No bricks, the walls and foundations made of compacted earth, cement made from clay and glass scavenged from demolition skips are just some of the construction changes needed to comply with Net Zero by 2050. The latest paper from Government-funded U.K. FIRES looks to “minimise new construction”, and notes the shape of the urban environment will change, allowing for “denser living and reduced transport needs”.
The latest U.K. FIRES paper seems to have slipped out quietly at the end of last year and has to date attracted little publicity. But the group, which comprises a number of academics led by Cambridge engineering professor Julian Allwood, made headlines around the world recently with previous work noting that all flying and shipping must stop by 2050, beef and lamb must be banned, and only 60% of energy will be available to cook food and heat homes. The group, which receives £5 million from Government sources, is interesting because it bases its recommendations on the brutal, and many would argue honest, reality of absolute Net Zero. It does not assume that technological processes still to be perfected or even invented will somehow lead to minimal disturbance in comfortable industrialised lifestyles. It could be further argued that its continued existence and pronouncements are important, since they highlight the dishonesty and deceit that surrounds many other Net Zero promoters.
U.K. FIRES sees the future of construction based on stone, earth and timber, along with components “reused and repurposed” from demolition. Recycled steel, cement and bricks can be used, although this will be “constrained” – rationed might be a better word – by a supply of “non-emitting electricity under high demand”. Transformational construction changes will take longer to achieve, state the authors, but the U.K.’s ambitious target of a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030, “can only be achieved through reduced material demand”.
Building without bricks is an interesting suggestion and over two billion are currently produced each year. But bricks require high firing temperatures, and the enormous cost of Net Zero energy makes them uneconomic to produce. Cement also requires energy to make but it can be mixed with calcined clay. Nevertheless, calcined clay is also energy intensive and can only supplement 50% of Portland cement. “As a result, the mass low-cost consumption of concrete will no longer exist,” the authors note. Together, bricks and cement generate annual turnover of over £10 billion. Rammed earth, which can be used for foundation screeds and walls, is said to be a proven and potentially zero emission alternative, “which can utilise abundant local materials”.
Glass looks to be a complete no-no, with production requiring temperatures of 1,700°C and producing additional process emissions which cannot be avoided by electrification. Only recycled glass seems to be acceptable for the absolutist authors, so the need for complete circularity, “will somewhat constrain the supply of glass”. However, add the authors helpfully, this will “encourage direct re-use and reconditioning of glass panels from demolition sites”.
Steel is widely used in modern construction due to its large load-bearing properties. Around the world, recycled steel accounts for about a third of current production. To have zero emissions from producing steel relies on energy-intensive carbon capture and storage technology, which the authors observe, with their customary honesty, “is unlikely to be economical by 2050”. In the U.K., 85% of steel is already recycled, and it is explained that the Net Zero transition will heavily restrict its supply. Recycling of aluminium is said to be the “preferred zero emission compatible pathway”, and this will lead to “higher prices due to a restricted supply of the material”.
Timber is also constrained by carbon emission production processes, and sustainable supply is limited by forests unable to rapidly match increased demand. The construction industry accounts for a seventh of all plastics used in the U.K., but needless to say, there are problems. Although plastics play a vital part in insulating buildings – plastic doors and windows can be sealed much more effectively than wood – the authors note that they will become “increasingly constrained and expensive to produce”.
At times, your correspondent might be accused of exaggerating the effects of Net Zero, a collectivist political agenda increasingly divorced from the reality of modern living. But phrases such as “economic and societal breakdown”, and “mediaeval mud huts within 30 years”, would appear to be increasingly justified. Look at what is actually being said and done. In the Brecon Beacons, a new college called Black Mountains (BMC) is promoting its new climate breakdown university degree. One short course offered by this seat of learning is ‘Composting Toilets‘. This will serve as a “high quality exemplar” that will inform the design and building of some of the “potential future facilities on the BMC campus”.
As well as learning, this new college is obviously a seat of great easement as it moves effortlessly to a Net Zero future. The World Economic Forum says you will eat bugs and own nothing – to this might be added that you will crap into a hole in the ground, and, of course, be happy.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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My nhs trust has announced that while it’s ok to accept cheap gifts in kind this year, we should only accept ones that can be wiped down (eg cellophane wrapped), and it is recommended that the gifts are put in quarantine for 48 hours. You couldn’t make this shit up!
All ‘gifts’ should go straight into the incinerator. And make sure you have your fireplaces filled with roaring logs to burn The Virus off Santa when he comes down the chimney.
