Today I am off to the annual conference of NOW (National Opposition to Wind Farms) to meet some of the victims of what I believe is the greatest public health scandal of the 21st century.
The great wind-farm scam is by no means a problem peculiar to Britain. All over the world, families are being driven out of their homes, electricity prices being driven sky high, jobs being killed, eagles being sliced and diced, cherished views being blighted, rent-seeking scuzzballs being rewarded. Some countries have proved better at fighting back against the menace than others. Right now, probably the most vigorous opposition is coming from Australia.
Just read this glorious speech, delivered recently by Australian MP Craig Kelly in the House of Representatives, to see how totally at least some Aussies get it.
I welcome this motion moved by the member for La Trobe, for this motion gives the House an opportunity to take a reality check and to examine the effects and the costs of diverting our nation’s scarce and precious resources into subsidising industrial wind farms. Firstly, far from state planning regulations being unreasonably restrictive on wind farm developments, as this motion claims, the states have so far abjectly failed to protect our rural communities, by having planning regulations and noise guidelines so lax as to be perfectly biased in favour of inappropriately sited wind farms. This motion displays a complete contempt for the rural people of Australia, many of whom are unlucky enough to be situated in areas where wind turbines could potentially be located. Back in 2005, the United Nations Environment Program, with one of those ‘the science is settled’ predictions, asserted that global warming would create millions of climate change refugees. By 2010, it was said, these people would be forced to flee their homes because of rising sea levels from melting ice caps. Well, 2010 has come and gone and there has not been a single person made a climate refugee because of rising sea levels. However, here in Australia we now have some of the world’s first climate refugees, forced to flee their homes not by rising sea levels but by government policies subsidising industrial wind turbines.
It wouldn't quite be fair to say that all Britain's parliamentarians are completely spineless in this regard. For example, Chris Heaton Harris is proving to be an energetic and articulate opponent of wind farm development; as too – insofar as he is able in exile at the Northern Ireland department – is Owen Paterson. But sadly, these principled men are the exception rather than the rule. As Christopher Booker noted yesterday, the vast majority of MPs are woefully ill-informed about the damage being done to Britain's environment, its people, its fauna, and its economy by the Great Wind Farm Scam.
If, for example, my local Conservative MP were Fiona Bruce, I would definitely be working to have her deselected now for this monumental piece of asininity:
Fiona Bruce (Con, Congleton) was “assured that onshore wind is by far the cheapest large-scale renewable energy source”.
Not half as much, mind, as I'd be agitating to get rid of the ineffably wretched Oliver Wetwin.
The silliest response came from Oliver Letwin, who said that the quoted costs of the Climate Change Act had been greatly exaggerated (not realising that the figures come from DECC’s own website), and predicted that solar, wind and carbon capture (as yet non-existent) will soon be so cheap that, in a few years, they “will be able to operate without subsidies”.
Ought there not to be some equivalent of Advertising Standards regulation where MPs are held to account for making claims which turn out, on investigation, to be utterly specious?
Or maybe we should just exile the lot of these climate criminals to Australia, like we did in the good old days. My only worry is, it wouldn't really be a punishment since Australia is a lot nicer a place to live than Britain these days, especially in the respect of its coffee which is the best in the world (with New Zealand's, at any rate) and in respect of economy which is still doing reasonably well thanks in great part to its thriving mining sector. On the other hand, it would mean they were exposed to a lot more political soundness from Australia's Liberal (ie Conservative) party which might give them some of the backbone they've been sorely lacking under David Cameron.
Here, to show just how sound Aussie MPs can be, is a bit more Craig Kelly.
We need to consider the opportunity costs of subsidising hopelessly inefficient wind turbines. We live in a world where billions go to bed hungry at night. We live in a world where millions will die this year from particulate and water pollution. We in this parliament have to try and find $8 billion a year to fund our National Disability Insurance Scheme. No-one will ever know what new products, what new processes or what medical breakthroughs will have failed to come into existence, killed before they were born, because of the diversion of our nation’s precious, valuable resources into wind turbines. No-one will ever be able to compute the price that we all will pay for this public policy failure, keeping our standard of living lower than it would otherwise have been.
And for what? What is this for; what is the entire point? Well, members on the other side often regurgitate that delusional phrase: ‘We are taking action on climate change.’ Firstly, we need to be clear how little power wind turbines actually produce. You would need 3,500 giant steel windmills to produce the equivalent output of one single, medium-sized conventional coal or gas fired power station. Secondly, even if we built these 3,500 steel windmills, we would still need a gas fired power station as a backup—for when the wind doesn’t blow, the power doesn’t flow. It is that simple. And of course any gas fired backup power station needs to be ramped up and down to compensate for the intermittency of the wind. A gas fired plant runs inefficiently, burning more gas and having a shorter life span than a plant which is just working normally. It is like a car battling through heavy traffic — less fuel efficiency and more wear and tear. Overseas studies have suggested that we could actually lower our emissions of carbon dioxide if we did away with wind turbines altogether and just ran gas power stations inefficiently.
We have beautiful country landscapes around our nation, from Beaudesert to Boorowa, magnificent horse-riding trails and picturesque vistas. We can desecrate these landscapes by covering them with giant steel industrial wind turbines for as far as the eye can see, but it is not going to do anything to change the temperature of the globe and it not going to have any measurable effect on levels of carbon dioxide. To do so would be a recipe for retarding economic growth, increasing poverty and harming human health. That is what this motion seeks to do. By any analysis, this motion is to support a public policy disaster.
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