A MISUSE OF PUBLIC FUNDS?

Is council tax payers' money being given to a protest group to fight the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm?


Might that mean a rise in council tax bills next year?


Do YOU want YOUR tax money spent on a political campaign by nimbies who represent a minority of residents?


Let's try to answer these questions. To the first, the answer, it would appear, could be 'Yes'.


Some background: several months ago, Church Lench Parish Council collapsed. A mob of aggressive loudmouths had been holding up parish council meetings, demanding that 'something' be done about ScottishPower Renewable's plans to build a windfarm at Lenchwick. The protesters made it impossible for the parish council to carry out its business. The majority of the parish councillors resigned because of the abuse they were receiving for sticking to the rules. This allowed supporters of VVASP to take over Church Lench Parish Council.


A 'working party' has since been set up, apparently at the insistence of the new Church Lench Parish Council and their friends in VVASP. This 'working party' includes representatives from the parish councils of Church Lench, Norton and Lenchwick, Harvington, Hill and Moor, Fladbury, and Bishampton and Throckmorton. The 'working party' is essentially demanding a blank cheque from the parish councils to fund its activities. The Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council website states that its representative on the 'working party' will act in an advisory capacity to the Parish Council with regard to the [windfarm] planning application but will not participate in the Parish Council's response to Wychavon District Council regarding the application to ensure the Parish Council's integrity and credibility. Whatever can they mean?


Anyway, after much heated debate, Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council voted narrowly on Tuesday night to make a one-off payment of £750 - rather than the desired blank cheque - to fund this 'working party'.


Now, two things:


1) Parish councils receive a budget or 'precept' which comes from council taxes. The Windfarm Working Party is therefore asking for almost unlimited use of the annual precepts which have just been received by the parish councils in order to carry out its work. That money comes from council tax payers, who traditionally like to see it spent wisely.


2) The Windfarm Working Party's real purpose is unclear. Some parish councillors are insisting that it is only a perfectly innocent information-gathering/sharing body - which begs the questions: why do they need so much money? What information are they trying to gather? And why will at least one of the council reps not be allowed to vote on the Lenchwick Windfarm planning application? Other parish councillors are clear that the 'working party' has been set up for no other purpose than to fight the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. This could explain why reps might not be allowed to vote on the planning application - because they are already engaged in an anti campaign funded by YOUR parish council, which is surely a grossly inappropriate use of public money.


After all, one of the first things the working party did was to meet up with Peter Luff MP to discuss 'strategy'. What 'strategy' does the Windfarm Working Party need, unless it was set up simply to find grounds for opposing the windfarm proposal, using council tax money which has been given to the parish councils for other things.



No wonder Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council is trying so hard to preserve its 'integrity and credibility' - not to mention its impartiality - in the face of this kind of activity!


Parish councils are required to remain impartial and open-minded until a planning application has been submitted. If the Windfarm Working Party is already looking for ways of fighting the proposal - and using YOUR money in doing so - then it is jumping the gun. ScottishPower Renewables have not yet submitted a planning application. So any parish council which knowingly decides to fund a working party dedicated to frustrating the windfarm proposal is already guilty of prejudice and bias.


Another question: if the new Church Lench Parish Council is behind the creation of the Windfarm Working Party, how can we tell that it's not, in reality, a cover for VVASP? Especially if, as some local parish councillors insist, the working party's sole purpose is, like VVASP's, to challenge the windfarm plans.


In other words, how can we tell whether OUR money is being spent, one way or other, on VVASP's disingenuous campaign, regardless of whether we like it or not? A campaign which, as the polls carried out by three parish councils indicate, and a previous blog explains*, is supported by only a minority of locals.



(* See under entries for May - 'Can't they get any facts right?')


Harvington Parish Council has already created a 'Windfarm Budget' - this is the village where less than a third of residents expressed opposition to the windfarm - and agreed to fund 20% of a proposed background noise-monitoring exercise to run alongside that organised by ScottishPower Renewables**. They seem to think that SPR might tell porkies about the background noise levels in the planning application. Ha! There's paranoia for you.



(** Harvington PC minutes, May 2009)


But why should the Windfarm Working Party want the full allocation of parish council funds for this year? Remember: Church Lench Parish Council and VVASP are joined at the hip. Now, their offspring, the Windfarm Working Party, wants to spend as much of your money as it can lay its hands on to carry out some vague sort of research. Could something sinister be going on?


