Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Has anyone else noticed a growing tendency, for greens to criticise the high carbon flaws of their leading lights?
The latest focus of this green backlash is Sir Richard Branson. Branson, who owns Virgin Airlines, regularly self promotes his personal green credentials, with grand public gestures aimed at raising environmental awareness. But the green backlash has caught up to Branson, in the form of this eloquent tweet from British comedian Frankie Boyle:
Click here to view the original tweet
Frankie Boyle is no climate skeptic – he appears to be deeply concerned about CO2 and natural resources. However Boyle is one of a rising chorus of green voices, who are starting to insist that prominent leaders of the movement live by the standards which they demand of the rest of us.
Green hypocrisy is nothing new – witness the blatant green hypocrisy of the Guardian, hilariously satirised by Josh. And the regular frequent flier climate conferences enjoyed by prominent greens must upset at least some in the movement.
We also have Al Gore’s habitual disregard for green sensibilities, such as Gore’s gigantic personal household electricity bill.
What is new is that ordinary people, many with green sympathies, are starting to publicly challenge leaders who claim to be green, but whose jetset lifestyle choices generate more carbon emissions in a year, than most people manage in a decade.
Branson’s unsightly Boyle 🙂
If he drove a Suzuki he’d have more credibility.
Can someone explain why he has not been banned from Twitter?? C*** is a lot more offensiventhan “Crap”
Oh, ho ho ho! That only applies to people on Twitter’s enemies list.
Eric
Carp.
Normal.
Auto.
Oh come on. His whole island retreat burnt down…lol… Branson is not a too bad guy, but he knows where money can be made, and he’s deep into “climate” right now. Virgin Cola, Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic/Pacific…Virgin Space… watch for Virgin Climate Control…serial!
There is no mystery here. Branson is like most ambitious people. He wants the status accorded to those considered to be “well-intended” by polite society. Think Al Pacino seething in his hot-tub in Scarface. He has money, but it’s not enough. He is furious that some banker is respectable, while he is not. In today’s increasingly secular society, socially respectable means association with liberal and environmental “causes”. Hollywood, the media, and academia are simply replete with this sort of ostentatious moral preening.
“I at least care about the have-nots and poor beleaguered Mother Earth. If you disagree it can only be because you are a hard-hearted, greedy, bigoted, homophobe. Therefore, you should be on the moral defensive and silent in my presence while my ideas, and I, take precedence.”
Mad cow? Remember mad cow hysteria? Where did this problem go? Did it really exist?
It sure did happen. As a UK citizen who lived in the UK during this time (The 80’s) I now cannot donate blood in Australia or New Zealand (In fact ANYONE who has lived in the UK for 6 months or more even now cannot donate). BSE, “Mad Cow”, manifests itself as CJD in humans. Of course, scientists at that time were saying BSE affected meat (Spinal cords, brains etc) being “processed” and fed back to cows was perfectly safe. Where have we heard scientists being wrong before?
Frankie definitely leans left but would have loved that opportunity to satirise Branson
What has stoked my ire for a number of years is the staunch opposition to nuclear power, which thankfully has begun to diminish though still not fast enough for my liking. The size of Al Gore’s house is of least concern in the overall scheme of things.
Yes, the size of Al Gore’s house pales in comparison to the size of his shameless hypocrisy 😉
And yes, opposition to nuclear power, in particular LFTR research is ridiculous. We should have had this a long time ago, save for the efforts of fossil fuel funded environmental NGOs.
Yes, Fukushima and Chernobyl clearly shows us that problems with nuclear power are easily cleaned up and fixed and everyone can move back home again….NOT.
Ignoring the horrible truth that when things go wrong they go catastrophically wrong is what is wrong with nuclear power. We are powerless to fix messes.
Great Konrad. Why don’t we build a thorium reactor and give the technology to Iran? Surely this would solve the problem about Iran developing a nuclear bomb.
Fukushima wasn’t that bad of an incident. Yes, TEPCO did some terrible things – but we can do terrible things on a massive scale without nuclear power. Chernobyl was caused by reckless behavior and did not have any safety equipment functioning (“to see what would happen”).
The difference is that if we hadn’t gone all nutter about it, we would have had LFTRs upto 30 years ago. They use significantly less reactant and generate significantly more electricity per pound. It could be a single reactor to manage for a city of good size with significantly reduced contamination potential by modulating how much material and what size the reactor is. But, no, Western Society impeded all action on the subject.
The response to a car crash isn’t to ban all cars. Its’ to make the driver more educated and the cars’ technology safer.
Hey emsnews! The sad fact is that existing nuclear power stations have a number of design flaws, flaws that make them (and Fukushima is a good example) open to catastrophic failure. Why the bad design? Politics and short term thinking more than anything else. The first commercial reactors were based on existing designs for nuclear submarines. Obviously the design criteria needed for a sub is not the same as the best design needed for a land based commercial reactor — but the sub design was already developed, so “hey, let’s just adapt it to commercial use and save some time and money, eh?” Even worse, once the poor design became the standard, the regulations were written around that design, with the result that new designs were discouraged. After all, they would require expensive legal wrangling just to establish that even though they did not match the code, they were still safe.
The point is, there ARE designs for nuclear reactors that are orders of magnitude safer than current plants — but they have been prevented from reaching the market. We have the technology for safe and inexpensive power, but for primarily political reasons, those designs have been sitting on the shelf for decades.
There are new designs for thorium reactors that are foolproof (can’t melt down or produce hydrogen explosions) and produce minimal waste of very low grade, but they can’t be built because of irrational fear of anything nuclear. Dark age superstition reinvented as left wing dogma.
Those thorium reactor designs are also incapable of producing nuclear weapon material and don’t have to be built near water or use water as a coolant. There really is no drawback if they can be built successfully.
It’s not “nuclear power” you are talking about, but Cold War Plutonium factories with some energy as a byproduct.
emsnews: Several planes crashed last year, so obviously we need to ban airplanes.
A lot of cars crashed last year so obviously we need to ban cars.
Lots of people got hurt by drugs last year, so obviously we need to ban medicine.
Chernobyl was a design that was rejected in the west because it was unsafe to begin with. The soviets proceeded to build it without a containment building which is completely illegal in the west. The soviets then compounded both those errors by turning off most of the safety equipment so they could run a test.
Fukishima was a very minor problem that wouldn’t have happened had the emergency generator been stored in a water tight room.
Do you have any other insanity for us, or have you reached your daily quota?
emsnews,
Death by fossil fuel use vs nuclear are comparable to death by automobile vs commercial air travel:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
Solar PV is more deadly than nuclear according to these estimates. Even if I were not an AGW believer, I would still want to phase out coal power in favour of nuclear on the basis that coal is several magnitudes less safe than nuclear on a per kWh basis. It’s not comfortable for me to disagree with Greenpeace or the Union of Concerned Scientists about fission power, but on principle based on what I believe based on these statistics, I must.
mods, my post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/03/you-own-an-airline/#comment-1897013
is in limbo, methinks because I invoked K-rad’s name. Must remember to bowdlerize it and save y’all the trouble of fishing me out of the spam folder. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Meanwhile, here in Oregon, we are designing new nuclear reactors that can fit on a truck bed…. http://www.nuscalepower.com/
Clif Westin,
Interesting, thank you. The factory-fabricated “cookie-cutter” design is the biggest strength there, IMO. Their economy of small-scale argument makes logical sense, whether it can be realized in the present regulatory and political environment is still something I’d question.
emsnews
April 3, 2015 at 3:40 am
============
Fukushima was a 1950’s design. G.E. built it on the ocean shore in a seismic zone.
