Hilary Ostrov writes about another Internet poll gone horribly wrong:
==============================================================
Back in March of this year, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced an “innovative initiative” in which participants from around the world are invited to vote on what the priorities should be in a post-2015 world.
…
From now until 2015, we want as many people in as many countries as possible to be involved: citizens of all ages, genders and backgrounds, particularly the world’s poor and marginalized communities.
…
This page also lists the sixteen choices (from which a voter may select only 6), of which two in succession were quite interesting:
Reliable energy at home
Action taken on climate change
If you decide to vote, you’ll see that each of the choices has an explanation. There is good news and bad news on the “Reliable energy at home” front. They’re not talking “renewable”, but:
This means that all family members should have reliable and affordable electricity or other sources of energy at home for lighting, heating and cooking. More of that energy should be sustainably generated
but they slipped in “sustainable” (without defining it!) … And here’s the (somewhat predictable) explanation they provide for “Action taken on climate change”:
This means that governments should take on binding commitments to reduce carbon emissions to levels which can keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees, and invest in adaptation measures particularly involving vulnerable communities
More here: http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/newsflash-action-on-climate-change-voted-bottom-of-worlds-priority-heap/
============================================================
I took the poll, and afterwards using the mouseover to highlight the climate change issue, the results show that climate change just isn’t a priority, especially with people that have a low HDI (Human Development Index) which is a measure of the prosperity and health of the country they reside in.
It seems concern over climate change is a rich person’s pastime, which just goes to show that cheap energy is the path forward to a better HDI, and thus a greater ability to be concerned about the environment. Translation: people just getting by don’t have time for such concerns.
Vote for yourself here if you wish: http://www.myworld2015.org/index.html
Thanks, Anthony! Couple of typos you might want to fix … first, I’m a one-L Hilary 😉 … and your:
s/b …if you wish …
I voted and discovered that in Canada action against climate change ranks #6. One can only vote for 6 options, and I felt like a bit of a chump leaving out education. I console myself that the way schools and universities carry on today, perhaps less politically-correct indoctrination would be better!
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
it just goes to show that the elitists seldom know what is important to regular people.
If these polls informed people that their energy bills would increase by 25-100% ,action on climate change would be a lot lower choice.
“Sustainability” of an energy system has no particular advantages. As one fast reactor advocate has pointed out, the energy that fast reactors can generate just using our current nuclear waste stockpile would provide all the electricity we need for the next 1000 years. Also, “sustainable” power sources, like solar, are captured by very non-sustainable solar panels.They last about 20 – 25 years, or one third the lifespan of a Gen 3 nuclear reactor. ,
I gave them another option that should have been on the top of their list –
“Greater global peace and security.
The UN should return its primary focus on preventing and ending war and terrorism around the world. Dealing with the fallout from international, national and religious violence is far more expensive in both human and financial terms than addressing the violence directly. The UN is failing badly in this core area and risks becoming an irrelevant organisation.”
It seems “Peace” is a bit old fashioned for the modern politically correct UN. Perhaps they are hoping the falling mortar shells will dig those trenches for sanitation services automatically?
I think sustainable forms of energy generation are just fine on a sailboat, as they tend to supplement the need to run the diesel engine so you can get more quiet time in the anchorage. Apart from that I have very little need for them.
Is there a “None of the above, get a real job!” option? 🙂
Here’s hoping that obsessions with fixing something we never caused in the first place will wither on the vine, and serious funds will be instead put into making fracking have less of an impact on the environment.
Maybe folks are wising up to just how deceptive the term “climate change” is when they mean AGW and realize that the wise men who push it can’t do much one way or the other about the climate changing. Looks like quality of life issues take priority.
It is hard to know how to vote. Should I put a high priority on good water because having access to good clean water is something which I think is vitally important? Or should I put a low priority on it because where I live access to clean water is something you don’t have to think about because previous generations sorted this problem, and is therefore not a current high priority.
This could have been addressed if the survey had asked people what they thought their biggest problems were, rather than what they thought was important.
@mojomojo –
Not just their energy bills, the cost of everything they consume that moves by motor transport (turck, rail, air).
