It’s all a big ‘conspiracy theory’ that by 2050 we shall be living in mud and grass huts, eating a meat-free diet and giving up most forms of personal transport. Maybe we might not believe it if global elites stopped writing copious reports detailing all these lifestyle changes, which are said to be needed to move to Net Zero. The latest such report comes from the United Nations, which sets out a collectivist global vision of primary building materials consisting of mud bricks, bamboo and forest “detritus”.
According to the UN, the world needs to move to “regenerative material practices” using “ethically produced” low carbon earth and bio-based building materials. Examples include mud bricks, timber, bamboo and agricultural and forest detritus. The report harks back to the middle of the last century when the vast majority of cultures built large buildings and cities out of indigenous earthen, stone and bio-based materials, including timber, cane, thatch and bamboo. Contrasting modern concrete, steel and glass buildings, it observes that “massive mud buildings have been maintained for centuries with their structures intact”.
The UN’s recently published report, ‘Building Materials and the Climate: Constructing a New Future‘, draws on a wide variety of international authors. Heavily involved are Yale University and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, the latter operation drawing financial support from the green activist Laudes Foundation and the British Government. The report is one of a number that have appeared recently that have started to lay out the hard changes that will need to be made in less than 30 years if 80% of the world energy produced by fossil fuel is banned under Net Zero. The construction sector is said to account for 37% of human-caused emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide. Making progress on reducing this will require drastic measures with the report stating that materials such as concrete, steel and aluminium will be used only when “absolutely necessary”.
War on modern building materials has also been declared by U.K. FIRES, an academic collaboration funded with a £5 million state grant. It has called for a ruthless purge of traditional building supplies, to be replaced with materials such as “rammed earth”. In other reports, U.K. FIRES promotes a world with no flying and shipping by 2050, drastic cuts in home heating and bans on beef and lamb consumption. As we have noted in the Daily Sceptic, U.K. FIRES bases its recommendations on the brutal, and many would argue honest reality of 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.
The latest UN report, along with U.K. FIRES, gives a valuable insight into the fantasy thinking surrounding the belief that oil and gas can be removed from industrial society. Clever people can often be very stupid, especially when group-think takes hold and ‘high status’ opinions – in this case surrounding environmentalism – are required to join the club. Net Zero mandates the dismantling of modern industrial society and the discarding of many of the essentials of modern comfortable living. Using flawed, unproven science, these high-status elites have convinced themselves that the climate is collapsing. Those who know their religious history observe doomsday cults emerging in every era, demanding sins should be purged, and humans pleasures placed on strict, supervised ration.
It will hardly be a surprise that the UN buildings report is riven with demands for legislative action and the use of other people’s money to enforce its crackpot schemes. Government “incentives, awareness campaigns and legal and regulatory frameworks” are said to have been effective in previous recycling schemes. “Recycling systems for building materials tend to require similar kinds of support across countries,” the report states. It need hardly be noted that “far more investment” is required for measures that ensure cooperation across sectors and borders. Due to the complexity of what is being proposed, “regulation and synergistic enforcement is required across all phases of the building life cycle, from extraction through to end-of-use”.
Needless to say, when re-ordering the lifestyles of eight billion people around the world, it is important to tackle gender bias wherever it is found – in this case, “formal and informal building sectors”. Gender bias is said to be prevalent across the building trade and in emerging economies. Government programmes (quelle surprise) and policies are needed to expand women’s access to new technologies, marketing information and training to sustain their participation on the ground, the report states.
The biggest muddle however arises from the use of sustainable materials, most of which are grown in the ground. That would be the planned agriculture sector that another elite body is busy arguing should be cut back for re-wilding, another group of elite idiots arguing for nitrogen fertiliser to be banned leading to a 50% reduction in crop growth, another bunch of bright sparks demanding more land for bio-fuels and plant-based diets… to be continued.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Chris is an optimist. These Eco Nazis will ban mud, brick, clay and straw. Except for themselves of course.
The United Nations is a corrupt political organisation open to all manner of external influences except the influences of the voters of democratic countries.
We never get any say in what it does – no say whatsoever.
We have no scrutiny over what it does.
We have no idea who is behind what it does.
Look at this example.
We learn second-hand through this DS article of a “report” from the “United Nations” but have no idea how it came to be produced and who is behind it and what the different views are of those who agree and disagree with it nor why either way. Who wrote it? Why did they write it? Who said it should be written? Why?
What exactly is ‘united’ about these ‘nations’? Which nations are we talking about? Who in these nations agree with what is in the report?