What could possibly go wrong within half a century?
Automobiles now require seat belts and other safety standards. Things have changed over the past half century.
Fukushima wasn’t that bad. What the hell are you talking about. 3 reactors melting through their containment vessels and burrowing into the ground. The ground water is being contaminated and tons of contaminated water being dumped into the Pacific daily. And completely by coincidence there have been mass die offs of marine animals which have been washing ashore all along the west coast since this occured. But I’m sure that’s just climate change, ocean acidification or something else. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Fukushima. I used to be pro nuclear until Fukushima. Since then I’ve been researching the subject and don’t believe it to be safe as we’ve been told. Even if the plants themselves can be operated safely which I doubt. There’s no safe way to store or dispose of the contaminated waste that’s generated.
The reason is that they have been programmed to destroy the Western World by taking away it’s affordable and ample energy?
“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” — John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001
What ever happened to Pebble Bed Reactors? They were supposed to be modular and scalable.
Yes, Fukushima and Chernobyl clearly shows us that problems with nuclear power are easily cleaned up and fixed and everyone can move back home again….NOT.
In the case of Fukushima, almost everyone COULD move back home tomorrow without significant danger from radiation. The decision to create such a large evacuation zone was a political one taken by the authorities in response to the widespread fear of what might have happened had people been allowed to stay. Any such response will always be either too little or too large, and in either case it will be arbitrary, since government, once it acknowledges that a problem exists, tends to provide only one-size-fits-all solutions to perceived problems rather than to actual ones.
At present, the Japanese have plans for dealing with future potential nuclear accidents calling for evacuation of people within a 30km of an affected plant. If you live 29.9 km from such a plant, you will be forced to leave home; if you live 30.1km away, you will be allowed to remain.
emsnews
April 3, 2015 at 3:40 am
“Yes, Fukushima and Chernobyl”
No one died from the first and the number of deaths from nuclear energy since 1950s is ~70, about 45 of which were from Soviet-built, thrown together technology. There have been several deaths even from solar! (Google that while you are at it). Google Wiki about deaths due to nuclear electrical power facilities. There has only been 1 (one!) death from the most nuclearized nation on earth, France, and this was in a plant remelting rods, The guy might have been run over by a forklift!!
emsnews, take charge of your own education and don’t trust it to your helpful thought manufacturers. Instead of empty slogans here at WUWT, dig in and find something we can say ‘watts up with that” about it. This is not a site for empty transmission of big brother thoughts. At least you learned today that their have hardly been any deaths to speak of with nuclear energy – it comes across as the safest industry in the world, in fact.
“There have been several deaths even from solar! ”
Quite a lot actually, installators falling from roofs. Expressed in deaths/TWh solar is worse than wind which is worse than anything else. Well with one exception. Wood is off the scales, felling trees can be quite dangerous depending on the terrain.
I think those against nuclear power all have fingers in their ears and are repeating loudly, “I can’t hear you.”
To offer perspective, when I worked in a power plant that burned pulverized Wyoming anthracite, I allegedly received more radiation yearly than the workers at our Clinton nuclear station were allowed to accumulate on their personal badge monitors. This was told to us by the company safety officials.
DirkH,
Yes, see the Forbes article I linked to above. Solar is dangerous for rooftop installers. So also is roofing itself. Life is deadly. 🙂
No one seems to emphasize the point that the Fukushima plant never should have been built where it was. Who in their right mind builds a nuclear plant at sea level in a highly earthquake prone area? They are rebuilding structures in NJ and NY right where they were wiped out. They are building huge structures at sea level in Miami. Stupidity at it’s highest. And, of course, New Orleans is still below sea level. Insurance claims waiting to happen.
R2Dtoo,
Good point; however, I’d note it was the tsunami that got it, not the quake itself. The poor design factor there was placing the backup generators seaward of the plant where they were more vulnerable. What’s really “sinful” is that the US NRC identified that specific risk at Fukushima in a 1990 review of nuclear power installations worldwide, which TEPCO ignored. As well, PWR reactor designs would have been a better choice than the BWR types at Fukushima … or indeed anywhere … as it has been known since the early 1970s that PWRs have superior passive safety features.
I’d call Fukushima more of a market and regulatory failure than an intrinsically technological one. But mortal fear and ideology are an unholy mixture for everyone … it’s not just leftist greenies who oppose nukes based on dubious arguments.
R2Dtoo: If the emergency generator had been in a water tight room, or placed a few feet higher, there would have been no problem.
(From memory) The geologists said that a 20 foot tsunami was the worst they could expect there, so they put the generator 25 feet up. Unfortunately they got hit by a 30 foot tsunami.
I think there is an ancient terrain mark in Fukushima that says don’t build below this mark. Tsunamies are historically well known?
Gary Pearse – If I recall correctly, nuclear actually has the best deaths/use ratio of any power source we use. There have been a total of two “disasters,” of which one resulted in no deaths. Meanwhile, the US Navy enjoys more than 5,500 accident-free reactor years.
Obviously, as pointed out by someone else here, designs for sub and carrier-borne power plants aren’t the same as the ones for land-based ones, but that still blows a massive hole in people who argue that nuclear energy is fundamentally unsafe.
Gary Pearse – Gah! Correction: It blows holes in the ARGUMENTS of people who say nuke is fundamentally unsafe.
I think if it blew holes in the actual people, it might validate their views…
Fukushima was also being used past its intended life…
Drill here. Drill now. Drill often.
Bob Geldof in turn? Like Branson he wants to fights the not accerating global warming from space. Wher’s Gort when you need him?
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/11/bob-geldof-first-irishman-space
You have to say “GORT KLAATU BARADA NIKTO” first.
He has now conceded that Branson isn’t mad.
Lol. Agreed.
Perhaps someone informed him that a Boeing 747 gets 91 passenger miles / US gallon. It was still a great line.
True,
build a bridge across the Atlantic and drive a 747 load of passengers across it four to the car. You can’t beat the 747 for fuel cruising at 70% power at 10,000m. Plus the 747 travels at 900 kph and comes with drinks service. And alcoholic drinks are of course important when travelling at 900 Kph in a crudely pressurised death tube when the air outside is at -50C and far too thin to breathe.
True Brandon, but is that under specific circumstances? I am one of those terrible threats to all that is good in society, a greeny and a lefty. However, I fly about four times a year. I don’t think it is hypocritical because I try to offset that by having solar energy for electricity generation and hot water amongst other things. Until someone replaces air travel with something equally as useful, I’m not sure we can just ‘not fly’, but we can adapt, and adaption in my books is the key to many challenges we faced with in climate change.
And no doubt Gareth, you managed to ¨offset¨ the purchase of your solar panels to the tax payers at large via some grubby socialist govt inspired subsidy scheme that redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich whilst promoting cringe-worthy though misplaced sentiments of eco-puritanism among AGW cultists and ignorant celebrity twitterati.
@gareth Phillips – Nope, sorry, you lefties have described CAGW as our greatest threat – an existential threat that must be addressed by using the full power of the State to stop it, no matter how that impacts our personal freedom. As such, you don’t get to claim an “offset” by using solar power for your flights – you have to minimize your carbon emissions as a totality; so stop flying immediately. Classic lefty thinking, everybody else should stop using carbon fuels, but I’m special, my activities are important, so I can ignore the rules that I want to impose on everyone else.
Gareth Phillips,
I believe the 91 mpg figure is highway. City mileage is terrible. Konrad makes a good point [1] about “4 to a car”. Cars, like 747s (and unlike swallows) are not always fully-laden … bbbuttt, aeroplanes carry a lot of cargo even when the flight hasn’t been oversold.
