Big Brother Appliances

Big brother chips will take control of home appliances – but you must pay for ‘sinister’ technology.

You may have heard that the UK is running out of power. We have plenty of energy sources, but because of the green agenda, we’re not allowed to use them.

For one thing, Gordon Brown when he was Prime Minister signed a binding agreement in the EU to commit this country to “renewable sources” for energy, and on top of that, the EU has demanded we close down our coal- and gas-fired energy plants.

Wake Up People!!

(This article from the excellent website of Berit Kjos.)

As you read this, the United States is experiencing the worst drought it has seen since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.  As you read this, nearly half of all corn crops in the United States are in “poor” or “very poor” condition.  As you read this, 38 major wildfires are ripping across the central and western United States.

The brutal wildfires in Oklahoma have been so bad that they have made national headlines.  The price of corn has hit a brand new record high this summer and so has the price of soybeans.  More than half of all the counties in this country have been declared to be “natural disaster areas” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture at this point.  Things are so bad for ranchers that the CEO of Smithfield Foods is projecting that meat prices will rise by “significant double digits” in the months ahead.

How China became a Global Winner

I nearly choked on my rice crispies when I read it. It was even more unbelievable than Cheryl Cole and her serial adulterer ex-husband getting back together. But then I remembered two recent items in the news:

(1) The quiet period that the sun is having means the world is actually cooling down, not warming up as all the doom-sayers predicted. [I could feel a corporate shudder going down the spine of the climate-change gurus.]

(2) Britain just had a visit from the Chinese Premier.  (Shown here smiling, and no wonder!)

And then the bizarre news story that I’d just read fell neatly into place:

“Sulphur from Chinese power stations ‘masking’ climate change”

“The huge increase in coal-fired power stations in China has masked the impact of global warming in the last decade because of the COOLING effect of their sulphur emissions, new research has revealed.”

Hang on a mo. What did I just read? Coal-fired power stations actually have a COOLING effect on the environment? So WHY in the name of all that’s sane, are we closing down Europe’s coal-fired power stations? Come on, stop nagging about (gasp) FOSSIL FUELS like they are the spawn of the devil; let’s solve our looming energy crisis, open up the mines again, repair the ailing power stations, burn coal like there’s no tomorrow and heal the planet at the same time. However, as always there’s a downside…

The report continues: “…But scientists warn that rapid warming is likely to RESUME when the short-lived sulphur pollution – which also causes acid rain – is cleaned up and the full heating effect of long-lived carbon dioxide is felt.

“Within the last decade” (the one they told us would result in doom and disaster, remember?) “global surface temperatures DID NOT not show a rising trend, leading some to question whether climate change had stopped.”

(PANIC!!! Maybe the hockey-stick chart really IS a scam and all the nagging to wash clothes in cold water and recycle envelopes was in vain?? Surely not?)

“The new study shows that while greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise, their warming effect on the climate was OFFSET by the COOLING produced by the rise in sulphur pollution. This combined with the sun entering a less intense part of its 11-year cycle and the peaking of the El Niño climate warming phenomenon.”

“Michael E Mann, at Pennsylvania State University and not part of the research team, said the study was “a very solid, careful statistical analysis” which… demonstrated that “the claim that ‘global warming has stopped’ is simply false.””

AHA!! That’s number (1) scary news story laid to rest, then. Phew. Although the earth is cooling down, the global warming evangelism isn’t false, because all the sulphur that we tried to prevent in fact has had the opposite effect than it was believed a few years ago. A triumph of getting it completely WRONG and still coming out on top. Don’t you admire their skill?

Before we move on to scary news story number (2) – did you notice one little factoid that could have been passed over? Sulphur emissions “cause acid rain”. Hmmm… well I recall the brainless idea that was mooted last year of cooling the planet by pumping huge amounts of that very same sulphur into the atmosphere! The same substance that in their own words, “causes acid rain”.

(** Please, I beg you to read this article so you know I’m not exaggerating. I don’t think any amount of exaggeration could come near the truth.)

The report continues: “The cooling effect of sulphur pollution on climate has long been recognised by scientists studying volcanic eruptions, which have, for example, caused failed crops and famines in the past.” (oh, lovely) “Sulphur dioxide forms droplets of sulphuric acid in the stratosphere, which increases the reflection of the Sun’s heat back to space, cooling the Earth’s surface.”

Which would YOU prefer – a suphurous environment with permanently hazy skies, corrosive rain, dying vegetation and crops, starving animals, polluted lakes and seas, all in the name of “saving the planet”;  OR continuing to live with the increasingly unsustainable threat that some day the earth might warm up a couple of degrees, as it has done many times in the past.

