![Expensive heating [image credit: the Guardian]](https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/oldcold.jpg)
Expensive heating [image credit: the Guardian]
James Delingpole has some typically harsh words for dogma-driven promoters of heavily subsidised renewable energy.
Europe’s suicidal green energy policies are killing at least 40,000 people a year. [H/T Notrickszone]
That’s just the number estimated to have died in the winter of 2014 because they were unable to afford fuel bills driven artificially high by renewable energy tariffs.
But the real death toll will certainly be much higher when you take into account the air pollution caused when Germany decided to abandon nuclear power after Fukushima and ramp up its coal-burning instead; and also when you consider the massive increase in diesel pollution – the result of EU-driven anti-CO2 policies – which may be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year.
But even that 40,000 figure is disgraceful enough, given that greenies are always trying to take the moral high ground and tell us that people who oppose their policies are uncaring and selfish. It comes from an article in the German online magazine FOCUS about Energiewende (Energy Transition) – the disastrous policy I mentioned earlier this week whereby Germany is committed to abandoning cheap, effective fossil fuel power and converting its economy to expensive, inefficient renewables (aka unreliables) instead.
According to FOCUS around ten percent of the European population are now living in ‘energy poverty’ because electricity prices have risen, on average, by 42 percent in the last eight years. In Germany alone this amounts to seven million households.
Read the full article: Green Europe is Killing 40,000 Poor People a Year | Breitbart London
The really harsh words are near the end of the linked report.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
So homicidal as well as suicidal 😦
“Europe’s suicidal green energy policies” – sorry oldbrew – I don’t agree.
Suicide is the action of killing oneself intentionally.
If only that headline was correct.
More-accurate is “Europe’s murderous green energy policies”
Thanks to a Malthusian Fixation, the Green Blob wants more deaths. For them, this is the desired goal and your complaint is simply admiring their successes… Then season with the Aristocratic Class making money off of it while it is the “useless eaters” who expire from lack of money, and it makes a tidy package… From the POV of someone like Charles…
I suggest that this will continue until People With Pitchforks “remind” their masters that PWP are many and Masters few…
I only skimmed the sources, but did not find a reliable origin of that 40,000 number. Let’s not emulate the 97% crowd.
For an insight (25 November 2015) into the situation in England & Wales:
“Excess Winter Mortality in England and Wales : 2014/15 (Provisional) and 2013/14 (Final)”
Data by sex, age, region and cause of death.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/201415provisionaland201314final
Thanks Joe P. On the graph (link below) put the cursor on the blue or yellow chart line to see a comparison for the latest year with the average of the last five years, for the date shown. The winter numbers are noticeably higher.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/201415provisionaland201314final#excess-winter-mortality-ewm-and-temperature
The Greens and Leftists do not care about mere people. It is the collective and the dogma that counts. More dead bodies are just a sign of the coming of ultimate success for the Greens and Leftists. Diesel fumes killing people, pensioners freezing to death, wind-turbines chopping birds and bats, solar furnaces frying birds, are all favourable activities toward Mathusian inspired anthropohate. These are the result of Warmist/CAGW and EU-driven anti-CO2 policies.
Greenies and Leftists see 40,000 deaths as a necessary step toward the establishment of the dictatorship of Gaia. They see their unreliables and unrenewables as life saving.
Two centers of the polar vortex compatible with the Earth’s magnetic field. Very low solar activity.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/subfreezing-highs-to-return-to-northeastern-us-great-lakes-early-april/56335323
The UK steel industry has been killed off at least partly by high UK energy costs, caused by so-called green policies.
Professor: “The Government’s interest in green and environmental issues where energy prices are concerned has sacrificed the UK steel industry.
“In total, the energy costs per tonne of steel made in Britain are more than double those in Germany and the energy costs in the UK steel industry are more than the labour costs.
“This is entirely the result of UK policy and is not in any way down to anything the Chinese have done.
“If Tata wants to sell, one has to ask who would want to buy when steel producers in the UK are paying totally uneconomic and uncompetitive energy prices.”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/governments-reckless-attitude-steel-could-11116940
Excess winter mortality (EWM) and average winter temperature
Excess winter deaths (EWDs) in 2013/14 were the lowest on record and coincided with an increase in average winter temperature. However, the link between average winter temperature and EWDs is much less clear in some years. For example, winter 2009/10 was exceptionally cold, but excess winter mortality (EWM) was similar to years with mild winters.
EWDs in 2013/14 were less than 40% of the EWDs in 1999/2000, which coincided with the last flu epidemic.
A greater proportion of homes in England now have measures to improve energy efficiency such as cavity wall insulation, modern central heating and double-glazing compared with 2001. In 2012, approximately 66% of dwellings with cavity walls had insulation, up from 5.8 million in 2001.This means homes are becoming more energy efficient (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2014). There have been a number of schemes aimed at reducing fuel poverty (there is more information in Policy Context). With these home improvements, homes are easier to heat and keep warm which may have altered the relationship between the weather and winter mortality.
from the data:
Notice the change in rate since windmills were used – I cannot
@Oldbrew:
One wonders if TPTB and the green blob understand that iron is mountains of coal and some special dirt, burned together… and Steel then gets a really heavy electric heating to remelt it while you adjust the carbon level… Steel is a solid solution of iron and carbon… depending on how it crystallizes and the degree to which the solution segregates into different materials (or not) and just what crystal types form, you make everything from mild steel to special hard steels. Huge train loads of carbon as coke from coal are essential to making steel. And lots of electricity…
No coal, no iron. No electricity, hard to make proper steels. (While possible to do it with even more coke, it is easier and more controlled with megawatts…)
Hope the like cars and trains made of wood…
The UK’s own climate change levy is another tax on energy. Charges have changed slightly from today.
http://www.climatechangelevy.co.uk/climate-change-levy-rates-from-1-april-2013
Then there’s air passenger duty, supposed to be climate-related.
http://www.flyingabroad.co.uk/Advice/Airport-Taxes.html
Ford – your figures don’t include the latest data, which is what we’re talking about.
Official report says:
4. Excess winter mortality (EWM) and temperature
‘Number of daily deaths
As in previous winters, the peak in mortality in 2014/15 occurred at the beginning of January; however it was notably higher than in previous years.
The number of daily deaths in 2014/15 was above the five-year average throughout most of the year (on 304 out of 365 days). During the winter period, there were only 2 days where the number of daily deaths was below the five-year average: 2 December and 18 March. Through the non-winter months the number of daily deaths was generally similar to the five-year average, but during the winter daily deaths were far higher.’ [bold added]
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/201415provisionaland201314final#excess-winter-mortality-ewm-and-temperature
Clear enough?
oldbrew says: April 2, 2016 at 9:23 am
Ford – your figures don’t include the latest data, which is what we’re talking about….
Clear enough?
================
latest data
so you are suggesting that winter fuel prices shot up in 2014 2015 causing more deaths?
seems a bit odd but I hope you can provide data for this price hike?
I would think the increase in deaths was because of colder winter and/or flu?
the headline above:
Europe’s suicidal green energy policies are killing at least 40,000 people a year. [H/T Notrickszone]
is just wrong anyway. the excess from average excess is of the order of 15000 not 40000.