Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Falling living standards are contributing to a shocking surge in malnutrition, and diseases which were prevalent in the 1800s. My question – how much of this hardship is due to the skyrocketing cost of Britain’s green energy disaster?
According to the Independent;
Malnutrition and ‘Victorian’ diseases soaring in England ‘due to food poverty and cuts’
Cases of Victorian-era diseases including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough have increased since 2010
Cases of malnutrition and other “Victorian” diseases are soaring in England, in what campaigners said was a result of cuts to social services and rising food poverty.
NHS statistics show that 7,366 people were admitted to hospital with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition between August 2014 and July this year, compared with 4,883 cases in the same period from 2010 to 2011 – a rise of more than 50 per cent in just four years.
Cases of other diseases rife in the Victorian era including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough have also increased since 2010, although cases of TB, measles, typhoid and rickets have fallen.
Chris Mould, chairman of the Trussell Trust, which runs a nationwide network of foodbanks, said they saw “tens of thousands of people who have been going hungry, missing meals and cutting back on the quality of the food they buy”.
The article in the Independent carefully avoids mentioning the cost of energy, but you don’t have to look far for evidence that electricity prices are placing a lot of stress on British household budgets. Quite apart from devastating job losses which occur when energy intensive industries are forced to close, because they can’t compete with lower energy costs in other countries, Eurostat reports that electricity costs have surged from £0.121 / kWh in 2010, to £0.155 / kWh in 2015 (USD $0.23 / kWh), a rise of 28%.
A lot of British homes rely on gas for heating, this isn’t always the case, especially in isolated rural regions. In any case, the price of gas has also surged, from £0.035 / kWh, to £0.046 / kWh. Thanks to British hostility to fracking, British gas supplies and prices are vulnerable, to political instability in Russia, and to sudden cold snaps – Britain is on the end of a long supply chain of countries which quite reasonably place the needs of their citizens first.
What evidence is there that green policies are exacerbating this price spike? Willis did a compelling analysis in 2014, which shows a strong relationship between installed renewable capacity, and domestic energy prices.
Figure 1. Electricity costs as a function of per capita installed renewable capacity. Wind and solar only, excludes hydropower.
British people are slowly waking up to the cost of green energy. For the British middle class energy costs are a serious annoyance. For the poor, rising energy prices are an unmitigated disaster. Adding to this burden, in the name of saving the environment, must be contributing to the ongoing surge in poverty related illnesses. One can only imagine the quiet suffering of British parents and grandparents, growing numbers of whom are going without, destroying their own health, to ensure their children get the warmth and nutrition they need.
Eric
“According to the Independent…” (with an even stronger Leftist editorial line than the Guardian) . I’d take this with a pinch of salt. Both papers have been guilty of complaining about food banks and the brave poor one week and then the next week complaining about food being too cheap and the disgusting obesity epidemic amongst the poor – the solution tax food. The Guardian even managed to do this within a single edition.
Both papers despise the poor (unless they’re a minority which gives them the perfect storm to virtue signal) as ignorant and unenlightened (unlike them). They only roll the poor out when it gives them an opportunity to bash the Tories or virtue signal.
The government of Indonesia has announced an agreement with Thorcon power to develop thorium molten salt reactors. Announcement is here:
http://neutronbytes.com/2015/12/06/indonesia-and-thorcon-to-develop-thorium-msr/
Details of the thorium power plants can be found here.
http://thorconpower.com/
Goal is to get first one built by 2021.
If these molten salt thorium reactors turn out to be as advertized, we will no longer be having these kinds of discussions. Energy cheaper than coal. Abundant fuel at a tiny cost and reactors made on an assembly line like airplanes. Hundreds of reactors built yearly. And extremely tiny amounts of nuclear waste. And nuclear from thorium is nearly impossible to breed into weapon grade U235 or Pu239. No chance of a melt down since the reactor works with molten salt. Drain tank system shuts down criticality when power is lost to the reactor.
Here’s to entering the thorium age.
Energy costs are a problem, but not the main issue with UK poverty. The main issues are:
a. Destruction of UK industry and replacement with Chinese slave production. This lowers the salary of the high earners, and prevents the trickle-down from the large multinationals (which no longer exist) to smaller businesses. It also deprives the government of much needed taxes.
