GREEN GODS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS
By Pete Moore On June 26th, 2012We know how the fairy tale goes: the National Parks are protected areas because without State protection our finest landscapes would be spoiled. As always, that’s until laws and regulations get in the way of State purposes and the interests of the politically-connected. Then we can be sure that even the most sacred things will be sacrificed.
“Hundreds of miles of giant electricity pylon lines are planned to be driven through some of Britain’s finest landscape — including at least two national parks — to serve the growing wind farm industry.”
“Documents published online by the Government and National Grid show plans for 160ft pylons cutting across Snowdonia, mid-Wales, the Lake District and other unspoilt countryside. Each pylon will be the height of a 15-storey tower block.
The papers outline for the first time the extent of planned pylon development, with a number of previously unpublicised schemes added to existing proposals.”
They’re not the only lines planned. Read the link for a fuller picture. The State is never, ever on your side. It acts for those within it and those wealthy and powerful enough to co-opt it. Wind farms are not viable without vast subsidies (meaning they’re not viable). Spoiling our great landscapes, because this is the only way of keeping transmission costs even tolerably low, is a form of subsidy. Therefore, because the State centrally plans energy around renewables and politically-connected corporations have invested large amounts of capital in response, those protected landscapes are now not so protected afterall.
Would you oppose all energy development in such protected areas?
If there were major oil deposits in the national parks, and BP or Exxon wanted to drill for it and build pipelines to ship it out, would you be in favor of that development?
These pylons would be ugly and unnatural, but they’re probably a lot cleaner than other forms of energy use.
Pete,
I know how much you enjoy the countryside – you live in Norfolk after all; but there are other issues here.
First of all, as a nation we are being forced to “go green” because oil reserves are running low and we don’t have the economic/political clout to ensure supplies from the international market. Not only that, but fossil fuels will run out. Then what? Let’s bite the bullet now and have a cleaner, greener environment.
Secondly alternative energy sources will need subsidies to start with -as did coal and even nuclear power.
I think it would be incredibly expensive to bury the cables running through our national parks, but perhaps if enough people objected, and a sound economic argument for doing so (tourism?)then the government would be forced to take the more expensive solution.
Pete, we only need an intelligent, articulate leader who isn’t afraid to take on the wicked State! Could be the start of a whole new career….
The ” green subsidy ” and ” state ” are important issues.
But how to protect the remaining green spaces is a far more important matter.
There will always be a balancing act between preservation and development, and I personally don’t think that environmental degradation is more acceptable if the despoliation is an all private affair.
Agit8ed -
I’ll have you know I live in the great and ancient county of Essex, though I know Norfolk pretty well.
If oil reserves are running low then there’s no need to force us into any alternative. The price mechanism will do all the persuading necessary. As oil runs low, supply becomes constrained, prices increase and, evenntually, alternatives become more viable and capital is directed there.
We’re being forced into renewables because of politics and special interests. There are many billions at stake and politicians are up for sale.
Phantom -
No need to quibble, we know what you think:
Indeed, and government and the politically-connected have lots of money.
This is a good’un:
God bless government for saving the wild places.
“Ehem”
By the way, the person who said this -
– has been proven 100 per cent right.
Its true.
In the US, the first national parks were created largely under the leadership of the great Theodore Rooseveltm and yes it was ” just in time”
The developers would have loved to have got their hands on Yellowstone, Yosemite and all the great national treasures.
http://www.nps.gov/thro/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm
Pete,
And I had you figured for a carrot cruncher!
If you know Go Outdoors in Norwich, you must know Norfolk more than ‘pretty well’.
Are you what is referred to as a “commercial traveller”?
Anyway, IMHO you are still wrong.
We will be forced to steer away from reliance on fossil fuels. We might as well get on with it now.
I guess that ruining the countryside is only bad when the government does it.
If Exxon does it, its cool.
Phantom,
How’d your bike ride go?
It was good.
Now that our local heat wave has been broken, tonight may be a great night for a ride along the shore too.
Sounds great. Do you cycle because you’re still young enough to want to, or is there an element of fighting the ravages of time mixed in?
I’ve been a cyclist most of my life – its fun.
In recent years, the evil government has installed or improved many bike paths and lanes, which makes it easier to go for longer runs here.
