Telling lies comes naturally to anti-windfarm fanatics. In fact, they find it almost impossible to tell the truth.
One small example: our local gang of demented nimbies (VVASP - short for "Vale Villages Against Scottish Power", although a more accurate name would have been Half-a-Dozen Selfish Maniacs Willing to Spread Unnecessary Fear and Alarm Through a Vicious and Thoroughly Dishonest Campaign) claimed that they were giving local people "comprehensive information" about the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. In reality, their "comprehensive information" was wildly inaccurate - in some instances, 180 degrees wide of the truth - and, what's more, it didn''t even begin to tell half of the story.
They claimed to be a "pro-renewables" group who just happened to think that the area was not right for a windfarm of five turbines. Either they didn't know that Worcestershire County Council had conducted a study which concluded that the area was just perfect for a windfarm of six turbines, or this was just one piece of valid information which fell through their "comprehensive" net. Along with the information that the thuggish ringleaders of the protest group had lied about the potential impact on house prices and a host of other stupid claims.
But they were a "pro-renewables" group, right? This was, of course, a blatant bit of PR guff. They weren't pro-renewables at all. But they had to say it, because it made them look reasonable.
You get this a lot with the madcap nimby fringe. It's not the turbines they're opposed to, see - it's the pylons. They're not against windfarms per se, only against anything that might happen to appear on the horizon.
Interesting, then, to note that one of the evil-minded anti-wind nimbies of Church Lench has objected to a small development in Leicestershire. A planning application has been submitted to Harborough District Council for a single 20-metre wind turbine on private land. The nimby idiot of Main Street, Church Lench won't be able to see it because it's many, many miles away. But, all the same, an objection has been lodged.
Why? Didn't this lunatic read the VVASP publicity about them being "pro-renewables"? Didn't they realise that the official line was "we're only against wind turbines where we might be able to see them"? What on earth has this cretin got against a single 20-metre turbine on the other side of the Midlands?
Ah, but of course, the twisted ones only pretend to be "pro-renewables" when it suits them to do so. The rest of the time, they show their true faces - they are deluded, deranged and absolutely committed to bringing our country to its knees. They have no sense of proportion or perspective and are complete incapable of facing facts and telling the truth.
They're not against renewables as such; they're just against any form of renewables in practice. And it's not just within a few kilometres of their miserable carcases that they oppose harmless, green, efficient turbines - they oppose them everywhere. And they're willing to tell lies about them, regardless of where they are (which is why you'll find some nimby morons telling you that Australia has imposed a mandatory two kilometre buffer zone around windfarms; for the record, Australia has done no such thing).
So now we find out that VVASP's cretinous "2km OK" campaign really meant "Windfarms are okay, maybe, but only if they're 2km from the centre of the Sun and absolutely nowhere on this planet".
And to think, some idiots took these people seriously, with their two-faced pretence of being just worried residents who were "pro-renewables" but not here. One Wychavon district councillor even tried to insist that these liars, hypocrites and bullies weren't nimbies. But they were. And they still are.
There are some people who will one day have to pay for encouraging these dangerously foolish and treacherous nimbies. They include right-wing commentators and nonsense-peddlars of the Delingpole school, money-grubbing lobbyists masquerading as charities (REF, GWPF) and certain desperately stupid Tory politicians, like the 101 dimwits who recently tried to persuade David Cameron to kill off the renewables industry in this country. These people are traitors, pure and simple.
Their self-serving treachery is foolish because it is diametrically at odds with the flow of history and the best interests of the nation. You can tell them by the company they keep: the monstrous Donald Trump, throwing a tantrum and trying to bully the Scottish government; the despicable Rush Limbaugh claiming that there are no solar or wind industries in the United States (when in fact there are over 400 wind power manufacturing plants across the US, and in the last four years wind has supplied over 35% of new electricity in the States - more than coal and nuclear combined). If you find that the people championing your cause are exteme right-wing lowlifes like Limbaugh and Trump, then your cause must be truly evil.
The anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, however, has seen a massive increase in lobbying and PR gibberish from the nuclear industry. This is the source of a lot of the nonsense routinely spouted by nimby idiots. As Renewable Energy Focus has now suggested, we should brace ourselves for a welter of misleading anti-wind power stories (along the lines of "the end of renewables is nigh") put out by the professional liars who work for nuclear and gleefully repeated by the brainless muckspreaders of the nimby class.
Yes - as the nuclear industry begins (thankfully) to breathe its last, starved of the astronomical amounts of public money which have fed its greed for so many years, expect a torrent of lies about windfarms. The nimbies will love it - because lies are their currency. "Born to Lie" might as well be tattooed on their furrowed brows (and on those of certain politicians who defend their despicable tactics and grossly unpatriotic behaviour).
Fortunately, there's still a little bit of sense left in our government. Ed Davey, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, announced over the weekend that windfarms are good for communities. He quite properly insisted that it would be a "monumental national folly" to turn our backs on windfarms - onshore and offshore - and other renewables.
That's good - a politician talking sense (unlike the dribblers who signed that mindblowingly stupid letter to David Cameron the other week - some, like Bill Cash, wouldn't know the truth if it took off all its clothes in front of him, but others, like Karen Lumley, have had occasional glimpses of the truth, such as in the High-Speed Rail Link debacle, and so she should be ashamed of herself).
We can't afford to let down our guard. After all, a person of conscience and principle in Leicestershire is trying to do his bit for energy efficiency and to combat climate change. And a thick yobbo many miles away in Church Lench is trying to stop him.
That's what comes of telling lies, you see. Sooner or later, you get caught out. The wind power industry is going from strength to strength, generating more and more clean, green energy and doing barely any harm at all. Not many liars working in renewables. But a helluva lot of liars ganging up to betray Britain's best interests by pretending to be "pro-renewables" and then campaigning - noisily, dishonestly, viciously and stupidly - against them.
By the way, Harborough District Council, which will soon be considering the application for the single 20-metre turbine, has form. In another case a year or two back, the council knowingly accepted 2,310 fraudulent letters of objection to a windfarm proposal, thanks to a corrupt parish council establishing an anti-windfarm group (sound familiar?). The nimbies sent in letters from people who did not object - a criminal offence. But, rather like Wychavon D.C., Harborough failed in its duty to uphold democracy and the law.
That's where the lies which fuel the nimby nutters lead us - lawlessness, thuggery and the breakdown of democracy. And a Britain which won't be able to keep the lights on. Never, ever let a selfish and misguided nimby pretend to be acting in the interests of the country (or the countryside). The road they have taken is the road to Fascism. It's the road of lies. We must do everything in our power to stop them taking Britain down that road with them.
A sustainable future is what we need. Not the horrifying nightmare which rides on the back of nimby madness.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Sunday, 11 March 2012
WHITHER NUCLEAR?
A year ago today, Japan was visited by three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. An earthquake, followed by a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown which - but for several massive strokes of luck - very nearly wiped Tokyo off the map. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes. It is unclear when they will be able to return.
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear had been enjoying something of a renaissance. Not so since. Germany responded to public pressure by voting to phase out nuclear power. Switzerland and Italy similarly turned their backs on nuclear. Even France, which relies on nuclear for 80% of its electricity (which has meant that, whenever rising summer temperatures force the closure of nuclear plants, France has bought its electricity from the UK), the frontrunner candidate for the presidency has vowed to shut down nearly half of France's 58 reactors by 2025.
Britain has decided to forge ahead with new nuclear, even though successive governments have had to misrepresent the need for these accidents-waiting-to-happen to parliament. And even though the government has a report of its own which indicates that most of the civil nuclear sites in the UK are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.