Now, China…

For so many years, China has been the bad boy. Forget human rights, forget the communist dictatorship, the REALLY bad thing about China (according to the experts) was its refusal to cowtow to the demands of the Greenies, and cripple its own industry for the sake of the environment. After all, Europe’s done it and now is the envy of the world for being unable to meet its own energy demands, and creating the highest unemployment and financial defecit ever.  So why shouldn’t other countries follow suit?

But there is a solution: “China  is ready to help European countries achieve a stable economic growth.”  When Chinese premier Wen Jiabao arrived, he promised to offer Europe a helping hand with its debt crisis, prop up the faltering Euro, buy Spain’s debt, support European trade and industry and assist Europe in the Middle East crisis as well.

So now China is NOT the biggest polluter of the skies, it’s a world saviour instead. It’s managed to avoid cutting carbon emissions, defy the Kyoto Protocol, and still come out a winner.

Yet a few short years ago things were very different. In 2005, The Grauniad printed an alarmist piece (written by the BBC Newsnight science editor) about China’s coal-fired power stations that said:

“Eighty per cent of China’s electricity comes from coal, yet coal is a prime source of carbon dioxide – the global warming gas. If the power plants go ahead, it will be all but impossible to avoid dangerous climate change….

“China wants to be seen as a vibrant, go-ahead nation. It’s tearing down the Hutong courtyard homes of Beijing’s poorest, eager to banish their “Dickensian” alleyways. In their place come modern flats and all the energy-guzzling domestic appliances that go in them.”  Pan Juihua, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:  “When you have many problems you have to prioritise. When you have poverty you have to tackle poverty first.”

Quite so. Chinese people apparently hanker for a nice modern centrally-heated apartment instead of a rat-infested hovel and who can blame them?

The Science Editor comments: “Nearly 80% of China’s electricity comes from coal. That’s twice the average, worldwide. And for the time being, as the demand for power grows, this means one thing – more emissions of climate-changing gases.”

China replies that, “We are a country with a lot of coal, very little oil and very little gas. The development of coal is the basis of the development of the country. There is no way that we can replace our production of coal or use alternative sources of energy to totally replace it.”

(Why not just close down all your coal mines  and decommission your nuclear plants as Germany has decided to do.  They too have “no alternative source of energy”, but it didn’t stop them. They lead the way in closing their eyes and ears to the facts.)

But the wise editor at the Beeb in 2005 continues to warn that “What China does now will decide how much damage it causes the world’s atmosphere. If it builds these coal-fired power stations it will push carbon dioxide concentrations right up to the 400 parts per million level at which scientists expect dangerous climate change.”

HA.

How wrong could you be, dear Science Editor? If you listen to the news reports today, it seems plain that burning coal was the answer after all, not only for the wealth and comfort of China (now in a position to bankroll the rest of us who did our bit for the environment) but they have staved off global warming for the forseeable future.

That is, if you believe everything you read.

Now it’s Global Cooling

Oh NO, it’s Global COOLING!! The sun has gone to bed;
We have to change our way of life,
that’s what the experts said.
The Government is hurrying to issue new advice –
Unless we act immediately our planet will be iced!

Already they have advertised, for anyone who can go
To highly-paid consultancies in Global Cooling Quangos;
They’ll seek advice from India, and Russia and from China
On emitting much more carbon before the frost arrives here.

The seas will shrink dramatically, the ice-caps grow in size,
The Thames will be an ice-rink and the birds and bees will die;
The Mastedon will reappear, the Woolly Mammoth too
And a lonely dog and hedgehog will be living in a zoo.

Al Gore has made another film to highlight his concerns
He shows how to contribute with waste paper we can burn;
His graphic warnings stunned us all and brought a guilty tear
As we saw the zebra shivering alone in Tanzania.

The Energy Authorities have told us to use coal
And power stations burning peat will have to be the rule,
It now will be compulsory to install a wood-fired stove
And prove your use of coal and gas everytime you move.

The children at our local school have visited the Tip
To see how NOT recycling can help to do their bit
The bins are emptied daily, and the penalties are dire
If we don’t produce the wherewithall to fuel landfill fires

Hefty taxes must be paid by any in this nation
Who double-glaze their windows or install loft insulation;
Older Petrol-driven cars and motorbikes and scooters
Will get some help towards their tax for being high polluters.

Companies that want to help will garner massive grants
To dismantle solar panels, and all wind farms in the land.
They’ll turn them into aerosols (all funded by taxpayers)
To generate new CFCs to thin the ozone layers.

