Royal Wind

It's a balmy November, as warm in London as a blazing Scottish summer i.e. not hot enough to require shorts or to break sweat, but unusually mild for the time of year.  The freak weather has triggered ducks to breed and Prince Philip to spout off about onshore wind turbines, calling them 'completely useless' and 'an absolute disgrace'. Another hilarious gaffe by our royal Alf Garnett; worth a chuckle but nought else.

Except that instead of simply adding to the Prince's wiki quotes, his outburst triggered no less than two articles in The Daily Telegraph and one in The Daily Mail, praising the Prince Consort for having the bravery to take on the 'warmist' lobby. A  'warmist' in the eyes of deniers of climate change is virtually every scientist on the planet, who agree that humanity is causing the planet to warm by doubling the atmospheric concentrations of C02.

Phil the Greek didn't present any information to support his claims, just simply a strongly held view that wind turbines were a bad thing. But that didn't stop three journalists in two days using it as an excuse to trot out a series of bizarre rants about how the evil BBC-socialist-green conspiracy is planning to turn the whole of Britain into a giant lesbian, vegetarian commune powered by wind-farms. If you think I'm exaggerating just read Melanie Philips' recent barrage of nonsense - a densely woven tapestry of ignorance, misinformation and misanthropy. On second thoughts, don't; life is too short.

The even weirder aspect of climate change is as the evidence grows stronger and more conclusive, the denial movement gains ground. So they leap on a Prince's statements as 'proof', but they don't actually say what it proves, other than the evil lefties are out to get you. That's the best advocate they could manage by the way: an elderly Royal. He joins an elite society of denialists: Christopher Booker, who also likes to claim that white asbestos is harmless, Lord Monckton, who apparently has a cure for AIDS, James Delingpole who writes every month on climate change but 'doesn't have the time to read the scientific papers' and Martin Durkin, a film-maker who prompted 178 respected scientists to complain to Ofcom over his C4 documentary on global warming, resulting in an upheld complaint - his second on the same issue.

The Prince and these related articles presented  no expert opinions, no data, no peer-reviewed paper, just a rage against wind machines. Since neither The Prince of Gaffes nor the three hacks bothered to understand the science, here's a short precis, which you can check in one millisecond on Google. Turbines on average generate 25% of their potential power per annum, as the wind is some times too weak or too strong. But if they are not being used or when they are operating, no C02 is added to the atmosphere. They are a carbon-neutral source of power, rather than a fuel. Renewables work only as a mix with fossil fuels and nuclear. Currently, they depend on subsidy to be economic, in part because fossil fuels unlike nuclear power does not carry any tax to cover their environmental impact. So when you burn coal, you are fucking future generations, except they pay for it, not you. Conventional power stations e.g. coal, gas or nuclear operate at best at 50 to 60% of capacity. Moreover, they coal plants and gas plants burn fuel which in turn adds to the CO2 load, whether the electricity grids needs the power or not.  No jokes there, just facts, which don't generate neat headlines for reactionary newspapers determined to rubbish green power and spread lies about climate science.

To recap, a wealthy white man who owns vast areas of Britain and never has to work for a living, thinks wind turbines are a bit of an eyesore and ruin his views from his country estates. Without spelling it out, he is 90 years old, so even if there were catastrophic climate change in the next century, I'm betting Prince Philip won't be around to witness it.

Old people say stupid, embarrassing things all the time; the trick is not to go around repeating them in public.

History Lessons

Whenever there's a looming crisis or a war, politicians and commentators are keen to say they have learned the lessons of history, like schoolchildren being checked on their homework assignments. With the Euro about as stable as an overloaded Filipino ferry with a drunk captain in a typhoon, it is vital we are told, that politicians do not repeat the mistakes of the past. They certainly seem to have taken that message to heart, by making a completely new series of errors and blunders that will keep at least one sector of the economy booming: books on financial collapses. Robert Peston, Michael Lewis and Gillian Tett can rest easy, that follow-up title is pretty much going to write itself.

Tasty, but not worth the grief

But the real problem with learning the lessons of history is that you have to agree what that lesson is supposed to be. Sometimes, there is a relatively straightforward principle from the past that everyone can agree on such as: 'Do not invade Afghanistan'. But even that simple mantra is not quite correct. Invading Afghanistan is the easy part; the difficult part is trying to govern a group of armed, religious maniacs  who hold grudges for centuries. A more helpful motto for any outside force might be: 'Invade Afghanistan; leave Afghanistan quickly. Yes, it's got stunning scenery, the food is simply delicious but you could say the same about Turkey, which has a much better developed tourist infrastructure. Besides, you read The Kite Runner, what more do you want? '.

When anyone talks about learning from the past, they are really telling you how they think the world should be. Facts and figures are surprisingly plastic; they mould themselves well to any point of view. In the current Euro meltdown, the Germans political class is obsessed by the spectre of hyperinflation, which they think led to the rise of Hitler, which means they fervently opposed to any monetising of the Euro area debt.

Deja vu?

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the Germans are brilliant when it comes to car-making, machine tools and suburban trams but hopeless when it comes to politics or indeed learning anything useful from their own history, unless forced to do so at the point of a gun by total defeat and military occupation.  The Nazi party vote only skyrocketed in 1931, during the Great Depression, where the German Chancellor along with many other leaders turned a recession into a depression by forcing through harsh austerity measures during a slowdown. Unemployment soared, production crashed, all to defend sound money. Does that sound familiar?

The other lesson that the German government seems singly unwilling to learn is that the rest of Europe does not appreciate being bossed around by sanctimonious Teutons, indeed we fought several wars on this very point. They  still do not fundamentally accept that the rest of the world is not the same as the good Burgers of Frankfurt or Munich and no matter how many Italian or Greek governments are deposed, they are not going to suddenly turn German.

But let's make this a constructive post as dear readers there are perhaps a handful of lessons from history that we  probably all agree on:

1. Beware of anyone trying to teach you the lessons of history, especially if they have a beard, e.g. Karl Marx.

2. Do not invade Afghanistan (see 2nd para).

3. Beware of Greeks bearing government bonds.

4. The Germans like telling people what to do; the British hate being told what to do. This never ends well. (See WW1 and WW2 for reference).