The other day Michael Deacon wrote in the Telegraph about Just Stop Oil’s antics and likened them to a cult. He was right in every way, but his analysis didn’t quite go far enough.
As a writer I have long indulged the conceit that I am a sort of historian. This has left me with a lifelong sense that I am a voyeur at a car crash, a passive witness to an endless cascade of confusion, stupidity and brutality, punctuated by moments of brilliance and invention, that defines our existence.
There is a long history of cults stretching back over thousands of years. A common, but not ubiquitous, feature is the notion that the world is about to end, usually as a punishment for human misdemeanours, and sometimes accompanied conveniently by a date. When the date passes and the world fails to end, the cult is obliged to reinvent itself or disappear. Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are not so foolish as to name the day our evil way of life will destroy the planet, though they are obsessed with the five minutes to midnight idea. The day the Earth catches fire is depicted as being merely imminent. Both organisations predicate their ideologies on the basis that this will be as a consequence of humanity’s failure to take action to avert the crisis.
With this devastating prospect, the gloves of course are off. With such a catastrophe looming, any action they take is legitimate, however crass (such as throwing soup over a painting) or stupid (like hanging off a bridge). Underpinning all this is the defining feature of the incipient totalitarian state: an intolerance of diversity of thought. Everyone must be coerced into their way of thinking, their views must be those held by the entire population, and any action is justified to force that to happen.
One only need look at some of Extinction Rebellion’s ramblings to see the truth about them. They profess to want ‘direct democracy’, a vision in which they will not stop until their ‘demands are met’. This flagrant abuse of the word ‘democracy’ is as lost on them as it was under former totalitarian regimes.
The underlying foundation is the reactionary fantasy of some pre-industrial utopia where everyone lived a life of sustainable sanctity, all the while overlooking the crippling effects of starvation and disease and being subject to – guess what? – the vagaries of the climate.
I of course would be an enemy in their eyes. But I have no problem with the idea that climate is changing. But it has always changed, and a central part of human ingenuity is the ability to adapt to a constantly changing climate. No-one has yet demonstrated to me how much of the current rate of change is attributable to human activity, or the extent to which changing that activity would have any effect on slowing down that change. These are crucial questions, but usually ignored in the race to create a sense of millenarian doom and turn our world upside down in the pursuit of the Net Zero fantasy.
I have also invested thousands of pounds in solar panels and batteries. They have almost annihilated my electricity bills and, given the worthlessness of savings, make obvious sense if one has the capital to spend. I’m all for increasing renewables, but I profoundly object to being confronted by eco gangsters, bent on panicking everyone into futile gestures. Having just spent a month travelling in the American West where I saw precisely one (unused) EV charging point, I now know the truth meaning of Britain’s Net Zero targets – set against the rest of the world, they will make Net Zero difference.
That doesn’t mean we don’t do everything we can to change the way we live and improve how we do things, but in a measured and considered way and not in a panic. Panic will get us nowhere except somewhere worse than we already are.
The Dartford Bridge stunt also has to be seen for what it really was. Early Christian martyrs competed with each other to be tortured and killed in the most extravagantly awful fashion. Ostensibly, they were dying for their faith, and some certainly thought they were, but they had fallen over themselves to make sure the Roman authorities did their worst. These high-end martyrs were not doing this for the sake of impressing the wider Roman public. Their real purpose was showcasing their righteousness to other Christians like St Jerome who regaled others with titillating tales of hideous deaths. The worst thing that could have happened to them was if they had been ignored.
Competitive martyrdom was a real phenomenon. The Dartford Bridge stunt fell into the same category. The two idiots involved were showing off to their eco chums, upping the stakes, raising the bar for the other saints among their ranks who – if they want to be eco celebs – will have to come up with something even more insane and dangerous if they want prestige and fame within the movements.
And therein lies a very interesting prospect. Since the world is unlikely to end any time soon, and no government worth its salt can possibly give in to these tactics and blackmail, the eco warriors are going to become gradually more frustrated.
By boxing themselves into a corner with uncompromising demands, they are presented only with either giving up and losing face or having to push their campaigns ever further.
They have probably also reached already the maximum extent to which their tactics can garner wider support. A story has emerged of a woman who died after a road accident, the ambulance allegedly having been held up in the congestion caused by the Dartford Bridge protest. There is only so far the public will stomach the movement’s claims that such outcomes are an acceptable price to pay.
