Bishop Hill The cost of climate
Oct 10, 2013 Climate: Parliament Energy: grid ;)
We could be doing so much more, Prime MinisterThis post came to me in an email this morning. It's from a correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous.
Some 7,800 people die during winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes properly, says fuel poverty expert Professor Christine Liddell of the University of Ulster. That works out at 65 deaths a day.
Hitler managed to kill 65,000 civilians in the UK during World War 2, an average of about 12,000 tragic deaths annually for each of the five and a half years of the war. So, ConLibLab's expensive energy policies are killing us at 2/3rds the rate Hitler managed. WW2's civilians can be said to have died in the struggle for our freedom. How can ConLibLab justify the lonely death of people in their own homes in peacetime, what noble cause are they dying for? Do Mr. Cameron & Mr. Clegg feel proud of their policies to make electricity more expensive? How does Mr. Cameron's father in law feel about pocketing a reported £1,000 a day from the windmills sited on his land? Does Mr. Clegg's lawyer wife feel working for one of Europe's largest installers of windfarms is socially acceptable? Does Mr. Milliband still feel comfortable with his record as a minister in bringing into law the 2008 Climate Change Act which set targets for the reduction of CO2 which underpin today's expensive energy bills?
Unfortunately, worse is to come. A recent Credit Suisse Bank study reports increased UK energy cost and states, "The bank blamed the roughly fivefold rise in the government's new tax on carbon-dioxide emitting power generation over the next seven years", and went on to forecast that within three years rising UK electricity prices will be almost double German prices, which are currently twice as high as electricity costs in the US. How many more will be killed by unnecessary, tax-driven energy increases?
As a financially challenged OAP I cannot quite reach your tip jar. However, I wish you all the best in your important work, for which I thank you. If you make reference to this, please describe me as a "correspondent"
Reader Comments (74)
I post this report from Age UK last year as frequently as possible (last winter's figures are meant to be worse but as far as I know have not been published yet):
New figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today show that 21,700 older people died last winter from cold-related illnesses – a 3% drop on the previous year.
While the drop is clearly good news, there was an increase of 1% in the 75-84 age bracket (up from 19,400 to 19,500), and a much steeper 7% increase in number of deaths among the over 85s (up from 12,040 to 12,900).
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news/archive/excess-winter-deaths-fall-but-over-21k-still-die/
Very well said.
When you add that the benefit to the climate is effectively zero.
I could say a lot more about this and those responsible but it is best that I don't.
The road to hell is paved with green/environmental intentions.
The solution is becoming more evident and will inevitably be violent.
According to Delingpole
" But a Mail on Sunday investigation has learned the former MP – who became Lord Deben in 2010 – is also chairman of Forewind, a consortium trying to build thousands of turbines in the North Sea’s Dogger Bank.
Lord Deben already chairs Sancroft, a lobbying and consultancy firm based in Queen Anne’s Gate, Westminster. One of its specialities is advising businesses on how to make money from policies enacted to combat global warming."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100177587/tory-sleaze-is-worse-than-ever-yeo-and-deben-must-go/
According to Wikipedia
" in 2009 Gummer attracted attention after claiming £36,000 for gardening over 4 years"
It doesn't take much searching to find unsavoury facts about Lord Deben.
Miliband - Huhne - Davey - Deben - Oxburgh - when will we ever get justice for the pain they are causing?
I would suggest that infirmity tends to increase in the last 10 years of someone's life. If people are living to 85, then cold for them becomes critical after the age of 75 . Health tends to decrease in the last 5 years and especially after the age of 80.
I would suggest that many of the 1960s left wing middle class types never shook off their lack of respect for the elderly. The 1960s middle class left wingers were always going to be young. The left wing middle class looked at those older than themselves as authoritarian figures who were to be opposed. An example of left wing middle class wanted to ignore those older than themselves was that from the 70s to the mid 70s activities such as Remembrance Sunday were ignored in many state schools. How often did the children of the post 60s spoke about how awful were their families and tried to avoid being with their parents at Christmas or Easter
Consequently many middle class left wing/green types have little or no sympathy for the elderly.
