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Energy firm recruits children as ‘climate cops’

Tuesday, August 05th, 2008 | Author: Chris Brown

Did you know that German owned, Npower, is attempting to turn the children of its customers into spies, all under the guise of saving the planet, which makes it all right? Well actually it doesn’t make it all right, not by a long chalk it doesn’t!

Npower ran an advertisement in the Sunday times on July 26th, and on August 2nd the Sunday Telegraph an article that was highly critical of Npower for taking such an improper approach (this article is reproduced below).

We too should be angry for Npower’s actions amount to little more than the attempted perversion of our children (Npower = Nazi-Power it seems). Recruiting children as climate Stazi, is simply resurrecting old Nazi methods for indoctrinating children and turning them into informers. It is an utterly abhorrent practice, and it should be condemned!

Equally abhorrent has been the response from the Advertising Standards Authority, which has refused to condemn the advertisements. That the body responsible for policing all advertising in the UK - to ensure that parental responsibility is not compromised - should renege on its own rules shows that we can expect no help from the authorities! But Npower is a commercial concern so why not deluge them with complaints, and, if you happen to be one of their customers - change supplier!

Npower Executives may be contacted via this link

Energy firm recruits children as ‘climate cops’

Last week’s Sunday Times carried a large advertisement for the German-owned energy company npower, inviting children to “save the planet this summer” by becoming “climate cops”. A picture showed a sleeping dad, with a notice on his head warning in a childish scrawl that he had been found guilty of “climate crime” by “falling asleep with the tv still on”.

For more “interactive games and fun downloads”, readers were invited to contact npower’s Climate Cops website. This explains in comic book format how children can spy on their parents, relatives and neighbours to catch them out in seven “climate crimes”, such as leaving the TV on standby, putting hot food in a fridge or freezer (as is recommended by hygiene experts) or failing to use low-energy light bulbs.

Children could record these offences in a “climate crime case file”, while teachers are offered a full “learning resource” pack for use in schools, including a PowerPoint presentation and posters for classroom walls.

When my colleague Richard North asked the Advertising Standards Authority how they squared this with their rules prohibiting “marketing communications” which “undermine parental authority”, they replied (as he records on his EU Referendum blog) that they had “considered you (sic) objections but do not feel it have (sic) breached our Codes on the basis you suggest”.

My own advice to children tempted to become “climate cops” is that they might begin by looking at npower’s own record as operators of 13 fossil fuel power stations.

Its coal-fired Aberthaw power station in Wales, for instance, emits more CO2 in two months than is notionally saved in a year by all the 2,000 wind turbines now disfiguring Britain’s countryside. If merely going to sleep in front of the TV is a “climate crime”, why haven’t the directors of npower put themselves behind bars long ago?

Sunday Telegraph

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Stark warning on energy prices

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 | Author: Chris Brown

We can but hope that this warning will prove to be an exaggeration, but the signs are not good.  Make sure you check out our advice on keeping warm this winter:

EUREFERENDUM Blog 29.7.08

A political black hole.

“Will they empty the jails for those who can’t pay gas bills? “

Very often it is The Sun which has its finger on the political pulse of the nation, leaving the politicians (and many of the more self-important political bloggers) floundering.

It is of some significance, therefore, that today this paper should run a major story on the energy crisis, pointing out the implications of spiralling energy costs for the less well off.

Thus, under the headline illustrated above, the paper notes that, “It’s odd to talk about heating bills in the hottest spell of the year, but many Sun readers must be scared about the coming winter.” Last week’s rises of 22 percent for gas and 17 percent for electricity are terrifying, it adds, then predicting: “There’s worse to come. Prices are sure to rise AGAIN in the winter, and by Christmas families could be paying £30 a week or more for light and heat — nearly double last winter’s bill.”

Later in the story, we see the political slant, with the observation that, “The Government appears clueless. Labour have been asleep on the job as the rest of the world has been busy building nuclear power stations. Our own nuclear stations are years away.” The paper adds: “Thanks to Labour inaction we can store only 13 days’ worth of gas compared to 122 days in France. That leaves us at the mercy of sudden global price changes.”

Then we come to a damning, if not muted conclusion that: “Instead of plotting to remove Brown, Labour ministers should be plotting how to avert misery for millions this winter,” with the payoff line, “Lives will be at stake. It is as serious as that.”

It is indeed as serious as that, and the final point is well taken, but should have wider application. We have noted how the chatterati have been obsessed with the political theatre, relentlessly pursuing soap opera narrative of Brown’s supposed impending demise, all built on the thinnest patina of idle speculation.

Yet, in the here and now, we have an energy crisis of massive proportions building up which, in time, will become the main political issue of the day. But, at a time when – even at this eleventh hour – urgent and well-founded action could at least mitigate some of the worst effects, the political classes are silent. Energy simply is not on the political radar as a mainstream issue.

Part of this is due to the neglect of the main opposition, the Conservatives in what, as we remarked yesterday is not a technical issue but a politically induced crisis. By pursuing its soft, social agenda – and letting its “green” obsession overtake it - the Party has dropped the ball on something of far more importance and much greater urgency: the impact of spiralling energy prices and impending energy shortages, which as The Sun points out will affect most those who can least afford it.

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