We’ll leave the TV switched on; drive further to commute;
We’ll invest in dirty industries that promise to pollute;
We’ll cut down lots of forests; we’ll even dress in nylon,
If we can stop the changes in the climate we rely on.

So join a Global Cooling Team, before it is too late,
Create a lot of hot air, and save us from our fate.
Even if your skills are nil, despite your limitations
The rhetoric you generate will rescue several nations.

(With thanks and credit to LittleJohn in the Daily Mail)

Link to report on the predicted new mini Ice Age

Climate Change Religion Destroying Nations and Lives

Never has there been a world religion so evangelical, so ludicrous, so biased, and so contrary to common sense as “climate change”. (It used to be called “global warming” until even its supporters realised that name was unsustainable in light of factual research.)

This week it has been announced that all gas and electricity bills are to go up by an average of 15% and in most cases more like 20-30%. Those who use LEAST power will pay MOST! (Way to penalise those who ARE trying their best.)

The news media have been very slow to tell us why, and the electricity companies are throwing out every deception they know to cover the real truth: we are all being made to pay billions for the “green agenda” this country has adopted in defiance of the rest of the world.

Energy companies are required to buy a proportion of their energy from “renewable resources” and they pass the cost onto the customers. Then there’s the kickbacks paid to wind-farm owners, which again come off our energy bills. They are also obliged to keep the price of energy high as a sort of energy-tax on consumers, and a deterrent to industry.

The greatest energy-users (and thus supposedly the greatest polluters of the atmosphere) such as China, India and America have all refused to set targets or to close their power plants. Alone in all the world, the UK has committed itself to a binding, legal obligation to de-carbonise this country, and to produce power from “renewables”, aka wind power.

Yet the UK’s contribution to global carbon emissions is a tiny 2 percent, and is more than wiped out by China’s annual increase in energy needs. Even if we completely shut down all industry in this country, closed every power-station, and went back to using candles and ox-carts, we would STILL not have solved any global problems (if you accept they exist in the first place.)

We contribute bumpkiss to global warming, yet we are destroying our nation to resolve it.

This Government brags about how “green” they are, saying the UK is the only nation legally committed to imposing severe and binding carbon-reducing requirements on the country. At a time of global recession, is this wise? Certainly, other more sensible countries have said no.

How much more deluded can our Government be – they are worshipping a false god (mother earth) with beliefs that can be scientifically challenged by a schoolchild. And the result is policies that impoverish the nation and endanger the faltering economy at the worst possible time to do it.

While cutting back on social care, hospitals, education and benefits, they hand out huge subsidies to anyone greedy enough to erect a windfarm or plaster their house with solar panels.

Companies have sprung up on the promise of a fast buck, aggressively advertising such schemes, and offering tax-free windfalls for the participants. If you really want to annoy the neighbours, kill wildlife, and irretrievably destroy your local environment why not just set off a small nuclear explosion that will power your farm for decades? It would be far more effective for your energy needs I promise you. (Possibly not so lucrative however, and there’s the rub.)

No greater delusion can be found than the Government’s plan to decarbonise the country. To do so they need to pour billions  into raping our beautiful landscape to erect thousands of ugly wind farms. But that doesn’t matter according to the official reports. “Wind power MUST be made to work“, a report by the Sustainable Development Commission has said. The report’s authors accept wind farms will alter the British landscape, but “probably not as much as climate change would“.

This is like saying I should burn down my house because that is less destructive than the tornado or tsunami that “could possibly happen” in the future.

In February 2011 there were 283 UK grid-connected wind farms containing 3,153 wind turbines with the “capacity” to generate 5204 MW. Of course they don’t do anything like that. No wind farm works “to capacity”. Last winter these blights to the countryside give us less than 0.2 percent of what we needed to keep warm.

It’s been estimated that, in order to meet their commitment, the Government would have to erect ten wind turbines per DAY for the next two decades, and that figure is based on an incorrect estimate of how much power they might produce. The truth is, they are totally inefficient!

At the same time as producing minimal amounts of electricity, they need power drawn from the national grid to keep going. Coal stations are used as a back-up when there is a surge in demand for gas and the wind does not blow – which both tend to happen a lot in this country. But this need for backup coincides with a European Union directive to CLOSE Britain’s coal and oil fired power stations!

The UK has committed to switching off these stations by 2015, leaving it uniquely vulnerable to gas shortages and the intermittency of wind farms. Industry will have its gas supply shut off first – and then what will it use?

The Government’s over-optimistic strategy predicts it will save “750 million tonnes of CO2 between now and 2030“.  BUT even the official figures represent a saving of just SEVEN seven per cent of the UK’s annual CO2 emissions and only 0.1 per cent of world emissions.