The UK no longer has native car industries, computers, telephone manufacture, white goods, light aircraft, electronics, engines, and severely reduced, iron, aluminium, petrochemicals, plastics and many other basic industries. Which is why the balance of trade is so dire, and has been for decades.
b. Immigration. This depresses wages, with over competition at any wage cost. It also puts large numbers on the dole or into part time work. It also increases cost for government finances, with hugely increased housing costs for non-productive immigrants, and deprives the government of taxes (low wage jobs pay little or no direct taxes).
c. Gordon Brown’s tax credit system. This guaranteed as much money for part-time single mothers as those in full time employment. Not surprisingly, half ouf our company suddenly went part time, and claimed the subsidy, as did millions across the nation. This increases business costs and greatly increases government costs, for no extra production.
d. Ageing population. The cost of pensions has increase dranmatically, and these costs come from taxation, rather than from prior invenstments.
e. High housing costs. The increased demand for housing by 5 million new immigrants and 5 million divorced couples has substantially increased demand and costs of housing. Many single people in London now share not just houses, but share rooms too. £400 a month, to share a bedroom with three others. Meanwhile, many immigrants are living in garden sheds, or using the 50p hotel rooms (public toilets – you pay 50p to get in, and refuse to come out).
Such are the many benefits that Tony Bliar and David Camoron have brought to the nation.
Ralph
Sad but true that Britons have become slaves of the State. Far from never shall be slaves. Britannia doesn’t rule. She has handed over her guns and surrendered.
Thanks for that concise explanation, ralfellis. Well done. The chimera of “free trade” has done immense damage to rich and poor countries alike, with the only winners being the corporations. Call me crazy, but I don’t think my neighbor should have to compete for his job with a Chinaman making five dollars a day.
w.
“ralfellis
December 24, 2015 at 9:51 am
…and prevents the trickle-down…”
Trickle-down never existed in the UK. Never!
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/protein/
Low protein diets = metabolic problems
Aha! Is everyone avoiding pork products, or just the immigrants?
Blame it on the Rothchilds. Oh but then again, what do I know……
The claims of increased poverty diseases in the UK may or may not be correct and the primary cause(s) may or may not be as claimed.
A much clearer problem is the very high Excess Winter Mortality Rate in the UK, more than DOUBLE that of the USA, Canada and the Scandinavian countries.
Excess Winter Mortality in the UK totals up to 50,000 souls per year, mostly among thee elderly and the poor.
Regards, Allan
References:
1. Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather September 4, 2015
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
[excerpt]
Canada has lower Excess Winter Mortality Rates than the USA and much lower than the UK. This is attributed to our better adaptation to cold weather, including better home insulation and home heating systems, and much lower energy costs than the UK, as a result of low-cost natural gas due to shale fracking and our lower implementation of inefficient and costly green energy schemes.
The problem with green energy schemes is they are not green and they produce little useful energy, primarily because they are too intermittent and require almost 100% fossil-fueled (or other) backup.
The Alberta Climate Change initiative seeks to reduce the use of fossil fuels and increase the use of green energy. In Europe, where green energy schemes have been widely implemented, the result is higher energy costs that are unaffordable for the elderly and the poor, and increased winter deaths. European politicians are retreating from highly-subsidized green energy schemes and returning to fossil fuels. When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.
2. The UN’s IPCC Has No Credibility On Global Warming September 6, 2015
by Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/the-uns-ipcc-has-no-credibility-on-global-warming-6sept2015-final.pdf
And don’t expect the green elite to give a rat’s ass any time soon.
Happy Christmas to everyone, and, of course, Best Wishes for the New Year.
Childhood obesity amongst the poor is still a much greater problem than malnutrition. I entirely agree with your view on energy prices, but you are stretching the point here. I would say the main causes of childhood malnutrition are poor parenting skills, wilful neglect and unexpected changes in circumstances, not a prolonged inability to afford sufficient food.
@davidgmills it looks like Thorium will be a long time coming if at all (for high power – long term economic electricity production)
The links you gave about Indonesia moving towards Thorium contained a note saying the project had been cancelled.
More importantly for readers here, from your links I came across this set of presentations from:
Oak Ridge labs – MSR – 2015 WORKSHOP ON MOLTEN SALT REACTOR TECHNOLOGIES COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE STARTUP OF THE MSRE
https://public.ornl.gov/conferences/MSR2015/Presentations.cfm
These presentations detail many of the problems to be overcome before successful commercial scale Thorium operations can begin.
