Cameron faces revolt by tory MPs about wind power subsidies

With the extreme warmist Chris Huhne gone as energy secretary, it appears that more rational forces are gaining ground in UK politics:

A total of 101 Tory MPs have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the “inefficient” onshore wind turbine industry are “dramatically cut”.

The backbenchers, joined by some MPs from other parties, have also called on Mr Cameron to tighten up planning laws so local people have a better chance of stopping new farms being developed and protecting the countryside.
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Critics say wind farms are inefficient because the wind cannot be guaranteed to blow at times of greatest energy demand. They are also said to be unsightly, blighting the landscape.
Wind farms are also accused of forcing up energy bills while swallowing disproportionate amounts of taxpayer-funded subsidies.
The Tory MPs, including several of the party’s rising stars as well as former ministers, say it is wrong that hard-pressed consumers must pay for the expansion of onshore wind power.
In the letter sent to No 10 Downing Street last week, which has been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the MPs say they have become “more and more concerned” about government “support for onshore wind energy production”.
“In these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines,” they say.

Read the entire article here
According to a Downing Street spokesman, the Government is proposing "a cut for onshore wind subsidies to take into account the fact that costs are coming down", but the same spokesman still clings to the Cameron government´s stupid green mantra: “We need a low carbon infrastructure and onshore wind is a cost effective and valuable part of the diverse energy mix".

The fact is, as the economist Ruth Lea, recently pointed out in a report, "there is no economic case for wind-power" - neither is there an environmental case. Maybe somebody should send Dr. Lea´s report to Downing Street?

Schwarzenegger telling Indians fairy tales about "booming" green economy in California

 “This is how they greeted me in Delhi", wrote the Terminator on his Twitter account

Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday gave a keynote speech at the "12th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit" in Delhi, organized by R.K. Pachauri´s TERI institute. In his speech the former California governor praised the green economy in his home state:

 "The measures taken in California have brought the state in the forefront of green movement in the US. Green economy is booming with 10 times more jobs in green sector and 40 percent more energy efficiency."

However, the Terminator appears to have a rather selective view of the "booming" California economy. Here are some facts which he chose not include in his keynote speech:

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.   
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Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.      
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Job training programs intended for the clean economy have also failed to generate big numbers. The Economic Development Department in California reports that $59 million in state, federal and private money dedicated to green jobs training and apprenticeship has led to only 719 job placements — the equivalent of an $82,000 subsidy for each one.

PS
     
Maybe the Terminator was actually thinking about a new kind of "booming" green economy waiting to become reality?:

Last week, more than 200 prisoners at California’s notorious San Quentin State Prison turned out for a “green jobs” fair. The soon-to-be-released felons were greeted by representatives from several nonprofit groups and training programs, all offering advice and information about the ecologically friendly employment opportunities that supposedly await the men beyond the prison's gates.
The inmates of San Quentin also took part in psychobabble discussion groups. An examination of the topics presented included growing your own food will save money; watching plants grow will develop patience; gardening will teach tolerance toward plants and people; and another that literally promised, “smelling the plants changes behavior.”
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The way utopian-minded non-profits like Planting Justice and Insight Garden Program see the world is, if we’ll just give an ex-con a bag of vegetable seeds upon release, he’ll grow his own food, save money, be more patient and tolerant, his overall behavior will forever be altered, and his criminal ways will be a distant image in the rearview mirror of life.

If only it were so easy.

Forgive me for being cynical, but my antenna is way up. Seems to me, if anything, Planting Justice and the Insight Garden Program may be unknowingly preparing some of these prisoners to become master growers of marijuana and poppy plants.

Read the entire article here

German climatologists: The extreme cold weather in Europe is due to global warming!

The deep freeze has already claimed over 200 lives in Europe, with the death toll raising to 100 in Ukraine only. Forecasters are warning that the cold weather will tighten its grip at the weekend.

Luckily, German climatologists at the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have found out the reason for the extreme cold: Global warming!

Their study has been published in the scientific journal Tellus A:

Even if the current weather situation may seem to speak against it, the probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer. Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have decrypted a mechanism in which a shrinking summertime sea ice cover changes the air pressure zones in the Arctic atmosphere and impacts our European winter weather. These results of a global climate analysis were recently published in a study in the scientific journal Tellus A.

We can be assured that these innovative German scientists will be able to "decrypt a mechanism" showing that even the coming of a new ice age is due to global warming!

When it is really cold, do not count on gas deliveries from Gazprom!

When it is really cold - and the need for gas is at its greatest - do not count on deliveries from Russia´s Gazprom!:

RWE AG (RWE.XE) unit Supply & Trading is getting around 30% less gas than usual from Russia, an RWE spokeswoman told Dow Jones Newswires, after national operators in Poland and Austria reported declining delivery volumes from gas giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) amid severe cold weather.
In Germany, a spokesman for Wingas--the country's second-largest importer of gas and a 50-50 joint venture between German chemicals giant BASF SE's (BAS.XE) Wintershall unit and Gazprom--said earlier Thursday that there were noticeable reductions in Russian deliveries, but that these are hard to quantify. He also said that Gazprom had previously notified customers that there may be reductions in deliveries during the cold weather.

