Bloombox

I also want one of these - if they're as good as claimed.

The Bloom Box is a block of fuel cells which claim to be twice as efficient as other energy generators: 1 Box can power 100 homes. If it runs on fossil fuels, it produces half the carbon of other methods. If it runs on renewable energy, it's pretty much carbon neutral!

The Hegemon could easily run on one or two units (around £400,000 each, payback within 5 years). I could run my house easily on a mini-one. Google and EBay are already using them.

Are élite Americans actually this stupid or just pretending?

Some choice quotes from the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, c/o Grist.org

John Shimkus, Republican-Illinois: “If we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for vain. In fact, we could be doing the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.”

Joe Barton, Republican-Texas, claiming that wind power will CAUSE global warming: "Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about".

E. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation: “fear of catastrophic, man-made global warming is a mistake,” and argued that because the “biblical worldview sees the world and ecosystems as the work of a wise God,” humankind couldn’t possibly be affecting the climate.

Lord Christopher Monckton, aka the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, a British hereditary peer (adviser to Thatcher, journalist, not a scientist) who’s become a minor star in the climate-skeptic world. “The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing,” he told the panel. He readily agreed with Rep. Shimkus: “We are a carbon-starved planet.”

Northern Ireland: the politics of the madhouse

OK, they aren't killing each other with guns at the moment, but NI seems to have become Mississippi or somewhere like that. Where else would you have a Minister for the Environment who totally rejects climate change? Perhaps, for Sammy Wilson - a DUP member - the word green has too many negative connotations. Now he's banned a government ad encouraging people to switch off their TVs at night - because he believes that earth is 4000 years old and that interfering with God's plan (presumably for our incineration) is a bad thing.