I read that note. It actually didn’t say that thorium was cancelled. The prime minister announced the cancellation of four pending nuclear plants and said they were not going forward with nuclear. However all three entities that signed the agreement are state run and the agreement was signed just days before the announcement of cancelling the four plants.
So it remains to be seen. I am still hopeful. And the thorcon people are pretty sure they can meet the deadline just copycatting what went on at Oak Ridge fifty years ago. The Oak Ridge plant ran for 15,000 hours.
The fact that Australia lies well outside the linear-relationship shown on the Willis Eschenbach graph is a testament to the thick-headed and moronic politicians that have, for years, been elected to the Australian parliaments. These same politicians from both sides, in their muddle-headed way, have sought to impoverish the Australian public while building up relentlessly their own remuneration, benefits and perks even into their retirement, well beyond those of any other country.
Ntes,
How do Australian politician perks compare with US?
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/05/retirement/congressional-pensions
Pensions were reduced in 1980s, but are still ridiculous, IMO.
Perks were changed sometime ago so that MP’s had to “serve” (And I use that word loosely) 3 terms before receiving a pension for life, curtesy of the tax payer.
It appears famine and death are neither unforeseen nor unwanted consequences of the green movement. As greens believe an earth bereft of humanity is vastly superior, such things would fit perfectly within their plans.
No, I am pretty sure poverty starts with having no means of exchanging goods (money).
I have seen people sleeping on the side of a road in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I am sure their hearts and minds were focused on finding something to eat that and the next day.
Mr. Worrall, You appear to be assuming the the Independent article, despite its failure to mention energy, is accurate. Forgive me if this is not the case.
These are other assumptions you make. First let me address the article you have quoted.
When it comes to food banks how do you separate those in genuine need (yes there are some) from the army of cynical. undeserving freeloaders with outrageous senses of entitlement who breed indiscriminately on the taxpayers dollar? The answer is you don’t. Large queues at food banks, no matter the numbers of undeserving, shore up lefty, anti-capitalist propaganda. Just like the junk you get in the Independent.
The media is only too willing to propagate the “guilt” trip, making hardworking people feel uncomfortable about having nice things they’ve worked hard for. I have no qualms about helping the truly unfortunate. Shirkers are a different matter. My taxes help support these people. I don’t owe them anything. I restricted myself to one child because I couldn’t afford two. I am not responsible for people breeding themselves into relativistic poverty. They made a lifestyle choice so why should people like me pick up the tab? Why should the likes of the Independent hacks feel that I should?
What proportion of people attending food banks is down to people being unable to afford rising energy prices is debatable. The greenies may very well be a contributing factor, I’d be surprised if they weren’t, but they are not the root cause.
As for the disease ridden English (we aren’t) – we were doing okay until we imported diseases, such as TB, which we had eradicated before mass immigration from Eastern Europe and the Third World, particularly the Indian Sub-Continent. Since immigration has been the policy of successive governments for at least sixty years the rise in such diseases is not something we can lay at the door of the greens.
It is safe to say, however, that, God fore-fend, the Greens ever come to power they would delight in removing our borders. The have said so often enough in TV interviews and in newspapers. Which is probably why they never will come to power. Immigration isn’t necessarily a bad thing but we English have had more than enough of multiculturalism and the problems it creates thank you very much.
The multicultural experiment of the late nineties and onwards is an abject failure allowing incomers to not integrate, encouraging them, through the lens of political correctness, not to integrate. Even the Blairite lefties who foisted multiculturalism upon Britain (not just England) have acknowledged the failure while at the same time
fiddlingmanipulating the immigration numbers. Let’s not mention the rise in diseases, such as TB, that weren’t screened for. You know, those Victorian diseases that the Independent assures us are rising due to Victorianesque poverty and cuts rather than the influx of large numbers of unskilled migrants from disease ridden communities. But then, ignoring large lounge pachyderms is something Leftists are very good at.Politically correct. Leftist rags like the Independent and Guardian are forever complicit in bashing the shrinking demographic propping up the shambolic system. You cannot trust them to be unbiased. A return to Victorian England? Don’t make me laugh! And why only England? Do Wales, Ireland and Scotland not have these problems too?
