http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16122145
Includes video news story.
Read the comments too.

Here are the levels of fuel poverty by region, with the percentage of people affected and the average household energy bill over the year:

1. Wales, 32%, £1,312.
2. East, 31%, £1,283.
3. North, 26%, £1,282.
4. Scotland, 25%, £1,280.
5. South, 24%, £1,295.
6. Midlands, 22%, £1,293.
7. London, 16%, £1,293.

The problem with NEST, and its predecessor HEES, is that it is money made available for people that know that it is available. Efforts to promote the schemes to those that need them are virtually non-existent and rely on people like us, in the Green Party, and charitable organisations like Groundwork, to get out and try to ensure people get what they are entitled to receive.

Fuel poverty has a significant impact on the health, social and economic well-being of householders. It also impacts on the resources of public sector services, such as the NHS, through increasing the need for householders to access services or increasing the level of support they require. By reducing the risk of householders living in fuel poverty in Wales we can help reduce the negative impact on peoples lives and the pressure on public services.

By tackling fuel poverty, we will make a contribution in tackling the following negative impacts:

Health

Increased respiratory illnesses including asthma.

02 December 2011

GREEN MP NAMED BIGGEST INFLUENCER IN UK POLITICS THIS YEAR

Green MP Caroline Lucas has been recognised by a prestigious political body as the MP who has most influenced the political agenda in 2011.

Since her election to the constituency of Brighton Pavilion in 2010, the UK’s only Green MP has made a significant impact through her work on a range of issues – from putting pressure on the Government to tackle fuel poverty and drop Trident, to campaigning for Parliamentary reform and fairer rail fares.

Lucas received the Political Studies Association award for ‘Influencing the Political Agenda 2011′ from Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow at a packed ceremony in Westminster this week.

Caroline Lucas said:

“I am honoured and delighted to collect this award from the Political Studies Association – and appreciate the judges’ recognition that having even one Green in Parliament can make a positive difference.”

The panel of judges at the Political Studies Association said:

‘Caroline Lucas has made unprecedented steps forward in raising the profile of the Green Party. The achievement of winning a seat in Parliament under the First-Past-The-Post electoral system should not be underestimated.

“When considering these factors alongside her role in influencing the AV debate, we felt she was a worthy winner of the 2011 award for Influencing the Political Agenda.”

ENDS

The Political Studies Association is the leading organisation in the UK linking academics in political science and current affairs, theorists and practitioners, policy-makers, journalists, researchers and students in higher education.

For information about the 2011 award winners, visit: http://www.psa.ac.uk/PSAPubs/Awards2011.pdf

Melissa Freeman
Senior Parliamentary Press Officer
Office of Caroline Lucas MP
Website: www.carolinelucas.com

Nest is the Welsh Government’s fuel poverty scheme. It aims to help reduce the number of households in fuel poverty and make Welsh homes warmer and more fuel-efficient places to live.

If you’re worried about the cost of heating your home, you can call 0800 512 012 free from a landline or 0300 456 2655 from a mobile phone. The friendly advisors can give advice on:

• Saving energy
• Money management
• Making sure you’re on the best fuel tariff for you;
• And whether you are entitled to any benefits to boost your income

You may also be eligible to receive home improvements at no cost to you, to help make your home warmer and reduce the cost of your energy bills.

We need to do all we can to raise awareness and uptake of these benefits. There are 240,000 homes suffering fuel poverty in Wales and NEST had less than 4000 enquiries in its first 3 months of operation. Alleviating fuel poverty is fundamental to everything the Green Party stands for, so let us ensure we spread the word.

Now the bad news: As expected, the Government’s disgraceful moving of the goal posts with regards to feed in tariffs has led to the Community Solar Project that we have been involved with, through Sustainable Wales, being put on hold. Margaret Minhinnick has issue this letter to all those that registered an interest:

In recent months, you have registered interest in Sustainable Wales’ PVs for Free scheme.

Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that the Government recently announced that by12 December 2011, there will be a fifty per cent cut in ‘Feed in Tariffs’ which formed the financial back bone of the project.

