With good news often comes bad. And so, closely following Germany's announcement that nuclear power is simply too dangerous to continue with, we now hear from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 reached a higher level than at any other time in history.
The global economic crisis had brought a slight dip in carbon emissions, but emissions increased globally by 5% last year, making it unlikely that governments will hit their internationally-agreed targets for reductions in emissions.
As Private Frazer would have said, "We're all doomed! Doomed!"
Of course, we are all responsible for humanity's failure to control its historic levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The situation was aptly summarised by one of the youngsters in the Lenches who, having listened too much to the wayward nonsense spouted by VVASP, argued that the government should be encouraging us to reduce energy consumption. And so it should. And so it has been. For years. The fact that a local teenager was unaware of this indicates the scale of the problem. We all know we should be reducing our demands, and yet few of us can be bothered to do so. We expect the government to tell us these things - and then completely ignore the messages. Worse, we whine, whinge and moan about the government telling us what to do, and then pretend that they never told us in the first place.
We stand at an interesting moment in time. Future generations will be entitled to wonder how he responded to the growing evidence of a monumental crisis. Did we react reasonably and responsibly, in a forward-thinking and enlightened way? Or did we stick our fingers in our ears and go "La, la, la, la, I can't hear you"?
More to the point, when practical, attractive, sensible and beneficial solutions were proposed, did we embrace them or did we tell loud lies about them, plastering placards over anything that doesn't move and organising campaigns of disgraceful dishonesty?
Did we think about those who are to come, or did we get trapped in our own narrow vision? Did we let our petty prejudices and privileges dictate the shape of the future?
VVASP did - and dozens of evil groups just like them. They all regurgitate the same mindless propaganda, they all quote the same dodgy sources, and they all stand in the way of progress that is not only desirable, it is urgently-needed and ultimately inevitable.
Returning to the BBC's "Windfarm Wars". As Roger pointed out in a comment to yesterday's post, the figure at the centre of the anti-Den Brook windfarm movement is losing the sympathy that might have been extended towards him earlier in the series.
His case is far from unique. When a windfarm development is first proposed, there will be those who overreact with a display of kneejerk nimbyism. It's got nothing to do with a windfarm as such - it's just that these people are fanatically selfish, self-centred, and live in a strange world, believing that things should never change (not that they've now got what they want).
Others will be slower to leap onto the nimby bandwagon. We saw that locally with the Lenchwick Windfarm proposals. Some in the area weren't particularly bothered - until something or someone got to them.
This demonstrates the insidious nature of nimby protests. They'll find your weak spot and exploit it. It might be the value of your property. Regardless of the fact that the evidence is quite clear - houses near windfarms tend to go up in value quicker than those elsewhere - the evil-minded bastards of your local nimby group will lie to you, telling you that your property will be worth nothing when the windfarm goes up.
Noise is perhaps a bigger issue. Even the worst-worst case scenario proposed by unbalanced noise "experts" (mentioning no names) would be no worse than installing a modern domestic fridge-freezer unit at the bottom of the garden of the nearest property to the windfarm and then standing in your bedroom listening for the 'noise'. But the nimbies are liars, one and all, and they'll tell you that it will be "deafening".
We now know that Mike - the "Windfarm Wars" most confused character - was being manipulated by the fraudulent operatives of REF. He was worried about noise. He could have approached people who actually live near windfarms - not just the only couple ever to have claimed to have been forced out of their home by the proximity of the windfarm (their parents remained in the house, they seem to be spending an awful lot of time there themselves, and they reckoned they could "hear" the windfarm when it wasn't even operational - make of that what you will).
Up and down the country, communities have grown to love their local windfarms. Did the bewildered Mike go to visit any of these communities? No. He went where REF told him to go, and therefore got an astonishingly warped idea of what windfarms are. The first couple he spent time with didn't even have a wind turbine anywhere near their house - how was that visit meant to clear up his concerns?
Isn't it better to visit windfarms which do exist, and to talk to as many people nearby as possible, than to go to places where there aren't any windfarms yet because a jumped-up bunch of mindless nimbies have deployed every shocking tactic they can come up with to avoid any change to "their" view.
(Interesting moment when Mike said he wanted to strangle the windfarm developer when she pointed out to him, quite rightly, that he didn't own the view. But then, nimbies always respond to genuine facts with demented outrage and speckles of sputum.)
Mike is symptomatic of what happens when sick nimby propaganda goes unopposed. A fundamentally sound and sensible individual goes a bit insane and starts believing whatever the frauds and fools want him to believe.
He will, sadly, become one of history's enemies of the people. He preferred lies and hearsay to facts and the future.
Carbon emissions are rising. And it's people like him - and the dangerously irresponsible maniacs of the nimby movement - who are most to blame. They did everything in their power to oppose the solution. Because it might spoil their view, or because they might catch the occasional sound of a turbine if they happened to venture a little closer to the source.
We must make sure that future generations are aware of this. There were some of us who tried to leave the world a better, cleaner, safer place. And then there were the acronyms: VVASP, REF, and all the other enemies of mankind. To them, the "view" they did not own was more important than everything and everybody else. It was worth betraying your neighbours, your children and your grandchildren for.
Let that never be forgotten.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
HOPE
There are times when we here at Wind of Change struggle to keep up with the lies, fanaticism and chronic inconsistency of the anti-windpower movement.
Take Frieda Hughes, famous only for being the daughter of a poet laureate, and her fatuous piece in one of the Murdoch rags the other week. Quoting a couple of ignorant workmen who visited her home, Hughes was happy to conclude that windfarms don't really work and are only there as subsidy-magnets erected by huge corporations.
The subsidy argument is probably one of the most tiresome of those advanced by the witless drones of the nimby lobby. That they continue to do so just goes to show that they are either incapable or unwilling to get their heads round the basic facts of the Renewables Obligation Certificates.
