Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal.
A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.’
A 500g book can sell for as little as 5p, while a 20kg bag of coal costs £5.
Since January 2008, gas bills have risen 40 per cent and electricity prices 20 per cent, although people over 60 are entitled to a winter fuel allowance of between £125 and £400.
Daily Mail, 3 January 2010 Tom McGhie
Household gas and electricity bills are expected to rocket fourfold to nearly £5,000 a year by the end of the decade to meet Government-imposed green targets. And the price heavy industry will have to pay by 2020 is so high that energy-dependent firms could be wiped out, causing thousands of job losses, said an industry spokesman.
A massive rethink on the cost of ‘green energy’ is taking place in Whitehall among senior regulators and industry, leading some to question whether the public will be prepared to pay increasingly high bills for the UK to become greener than most countries.
Officials at regulator Ofgem now privately admit that a report they issued only last year severely underestimates the cost of cutting carbon emissions by building a new energy infrastructure for the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1240201/Watchdog-rethinks-consumer-cost-green-energy.html
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Red Dwarf:
UAH is out for December: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/december-2009-uah-global-temperature-update-0-28-deg-c/
+.28C. Down a good bit from November.
More from Benny Peiser’s newsletter.
WHAT HAPPENED TO SPAIN’S GREEN JOBS?
NC Media Watch, 4 January 2010
Russ Steele
The Sunday San Francisco Chronicle Business section has this story on unemployment soaring among Spain’s youth by Nelson D. Schwartz, New York Times. As you will recall, Spain was on the forefront of going green. While Spain has traditionally suffered from relatively high unemployment, double the 9.8 percent average for the European Union, but the sharpest increase has been among young people. It has jumped from 17.5 percent three years ago to the current 42.9 percent.
Unemployment soars among Spain’s youth
“Like hundreds of thousands of other young people, Jesus Pesquero Penas dropped out of school to go to work when the Spanish economy was booming. But since he was laid off from his construction job two years ago, he has been living on unemployment benefits. Now Penas finds himself part of a lost generation in Spain, where unemployment among people ages 16-24 is 42.9 percent, the highest in Europe, and more than double the overall rate.”
Where are all the promised green jobs? How could this happen when Spain was on the leading edge in the EU to convert to a sustainable life style free from their oil addiction, by adopting wind and solar power. California Governor has often pointed to Spain as a example for California to follow.
“Adding to Spain’s woes, its government is unable to inject more stimulus and offer further support for job creation while its economy languishes as one of the weakest in Europe. The outlook on Spanish sovereign debt was recently downgraded, and the government is moving to raise taxes and cut spending.”
As I have written before, every green job in Spain created through government subsidies resulted in the loss of 2.5 jobs in the regular economic sectors. Details here. Though not mentioned in the NYT article one has to wonder how much going green contributed to the job losses in the youth sector?
“In part, Spain is paying the price for its efforts to make it easier to put young people to work. In recent years, a disproportionate share of Spanish youth were employed on temporary contracts. So they were the easiest to lay off when the economy sank, said Alfonso Prieto, deputy director general of employment studies at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.”
Again, one has to ask were those temporary employment contracts funded with government subsidies for green jobs? Will the same happen in California, if we create job with government subsidies? We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and the Governor is seeking green subsidies a Federal bailout? We should all be aware of the Spanish experience.
I suspect it’s a cold cold winter in East Anglia.
Since January 2008, gas bills have risen 40 per cent and electricity prices 20 per cent
This is what Barak Obama wants—“necessarily skyrocket” electric bills.
As long as they burn books with ‘Audacity’ in the title I’m fine with it.
Message from the Great Britain, a country that used to run a third of the globe
…We’re stuffed…
That is all.
Don’t worry – we have a huge stockpile of “Energy Efficient” bulbs to keep us going….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240585/British-homes-swamped-200-million-unwanted-eco-lightbulbs.html
A massive rethink on the cost of ‘green energy’ is taking place in Whitehall among senior regulators and industry, leading some to question whether the public will be prepared to pay increasingly high bills
The public can’t pay it now. They’re wondering if the public is prepared??
