Britain needs political climate change to cut soaring energy bills

UK Telegraph ^ | October 17, 2014 | By Charles Moore

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Targets for renewables are unattainable, futile – and will cost us trillions of pounds.

Some time in this century, we reached a state of clever-silly unanimity over green policies, especially carbon emission controls and renewables targets. All parties (except five brave Tories voting against) voted for the second reading of the Climate Change Act in 2008.

So, for some years, we humoured the climate-change lobby, and nodded our heads gravely when experts told us we must help save the planet. But most of us behaved like churchgoers listening to boring sermons. We accepted what we were told, on the unspoken assumption that it wouldn’t make much difference to anything.

This began to change for at least two direct reasons – rising electricity bills and sprouting wind-farms. We started to wonder whether it was true, as environmentalists argue, that conventional energy costs must inevitably rise and so a green levy would miraculously cut our bills in the end.

Last year, carbon emissions per head in China exceeded those of Britain for the first time, and China has more than 20 times as many heads as we do. The EU is responsible for less than 10 per cent of global emissions, so when we set our targets we knew – and said – that we were in no position to stop global warming. The point was to set a lead which others would follow.

They haven’t.

In August 1914, Sir Edward Grey famously said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe”. He was speaking of the war we had inflicted on ourselves. A century later, we are threatening to put them out again, with different motives, but equal folly.

[dangus]

Real global warming WOULD make England a much nicer place to live.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Generally speaking, when the mental case starts harming himself or others, it’s time to have him committed. What Western civilization needs today, is a straightjacket.

[boop]

This article pointed out something I've NEVER understood from a physics perspective.

When windmills fail to have enough wind to turn them, they have fossil-fuel backed sources (or batteries) to keep them on.

That makes no sense.

It would be a net LOSS of power.

Can someone explain the "logic" to me?

Also loved the guy who asked, how long it would take to recoup the energy used in constructing these windmills.

Answer: forever. Because the windmills eventually break down and deteriorate. Plus they need maintenance.

[Robert DeLong]

liberal & logic are mutually exclusive terms.