Note: I don’t normally allow the discussion of things related to Nazi Germany here, including discouraging the use of the word “denier” due to it’s “Holocaust Denier” connotations. But this full page ad in the Sunday papers in Britain, touting “climate crime” and “climate cops” is just a bit over the top, and deserves some attention. It is particularly relevant since the sponsoring website climatecops.com has a teachers section, and we’ve just seen some sensibility from Schwarzenegger in Sacramento on this very issue. I find this method of indoctrinating school children to normal everyday living being harmful to the earth with the “climate crime” connotation as distasteful and wrong headed. I have no problems with energy conservation, in fact I encourage it. But combining such advice with a “climate cop” idea is the wrong way to get the message across. Can you imagine what sort of reaction the neighbors will have to the kids hanging this door hanger on their front door? Will the result of this now be hiding your electric dryer behind false walls so the kids and neighbors don’t see it?
At the very least, npower could have chosen a different color scheme: red, black and white are the same three colors used in the flag of Nazi Germany What were they thinking? – Anthony
Reposted from the website EU referendum:
Can I be the only one more than a little disturbed by the latest campaign to be fronted by energy company npower?
Launched today with large colour ads in the Sundays, it appeals directly to children, urging them to enlist as “climate cops”, to root out “climate crimes“, and thus “save the planet”.
In a luridly-designed website, mimicking the style of “yoof” cartoons, it offers a bundle of downloads, including a pack of “climate crime cards“, urging its recruits to spy on families, friends and relatives, inviting each of them to build up a “climate crime case file” in order to help them ensure their putative criminals do not “commit those crimes again (or else)!”
Quite what the “or else!” should be is not specified, but since the “climate cops” are being encouraged to keep detailed written records (for those who can read and write), there is nothing to stop these being submitted to the “Climate Cops HQ” for further sanctions, the repeat offenders being sent to re-education camps. And for those “climate cops” that successfully perform the “missions” set (or turn in their own parents), there is the reward of “training” in the “Climate Cop Academy”.
In a system which has echoes of Hitler’s Deutsches Jungvolk movement, and the Communist regime Pioneers, perhaps successful graduates can work up to becoming block wardens, then street and district “climate crime Führers”, building a network of spies and informers.
How nicely this ties in with James Hansen’s call to put the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming.
No doubt, with a willing band of “climate cops”, the prosecutors can spread their nets wider, reaching into the homes of all climate change deniers, until the insidious virus of doubt is exterminated (final solution, anyone?). Then we can all march on the sunlit uplands of a “carbon-free” planet – to the tune of Ode to Joy no doubt.
Right you are, Smokey. I also want to add that it is “virtually certain” (near 100% probability) that I have no tolerance for neo-Nazi propaganda.
I have a question. Does anyone know the difference between a global warmi-er, I mean, a climate change d***er and a climate change d***alist?
Also, I have noticed a story that was found by the blog GREENIE WATCH that mentions that green-themed magazines are becoming as unpopular as ever:http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/07/24/green-issues-a-tough-sale-at-the-newsstand
Maybe that can apply to Europe. Maybe.
It’s rare to see a post as finely crafted as the above from Smokey.
TinyCO2, your suggestions are absolutely brilliant. 🙂
I would like to add another ecologically sound suggestion to your fine list:
Rig the partental controls on your computer so that whenever your child logs in to the “Climate Cops” web site, the computer automatically shuts down.
That should save both energy AND hot air! 🙂
When Obama gets his national security in place, the one he said should be as “large and well funded as the U.S. military” , there will be plenty of funding to have the US goverment start such programs. It is sad that no one had demanded he explain what he meant by this outrageous comment.
It ill behoves an American to lecture us Brits on the evils of Global Warming propaganda. Maybe when the US produces its own version of GGWS (or even deigns to show the current one on TV) or drags AIT before the Supreme Court, then maybe you can say you are making a stand.
All this nonsense started with Hansen and Gore, remember.
@Stan
This nonsense started with Dame Maggie. Didn’t you watch GGWS?
Ta!
I think you all are getting a bit overwrought. Yes, it’s a dumb move by a power company trying to prove its ‘greener than thou’ credentials, but I predict it’s going to fizzle out pretty quickly.
Any kid who starts sporting a Climate Cops badge at school is soon going to find out the meaning of peer pressure.
The Nazis were amateurs compared to the Communists when it came to social engineering by setting children against their parents.
I can’t but think, NPower has deliberately allow the eco-fanaticism to show in this ad, because it is going to alienate a lot of people.
Some of the saddest things I’ve seen.
All in the name of doing ‘good’.
Truly makes the saying “Hell is paved with good intentions” come to mind.
I was wondering if I could take the lightning bolt (a natural hazard) from the climate cops shield and replicate it four times rotated around the top square. However, I’m not that ambitious, and it turns out it npower has already said it would annoy them. BTW, your page will annoy them. I heartily recommend checking these pages, which by virtue of not being their home page, will annoy them. Got to admire an organization that won’t let me (err, Anthony, err, WordPress) link to a company’s privacy policy.
http://npower.com/web/at_home/popup/website_terms_and_conditions says:
Oh wait – the Terms and conditions is at npower.com, so I’d say it’s okay to link to whatever you want at climatecops.com. Furthermore, it appears we can modify the climate cops logo, it’s just the npower logo we shouldn’t besmirch.
http://npower.com/web/at_home/popup/popup_privacy_policy
This is okay. They explicitly state they won’t rat you out. They don’t state whether they will encourage others to rat you out, so the Climate Cops site is free to encourage kids to rat out relatives and neighbors.
