Wednesday, January 1st 2020
Spotted a news-in-brief story in the paper about a mystery pneumonia outbreak in China. This immediately started alarm bells ringing, although I seem to be alone among Cabinet colleagues in worrying about this.
Went for a New Year’s Day pint at the Duck and Dive and talked to the owner about the new disease. Like me, he’s very concerned about protecting NHS staff.
Tuesday, January 7th
The PM sought me out in the voting lobby to tell me what a great job I’m doing. I told him about the new disease, which he wasn’t aware of. “You keep an eye on it,” he said. “But I expect it’s nothing to worry about.”
Friday, January 17th
When I got into the department, I buttonholed Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer who owes his entire career to me. I asked him what the chances were of the virus escaping from China. “What virus?” he asked. Honestly, am I the only person round here who’s worried about this?
Wednesday, January 22nd
Found out tonight that Sir Mark Sedwill, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, has blocked my push for a meeting of COBRA to discuss the new disease. Infuriating!
Thursday, January 23rd
No 10 has grudgingly agreed to let me make a statement to the Commons about the virus. “Make it short,” said Lee Cain. “Don’t want to alarm people unnecessarily.”
Got a text message from Gina Coladangelo, my old university friend, who’d seen my on the Six O’Clock News. “Forgotten how good looking you are,” she said.
Friday, January 24th
Dominic Cummings told me to stop talking about “the Wuhan Flu”. The only thing he wants Boris to focus on is our official withdrawal from the EU next week. He resents my influence over the PM.
Saturday, January 25th
I fell into step with Dom Raab, who has always looked to me for advice, as we were leaving Cabinet and told him we need to withdraw Brits from Wuhan. “Why?” he asked. I told him about how deadly SARS-CoV-2 can be, which was news to him. “Thanks for flagging that up, Matt,” he said. “I’ll order the evacuation immediately.”
Sunday, January 26th
The Foreign Office machine is struggling to grind into second gear. This morning I discovered that officials are still working up advice on “whether” to evacuate, not “how”. Has Raab not told them to get on with it? I decided to bypass Dom and call the Perm Sec at the FCO directly. After a rocket from me, he agreed to pull his finger out.
Tuesday, January 28th
A proper wake-up call today. The whole team gathered in my office to go through the reasonable worst-case scenario I’ve been requesting since Jan 1st.
In his characteristically diffident way, looking apologetically at me, Chris Whitty quietly informed everyone that in the reasonable worst-case scenario, as many as 820,000 people in the U.K. may die. The transmission is so high that almost everyone would catch it, as I’ve been pointing out.
The penny dropped that I’ve been right about the risk posed by this virus all along. The whole room fell silent and every face turned to me.
I asked what we needed to do to accelerate a vaccine. Jonathan Van-Tam, whom I plucked out of obscurity, said developing a vaccine normally takes five to 10 years.
“I want it by Christmas,” I said.
Wednesday, January 29th
PMQs today was surreal: not a single question on the virus. I stood by the Speaker’s chair thinking: “Every question you lot are asking will be rendered completely irrelevant in a few weeks.”
I called the head of the World Health Organisation, whom I recommended for the job, to try to persuade him – for the umpteenth time – to declare a public health international emergency. “Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked. “Don’t want to upset the Chinese.”
I feel like the lone scientist in one of those Hollywood disaster movies, pointing out the inevitable which everyone else is in denial about. If they ever do make a film about the crisis I wonder who’ll play me? Gina thinks Brad Pitt, but I’ve always thought I look like Matt Damon.
Thursday, January 10th
The Wuhan Brits have arrived back in England. I wanted to greet them at Brize Norton in a full hazmat suit, but Gina thought it was a bit OTT. “They know they’ve got you to thank for saving their lives, not Dom,” she said.
PHE wanted to greet them with a smile and a leaflet and ask them nicely to stay at home for a couple of weeks. I said no way – they need to go straight into quarantine for at least a month. PHE started hand-wringing about human rights. I told them to stop being so bloody wet.
The World Health Organisation has finally declared the virus a public health emergency, thanks to me. About bloody time!
PHE’s audit of PPE came back and did not lighten my mood. There’s no clear record of what’s in the stockpile, and some kit is past its “best before” date. I’ve instructed officials to work out what we need fast, and buy in huge quantities. Bypass procurement rules, money no object. I told them to contact the landlord at the Duck and Dive, who has some good ideas about how to expedite this.
