2020 - The World just Gets Better! (So Suck it up Doomsters)

Tired of watching petulant children mouthing dogma to odious supine politicians?

Bored by ridiculous attention-seeking teenagers blubbering on about how somebody “stole their future”?

Do you get sickened by watching loathsome sociopaths as they lie and connive to trick naive youngsters into following their death cult?

Well, lighten up peeps! None of that crap is going on here!

This post is in fact a small antidote. It is in essence two fingers (one if your are American) waved at the fear-mongers and cult builders.

More to the point it is also built on the thing cultists and fear-mongers hate the most: Facts.

This post is about (you guessed it!) how things are getting better.

And Better.

AND BETTER!

And by better I don’t just mean the extra five cans of beer I found in the back of the cupboard yesterday.

I mean r-e-a-l-l-y better.

Better in how far fewer people are dying from extreme weather events.

Better in how far fewer people are living in dirt poverty.

Or even how people are simply not dying! (Well, OK. Everyone dies. Its just now they die age 70 not 35.)

So suck it up doomsters.

Whimper your way through the following examples. Wring your grubby little hands. Have a little tantrum like a two year in a supermarket. Bleat and moan like the sheep you are.

Your fetid, rancid scare-mongering will not hold. The only person who deserves to suffer from your self indulgent paranoia is yourself.

The world gets relentlessly better. The new year is unlikely to break the trend.

This is just a small selection of global improvements. Try reading Factfulness by the late great Hans Rosling if you fancy some more.

Extreme Weather Events

Do some people die from extreme weather events?
Sadly yes.

Are more people dying from extreme weather events?
No.

In fact the number of people losing their lives from extreme weather events is now lower than at any time in the last 100 years.

That somewhat ruins the hysterical rhetoric we get pummelled with on a daily basis doesn't it?

Poverty

Want to know how mass starvation and poverty is doing on a global scale?

Lets look at the number of people surviving on two dollars a day or less.

These poor souls sleep on dirt floors. They are illiterate. They die from ridiculous diseases like measles and flu. They are usually malnourished. Their lives are short, dull and brutal.

Because they are poor they have large families in the hope that one or two of their children might survive to their teens. By the way, don’t forget. This is how the sociopaths and their cults want it to stay.

If we carry on as we are then we are we can eliminate this desperate poverty in thirty years.

But only if we carry on as we are. 

We must lock out the psycho cult leaders and their gullible soldiers who seek to derail global progress.

Average Life Expectancy

Finally lets look at worldwide average life expectancy. Currently it stands at 72 . (Yes 72. That is not a misprint)

While the sociopaths witter on about how too many children are being born, the main growth in the worlds population is fuelled by people living longer. In other words people are having better lives.

Further population increase is NOT caused by an increase in births. The number of individuals between the ages of 0 to 15 has has remained roughly constant now for almost twenty years!

Yes. The worlds population is growing. It will peak at about 11 Billion in 60 years. So we know where we stand! We can plan ahead.

Stupid tearful teenagers mouthing the false dogma of their cult masters about population runaway and mass starvation should be treated like any other stupid and ill-informed teenager. They need correction. Even if they suffer cognitive dissonance on having their black nightmares thwarted.

Hopefully one day, they will escape the malign influence of their cult and gain a little more life experience. Then perhaps their world view will be more rational.

So, things are looking good.

Very good in fact.

But there are clouds on the horizon. Yet those clouds are only a threat if we decide to steer towards them.

We have to address the pathetic politically motivated nonsense being spewed out to service hidden agendas. Like all propaganda the nonsense is wrapped in morsels of truth. Usually to make it more scary.

Top of the list within these morsels of truth is Global Warming. Or Climate Change. Or the Climate Emergency. Or Climate Chaos. Or Climate Crisis. Or whatever else it gets morphed to to enhance its ability to scare gullible children.

Yes! The planet is warming. One of the aspects of this warming is sea level rise. Today the cultists and their sycophants are using future sea level rise as a primary weapon in their quest to spread fear and turn back global progress.

But sea level rise does NOT mean humanity is doomed anymore than a rising world population means humanity is doomed. Unless that is you are an avid follower of one of the nutcases running a cult scam like Extinction Rebellion.

So is this sea level rise because of human Carbon Dioxide emissions? Well, probably some of it is.

But so what?

Let’s make the unlikely assumption that ALL of the global warming from the last 150 years has been caused solely by human emissions.

Would you throw away the last 150 years of progress in order to prevent the global warming that has occurred in that period?

Would you rather leave billions living (and dying) in dirt poverty?

Would you throw away all the progress in medicine, science and engineering?

