothermal - would easily provide for all our needs while doing no significant harm to the planet (something that no "conventional" source can claim). Private homes and local communities can generate their own electricity from these abundant, free resources and sell the surplus on to the National Grid - after all, most of Germany's renewable energy is generated, not by utility-scale developments, but by communities.
Anyone who tries to make out that this is cloud-cuckoo-land is a liar. It is do-able. It just needs the political will. Which means that the cretinous, treacherous, devious and evil nimbies who automatically oppose any wind turbine because it might affect "their" view need to be silenced, once and for all. The lobbyists for oil, coal and nuclear (yes, Lord Lawson - we're looking at you) need to be silenced, too. Any right-wing rag like the Telegraph, the Mail and the Express, which wilfully spreads ludicrous anti-windfarm stories purely to stoke up fear and loathing should be heavily penalised.
The British government should do what the French do: just build the windfarms. Protracted planning delays caused by mindless nimby liars need to be curbed. Britain has promised to hit ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions, and renewables are one of the ways to do it.
So stop flapping, Britain, and get real. If a mad, deluded nimby tries to tell you stupid lies about wind power, shout them down. Do it for your country, for your kids, and for this wonderful natural world of ours, which the nimbies - and the nuclear power they pretend to love - will only destroy.
Let's get serious about renewables, before it's too late. Let's do the right thing. Let's abandon the nuclear nightmare and invest in windfarms.
It's the sensible thing to do.
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