All this makes it almost inevitable that the eco movements will begin to splinter, breaking up into factions among which will be some extremists who believe they must resort to outright violence to get their way. Since the groups include some youthful hotheads and, as we all know, ‘there is no sinner like a young saint’, I’d say this is a virtually inevitable outcome.
It is precisely the direction the women’s suffrage movement took over a century ago, dividing into two organisations: the suffragists and the suffragettes. The suffragettes (the Women’s Social and Political Union) under the leadership of among others Christabel Pankhurst resorted to violence, justifying it with quasi-religious binary thinking by depicting the battle as one between good and evil, in which the government is the prime force of evil (exactly how the eco movements depict their campaigns). The war the suffragettes waged was thus a ‘just war’, the justification wheeled out across history to beat someone else up when they don’t do what you want.
Arguments have raged ever since about the impact of the suffragettes’ violent acts, but the arrival of the Great War changed everything and it is now simply not possible to determine whether suffragette violence led to women being given the vote.
The prospect of violence will horrify the ranks of retired vicars and other comfortably-off leisure protesters with their plastic boxes of sandwiches whose only ambition is to warm the cockles of their hearts with an afternoon of righteous zeal in the middle of the road while destroying other people’s businesses and preventing those selfish enough to be ill from getting to hospital. The sight of violence breaking out in eco protests (whether by the eco warriors or by their victims), or even eco suicides, will traumatise the moderate wing.
This is a serious prospect, and another is that if the protests are dragged out long enough the movements will lose momentum and simply dwindle. We can at least hope for that, but in the meantime these useful idiots are playing directly into the hands of an ever more controlling state. One of the most likely outcomes in the near future as a result of economically damaging protests is more state surveillance of everyone, and more restrictive laws on wider freedoms, such as being able to look at paintings in galleries without having to stand a long distance away.
There is one conspicuous difference between the eco warriors and early Christians though. The early Christian martyrs were only focused on their own salvation. Everyone else could go to hell (literally). The eco warriors are the ultimate narcissistic cult. Everyone must be recast in their image and fall down in abeyance before their righteousness. Their Inquisitorial intolerance is a frightening facet of the human condition.
I’ll finish with a story about a friend I’ve known for 48 years. She castigated us recently for our recent trip to the U.S. since she is now an Extinction Rebellion supporter and goes on marches and demonstrations. In the same breath she proudly showed us the architectural plans for the £200,000 extension she is having built and which will cover half her garden in concrete, cement and bricks. She was wholly oblivious to the irony. Oh, and she won’t have solar panels ‘because I don’t like the look of them’. No doubt her zeal will keep her warm when electricity gets too expensive. That’s your middle-class eco warrior. You really couldn’t make it up.
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Though “Just Stop Oil” and “Extinction Rebellion” are justifiably seen as the lunatic fringe of the climate catastrophe cult, I am unable to see any discernable difference between their beliefs, and the beliefs of all major parties in the UK, Australia, and most of the Western World (some of the GOP excepted).
Precisely, which is why governments find it difficult to clamp down on the lunatic fringe, because it is government who brainwashed them in the first place.
Varmint.
Let’s be clear, “governments find it difficult to clamp down”, precisely because they have no intention of clamping down on something that assists their efforts to push us towards Net Zero.
When there are people like “Matt Mouncey” below knocking about, it all becomes part of their long term Project Fear.
Can anyone doubt that if the sane and concerned folk who peacefully protested lockdowns and vaccine mandates had indulged in this extreme type of virtue signalling, the response of the Government and the police would have been, hmm, just a tad swifter and more focused?
A law (if really needed) against immobilising yourself by glue, chains, whatever; with the intent of preventing the public at large going about their lawful business, would have been in place inside a week.
And the MSM would have kept even more quiet about the anti lockdown protests than they actually were.
It would not greatly surprise me if it turned out that Susan Michie and her chums designed all this nonsense.
So I’m somehow facilitating Project Fear, am I?
Because I think that comparing early Christian saints to those that throw tomato soup on Van Gogh paintings and insinuate that both groups are the next terrorists is intolerable anti-religious bigotry?
Care to explain yourself?
