Josh writes of this development in the UK:
Ed Davey’s performance yesterday at the Energy and Climate Change Committee, posted here, was a mix of horror and farce. DECC seem to live in a make believe world where increases in costs cost less and policies which increase carbon emissions will somehow magically decrease them, one day, somehow, somewhere.
What a pantomime.
And Money is no object! Sowell said it best. The left has no clue on what creates wealth.
Catch-22…no sane person would agree to head the Department for (mishandled) Energy and (futile) Climate Change.
Dozey Davey if this were true we could all have a laugh. As it is he is a mendacious liar trying to make as much political capital as he can. The time is running out for these selfish creeps who think that the power and influence lies within the Westminster bubble. When the full extent of their folly comes to pass there will be no hiding behind their lies. I truly hope that the law will take affect and their criminal negligence for self gain will be severely punished.
And the off shore worthless windturbines in paoramic view are a must see –
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/decc-jumper/
“Wish you were here, Ed Davey”
Zeke –
“Wish you were out there, Ed”.
There, fixed it for you.
The left is always willing to spend someone money belonging to others. Now, ask them to dig into their own pockets. I’m sure you would hear a different tune.
philjourdan,
“Sowell said it best. The left has no clue on what creates wealth.”
Quite true, but they seem to be inordinately good at finding ways to destroy it.
This frightened child has been ‘given’ his appointment so that the Tories may turn around some day and blame ‘his’ policies on the Liberal Democrats. Have a look around, all the poisoned chalices are borne aloft by Lib-Dems in this unholy alliance.
This canniness decries the talk of them (Tories) being stupid and bigoted. They are only the former when convenient and the latter by design.
Check out the relative costs, what the British government insists that the British bill payer has to pay.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24604218
See “The wholesale cost of generating electricity in £/MWh”
Let us not forget the good thing about Davey’s appointment, he replaced Chris Huhne.
Re: The wholesale cost of generating electricity (Mwhite vide BBC)
I am currently running a whelk stall and I have based my business projections on the belief that my customers will be as pleased to buy my whelks at six times the market price as they would be at the standard price. I’m sure I’m onto a winner here but, if the business should fold, I have a backup plan: I intend to become an MP! I intend to apply to the constituency of South Suffolk as I hear there’s a vacancy coming up there soon as the incumbent is going off to run a whelk stall, I hear….
Presumably the Sowell referred to above is Thomas Sowell, PhD, the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
No relation.
http://Www.tsowell.com
@roger Sowell You are correct. I should have used his full name.
not just “fuel” poverty, but “food” poverty as well:
4 Dec: UK Independent: Charlie Cooper: Food poverty in UK has reached level of ‘public health emergency’, warn experts
In a letter to the British Medical Journal, a group of doctors and senior academics from the Medical Research Council and two leading universities said that the effect of Government policies on vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently” monitored…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/food-poverty-in-uk-has-reached-level-of-public-health-emergency-warn-experts-8981051.html
meanwhile, Pravda gives Gary Novak space again to express a sceptical viewpoint:
3 Dec: Pravda: Gary Novak: Why global warming science is nothing but fraud
There is no real science to be found in the subject of global warming. Modern studies of global warming could be traced back to Charney et all, 1979 …
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/03-12-2013/126293-global_warming_fraud_science-0/
Brilliantly chaotic. As sites like PopularScience.com and now even slacker run Phys.org frantically censor seasoned skeptical denial of supercomputer turbocharging of the boring old textbook greenhouse effect, Earth’s ice is like God on our side. Congratulations, dear gentlemen, you have averted tyranny in our age. Now is a time for sober justice.
Calder Hall at Windscale, England, was the world’s first commercial nuclear power station.
It opened in 1956 with an initial capacity of 50 MW and later 200 MW.
Kragh, Helge (1999). Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 286. ISBN 0-691-09552-3
Now the UK government is going to let other countries build its nuclear power plants for it because it seems cheaper, so the country becomes even more dependant on others for its vital energy resources. Strategically inept.
