Ten years ago, on this day, July 2, 2013, Boris defuckhead Johnson writes in his column in the Daily Telegraph “newspaper” that “Wind farms couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was overpaid hack Boris Johnson needed to write a column. And attacking wind farms is always easy if you’re a conservative. Johnson, of course, didn’t bother to do any research. Why would he, that’s not what they were paying him for. You don’t ask a clown to have evidence based policy and you should not ask a clown to be Prime Minister or World King, Offshore wind was in a precarious position but was beginning to make headway.
OTHER OLD WHITE MEN
’ Mr Peter McGauran MP, the federal Minister for Agriculture and member for Gippsland, went further in June 2006, saying ‘Wind farms don’t live up to the hype that they’re the environmental saviour and a serious alternative energy source.
(Prest, 2007: 254)
ABC, 2006. Pete McGauran says wind farms a fraud. AM Program, 29 June. 2006
Old white men just can’t bear to be dependent (Hudson 2017)
What I think we can learn from this commentators especially right wing ones, can say any old fact-free shit that they like and suffer no consequences. Wind power now provides a decent (and climbing) percentage of our electricity needs, on an annual basis in the UK. (Please note I am not advocating a 100% wind energy economy nobody is that’s a straw man. That’s a trap.)
What happened next
Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and by between the narrating of this and the uploading, probably Prime Minister again. [no, actually he is toast.]
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.