TonyB,
All these resources are very interesting. Thank you for them. But so much to do, and so little time. For now, two things.
First, please acknowledge that you <em>do</em> implicitly endorse the 'yes, but the poor elderly will die argument. You have failed to do so before pointing your finger at me with your YOU. It now would be tough to hide that you do entertain this Monktonian claptrap.
Second, please recall how it started. I mentioned a <strong>tax</strong> on fuel according to its carbon footprint. Your reflex was to connect this with skyrocketing prices. This is wrong for at least two reasons: (1) it rests on a non sequitur, insofar as such a tax might not increase prices, e.g. it could be a revenue-neutral tax; (2) it exploits a reduction fallacy, insofar as poverty is not only (not even mainly) a matter of affording energy.
THIS is the Monktonian claptrap that is being debunked over and over again. Yes, people die when they don't heat themselves. But there's not a <em>single cause</em> why people can't pay their energy bills. There are other expenses to take into account. There are social choices which kinda suck right now in UK, e.g. a bedroom tax. There are institutional larcenies, like tax breaks and other kinds of subsidies, which impoverish the public to the expense of aristocratic oligarchs.
An improved taxation scheme could help improve this sorry predicament. Taxation is the basis of the civilization, you know. That the poor is being used to justify privileges is an intellectual larceny more damning than anything else your climate hobby could ever produce.
Please think twice before using the poor to your own sorry ends.