The government insists that the new nuclear power stations will have to be constructed entirely with private money - but this is a smokescreen. Should anything go wrong, it will not be the shareholders who cover the costs of the emergency. It will be the taxpayer. Nuclear developers can, in fact, only build nuclear power stations these days where there is a strong central government (like in China, where no new nuclear plants were commissioned last year) and where the public will pick up the tab in the event of a catastrophe, like in Britain.
All the same, the start-up date for the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset has already been put back two years, from 2017 to 2019, partly because of safety concerns. It's also worth pointing out that two other nuclear power stations currently being built by the French-owned EDF are years behind schedule and massively over-budget.
Hinkley Point is in fact the new front line in the battle to oppose the most expensive and dangerous source of electricity around. Protesters there are currently fighting EDF's attempts to cut down trees in preparation for the groundwork. Apparently, it's okay for the immediate environment to be wiped out by nuclear power station developers (and Donald Trump with his crappy Scottish golf resort), but windfarms are not allowed to affect anything. No, nothing at all. Ever.
Double standards? You bet. But then, there are still plenty of fantasists willing to claim that nuclear power is "cheap" and "safe" - and to make outrageous claims about wind energy being "expensive" and "unreliable". The United States suffered more nuclear power station outtages than ever, last year. A couple of years ago, the UK's newest nuclear facility produced absolutely no electricity at all for more than seven months. When Japan was hit by the tsunami, only one wind turbine stopped working. And there are some freaks and frauds out there who want you to believe that windfarms are dangerous!
The reality is that - as various recent headlines in the Telegraph (the native habitat of the lesser-witted Delingpole and the purveyor of silly anti-windfarm stories which then have to be retracted), the free-marketeering Economist magazine and the Guardian, for example, make clear - nuclear is now a mug's game. Japan, which knows more about nuclear catastrophe than most, wants rid of the reactors. The British government is trying to induce private investment in nuclear by artifically raising the carbon floor price. But even so, the costs of nuclear energy are growing all the time. Additional safety measures are just part of the reason for this. The simple fact is that nuclear has always been enormously more expensive than its proponents were willing to admit - as the French government recently let on.
Nuclear therefore joins the other fossil fuel sources of electricity (message to Vince Cable: nuclear is a fossil fuel-based source and is not renewable!) in being an ever-increasingly expensive form of electricity generation. It's not reliable, it's certainly not safe, and it's only going to get more expensive. Scotland won't accept any new nuclear power stations. As is so often the case, Britain (i.e. England) seems to be flying the flag for a dying source of energy.
This has to stop. More importantly, the entire balance of our electricity generation needs to shift. It is atrocious that new nuclear power plants can be foisted on communities when windfarms - which do no harm, cost a tiny fraction of what nuclear costs, and then run practically for free - can be successfully opposed by a handful of demented, selfish nimbies who are willing to whip up a barking mob by spreading lies about wind turbines. Such a situation - so very British in its perversity - is absolutely at odds with the national interest.
All over the world, renewable energy technology is advancing. New developments in this country - such as a computer programme that resolves the difficulties radar could experience with turbines - offer to clear away many of the obstacles to a sustainable future. Multiple reliable reports have been published indicating that we in the UK could be getting at least 80% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Scotland plans on being 100% renewable sooner than that.
The answer is staring us in the face. Plans for new nuclear should be put on hold indefinitely. Old nuclear stations are being decommissioned (Oldbury in Gloucestershire shut down last week), the costs of which currently soak up more than half of the Department for Energy and Climate Change's budget. Whoever said nuclear was "cheap"? We're paying vast amounts of public money to shut the damned places down!
Instead of investing trillions in delayed, overpriced, expensive and unreliable nuclear power plants, we should be making use of the fantastic natural resources we enjoy in the UK. 40% of Europe's wind passes over our isles. The sea around us offers oodles of wave and tidal power. A broad mix of renewables - onshore and offshore wind, hydroelectric, solar PV, tidal, wave, biomass and geothermal - would easily provide for all our needs while doing no significant harm to the planet (something that no "conventional" source can claim). Private homes and local communities can generate their own electricity from these abundant, free resources and sell the surplus on to the National Grid - after all, most of Germany's renewable energy is generated, not by utility-scale developments, but by communities.
Anyone who tries to make out that this is cloud-cuckoo-land is a liar. It is do-able. It just needs the political will. Which means that the cretinous, treacherous, devious and evil nimbies who automatically oppose any wind turbine because it might affect "their" view need to be silenced, once and for all. The lobbyists for oil, coal and nuclear (yes, Lord Lawson - we're looking at you) need to be silenced, too. Any right-wing rag like the Telegraph, the Mail and the Express, which wilfully spreads ludicrous anti-windfarm stories purely to stoke up fear and loathing should be heavily penalised.
The British government should do what the French do: just build the windfarms. Protracted planning delays caused by mindless nimby liars need to be curbed. Britain has promised to hit ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions, and renewables are one of the ways to do it.
So stop flapping, Britain, and get real. If a mad, deluded nimby tries to tell you stupid lies about wind power, shout them down. Do it for your country, for your kids, and for this wonderful natural world of ours, which the nimbies - and the nuclear power they pretend to love - will only destroy.
Let's get serious about renewables, before it's too late. Let's do the right thing. Let's abandon the nuclear nightmare and invest in windfarms.
It's the sensible thing to do.
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear had been enjoying something of a renaissance. Not so since. Germany responded to public pressure by voting to phase out nuclear power. Switzerland and Italy similarly turned their backs on nuclear. Even France, which relies on nuclear for 80% of its electricity (which has meant that, whenever rising summer temperatures force the closure of nuclear plants, France has bought its electricity from the UK), the frontrunner candidate for the presidency has vowed to shut down nearly half of France's 58 reactors by 2025.
Britain has decided to forge ahead with new nuclear, even though successive governments have had to misrepresent the need for these accidents-waiting-to-happen to parliament. And even though the government has a report of its own which indicates that most of the civil nuclear sites in the UK are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.
The government insists that the new nuclear power stations will have to be constructed entirely with private money - but this is a smokescreen. Should anything go wrong, it will not be the shareholders who cover the costs of the emergency. It will be the taxpayer. Nuclear developers can, in fact, only build nuclear power stations these days where there is a strong central government (like in China, where no new nuclear plants were commissioned last year) and where the public will pick up the tab in the event of a catastrophe, like in Britain.
All the same, the start-up date for the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset has already been put back two years, from 2017 to 2019, partly because of safety concerns. It's also worth pointing out that two other nuclear power stations currently being built by the French-owned EDF are years behind schedule and massively over-budget.
Hinkley Point is in fact the new front line in the battle to oppose the most expensive and dangerous source of electricity around. Protesters there are currently fighting EDF's attempts to cut down trees in preparation for the groundwork. Apparently, it's okay for the immediate environment to be wiped out by nuclear power station developers (and Donald Trump with his crappy Scottish golf resort), but windfarms are not allowed to affect anything. No, nothing at all. Ever.
Double standards? You bet. But then, there are still plenty of fantasists willing to claim that nuclear power is "cheap" and "safe" - and to make outrageous claims about wind energy being "expensive" and "unreliable". The United States suffered more nuclear power station outtages than ever, last year. A couple of years ago, the UK's newest nuclear facility produced absolutely no electricity at all for more than seven months. When Japan was hit by the tsunami, only one wind turbine stopped working. And there are some freaks and frauds out there who want you to believe that windfarms are dangerous!