Off-hand I can't think of any scheme introduced in the name of preventing climate change that has not had a detrimental effect worse than the threat it was supposed to be preventing.
" How can ConLibLab justify the lonely death of people in their own homes in peacetime, what noble cause are they dying for?...."
A very good question!
No doubt the eco loons will believe that such deaths are price worth paying (as long as it's not theirs of course) if they are to save the planet from destruction 100 years hence.
Could it not also be possible that the over 80s have less income to assign to the thermostat? Many of them may never have expected to live to that age and may have run through their wherewithal.
A reminder to the younger generation:
"As you are so once were we.
And as we are so you will be."
Be good to see the historical data for winter deaths?
It is remarkable how many climate sceptics warned government of this ridiculous level of energy bills - if it continued to pursue its green agenda. Surely even idiots, including those in all political parties, can't really believe that this country can play any sensible part in reducing global GHG emissions. Even if such a reduction is really necessary.
For God's sake, why doesn't Cameron ignore his deputy, and the other fanatical warmist LibDems, then listen to the likes of Peter Lilley and his Environment Secretary. Who will, no doubt, support returning mothballed coal fired power stations back into service.
Be good to see the historical data for winter deaths?
Oct 10, 2013 at 11:41 AM | Unregistered Commenter James
Er, search the ONS (Office for National Statistics):
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=excess+winter+mortality
How can they do it? To be blunt their love of their wallets has more weight than their minimal compassion for people in their country dying of cold. It is becoming apparent that the short period of heightened warming from the 1980s to the 1990's was due to natural climate variation imposed on the long slow rise in temperatures from the Little Ice Age. Both of those rises appear to have stopped fifteen years ago and are now on the downward part of the cycle. The politicians Milliband, Clegg, Cameron, Yeo, and Gummer - will be shown in history to be greedy and/or fools who caused the deaths of thousands while making personal profit. A nice legacy for their grandchildren.
@ Swiss Bob & 'James'
As per correspondence to me from Public Health England;-
" The Office of National Statistics report that in winter 2011/12 (December – March) of 22,800 people in England died from the effects of cold weather – this is a provisional figure, but is similar to figures for previous years." [My bold]
I have asked DECC on at least 2 occasions to let me have details of the number of deaths from fuel poverty expected as a result of their policies. Strangely enough I have not received a response - other than a stereotype letter which failed to address most of the issues I raised. Surely DECC if you are going to introduce policies that you know will force more and more people into fuel poverty the government must have done some due diligence on how many of its citizens those policies are likely to kill?
A cynic would no doubt suggest that having less people in receipt of state pensions could be a government policy.
While not saying this is decided on the economics, every dead octogenarian is a net positive for the Treasury, the housing market, the NHS, pretty much everybody. I wonder how many die of poverty then have an estate which pays death duty?
I think the 7,800 figure is very cautious. The current excess is about 25,700 in England and Wales http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health2/excess-winter-mortality-in-england-and-wales/2010-11--provisional--and-2009-10--final-/stb-ewm-2010-11.html so probably about 30,000.
Difficult to assume anything like that if cold were not a problem - ie if electricity costs were a small fraction of what they are, as they could be. Actually even in summer there must be some deaths that owe something to cold and the alarmists assure us that there are many thousands of deaths due to heating in summer, which could be alleviated if people could afford air conditioning.
I think 25,000 would be a reasonable estimate.
Neil Craig: As shown above the excess deaths in Winter is generally around the 22-25k mark; the excess in Summer due to heat is (from memory) around the 3-4k mark. ONS will have the details by year I'm sure.
It’s simplistic to think of people dying because they can’t afford to heat their homes and the number who succumb to either heat or cold (and no other major factor) are quite small. High energy prices have a far more roundabout way of killing people. The prosperity of a country is one of the best ways of preserving life. More money coming in means more money to spend on all areas that will benefit the public. It also means more money in society as a whole, so people can spend their own money preserving their own life. It might be that more old people die because they stop visiting friends and taking an interest in life than suffer hypothermia. Higher energy bills make people live bleaker, less stimulating lives, which can be a big factor in their death.
