大象传媒

I was looking forward to the discussion about the Government's apparent attempt to do a U-Turn on its renewable energy committments but Gavin Esler completely faile to get to the heart of the problem.

The GreenPeace spokesman claimed that today's leaked Govt. memo actually says it was quite possible to achieve 20% renewable in electricity by 2020 if it had the will but...

Then Esler perhaps not realising haat had been said cut the GreenPeace spokesman off and ignored what had been revealed (or alleged) and turned to the Conservative spokesman (who appeared to be some sort of nuclear casualty) and the piece suitably missing the point and dumbing down in one deft new 大象传媒 cost-cutting manoeuvre turned it into an inquiry as to why GreenPeace refuses to support ther nuclear industry.

All very disappointing, Esler is not up to the task and one gets the feeling that the editors are tired, not interested and just going through the motions.

What kind of a question is 鈥渋s there no scientific argument that could convince you of the case for nuclear?鈥�!
Leaving aside Gavin Estler鈥檚 obvious misconception of the absolute nature of science 鈥� what was the Greenpeace representative to say?....Yes if scientists could promise me nuclear power was safe to operate, waste could be stored safely for the next x 100,000 years until it had decayed to safe levels, we would discover infinite reserves of nuclear ore and miraculously make it cheap to construct operate and decommission, and also science to prove it would not take valuable resources away from adopting the only long term solution 鈥� renewables. Science cannot make these arguments and to effectively silence the Greenpeace guy by insisting he answer this ridiculous question whilst simultaneously displaying Estler鈥檚 ignorance of the subject by allowing the Conservative MEP to lie to the effect that Britain has a storage solution (let alone a proven safe one) Was inexcusable. Can we please have a balanced debate where informed people, against nuclear power, get the opportunity to counter some of the propaganda spouted by the pro nuclear lobby. Newsnight should do better than this in challenging the patently dubious status quo.

Dr James Fisher BSc, PhD.

Why don't politicians tell the truth that wind farms are totally incapable of providing a sustained input to the national grid and if the 20% target is reached the result will be regular power cuts. I suspect that the contribution of wind energy over the past week has been negligible, just when the cold weather comes and energy demand is at its highest. Regular power cuts could result in anarchy in the larger towns and cities, but I suspect that the supporters of the likes of Greenpeace will have got rid of all the farmers by then through TB in badgers and moved out into the country themselves.

Newsnight has amply proved that micro wind turbines are almost useless in the " Ethical Man " series and it would appear that the large ones are not much better. NN could have reported the findings of Prof Ian Fells a couple of months ago, and that a leading member of WREN publically admitted that wind farms were inefficient anywhere in England and Wales, which I presume includes the sea. The only practical method of reducing the UK's CO2 emissions is Nuclear, not much of a risk when many heavily exposed to radiation people appear fit and healthy in a recent programme about the Windscale accident in 1957.

Blair didn't care about the future of our country, he can easily set targets for UK CO2 when he is likely to end up living in the USA where the government have more sense at least on energy policy if not much else.

Why was there a Greenpeace loser on at all? Where is their political mandate? They got almost no votes at the last election so why do they get so much airtime?

Also, why didn't anyone have the brains to ask just how we are going to provide ADDITIONAL energy for the expected extra 20 million people we are going to have to put up with over the next 30 years?

A few windmills won't solve that one.

Greenpeace are muppets and the 大象传媒 litlte better.

That long pause when Yates was asked if there was 'a trade in peerages' said it all did it not? Meanwhile,
up here in Newsnight Scotland land,
no sign of Douglas Alexander being
held accountable for the Holyrood election fiasco which he organises
from Dover House in London when he
was Secretary of State. The report
produced by Ron Goold an election
expert from Canada who was tasked
with investigation into the fiasco
rather than accede to the judicial
enquiry for which the SNP call for
on the night, is pretty damning. I was heartened to see that George Osborne was calling for Alexander
(who also failed to appear in the
House of Commons to face criticism)
to 'consider his position'. Goold seems to be saying that at every stage UK Ministers put "partisan"
interest first - and treated the
electorate as "an afterthought".

On Newsnight Scotland the Tory MP
David Mundell gave examples of how Labour Party proposals to group the Labour candidates on the ballot form, for example, led to long debates before these proposals
were rejected and he suggested
that it was this kind of party
political delay that then led
to key decisions being taken in a rush and against expert advice.

It would appear there is a case to answer - but where was Alexander?
Like his boss McAvity Broon, he is
now nowhere to be seen ...........!