Would you rather have it that almost the whole of humanity was dirt poor rather than today where most of humanity is NOT dirt poor?

Take the average Bangladeshi. The population of Bangladesh has risen four-fold since 1950. Their life span is now about 70. In the 1950’s it was 35. The average Bangladeshi family have 2.4 children whereas forty years ago it was six.

Today Bangladesh feeds itself. Bangladesh does not suffer the crippling famines of the past. Neither does it succumb to dreadful and easily prevented epidemics.

Bangladesh is healthier, richer, and better educated than it has ever been before. It's population is stabilising. Child mortality is at an all time low.

All that because Bangladesh has embraced modern science, medicine and engineering and rejected Luddite paranoia, superstition and fear.

Meanwhile, since 1950 the world sea level has risen about 17cms. (7 inches)

Go and ask the average Bangladeshi what he/she would regard as more important aspect of the last 70 years in Bangladesh.

Was it sea level rise?
Or was it the improvement of the human condition?

We can continue to improve things and adapt to change. Or we can throw it away.

We can indulge in a panic laced pursuit of a dark self fulfilling prophesy. Or we can continue on a path that is driven by cheap plentiful energy and has been shown to improve humanity worldwide.

Sure. Let’s address Global Warming. As well as other problems like pollution. But let us do it rationally.

Let’s ensure its done to enhance humanity.

Not to diminish it.

Gasland Purbeck and Propaganda

The Purbeck Film Festival is to present the film Gasland as one of it's features. For those who do not know, Gasland is a documentary about Fracking. (Natural Gas extraction by Hydraulic Fracturing).

As a film, Gasland  has been totally discredited by a number of sources. As a documentary it is laughably inaccurate and riddled with innuendo and make believe. Truth is most certainly not it's strong point. To say Gasland refuses to let the truth get in the way of a good fairy-tale would be the understatement of the century.

The fact that this grubby piece of propaganda, with so many inaccuracies, contradictions and outright lies should be shown as some form of "environmental" expose says a lot about the gullibility and narrow mindedness of those presenting it. I notice they couldn't wait to run up a poster with somebody in a bio hazard suite. No doubt their mates will be impressed.

The truth, as shown in the USA now over several years is very, very different from the childish paranoia as displayed by our local eco-warriors.

If you go and watch this preposterous lie of a film first of all read at least some of this detailed demolition of the film, (virtually minute by minute.) Here Or for a synopsis Here

Alternatively try this article by Liz Stelle at the Commonwealth foundation Here

Or maybe this demolition piece at the New York Times Here

 This film is so pitifully inaccurate I could go on and on with more exposé's. But I'm bored. Google "Gasland debunked" yourself.

So what is the truth about Fracking?

Let us start with a few undeniable facts (even by the eco-zealots)

1. As fracking has become a mainstream source of natural gas in the USA, prices have fallen to one third of their 2011 price. In other words wholesale gas is, at most, the same price it was ten years ago.
2. In the USA gas is now cheap enough to displace coal as an energy source for generating electricity. Consequently USA Carbon emissions have massively decreased. Please note: The vast majority of this decrease is due to the utilisation of natural gas NOT wind or solar (whose contribution gets buried in the noise).
3. Fracking in the USA is now a very large industry employing many thousands of people, yet the paranoid depictions and claims of huge (or even small) water poisoning problems as made in Gasland have been shown to be utterly false.
4. Because of fracking, the USA has for the first time in a 100 years, become a net exporter of oil products and is within sight of what most Americans regard as their holy grail - energy self sufficiency.
5. In fact the USA is likely to become a large exporter of LNG in the next few years. They are also converting thousands of trucks to LNG so reducing their Carbon emissions even more.

The final irony on all this is that as gas has displaced coal in the USA, world coal prices have fallen. Because Russian and Norwegian gas is expensive we, in the UK, are now burning more coal. Our emissions have increased because we have not adopted fracking like they have in the USA.

So how does this directly affect us?

Purbeck has the largest on-shore oil field in Europe (ever noticed it?) Potentially there might also be a great deal of gas, the extraction of which will be about as noticeable as the extraction of the oil has been for the last 50 years.

While I hate wind turbines and would happily do without them, even my windy turbine loving readership must admit they need backup (aka gas) Either we can be held to ransom by Putin (or even buy US fracked gas at a large premium) or we can explore our own resources. That means exploring the potential of fracking in Purbeck as well as elsewhere. Wind turbines or not.

Sadly it looks like science and truth come a very poor second to fashionability for those promoting this junk film at the Purbeck Film Festival. They much prefer their self indulgent fashionable hysteria. After all, without the lies and ridiculous posters who else would pay attention to them?

