This is the 14th chapter of a novel being published in serial form in the Daily Sceptic. It’s a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the UK in the near future. Read the first 13 chapters here.
Forgive the nihilistic tone of this article, wrote Theo, but I write this from the post democratic dystopia of East Anglia’s National Harmony Re-Education Centre, a surreal, gargantuan encampment of grey and mottled green outhouses spread out as far as one can see on concrete stilts over former fen land.
He paused, searching for a metaphor to suitably encapsulate the disappointment of rows of flawless, bungalowed units springing up from what had once been rich, fertile, untamed peatland. Poisoned… underbelly… birthing… artificial. Or something. Tired and overwrought, he deleted the line.
I’m currently sitting outside my bungalow. Bungalow 592. From what I can see it looks pretty much like the hundreds, or maybe thousands, of other bungalows stretching out in whatever direction one looks: some concrete, some linoleum, a few metres of decking made of something purporting to be wood, a patch of fake grass.
If I blur my eyes and avoid focusing on the high Perspex wall surrounding my otherwise almost homely little villa, I can almost trick myself into thinking I’m in a retirement village, or second rate holiday camp. In fact, it rather resembles the Legoland village I stayed in a few years ago with my kids.
He took a breath; wincing at the memory. What he’d do to be back there, now. Thoughts spiralled quickly in here.
In the bungalow behind me, an oversized screen – I’m unable to turn it off – plays something that passes, these days, for news. The Minister for Defence is explaining to an implausibly enthusiastic presenter why military training of over-10s is the “next natural step”. Next step to what, she doesn’t say.
On the coffee table in the room behind me, newspapers are laid out, as in an upmarket dentists waiting room. When the pages aren’t overflowing with photographs of shiny, happy soldiers, they brim with details of this month’s Updates. Efficiency and socialisation, the unimpeachable canons by which we lead our lives.
On the table next to me lies a glossy flier for East Anglia’s first ‘Zeeta School’.
“Zeeta – Your Children are Our Future. We Trust You WILL make the Right Choice for your family.”
He wondered what Ella would make of that.
It’s my tenth day here.
The fact that ceiling cameras and overhead censors track my movements is not much different from outside. But here, contraband items, suspicious behaviours and illicit conversations meet with immediate reprisals. The day before yesterday a gentleman called Byron was caught eating a smuggled banana. Shepherded away by one of the National Harmony Assistants, I’ve not seen him since. If that sounds shocking, I ask you this: is that not simply the next step in their model of the inevitable utopian dream, the natural progression they aspire to, and aspire for us to accede to?
And accede, we do.
My presence here, you will understand, is voluntary. I wasn’t dragged or kidnapped, nor rounded up by violent Army guards. The letter informing me that I was otherwise due to be sentenced presented me with two simple options:
“You must now notify us that you wish to elect to either:
— OPTION A: attend an offender retraining scheme at an accredited National Harmony Re-education camp; OR
— OPTION B: you do not wish to attend an offender retraining scheme but instead wish to accept the conditional offer of a fixed custodial sentence.
In the event that you select Option B, we reserve the right to apply further de-citizenry penalties.”
You see: a choice.
My wife and children know I’m here.They came to wave me off, in fact.We made a joke of it – Papa going to boarding school – so much so that the kids thought it was funny. Life can be beautiful when you most need it to be.
He paused and looked hard at that line. Proscribed Cultural Reference? Possibly. He deleted it.
Days here follow a similar pattern.
We are ‘politely requested’ to set our alarms for 7:30am in readiness for the delivery of breakfast, a meal which – like all the meals here, is perfectly edible – no, that’s unfair – more than edible, almost pleasant, but in a way that’s hard to discern and describe, that somehow isn’t quite food. Everything is too soft, too sweet, too bright.