“Gerry Dorrian says:
June 17, 2013 at 7:45 pm
Here’s hoping that obsessions with fixing something we never caused in the first place will wither on the vine,”
Only thing is, if the UN tried to stop fixing things we never caused in the firstplace. Just think how poor the UN would be. They wouldn’t have the excuses for all their $$$ grabbing. Less jetsetting to exotic locations for UN conferences on nonsense.
All those poor out of work living high on hog UN delegates. They’d have to live in the real world and not be drinking champagne and eating gourmet meals as one of the perks and staying in top hotels.
@Mike from Carson Valley –
Let’s don’t forget that “sustainable” (i.e., non-hydroelectric) renewables are dirtier than the fossil fuels they’re supposed to replace – not to mention their actual costs which are buried under subsidies and is a substantial multiple of what is publicized – and the sheer impossibility of their ever providing enough energy to maintain a decent living standard.
The insanity of “renrewables” is that the monies they consume could be so much better spent improving conditions in poorer countries. But the wealthy CRL types say, it’s OK if you suffer and have to burn shit to cook your food, just so long as I, der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist bosom buddy, can make big bucks off fleecing you and all the other hoi polloi in the world.
No one can match the AGW crowd and their political pickthanks for callousness, hypocrisy, effrontery, arrogance, blindness, impaired reasoning ability, and just plain down and dirty meanness..
My choices and reasoning
+Clean Water: ( — without clean water, little else is possible)
+Honest Responsive Government.
+Protection against crime and violence: (at least they didn’t put in “social justice”.)
+Good Education: (….”that equips them for employment and an enjoyable life.” — all good. )(“Governments and the private sector should work together….” – better than working against each other.)
+Better Job Opportunities: (“should do more to make sure that everyone can find a job where they earn a decent wage” – Yes… do more. Not guarantee.)
+Phone/Internet: OK… a minimum level for communication and networking. Ties in with education…. And finesses the need for Reliable Power.)
What I didn’t pick and why:
– Reliable Energy at Home: ( Reliable, check. Affordable (weasel word. Subsidized? “For lighting, heating, and cooking.” Yea, but what about cooling, entertainment, social networking? And that sustainably word…. Hydroelectric isn’t counted as sustainable. Neither is nuclear. This is too agenda driven. And I realized that Phone and Internet guaranteed reliable electricity to the home without the weasel words. 7th
– Action on climate change: (“governments should take on binding commitments to “) STOP RIGHT THERE!!! Bottom of the list is too good for this.
– Freedom from discrimination: (no person …should have their economic, …. opportunities limited because… disability,…. ) Can’t go there. Someday I may go blind; I cannot pretend my opportunities won’t be more limited than today. Let’s get real. 10th
– Equalty between men and women: I was ok with it up to: “and experience the same opportunities and rewards in the workplace.” Equality of opportunity is one thing, but this is equality of results. 9th
– Better Transport and Roads…. “Better?” the USA has it pretty good. 11th
– Affordable and nutritious food: (that everyone should get the food they need. ) Too Marxist. 13th
– Support for people who can’t work: (every person should have enough money to live on, either through employment or government help.) I cringe at how this is worded. It is made redundant by “Better Job Opportunities” above. 12th
– Protecting forests, rivers, oceans. Government authoritarian from top to bottom. No hint of private property. 14th
– Better Healthcare: It’s all FREE, FREE!!! There is no free lunch. There is no free surgery. 15th
– Political Freedoms: the “free media” left a sour taste. It is a strong contender, but political freedom without an honest government is a misplaced priority. 8th
There is a rather obvious sampling bias. Hardly anyone currently without a reliable energy supply would have voted.
I recall a survey of African villagers that put an electricity supply and a school as the things they most wanted, far ahead of anything else.
I know of a village that wanted a soccer field more than a water supply. Never assume anything.
How about free money? Or at least sustainable money. No matter how much you use, it never runs out. How tough can it be? Fire up the solar powered printing presses and voila, we are all as rich as Croesus. Need something made, place an order with China. Kick back and order another Mai Tai. The ultimate sustainable party.