75% of the UN comes from countries with Kings Colonels Dictators and assorted Tyrants. Only 25% come from so called democracies. (I say so called because our own UN lackey politicians are pretty much all onboard with the pretend to save the planet communism)
NATO is no longer needed and should be dismantled not deciding world politics!
The article was about the UN, not NATO.
Nigh on the same thing!
UN,WEF,NATO,CDC,WHO please explain any differences?
And to the downtickers, please explain the differences?
Every time I read stories like this I wonder why all the eco loons are not moving to Africa where life has a lower “carbon footprint”. It also seems to me that eco loons overlap with people who are fine with mass immigration, which is broadly a process of people moving from low to high “carbon footprint” countries.
One billion people don’t even have electricity in this world. I would like all the eco fundamentalist brainwashed dreamers to try this even for a month and see how they get on. They all sit on their couch with a laptop on their knee in their cosy house spouting about the very fuels that allow them to have a laptop, a couch and a cosy house..
They think the internet is powered by unicorn farts.
O/T I just heard about a building site for a single house where they will have a big air source heat pump, under floor heating, air conditioning, etc. A normal single phase electricity supply won’t hack it so they need three phase.
Three months delay and £9,500 connection fee.
In case you were unaware if you work for the U.N. You don’t have to pay tax, and if you have a stdent loan all repayments are suspended whilst you work for them.
Not bad is it, especially as you get to dictate and inflict misery on countless billions whilst like parasites you live off them.
Parasite a noun.
1.An organism that lives and feeds on or in an organism of a different species and causes harm to its host
2.One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.
I think the Dictionary has it about right.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’
Like petulant sqabbling schoolchildren these WHO net zero enthusiasts, with no understanding of engineering, demand that technology delivers the answers to their rabid net zero doctrine.
If they think this is possible then they should switch off their smart-phones and laptops and pick up their shovels and hammers and build an example modern eco village, to show us all how this is achievable and possible. As it is I am unaware of any examples of the successful adoption of these technologies in a way that convinces me that this is at all credible?
These people seem to have their heads so far in the clouds, or possibly somewhere else? that they are demanding that technology deliver that which we have no real idea that it can possibly deliver.
The very day I see the eco luminaries moving into their mud huts I’ll think about it..until then they can write as many reports as they want….I don’t have to read them or take part in any of it..and I won’t…..and neither will millions of others…
We don’t vote for them, we don’t agree with them, and they have no legitimacy over anyone, as far as I can see….I will frustrate and disrupt their plans, lawfully of course, wherever I can….
So at this stage it’s a no from me…..
Eco Socialists would have us back in the Stoneage, where they would be insisting we are running out of stones.——– Wind forward to 2093 where we wonder whether to have Locusts watched down with a pint of steam, or Cricket Pasta (Cavalleta Ravioli) for tea. mmmmmmmmmm delicious. Insects are really nice when you are forced to get used to them.
A little addition to Chris’ excellent piece.
Glass shall be recycled.
And presumably hand sawn timber beams to hold the roof up?
Not sure if you are allowed to glue glass shards together, but doubt it.
Will there be enough bamboo, agricultural waste, trampled mud and bits of glass to build houses for all our jolly invaders, bearing in mind that standards must be equivalent at least to a three star hotel?
Time for a costed and controlled trial project, perhaps in Tower Hamlets?
These reports will form the basis of legislation and regulations. Remember the Tories have been funding this for years. When they try to deny the director or the intended destination ask why they funded such reports if they were to be ignored.
And don’t believe a word they say.
Yup just like ULEZ and Western Bankers financing Hitler for that matter.
I live in a house that has mud and straw, used as insulation during the soviet era. It’s not very hygienic, or warm. So I do wonder what they’re trying to achieve.
I was inside a 12th Centuary building on Monday, and it was built of stone, but the timber had not done so well, although hanging together. I have been looking for a mud building of anything more than 50 years old for a long time, and some thatch may last 50 years if maintained.
This report is completely mad, probably produced in modern steel and concrete skyscrapers for the “elite”. Biological materials all deteriorate very quickly in historical terms, they are both consumed by pests and gradually rot. It seems to me that in general this is a good thing, but buildings are hard to build and need a lot of labour and materials, so lasting is also a good thing. How can anyone want to rebuild everything, every generation? Surely we have better things to do?
These UN people should be given a few sticks, and have to produce a fully functional city, in a year. They should have to grow all their own food at the same time, to show us how it can be done. No fires or fossil fuels either. That should at least keep them quiet, and most of them would be dead in a year too, another bonus!