Unlike nuclear, which has always received colossal subsidies from governments (why don't the nimbies complain about that???), the renewables industry only receives subsidies on the amounts of renewable electricity that are actually generated.
The nimbies - being fundamentally fraudulent and dishonest - like to pretend that the government is throwing cash at electricity companies to put up turbines where they won't generate electricity. That is an argument of stupendous mindlessness, because turbines which don't generate electricity don't receive subsidies.
Let's be honest, hunh? Any electricity firm that was only interested in government subsidies would not bother with renewables, which tend to be delayed by red-faced nimby liars for as long as the courts will allow. No - they'd go nuclear, where the real subsidies are.
But twits like Frieda Hughes refuse to recognise this. And so do all the other swivel-eyed nimbies who voted for Thatcher and the privatisation of the utilities and who now go all frothy-mouthed and weird at the thought of privatised electricity companies making money.
ARE THESE PEOPLE COMPLETELY INSANE?
Yes.
Frieda Hughes also claims to have "reams" of information which "proves" that windfarms don't work. Surprisingly, she ignored all that in order to quote some bloke who did a bit of work at her house. Less surprisingly, this mass of misleading information comes from those propagandists who call themselves the Renewable Energy Foundation.
The BBC documentary "Windfarm Wars" recently let on that one poor chap who didn't quite understand the noise issue relating to turbines was elbowed into taking legal action by the REF. And then, lo and behold, the same bewildered individual met a couple who had resorted to the usual phoney arguments in order to oppose a couple of turbines in Norfolk. And guess what? After years of nimby campaigning, one half of the said couple had become a director of REF!!!
So when nitwits like Frieda Hughes quote the Renewable Energy Foundation as a "reliable" source of information they conveniently overlook the fact that REF was set up by, funded by and continues to employ passionate (i.e. self-serving) anti-windfarm goons!
Another usual suspect featured in the BBC documentary was self-styled acoustics expert, Mike Stigwood. He spends most of his time getting money from moronic nimby groups to try a stop windfarms which might be visible from some directions, and he has pioneered one or two unorthodox ways of quantifying the noise which windfarms don't make.
Sadly, Wychavon District Council were tricked by our local nimby nutters into hiring Mike Stigwood, with the result that wholly inaccurate claims were made about noise, much to the satisfaction of the loonies in VVASP and very much to the detriment of everyone's best interests.
For a brief moment, then, the BBC "Windfarm Wars" documentary showed the greatest obstacles towards an intelligent, harmless and sustainable energy future in England - a handful of warped nimbies and their pet noise "expert".
So it is with no small pleasure and delight that we report on the latest news from Germany. Currently, about 23% of Germany's electricity is produced by non-renewable, massively unreliable and breathtakingly dangerous nuclear power stations.
All of those nuclear power stations - ALL of them - will be phased out in Germany by 2022. The Germans have finally recognised that we have a collective responsibility to wise up and not create enormous everlasting timebombs of hazardous waste. Click here for more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208
Looks like Germany will be going renewable. Just like Scotland, which has pledged to be 100% renewable by 2020.
So where does that leave Little England? Probably all grovelling about in the REF dirt with Frieda Hughes and the rest of the bottom-feeders.
Take Frieda Hughes, famous only for being the daughter of a poet laureate, and her fatuous piece in one of the Murdoch rags the other week. Quoting a couple of ignorant workmen who visited her home, Hughes was happy to conclude that windfarms don't really work and are only there as subsidy-magnets erected by huge corporations.
The subsidy argument is probably one of the most tiresome of those advanced by the witless drones of the nimby lobby. That they continue to do so just goes to show that they are either incapable or unwilling to get their heads round the basic facts of the Renewables Obligation Certificates.
Unlike nuclear, which has always received colossal subsidies from governments (why don't the nimbies complain about that???), the renewables industry only receives subsidies on the amounts of renewable electricity that are actually generated.
The nimbies - being fundamentally fraudulent and dishonest - like to pretend that the government is throwing cash at electricity companies to put up turbines where they won't generate electricity. That is an argument of stupendous mindlessness, because turbines which don't generate electricity don't receive subsidies.
Let's be honest, hunh? Any electricity firm that was only interested in government subsidies would not bother with renewables, which tend to be delayed by red-faced nimby liars for as long as the courts will allow. No - they'd go nuclear, where the real subsidies are.
But twits like Frieda Hughes refuse to recognise this. And so do all the other swivel-eyed nimbies who voted for Thatcher and the privatisation of the utilities and who now go all frothy-mouthed and weird at the thought of privatised electricity companies making money.
ARE THESE PEOPLE COMPLETELY INSANE?
Yes.
Frieda Hughes also claims to have "reams" of information which "proves" that windfarms don't work. Surprisingly, she ignored all that in order to quote some bloke who did a bit of work at her house. Less surprisingly, this mass of misleading information comes from those propagandists who call themselves the Renewable Energy Foundation.
The BBC documentary "Windfarm Wars" recently let on that one poor chap who didn't quite understand the noise issue relating to turbines was elbowed into taking legal action by the REF. And then, lo and behold, the same bewildered individual met a couple who had resorted to the usual phoney arguments in order to oppose a couple of turbines in Norfolk. And guess what? After years of nimby campaigning, one half of the said couple had become a director of REF!!!
So when nitwits like Frieda Hughes quote the Renewable Energy Foundation as a "reliable" source of information they conveniently overlook the fact that REF was set up by, funded by and continues to employ passionate (i.e. self-serving) anti-windfarm goons!
Another usual suspect featured in the BBC documentary was self-styled acoustics expert, Mike Stigwood. He spends most of his time getting money from moronic nimby groups to try a stop windfarms which might be visible from some directions, and he has pioneered one or two unorthodox ways of quantifying the noise which windfarms don't make.