The reality is that - as various recent headlines in the Telegraph (the native habitat of the lesser-witted Delingpole and the purveyor of silly anti-windfarm stories which then have to be retracted), the free-marketeering Economist magazine and the Guardian, for example, make clear - nuclear is now a mug's game. Japan, which knows more about nuclear catastrophe than most, wants rid of the reactors. The British government is trying to induce private investment in nuclear by artifically raising the carbon floor price. But even so, the costs of nuclear energy are growing all the time. Additional safety measures are just part of the reason for this. The simple fact is that nuclear has always been enormously more expensive than its proponents were willing to admit - as the French government recently let on.
Nuclear therefore joins the other fossil fuel sources of electricity (message to Vince Cable: nuclear is a fossil fuel-based source and is not renewable!) in being an ever-increasingly expensive form of electricity generation. It's not reliable, it's certainly not safe, and it's only going to get more expensive. Scotland won't accept any new nuclear power stations. As is so often the case, Britain (i.e. England) seems to be flying the flag for a dying source of energy.
This has to stop. More importantly, the entire balance of our electricity generation needs to shift. It is atrocious that new nuclear power plants can be foisted on communities when windfarms - which do no harm, cost a tiny fraction of what nuclear costs, and then run practically for free - can be successfully opposed by a handful of demented, selfish nimbies who are willing to whip up a barking mob by spreading lies about wind turbines. Such a situation - so very British in its perversity - is absolutely at odds with the national interest.
All over the world, renewable energy technology is advancing. New developments in this country - such as a computer programme that resolves the difficulties radar could experience with turbines - offer to clear away many of the obstacles to a sustainable future. Multiple reliable reports have been published indicating that we in the UK could be getting at least 80% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Scotland plans on being 100% renewable sooner than that.
The answer is staring us in the face. Plans for new nuclear should be put on hold indefinitely. Old nuclear stations are being decommissioned (Oldbury in Gloucestershire shut down last week), the costs of which currently soak up more than half of the Department for Energy and Climate Change's budget. Whoever said nuclear was "cheap"? We're paying vast amounts of public money to shut the damned places down!
Instead of investing trillions in delayed, overpriced, expensive and unreliable nuclear power plants, we should be making use of the fantastic natural resources we enjoy in the UK. 40% of Europe's wind passes over our isles. The sea around us offers oodles of wave and tidal power. A broad mix of renewables - onshore and offshore wind, hydroelectric, solar PV, tidal, wave, biomass and geothermal - would easily provide for all our needs while doing no significant harm to the planet (something that no "conventional" source can claim). Private homes and local communities can generate their own electricity from these abundant, free resources and sell the surplus on to the National Grid - after all, most of Germany's renewable energy is generated, not by utility-scale developments, but by communities.
Anyone who tries to make out that this is cloud-cuckoo-land is a liar. It is do-able. It just needs the political will. Which means that the cretinous, treacherous, devious and evil nimbies who automatically oppose any wind turbine because it might affect "their" view need to be silenced, once and for all. The lobbyists for oil, coal and nuclear (yes, Lord Lawson - we're looking at you) need to be silenced, too. Any right-wing rag like the Telegraph, the Mail and the Express, which wilfully spreads ludicrous anti-windfarm stories purely to stoke up fear and loathing should be heavily penalised.
The British government should do what the French do: just build the windfarms. Protracted planning delays caused by mindless nimby liars need to be curbed. Britain has promised to hit ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions, and renewables are one of the ways to do it.
So stop flapping, Britain, and get real. If a mad, deluded nimby tries to tell you stupid lies about wind power, shout them down. Do it for your country, for your kids, and for this wonderful natural world of ours, which the nimbies - and the nuclear power they pretend to love - will only destroy.
Let's get serious about renewables, before it's too late. Let's do the right thing. Let's abandon the nuclear nightmare and invest in windfarms.
It's the sensible thing to do.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
PURPLE PEOPLE HEATERS
About 60 million songbirds are killed each year in the UK by domestic pets. Many more are killed by planes, trains and automobiles, or by flying into buildings.
Not forgetting the many thousands of birds that are blasted out of the sky each year by shotgun-wielding idiots who then climb into their gas-guzzling, bird-crunching 4x4s and head off to the latest anti-windfarm meeting, where they scream and shout about wind turbines killing birds, bats and - wait for it - bees.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Nimby.
Most serious studies estimate that a wind turbine will kill, on average, one bird a year. That's pretty bad. It also means that, over the course of its 25-year optimum lifespan, a wind turbine will destroy about as many birds as the average house cat does in a couple of years.
So why aren't the nimbies campaigning against domestic pets, internal combustion engines, jet aircraft, buildings with windows, buildings without windows, and people who kill things for "sport", if they're so worried about wildlife?
And what have bees got to do with it? Sadly, some aw-nimby idiots are now trying to pretend that windfarms are the cause of declining bee populations - even though those populations are declining in areas where there are no windfarms. You couldn't make it up, could you? Well, unless you're a useless anti-wind nimby, in which case you'll happily make it up.
Another trait of aw-nimbydom is a steadfast refusal or inability to keep up with events. Yes, it is true that, in the early days of wind power development, two windfarms in the United States were rather poorly sited on migratory routes. Fortunately, the industry learned from those mistakes, and now extensive research and consultation must take place before any windfarm planning application is submitted, with wildlife being one of the things that is most carefully scrutinised in order to minimise the potential harm. That, dear friends, is called "progress" - a concept that very few nimbies are familiar with.
Now, researchers at Loughborough University have found another way of limiting the (tiny) amount of damage done to the creatures of the air by wind turbines. You'll love this, folks.
Apparently, painting the turbines - and, in particular, the blades - a nice shade of purple will deter insects and therefore protect the bats which hunt those insects.
Can you imagine the headline in the Torygraph - 'BRITAIN TO BE SWAMPED WITH PURPLE WIND TURBINES' (or the Daily Heil version: 'PURPLE WIND FARMS LINKED TO CANCER').
Actually, it's not as bad as all that. What the Loughborough researchers discovered is that painting the turbines a range of different colours, or simply altering the ultraviolet and infrared components in the paint colour, can make a big difference.
We're quite happy with the idea of having multi-coloured turbines. The nimbies will be opposed to them no matter what colour they are. But we here at Wind of Change think that turbines should come in any-colour-you-like. Maybe the team at Loughborough University can figure out which colour is best at deterring nimbies.
So - it's a relatively minor problem, really, given that windfarms account for an infinitesimal fraction of the wildlife killed in Britain each year. But at least there's a solution at hand. Paint the turbines purple. Simples.
Now we just have to paint our cats, our cars, our houses and our tower blocks purple, too. And ban anyone who shoots game from protesting against windfarms on the somewhat spurious grounds that "wind turbines kill birds".
Or maybe we should just institute a simple rule: you can worry about the "harm" a windfarm might do to wildlife, but only when you've got rid of your pets, disposed of your car, deactivated your shotgun and moved into a hole in the ground.
Sounds fair enough, doesn't it?
Not forgetting the many thousands of birds that are blasted out of the sky each year by shotgun-wielding idiots who then climb into their gas-guzzling, bird-crunching 4x4s and head off to the latest anti-windfarm meeting, where they scream and shout about wind turbines killing birds, bats and - wait for it - bees.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Nimby.
Most serious studies estimate that a wind turbine will kill, on average, one bird a year. That's pretty bad. It also means that, over the course of its 25-year optimum lifespan, a wind turbine will destroy about as many birds as the average house cat does in a couple of years.
So why aren't the nimbies campaigning against domestic pets, internal combustion engines, jet aircraft, buildings with windows, buildings without windows, and people who kill things for "sport", if they're so worried about wildlife?
