Forty years ago, the Liberal leader David Steele told his party to return to their constituencies and prepare for government. Today as the second reading of the Climate and Nature (CAN) Bill is before the British Parliament, the current leader, the clownish Ed Davey, is effectively telling his MPs to return to the voters and prepare to live in mud and grass huts. All 72 Lib Dem MPs are supporting the CAN bill which will cut hydrocarbon use across the entire UK economy by around 90% within a decade. As the Daily Sceptic noted on Tuesday, the bill if passed could lead to mass starvation, death, disease and societal collapse in the near future. Around 200 MPs are reported to support the private member’s bill and with many MPs departing for weekends in often distant constituencies, there is a dangerous chance it could pass.
The massive CAN cut in hydrocarbon use is much higher than the one suggested by the UK Government-funded UK FIRES reports. Assessing the state of current technology, UK FIRES provides a rarely encountered honest assessment that the UK will have only a third of its energy if Net Zero is attained by 2050. All flying and shipping must stop and beef and lamb will be banned. The only new building materials allowable will be earth, stone and timber. A recent United Nations report set out a collectivist global vision of primary building materials under Net Zero consisting of mud bricks, bamboo and forest “detritus”.
The CAN bill calls for a halt to all hydrocarbon exploration, extraction, sale and importation in the near future. This Wednesday, wind and solar contributed nothing to the UK electricity grid and the lights only stayed on, the sewerage works only continued operating and the hospital ventilators were only able to keep critically ill people alive due to the 70% contribution of natural gas. In the ‘near future’, a society without hydrocarbons will collapse and be reduced in short order to brutal primitivism. Of course the bill is little more than a thinly-disguised attempt using meaningless climate and nature claptrap to ration and control almost everything citizens consume. Control of hydrocarbons looks like the magic bullet that command-and-control collectivists have sought for nearly two centuries.
Despite the heavy support in Parliament, the bill has attracted no interest in the legacy media. Even the Guardian does not appear to have noted its existence. Maybe this is because it is a private members bill that is not expected to pass. But perhaps also it is because discussing the bill opens a pandora’s box. Hardly anyone in the UK, apart from the committed zealots, would support such a drastic reduction in hydrocarbon use. A wider discussion of the bill would open up considerable opposition to the Net Zero campaign and the invented climate emergency that supports a fantasy that is fading fast across the world. Not every journalist has kept schtum, so a shout out to Bev Turner of GB News who has produced an excellent 15 minute commentary on the bill that is available on YouTube.
As we noted on Tuesday, supporters of the bill are either zealots or boobies. The zealots have a political campaign to pursue and know full well what they are doing, but the boobies are almost certainly unaware of the vital role that hydrocarbons play in the modern economy. Hydrocarbons are essential for food and medicine production, they power the modern economy and are the basis for materials such as plastics, cleaning fluids and high-quality steel. Possibly Baroness ‘Joan’ Bakewell thinks the organic hummus will still appear on the shelves of Waitrose if this ghastly bill passes into law, while TV personalities such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Chris Packham assume they will be able to continue to broadcast onto every electronic device imaginable around the world. Disappointment inevitably awaits.
The CAN bill is being re-introduced by Lib Dem MP Roz Savage, having failed in the past to gather support when promoted by the former Green MP Caroline Lucas. Support both within and outside Parliament is being whipped up by the campaigning group Zero Hour. Needless to say, much of the funding of its efforts comes from the Green Blob with Friends of the Earth, the Wildlife Trusts and the Climate Coalition mentioned. This latter operation brings together numerous woke-riddled organisations from the Women’s Institute to the National Trust. Also identified as a sponsor is Dale “jail the deniers” Vince, whose Ecotricity operation has collected over £100 million in subsidies running onshore wind turbines over the last couple of decades.
Down the ages, revolutionary groups have often favoured ‘citizen’s assemblies’. Not based on the Parliamentary system with universal suffrage of course, rather they are bodies that are closely controlled and curated to support the wishes of the people as determined by the Dear Leaders. CAN’s proposal for such an assembly is a hoot. It will be established by an “expert independent body” and comprise a “representative sample” of the UK population to “advise” the Secretary of State. The assembly will consider “relevant expert advice” and all its recommendations must have the support of at least 66% of the members. Of course juries can be unpredictable, so to avoid any unwanted opposition the 66% recommendation can be ignored by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
The whole idea is laughable if it wasn’t being proposed in all seriousness. Who can forget the last Climate Citizen’s Assembly when 108 unfortunates were kettled in early 2020 over six weekends and fed a diet of extremist green propaganda? Who would wish to miss the guidance of selected experts such as Chris Stark, then the Chief Executive of the CCC and now the right-hand man to the Mad Miliband? Unfortunately a big disappointment occurred after a hate meat, love veg session when only 10 members out of a third of the Assembly voted that eating less meat was a priority. But the experts rose to the challenge with Mike Thompson, then the Chief Economist at the CCC, putting a slightly different spin on the ball. ”The Climate Change Assembly said it would be happy with a 20-40% reduction in meat consumption. We looked really carefully at the Climate Assembly recommendations and actually we were quite engaged in the process as well,” he said.