Sadly, Wychavon District Council were tricked by our local nimby nutters into hiring Mike Stigwood, with the result that wholly inaccurate claims were made about noise, much to the satisfaction of the loonies in VVASP and very much to the detriment of everyone's best interests.
For a brief moment, then, the BBC "Windfarm Wars" documentary showed the greatest obstacles towards an intelligent, harmless and sustainable energy future in England - a handful of warped nimbies and their pet noise "expert".
So it is with no small pleasure and delight that we report on the latest news from Germany. Currently, about 23% of Germany's electricity is produced by non-renewable, massively unreliable and breathtakingly dangerous nuclear power stations.
All of those nuclear power stations - ALL of them - will be phased out in Germany by 2022. The Germans have finally recognised that we have a collective responsibility to wise up and not create enormous everlasting timebombs of hazardous waste. Click here for more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208
Looks like Germany will be going renewable. Just like Scotland, which has pledged to be 100% renewable by 2020.
So where does that leave Little England? Probably all grovelling about in the REF dirt with Frieda Hughes and the rest of the bottom-feeders.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT
Now here's an interesting conundrum for our elected representatives to figure out.
The results of the Worcestershire Viewpoint Survey (November 2010) have just been published. They include a whole section on renewables.
Click here to see the full report (section 6.9, starting on page 45, is the part we're on about):
http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/pdf/110301%20Worcestershire%20Viewpoint%20November%202010%20Analysis.pdf
With one notable and well-informed exception, the district councillors responsible for making planning decisions in Wychavon lined up to pour out mounds of nonsensical bilge regarding the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm back in January. The debate was so unenlightened you could have been forgiven for wondering what century you were in. The councillors had allowed themselves to be swayed by the vile, outrageous propaganda and thuggery of VVASP into making a host of stupid anti-windfarm comments.
What the Worcestershire Viewpoint survey shows, however, is that the majority of people in the county are very much IN FAVOUR of windfarms and other large-scale renewable energy developments.
In fact, a staggering 28% of Worcestershire residents seem to "STRONGLY SUPPORT" the development of windfarms in the county. That's right: 28% expressing "STRONG SUPPORT".
As opposed to a measly 8% who are "STRONGLY OPPOSED".
Moving towards the centre ground, no less than 33% - a third of Worcestershire residents - merely "SUPPORT" the development of windfarms here. Just 10% "OPPOSE" such developments.
16% of residents don't really care either way and 5% don't know what they think.
So, let's put all that into context:
An incredible SIXTY-ONE PER CENT (61%) of people in Worcestershire either support or strongly support the development of large-scale windfarms in the county.
A pathetic EIGHTEEN PER CENT (18%) are opposed (just 8% being 'strongly' opposed).
There are even more people (21%) who either don't know or don't care than there are against.
Shouldn't these figures give the antediluvian and oh-so-easily-manipulated district councillors of Wychavon something to think about? Do they really, truly, honestly believe that they were serving the interests of their constitutents, their district, their county and future generations by barking out all the amazing drivel they'd been told to say by the frauds of VVASP?
Or might they begin to wonder whether the fact that the clear majority of people in Worcestershire want to see windfarms generating clean, green energy in their county means that councillors should stop listening to demented, self-serving nimbies and do what the majority of their voters want, for a change?
After all, democracy doesn't exist just to be bent to the will of a few, VVASP-style. It exists for everyone. It bases its decisions on what the majority wants. And the majority in Worcestershire wants windfarms.
Interestingly, 54% of those surveyed also wanted local public services to "Provide guidance on the benefits and impacts of renewable energy". Which is precisely what Wychavon District Council failed to do. They were too busy reading crazy emails from VVASP and avoiding their responsibilities.
Maybe now they'll think again.
The results of the Worcestershire Viewpoint Survey (November 2010) have just been published. They include a whole section on renewables.
Click here to see the full report (section 6.9, starting on page 45, is the part we're on about):
http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/pdf/110301%20Worcestershire%20Viewpoint%20November%202010%20Analysis.pdf
With one notable and well-informed exception, the district councillors responsible for making planning decisions in Wychavon lined up to pour out mounds of nonsensical bilge regarding the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm back in January. The debate was so unenlightened you could have been forgiven for wondering what century you were in. The councillors had allowed themselves to be swayed by the vile, outrageous propaganda and thuggery of VVASP into making a host of stupid anti-windfarm comments.
What the Worcestershire Viewpoint survey shows, however, is that the majority of people in the county are very much IN FAVOUR of windfarms and other large-scale renewable energy developments.
In fact, a staggering 28% of Worcestershire residents seem to "STRONGLY SUPPORT" the development of windfarms in the county. That's right: 28% expressing "STRONG SUPPORT".
As opposed to a measly 8% who are "STRONGLY OPPOSED".
Moving towards the centre ground, no less than 33% - a third of Worcestershire residents - merely "SUPPORT" the development of windfarms here. Just 10% "OPPOSE" such developments.
16% of residents don't really care either way and 5% don't know what they think.
So, let's put all that into context:
An incredible SIXTY-ONE PER CENT (61%) of people in Worcestershire either support or strongly support the development of large-scale windfarms in the county.
A pathetic EIGHTEEN PER CENT (18%) are opposed (just 8% being 'strongly' opposed).
There are even more people (21%) who either don't know or don't care than there are against.
Shouldn't these figures give the antediluvian and oh-so-easily-manipulated district councillors of Wychavon something to think about? Do they really, truly, honestly believe that they were serving the interests of their constitutents, their district, their county and future generations by barking out all the amazing drivel they'd been told to say by the frauds of VVASP?
Or might they begin to wonder whether the fact that the clear majority of people in Worcestershire want to see windfarms generating clean, green energy in their county means that councillors should stop listening to demented, self-serving nimbies and do what the majority of their voters want, for a change?