And what have bees got to do with it? Sadly, some aw-nimby idiots are now trying to pretend that windfarms are the cause of declining bee populations - even though those populations are declining in areas where there are no windfarms. You couldn't make it up, could you? Well, unless you're a useless anti-wind nimby, in which case you'll happily make it up.
Another trait of aw-nimbydom is a steadfast refusal or inability to keep up with events. Yes, it is true that, in the early days of wind power development, two windfarms in the United States were rather poorly sited on migratory routes. Fortunately, the industry learned from those mistakes, and now extensive research and consultation must take place before any windfarm planning application is submitted, with wildlife being one of the things that is most carefully scrutinised in order to minimise the potential harm. That, dear friends, is called "progress" - a concept that very few nimbies are familiar with.
Now, researchers at Loughborough University have found another way of limiting the (tiny) amount of damage done to the creatures of the air by wind turbines. You'll love this, folks.
Apparently, painting the turbines - and, in particular, the blades - a nice shade of purple will deter insects and therefore protect the bats which hunt those insects.
Can you imagine the headline in the Torygraph - 'BRITAIN TO BE SWAMPED WITH PURPLE WIND TURBINES' (or the Daily Heil version: 'PURPLE WIND FARMS LINKED TO CANCER').
Actually, it's not as bad as all that. What the Loughborough researchers discovered is that painting the turbines a range of different colours, or simply altering the ultraviolet and infrared components in the paint colour, can make a big difference.
We're quite happy with the idea of having multi-coloured turbines. The nimbies will be opposed to them no matter what colour they are. But we here at Wind of Change think that turbines should come in any-colour-you-like. Maybe the team at Loughborough University can figure out which colour is best at deterring nimbies.
So - it's a relatively minor problem, really, given that windfarms account for an infinitesimal fraction of the wildlife killed in Britain each year. But at least there's a solution at hand. Paint the turbines purple. Simples.
Now we just have to paint our cats, our cars, our houses and our tower blocks purple, too. And ban anyone who shoots game from protesting against windfarms on the somewhat spurious grounds that "wind turbines kill birds".
Or maybe we should just institute a simple rule: you can worry about the "harm" a windfarm might do to wildlife, but only when you've got rid of your pets, disposed of your car, deactivated your shotgun and moved into a hole in the ground.
Sounds fair enough, doesn't it?
Thursday, 8 March 2012
HOLDING BACK THE TIDE
Wind of Change would like to apologise in advance for any offence this post might cause - unless you're a blinkered anti-wind power fanatic or deluded climate change denying extremist, in which case you deserve to be offended.
* * * * *
If there's one thing that anyone remembers about Cnut (or 'Canute'), it's that he tried to demonstrate his phenomenal powers as a king by planting his throne on the seashore and commanding the tide not to come in.
The same will be said one day - and not too far in the future - of the duplicitous phoneys of the anti-windfarm nimby movement. Well, we say movement. But these people don't really move. They just stand in the way.
They are, however, desperately trying to hold back the tide. And one of the ways they do this is by deluding themselves, and then anyone else who's foolish enough to listen to them, that windfarms are "unpopular" and that the rest of the world is beginning to have its doubts about wind power.
Challenge them about the "unpopular" claim by pointing out that a whole host of surveys and opinion polls, over a number of years, have consistently shown that the clear majority of Britons are in favour of wind power and even believe that they should be subsidised (which, currently, they're not). What you get in reply is some guff about people not being given the "facts", and when people are given the "facts" they tend to vote against wind energy.
Or rather, when a handful of ego-terrorists decide to tell people a whole pack of lies, nonsense, false claims, unsubstantiated rumours and general gobbledegook - basically, what passes in Nimbyworld for "facts" - some people believe them. Call it the Fox News syndrome. Anyone with a brain can tell that Fox News is an evil right-wing propaganda machine, a sort of Death Star of disinformation. But some people watch it, and those people grow progressively stupider by doing so. And, by the same token, when the manic street preachers and quislings of the nimby brigade evacuate their "facts" all over the public, sadly, some people will grow measureably stupider. It happened here in the Lenches.
You have to remember that anti-wind nimbies (or "aw-nimbies") live in a bubble. Or a cross between a bubble and an echo chamber. They hear only what they want to hear and believe only what they want to believe. This means that they are susceptible to the latest mindless rant from the Delingpole School of Climate Lies, the latest skewed study from the Renewable Energy Foundation. These they add to their mass of "facts" while going out of their way to avoid investigating the reality. And, typical of the bigoted Little Englanders that they are, they haven't the foggiest about what's going on elsewhere in the world, unless it's another nimby lie they've cooked up (like their weird old chestnuts about Denmark's wind industry). This allows them to dream up yet more lies like "The rest of the world is having doubts about wind".
Like in the US, maybe, where last year installed wind capacity overtook nuclear power (incidentally, last year also saw a record number of nuclear power outtages in the States). Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that the average price for utility-scale wind energy equipment fell by another 4% in the second half of last year. Costs are now just three-quarters of what they were in 2009. The price is coming down all the time, not least of all because Chinese manufacturers are competing for orders, especially in the developing markets like Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Australia.
Yes - all those places are investing in wind power. Although China remains the current world leader. But the market pressures on equipment prices now means that wind-generated electricity is as cheap as coal-generated energy - and by 2016 BNEF expects it to be completely cost-competitive with coal without any form of subsidies. Which will be interesting because, as we revealed in a recent post, coal is subsidised. So windfarms, those "subsidy harvesters" of the fevered nimby imagination, will soon be cheaper, even when not subsidised, than the subsidised fossil fuel power sources. Doesn't that just show us how wrong - how jaw-droppingly, brain-numbingly wrong - the nimbies are with their misleading crap about windfarms and subsidies?
Indeed, a report published by the Michigan Public Service Commission has revealed that things are even better than that. Electricity from wind power and other renewables is in fact one-third cheaper than electricity from new coal-fired power stations. ONE-THIRD CHEAPER!
Hardly surprising to find that "fossil fuel-funded 'experts' often exaggerate the cost of electricity generated with wind power", as the American Wind Energy Association noted. No! Really? You mean, not-really-expert "experts" who get money from the fossil fuel industry tell lies about wind power? Surely not!
Well, we know one who does: Lord Lawson.
Coal turns out to be one of the reasons why Nigel Lawson set up his risible "Global Warming Policy Foundation" in order to spew out lies and false claims about climate change. One of his clients runs a gargantuan coal-fired power station in Poland. And, being a not-terribly-good Tory ex-Chancellor, he'd rather try to mislead the British public over the greatest crisis facing humanity than give up a few quid from his CO2-spewing Polish monster. So he set up his British answer to the Heartland Institute in order to brainwash us all, just so he can keep his money. Oh, and his terrifyingly secretive registered charity publishes anti-wind power hogwash. What a Cnut!
Other aw-nimby Cnuts - who stuff their heads full of nonsense from the Telegraph- like to pretend that Spain's impressive wind energy developments have been a disaster for that financially-embarrassed country. Not so. Spain has to import all its oil, and is crippled by the current high oil prices (which, let's face it, are only going to rise). But Spain does have some abundant natural resources - wind and sun. A 2 MW windfarm generates the energy equivalent of 7,000 barrels of oil a year. So, in Spain, wind is the new oil.
Meanwhile, two reports out this week just go to show what a bunch of Cnuts the anti-wind brigade are. First, AF Consult have released the useless report that KPMG refused to release. This idiotically dimwitted "report" concluded that the UK could reach its carbon-emission-reduction targets more cheaply by building new nuclear and gas-fired power stations than by backing renewables.