Green taxes are a speculative gamble on something that has no short term benefit and very dubious long term reward. It takes and takes from other areas of spending, without returning anything to those it hits hardest. “I’m sorry, you can’t have that cancer drug. We spent the money on a windmill because we worry about polar bears. The windmill won’t save the bears but we won’t feel guilty about their demise.”
You can hear the champagne corks in number ten popping with each OAP that dies:
“Hooray”, they will shout, “Another pleb forced into fuel poverty due to austerity cuts. Cut more of their benefits for good measure and charge them for bedrooms and call it a subsidy cut! There will be a few feet of global warming along soon to finish them off before they complain too much.”
“Go on” they will say, “Watch me laugh as you pay me double to turn my turbine off, watch me chortle as our smart meters keep us warm and turn you off even if you somehow manage to scrape up enough to have kept the heating on. Priorities and all that.”
/sarc until it happens
I assume if/when the sceptic argument is won, then all those sceptics rightly championing the poor and the elderly, as the most vulnerable within our societies, will continue to take that fight on in other realms and injustices that I country creates.
LibLabCon don't care, they're all self-serving parasites. Their aim is to be re-elected until they have enough friends in the right places to become (unelected) European Commissioners then Lords (a bit like that disgraceful hypocrite Lord Kinnock).
The silence from UKIP is deafening.
This is where Farage lets the side down - especially after losing his man who came in to 'professionalise' the party.
UKIP should be on every headline, on every news bulletin, absolutely relentlessly smashing all 3 main parties on this issue.
They all rammed the CC Act through, they're each equally culpable and all for what...? No rocketing temperatures and literally nothing of consequence occurring re 'global warming'.
Miliband has just been on 5 Live blaming Cameron for everything energy-price related (and sounded to the likely uninitiated masses) very convincing.
UKIP should be rocketing up the polls like never before, but nope, they're making little impact. Massive opportunity going begging.
Photo caption : Dumb and Gummer.
Ironically they previously predicted warmer winters for the UK too. Now they predict the exact opposite, from a myth-bound gulf-stream shift and an urgent need to cover their derrieres. All with 95% certainty of course!
Story is old ? Rehash of The Independent Newspaper Article in 2012 (maybe)
- Deconstructed by straightstatistics.org
- Liddel is a Psychology researcher - consulting on programs to tackle fuel poverty Publications and homepage
My quick notes : Dodgy extrapolations ? This article is a bit low on the hard stats we expect here
- 22K annual excess UK deaths due to cold weather is reasonably standard based on comparing sickess/deaths stats for cold seasons vs summer.. shows cold causes more sickness and less recovery.
- graphs shows how since WW2 the difference has come down.
- but saying 1/3 of that figure is due to fuel poverty is not such an easy . What matters is if fuel was cheaper would those get 7,800 people live years longer ? (MAYBE just MONTHS ?)
- A good start is the The Full Fact page
"Not our fault ..It's all due to the profiteering big 6 energy companies ..ra ra ra !"
"we were/are in political power but didn't/can't do anything except make big promises"
todays price rises of 8% are due to :
1. Increased transission costs
and 2.the cost that the governments energy law measures (which has gone up 13% this year) (so now adding £110/year average bill) .."No it's only 9% " said gov spokesman on BBC You and Yours
- "Support Plus gives qualifying vulnerable customers a one-off electricity rebate of £135 this winter" does this years new extra £135 subsidy come out of general bills ?
Its all very depressing - to witness the complete ignorance amongst our politicians as to the chaos they are wreaking, both in terms of domestic energy costs, and the general security of energy supplies to this country. All in the name of making (possibly) a microscopic difference to the 2% of global CO2 which the UK emits - never mind the irrelevance of CO2 anyway to - er - 'climate change'..
You would even think that George Osborne MIGHT just pipe up and say: 'Look, chaps - we risk losing the genuine upturn in the UK's fortunes, as recognised by the IMF, if we keep shutting power stations and risk power cuts..'