After all, democracy doesn't exist just to be bent to the will of a few, VVASP-style. It exists for everyone. It bases its decisions on what the majority wants. And the majority in Worcestershire wants windfarms.
Interestingly, 54% of those surveyed also wanted local public services to "Provide guidance on the benefits and impacts of renewable energy". Which is precisely what Wychavon District Council failed to do. They were too busy reading crazy emails from VVASP and avoiding their responsibilities.
Maybe now they'll think again.
Monday, May 23, 2011
WINDFARM WATERWORKS
First, some good news of sorts. Pressure continues to build on the so-called Renewable Energy Foundation to come clean.
We've encountered the Renewable Energy Foundation previously in these blog pages. The REF is symptomatic of the fatuous anti-windfarm movement in the UK, in that it claims to be one thing when it is quite transparently something else altogether (click here for a recent Guardian piece on the shady organisation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/may/18/renewable-energy-foundation-wind-farm)
Of course, like others who protest against windfarms, the REF pretend that they are not against windfarms as such. No, they just continually brief maniacal right-wing newspapers against onshore wind energy. But they're not against windfarms. No sirree.
Last week's episode of "Windfarm Wars", the BBC documentary covering the seven-year battle over the Den Brook windfarm in Devon, showed the REF in their true colours. One of their spokespersons attended the public inquiry into the Den Brook proposals in order to argue against the windfarm.
Makes you wonder which windfarms the REF might actually be in favour of, doesn't it? They say that they're not against windfarms, and yet they're funded by anti-windfarm fanatics and all they ever do is campaign against windfarms.
If that sounds duplicitous and dishonest, it's simply in keeping with the anti-windfarm lunatic fringe in the UK. Basically, they don't have any good, honest, reasonable arguments against windfarms, so they make up silly, dishonest and fraudulent ones.
As it happens, the BBC's documentary series is doing a reasonable job of showing up the idiocy of the anti-windfarm movement. Into the battle last week waded a journalist, who had recently moved to the Den Brook area. Showing the usual disregard for the facts, Zoe Kenyon abused her journalistic privileges by writing an astonishingly stupid piece. It was she who made the claim that windfarms pose a danger to children (oh? how come, exactly?) and proved that she really hadn't even tried to get to grips with the issues. And then she turned out to be a coward, as well as a fool, by refusing to discuss the cretinous claims she had made with a local farmer.
Like the other anti-windfarm protesters in her adopted area, Kenyon demonstrated a gross inability to be fair, unbiased, honest and realistic. As the Den Brook campaign moved into its public inquiry phase, protesters lined up to address the planning inspector and to burst into tears because they were so fond of the landscape.
To be honest, the landscape around the area in question was hardly special, definitely not 'spectular' and, like so many other parts of the country, manifestly not 'unspoilt'. So why did these frauds take it in turns to weep crocodile tears and basically have a childish tantrum in front of the planning inspector?
The answer gets to the heart of the anti-windfarm debate. It's got nothing to do with preserving the landscape. The landscape, whether 'spectacular' and 'unspoilt' or not, will still be there when the turbines go up, while they generate electricity, and long after the windfarm's days are over.
No, the reason these people were indulging in hysterics and phoney tears in the hope of swaying the inspector - rather like children hoping that some well-timed blubbing will get them what they want - has got everything to do with privilege.
The protesters had almost all moved into the area in recent years. They had bought themselves a place in the country - qua Kenyon - and, like our own local maniacs, genuinely seem to believe that, by doing so, they had bought the whole valley. So nothing is ever allowed to change in the slightest degree as long as they're looking at it.
The claim that they are trying to 'protect' an 'unspoilt' landscape is so bogus it's laughable. What they're trying to protect is nothing more than their own sense of superiority. Because they bought a place in the country, they honestly believe that they are better than other people, and that they can be excused having a windfarm nearby because they think they own the view.
The debate therefore concerns those who believe in collective responsibility versus those who can think of nothing but themselves. The latter have to bend over backwards to deny the realities of climate change and to pretend that windfarms 'don't work' - both utterly untenable positions, but let's not expect logical consistency and grown-up arguments from the anti-windfarm brigade.
What this means is that these people, along with their pet journos and propagandists in the REF, are willing to betray everything and everybody, to sell us all, not to mention future generations, downriver in defence of their own petty privileges.
They won't lose anything from having a windfarm in the area (especially those ludicruous hoteliers who convinced themselves, probably thanks to some deeply dishonest VVASP-style campaigners, that their business and their lives would be 'ruined' by the windfarm), and the likelihood is that they will all benefit financially.
But it's not about energy security, sustainability, or the future of the planet, is it? No, it's about those who on principal hate anything that benefits others, those who think that having a house in the country means that you own the country, those who want our farmers to go out of business just so that they can look out over a field and call it 'unspoilt', those who react to sensible, positive, harmless developments by turning on the artificial tears.
Fortunately, the planning inspector was intelligent enough to see through these hysterical displays of fake emotion.
Let's suppose that the Lenchwick Windfarm case goes to appeal. Anyone want to lay bets on how many members of VVASP will breakdown in tears at the planning inquiry as they struggle to defend something they don't own against something that will do no harm?
After all, if your moronic anti-windfarm myths won't do the job, what's left to try but a strategic emotional breakdown? At least it makes you look like you really care. And maybe the adults will fall for it, against their better judgement. You never know.
We've encountered the Renewable Energy Foundation previously in these blog pages. The REF is symptomatic of the fatuous anti-windfarm movement in the UK, in that it claims to be one thing when it is quite transparently something else altogether (click here for a recent Guardian piece on the shady organisation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/may/18/renewable-energy-foundation-wind-farm)
Of course, like others who protest against windfarms, the REF pretend that they are not against windfarms as such. No, they just continually brief maniacal right-wing newspapers against onshore wind energy. But they're not against windfarms. No sirree.