Fan the flames by leaving the window wide open, and don’t forget to park granny right beside it.
‘cos you can never be too careful. All about safety innit?
Literally insane.
Absent office environment for 30+ years; what was the name of that Round Robin game in which everyone great and small is anonymously selected to buy a present for a random other (max £5.00 or so).
“Secret Santa” rings a bell.
Obs if I got selected to buy a present for a Covidiot it would either be luxurious packaged sanitizer or a bumper pack of the cheapest face masks.
But if there’s a crease in the cellophane – then what?
You can be safe in the knowledge that there will be no gifts to the NHS from me this year thanks to their selfish and disgraceful attitude of late.
“…thanks to their selfish and disgraceful attitude of late.”
Thank you for putting me straight about my attitude. Not sure my patients would agree with you though.
And of course this saves money for the companies.
The gullibility is staggering.
On a brighter note I was at a party last night in a large hall and it was packed. Two hundred plus attending. Everybody hugging, kissing, shaking hands; it was heart-warming to see.
Had a party like this myself lately. Everyone behaving completely normally with the exception of some managers who were fist bumping. I refused and held out my had to shake!!
Last year, before the churches were closed (!!!), there was service at which this ghastly fist-bumping and elbow-bumping was ‘recommended’. I walked out at that point.
This happened to us, 400 UK staff + partners was deemed too much of a risk. Why we are not considered adult enough to manage our own risk was not explained.
I suspect they aren’t worried about the risk to you, more the risk of half the company having to isolate at home after and how much they would be demonised in the press if anyone dares to die over xmas.
The Office Xmas party scene has been a shadow of its former self for years dating back to when companies that provided free alcohol became responsible for the behaviour of their staff and guests until they reached home.
This meant that if, following a perfectly well behaved, if riske, performance at the Company party, Daryl and Ryan from Accounts later got plastered at a Nitespot before beating someone up, their employer could be held responsible.
Same applies in the case of staff driving home from the Company do when over the limit and causing third part damage.
Spot on. A long time ago, I was, at various times, “management” in three of the largest UK advertising agencies. The Christmas parties were something else, at places such as Stringfellow’s and The Pheasantry in Kings Road. The drink that went down was incredible, as were the Polaroid photos of various persons “in flagrante”. At one agency, we had as clients Vauxhall, Goodyear and the COI Road Safety campaigns. Anyone caught driving drunk in a company car after the Christmas parties would have cost us the accounts, worth £millions. The hotel bills (Claridges, Savoy etc.) and the taxi bills (Brighton, Home Counties) that the company paid were out of this world.
Latterly, as a self-employed person, my parties had but one attendee, which was far less stressful.
Ah, the Original Office Christmas Party…those were the days! When it actually was held in the office and not some overpriced venue charging through the nose per person for some scraps of food (we had pay for ourselves!) Where everyone went but didn’t really want to go, where you go “for just the one” and end up staying to the bitter end, where some bright spark suggests “going on to somewhere else”…where you enter the zone of the “lost hours” with just a few vignettes to remind you where you were and who with, and somehow you manage to find yourself staggering in at about 5am with absolutely no idea where time went. And all the gossip the next day, hoping you’re not part of it! I almost pine for those days again!
This ^^^^ totally .
Last time I did that was only 4 years ago. 3 parties in a week, Tuesday Wednesday Friday three different companies one I consulted at ( Tuesday ) some of us ended the evening at Spearmint Rhino. One I owned ( Friday ) I consumed enough alcohol to kill a small horse then spent Saturday morning in bed in a hotel with my ( then ) mistress.
Happy days.
I no longer drink at all or have a mistress.
Happier days now but kinda miss the old days.
Brilliant. Thanks.
The so-called “Nudge Unit” (aka Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda – Goebbels’ Department for Enlightenment and Propaganda) have much to answer for.
It will take a generation or more for this accumulated fear to be bred out of the population – and that’s if we start now.
‘has’ much to answer for. Oh for an edit facility!
There is an edit facility that lasts until 10 minutes after you post OR until someone replies to it.
It’s the little gearwheel/cog icon to the right of the word ‘reply’.
Disappears after 10 minutes
Queenie says: “I wasn’t wearing a face mask at the G7 Party!”
It’s not just office parties that are being cancelled it’s also children’s school Christmas plays both in the state and private sector. Apparently some local authorities are advising it’s not advisable for groups of parents and children to be mixing. Meanwhile in the real world they are all getting together in restaurants, parks etc. The killjoys are still keen to cancel Christmas.
Fortunately I think privately many are ignoring this rhetoric.