A child could spot the flaw in that logic. An aw-nimby couldn't. But a child could.
Even the government, in the form of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, has stated that "The report's assumptions are so flawed that the conclusions are near pointless" and that the report (which KPMG didn't want to publish, it was so bad) is a "very, very poor piece of work". Which makes it the perfect sort of aw-nimby propaganda.
More worryingly, a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Guardian to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has revealed something that the government wasn't all that keen on telling us. 12 of the UK's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.
Another reason why Cnuts like Lawson and Delingpole don't want to you believe in science! It's scary, folks!!
Flooding was what caused several reactors at Fukushima Daichi to meltdown last year. Of course, the kind of maniac who thinks that renewables "don't work" and nuclear is the answer will argue that it couldn't happen here. But then, nuclear accidents couldn't happen anywhere, could they? Until they happen. And then, all you can do is run for the hills and hope for the best.
So - the Cnuts out there want us to believe that wind power is expensive (it's already cheaper than coal, on a par with nuclear and will soon be cheaper than gas, with renewables prices falling all the time). They want us to believe that we should be investing in nuclear (massive delays, budget overruns, sudden power outtages, myriad hazards, not renewable, no long-term hazardous waste disposal plan, and now we hear considerable risks of flooding and/or collapsing) and gas (wholesale prices rising, dependency on Russia, good thinking guys!). They want you to believe that there's no such thing as man-made climate change so that they can continue taking money from shady oil lobbyists, titanic East European coal-fired plants, nuclear spin doctors and really rather tacky "luxury golf resorts" in Scotland.
They want you to believe that nowhere in the world is developing wind energy - when in fact, pretty much everywhere is. They want you to believe that everybody is having second thoughts, when they're not. They want you hear only their "facts" (i.e. lies) rather than find out for yourself. They want to screw Britain, the planet and the future.
That's the sort of cnut who campaigns against windfarms. The sort of cnut who thinks they can hold back the tide by shouting about it.
* * * * *
If there's one thing that anyone remembers about Cnut (or 'Canute'), it's that he tried to demonstrate his phenomenal powers as a king by planting his throne on the seashore and commanding the tide not to come in.
The same will be said one day - and not too far in the future - of the duplicitous phoneys of the anti-windfarm nimby movement. Well, we say movement. But these people don't really move. They just stand in the way.
They are, however, desperately trying to hold back the tide. And one of the ways they do this is by deluding themselves, and then anyone else who's foolish enough to listen to them, that windfarms are "unpopular" and that the rest of the world is beginning to have its doubts about wind power.
Challenge them about the "unpopular" claim by pointing out that a whole host of surveys and opinion polls, over a number of years, have consistently shown that the clear majority of Britons are in favour of wind power and even believe that they should be subsidised (which, currently, they're not). What you get in reply is some guff about people not being given the "facts", and when people are given the "facts" they tend to vote against wind energy.
Or rather, when a handful of ego-terrorists decide to tell people a whole pack of lies, nonsense, false claims, unsubstantiated rumours and general gobbledegook - basically, what passes in Nimbyworld for "facts" - some people believe them. Call it the Fox News syndrome. Anyone with a brain can tell that Fox News is an evil right-wing propaganda machine, a sort of Death Star of disinformation. But some people watch it, and those people grow progressively stupider by doing so. And, by the same token, when the manic street preachers and quislings of the nimby brigade evacuate their "facts" all over the public, sadly, some people will grow measureably stupider. It happened here in the Lenches.
You have to remember that anti-wind nimbies (or "aw-nimbies") live in a bubble. Or a cross between a bubble and an echo chamber. They hear only what they want to hear and believe only what they want to believe. This means that they are susceptible to the latest mindless rant from the Delingpole School of Climate Lies, the latest skewed study from the Renewable Energy Foundation. These they add to their mass of "facts" while going out of their way to avoid investigating the reality. And, typical of the bigoted Little Englanders that they are, they haven't the foggiest about what's going on elsewhere in the world, unless it's another nimby lie they've cooked up (like their weird old chestnuts about Denmark's wind industry). This allows them to dream up yet more lies like "The rest of the world is having doubts about wind".
Like in the US, maybe, where last year installed wind capacity overtook nuclear power (incidentally, last year also saw a record number of nuclear power outtages in the States). Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that the average price for utility-scale wind energy equipment fell by another 4% in the second half of last year. Costs are now just three-quarters of what they were in 2009. The price is coming down all the time, not least of all because Chinese manufacturers are competing for orders, especially in the developing markets like Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Australia.
Yes - all those places are investing in wind power. Although China remains the current world leader. But the market pressures on equipment prices now means that wind-generated electricity is as cheap as coal-generated energy - and by 2016 BNEF expects it to be completely cost-competitive with coal without any form of subsidies. Which will be interesting because, as we revealed in a recent post, coal is subsidised. So windfarms, those "subsidy harvesters" of the fevered nimby imagination, will soon be cheaper, even when not subsidised, than the subsidised fossil fuel power sources. Doesn't that just show us how wrong - how jaw-droppingly, brain-numbingly wrong - the nimbies are with their misleading crap about windfarms and subsidies?
Indeed, a report published by the Michigan Public Service Commission has revealed that things are even better than that. Electricity from wind power and other renewables is in fact one-third cheaper than electricity from new coal-fired power stations. ONE-THIRD CHEAPER!
Hardly surprising to find that "fossil fuel-funded 'experts' often exaggerate the cost of electricity generated with wind power", as the American Wind Energy Association noted. No! Really? You mean, not-really-expert "experts" who get money from the fossil fuel industry tell lies about wind power? Surely not!
Well, we know one who does: Lord Lawson.
Coal turns out to be one of the reasons why Nigel Lawson set up his risible "Global Warming Policy Foundation" in order to spew out lies and false claims about climate change. One of his clients runs a gargantuan coal-fired power station in Poland. And, being a not-terribly-good Tory ex-Chancellor, he'd rather try to mislead the British public over the greatest crisis facing humanity than give up a few quid from his CO2-spewing Polish monster. So he set up his British answer to the Heartland Institute in order to brainwash us all, just so he can keep his money. Oh, and his terrifyingly secretive registered charity publishes anti-wind power hogwash. What a Cnut!
Other aw-nimby Cnuts - who stuff their heads full of nonsense from the Telegraph- like to pretend that Spain's impressive wind energy developments have been a disaster for that financially-embarrassed country. Not so. Spain has to import all its oil, and is crippled by the current high oil prices (which, let's face it, are only going to rise). But Spain does have some abundant natural resources - wind and sun. A 2 MW windfarm generates the energy equivalent of 7,000 barrels of oil a year. So, in Spain, wind is the new oil.
Meanwhile, two reports out this week just go to show what a bunch of Cnuts the anti-wind brigade are. First, AF Consult have released the useless report that KPMG refused to release. This idiotically dimwitted "report" concluded that the UK could reach its carbon-emission-reduction targets more cheaply by building new nuclear and gas-fired power stations than by backing renewables.
A child could spot the flaw in that logic. An aw-nimby couldn't. But a child could.
Even the government, in the form of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, has stated that "The report's assumptions are so flawed that the conclusions are near pointless" and that the report (which KPMG didn't want to publish, it was so bad) is a "very, very poor piece of work". Which makes it the perfect sort of aw-nimby propaganda.
More worryingly, a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Guardian to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has revealed something that the government wasn't all that keen on telling us. 12 of the UK's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.
Another reason why Cnuts like Lawson and Delingpole don't want to you believe in science! It's scary, folks!!