Currently, VVASP are engaged in a massive fundraising exercise. They want to employ a barrister to fight on their behalf against the windfarm. And we all know how much barristers cost - even one prepared to defend VVASP's wild claims and objectionable tactics. They've also joined a European group of anti-wind activists ('wind-breakers'? - Ed.). Somehow, all this will have to be paid for. So wouldn't it be nice if Church Lench and the other five parish councils took some of the pressure off VVASP and covered the costs of its so-called fact-finding?


Is it possible that the parish councils are now being pressurised or tricked into putting significant amounts of public money into the anti-windfarm campaign, pointlessly replicating independent surveys, maybe even indirectly helping VVASP to engage legal representation, and therefore getting us to pay for their anti-social, time-wasting, undemocratic opposition to a perfectly rational, harmless and beneficial development?


Is that what you pay your council tax for?


Let's say that not all of the parish councils are as balanced as Norton and Lenchwick's. What if one of the parish councils (let's say, for sake of argument, that which represents VVASP Central - i.e. Church Lench) decides to spend its full precept on trying to find some slim grounds on which to challenge the application? That is, spending public money, not on what it was meant for, but on politically-motivated 'research'?


Okay, so they're getting the other parishes to chip in, but would a parish council that's heavily biased against the windfarm not be tempted to keep dipping into public funds for as long as they're available, if only to satisfy the noisier egos in the village that they're doing something?


And isn't challenging the windfarm proposal VVASP's job, not the parish council's - not at this stage, anyway?


Oh, but of course! There's suddenly an influx of public money into parish council coffers! And if it's difficult to tell where VVASP ends and the Windfarm Working Party begins, just think of all the ways that public money - tax payers' money - could be diverted into trying to stop the windfarm!


If an irresponsible parish council were to write the Windfarm Working Party a blank cheque to do VVASP's dirty work, how would they meet the costs of other commitments? How can the additional expenses of unnecessary 'information gathering' be covered by a precept which was calculated to provide for the ordinary needs of the parish council? What about the things that money is meant to be spent on? Does nothing matter to some of these people, other than fighting the windfarm by any means, fair or foul, and preferably with YOUR money?


And what if one or more parish council's channelling of your money into a political cause meant that, next year, EVERYBODY's council tax bill saw an increase to cover the overspend achieved by councillors who don't know the meaning of the word 'impartial'?


It's obvious what it would mean - that we, the people, many of whom are all in favour of the Lenchwick Windfarm, would have seen our own tax money spent on a misguided attempt at fighting the proposed windfarm, purely for the benefit of privileged individuals in the Lenches, and without our knowledge or say so, and that we could yet see our council tax bills rise because OUR money has been wasted on somebody else's irrational campaign.


I would urge everyone to question their parish councillors about these developments. It would seem that, under the auspices of an 'information gathering' working party, the anti-windfarm lobby is getting its hands on YOUR money for its own ends.


Ironic, really. The same people have pooh-poohed Scottish Power's offer to make thousands of pounds available annually to the local parish councils when the windfarm is up and running. The VVASP goons have referred to this as a 'bribe'. Now, it would appear, they would rather spend YOUR money fighting their selfish little battle than accept money for the community from a windfarm developer.



So, if you want to see your tax money spent responsibly on worthwhile community projects, insist that your parish councillors don't use the precepts to fund VVASP's demented campaign, even if it is disguised as a 'Windfarm Working Party'.

WHISPER WHO DARES

Think about it.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. A wind turbine exists to turn wind energy into kinetic energy and then into electricity. Any noise created in the process would not just be a public nuisance - it would be a waste of energy. Designers of wind turbines and windfarm developers have every reason to ensure that they make as little noise as possible.

Now, there are some people in the Vale and its villages who know this. They also know that windfarms are practically silent. Their holiday homes are near windfarms, or they have visited windfarms in the UK or elsewhere. They have found out for themselves and, generally, they have no objection to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm because THEY KNOW WINDFARMS ARE NOT NOISY.

There are others in the area who THINK windfarms are noisy. They have no personal experience of windfarms, but they refuse to accept the evidence of those who have because VVASP have TOLD them that they're noisy.