Brilliant cartoon….and when Davey & co. are confronted (or confounded) with their errors and misbegotten Malthusian misanthropian maths, they just stick their fingers in their ears and sing:
Tra-la-la-la-la la la la la…..
pat says:
December 4, 2013 at 1:38 pm
not just “fuel” poverty, but “food” poverty as well:
4 Dec: UK Independent: Charlie Cooper: Food poverty in UK has reached level of ‘public health emergency’, warn experts……
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/food-poverty-in-uk-has-reached-level-of-public-health-emergency-warn-experts-8981051.html
Pat,
Interesting that the article referenced ascribes the “food poverty” claim as caused by cuts in the state welfare programs…. rather than the high unemployment rate and escalating food and energy costs! Welfare programs are often ‘bandaids’ for deeper economic structural wounds and Coopers hypothesis does not provide a true root cause analysis for what ails the economies of the British Isles.
MtK
These three quotes came to mind reading the above comments:
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” ~ Thomas Sowell
“Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.” ~Thomas Sowell
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” ~ Groucho Marx
These ideas are reason enough to say that anytime science gets political it is guaranteed to be a disaster. (for science that is)
Mac the Knife –
when u have been shilling for the CAGW industry for years, as the Independent & even these “charities” have been doing, u not only don’t blame CAGW policies for contributing to the problem (ennacted by all political parties), u redefine reality by calling for more CAGW-spending! btw, as if low-income families will benefit from Osborne’s latest offer!
2 Dec: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: 800,000 people ‘lifted’ out of fuel poverty – by redefining it
The new definition, which could come into force before Christmas, will instantly reduce the percentage of fuel-poor households in England by nearly a third, from 15 per cent to 11 per cent, according to calculations by MPs on the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC)…
But last night the suggested change met with anger, coming as it does against a backdrop of inflation-busting hikes in gas and electricity bills and ahead of an expected watering-down of measures to subsidise insulation for poor households in George Osborne’s Autumn Statement on Thursday…
Mr Osborne is set to announce that people buying houses will be offered £1,000 to spend on energy efficiency, while all householders will get £50 off their fuel taxes under a deal on green levies struck by the Coalition.
The bill reduction will come in part by stretching out the Energy Companies Obligation scheme, which provides free insulation to low-income households, over four years rather than two…
Ms Walley, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, added: “In the longer term, green levies could actually keep bills down if they drive energy-efficiency improvements that cut the cost of heating our homes. Insulating homes and supporting green technologies is vital to help the fuel-poor and cut the emissions causing climate change.”…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/800000-people-lifted-out-offuel-poverty–by-redefining-it-8976232.html
25 Oct: UK Independent: Simon Read: UK has higher fuel poverty problems than most of Europe
The charity, along with Consumer Futures, National Energy Action and the Energy Bill Revolution, has written to the leaders of all three main parties, calling on them to act. It believes that investment in super-insulation will end the scourge of fuel poverty and bring down energy bills.
“The Government must tackle this national crisis by channelling funds raised by the carbon tax into making homes warmer,” said Ms Sharma (from the charity, Barnardos).
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/uk-has-higher-fuel-poverty-problems-than-most-of-europe-8905159.html
25 Oct: UK Independent: Nigel Morris: Charities urge George Osborne to keep green levies to help poor and create jobs
But in a joint letter to Mr Osborne, seen by The Independent, more than 90 major charities and businesses argue that cutting energy efficiency measures could increase fuel poverty as it will become more expensive to heat draughty homes. They also point out that green schemes help create jobs and foster economic growth.
The signatories include Age UK, Barnardo’s, Scope and the Children’s Society, as well as environmental groups, think-tanks, small energy companies and trade unions…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/charities-urge-george-osborne-to-keep-green-levies-to-help-poor-and-create-jobs-8963139.html
Mac the Knife –
redefining of “Carbon Bubble”: for years, the only “carbon bubble” being talked about referred to the stock-market bubble that would result if the carbon cowboys developed those trillions of dollars of CO2 derivatives they had in mind:
Business Spectator seems to have shut it’s Conversation section, so link from this doesn’t work, tho it would be interesting to read those commentaries written pre-Climategate, as was this article, in a pro-CAGW publication. writer is defending a carbon tax, as opposed to CO2 trading :
4 Aug, 2009: Business Spectator Australia: Robert Gottslieben: Our carbon bubble danger
A decade ago, when the accountants were debating a new set of accounting rules, business was too busy to be active in the discussions. The result is an international mess. We could never have imagined our accountants would get it so wrong. Similarly with sub-prime, who could have imagined American bankers being so stupid?