Rise of the regional airlines is a despairing development, both for fuel economy and the fact that I can’t stand up in an RJ. Bring back the Big Iron! And stewardesses!!!!
Good man. As with all things — well … except tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, fats, sugar, salt and women — I take my tree-hugging Marxism in moderation.
When I’m working, I fly every week. Contrary to unpopular belief, I do NOT want to impoverish working stiffs everywhere any more than I would wish to take away the true jet-setters’ travel toys. When our right-leaning friends appeal to hypocrisy carping about Al Gore’s travel habits, I’m fond of pointing out that it’s largely conservative politicians pandering to their irrational fears of Communist bogeymen partially preventing sensible work being done on developing carbon-neutral energy alternatives.
And complaints about Gore being rich and having a big house? What kind of proper free-market capitalist says such things? Luddites, the lot of them!!!
——————
[1] Konrad: for once. Smooches, sweetie. Even though 4 to a car probably beats the A380 Beluga to and fro the office and around town for extracurriculars, the cement production for a trans-Atlantic bridge amortized across its useful lifetime probably blows the carbon budget. Perhaps we’d be better bringing back Concorde. That reminds me … I’ve always wondered, if you shout something from the back of the cabin, do they hear you at the front?
But don’t you understand. Gareth *needs* to get away from it all four times a year to breathe the rarified air of the Himalayas for otherwise capitalism would corrupt him. Oh and it’s the only place he can afford Sherpa servants. Supply and demand you know, they got no minimum wage over there.
@gareth Phillips.
I have a different viewpoint – yet I agree totally with what you have written here.
You seek – likely successfully – to offset fossil fuel use. Excellent.
Whilst I don’t consciously do that, I applaud those who do, and realise that our future is in offset, mitigation and adjustment.
I hope that you agree.
Happy Easter (to ALL – yes a shout) – Auto
Brandon Gates
“… That reminds me … I’ve always wondered, if you shout something from the back of the cabin, do they hear you at the front?”
====
hmmm?
lol, really? Well, if the air inside the cabin is moving at Mach 2 toward the person who is yelling, it would tend to explain the shouting.
Brandon Gates,
Perhaps I should have included a ‘smiley face’ after my comment. I thought your quote interesting and no ill intentions from my part. I liked it. 😉
I am one of those terrible threats to all that is good in society, a greeny and a lefty. However, I fly about four times a year. I don’t think it is hypocritical because I try to offset that by having solar energy for electricity generation and hot water amongst other things.
I was a greeny and a lefty too, until I grew up. And although i don’t condemn air travel, I last flew in January 1995, and if i can manage it without even trying, so can you. The trick is to simplify your needs and reduce your wants. A good place to start might be to read up on Epicurus. He was the grandaddy of living well without making an Al Gore-sized carbon footprint.
Whatever else you do, please educate yourself about the concept of offsetting and you’ll come to understand that it is impossible in principle to offset the CO2 emissions generated by flying by using the CO2 emissions generated by producing, transporting and installing solar power generating equipment. All you have done is participated in two different forms CO2 production. Now, if you decided to stop flying, take cold showers, and spend your evenings in the dark, we would all at least pat you on the back for having the courage of your convictions. But if you must fly while pretending to be green, I think you should at least have the decency not to hide behind the fig-leaf of “offsetting” and instead recognize the hypocrisy inherent in your stance.
eyesonu,
Mah bad, thanks. I am learning that I like your sense of humour as well. S’all good.
this the same Boyle ejit who’s comedy is at the bleeding edge including targets such as Down Syndrome, those with mental and physical disabilities and anti-semitism? yeah, right on.
We tried comedy without a hint of cruelty and ended up with Ben Elton yelling ‘Yeah but Fatcher” in out faces. It wasn’t funny.
Not my favourite ”comic” either. In fact I just turn him off.
Luckily the BBC has forgiven him (they can be very forgiving, or… ask Carole Thatcher) after a brief period on the naughty step, and he is soon to ‘explain’ to the nation in his unique, impartial comedic way how the UK election is going.
The ‘yes but… we offset our GHG-spewing’ responses are always good value.
I have some friends (yes, friends) who are lefty greens. They bought a Prius back when they were new and immediately began to get twice the gas mileage they did with their old car. The result? They could now afford to go on longer trips to visit kids and grandkids, and ended up driving twice as far as before.
If you dont know Boyle, check him out on the tube, he is pretty hilarious
Nobody would have bothered if he hadn’t used the C word but that’s Frankie Boyles main claim to fame drag him out and he’ll say a few rude words when he really shouldn’t – the silly sausage.
British? Hmm, think you might find Frankie correcting you…” I’m Scottish, you mad c..t!”
Huh? Scots are British.
Of course, and people of the US are North American. Does that make them Canadian?
I bet if the English stopped subsidising them they would find a way not to be.
Only if they are successful sportsmen.
I was a fan of Boyle up until a little while back. But all he has is his shock tactic. I actually think there might be something wrong with him, if you get my meaning. Like 95% of British comedians, he is left-wing (it’s the way for poor boys to shine without money here in Britain), but I wouldn’t have thought he’s actually ‘Green’.
Desperate stuff from WUWT.
“Frankie Boyle is no climate skeptic – he appears to be deeply concerned about CO2 and natural resources. However Boyle is one of a rising chorus of green voices…”
The youtube link given for the above reveals nothing of the sort and is just Eric Worrall’s bizarre interpretation of a sarcastic and caustic comedian.
“Green hypocrisy is nothing new – witness the blatant green hypocrisy of the Guardian, hilariously satirised by Josh.”
It would be only fair to follow that with a link to the reality:
‘Guardian Media Group to divest its £800m fund from fossil fuels’
(http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/01/guardian-media-group-to-divest-its-800m-fund-from-fossil-fuels)
“We also have Al Gore’s habitual disregard for green sensibilities, such as Gore’s gigantic personal household electricity bill.”
But this is the most desperate part, because you always have to bring Al Gore into the argument, it seems. But why didn’t you also say that he is fat?
Anyway, if you want to just believe a 7-year old story containing a broken link, that’s up to you. If you want to be fair and rational, you would also read this:
‘Q: Is it true that Al Gore’s mansion uses significantly more energy than the typical home?’
(http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/al-gores-mansion/)
I know, I know: Factcheck are leftwing, communist maoists with links to the UN and its black helicopters, blah blah blah…
Al Gore is fat. There you go, a factual statement.
Com’on Ghostie, Al is just sequestering carbon.
Did factcheck ever dig into Al Gore’s use of private jets?
Is that factcheck or fat check?
“That dog yelps that gets hit with the stick”, old Finnish proverb.
The Factcheck article just says that Al Gores mansion uses gigantic amount of energy, and they have no clue if those improvements helped much.So Your desperate try just did not work out so well…
Are You trying to say that Greens never lie or try to distract the reader/listener just like You just did?At least here in Finland and Europe the Greens are considered as liars by default.Perhaps the situation is different elsewhere, but here the only ones that believe green stories are the greens themselves…
+1
+1
Down-under, we have Milne and Brandt and SHY and a few other green twerps..
They are soooo darn dumb its hard to tell if they are lying or just totally incompetent idiots.
+1
+1
Yes it’s true the Guardian has now decided to divest from fossil fuels but didn’t that come right AFTER Josh’s cartoon? They may well have been ‘thinking’ about their position anyway, but it looks like that satirical hit was the last straw.
It’s obvious that they wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t been caught out.
Journalists with integrity would have launched their campaign by announcing they were leading by example.
Well the article is datelined April 1st.