These people will argue themselves into a corner because they don't want to hear the truth, they just want to listen to the rabid bleatings of a bunch of self-centred nimbies.

There is, of course, a third group of people. These have visited windfarms. One of them, at least, has a grasp of physics. Their experience has shown them that windfarms make hardly any noise at all. And yet ...

And yet they refuse to let others know this. Why? Because they are the hardcore of VVASP and they WANT other people to believe what they KNOW to be untrue.

They have repeatedly misled people over the noise issue.

How does this square with their claim to be helping residents to make an 'informed decision'?

How on earth can misinforming them help them make an 'informed' decision?

I know of one guy - who has plenty of engineering experience - who has been told by people he knows very well that windfarms are not noisy. These people KNOW. But he won't believe it. Because VVASP have lied and lied and lied to him about this.

Every time VVASP put out yet more misleading propaganda about windfarm noise they betray their base motives. They're not interested in helping anyone to make an 'informed' decision - because those who do so tend to come out in favour of the windfarm. They desperately want their friends and neighbours to make a MISINFORMED decision.

One day, those graceful and spectacular turbines will be turning away near our villages, and those who were repeatedly lied to by VVASP about the noise will realise that they were being deliberately misled by people they respected.

Till then, people in the Lenches are trying not to make too much noise of their own. Consultants working for ScottishPower Renewables are monitoring the background noise as part of the consultation/planning process. So the sillier nimbies are trying to tiptoe about the place, as if to fool the experts into thinking that there's never any noise whatsoever in the Lenches.

It is true, of course, that immigrants into the villages have killed off some of the noise we used to enjoy - like the motorcross which took place on King Hill for many years (stopped by selfish beasts from the cities).

But, seriously, what is the point of trying to misrepresent the normal background noise levels in the Lenches when the wind turbines will add next to nothing to them anyway? Maybe if they didn't believe their own nonsense about windfarm noise (and why should they, when some of them at least know for a fact that it's not true) they wouldn't be creeping about the place now.

I guess some people will believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of evidence and experience. And if those people are VVASP, they'll do all they can to make everybody else believe the same rubbish.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Thanks, again, to my growing band of informants, correspondents and researchers out there.

Not only is it encouraging to discover just how big the grassroots support for the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm is, as well as how many are appalled, depressed and disgusted by the shabby tactics of VVASP; it's good to have fresh insights and sources of information.

This, for example, was sent in recently. It's an interesting examination of the tricks being used by climate change deniers and anti-windfarm groups. Note that the main tactics were devised by fundamentalist Christians in the States to challenge the Darwinian theory of evolution. The same refusal to grapple with science, reality and common sense is evident in the anti-windfarm protests.

Here's the link: http://blog.businessgreen.com/2009/06/teach-the-contr.html

It's a wake-up call, both to the wind energy industry and to those who care about the future (I mean REALLY care about it). The blog entry outlines, in simple form, the tactics used, disingenuously, by the protesters, which are:

1) pretend that there is a 'debate' about wind power and doubts about its effectiveness and efficiency

2) pretend that some sort of conspiracy, involving the European Union, government tax subsidies, money-grubbing energy firms, whatever, is involved in foisting these turbines on people who just happen to live in rural areas

3) pretend to be taking a more 'balanced' position than the developers - along the lines of VVASP's meaningless and utterly fraudulent 'right technology in the right environment' claptrap

Each of these tactics are based on misleading information, misrepresenting basic facts and - well, let's be honest - lying your head off left, right and centre. Like the crazy fundamentalists in the US, it allows weirdos to appear to be talking sense when, in reality, their ideas are ridiculous and their motives extremely questionable.

These tactics can be countered by making sure that the REAL facts (i.e., not the made-up VVASP 'facts') are known.

There is nothing to fear from windfarms - unless you've been conned by self-interested groups like VVASP into believing that they're somehow, magically and mysteriously, dangerous.

But there's plenty to fear from people who feel no compunction about lying, and lying, and lying again, in order to force other people to support their entirely selfish and unreasonable views.

A NATIONAL CRISIS

This is a rallying call to patriots.

Some of my correspondents have sent in a very sad piece of news. You can see it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8129882.stm

Now, first of all, it's not the end of the world, especially if the secretary of state does the right thing and approves the application, just as the North Dorset planning officers recommended and as the government's own policies require.