Tuesday, February 4th
As a liberal, I’ve always believed people are the best judges of what’s in their best interests, particularly when it comes to personal safety. Now we are contemplating the greatest interference in personal liberty in Britain’s history. It’s a strange feeling, but not altogether unpleasant.
Wednesday, February 14th
Valentine’s day and, not surprisingly, I got a card. Wonder who it’s from? I’ve narrowed the suspects down to a couple of dozen.
Back in the COBRA room later for a Civil Service exercise to rehearse what we’ll do if the virus runs out of control. Took some doing to get that meeting on the books, I can tell you! We role-played how we would do our jobs in two months’ time if the very worst-case scenario has happened and hundreds of thousands are dying. There were other Cabinet ministers in the room, but the senior officials kept looking at me.
Monday, February 24th
Cummings has finally turned his attention to coronavirus. To show he means business, he’s organising a daily 8am meeting in No 10 for SpAds and officials, but in an act of total idiocy he hasn’t invited me. He has complete contempt for elected politicians – the Prime Minister included.
After Cabinet, I took Boris to one side and told him not to trust Cummings. “Nonsense,” he said. “He’s 100% loyal.” Once again, I feel like the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Thursday, February 27th
PHE has outright refused a request from Pinky Trotter, owner of the Duck and Dive, to supply the NHS with PPE. Certain senior public health officials are absolutely allergic to anything involving the private sector! They hate entrepreneurs. Evidently, they’d rather risk lives than set aside these ideological objections.
No such sniffiness from the French, who are biting Pinky’s arm off.
Sunday, March 1st
We’re telling everyone to wash their hands more frequently and encouraging parents to get their kids to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice to make sure they do it for long enough. What I really wanted was for people to sing a song by my close friend and constituent Ed Sheeran.
Sadly, I was overruled. Sigh.
Tuesday, March 10th
I’ve ordered PHE to produce plans for how they will get 100,000 tests a day by May 1st. I told Rishi this was my BHAG – a business school term meaning Big Hairy Audacious Goal, which I thought he’d be familiar with, given his MBA from Stanford. But it was new to him.
Friday, March 13th
A call with my fellow G7 Health Ministers. Everyone sounded terrified, but unsure of what to do. Inevitably, I took the lead. At the end of the call they all thanked me.
In just three days, the numbers have doubled. At 10am I went to Downing Street to talk to the PM and told him this is no time for half measures. We‘ve got to start telling people to stay at home. Reluctantly, he agreed.
Simon Stevens says frail elderly patients who don’t need urgent treatment need to be discharged from hospital, either to their home or to care homes. He’s spoken to the PM about it and is determined to make it happen. I told Boris I wasn’t so sure. Isn’t there a risk that they might carry the virus into care homes and infect other residents?
Saturday, March 14th
Back in the constituency for a night and I popped into the Duck and Dive for a pint. Pinky took for me for a spin in his new Rolls Royce. Said he’d seen me on Question Time and thought I could use a “glow up”. Suggested I go and see his tailor!
Monday, March 16th
Cummings, Lee Cain, Whitty and I went into Boris’s study garden, where I came up with the message he’s going to give in a televised press conference. Then, at 5pm, it was time. Looking as grave as he ever does, Boris told the elderly and vulnerable they are going to have to stay at home for 12 weeks. It was odd listening to him speaking the lines I‘d written.
Tuesday, March 17th
A rare semi-night off this evening as I shlepped to the O2 in Greenwich for the Brit Awards.
Inevitably, I pitched up late because of work and missed the dinner. I was seated next to Mick Jagger, someone I’ve always admired – although he’s no Ed Sheeran.
He told me I was doing a wonderful job and should be PM. I said the country doesn’t always get what it wants, but sometimes it gets what it needs. I thought it was rather witty.
Sunday, March 22nd 2020
Crunch meeting in Downing Street, at which the Prime Minister weighed up all the options and dithered about which one to take. He’s famous for this, so I took the lead and steered him towards the only decision he can make in the circumstances – a formal lockdown as soon as possible. I caught Cummings’s eye and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod of thanks.
Monday, March 23rd 2020
At 8.30pm, the Prime Minister gave his address to the nation. “From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home . . .“
Once again, I had that ventriloquist dummy sensation.
