BAN - Rise of the quangos

A wee while ago my door knocked and a young lady stood there with a leaflet.

'Did I know about the energy savings grants?,' she asked. I had to say I knew of some, but not this one.

And hence I was seduced into a process, culminating in a visit from a surveyor, which resulted in... zippy. Because the house was old, and complex...and.. and, I did not qualify.

Despite this, I was still fairly onside, as it seemed a commitment of funds in areas I can endorse, namely proactive doing.

But now, thanks to a twitter link, I am looking at this (read the comments for a reality check the Brain-strains behind this one will never have):

Ban sales of poorly insulated homes, says Energy Saving Trust

And hence I am thinking not so much of a bonfire of the quangos, as promised, but a Hydra of them. Limitless numbers of offices, people, boards, pay, pensions, perks, comms budgets consuming bazillions all just stopping things. What a lovely metaphor for the age.

And hence I propose the next, and ultimate of them all: BAN - Ban All Now!

The devastating virus 0157 .......

..... otherwise known as eco-smugness.

Never let it be said that we don't comment on both sides of the enviro argument. This from The Times is actually quite an amusing rant against the environmental movement.

"What is becoming so fascinating about the new puritanism is not just that we are all being brainwashed to accept the inevitability of hair shirts, but also their unquestioned moral worth. That somehow or other, this life of sackcloth and bicycles is going to benefit our souls and make us all better people."

"My real problem with the eco-alarmists is the pleasure they take in austerity; their evident desire to strip away pleasure. Deep down, they disapprove of skiing, even on a Scottish scale. They dislike colour, excess and fun. They really do want to see us imprisoned in a narrow, grey, scratchy world of recycled car tyres and hemp lingerie (and no, I didn't make that up)."

Ooooo-errrrr! Something has definitely gotten up this lady's nose!

"we will chant a litany of carbon offset, recycling and composting, the buttresses of a new religion that makes radical Islam resemble Methodism."

"the thought of life in this smug, dull, joyless, labour-intensive, recycled, fair trade, waste-free world makes a woman yearn to be already dead and buried in her eco-friendly coffin, fertilising some field for methane-free cows."

Methinks she is taking something of a micro-view of the whole issue? Or maybe her hemp lingerie is itching?

Oooooops!!

This from The Times highlights an issue that is going to really stress producers, refiners and the retail outlets of all within the fuel industry. Just how can you guarantee that the Gov's requisite content of biofuel (2.5% as of tomorrow) comes from sustainable sources?

"An investigation by Greenpeace found that 30 per cent of the biofuel in Tesco diesel came from palm oil. A litre of Tesco diesel typically contains 5 per cent biofuel."

Oh, its not Tesco's fault though ..... "Tesco said that the concentration of palm oil in its biodiesel was the responsibility of Greenergy, its supplier."

"A spokeswoman for Greenergy also initially denied using palm oil but later said: 'It’s a very, very small proportion of our feedstock mix.'"

Interesting to note that Tesco actually owns 25% of Greenenergy though. Isn't it amazing just how incestuous big business is nowadays?

Wasting money deliberately? Or just plain incompetence?

Those were the two questions that popped into my head when I spotted this in The Times earlier today.

The Olympic aquatics centre (the posh name for the swimming pool complex) was originally estimated (and budgeted) at some £70 million. The current costing (errrm, no, still not actually fixed) now stands at some £214 million.

Now an additional £144 million might not seem an obscene increase in the overall governmental scheme of Olympics expenditure, but, to me, it smacks of utter incompetence in the initial estimating process. What the hell did they do? Sit around a table and pull random numbers out of a tombola?

Ah, OK, they blame the increase on VAT and inflation. "much of the disparity is explained by VAT and inflation. While venue costs estimated during the bidding process were in 2004 prices, they must be stated in 2012 prices."

So, with VAT fixed at 17.5% (or, just maybe, our gov knows that VAT will be set at a rate of 100% by 2012?), and inflation at the official government figures of just over 2.3% (not that any single one of us believes that anyway), we get a tripling in cost between 2004 and 2012? Come on, we are NOT that stupid!

And, what a surprise, the bidding contract was won and assigned to ..... deep intake of breath ..... a sole bidder! "The Olympic Delivery Authority is set to sign a construction contract with Balfour Beatty, the sole bidder."

As well as incompetence and profligacy, this smacks to me of profiteering, greed and may even be tinged with a hint of fraud. And all that money is coming out of your own back pocket one way or another to be trousered elsewhere!

Whatever happened to accountability? LOL!

Addendum: (1/2/08)
The Daily Mail appears to have identified a few 'fat cats' which just might partly explain why costs are overrunning so much.

A very costly decision

Back in 1999, our then chancellor, Ol' Golden Brown, no less, took the unprecedented decision to unload a large proportion of the UK's gold reserves at a time when the price of gold was at the bottom of the market. Dealers still term that price as the "Brown Bottom". (Full story in The Times).

At the time, there was much concern, and many forecasts that it would cost the UK dear. "The 17 auctions achieved prices for the gold of between $256 and $296 an ounce, with an average of $275." The total loss, back in April this year was estimated at some £2 Billion. (It would have been considerably more had not the Euros purchased with much of the proceeds not appreciated in value.)

Well, the price of gold now stands at a record $872.10 per ounce. That means that our PM is directly responsible for a loss to the UK of some £3 Billion+.

Now if I (or anyone else for that matter) had taken such an appalling decision and lost such an immense amount in business I'd have been sacked on the spot. It just goes to prove that there is no such thing as accountability in politics nowadays.

