Nimbies never learn. They're like Daleks. They go round screeching out their nimby nonsense and insisting that absolutely everybody must - and even does - agree with them, regardless of the evidence. As we saw in the Lenchwick Fiasco, they are prepared to tolerate no opinion other than their own, and will go to terrifying lengths to set up their own smokescreen of lies and then make sure that nobody, repeat nobody, else gets a word in. The very notion of free and open debate terrifies them, because it's only by enforcing a monopoly of opinion that they can avoid being exposed as morons, liars and frauds.
They also like trolling the pages of green and pro-renewables websites looking for an excuse to throw a tantrum.
One pro-renewables website posted up a blog page giving supporters advice about writing to the local press. Naturally, this perfectly fair and reasonable piece attracted a nimby Dalek. And so his wildly irrational rant began:
Could you please also include in your letters the devastation that wind turbines cause to unspoilt landscapes and communities?
Now, let's just stop him there, because he's already kicked off with two massive nimby myths. The first is the myth of the "unspoilt" countryside. It's easy enough, if you live in a bubble of your own smugness, to fall for this myth. But a moment's reflection, and the least appreciation of history, will tell you that it's nonsense. Try finding any part of the British landscape that hasn't been altered by human beings - go on, try and find one. Or, put it this way: if the "unspoilt landscape" you're on about has got fields, hedges, livestock, drainage, roads, lanes, pylons, canals, ancient heritage sites and not an awful lot of deciduous woodland on it, then it is NOT unspoilt. It has been changed. By people.
The other myth is that wind turbines devastate communities. Even when those wind turbines don't even exist yet. Or, put it another way: a windfarm that doesn't even exist is blamed for "devastating" a community.
This is impossible, of course, and if your community has been devastated by something that doesn't actually exist, then you and your neighbours have lost your heads.
Windfarms do NOT devastate communities. That is a fact. What devastates communities is nimby idiots who launch angry, noisy and downright dishonest anti-windfarm campaigns. We saw this during the Lenchwick Scandal. The weirdos lie their heads off in order to whip up unnecessary fear and alarm and then come down very, very hard indeed on those who have the capacity for abstract thought. That is what ruins communities. Not a windfarm that doesn't exist yet.
Anyway, Nimby Idiot (who signs himself "Hammer" - it's odd that these passionate protectors of "unspoilt" landscapes and communities love to give themselves violent profile names and pictures: tells you something about what they're really like) - he continues:
Here in Mid Wales, we are threatened with hundreds of extra turbines, which the vast majority of the Monmouthshire population don't want.
Okay, first of all - the ludicrously emotive and unreasonable language. These people are not being "threatened" with hundreds of extra turbines. Partly because the local communities will benefit, financially and in other ways, from the turbines. If you think you're being "threatened" with turbines, then you've got a screw loose.
Secondly, are we sure that the "vast majority" of the local population don't want them? Nimbies are notoriously for grossly misrepresenting the level of opposition, sometimes wheeling in their local MP to lie about public opinion (as VVASP did at the Wychavon District Council Planning Meeting). In fact, time and time again we discover that the majority of local people are not opposed to the turbines. But the Daleks insist that, because they are opposed to them, then everybody else must be as well, and so they distort the figures accordingly. Besides which, if you set out to devastate your own community by spreading a load of alarmist lies about the proposed windfarm, then a few sheep will start bleating in chorus. If they had the facts, rather than nimby lies, to base their opinions on, things might be different.
And so he goes on -
In addition to the turbines, we are threatened [again!] with a spider's web of electricity pylons and a 19-acre sub station that are going to ruin either the Upper Severn or Vyrnwy Valleys.
A "spider's web" of electricity pylons would be something to see! We can't really imagine what such a thing is, but we're fairly confident that - like all the other pylons that have been in existence for almost 100 years - we'll soon learn to live with them.
Since the economy of Mid Wales is underpinned by tourism, you can imagine the impact that wind turbines and hundreds of pylons and high powered lines is going to have on employment here.
Yes, we can imagine that, actually. There will be no impact on employment at all, except that some local jobs will be created. This is yet another nimby myth in action - the myth that windfarms adversely impact on business and tourism. They don't, as anyone who's been to Scotland, Cornwall or even Mid Wales will be able to tell you. But note how facetiously this "Hammer" nincompoop smuggles in the idea that they might. He assumes that we will imagine a local economy devastated by the turbines. And that's all we can do, because that devastation exists, and will continue to exist, entirely in the nimby imagination.
Perhaps, after your supporters have erected all their turbines against the wishes of local people, the last one to leave our beautiful region would be kind enough to turn off the lights!
What a strange sentence. Most windfarm supporters will not be erecting all the turbines - we'll leave that to the developers and their expert contractors - and the whole point is that, by doing so, the lights won't go out! Is this addled dimwit suggesting that we should erect all our turbines in his "beautiful" region and then leave all the people there in darkness? What an idiot!
Of course, the real purpose of this insane sentence is to allude to the Nazi invasion of various parts of Europe in the 1930s. Mr Raving Looney here is hoping that we'll all make the connection: conscientious supporters of renewable energy = Nazis; misinformed and selfish locals = freedom-fighters; arrival of windfarm = World War II. Honestly, you couldn't make it up, could you? Except that this drooling pranny did.
We keep hearing disturbing noises from the Coalition Government that sometimes the opinions of local people have to be over-ruled in the national interests.
Yep. And libraries are being closed, people with disabilities targetted, the NHS is being privatised by stealth and public sector workers sacked. Get real.
The last time we heard a similar statement was when the Tryweryn valley was flooded to provide water for Liverpool. That part of Wales will never forgive the Government of the day for riding roughshod over their wishes. Neither will the people of Montgomeryshire.
Nice to know that the people of Montgomeryshire are still standing firm with the displaced villagers of Tryweryn after all these years. At a guess, though, we'd have to say that "Hammer", whoever he is, doesn't sound like a real local. More likely, he's an Englishman who moved to Wales in search of that "unspoilt landscape" that he apparently believes in. And, consequently, he's profoundly ignorant of Welsh history.
When the Tryweryn river was dammed to create a reservoir in 1965, 67 inhabitants of the village of Capel Celyn were forcibly removed from their homes and their village was drowned. This was indeed to provide water for the City of Liverpool. It's still a sore point today.