Last week's episode of "Windfarm Wars", the BBC documentary covering the seven-year battle over the Den Brook windfarm in Devon, showed the REF in their true colours. One of their spokespersons attended the public inquiry into the Den Brook proposals in order to argue against the windfarm.
Makes you wonder which windfarms the REF might actually be in favour of, doesn't it? They say that they're not against windfarms, and yet they're funded by anti-windfarm fanatics and all they ever do is campaign against windfarms.
If that sounds duplicitous and dishonest, it's simply in keeping with the anti-windfarm lunatic fringe in the UK. Basically, they don't have any good, honest, reasonable arguments against windfarms, so they make up silly, dishonest and fraudulent ones.
As it happens, the BBC's documentary series is doing a reasonable job of showing up the idiocy of the anti-windfarm movement. Into the battle last week waded a journalist, who had recently moved to the Den Brook area. Showing the usual disregard for the facts, Zoe Kenyon abused her journalistic privileges by writing an astonishingly stupid piece. It was she who made the claim that windfarms pose a danger to children (oh? how come, exactly?) and proved that she really hadn't even tried to get to grips with the issues. And then she turned out to be a coward, as well as a fool, by refusing to discuss the cretinous claims she had made with a local farmer.
Like the other anti-windfarm protesters in her adopted area, Kenyon demonstrated a gross inability to be fair, unbiased, honest and realistic. As the Den Brook campaign moved into its public inquiry phase, protesters lined up to address the planning inspector and to burst into tears because they were so fond of the landscape.
To be honest, the landscape around the area in question was hardly special, definitely not 'spectular' and, like so many other parts of the country, manifestly not 'unspoilt'. So why did these frauds take it in turns to weep crocodile tears and basically have a childish tantrum in front of the planning inspector?
The answer gets to the heart of the anti-windfarm debate. It's got nothing to do with preserving the landscape. The landscape, whether 'spectacular' and 'unspoilt' or not, will still be there when the turbines go up, while they generate electricity, and long after the windfarm's days are over.
No, the reason these people were indulging in hysterics and phoney tears in the hope of swaying the inspector - rather like children hoping that some well-timed blubbing will get them what they want - has got everything to do with privilege.
The protesters had almost all moved into the area in recent years. They had bought themselves a place in the country - qua Kenyon - and, like our own local maniacs, genuinely seem to believe that, by doing so, they had bought the whole valley. So nothing is ever allowed to change in the slightest degree as long as they're looking at it.
The claim that they are trying to 'protect' an 'unspoilt' landscape is so bogus it's laughable. What they're trying to protect is nothing more than their own sense of superiority. Because they bought a place in the country, they honestly believe that they are better than other people, and that they can be excused having a windfarm nearby because they think they own the view.
The debate therefore concerns those who believe in collective responsibility versus those who can think of nothing but themselves. The latter have to bend over backwards to deny the realities of climate change and to pretend that windfarms 'don't work' - both utterly untenable positions, but let's not expect logical consistency and grown-up arguments from the anti-windfarm brigade.
What this means is that these people, along with their pet journos and propagandists in the REF, are willing to betray everything and everybody, to sell us all, not to mention future generations, downriver in defence of their own petty privileges.
They won't lose anything from having a windfarm in the area (especially those ludicruous hoteliers who convinced themselves, probably thanks to some deeply dishonest VVASP-style campaigners, that their business and their lives would be 'ruined' by the windfarm), and the likelihood is that they will all benefit financially.
But it's not about energy security, sustainability, or the future of the planet, is it? No, it's about those who on principal hate anything that benefits others, those who think that having a house in the country means that you own the country, those who want our farmers to go out of business just so that they can look out over a field and call it 'unspoilt', those who react to sensible, positive, harmless developments by turning on the artificial tears.
Fortunately, the planning inspector was intelligent enough to see through these hysterical displays of fake emotion.
Let's suppose that the Lenchwick Windfarm case goes to appeal. Anyone want to lay bets on how many members of VVASP will breakdown in tears at the planning inquiry as they struggle to defend something they don't own against something that will do no harm?
After all, if your moronic anti-windfarm myths won't do the job, what's left to try but a strategic emotional breakdown? At least it makes you look like you really care. And maybe the adults will fall for it, against their better judgement. You never know.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
HELLO ROGER
Well, would you Adam and Eve it? This, as it happens, is the 250th Wind of Change blogpost.
Yes, folks, in the two years that this blog has been doing its best to keep you up-to-date on the naughty behaviour of the anti-wind nimbies of VVASP, the progress of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm, and the case for renewables in general, we have notched up 250 blogposts! Astounding!
It would perhaps be relevant to summarise the first two-and-a-half years of the battle for Lenchwick, but in answer to Roger's recent comment we might simply state that we are currently waiting to hear whether ScottishPower Renewables' legal team recommend appealing against the decision by Wychavon district councillors to deny planning permission for the windfarm on the slender grounds that a few hysterics, busybodies and thugs don't want it.
If SPR do decide to appeal - and let's hope that they do, partly because the planning inspectorate is less easy to corrupt with craven lies than a district council, and partly because the self-serving peddlers of those idiotic lies really do deserve to be exposed for the specimens they are - and if the Den Brook case is anything to go by, we in the Lenchwick area can look forward to many more months of misleading drivel and two-faced hogwash from VVASP.
As Roger pointed out, the antis of Den Brook seemed rather mild in comparison with our local loons (although the television documentary showed very little of the anti campaign, and is yet to broadcast the sort of nonsense that nimbies rely on to fool themselves and others). The hypocrisy of the nimbies over their placards, though, was familiar enough - just like VVASP, the nimby nutters of Den Brook defaced and destroyed other people's signs and then cried foul wen it happened to them.
