Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, uttered the royal equivalent of “not in my back yard.”
Esbjorn Wilmar, CEO of the wind turbine company Infinergy, introduced Prince Philip at a reception. He reported that the Prince expressed his thoughts on windmill power unabashedly. “He said they were absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace,” according to Wilmar in The Telegraph. Both the Duke and his son Charles, the Prince of Wales, refuse to allow windmills built on royal land.
Contrary to U.K. government policy, Prince Philip wants nothing to do with windmills. He thinks they don’t work. The chap is right, especially when the wind doesn’t blow. He thinks they desecrate the landscape. Anyone with eyesight might agree. He believes customers pay too much for electricity to fund government subsidies that support renewable energy. Bloody right again. All of this is for reducing government mandated carbon emissions, which have no effect on anything except making ordinary people criminals.
The U.K. government, like that of the U.S., is a fan of wind-generated energy. That government, like the U.S., has convinced itself that carbon is bad and the world will warm. Such governments then see carbon reduction as a ploy to make money for itself. Up go the carbon emissions regulations with non-compliance resulting in collectible fines, penalties, and taxes for emitters. What a great way to make money for government!
But even the Duke can recognize a scam when he sees one. It makes no difference to him that his wife is the titular head of the same government that’s scamming the people. Royalty likes to speak its values, and the Duke did that publicly without ado.
We in America might take the Duke’s remarks as a signal to look in our own government for leaders that speak out of the idiocy of carbon reduction regimes. One need not know the science–which is still uncertain–to know that government shapes public perception and raises faux fears to perpetuate an agenda. As we know, windmills make lucrative business for government friendly companies at the expense of taxpayers while providing energy ineffectively.
Prince Philip spoke of the scam that ravages his own people. Let’s look for somebody on this side of the pond to speak up similarly.