But Mr Massive Nitwit - or "Hammer", as he prefers to be known - clearly isn't a real Welshman or he would never have desecrated the memory of the Capel Celyn victims by comparing what happened to them with the imminent appearance of a few more turbines in Mid Wales. Quite frankly, the man is insane to make such an offensive and foolish comparison. Nobody - but nobody - will be displaced from their homes by the proposed turbines. No villages will be wiped off the map, no ancestors dug up from their graves to be buried elsewhere, and families who have lived in the same valley for untold generations will be dragged from their homes by force.
YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR TINY LITTLE MIND TO IMAGINE THAT THE PROPOSED WINDFARM OR WINDFARMS WOULD BE ANYTHING LIKE WHAT HAPPENED AT CAPEL CELYN!!!!!!!!!
This, though, is the thing with the nimby nutters, and especially those who have moved into somebody else's village. They have no sense of perspective whatsoever. A few wind turbines which will have absolutely no negative impact on business, tourism, the environment, property prices, health or anything else for that matter get compared with the Lights Going Out Across Europe and one of the greatest outrages committed in twentieth century Wales.
So, I'm sorry to tell you this, "Hammer", but you're a maniac.
You are wrong on every level. You have no evidence whatsoever to back up your extremist claims. They are based entirely on prejudice and insinuation. And you have NO RIGHT to drag the people of Capel Celyn into your witless and selfish cause. You are a Grade-A idiot who has almost certainly done more harm to his community than foot and mouth did. In a sane world, you would be removed from society for the good of all.
In Denmark last year, wind power accounted for 24% of all electricity production. You've probably been telling anyone who will listen to your idiotic dribblings that Denmark "gave up" on wind power years ago. But that isn't true, just like everything else you've said about wind power isn't true. So you're not just grossly insensitive and borderline certifiable - you're a Massive Liar as well!
Europe's bill for oil shot up by 100 billion euro over the last financial year. The French government has just released figures which reveal that nuclear power is much, much more expensive than anyone had previously admitted. Domestic energy bills rose dramatically as the global price of wholesale gas went up, and there are indications that the gas-exporting countries like Russia are beginning to shut down the pipelines again.
And you, "Hammer" - you hairy-eared, swivel-eyed, flatulent twit - you are trying to stop Britain from planning its way out this energy crisis because you don't want to see a turbine or a pylon!
Cretin.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
THE BAD, THE GOOD AND THE UGLY
... or, if you prefer: TRAITORS, TRIODOS and TRIPE.
First, the TRAITORS. Click on this link to find a list of the halfwits who signed the letter to David Cameron calling on the Prime Minister to shoot Britain in the foot:
http://www.yes2wind.com/news/names-of-mps-calling-for-onshore-wind-cut-backs
One way or another, all of these "people" are mad, bad and dangerous to know. They want to destroy a thriving and promising industry. They want your energy bills to soar. They have no interest in the environment or Britain's energy security. They are dupes and fools. And there's a chance that one or other of these idiots represents YOU in parliament. Maybe you should let that "person" know what you think.
Now, some good news, courtesy of TRIODOS. Triodos is an ethical bank. No, stop laughing at the back - there are such things, and the Holland-based Triodos is one of them. It only lends to businesses and charities delivering social and environmental benefits.
Last year, the bank's lending to organisations in the UK rose by a massive 36%. So, not only is Triodos a GOOD bank. It's doing what the BAD banks should be doing, and doing it exceptionally well. Its lending to renewable energy projects in the UK was up 25% last year, while social housing investments rose by 240%. All good stuff.
Triodos also launched a £15m share issue last year to increase its investment in onshore wind. The very thing that the Tory nutcases linked to above want to stop. Triodos expects to be supporting 100 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity by 2015.
So, regardless of the idiocy of certain rightwingers in the UK, the financial sector - that is, the part of that sector which actually works - is carrying on investing in wind power in the UK. Who, then, is really looking after your future, folks? 101 dippy parliamentarians with trench brain or a leading ethical bank?
Now for the TRIPE. This is how the Daily Mail invests anti-windfarm myths by misrepresenting scientific research:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/07/wind-farms-climate-change-weather
If you've been keeping your eyes open for any length of time, you'll know by now that this sort of misrepresentation forms the basis for practically all anti-windfarm campaigns. A story is twisted, misreported and given a stupid but startling headline. That is then taken up by the climate sceptic/anti-renewables fringe and becomes a "fact". But it was never a "fact" in the first place. It's a lie dressed up as a news story.
So, that's today's bulletin. A list of Tory traitors, some good news about investments and wind power, and an example of how the right-wing lies to you about wind. Business as usual, you might say.
First, the TRAITORS. Click on this link to find a list of the halfwits who signed the letter to David Cameron calling on the Prime Minister to shoot Britain in the foot:
http://www.yes2wind.com/news/names-of-mps-calling-for-onshore-wind-cut-backs
One way or another, all of these "people" are mad, bad and dangerous to know. They want to destroy a thriving and promising industry. They want your energy bills to soar. They have no interest in the environment or Britain's energy security. They are dupes and fools. And there's a chance that one or other of these idiots represents YOU in parliament. Maybe you should let that "person" know what you think.
Now, some good news, courtesy of TRIODOS. Triodos is an ethical bank. No, stop laughing at the back - there are such things, and the Holland-based Triodos is one of them. It only lends to businesses and charities delivering social and environmental benefits.
Last year, the bank's lending to organisations in the UK rose by a massive 36%. So, not only is Triodos a GOOD bank. It's doing what the BAD banks should be doing, and doing it exceptionally well. Its lending to renewable energy projects in the UK was up 25% last year, while social housing investments rose by 240%. All good stuff.
Triodos also launched a £15m share issue last year to increase its investment in onshore wind. The very thing that the Tory nutcases linked to above want to stop. Triodos expects to be supporting 100 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity by 2015.
So, regardless of the idiocy of certain rightwingers in the UK, the financial sector - that is, the part of that sector which actually works - is carrying on investing in wind power in the UK. Who, then, is really looking after your future, folks? 101 dippy parliamentarians with trench brain or a leading ethical bank?