Flooding was what caused several reactors at Fukushima Daichi to meltdown last year. Of course, the kind of maniac who thinks that renewables "don't work" and nuclear is the answer will argue that it couldn't happen here. But then, nuclear accidents couldn't happen anywhere, could they? Until they happen. And then, all you can do is run for the hills and hope for the best.
So - the Cnuts out there want us to believe that wind power is expensive (it's already cheaper than coal, on a par with nuclear and will soon be cheaper than gas, with renewables prices falling all the time). They want us to believe that we should be investing in nuclear (massive delays, budget overruns, sudden power outtages, myriad hazards, not renewable, no long-term hazardous waste disposal plan, and now we hear considerable risks of flooding and/or collapsing) and gas (wholesale prices rising, dependency on Russia, good thinking guys!). They want you to believe that there's no such thing as man-made climate change so that they can continue taking money from shady oil lobbyists, titanic East European coal-fired plants, nuclear spin doctors and really rather tacky "luxury golf resorts" in Scotland.
They want you to believe that nowhere in the world is developing wind energy - when in fact, pretty much everywhere is. They want you to believe that everybody is having second thoughts, when they're not. They want you hear only their "facts" (i.e. lies) rather than find out for yourself. They want to screw Britain, the planet and the future.
That's the sort of cnut who campaigns against windfarms. The sort of cnut who thinks they can hold back the tide by shouting about it.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
YOU'VE BEEN TRUMPED!
Superman fights for "truth, justice and the American way". His fellow countryman, Donald Trump, believes in just one of those things.
He's okay with "the American way" - as long as that just means violence, propaganda and brutal smear tactics in the headlong pursuit of wealth - but he doesn't care about truth and justice. No, sirree! Not one tiny bit.
Which makes him the perfect poster-boy for the anti-windpower brigade. He's massively egotistical, thoroughly dishonest and absolutely without scruple. The cretins of CATS who are taking his filthy lucre must be really proud of their demented attempts to sell Britain downriver by fighting innocent windfarm proposals with his money.
"You've Been Trumped" is the title of a documentary that has already won a clutch of awards around the world and is often shown in a double-bill with that other classic celluloid tale of Scots standing in the way of a wealthy American bully - "Local Hero". The documentary, which has been described by the world's press as "the most important film ever about the Scottish environment" and a "shattering expose of greed and hubris", focuses on the residents of the Menie Estate in Scotland. They had the misfortune of being in the way of Trump's disgusting plans for a totally unnecessary "luxury golf resort". And so, as well as threatening them with compulsory purchase orders, the evil Trump slandered them.
"Pigs living in a slum" was one of the things he and his vicious PR machine said about the locals. When one of them complained about having their water supply cut off, Trump's henchmen called in the police. The poor folk of the Menie Estate were discovering, to their cost, what mindless fascists like Trump are really made of.
Trump likes to boast about his Scottish roots. Where Aberdeenshire is concerned, he has ploughed up a stretch of coastline that, till recently, was protected by the most stringent environmental regulations in Europe. Hundreds upon hundreds of trees were callously uprooted so that artificial mounds could be built for his golf resort. He has yet to build his crappy hotel or the promised 1,500 houses - perhaps because he can't actually afford to - and he's stopped work on his ghastly, unwanted resort in order to fight plans for the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, a forward-looking development that will put Aberdeenshire at the forefront of a £4bn offshore wind industry.
This crazed demagogue has done nothing but destroy everything he has stomped on in Scotland - and now he's trying to destroy Scotland's leading renewables sector (recently praised by the UN as a model of "climate justice").
He knew about the plans for the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre when he steamrollered the authorities into granting him planning permission for his absurd resort. He knew about the plans, and yet he pressed on with his grotesque and wanton destruction. Now, having utterly trashed a site of special scientific interest, he is taking time out to try and shoot down Scotland's much-vaunted plan to be 100% renewable by 2020. He has offered his money and his lawyers to the fruitloops of CATS (who go round telling lies about windfarms) and is doing all he can to bully Scottish politicians into pandering to his reckless whims.
There is only one way to describe Donald Trump - he's a dangerous, deranged, power-hungry, evil-minded, selfish, greedy, lying, robbing, thieving maniac.
The nimbies must love him: he represents all those negative qualities that they espouse and hold so dear. But they should be wary. People like him don't do anything for nothing. The fools of CATS have signed a pact with the Devil. He won't destroy Scotland's renewables industry. He'll probably destroy everyone he comes into contact with, though.
If you get the chance, go see "You've Been Trumped" (www.youvebeentrumped.com). That way, you'll know what sort of sick, twisted weirdo supports the lunatic anti-windpower fringe in this country.
He's okay with "the American way" - as long as that just means violence, propaganda and brutal smear tactics in the headlong pursuit of wealth - but he doesn't care about truth and justice. No, sirree! Not one tiny bit.
Which makes him the perfect poster-boy for the anti-windpower brigade. He's massively egotistical, thoroughly dishonest and absolutely without scruple. The cretins of CATS who are taking his filthy lucre must be really proud of their demented attempts to sell Britain downriver by fighting innocent windfarm proposals with his money.
"You've Been Trumped" is the title of a documentary that has already won a clutch of awards around the world and is often shown in a double-bill with that other classic celluloid tale of Scots standing in the way of a wealthy American bully - "Local Hero". The documentary, which has been described by the world's press as "the most important film ever about the Scottish environment" and a "shattering expose of greed and hubris", focuses on the residents of the Menie Estate in Scotland. They had the misfortune of being in the way of Trump's disgusting plans for a totally unnecessary "luxury golf resort". And so, as well as threatening them with compulsory purchase orders, the evil Trump slandered them.
"Pigs living in a slum" was one of the things he and his vicious PR machine said about the locals. When one of them complained about having their water supply cut off, Trump's henchmen called in the police. The poor folk of the Menie Estate were discovering, to their cost, what mindless fascists like Trump are really made of.
Trump likes to boast about his Scottish roots. Where Aberdeenshire is concerned, he has ploughed up a stretch of coastline that, till recently, was protected by the most stringent environmental regulations in Europe. Hundreds upon hundreds of trees were callously uprooted so that artificial mounds could be built for his golf resort. He has yet to build his crappy hotel or the promised 1,500 houses - perhaps because he can't actually afford to - and he's stopped work on his ghastly, unwanted resort in order to fight plans for the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, a forward-looking development that will put Aberdeenshire at the forefront of a £4bn offshore wind industry.
This crazed demagogue has done nothing but destroy everything he has stomped on in Scotland - and now he's trying to destroy Scotland's leading renewables sector (recently praised by the UN as a model of "climate justice").
He knew about the plans for the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre when he steamrollered the authorities into granting him planning permission for his absurd resort. He knew about the plans, and yet he pressed on with his grotesque and wanton destruction. Now, having utterly trashed a site of special scientific interest, he is taking time out to try and shoot down Scotland's much-vaunted plan to be 100% renewable by 2020. He has offered his money and his lawyers to the fruitloops of CATS (who go round telling lies about windfarms) and is doing all he can to bully Scottish politicians into pandering to his reckless whims.
There is only one way to describe Donald Trump - he's a dangerous, deranged, power-hungry, evil-minded, selfish, greedy, lying, robbing, thieving maniac.
The nimbies must love him: he represents all those negative qualities that they espouse and hold so dear. But they should be wary. People like him don't do anything for nothing. The fools of CATS have signed a pact with the Devil. He won't destroy Scotland's renewables industry. He'll probably destroy everyone he comes into contact with, though.
