Net Zero is Part of the Permanent Emergency Where Nothing is Any Longer Truly Private

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.