There is a slight chance that Government may extend the ‘Feed in Tariff’ scheme and we have been in communication with our AMs and MPs urging them to support this. If you feel so inclined, we would be grateful if you could do the same.

Consequently, until we hear otherwise, we are putting this project on hold, but will contact you immediately if any further changes are announced. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience.

So yet another worthy project gets Con-Dem-ed! I would urge you all to express your dismay, as suggested to:

Carwyn Jones AM

(Mention his appalling inaction on the fracking issue while you are at it!)
Emlyn House
36 Caroline Street
Bridgend
CF31 1DQ

01656 664320

Carwyn.Jones

And

Madeleine Moon MP

Constituency Office at 47 Nolton Street is open for appointments with my caseworkers on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 12 noon.

You can contact her:

• By telephone – 01656 750 002
• By email directly – moonm
• By fax – 01656 660 081
• In writing to her constituency office – 47 Nolton Street, Bridgend, CF31 3AA
• In writing to her parliamentary office – House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

Our public service workers deserve your support tomorrow. They put up with years of terrible pay and poor conditions for the promise of a decent pension. This issue is absolutely crucial to the morale and esteem of all those people we rely so much on. The government is picking on the wrong people and we must let them know as much.

Video from UNITE

“Economic inequality and social decay. An economy rigged in the interests of the few while the many struggled to cope. £200 billion of privatisation and North Sea oil receipts frittered away paying the benefits bill of the mass unemployment she created.”

Sound familiar?

This is where Cameron and Tory Blair learned it all from.

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/11/margaret-thatcher-was-every-bit-as-bad-as-we-remember/

Beware the distortions in the forthcoming Thatcher biopic movie.

http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/what-we-do/technology/fracturing-fluid/ offers the lie that they use just three chemicals, namely: polyacrylamide (frequently contaminnated with or degrades into the nerve toxin acrylamide), biocide (poison) and hydrochloric acid (corrosive to human tissue). This is confirmed verbally by CEO Mark Miller in the video. However, some simple maths – that simple that an intelligent man like Mark Miller wouldn’t make such a crass mistake surely – reveals that all the declared ingredients only add up to 99.955% Careless or what?

So here we have Mark Miller confirming Nick Grealy is a pathetic liar, but how do we know Mark Miller is a liar, and not a careless mathematician? Because his company supplies us with this:
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Chemical-Disclosure-PH-1.jpg
Mark no doubt had a bout of amnesia (a symptom of exposure to some chemicals) when he forgot to mention the HYDROCARBON OIL listed , or the chemical tracer that is stated as a SODIUM SALT.

So is this data sheet, the complete story? NO it is not. How do we know this?
The data sheet does not pretend to be complete – it calls itself the composition of components of the frack fluid for a start.
But it would certainly have been nice to know exactly which poisons they have selected as their biocide of choice, wouldn’t it? They are not listed.
And there is no mention of the hydrochloric acid Miller mentioned either.

These Cuadrilla sources also serve to highlight another common misconception about frack fluid. The required composition is highly variable. It will vary with different stages of each frack job at each site. There is no one recipe. It is almost constantly varying. Mark Miller himself points this out with his explanation that hydrochloric acid may only be needed in initial stages. The data sheet shows major variations between the stages listed.

So can we collate all this information that Cuadrilla has so kindly supplied us with and assume we have the full picture? I don’t think so.

We know from world renowned Dr Theo Colborn, in Gasland and other places, that she alone has evidence of around 980 products used in the US industry of which 78% are highly dangerous; in some cases even in microscopic quantities. The industry does not, presumably, use these additives for fun. The sequence near the end of Gasland that shows the industry man squirming as he is forced list the chemicals his company uses is fascinating. It corroborates evidence from Australia that shows that the industry regularly needs to use the following:

• Strong acids to dissolve minerals
• Numerous poisonous biocides to eliminate bacteria and algae
• Friction reducers such as polyacylamides and mineral oils
• Corrosion inhibitors to protect drills and well casings
• Scale inhibitors to prevent furring
• Surfactants and crosslinkers to adjust fluid viscosity
• Acidity regulators
• Breakers
• Iron control agents

So if the the industry everywhere else in the world needs all these additional (underlined) components, how is that Cuadrilla can do without them?