Breakfast is followed by the morning ‘therapy’ session, three straight hours headphoned and plugged into the giant TV console in the room with my own AI-generated ‘personal National Harmony Coach’. Then lunch, a short break, and an afternoon ‘community lesson’, again delivered direct to ’the comfort of one’s villa’, though this time with other ‘Guests’ visible on screen. In this way we are trained to be fully efficient and sociable members of the community, as “concerned with the collective harmony of your wider environment as you are with the needs of yourself and your immediate kin”.
No one has been unpleasant, there has been no violence, no blows, no beatings, none of the hard labour, public humiliation or worse, outright torture, one might have seen in movies or read of in history books.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the National Harmony officer had said, the very first day on showing Theo and the group of guests arriving at the same time around – a group comprising an unreadable, quiet attractive lady, he didn’t get her name; Byron – later of banana fame; and an older lady called Jacqueline “but you can call me Jacky” who had turned up in sharp kitten heels and Sunday best.
“You should have nothing to worry about,” the officer had said, explaining this was the UK, after all, not some lawless Third World country, and it’s genuinely for your own benefit, you see, and that in fact the aim is for you to not only learn but even to enjoy your time here.
“Well, none are so hopelessly enslaved as think themselves free,” Jacqueline-call-me-Jacky had mumbled back, raising an eyebrow. The National Harmony officer gave her a hard stare and tapped something into his device.
The tour had continued – past the food labs, then round to the gym, lounge and common room. At least there will be some chance to meet others, compare notes, he’d thought, naïvely, that first afternoon. It wasn’t until a few days later that he’d realised that each room operated according to a strict, ‘one in, one out’ policy, the one certainty of the ’communal spaces’ being one could never commune.
But, then, of course, it had to be like that, didn’t it, he thought. He’d read Arendt.
Isolation was a hallmark of totalitaria —
The screen first froze, and then as he watched, the word deleted itself. Damn it. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the latest linguistic software updates: inconvenient words, past political forms, language incongruous with the relentless march of the mandated utopian ideal deleting from the page. To withstand future challenge there could be no record other than perfect uniformity of behaviour and thought, no evidence trail leaving future generations a hint of anything other than the irreproachable, the unanimous, the agreed.
Theo’s mind flitted almost involuntarily back to the first evening of his arrival in the centre when a lady in a sharp red trouser suit (an incongruous detail, he knew, but one could only assume that some subvert in the system had managed to weave a subtle reference to a newly erased cultural text) had come round to take their laptops for the night. Ostensibly “checking for viruses, you see, no you don’t need to agree but if you don’t I’m afraid you’ll no longer be eligible for the National Harmony Re-education Programme”.
It was impossible to know what spyware they’d installed, he thought, wondering how long one could leave words on a page before thoughts became actions became offences. Thoughts too heretical to save, let alone to be seen.
I could fight, I could resist, but to what point? Certain incarceration. Ex-communication. Repercussions for my family, my kids. I’m told I will get out of here in 11 more days; three weeks in total to cleanse my seditious soul.
And I have to get back to my family. That is the thing that matters above all else – the only thing that matters.
So, just like I have for each of the last nine days, I shall delete this article. Which, my reader that wasn’t, brings me neatly back to my point.
Nihilism.
He paused, looked at what he had written, hit SELECT ALL, DELETE, and closed the laptop.
Look out for chapter 15 next week.
Molly Kingsley is a founder of children’s rights campaign group UsForThem.
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God bless you Chris. Now the green lobby claim desert good, rain forest bad! Deserts are a sign of co2 stress, IE concentrations are too low to allow plants to grow in non optimum conditions.
Somewhat akin to the Royal Society for Protection of Birds being fervently behind windmills which are murdering tens of thousands of birds every year in our own waters and land alone.
Amazing isn’t it, socialists hate that the main bi product of capitalism is plant food, so they had to invent pseudo science to dismantle it.
The Climate zealots are anti human, they want less of us around, and so anything that causes depopulation in their crazed minds is good, anything that encourages human population growth is bad. When its viewed from that very simple angle it makes everything else we have been witness to in the past 4 plus years fall into place.
