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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1/2/10
Figures obtained by the Tories show that the North West’s “winter kill” rose from 3,210 in 2007-08 to 5,000 last year….“Millions are afraid to turn on the heating.”
Increasing numbers of pensioners are dying from cold in the winter in the UK.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/01/02/liverpool-pensioners-face-cold-weather-death-risk-claim-tories-100252-25507589/
wonder if the people in Florida have a fire place.
http://www.accuweather.com/index-severe-weather.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0
freeze watch in Florida. Is that common?
This article is a great snap shot of Britain today. Curlers can’t be saved from themselves because of health and safety.
http://skipcottagecurling.blogspot.com/2010/01/kirk-loch-lochmaben.html
Looks like the Dutch aren’t the only ones looking forward to a once in 50 years sporting event.
http://skipcottagecurling.blogspot.com/2010/01/grand-match-latest.html
During the recent US housing boom, in one of those quick-build developments I visited to see a unit being built, they were boasting of using “slow recovery” heating, just a heat pump and central air ducting. The incoming heat is low, but the place will warm up eventually. Just set the thermostat and never touch it, no benefit to adjusting it for different times of day etc as it didn’t respond that fast.
They were also running plumbing upstairs through an outside wall.
Ah such wonders of modern insulation, as none of that will ever be a problem no matter what the weather. Yeah, right.
emerson cardoso
One of the problems with wikipedia is the way minority opinions are handled. The majority use their clout to keep any dissenting opinion off “their articles,” while insisting that balance requires they have half of “your article.”
So, for example, skeptics are pushed off any Global Warming page because there is a scientific consensus they are non-rational (and so can be safely ignored) but the mainstream insists on being given half of any article discussing, say, a coming little ice age, because that’s only showing the article has balance and “No POV” (having a Point of View in an article being a major no-no on wikepdia). What you end up with is 100 percent of their opinions on their pages and 50 percent of their opinions on your pages. And all this is in the name of openness and balance.
Tree-Coring Fool (09:27:58) :
“After 100,000 years won’t all the BS Gore spouts turn to peat?”
No it will turn to coal
On the plus side, at least when it gets really cold the tiny amount of mercury in those energy-efficient bulbs should get really, really small, right?
There has to be a pony in here somewhere.
Paddy (10:24:20) :
Here is the link to the 53.4% unemployment story I mentioned:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/the_dead_end_kids_AnwaWNOGqsXMuIlGONNX1K
Paddy, here in the USA we trashed our education system that is why the kids are unemployable. Worse the kids think they are “the greatest” and have no decent work ethic. I rather hire a retiree than a kid out of college.
“For 10 years, William Schmidt, a statistics professor at Michigan State University, has looked at how U.S. students stack up against students in other countries in math and science. “In fourth-grade, we start out pretty well, near the top of the distribution among countries; by eighth-grade, we’re around average, and by 12th-grade, we’re at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa.”
:[url=http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0804/0804textbooks.htm]Source[/url]
Is it any wonder Corporations now import workers from other countries?
“… Surveys of corporations consistently find that businesses are focused outside • the U.S. to recruit necessary talent. In a 2002 survey, 16 global corporations complained that American schools did not produce students with global skills. United States companies agreed. The survey found that 30 percent of large U.S. companies “believed they had failed to exploit fully their international business opportunities due to insufficient personnel with international skills.” One respondent to the survey even noted, “If I wanted to recruit people who are both technically skilled and culturally aware, I wouldn’t even waste time looking for them on U.S. college campuses.”
…the U.S. ranks 21st out of 29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in mathematics scores, with nearly one-quarter of students unable to solve the easiest level of questions….
…In 2000, 28 percent of all freshmen entering a degree-granting institution required remedial coursework”
http://www.edreform.com/_upload/CER_JunkFoodDiet.pdf
jeroen (14:18:59) :
“wonder if the people in Florida have a fire place.”