Finally, let us nail the myth that there has to be full disclosure of chemicals used. There is no such UK legislation that I can find.
People like the EA have rights to visit and test samples whenever they like, but they can only find what they test for. If they do not know what they are looking for, they are most unlikely to find it! Dr Theo Colborn repeatedly makes this point.
Recently, the EA published its monitoring report of the flow back water from Cuadrilla’s Preese Hall site, near Blackpool, after they had fracked it. There was sufficient cause for concern about the high incidence of salts, minerals and heavy meatls, as well as radioactivity, that the EA are now saying that they will require permits in future. But most worrying, I would suggest, was the complete absence of any data on the chemicals that Cuadrilla admit to using, let alone ones they don’t!! The EA failed to look for any of them it would appear. How reassuring is that?

Even if the industry were legally obliged to divulge all their little secrets, would they? EA’s sampling methods are totally inadequate. If the companies keep their secrets, they are likely to get away with it, unless caught red-handed, as they are banking on getting in, cutting and running before the slow, insidious affects of their poisons have done their damage and been able to be proved. The EA recognise these companies ability to get away with it here:

“For example, at present company directors can legitimately walk away from environmental liabilities they have caused (e.g. Polluting groundwater and public drinking water supplies) by forming a new company and leaving a financial liability with the insolvent old company (Hunts Refuse Ltd at Helpston). This has resulted in public funds having to be used to clean up the pollution and protect public health.”
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Business/modernising03_919412_1758802.pdf

I rest my case.

Andy Chyba

Additional information:
https://bridgendgreens.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/collated-fracking-notes-on-earthquakes-frack-fluid-and-wellhead-density/
https://bridgendgreens.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/lessons-from-cuadrillas-pr-gambits/

This poll is now closed.

Do you think hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas should go ahead?’ Another poll by The Guardian. Get voting people!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/poll/2011/nov/18/forward-with-fracking-poll?CMP=twt_gu&fb=native

The ‘No’ votes are currently winning by 3 to 1 – just 11 hours to go. 4 to 1 by the end is possible if you all act quickly!

If you have problems accessing the link please let me know and I will
happily email them to you directly or print off copies for you.
Also if you have any special requirements or need help finding the venue
please let me know and I’ll do my best to help.
Please pass this on to anyone else you know who is attending but you think
has not notified me.
If you can make a small donation of a couple of pounds to help with costs
of the buffet that will be gratefully appreciated, but not essential if you
are on a low budget.

10:45-11:00 Conference Welcome with coffee/tea – Aneurin Bevan Room,
Cardiff Student Union

11:00 Conference Opens (Open to all)
Leaders Speech (10 mins)
Deputy Leaders Speech (10 mins)
Councillor Felicity Norman
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/region/westmidlands/people/felicity-norman
To speak on being a Green Councillor (15 mins)

11:35-11:50 Break with coffee/tea

11:50 Chris Williams, West Midlands regional development officer who has
successfully increased the number of Green councillors in the area,
speaking on theme of “winning local elections” (40 mins)
Q&A for Chris and Felicity(15 minutes)

12:45 -13:30 Buffet lunch

13:30 AGM Opens (members only)
Receipt of emergency motions, close of nominations for WGPC positions for
which no nominations were received by the published deadline (10 mins).
Issue of ballot papers.
Minutes of previous AGM (15 mins)
Reports from Officers and SOC (45 mins)

14:40-14:55 Break with coffee/tea
Policy debates (45 mins)
Hustings for officers (15 mins)
Motions (Emergency, organisational and policy) (40 mins)
Discussion around equality led by Anne Greagsby (15 mins)
Announcement of winners of council officer elections (5mins)

17:00 Conference close
Social drinks in Taff bar on 2nd floor of student union (open to all)

19:00 Bar close