Succinct.
The real agenda is Depopulation.
What do the WWF have to say about that considering they’re are a clone of the WEF!
They say that polar bears are having to learn to live in trees!
WWF are right behind it even though it is killing all sorts of wildlife, whales, dolphins, birds
Nature in net zero transition plans | WWF
It seems obvious to me that milder winters at the end of the Mini Ice Age, allied with perfectly normal climate change, is causing CO2 to increase. After all, what is the primary purpose of plants other than to survive? Absorb CO2 and produce Oxygen.
Now, given that CO2 levels are, apparently, rising, despite the fact that temperatures have not risen for nearly 30 years, proves that CO2 does not have a definitive relationship with temperature. Indeed, the evidence that CO2 follows temperature is copiously detailed and reviewed. There is not one document in the entire world that proves the opposite without modelling. Modelling is about as accurate as Labour’s “1.5 million homes by 2029”.
In my layman view the Science is pretty obvious: the end of the Mini Ice Age and the Moon being on a ten year tilt cycle is causing ideal conditions for plants. Increased numbers of plants are, indirectly, producing more CO2, feeding more vegetation. It is exactly the same effect that was seen in humans since the invention of modern energy and better nourishment. There is also, of course, the increase in Oxygen levels, which plants absorb via synthesis causing healthier plants.
Quite agree. Do not forget the Vostok ice cores which lag temperature as pretty by Henry’s law.
Law?
It’s only his opinion!
Who is he, anyway?
Another candidate for decolonisation.
Although all organic life uses oxygen, green plants through photosynthesis give out oxygen whilst metabolising CO2. Quite a useful byproduct for the rest of us who use up oxygen and emit CO2.
Actually, in the UK, a lot of rarer species of plants like poorer less green habitats (not necessarily arid, as plenty of rain the UK, and when we had very dry springs in 2020 and 2021, then seeds did not geminate). But it is no good if there is dense vegetation such as Hogweed, cocksfoot and nettles- the rare plants get outcompeted and are lost. How much an increase of Co2 effects this I don’t know.
“…it is no good if there is dense vegetation such as Hogweed, cocksfoot and nettles- the rare plants get outcompeted and are lost.”
This I believe is now referred to as “re-wilding.” Or leaving the land to return to scrub when it becomes useless to man and beast. Land, all land requires management.
Not always. many nature reserves or wild places need some sort of management, hence conservation volunteers. Even in the mountains, they have to cull the deer as often there or too many, and some times fence areas off.
People often forget that nature reserves are semi-natural in many many cases. The scrub clearance and grazing has been done for thousands of years, so it is hardly surprising.
Scrub that is probably not indigenous to that “re-wilded area”.
They’ve tried shutting off large area in Mid-Wales and the Molinia grass, which is natural, has completely out competed everything else to form a sort of desert that not even the voles like and birds cannot nest in. Birds of prey cannot prey etc, etc. Idiocy.
As you said, rewilding results in scrubland, not pristine forests as they imply.
Plants are often rare and in marginal habitats because they are poor at competing. I was a botanist and remember studying rare plants, like Trinia glauca, a small umbellifer growing in the Avon Gorge. It was interesting to see a relic population, perhaps having migrated in after the last glaciation, but I wouldn’t obsess about its retention at all costs.
Thank you Chris for your continued contributions. They are a ray of light in these dark times.
How is the 4% human CO2 contribution figure calculated?
Professors Will Happer and his collaborator William van Wijngaarden(Tom Nelson Podcasts 56 and 158) attribute the recent modern CO2 rise to fossil fuel burning.I know that Professor Ian Pilmer and others quote 4%. Can anyone help?
Despite the Alarmist Club of Liberal Progressive Governments and Media telling us droughts are getting worse because of climate change, the opposite is true. Even the infamous CRU at East Anglia’s data reveals decline in drought since 1950.
