Wind Watch: A fine point on the absurd

Once upon a time, children sharpened their pencils in class one of two ways. They inserted them into a metal pencil sharpener fixed to the wall and turned a crank on the sharpener. Or they sat at their desks and used those cheap plastic sharpeners which entailed putting the pencil in and rotating it until it came to a fine point. Now, however, St. Mary Catholic School in Edmonton powers its electric pencil sharpeners with a wind turbine standing four metres tall on the school’s roof. The turbine was built with a $10,000 grant from BP Energy, and was supposed to teach the kids about wind power.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this seems to be the height of absurdity. A $10,000 grant was spent to do the job that a 15-cent plastic pencil sharpener has always satisfactorily done. The main lesson these children have learned is that getting technology to do something for you is a lot better than making the physical effort to do for yourself. They’re also learning that simplicity is a bad thing.

[In my print copy of the St Paul Pioneer Press, this story is headlined "Farmers fight US climate-change bill]; here it's "Minnesota farmers' support for climate-change bill waning"

If climate-change is to be successfully addressed, it will need the stewards of vast stretches of farmland, grassland and forest. And if it isn't, experts predict farmers will reap the whirlwind: deeper droughts, more violent storms, hotter summers, livelihoods ruined.

As if the climate has ever been in our control: Ludicrous quote from Hilary Benn - Telegraph

"We should think about our children's and our grandchildren's lifetimes because we don't want to hand on to them a climate that is [out] of control," [Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary] said. "There are very practical steps we can take."