Yes I know that. —–Government and the activists are on the same team. They are the governments “useful idiots”. The “useful idiots” do the governments dirty work for them. ———–Climate is highly politicised as you and I well know. If I pour milk over a supermarket, the police will intervene reasonably quickly. But if I pull on a “just stop oil” T shirt and do it they might not intervene quite so quickly if at all. To do things, whether it is regarding migrant crossings or silly brainwashed climate activists you need political will. But there is NONE
As demonstrated by their attack on Harrods, it is a thinly disguised class war.
So, the early Christian martyrs were just competitive virtue signallers who are comparable to kids gluing themselves to the floor in Porsche garages.
The early Christian martyrs suffered the most horrific deaths by a despotic Empire that crucified their God, because they believed they were going to the same place that he was after those horrific deaths. But this “Guy” compares those that are prepared to die because they refused to renounce their beliefs to the kids with the glue on their hands.
It was all a virtue signalling exercise when those Christians were soaked in oil and burned to death as human torches. “The worst thing that could have happened to them was if they had been ignored.”
Sorry Guy, but you sound like someone who wouldn’t sacrifice anything for what you believe. You just like talking about your beliefs in elegant prose and you’ve shown that you can’t actually understand anyone that is willing to give everything they have, up to the point of the most painful death, for a purpose higher than themselves. Your obvious contempt for any religious sentiment is self-justified because you think we Christians want you to go to hell. Well, look around you Guy! We’re all very close to hell right now! I would suggest that’s because people haven’t been willing to sacrifice for what they believe in rather than focus on themselves. Hell is most accurately described as being with yourself for eternity.
I think it goes without saying, but I can’t imagine the early Christian martyrs whining to the Roman centurions that they weren’t given pots to pee in because they felt entitled to such treatment. Neither were those early martyrs trying to make anyone else do anything. They wanted to believe what they believed and would not betray their beliefs when questioned and threatened, up to the point of death. They weren’t doing it for likes on social media or to force anyone else to live the way they chose to.
But people like Guy think the most you should do is whine about it on the pages of the Daily Sceptic, make some money and live a life focused on yourself. Otherwise you’re an “extremist”. I would say the road to hell is paved with such intentions.
When it comes to whining………
Matt, I think you’ve just clearly demonstrated the validity of the author’s point.
A damned fine riposte.
Although there are some commendable points made by de Bodeyere I would say
the put down of early Christian martyrs reveals a somewhat disturbing lack of humanity in the author. Sadly, there is a degree of smugness in applying the standards of today to those of 2,000 years ago. The Christian martyrs are being defiled by comparing them to the eco loonies.
The two evil bastards responsible for the motorway mayhem should be taken to court and charged with manslaughter and when found guilty be given prison sentences of such length that they can experience, in the slightest of ways, a touch of martyrdom.
The driver if the Beemer – what a firkin surprise that is – should be charged with murder and when found guilty sent to prison for the rest of his natural, the evil bastard.
Those responsible for motorway mayhem after the Dartford Bridge protest and anyone who holds up emergency vehicles by gluing themselves to a road are terrorists according to the Terrorism act 2000.
The act states that that a terrorist is anyone who seeks to influence government policy by carrying out actions that among other things:-
Endangers a persons life.
Creates a serious risk to health and safety of the public or section of the public.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism
It’s time that these eco lunatics were called what they are, e.g. terrorists, and put away for life rather than being given a slap on the wrist and a couple of months in prison.
If groups like just stop oil were declared terrorist organisations it would stop them being able to raise funds and gain positive media coverage from rags such as the guardian.
Excellent.
The early christians were martyred in their thousands simply for refusing to sacrifice to the emperor. In later times the church taught that to deliberately court martyrdom as an exercise in “virtue signalling” was morally wrong. There is no comparison between the hugely courageous early martyrs and the narcissistic eco protestors.
The fatal flaw here is to concede even partially to the therrmageddon climastrology nonsense. Energy conservation is just common sense of course although solar panels put together by Uighur slaves are dubious at best and destabalise the grid which adds to costs and the risk of its collapse.
