OPINION: Time to add solar panels to all houses

I do find it quite extraordinary that any new house is built without sufficient solar panels to cover the consumption of a regular family.

Additionally all new shops, schools, office blocks, etc. should be fully equipped with solar panelling.

I know there is an ongoing debate as to whether man made climate change is real or not (I'm firmly in the it's real camp) but, even if it's not doesn't it make good economic sense for families to be able to turn their backs on fossil fuels and use only renewables for their household needs? After all sunlight is free!

But, let's be honest, that's not going far enough. Why don't the government pay for all new households to have solar panels fitted?

It would cost around £7,000 per house (probably less as part of an organised campaign). And then, beyond occasional maintenance costs, every household would have no household electricity bills.

How cool would that be?

So why don't they do it? My guess is that the big oil companies and their shareholders, which probably include a large number of MPs and their families, block actions that might harm their profits.

Whether man made climate change is real or not the economic argument would support a move to minimise the use of fossil fuels at the earliest possible moment. It couldn't harm the environment or make man made climate change any worse and it would surely eliminate fuel poverty at a stroke.

Let's stop funding wars, and investing in pollution causing industries, and have some vision for the future.

COMMENT: Prince Charles and his Quackery

Charles Windsor, the heir to the throne and perennial interferer in things he knows little about, hit the headlines twice in the past week talking about scientific matters - something he really knows nothing about.

Charlie boy has started flogging a detox product as part of his Duchy range of over-prices products.

Professor Edzard Ernst took umbridge at the Prince's decision to sell a detox product which, as anyone with half a brain knows, are based more on hope and superstition than science. Professor Ernst stated that he felt the heir to the throne was exploiting a gullible public for financial gain. He stopped short of calling him a crook though it was pretty much implied.

A few days later, Charlie Windsor was quoted speaking in Brazil about climate change. Let's ignore the hypocrisy of the carbon footprint from him, and his oh so essential entourage, flying to South America, to discuss climate change and look at his words:
"If we once more redouble our efforts to unite the world in meeting perhaps its greatest and most crucial challenge, then we may yet be able to prevail. And thereby to avoid bequeathing a poisoned chalice to our children and grandchildren we only have 100 months to act."

Loosely, his speech was based in fact, derived from science, with the addition of some pointless scaremongering, but, on the whole, he is using science for a positive purpose. And the science he is using is accurate. 

So why does Charlie Windsor listen to scientific evidence on one issue but totally ignore it on another?

Why be scientific about climate change but a quack when it comes to his detox product and other alternative medicine nonsense?

Is it that he picks and chooses to suit his own prejudice? Yes, probably. Might it be that he is too stupid to know science from quackery? Yes, after all, his university place was, like his future role, more to do with his mother's reproductive system than any skill or knowledge or wisdom. 

I hope someone sues Mr. Windsor for his fraudulent products. Yes, they would be showing their own stupidity for having bought it in the first place but, hopefully, it might stop this con artist and bring about a public debate about the role of this manipulative parasite on society.