The latest and most deluded doctrine of this religion is the abhorrence of shale gas. If you believe in God and his provision, then shale gas might just be seen as his answer to the world’s energy crisis. All around the world, huge amounts of oil and gas can be found in the shale layers underground. This has always been known but until recently the technology did not exist to extract it. That problem has been solved and now every nation is looking into commercial extraction to meet their energy shortfall.

But the UK is dragging its feet.

According to the British Geological Survey there could be around 150 billion cubic metres of onshore shale-gas in the UK. This the equivalent of 1.5 years of total UK gas consumption and is worth around £28bn at today’s prices. But already the green gurus are throwing up their hands in despair and calling for exploratory drilling to halt.

A report by Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University, says the shale gas should be left in the ground. “In an energy hungry world any new fossil fuel resource will only lead to additional carbon emissions. In the case of shale gas there is also a significant risk its use will delay the introduction of renewable energy alternatives.”

The shale gas reserves have only become available because of breakthroughs in both drilling techniques and chemical products but it has transformed the energy market in America and sent the price of natural gas plunging downwards.

Britain and the rest of Europe have much higher gas prices currently and a link with oil prices have sent them to very high levels.

Now as you open your fuel bill in August and see your already-high payments shoot up by as much as 30 percent, will you pin the blame on the climate-change “religion” or will you blame “rising wholesale prices” or “expenses to our infrastructure” as the Electricity Company wants you to believe?

Wind Power – the costliest and most absurd fantasy of our age!

(Facts from Sunday Telegraph article by Christopher Booker 10 Apr 2011)

There has been a fantasy belief for the last 20 years that the world was in the grip of runaway global warming, caused by our emissions of greenhouse gases. The planet, supposedly, could only be saved by abandoning fossil fuels and drawing our energy from wind and sun.

For a while, all seemed to go according to the theory. As CO2 levels rose and the Earth continued to warm, our politicians started to propose every kind of drastic measure to reduce our emissions, such as building thousands of wind turbines. But now this dream and the theory behind it have begun colliding with reality.

Carbon dioxide levels continued to rise, but global temperatures failed to follow. Three times in the past 13 years – in 1998, 2006 and 2010 – they spiked upwards, thanks to periodic shifts in a major Pacific ocean current – the phenomenon known as “El Niño” – which brings warm water to the surface and boosts temperatures across the world. Each time it was trumpeted as “the hottest year ever”. But each time, as the ocean current reversed into “La Niña”, the spike was followed by an equally sharp cooling.

In 2007, temperatures fell by 0.75C, more than the entire net rise recorded through the whole of the 20th century.

Last week however with a new La Niña, it was reported that global temperatures, as measured by satellites, had fallen by 0.65C since March 2010, making the world cooler now than its mean over the past 30 years. Yet again the computer models predicting that, thanks to rising CO2, the world should have warmed in the past decade by 0.3C, have proved hopelessly wrong.

If it hasn’t looked too hot for the theory on which our politicians base their plans to change the world, then last week it looked equally dodgy for what has been one of the most grandiose of their responses to this supposed crisis.

A Scottish environmental charity showed that last year, despite our building yet more turbines, the lack of wind meant that they operated on average at only 21 per cent of their capacity – the lowest percentage ever. Several times, when demand was at record levels, the contribution of wind to our electricity supply was virtually zero.

A similar report from the Department for Energy and Climate Change showed that the 3,168 turbines we have built at a cost of billions of pounds contributed on average, if very irregularly, only 1,141 megawatts to the national grid last year – less than the output of a single large coal-fired power station.

From the DECC figures it is possible to work out that, for this derisory contribution, we paid through our electricity bills a subsidy of nearly £1.2 billion, on top of the price of the electricity itself.

Thus, in return for less than 3 per cent of our electricity, nearly 7 per cent of our billls were made up of hidden subsidies to the wind developers, a percentage due to treble and quadruple in coming years as the Government strives to meet EU “renewables” target by building up to 10,000 more turbines, at a cost of £100 billion.

The dream of using the wind to keep our lights on is being shown by reality to be one of the most absurd fantasies of our time.

Read More:

• “Wind farms produced ‘practically no electricity’ during Britain’s cold snap” 11 Jan 2010
• “Consumers face huge bills for wind farms that don’t work”

Mankind busily working on his own destruction

Global warming is the myth that launched a thousand half-baked unscientific schemes. Perhaps none of them is as crazy as geoengineering.

In USA Today, there is a serious discussion of ideas to “save the planet” that could very well lead to destroying it instead. The title of this piece is “Can geoengineering put the freeze on global warming?”