And what about Charles making the front page oh the Sun. using a Queens flight helicopter to travel 82 miles
While the Guardian has only just ‘started’ to talk about taken its cash out of fossil fuels , when its been claiming green credentials for years . Meanwhile its travel section is full of holidays only possible thanks to ‘evil fossil fuel burning flying ‘ , for years it was financially kept going by ‘AUTO TRADER ‘ where people could buy ‘evil fossil fuel burning cars ‘
And by the way lots of the money its now ‘talking about ‘ divesting came from the same type of ‘OFF SHORE’ tax arrangements which its often attacked others for having .
So hypocrisy of the Guardian is very much alive and well , and that is before we get to their ‘issues ‘ around having a rather soft-spot for extreme racism of a ‘certain type ‘
That factcheck simply says that the claim was right when it was made, but no one has checked recently…
Murphy’s Law. If Mr. Troll can find something wrong, he will. Meanwhile ignoring the fact, on the face of it, that Mr. Branson, no, SIR Branson, is a conspicuously-consuming hypocritical C***.
Looks like “factcheck” verifies the fact that the mansion uses a dozen times more energy than the average household, AND that in addition to that “purchases green energy” which has been demonstrated to actually INCREASE so called GHG emissions per unit of energy use.
J Murphy
April 3, 2015 at 12:54 am
“‘Guardian Media Group to divest its £800m fund from fossil fuels”
AFTER the Oil price bust they decide to sell their fossil fuel shares! Thanks for the laugh! I love it when Leftists are hypocritical (because, why do they own fossil fuel shares when they’ve been pretending to be Gaia worshippers for decades?) and then lose their shirts!
Well actually, the fact that Greens are buying high and selling (divesting; whatever) low is not a bad idea. They should do lots more of it.
Now they can sit around and call the rest of us who buy low & hold & sell high “stupid”.
Al Gore? Ah, yes… Does anyone still remember when Al Gore attended the Kyoto Conference back in 1997? Remember how his parked limousine was left running all the time he was attending the conference? They had to keep the climate control running. No one wanted to take a chance that he might be angry if the automobile interior was not at the proper temperature when he rode away.
If I remember correctly, wasn’t the limousine ride something like 100 ft in total?
In fairness to Al Gor-ithm, of whom I am absolutely NOT ‘his biggest fan’ – this was in Japan, where it may very well be that etiquette requires that a former US VP deserves a car at ‘ideal temperature . .’ . . .
Yeah – maybe, but let’s try (very hard) to be fair. I don’t notice that very much from our colleagues in CAGW wonderland (or is that blunderland), but try to suggest by example.
Auto
PS
My view is that Al Gore + CARP
But there we go.
Auto
Thank you for the factcheck link which states:
“”Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.” That figure was just about right, according to the numbers crunched by the AP.”
That was around 2006.
In 2012, “The average monthly electric bill for residential properties in Hawaii was $203.15, the highest in the nation for 2012, according to recently released data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).”
(Source: http://eyeonhousing.org/2013/12/average-monthly-electric-bill-by-state/ )
So, yes, Al Gore’s mansion does use significantly more energy than the typical home. Thank you for verifying this for us.
The reality is that “divesting” from “fossil fuels” isn’t the same as not using fossil fuels.
Which one of his four mansions are you talking about?
Al Gore’s mansion uses slightly less energy than other mansions the same size.
That may be enough to impress you, but then, it doesn’t take much to impress you.
Wow The Guardian divests from fossil fuels – that means they’re demise is now certain. If they invested in solar in UK as an alternative, demise would be measured in months instead of years.
I assume this tweet will get Boyle banned from Twitter, correct?
+1 🙂
Nope, wrong “C”-word.
Frankie would have had to call him a “mad crap”.
Are such people altering their own behaviour or merely complaining about others’ behaviour? There are many levels of hypocrisy.
It’s known as the bravery of being out of range; which happens to be the model for AWG (also involves a computer). 😉
Oops! AGW
..whose jetset lifestyle choices generate more carbon emissions in a year, than most people manage in
a decadea lifetime.Sacrifice and frugality is just for the “little people,” donchaknow?
J Murphy
I fail to see how your Al Gore link answers anything about his energy consumption. At the end of the article which contains very little information, we have:
“We didn’t ask for the Gores’ electric bills, so we can’t say how much efficiency improvement the family has accomplished. But the e-mail was on target in 2007; it’s out of date now.”
Basically we do not know what Al Gore pays for his various abodes and large boat. So your link was pretty useless like your comments!
I will interview Al gore and report my findings in a while.
Can you suggest he lightens up on the calories and turns-off the lights when he leaves a room, please. That way, the man in the street is less likely to regard him as a hypocritical c**** who talks a load of crap.
” … Green hypocrisy is nothing new – witness the blatant green hypocrisy of the Guardian, …”
Hypocrisy on the part of the socialists is certainly nothing new; and the green movement as we see today is where modern socialists hide out now that the Soviet Union has fallen and China went corporate.
40 years ago I would have been seen as “green” as the leaves on an orange tree. I still believe we have no right to spread pollution onto our neighbor’s property. We should seek answers to all our needs that are as clean as possible. Look at how we cleaned up the coal fired electricity plants — amazing engineering there.
But the crazed socialists took over the conservation movement and now I would say it is “fighting words” if you call me a “green”. It is all a sad commentary on how stupid a large part of humanity can be.
The left is usually quite naive. They fail to understand that extreme left ideas, such as communism, lead to extreme corruption and human rights abuses. Everybody is familiar with the irrational excesses in North Korea. But I’ve seen incredible excesses by the Chavez and Maduro regimes in Venezuela. The upper elite of the chavista leadership lives incredibly luxurious lives. Even worse, they flaunt these excesses posting their photographs on Facebook and Twitter. Not only are they stealing huge sums of money, they don’t bother to hide it. Here’s a photo of one of Chavez’ daughters with her husband on a private VIP flight. She spends a lot of time traveling with her friends and posts the photos
http://ijustsaidit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gabriela-chavez-en-avion-privado.jpg
I’ve also seen a scene in which Chavez’ youngest daughter waves wads of cash in front of a camera. I think she loaded that on YouTube.
The green leadership also seems to carry on in a similar fashion. But we really can’t expect the super rich to live like the rest of us. This means we just have to accept if Gore drives a hybrid Escalade or the Virgin dude flies himself in a very fuel efficient jet.
Have any other readers noticed that a bit like a policeman, there is never a depressed, narcissistic, suicidal german co-pilot aropund when you really need one…
Yes, Fernando. The proponents of big government never foresee the consequences.
Venezuela is being transformed into a bizarre Cuba-style failed country, some people personally profit in the short range and hope to be able to move abroad before the collapse comes. Most people adapt to the medieval cultural conditions although they know better.
I once met once and spoke to then Mr and now Sir Richard Branson (at Earls Court exhibition) just before his round the world balloon flight. He was very approachable and sounded as a very nice person, but being nice it doesn’t make him right on everything he does.
He is very good at running his airline and his trains and his bank and his media and the rest of his business empire. He took on the BA and succeeded where Freddie Laker failed.
His environmental concerns are fine as long as he is aware of the whole picture, but again not everyone is perfect, so he goes along with the ideas that are politically and most importantly his business publicity expedient.
He is not good at running his train service or answering complaints.
Train service is fantastic – I use it all the time…..remember the massive petition when they tried to take the West Coast Mainline off him.
I can’t have that Gareth…..I often fly to the UK and will make a point of only going north (and back to Heathrow) by Virgin Trains rather than internal flight….
Vastly better travelling experience….Great lounge in Euston too…..