Now for the TRIPE. This is how the Daily Mail invests anti-windfarm myths by misrepresenting scientific research:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/07/wind-farms-climate-change-weather
If you've been keeping your eyes open for any length of time, you'll know by now that this sort of misrepresentation forms the basis for practically all anti-windfarm campaigns. A story is twisted, misreported and given a stupid but startling headline. That is then taken up by the climate sceptic/anti-renewables fringe and becomes a "fact". But it was never a "fact" in the first place. It's a lie dressed up as a news story.
So, that's today's bulletin. A list of Tory traitors, some good news about investments and wind power, and an example of how the right-wing lies to you about wind. Business as usual, you might say.
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
ABUSE OF PRIVILEGE
The far-right wing of the Conservative Party has been revealing its absolute contempt for the environment.
But not the landscape. That's a different thing altogether. See, if you're wealthy enough to afford a country mansion, you can kid yourself that the landscape is yours. It belongs to you, and no one else can touch it. Whereas the environment, by definition, belongs to us all.
That's the difference. The environment is "Socialist" and therefore to be destroyed. The landscape, by way of contrast, can be made to fall into the "private property" bracket. So it must be protected at all costs for the few who can enjoy it. The rest of us have to make do with the environment.
For a classic illustration of this rampant selfishness and double standards, we need only look to Spear's Submission to the Government on Protecting Britain's Heritage, which is particularly obsessed with Landscape.
In case you don't know, Spear's is short for "Spear's Wealth Management Survey", which is proud to describe itself as "THE ESSENTIAL RESOURCE FOR HIGH NET WORTHS" and whose motto is "If You Can Afford It, You Can't Afford To Be Without It". So it's about money, yeah? Money, money, and lots and lots of money. Loadsamoney.
Now, not so very long ago (August 2011) these custodians of enormous personal wealth launched a campaign to "Save Britain's Historic Landscape". Save it from what, you might well ask. Well, windfarms, of course.
According to their press release, "Spear's Editor-in-Chief William Cash has compiled detailed evidence suggesting that the draft NPPF [national planning guidelines] does not give adequate protection to 'heritage assets'". Oh dear. Must try harder.
But what's this? William Cash is also the chair of the Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm campaign group. We've reported on this nimby group before, paying especial attention to their hilarious, ludicrous and eye-wateringly dishonest claims about the length of the trucks which deliver wind turbine parts ("longer than an aircraft carrier", they'd have you believe).
William Cash doesn't like the idea that the view from his stately home might - just might - include a glimpse of a couple of community-owned wind turbines.
That's community-owned (i.e. "Socialist") wind turbines which are there to benefit the environment ("Socialist"). As you've probably gathered, William Cash, Editor-in-Chief of Spear's Wealth Management Survey, isn't much of a Socialist. After all, with all that wealth to manage, you're going to want to own your own view, aren't you? Can't let the community put up a couple of wind turbines, can you?
William Cash has been ably assisted in his manic battle against the modest Bridgnorth Windfarm by his father, Bill Cash MP. Bill Cash, a right-wing Eurosceptic (and probably a "climate sceptic" too) was one of the signatories of that clueless and unpatriotic letter to David Cameron the other day.
So, father and son - Willy and Billy - are both fighting the bad fight against windfarms. Bill is abusing his position as a Member of Parliament to try and bugger up a community-owned renewable energy scheme on somebody else's patch. William is abusing his position as Editor-in-Chief of the "Essential Resource for High Net Worths" to interfere with the government's planning guidelines where windfarms are concerned.
What does this tell us? We already know that the Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm campaign seldom bothers itself with the facts. Or, to put it another way, like so many other carbon-copy nimby groups, they lie through their eye-teeth. Only the Bridgnorth bunch just happen to have a higher net worth than most of the others, so their lies are even more extreme than most (see earlier post about windfarm lies and local property values).
We now know that campaigning against Britain's energy future is a family affair. Son wastes his time on a campaign which has little to do with High Net Worths and everything to do with his own temporary pet peeve; Dad signs letters to David Cameron calling on the PM to kill off a thriving industry.
This at a time when the accountancy firm KPMG is refusing to release the findings of its report on green energy. An early draft was "leaked" to the Sunday Times and caused a furore. The Murdoch press loved it (they bury anything which shows how popular and successful windfarms are) and the BBC's Panorama broadcast a woefully one-sided programme based on it. Panorama has since admitted that it's programme was somewhat misleading, blaming recent rises in energy bills on the government's green policies, when it now recognises that bills rose becauses of wholesale gas prices. But KPMG are refusing to publish their finalised report. Why? Probably because the interrim report simply proved that KPMG were using the wrong figures. They made an unholy mess of things, and handed a propaganda coup to the swivel-eyed weirdos of the anti-renewables movement.
Last year, in the midst of a global recession, the wind energy sector installed more than 41 gigawatts of new capacity - that's a whopping 21% increase on 2010. Some seventy-five countries now have wind power as part of their energy mix, and the great advances are currently happening in Latin America, Asia, Africa and America. California now gets five per cent of its electricity from wind turbines. The US as a whole installed 7 gigawatts of wind power capacity last year; Canada surpassed 5GW and even Britain has just made it past 6GW. India installed 3GW, taking its total capacity beyond 16GW, while China streaks into the lead, installing 18GW last year to take its total to more than 62GW.
Wind is the Big One, folks. It's the future. Unless, of course, you're an obsessively selfish super-rich right-wing Toad of Toad Hall, like a certain Cash-by-Name-Cash-by-Nature. Then you'll abuse every privilege you have to try and ensure that the view from the servant's quarters is not in any way affected by a couple of community-owned turbines.
And if that's the kind of person you are, then your black, black soul will rot for eternity in the lowest pit of hell. Not much of a view there, you arrogant, ignorant piece of excrement.
Still, you'll be among friends.
But not the landscape. That's a different thing altogether. See, if you're wealthy enough to afford a country mansion, you can kid yourself that the landscape is yours. It belongs to you, and no one else can touch it. Whereas the environment, by definition, belongs to us all.
That's the difference. The environment is "Socialist" and therefore to be destroyed. The landscape, by way of contrast, can be made to fall into the "private property" bracket. So it must be protected at all costs for the few who can enjoy it. The rest of us have to make do with the environment.