Some like to paint God as a ruthless despot, vengeful and cruel, who heedlessly judges mankind for disobeying him. On the contrary,  God has done everything possible to rescue us! Despite that, the planet itself has become man’s focus and the desperation to protect it from a perceived threat that exists mostly in the imaginations of humanists has taken centre stage.

Ditch Nuclear Power? You need to see this!

The green campaign group ‘Friends of the Earth’ have said the UK must now re-assess its plans to build more nuclear reactors. They are needed to combat the UK’s growing energy shortfall, since the ludicrously inefficient and expensive wind turbines cannot ever meet our needs.

But now Japan’s nuclear disaster has led to a siren wail of “I-told-you-so” from the world’s greenies. Before you agree with them you should see these two videos.

Climate Change – The New Religion?

From This Blog

The first time I began to think of environmentalism as a religion was after reading a speech Michael Crichton delivered back in 2003. Though he was not the first person to make this connection, his speech was widely quoted and widely discussed. And well it should have been. Though it is in many ways anti-religious and though it proceeds from an unbiblical worldview, it is, nevertheless, very interesting.

Crichton begins by saying “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.” As a Christian I can agree, to some extent, with this statement. Certainly few things are as important to humans as distinguishing was is true (and Who is Truth). From that starting point, Crichton begins to show how environmentalism is spreading untruths and how it is built upon a shaky, unstable foundation.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday–these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

As Christians we understand that certain truths are imprinted into the human mind. Among these truths is the knowledge that something in this world is not right. We know that we are sinners but that this is an unnatural state for us. And somehow we seem to know that we need redemption. Every religion offers its own understanding of how we can be made right. Environmentalism offers sustainability and offsets, the path to a return to the idyllic state from whence we came.

Crichton denies the existence of an Eden—he denies that humanity once experienced perfection. But his point still stands. Environmentalists have created in their own minds a kind of idealistic world that has never existed since the fall into sin and one that can never exist until the Lord returns. They fall into the myth of the noble savage, somehow believing that technology and industrialization are inherently evil. But history bears out just how wrong and absurd and irrational this is. “What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden? ”

Death and sin have reigned since Adam defied God. Death and sin will continue to mark this world until the day the Lord returns and eradicates them once and for all. Without the Lord we cannot return to the state of perfection, regardless of how well we treat this earth. But the environmentalists would have us believe otherwise. They are calling for us to place our faith in them and in their understanding of what’s happening in the world. They ask us to place our faith in their solution; in their salvation. Al Gore, undoubtedly the world’s foremost environmentalist spokesperson, has gone on record several times saying that we need to have a blind faith—that anyone who would doubt climate change is like a person who still believes in a flat earth. Environmentalism is a religion that is increasingly demanding adherence at the expense of reason. And this despite environmentalism’s long record of getting it all dead wrong (remember acid rain and global cooling and DDT and…?).

In find it interesting that the term “global warming” has now been largely supplanted by “climate change.” This offers at least two advantages to environmentalists: first, it allows scientists to claim either warming or cooling as evidence of their theories and second it makes their theories far easier to prove because the climate is always changing. The climate is never static, but always changing in one direction or another (which is why we speak of historical average temperatures drawn from a long sample). Today any unusual weather patterns—warm weather in January, unusually cold weather in January, a large number of hurricanes, the absence of hurricanes—are all used to prove that climate change is happening. And we are supposed to blindly accept all of this. This does look like a religion—not the religion of the Bible which offers evidence and calls for faith—but the religion of the world which demands faith despite evidence. It is a religion that mimics truth, offering its own concepts of deity, sin, salvation and redemption. It is a religion that masks truth, blinding people to problems of the heart that are far deeper than the environment. It is a religion that creates its own version of truth. It is yet another false religion—another kind of works righteousness in which humans can make themselves right before their god through their own efforts.

Let me conclude with sentiment I’ve expressed here before. I am all for tending to the earth and hence I’m all for our town’s new waste disposal strategy. I know that God entrusted it to us and did not give us a world that is merely habitable, but a world that is stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful and one that was absolutely perfect for us. Sadly, we ruined the perfection and continue to do so. As Christians we should have the highest view of the earth, seeing it as a gracious and generous gift of God. We should be first in line to protect it, to tend to it, and to attempt to reverse whatever damage we have done to it. Yet we must not fool ourselves into believing that we can save it in and of ourselves. The earth is not neutral or inherently good. Not anymore. We ruined it and have to be prepared for it to continue to decay, just as you and I will do. As our bodies rot and decay, so too does the earth. So while we tend to it, we do so from a perspective that realizes that this earth is only our temporary home. When the Lord returns He will redeem it, He will rebuild it, and restore it to its original perfection.