No, I am not on commission from Sir Dickie…
Nor do I have shares in any Sir Dickie concern.
Many years ago, I met then-Senator Al Gore while he was promoting his book, “Earth in the Balance.” He clearly knew the information in quite some depth. Most politicians simply hire a ghost writer and never look back. In addition, he was obviously intelligent but also engaging and surprisingly funny. The complete opposite of his robotic stage presence. I’ve often wondered how things might have turned out if his public campaigning had been as relaxed and impressive as his private conversations and debates. In that sense, he was the exact opposite of the intellectually incurious George W. Bush, who had difficulty distinguishing Eye-Rack from Eye-Ran when Cheney wasn’t holding his cue cards.
Of course, Gore 2.0 is all about cashing in on his global connections. So perhaps the moral is “don’t trust any politicians.” They’re all mad c***s.
Like when al gore claimed that the core of the earth was “millions of degrees”?
That al gore?
Its funny how memes attach themselves to culture, for example bush read about 90 books a year when he was president…obama spends his mornings watching ESPN, yet bush is incurious?
interesting.
Yes, myths and memes are not to be trusted. Such as the joke about Bush’s presidential library only having three books on the shelves. And two of them hadn’t even been colored in yet.
Yet you repeated and implicitly endorsed that very meme.
Do you ridicule jimmy carter for pronouncing “nuclear” ” nucular”?
Did make fun of obama saying that people in austria speak “austrian”?
did you chuckle when obama repeatedly referred to the “intercontinental railroad”? or claimed to have visited “all 57” states? like they were heinz products?
Or not knowing how to pronounce “corpsman”
Gore is, simply a hypocrite…he lives in a multitude of houses, flies private jets around the world, burns more fossil fuels than a small city in africa, and sold his company to a petrol funded oligarchy. Leaving the whole groping for a happy ending with one’s masseuses…
thats “cashing in on his global connections” I suppose.
I, too, am entertained when our elected officials stumble in public (though Obama obviously meant to say 47 instead of 57). And my gratuitous swipe at Bush’s pronunciation obscured an important point. My fault.
Gore’s willingness to impose draconian economic controls on the global economy suggests that we might have been lucky to avoid his presidency. Yet Bush’s failure to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and willingness to launch a generational war in Iraq, it could be argued, makes Gore’s megalomania seem practically benign.
But I am probably guilty of going off topic so I will shut up and let you have the last word.
Gore’s claim was that the Earth is “several million degrees” 2 kilometres down, not at the core.
He elaborated that clever scientists had come up with tools to withstand that heat.
opluso contends that Gore “knew the information in quite some depth”, ignores the cited instance of the precise opposite, alludes to Gore’s megalomania while redirecting attention to Bush and exits stage left.
Gavin must have left his play-book lying around.
Well there is not really any comparison, not even to Dan Quayle who only had a book of a few pages published of gaffes. It’s not often that one has a term named after him in the dictionary, especially a president. Just the term “Bushism” will pull up over 86,000 entries on Google.
But one of my favorites is: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Then there is this: “I’ve made mistakes… I haven’t done cocaine during the past seven, no twenty-five years.”
It is amazing how people can reject the obvious and still blindly support such mentality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism
http://mindprod.com/politics/bushisms.html
“Gore’s willingness to impose draconian economic controls on the global economy suggests that we might have been lucky to avoid his presidency. Yet Bush’s failure to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and willingness to launch a generational war in Iraq, it could be argued, makes Gore’s megalomania seem practically benign.” Then add to that Gore’s rabid support for “Climate Change” which, if he had been elected, probably would have hustled in CO2 regs much earlier.
Anymore it’s: do I want to vote for Mafia Godfather #1 or #2, so really why bother.
To your average leftists, the definition of intelligence is: believes whatever the leftist believes.
Ergo, Bush is dumb, despite all the evidence to the contrary because he disagrees with leftists.
On the other hand Gore must be smart because he agrees with leftists.
Well said Frankie! We need more people like hum to prick the bubble of self righteous hypocrisy we see in those who want one rule for themselves and another for everyone else.
How is this Boyle person not banned by the Twitter Banmob? He used a word worse than crap.
I guess Branson isn’t the only hypocrite in this story.
Boyle is a satirist. And his comedy is cruel.
Nothing wrong with that. There is a long tradition of British comedians hitting out at the rich and powerful.
It’s because we Brits have freedom of speech as well as the right to freedom of speech.
There is no ‘freedom of speech’ in Britain. People are arrested all the time for posting stuff online that is a ‘no no’.
The pedant in me points out that posting online is writing. We may not have freedom of write, but we do have freedom of speech. Unless, of course, it offends someone.
“It’s because we Brits have freedom of speech as well as the right to freedom of speech.”
For the moment, at least that is! Whislt we have rabid greenalists screaming & shouting down anybody who dares to question the mantra, the ever more outlandish claims of doom & gloom, it is difficult to be certain of that small but very important liberty! AtB
It’s been crumbling over the years. Probably you grew up learning to edit your own words to match the PC of “sensitivity” training and the art of self-loathing. I loved Britain back some decades ago when it enjoyed real free speech. Is there still a Hyde Park corner soapbox? Probably only to put down Anglo Saxons which wouldn’t be a crime. Didn’t they arrest someone for flushing a copy of the Koran down the toilet on a video? Didn’t they arrest a preacher for protests about homosexuality and handing out religious leaflets. It didn’t used to be a punishable offense for being an sob or pain in the butt. I suppose its okay to say death to America and such, though – who could be ‘sensitive’ to that?
One mustn’t also lose sight of the gross hypocrisy displayed by HRH Prince Numpty of Wales, who whilst vociferously broadcasting his own ‘green’ credentials, to anyone who will listen and demanding that the hoi-polloi go about their business in a demonstrably green way, flies unnecessarily around the countryside in a helicopter. He would be King, you know, God help us.
Interesting that those who spout most about mother Gaia, and how we should look after her, are the first to kick her (and us) in the teeth with their own profligate habits, and are thus invited to become UN ambassadors, or the like.
That’s greenie-luvvie-leftie-ism for you.
The day that idiot becomes king will be the day I become a Republican.
I can only think of two good things to say about him: he opposes wind farms and he’s a Goon Show fan.
People often joke that he talks to his trees and plants. Trouble is, he doesn’t seem to listen to them. If they could speak, they would say that they want more CO2, not less.
It’s such a tragic irony: all these people who claim to be green demonise the very thing that makes the world green.
errrm the prince of wales… left … oh come on this has gone too far.
Please stop equating warmism with the left and stop misrepresenting socialism.
Socialism is about equality of access and reward for what you personally contribute. It has oohing to do with science and the climate.
Those you accuse of being left wing/green/socialist elites are definitely not socialists.. the term socialist has been hijacked by a few power mad meglomaniacs who if they ever were socialists sold their souls long ago.
Capitalism gets you equality of access and it is built on being rewarded for what you personally contribute.
Socialism by definition is about equality of results and being rewarded because of how you vote and who you know not by what you actually do.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that almost every leftist is also a flaming greenie and every flaming greenie is also a leftist.
afraid to say but that is simply not true.. maybe every supposed leftist politician is a green but thats just political expediency pandering to the voters.. I am as left of centre socialist as they come a crd carrying union man and born and bred workers collectivist … the left (and right) for that matter of politics has been hijacked by those who seek power for their own ends and not through any ideological belief. Climate change, GW, AGW, CAGW call it what you will has been hijacked by these political elites to further their agendas whatever they may be.
Tom Nelson gets banned from Twitter for calling an inanimate object crap, while Frankie Boyle gets away with calling a person the other c-word. Twitter needs to examine its standards.