True poverty does exist in Britain, not just England. There are genuinely some people who do not have a pot to pee in or do not have a roof over their heads or are hard pressed to feed their children because of circumstances beyond their control. However, people who can find the money to drink, smoke and subscribe to SKY Sports while collecting money from the bottomless social fund they have never made a contribution to are not poverty stricken. Free food is not going to change their ways and their situation cannot be described as “Victorian”. But the likes of the Independent feel it is not the freeloaders who should change but those footing the bill. We are the guilty ones, you see. Flouting our hard won cash by paying our own bills and taking responsibility for our own actions.
The Greenies are guilty of a lot of things but I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with reducing us all to Victorian standards. They are not pre-industrial standards you see. As for the above quoted article; it is lazy journalism of the worst type and should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
You are quite correct when you say rising energy cost is destroying our industrial and manufacturing bases. I wouldn’t take Eurostat as a 100% reliable source though. There are lies, damned lies and EU statistics.
The British are not hostile to fracking, only some of us. Vocal Greenie activists, a tiny but very loud minority, are hostile but they do not represent the rest of us. There are people whose ignorance allows them to genuinely believe that fracking is the work of deranged, multinational, planet killing corporations but they can learn. There are the more down to earth NIMBYs (not in my back yard) who simply don’t want fracking on their doorstep, who are not necessarily opposed to fracking itself but are willing to use Greenie rhetoric to achieve their aims (I’ve met quite a few of those). Please do not confuse “some” with “all”. You do ordinary Brits an injustice.
The real danger comes from government stupidity/venality and the likes of Tim Yeo and Lord Deben who have their thumbs deep into the sustainable energy pie that sucks up billions in subsidies. These are people are at the heart of policy making. They do not represent the interests of the British people. They only represent themselves. Hence the unpopularity of mainstream political parties.
As for political instability in Russia – it seems to me that the West itself is determined to undermine Russia, particularly the EU. Turkey? Voting? Christmas? Anyone?
Fortunately fracking is back on the political table and licenses have been granted to explore the Bowland Shale and other shale deposits. Even the British government can’t be completely stupid all of the time although it does have its moments. It’s still buying into the AGW scam and building windmills.
Naturally the Greenies are up in arms. The sound of wailing and the gnashing of teeth is like a breath of fresh air.
Sorry for the length of this comment but I feel the quoted article needed balance. The Independent is a lefty rag with a falling circulation and isn’t read by most Brits. It doesn’t reflect the British zeitgeist, only the lefty one.
22 August 2014
Food poverty: Experts issue malnutrition health warning
More people are suffering from malnutrition as a result of worsening food poverty, experts have warned. The Faculty of Public Health said conditions like rickets were becoming more apparent because people could not afford quality food in their diet. It comes after health figures recently revealed a 19% increase in the number of people admitted to hospital with malnutrition over the past year.
Britain has 3.8 million children in extreme poverty. Charities such as the Trussell Trust report growing need for food banks but say that some of the items donated can be of poor quality. Dr Middleton said: ‘If the nutritional diseases are markers of a poor diet, the food banks are markers of extreme poverty – the evidence from Trussell Trust suggests the biggest group of users are hard working poor families who have lost benefits, live on low and declining wages and or they have fallen foul of draconian benefits sanctions which propel them into acute poverty and hunger. This is a disastrous and damning indictment on current welfare policy and a shame on the nation. The food banks are providing a real and valued service staving off actual hunger – they are actually keeping people alive.’
Ministers say that ‘billions of pounds are available’ to tackle health issues. The government said the money would help councils cope with public health problems such as malnutrition. But data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed the number of those admitted to hospital in England and Wales had risen from 5,469 to 6,520 over the past year.
Vice president of the Faculty of Public Health, John Middleton, said food-related ill health was getting worse through extreme poverty and the use of food banks. ‘It’s getting worse because people can’t afford good quality food. It’s getting worse where malnutrition, rickets and other manifestations of extreme poor diet are becoming apparent,’ he said. The faculty recently claimed that UK food prices had risen by 12% since 2007. It also noted that in the same period, UK workers had suffered a 7.6% fall in wages.
Ben Reynolds, deputy coordinator of the food charity Sustain, said the warning came as little surprise, as it underlined what others were telling them. ‘Hopefully the government will take note now,’ he added.
Prof Kevin Fenton of Public Health England said he was very concerned about the issue. And shadow public health minister Luciana Berger said the warning ‘must be a wake-up call for David Cameron. They are right to warn that a rise in the cost of living is having a detrimental impact on our nation’s health.’