Philip Bradley says:June 17, 2013 at 8:37 pm
Excerpts from the “press conference” of the March launch:
Also, from the “Methodology” page on the site:
One can only hope that when the survey period is completed and the results compiled, they will be more forthcoming with their raw data – and more skilled in the application of statistics than … oh, I dunno … Mann, Briffa, Jones, Gergis, Lewandowsky, or Cook for example … so that the validity of the results can be verified.
I don’t like most of the poll’s options, they’re suggestive. Some options are about “sustaining”, as if these things are already here and all I want is them to stay (political freedoms, reliable energy), some are about “improving” as if it they couldn’t be good enough already (better job opportunities, better healthcare). In my opinion these options should be neutral.
Some are rather funny in context. For instance, the whole poll motto is “Which of these are most important for you and your family?” yet some options are concerned about the whole world (“No person in the world should be constantly hungry”). I may cosider that a priority but it’s hardly most important regarding my family. So I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to choose these options “subjectively” or “objectively”.
“… particularly the world’s poor and marginalized communities.”
Echoing much of what others said above me…
LOL. Like they could participate!
They’re all out in the back forty gathering tomorrow’s firewood, dreaming of the day they will have a new….. PAIR OF SHOES! Or, a few goats. A car? That would be like me dreaming of owning my own 747 (not that I’d want one, but, we have it so good here that it had to be that big to be comparable!).
As has been said before: WEALTH MAKES GREEN. [Peter Huber, Hard Green]
How about promoting FREE MARKETS, HUMAN RIGHTS (ooo, noo, couldn’t do that, could we — it would “disrespect the prophet of Eeeeslahm), AND PRIVATE PROPERTY, you U.N. slimeballs? Only for Kofi and the other elites, eh? What a WASTE of time the U.N. is.
Get out of the U.N. — now. We can always form a coalition-of-the-willing to get any job done we need to do (for world peace [through strength] or for promoting African free trade, e.g., getting their genetically enhanced crops to market, or combating ignorance or disease….). The U.N., the E.U., and the IRS and a whole LOAD of fly-infested alphabet soup needs to be tossed out. “Waiter!…”
*******************
Nice post, Ms. Ostrov! You write well — I can just hear your spunky, warm, intelligent, personality. You must be a lot of fun. Keep up your excellent work!
Thanks for the additional info., Ms. Ostrov.
After reading your post of 10:34PM, I can see that the whole thing is just a farce. A go-through-the-motions exercise, a make-work project in a contemptible attempt to give the U.N. legitimacy in the eyes of the world.
“Look, everybody! Look! The U.N. is here. The U.N. matters.” NOT!
arthur4563 says:
June 17, 2013 at 6:48 pm
“Sustainability” of an energy system has no particular advantages. As one fast reactor advocate has pointed out, the energy that fast reactors can generate just using our current nuclear waste stockpile would provide all the electricity we need for the next 1000 years. Also, “sustainable” power sources, like solar, are captured by very non-sustainable solar panels.They last about 20 – 25 years, or one third the lifespan of a Gen 3 nuclear reactor. ,
++++++++++++++++++++
I’ve been reading WUWT for a long long time. I have to tell you that you really hit the nail on the head. I get really peeved when people use the word sustainable with regard to energy. Now I have a really good two-punch answer.
Liberals are great at making up code words to advance an agenda.
Subsidy has been misused too. They talk about oil companies being subsidized by the tax payer because they (like all companies) can right of certain real expenses. But when solar companies get a subsidy, it really is someone else’s money…
Climate Change, that few are interested in, but no Peace on Earth, that everyone craves!
While this poll isn’t as overtly biased as some of the rubbish the UN and like organisations produce, as a poll it fails on methodology. As has already been pointed out, it references one’s own family and then mentions global aspirations which may or may not be relevant. There is no control of categories of respondents – i.e. assurance that the sample is representative. Some of the questions are really subsets of or overlaps with other questions, for example if you have good governance then concerns about personal safety or rampant sexual discrimination should be moot.
