Ignore All Logic

There is an interesting Booker column today, once more about manmade global warming, in which he reminds us of the potential costs of putting all of our eggs in one theoretical basket. An example, he relates to us the "remarkable drama" unfolding in Australia, in which the new Labor government has introduced a bill for an emissions-curbing "cap and trade" scheme, which apparently "would devastate Australia's economy, it being 80 per cent dependent on coal".

Fortunately for Australia, the passing of the bill came down to one independent senator, sensible enough to ask the right questions, to which he received poor responses, leading him to decide to vote against it.

Unfortunately for Britain, we do not have someone sensible enough to ask the right questions. Here, the consensus has a tight, feverish grip on the masses of all three major political parties. Hence the determination of the Government to ignore all logic and all protest groups, as well as the lack of any sane concurring arguments, and push ahead with the construction of yet more wind turbines, quadtrupling them over the course of the next decade, in accordance with an initiative that - as should be expected - comes from Brussels.

The result? Vast, vast subsidies poured into monstrosities that are hopelessly inefficient, hopelessly unreliable, hopelessly uneconomical, and unwanted by anyone who has to live anywhere near them. A pathetic waste of time and money that should be spent on projects to solve the oncoming energy crisis.

And who's willing to speak up and bring some sanity to proceedings? No one. As ever, consensus leads us to disaster.