The toll of alt.energy

With all the billions of dollars of our tax money being sunk on so-called renewable energy, there is a tragic toll that is always overlooked. The cost of this alt.energy is borne out with higher prices on conventional fuels.

From the UK Telegraph:

Winter death toll 'to exceed 40,000'
The cold weather death toll this winter is expected to top 40,000, the highest number for 15 years.

The figures were described as a “tragedy for the elderly” by campaigners who warned that not enough was being done to protect pensioners from unnecessary deaths in cold weather.

Malcolm Booth, chief executive of the National Federation of Occupational Pensioners, said: “Excess winter deaths look like rising above the exceptional 2008-09 total and potentially reaching above 40,000 - and that is a disaster for the elderly in Britain.

“Winter deaths are a tragedy for families of those affected but it appears the underlying causes of these deaths have still not been properly addressed.

 A bit more:

Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Department of Health’s chief medical officer, said severe weather could “substantially add to the average winter death toll.”

She wrote in Public Health England’s Cold Weather Plan for England 2014-15: “Excess deaths are not just deaths of those who would have died anyway in the next few weeks or months due to illness or old age.

“There is strong evidence some of these deaths are indeed “extra” and are related to cold temperatures, living in cold homes as well as infectious diseases such as influenza.”

We are fortunate to be able to fall back on wood heat if the cost of propane gets too expensive - people living in cities do not have this luxury.

One last bit:

“It’s a shocking fact that this winter, one older person could die every seven minutes from the cold. Yet with just under one million older people living in fuel poverty, many simply cannot afford to heat their homes to a temperature high enough to keep warm and well.

Emphasis mine. Fuel poverty - isn't that a quaint term. More like alt.energy induced high utility prices - although the last does not roll off the tongue as mellifluously, it is a more accurate description.