Tuesday, March 24th
This evening it was finally my turn to front the daily Downing Street press conference – about time! I was unusually nervous, knowing that more or less the whole nation would be watching. After all, we’d just banned them from doing almost anything else.
Got a text from Gina afterwards to tell me how dashing she thought I looked: “Is that new suit?”
Friday, March 27th
A nurse called first thing this morning to say I’ve got Covid. It’s not at all what I expected. More like a bad cold than a deadly flu. I wonder if that’s become I’m so slim and fit?
Thursday, April 2nd
At the Downing Street press conference I was asked what we’ve got wrong. I said we could have brought in the economic package a bit quicker.
This didn’t get much pick-up, except from Rishi’s people, who went absolutely tonto. I bought Rishi a box of wine to apologise, even though I know he’s teetoal. Don’t want him getting too big for his boots!
Perhaps I should have given a frank answer about a mistake I felt responsible for — but I couldn’t think of anything.
Turns out, negative tests won’t be required prior to transfers/admissions into care homes. The tragic but honest truth is we don’t have enough testing capacity to check anyway – in spite of my BHAG. It’s an utter nightmare, but it’s not my fault.
Under the circumstances, we must make sure that anyone going from a hospital into a care home is kept away from other residents. I hope this message filters through and is followed – I’ve told my officials to make sure of that.
It’s been a choice between very difficult options. If we keep people in hospital, the NHS will be overrun – at least, that’s what Simon Stevens says, who’s the person behind this policy. I think it’s a big risk – and have told him as much.
Saturday, April 4th
President Trump has randomly and dangerously declared that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for Covid, despite a total absence of evidence. What an awful, awful man. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up on some ghastly reality show.
Monday, April 6th
Boris has been taken into intensive care with Covid. Everyone is stunned. I’m told there’s a 50:50 chance he’ll end up on a ventilator; and if that happens, we know there’s a 50:50 chance he will die.
He called me on his way to St Thomas’s and asked me if I was willing to act as caretaker PM while he’s incapacitated. I thanked him, but said it ought to be Raab, given that he’s Deputy PM.
Wednesday, April 8th
Boris spent a second night in intensive care. I worry he won’t make it. I don’t want to lose a close friend and colleague.
Inevitably, my thoughts turned to the succession. If Boris doesn’t pull through, should I throw my hat into the ring? Gina thinks I should.
Thursday, May 14th
People are starting to blame us for discharging elderly people from hospital into residential settings without testing them properly – something I repeatedly warned about. Happily, the evidence indicates the residents discharged from hospital aren’t responsible for the outbreaks in care homes, so even if that had been my decision, which it wasn’t, I cannot be blamed for the deaths.
Friday, June 26th
Pinky has invited me to spend two weeks next month at his new villa in Marbella. “Bring a friend,” he said. Not sure the wife would be up to it – she’s still recovering from Covid – but I might ask Gina if she’s available. We could strategise about how to improve government messaging around the restrictions.
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Too right we need more. The world was a healthier place back when there was loads of it. And we need to stop wasting money on the climate scare!
And we don’t need to insulate these Victorian houses, or modern flats that end up overheating in Summer even with the air conditioning (frightfully energy intensive) on.
And we don’t need rubbish mercury lightbulbs that mean we have to turn up the heating more, that risk our health and the health of those who produce them. And we don’t need cladding that is a fire risk (and by the way, we don’t need EU rules which reportedly had quite a lot to do with Grenfell).
And we don’t need “climate” spending that will impoverish millions of people here and now. What do we know about the world today? There’s lots of deserts. Just maybe it will be easier to reclaim desert if there is more CO2 in the atmosphere to encourage growth.
Stuff your climate scare, and your lockdown madness, and your gene therapy drug mandates and your pingdemics. Put people first!
All true – except I’m not sure why mercury lightbulbs would require more heating (the heat output of old-style incandescents was tiny in the scheme of things (and would, equally, require more air conditioning in Summer). Also, I personally like the newer LED lights.
LED lights are good (and last longer on a battery).
Of course, it depends how many lights you have on and how big the room is. They will inevitably make some amount of difference though.
And of course you will need to use lightbulbs less in the Summer!
Another article to distract and steer the conversation away from lockdowns/Covid vaccines, and how to get out of the terrible mess we are in.
Do you not think there’s maybe a link between climate change alarmism and scaremongering over a bug going round? Both things heavily promoted by the UN which is actively looking for reasons to create a form of world government.
