At least, Ed Miliband is an incompetent, ignorant, waste of space fuckwit if he\’s actually bothered to read the report put out under his name.
The UK Renewable Energy Policy is such an appalling document, so riddled with basic errors, that it is difficult to believe that anyone who could both fart and chew gum at the same time would take it seriously. Let alone hold it up as a blueprint, a roadmap, for how this country should organise itself in the future.
Here are just two errors:
1) They insist on a 10% biofuels mandate.
At present biofuels are the most readily deployable renewable technology used in the transport sector. In 2008-09 around 2.6% of all UK road fuels used were biofuels, producing 10 TWh renewable energy and reducing UK carbon emissions by around 3 MtCO2 from the displacement of fossil fuels.109
And what does footnote 109 say?
109 This estimate does not include emissions from biofuel production or possible indirect land use change
And even George Friggin\’ Monbiot agrees that emissions from growing the stuff are higher than emissions from fossil fuels not used. Dang, even Pimental says the same.
So one part of our stopping the oceans from boiling by reducing CO2 emissions is going to be boiling the oceans by increasing CO2 emissions, actually using the law to insist upon it.
2) This part is completely cock:
Business Benefits
7.20 This Strategy will provide business opportunities and jobs, and potentially create whole new industrial sectors, although businesses will also face higher energy costs. Meeting our share of the renewable energy target will provide around £100 billion175 worth of investment opportunities and up to half a million jobs in the UK renewables sector by 2020.
This is a cost you ignorant weasel felchers! Investing £100 billion in windmills means we don\’t have £100 billion to invest in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked or comforting the bereaved! Have none of you ever heard of opportunity costs? It\’s a concept discussed in the GCSE economics sylllabus just in case any of you might be interested in, you know, getting an education before you decide to spend our money.
Half a million people polishing solar panels means half a million people not wiping the bottoms of babies, changing the nappies on the senile or pipping organic apples. Jobs are a cost, not a benefit!
Christ Almighty, we expect such stupidity from the likes of Andrew Simms and Caroline Lucas but aren\’t we entitled to some basic knowledge of the real world from those who rule us?
Whoever wrote this foetid swamp of a report needs firing, fast, before they come up with any further ideas for driving us all into penury. Jeebus, and to think that we\’ve had to pay for these windowlickers to get it all so wrong.
And as for Ed Miliband, give him his brother\’s banana and get him up on the naughty step.
How could anyone with a reputation for intelligence release this pile of crap?
“…aren’t we entitled to some basic knowledge of the real world from those who rule us?”
Well, only if they live in that real world with the rest of us, and are subject to the results of their plans…
“How could anyone with a reputation for intelligence release this pile of crap?”
Because that reputation isn’t deserved?
Ed & Dave Milibanana, the Mike and Bernie Winters of UK politics.
Piss off back to your blogging sabbatical – your blood pressure is in danger.
“…the Mike and Bernie Winters of UK politics.”
Who is Schnorbitz, then?
the Schnorbitz possibilities are legion: Harriet Harmperson gets by vote
anyway – what are you doing here back so soon, Timster?
There’s no need to be polite, Tim. Say what you really think!
The sabbatical didn’t last long.
Has DK taken over in your absence ;o)
Good Job
Welcome back
What I want to know is how Obnoxio hacked Tim’s login.
The weasel felcher’s a giveaway
Ahh, socialist Nirvana!
Total equality!
Ministers, aides, advisers – all equally thick as fucking pigshit…
I think the 10% biofuels target is mandated in the new EU Renewable Energy Directive, so we don’t actually have a choice on that one. So perhaps not Miliband’s fault. Also, the same Directive dictates that to qualify biofuels must satisfy certain sustainability criteria, which do indeed consider indirect effects resulting from production and land use change. (Which as you correctly point out are a fundamental part of the analysis.)
You know, everyone talks all the time about how to improve education. And I think, if we’re to have compulsory education, everybody should be forced to study Bastiat’s “What Is Seen And What Is Not Seen”. I don’t mean just kids who are doing GCSE Economics. Everybody. And they should be tested and if they fail forced to study it again until they do understand it.
It ought to be called “The Fundamental Principle Of Economics”. If everyone understood that one principle, most of the economic fallacies that ruin our society would simply be eradicated.
In fact you shouldn’t be allowed to vote until you get 100% in “What Is Seen And What Is Not Seen” 🙂
I disagree, with state run education you’d only be allowed to vote if you got 100% in “Das Kapital”.
“How could anyone with a reputation for intelligence release this pile of crap?”
Sir, that question can be asked of almost every bill to crawl out of the US Congress or the Illinois General Asembly. You really need to be more specific, heh heh.
Work is a cost.
Wages are a benefit.
Jobs are a bundle of work plus wages.
You know, a kind of complex derivative. I know you understand complex derivatives…