Thank you for your advice BitBucket, but at my age I do find your suggestions rather patronising. I do actually have some idea about how to economise. We have done most of what you suggest for years, apart from hanging out the washing during a Scottish winter (which where I live involves hanging it out and then bringing it in again hours later in the same damp condition, which is therefore a complete waste of my time and gains nothing) and turning the thermostat down makes the house colder.so I only do it in rooms when I am not in them. The temperature here was 5C for much of last week. And please don't come back and suggest that I put on another jumper, I am quite aware how to dress for the weather. I was brought up in a house with no central heating at all, as were most of my contemporaries and I also remember just what it was to like to get dressed under the bedclothes because the room was so cold there was frost on the inside of the windows -which were not open. And we had chilblains every winter!

Wow - Energy Policy and the insanity of it reported in the Guardain:

Comment is Free: Simon Jenkins...

extracts:

Britain's contribution to cooling can only be so infinitesimal as to be little more than gesture politics, yet it is a gesture that is massively expensive. Meeting the current EU renewables directive, largely from wind, would cost some £15bn a year, or £670 a household, and involve the spoliation of swaths of upland, countryside and coast. It is calculated to save a mere 0.2% of global emissions, with negligible impact on the Earth's sea level.

Yet the government wants to commit a staggering £100bn to wind farm subsidies over the next decade, almost all to rich landowners.

Will this really so impress China and India as to persuade them to change their emissions policies? It is like a primitive tribe burning its wives and treasure to awe an enemy into submission.

The public sums allotted in grants and price enhancements to green energy – with 8 million people facing fuel poverty – are so enormous they have bred an army of lobbyists clamouring to protect every programme for every resource under, and including, the sun. They pounce hysterically on any opponent of their favoured watt or therm

Until then I will never be persuaded that the beauty of the British landscape should be sacrificed for an insignificant reduction in global warming, one that is obliterated by a Chinese power station in minutes.

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let us all close downall the sceptic blogs as just watch now...

the whole article is worth a read, looks like the grown ups are asking questions and starting to think...

BoFA - yes but it is stillsmall beer, not economy destroying.

Messenger, it depends on your patterns of use. All the double glazing in the world wont help if you leave the windows open. Some suggestions: turn down the thermostat, turn off electrical items that are not being used, low energy light bulbs, shorter showers, hang the washing outside to dry instead of tumble-drying, boil only the amount of water you need instead of filling the kettle, turn down the power on cooking pots instead of leaving them on full power, cook several things at the same time in the oven instead of one at a time, etc.

As we already have all the thick roof insulation, double glazing, injected walls, condensing boiler, etc in place, how are we expected to make energy savings?

Has the government taken houses like ours into their calculations- I bet they haven't.

But £100 per household is neither here nor there. The average household will waste far more than that on discarded food. Where is the economy wrecking potential?

The Telegraph article claims a £100 rise by 2030 - and THIS will wreck the economy? And yet in this century oil prices have gone from $10 to $120 a barrel. This has not obviusly 'wrecked' the economy. Putting a tax on carbon would raise revenue, which the government would spend. But we have lots of other taxes and yet still run a deficit. Tax is necessary to pay for the things society (as a whole) values. If carbon taxes allowed employment taxes to drop I would see them as net positive.

There is no economy wrecking potential there, just alarmism of the same nature as the catastrophe predictions of CAGW.

May 22, 2012 at 11:54 AM | RKS: "...lunatic drive to wreck our economy..."

Where does this strange idea come from? Why would any government want to wreck its own economy?

May 22, 2012 at 4:09 PM | BitBucket>>>>>

Your faith in our political masters is quite touching!

I don't think you've been paying attention to the contributors on the BH blog, if you had you wouldn't have had to ask that question.