And both utterly flawed, both morally and scientifically (and economically).
Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be another lockdown story along shortly. Toby’s blog, he can put what he likes at the end of the day.
I was attracted to ‘Lockdown Sceptics’ as it seemed to be people of a similar mindset to me, who sussed that ‘Covid’ was a scam.
If I had been interested in ‘Climate Change’ I could have gone looking for forums that discussed that.
I think that discussing ‘Climate Change’ is a never-ending black hole, much as discussing Religion.
I accept that the ‘Vaxx Passes’ could be linked to ‘Carbon Footprint’ scores, and so on… but I am afraid that sort of talk is not addressing the immediate problem we find ourselves in. I’d simply like the Covid scam to be exposed for what it is, the perpetrators to be brought to justice, and for the whole Covid fraud to come to an end and things to return to pre-March 2020 normality.
Those interested in ‘Climate Change/Global Warming’ and what Great Thunberg had for breakfast can chat about their limitless theories for ever. I feel I have noticed of late that ‘Climate Change’ subjects/articles have been thrown in to steer people away from ‘Covid’.
There is a never-ending supply of ‘conspiracy theories’ in the Climate Change arena, and plenty of people to waffle on about them. I suppose I am just narrow-minded and am more interested in our immediate crisis with ‘Covid’ and the restrictions/rules/laws forced upon us using a pretend virus as an excuse.
Things aren’t ever going back to pre April 2020.
You of course don’t have to read the climate change articles, but I fear you may be in the wrong place if you think the editor of this blog wants to rock the establishment boat.
When they’ve done with the covid crisis the establishment will manufacture another crisis, it’s only going to get worse.
And I feel sure that the most gullible ones over ‘covid’ – pro-lockdowners, muzzlers, obsessive testers and cringers – will turn out to be the very same ones who scream ”climate crisis, we’re all doomed!”.
Well boo-hoo for you. Maybe you missed the change in title from Lock-down to Daily Sceptic. It has broadened its scope and I think it is intended for people with open and enquiring minds not ones with a single topic obsession.
Which is fine if you like to discuss ‘Climate Change’ whilst wearing a face mask and being jabbed four times a year with mRNA gene-changing drugs.
When people are happy to ignore the “1930s Germany all over again” going on around them whilst having an ‘intellectual’ discussion about ‘Climate Change’, it would seem to me that they’ve lost sight of the battle for their freedoms and haven’t actually been ‘holding the line’ at all.
I’d be inclined to deal first with the very real present crisis of the ‘Covid situation’ and then deal with ‘Climate Change’ (if one so fancies).
The Earth will eventually be heading into The Sun anyway, things will be hotting up then! Forget about the colony on Mars – that will get swept into The Sun too.
Did you ever see that episode of Allo Allo where she hid a cylinder record down her blouse? Someone wanted to know why she had recorded a light-hearted programme for the resistance radio on it. She said they do need something lighter as well. I’m sure there is space to talk about other things besides the “covid” shambles and I assure you none of us underestimate the importance of the “vaxport” scandal.
“Maybe you missed the change in title from Lock-down to Daily Sceptic. It has broadened its scope“
It’s always had a broad scope, in terms of above the line topics, and the change of name merely followed the reality.
I’m interested in the current shambles to the point of being prepared to vote for Dianne Abbott because of her opposition to health passes, despite not sharing her politics. However, it is important to understand that the pharmaceutical industry and the political elite and their media proxies are involved in a campaign of deception that will end our way of life as we know it. The climate scare is one part of this. The “covid” scare is another. And the health pass could easily be extended to encompass carbon credits and the like. We are facing a hydra monster with many tentacles.
Lockdown is green ideology put into practice
This is the calculation, using internationally recognised data, nothing fancy, no hidden agenda, just something we can all do by taking our socks and shoes off.
Assuming increasing atmospheric CO2 is causing the planet to warm:
Atmospheric CO2 levels in 1850 (beginning of the Industrial Revolution):
~280ppm (parts per million atmospheric content) (Vostock Ice Core).
Atmospheric CO2 level in 2021: ~410ppm. (Manua Loa)
410ppm minus 280ppm = 130ppm ÷ 171 years (2021 minus 1850) = 0.76ppm of which man is responsible for ~3% = ~0.02ppm.