1. No legitimate evidence shows extreme weather increasing or sea level rise accelerating.
2. No legitimate survey of climate scientists shows anything close to the fabled 97% consensus.
3. All apocalyptic climate predictions by academics have failed.
4. Climate models used to generate alarm have no skill when checked against reliable tropospheric temperatures.
5. The most important argument against climate alarmism is that the proposed solutions are unworkable and dangerous and deprive the poor of cheap reliable energy.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/10/20/methane-the-irrelevant-green-house-gas-dr-thomas-p-sheahen/
Quite right Nigel, never concede a co2 molecule of space to this bs.
Indeed, ‘Nullius in verba’.
I have asked Guy to tell us how many thousands of pounds he has “invested” in PV and batteries. Waiting…
Not a very bright admission to make.
M. forgive me, my earlier post was aimed at Mr. Bodoyere and not you.
A good article. It demonstrates the importance of recent history in an attempt to understand modern behaviour – I’ve got no idea as to how history is taught in schools these days, but I don’t expect that schools would like your input to their courses, although it would be useful.
Your comment about your investment makes sense to me – I did the same back in 2014 at my place. Even when the old “Feed in Tariff” expires, it looks like a good investment given today’s import prices! The key point with anything like that is proportionality – not over zealous obsession with any single issue.
Suffragettes were a completely fringe group who did nothing whatsoever for votes for women, there is no trace of evidence to suggest they did. Ppl get cross when told this but the reality is only slightly more than half of men over 21 had the vote before ww1. Obviously having over seen the mass murder of a generation of young men even our establishment couldn’t continue to deny the ones who survived the slaughter the vote. To even the scale the vote was therefore extended to an older group of likely middle class female voters. It had nothing at all to do with equality and everything to do with tactics, and escaping responsibility for mass slaughter. This is at odds with the bilge taught in schools on the topic. In the same way extinction rebellion are irrelevant to the destruction of the power grid, the ruling class are the ones doing it.
It is about time that somebody explained to these technical and financial illiterates the difference between cost of generation and cost of supply of electricity.
It is true that the cost of generation of wind power is lower than gas powered generation, however to ensure reliable electrical supply to homes and industry it is necessary to ensure supply continuity. Wind and solar are not predictable so need the constant availability of dispatchable power generation from conventional sources.
It is necessary to add both together to get the cost of supply so renewables will always bear the cost of an alternative reliable supply which is never factored in by people trying to make a political point.
Very doubtful that windmills, particularly offshore are cheaper. The CfD prices are a fiction and a con. When it comes to it the developers just sell at higher open market prices or double dip by selling the electricity that they have been paid not to send to the grid to various businesses clustering round the sub-stations.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/uk-looks-to-cap-renewable-energy-prices/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/10/06/the-impossibility-of-windmills-2/
Add in the problems of energy storage…
Large scale batteries are immensely expensive: initially, ongoing, and disposal.
The alternatives (e.g. pumping water uphill when the energy is not needed so it can be released to power hydro when the energy is needed), carry many different problems.
Not to mention potentially incredibly dangerous (check out TESLA Megapack battery plant fire on-line).
That is why I am differentiating between the crude calculation of generation cost per MWh, which is what the zealots quote, (because they like the figures) and all the other additional costs that effect what consumers pay, including, as you say, politically motivated contract influences.
Generating costs based on government DBEIS document “ELECTRICITY GENERATION COSTS 2020”
I would vote this up twice if I could.
Exactly having worked in the industry you don’t just supply a quantity of electricity, one sells it by variably by time since demand isn’t a constant. A grid with any large dependency on renewables cannot possibly meet these needs due to the intermittency issue.
“I have also invested thousands of pounds in solar panels and batteries. They have almost annihilated my electricity bills…”
How many thousands have you “invested”, Guy?
Thanks for the article, a great deal of sense.
