Via the blogs, we learn that feed-in tariffs are a total rip-off. But how can that message possibly prevail when the BBC's "take" is that buying in to the scam offers "a great return on investment!" And, needless to say, the Beeb is also talking up the news that the world's biggest offshore wind farm off the Kent coast has been officially opened.

View full article here

The BBC may just be protecting their investments.

June 2008 BBC fund banks on renewable energies

It's only money and it grows from trees. We are about to get QE II and I don't mean the ship.

However it beggers belief that the people don't understand what is being done in their name. There should be blood in the streets of Whitehall and hangings from the lamp-posts.

I agree, we need to do something. But what do we do. I wish someone would come up with a plan. I'm a follower, I'm afraid. And probably, like most others, only follow once I see others on the same road. What our country needs is a a leader with a plan. And the force of personality to draw us to his flag. But we don't seem to do heroes these days.

Robertm got in before me.....It is true, despite all the figures & sums publoished, accurate or not, the general public (electorate) has not the slightest inkling of what is being urinated against the wall in its name...nor do they really wish to know. They only do what they best know how to do: Whinge.
My sympathy for my countrymen is long since evaporated...not only that, I actually have begun to wish them ill in the hope that destitution is the only condition which might stir them from their torpor....Yes, that's a terrible thing to say but nothing else has worked so far. The same applies to foreign aid only moreso.

Everyone is obsessed with entertainment culture which soaks up 90% of their attention when they are not at work.

Choose from -

Football. (English league, Spanish league)
Films. (Sky movies, latest Cinema releases)
Comedians. (QI - Stand up shows).
Talent contests (X factor - Celebrities Dancing On Ice).
Reality shows (Antiques Roadshow - Big Brother).
Console games. (Xbox, Wii)
Gardening and home improvement.

Many people's "second string" is to become an expert at a niche within entertainment/consumption culture, which they pursue in their leisure time. This leaves almost no time for thinking about current events. Just watch the BBC news and assume they'll have a say every 4-5 years when they vote, if something needed to be done. Most people, therefore, are prisoner's in Plato's cave who because they've only ever known moving shadows on the wall in front of them, the vast, pervasive, insidious entertainment culture, they mistake it for reality itself. They do not want to be dragged outside into the bright sunlight to the real reality, beyond the audiences and the stage. If someone did that to them they would, if they could, retreat back inside to the comfort of the moving shadows, the pseudo-reality which makes them feel comfortable.

So the first reaction of many people not actively involved in the scam, of which the state itself now is the principle agent of, is to defend the system. Lost is a sense of perspective. They've been taken in by one lie after another and it's too much for them to admit something is up. Doing so would mean they would have to admit they were wrong all along, because all the lies are connected in a public conspiracy. And the people they thought were stupid were right. This realisation would be a huge blow to their self-image. They'd rather assume that they were not being spun lies and that the voices from the periphery were actually bitter, lunatic individuals everyone agreed they were rather than the wake-up call from reality they needed.

How is the insidious, malign influence of entertainment culture going to be pierced for reality about the world people live in, to seep in?

There HAS to be a way round this. The crucial starting point is civil disobedience ... but on a hit and run basis ... think where you have an interface with the state and how it relies on you for action ... and then sabotage it. Official forms ... fill them in wrongly, or not at all ... Council tax ... delay payment ... imformation requests ... don't respond. Complaints systems ... use them to their fullest.

I think your super glue idea was best. Seed the idea in a local council estate, it'll give the delinquent hoodies something worthwhile to do. If they get caught, the system doesn't have the capacity to punish them, and there are always new brats coming up to replace them... witness Afghanistan.

Of course, maybe it would be beyond the capabilities of a delinquent hoodie to just stick to a targeted list. However, CCTV it'd be difficult to sustain a superglue campaign, or painting over signs with white paint campaign, without an army of kids with nothing better to do, whom the state still think belongs to them.

It would be interesting to know how many of our rulers have business interests in this scam, either directly or through carbon trading or whatever. They really can't be so stupid as to think that these bird blenders are an answer to 'climate change', even if you are a believer.

The other thing though, although we know all these wind farms are not worth a fart in the wind, there is an energy source that should see us through to the end of this century and it's not nuclear or coal. In the last few years the gas market has been utterly transformed by shale gas. It is worth looking at this blog: http://nohotair.typepad.co.uk/. The change in the US gas market is remarkable.

How are rulers are going to react to this super abundance of 'low carbon' energy which has put the fear of god into Gazprom I do not know. One thing is sure; we will not be getting too many coal fired power stations with carbon capture and storage in the near future. Technology has come to our rescue as it will do again before the gas runs out.

And there was I thinking that people actually read this blog ...

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/search?q=shale+gas

shucks!

C'mon, Richard.....it's a tad unlikely that folk read this blog before they've discovered it...& just as unlikely that, having found it, they will trawl through everything that has been written since its inception ...Robertm may have read here since yonks though I doubt it & he seems to have 'registered' only last month.
Whatever....it's good to see some new names coming along despite our brilliant but ornery blogmeister

I'm allowed the occasional side-swipe, aren't I ... can't be nicey-nicey all the time ... people might get worried.

therewasblight makes the excellent 'bread & circuses' point.
The circuses will never run out for our addicted populace...but the bread?

....all which time?

I'm talking theory, dammit. You can't expect me to put it into practice.