It looks like the kind of nonsense that Lewandowsky cobbles together, another “pollster” who doesn’t understand the basics of designing a valid survey.
Energy Aid (http://www.energyaid.org/) was founded with the aim of giving everyone access to energy. Access to energy wasn’t a Millennium Development Goal although it is implicit in some of them. Without energy, many other goals (or even “rights” such as access to the internet!) are either made harder or are impossible.
But Energy Aid recognised that it’s not just electricity — it might be a having donkey for ploughing, or easier access to firewood for cooking. It would be nice to think that a survey like this would demonstrate the pressing need for universal energy access and actually allow the UN to work on something useful.
Hilary, thanks for your response, and I concur with your comment.
One can only hope that when the survey period is completed and the results compiled, they will be more forthcoming with their raw data – and more skilled in the application of statistics than …
Although, I expect the usual agenda peddling.
“:Bob Mount says:
June 17, 2013 at 10:59 pm
Climate Change, that few are interested in, but no Peace on Earth, that everyone craves!”
The UN could sacrifice itself and go out of business. Just think of all the GW/CC, carbon footprints and waste of electricity generated that could be saved. 🙂
Very interesting. I am 62 and female. Here’s how I voted:
#6 Protection against crime and violence, #4 Political freedoms, #1 Access to clean water and sanitation, #5 Better job opportunities, #2 Affordable and nutritious food, #3 Reliable energy at home.
The results showed “a good education” to be a top priority for most voters. I think education naturally follows when the six priorities I’ve chosen are met. Likewise, health care needs are reduced when my #1, 2 and 3 are met. An honest and responsive government is secured by political freedoms. Taking care of people who can’t work can again be the responsibility of family if the basic needs and better job opportunities are there. To the detriment of more pressing matters, we’ve spent enough on global climate change with little return. It seems that view is shared by most voters.
Is the poll a farce? Probably. The results will have been wriiten with the survey. Why ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.
But so far it does seem to be telling policy makers some things that are useful for them to know.
1 – Almost everyone thinks that anyone dying of thirst or polluted water is unacceptable.
2 – Climate change has not been irrevocably linked with other social and economic ills in the minds of the people (except a small minority in very rich countries).
3 – Political freedoms are generally valued more highly than social freedoms.
Not sure why observation 3 seems to hold. Perhaps, politcal freedom allows different cultures to thrive without an elite imposing their values as cultural imperialism?
Of course such surveys have methodological flaws.
But the result about climate change is not surprising. Similar lack of priority has been revealed more than once since 2004. at the “Copenhagen Consensus” http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/
“Energy is like blood in your veins. It is as vital as that to the economic growth,” Rajiv Kumar, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), tells the BBC.”
Imagine living in a country were there are daily and weekly, long electrical outages: No refrigeration? No air conditioning in a large modern office? No computer in a large modern office? No light in you home? No air conditioning at night?
Now as it appear there is no CO2 AGW problem, what choice will the citizen’s of developing and third world countries make? South Africa has the highest CO2 emissions per GDP of any country in the world. Coal is the cheapest source of energy and almost every country has significant local sources of coal.
http://www.rferl.org/content/pakistan-energy-crisis-electricity-rationing/25012829.html
Pakistanis Hope For Brighter Future Amid Energy Crisis
“The blackouts affect us negatively in every possible way. I used to work eight or nine hours a day but I now work 14 or even 16 hours to do my job,” Abid says. “This is the only way I can make a living. If I don’t work, what will we eat? We all are deeply troubled by these outages but we don’t know what to do about it.”
Pakistan’s eastern Punjab Province, the country’s industrial heartland, is also the most populous and prosperous. There, summertime power outages lasting for up to 20 hours a day have in the past sparked angry protests and even prompted angry mobs to ransack government offices.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-184353-Pakistan-can-overcome-energy-crisis-through-Thar-coal-deposits:-Mubarakmand
Pakistan can overcome energy crisis through Thar coal deposits: Mubarakmand
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19059213
India’s energy crisis threatens its economic growth
Economy’s life and blood
On Tuesday, almost half the country’s 1.2 billion people and hundreds of thousands of businesses and various essential service providers were left without power after India’s northern and eastern grids broke down.