When it comes to carbon trading, we are once again too busy running our businesses to realise what is happening…
The best place to start such an examination process is the Conversation section of Business Spectator where we have been deluged with some wonderful commentaries – including commentaries from people who question whether carbon is the issue. I urge all my readers and all politicians to be updated on how much the carbon facts have moved since the Coalition government first proposed carbon trading…
And two private emails have added a new dimension: one from Clunies Ross award winner and Cosmos magazine founder Alan Finkel; and a second from a Sydney merchant banker who knows just how much money his sector will make from carbon trading. This merchant banker, who has asked that his name be withheld, gives a new perspective on a carbon tax…
Finkel in the June issue of Cosmos says that of the $23 billion expected to be raised via carbon permits in the first two years in Australia, ”every dollar will be returned in handouts, with not a cent allocated to technology research or investment in building infrastructure capacity”.
“Cunning traders” will exploit the scheme’s complexity as they did with the complexity of mortgages and derivatives created over the past 10 years, wreaking havoc on the global financial system.
Finkel says: “Do we really need to create a whole new market employing hundreds of highly paid lawyers, traders, brokers, analysts, bookkeepers and others just to buy and sell permits – or hoard, speculate or profiteer from them?”…
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2009/8/4/national-affairs/our-carbon-bubble-danger
BUT NOW, WHEREVER U LOOK, THANX TO INVESTOR-BACKED CARBON TRACKER, “CARBON BUBBLE” MEANS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE FINANCIAL MARKETS, IF THEY CONTINUE TO INVEST IN FOSSIL FUELS?
5 Dec: BusinessGreen: Will Nichols: Carbon Tracker to expand ‘carbon bubble’ thinking
Think tank’s new chief exec reveals NGO will target specific projects in ongoing drive to alert investors to systemic risk of high carbon assets…
Anthony Hobley, global head of the sustainability and climate change practice at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, will take on the role from February 1 next year at Carbon Tracker, which aims to highlight the growing risk to financial markets of a “carbon bubble”…
The group’s methodology has galvanised financial analysts at HSBC, Citi and Standard & Poor’s, while its work on stranded assets has led to partnering with investors to scrutinise fossil fuel capital expenditure plans.
In October, Generation Investment Management, chaired by former US President and environmental campaigner Al Gore, published a study endorsing the “carbon bubble” analysis, concluding it is “no longer prudent” for mainstream investors to see climate risks as a peripheral issue…
“The issue has grabbed investor interest in the way [climate change issues] haven’t before,” Hobley told BusinessGreen. “It’s an immediate risk that faces them and makes them think about the future beyond the next few years. The only way they can determine how big the problem and impact is, is by engaging with climate science and the policy response.”…
***He added that Carbon Tracker will also up its efforts to convince regulators that the carbon bubble is a real threat to the financial industry…
We need to demonstrate to [regulators] that there’s a major systemic risk here that needs to be managed,” he added. “The last thing we want is another financial crisis that could make the last one look like a tea party.”
Ahead of today’s Autumn Statement, we can only hope George Osborne is not the one bringing along the biscuits.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2316474/carbon-tracker-to-expand-carbon-bubble-thinking
Orwellian, what?
The sole policy of the Left, in brief: Take money from people who produce things, and give it to people who produce nothing.
For the last few years our energy has been in the hands of two Lib Dems, the convicted criminal Chris Huhne, and now Ed “the science is certain” Davey.
Now that’s what I call a real climate change catastrophe. I could weep at the stupidity of these people.
Every time a poor pensioner dies because he or she is unable to pay the exorbitant energy bills, I hope it’s on the conscience of these criminals. But I’m not holding my breath. And no longer voting Conservative.
Chris
Ed Davey is the “high price/low bills” guy. What he was pushing was the idea that bills would go down, but he couldn’t escape the observation that prices – the actual cost to produce a unit of electric power – would go up.
How the latter is supposed to lead to the former is due to the little understood economic principle that as the price of a good rises, the demand reduces and/or the efficiency in the way it is used increases. It follows that bills and prices will rise until at some point, due to the unaffordability, the above consequences will kick in and the bills will become less than they are today.
Hmmm.
Ahem.
Calder Hall, the first plutonium cooking pile that someone thought to add a boiler to to generate electricity from 😉