Let’s have some fun.  (We could sure use it.)  Leave it to our friends at the BBC.  You just knew they couldn’t resist reporting this (via my wife):

The number of patio heaters in gardens in Britain is expected to almost double over the next year, despite environmental fears, a report suggests.

Oh, and you’ll never guess what we just got as a gift, from the in-laws? (We had made ourselves as available as possible in June and July, to help with the mother-in-law’s surgery recuperation.)  After putting the heater together, I couldn’t quite place what it resembled, until I realized it kinda looks like an armless version of the tall robot from Buck Rogers — the Hawk year. 

The other night, the dog even started barking at it . . . seeing it standing there ominously, the top covered, just outside the back door.  Now, though, I realize why.  Dogs are so intuitive about the otherworldly of course, he probably just sensed that “evil” surrounds it.

The Energy Saving Trust says the number of privately owned units in the UK will rise from 1.2 million to 2.3 million.

What we have here is bog standard, special interest, advocacy group organization propaganda reported as “news” by the BBC.  Essentially, it’s ”infomercial” as “news”.

After interviewing 1,192 UK households, it estimates that each heater uses the same amount of energy in six months as a kitchen gas hob does in a year.

Why not just say that each heater is the equivalent of two gas hobs, in terms of yearly energy consumption?  That paragraph wouldn’t of course be trying to make matters at a glance look worse than they might be?  Indeed, given all the swooning and bluster, one would have thought it equalled twenty . . . or at least, somewhere around maybe ten.  (However, I have noticed that a neighbor several doors down has TWO patio heaters!  I feel inferior.)

By the way, what are the inhabitants of those “3,000,000″ new homes supposed to cook on?  Or will those homes not be including kitchens?  Will the homeowners be restricted by law to eating only what they can harvest directly out of their (remember our BBC-approved) organic gardens?:

Time next for the quote from the advocacy group important personage, who has just been provided a global platform thanks to our yearly licence tax:

Chief executive Philip Sellwood said: “Why don’t people just wear a jumper?”…

And what is it about his type that is just incapable of minding his own damn business? 

Interestingly, the BBC didn’t see fit to inquire here from the delightfully named Mr Sellwood (and by doing so, how much carbon did his ancestors disgracefully help to create?) about how much energy is used in China to produce millions of jumpers (sweaters), how much energy is used to transport them from the factory to Britain, how much energy is used by lorries (trucks) to get them to M&S, how much energy M&S uses to light and heat the store in which the jumper is sold, and how much energy is used to provide the necessary streetlighting and traffic lighting to enable one to get safely to M&S and back home again . . . with that “Earth saving” jumper? 

The BBC continues with a shocking observation, provided (likely) courtesy of Mr Sellwood’s group:

…Half of owners switched theirs on during the hottest months of the year, July and August…

The BBC may be surprised to hear this, but July (usually) and August are the best weather months in Britain. And people use them in the evenings, after dark . . . when it’s cool, even in July and August. 

Geezh, this is Britain, for heaven’s sake.  It’s cool even in July and August, in the evenings.

Curiously, no one has even thought in this piece to consider that those outside in the evenings under their patio heaters are NOT inside their homes, using their mega TVs, or PCs and other “climate change”-creating devices.  No “carbon trade-off” there?

…Mr Sellwood said: “We are calling for responsible retailers to reconsider the sale of patio heaters in light of the substantial amount of carbon emissions they produce.”…

Mr Sellwood again.  He doesn’t quite get it.  A new source of great amusement for many of us out here includes increasingly irritating the daylights out of enviro-fad, bandwagon jumping-on, finger-wagging, media microphone hugging nobodies just like himself.

Oh, and obviously, it is now also time to try to blackmail “responsible retailers”.  I can see it now.  All patio heaters sold will have to have stamped on them in HUGE lettering: WARNING: USING THIS WILL END THE WORLD. 

Labour is probably doing up the legislation as we speak . . .

…It is thought that the recently imposed smoking ban in enclosed public places in England will lead to more outdoor smoking and an increase in commercial patio heaters…

That’s not why we were gifted one, for no one in our family smokes and we aren’t an outdoor restaurant.  But as we can see from that explanation, one problem (secondhand smoke in indoor public places) is often solved . . . and some other horrific problem remarkably arises.  That is probably why unemployment is never a problem for special interest, advocacy group important personages.

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UPDATE:  Patio heaters do not seem as of yet to have separately made the “Top 40″ on the excellent Panic Watch (”…El Niño is blamed for such things as super storms and droughts, typhoons, avalanches, landslides, bushfire, bird genocide, diarrhea, overfishing, hantavirus, and the French Revolution.”)  Presumably, though, the heaters fall under “global warming”.