If you get the chance, go see "You've Been Trumped" (www.youvebeentrumped.com). That way, you'll know what sort of sick, twisted weirdo supports the lunatic anti-windpower fringe in this country.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
HOW "NOISY" IS A WIND TURBINE?
Answer: Not Very.
Okay, if you happen to be 80 metres off the ground and right next to the nacelle (or gear hub), it might be about as loud as a lawnmower. So in that respect, the crazed nimbies of Stop Bridgnorth Wind Farm weren't far wrong. Except that nobody is going to be 80 metres up in the air right next to the hub, are they?
No - most people will be so far away that they can't actually hear the turbine(s) at all. Try it for yourself. Go to a windfarm. You'll be pleasantly surprised, if not amazed, at how quiet they are.
Anyone who tells you they're "noisy" is either (a) ignorant, or (b) a liar.
For all practical purposes, even those living closest to a windfarm - say, upwards of half-a-kilometre away - will hear nothing louder than a domestic fridge. And that's at the uppermost end of the noise spectrum where windfarms are concerned. Pretty much the whole of the time, those living even just 500 metres from the nearest turbine will experience a sound output that is less than that of a modern domestic fridge.
A quick trip to your nearest electrical and white goods retail outlet should prove this. Many new fridges and fridge-freezers have stickers on them telling you how many decibels they put out. Usually, it's 40 or 42 decibels.
That's about the maximum legal noise output of a windfarm when measured from the nearest residence.
Remember all those idiotic stories - still put about by lying nimbies - about windfarms being "deafening" and keeping you awake all night?
Well, if you've got a fridge in your house, you've already got something that makes more noise than a turbine. And if your fridge doesn't keep you awake at night, then there's no reason why a wind turbine should.
So - are the manic nimbies of Middle England going to start campaigning fanatically and dishonestly against domestic appliances on the grounds that they're "too noisy"? After all, look at where the vacuum cleaner appears on the image above.
So, are they? Are the nimby nutters going to start being realistic, do you think, and admitting that there are many workaday items in the home which are considerably noisier than wind turbines - and that at least one of them (the fridge) is on all the time, all through the night, and never gives rise to complaints about noise?
Do you think that might happen? Do you think that the barking anti-windpower morons will actually see sense, get things into perspective and try a little honesty for a change?
Will they put out garish propaganda warning you about the health effects of the noise emanating from your fridge (louder than a wind turbine!!)?
Probably not.
Friday, 2 March 2012
WHAT MAKES A NIMBY TICK?
"Upper class people are more likely to behave selfishly, studies suggest" - that was a Guardian headline from earlier this week.
The report stated that a "raft of studies into unethical behaviour across the social classes has delivered a withering verdict on the upper echelons of society." Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, had been observing people's behaviour and announced that "Privileged people behaved consistently worse than others in a range of situations, with a greater tendency to lie, cheat ... and endorse unethical behaviour". The researchers concluded that self-interest may be "a more fundamental motive among society's elite".
No kidding. But let's first deal with the "class" issue. For example, Donald "Forrest" Trump exhibits very little in the way of class, but his crazed opposition to an offshore windfarm in Scotland (he thinks it'll spoil his "luxury" golf resort, which some reports suggest he can't afford to build anyway) is symptomatic of the kind of crass, selfish and immoral behaviour identified by the California researchers.
Basically, most anti-windfarm campaigners are relatively privileged. They've managed to buy themselves houses in the country. And when a windfarm is proposed in their locale, even though it will do them no harm whatsoever, either physically or financially, they decide to fight it. Why? Because it'll affect the view (which they don't own) - or, rather, it will impinge on their deluded rural myth. And so they resort to the unethical behaviour that is apparently pretty common among the privileged. They lie, they cheat, they bully and they misappropriate public funds.
They won't tolerate anyone's opinion but their own. Thus, supporters of wind energy are not allowed to comment on the demented anti-windfarm websites. But the dribbling opponents of wind energy believe that they have the right to spew their mindless bilge over everybody else's webpages.
Evidence for this trend has emerged lately on the 38 Degrees website. The internet campaign group invited suggestions from its members for new campaigns, and one such suggestion was a positive, pro-windfarm campaign. Naturally, the maniacal nimby brigade out there got to hear about this, and so a welter of demented, opinionated and factually inaccurate comments have suddenly appeared on the 38 Degrees website.
They won't allow others an opinion, these fascists of the anti-wind fringe, but they insist on everybody hearing theirs. How very VVASP of them!
The fact remains, however, that the vast majority of anti-windfarm campaigners are lying, two-faced bullies indulging in the vices of the "privileged" in order to "protect" something that doesn't belong to them from something that will do no harm.
This sort of insanity is costing Britain dear. Whether it's a tasteless American hoodlum trying to dictate Scotland's energy policy or the family team of Cash & Son spreading contradictory lies about windfarms in Shropshire, the outcome is much the same. Many ordinary Britons are becoming confused. The clear majority still support wind power, but irrational fears and gross misunderstandings are growing because of the constant bombardment of nimby propaganda. And that's harming Britain's economy.
Just shows how "patriotic" these evil nimbies are, with their self-serving claims to be defending the "unspoilt landscape" (whatever that might be). The truth is they are undermining Britain's future energy security, inward investment, job creation and the survival of those very eco-systems which these dribbling nimbies say they want to protect.
Lord Turner put it very clearly, just the other day. You can debate whether windfarms are "ugly" or not, but to make foolish and unscientific claims (like "they don't work" or "they are too intermittent") is "just a failure to read the facts."
We've been saying this for a long time. And Adair Turner is now agreeing with us. Too many idiots out there are spouting "rubbish" about wind energy and "believing only what they want to believe". Put it simply - and we saw this happen with VVASP in the Lenches - they make up their minds before they find out the facts, and then they only seek out those "facts" which support their prejudices.
The outcome - claims about windfarms affecting health, which are based on a couple of low-grade, unscientific studies, and a refusal to acknowledge the fact that those studies have been completely disproved and discounted by real scientists doing their jobs properly. Or claims about windfarms affecting the housing market, which are based entirely on guesswork and a willingness to quote half a sentence from an academic study out of context, while refusing to admit that the said study found no correlation at all between windfarms and house prices.
Or even the entirely stupid claim that windfarms are only built in order to harvest the massive government subsidies available for wind energy. First of all, those massive government subsidies don't exist. Or perhaps we should say, they don't exist for wind (which receives a modest levy from the profits of the energy companies, and nothing directly from the tax-payer), although they do exist - in abundance - for the fossil fuel industries.
Gas, for example, which was the real cause of the huge hikes in domestic energy bills recently, got about £3bn last year in government subsidies, mostly in the form of VAT reductions. Oil got £500 million, and coal £72 million.
Over the same period, all forms of renewable energy in the UK received £1.4 bn of support from the energy companies. Wind - onshore and offshore - accounted for £700 million of that, none of which came directly from the tax-payer.
The tax-payer, then, is subsidising gas (twice, in the form of tax breaks and rising energy bills) to the tune of more than FOUR TIMES what the entire wind energy industry in this country receives in order to help create a level playing field.
And yet, the nimby nutters and those deluded 101 Tory backbenchers who wrote to David Cameron recently, insist that the so-called "subsidies" to renewables are the cause of all our woes. Not the considerably larger actual subsidies to gas, which really is causing fuel poverty. No: poor old clean, reliable, friendly, safe and cheap renewables. But then, the drooling frauds who signed that silly letter to Cameron couldn't spot the truth if you smacked them in the face with it. They are typical of the lunatic nimby fringe in this country - grotesquely deluded and utterly dishonest.