That’s every human on the planet and every industrial process adding ~0.02ppm CO2 to the atmosphere per year on average. At that rate mankind’s CO2 contribution would take ~25,000 years to double which, the IPCC states, would cause around 2°C of temperature rise. That’s ~0.0001°C increase per year for ~25,000 years.
One hundred (100) generations from now (assuming ~25 years per generation) would experience warming of ~0.25°C more than we have today. ‘The children’ are not threatened!
Furthermore, the Manua Loa CO2 observatory (and others) can identify and illustrate Natures small seasonal variations in atmospheric CO2 but cannot distinguish between natural and manmade atmospheric CO2.
Hardly surprising. Mankind’s CO2 emissions are so inconsequential this ‘vital component’ of Global Warming can’t be illustrated on the regularly updated Manua Loa graph.
Mankind’s emissions are independent of seasonal variation and would reveal itself as a straight line, so should be obvious.
Not even the global fall in manmade CO2 over the Covid-19 pandemic, estimated at ~14% (14% of ~0.02ppm CO2 = 0.0028ppm), registers anywhere on the Manua Loa data. Unsurprisingly.
In which case, the warming the planet has experienced is down to naturally occurring atmospheric CO2, all 97% of it.
That’s entirely ignoring the effect of the most powerful ‘greenhouse’ gas, water vapour which is ~96% of all greenhouse gases.
Thank you. Brilliant.
I respect your point of view but I believe the climate scaremongering will be ramped up in 2022 and it will get tied in to the C1984 nonsense.
Our current way of life is being dragged along the Agenda 2030 highway and mythical climate change is part of that agenda just as C1984 is / was.
The increasingly mandatory global green vaxx passes that allow you to move around and fly today will be the ones that decline your accesses and travel in the future when you don’t have enough carbon credits left to go anywhere, that or your booster shots have [bad dog] dropped behind, or perhaps your meat eating habit ATL got logged.
Oh dear…?
https://twitter.com/DeepNetAnon/status/1475980208754905088?s=20
P U S H B A C K H A R D N O W O R N E V E R
Dude if you thought covid was bad you ain’t seen nothing yet, their authoritarian technocratic control is going to go off the scales when they get in to proper climate control mode. Covid was just a preamble.
Social credit score apps here we come!
And people wonder why I thought that Dianne Abbott’s opposition to health passes is rather more important than her other politics at the moment…
As I have mentioned already, one bank in Finland is informing their customers of their ‘Carbon Footprint’ based on what they have bought using their bank/credit card. Already making people feel guilty about even existing.
How nice to have people (more likely an automated computer system) tell you whether your have been a Good Citizen or a Not-So-Good-Citizen.
Yes. Isn’t there a book about that? By George someone was it?
Orwell didn’t know about the Internet and how computers would be running things automatically. I think things may have gone far beyond what most people can imagine.
Yes he did. What’s a TV if not an early type of computer linked to a central source of information?
Orwell recognised the power of communication which the internet merely facilitates.
The reality though is that vaxpasses are likely to be redundant anyway, on that score, once the new centrally controlled digital currencies are brought in.
And any “emergency” will do for bringing totalitarian control measures in, whether it’s covid, climate, islamist terror, or “far right/white supremacist/homophobe/transphobe etc insurrection”.
No – times change, and issues that were most urgent dominate the sceptical debate until their times are no longer at the top of the list. On this web site, Covid rightly dominated its original main theme, focusing on the political misinformation that was driving the politically-managed program of fake ‘vaccination’.
But that did not mean that other topics were irrelevant, just less urgent. The false doctrine on catastrophic climate change has a longer time-scale – it’s hugely important, but less immediately urgent than dealing with a short-lived viral pandemic (absurdly instant time-scale claims notwithstanding!).
The Climate Catastrophe fraud rests absolutely on the stupid classification of CO2 as an atmospheric pollutant, utterly overwhelming the argument that in fact it’s actually an almost exhausted critical resource for that section of carbon-based life forms that rely on photosynthesis (at least for those life forms that have learned to tolerate the consequential toxic waste product, oxygen!)
In geological terms, we (that is, all such life forms, and indeed, those wretched plants that are at the base of this trajectory) are running out of time. Virtually the entire available stock of CO2 has been used up and locked away in geological deposits that are effectively permanentlyunavailable.