Fortunately, though, the sort of vandalism inflicted on the wind-measuring mast at Den Brook (on private land!) was not, to the best of our knowledge, repeated at Lenchwick. Seems that our local hoodlums were content to betray their neighbours and their children's futures but to limit the amount of criminal damage they actually committed.
Anyway, we must wait and see whether there will be a new phase yet in the war between truth and lies. To be honest, ScottishPower Renewables might be considering the fact that Scotland is going for 100% of its energy from renewables - how enlightened is that? - and might therefore be tempted to tell the frauds of Middle England to go boil their heads. Scotland can then generate all its energy needs in sustainable ways while we here in England wait for our lights to go out because we are surrounded by morons who believe what they read in right-wing newspapers. Either which way, it looks like SPR will have the last laugh.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Sustainable Energy has published an extremely useful document addressing "public concerns about wind power". As Den Brook, Lenchwick and countless other places have proved, it only takes a few liars to confuse all the issues relating to wind power. A more grown-up and civilised society would engage in reasoned debate about our energy future - the very thing that VVASP did everything in its power to prevent. Naturally, when many ordinary people are bombarded by witless nonsense by self-centred nimbies, the realities of the matter are likely to get rather muddled.
The Centre for Sustainable Energy has therefore prepared a detailed, factual, measured and scientific report on the various claims made by anti-wind loonies. This could prove to be a vital resource, because all too often in these situations reliable information is lacking (or is just blown out of the water by the crazy talk of the likes of VVASP).
The CSE report can be downloaded here:
http://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/file/common_concerns_about_wind_power.pdf
(or go here for the relevant web page: http://www.cse.org.uk/news/view/1535)
If nothing else, this eminently sensible and honest report will go some way towards showing up the antis as the congenital liars so many of them are. By refusing to allow local people to find out the real facts, and by abusing and threatening those who did, VVASP made sure that only their insane propaganda got out there. Even the local council failed in its obligation to provide accurate and reliable information about renewables, leading to a bizarre situation in which the ignorant and deluded took it upon themselves to "educate" their district councillors.
Now, while protest groups might splash out on remaindered copies of "The Wind Farm Scam", a biased and inaccurate survey of the issues relating to windfarms, in order to brainwash their elected representatives, those who have more than a nodding acquaintance with common sense can find out some of the answers to their concerns.
It's a step forward, no doubt. Just one more step on the road towards a renewable and sustainable future, and a large nail in the coffin of the demented anti-windfarm fringe.
Yes, folks, in the two years that this blog has been doing its best to keep you up-to-date on the naughty behaviour of the anti-wind nimbies of VVASP, the progress of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm, and the case for renewables in general, we have notched up 250 blogposts! Astounding!
It would perhaps be relevant to summarise the first two-and-a-half years of the battle for Lenchwick, but in answer to Roger's recent comment we might simply state that we are currently waiting to hear whether ScottishPower Renewables' legal team recommend appealing against the decision by Wychavon district councillors to deny planning permission for the windfarm on the slender grounds that a few hysterics, busybodies and thugs don't want it.
If SPR do decide to appeal - and let's hope that they do, partly because the planning inspectorate is less easy to corrupt with craven lies than a district council, and partly because the self-serving peddlers of those idiotic lies really do deserve to be exposed for the specimens they are - and if the Den Brook case is anything to go by, we in the Lenchwick area can look forward to many more months of misleading drivel and two-faced hogwash from VVASP.
As Roger pointed out, the antis of Den Brook seemed rather mild in comparison with our local loons (although the television documentary showed very little of the anti campaign, and is yet to broadcast the sort of nonsense that nimbies rely on to fool themselves and others). The hypocrisy of the nimbies over their placards, though, was familiar enough - just like VVASP, the nimby nutters of Den Brook defaced and destroyed other people's signs and then cried foul wen it happened to them.
Fortunately, though, the sort of vandalism inflicted on the wind-measuring mast at Den Brook (on private land!) was not, to the best of our knowledge, repeated at Lenchwick. Seems that our local hoodlums were content to betray their neighbours and their children's futures but to limit the amount of criminal damage they actually committed.
Anyway, we must wait and see whether there will be a new phase yet in the war between truth and lies. To be honest, ScottishPower Renewables might be considering the fact that Scotland is going for 100% of its energy from renewables - how enlightened is that? - and might therefore be tempted to tell the frauds of Middle England to go boil their heads. Scotland can then generate all its energy needs in sustainable ways while we here in England wait for our lights to go out because we are surrounded by morons who believe what they read in right-wing newspapers. Either which way, it looks like SPR will have the last laugh.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Sustainable Energy has published an extremely useful document addressing "public concerns about wind power". As Den Brook, Lenchwick and countless other places have proved, it only takes a few liars to confuse all the issues relating to wind power. A more grown-up and civilised society would engage in reasoned debate about our energy future - the very thing that VVASP did everything in its power to prevent. Naturally, when many ordinary people are bombarded by witless nonsense by self-centred nimbies, the realities of the matter are likely to get rather muddled.
The Centre for Sustainable Energy has therefore prepared a detailed, factual, measured and scientific report on the various claims made by anti-wind loonies. This could prove to be a vital resource, because all too often in these situations reliable information is lacking (or is just blown out of the water by the crazy talk of the likes of VVASP).
The CSE report can be downloaded here:
http://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/file/common_concerns_about_wind_power.pdf
(or go here for the relevant web page: http://www.cse.org.uk/news/view/1535)
If nothing else, this eminently sensible and honest report will go some way towards showing up the antis as the congenital liars so many of them are. By refusing to allow local people to find out the real facts, and by abusing and threatening those who did, VVASP made sure that only their insane propaganda got out there. Even the local council failed in its obligation to provide accurate and reliable information about renewables, leading to a bizarre situation in which the ignorant and deluded took it upon themselves to "educate" their district councillors.
