There follows a guest post by Lynne Sash, an expert in the engineering, defence and healthcare industries, who says Net Zero, like the response to Covid, is part of the Permanent Emergency propagated by elites, under which “the whole of one’s life must be a demonstration of fealty to the scientism of collective welfare in which there is no longer any behaviour that is truly private”.
I agree with John Fernley that renewable energy is not a stand-alone substitute for fossil fuels, and that nuclear energy must receive more serious consideration. I will not discuss the scientific arguments relating to anthropogenic (manmade) global warming (AGW), which are covered in depth elsewhere. But these arguments are only one aspect of the Net Zero philosophy. Proponents of Net Zero advocate not so much an energy policy as a way of reframing society without being transparent about what that entails.
A prime example of this was the Insulate Britain protests that disrupted traffic during 2021. I agree that promoting home insulation is a laudable cause. But instead of pointlessly gluing one’s face to the road, it might have made more sense to point to the Scottish Government programme providing free cavity wall insulation to qualifying households. My neighbours in Edinburgh benefited from this scheme, and it is reasonable to ask whether and how it could be extended to the rest of the country. But rational discourse and problem-solving have never been the point of Climate Crisis agitation, which is really aimed at generating anxiety that can be mobilised for large-scale, and largely unexamined, social change.
Net Zero is another example of a measure that Jennifer Roback Morse, a conservative economist, identifies as an elite-driven policy. Campaigns for no-fault divorce, abortion, gay marriage and transgenderism have never, in the first instance, been responses to a public outcry for change, but to a ruling-class determination that society should accept heavily revised social and cultural standards for reasons of ‘equality’ and ‘social justice’. Roback Morse also identifies another marker of elite policy promotion, which is that the individuals harmed by these policies are denied a public voice and given no opportunity to challenge them. Similarly, there has been no genuine public debate about the viability, desirability or otherwise of Net Zero. Instead, the public is manipulated by performative activism and emotional teenagers. It is noteworthy that Greta Thunberg actively advocates passivism; rather than encourage young people to, say, reduce their own consumption, she insists that governments should do something, and tell us what to do. I have difficulty seeing this as a genuine expression of youthful political idealism.
Observers on the American Right refer to the ‘Forever War’, the seemingly perpetual conflict encompassing Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and now Ukraine, in which the U.S. pursues its supposed enemies into their various geographic lairs in order to make the world safe for democracy manifested as multinational corporations and pride parades. What we see now is the genesis of the Permanent Emergency, in which a looming catastrophe must be averted by engaging in collective action at the expense of civil liberties and personal autonomy.
Let us assume for a moment that the Climate Crisis is real and demands immediate action. In that case, the question should be, “Are the measures proposed to ameliorate and/or resolve Problem X proportionate in terms of a) overall expenditure and b) potential disruption to the social fabric?” This requires the Government to be very clear about what it wants to do and how that will affect society as a whole, enabling members of the electorate to make decisions about their own future and that of the country. The fact that there is little honest discussion about this within the mainstream suggests that no one really wants to make a detailed public argument in favour of climate constraint, most probably because that constraint will inevitably lead to a reduction in living standards.
If we have learned anything from Covid, it is surely that government bodies are in great danger of goal-driven myopia in which only one objective is deemed legitimate, and this must be pursued by any means necessary regardless of the collateral damage. This leads naturally to mission creep involving the justification of ever more intrusive practices and policies to control public behaviour. Smart meters do not just help you monitor usage. They can also limit your electricity consumption. Smart appliances can tell you that you’re out of milk, but they can also be accessed remotely and shut off. If vaccine passports can be used to restrict access to public goods, then it’s easy to imagine how Climate Passports could be deployed in a similar way if your carbon footprint is too large.