We (photosynthesis-dependent life-forms) are facing the ultimate permanent collapse of global ecological systems, and that will be exacerbated if we fail to release unavailable stored CO2 (and even plant more trees that encourage the removal of that CO2 from the atmosphere!).
The ONLY way out is to recycle that vast stock of essential CO2 locked away in coal, petroleum, and gas deposits. To preserve ‘life as we know it’ we have to devise a way to ensure that those geological carbon stocks continue to find their way back into the atmosphere – including long after the human species is no longer ‘in charge’.
We are (temporarily at least) doing our bit with our ‘polluting’ carbon emissions – but who has dared argue publicly that the obsession with cutting CO2 emissions is the very worst thing that we should do for this planet and its impending ecological collapse? Not Greta and the terrified Infant Eco-Activists! Surely, this is entirely an appropriate topic for sceptical debate?
Nope imho; SARS COV2 and Climate Change ( or whatever there current term for “weather” is used) are inextricably linked. Corrupt “scientists” (aka modellers and psyops commissars) creating a narrative with only the flimsiest of truth ( universally adopted as “settled science” ) by those pushing a wider narrative set against a multitude of empirical fact attacked by the “settled science” coordinated cabal. Net Zero will make SARS COV2 look like a sneezing fit.
I think that this article minimises the danger of lowering CO2 levels.
If we were to drop back to 380ppm we would lose 15% of our agricultural output – which would be a disaster causing famine in many nations.
If we were to drop to 180ppm, this is the level at which all plants start to die due to CO2 starvation. If this were to happen, ALL life on the planet would cease, since every living thing depends on plants.
I wonder why these well-established facts are simply ignored by the activists.
Whilst i’ve no issue with the context of your comment, it’s technically inaccurate, whilst I appreciate the sun/co2 give’s life to plants & plants indirectly to most species. Water is actually essential to all life, there are life forms who aren’t reliant on plant life, but not water, the water carries nutrients where the sun don’t shine & plants don’t grow. Sulphur can support a whole food chain of its own.
Still, begs the question, who are the real greens?
Water is massively important for humans too. I can’t find the quote now, but Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj said that the biggest cause of illness today is lack of clean water. And there is a quote in Phillip Day’s book, Food For Thought, about how the EU ruled that no water sold in the EU can claim to protect against hydration, and linked it to the medical establishment not wanting you to look after yourself. It does indeed sound familiar, and all the rubbish we see today over “covid” has been building for years.
Dodgy Geezer is correct all but for a few details. At 150ppm C3 plant life begins to die. C3 plants are 95% of all plant life.
C3 plants are the most prolific organism on earth and every mammal and most insects rely on them in some form even if only indirectly.
What we’re talking about is the extinction of all meaningful life on the planet. There will be surviving organisms but they won’t be mammalian.
“It is actually a guess that global temperatures will rise by up to 6 degrees C”.
A classic example of the sort of “science” that I would characterise as advanced fantasising – and that we have seen far to much of in relation to a coronavirus that’s been going around (think 6,000 deaths a day).
In my opinion, CO2 is not the main issue. Overpopulation is. Currently we in the UK are overpopulated and do not fulfil anywhere near our food or energy needs, leaving us vulnerable to others such as Putin, price hikes etc, Furthermore, we actually encourage population growth by allowing high levels of inward immigration.
You’ll be popular here (sarc).
There is some truth in what you say and before I’m bombarded with the customary down votes, no I’m not advocating genocide or mass murder. With population comes consumption of natural resources, many are finite, others are being consumed quicker than they can be replenished, these are ecological facts, so is ecological overshoot and no, technology can’t fix every problem we create.
I’m just saying there’s a problem that denial, apathy & ignorance won’t fix.
The over consumption & scarcity of resources is a standard watermelon / Green zealotry trope.
Rationalists need to stop buying into their worldview.
Tim Worstall has posted articles multiple times showing how illogical this obsession is.
https://principia-scientific.com/non-renewable-resources-never-really-run-out/
That is a particularly insular view (we are an island, of course). The growth in population here is nothing compared with the increases on a global scale.
The global birth rate has dropped almost every year since the 1968, and population is expected to peak in the coming decades. Meanwhile, the Earth can provide for many times the current population – particularly if we release plenty of CO2!
Population is HUGE issue. The Ethiopian famine of 1984 made famous by Micheal Beurk and BandAid affected an area whose population was 40million. That same area now contains 160 million. There are no additional agricultural resources in that region, it exists entirely on foreign aid.