Yes, and when the temps drop below 60 I can smell the wood burning. Seems kind of silly, though when the temps go below 50 it’s probably not a bad idea to have something to supplement the electric, especially if there’s a power outage.
“freeze watch in Florida. Is that common?”
Not more than about 5 to 7 every year in central FL, which is where I’ve been for the past 7 years. Usually we actually get from 3 to 5 frosts a year, usually late in the winter. Although they have had extreme weather before (dropping down into the upper teens) it’s usually over quickly. Currently it’s been lightly freezing every night for several days now, with the prospect of continuing for the rest of the week. That is NOT normal, though it isn’t unprecedented.
Of course, being from New England, and being used to driving in 4 to 6 inches of snow, sometimes just for fun, it’ kinda nice. Sometimes, when in High School we couldn’t get the family car, we would hitch hike into town to go to a movie, during a blizzard. Yeah, it was stupid, but it was fun, and proves it to be doable.
If 2 to 4 inches of snow, and temps in the teens and 20’s (F), are shutting the UK down, then maybe it should be shut down.
Gail Combs (14:46:18) :
“Tree-Coring Fool (09:27:58) :
“After 100,000 years won’t all the BS Gore spouts turn to peat?”
No it will turn to coal”
My guess is it will STILL be toxic waste.
Re: Mark T (13:58:44) :
TV crews sat along side an Atlanta highway one year watching all the wipeouts from so-called “black ice” that had formed during a freeze.
—
Here in the UK, we also didn’t have sensible urban planning, so tarmac’d over cart tracks and called them roads. If they’re widened and straightened a bit, they become ‘A’ roads.
We also have lots of people that saw BMW ads and the ‘drivers machine’ tagline. Many discover rear wheel drive and ice make for an interesting driving experience and good business for the body shops. Me, in this weather would prefer something with tracks.
Curious where the blame will end up in the UK. Many councils were woefully prepared for this, possibly because they bought into the ‘mild winter’ lie. Shame we have less agressive lawyers over here.
The Greens want your grandparents to die in the most depressing manner possible.
Greenpeace’s current banner ads using Google’s adsense system currently says they are seeking £3 donations to save polar bears, which they say are facing extinction, and to help direct physical action/terrorist campaigns to block shipments of coal.
This is what the ad looks like:
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1316/59990517.png
You could always group yourselves together and take direct physical action against Greenpeace’s offices.
At the present time all the wind turbines situated in and around the Uk are producing only 1% of UK`s power needs, there is little or no wind.
I just saw a post here on a new way to look at temps (structural breaks) and then it disappeared.
Watts Up With That?
Jeroen (14:18;59) – Actually , yes . Northern and central Florida experience frosts and a hard freeze or two almost every winter . Several days in a row is unusual , however . Northern Florida uses more electricity due to heating demands during the winter than it uses for cooling during the summer , surprisingly enough . At least peak demand occurs during winter .
Richard deSousa (09:57:19) :
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.
Reply:
Waxman has another present for US citizens besides Cap and Trade, the Food safety enhancement bill. It will double the price of food at the very minimum. A british dairy farmer stated he now spends 60% of his time on paperwork and that is the same system Waxman wishes to impose on ANYONE who grows food in the USA. Combined with the increased cost in energy and fertilizer, the use of grain for bio-fuel, expect food prices to at least quadruple. Once independent farmers in the USA give up because of the fines, paperwork and legal liability, the transnational corporations running the World Trade Organization will have a monopoly and food prices will really sky rocket.
For Animals:
Guide to Good Farming Practices:
http://xstatic99645.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ggfp-06-oie.pdf
For Plants:
HR 2749: Food Safety’s Scorched Earth Policy
http://farmwars.info/?p=1284
Some of the technical details
http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-15june2009.htm
Al Gore and Obama’s partner in crime, Maurice Strong stated
““Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
looks like Waxman and Congress is working real hard at it too. Thanks to the doubling of the US money supply and all the bailouts “Stewart Dougherty, a specialist in inferential analysis, agrees. It is now “statistically impossible for the United States to pay its obligations”. http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/08.09/metastasis.html
Like Iceland we as a country are now technically bankrupt it just has not hit yet.