So this problem began in 2010 with the Tories, did it?
How do you define “extreme poverty”?
I find it hard to accept, at face value, claims from certain quarters who earn a living as activists for this or that organisation. Ever heard of rent-seeking? It’s always worse than they thought. Sound familiar? Dig deeper and discover the real story. I’m afraid arguing from authority won’t convince me. I will, however grant that there is a problem and it needs fixing. Being politically partisan isn’t the solution.
I’m not rich nor am I a Tory voter. I don’t vote for any party because they all micturate in the same china receptacle. Voting changes nothing so I don’t bother any more. They are all equally incompetent.
I struggle to keep on top of my bills, mostly thanks to the massive hike in energy costs and the resulting fallout that raises prices across the board; a Labour policy, ably supported across the political spectrum, if memory serves. This a large contributor to the recent hikes in the cost of living, including Scotland, since the SNP claim to want windmills as far as the eye can see. People are apparently starving yet both Scotland and England can, have or intend to spend billions on wind turbines rather than welfare which in turn (sic) causes even more suffering. So not just the Tories, then. But then leftists are perfect, they don’t make mistakes and they are the only caring people (just don’t mention the blood soaked horrors of the last century) with the solution to poverty even thought they never seem to deliver. It’s always the evil Tories to blame. Which again makes it difficult for me to take your points seriously. The Tories do bear some of the blame but then so do all politicians.
I’ve noticed that the cost of living has dropped recently, a large contributing factor is the plummeting price in oil and gas. A welcome relief.
The biggest impact on the nation’s health, if you believe what the media and “experts” at Public Health England say (that’s your Professor Kevin Fenton BTW), is obesity. smoking and excessive drinking. What you have shown me about poverty is a “warning”, just the latest in many that never seem to quite turn out to be real. Another word for it is “alarmism”. Act now or the consequences will be dire. Throw money our way, at our cause, and we will make a difference. Experience tells us that isn’t the case. It’s the same with “lessons will be learned” which never are.
I live near Blackpool, apparently one of the most deprived, poverty-stricken areas in England outside of London. Take it from me there are no armies of half-clothed, starving beggars living on the street displaying what I consider to be true extreme poverty. Apparently Blackpool is also pretty close to the top of the nation’s heavy smoking list too. If those poverty-stricken Blackpoolians prefer to buy cigarettes (and booze) rather than food then that is stupidity, not poverty. That their dependents suffer for the poor decisions made by the parents is something else. It is they who are the real victims. You can’t blame the Tories for that. Selfishness and personal gratification are age old social problems that successive governments have failed to tackle. The government hasn’t neglected the dependents of these people. So let’s lay some of them blame where it truly lies. With the individual who puts the habits of himself or herself before the welfare of their family.
There is a genuine need for food banks for some families. It’s a shocking indictment but you cannot lay the blame squarely with the Tories. This is not just a political omni-failure. In many cases it is a failure of the individual to behave responsibly.
I believe in personal responsibility. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I restricted the size of my family. I have been up against it when my husband was made redundant at 24 hours notice back in the late 80s when his employer’s company folded. We stood to lose everything because my salary wouldn’t cover the bills and I was forced to give up work because I could no longer afford childminding costs. On top of that we had our rates effectively doubled by the poll tax. We made cuts and sacrifices, anything to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads even though we had a safety net in our parents if things went even more pear shaped. It was our problem and we worked our way through it. My other half took on any job to bring money in and I took on evening work which was low-paid but it was a job. By today’s standards we were living in hand-to-mouth poverty for nearly 18 months until my husband eventually found decent employment. There was a period where free food would have been welcome.
So now I hope you understand why I have sympathy for some and not others.
“UK Sceptic
December 26, 2015 at 3:42 am
Voting changes nothing so I don’t bother any more. They are all equally incompetent.”
Well said! Bothering to or not is another topic to discuss IMO.
‘…Don’t make me laugh! And why only England? Do Wales, Ireland and Scotland not have these problems too?…’
23 October 2015
Tory ideological madness created Scottish dependency on food banks
The latest statistics from the Trussell Trust show that a total of 117,689 people picked up a three-day supply of basic groceries from its Scottish food banks in 2014-15. Of those, 36,114 were children. That is more than eight times the number helped just two years ago. In those two years, Tory cuts to welfare support and benefit sanctions and their failure to act on low pay have pushed more and more people into food poverty.
