Was the title of the Sex Pistol's popular Fanzine back in 1976. And we’re wondering whether it might still be good advice over forty years later when we look at the start to this current Tynwald made by the Chair of the Climate Change Transformation Board - Daphne Caine.
Now before we start this write-up we should probably cover two main things - the first being that we like Mrs Caine as a politician but we worry that she is being set up to fail because as we see it the start to the role hasn’t been particularly good at all and seems to have focused very much on placating our middle-class EV-driving eco-hippie's rather than driving anything material forward in relation to what is claimed to be the biggest single issue currently facing mankind. The second point of note being that we liked the IOM Green Party’s campaign during the 2021 election - but sadly they were unsuccessful in getting any candidates into to Tynwald so we hope that they will be lobbying aggressively behind the scenes if, as we suspect, the appointment of a political head to the Climate Change Transformation Board doesn't stop it being the exact sort of expensive virtue-signalling eco-hippie talk shop that we all thought it would be.
Virtue-signalling is probably a good descriptor to start with as it is evident that as its first strategic PR move the IOMs attendance at COP26 was a veritable bonfire of choreographed virtue-signalling from the off with the governments best PR agents confirming an ordained trip to Glasgow consisting of boat, train and (presumably) car journeys that would have presented a challenge for even the likes of Phileas Fogg to navigate. All so that they could trumpet that nobody flew to Glasgow burning all those carbons [note: the plane they would have flown out on still flew out of Ronaldsway so carbons saved = zero] which all sounded a bit .. well cynical and pointless really. But then that's hippie's for you!
At COP26 it was subsequently announced that the Island had signed up to the Paris Agreement following discussions with the UK. But the reality, as we all know, is that all Crown Dependencies were brought in under the UKs adoption of the now feebly diluted Paris Agreement so in reality its likely that there wasn't even any need for anyone to attend COP26 in the first place - whether they did so by boat, train, plane or electric rickshaw.
We also note that Mrs Caine has already ruled out Nuclear Power for the IOM as well as inferring that they won’t be granting licenses for the drilling of natural gas in Manx Waters in favour of announcing that they are looking at the options for an IOM wind farm that would categorically enable us to generate some of our electricity through renewable systems.
Much as this decision may have saved us from the fate of a DOI built Nuclear power plant which might have been completed ten-times over budget at some stage in the next hundred years - the below are a few salient facts that the public probably needs to be aware of in relation to our Island's existing energy supply:
The CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) Pulrose power station will reach the end of its design life in 2035 at the latest
The Diesel power units at both Peel & Pulrose are already at end of life
Despite a massive capital investment in the Sulby Dam forty or so years ago - the Hydro Plant at Sulby Glen generates a maximum of 1% of the Island’s energy needs from renewable sources.
Nobody even knows what the Braddan Energy from Waste Plant does in terms of power generation from waste - including the people who signed the cheque for it
Consequently what the Island doesn't need is five years of this sort of empty virtue-signalling from affluent EV driving government eco-hippies targeted largely at the same wealthy eco-concerned demographic (and of course their children). We have recently managed to publicly list £400,000,000 in the form of a Sustainable Bond which at the moment we seem to be lining up to simply give money to middle class households by way of grants to make houses that will never be energy efficient slightly less energy inefficient and various other middle class giveaways to the same army of aspiring Tesla owners rather than making any big decisions around how we actually get clean power into homes in the first place. Which makes the natural gas drilling decision even more suspect - as it is clear that after this money has been given away we will still be generating power from Natural Gas for at least the next 15 - 20 years and beyond even assuming any meaningful alternative energy source for some of our power can be found in the meantime. Most of us know that this is the rather inconvenient truth they are attempting to smoke-screen from their eco-hippy friend's - your shiny new Tesla runs on gas fella and it will probably still be running on gas in 10 years time.
The UK's low carbon economy is now said to be worth more than £200bn (which is almost four times the size of the UK's manufacturing sector) and with growth expected to accelerate considerably in the coming years. So instead of government or the Climate Change Transformation Board sending teams of pen pushers to virtue-signal at global talking shops perhaps we should be finding a way to get these people banging on our door as a test-bed for a variety of clean energy ideas that we can then capitalise on quickly? As the whole low carbon and renewable energy industry is literally awash with seed capital and private equity funding at the moment that we could be capturing instead of spending any money ourselves.
Never trust a hippie ..