Isn’t democracy (properly run by the right people) grand.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Stop Press: Labour MPs who vote for the CAN bill risk losing the whip, the Express reports. Keir Starmer’s backbenchers have been warned not to defy the party by voting for the bill in a sign of worry from the Labour leadership that its MPs will put ‘planet’ before party.
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A copy of this article should be sent to every idiotic LD MP.
It has been, but my ‘Liberal’ (i.e. illiberal) MP (Olly Glover) wouldn’t listen or engage.
His stock response to my request not to support the CAN was full of errors, and showed a complete disregard for facts. That’s what we’re up against
It’s why I don’t even contact mine anymore, she either does not care or does not have the intellect to understand.
I emailed my idiot LibDem MP, Edward Morello (West Dorset).
He hasn’t replied. Stupid is, as stupid does.
I sent my LD MP the previous article. Strangely he hasn’t replied to that although when I first approached him he did reply. Clearly they don’t like having facts getting in the way of their stupidity.
I have the same MP and fully agree with your assessment of him. I have even told him he is useless, but still no reply!
I considered a similar missive to my MP, but decided I wouldn’t risk the Plod demanding entrance on a Sunday morning to accuse me of causing hurty feelings.
I decided not to bother with a civil and restrained request, having concluded that not one of the letters to MPs I’ve sent over the last 40 years has made one iota of difference.
The one constant that has amazed me has been the realisation that MPs appear to be totally unaware of the real facts surrounding any issue which has caused major public concern in either the short or long term. The vast majority are unread, uninformed and uninterested. What the hell do they do with their time, for which we subsidise them handsomely, on a daily basis?
“Totally unaware of the real facts”. ——-They don’t need to know. They only need to follow instructions. They take those from the UN, WEF and Banking Cartels. They don’t work for us, they work for them. They are just globalist puppets. Which is why they all hate Trump so much because he doesn’t follow instructions.
In the year 1970, we discussed in “A” level Chemistry how the oil might run out by 2000. We also did an embryonic environmental project analysing roadside soil samples for lead from petrol, which by the 1980s went on to be phased out as an additive.
In “A” level Physics, we touched on the prospect of global cooling and how we might all be doomed by a double whammy of crop shortages and dwindling energy resources.
I seem to recall our Physics teacher, who had worked for Shell before taking up teaching, told us not to worry – the oil industry was good at finding more.
At the end of every term, The Beak finished the final assembly by reading from St Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians – the passage about seeing through a glass darkly and Faith, Hope and Charity.
55 Year later the oil hasn’t run out yet, but according to the UN we’ve been about to be doomed for decades by global boiling. On the whole, the environment in prosperous countries is cleaner than half a century ago. Poorer countries are a different matter. Go figure, Politics, Philosophy and Economics students.
The density, gradient and continuity of hydrocarbon power remains the bedrock of civilisation upon which all else depends. Nuclear basically does the business too. Breezes and sunbeams are poor substitutes for the real thing.
With the possibilities for new oil and gas fields in the Southern Oceans and elsewhere, it’s plausible there might be enough Terawatt-hour equivalents of energy to sustain humanity to the end of this century.
As inherent by-product of petroleum cracking, we get the chemical feedstock for manufacture of modern-day materials that civilised living relies on. Net Zero by whenever is a contrivance that suits truth twisters with ulterior motives who rustle through parliamentary acts in tribute to King Canute.
What’s needed is an international inventory of planetary resources needed to sustain humanity to the year 2100, and that includes improvements to the lot of impoverished parts of the world. Drill baby drill, mine baby mine, for Africa.
Bit grandiose for a sceptical Friday morning in January, but we could all do with a bit of faith, hope and charity. Up with Internationalism, down with globalism. Human ingenuity will prevail.
Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor. And for the record, Lib Dems, Malthus died centuries ago.
“What’s needed is an international inventory of planetary resources needed to sustain humanity to the year 2100, and that includes improvements to the lot of impoverished parts for the world.”
The Davos Deviants are well ahead on this one and of course for wholly nefarious reasons.
Iain Davis has written extensively on this matter in articles entitled “The Theft of the Commons.” I have posted them here on DS previously.
https://iaindavis.com/global-commons-part-2/
PART 1 is embedded in the above. Long reads but worth the time – jaw-dropping stuff.
Thanks, I’ll look him up (again). FYI, I’m an idealistic scientist, not a politician. Up with decency, down with deviancy.
wink
Thanks for that link. Jaw-dropping stuff indeed. Come across recently:
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2024/11/Decarbonizing-Steel-and-the-full-economy.pdf
“No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts… They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of common sense.”
Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquis of Salisbury, Prime Minister 1885-6, 1886–92, 1895–1902
Same goes for lawyers, politicians and deviants in general.
Thanks.
Experts have to find payment for mortgages at the end of the month from somewhere too.
The problem is that “climate change” isn’t about the climate. So decisions around what energy we all use, which are actually being made at UN level are based on “official science” rather than “science”. International Treaties are attempting to decide what fuels and what energy sources we cannot use. Unfortunately for those who want to rule the world, President Trump is having none of that nonsense. Which is why American citizens will prosper and why UK and EU citizens face a severe cut to their living standards as prosperity is directly tied to fossil fuel use. This is all being done by our Politicians in the West (apart from Trump) under the false pretences of a Climate Crisis. This latest Climate and Nature bill in the UK Parliament today 24the of January 2025 is another nail in the coffin of the freedom and standard of living that we in the UK thought we had. It will affect every aspect of our lives —FOR THE WORSE,— and will have not the slightest effect on global climate. But ofcourse as I said at the start, this is not about the climate and it never was. —-This is an eco socialist fraud that the mainstream media never question and happily play along with, because they are OWNED.
Agreed through and through. The CAN Bill must be canned, but sad fact is parliamentary tukeys have ample previous when it comes to voting for Christmas.
This shows my age. When I did A Level Physics, we never did anything but pure physics; never anything remotely “political”. This was around 1962.
Over 50 years later, the magnification that is memory can play tricks. But for sure, we did discuss oil depletion by 2000, did collect and analyse soil samples, and plausibly heard of global cooling around that time.
Our physics teacher had worked for Shell, and our chemistry teacher had worked in industrial R&D too. Both teachers concentrated on physical science and its implications. Politics didn’t feature.
Same for other subjects too, although in sixth-form General Studies we were recommended Animal Farm and 1984, which in turn led me on to Coming Up For Air and the flying aspidistra.
History teaching stopped at 1914. Anything later was deemed so contemporary it could be considered political, and at risk of being judgemental of living politicians.
The Beak did recite St Paul. Maybe St Paul sidelined by the end of “O” levels, as school fully comprehensive by then. That’s at least 5 years of seeing through a glass darkly 3 times a year. You don’t forget that, especially from a Beak like him.
Educational times.
Hard ti believe the insanity. And yet, suicidal cults do exist. There are several examples throughout history.
Absolutely! And the great thing about them is that they remove the stupid gene from the human gene pool. But this suicide cult will pull everyone in.
Let’s hope their 100% support for this bill marks the end of the Lib Dems once and for all.
They’ve been getting away with the moderate “none of the above” party for far too long.
I live on the same road as a Lib Dem MP who I shall not name, and I can tell you that he or she categorically does NOT live in anything even remotely remembering a mud or grass hut (not that anyone on here would believe they did of course) and the household definitely owns at least two motor vehicles…
Under these new conditions it will be tricky to keep up with the amount of house building required for the expanding population of this country… won’t it?
Noi problem.
If thereis a shortage of mud and reed hut builders just import some more. Along with the reed and possibly the mud.
Diesel or petrol cars? Gas c/heating?
No idea on the heating but I would assume gas since we get regular leaflets through the door proclaiming their virtues and the possession of a heat pump would surely be mentioned.
Cars I have close to zero interest in, possibly one is electric but the other just normal.
Anyone who votes for this Bill isoutting poverty and starvation before party.
We need a massive trial of these people, followed by long prison sentences. Preferably life.
I hope they one day suffer the anger of rhe people they are impoverishing.
Agreed.
But how? We can’t vote the b*stards out and the judiciary is now rigged…
MPs seem to be using template responses and Ai to handle letters from constituents. They no longer listen to us. Our democracy is broken, therefore we have a right to overthrow them.
Labour MPs who vote for the CAN bill risk losing the whip, the Express reports. Keir Starmer’s backbenchers have been warned not to defy the party by voting for the bill in a sign of worry from the Labour leadership that its MPs will put ‘planet’ before party.
Starmer is not completely insane then.
On a slight tangent… I notice that Storm Eowyn has recorded a new record wind speed of 114 mph. MSM are trumpeting this as a “new all-time record”. What they won’t major on is the fact that this is only 1 mph higher than the speed recorded in Storm Debbie in 1961. Or that that storm equalled one in 1945, just 16 years previously.
Why won’t they put Eowyn into context? Because it rather undermines the climate change fanatics’ view that severe weather events are becoming more frequent and more extreme. They’re very adept at picking statistics to prove the points they want to make. So am I, I suppose, but the difference is that I’m not using my statistics to wreck an entire civilisation.
Who on earth is paying these politicians to carry on with these net zero scams? Does anyone know? Britain is dying on its feet. Sad to watch.
I hate to break it to folks, but meat consumption is rising (figures from this week’s Farmers Journal).