With energy costs escalating, more Germans are turning to wood burning stoves for heat. That, though, has also led to a rise in tree theft in the country’s forests. Woodsmen have become more watchful.
With snow blanketing the ground, it’s the perfect time of year to snuggle up in front of a fireplace. That, though, makes German foresters nervous. When the mercury falls, the theft of wood in the country’s woodlands goes up as people turn to cheaper ways to heat their homes.
Germans have wind power to keep them warm.
So, according to one comment, the freezing Germans are going back to 1910 methods of heating their homes with wood and coal to stay alive. Stupid leaders listened to the IPCC wackjobs too much.
Yes and specifically that comment was:
Ban nuclear, shut down coal fired plants, and everyone can burn coal and wood in their individual stoves. It’ll be just like 1910 – when the air was nice and clean.
Next up: Get rid of the sewer plants and go back to dumping chamber pots into the street.
LOL!
.
Germany is having a lot of second thoughts about wind power and cutting subsidies. Like Ontario, they are in too deep to say “we made a mistake”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/06/germany-in-skeptical-turmoil-on-both-climate-and-windfarms/#more-56069
From the German Green Party website.
“Our parliamentary group is made up of 68 members – the largest representation of ecological/social parties in any parliament around the world.”
Looks like the German electorate is learning (again) that elections have consequences.
I enjoyed reading this story, snug and warm in our oil-heated home, even though it is -16 deg C
outside. Oh yes – we have hot water on demand, from the oil furnace – seemingly limitless – which is particularly good for long showers when one has been out in the cold.
God gave us oil, and meant us to use it. Human skill figured out how. Let those who succumb to perversity freeze in the dark.
Heh. Betcha Merkel and the rest of the new socialist order aren’t using wood in their fireplaces,except for decorative purposes.Many some voters are starting to learn you get the gubermint you deserve? Nah. Ignorance can be cured by learning,leftard stupity is forever.
Like John Lewis, I’m sitting in a comfortably warm home despite the sub-zero temperatures outside. I can smugly assert that I’m far more Gaia friendly as I have a gas furnace. In S central BC, many people heat their homes using wood as there are massive quantities of beetle killed pine for the taking. Having people use it to heat their homes and not pay any “carbon taxes” is far preferable to spending my tax dollars to fight the forest fires which will eventually happen with all this dead wood standing.
While it’s nice to sit in front of a wood stove, and I really enjoyed spending new years this way, I prefer a less labor intensive method of heating my house. OTOH, the market for alarm clocks in Germany probably just plummeted as once the fire in the wood stove goes out, one generally wakes up shortly after from the cold.
What’s next, armed guards around the German forests with a return to horse drawn carts and people fighting over dried horse manure to use as fuel? I was brought up to believe that Germans were a very intelligent people with obsessive attention to detail when it comes to manufacturing, but it seems there’s definitely a few screws loose in the Teutonic brain given their Quixotic obsession with a method of energy production that was discarded over a century ago because we found better technologies.
// Ban nuclear, shut down coal fired plants, and everyone can burn coal and wood in their individual stoves. It’ll be just like 1910 – when the air was nice and clean. //
A nice image, but Germans who bought those 400 000 stoves are not throwing logs on them. They are using high efficiency wood systems. From a manufacturer —
Wood heating systems from 100 to 1250 kW
Friday, Jan. 18, National Post. A couple of law professors start up the excuse bandwagon for the Idle No More protests in conjunction with the demonization of Judge Brown over his injunctions:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/18/kent-roach-and-david-schneiderman-police-are-right-to-be-cautious-with-idle-no-more-protesters/
R&S: “In the Kingston case, Justice Brown asked why the Toronto-Montreal rail corridor had to be shut down for several hours.” … “So-called ‘simpler solutions’ of immediate arrest may not adequately respect all of the competing rights in play, including those of freedom of expression.”
