Snow going

Children's swings at Winster, Derbyshire
Taken this morning - Wed April 3rd

 

The Limestone Way near Winster, Derbyshire
Taken this morning - Wed April 3rd

 

The Limestone Way near Winster, Derbyshire
Taken this morning - Wed April 3rd

According to a local dog-walker, most of the snow from the original fall had disappeared. Although the snow was two feet deep in places, walking in the tractor tracks wasn't too bad.

Winster is about 250 metres above sea-level, so in the hills but not particularly high. Tracks like this section of the Limestone Way collect the snow though and being sheltered by walls, melting can be slow especially with the below normal air temperatures we've been having.

Green energy and landowners

It may have been a predictable outcome, but more than anyone else, green energy seems to confer its benefits on landowners rather than power consumers. Wind turbines, solar panel arrays and biofuels all require far more land than coal, nuclear or gas for power generation.

From nebusiness last November

THE importance of renewable energy generation is poised to become hugely important to landowners over the next decade.

The findings came from a snapshot poll taken at a conference organised specifically to discuss the issue. The Renewable Projects: Landowner to Landowner event at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire, found that 65% believed that renewable energy production would be very important to their overall business in 10 years’ time, compared to 54% in five years’ time, and 19% at the moment.

Oddly enough, even fracking doesn’t occupy much land and as far as eco-fascists are concerned it isn’t green. Supposedly this is because CO2 is generated by burning natural gas, but is that the only factor?

I’m not saying that climate activists are in the pockets of major landowners, but as things have turned out they may as well be. Especially when one considers how inefficient and unreliable green power is.

So are big landowners at least partly responsible for keeping green energy scams alive in spite of the screwed science and obvious lack of warming? Certainly many of them appear to be intent on taking advantage of it, but are big landowners a major factor in the demented government line that CO2 still causes global warming even if it doesn't get warmer?

I don't know, but I wouldn't bet against it.

Put not your trust...

As a plain, practical man of the world, I don’t think that the Prime Minister matters at all. As a mere matter of human importance, I should say he hardly exists at all. 

Do you suppose if he and the other public men were shot dead tomorrow, there wouldn’t be other people to stand up and say that every avenue was being explored, or that the Government had the matter under the gravest consideration? 

The masters of the modern world don’t matter. Even the real masters don’t matter much. Hardly anybody you ever read about in a newspaper matters at all.

G K Chesterton - The Quick One (from The Scandal of Father Brown)

Put not your trust in new leaders, better systems, new organisations or regulatory reorganisation – they may well be good and necessary, but will to some degree fail.

Human sin means pinning hopes on individuals is always a mistake, and assuming that any organisation is able to have such good systems that human failure will be eliminated is naive.
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby

Daffodils in the snow

We take quite a few photos of the garden as the seasons come and go. We like to look back on how we've changed and shaped it over the years. 

These miniature daffodils are running late - the snow still lingers in sheltered patches.

Just resting

From AlanH

April Fool

One for the House of Commons on April 1st.

Children just aren't going to know what April 1st is

Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".

"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.