We have a house full of friends this weekend. Great stuff
Anything to avoid bother or responsibility, these people really are using Covid to suck the joy out of of life in a way not even seen during WW2 which really was an existential crisis.
Killjoys have had Christmas for themselves every day since last March.
…Such as the 40-something nurse who visits my elderly neighbour every morning to supply her with opioids, alternating between arriving in two different cars, for both of which presumably expenses are charged. She always scrupulously dons her hi-vis jacket for the 3ft walk across the deserted pavement between whichever car she is driving and my neighbour’s gate. Gotta wonder whether she clicks her heels at the threshold. Invigorated since the onset of fascism last year, she has now taken to telling me off for running in the morning without armbands, claiming she can’t see me until I’m nearly under her wheels or flying backwards over her windscreen. But the fact is that there’s a damned pavement all the way from the beginning of my run to the end, which obviously I always stay on. People like her are walking 10 foot high at the moment. Make no mistake – when the time comes to round up the unvaccinated, many such “killjoys” will be in seventh heaven.
Anyone who hasn’t yet read Stanley Milgram’s book on his electroshock experiment, or watched the superb film “Compliance” (2012), I would beg you to do so.
The juxtaposition of ‘fascism’ and ‘armbands’ in your post brought an interesting picture to mind!
Insecurity takes many forms.
On a rare venture out of doors earlier this week I was pleased to see a group of a dozen or so children from the nearby Junior school waiting on the kerb to be shepherded across by their teacher. All wore hi viz smocks but no masks.
I can only assume they were headed for the park at the end of my cul-du-sac where they have a much neglected herb garden set aside for their use. Happy days returning again one would hope.
We should not cease from repeating the fact that, at this point in time, such caution (if necessary) indisputably proves that official management of this virus (if you accept it as a big deal) has been an utter, bollocking failure.
Watch this space. Last week, son took all his staff out as a thank-you for their performance over the last year. So 40 people packed into bars and then a restaurant all evening. I will report back as to whether they were compromised.
And to make it worse, some are spending their time manning a stand at an exhibition, mingling with the great unwashed, over the weekend.
Shocking disgusting behaviour!!!
No fun should be had by anyone!!!
I will relay your message to him, but I suspect I know his answer.
GMB pioneered this a few weeks back.
Bedwetting pish from businesses who believe vaccines don’t work.
I would rather repeatedly smash myself in the face with a mallet than attend my company’s Xmas do. It’s not that I’m unsociable or that I don’t like Xmas, but quite frankly I spend enough time with my tosser colleagues all year without having to then pretend I’m enjoying a third rate turkey dinner and watching them dancing badly to Slade afterwards.
Yes, it must be bad enough working in an office or for some white-collar outfit all year round, either in the private sector or the public sector, let alone attending the “Every Fool Can be a King for 10 Minutes”, “World Turned Upside-Down” pre-Christmas event, the function of which is to get people to knuckle down to all the bullsh*t during the rest of the year. There are examples of this in many horrible cultures. Be “cynical” for a day and then lap it all up for a year, then repeat.
I committed the cardinal sin of not attending the Christmas party at a former job. The boss took it as a personal affront. I attended the next year, and may have done something ‘untoward’ because when I didn’t show the year after that he didn’t say anything at all.
I used to argue with my schoolfriends that Slade were better than T-Rex, sadly I was wrong but ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ has stood the test of time better than anything from Mr Bolans ouvre
Come to my party!
Ours is going ahead, for now, no restrictions I am aware of. The organisers did a poll to see if people would come and the response was strongly in favour – we shall see if people go through with it.
I remember these parties and corporate events, always cringeworthy attempt of the business types to “improve teamwork culture” by making office workers pretend they love to have fun with each other. The reality is if you sit with someone in the office the whole day (even if they are cool, decent people), you are not very inclined to spend even more time with them after work or party with the same people. I for one am very glad I no longer have to participate in them (independently from the pandemic).
The spike protein and cancer???
Spike protein inside nucleus enhancing DNA damage? – COVID-19 mRNA vaccines update 18 – YouTube
Yep: a little Doomsday machine. If it doesn’t get you quick, it’ll get you slow!
For many of the vaxxed it will be their last Christmas. They should party like there’s no tomorrow.
I’m sure the “risk of covid” is not what they’re really worried about. They’re worried about the very real risk that Saint Boris will wobble, will cave to the pressure for lockdown, just like he did last year, forcing the party to be cancelled. “I won’t cancel Christmas, it would be inhumane … oh… I’ve just done it.”