A similar breakdown hit nine states in northern India on Monday.
There are now worries that the power crisis may stifle India’s growth.
“Energy is like blood in your veins. It is as vital as that to the economic growth,” Rajiv Kumar, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), tells the BBC.
“If there is a shortage of blood, you can’t function – similarly if there is a shortage of energy, the economy can’t work.”
India electricity sources
• Coal: 56.65%
• Gas: 9.2%
• Oil: 0.58%
• Hydro: 19.13%
• Nuclear: 2.32%
• Other renewable sources: 12.09%
Unfortunately, Climate Change Action still ranks high here in Canada.
There were too many things to vote for and too few votes, although obviously Climate Change should have come in about dead last. I think they could have done a lot worse, like separating out “ocean cleanup” and other bogus environmentalist causes. The big interesting surprise is how well Environmentalism and CC does in the USA and other high-HDI countries.
I’m not touching it. They are going to take your answers and spin them into something else, no matter what it looks like right now.
The “choices” have an explanation that THEY want your answers to mean – so, “Reliable energy” suddenly means you’re voting for “green energy” as though “reliable” and “sustainable” mean the same thing.
None of these people have true faces. Why the heck is anybody trusting the UN or filling in their surveys?
Hmm
By the time the network of grass roots organizations, faith based communities, youth groups, private sector bodies and NGO partners around the world has finished “mobilizing the votes”, what’s the betting that the data will be sliced and diced in the same way that historic temperature records are altered and, lo and behold, “Action taken on climate change” will miraculously be at the top. We are, after all, talking about the UN here.
James Cook says:
June 18, 2013 at 12:32 am
“There were too many things to vote for and too few votes, although obviously Climate Change should have come in about dead last. I think they could have done a lot worse, like separating out “ocean cleanup” and other bogus environmentalist causes. The big interesting surprise is how well Environmentalism and CC does in the USA and other high-HDI countries.”
Notice that the UN or its complicit media (that’s all of them in the West) do not make the faintest attempt at publishing a call for votes. Their NGO’s on the other hand will have been informed. The environmental NGO’s are the shocktroops of the UN in the West and serve to create a pretense of “citizen participation”, in UN / communitarian speak they are “stakeholders”.
So this “survey” is a complete forgery.
Heard on BBC radio this morning, Met Office used to say weather and climate are different, but now with freak weather they are thinking again, except they were overconfident before, so now whatever they might think, they’ll keep quiet in their academically nuanced humble circles. And the interviewer finished with a meh, “it’s not like there’s anything can be done about it anyway.”
The science was irrefutable /sarc, but seems the politics weren’t.
Fascinating! I went more on my experiences working in sub-Saharan Africa than my local priorities, but seeing the votes cast so far broken down by geography, gender and income showed:
1. for most of the world, action on climate change is no higher than about 15th priority (almost no difference by age, contradicting several studies I think)
2. in UK it’s 9th, and in the top levels of HDI it’s 10th (rich countries) or 6th (very rich countries) — I guess there’s some correlation there.
So if the warmists are going to maintain traction with their doom-laden predictions, they’ll have to convince the developing world — and young people — that they’re right. So far these results suggest they’re not having much luck….
BTW, I do hope that the f2f voting they’re collecting around the world is not going to lead to biased inputs from well-meaning interviewers “explaining” what should be most important to the voters.
You would think that wealthier people would be more educated. This seems to suggest they are educated to be misinformed.
When people come to understand the level of fraud involved in the Global Warming bubble, and the bubble pops, a lot of educators are going to be left standing with egg on their faces. Not only will they be embarrassed, but I imagine many will be angry.
Exactly! Concerns about climate change is mostly a Western middle to upper class disease. Those with plenty of energy talk of having less, use more energy and want others with very little energy to have even less. A poor man with a family has his priorities set and it’s not about whether the Earth has gotten slightly warmer over the past 150 years.
The UN should have been ousted and the US resigned the day Khrushchev threatened the US and pounded his shoe on the table. The UN is going to construe this survey to favor their agenda of world energy control (economic control). There’s a Climate Change” option but not a ” World Peace” option or a “No Tin-Pot Dictators” option.