Now, while protest groups might splash out on remaindered copies of "The Wind Farm Scam", a biased and inaccurate survey of the issues relating to windfarms, in order to brainwash their elected representatives, those who have more than a nodding acquaintance with common sense can find out some of the answers to their concerns.
It's a step forward, no doubt. Just one more step on the road towards a renewable and sustainable future, and a large nail in the coffin of the demented anti-windfarm fringe.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
LUDDITES
At any time of major change there will be those desperately trying to turn back the clock. It happened at the dawn of the industrial era and it's happening now, as we move into a post-industrial future.
Those who opposed the development of machinery were sometimes called Luddites. Today, the Luddites are those who loudly oppose developments which, while doing little if any harm, will benefit many, not just now but well into the future.
It could be argued that the original Luddites were trying to protect their jobs and livelihoods. Not so today's bunch. They're only trying to protect certain vague privileges. As last night's first episode of the BBC documentary series "Windfarm Wars" made clear.
Basically, certain people who move into country areas genuinely do seem to believe that they have bought the whole valley. Those who've always lived there don't seem to object to sensitive and sensible renewables developments.
Last night's programme was like a big case of deja vu for anyone who has had to put up with the yobbish behaviour of anti-windfarm protesters. Of course, the battle for the Den Brook Wind Farm went on for about seven years, and the protesters there were in some ways making things up as they went along (i.e., creating placards which read: 'Save Den Brook Valley' - but from what, and for whom?)
The difference in Lenchwick is that our local hoodlums only had to google what other disreputable nimby groups had said. So, in return for no actual research, VVASP had a clutch of ready-made dishonest arguments with which to mislead themselves, each other and the local council.
The council's deliberations in the Den Brook case were also tiresomely familiar. Today, we know a little better, of course - the UN's International Panel on Climate Change, for example, has declared that the entire world could be powered by renewables; Germany and Japan have gone off the nuclear dream and Scotland's aiming for 100% renewables by the end of this decade. But back in the early years of the Den Brook campaign it was still possible, apparently, for dimwits to convince themselves that wind turbines don't really produce electricity.
And then there was the noise issue - that idiotic canard: the one that irresponsible groups like VVASP, which are really only platforms for the self-interested, self-righteous and self-important to sound off from; the lousy, discredited argument that twits like to keep repeating on the grounds that, while it may not be true, if you say it often enough a few fatheads will believe you.
The sillier arguments haven't yet appeared in the Den Brook debacle. Next week, apparently, a woman will be heard shrieking that wind turbines pose a danger to children, although she is incapable of explaining how. VVASP took a more sly and despicable approach by merely hinting that the Lenchwick Windfarm might, in some unlikely and unscientific way, cause problems for the local primary school.
But then, most of VVASP's ratfink claims were either entirely bogus or simply unfounded "hints" that it might all turn out to be terrible. A sort of, "It'll be too late once the turbines are up, so better to alarm ourselves and everybody else with unrealistic scenarios than to consider the science, the reality, and the pressing need for these things."
The idiocy of these moronic anti-windfarm campaigns is that nobody wins. Okay, a bunch of selfish fools might get to postpone a vital, healthy and rewarding development for a few years - although in the process they are forced to lie to everybody and completely destroy their local community because what they want is more important than what everybody else needs.
So they use every atrocious Tory-party tactic to make sure that no one benefits, at least until common sense prevails, but that usually comes only after years of viciousness, dishonesty and pathological foolishness, and an awful lot of money being wasted, just so that these enemies of the people get to bask in their own sense of self-importance.
At the risk of spoiling the ending, we can tell you that Den Brook Wind Farm got the final go-ahead last year, after yet another craven attempt to stop it was rejected by the High Court. So - seven years of lies got the protesters nowhere. But they did manage to delay a project which, while doing no harm, would power at least half of the homes in the district, as well as yielding over £30,000 per annum for a community fund and giving a local farmer a much-needed additional income.
We could say, then, that in the end, everyone (or almost everyone) won. Only the pompous, hard-faced and utterly untrustworthy blackguards of the anti-windfarm protest lost out, although in reality they lost nothing but their reputations. But the cost overall was huge - and let's be clear: none of the arguments advanced by the antis had any substance, so all that time and money wasted was wasted for no good reason whatsoever.
Let's hope the same will one day be said of Lenchwick. After a long, anti-social, dishonest and despicable campaign, the leaders of VVASP will see their reputations in tatters. They lied, and they will be held to account for that. But everybody else will finally get to enjoy the benefits of a windfarm.
And roll on next week's episode. It's high time the nation as a whole got to see how sick and how silly anti-windfarm protests tend to be.
Those who opposed the development of machinery were sometimes called Luddites. Today, the Luddites are those who loudly oppose developments which, while doing little if any harm, will benefit many, not just now but well into the future.
It could be argued that the original Luddites were trying to protect their jobs and livelihoods. Not so today's bunch. They're only trying to protect certain vague privileges. As last night's first episode of the BBC documentary series "Windfarm Wars" made clear.
Basically, certain people who move into country areas genuinely do seem to believe that they have bought the whole valley. Those who've always lived there don't seem to object to sensitive and sensible renewables developments.
Last night's programme was like a big case of deja vu for anyone who has had to put up with the yobbish behaviour of anti-windfarm protesters. Of course, the battle for the Den Brook Wind Farm went on for about seven years, and the protesters there were in some ways making things up as they went along (i.e., creating placards which read: 'Save Den Brook Valley' - but from what, and for whom?)
The difference in Lenchwick is that our local hoodlums only had to google what other disreputable nimby groups had said. So, in return for no actual research, VVASP had a clutch of ready-made dishonest arguments with which to mislead themselves, each other and the local council.