The emotional environment in which Climate Crisis advocates exist is uncongenial to constructive decision-making. ‘The earth is burning’ and ‘You’re killing grandma’ echo back and forth in a globalised panic room that can always make space for another iteration of civilisational catastrophe. At this point we end up in a nihilistic loop: the latest emergency will surely destroy us, but to prevent this we need to destroy our society and culture. Alarmists appear oblivious to this basic nihilism in their position, or else don’t care enough to address it rationally, being too taken up in their own heroic efforts to avert the projected catastrophe whatever the cost.
An underappreciated aspect of the Permanent Emergency is that it demands that everything be politicised, and therefore a legitimate object of public scrutiny. Our healthcare decisions, purchasing practices, holiday plans, the decision to take a shower at one time rather than another, all become demonstrations of our political, and therefore moral, orientation. Are we acting in such a way as to promote the collective welfare, or are we letting others down with our selfish behaviour? The proponents of the Permanent Emergency understand this perfectly well. The whole of one’s life must be a demonstration of fealty to the scientism of collective welfare in which there is no longer any behaviour that is truly private, and questions about this are prima facie evidence of ill-will.
Unsurprisingly, the rich have a get-out clause offering them immunity from constraint or criticism. It is noteworthy that the discussions relating to the appropriate Climate Crisis policies rarely mention the matter of carbon trading, which is absolutely central to any carbon amelioration scheme. The ‘net’ in Net Zero is expected to do a lot of work. This comes in two forms. Carbon credits are sold by governments to enterprises that cannot reduce their emissions sufficiently rapidly while remaining economically viable. Carbon offsets are the private end of the market. Individuals and organisations deemed to be engaging in carbon-sequestering activities can sell carbon credits to offset the CO2 emissions of carbon polluters, thereby ‘balancing’ emissions to some degree.
Of course, this offers wealthy individuals and organisations an immediate get-out clause to exculpate their own polluting behaviour. Critics really must stop referring to this as ‘hypocrisy’. Hypocrites are generally aware that social standards exist, but understand that they are incapable of, or unwilling, to meet them. What we see here are double standards: there is one rule for wealthy people with important things to do, and another for poorly-resourced plebs who are unlikely to merit a holiday in the south of France in any case.
As a component of the Permanent Emergency, Net Zero is another step in the process of transforming the Citizen into a Fungible Economic Unit. FEUs are social placeholders that can be moved around like game counters in the pursuit of an objective of which they may not even be aware, would be unlikely to countenance if they were aware of it, and which will bring them little or no benefit if it is realised. But the objective may never be realised, requiring the FEUs to engage in permanent sacrifice with no clear result or benefit. By accepting Net Zero as a fait accompli, we are enjoined to participate in our emasculation as citizens. We exist to be acted upon, or to be prompted to act, but not to take decisions on our own behalf. Beyond this, Net Zero functions as a collective incantation: we repeat it, and repeat it, because it demonstrates our good will and determination to propitiate the forces of nature at whatever cost. It is imperative that citizens not only question the very concept of Net Zero, but pursue policymakers with regard to its practical aspects in order to expose, for better or worse, what future is being sold to us.
Can the Government be deflected from its determination to pursue Net Zero? Surely not, just like the U.K. was never going to leave the EU, and Trump was never going to be elected president. Then again, the ability of progressive elites to predict the future – whether about politics or the environment – has always been a bit shaky.
After a degree in International Relations, Lynne Sash worked in the U.K. for 30 years providing international research and strategy consultancy services for the engineering, defence, and healthcare industries. In 2019 she returned to Iowa, USA, where she is assembling a library of ‘cancelled’ books.
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One of the first questions (because it is the biggest cause of the cost of living crisis) the Conservative Party membership will ask is: where does each candidate stand on net zero?
It will be very interesting to detect the foot shuffling, hand wringing, averted gaze, equivocations, of the various candidates on this matter.
And the simple untruths. Candidates will claim what their audience want sto hear but vote according to convenience in Parliament to avoid upsetting their staff, other MPs and the MSM.