And bad for Britain. There's a huge amount of investment piling up, ready to help us on our way towards the low-carbon economy to which our government is committed. But a lot of that investment is getting cold feet, largely because of the idiot brigade, like Cameron's 101 dimwitted backbenchers, who would rather shout lies about wind power than support their country.
So the government has been forced to start polishing up its green credentials and announcing support for wind power (although, being tainted with nimbyism, they tend to prefer the more expensive option of offshore wind). This is a belated but welcome development. The nimby liars, from the right-wing press to the rigged parish councils, have been allowed to dominate the "debate". Partly, this is because those self-important hoodlums automatically seek to dominate every debate before shutting it down altogether. But it is also partly because the better-behaved, more democratic and ethical pro-renewables majority don't indulge in the sort of lying-and-thuggery bonanza that is second nature to the nimby morons.
The thing is, now we know. We know why the anti-wind nimbies tell so many lies, troll their way through other people's websites, victimise those who disagree with them, and then tell even more lies. It's in their nature. They've got something they don't want anyone else to have - a country view - and they will stoop to unimaginable depths of deviousness and dishonesty to protect it, even though it's not under threat.
Or rather, it is - but not from windfarms. They're the solution.
If only these demented, self-serving nimby idiots would grasp that fact. But they don't do facts, do they? Liars and cheats seldom do.
The report stated that a "raft of studies into unethical behaviour across the social classes has delivered a withering verdict on the upper echelons of society." Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, had been observing people's behaviour and announced that "Privileged people behaved consistently worse than others in a range of situations, with a greater tendency to lie, cheat ... and endorse unethical behaviour". The researchers concluded that self-interest may be "a more fundamental motive among society's elite".
No kidding. But let's first deal with the "class" issue. For example, Donald "Forrest" Trump exhibits very little in the way of class, but his crazed opposition to an offshore windfarm in Scotland (he thinks it'll spoil his "luxury" golf resort, which some reports suggest he can't afford to build anyway) is symptomatic of the kind of crass, selfish and immoral behaviour identified by the California researchers.
Basically, most anti-windfarm campaigners are relatively privileged. They've managed to buy themselves houses in the country. And when a windfarm is proposed in their locale, even though it will do them no harm whatsoever, either physically or financially, they decide to fight it. Why? Because it'll affect the view (which they don't own) - or, rather, it will impinge on their deluded rural myth. And so they resort to the unethical behaviour that is apparently pretty common among the privileged. They lie, they cheat, they bully and they misappropriate public funds.
They won't tolerate anyone's opinion but their own. Thus, supporters of wind energy are not allowed to comment on the demented anti-windfarm websites. But the dribbling opponents of wind energy believe that they have the right to spew their mindless bilge over everybody else's webpages.
Evidence for this trend has emerged lately on the 38 Degrees website. The internet campaign group invited suggestions from its members for new campaigns, and one such suggestion was a positive, pro-windfarm campaign. Naturally, the maniacal nimby brigade out there got to hear about this, and so a welter of demented, opinionated and factually inaccurate comments have suddenly appeared on the 38 Degrees website.
They won't allow others an opinion, these fascists of the anti-wind fringe, but they insist on everybody hearing theirs. How very VVASP of them!
The fact remains, however, that the vast majority of anti-windfarm campaigners are lying, two-faced bullies indulging in the vices of the "privileged" in order to "protect" something that doesn't belong to them from something that will do no harm.
This sort of insanity is costing Britain dear. Whether it's a tasteless American hoodlum trying to dictate Scotland's energy policy or the family team of Cash & Son spreading contradictory lies about windfarms in Shropshire, the outcome is much the same. Many ordinary Britons are becoming confused. The clear majority still support wind power, but irrational fears and gross misunderstandings are growing because of the constant bombardment of nimby propaganda. And that's harming Britain's economy.
Just shows how "patriotic" these evil nimbies are, with their self-serving claims to be defending the "unspoilt landscape" (whatever that might be). The truth is they are undermining Britain's future energy security, inward investment, job creation and the survival of those very eco-systems which these dribbling nimbies say they want to protect.
Lord Turner put it very clearly, just the other day. You can debate whether windfarms are "ugly" or not, but to make foolish and unscientific claims (like "they don't work" or "they are too intermittent") is "just a failure to read the facts."
We've been saying this for a long time. And Adair Turner is now agreeing with us. Too many idiots out there are spouting "rubbish" about wind energy and "believing only what they want to believe". Put it simply - and we saw this happen with VVASP in the Lenches - they make up their minds before they find out the facts, and then they only seek out those "facts" which support their prejudices.
The outcome - claims about windfarms affecting health, which are based on a couple of low-grade, unscientific studies, and a refusal to acknowledge the fact that those studies have been completely disproved and discounted by real scientists doing their jobs properly. Or claims about windfarms affecting the housing market, which are based entirely on guesswork and a willingness to quote half a sentence from an academic study out of context, while refusing to admit that the said study found no correlation at all between windfarms and house prices.
Or even the entirely stupid claim that windfarms are only built in order to harvest the massive government subsidies available for wind energy. First of all, those massive government subsidies don't exist. Or perhaps we should say, they don't exist for wind (which receives a modest levy from the profits of the energy companies, and nothing directly from the tax-payer), although they do exist - in abundance - for the fossil fuel industries.
Gas, for example, which was the real cause of the huge hikes in domestic energy bills recently, got about £3bn last year in government subsidies, mostly in the form of VAT reductions. Oil got £500 million, and coal £72 million.
Over the same period, all forms of renewable energy in the UK received £1.4 bn of support from the energy companies. Wind - onshore and offshore - accounted for £700 million of that, none of which came directly from the tax-payer.
The tax-payer, then, is subsidising gas (twice, in the form of tax breaks and rising energy bills) to the tune of more than FOUR TIMES what the entire wind energy industry in this country receives in order to help create a level playing field.
And yet, the nimby nutters and those deluded 101 Tory backbenchers who wrote to David Cameron recently, insist that the so-called "subsidies" to renewables are the cause of all our woes. Not the considerably larger actual subsidies to gas, which really is causing fuel poverty. No: poor old clean, reliable, friendly, safe and cheap renewables. But then, the drooling frauds who signed that silly letter to Cameron couldn't spot the truth if you smacked them in the face with it. They are typical of the lunatic nimby fringe in this country - grotesquely deluded and utterly dishonest.
And bad for Britain. There's a huge amount of investment piling up, ready to help us on our way towards the low-carbon economy to which our government is committed. But a lot of that investment is getting cold feet, largely because of the idiot brigade, like Cameron's 101 dimwitted backbenchers, who would rather shout lies about wind power than support their country.
So the government has been forced to start polishing up its green credentials and announcing support for wind power (although, being tainted with nimbyism, they tend to prefer the more expensive option of offshore wind). This is a belated but welcome development. The nimby liars, from the right-wing press to the rigged parish councils, have been allowed to dominate the "debate". Partly, this is because those self-important hoodlums automatically seek to dominate every debate before shutting it down altogether. But it is also partly because the better-behaved, more democratic and ethical pro-renewables majority don't indulge in the sort of lying-and-thuggery bonanza that is second nature to the nimby morons.
The thing is, now we know. We know why the anti-wind nimbies tell so many lies, troll their way through other people's websites, victimise those who disagree with them, and then tell even more lies. It's in their nature. They've got something they don't want anyone else to have - a country view - and they will stoop to unimaginable depths of deviousness and dishonesty to protect it, even though it's not under threat.
Or rather, it is - but not from windfarms. They're the solution.
If only these demented, self-serving nimby idiots would grasp that fact. But they don't do facts, do they? Liars and cheats seldom do.
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