Read the entire article here

Merkel in China: "The euro has strengthened Europe"

Europe´s de facto ruler, German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a kowtowing visit to China, has been extolling the virtues of the common European currency:

"I want to tell you: The euro has strengthened Europe," Ms Merkel said in a speech at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one of the country's leading academic institutions, which functions as a think-tank for the government. "This is not a crisis of the euro, it is a debt crisis and a crisis of different levels of competitiveness," she said.

At the same time the IMF has warned that the recession in Merkel´s "strengthened Europe" will slow the global economy this year: The 17 nations that share the euro will shrink 0.5 percent this year.

However, we should always remember Merkel´s rule number one: Even if Greece and a couple of other euro countries would go bankrupt, it is NEVER the fault of the eternally excellent, political euro.

Whether Frau Merkel was able to convince her Chinese hosts, remains to be seen.

The new Greenpeace mega yacht on its way to the sunny Caribbean

After a brief stop in New York the new Greenpeace mega yacht is now on its way to the Caribbean

Just as we expected, the new Greenpeace yacht Rainbow Warrior III is joining all the other mega yachts in Florida and the Caribbean for the winter months. The Greenpeace yacht is now - after a brief stop in New York - on its way to Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg. From Florida the global launch tour continues to the blue and sunny waters of the Caribbean, and from there on to Brasil. (The Rainbow Warrior will probably not make it to the Rio Carnival, which opens already on February 17th this year, but there is Carnival all year round in the "world´s party capital"!)

No wonder, that the "activists" on board are excited. Here is the account of one cruise participant:

What a huge privilege to be aboard the ship and for the Atlantic crossing no less!
Gazing out at the hills and islands of Grand Canaria slip into the distance with Penny, the bosun, she explained that it’d take about two weeks to cross the Atlantic (our deadline to get to NY is Jan 29th), spend a few weeks in the US and then head on to Brazil. It was encouraging to hear the timeline and confirm I’ll head to Brazil with the ship!

And now I’m in my bunk, freshly haven taken a hot shower in my own cabin and about to head to bed–the prospect of 9 hours of sleep sounds amazing. I’ve felt a bit lightheaded all day and wondered if it’s exhaustion or seasickness but I’m feeling pretty confident it’s just exhaustion and probably a bit of dehydration from all the traveling. On a similar note, I realized my lunch today was the first proper meal I’ve eaten since last Wednesday night in Madison.
I’m still in amazement that I’m here. Penny pinched me earlier to confirm it was real.

In other blog posts the happy Greenpeace activist relates pleasant encounters on the way to New York:

Dolphins! We watch as eight dolphins jump, glide and dart mere feet in front of the bow, playing in the momentum of our forward motion and the early morning light. After ten minutes about twenty dolphins had rendezvoused at the bow while another dozen jumped in crescent shaped arches to our starboard. A beautiful sunrise, dolphins and sailing on the ocean–a pretty fantastic way to start the day!
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I was in the perfect place when Lila came out from the bridge pointing to port and exclaiming that there were whales.

Dan slowed the ship and made an announcement over the PA so the rest of the crew could partake in such a treasured and rare occasion. For the next twenty minutes or so we watched the whales occasionally surface and blow air creating huge swaths of glassing rings on the water in their wake. How beautiful and magnificent!

Oh boy, it´s tough to be a Greenpeace activist these days!

BBC uses former Kremlin adviser as main consultant for series on Putin´s Russia

The BBC offers Vladimir Putin a helping hand

The once great BBC again shows its true colours. The overall narrative in a new documentary series on Russia is slanted towards the country´s corrupted - and according to many observers criminal - dictator Vladimir Putin. No wonder, because the main consultant to the series, former BBC Moscow correspondent Angus Roxburgh, worked for three years from 2006 as an adviser to the Russian government:

Angus Roxburgh is well known to the British public as a former BBC Moscow correspondent. Much more relevant is the fact that Mr Roxburgh was a public relations consultant to the Kremlin for three years between 2006 and 2009. I have no doubt that he is a man of integrity, but it is profoundly shocking that the BBC should even have considered using him, given the nature of his previous employment.
Just imagine the outcry if the BBC were to employ President Ahmadinejad’s former spin consultant when making a film about Iran, or a former Tory central office type when making a film about David Cameron in a British election year.
So why is Roxburgh acceptable? I have been hearing very sad and alarming accounts about the BBC’s coverage of Putin’s Russia for over a decade. Those wanting to learn more can read an article written by the former BBC producer Masha Karp in Standpoint magazine in November 2010, which tells how her programme about the death of Alexander Litvinenko was suppressed by the World Service.
There are other such stories. As The Guardian correspondent Luke Harding records in his recent book, Mafia State, “the BBC Moscow bureau in particular is extremely reluctant to report on stories that might offend the Kremlin”.
The elections on March 4 are of huge importance. If he wins, Vladimir Putin can look forward to a further 12 years in power, making him the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin. Some good judges believe that this outcome might plunge Russia into a new dark age. How fortunate for Putin that he has a useful idiot in Jonathan Powell and a fearful news organisation like the BBC to make life easy for him.

Read the entire Telegraph article here