But what does the North Dorset news mean?

Well, first of all it's interesting (although no surprise) to find that the anti-windfarm protesters of Dorset deployed the same mealy-mouthed nonsense as our friends in VVASP. "We are in favour of renewable energy and don't object to wind farms in the right place," said one of the Dorset protesters. Does that sound familiar?

So - where is the 'right place'? What if every protest group advanced that loopy argument? What if the whole country was deemed out-of-bounds to renewable energy developers because everybody was 'in favour' of windfarms but only 'in the right place' - i.e., not near them?

Here's the really sad thing: back in the early '90s, the UK was leading the world in windpower. Windfarms had been originally developed in the States, partly as a response to the energy crisis of the '70s (and the fact that the US had already reached 'peak oil', the moment at which extracting oil from the ground becomes progressively more difficult and expensive). The UK soon took the lead in developing this cheap, harmless energy source.

Then - disaster. People started making up stories about wind turbines.

Now we're hearing from some of the leading companies involved in the renewable energy business that it's not really worth their while developing clean, green projects in the UK - the reason being the 'unnecessary delays' caused by protesters talking nonsense, winding up their neighbours and standing in the way of progress.

Which means that the rest of the world is stealing a march on us. Once at the forefront of sustainable energy, the UK is rapidly falling behind, only because there are people in this country who prefer lies to truth and who will put their own short-term interests in front of the long-term interests of the nation (and, indeed, the planet).

This is probably the outcome of the cult of the individual which came in with Margaret Thatcher. Remember she said that 'There's no such thing as society'? Well, convert that to 'There's no such thing as climate change' and 'We're all in favour of renewable energy but only in the right place' and you'll see how we got to where we are.

The debate is not about renewable energy and a sustainable future. It's about egos. It's about a relatively small minority who exist purely on the basis of 'I want' and who don't give a fig for others, for the environment, for future generations, for the greater good or the national interest.

That's it in a nutshell: rampant self-interest versus the national interest. In our local area, it's about spoilt inheritors and arrogant ex-City types pursuing their own narrow views and forcing everyone to agree with them. It's about a minor issue - whether a wind turbine might be visible from the road outside their house (and not about noise: that's just a myth spun by the antis) - as opposed to a major issue - whether we will be able to provide for our energy needs in a few years' time.

Anyone who cares about the countryside, the environment, the planet, the future, the nation's needs and the prestige of the UK can only support the development of windfarms.

Contrary to what the myth-mongers keep repeating, they do work, and other countries are developing them at speed and relying on the electricity they generate (more or less for free). They present no threat to wildlife and they are practically noise-free.

All the myths and lies spouting by groups like VVASP are designed to mislead the public for one reason alone: to ensure that the privileged few get to enjoy their nice country homes without having to put up with a little bit of reality in the neighbourhood.

This argument is about greed versus need, about selfishness versus common sense. Ignore all the pompous and utterly disingenuous arguments about Europe, Gordon Brown, tax subsidies for renewables, climate change denial and falsified or misquoted reports concerning wind farms.

It's time for the UK to take the lead again - and to do this, those of us who do care must shout down the nimbies, the self-interested liars, the bullies and the myth-mongers. The future is on our side. It will not be long before the maniacs who stood in the way of these graceful devices are recognised as traitors to the planet and betrayers of the national interest. But every time they get their way till then, the nation takes a step backwards and a vital solution to a truly pressing crisis is unnecessarily postponed.

Which matters more - a reliable supply of clean energy for all, or uninterrupted views from the bottom of the garden for a few?

Shout down the protesters. They are betraying us all. Their foolish self-interest is holding the UK back. So be a patriot and actively support the Lenchwick Windfarm, for all our sakes.

STAYING OUT OF TOUCH

That bundle of contradictions and dodgy information known as 'VVASP NEWS' has come through our door.

So, what's the latest from La-La Land?

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that their Open Gardens day raised £466 for the anti-windfarm fighting fund, so well done anyone who thought they were just visiting a garden and not contributing to a time-wasting political cause. Then again, £466 would probably pay for about twenty minutes of a barrister's time, so there's a long way to go yet.