ADDENDUM - Brown's big hitter - When in the mire, don't whatever happens try and sort it out. Hire a better person to explain why it isn't.

ADDENDUM 2 - Unhappy new year to you all!

Peak oil / peak water.

An interesting article from Online Journal on how peak oil might affect America. One or two quite interesting observations and comments, not least of which is the suggestion that "Peak Oil and the steps we must take to solve its effects upon our society will naturally contribute to also slowing down the escalation of Global Warming." I also find it interesting that peak oil might just indicate the potential demise of the huge global supermarket entities.

Now peak water usage in the UK apparently occurs in the South East of England, where average use is greater than anywhere else in Europe, according to Times Online. Well, that didn't really surprise me overtly, but I was surprised to note that "the South East of England has less (water) available per person than Sudan or Syria".

Bali climate summit

We've all heard about the upcoming summit meeting on climate change in Bali. Now I reckoned there might be a few hundred pols and associated hangers on, plus several hundred media teams, but this from The Times reports on what seems to have become a major international circus.

"Calculations suggest flying the 15,000 politicians, civil servants, green campaigners and television crews into Indonesia will generate the equivalent of 100,000 tonnes of extra CO2. That is similar to the entire annual emissions of the African state of Chad." Strewth!!

"Indonesian officials say the final tally could reach 20,000 — and fear it could stretch the resort’s infrastructure to the limit." "The preparations are acquiring the feel of a huge party, with the Indonesian government seeing it as a chance to revive Bali as a tourist destination".

Sounds like it's going to be one hell of a party. I hope they don't forget just what it is that they are there to achieve.

Addendum: (28/11)
Some of them could have fun getting there if they're flying via the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, as this from Associated Press reports.

Addendum 2:
But the Bali bash seems to have stirred some action into the Indonesian government as indicated by this report from Pravda. The trouble is, if trees are disappearing at the rate of 300 soccer pitches worth per hour, planting another 79 million of them seems to be rather too little too late.

What comes after the Prius?

According to this from today's Times, Toyota is planning a seriously greener future. As one of the few vehicle manufacturers actually making any real money, they have a substantial pot to invest, and a good chunk of that pot is going into a greener future.

"Toyota will spend its fortune developing single-seat hybrid vehicles, fuel cells, next-generation batteries, bio-fuels and the commercialisation of humanoid helper robots."

Ooooh. I wonder if they're planning to let the robot drive for you?

Elf 'n safety - the next targets?

Sometimes, I wonder if we are slowly heading towards a completely totalitarian state whereby you cannot do, see, say, read, eat, drink, think or discuss anything that the state has not first approved. Every day it seems that something else is going to get banned or prohibited, or is brought under some new legislation that requires permission from a set of faceless bureaucrats before you can start, or do it.

This from the Times suggests the next ten things that elf 'n safety might look at banning - planet ban-it.

Now some of these appear to be fairly sensible, but others, at least to me, seem so bloody ludicrous they are hardly worthy of comment.
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Hmmmmm, also interesting to note that this article contains yet another reference to some discredited and never published 'scientific' [not] study claiming that heart attack rates in Scotland have fallen by 20% in the first ten months of the smoking ban, which they definitively have not. A classic case of 'Post hoc ergo propter hoc' (after this, therefore because of this) that is demonstrably false, yet still quoted as fact without reference.

Today's Top Ten .....

... Predictions. (About Climate Change)

As presented in The Times by the eminent Scientist (maybe?), Zoologist (yes), Climatologist (probably not?) and sometime explorer, Tim Flannery.

Nothing to cause too much dissention in them, was my first thought, but the response comments contain some of the most vitriolic, vehement arguments against AGW that I've ever seen.

"His next job will be as a carnival psychic, clairvoyant, or palm reader. He is well rehearsed in making vague predictions that fit any eventuality."

"Anyone who considers Tim Flannery to be a font of scientific knowledge displays their own ignorance. "

"It is my understanding that Tim Flannery has no scientific credentials. His claims have little or no substance. "

"ten of the most wishy washy unproven and heavily contradicted predictions of all time, I'd say."

"The notion that Man is causing global warming is as ludicrous as a flea floating on his back down a river, with an erection, yelling 'Raise the drawbridge!' "

I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I can't help suspecting that these responses are probably very similar to what the first 'scientists' who claimed the earth was round, as opposed to flat, received. (Generally just before they were put to death as heretics!)

Just a little poser for you - is this the same Tim Flannery who was voted Australian of the year and subsequently much abused by some in government over there?

"Any colour, so long as it's green"?

This certainly twitched my eyebrows somewhat. From The Times.

BMW "makes cars that are much more fuel-efficient than the likes of the hybrids built by Japanese manufacturers"

Well, that statement made my eyebrows reach the top of my forehead! If that's true, why the German consumer rush for the Pious et al?

They reckon that its down to a "colossal failure of marketing by the German auto industry".

The consumer survey final point is a real WOW:-
Within ten years ...."more than a quarter of people say that they will not have a car at all and 50 per cent say that they will have some kind of environmentally friendly vehicle: a hybrid, an electric car, a hydrogen-fuelled car or an LPG-powered car."

So its all about consumer perception then. The big question is just how much that perception is driven by marketing? Or, perhaps, how much is marketing driven by consumer perception?

Who's greenwashing who? If the Advert says it's green, then is it always so? EnviROI answers on a postcard please.

Addendum:
And on the same day that this story appears, BMW announce plans to radically reduce the CO2 emissions across their vehicle range. Details on Motoring Reuters. And other additional gizmos to reduce fuel consumption - details at What Car.

Maybe the first salvos in a new marketing effort to overcome their previous 'colossal failure'?