I’m waiting for the various candidates to parrot the WEF line “Build Back Better.” That will be the clearest indication possible that the only thing which has changed is the face of the puppet.
Net Zero is a scam from top to bottom, a mechanism to make the populace fearful and therefore more likely to accept extra taxes to “solve the problem”, the proceed of which then finds its way into the pockets of crooks and their mates in the corridors of power. Crony Capitalism. Corrupt transfer of wealth from the many to the few. Doesn’t matter what colour the “government” is, they’re all the same. They get power because they want to control YOU. End of story.
Same can be said of The Deadly Virus. Obviously. But then everyone here knows this.
Although there are lots of sheep out there following the mantra of climate emergency, many quite genuinely, the guys at the top driving all this stuff know its a load of hogwash. I’ve spoken to so many people who have said, ‘if only Boris would drop Nett Zero…Carrie this, Carrie that etc, etc’. We’ll he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. That decision is taken much higher than Prime Minister. Once you see the lie, and then you see the other lies, you finally realise that there is just one big lie. Its not going to end well, and we’re not on the good side.
Cui bono?!
Provides the answer to this and almost every other question and folly.
Well it isn’t me who bono from net zero
And I don’t like Bono, eithers
Off piste is where we go
Renegades, true disbelievers
(Lines 2 and 4 rhyme if you use Cockney)
Well if the polls are to be believed, cuddly Ben Wallace is favourite.
No one has heard of him which probably the point.
He may not be a warmtard but he’s a devout covidian and warmonger who called Brexiteers clowns.
I take it the Conservative party membership won’t be given a chance to choose anyone half way sensible (Chope Redwood Brady McVey Bone etc.)
I would have included Owen Paterson too but they’ve got him already…
I cut up my membership card, and tweeted a video of the process, explaining exactly why, but then I got banned from Twitter. And no, I didn’t renew.
I do not believe there is a majority in Parliament to overturn the Climate Change Act. Even if there was, they would not dare to take on the blob, the array of financially interested academics and the MSM who continue to bay for ever more action on the theory of man made global warming (or, as they now chose to term in, climate change).
The most ruinously expensive legislation in UK history. Until the covid1984 shambles. I suppose nothing will be done until millions of us “waste” our vote like in 2015. Or am I being too optimistic?
No disrespect to Dr John Fernley, but I think anyone who thinks that the British Prime Minister has the power to go against global climate change policy should be automatically excluded from writing for the DS for being too naive.
Next we’ll have someone writing that the next PM should revoke the emergency authorisation of Covid jabs on the grounds that their safety record is not good enough.
“Realistically, the world will make more progress in reducing CO2 emissions if green technologies improve.”
This one sentence destroys the whole case.
What a plonker!
No attempt from the downticker to counter my statement. It is beginning to look more and more like a state employee, 99.9 % of which are sad firkers.
Aye. This retired scientist is a halfway-houser. Direction of travel…hydrogen…mini nukes. He has lost the argument before he starts. Better to go straight to the heart of the problem. CO2 follows temperature so cannot be the main driver of climate change.
https://www.history-of-geo-and-space-sciences.net/2021-05-26_hgss-2021-1_latest-version-of-the-manuscript.pdf
From low concentrations you get a bit of warming but the effect wanes and reaches a saturation point at current levels.
https://clintel.org/the-greenhouse-effect-summary-of-the-happer-and-van-wijngaarden-paper/
Furthermore, since CO2 is food, decarbonisation is one of the most evil things peopls can propose.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
The next Tory leader appointment has got to be the right. Its more crucial than ever they get this correct. If they don’t get it right they are going to lose millions of voters. Personally I doubt if I would ever vote for a main stream party again, and I believe there are many Ex-Tory voters, rather than Ex-Labour voters, who are on the verge of a similar decision. I think this is make or break for the Tories, and if they get it wrong, it will be curtains for them, at least for the next 5-10 years.
