Bishop Hill Comedy greenery
Apr 14, 2015 Greens Many people of my generation lament the state of British comedy, so it's nice to have the Green Party to restore faith in our ability to raise a laugh. The party's manifesto, released today, must rank as one of the funniest things I've seen since Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Opening with the observation that there is a big problem with fuel poverty, Ms Bennett announces that the problem must be addressed by a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. That's by 2030. With full conversion to a zero-carbon economy by 2050. Oh yes, and this is going to be achieved through better energy efficiency, a massive investment in renewables, phasing out nuclear and coal and a ban on domestic production of gas from unconventional sources. Simples.
Much is left to the imagination, however. For example what we will use to heat and light our homes on still winter nights. Or what any of this will actually do to resolve rather than exacerbate the problem of fuel poverty.
And if this isn't enough to get the fuel-poor rolling in the aisles, there is a demand for full-on carbon communism.
The fairest way to to share emissions rights is equally. So we support the idea of an economy-wide system of carbon quotas...
Let them eat tradeable permits.
Reader Comments (45)
They'll get some of this too when Cameron (of husky and wind turbine on the roof fame) comes a-calling.
It's the funniest thing I have read since David Cassidy, when he was a member of the Partridge family.
Dave and Sam take all this stuff very seriously and energy efficiency is coming to a SMART METER near you very shortly. I cannot wait to see what Joe Bloggs thinks of Demand Side Management and the realisation of the purpose of his dumbass meter.
If per the Greens, you share emission rights equally, and aim to reduce the rate of anthropogenic CO2 rise to 1 PPM / year, the per capita carbon ration works out to roughly a pound a day
(Thomas Babington Macaulay)
Answer: the Green principle.
(Jonathan Swift)
The Green Revolution. Nothing, or less, to do with the Green Party.
(h/t to Matt Ridley in 'The Rational Optimist' for quotations)
Poverty is classed as having a certain amount less than the average. Fuel poverty could therefore be having less fuel than the average. If however we all have no fuel, there is no fuel poverty. Genius!
I admit it.
It is one of my all-time favorite quotes.
Unlike the CO2 Climate Crazies, Vladimir Putin is capable of performing basic arithmetic.
____________
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=28907
Putin suggests Germans replace nuclear with firewood
01 December 2010
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has told German businessmen that they may have to rely on Russian firewood for heating if they do not want to construct new nuclear power plants or bring in Russian gas supplies. At a business conference organized in Berlin by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Putin recognised that "the German public does not like the nuclear power industry for some reason." He continued: "But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating. You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?" Putin then noted, "You will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there," as Europeans "do not even have firewood."
Natalie Bennett has an amusing alterego on Twitter called Nuttily Bennett (@offencepolice), whose only difficulty is finding things to say that are actually dafter than the real thing. It would be funny if it wasn't so depressing...
I think that fuel poverty, is their secret malthusian weapon to increase child mortality, and to accelerate deaths from 'natural causes' to decrease pension payouts.
Culling those who may not become fit and healthy farm labourers, and those who have ceased to be, is the only hope, if an agricultural economy is not to starve to death.
The continued lack of global warming, will be proof that the Green Luvvies were right.
FTFM: "We have lost half the wild animals on Earth in the last 40 years." I'm sorry but this is unmitigated bullshit. It's almost as bad as that shoddy 97% statistic that everyone keeps banging on about.
Jamesp
I think they are doing well, my fav so far
We will not only scrap Trident, we will invent time travel and send a cyborg back in time to kill the people who invented nuclear power.
"The continued lack of global warming, will be proof that the Green Luvvies were right". Golf Charlie 12:55.
I have to say this is my greatest fear. "See how well we've managed to slow Global Warming, we must continue with cutting our CO2 even further in order to save the world!"
They'll believe they did it and, more importantly, so will the general public.
At least they're honest about their hard left totalitarianism.
But when your supporters are either brain dead or wet behind the ears they'll lap up this kind of infantile tripe till kingdom come. And come back panting for more.
The Borgia Popes probably lectured their congregations in the same manner as the greens.
They should go out and become engineers if they really want to make a lasting difference in the world. They would then learn that energy efficiencies are not gained by merely wishing them into existence or by issuing platitudes and edicts.
Green Party Manifesto:
Checking Lomberg's excellent book, the estimated number of species on the entire planet is 1.6 Million.