More than 900,000 people in Scotland live in low-income homes. The Resolution Foundation estimates that by 2020 a single parent with one child, working 20 hours at week for £9.35 an hour, will be £1,000 worse off. The Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates Tory alterations to universal credit will see three million more families suffering and reduced to desperate measures as they try to make ends meet.
Here is the Tory version of why this is happening: As a country, we have a lot of debt. Debt created by bankers’ gambling made possible by successive governments easing the rules so the City chaps could get busy, making money with naught a thought for who would pay the price. That debt, we were told, must be paid off. Cuts had to be made to public spending, we all had to tighten our belts. And in any case we were told, the benefit system simply encouraged folk to depend on support and not get out and work for their living. We need a system that ‘rewards work.’ How ironic, then, that the alterations in universal credit actually penalize people for working–because the more you work the less support you get. Earn over £3,850 a year (the champagne bill for a night out in a City of London pub) and your support will be cut.
But Osborne and Cameron have gone further; now we are not only to suffer to pay off a debt we did not create, we are to suffer more to produce a budget surplus of £40 billion a year.
There is more: people needing support are sanctioned and penalized for petty ‘misdemeanors.’ People denied support pushed to the extreme that sees them end their own life. Men and women denied the support there are due only to have that support reinstated on appeal but having to endure the long road of worry and anxiety while they wait for a small measure of justice to be done. Children growing up in poverty that not only leaves them permanently hungry, but robs them of hope that life can be better.
We are locked into this economic madness that is Tory ideology. Ideology that callously determines not only to make poor and low-income families suffer, but is also driven to fundamentally alter the shape of our public services through financial starvation, so they become a pale and inadequate semblance of what we need.
For heaven’s sake, how many times does it have to be pointed out to the lefties that if you increase the number of food banks and swamp the country with immigrants, the number of people going to the food banks will also increase (including hordes of freeloaders)..?!
Oh, that’s right – ignore any facts which detract from the desired anti-capitalist narrative, rinse and repeat.
Tory ideological madness created Scottish dependency on food banks
cough nonsense cough
The rest of your post is pure leftist rhetoric. It’s always someone else’s fault. That someone else being toffs, Tories, the English etc. etc. etc. Anyone but you.
I have Scottish blood running through my veins from both parents although I was born south of the border. Living in the north of England I also have a lot of Scottish friends, some pro and some anti-devolution. I’ve shown your post to a couple of them and even the nationalist in them believes you are talking bollocks.
Scots are fighters. They’ve had to be because the English haven’t always been good neighbors. The way you portray them is as a kitty-whipped remnant of a once proud race. I don’t believe that for a nanosecond. And neither does any true Scot.
I would suggest that full insulation should be a regulation for all new houses built in the UK and insulating existing houses should be given priority over building wind turbines. Energy companies should not be allowed to charge more to customers with pay as you go card meters many of whom do not have a credit rating to pay any other way. The housing crises is not a housing crises but a demographic crises and inward migration is responsible for this more than external migration, it used to be that people left inner city and rural areas which declined but now the opposite is occurring and the cost of living is being driven up for poorer people while external migration is lowering their wages.
Both my sisters are nurses and while they have seen a sharp spike in dietary diseases its got little to do with lack of money for food. There are three main groups.
1) Those Green leaning parents who insist of raising their kids on strict vegan diets. This may be OK for adults but in children unless they are given protein and vitamin supplements it can produce serious growth and health problems.
2) Those who simply neglect their children leaving them to fend for themselves. Many are addicted to drugs or alcohol and their habits take priority.
3) Those who have simply never learned to cook for themselves. The number of times medical staff are told that they can only afford fried chicken or burgers and fries is amazing . They look askance when told that for the price a single big Mac or Take Away Pizza they could buy enough cheap cuts of meat and vegetables to feed the whole family and provide all the vitamins and protein they need.
As for communicable diseases their is no excuse for children not being vaccinated, there is no cost burden as their is no cost associated with it. Usually this comes down again to either simple neglect or those who decide that such vaccination is too dangerous.
The cost of vaccination are abominable debilitating diseases like MS and narcolepsy.
(And maybe also SLA, allergies and diabetes.)