The right to freedom of expression does not include the right to unlimited expression on someone else’s property, particularly if it involves the disruption of the owners’ lawful activities. When protesters block private railway lines, they are in the wrong, and their freedom of expression is not a “competing right” under those circumstances, it is non-existent.
Nor is there unlimited expression on publicly owned property such as highways. The only places where large groups should be cut some slack with regards to potentially disruptive protests such as these are the legislative grounds, since their beefs are with the politicians.
If I were to barge into Roach’s or Schneiderman’s office to harangue them about their op-ed, would they uphold my “freedom of expression” as a “competing right” with their own efforts on behalf of their clients? If they obtained an injunction for police to haul me off, would they praise police for deciding not to enforce it? Somehow I doubt it, in both scenarios.
And if Roach and Schneiderman are so concerned with freedom of expression, when did they ever speak out against the persecution of innocents by the “human rights commissions” for expressing politically incorrect opinions?
R&S: “In our view, however, Justice Brown’s approach runs a serious risk of undermining the legitimate role of police and prosecutorial discretion in enforcing injunctions, and ignores clear warnings issued by the Ontario Court of Appeal.”
I was unaware that enforcement of court orders is a discretionary, optional matter for police. No one would expect an instantaneous solution, and some planning might often be necessary, but surely a court order must be enforced at the earliest possible opportunity. Police refusal cannot be tolerated in a system designed to dispense justice, otherwise society becomes lawless (which, of course, plays into the hands of the whim-oriented, justice-hating, life-hating loony left). Court orders themselves can be appealed to higher courts; this is what the police should have done if they believed there were problems with Judge Brown’s orders.
R&S: “Justice Brown’s decisions are questionable not only as law but as policy prescriptions.”
If “policy” is going to allow First Nations or any other group to interfere with the lawful activities of citizens, then that is mindless and very bad policy.
It’s pretty obvious that the crackpot left is going to bend over backwards to defend disruptive measures that cause problems for productive citizens going about their business, in the hope that the latter won’t organize themselves well enough to counteract the left’s own depredations. The white-is-black-and-black-is-white approach of Roach and Schneiderman is just one more reprehensible and immoral example.
One more thing: on Thursday, a Toronto Star front-page subheader described the blockades as “peaceful escalation of actions against government”. They are not peaceful. A person who steals your wallet is not “peaceful” even if he doesn’t hit you over the head with a baseball bat, and chooses to resort only to surreptitious pickpocketing. I wonder if the Star would regard anyone who steals a newspaper from a store or from one of their boxes as “peaceful”?
The above post was supposed to go in Reader Tips, and I somehow goofed. Sorry about that, chief.
I’ve just heard newly coined term : enviro-chondriacs .
All the yeast in my beer fermenter would die like Suzuki fruit flies without normal, gas or electric heat.
Beer crime should be a Federal offence.
The Greens can starve in the dark, as far as my sympathy goes.
dwright (warm and well lit)
PS Here in BC they start crying when it hits -8 , I grew up on the Prairies, laugh and call them pussies. People get offended, pussies.
McGuinty’s Ontario has to be the wind turbine capital of the world. They’re still being installed even though he has resigned and shut down the Legislature to act like he has a majority, Of course the NDP are OK with that, they will support stupidity, if it shuts down the sick economy completely they’ll man the bread lines with tea and sympathy.
When I lived in England in the mid 90’s my house was heated by a hot water/coal system. The burner was in the kitchen and was a pretty decent device. I could put about 25 lbs of coal in it and it then had an automatic feed mechanism. It was self controlling after i had shovelled in the coal and taken out the ash which then went in a can picked up with the garbage. In the summer when heat wasn’t needed but I wanted hot water I had a big electric kettle that I turned on until there was enough hot water for a bath.
They live in the stone age and don’t even realize it. When it got cold the entire village stank of coal fumes. I don’t know what they do in the 21st century but I am pretty sure not many people have the luxury of gas or can afford electric heat.