Best bet would be to use outside caterers with a ‘no charge if cancelled by bozo’ clause, leave them to worry about the insurance and wasted food.
Good opportunity for those back at work to turn up in droves at the homes of those still working from home and demand a party! Can’t really see why any DS users would want a firm’s Christmas party to mix socially with sheep unless to enjoy watching the hypocrites at play.
I hope those who attend Christmas parties this year have fun, whether they’re sanie brainers or jabby pod clot-bots (in the latter case, perhaps try a game of “Pin the Braincell on the Smartphone User”?) – because this may be the last real-life Christmas party that you go to for a long time.
Latvia is already under a countrywide 8pm to 5am curfew.
Austria will put the unvaccinated under limited house arrest from Monday.
Interesting to see Prof Neil Ferguson, the infamously inaccurate doomsday modeller (and now self appointed vaxx expert) waxing forth today in favour of boosters; having doubtless been instructed by his paymaster Gates to do his duty. The BBC is giving full coverage to this latest intervention(of course):
‘Rolling out booster jabs to younger age groups could help cut Covid infection rates to low levels across the UK, a leading scientist has said. Prof Neil Ferguson said data suggests a third jab gives significant protection, even against mild illness. He said he saw “no reason” why younger age groups should not be offered boosters after priority groups.
He also said the UK was unlikely to get a “catastrophic winter wave” this Christmas.’
Of course he never explains how a vaxx that doesn’t stop either infection or transmission (by the maker’s admission) can be of any use anyway.
There was once a time when most vaccinations were for life, otherwise they were just called treatments. Administering an experimental drug (indeed any drug) via a needle never before conferred vaccinated status, but I guess if the WHO now say it does it must. mustn’t it?
PS: Good job we don’t have to keep trooping back every 6 months throughout our adult lives to the doctors for TB, Smallpox etc or we’d have arms like pincushions and the NHS would be overwhelmed…
:
So the corporate blob cancels the parties.
Organise your own, but don’t invite the Lockdown Stasi. Make it clear they’re unwelcome.
#Direct democracy.
How about a massive, country-wide Christmas party for all the healthcare workers, first responders, etc. who were sacked for refusing the jab? There’s a party!
The geniuses are locking down again (courtesy of Tom Woods)
Today someone shared this chart, generated by the Financial Times. Try to pick out which one of these countries hasn’t implemented a vaccine passport system:
https://mailchi.mp/tomwoods/lockdowneurope?e=6fe7ac95b6
Christmas is when individuals and employers show their true colours
I have fond memories of a super-spreader at our office parties.
Its almost like Bernard Manning is back amongst us
If only!
The company I work for had a business conference at the NEC recently and aside from the NEC requiring you to have an NHS covid pass ( proof of vax or negative test LFT or PCR) to enter, I wouldn’t have known covid was a thing.
No masks mandate, no social distancing – I saw plenty of hand shakes and hugs, no awkward elbow bumps.
Must have been there with 3500-4000 other colleagues and only a handful of people had masks on (excpet NEC staff).
By the evening, when the free alcohol was flowing, not sure I saw a single mask – everyone dancing and having a good time.
The majority are over it, even those who have been bought into the narrative.
“…aside from the NEC requiring you to have an NHS covid pass ( proof of vax or negative test LFT or PCR) to enter, I wouldn’t have known covid was a thing.”
But that’s a huge thing, isn’t it? It’s crazy, given that the “vaccinated”, who are more likely to test positive for covid than the unvaccinated, can enter places without showing any evidence of current covid test status, whereas the “dirty unvaxed” have to jump through this hoop even though they are “safer” to be around than the vaccinated. I went to an English theatre recently, only because it was a booked performance that had been cancelled in the first lockdown, and my child was desperate to attend. I told them I was exempt from both the “vaccine” and from being tested. The person at the door looked totally bemused, like they’d never heard of exemption even being a thing, but I just walked straight in, as I was so pissed off with the whole thing and in no mood to be messed with. I don’t think I will be going to the theatre again, or any other large social venue, not while this medical apartheid is going on. I will not support this discrimination. It is wrong on so many levels, and I hope others will take a stand too, vaccinated or not. We must not comply with this fascist dictatorship.
It is depressing. I think these companies would find that if they do go ahead with their events and place the onus on the indivudual employee to keep themselves safe, most would be willing to join in the festivities even those who have decided to permanently work from home. Perhaps the FT companies just want ( or need) to save money?
I suppose it will reduce the number of embarrassing photos posted online.
Yep those amazing vaccines really worked and made everybody free as a bird!?