I have realised for a long time that today’s split milk will be tomorrow’s spilt blood.—-Sir Paul Nurse who was the President of the Royal Society said “So what is special about science that we should trust it? He explained that science gives the “ability to prove that something is not true” . And ofcourse this distinguishes it from beliefs or opinion or faith. However he seems to forget that when science crosses the line and turns into advocacy then we have a PROBLEM. From the activists point of view the science becomes so obviously ultimate truth that immediate action MUST take place. The trouble is though that consensus science or noble cause corruption or confirmation bias is no longer science. It is riddled with incomplete and selective information, claims of certainty where there is none, and total intolerance of alternative points of view. So we have “science” and we have “official science” It is this official science, the purpose of which is to provide the excuse for public policy and change society with hysterical claims of “emergency” or “crisis” for which no real evidence exists that activists cling to like a lifeboat. All that exists are models riddled with assumptions and unknown parameters. It is the easily manipulated people who take all of this at face value and truly “believe” worst case scenario’s from models represent ultimate truth and then take to the streets to lay down and glue themselves to things and throw paint at buildings because they have been “brainwashed” into thinking an apocalypse lies ahead. Endless media coverage where non scientific terms like “climate emergency” are bandied about and that enforces the idea of catastrophe. “Official science” then or “junk science” is used to achieve social and political change but those who indulge in the disruptive behaviours we see today cannot tell the difference between “science” and “official science” and are allowing themselves to become the useful idiots. But if this is not nipped in the bud then people are going to start being hurt or worse…….Today milk on the ground. Tomorrow blood.
Why are the plods too stupid to simply cut the ropes tying the tripod legs together and lower the eco-loon/terrorist to the ground (for a good beating if I had anything to do with it).
This where the eco loons should be placed in stocks and local working ppl should be encouraged to deficate on them.
Couldn’t those two have been left alone once their ropes had been cut?
They are all bought in to the Malthusian inspired notion that there are far too many people on the planet.
When they say that, they don’t mean too many of them. They mean too many of you.
It’s exactly that Neil, misery for thee not for me. It’s a form of eugenics with better pr.
Exactly. Why do the eugenecists never volunteer to show the rest of us ‘the way?’
Another thought about the EcoLoons.
For the last 30 years, Hollywood has been making a particular style of ‘disaster movie’.
Essentially the story is identical with some small changes of setting, but it goes like.
So EcoLoons know what happens with the so-called Climate Emergency. They’ve seen it a dozen times. They are the maverick scientists trying to convince the world they are right. Why you’d want to save all these people who think you’re a jerk is another unanswered question, but you do anyway. Unlike in real life, you get the girl and some respect, and prove yourself to be useful. Hurrah for the underdog..!
Yep, you pretty much got it right. ——-The only problem is that today’s climate scientists are not really scientists as such. They are computer modellers. But unlike in science where scientists look to disprove or falsify things and search for evidence, modellers put assumptions into their model and churn out little scenario’s. But little scenarios are not evidence of anything. Especially when many of the parameters are not well understood or even unknown. eg—– No scientist or modeller knows the true figure for ECS (Climate Sensitivity) which determines how much the earth will warm as a result of increasing CO2. So the most basic parameter in the climate issue is UNKNOWN. mmmmm yet we are told the “science is settled”. —–Nope it isn’t. What is settled is the “official science” ie The Politics.
I’d like to introduce their face to a baseball bat.
While I agree with the main thrust of this article (that the eco warriors are a cult), I find it sad that Guy de la B should find it necessary to attack Christianity and Christian martyrs. While it may be true that some sought martyrdom for the wrong reasons, many if not most died to uphold principles that protect us to this day and to witness to the Christian faith. Not only that, but Guy de la B cannot fully understand Christianity in the first place if he thinks that Christians die for their beliefs only to save themselves; true Christianity is principally evangelistic and their own salvation would have been comparatively unimportant to them compared to saving others. I find these comments on his part outrageous. (BTW, I am a Protestant Christian and may not have expressed myself here as well as I should, but I am in a hurry and feel that I absolutely must respond.)
A heartfelt post and I share your feelings, as per one of my earlier posts.
Thank you for a very interesting article. I too find historical examples a good way to view the current situation. Once upon a time there was the Roman Empire controlling a large part of Europe and telling the subjects what to do, then the Catholic Church and its continent wide influence, the inquisition and various religious offshoots of Protestantism all telling the people what to do or go to Hell as a consequence of not conforming and now we have the climate change worriers. Historically many problems are linked to natural world events such as volcanic eruptions causing famines (Icelandic volcano 1780s leading to harvest failure leading to French Revolution…)
I am sure all these people must live in houses heated by gas or electricity, and lit with electricity also. Perhaps their reward for protests should be to cut off their supplies for a period and see how they manage. As as their water is pumped, that would have to go too.
When the cost of energy is soaring so, does it not make sense in the short term to generate more, no matter how?
Common sense, it’s terrific isn’t it?