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Community Lost for words When it comes to Donald Trump, the media is under- standably most excited about the big-ticket items, such as who he'll nuke first. Less atten- tion is given to the way the new administration is quietly getting on with business such as fighting climate change. When we say "climate change" here, we are of course referring to the words rather than the phenomenon. Appar- ently staff at the US Energy Department have been told to stop using the phrases "climate change", "emissions reduction" and "Paris Agreement" in all briefings and written communi- cations because of the "visceral reaction" they were provoking from energy secretary Rick Perry and White House advis- ers heading the department. It should be noted for the record that officials at the department have denied that any specific orders have been issued. A State Department official said: "We have defini- tively not received anything on banned words, not even orally – but people are doing a lot of reading into tea leaves." So much for the necessity of government departments to speak truth to power. It seems the US is adopting a Soviet- style approach to governance, where the first rule of being an official is not to be the person reporting bad news to a superior. Friendly fire It's good to see Britain taking its rightful place on the world stage aer being freed from the shackles of Europe, although the process is not without the occasional hiccough. For instance, our new-found influence was not much in evi- dence when Boris Johnson fell flat on his face trying to recruit G7 support for unified action against Russia and Syria. Except for Donald Trump, that is, who'd already made his position clear by dropping a load of cruise missiles on a Syrian air base. How steadfast in his support the Donald will prove going forward is any- one's guess, although he did declare last week that "Nato is no longer obsolete". Hardly a ringing endorsement, but a move in the right direction. Meanwhile, we are at least making new friends to become "a truly global Britain". Theresa May visited Saudi Arabia this month, where her hosts took time out from chop- ping people's heads off to talk business. The commodities for trade aren't very sophisticated – they've got oil and we've got bombs – but a deal's a deal and everyone wins. Except Yemen. At the same time, trade sec- retary Liam Fox was congratu- lating Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte for having "shared values" with the UK. Presumably Dr Fox wasn't referring to Duterte's gunmen who ride around on mopeds executing drug addicts. Or maybe he was – let's wait for the Tory election manifesto. Spider snacks In other news, it turns out there are enough spiders in the world to munch through every human being on the planet in one year. Yup. European biologists Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published a paper in the Science of Nature journal estimating that all the world's spiders consume between 400 million and 800 million tonnes of organic matter each year. Given that there are seven billion humans on the planet with an estimated combined mass of 287 million tonnes, there are not enough of us to keep our eight-legged friends going for 12 months. On the downside, the emer- gence of the King of the Spiders will be a bad day for the humans alive at the time. On the upside, if humanity really does wipe itself out through sheer bloody-minded stupidity, at least our corpses won't be littering the place for very long. 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General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership enquiries: Peter Bissell, t: 01342 332057, e: peterbissell@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2015 Membership subscriptions: UK £669 per year. Overseas £781 per year. Contact Peter Bissell on: 01342 332057 Utility Week is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (which regulates the UK's magazine and newspaper industry). We abide by the Editors' Code of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think that we have not met those standards and want to make a complaint please contact the editor, Ellen Bennett, at ellenbennett@fav-house.com. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors' Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk David Toke @DaveToke So Engie drops out of UK nuclear in favour of solar farms while UK gov wants nuclear but not solar farms......does that tell you something? Baringa Partners LLP @Baringa Our @ScotRenew report shows the most competitive UK wind farms could proceed without subsidy if given access to CfD William Marchant @richonlyinname Purdah would start, what, next Thursday? So either a rapid energy tariffs announcement or that can's kicked a few months down the road. Gareth Miller @garethmillerCE Purdah=poss impacts for Cfds, Emissions red plan, CPS post 21, New LCF, Green paper dom market, Smart call 4 evidence follow on decisions? [1/2] More specifically as I think Ofgem covered by Purdah the embedded benefit changes (CMP264/265 TCR and SCR) will also probably be delayed [2/2] ACE @uk_ace Snap general election... yet more delay for #energyefficiency policy? We hope not! Tom Steward @Steward_T Better use of data (assuming properly protec- tion in place) a good thing for #fuelpoverty... [1/2] But chair of the #fuelpoverty committee welcoming recent cuts to the #ECO, dressing them up as good for the fuel poor, very worrying. [2/2] Daniel Walker-Nolan @DWN85 Think it's bad that energy firms hike prices so much at the end of fixed deals? Consider broadband, 43% rise - far higher proportion! Richard Black @_richardblack Offshore wind without subsidy? For two German projects, it's a reality Top Tweets UTILITY WEEK | 21ST - 27TH APRIL 2017 | 31