As any level-headed sceptic knows, a great deal of climate change activism is about posturing and virtue-signalling. No surprise then that part of an Amazonian rainforest has been obliterated to accommodate the upcoming COP30 summit. The BBC has the story (so it must be true):
A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.
It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.
The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.
The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.
Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side – a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (eight miles) through the rainforest into Belém.
Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area.
Berry harvests have been destroyed with no compensation to the farmers. Wildlife has been disrupted too:
The road leaves two disconnected areas of protected forest. Scientists are concerned it will fragment the ecosystem and disrupt the movement of wildlife.
Prof Silvia Sardinha is a wildlife vet and researcher at a university animal hospital that overlooks the site of the new highway.
She and her team rehabilitate wild animals with injuries, predominantly caused by humans or vehicles.
Once healed, they release them back into the wild – something she says will be harder if there is a highway on their doorstep:
“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss.
“We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” she said.
“Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”
Needless to say, the underlying reason for this gratuitous destruction is political self-interest:
The Brazilian President and Environment Minister say this will be a historic summit because it is “a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon”.
The President says the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world, and present what the federal Government has done to protect it.
Worth reading in full.
Meanwhile back in Britain, Britain’s eco-warrior Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the tireless advocate of Net Zero at any price, is putting his money where his mouth is with his own brand of virtue-signalling.
According to the Telegraph, Mr Miliband has installed a heat pump in his north London home.
In 2023 his house was awarded an Energy Performance Certificate of grade D. A year later, with a heat pump installed:
The green heating system lowered the home’s carbon emission from 12 tonnes to 4.5 tonnes, but the property’s energy rating only rose to a C grade as a result.
Chris Norris, of the National Residential Landlords Association, said he was unsurprised a heat pump had “little impact” on Mr Miliband’s EPC.
He said: “At present, the metrics used are focused on cost of heating, and gas is significantly cheaper per unit than electricity.
“It is perfectly possible, as things stand, for an EPC score to deteriorate if switching from gas to electricity as the primary heating fuel. Changing this is one of the policies being consulted on by the Government.”
It seems two companies were involved in assessing the properly. Bizarrely:
Furthermore, the recorded floorspace of Mr Miliband’s property was assessed as being 252 square metres – 30 square metres less than had been recorded in the previous assessment only a year before.
There’s an explanation:
The assessor responsible for the new grade is a former hypnotherapist who retrained to be an assessor five years ago. He told the Telegraph that the training took “only around a week” to complete.
He said: “A lot of the time it’s low-paid – estate agents just use you. We’re the lowest of the low, really. EPCs don’t have a very good reputation.”
Dr Toby Gledhill, who led a PhD study into the flaws in EPCs, said of the Energy Minister’s assessments: “The floor area has shrunk quite substantially, by more than 10% between these two EPCs which are only a year apart.
“The smaller floor area means a reduced volume of space to heat, which leads to greater economy and this is reflected in the improved energy rating of the more recent EPC.”
In other words, the new EPC achieved a (slightly) higher grade because of the reduced heating requirements, not because of the heat pump.
The solution would appear to be simple: shut off as many rooms as possible in your home and see your EPC skyrocket. Then you can open them up again after the inspector has gone and save yourself the cost of a heat pump.
Or perhaps the Government could employ more hypnotherapists to encourage people to install more heat pumps?
Also worth reading in full.
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