Sadly Bob, I don’t think óbjectivity’ and ‘fairness’ are part of the Twittering Standard Operating Procedure. They are more concerned getting mad c*** celebrities to shamelessly grandstand in front of the twittering masses.
Someone here on the interweb, a while ago, planted an image in my mind.
It was of a bunch of hyperactive monkeys, sitting/standing/perched on the branch of a tree all the while shouting and screaming at a few other monkeys down on the ground quietly going about the business of ‘life’ – getting on with things and doing real stuff.
The monkeys in the tree were making no secret of how clever they were by being in the tree – completely oblivious to how fragile their position actually was. They’d lost all idea of how dependant they were on the few monkeys still on the ground
Was it ever so………
We are the monkeys on the ground who are learning to use a saw…
Who is Frankie Boyle and why should I care?
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/3/12/1394630933583/Frankie-Boyle-008.jpg
Nothing like the pic on Twitter – even without the beard. Are we sure that Twit came from the tw@t Boyle?
http://www.frankieboyle.com/
Hi MWhite: I know what Boyle looks like – I just figured the pic of him on the Twitter entry did not look like him.
Ah, he’s a rapper according to his site. That explains why he can say c*** without being banned. twitter would have to ban all rappers and lose all fans of rappers. So they don’t.
At least Branson is useful and makes pricks like Boyle stand to attention 🙂
Brandon must take advice rom Dr Spooner and prick this Boyle. 😉
Sorry – “Branson” of course.
lol, I’ve been making the same mistake myself ….
Gates, I would venture that you cannot go past a mirror without looking.
True, but they keep breaking so I derive no pleasure from it.
Are you suggesting he is a gay icon.
But didn’t a former Labor (left Fabian and wore red shores)Prime Minister of Australia use the word crap publicly. Now she wasn’t banned on twitter was she? Indeed I seem to recall that the PM with the red shoes used the word crap in regard to the media reporting on her private affairs that had become of public interest and she said something like “don’t write crap” at a press conference. Now if it is OK for a left leaning warmist PM with red shoes who introduced a “carbon tax” to offer the word publicly I don’t understand how someone else reporting on it or using the word similarly can be banned from twitter?
Quote Daily Mail 2007 when Branson was trying to buy Northern Rock Bank “The Virgin tycoon’s first business venture, in 1969, was Student magazine, sold from a basement off London’s Edgware Road, and his next was selling records from a warehouse in Paddington.
Both enterprises were tinged by sharp practices, especially Virgin Records. Based on cheating the Customs & Excise of tax on the sale of records, Branson chortled that the fraud was “a great wheeze”.
Eventually he was fined £20,000 and paid £40,000 in taxes, the equivalent today of nearly £1million. That crime could be ignored as a youthful excess if Branson had not perpetuated another unethical ruse in 1988.
On that occasion, being depressed by the poor performance of Virgin Music on the stock market and having sold shares to the public at 140p, he wanted to buy them back for the same price, valuing the company at £248m.
Reluctantly, the shareholders agreed, although they were unaware that Branson had already agreed to sell the same shares to Pony Canyon, a Japanese media company, for £377m – that’s £129m more than he told his shareholders the company was worth.
That dishonesty was eventually revealed in 2000 when Branson was on the verge of winning the franchise for the National Lottery from Camelot.
It was his second such attempt, but his bid became mired in a dispute with the Lottery regulator, Lord Burns (a hugely respected former permanent secretary at the Treasury).
Lord Burns advised that Branson’s past business record rendered him unsuitable to be trusted to manage the Lottery’s billions. So ended what Branson called “the most important thing in my life”.
As a brilliant salesman and unique self-publicist, Branson can be forgiven for hyping his products’ successes and smudging discomforting truths. Yet he often teeters on the edge of making fraudulent claims.
For example, during his launch of Virgin Cola in 1995, he claimed that his new drink had 10 per cent of the market, while, in truth, it had fallen to just 3.3 pc.
“We’re earning £1m profits a week from Virgin Cola,” Branson claimed.
However, insiders knew the business was actually losing money and was worth a fraction of his assessment.
Branson might claim his optimism was innocent, but others would say that if public money was at stake – as with Northern Rock – such false assertions would be reckless.
Public investors did indeed risk their money in Branson’s ventures involving clothes, cosmetics and a Belgian-based airline, Virgin Express. In all three companies, the original investors lost money.
Today, in another area of his wide-ranging business portfolio, those investors who put money into Virgin Media (now haemorrhaging viewers to archrival BSkyB) and Virgin Mobile USA at the outset are now losing money.
Private investors have also lost by tying themselves to Branson. In 1999, Singapore Airlines bought a 49 pc stake in Virgin Atlantic, based on its value of £1.2 billion.
The airline is now valued at about £750 m and Singapore Airlines wants to sell its stake. Like his partners in Virgin Blue, a low-cost airline in Australia, the Singaporeans have not enjoyed their relationship with Branson.
But, more importantly, the biggest loser to date in Branson’s enterprises has been the British taxpayer – especially due to his involvement in the privatisation of British Rail.
In the early Nineties, Branson pledged he could run an efficient rail franchise and make it profitable within five years.
As a result, Virgin Rail won the lucrative West Coast franchise on the basis of a deal in which it received a £77m subsidy from the Government and would then pay back a licence fee to run the line from the anticipated profits.
Branson promised that within two years, his service would provide “hand-held TV sets, low-cost phone reservations and more staff”.
Students and groups would be offered “deeply discounted fares”.
However, Branson has failed to transform the West Coast line, with millions of passengers suffering delays while taxpayers have been forced to fork out more money in subsidies.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-499971/Why-Richard-Branson-man-trusted-Northern-Rock.html#ixzz3WErP4IAW
“However, Branson has failed to transform the West Coast line, with millions of passengers suffering delays while taxpayers have been forced to fork out more money in subsidies”
Ahhh greenies and subsidies… OUR taxes at work !!
The only point that I would question on the general criticism of Branson is that he has “failed to transform the West Coast line” . That is really unfair. When I first relocated to Manchester from London, over 30 years ago , any business trips down to London involved a slow , dirty British Rail journey of at least 4 hours to Euston. Now it is just over 2 hours and there are 3 trains / hour throughout the day. Perhaps the technology would have improved anyway , but when it was rumoured that Virgin would lose the West Coast franchise it created the greatest public displeasure up here since the Poll Tax riots.
Branson and his brat(s) are nasty little shits. I once accidently caught one of his brats on independent TV in the UK being intervieved by an ex-gardiner. He said, before flying out to his dad’s island on a 747, that we all need to cut back on our energy use, turn down the heat and turn off the lights. The gardener was sitting there nodding his head. I presume in agreement. But then he did also draw money from the Brussels Broadcasting Corp.
Well said Boyle although you are a nasty ……….
Don’t be so quick to criticize hypocrisy and unprincipled exceptions. If it was not for hypocrisy and unprincipled exceptions, the EPA would have us back in the neolithic scratching the ground with digging sticks.
If the ever purer leftists get the upper hand over the insufficiently pure leftists, we will be in Cambodia’s year zero.
You are right, save for one difference… the Cambodian people weren’t armed to the teeth. Bill Ayers and his ilk will fail. Get your kicks on Rt. .30-06.
I like your caliber.
I refuse to take seriously any criticism by professional entertainers. Problem is, even politics has become mere entertainment. Sigh.
C’mon Bruckie…. it wasn’t criticism.
Just a sharp, valid observation.