You can have my programmable thermostat when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
That’s where the road is leading: energy rationing. And the day that a government employee shows up at my house to install a remote-controlled GPS thermostat is the day you’ll all see me on the national news.
Hopefully you’ll all be kind enough to throw a tea party in my honor.
TinyCO2, very good!
Climate Crime 6:
Food needs to be cool before it goes in the fridge.
Follow that one, and the kids will end up as orphans — if the botulism or salmonella don’t them, too.
Ah, yes, npower.
Is this the same company that that wanted to dump 250,000 tonnes of pulverised ash from the Didcot ‘A’ Power Station in the Thrupp Lake? Fortunately, their plans have been just been scuppered by the local council (21 July 2008).
See: http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/srl_campaign/documents/documents/PressRelease_21_07_08.pdf
Is this also the same company?
“Ofgem, the energy regulator, began a formal investigation yesterday into alleged mis-selling of energy contracts by npower, one of Britain’s top six power suppliers.”
See: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article3799222.ece
In all honesty, how can they then claim to have the moral authority to turn our children into spies?
I’m no longer a customer of theirs (changed last year) and will NEVER be again.
The “Most Wanted” poster states “When someone’s finished charging their mobile phone, they should always remember to unplug the charger.”
In fact, unplugging the charger when it is not in use saves zero energy. I’ve seen this recommended for years and was always dubious of it, having studied electrical engineering in college and being familiar with how a transformer works (that’s basically all the charger is). So I tested it myself. I have a digital “Kill A Watt” power meter that measures the power use of any appliance. It works very simply. You plug the meter into the wall outlet, and then plug the appliance into the meter. The meter displays the amount of power being used. I plugged the charger for my Nokia 6126 cell phone into the power meter, without the phone attached. The reading: ZERO watts. Then I plugged the phone into the charger and the power meter displayed 3 watts. Unplugged the phone from the charger, with the charger still plugged into the meter, and the meter immediately went back down to 0.
Another example of something that sounds like a good idea but the science simply doesn’t back it up.
However, unplugging the charger is a fairly simple thing to do, and not too inconvenient, so a lot of people will be persuaded to do it. And that’s what is so insidious about it. It’s an easy way to create “buy in” and get people in the habit of following the advice of environmentalist gurus. It can serve as a foot in the door for AGW alarmists to sell the public on taking ever and ever more drastic measures.
It pays to be skeptical even of the little things like this.
What’s with the red theme on the art work? The poster is red, the kid is wearing a red jacket. Maybe there is something to the notion that the Greens are simply the Reds that have changed color. Maybe they are changing back. Whatever it takes to hamstring Western economic growth in order to reduce competition for China!
Do not look at the colours, look at the sign below the ‘climate cops’. It looks like a symbol for lightning (‘Blitz’). It could also mean an ‘s’, but written like a rune ‘s’. Add a second rune ‘s’ and you have the ‘Schutz-Staffel’ signature. Schutzstaffel fittingly means ‘protection echelon’. Climate protection echelon, or climate SS! The next black humour question is who might be the German climate SS Fuehrer? No, not an Austrian again! All living Austrians are as wonderful as Arnold, believe me!
OK, now I am really worried!
It seems that npower is owned by a German firm.
@Pierre Gosselin
Such are the results when you put into jail “whatever deniers”. Such must be the results when the National-Socialist (NO nazi!) emblems are forbidden but Red Stars, comrade Che T-shirts, or Lenin’s Potraits are freely distributed. (I am for freedom for all.) Europe is quickly heading into national-socialist union called European Union, and we’ll see “ENERGIESPAREN MACHT FREI” on mob’s banners very soon.
And sooner than later we will see Americans and Europeans emigrating to Russia (yes Russia!) as the only freedom country being able to protect citizens’ freedoms.
Mr Gosselin, you’ve made only one mistake. Climate Gulag will emerge in the WEST. You still think in old way of Soviet Era stereotypes. After all you live in UESR (Union of Europe Socialist Republics) for many years, don’t you.
Regards
At least it’s slightly more positive than Australia’s ABS’s “When should you die?” website from a few months ago.
George Orwell is spinning so fast in his grave that with a little copper wire and some magnets they could turn him into a 10 MW generator.
@Smokey
“Looking back on 20th century history, I wonder why the U.S.A. paid so much blood and fortune to save these Euroweenies from the same fate that they seem to crave today.”
You are not the first who asked that question. I have an answer. Otherwise Soviet Union would incorporate European Union into gigantic Atlantic Superpower. Then USA would face from the west – Atlantic Ocean with Soviet Empire (even more – from Atlantic to Pacific!), and from the East, across Pacific Ocean, communist China and Soviet Russia. As you can imagine the Middle East with its oil would fell into communist influence. What’s more, US would be banned from the resources pretty easily. So much for the geopolitics.
Regards
@Carsten Arnholm, Norway
“I am a climate sceptic, and I live in Europe. I feel offended.”
How can you be offended? After all you “sleep on oil” (have plenty of oil) and have the highest taxes on gas?!
You live in sort of socialist state and what Smokey said was downright truth! Like the proverbial capitalist who would sell the rope for profits on which he would be hanged, most of Europeans (if not 99%) would “trade its last remaining freedoms in return for the mirage of security” (a quote from Smokey). But the nanny state trickles in into USA as well. And it is not a creek but a size of the Amason River!
Regards
Didn’t Russia sign Kyoto putting it into effect.
This is how great civilizations crumble: a collective madness seizes the population and drives it to self-destruction.