And epidemics of former mostly harmless childhood diseases at a later age when they can be nasty. (This risk caused by the vaccination of large part of the population being used as in argument for massive vaccination, in a typical warmunist way.)
But doctors will hide the nasty truths about vaccines risk for the Cause (and they say that on record), just like warmunists.
While there may be more people struggling financially the associations in the article are daft. Scarlet fever has never gone away from the UK or US its a streptococcal infection and usually avoidable with prompt antibiotic treatment and treatable if it does occur. The changes in incidence over time is probably due to changes in the prevalent strains and population immunity. Whooping cough has increased everywhere again probably because of changes in circulating strains and variations in vaccination levels. However its normal to see major changes in incidence from year to year. A vitamin C deficiency prevalence in low income groups seems comparable between US and UK and there hasn’t been a case of cholera in the UK for 100 years. The great majority of cases of malnutrition in children are associated with other medical problems.
No, Whooping Cough has increased because of Luddite anti-vaccinators and 3rd world non-vaccinators
“Luddite anti-vaccinators ”
Wrong spelling, dude.
It’s called “skeptic” or simply people with common sense.
If you want to inflict yourself an experimental treatment, that’s your problem, but leave children alone.
If you want to inflict yourself an experimental treatment, that’s your problem, but leave children alone.
Have you ever seen a child suffering from whooping cough? I have which is why I opted for the tried and tested vaccination for my own child and guess what, it didn’t harm him at all. It’s been around for decades and is therefore hardly experimental. You might be happy seeing children suffer for the sake of your tin foil hat agenda. I don’t share your belief.
Can you provide statistics about side effects of vaccines AND about their benefits?
You certainly can’t, so they are experimental.
But yes, most vaccinated people are OK. But if even a small minority get a debilitating disease, then vaccines are not OK. Any 10 years old understands that. Do you?
Can you provide statistics about side effects of vaccines AND about their benefits?
You certainly can’t, so they are experimental.
You ask me a question and then answer for me. So you are a mind reader as well as a conspiracy theorist. Amazing.
Generations of kids, including my parents and siblings, have grown up without any side effects and have escaped the ravages of diseases that once killed. Granted a very tiny minority exhibit side affects but you can’t blame the ills of the world on vaccination and you can’t deny the majority the umbrella of good health. Hard evidence trumps your opinion. Those diseases are again on the rise and children are suffering thanks to the alarmist claptrap peddled by people like you.
Well done. That’s sarcasm by the way.
“So you are a mind reader as well as a conspiracy theorist. Amazing.”
Impressive. You have all the signs of an anti-skeptic. “conspiracy theorist” means “I don’t like what you say”.
“have escaped the ravages of diseases that once killed.”
Which diseases?
“Hard evidence trumps your opinion.”
And yet you have zero evidence.
“You ask me a question and then answer for me. So you are a mind reader as well as a conspiracy theorist.”
Actually, you are a mind reader.
I just have a crystal ball. You failed to provided the numbers.
My crystal ball works.
My crystal ball works.
Which makes my point. Astrology has nothing to do with either science or statistics.
You accuse; you deliver ad hominems; you demand evidence yet provide none to support your claims.
This is trollish behaviour therefore I will no longer feed you.
“This is trollish behaviour therefore I will no longer feed you.”
My cristal ball works great.
You had zero evidence has I predicted.
Thank you for confirming my intuition. You have been debunked.
They are NOT renewable. Why support the GE/Siemens marketing machine by incorrectly naming this inefficient and expensive source of energy?
We’ve got the ‘perfect storm’ raging over here in the UK: A surging population of ~80m (according to food and utility companies) due to 18 years of unbridled immigration; not enough housing to accommodate the immigrants, which is forcing prices and rent through the roof; and, to top it all, a lunatic tilt at ruinable energy which has plunged six million households into fuel poverty due to the ‘necessarily skyrocketing’ prices.
Our so-called ‘leaders’ should be tarred and feathered and thrown in the stocks.
Very succinct. Sums up the problem up beautifully.
Thank you!
Your “leaders” (And mine until 1995), over 50 or so years, have put in place systems that separate “US” (Plebs, taxpayers, serfs etc) from “THEM” (The elite and ruling classes), they won’t be caught out like the French.
Case in point. When I was at school, a trip to London including a trip to the Tower of London and Downing St. No-one can get anywhere near Downing street now.
No-one can get anywhere near Downing street now.