For a classic illustration of this rampant selfishness and double standards, we need only look to Spear's Submission to the Government on Protecting Britain's Heritage, which is particularly obsessed with Landscape.
In case you don't know, Spear's is short for "Spear's Wealth Management Survey", which is proud to describe itself as "THE ESSENTIAL RESOURCE FOR HIGH NET WORTHS" and whose motto is "If You Can Afford It, You Can't Afford To Be Without It". So it's about money, yeah? Money, money, and lots and lots of money. Loadsamoney.
Now, not so very long ago (August 2011) these custodians of enormous personal wealth launched a campaign to "Save Britain's Historic Landscape". Save it from what, you might well ask. Well, windfarms, of course.
According to their press release, "Spear's Editor-in-Chief William Cash has compiled detailed evidence suggesting that the draft NPPF [national planning guidelines] does not give adequate protection to 'heritage assets'". Oh dear. Must try harder.
But what's this? William Cash is also the chair of the Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm campaign group. We've reported on this nimby group before, paying especial attention to their hilarious, ludicrous and eye-wateringly dishonest claims about the length of the trucks which deliver wind turbine parts ("longer than an aircraft carrier", they'd have you believe).
William Cash doesn't like the idea that the view from his stately home might - just might - include a glimpse of a couple of community-owned wind turbines.
That's community-owned (i.e. "Socialist") wind turbines which are there to benefit the environment ("Socialist"). As you've probably gathered, William Cash, Editor-in-Chief of Spear's Wealth Management Survey, isn't much of a Socialist. After all, with all that wealth to manage, you're going to want to own your own view, aren't you? Can't let the community put up a couple of wind turbines, can you?
William Cash has been ably assisted in his manic battle against the modest Bridgnorth Windfarm by his father, Bill Cash MP. Bill Cash, a right-wing Eurosceptic (and probably a "climate sceptic" too) was one of the signatories of that clueless and unpatriotic letter to David Cameron the other day.
So, father and son - Willy and Billy - are both fighting the bad fight against windfarms. Bill is abusing his position as a Member of Parliament to try and bugger up a community-owned renewable energy scheme on somebody else's patch. William is abusing his position as Editor-in-Chief of the "Essential Resource for High Net Worths" to interfere with the government's planning guidelines where windfarms are concerned.
What does this tell us? We already know that the Stop Bridgnorth Windfarm campaign seldom bothers itself with the facts. Or, to put it another way, like so many other carbon-copy nimby groups, they lie through their eye-teeth. Only the Bridgnorth bunch just happen to have a higher net worth than most of the others, so their lies are even more extreme than most (see earlier post about windfarm lies and local property values).
We now know that campaigning against Britain's energy future is a family affair. Son wastes his time on a campaign which has little to do with High Net Worths and everything to do with his own temporary pet peeve; Dad signs letters to David Cameron calling on the PM to kill off a thriving industry.
This at a time when the accountancy firm KPMG is refusing to release the findings of its report on green energy. An early draft was "leaked" to the Sunday Times and caused a furore. The Murdoch press loved it (they bury anything which shows how popular and successful windfarms are) and the BBC's Panorama broadcast a woefully one-sided programme based on it. Panorama has since admitted that it's programme was somewhat misleading, blaming recent rises in energy bills on the government's green policies, when it now recognises that bills rose becauses of wholesale gas prices. But KPMG are refusing to publish their finalised report. Why? Probably because the interrim report simply proved that KPMG were using the wrong figures. They made an unholy mess of things, and handed a propaganda coup to the swivel-eyed weirdos of the anti-renewables movement.
Last year, in the midst of a global recession, the wind energy sector installed more than 41 gigawatts of new capacity - that's a whopping 21% increase on 2010. Some seventy-five countries now have wind power as part of their energy mix, and the great advances are currently happening in Latin America, Asia, Africa and America. California now gets five per cent of its electricity from wind turbines. The US as a whole installed 7 gigawatts of wind power capacity last year; Canada surpassed 5GW and even Britain has just made it past 6GW. India installed 3GW, taking its total capacity beyond 16GW, while China streaks into the lead, installing 18GW last year to take its total to more than 62GW.
Wind is the Big One, folks. It's the future. Unless, of course, you're an obsessively selfish super-rich right-wing Toad of Toad Hall, like a certain Cash-by-Name-Cash-by-Nature. Then you'll abuse every privilege you have to try and ensure that the view from the servant's quarters is not in any way affected by a couple of community-owned turbines.
And if that's the kind of person you are, then your black, black soul will rot for eternity in the lowest pit of hell. Not much of a view there, you arrogant, ignorant piece of excrement.
Still, you'll be among friends.
Monday, 6 February 2012
STOP PRESS: URGENT - PLEASE SIGN
Good news, folks.
If you agree with us that the letter signed by 101 (mostly Tory) MPs calling on David Cameron to scuttle the UK's successful and growing wind power industry was phenomenally stupid, you can sign this petition to the PM asking him to ignore the sheep on his own backbenches who put that piece of craven idiocy together in the first place:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportukonshorewindfarms/
So please, show a conscience and an awareness of the facts and sign this important petition. Let David Cameron know that those morons who pretend to be representing the people are only representing a tiny selfish minority - oh, and the lobbyists for Big Oil and New Nuclear, of course.
Now, we apologise for having to do this, but in order to get this noticed on search engines we're just going to have to write Cheryl Cole Mayan Prophecies 2012 Queen's Diamond Jubilee London Olympics RBS Bankers' Bonuses Occupy Movement Twilight Hollyoaks Babes ETSU-R-97 Cure for Cancer.
Okay, so now that we've got your attention, please click on the link above and SIGN.
If you agree with us that the letter signed by 101 (mostly Tory) MPs calling on David Cameron to scuttle the UK's successful and growing wind power industry was phenomenally stupid, you can sign this petition to the PM asking him to ignore the sheep on his own backbenches who put that piece of craven idiocy together in the first place:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportukonshorewindfarms/
So please, show a conscience and an awareness of the facts and sign this important petition. Let David Cameron know that those morons who pretend to be representing the people are only representing a tiny selfish minority - oh, and the lobbyists for Big Oil and New Nuclear, of course.