The UN is corrupt. It’s a bastion of despots bent on feathering there own nests.
UN out of the US and the US out of the UN.
Says I.
The UN is corrupt; It’s a bastion of despots bent on feathering their own nests.
(I should proofread FIRST.)
If the results indicate that climate change isn’t a high priority for people, propaganda will be generates to tie addressing climate change to whatever is the highest priority.
Additionally, access to a reliable and clean water supply should be the highest priority for every living being. Unfortunately, those that have it really take it for granted, and don’t see it as a priority, and those that don’t, do not know what it is like to have a clean water supply, so simply adapt to what they have and consider it a norm.
Good point. And even if some had access to reliable electricity they may not be able to afford a shiny laptop or Samsung Galaxy / HTC smartphone.
Add to this intermittent supply and some very high tariffs and yeah, it can be a bit skewed.
arthur4563 says:
June 17, 2013 at 6:48 pm
“Sustainability” of an energy system has no particular advantages. As one fast reactor advocate has pointed out, the energy that fast reactors can generate just using our current nuclear waste stockpile would provide all the electricity we need for the next 1000 years. Also, “sustainable” power sources, like solar, are captured by very non-sustainable solar panels.They last about 20 – 25 years, or one third the lifespan of a Gen 3 nuclear reactor.
Solar panels 25 year lifetime is just the sales copy. The reality – under current intense price pressure, is about one tenth of that figure.
Its noticeable that the word “adaptation” is appearing in the climate change discussion. I read a European paper at Brussels airport today, an EU environment ministers meeting agenda concerning climate change features adaptaion “for the first time”.
“He’s dead Jim” – or should that be “Jacques” or “Johannes” or “Joachim”?
As usual as well, the UN is only interested in protection and benefiting one sex, while persecuting and ignoring the other.
AGW has never been an important issue with most people. It is an issue with the governments. A way to exert more control over their citizens daily lives. With the cessation of the Cold War, the need for control started slipping away from governments. They needed a new war, preferably one that did not destroy infrastructure and economies. AGW was ready made and perfect for that task. That is why governments are so gung ho on it. It is a way to declare Martial Law without having to shoot anyone, or get bombed.
The survey should have included a summary of the facts and then asked people to make a decision. The warmists have hidden the dirty truth concerning ‘green’ energy. The media have perpetuated a myth, a set of lies concerning ‘green’ energy. What is the point of asking people who have been lied to, to fill out a survey that is designed to perpetuate ‘green’ myths? Surveys do not change reality. Propaganda does not change reality.
Wind energy is an example. ‘Green’ energy (wind) does not significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the local country where it is installed if all inputs are included and the loss of efficiency for the back-up natural gas single cycle turbines (38% efficiency) vs a combined cycle natural gas generator (60% efficiency, Combined cycle power plant produces steam from the waste heat from the first pass turbine and need roughly a day to start up and hence cannot be turned on/off/on/off) is included. The energy input to construct the wind turbine, for the massive wind turbine concrete base, to construct roads for wind turbine access, and the cost and energy to upgrade the electrical grid to transport the power from where the wind blows to where power is required, and the power loss due to long distance power transmission (20% to 30%) is not include in the fairy tale energy calculations when they are done.
Cost and energy calculations are either not done or are fudged, such as stating the rated power of the wind farm turbines rather the actual average power the wind farm will produce.
The energy produced by a wind turbine, when the wind blows, is at the cube of wind speed, so the power output varies typically 30% to 60% when the wind is blowing. The actual energy produced by a wind turbine in Germany is less than 20% of the rated wind turbine. The problem is the 20% is average. If the wind is blowing at night the wind turbines can produce 100% of their rated power when electrical power is not required. Wind power makes the electrical grid unstable.
The reduction in emissions from the EU is due to a massive loss of manufacturing jobs that have moved to Asia and Indonesia. For example in the UK manufacturing jobs have dropped from 33% of the GDP to 18%.