That long pause when Yates was asked if there was 'a trade in peerages' said it all did it not? Meanwhile,
up here in Newsnight Scotland land,
no sign of Douglas Alexander being
held accountable for the Holyrood election fiasco which he organises
from Dover House in London when he
was Secretary of State. The report
produced by Ron Goold an election
expert from Canada who was tasked
with investigation into the fiasco
rather than accede to the judicial
enquiry for which the SNP call for
on the night, is pretty damning. I was heartened to see that George Osborne was calling for Alexander
(who also failed to appear in the
House of Commons to face criticism)
to 'consider his position'. Goold seems to be saying that at every stage UK Ministers put "partisan"
interest first - and treated the
electorate as "an afterthought".

On Newsnight Scotland the Tory MP
David Mundell gave examples of how Labour Party proposals to group the Labour candidates on the ballot form, for example, led to long debates before these proposals
were rejected and he suggested
that it was this kind of party
political delay that then led
to key decisions being taken in a rush and against expert advice.

It would appear there is a case to answer - but where was Alexander?
Like his boss McAvity Broon, he is
now nowhere to be seen ...........!

Girl explains that she has been imprisoned in Afghanistan for escaping rapist to whom she was sold at 10 years old.

Gavin Esler asks Afghan govt spokesman about this.

Afghan govt spokesman says "we do have these cases, it is unfortunate" as though he is talking about the flu.

Gavin Esler apparently fails to notice that he did not get an answer and fails to seek one, ending with "thank you very much".

Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.

Richard Barnes

we're all getting tired... tired of the lack of self-awareness of environmentalism. the only rational explanation for the continued opposition to nuclear is that such opposition arose as part of the peace movement and the peace movement and the environmental movement are both part of the broad cultural shift to liberalism of the baby boomer generation. the chap from greenpeace was exposed as irrational because he is not prepared to consider the possibility that nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons, may have a role to play - whatever that role is. this is an absolutist stance and not surprisingly much of his argument was prefixed with either absolute;y or actually - these are the green moralists, no different in essence from the moral reform movement of the 19thcentury or indeed muslimism today.

Franglasia, thank you for your comment. I too noticed Gavin's rather glib approach to the inteview. He also said 'how does that happen, what do you make of it?', as if Gavin was not aware fo the history of women's emancipation, it was ridiculous, he may just as well have said 'woss tha' all abou', then?' in a squeaky essex accent. I think Gavin is too used to comparing dateline london, everyone has their say, the arabs and africans argue with the americans and uk and then the french man tells everyone off and they all have a good laugh and say 'see yuo next week!'. It's the party politicis that has taken over from Party politics, the sort that has some sort of systemic ideology.

and this was shown again when david trimble made it clear that he had not come on newsnight to play is-isn't 大象传媒 word games, but to make a very serious point about our shallow culture - dialogue, that's all we need, come on, let's have a meeting, can you order refreshments please miss moneypenny?

Sir, David Trimble as an authority on conflict? Is this the same Trimble who stymied the peace process for years, who obstructed Blair with his last minute objections to the minority catholics ever having a foot in the door, who said nothing about sectarian violence from the Loyalist majority and yet he is to be revered as an 'elder statesman'....surely not. We do have short memories.

Sir, David Trimble as an authority on conflict? Is this the same Trimble who stymied the peace process for years, who obstructed Blair with his last minute objections to the minority catholics ever having a foot in the door, who said nothing about sectarian violence from the Loyalist majority and yet he is to be revered as an 'elder statesman'....surely not. We do have short memories.

Dear Newsnight

The big problem that may face the world one day is a world without problems,

re science, as we roll back science we must also change as rapidly from ape to man otherwise we will use this new found knowledge to destroy ourselves,

just my thoughts, may be wrong.

best wishes

Bob

I just wanted to add a bit more about the treatment of the energy issue in last nights programme.
I think the government needs to be put a bit more on the spot over the need to cut pollution. We will need more power generation of all sorts but the issues are how much CO2 can be cut per pound invested; and how much does large investment in things like the Bristol barrage and nuclear power will squeeze out other simpler and quicker solutions (such as insulation and micro chp).
Also why do they not promote faster and simpler solutions to meet the CO2 reduction targets.
For instance, enforcing existing speed limits would reduce emmissions from motorised transport by 10%; and another 10% saving could be achieved by cutting the speed limit to 60mph. Cost would 300 million changing the road signs and time scale about six months. Compare that to the 15 years and 15 billion proposed for new nuclear stations or the tidal barrage. This sort of descrepancy between words and deeds needs to be brought out; it implies that they are only playing lip service to the problem and have perhaps considered that the problem is not solvable and it is just a matter as keeping the show on the road as the 21st centuary unfolds as best we can (peak oil, energy wars; climate change; population increase and all). If we don't get some better vision and braver action from our leaders the 21st century could be even more unpleasent and dangerous than the 20th. And if they aren't able to take a minor unpopular decision like reducing speed limits how will they deal with greater challenges later on.