If the Conservative Party even so much as mentions ” Net Zero ” , their vote base will collapse. Remember, the last PM. We will be the “Saudi Arabia of wind”. I’m a fully qualified engineer and the political class are as normal; deluded.
True, but the political class are bought and paid for by megalomaniacs who have created this nonsense so they can enslave the western population. Check out what’s happening in the Netherlands around Nitrogen. The guy who has driven the bill through parliament is brother to a man whose farming empire has just had £600m invested in it by none other than Bill Gate. We are miles beyond being able to dismiss this whole thing as a conspiracy theory.
Our wind will last forever.
Saudi Arabia’s oil will not.
Interesting, to some extent. Note that “green hydrogen” is a storage medium for electricity generated by renewables. If it is only used for surplus output from the latter, it might be reasonable – but it is not exactly efficient. Compared with direct use of the electric output from anything (such as electric traction on a railway), it’s crap – roughly 30% thermal at best? Then there are costs to do with it’s storage and physical transmission.
There are some manufacturers promoting the use of hydrogen as a short term storage mechanism for some railway rolling stock, using fuel cells to release the power as required, but presently a lot of hydrogen is a by-product of other things, extracted from methane (‘natural gas’), from firms like Air Products. I think “blue hydrogen” is the moniker for the output via that route.
Indeed. Horrible hydrogen. Since there is nothing wrong with co2 there is pretty much no need.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2020/06/Hydrogen-Fuel.pdf
Agreed. In most use cases hydrogen as an energy storage medium is silly. Direct use, or batteries make much more sense.
I’m puzzled as to why railway operators think H is the solution. They argue that some parts of the rail network are hard to electrify, so why not use batteries on trains to bridge these gaps?
The most absurd statement any politician has ever said came from the mouth of this roaring arsehole last year. In front of group of young children in Glasgow he referred to the first steam engine as “the doomsday machine.”
As another reminder for anyone whose friends or relatives still think net zero is a ‘good idea’ here what this three trillion pound scam is going to cost in actual stuff:
-636 missions to Mars.
-The cost of an Uber journey across our entire solar system and back.
-3 million KLFs with 3 million furnaces.
-6000 brand new hospitals with free parking.
-16 million fully trained NHS nurses for ten years.
– 6 million fully trained police officers for ten years.
-12 million ambulances.
-750 million ICU ventilators.
-24.8 million affordable homes or social housing.
-Free university education for 60 million students.
-A cheap briefcase containing £100,000 cash for every household in the UK.
-200 billion clean water tanks in Sudan.
-500 billion plastic taps in Sierra Leone.
-60 billion hand washing stations in Mozambique.
-3 trillion pounds towards cyber and physical defence against attacks by our enemies.
-3 trillion pounds towards recycling and cleaning our oceans of plastic waste.
-3 trillion pounds towards protecting elephants, tigers, rhinos, whales and many other rare and endangered species across the world.
-3 trillion pounds towards finding a cure for Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Altzheimers, Malaria or any other devastating disease you can think of.
Climate change is a trillion dollar a year business, all funded through western countries tax revenues. Too many people rely on this for income. Too many entrepreneurs, elite politicians, NGOs, media & climate scientists are making millions from this. Until western countries shut down this funding, this wave of abuse will continue.
Getting shot of Princess Nut Nuts will be a good first step in stopping the Net Zero nonsense
“the more CO2 emitted the more the Earth will warm – but the magnitude of any temperature rise is highly uncertain”
– which is exactly why we should reduce GHG emissions as quickly as possible. Playing the Lottery is fine but Russian roulette is not.
If we get this wrong, having to rapidly suck GHGs from the atmosphere will be horribly expensive and be absolutely no fun at all.
Fossil fuels are finite (the supply is limited so they will run out) so we must make the switch to renewables at some point. Let’s not wait until we are forced to.