That famine would have seen nobody starving if it was not for the civil war at the time, with one side preventing aid from reaching those who needed it. The reality is that Ethiopia has seen a large increase in food production since then. The reality about the global birth rate is that it is slowing down, which is also going to be a factor in Africa in the years ahead. Maybe it will slow down even more if these “vaccines” are as bad as they say!
Only in the sense that insufficient housing has been built apparently to create an illusion of prosperity, farming has been outsourced to France, and so on. By my calculations, it is quite possible to provide food for 10,000 plus people even with traditional farming techniques using one square mile of land, and thus the UK population in an area about the size of Yorkshire. With modern hydroponic farming and high rise building techniques, the world’s population could be housed in an area approximately the size of the Isle of Sky. And looking at the basic elements for life – air, water, elements, energy – there is no shortage of those either. In fact, the eugenicist depopulation agenda seems to be a major driver of both the climate scare and the corona hoax. Further more, the real population crisis is the demographic crisis of an ageing population, a major factor in the current financial crisis, and possibly a motivating factor for the reset that seems to be occurring as the rich grab from the poor while they still can.
And we have high immigration levels because we have effectively outsourced child bearing, though as Mark Steyn has pointed out, probably at the cost of our way of life.
Useful article supporting your argument.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/14/demographic-winter-the-plague-of-the-century/
Thanks. Interesting that Musk is on the right side on this issue too.
Well, we certainly have too many politicians!
And Boris is doing his best to reverse the declining fertility rate in the UK, all on his own.
Overpopulation isn’t the problem. Falling birth rates are.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/14/demographic-winter-the-plague-of-the-century/
I agree we need to stop immigration in to this country, it is now out of control but the planet is not overpopulated. Michael Schellenberg makes this very clear in his book “Apocalypse Never.”
We can adequately feed everyone it’s just that food is not currently moved to those who need it.
Obviously once the burgeoning supply chain crisis kicks in starving populations will become a bigger issue but the problem won’t be lack of production.
Do you want to hazard a guess as to when the UK was last self sufficient in food?.
Do you wish to return to the diet of that time?
Yes, in a word. The population was much healthier in the days of rationing, and spices etc. are much easier to come by now.
Er, the UK was last self sufficient in food in the 1840’s, we’ve been importing since then.
Those spices you like- they’re imported!!
A desire to make the populace subsist on the rationing diet is Puritanism.
Overpopulation is a huge issue as long as it’s them not us getting culled, for any definition of them and us.
The likes of Gates never offer to cull themselves do they?
Some of the science around possible effects of more CO2 is hotly disputed. Whereas “The Science”, actively promoted by Beloved Leaders since 1988, suggesting that the burning of fossil fuels actually controls the climate, isn’t even a plausible hypothesis.
Since actual measurements of an increase of just over 1°C warming since 1850 (largely attributable to Irrigation, deforestation and spreading urban heat island effects) increasingly diverge from the incompetent computer models, (based on policy based evidence making and ignoring changes in insolation, the far bigger warming effects of water vapour) is getting embarrassing for the Global Government types who itch to give Communism another go.
Exactly why they put so much effort into Covid Project Fear. The enormous profits made by Big Pharm being their icing on the cake.
But what cannot be disputed is that the ONLY method of reducing CO2 emissions that makes sense, is Nuclear. All the weather dependent technologies are a complete fraud.
Proof positive that GangGreen, excluding Nuclear as a solution to their imagined problem, are just mendacious twerps.
I’m as anti the climate change insanity as anybody, but I cannot quite understand why that topic gets an airing here when Toby and the team are unable to grasp the catastrophic insanity that is the vaccine rollout.
Could it be that the mass manipulation of the public over Covid is just a practice for the green agenda.
Yes indeed – and the warmistas have frequently over the last two years tried to use it in that way.
I think it’s the other way around.
The topics are not mutually exclusive. We can be sceptical about both. We could also discuss other topics such as wokery, the manipulation of history, our dire criminal justice system, and so on. And if a subject doesn’t interest you, just skip it.
I must say that, as a farmer, I’m rather fond of warm weather and increased CO2.
It’s fair to say it would be much more alarming if it were global cooling, especially for our little island.