Very amusingly sharp.
twitter didn’t close his account ? word “crap” isn’t fair use, but word “c***” is ? go figure … 😉
These green elitists don’t even see the hypocrisy (it’s only fodder for weak comics). They think of it as necessary evil whilst doing good for mankind. I’m surprised none of them have come out and said “I know my carbon footprint is high, but I’m too important to worry about that right now. It’s the price of being a leader in saving the planet.”
Good, let the lefties and greenies attack their celebrities for being hypocrites. The more they do it, the fewer celebs they’ll have left to use for publicity. They’re basically shooting themselves in the foot, but then #GreeniesAreStupid.
As for Branson, he’s just like any entrepreneur who’s found a target market and is milking it for all its worth. The market being green products. It doesn’t matter what the product is, so long as its labelled green, people will buy it because it “good for the planet”. That’s the power of advertising and branding which is enhanced by the public being controlled by nannying fussbuckets who think they know better over how people should live their lives. When people don’t have to think but just listen to their nannies, the are more easily led and fooled by charlatans and quack doctors and politicians.
I just wonder if Richard has had that awkward conversation with Burt Rutan. It would be an interesting ‘schooling’.
Frankie Boyle @frankieboyle 21h21 hours ago
https://twitter.com/frankieboyle/status/583642044515667968
If Frankie Boyle looked at the alphabet he might notice that the letter ‘D’ follows the letter ‘C.’ Despite the fact that both letters rhyme they’re not the same thing. Women and men are not the same thing either. Now the ‘C’ word is definitely quite insulting which I assume was Frankie’s intent. But doesn’t he realize it’s inappropriate. Wouldn’t he have been more accurate to have tweeted that Branson’s a Big D rather than a C?
Nothing will put an end to the CAGW fad faster than when the DiCaprios, the Steyers, the Podestas, the Strongs, the Gores, the Travoltas, the Kerry’s, the Redfords, the Camerons, the Houghtons, and … the Obamas (747 sized private jet, 22+ aircraft travel fleet, 40 vehicle motorcades to fundraisers) get called out to live the same lifestyle they seek to impose on the rest of us.
Who the hell is Fwankie Boyle and why should anyone care?
Good question. And do greens even know about Branson’s low lying island resort development amidst the rising sea jargon line? Do they even know how to view the math involved in the tax credit benefits bestowed on the 1 percent from generalized renewable tax credit policies?
I’ve just checked his twitter feed, he says: “I regret calling Richard Branson a mad c***. He’s not mad. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/13/greenwashing-sticky-business-naomi-klein …”
Bet he doesn’t really regret it at all. There ain’t no such thing as bad publicity to a greenie-luvie-not-so-funny comedian.
Ha ha.. I think you missed the follow up joke there… he just narrowed his terminology… (apologised for calling him mad, therefore confirming…. etc)
Yea Markx got in there first, I thought his follow up was funny too haha!!
Sounds like a second wave of enviro extremism. Girondists being ousted by Montagnards and Jacobins; we’ll soon have a Committee for Public Safety
Gareth Phillips
April 3, 2015 at 2:10 am
True Brandon, but is that under specific circumstances? I am one of those terrible threats to all that is good in society, a greeny and a lefty. However, I fly about four times a year. I don’t think it is hypocritical because I try to offset that by having solar energy for electricity generation and hot water amongst other things. Until someone replaces air travel with something equally as useful, I’m not sure we can just ‘not fly’, but we can adapt, and adaption in my books is the key to many challenges we faced with in climate change.
——————————————————————————–
Gareth, what possible connection is there between your solar roof panels and flying, or indeed climate change? You have mentioned personal guilt/responsibility, but have not provided a jot of evidence. Would the sun shine less or more if your roof panels were not there? Would the local power station (if you are lucky enough to have one) do anything other than be made less viable by your narcissistic worldview?
Truly, I despair at times about the Gareths of this world. They really imagine that it is all about them, and that whatever symbolic stuff they do is hugeley important.
Perhaps they are products of the “self esteem” cult for children. Instead of facing reality, they get told at every hurdle that they are right, and the world is wrong. They are “special”, and everyone who disagrees is a bully or is prejudiced against them because of their sex/race/disability or whatever.
johanna,
Of course not.
Irony. And what’s this “less viable” nonsense about? PG&E wants you to sell them power. For money:
http://www.pge.com/en/mybusiness/services/nonpge/generateownpower/index.page
Solar is specifically mentioned, and California is sunny. Except where I live.
To recap, you demand evidence from Gareth, make factually incorrect statements about the viability of utility companies, and end on speculating about other peoples’ motives. Consistent much?
http://www.virginballoonflights.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Balloons-RBlovesT-Nobby21.jpg
What a shame to spend one’s time and energy dwelling on the theory that has already proven itself to be highly erroneous. Get the big picture of climate Frankie!
Eric Worral –
‘What is new is that ordinary
people, many with green
sympathies, are starting to
publicly challenge leaders who
claim to be green, but whose
jetset lifestyle choices generate
more carbon emissions in a year,
than most people manage in a
decade.’
OR
‘green leaders who
claim to be green, but whose
jetset lifestyle choices generate
more carbon emissions in a year – then the families of medivial tenants in generations.
d’accord – Hans
My only comment is that Gore’s and Branson’s, and the like, carbon footprint is far, far greater than ten time’s the average person’s. But in their mind that is ok because they are leaders in the new progressive autocratic state.
Ahh, the quandary of casting the first stone. So Boyle makes his living without requiring any production of carbon dioxide?
No production of CO2 is required to produce DVDs? No CO2 to produce TV shows? No CO2 to broadcast TV shows? No CO2 to receive TV shows? No CO2 to play a DVD? No CO2 to power his microphone at a stage show? No CO2 from the travel of all the people to get to his shows?
It’s good to know that all of these are powered by magical unicorn burps.
That’s where The Guardian are going to park their investments.
Then you get into advertising.
C*** is somewhat apropos. You may remember Branson’s ad campaign:
Virgin Airlines — Take us for all we’ve got.
Maybe green feminists should be up in arms … (or legs).
But more CO2 is good. Something around 1,500ppm (0.15%), the average for modern life on earth, would probably be ideal. That’s about 4x current levels. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to cause any detectable warming. Either that, or it just prevented us from sliding into another Little Ice Age, which is very, very good thing. The current brief interglacial is coming to an end and we are in for an average drop in temps of -6C for the next 100,000 years. Science!
I get very frustrated reading about these poo-fights. Who’s doing the most to reduce CO2 and keep temps cold. They whole premise is insane.
C*** (i.e. vagina) name calling has a certain pagan charm for a ‘Green’ of the Mother Gaia worshipping type.
Mother Gaia must be proud if green males are summoning the tunnel to her womb in Tweets. How fertile.
The name calling Boyle character is given airtime? It looks like diminishing returns achieved on news.
John
Nothing new here.
Every cult eventually eats itself.
The cult of calamitous climate is behaving in an entirely predictable manner.
As the public ignores their doomsayers, the faithful will examine their messengers. But never the message.
The failure of communication will be ascribed to, first the evil deniers, then to a failure to communicate , then to the faults of the high priests.
This religion of life fearing bedwetters is far too humourless to successfully sell.
Their foul creation, via mass hysteria, is engaged in eating its own tail, enjoy.
Hell has no fury like a zealot who recognizes themselves in a mirror.
Thenself? Damn spellcheck.
john robertson on April 3, 2015 at 7:57 am
– – – – – – – – –
john robertson,
You bring to mind a quote. I adapted this following Dorothy Parker quote,
John
Every cult eventually eats itself
That was the thought when I made my previous post concerning the French revolutionaries eating themselves.