Nope - as has been pointed out above - 'follow the money'...
While extra deaths due to "fuel poverty" are relevant, I think that focusing on this metric is a mistake.
Living with fuel poverty is surely the main issue. OK, grandma or da manage to make it through the winter - by living in one room, rugged up to the eyeballs. Same goes for poor people generally.
Surely the point is that this is Dickensian stuff - that people in this day and age have to huddle together, heavily clothed, in one room - just to stay warm. Not because the energy that they need is unavailable, or very expensive to produce - but because of deliberate government policies.
People are stubborn and proud - that is their way, that was how they were brought up to be - independent and self reliant.
The politicians, useless charities and energy companies would claim - "there's help available". But then, some people will not take handouts, some people would assume keeping the thermostat off or, low would be OK. Core cold creeps up on you, hypothermia doesn't just happen to walkers lost in a cold damp wilderness, in the final moments, an ecstatic though false feeling of warmth suffuses the body as life seeps away, they'll go to their final sleep mumbling, "it won't happen to me".
A Civilized society relies upon cheap and plentiful energy, TPTB, the EU - their gelded minions here in Westminster - understand this fact very well. Thus, power in all its forms gives one control, ration that power and all sorts of useful outcomes will occur.
@confusedphoton "Miliband - Huhne - Davey - Deben - Oxburgh - when will we ever get justice for the pain they are causing?"
I hope to have news of some embarrassment for Lord Oxbung in the near future.
Watch this space.
Godwin's Law being somewhat overused, methinks.
- Yep that "Warm Home Support Plus gives qualifying vulnerable customers a one-off electricity rebate of £135 this winter"
it will add £1.1bn this year to costs, so pushing everyone elses bills up.
- Of course your grandma must pay big prices
..It's not like fossil fuel's like gas, coal & oil are just hanging around in the ground waiting for us to dig them up
.. oh they are ...but Greenpeace won't let us take them
stewgreen,
I wonder if somewhere underlying the eco-wibble is a desire to harmonise energy tax rates across the European Union. Not as a driving force but just a handy coincidence. The UK is a little odd in that VAT on electricity and gas is at a reduced rate of 5%. Page 15 of this PDF shows that the majority of member states impose their regular rate of VAT for energy.
I'm beginning to suspect there is organised resistance by our establishment, which means the energy companies, at the sheer technological ignorance and stupidity of these dump politicians, many of whom have their heads in the trough.
Don Keiller
"I hope to have news of some embarrassment for Lord Oxbung in the near future."
That would make me smile!
PS Jeff Randall 19.00 hours Sky news has a special programme on energy prices.
Will he reveal the corrupt politicians?
That 7,800 is a misquote -When I check the Straight Stats report.Professor Christine Liddell says she more inclined to agree with the government Professor Hills’ total of 2,700 "The Independent's account bore no resemblance to the interview I gave them."
- I would suggest that it is not so serious as it first seems. How many life years are we talking about ?.. 2,700 people cutting a number of months off their life.
- The stats are old and tenuous now, but I inclined to think the loss of quality of life for a larger group of people , over a long time might be more important.
- anyway as I pointed out above it's a 2012 story
The golden rule about 'climate aktion' policies is: those who support them and press for them are those who will never have to suffer the consequences of those policies.
The quality of climate is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven...
The reason gas prices are rising isn't global warming. So why is it ? Britain has some of the cheapest prices in Europe.
@ Neil Craig Oct 10, 2013 at 12:23 PM
" ..........the alarmists assure us that there are many thousands of deaths due to heating in summer, which could be alleviated if people could afford air conditioning.
I think 25,000 would be a reasonable estimate."
Further to my comment at 12:08, that same Public Health England letter to me stated:-
"In England in 2003, there were over 2,000 excess deaths over the 10 day heatwave period which lasted from 4 – 13 August 2003, compared to the previous five years over the same period. In the 2006 heatwave, it was estimated that there were about 680 excess deaths compared to similar periods in previous years; in 2009 there were approximately 300 excess summer deaths during the heatwave compared to similar periods in previous years. PHE is currently analysing mortality data from the heatwave that occurred in England in summer 2013.
