Thursday, January 9, 2014

The enviromental movement's body count

Sam Robb keeps count so that you don't have to:
Last year, more than 30,000 winter deaths were thought to be caused by fuel poverty, up by a third from the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics. - http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059992359
Across Europe, low income residents are being sacrificed to the Green Gods of Faux Environmentalism. Increasing numbers die in winter, unable to heat their cold dark homes — while fat green government and EU officials and cronies pat each other on the back in congratulations for pushing the penetration of the intermittent unreliables big wind/solar to more and more destructive heights.
Twenty-two thousand in 2012. Thirty thousand in 2013.
Al Fin links to this story:
In Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeast England, 43-year-old single mother of three Gemma (she did not want to provide her last name) can barely afford her utility bills.

"I find myself not eating at all just to keep the heating on," she said. Like many who live in one of the country's millions of unimproved houses, Gemma's gas heating is metered. So is her electricity. She pays for heat and light a pound coin at a time. She receives state benefits. At one point, she was £1,000 ($1,630) in debt to her energy supplier.
"You look at your meter and think, God! It's used £4 already, it's never going to last, and think, I'm going to have to switch it off. When it's cold and my gas is running out, I put hair dryers on under a blanket, as I had some electricity on the meter."

...

This may be just the beginning of an increasingly ugly political issue. The government places much of the blame for increased energy prices at the feet of so-called green policies. Currently, such policies account for only about 10 percent of the heating bill, but these numbers are set to go up dramatically. According to Department of Energy and Climate Change figures, they will add 33 percent to the cost of electricity by 2020 and 41 percent by 2030. Shutting down old coal-fired power plants and adding more expensive renewable energy -- particularly wind power -- to the grid will spur rising electricity costs.

...

In Germany, between 10 and 12 percent of the population is considered fuel poor. Most of these are working poor, Heindl said, who fall through the gap between the clearly defined poverty line, which would qualify them for public benefits, and the many "working poor people, the less well-educated and doing less well-paid work." There is no subsidy for this demographic.

...

In France, the picture is similar. About 3.8 million households -- about 8 million people, or 14 percent -- live in fuel poverty. Since 2010, France has launched a countrywide program called "Habiter Mieux" (better living) aimed at improving the thermal efficiency of fuel-poor households by at least 25 percent.

The plan, administered by local councils, may only be a stopgap measure. The symptoms of fuel poverty are progressing. According to a 2012 report by the French national energy ombudsman, the economic crisis and the recent energy price increases (25 percent for gas and 8 percent for electricity in the past two years) place increasing numbers of vulnerable households at risk of not being able to pay their energy bills.
It's all class war, all the way down.  Policies championed by smug, rich white elitists that drive the lower middle class into poverty.  Marx described this process in detail in his dialectic.

But the body count is what is most interesting.  You don't hear anything about this in the Press, even though tens of thousands are dead from these policies.  It brings to mind other past efforts to rid society of "useless mouths".

That program, come to think of it, was also conceived by a smug, rich white elite.

9 comments:

Paul, Dammit! said...

As a result of traveling by sea to places that tourists just don't go, one of my most common themes about travel is how much it makes me appreciate home, warts and all.
Leftist friends who masturbate furiously over fantasies of socialism get tone deaf when one mentions that part of the rampant B.O. issue with eastern AND western Europeans comes from the fact that things like the VAT make doing laundry, buying clothes or taking a hot shower something to be done... not on a daily basis, let us say... in fact, despite claims of admiration for a more minimalistic European lifestyle (that comes with being broke all the damn time due to massive taxes), not having access to things we take for granted becomes a lot more obnoxious when it's being experienced first person.
Ever see that insane show 'whale wars?' You'll notice that the paid executive staff are American. All the volunteers are from other places. It's not so hard to accept living on nothing when that's what you're already used to.

Archer said...

Isn't this another form of permanent indentured servitude? These people work to pay their energy debt, but with rising prices, they accumulate new debt faster than they can pay off old debt.

The only thing missing is to start charging interest (and the energy companies/commissions may be doing that, too).

Take note. This is the world the limousine liberals want for all the rest of us.

Unknown said...

So, the road to serfdom is paved with red and green bricks?

The Lab Manager said...

But I thought those socialist governments took care of their people?

Borepatch said...

Lab Manager, those governments *are* taking care of their people. Good and hard.

Weetabix said...

I think a higher body count is a feature rather than a bug for the Enviros.

Jester said...

See if the main stream media was not so complicit, and the average mouth breather out there bothered to utilize the resources they have to see the other side of the fence I suspect the Green Parties would be hanging from their own wind turbines. Because at this point it's the only way these socialists are able to perpetuate it, please we just gotta do it like the people on the other side of the 10 foot tall fence do! Oh they keep trying to escape here? It is absolutely not because their .gov policies are so bad that we have to emulate them..

Ken said...

Progressives, all right... they've progressed all the way to Molech and the Baals, complete with sacred poles in the high places....

selsey.steve said...

But those who "rule" and who also have their snouts deep into the trough of taxpayer-provided funds don't suffer too badly:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/340-mps-energy-bills-paid-2671053