Here in Colorado Oprah is building a new mega mansion near Telluride, cutting down over 500 trees to clear the path for it and closing off a long held hiking trail. But, that’s okay because after all she is a modern day princess who lords over us modern day serfs is she not?
At the risk of sounding a bit crotchety, when did ‘vagina’ supplant ‘vulva’?
(Being a grammar Nazi is not all that it’s cracked up to be 🙁
I think you should leave crotches out of this discussion.
Yeah a minor hangup. Even though Hollywood uses the term ‘vagina’ for the obvious visual parts, that is not medically accurate unless its a baby making scene. Personally prefer ‘pussy’ as in James Bond’s Pussy Galore (much cuter) or the band of the same name.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Cv-0TBEhWVE/SEkCUsaPFjI/AAAAAAAABbI/seCSOWtCp9c/s1600-h/3.jpg
Why do you think Climate Change keep polling at the bottom of worrisome global issues? It’s because the general public has been wise to their hypocrisy and realizes that if those that use the most don’t cut the most, then why should us little folk? It’s obviously not that big of an issue since they aren’t doing anything to change their lifestyles except preach at us to change ours.
It might be because the global warming elite rarely winter over in the North. They either live on the CA coast or have winter homes in FL, the Caribbean or Med. Mayor Bloomberg used to fly to Bermuda every Thursday.
Switching to nuclear power is inevitable. It is the question of the design and nature. The problem with the nuclear energy production of today is, as someone pointed out, improper choices in design. The problem with the usage of wind, solar, tidal, even hydro, is improper choices in design.
A prototype is created, it’s made to work, and the rush to profit is on. The designs don’t sit around long enough in the “trial and error” stage to spot the changes that would make it a better system. Profit, profit, profit, is the call. Charge! Full speed ahead! it truly is in these aspects of research that the government could and used to be of great service.
When the R&D is done on public dimes, the rush to profit is replaced but the crawl to perfecting. Once perfected, then the system can be implemented with greater safety and reliability. Private companies used to be able to do that because “profit for stock holders” wasn’t the driving force behind what they did. With the advent of large corporations, although they are better situated financially to innovate and produce, the focus isn’t on the service or the product that they create, but the profit for the stockholders – the source of that extra funding.
Big governments are no longer focused on doing what is right for the citizens that support it, any more than are large corporations interested in the welfare of those that support them. Both entities are focused on aggrandizing themselves. Where private companies were more focused on service to their customers, corporations have become, along with government more focused on “servicing” their clientele, much the same way as you would get serviced at “Grandma’s whorehouse,” if you can recall the joke.
And it will continue this way until humanity becomes more enlightened as to what really lies ahead. Carbon fuels will eventually run out, but we can use them now to power our way while we find the truly reliable and safe “alternative energy options.” Until there is a storage system to buffer solar, wind, and tidal sources, there will always be a need for fast acting generation systems, and they currently are all carbon driven. But when the storage system is finally in place, then the only sources needed will be wind, solar, and tidal, with a steady state supplementation from nuclear sources.
We are truly blessed. We have enough fossil fuels to last centuries and enough fission fuels to last much longer. It is rhetorical of me to say I just don’t understand the greenies’ worries. It appears to me that the sense of original sin in mankind is deeply felt and as the Christian religion has diminished in the West,, that sense of original sin has transferred to the environment, making it a new religion.
Peta in Cambria writes:
“Someone here on the interweb, a while ago, planted an image in my mind.
It was of a bunch of hyperactive monkeys, sitting/standing/perched on the branch of a tree all the while shouting and screaming at a few other monkeys down on the ground quietly going about the business of ‘life’ – getting on with things and doing real stuff.
The monkeys in the tree were making no secret of how clever they were by being in the tree – completely oblivious to how fragile their position actually was. They’d lost all idea of how dependant they were on the few monkeys still on the ground
Was it ever so………”
And that image, in turn, reminded me of a Kipling poem from very long ago. Yes, I know Kipling is un-pc. But this poem is so perfectly aligned with that image:
Road-Song of the Bandar-Log
(From The Jungle Book)
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don’t you envy our pranceful bands?
Don’t you wish you had extra hands?
Wouldn’t you like if your tails were — so —
Curved in the shape of a Cupid’s bow?
Now you’re angry, but — never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two —
Something noble and grand and good,
Won by merely wishing we could.
Now we’re going to — never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or bird —
Hide or fin or scale or feather —
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!
Now we are talking just like men.
Let ‘s pretend we are… never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the Monkey-kind.
Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,
That rocket by where, light and high, the wild-grape swings,
By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,
Be sure, be sure, we’re going to do some splendid things!
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
Where is the power that made your pride?
Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
Brother, I go to my lair — to die.
Branson believes in Branson.
A mega ego who will live in hypocrisy, say anything, do anything to make himself out to be a Christ.
He knows he owns an airline….he doesn’t care… it is all about his persona… and how it is advanced… today it is eco-religion, tomorrow it is breast cancer….what ever the dumb ditties fall for.
Jet aircraft truly are miraculous, flying above 90% of the atmosphere, using an engine descended from the wheel and burning a fuel JD Rockefeller sold for oil lamps.
One could present him with a rational argument which showed that Arctic sea ice loss is greatest in solar minima, like around 1816, and that increased forcing of the climate cools the Arctic by increasing positive North Atlantic Oscillation states. But who would he believe, the data, or Jason Box?
We have our own energy hypocrites here. Fortunately, one of the more evil ones is retiring.
@ dbstealey
What the heck is a “energy hypocrite” ??
====
You’re not going PC are you ?
Probably a bad choice of words on my part, sorry. Reid talks about energy independence, but those are only his words, not his actions.
Also, it was a good opportunity to post that article. Interesting picture, wasn’t it? Reid claims he got broken ribs, assorted cuts and bruises, and a fractured eye socket from ‘exercising‘. Exercising can sure be dangerous!
Reid is from Nevada. Las Vegas is reputed to have a gangster or two. Connect the dots…
Really, it looks more like he crossed one of his organized crime ‘associates’. And now he’s abruptly retiring. There is much more to this story than the media is telling the public.
I believe “cow” only has three letters.
About time someone really tackled Branson.
He overcame his virginity in business (the brand name Virgin comes from that), but he’s a sucker for being seduced by negative people like climate alarmists.
If you keep pointing out the logical inconsistencies of progressives/leftists they’ll take you off their Christmas card list. Oh wait, they don’t do Christmas.
Branson, who’ll take your money now for a space jaunt later, has been begging for it. However, something tells me that very wealthy Frankie Boyle has himself taken quite a few flights on planes…the mad c****.
Frankie is a beneficiary of Polanski effect: namely, his correct tribal credentials and appeal to posh-left luvviedom mean he can get away with saying and doing just about anything (eg, his worst possible kind of joke about Peter Andre’s heavily disabled child).
The barbarians used to be at the gate. Now they’re inside, and institutions like the ABC and BBC can’t wait to give them a gig.
He’s a comedian you stupid c***
I happen to have first-hand experience of what a two-faced tosser Branson is. Self-promotion is all he really cares about.
One would think that the environmental green movement would be honouring carbon dioxide because it is a plant food beneficial to the planet and crop production. But it is actually the opposite. The greenies hate carbon dioxide, which they treat as evil. Carbon pollution is how they describe it. They cannot be very clever. So I offer them the following basic lesson.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the elixir of life. It is the primary raw material out of which plants construct their tissues, which in turn are the materials out of which animals construct theirs. This knowledge is so well established, in fact, that we humans – and all the rest of the biosphere – are described in the most basic of terms as carbon-based life forms.