That being said if I lived in rural Canada I would most definitely have a wood stove, at least for back up. In a country as small and densely populated as Germany, that just isn’t “sustainable”.
Germans, Brits, Torontonians, and some Americans
are gullible enviro idiots. You would think the
Germans would be better at detecting WWF BS.
Canada has lots of spare trees (a sustainable natural fuel and building resource) that could fill this need and reduce Canada’s negative balance of trade. We also have an underemployed remote native population living in subsidised austerity near this great harvestable resource who could use the industry and income to become more autonomous and affluent – win win – but no, a half dozen leftist NGOs would be against it and in this country now we run policy based in the narrow self serving agendas of anti-development foreign special interests.
And in England, seniors steal library books and burn them to stay warm and alive.
The unintended consequences of kowtowing to Gaia.
It is my opinion that the greenies wont be happy until people are stealing each others dung for heating purposes. If only there were a way to ensure they were the first ones to experience the life of misery and squalor they seek to impose upon the rest of humanity.
Heh. It’s only gonna get up to 72 today and tomorrow down here in Florida. Guess I won’t be out water skiing this weekend. It was nice skiing LAST weekend, though. 80 is just about right from my point of view.
And Fred, how can one not be happy about that, as long as it is the Right Books that are stolen and burned?
Mark Matis, it’s only going to get up to -20 (Celsius) here so I’ll be skiing on the frozen water behind the house. No snakes or alligators. I wouldn’t trade you, but I wish you much joy of your sunshine state.
Quite a bit of fanfare locally in Sault Ste Marie. Batchewana First Nations quoting local press. Calgary BluEarth Renewables are in partnership. The windfarm is about 150 km north up the trans-Canada highway from the Sault.
The Ministry of the Environment will give approval presumably shortly. A local band chief talking two million profit a year. The FN share of the project is said to be about $30 million. The province appears to be paying $23 million from the “Aboriginal Loan Guarantee Program”.
Local residents do not seem to gain much info on a wind farm project that spoils the view westerly, overlooking Lake Superior. I will have to try to research this project.
If an investment advisor tells you to buy Europe, run away.
It appears the Bow Lake project totals $230 in expected costs. The Batchewana First Nation project is said to be about 80 km north of Sault Ste Marie on the edge of Lake Superior.
The well known beauty spot called Gros Cap about 29 km west of Sault Ste Marie had paths up to heights overlooking Lake Superior. For generations people had gone out there. It was sold to private interests and blocked off for “safety reasons”. Next a wind farm appeared.
It does not appear on various search engines and I wonder if it’s
use has been documented? Hard to get anything at all at this time.
One would think the palpable disdain the environmentalists show for human innovation, human health/safety/comfort and human life would be enough to have average citizens run them out of town on a rail.
When did we get so browbeaten we’ve agreed to regress to previous centuries so the eco nuts can feel good about Gaia?
Looks like the law of unintended consequences ist blowink in zer vint.
soon, coming near U, a wood power BMW
Come on, don’t you think this is a little polemic?
Ah, there is nothing quite so revolting and sad as seeing the blood of a decapitated eagle dripping down the white side of one of those bird grinder monsters called wind mills. The little songbirds and bats are flung far and wide but big birds often die agonizing deaths from the treacherous blades. The constant hum makes some people insane and the motion and noise confuses bees and kills them. I have been to a wind ‘farm’ in Alta. Three pigs died the day we were there (it was a pig farm) for no reason, the people who lived there wanted out really badly although they had a nice log house and a beautiful barn for the pigs with a paddock for horses (they had sold all their horses). It was a very sad place because of the dreadful noise and the desperation of the owners. Those ugly monster killers cannot be gone fast enough for me. My question is where is PETA??
I like wood heat so much I don’t mind the work involved in using a fireplace or a wood stove for heat. Each to his own.