Now, we apologise for having to do this, but in order to get this noticed on search engines we're just going to have to write Cheryl Cole Mayan Prophecies 2012 Queen's Diamond Jubilee London Olympics RBS Bankers' Bonuses Occupy Movement Twilight Hollyoaks Babes ETSU-R-97 Cure for Cancer.
Okay, so now that we've got your attention, please click on the link above and SIGN.
GOVERNMENT SNAPS BACK
Out of touch. Ideologically blinkered. Irrationally opposed to the nation's best interests. And, in some cases, plain stupid.
That's the 101 dimwit MPs who wrote to David Cameron recently, calling on the Prime Minister drastically to reduce the "subsidies" to onshore windfarms ("subsidies" which do not actually involve the tax-payer and pale in comparison with the subsidies to nuclear and fossil fuels) and to make it easier for dangerously dishonest groups of local fanatics to stop vital low-carbon ecenomy infrastructure projects (windfarms) being built.
You can't get much stupider than that. What those human failures are calling for is a complete up-ending of democracy (most Britons, it has been proven time and time again, support wind power) and a world in which the lies of the nuclear and fossil fuel lobbyists are given more credence than empirical facts (renewables have had little real impact on domestic energy bills, and those who protest against such elegant and necessary structures as wind turbines as basically chronically selfish and incapable of honesty).
Look at it this way. Last year (2011), EU countries added a total of more than 6.9 gigawatts of installed wind capacity - an increase of 11 per cent on 2010, and enough to supply more than 6% of the EU's electricity demands. The United States also invested heavily in wind energy - although China went further. Indeed, in the States wind overtook nuclear. In France, meanwhile, the costs of nuclear are about to exceed those of wind energy. Thanks, in part, to the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, global renewable energy deals saw a massive 40% increase last year (source: PriceWaterhouseCooper). There simply is no argument - renewables are the way forward, and anyone who tries to pretend that they're not is deluded.
David Cameron has been in talks with offshore wind power companies to try and ensure that wind turbine parts are built in Britain. This is to overcome one of the nonsensical arguments against windfarms in Britain - that they are often owned by foreign concerns (this isn't something that usually worries the Tories, who happily sold off our utilities to foreign firms, so it's obviously yet another made-up reason to oppose windfarms when no good reasons to do so exist).
The DECC has also just announced that 155 community energy projects have been awarded a share of £5.1 million to support small-scale renewable energy and energy efficiency schemes.
So, it's comforting to know that the government has reacted both dismissively and angrily to the backbench morons who thought that Chris Huhne's departure from the DECC was their chance to betray the national interest in favour of those oil, coal, gas and nuclear lobbyists who've been lying to us for so long. The first response from the government to the letter signed by 101 right-wing nutcases was a statement that onshore wind power is "a cost-effective and valuable part of the diverse energy mix". Note that "cost-effective". Even by appealing to the narrowest of financial arguments, the madcap nimby nutters don't have a case.
RenewableUK - the voice of the renewables industry in Britain - issued a press release which tried, once again, to awaken these Tory quislings to a few basic facts:
http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20120206.html
Nick Clegg also showed that he'd grown a pair by fighting back against the right-wing loonies trying to plunge Great Britain into the outer darkness. The "choice for the UK is simple," he has said: "wake up, or end up playing catch up. In today's world the savviest states understand that going for growth means going green. Low-carbon markets are the next frontier in the battle for global pre-eminence."
Clearly, though, the argument has boiled down to an ideological one. Or, to put it more clearly, an argument between bigots on the one side and science, rationalism, objectivity and common sense on the other. Looking at the list of MPs who signed that idiot letter to David Cameron we spot a number of crazies, racists, Europhobes, nutters and thickos - just the sort to swallow the propaganda of the fossil fuel and nuclear lobbies, by way of propagandist organisations like the Renewable Energy Foundation, and to think that because they don't like the look of something it must be "inefficient". Those people are pretty empty-headed, but that just means that there's more space in their heads for their own stupid slogans to go round and round and round.
On the other side of the argument are those who know what the UK needs, those who know the most cost-effective and efficient options, those who actually care about wildlife, the environment and our childrens' futures, those who have a genuine sense of the aesthetic and can understand a scientific report. Grown-ups, in other words.
The 101 Abominations who signed the Cretins Charter, addressed to David Cameron, are the public faces of The Enemy. Those who hate Britain enough to want to destroy jobs, growth and energy security. Those who would only tell the truth if you paid them enough to do it, and even then would probably get it wrong. They are the champions of the nimbies, and between them they could possibly muster 100 brain cells - just.
For once, though, the government is sticking with the facts ... and so the UK's renewables industry and our fine fleet of wind turbines will continue to grow and provide us with the clean, green energy we so desperately need.
That's the 101 dimwit MPs who wrote to David Cameron recently, calling on the Prime Minister drastically to reduce the "subsidies" to onshore windfarms ("subsidies" which do not actually involve the tax-payer and pale in comparison with the subsidies to nuclear and fossil fuels) and to make it easier for dangerously dishonest groups of local fanatics to stop vital low-carbon ecenomy infrastructure projects (windfarms) being built.
You can't get much stupider than that. What those human failures are calling for is a complete up-ending of democracy (most Britons, it has been proven time and time again, support wind power) and a world in which the lies of the nuclear and fossil fuel lobbyists are given more credence than empirical facts (renewables have had little real impact on domestic energy bills, and those who protest against such elegant and necessary structures as wind turbines as basically chronically selfish and incapable of honesty).
Look at it this way. Last year (2011), EU countries added a total of more than 6.9 gigawatts of installed wind capacity - an increase of 11 per cent on 2010, and enough to supply more than 6% of the EU's electricity demands. The United States also invested heavily in wind energy - although China went further. Indeed, in the States wind overtook nuclear. In France, meanwhile, the costs of nuclear are about to exceed those of wind energy. Thanks, in part, to the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, global renewable energy deals saw a massive 40% increase last year (source: PriceWaterhouseCooper). There simply is no argument - renewables are the way forward, and anyone who tries to pretend that they're not is deluded.
David Cameron has been in talks with offshore wind power companies to try and ensure that wind turbine parts are built in Britain. This is to overcome one of the nonsensical arguments against windfarms in Britain - that they are often owned by foreign concerns (this isn't something that usually worries the Tories, who happily sold off our utilities to foreign firms, so it's obviously yet another made-up reason to oppose windfarms when no good reasons to do so exist).
