One of Britain’s leading climate ‘experts’, Professor Kevin Anderson, has provided a valuable insight into the increasingly bizarre demands that surround the promotion of the collectivist Net Zero political project. Writing in the Conversation, he argues for Net Zero within 12 years, complete with a refit of U.K. housing stock, a withdrawal of all combustion engine cars in favour of expanded public transport, electrification of industry, the roll out of ‘zero-carbon’ energy, and the banning of all fossil fuel production. To achieve his aims, Anderson suggests mobilisation on the scale of the post-war European reconstruction Marshall Plan. Others might suggest his crackpot schemes will leave the country facing a similar scale of destruction, ruin and poverty to that caused by the Luftwaffe.
Anderson is currently a Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and he has plenty of form when it comes to extremist claims and calls for widespread rationing. As early as 2010, he was calling on politicians to consider a rationing system “similar to the one introduced during the last time of crisis in the 1930s and 40s”. He also suggested a limit on electricity “so people are forced to turn the heating down”, and a limit on goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.
On a practical level, Anderson’s latest calls for radical societal restructuring under the guise of a ‘climate emergency’ are plainly ridiculous. Retrofitting Britain’s well-ventilated housing and industrial stock along with installing heat pumps would cost around £3 trillion, according to a paper published last year by the technology professor Michael Kelly – equivalent, it should be noted, to Britain’s annual GDP. That, of course, is before we’ve factored in the cost of Anderson’s other plans such as retrofitting the entire industrial and transport infrastructure, all within the next 12 years. In its more sane moments, even Extinction Rebellion might be proud of such an ambitious plan.
The Conversation is obligatory reading for those aiming to keep fully up to speed with the latest climate, Net Zero and woke fantasies. It purports to be an independent source of news analysis, written by academic experts working with professional journalists. To the mainstream media, it offers “media-ready” experts and “free” content. It is funded by academic institutions and receives money from a number of billionaire Foundations. Media partners include Reuters, PA Media, Reach (owner of the Mirror, Express, Daily Star and multiple local U.K. newspapers) and Apple News.
Collectivist economic solutions alongside the ubiquitous woke dogma are increasingly dominating debate around climate change. This blatantly political agenda is said to be dictated by ‘the Science’ which its advocates then refuse to discuss, a ruse used to disguise the paucity of evidence that humans control the climate thermostat. Net Zero is becoming the dividing line in the age-old battle between Right and Left, Free markets and Socialism, Cavaliers and Roundheads. In the U.S. the issue is rapidly becoming yet another fight between the Republicans and the Democrats. Similar trends are likely in the U.K. and Europe as Net Zero starts wreaking economic and social havoc.
The Conversation is to the fore on climate wokery. In 2020, two UCL geography professors Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis argued in its pages that colonisation marked the beginning of the Anthropocene (a political renaming of the current Holocene epoch), and racism and the climate emergency shared common causes. In his recent article, Kevin Anderson argues that “given deep inequalities”, the rapid reduction of material consumption and the deployment of a zero-carbon infrastructure “is only possible by re-allocating society’s productive capacity away from enabling the private luxury of a few and towards wider public ownership”.
Last week the Daily Caller castigated the IPCC summary report of its work over the last five years as a “woke dumpster fire masquerading as science”. Any scientific credibility the new UN report might have had is called into question by its “extensive use of ‘woke’ buzzwords”, it said. Variations of the words ‘equity’ and ‘inequality’ are said to appear 31 times in the 36-page document. Variations of ‘inclusive’ and ‘inclusion’ appear 17 times. Apparently, the document mentions ‘colonialism’ and repeatedly refers to climate and ‘social justice’ for ‘marginalised’ groups.
The Daily Caller quotes a section of the report that states: “redistributive policies… that shield the poor and vulnerable, social safety nets, equity, inclusion and just transitions, at all scales can enable deeper societal ambitions and resolve trade-offs with sustainable development goals”. The publication notes that if you think ‘equity’ is a fundamental pillar of scientific knowledge, then this is the report for you. ”But if you’re like most people and don’t think far-left political priorities have a place in scientific documents meant to advise policymakers, this should alarm you,” it concldues.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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“Now it’s more like 80 to 90 per cent arrive in a pushchair, dummy in mouth and wearing nappies, unable to take off their coat or eat with a spoon,” Sorry, but although lockdowns were evil, these particular problems will have little, if anything, to do with lockdowns. Even the pushchair…we’ve had a long period now in which children have been able to walk outside with their parents quite freely. These problems are due to deficiencies in parenting and in fact had been observed before lockdown as well. The only thing that can be levelled at lockdown is that some parents will use anything as an excuse.