So, taking the upper range of the Green's fantasy numbers, everything will be dead in just....16 years.
So Natalie Bennett, why does Lomberg, quoting the literature back to source show a rate historically since 1600 of around 25 species per decade (ie 2.5 per year)? Also, he shows the best recent estimates are that over the last 150 years extinctions may have increased from about 0.25 to 1 per year. But he also notes some of that apparent growth may just be because there are more scientists now studying things.
Oh, and then there's frog that went extinct...but is alive and well of course. In the excellent book by Jim Steele, if I haven't seen my neighbours in the supermarket for a couple of years I can only conclude they are dead. Which is how they explain Polar Bear populations.
Be assured comrades, a new dawn awaits..........................
The greenblob-brasshats - we will all share in your pain!
Gone will be the premiership, horse racing and chip shops selling FISH! the era of bread and circuses is over - eking a living is the new bling of green - you will work the land until you drop and a good age will be 35 as it should be, Biblical it ain't.
We the green blob who sit in the Green Politburo, we will issue instructions on how to use, sharpen and care for your new ploughshares. Cheer us for, the green politburo will not skimp in our efforts to allow people back onto the land so that they can grow crops to feed their families now that all our industry and manufacturing has closed down and all thanks to our far sighted 'green agenda'.
Plans are now being drafted to aid building houses in the new superbly sustainable materials of wattle and daub, thatched rushes [ha subject to availability - ref flood the fens again!] and home made oil lamps to light said new abodes - oh joy of joys!
You, yes YOU, are now part of the villeinage, part of the masses of serfdom of green! Rejoice, rejoice for the new year is always set at zero and all over again, nihilism for the proles! REJOICE! as we march on to the sunlit uplands of; poverty, starvation, disease, pestilence and probably cannibalism too.
The
bosses'they wot are more equal than you' - will still be able to buy luxury items in Paris,Harare and Bangkok and retain electric lighting, and their large stretch limos + personal automobiles and jet flight - to keep order - the elite must be preserved - at your cost!Green, is the new bleak.
Extinctions are Natural and to be expected.
There are no "Happy Endings" in Nature.
That means people will have to breathe less often and slower...
"If per the Greens, you share emission rights equally, "
why do I get the felling that the greens have in mind an very animal farm definition of 'equal' where all people are equal but green leaders are more equal then others . Hence why they will still be able , and willing , to clock up a ton of air-miles ever year flying around the world to attend conferences and protests while telling everyone else how they should walk everywhere to 'save the planet'
The reality is the Greens have for along time consider energy to cheap and to easy to get , and there more than willing to promote ideas that change this , no matter what 'the cost'
It is both hilarious and shocking. How can people be so stupid as to believe in such a fairy land?
Once the rich have gone elsewhere, who is going to pay for the land of plenty where everything is free? Will energy grow on trees? Does insulation provide electricity?
So many questions. Even the comments at the Grauniad struggle with the Green lunacy.
Seriously, I don't remember anything as daft as this lot in my lifetime.
'B' Ark and the Golgafrincham's is pretty apt here I think.
Does the Green manifesto come with composting instructions? Or is there some kind of carbon offset scheme, to allow for the power consumption in digital downloads?
<A per capita carbon ration works out to roughly a pound a day>So a pair of pensioners on basic pension will go straight to fuel poverty! (Fuel costs => 10% of income) What a load of bollx!
Thinking Scientist:
If those are the figures offered by Lomborg then he's way wrong. There are likely far more than 1.6 million species, but most of them are beetles and the vast majority are undescribed. Most folks I guess will care little if a bunch of beetle species go extinct, but these are predominantly rainforest species and I don't think anyone here is in favour of deforestation (whether to grow hamburgers or palm oil).
However, I challenge folks to cite a single species that has been extirpated by climate change, and I've not had a convincing answer. The golden toad has been proffered but that's on thin evidence via a parasitic fungus.
Slywolfe: extinctions are natural but that doesn't mean that our world isn't diminished by the loss of species. Our record is nothing to be proud of.
I find some of the negativity here very triggering. Can we please have some 'jazz comments' from now on. thanks in anticipation
did they include the "abolish the monarchy" pledge (which was on their web site?) And what about the vegetarianism? (I'd read it myself, but the PDF is so big crashes my iPad...)
what ! - no mention of the Green Space Program... to address protein deficiency in the third world, they propose cheese mines on the Moon - it's true I tell ya!