The DECC has also just announced that 155 community energy projects have been awarded a share of £5.1 million to support small-scale renewable energy and energy efficiency schemes.
So, it's comforting to know that the government has reacted both dismissively and angrily to the backbench morons who thought that Chris Huhne's departure from the DECC was their chance to betray the national interest in favour of those oil, coal, gas and nuclear lobbyists who've been lying to us for so long. The first response from the government to the letter signed by 101 right-wing nutcases was a statement that onshore wind power is "a cost-effective and valuable part of the diverse energy mix". Note that "cost-effective". Even by appealing to the narrowest of financial arguments, the madcap nimby nutters don't have a case.
RenewableUK - the voice of the renewables industry in Britain - issued a press release which tried, once again, to awaken these Tory quislings to a few basic facts:
http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20120206.html
Nick Clegg also showed that he'd grown a pair by fighting back against the right-wing loonies trying to plunge Great Britain into the outer darkness. The "choice for the UK is simple," he has said: "wake up, or end up playing catch up. In today's world the savviest states understand that going for growth means going green. Low-carbon markets are the next frontier in the battle for global pre-eminence."
Clearly, though, the argument has boiled down to an ideological one. Or, to put it more clearly, an argument between bigots on the one side and science, rationalism, objectivity and common sense on the other. Looking at the list of MPs who signed that idiot letter to David Cameron we spot a number of crazies, racists, Europhobes, nutters and thickos - just the sort to swallow the propaganda of the fossil fuel and nuclear lobbies, by way of propagandist organisations like the Renewable Energy Foundation, and to think that because they don't like the look of something it must be "inefficient". Those people are pretty empty-headed, but that just means that there's more space in their heads for their own stupid slogans to go round and round and round.
On the other side of the argument are those who know what the UK needs, those who know the most cost-effective and efficient options, those who actually care about wildlife, the environment and our childrens' futures, those who have a genuine sense of the aesthetic and can understand a scientific report. Grown-ups, in other words.
The 101 Abominations who signed the Cretins Charter, addressed to David Cameron, are the public faces of The Enemy. Those who hate Britain enough to want to destroy jobs, growth and energy security. Those who would only tell the truth if you paid them enough to do it, and even then would probably get it wrong. They are the champions of the nimbies, and between them they could possibly muster 100 brain cells - just.
For once, though, the government is sticking with the facts ... and so the UK's renewables industry and our fine fleet of wind turbines will continue to grow and provide us with the clean, green energy we so desperately need.
Sunday, 5 February 2012
TORIES ARE REVOLTING (AGAIN)
We were wrong.
A few posts back, we revealed that the MP for Redditch who did such a spectacular job of misleading the Wychavon District Council Planning Committee over the alleged level of local opposition to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm (she was quoting figures she'd been given by a discredited protest group) had apparently realised something. In a piece she wrote for a Conservative Party blog she remarked, a propos of the High Speed Rail-Link, that vested interests sometimes supply false information in support of their cause. She had looked at one of the latest reports published by the anti-HS2 nimbies and quickly sussed that it was a pile of garbage put together by an anti-HS2 campaigner and someone who just hates trains but loves roads. Cleverly, Ms Lumley MP concluded that those who were against something were perhaps bending the truth a little and calling it a 'report'.
We thought she might have learnt the error of her ways. But we were wrong.
Her name has appeared alongside a hundred others - almost all Tory MPs - who have written to David Cameron. They want him to slash "subsidies" for onshore windfarms. They also want him to make it easier for small, noisy and fearsomely dishonest protest groups to prevent windfarms from being built where they might, just might, be able to see them.
Karen Lumley has evidently learned nothing. And probably never will. She is still clinging to the inaccurate nimby nonsense she had rammed down her throat by the morons of VVASP, more than a year ago. She hasn't bothered to ask herself whether the "reports" they quoted were as oafishly misleading as the one she criticised in her article about HS2 (which she supported). As far as she is concerned, it's all right for a high-speed rail link to be built across open countryside but not a windfarm.
Here's a measure of how stupid she, and her fellow Tory MPs who signed the letter to David Cameron, are. We reported on a mini-glut of "reports" issued by right-wing think-tank not so long ago which tried to rubbish the wind industry. Want to know how crap their figures were? Here's a good piece which explains why one of those anti-renewables reports - the one issued by Civitas - was so remarkably inaccurate:
http://fullfact.org/blog/figures_civitas_wind_power_report_res-3290
Still, pepped up by these woefully useless reports from anti-renewables "experts", the 101 Damnations of the Conservative Party decided to bend their Prime Minister's ear. This almost certainly has something to do with Chris Huhne's dramatic exit from the Cabinet last week. Huhne not only likes windfarms but he can see that the UK has no option - we continue to develop wind power or the lights go out. And that's even after the government lied to parliament in order to force through legislation for 10 new nuclear power stations. But the running dogs of the right are so glad to be rid of Huhne they're now trying to destroy Britain's wind power industry on totally bogus grounds.
How mad this all is! Okay, so certain right-wing newspapers have buried the results of their own polls, which have shown how popular wind power is (see earlier posts). And maybe the right-wing nutters of the Cameron letter (they include the looney anti-abortionist Nadine Dorries and Aidan Burley, who goes to parties with people dressed as Nazis) only ever hear from the more boorish of their constituents - the sort who've been making such daft claims about wind power as have been doing the rounds in Bridgnorth recently.
And maybe these 101 twerps actually believe that democracy is NOT what the majority wants, but only what a small and vociferous MINORITY wants - as happened in the Lenches. In other words, local people should be able to stop windfarms being built, even when the majority of those local people want the windfarm!!!
It's political incorrectness gone mad!
We've said it before, and we'll say it again, and we'll quote Green groups who have pointed out that campaigning against windfarms is SELFISH:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-16867355
And pandering to this idiotic selfishness is - well, okay, it's what a Tory MP does - but it's BAD FOR BRITAIN, you loons! The rest of the world is steaming ahead with windpower and you cretins want us to go backwards!!! Does appeasing the fascist fringe - like our Dr No and his evil companion Lurch - really matter so much to these drones that they will betray the national interest to do so?