Only
liarsercrookserm politicians.:0)
With regards to the vaccination topic, I, not given a choice as I was a child, was vaccinated against all the usual ill’s in the 60’s and 70’s, polio, rubella, BCG (Huh?) etc etc etc etc…the lot that were “recommended” back in the day. No ill effects at all. Come 2005 and I am going to Africa, I too get some “jabs”, vaccines, top-ups (Tetanus etc) etc etc. No ill effects what so ever. That was my choice.
For the remote chance that some may react badly (Like my step-father to penicillin), the results/benefits by far outweigh the negatives. In any case, there is always risk in life.
PMJD, still looking for a reference for Australia to China coal going for $4/ton. At that price it could be used for road base. It would cost more to haul it to China than to produce it. Where did you come up with that figure? –AGF
The North West Shelf Australia Liquid Natrural Gas (LNG) – Guangdong LNG Supply Agreement.
https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/eco/lng_exports.pdf
Dated 2010. On page 3 it states “Estimates of prices range from US$2.50 per million British thermal units (mBtu) to a flat ceiling of US$3.16 per mBtu.”
About AU$4 at the time. But I made an error in my unit measures. Not tonne, but million British Thermal Units (mBTU). I do not know how much a million BTU’s worth of LNG would weigh though but a BTU is the energy needed to raise 1Lb (Half a kilogram) of water by 1 degree F.
I don’t think I said coal, I am sure I said LNG.
A list of interesting conversion facts about LNG.
http://www.lngplants.com/conversiontables.html
The AU$4 tonne was from memory of a news item a few years about. Maybe the reporter got it wrong too or I just don’t recall correctly.
Robert S December 29, 2015 at 5:13 am
Im Winter das Wetter ist kalt; es regnet oft und es schneit manchmal.
In England due to left wing socialist legally binding legislation (no other country has this not even Deutschland) there is a statutary requirement to reduce CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2030. To do this Labour has ensured that the coal and steel industries are both shut down to the great applause of the Green Party
residing in Brighton (as far away from the coalfields and steel plants as you can get) .The socialists used shamefacedly to court the miners and steelworkers but have worked harder than anyone including Mrs Thatcher (who is innocent in all of this) to close their industries down and in the process export their jobs abroad. The socialists also cunningly contrive to ensure that the industry closures take place after they have been voted out of office by the electorate and the Conservatives are in power to conveniently take the blame. The socialists also left the country bankrupt with massive debts and huge borrowings forcing the next Conservative government to reduce spending (except in overseas aid) and make economies. However the heavy winter rainfall mentioned in line 1, unprecedented this year, has caused massive flooding in the Lake District which normally gets >60 inches of rain a year anyway. The socialists then blame the Conservatives by reducing expenditure on flood defences for the flooding conveniently forgetting that it was their bankruptcy policies of profligate government spending on a massive scale that caused the funding problem in the first place.
I have had a discussion about the engery plan the UK is implementing with my step-father (Conservative). He is convinced that industry will be smarter with energy use and install energy saving systems and policies. To which I replied “So, exporting industry overseas (Already happening), a 3 day week or less and rolling blackouts, just like the 1970’s? If you think the 70’s were bad it will pale in comparrison in the 2030’s”. We changed the subject after that lol…
You will soon be running out of stepfathers.
TYoke:
A question is whether or not people are educated and/or have thinking capability to know/learn how to cook food economically (recipers, mixing, heating, all that – heating of course takes energy).
Patrick MJD you miss distribution costs (wires to your abode, billing and payment administration, servicing, etc.).
I’d want to check mental confusion (besides anorexia there’s mental illness, in BC a big problem is that residents of mental care facilities were put out on the street in the name of freeing them, eco-ideas such as vegetarianism without the knowledge needed for that diet, and just confused people. (For example, a young person was diagnosed with scurvy, a picky eater. Cases of rickets have been found, including in the UK, because parents believed exaggeration about sunlight so kept their child indoors without knowledge of nutrition that provides vitamin D.)
“Keith Sketchley
December 29, 2015 at 2:26 pm
Patrick MJD you miss distribution costs (wires to your abode, billing and payment administration, servicing, etc.).”
That cost is borne by the consumer And in Australia now, suppliers of energy bill you if you want a hard-copy bill). I am talking about the price of the raw material before it is used. The markup would be significant.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
The Green dream – to send us all back into caves, becoming reality.