The council's deliberations in the Den Brook case were also tiresomely familiar. Today, we know a little better, of course - the UN's International Panel on Climate Change, for example, has declared that the entire world could be powered by renewables; Germany and Japan have gone off the nuclear dream and Scotland's aiming for 100% renewables by the end of this decade. But back in the early years of the Den Brook campaign it was still possible, apparently, for dimwits to convince themselves that wind turbines don't really produce electricity.
And then there was the noise issue - that idiotic canard: the one that irresponsible groups like VVASP, which are really only platforms for the self-interested, self-righteous and self-important to sound off from; the lousy, discredited argument that twits like to keep repeating on the grounds that, while it may not be true, if you say it often enough a few fatheads will believe you.
The sillier arguments haven't yet appeared in the Den Brook debacle. Next week, apparently, a woman will be heard shrieking that wind turbines pose a danger to children, although she is incapable of explaining how. VVASP took a more sly and despicable approach by merely hinting that the Lenchwick Windfarm might, in some unlikely and unscientific way, cause problems for the local primary school.
But then, most of VVASP's ratfink claims were either entirely bogus or simply unfounded "hints" that it might all turn out to be terrible. A sort of, "It'll be too late once the turbines are up, so better to alarm ourselves and everybody else with unrealistic scenarios than to consider the science, the reality, and the pressing need for these things."
The idiocy of these moronic anti-windfarm campaigns is that nobody wins. Okay, a bunch of selfish fools might get to postpone a vital, healthy and rewarding development for a few years - although in the process they are forced to lie to everybody and completely destroy their local community because what they want is more important than what everybody else needs.
So they use every atrocious Tory-party tactic to make sure that no one benefits, at least until common sense prevails, but that usually comes only after years of viciousness, dishonesty and pathological foolishness, and an awful lot of money being wasted, just so that these enemies of the people get to bask in their own sense of self-importance.
At the risk of spoiling the ending, we can tell you that Den Brook Wind Farm got the final go-ahead last year, after yet another craven attempt to stop it was rejected by the High Court. So - seven years of lies got the protesters nowhere. But they did manage to delay a project which, while doing no harm, would power at least half of the homes in the district, as well as yielding over £30,000 per annum for a community fund and giving a local farmer a much-needed additional income.
We could say, then, that in the end, everyone (or almost everyone) won. Only the pompous, hard-faced and utterly untrustworthy blackguards of the anti-windfarm protest lost out, although in reality they lost nothing but their reputations. But the cost overall was huge - and let's be clear: none of the arguments advanced by the antis had any substance, so all that time and money wasted was wasted for no good reason whatsoever.
Let's hope the same will one day be said of Lenchwick. After a long, anti-social, dishonest and despicable campaign, the leaders of VVASP will see their reputations in tatters. They lied, and they will be held to account for that. But everybody else will finally get to enjoy the benefits of a windfarm.
And roll on next week's episode. It's high time the nation as a whole got to see how sick and how silly anti-windfarm protests tend to be.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
HERE WE GO
And so we brace ourselves for the upcoming BBC documentary, "The Wind Farm Wars". Expect to be reminded of all the lies and lunacy that anti-windfarm protesters use to justify their insane short-sightedness, selfishness and downright stupidity.The four-part documentary series was recently postponed for "legal reasons". Just a guess, but if things panned out anything like they did here in Worcestershire, certain local councillors would have made total idiots of themselves, repeating the lies of demented groups like VVASP and proving how easy it is for a bunch of jumped-up, red-faced, utterly dishonest nimbies to hijack democracy. And then, with the local elections coming up, certain councillors didn't want the entire country to know how happily they'll lie on behalf of their constituents (like certain MPs, who mindlessly trot out nimby figures without bothering to check them first - tut, tut, tut!). Anyway, like we said - just a guess.
Meanwhile, of course, the Japanese are unhappy about their government's reliance on nuclear power, so the Japanese prime minister has promised a massive investment in renewables.
Of course, if he talked to some of our homegrown British maniacs, be they dangerously berserk right-wing pundits or the morons who read their bilge, he might get the impression that "renewables don't work". Yep. In fact, they don't work so much that Alex Salmond promised that Scotland would produce all its energy (that's right, 100%) from renewables by 2020 - and this was before he won a landslide for the SNP! Maybe renewables work fine just about everywhere, except in certain middle-class parts of England, where talking crap is all the rage.
As usual, the cretinous and petty-minded Little Englanders are out-of-touch, wrong on all counts but still willing to lie their heads off to get their way. We all know that nuclear power is a dangerous thing (anyone see that documentary a week or two about Finland and that enormous hole in the ground they've been digging so that they'll have somewhere to hide their nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years?) But faced with contributing to a clean, green energy future at absolutely no cost to themselves, fools and frauds will suddenly discover a deep-seated belief in nuclear, or coal, or steam, or dung, or ANYTHING, just as long as they can stop a harmless windfarm happening.
Thanks to one of our good friends, you can do your bit to remind people that nuclear is a nightmare (in contrast to renewables, which are wonderful). The image above shows the completed car sticker that you can get simply by contacting Mike. Here's what he says:
"Worst Case" Nuclear Car Stickers - 20 cm x 6 cm in size.
All enquiries to Mike at nuclear@meltdownrisk4.me.uk.
Costs are £2 (two pounds) per sticker (includes post + package),
or £10 (ten pounds) for SIX stickers (incl. p+p).
Ideally, everyone should buy six,
keeping the free one for themselves and passing on
or selling the remaining five.
So, don't hang about. The Green Party has already endorsed these fantastic stickers. Caroline Lucas MP has one.
Now there's an MP you can trust - not like those self-serving toads who support dishonest and deluded anti-windfarm protesters.
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