Over and over again, we hear the same idiots bleating the same outdated and disproven gibberish - the claims that windfarms cause ill-health (a whole series of peer-reviewed scientific studies have now shown that there is absolutely no evidence for this wild claim) and that they are noisy (a claim you can only make if (a) you've never been anywhere near a windfarm or (b) you're a liar), that they slaughter wildlife (compared with cars, they barely touch 'em) and impact on house prices (again, not a shred of proof) - and braindead Tory MPs just can't see it, can they? They can't see that they've been lied to! They keep banging on about subsidies - what subsidies???
Why is it that Ms Lumley can tell when an anti-HS2 group is spreading misinformation but can't tell when an anti-windfarm group is spinning nonsensical myths that have been roundly and repeatedly debunked?
What have these Tories got against Britain? We have the best wind resources in Europe. But our elected representatives want to hurtle us back to the Dark Ages, while the rest of Europe - as well as the Americas, the Antipodes, India, China and Africa - charges ahead with clean, green, renewable energy.
And why do we have to keep hearing those same old lies - "inefficient", "subsidy-driven" - from people who really ought to know better. Whose job it is to know better!!
If you want to be able to look your grandchildren in the eye and tell them that you didn't sell their future for a view you don't own, write to your MP and insist that, for once in their miserable lives, they at least try to get their facts right.
Karen Lumley almost did, once. But then she gave up again.
A few posts back, we revealed that the MP for Redditch who did such a spectacular job of misleading the Wychavon District Council Planning Committee over the alleged level of local opposition to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm (she was quoting figures she'd been given by a discredited protest group) had apparently realised something. In a piece she wrote for a Conservative Party blog she remarked, a propos of the High Speed Rail-Link, that vested interests sometimes supply false information in support of their cause. She had looked at one of the latest reports published by the anti-HS2 nimbies and quickly sussed that it was a pile of garbage put together by an anti-HS2 campaigner and someone who just hates trains but loves roads. Cleverly, Ms Lumley MP concluded that those who were against something were perhaps bending the truth a little and calling it a 'report'.
We thought she might have learnt the error of her ways. But we were wrong.
Her name has appeared alongside a hundred others - almost all Tory MPs - who have written to David Cameron. They want him to slash "subsidies" for onshore windfarms. They also want him to make it easier for small, noisy and fearsomely dishonest protest groups to prevent windfarms from being built where they might, just might, be able to see them.
Karen Lumley has evidently learned nothing. And probably never will. She is still clinging to the inaccurate nimby nonsense she had rammed down her throat by the morons of VVASP, more than a year ago. She hasn't bothered to ask herself whether the "reports" they quoted were as oafishly misleading as the one she criticised in her article about HS2 (which she supported). As far as she is concerned, it's all right for a high-speed rail link to be built across open countryside but not a windfarm.
Here's a measure of how stupid she, and her fellow Tory MPs who signed the letter to David Cameron, are. We reported on a mini-glut of "reports" issued by right-wing think-tank not so long ago which tried to rubbish the wind industry. Want to know how crap their figures were? Here's a good piece which explains why one of those anti-renewables reports - the one issued by Civitas - was so remarkably inaccurate:
http://fullfact.org/blog/figures_civitas_wind_power_report_res-3290
Still, pepped up by these woefully useless reports from anti-renewables "experts", the 101 Damnations of the Conservative Party decided to bend their Prime Minister's ear. This almost certainly has something to do with Chris Huhne's dramatic exit from the Cabinet last week. Huhne not only likes windfarms but he can see that the UK has no option - we continue to develop wind power or the lights go out. And that's even after the government lied to parliament in order to force through legislation for 10 new nuclear power stations. But the running dogs of the right are so glad to be rid of Huhne they're now trying to destroy Britain's wind power industry on totally bogus grounds.
How mad this all is! Okay, so certain right-wing newspapers have buried the results of their own polls, which have shown how popular wind power is (see earlier posts). And maybe the right-wing nutters of the Cameron letter (they include the looney anti-abortionist Nadine Dorries and Aidan Burley, who goes to parties with people dressed as Nazis) only ever hear from the more boorish of their constituents - the sort who've been making such daft claims about wind power as have been doing the rounds in Bridgnorth recently.
And maybe these 101 twerps actually believe that democracy is NOT what the majority wants, but only what a small and vociferous MINORITY wants - as happened in the Lenches. In other words, local people should be able to stop windfarms being built, even when the majority of those local people want the windfarm!!!
It's political incorrectness gone mad!
We've said it before, and we'll say it again, and we'll quote Green groups who have pointed out that campaigning against windfarms is SELFISH:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-16867355
And pandering to this idiotic selfishness is - well, okay, it's what a Tory MP does - but it's BAD FOR BRITAIN, you loons! The rest of the world is steaming ahead with windpower and you cretins want us to go backwards!!! Does appeasing the fascist fringe - like our Dr No and his evil companion Lurch - really matter so much to these drones that they will betray the national interest to do so?
Over and over again, we hear the same idiots bleating the same outdated and disproven gibberish - the claims that windfarms cause ill-health (a whole series of peer-reviewed scientific studies have now shown that there is absolutely no evidence for this wild claim) and that they are noisy (a claim you can only make if (a) you've never been anywhere near a windfarm or (b) you're a liar), that they slaughter wildlife (compared with cars, they barely touch 'em) and impact on house prices (again, not a shred of proof) - and braindead Tory MPs just can't see it, can they? They can't see that they've been lied to! They keep banging on about subsidies - what subsidies???
Why is it that Ms Lumley can tell when an anti-HS2 group is spreading misinformation but can't tell when an anti-windfarm group is spinning nonsensical myths that have been roundly and repeatedly debunked?
What have these Tories got against Britain? We have the best wind resources in Europe. But our elected representatives want to hurtle us back to the Dark Ages, while the rest of Europe - as well as the Americas, the Antipodes, India, China and Africa - charges ahead with clean, green, renewable energy.
And why do we have to keep hearing those same old lies - "inefficient", "subsidy-driven" - from people who really ought to know better. Whose job it is to know better!!
If you want to be able to look your grandchildren in the eye and tell them that you didn't sell their future for a view you don't own, write to your MP and insist that, for once in their miserable lives, they at least try to get their facts right.