Man, these guys are on the ball!
Books burnt by pensioners because they are cheaper than coal…
Power prices to rise to £5,000 in order to pay for more windmills when those already installed aren’t producting any power during the current big freeze.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/monument-to-folly.html
It really is time the insane wealth-shifters were returned to the asylum.
dave ward (07:15:31)
“Energy Efficient” bulbs
Ya, pay no attention to the mercury in them.
This going green thing is working out so good!
Call me crazy but I do believe this is deliberate. Looks like the Brits are leading the road back to serfdom.
??44 lbs of coal costs $7.50 – $10??
Time to export some relief to the good ol’ USS United Kingdom!
Isn’t it about time to kick some “bleeding heart liberals” out of their well heated 44,ooo sq ft mansions and villas and put things back to normal? Burning books? Books cheaper than coal? Hello! What planet am I on?
There’s a good 6″ of white global warming soot in my back garden in West Yorkshire.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6935965/Britain-paralysed-by-snow-and-freezing-weather.html
“Forecasters warned that the snow and arctic conditions are set to continue into the weekend, while southern England is braced to be the “crucible” of the severe weather later today.
The renewed wave of bitter weather comes as experts predicted that Britain is facing the coldest winter in 100 years.”
I would invite all readers to help improving the climategate article on wikipedia, which has been hijacked by alarmists that have a troop of sleepless zealots that work in conjunction with the aim to keep the page as useless as possible. Please bear in mind the use of reliable sources and read and add your views in the discussion page before changing the main article. We need more people to counter W. Connolley and his troop of alarmists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
talk page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
Thats not all
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6935965/Britain-paralysed-by-snow-and-freezing-weather.html
“The prolonged cold snap has also led to fears that Britain could be confronted with a shortage of gas after the National Grid warned supplies to reduce use of the fuel.
It was the second time ever that the move has been taken and came after a 30 per cent rise on normal seasonal demand. ”
What confuses me is the snowfalls in th e US and Canada are more considerable, yet you don’t get the same paralysis. I guess it’s because we haven’t had a cold winter like this for a long time (apart from last year)
Is this likely soon to be the USA … And isn’t that the problem.
If green is your god, then nuclear power should be your savior … Else it’s all a lie, isn’t it.
Don Keiller (07:07:02) :
More from Benny Peiser’s newsletter.
WHAT HAPPENED TO SPAIN’S GREEN JOBS?
It seems those should be called ‘welfare jobs’. In America Van Jones had planned for ‘green jobs’ to be inner-city jobs—“climate ‘justice’……give them the wealth, give them the wealth!”—was his mantra.
But Van Jones was ‘stepped down’.
I want James Hanson to tell us once again what it is that constitutes a “crime against humanity”
This is appalling and calls up mental images of Fagin, complete with fingerless gloves, burning rags and garbage to stay warm at the end of the LIA.
Return of the Frost Fairs.
God save the Queen and get rid of the green.
While all this is happening and I am trapped by a foot of snow, the Independent is keeping its reputation as the worst offender in this scam
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/no-conflict-between-big-freeze-and-climate-change-1858530.html
What especially angers me is the smug “within natural variations” excuse used, unaware of the irony.
There ought to be a lot of “Our Choice” books available since no one bought any.
There would have been a lot of burned books if these same conditions were here in the US this past week. And probably many deaths from cold.
HAMweather map of past week in US
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=maxtemp,mintemp,lowmax,highmin,snow
It’s climate I say, not weather.
And more record cold is in the forecast.
Britain does not exist any more – its been taken over.
Its about time for tanks on Parliament Square (and not water tanks). Anything Cromwell can do, we can do better…
.
Many years ago, during one of the many previous manifestations of the eco-terrorist phenomenon, I saw a bumper sticker at a geological Society of America meeting which read:
Ban Mining: Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark.
I wish I had bought out the man’s entire stock so I could have put one on each the many cars I have owned since.
Funny story, but anyone with a fireplace in which they can burn books would get a lot more benefit from blocking it up and using something like an oil-filled electric radiator.