Wind-Subsidy Farms Cause Loss to Society - one result of the ill-informed panic about rising CO2 levels in the air.

Source

This is a picture to look at alongside the one in the previous post.  Is this a mum the youngsters want to swear abuse at about her pension? I think she might struggle to make any kind of sense of their banner: 'MUM AND DAD DID YOU KNOW YOUR PENSION IS &%$#+#-UP MY FUTURE?'

Daniel Greenfield (hat-tip Greeniewatch) writes

'8,000 people die in the UK every year due to what is being called "Fuel Poverty". Fuel Poverty is a trendy term for those who can't afford to heat their home because all the solar panels and windmills, the coal bans and the wars on fracking have made it too expensive for people not to freeze to death..

The left, which never misses a chance to blame profiteering for the failure of its policies, is staging "Die-Ins" outside energy companies to protect the real "Die-Ins" that they caused. But the real "Die-Ins" don't involve bored university students lying down on the concrete and posting the results to Tumblr. They end with the generation that saved Europe from Hitler dying in their own homes.'

In Germany, Pierre Gosselin writes 'Energy poverty is defined by the number of households that must pay more than 10% of their net income on energy. All told 6.9 million German households (every 6th household) finds itself in energy poverty, Spiegel writes.  Much of the rapid increase in energy prices is owing to Germany’s growth in expensive wind and solar energy. Ironically, despite more than 20% of Germany’s energy now being supplied by renewables, CO2 emissions have been rising just the same.  Spiegel calls the energy poverty rate “alarming”. However, when it comes to finding the cause for the runaway increase, the German Greens are blaming all the misery on the rising costs of oil and gas, and even hint that just more expensive, unreliable green energy is all that’s needed to get the costs back in line.'

Meanwhile, back in the UK:

Photo: ALAMY

'Onshore wind farms are being paid £30 million a year to sit idle during the windiest weather.

The payments are made because the cables which transmit power from the turbines to the National Grid cannot cope with the amount of electricity they produce during stormy conditions.'

Whether their blades are turning or not, these wind-subsidy farms are devices for transferring money from the bulk of the population to the relatively rich handful of owners and operators.  In exchange, the people get higher electricity bills, defaced landscapes, and lost opportunities in a less economically competent society.

These are not the greatest of the harms caused so far by the pushers of climate alarm, but they are nevertheless appreciable and getting worse by the month.  And the further harm that the pushers, and the children of the climate scare could cause scarcely bears thinking about, but think about it we must.

Children of the Climate Scare Growing Up Badly

See how some of them are begging their parents, with a childish and offensive banner, to help rescue them from bad things:

The Guardian

These young people could have had climate scare talk directed at them in the nursery, at primary and secondary school, from the BBC and The Guardian and The Independent, and when they got to Oxford they met with climate scare evangelist Myles Allen (see his words at their site ).

Meanwhile, throughout their education so far, there has been no global warming of the kind used to launch this particular climate scare.  Remember Wirth’s hot meeting room in 1988?  Hansen’s hot testimony there? Gore’s stepladder?  The flood of books and websites for children and teachers pointing to rising global mean temperature as if that was irrefutable proof of a man-made catastrophe?   

There has been no upward movement of that particular measure for some 17 years (cue the invention of alternatives by the evangelists such as heat disappearing into oceans which had previously only been used by alarmists for hyping sea-level rises rather than for gobbling up infra-red from CO2 and keeping it out of the atmosphere by some magic yet to be elucidated).

What chance had these Children of the Scare? They seem to have little science (check out their 'Team'), and what they do have may have been distorted by the glib assurances and simple-minded notions about the so-called greenhouse effect and the relative importance of CO2 in the climate system pushed by climate campaigners.  In their world, for example, it is obvious, and needs no data, that hurricanes must get more frequent and more fierce. Trenberth after all, contrived a press conference to that effect to take advantage of a lively hurricane season in the USA*. Meanwhile, genuine experts in hurricanes pointed out that no such effect had been found (see Chap. 26 of The Delinquent Teenager for example).  Not so good for headlines, not so good for vivid tales in school books.  I wonder if many Children of the Scare have any notion of such reservations by experts?  Or that they can be found for each and every one of the various planks of the case for alarm?  I suspect not.

 As for urging investments into such as wind-subsidy farms, solar-subsidy farms, and associated manufacturing industries, my previous post illustrates some of the risks involved there.  The long string of green bankruptices in the States and elsewhere would seem to make the pursuit of such investments by pension funds a peculiar, and grossly irresponsible thing to do.

* That was 2004.  It seems he is still getting up to such tricks ten years later:  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/19/comment-on-kevin-trenberths-interview-on-february-17-2014-an-example-of-misrepresenting-climate-science/

Note added 06 April 2014.  The launch event for this nasty escapade is described here: http://st-hughsmcr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/launch-event-of-push-your-parents.html?showComment=1393543747300

What Happens When Irresponsible Scientists Scare Innumerate Policy Makers into Panic Actions

Germany’s much ballyhooed Energiewende (transition to renewable energy) was supposed to show the whole world how switching over to green energy sources could reduce CO2 emissions, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, provide cheap electricity to citizens, and heroically rescue the planet.

Ten years later, the very opposite has happened: Germany’s CO2 emissions have been increasing, electricity prices have skyrocketed, the green jobs bubble has popped, and tens of thousands of jobs have disappeared. Worse: tens of billions are being redistributed from the poor to the rich. 

P. Gosselin , at No Tricks Zone

Follow the link for more details of the German experience, and of how the Australian government is taking note of it.  I want to finish my post here though by making some more general points.

Teachers and students of the various climate scares of recent decades should note that lesson from Germany when people say 'Why, even if we are wrong about climate catastrophe being driven by our CO2, we are going to do good things in response to our fears.'

The basic answer to such sophistry  is 'Oh no, you are not. You have already caused a great deal of avoidable misery and starvation by increasing basic food prices thanks to diverting farmland to produce bio-fuels.  You have threatened the economic development of both rich and poor countries by seeking to ban coal-fired power stations.  You have despoiled beautiful countryside with your solar panels and windfarms, and each has harmed wildlife, increased energy costs, and polluted the environment during manufacturing. You have scared children, and other vulnerable groups, with your talk of doom and disaster.  You have dismissed and downgraded the wonderful achievements of industry, and have provided in your carbon-schemes new financial opportunities for those who seek profit without contributing anything useful to society.  You have empowered bureaucracies such as the EPA in the States and the EU Commission in Europe to pursue eco-regulations at the expense of humanity.  The damage caused by the recent floods in southern England being but a recent instance of the harm that can be caused when the supposed protection of the environment takes precedence over human welfare and opportunities for development.'