Karen Lumley almost did, once. But then she gave up again.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
WIND TURBINE SYNDROME
It's one of the great idiocies of our time - a big fat lie deliberately spread by manic anti-wind crazies with the sole purpose of scaring and alarming their neighbours.
It's that magical, mystical thing known as "Wind Turbine Syndrome". And it doesn't exist.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health are just the latest official agencies to publish the detailed and considered results of proper research into this phantom issue. They commissioned a panel of independent experts to "identify any documented or potential health impacts of risks that may be associated with exposure to wind turbines, and, specifically, to facilitate discussion of wind turbines and public health based on scientific findings."
Get that - "based on scientific findings".
From the off, the Massachusetts study was basing its conclusions on science. Not the idiotic blather so beloved of the anti-wind numpties. Science. That's fact, data, empirical research, statistics ... boring stuff like that. Unlike inventing stupid scare stories, which isn't boring, but it's not very scientific either.
Well, once again, the experts studied the relevant data. And there is no such thing as "Wind Turbine Syndrome". It's a made-up myth, beloved of the nimbies (even those who happen to have a PhD in Physics, like the Herr Kommandant of the Out-of-Control VVASP protest group in the Lenches), because it sounds so bad, so scary. Even though it does not exist.
Stefan Gsanger, Secretary General of the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA), has said:
In most countries using wind power today, wind farms enjoy a very high degree of public support [we know that - when it is the real public that is being asked, and not just the nimby loudmouths and liars] and it is often rather the local population that wants more wind power and pushes politicians to support it as well. Unfortunately there are some places where misleading and wrong information is spread [you don't say!], especially on health impacts of wind turbines.
As well as Massachusetts, Australia has also accepted that the morons who keep banging on about "Wind Turbine Syndrome" are talking out of their rectums. The Australian Clean Energy Commission has flagged up a statement issued by the Climate and Health Alliance (a coalition representing such groups as the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Australian Psychological Society) which stresses that wind power and other renewables are a safe alternative to fossil fuels. A Parliamentary inquiry found that there was no basis to claims that wind turbines give rise to adverse health impacts. So another proper investigation rubbishes all that nimby "Wind Turbine Syndrome" baloney!
It will be interesting to see how long the desperately stupid, outrageously irresponsible, reprehensibly wicked and downright dishonest claims made by selfish anti-windfarm groups about "Wind Turbine Syndrome" can continue. There's plenty of good solid research out there these days which indicates that it's an entirely fabricated concern. To be fair, you'd have to be pretty bonkers and soft in the head to have believed it in the first place. But disgraceful nimby publicity - like that over which VVASP was censured by the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds that it was a pack of lies which could not be substantiated - will no doubt continue to flog the "WTS" dead horse.
One tip for those who find themselves up against this sort of mindless nimby nonsense: look out for the person who keeps going on and on about turbine "noise" and the purported effects on health. There's a strong chance that that person - whoever it is - is the real problem. They often exist to lie and bully in order to get their way, and they're ready and willing to frighten their so-called friends and neighbours with bogus studies and Daily Mail-style garbage.
Those people are dangerous. It's not wind turbines that make people ill. It's the people who try to make you believe that they do - they're the ones who are so sick that they want everybody else to be sick as they are.
It's that magical, mystical thing known as "Wind Turbine Syndrome". And it doesn't exist.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health are just the latest official agencies to publish the detailed and considered results of proper research into this phantom issue. They commissioned a panel of independent experts to "identify any documented or potential health impacts of risks that may be associated with exposure to wind turbines, and, specifically, to facilitate discussion of wind turbines and public health based on scientific findings."
Get that - "based on scientific findings".
From the off, the Massachusetts study was basing its conclusions on science. Not the idiotic blather so beloved of the anti-wind numpties. Science. That's fact, data, empirical research, statistics ... boring stuff like that. Unlike inventing stupid scare stories, which isn't boring, but it's not very scientific either.
Well, once again, the experts studied the relevant data. And there is no such thing as "Wind Turbine Syndrome". It's a made-up myth, beloved of the nimbies (even those who happen to have a PhD in Physics, like the Herr Kommandant of the Out-of-Control VVASP protest group in the Lenches), because it sounds so bad, so scary. Even though it does not exist.
Stefan Gsanger, Secretary General of the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA), has said:
In most countries using wind power today, wind farms enjoy a very high degree of public support [we know that - when it is the real public that is being asked, and not just the nimby loudmouths and liars] and it is often rather the local population that wants more wind power and pushes politicians to support it as well. Unfortunately there are some places where misleading and wrong information is spread [you don't say!], especially on health impacts of wind turbines.
As well as Massachusetts, Australia has also accepted that the morons who keep banging on about "Wind Turbine Syndrome" are talking out of their rectums. The Australian Clean Energy Commission has flagged up a statement issued by the Climate and Health Alliance (a coalition representing such groups as the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Australian Psychological Society) which stresses that wind power and other renewables are a safe alternative to fossil fuels. A Parliamentary inquiry found that there was no basis to claims that wind turbines give rise to adverse health impacts. So another proper investigation rubbishes all that nimby "Wind Turbine Syndrome" baloney!
It will be interesting to see how long the desperately stupid, outrageously irresponsible, reprehensibly wicked and downright dishonest claims made by selfish anti-windfarm groups about "Wind Turbine Syndrome" can continue. There's plenty of good solid research out there these days which indicates that it's an entirely fabricated concern. To be fair, you'd have to be pretty bonkers and soft in the head to have believed it in the first place. But disgraceful nimby publicity - like that over which VVASP was censured by the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds that it was a pack of lies which could not be substantiated - will no doubt continue to flog the "WTS" dead horse.
One tip for those who find themselves up against this sort of mindless nimby nonsense: look out for the person who keeps going on and on about turbine "noise" and the purported effects on health. There's a strong chance that that person - whoever it is - is the real problem. They often exist to lie and bully in order to get their way, and they're ready and willing to frighten their so-called friends and neighbours with bogus studies and Daily Mail-style garbage.
Those people are dangerous. It's not wind turbines that make people ill. It's the people who try to make you believe that they do - they're the ones who are so sick that they want everybody else to be sick as they are.
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