Also, apparently, windfarms are no longer a terrible problem. Vale Villagers Against Scottish Power have launched their latest campaign for the summer. Entitled 'Keep Your Distance', the campaign offers local dupes the chance to put all new hideous placards up and even to wear T-shirts emblazoned with the words '2km OK'.

VVASP insist that they campaign for 'the right technology in the right environment'. Now, apparently, the 'right environment' is two kilometres away.

They're on a hiding to nothing. The '2 kilometre' minimum is an arbitrary distance, based on the myth that, in Scotland, all windfarms must be kept at least two kilometres from the nearest dwelling. Like all the VVASP's anti-windfarm myths, this one was exploded a long time ago. But, apparently, two kilometres away is 'OK'.

This is a new development, probably triggered by the fact that people in the Lenches have had chance to see a map, acquired by dubious means, which shows the likely sites of the turbines. Most of the Lenches lot will have realised, then, that the turbines are unlikely to affect them. VVASP, knowing that they have to find some grounds to hold up the process, are launching their '2km OK' campaign because ... well, because there isn't really anything else they can campaign about.

But they're still pushing the wholly mythical 'noisy windfarms' nonsense. A report is quoted, written by a 'Practising GP', which indicates that wind turbines generate noise and affect health.

As usual, though, their information is selective and misleading.

NPower opened their Bears Down windfarm near Padstow in Cornwall in 2001 to 96% local approval (http://www.npowerrenewables.com/bearsdown/results.asp). Three years later, Dr Amanda Harry, a GP based in Plymouth, polled fourteen locals and discovered that the windfarm had affected their 'quality of life'.

If that sample seems rather too small to be scientific, it should be pointed out that those locals all lived in a caravan park, comprising fourteen static caravans, which is situated just 500 metres from the turbines. Disgruntled, disaffected, not really a part of the local community and considerably closer to the turbines than anyone else - or anyone in the Lenches will be - the fourteen caravanners were only too happy to whinge to an interfering GP.

Because Dr Harry's not-very-scientific-or-conclusive report was quoted in the Telegraph in 2007, VVASP are able to pretend that her conclusions are based on 'years' of study.

Ha! The usual bullshit. The British Wind Energy Association has pointed out, repeatedly, that 'noisy' windfarms are a myth and that there's no actual evidence of any kind to back up Dr Harry's claims.

Which is a pattern repeated wherever a small minority of people in the vicinity of a working windfarm complain about noise, even when they can neither see nor hear the turbines. There's no evidence, no scientific measurements, nothing but a small group of people grumbling.

In an earlier blog, I pointed out that people are perfectly capable of convincing themselves of all sorts of strange things. This is what makes VVASP's continued attempts to convince local residents that windfarms are noisy so unbelievably sick and irresponsible - because some people are able to BELIEVE that they can hear them, whether they actually can or not.

If you accept the evidence - from scientists, local residents and your own eyes and ears - you'll know that windfarms are not noisy. If you believe the craven bullshitters of VVASP and their like, you'll think that windfarms are noisy. The first lot will not hear them. The second lot might think that they can.

VVASP are strenuously striving to ruin your quality of life by making you believe in something which doesn't exist!!!

Of course, the real issue is whether the propagandists of VVASP actually do believe their own nonsense, or are they intelligent enough to know that it's nonsense but still want to foist it on their friends and neighbours for political reasons.

But Dr Amanda Harry's 'report' is of no use or value, scientifically. We could all go and find fourteen people who don't like a nearby windfarm and blatantly ignore the vast majority of local residents who are happy with them.

The pity is that VVASP are so chronically incapable of being straight about this.

Oh, and anyone caught wearing a T-shirt with '2km OK - KEEP YOUR DISTANCE' on it is obviously asking for normal people to keep two kilometres away from them. Those of us who know the kind of people behind the VVASP campaign will acknowledge that two kilometres is the minimal distance we would want to be from any of them.

SPOT THE FALLACY

Can you spot the logical flaw in this argument?

To meet all our energy needs we would need to build thousands of windfarms, effectively covering the available land with them. When the wind isn't blowing, we'd still need backup supplies, probably from coal-fired, gas-fired or nuclear power stations. Therefore, wind power is completely pointless.

Did you spot it?

A lot of opponents of the Lenchwick windfarm - and numerous others, including windfarms in general - advance an argument like this. And, at first glance, it's a compelling one.

