No excuse for deaths
Western Telegraph | 12 December 2012 | www.westerntelegraph.co.uk
The Government’s green energy policy has been blamed for increasing energy bills and covering the country with alternative energy projects such as wind turbines.
But on November 29th some very shocking statistics were released which suggests that the policy is doing something far worse in respect of the elderly and the consequences of higher energy bills.
Every year the Office for National Statistics publishes what it calls figures for “excess winter mortality”
which are the figures for those who die during the winter months due to low temperatures, damp and seasonal diseases.
There is no excuse for the unacceptable number of deaths that have occurred in England and Wales over the past two winters. Last year alone an extra 24,000 people were killed by the effects of cold weather, the majority being over 75 years of age which means the rate of winter deaths is higher in England and Wales then it is in Scandinavia.
The last two winters have reversed what had been a long downward trend.
People and particularly the elderly find heating their homes has become an impossible struggle.
It really is about time that the coalition government started looking at ways of helping the elderly a little more in this country. Why, for example, can international aid be increased over the next few years to countries such as India, whilst we have such a high rate of deaths during the winter?
The coalition really does need to look long and hard at their policies and follow an energy policy that keeps us all warm at reasonable expense rather than enriching the landowners and wind-turbine owners who seem to get richer with such severe consequences for the most vulnerable people in our society.
ROBIN HOWELLS Hill Mountain, Houghton
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/12/12/no-excuse-for-deaths/