Green Energy Stole My House

The climate change denial lobby have, without much fanfare, opened up a new front in their efforts to rubbish the concept of renewable energy. Quite apart from the well worn objection that holds, more or less, that anything called “renewable” isn’t reliable, doesn’t generate much power, and is otherwise rubbish, has come the proposition that it also equals property theft.

Del Boy being sympathetically interviewed by FNC

This idea has been advanced, with characteristic lack of subtlety, by James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole in the latest Telegraph blogs example of his intellectually superior combination of abuse, fact free assertion, and citing only sources reliable enough to come from within the jerking circle where everybody is reliably conservative and thinks he is very wonderful.

“David Cameron, renewable energy and the death of British property rights” reads the serious looking headline, which tells readers that Young Dave is somehow coming for your houses because of anything called renewable. But Del Boy’s logic depends, mainly, on believing his loudly proclaimed assertions and not pausing to ask too many inconvenient questions.

Behold, a wasteland (or perhaps a very large retail park)

For starters, he claims that wind turbines anywhere near property at least lowers its value, and on occasion has made properties impossible to sell. To take issue with Del on this one makes anyone so inclined a “vexatious twerp”. D’you know, that sounds fine – until you think for a moment. What’s noisier, a wind farm two or three miles away, a motorway, overflying aircraft, or lots of potentially noisy neighbours?

Living in a built up area – like the kind of town or city that 90% plus of the population does – the wind farm wouldn’t make a difference. And would it be worse than living close to motorway, railway or airport? Seriously? And would anyone put forward the argument that because there was one or more of these nearby, someone was involved in the theft of your property rights?

That’s arguing against ever building anything anywhere remotely near any existing settlement forever. But at least Delingpole is consistent, as he carries on the argument to demonise hydro power on the grounds that it may affect a stretch of the River Trent where an angling club bought a nearby stretch of fishing rights, which they have enjoyed for all of 30 years.

What power will these hydro schemes generate? We aren’t told, except that Del says it’s “next to [none]”, that renewables are a “scam”, that those involved are “rent seeking scuzzballs”, and that the whole thing is a “taxpayer subsidised boondoggle”. There never are any detailed analyses from Del Boy, are there? Nor is there the first thought that all the sneering and abuse may not be a particularly fruitful USP.

But it will enable that jerking circle to keep smiling, so that’s all right, then.