Cool Britannia.
” Dodgy Geezer (07:15:20) :
Message from the Great Britain, a country that used to run a third of the globe
…We’re stuffed…
That is all.”
That is why I left 17 years ago… I could see all this coming….
Just call me Nostradamus
“Just The Facts (14:16:58) :
Rajendra Pachauri […]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jan/04/climate-change-delay-denial
”
At least the guardian doesn’t censor the comments that much. Great great comments down there…
There should be many copies of OwlGores book available since it has been thouroughly discredited. We could also refer the pensioners to the IPCC reports and while we’re at it anything that this lousy US Congress puts together…they seem to like their new laws by the paper case size.
Atomic Hairdryer (13:15:41) :
… Here in sunny Reading, UK I’ve had about 8cm of global warming falling in the last 5hrs. Think the uni’s climate brigade have now been banned from my local pub 🙂
Reply:
Why ban them, wouldn’t they be good for dart practice? I would think moving targets would be more fun. /Sarcasm
jeroen (14:18:59) :
wonder if the people in Florida have a fire place. [some do but most have heat pumps in the south USA]
http://www.accuweather.com/index-severe-weather.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0
freeze watch in Florida. Is that common?
No it is not at all common, at least in recent years. Citrus trees do not do well in freezing temps. Sprinklers and “smudge pots” are used (or were) to raise the temperatures in the orchards.
Citrus fruits and juices may be going up in price soon. A bad freeze can actually kill the trees. Temperatures in the teens (F) will severely damage or kill trees and temperatures in the high 20s (F) will readily kill or severely damage first or second year of the trees.
I am about 1000 kilometers north of these orchards and on the border of the “snow zone” north of us normally gets snow and south of us does not. I see snow about once every three to five years.
SandyInDerby (14:37:37) :
Curling is unknown in Australia but I could not help but laugh at the last comment on your first link……..
Apparently it was quite a day in Lochmaben. The ice had been checked by the local council and was 7-8 inches, and solid. However, someone phoned the police to say there were lots of people on the ice and they didn’t think it was safe. Anne tells the story, “Six police officers arrived but they couldn’t go on ice to warn people because of health and safety so they passed the buck to the Nith rescue who came with a rescue boat but because of heath and safety they couldn’t go on ice either. So the Coast Guard arrived, lights flashing! But guess what? Because of health and safety he couldn’t go on the ice either! A great day was had by all.”
Mmmm…. too many regulations ?
Watching the BBC news tonight, which is mainly about the weather, there was a comment about how the Met Office have goofed because they had predicted a BBQ summer and a mild winter and then the news reader said that “predicting whole seasons is an inexact science”.
What does that make predicting a quarter of a century ahead?
We try to cover all eventualities here in our rural part of the UK. Because we had a lot of power cuts when we came here 24 years ago we installed a bottled (no mains here) gas cooker and have an open fire in the drawing room and keep a good supply of candles. We have oil fired central heating (horrendous cost but at the time of installation it was cheaper than electric or bottled gas – a bit like the choice of car; I bought a diesel car when it was cheaper than unleaded and guess where the price of that is now!) Our world saving PM has been promoting grants of £400 to poorer people to change their boilers to more efficient ones. Given that said new boiler costs around £2k apparently, where are the poorer people going to find the difference and what hope is there for me to keep changing expensive equipment to try to save a few pounds and then have the government come along and raise taxes to negate any advantage I might have gained? I sometimes feel like a hamster on an eternal treadmill. Now there’s a thought – generate my own electricity.
Roll on the election in May but if there is a change of government is it going to be any different from the current nanny state? I wonder………..
Re: jjs (07:27:25) :
Since the House of Windsor are in the forfront of the eco-alarmist movement (probably because they can afford to be) what on earth are you talking about?