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
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jjs (07:27:25) :
God save the Queen and get rid of the green.
Put the Queen on the green and let out free rooms at Buckingham Palace to the homeless and pensioners.
Ralph (07:30:35) :
Its about time for tanks on Parliament Square (and not water tanks). Anything Cromwell can do, we can do better…
It was pretty cold when Cromwell took on the royalists too. The depth of the little ice age in fact. 1640-44
He and his men drunk the Black Bull pub on Otley market square dry a couple of nights before the battle at Marston Moor. The nourishing Yorkshire beer put some mettle in them and they kicked royalist ass good and hard.
After 100,000 years won’t all the BS Gore spouts turn to peat?
@P Wilson
“…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)..”
The problem isn’t that we don’t get cold winters. The problem is that our rulers have told themselves not to expect warm winters. So when they happen, we’re stuffed. However, the British never complain when anything bad happens to them, so the rulers can keep doing whatever they want….
@Grumbler
“..I’m still flummoxed by the option to buy low carbon coal [at a higher price]? I assume to get x amount of heat you have to combine the same amount of hydrocarbons with oxygen [producing CO2] so how does that work?..”
Didn’t you know? This more expensive coal comes in green bags with a picture of a penguin on them and an option to donate £5 to the World Wildlife Fund…
Ric Werme (08:41:23) :
And all this time I thought books were a carbon sequestration mechanism. Clearly the UK needs to put an emergency carbon tax (or price floor) on the carbon content of books.
**************************************
Correct. And furthermore, what with Wikipedia, Google Books, Kindle and all, printed books are fast becoming a non-renewable resource. Still, this problem will not be solved by unilateral action by single states, even in so bookish a nation as Great Britain. Clearly what’s needed is a U.N.-sponsored summit to formulate a Binding (!) International Agreement.
my town is closed.. no gritters, no traffic all the schools shut.. if this is gw then how cold would it be..???
on the uk news how come no one is mentioning agw .. as britain freezes solid..
luckily we have candles and lots of clothes, i have wind up torches. battery players, for radio and music.. i have a laptop charged ready. not used.. incase the power goes out..
Popsicles!
@Jeff Alberts:
How else would you transport coal to your home? I can’t carry much in each hand and I find it makes the car seats rather dirty.
@Hyper-thermania:
Best laugh of the day — thank you!
Be very aware and afraid this is what will happen to the US if Congress and Senate pass the Cap and Trade bill! Obama has threatened to kill coal and all carbon based energy sources in favor of green energy. Britain now is paying the price for this folly.
“Hard-up pensioners have resorted to buying books from charity shops and burning them to keep warm.”
Hard-up journalists have resorted to collecting bullsh*t from anywhere and recyling it to keep their newspapers full.
Quitting AGW cold: “poop on my dock,”.
…-
“Hot Weather Convinces Media of Climate Change; Cold Weather Ignored
The news media constantly misuse extreme weather examples to generate fear of global warming, but when record cold or record snow sets in journalists don’t mention the possibility of global cooling trends. While climatologists would say weather isn’t necessarily an indication of climate, it has been in the media, but only when the weather could be spun as part of global warming.
In Iowa, temperatures are 30 degrees below normal according to the Des Moines Register. That’s a near-record low. Beijing is facing the coldest temperatures in decades according to Australia’s The Age.
And in Pichccahuasi, Peru, bitter cold may cause the extinction of communities of alpaca farmers suffering from pneumonia and other respiratory problems. Ironically, that Guardian (U.K.) report called the
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421461/posts
…-
“Extended cold could kill invasive iguanas
With this week’s evening temperatures falling toward the upper 30s, strange fruit may drop from South Florida trees: non-native, invading iguanas that many residents consider more pest than pet.
“It’s a big deal for me,” Jessica Morgan, a Margate homeowner, said as she watched a yard-long, bright orange male iguana roam near her butterfly habitat. The reptile has a slightly smaller green girlfriend.
“They climb up on the bank and will poop on my dock,” she said. “Fingers crossed that this cold snap will kill them. I don’t have the heart to beat one to death. I hope the weather does it for me.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421406/posts
There was a news story yesterday that the unemployment rate in the US for the 16 to 24 age group is 53%. We have topped Spain.
So aren’t there warehoused full of unsold Al Gore books available for shipment to Britain ?
Time to revive the Lend Lease Program 🙂
Plus 30 degrees here in Godzone.. Fill some planes and come and lie on the beach!! The albedo from all the “white body” effects might save us painting our roof white..
Set the flamingos free..
Here is the link to the 53.4% unemployment story I mentioned:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/the_dead_end_kids_AnwaWNOGqsXMuIlGONNX1K
Sharon (09:33:18) :
“Clearly what’s needed is a U.N.-sponsored summit to formulate a Binding (!) International Agreement.”
That’s right. Governments need to get a spine !