Until you remember that NOBODY has ever suggested that we should try to generate ALL our ever-growing electricity needs from wind.

There's a kind of absolutism creeping into the debate. This is not helped by scientists of various backgrounds who each espouse their own preferred 'solution'. Some will insist that only nuclear can provide for our needs. Others will advance solar power. Some like to think that, with the right advances in carbon-capture technology, coal could again be king. So obsessed are certain experts with their chosen source that they'll readily ridicule any of the others.

Anti-windfarm protest groups, like VVASP, can pick and choose quotes from these 'experts', leading to the kind of argument outlined at the top of this post. In its simplest form, the argument goes:

1) To supply all our electricity we'd need too many turbines
2) One day the wind won't blow, and then we'd need something else
3) Windfarms don't work

Now, can you remember a time when all our electricity was generated from a single source, be it nuclear, coal or gas? No?

So why is wind energy seen as such a failure? What is this nonsense about wind being too unreliable to supply all our needs? Who said it was going to in the first place?

It's obvious that our electricity will need to be supplied by a variety of sources - wind, wave, tide, solar and geo-thermal - in the future. Wind just happens to be one of the easiest, and cheapest, to harness.

But anyone who thinks that windfarms are being put forward as the sole answer to all our future needs is not a very serious person and should be kept in a safe place away from society. Windfarms are a major part of the solution. They have been proven to work. They are a big step forward, towards a renewable future.

There will be other sources, but it's about time we admitted that coal, oil and gas are on the way out and that nuclear just has too many dark secrets and unresolved issues to be safe.

What is so depressing is that, because some people feel the need to cling to the certainties of the past, and to deny that they played any part in the climate change crisis, they will spout no end of silly, stupid, illogical, irrational annd unscientific arguments against the solution.

Windfarms are a vital part of our future. There is no choice in the matter.

Get used to it.

CRIMINAL DAMAGE

Yet again, the poor, deluded fools of VVASP have had their ghastly yellow placards stolen or damaged.

Yes, would you believe it? All those self-satisfied people are doing is exercising their democratic right to plaster nasty-looking placards all over a picturesque village, and some unidentified rotters have retaliated.

Those placards cost a tenner each! They have been strategically placed to draw attention to their owners' dumbass views! How dare anybody vandalise these crappy, evil posters?! It's a disgrace!

(A more creative form of vandalism, which took place a few months back, saw photocopied images of the GI's raising Old Glory at Iwo Jima, only the flagpole had been replaced by a wind turbine, and the word 'YES' was prominent; these were stuck over the VVASP's grotty 'NO' efforts, much to the annoyance of the anti-windfarm lobby.)

According to VVASP, the police know who is responsible for removing the useless 'NO' placards. The police, however, have got far more important things to be getting on with than pandering to the pushy bastards who erected the stupid placards in the first place, and so no action has been taken (as yet).

Maybe the police have just got more taste than the bottom-feeders of VVASP. Certainly the wreckers of those dreadful placards have. Their actions have enhanced the visual appeal of the villages concerned enormously. Removing the placards is undoubtedly a positive act and shows a far greater sense of perspective and community than the protesters of Loony Lench have shown.

But you know what the middle-classes are like when it comes to their property. I don't think it's the ten quid that went down the drain with their shitty placard, I think it's the obvious fact that somebody disagrees with them which rankles so much. After all, only members of VVASP are allowed to have an opinion, right? And that opinion has to be forged by a constant stream of lies, misrepresentation and social/psychological pressure.

Well, good to see that some have slipped through the net and are still capable of rational, independent thought. Better still that they are exercising their superior intellect by ridding the villages of just a few of those godawful placards - the ones which try to make windpower look as hideous as nuclear power, but which only reveal the owners to be the dimwitted victims of a crude propaganda campaign.

So - three cheers (and a pint, should the opportunity ever arise) for the Merry Men who have, yet again, shown their wholly reasonable contempt for VVASP and their unsightly placards. After all, criminal damage is one thing. Climate change is another. Anything which attacks the mealy-mouthed gainsayers of climate change, the self-centred individuals who care more about the view from the corner of their garden than the planet as a whole, the spreaders of lies and the huffing, puffing bullies of VVASP can only be a Good Thing!