The bottom line is that Gasland, is an irresponsible, inaccurate and unscientific piece of propaganda that would have made Joseph Goebbels proud. It is though, Oh-So fashionable.

Interestingly there is another film for release soon called FrackNation which puts the other viewpoint. But I don't expect our eco-fashionistas will be the least bit interested let alone promoting it at the next Purbeck Film Festival.

By all means, support the Purbeck Film Festival. Even go and see Gasland if you must. But don't be naive. Those showing this film have a political agenda to which the truth is very much a secondary issue.

Be Warned.

Cold Feet in Turbine Heaven.

On the 12th July the government published its latest white paper of energy reform The Electricity Market Reform Paper 2011 Here

Although this white paper cements in an absurd commitment to a massive expansion and deployment of wind turbines, the bankers and investors are getting cold feet.

They are blaming this on what they say is a lack of clarity in the white paper. (As described in "The Scotsman" Here)

But there is more to the bankers prevarication, as noted in the above article:

[quote]
That was partly due to regulatory uncertainty, he said, but funding for wind farms was also being impacted by low average wind speeds over the last couple of years, which has depressed rates of return on existing projects.
[unquote]

Maybe the bankers have started paying more attention to data indicating a reduction in wind speed across the UK. As described in a paper by Wind Turbine enthusiasts Garrad Hassan.
(see Billothewisp post "Wind Speed In Decline: A Blip or a Trend?").

Maybe now they can see that even with their huge subsidies, erratically performing turbines may not be the sure investment bet they were once thought to be.

Whatever the bankers think, one thing is sure, nobody in government would now risk the wrath of the electorate by giving the bankers a guarantee on any continuation of the currently flawed ROC scheme let alone an increase. If they want a cast iron guarantee on what is really very risky high return investment, they are going to be dissapointed. (at last)

What if these grubby little investors attempt to blackmail us by threatening to take their "green" investments elsewhere?

Billothewisp has two words to say to them

Bye Bye.

Lib-Dems: The Return of the Care Bears.

Or is it the "My Little Ponies"?

After returning to our ruined little England from far away I made the mistake of looking up a synopsis of Lib-Dem policies. All I can say to you my fellow sour faced little Englanders is God help us all if this bunch of tosh gets anywhere near legislation.

Really, I would expect better from a group of nine year olds. Some of this junk simply beggars belief.

First off I will blame the cause of my unpleasant foray into Lib-Dem dream-world on this post by Ian Dale It describes the proposed Lib-Dem tax break for illegal immigrants. Basically, if you evade our laughable boarder protection for ten years, you do not have to repay any of the tax you have avoided (ker-ching!). Illegal immigrants only will be eligable for this concession. Nasty little Englanders need not apply. In fact YOU will be paying for this. So bugger off to the back of the queue as normal.

Regrettibly, after reading Ians post, I then Googled this Lib-Dem policy synopsis.

I was going to make a list of the most ludicrous and vacant of these touchy-feely pie-in-the-sky statements but then I read the section marked "Environment".

Then I got worried. Very worried.

There is crass stupidity elsewhere in their policy synopsis. But in the Environment section it gets worse. Much, much worse. So bad in fact, I fear for the future safety of our frail and elderly.

Get this:

"Setting a target for 40 per cent of electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020 rising to 100 per cent by 2050"

This is totally unachievable.

It is a pair of targets that are so ludicrous you have to question the technical ability (if not the sanity) of anyone suggesting them.

Worse than that, by implying it is achievable they will end up killing people. These victims will mainly old ladies who will freeze to death when the inevitable power cuts stop their gas or electric heating from working.

Now get these two further statements:

"Blocking any new coal-fired power stations"
"Rejecting a new generation of nuclear power stations"

So how exactly are they planning to generate electricity? Obviously no-one has told them that those mighty wind turbine thingys don't actually produce much power. Especially when you need it. Are they going to rely on gas? From the generous Mr Putin no doubt?

I had to take a break in writing this to cool down. This is just so bloody unbelievable. Do these people have any contact with reality at all?

I am really, really, worried that people with apparently no understanding of basic physics let alone real world energy generation and managment are "planning" our future energy strategy. The crass incompetence and cowardice of the Labour party has got us into a situation where there is likely to be real difficulties in avoiding power cuts in the next 5 years anyway. This lunacy from the Liberals would make things much worse.

To ensure this countries energy requirements are met we really must have a set of policies based on the real world and what can actually be achieved.

Ridiculous fashion statements will not suffice.