It is a very regional difference. In areas on the Eastern seaboard like Washington DC and New York that are normally held to moderate temperatures by the nearby ocean, the cities will nearly shut down over a snow fall, that would hardly be noticed in the middle of the country. The difference as noted above, is a combination of existence of infrastructure, (plows, crews trained to plow snow, locations to dump the snow, and supplies of sand and salt or de-icing mix to spray on the roads).
It also changes with the times. In the 1960’s I can only remember 2 or 3 “snow days” where they shut down the schools. One of them was due to almost 3 ft of snow in a single day. I remember it very well because I spent my “day off school” shoveling out my dads car a 1954 Hudson which was buried up to the lower edge of the windows in a snow drift. After that was done, my brother and some friends spent the rest of the day building snow forts and diving head long into drifts beside the road. Later in the evening my brother and I spent a couple hours with shovels helping drivers negotiate the hill in front of our house. If they got stuck and started spinning the tires we would go out and dig the snow out in front of their tires and toss a bit of dirt and sand under their tires and give them a push to get them going again. Sometimes they would give us a quarter for our efforts and a few were so thankful they gave us a dollar.
We thought it all was great fun, but the area was quite self supporting. when the weather cleared, we would have shoveling parties, as everyone would come out of the house about the same time and start shoveling their walks and drives, and when you were done with your home, you walked next door and helped the neighbor deal with his snow drift, knowing that during the next storm the snow drift might be in your driveway.
In areas not used to heavy snow fall, no one has adequate snow tires, the drivers do not know what areas to avoid when it gets slick. Many are not accustomed to driving on ice and snow and do stupid things and get stuck when they should not. No one has chains, the city has too few snow plows or limited supplies of sand and salt.
In the 1970’s the Mayor of Denver lost his job due to poor snow clearing in the preceding winter. As a result they bought more snow equipment, and changed their snow clearing plan, designating some routes as “snow routes” which had priority.
On those routes they get first crack at snow removal to provide essential access to hospitals etc. and any cars stuck on those routes are summarily towed to keep the route navigable by the plows and emergency equipment. They also began applying chain law type ordinances in really severe weather banning all vehicles from the roads that did not have snow tires, or in some cases 4 wheel drive or chains only.
Larry
P Wilson (07:23:16) :
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)
Could it be because the UK has so many tiny efficient cars that don’t have the ground clearance to cross an American rain puddle? Meanwhile we have 4×4 pick-ups that don’t even need to be jacked up for lots of maintenance and repair work, just slide underneath. My Ford F150 doesn’t even require shoveling the driveway, it can be parked in snow up to the top of of the bumper easily. Which is considerably higher than a UK-standard bumper.
ah yes, the “good intentions” of leftists / statists / liberals resulting in sky high prices for utilities. which results in the need to grant pensioners an “entitlement” to some sum to cover the cost. just leave people alone already! who among us wouldn’t help our elderly relatives if they couldn’t afford to pay for heating fuel? i’ve already told mine that they are expected to move in with me! families consolidated during The Great Depression – it worked then and it will work now.
Somebody surely has shredded documents could they could donate.
I really hate to be a party-pooper, but this story is no more than an urban myth in the making.
This Metro report talks about ‘pensioners in Swansea’ , and EUReferendum links to this report only.
Pity we weren’t given even the name of the charity shop …
Thing is – Swansea is in South Wales, and while its been cold here, we’ve not had that much snow – yet! – as those poor Scots or those in Northern England.
Moreover – this has not been reported in the local papers, not that for Swansea nor those for Cardiff.
So excuse me for being decidedly sceptical here!
There could be too many “coulds.”
Burning of course. Isn’t like you can pass them on to the kids. Might just as well hand them to the Dog.
Q1) In what year was the battle of Hastings? Was it ….
a) Climate Change.
b) Fictitious, created by big Oil in order to deny the very real effects of Climate change.
c) Too cold for fighting until now.
d) Conflict is another aspect of recent climate change.
Little souls will probably be collecting Wikipedia URLs to send to pensioners if they ever get back to school.
That reminds me, the Laser printer has gone quiet…
Do the people burning the books consider them robust?
The books should be burned so it will be easier to rewrite the past.
BTW: What is the carbon footprint of burning a book? The carbon in the paper is out of circulation but is released when it’s burned. Better to freeze to death!
Wait a few years, and it wont just be pensioners
“The National Grid yesterday (4th January) issued only its second-ever warning that demand for energy is threatening to outstrip available supplies unless industry quickly slashes its consumption and more gas is rushed in from abroad”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/149760/Gas-supplies-running-out-as-Britain-shivers
“The alert prompted the wholesale cost of gas to rocket by 70 per cent and raised fears that businesses and households could soon be hit by power cuts if the freezing weather persists as forecast for the rest of the month.”
Britain is becoming over reliant on gas fired powerstations. Yestersays shortfall was made up for by an increase from coalfired powerstations, most of which will be closing down in the next decade.