Was there ever a time when parents couldn’t walk outside with their children as much as they wanted to?
Not any time that I can remember. At least not in this universe.
I don’t know. I remember a tale of a woman on the Southbank out with her toddler being approached by the police and frantically doing star jumps to claim she was exercising (lockdown #1). It may have been utter bull, but others on reading this may think “I’m not chancing it”
Also, these things were never banned but people thought they were, which was enough to stop them. And some police thought they had the right to accost people too, which is shocking & outrageous & they should be fired immediately for horrendous overreach. Nazi scumbags like that are not fit for positions of responsibility of any kind.
Seriously some police should go to jail for this and other human rights abuses.
I do agree that it’s not at all uncommon for parents to seek to offload responsibility that should be within the remit of the parents to primary schools at every given opportunity. However, there is much more that can be levelled at lockdowns than this. It is empirically evident due to various assessments of mental and development health, and how it has deteriorated across the nation, that the intuition that locking children away in their homes, restricting access to their peers, etc, will harm their health in all sorts of ways, has been proven correct.
While these problems may have existed prior to lockdowns, on both sides of the proverbial pond I might add, alas they have clearly grown (what’s that word again? EXPONENTIALLY!) since then. Lockdowns were gasoline on the fire. The stricter and longer the lockdown, the worse it became. Truly stranger than fiction.
You may well be correct in your assertion but I don’t care. I am more than happy to add this child abuse to Bozo’s charge sheet. Any little scrap serves our cause.
I agree with perhaps 90 per cent of this article’s content, except for one glaring fallacy throughout. That is that the author tends to conflate the effects of lockdown with the effects of the pandemic, and refers to each as the causal agent of these harms interchangeably, thereby suggesting that “pandemic = lockdown”, i.e. there are no other alternatives.
It is suggested in several places, expressed in various ways, that the pandemic affected children’s education to the tune of putting them way behind academically and developmentally. The evidential truth, however, is that the pandemic, as in the impact of the virus, had negligible effect on children, but the lockdown, however, possibly affected children more so than any other demographic.
It is a very dangerous thing to suggest within wide-reaching media that it was the pandemic that had such a devastating effect on children, when in fact it was the lockdown and the restrictions on children’s education imposed by the government that was responsible for this: If the idea that an inevitable respiratory virus was the main causal agent for the suffering of children and their families is ingrained into the collective consciousness, it becomes a handy means for the state to dodge accountability for the mayhem they caused, when in fact any number of alternatives (eg. the strategies outlined in the Great Barrington Declaration) could have been proposed, other than the Xi Jinping model!
Indeed, that is true. And it doesn’t even require a full lockdown to do damage to children either. A combination of nonstop doom and panic mongering (which leads to some degree of “voluntary” lockdowns imposed by fearful parents) and/or prolonged school closures can be almost as bad as a full lockdown as well. Had they adopted the “flu strategy” from the get-go, and no panic mongering, that would have had the least-worst outcomes overall.
Yes, like the pre-pandemic preparedness documents that were honed to perfection over decades and then hastily thrown on the fire!
Exactly. Given how often this government has told us that they are following a new scientific method now understood to be ‘The Science’ you are not telling me that amongst the many doctors and professors enrolled in ‘The Science’ they do not have one or two who could have outlined the many dangers to our children of lockdowns?
Bu#lshyte!
The Mail should of course refer to the “shamdemic” and “government human rights abuse”. Being collaborators though (including printing that disgraceful Hancock piece) they will never do that.
If the coerced consensus was right, it would be naturally contagious (from Livestream #130)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zgr15VxtYg
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Lockdowns, the Trojan horse “gift” that keeps on giving, it seems. The ongoing long-term consequences, which were totally foreseeable by literally anyone with two brain cells to rub together, is truly a slow-moving tragedy in progress, and a travesty as well. Infancy and early childhood simply cannot be re-run, nor can any other stage of development for that matter, and the damage is done. While obviously we should all say “NEVER AGAIN!” and really mean it this time with regards to anything even remotely resembling lockdowns (and of course school closures too), to prevent further damage, I am sadly at a loss when trying to come up with solutions to repair the damage already done.
If you don’t feel absolutely outraged right now, check your pulse ’cause your might be dead! (Or brainwashed, which is basically the same thing for the soul.)
Don’t worry – I feel absolutely outraged.
Whilst I agree that the lockdowns were appalling for children, if your 4 yr old can’t speak properly; can’t walk anywhere and isn’t toilet trained, it’s YOUR fault.