I’m biking more now, as it is a useful variation from the monotony of working out in the gym, etc.
Bloody government.
Taking your tax dollars and improving things like cycle paths….
Agit8ed -
I’m from London but am happy in the styx. I used to work in Norwich and Thetford and have a few friends up in those there parts.
We’ll discard fossil fuels one day, of course. The best way will be to let it happen organically by all of us respondong to prices. This is how we moved from feet and horses to cars. The worst way, and we can see it already, is for government to pick winners.
That way we’ll get misallocated capital, malinvestments, economic degradation, thousands of deaths in the cold months and rampant corruption.
Just look at the point of the post. For decades the National Parks have been sacrosanct, existing under extremely tight planning and development laws. Yet all of a sudden, to get the government out of a sticky situation and to advantage the politically-connected corporates, putting hundreds of enormous pylons all over them is just fine!
This is political and financial corruption.
“In recent years, the evil government has installed or improved many bike paths and lanes, which makes it easier to go for longer runs here.”
At the expense of jobs and economic growth. You ought to to feel shame and embarrassment when you ride in communist cycle lanes.
They improve the quality of life, as they do in the many other places that have built them. Cyclists are taxpayers, too. The universe does not exclusively belong to drivers.
Pete,
Don’t come to me with your hard luck stories! You’re a bloody Londoner!! No wonder you’re so screwed up and buy poncy Paramo outdoor wear…
I lived in Belsize Park and Childs Hill.
I still require therapy..
“We’ll discard fossil fuels one day, of course. The best way will be to let it happen organically by all of us respondong to prices.”
So, behind the scenes our little agents of government are scurrying about getting prepared! We won’t wake up on a Tuesday morning and say,
” Do you know what, Darling? I don’t think we can afford our energy bills any more. We are £135,000 in the red.! What say I pop down to B&Q and buy one of their Do it Yourself Domestic Hydrogen Cell kits?!”
Agit8ed -
We don’t need, and we really don’t want, agents of government scurrying around doing anything about renewables. Prices will signal when to change and what to change to.
Phantom – Pete has abandoned reason for the character he has adopted. Accordingly he can not yield to any exceptions and must maintain absolutes in order to stay in character. I think we all should applaud this great performance.
Immense, screaming fallacy.
There is more to political economy than pricing.
One of the reasons that private industry didn’t care about pollution at all until regulation came in was that it was legal to pollute the air and waters and that there was no cost to it. In many cases, absent regulation, it will still be ” cheaper ” to pollute or not to recycle. But thanks to sensible regulation in all advanced lands, we recycle more and pollute less.
Hundreds of examples available on request.
mahons
I am speechless. I think that he’s serious.
Well, at least no one in government or industry thinks that way, so its harmless.
Phantom 621
Private industry or state industry. The Communists were horrific polluters too, as were states and localities.
Until the EPA and other agencies set things straight.
Phantom -
When I said to you:
“The idea that the State is in any way the protector of our natural environment is risible.”
I was serious and now you can see how right I was too, even though you do not admit it.
On that thread I link to you laud the great landscapes and the imperative of the State protecting them. You now can see that those very landscapes are under great threat by that very State.
At least have the grace to admit that State protection is no protection, that it can be and will be withdrawn, to make way for State degradations, when politics and special interest require it.
The state isn’t always wrong and it isn’t always right. Same as the private guys.
I agree that here those landscapes would be under threat from the government. I’d be inclined to agree with you and change that government policy.
Will you agree with me that there probably shouldn’t be any oil drilling or coal mining etc by private companies in national parks or other irreplaceable lands?
I’d think that environmental depradations are equally bad when done by government or by Exxon.
Pete,
I am no fan of our bloated overbearing system of government, but I want reform not no government.
Having said that, as an individual you presumably have a family budget. To which like me and most others you have to adjust, juggle and “promise to pay later”.
We all have to bend our finances in order to stay afloat.
I don’t see that the government is doing anything terrible, but if to you they are, you have the right to inform and organize public opinion so as to oppose government plans.
I do not quite understand how you can keep railing against government- or the need of it – without doing something about it as a private citizen.
Agit8ed -
“I don’t see that the government is doing anything terrible ..”
This year, like every year now, the state will confiscate most of our income. You don’t think it’s terrible that most Britons have more than a half of their income confiscated?