The survey should have noted that developing countries are all installing coal fired plants, as coal is roughly half the cost of natural gas in Asia. Therefore world CO2 emissions are increasing. Installing ‘green’ energy in Western countries makes no difference in world emissions and makes electricity more expensive in Western countries which results increase job losses of primary industry.
Lastly the survey should have noted that ‘green’ jobs are primarily short term jobs which require massive subsides per job. As tax revenue does not grow on trees and someone must pay the green energy subsides there is a net loss in jobs due to ‘green’ energy.
The above statements are facts not opinions.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/06/the-data-is-in-more-green-jobs-means-less-real-ones/#more-28909
Each green job in Britain costs £100,000 (and 3.7 other jobs):
The Telegraph points out how expensive it is to support a wind-industry job. My plan to bury bottles with £50,000 apiece in them could halve the cost and employ just as many people.
• A new analysis of government and industry figures shows that wind turbine owners received £1.2billion in the form of a consumer subsidy, paid by a supplement on electricity bills last year. They employed 12,000 people, to produce an effective £100,000 subsidy on each job.
• “Among the examples of extremely high subsidies effectively for job creation is Greater Gabbard, a scheme of 140 turbines 12 miles off the Suffolk coast. It received £129 million in consumer subsidy in the 12 months to the end of February, double the £65million it received for the electricity it produced. It employs 100 people at its headquarters in Lowestoft, receiving, in effect, £1.3 million for every member of staff.” — Telegraph, 15 June 2013
• In Scotland the VERSO study showed for each Green Job created, 3.7 were lost. — BBC, Feb 2011
In Italy, each green job cost 5 jobs from the rest of the economy:
“A study performed by Luciano Lavecchia and Carlo Stagnaro of Italy’s Bruno Leoni Institute found “the same amount of capital that creates one job in the green sector, would create 6.9 or 4.8 if invested in the industry or the economy in general, respectively”…
“The researchers also found that the vast majority of green jobs created were temporary… – AEI
“The renewables industry was plagued with corruption. The mafia were caught laundering $1.7bn through renewables.
Gosh, this poll is not as straightforward as I would like. What is lurking underneath? For example, if I put a priority on access to clean water, does that mean that the UN will spin that into making access to water a “fundamental human right” and therefore requiring UN oversight and control over the planet’s wells? (shrug)
What twaddle. Almost every explanation followed some liberal meme. What about freedom from stupid governments? Notice no private property rights. Freedom of association missing unless you want to be in a union. Free press? Zippo. No privacy from government snoops. (Psst NSA, that means you.) Basically the entire Bill of Rights from US Constitution was ignored. That says it all.
Konrad says:
June 17, 2013 at 7:00 pm
‘Becoming’ is the wrong tense, more like ‘has become’. The UN is a pass through organization. If it would just finally become a past organization. On second thought, they have the IPCC and we send them Billions. So I guess we have to make a distinction between dysfunctional and irrelevant.
A previous U.S. ambassador, one John Bolton, to the U.N. made the
following statement:
“The U.N. Secretariat building at Turtle Bay has 38 stories. If the building
lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
Or, in other words, almost 1/4 of the U.N. headquarters is simply waste.
I think he was right, probably about the whole organization.
It was a rant too far.
The whole thing is a socialistic utopianistic mess. It begs for a counter poll with cleaned-up definitions for the categories. The mealy mouth UN verbiage is meaningless, or diabolically meaningful . Like, below it looks like the UN thinks people will want the have the right to “expect”. And protection from “threats”; I guess not the actual deed itself.
Here’s an example of what they say…
Under the option Crimes and Violence:
“This means that all people should expect to live in a community that protects them from the threat of crime and violence. This should include domestic violence and sexual assault against women and girls. Every person should be able to get justice through a court or other system if they are victims of a crime – See more at: http://www.myworld2015.org/index.html#sthash.ViZVVxSu.dpuf”
Here’s what it should say…
“This means that people should have the right to live on their own property secure in their persons and possessions and be able to provide and assemble for their own immediate self defense. That the individual may voluntarily reside in a community that leases powers to the state to the limited extent necessary to defend peace at each of the more general levels of that community.