Sadly - from conversations I've had with voters - very few seem to have grasped how utterly bonkers this lot actually are. Perhaps a (reinforced, heavy duty) dynamo belt on the 3rd Earl of Harrow's coffin would make up for any shortfall in UK energy production?
Dung
Your smart meter can have some spectacular side effects!
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2015/04/we-dont-need-no-510.html
@Another Ian
Thank you mate; that was priceless hehe, loved the exploding smart meters one :P However please do not refer to 'my smartmeter' they will only be installed in my house over my dead body (no problem for our command economy government of course).
tomo
I understand that the Greens are planning a solar powered space programme, which will save them using any of that terrible fossil fuel. It will take about a year to get to the moon, although stopping for maintenance could be a problem..
The greens talk very clearly intheor manifesto about borrowing, as I recall, 380 billion. Who from? Evil capitalists and bankers? Its quite incredible how they continually criticise growth, modern companies, shareholders, shareholders etc, but want to borrow billions from...the same people.
And without evil profits to shareholders...which means dividends...where they do they think pensions come from outside of the state sector?
In Green World everything is free except freedom itself......because freedom is the price you will have to pay.
Ivor Ward
absolutely right - and something that the residents of Brighton have been getting an inkling of. I only hope that there's enough folk in Brighton Pavilion constituency minded to boot out that idjit Lucas woman.
The manifesto is not meant to be actually pursued. It's a "guilt agenda".
I went to Green Party meetings in Glasgow. Despite compelling personal reasons for joining, I didn't
Reasons
1. A fundamental belief in negative growth. According to the British way of labelling, that makes them a RIGHT wing party.
2. The economics of global warming is definitely regressive. That also makes them a RIGHT wing party.
3. Their contempt for the smelly masses was almost an article of faith. They were ~ all academics in safe jobs. That makes them a RIGHT wing party (in spirit).
I have only ever voted once in my life. Yes, for the Greens. For my ex, but only because I knew she would lose. LOL !
esmiff
objectivity and pragmatism are traits that are independent of superficial political orientation and make for evolutionary political success afaics. From what I've read and heard about the Green administration in Brighton - there's a famine of both in that camp.
Farquitted dogmatic ideologues squabbling over which totalitarian ploy to use to enforce their fantasies isn't a good recipe. The Greens beyond Brighton (in S England anyway) are from what I'v seen positioning themselves as the "nice, aspirational" protest vote - certainly from what I've heard people saying (and the BBC tootling too...) - that is they're being perceived as by average voters.... and on that basis alone I expect them to get the votes of the incurious out to make a small protest via an X in the cubicles...
I do suspect that popular participation in the democracy will hit record low water mark - unless Ms. Strurgeon & Co. mis-step - a very touchy topic that the bubble dwellers are now ignoring....
I don't think they realize that freezers are deeply insulated...
Don't laugh. There are enough idiots in the UK to give them some MPs. These are dangerous loonies. Don't laugh at the afflicted.
Apr 15, 2015 at 6:32 AM esmiff
Your first two points are exactly right.
And your third is currently correct as well - although it need not always be so.
It is worth remembering that restricting economic growth restricts opportunities to grow and thus to develop the individuals who make up society- it restricts social mobility.
The Greens are as right-wing as Cameron's Eton set, pulling up the ladder behind them.
Just the Greens use economic repression and the Old Etonians use access and patronage.
Another Ian,
Water shortages in California have make clear the enforcement capabilities of smart meters too: In California, Exploding “Smart Meters” Spy on Your Water Use
Manifestos are not binding and without the power of recall are a waste of paper.
I'd rather have a cash flow spreadsheet that performance could be measured against an automatic recall if things get worse than predicted.
Is it now obligatory for the head of the Green Party to have a REALLY grating Aussie 'accint'..?
Um, esmiff and folks, the Greens intent is to impoverish us all. Hence, they are entirely of the hard Left.
End of. The Left impoverish everybody, the Right those who expect to rely on the state to feed and clothe them.
Next?
Jeremy Poynton
They are the socialist extreme right (conservative)
Lessons from anti progress ideology (aka ecofascism) http://goo.gl/wHNVbu