Richard Black continues his distinguished record today of unbiased reporting. His theme is to give his wholehearted support to lunatic calls made by climate alarmist-in-chief Lord Adair Turner that would de-industrialise Britain, hobble our economy and force millions into fuel poverty. Mr Black faithfully reports the Committee on Climate Change’s calls for more electric cars (insanely expensive and with the range of a hobbled llama), “clean” energy (technology that is not practical and will add billions to the cost of generation)and for farmers to use fertilisers more efficiently (thereby vastly reducing crop yields and forcing them into bankruptcy). For “balance”, he has comments from government eco-fanatic Chris Huhne and a chap from the Green Council, who,surprise surprise, agree (or want even more drastic measures).
Strangely, Mr Black doesn’t see fit to mention this hugely relevant story; it shows the real consequences of the green policies of the sort Mr Black so ardently advocates. Britain’s first green energy area, the island of Eigg, off Scotland, has been forced to introduce severe power cuts and electricity rationing because of a lack of rainfall and wind. When will Black and his cronies deal with the real facts?
Update: Today carried an item on the Eigg farce, but completely devoid of context.
Arseholes like Black don’t practice what they preach. I bet Black owns a big car (probably more than one) he works for one of the biggest CO2 producers on the planet (let’s see the BBC generate its own electricity from wind) and he flies thousands of miles every year racking up his personal Carbon levels.
Black’s idea is that the working classes will make do with walking to work or cycle, never fly abroad on holiday and go to bed at 9PM every night (so they won’t need electricity) whilst the mincing left like him and the rest of the BBC will carry on exactly as before.
But we all know that there’s no earthly need for him, us, or anyone else to go to those lengths, because we all know that CO2 isn’t a problem, it’s a vital gas, etc., etc. – so it’s all poppycock. We know it, and I assume they know it too. So why won’t they come clean?
According to Joe Bastardi (Accuweather), the earth should be bracing itself for major cooling for some considerable time, starting, well, starting now!!. With the start of the La Nina, negative PDO, and the contuing dearth of sunspots, the epithet ” A warning from history” should be heeded urgently.
All the signs are there for everyone to see, so why the blinkered “save the planet, cut carbon” mantra from loonies like Turner? (and Harrabin, Black, et al) for that matter.
And nobody on the telly or radio questions the guff that they spout. Surely we should all now be given advance warning of the impending cooling, and given all assistance to prepare for it, rather than pretend the threat’s not there, and be forced to prepare for the opposite scenario? Fat lot of good electric cars will be if there’s no electricity.
It’s as if there’s a latent desire for the demise of humanity as we know it…
I hope it’s not dragging the post too off-topic to alert readers to the fact that Richard North at EUReferendum is threatening to sue the Guardian over an article by the Moonbat regarding “Amazongate”.
Returning more directly to the topic, I could not believe the soft interview handed out to his lordship by John Humphrys on Today. A classic “what would you like to tell us, minister” type.
And Toady continue to parrot their fave factoid – did you know that 98% of scientific papers regarding climate change , are by scientists who believe in mmgw ?
This is now the beeboid default position and will be quoted repetitively whenever the subject arises.
In a similar vein, and totally grasping at straws, Farming Today tries to portray half a dozen crusties on a small holding saying no, as somehow proving that a cull of TB infected badgers wont work, despite the entire Welsh farming community supporting it.
The bbc , home of the leftist, urban , agenda !
RD
“I could not believe the soft interview handed out to his lordship by John Humphrys”: the interview with Maggie Fyffe, Secretary of the Eigg Heritage Trust was even softer.
Ms Fyffe admitted that the islanders were generating the shortfall in electricity with a diesel generator – the most inefficient, carbon-producing, counter-green method yet invented. The reaction from the interviewer and Ms Fyffe was that this is, of course, regrettable but – according to Ms Fyffe’s completely unquestioned assertion of total crap – under “normal” conditions 90% of energy is generated by wind and solar on Eigg. In another world this whole experiment would be labelled a complete and utter failure and an impartial interviewer would have given Ms Fyffe an extremely hard time.
BTW this site http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm informs us that currently (10:44 am) wind is contributing an incredible 0.1% of the UK’s total energy requirements – not that the BBC cares to report this.
Maybe it’s time for a raid on the BBC, and a hijacking of the transmitters, and broadcast the truth. I’m sure most of it could get air time before the police arrived…
I am the first to criticise real bias, but this one is a bit of a non story really.
In the article, it was made clear that before the community project, Eigg had NO electricity supply outside of generators. The context should then be clear, that in relation to what they had previously, the ‘green’ project is largely a success.
What would be wrong is to imply any similarity to the situation on the mainland, where busineses rely on constant supply and are not able to close down every time the wind doesn’t blow. Eigg is a small community, isolated from the conditions of the mainland and with a different set of energy priorities.
Is the complaint here that the differences were not made clear? I think that most people who listen to the today programme should be at least smart enough to understand that without it being spelt out in block capitals.
This was the gloss put on the story on the Today website page:
“The 95 residents of Britain’s first “green” island, Eigg, are being asked not to use kettles, toasters or other kitchen appliances after uncharacteristically mild weather caused a critical shortage of power. In 2008 Eigg’s islanders turned to wind and rain to provide all their electricity. Maggie Fyffe, Secretary of the Eigg Heritage Trust, <!– S ILIN –> explains how the island is powered.”
This item was sold in the broadcast as a regrettable (but temporary) hiccup in a prototype national scheme due to unusual weather conditions (even Today forbore to mention “global warming”). AFAIAA there was no effort to portray this as a one-off solution to a particular problem. Even so it’s failed in “green” terms since (as I understand these matters) the generator has to be permanently cycling (as it did before this “solution” was applied) in order to be available immediately to make up a power shortfall.
How much did the taxpayers in the rest of the country pay for this green idyll? And when would this investment be likely to start paying for itself? Which is, one would imagine, the salient point of “sustainability”.
“But when the inhabitants of the remote Scottish island of Eigg put their faith in the wind and rain to provide all their electricity they did not reckon for one thing – mild weather.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/hydro_electricenergy/7858960/Power-rationed-on-green-island-Eigg-after-mild-weather-causes-drought.html
So the question is – “Did they not believe their own AGW theory”.?
Do they still believe it ?
I could go on for hours about the fact that electric cars are not green when you add on the manufacture and resources needed, especially electricity which is soon going to be in short supply without adding more usage.
But the point I want to make is about Farmers using fertilizer more efficiently. Having been a farmer for many years. What do they think we do now. Every year we take soil samples and leaf samples and send them off to laboratories to make sure we are using the optimum amount of fertilizer because fertilizer is expensive and too much is bad for the crops, as is too little. The amount of fertilizer we use has been researched over many years by Government research farms so as to work out the optimum for each crop and the samples are to check that the local conditions are right for our farm.
The trouble is most of these sound bites come from people who haven’t got a clue what they are talking about.