And, of course, there are not a few scientists who believe we are now in for global cooling. Antarctica has, of course, just had the coldest winter ever observed, whilst ice levels in the Arctic are now re-building; not that they ever got anywhere near the complete disappearance so often predicted by the warmistas!
Nonetheless, we still see the attempt by Bozo and co to turn Great Britain into Greta Britain.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-59776108 some Portuguese teenagers are going to court to force governments to act, using the European Convention on Human Rights.
Reality shows are all the rage these days. If I were the judge I’d throw the idiots on an island and force them to live the fossil-fuel free lifestyles they want everyone else to live.
How much CO2 does a composting politician generate?
Asking for a friend.
The grand champion of stupid proposal is to build machines to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere.
When trees already exist.
Climate change surely is a religion now. There appears to be three people dressed as Church Ministers in that photograph.
For those on this thread supporting the notion of global overpopulation don’t worry Klaus and Billy and the rest of the Davos Deviants have got this in hand. The covid injections are intended to make big inroads into population numbers by 2030 – Agenda 2030.
Alternatively, do your bit and volunteer as a trail blazer now. You will find Charlie Windsor most grateful.
They’ll be giving extra ‘social credits’ to the families of the exiting volunteers…
https://www.newsweek.com/suicide-machine-sarco-death-pod-lets-users-kill-themselves-revealed-886658
Frigging hell.
Once CBDC is installed, the next mechanism of control is energy expenditure, say personal carbon credits. The same numnuts pushing the global depopulation agenda are the same running the central banks.
I’m always amazed at how the climate change whiners ignore the clear evidence that a warming up planet is natural and has absolutely nothing to do with human activity.
In the northern hemisphere, 21,000 years ago (circa 19000 B.C.) an Ice Cap stretched downwards as far as the south of England.
In 18000 B.C. this Ice Cap began to retreat northwards. Which is a clear indicator that at this time the planet started to get warmer. It’s fair to say that human activity played no part in the planet warming up at this time.
Projections based on clear historical evidence show that the planet will continue to get warmer, and that by A.D. 3000 the Ice Cap will have retreated ever further north.
The climate nuts churn out tales about polar bears and how they are being devastated. Which is a provable lie.
What’s actually happening with polar bears as the Ice Cap naturally retreats northwards is that they are meeting and breeding with black and brown bears. The offspring of these couplings gain genes from both parents, which gives them the ability to live and prosper both in iced over environments, and in green temperate zones.
The black and brown bears, as they currently are genetically, cannot survive in completely iced over environments, whereas polar bears can. Likewise, polar bears, as they currently are genetically, cannot survive in a totally green temperate zone.
But when these different breeds cross, the offspring are experts at hunting and feeding in both arenas.
Climate change or viruses, human beings cannot live outside nature. Nature will always show itself to be the Master.
Excellent short piece pointing to the craziness of trying to ‘straighten the bends in a river’ and the great need to adhere to scientific debate as a means to sorting the wood from the trees. The human race really needs to stop trying to laud it over mother nature and instead try working hand in hand with her. Just maybe, if I were being magnanimous, they are beginning to realize the folly of their geoengineering ways? But need to find someone to blame; i.e. all of us!
Dr Patrick Moore’s book ”Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom” is well worth a read.
These ”models” though – what happened to the recognition of ”RIRO”?
Similar conclusions by Lord Monckton. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/the_new_climate_of_panic_among_the_panicmongers.html
We must realise that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 0.045% and the impact of human addition to that is about 4% of its current value. Many scientists realise that we benefit from the additional CO2 added by humans and a further increase is not going to cause a real problem. Governments have an unnecessary fixation with the aim to reduce human CO2 output which will cripple economies. Please look at the discussion with Dr Patrick Moore the Canadian and one of the founders of Greenpeace at this link:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXxktLAsBPo
The fixation by governments driven by a few scientists with a biased agenda on human cause of climate change is crazy and is wrong when the full history and progress of the earth’s climate is considered. In the UK it seems to be driven by the opinion of Boris Johnson’s wife – who voted for her? There are many scientists with a better knowledge of the issue, not being listened to by governments or the MSM and whose opinions have real value, but aren’t sensationalist like so many of the fright stories based again on stupid inaccurate modeling in a similar way to so much of the rubbish said about Covid. One of many scientists worth listening to is the Canadian Patrick Moore who was a founder of Greenpeace – please follow this link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXxktLAsBPo