Bishop Hill The inhumanity of the true green believer
May 20, 2015 Climate: Ward Greens This morning, I asked Michael Liebreich - a green-tinged businessman and potential candidate for London mayor - about his views on aid for fossil fuel projects in Africa. He supported them.
It's generally a ban on coal projects, except in exceptional circumstances. Yes, I'm comfortable with that.
And when I suggested that his support was despite the death toll from indoor air pollution, he said this:
And all because I don't want our taxes spent on solutions that are neither cheap nor quick nor healthy. OK.
This prompted our old chum Bob Ward to go on one of his charm offensives:
so much better for poor people to die from air pollution from coal and diesel, eh? How humane!
This prompted me to get the figures for air pollution in the developing world versus those in the first world. According to this report:
PM10 refers to particulate matter with a diameter of less than or equal to 10µm; these particles are widely believed to pose the greatest health problems. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard for an acceptable annual 24-hour average of PM10 is 150μg/m3, and they state that this level should not be exceeded more than once per year. In fact, 50μg/m3 is the accepted norm for PM10 (EPA, 2006). In contrast, Smith (2000) reports that mean 24-hour PM10 concentration in solid-fuel-using households in India sometimes exceeds 2000μg/m3. Dasgupta et al. (2004) find an average of 600μg/m3 in Bangladesh, far outside the EPA guidelines. Similarly, a study of about 400 households in the provinces of Shaanxi, Hubei, and Zhejiang, China, were monitored for PM4, and it was found that most households exceed China’s Indoor Air Quality Standards (Zhang and Smith, 2007).
Meanwhile, in Scotland, where the PM10 standard is 18μg/m3, Friends of the Earth are getting their knickers in a twist about PM10 levels of just 35μg/m3 in the pollution hellhole of Aberdeen. Reducing Bangladeshi levels down to UK norms would represent a 30-fold reduction. But according to Ward, it's not worth it. How...humane.
Reader Comments (95)
Face it.
Ward is not now and never has been the sharpest knife in the box.
He was fitted with blinkers at birth and hasn't yet learnt how to take them off.
But he's good value as a court jester (or do I mean village idiot?).
Bob Ward deserves to have that beautiful demonstration of double standards, widely publicised. I am sure Bob Ward will explain to his paymaster Jeremy Grantham, how he has decided how people should die and when, and that it is all for a good cause.
Forget about Ward. Liebrich's views are shocking. He knows what he's saying, but he says so nonetheless.
Do Greens think that they should decide what technologies people in the the Third World should use? Isn't it racist to think that the people of those countries cannot decide for themselves?
The Eco-fascists are Pol Pot on Steroids and Ward is their Wormtongue.
It won't matter much longer. Bans force people to look elsewhere and elsewhere there is money to be found now.
@Roy
It is not about race. It is a social class issue. The rich decide for the poor. And, as shown in the post, they do so hypocritically.
Yes Shub, the Chinese will be only too willing to step in and help. There are a lot of hypocrites in the climate change industry.
Grantham certainly gets a lot of mouth for his money.
...views on aid for fossil fuel projects in Africa. He supported them....
A little confusion here, I think.
As I read it, you asked about his views on a BAN of fossil fuel projects in Africa, which he supported. Saying he supports AID for fossil fuel projects is rather the opposite meaning..
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Liebreich continues:
"Making a fool of yourself. Indoor pollution is from cooking & kerosene. How does coal power stn help?"
"Fastest way to reduce indoor pollution would be LPG for cooking/PV for light. Do you do apologies?"
"please explain how to cook with a coal-fired power station. I need to learn."
Did anyone see Griff's Slow Train Through Africa when he went to Lusaka? There was a remarkable segment with poor people carrying around sacks of charcoal, within the city. I guess M Liebreich missed it - perhaps he was too busy drinking champagne at a Notting Hill dinner party.
Michael asked me - "please explain how to cook with a coal-fired power station. I need to learn."
I explained, carefully
Bishop Hill @aDissentient ·
@MLiebreich @pilitaclark Presumably you guys are comfortable with the bans on aid for fossil fuel projects in Africa?
Michael Liebreich @MLiebreich
.@aDissentient @pilitaclark It's generally a ban on coal projects, except in exceptional circumstances. Yes, I'm comfortable with that.
Bishop Hill @aDissentient · 4h4 hours ago
@MLiebreich @pilitaclark Even though people are dying for lack of access to electricity?
Bob Ward @ret_ward · 4h4 hours ago
.@aDissentient @MLiebreich @pilitaclark so much better for poor people to die from air pollution from coal and diesel, eh? How humane!
Doubting Rich @randomxnp · 1h1 hour ago
@ret_ward @aDissentient @MLiebreich @pilitaclark are you ignorant or dishonest? Coal/oil electric give far less pollution than home ...
Michael Liebreich @MLiebreich · 37m37 minutes ago
.@randomxnp @ret_ward @aDissentient @pilitaclark Hilarious. I guess you'll give these Africans you worry about each a ceramic hob?
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 35m35 minutes ago
No.just same access to electricity,that brought millions of Chinese out of poverty.. & you know that @MLiebreich @aDissentient @pilitaclark
Michael Liebreich
@MLiebreich @HG54 @RogTallbloke @aDissentient @BarryJWoods @ret_ward please explain how to cook with a coal-fired power station. I need to learn.
Well, I decided at this point to explain very carefully...
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 15m15 minutes ago
well I have an electric hob (grid coal or gas) used to have gas - @MLiebreich if you recall I said the same benefits as us (coal and gas)
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 13m13 minutes ago
go to your kitchen,do u have a gas, or electric hob(or oven), think about where the energy comes from for it @MLiebreich same for Africa?
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 9m9 minutes ago
I know,go 2 your kitchen,look at your hob/oven & think. Why don't I need kerosene,wood or dung,to use it. @MLiebreich same can work in Africa
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 6m6 minutes ago
how to cook with a coal fired power station? hmm -Answer, in UK, live in house, electric hob/oven connected to grid, simple. @MLiebreich
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 10m10 minutes ago
this method of cooking with a 'coal fired power station - elec hob/oven connected to a elec grid,can work anywhere in the world @MLiebreich
Barry Woods explaining to Liebreich how to cook, may have been a bit too technical for him.
He is very lucky to have lived, without having to worry about minor details like food preparation.
"Why India’s government is targeting Greenpeace", BBC, 16 May 2015
Greens/Progs - endowed with the ability to make decisions for people they don't know, in circumstances they don't understand, in countries far, far, away.
Andrew
Bad Andrew remembering Kenny Everett ........
"And it's all done, in the worst possible taste"
Another step in using a coal-fired power station to cook with is going to work in a competitive factory and earning money for electricity, hob/microwave and then food to cook on them. We may have a rose tinted vision of self-sufficiency in the deep countryside but the best way to help those in poverty is by following the same path we did. I blame the BBC and its hatred of all things man made, it's wiped the industrial revolution out of the history books. I assume they though those dark satanic mills made smoke as a product.
You should check this story on the Guardian by suzyji about a presentation by Peabody Coal to a govt agency in Norway on investing in coal. We learn there was one slide that claimed that the Ebola outbreak in African countries would have been ameliorated if there were coal plants in Africa to provide wide-flung base load electricity. The availability of electricity would have seen refrigerators and freezers in place, supporting vaccine developers who lack incentive otherwise. Suzyji pretends outrage that a coal company would exploit Ebola for its commercial profit. The Guardian contacts a researcher quoted in the slide who says 'I've never heard of Peabody Coal' and I don't support the theory. The clueless public health expert then offers the ridiculous solution that freezers could be simply placed where cellphone towers are, so Africans can leapfrog the whole process of electricity grid development
"please explain how to cook with a coal-fired power station.."
They also work for keeping things cool, but perhaps Mr Liebrech is unfamiliar with refrigeration. It sounds like he has his food prepared for him.
Perhaps somebody should educate that hapless "researcher" in suzji's report on how to research the use of a search engine. It took me slightly less than 5 seconds.
I'm no longer amazed at the holier than thou attitude espoused by the likes of the Guardian, Ward, Liebrich and every other eco-activist so the idea that Peabody's contention that proper electricity supplies might have ameliorated the recent Ebola outbreak is met with horror and hand-wringing comes as no surprise.
How to combat that unfortunate mindset is another matter.
Greens - they'll never let the facts stop them making an argument.
He's just another let-them-eat-firewood neophyte. And what has it got to do with candidacy for the Mayor of London anyway?
Yet it was the BBC that produced the excellent 24 Hours in the Past series, in which 6 slebs are taken “back in time” to simulate four modes of life in circa 1840 Victorian England. A truly shocking eye-opener as to how things have improved for so many, yet it would seem that there are still those who wish us back to those times.
Suzanne Goldenberg's article:
I like the last bit. ;)
Radical Rodent, are the BBC working with Green NGO's, especially in India (as identified by Sara Chan above) on a new reality show, on how to make people die unnecessarily in the 21st century? If well produced and edited, it could really persuade people, about the 'reality' of Green'.
Good to know that Ward recognises the problems with diesel, at least. Has it occurred to him that the recent proliferation of diesel gensets used by STOR are the direct result of wind'n'solar..?
jamesp
That'll be green diesel though, surely! ☺
If African countries have any sense they should ignore over excited shrieking from the Western nations and the UN on this matter, and ask the Chinese and Indians for assistance. When it comes to energy they are the only two countries that have sensible policies for their nations.
Western nations have submitted their peoples to the hogwash of UN sponsored pseudoscience of the climate modeling.
The West in other words are lily-livered Losers.
When it comes to cheap refrigeration, drugs, vaccines, nuclear technology, coal/gas/oil, etc, etc - the basic method has been the same: a handful of countries exploit resources but suddenly develop the heebie-jeebies about 'risk' and the 'environment' - after their own progress has been secured. They subsequently pursue the curbing of further progress in the use of resources for all others. The method is not necessarily a conscious one, but the end-result is the same.
Are there examples of environmentalists completely shutting down an industry in their own backyard before resources are exploited to a certain level? Environmentalism is the evil twin of capitalism, if you think about it.
Is there any question that the reliability of the grid is critical to most public health interventions? In the, ahem, developed countries?
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And of course non of these hypocrites will start cooking by dung or only powering their homes from a bicycle dynamo, much easier with a coal fired power plant providing the juice.
Mad CO2 Disease.
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In between gasps of freshly perfumed air, let 'em eat pattycake.
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Golf Charlie (4:48 PM): not that I am aware of – but, then, I am not exactly in the loop with the management. It would be a good idea, though. What was so good about the 24 Hours prog was that there was no hiding the reality of what life was like then; all the participants were astounded at the level of suffering that was endured, and the outright bullying that was endemic (much to the chagrin of Anne Widdicombe, who stirred up a lot of worker unrest).
shrub @ 5.44pm: Careful your finger is very close to the sensitive core of the lesion. The method is quite conscious as the end result IS the objective. In answer to your "environmentalist" question, might civil nuclear power be possible example of this? Even France, the most successful developer, is considering folding when they will most need to hold!
In passing, the theme of this blog illustrates the phases of civilisation, Search, Inquiry and Sophistication;
How do we eat? Why do we eat? and Where do we go for lunch?
H/T Douglas Adams (peace be on him). Liebrich has reach the fourth stage - wishing the populace to be Ameglian Major Cows. (Look it up).
tinyurl.com/nee25d7
Meanwhile, over at La Scala, Milan
Brazen Bob- quick on the lie.
Take a hike over to Junk Science and look at Steven Milloy's research showing that PM10 does NOT harm humans!!!!
http://junkscience.com/2015/04/12/ambient-air-pollution-effects-why-i-have-never-seen-an-air-pollution-death-in-44-years-of-practice/
The Greens are quite horrifyingly ignorant about how the modern world works and I have suddenly realised after reading the lead comments, how utterly and childishly simplistic their reasoning. I say this carefully as a (now retired) teacher who is very familiar with with the ways in which young children think and operate.
The casual and unthinking racism of the Greens, which would condemn any group of people to a nasty and avoidable early death due to their being prevented from using clean electricity generated in coal-fired power stations is worthy of nothing but utter contempt. The concept of of connecting one's domestic electric cooking and heating apparatus to a grid that derives its electricity from burning coal seems utterly beyond their intellectual grasp. I once wondered how the Greens could be so enthusiastic about electric -powered vehicles - they have no idea that those same vehicles must be connected, through the national grid, to store electricity in their vehicles' batteries.
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Alexander K in the UK you can now buy electricity from 'Green' suppliers. It is still the same electricity coming out of the socket.
Many people genuinely believe they are getting green electricity, and boiling the kettle, charging their car etc are all nice and lovely and fluffy, because only green electrons are allowed in. Quite how they envisage non green electrons are segregated, discriminated against, and destroyed, nobody knows, but it makes them feel so pure and righteous.
Telling some green luvvies that their electric car is actually nuclear powered, or worse still, coal, and they go into denial mode.
If you are so poor you can't afford a flue pipe, you won;t buy a stove and electricity.
What can I say?
Other than check out the named sponsor at the bottom of the cast list: Ferrarelle, whose carbonated water has been certified as naturally effervescent by the "independent SGS organisation".
It is also the first carbonated mineral water that I have seen certified as Kosher, though I can now believe that there may be others.
Are they paid to hurt us, and why is the green agenda mandatory?
When the lights start going out, it won't be much like Victorian times, it'll be much more like the early Mediaeval and brother, though I wish it were not so, I am not exaggerating.
North of the 'umber - Ooop in these parts, in days of yore - to be named "green" was to be seen as a tad naive, credulous but also a bit thick with it.............well very thick really.
I was musing about this Rampion project getting the go ahead, how green is it? and that daft thought caused me a mirthless guffaw, or maybe I should have said - howl.
How green do you have to be? British energy policy is not sustainable, unless TPTB actually desire rationing and death.
How green, to believe the DECC propaganda and perusing the comments from the likes of Liebrich that puny milksop and Bob Ward the greenest evah. Is it not deeply disconcerting, that, both of these eejits publicly endorse all of the green agenda, in the sure knowledge that it will benefit mankind not one iota.
Cold, not warmth kills north of 52ºN, if our homes are left without heat for any number of days in a cold winter the death toll will be very considerable. How can it be that this sort of risk can even be contemplated? - what lesson is it that they TPTB wish to teach us and do they not have pause then to consider the very real threat of 'the people' seeking redress - a wise politician might need to give that scenario some serious contemplation.
Whether it be Africa or Britain, deliberately legislating, to denying people safe clean cheap plentiful electricity is tantamount to cruelty and even bordering on culpable homicide.
Clearly, it rather underscores the malignancy, and mendacious ways of these miserable examples of the human species. The horror of it, there was me thinking that we've moved on from the barbaric ways of (usually theocratic inspired) ignorance, intolerance and wanton brutality and here, I am thinking of the green agenda interchangeable with a belief system which has not moved on, since circa the C7th.
But then, Ward's master and his university acolytes, the green blob, NGOs, the EU and Westminster flunkies in the political claque would put, are taking us all back to an age where reason and light have been suspended.
Why do they hate the human race so much, more to the point: why does Ward and his ilk - why do they hate Britain and Britons so much?
Isn't it time we told them where to get off the gravy train, it is time for some very wide scale civil disobedience?
shub:
Is it because coal is black?
Athelstan,
Violent agreement with your comments, first to the gallows should be those in the educational institutions that have effectively destroyed a generation.
Accra, Ghana babies delivered by phone light is a frequen TODAY in 2015
Dumsor : Ghanaian term used to describe persistent, irregular and unpredictable electric power outages.- Death of 7-month old baby linked to Kasoa power surgeYes that is in the flippin capital, not just out in the sticks
More from BBC News
Just type into Google : Ghana power outages 2015 ... and press News
- 'Dumsor’ Leads Man’s Death - Room too hot so moved up to construction site next door, then fell to deathIn South Africa Generator fumes killed 4 Ghanaians during ‘dumsor’
- Today's Ghana problem is caused by cultural corruption/incomptetance but GreenReligion energy exacerbates the problem in that is consistantly accompanied by vast overoptimism & hype as the "COULD" is rarely matched by the "REALITY".
4 December 2012 Matt McGrath enthusiastically reported how Ghana would be soon filled with solar power "The Nzema project, based in Ghana, will be able to provide electricity to more than 100,000 homes.Construction work on the $400m (£248m) plant is due to start within 12 months."
..well actually it doesn't look like much has happened Blue Energy has not put any update on their website since that initial announcement
The project is still in the news "the company confirmed to PV Tech that it would be unaffected." by the Ghanaian governements cap 150MW cap on solar projects imposed to stop solar subsidiy * network committments getting out of control
(Ghana passed the Renewable Energy Act in 2011 which introduced a feed-in tariff structure for project developers and renewable energy purchase obligation for distribution utilities. A recent tax increase $0.02 per litre on oil is intended to fund solar projects
Blue Energy's feed-in tariff has been publicly set at $0.20 per kWh. isn't that 3 times the cost of reliable on demand coal generation ? )
Ghl (May 21, 2015 at 12:00 AM): you have a good point there. However, merely putting the smoke outside does not fully resolve the problem – witness the smog of the British cities in the earlier part of the last century, as people continued to burn coal in the house grates, with its smoke being piped up the chimneys. It was only as central heating, with the cleaner exhausts from gas, and the instant heat of electric “fires” came within the costs of more people that the clean air acts really became effective. Unless and until there are alternatives available, people will use what means there are to heat and cook; providing them with the benefits of the instant energy that electricity provides, as and when wanted, will help them focus their minds on attaining them.
michael hart, 12:11 am: actually Perrier found themselves in hot water back in the '80s. As a part of their then production process, they removed the CO2 and other gases from their mineral water, before filtering and cleaning it, then re-injected them back in to make it 'naturally sparkling'. Unfortunately in doing so they added in some potentially nasty contaminants and had to revise their production process as a result. As to the Kosher reference, I'm sure if you paid the right people the appropriate fee, you could get pork scratchings certified as Kosher
Not allowing the developing economies access to cheap and reliable electricity is wrong. Although, having been volunteering/working overseas for many years...I've never to this day met anyone, with the views expressed by many on this blog i.e. thinking sceptics (mostly). So I'm trying to figure out if, the majority of contributors here have always been anti-poverty fighters or whether it suddenly fits their argument!