The figures for excess heat-related deaths do not differentiate between which deaths occur due to exposure to high indoor temperatures from those deaths due to exposure to high temperatures outdoors." [My bold]
Here's a clue. Criminals known as SSE are raising their prices by 8% next month. Other criminals will follow.
The over-70s are probably more likely to vote Conservative than the young and middle-aged. I imagine that UKIP probably draws more support from older people too.
Could this be why the Left, including the "non-toxic" part of the Conservative Party, are indifferent to the effects of green policies on the elderly?
On the face of it, Deben is a Malthusian, a true believer in Agenda 21, Chairman of Globe International, a supporter of action against Global Warming and a businessman making the most of opportunities that just happened to come his way?
As a Malthusian he will have a reduction of population as a target.
Globe International now champions Sustainability which will have population reduction as a target.
As a proponent of Agenda 21 he will have population reduction as a target.
As a supporter of decarbonising the UK he must know that this threatens the whole way of life here.
I suspect Deben knows exactly what the consequences of his actions are and also that when resources are scarce because of his policies, money will talk.
2013 Heatwave?
I know I am getting old but I did'nt realize my memory was getting that bad, perhaps I was in the toilet at the time.
Oct 10, 2013 at 12:56 PM | Cheshirered
Reluctantly I have to agree with you, UKIP should have been jumping all over this story, and it is most disappointing that they are not.
Could it be that none of the tv outlets would give them air time?
Where is Nigel, down the pub?
I think we should be told.
Why are people so dumb nowadays ?
They have been programmed to bypass their brains and react emotionally.
[snip. Manners]
Talking of Dumbing Down.
Article in The Sun today was slating Wind Turbines.Exorbitant costs compared to the piddly amount they produce.As thousands of people now facing fuel Poverty
Unless you brought the paper you wouldn't have seen it Murdock has pay-walled The Sun Website.Might be his plan put The Sun on the net out of reach of Levison Regulation.
Heard condescending Milliband on the Radio glibly saying its down to the consumer to shop around for the best deals.
Thanks to Ed the Energy companies should be the ones allowed to shop around for the cheapest Energy not have extortionate Renewable s forced down on them.
Roger and Cheshirered,
Re your comments about the lack of effort from UKIP.
You remember that bit in the film Zulu where the young soldier is standing next to the Colour Sergeant and the impis are coming over the hills, the sound of assegais on shields like a steam train at full speed?
"Why us, Colour Sergeant, why us?"
"Because we're 'ere, lad, there's nobody else. It's just us."
I joined UKIP in January. I have been out leafletting six times. I have written a paper for Haverhill Town Council pointing out that the turbine application they are fighting fails to meet planning criteria even leaving aside the fact it will kill bats, birds, disrupt television reception etc etc. I have spoken at the full council, pushing UKIP's policies against higher energy prices etc.
I've walked round my estates about five times, I've chatted to people in shops and pubs, I've ridden on the 13A bus to Cambridge and back to see what our commuters face (don't take the 13A, go for the 13, it's more direct). I've been briefed on our duty of care to the vulnerable, I'm meeting our MP tomorrow to try to gain support for improved transport access, I've reported a Tesco's trolley in the stream, I've picked up crisp packets and empty beer cans. After being given the run-around for two hours about tree branches growing over a footpath I've put the loppers and some steps in my car and cut the damn things off.
I've guided people away from racist sentiments with tact -- don't say that, my grandmother and grandfather were immigrants -- trying to get people to articulate their essential good nature: they can live with immigrants, they can't live with mass immigration. I've pointed out, time and again, that we are not here to tell people that Enoch Powell was right, we're out to prove him wrong by reducing the pressure and letting things settle down. I've made the front page of the Haverhill Weekly with the quote about wind turbines being devices to take money from the poor and funnel it to the rich.
I didn't see you around.
JF