——Incredibly reports that are the opposite of what is really happening are the norm on mainstream media. This means that the public are being thoroughly brainwashed, but why would that be? My friend recently said to me “Why would people say there is global warning if it isn’t true”? To an ordinary person like my friend that is busy with work and family life, who does not have the time to investigate every issue, and who may think mainstream news are doing that on his behalf, it is something he finds difficult to comprehend. So he just assumes what he is hearing will be mostly true. This is the power of propaganda.
—- We will all on this website have been in the company of friends and family and perhaps made statements that are contrary to current orthodoxy, and that the friends and family will not have heard before. The result is often a stare at you as if you are from Mars, and this suspicion that you are one of those conspiracy theorist people like those who think America did not land on the Moon or who think UFO’s are being hidden by the Military etc etc.
——-I have had a friend say to me “What makes you think you know more about this than the scientists”? They cannot see how silly that question is even when I ask them what scientists they are referring to. It is enough for people to just accept that this is all about science and that all the scientists agree and know what they are talking about. I have even had a person say to me with a look of exasperation on his face “David Attenborough says there is a climate crisis and that is good enough for me”. ———-Oh dear.
There are some people, far too many who are not worth talking to they have been so seriously brainwashed. Walk away or ridicule is the only answer.
I could walk away but I would probably be left with no friends. I give the example of my friend as typical of the general population. Apparently politicians today are less trusted than ever before, but somehow when it comes to climate change people seem to believe it all. They think it is all about science. —–No, it is bought and paid for science. Almost all science regarding climate change is funded by government. The same government that no one trusts anymore. —-Getting that message across however is not easy.
I’m experimenting with meeting such people half way by saying “yes you are half right but have you considered ….” I am hoping that they will be more open to further new facts. A work in progress and it is very tricky with close family and friends.
It is interesting isn’t it that the best of such conversations happen with total strangers at the bank or market or garden centre and a throw away remark gets the nod.
And bringing up the Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic eruption and 13% more water vapour in the atmosphere is normally a good move.
Spot on. It takes patience. Don’t try overloading their propaganda-soaked brains too quickly!
Always, first, follow the money.
‘……he just assumes what he is hearing will be mostly true…’
And that’s a big mistake; one should assume that the reverse is the case until proven otherwise. The MSM is a prime propagator of propaganda.
Start with Miliband, and once you realise he is a total charlatan, then you can move on to the rest of the eco socialist parasites.
The Great Climate Hoax – Ideology, Not Science!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ZcPuVpg5s
My recent climate related chat with exceptional researcher and talent Ben Pile
Godfrey Bloom Official
Godfrey Bloom for PM.
% of CO2 in the atmosphere 0.04
% man made 4
% generated in the UK 1
I’ve asked many people who expressed concern over ‘climate change’ if they knew any of these numbers.
% who did? Zero.
Try it.
Indeed. I’ve had people answer 50% (in a hesitant voice) when asked what proportion of the atmosphere is CO2. The figures you show are never reproduced in any msm promoting AGW, I wonder why?!
And that tells us the state of our edukashun system. As a young child I knew atmosphere was 79% Nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 1% trace gases.
I blame the schools.
That’s 1% of the 4% in the UK, not 25% of total as some might construe from your list.
And 96% of CO2 resides in the oceans and there is a constant exchange between ocean and atmosphere determined by water temperatures, which are dependent on incident solar radiation, but also upwelling, downwelling of warmer/colder waters. This and the CO2 cycle with plants changes air carbon dioxide concentration.
None of this is controlled by Man.
I love doing this. The blank looks are sheer joy
Yes I have tried it many many times. But climate alarmists will say this—–“How is that you think a small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot cause global warming while at the same time you claim it is causing global greening”. ——–I try not to fall into that trap. My way of saying it is this —-“There is no evidence that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate”. This stumps them every time because it puts the ball right back in their court and they are now required to provide evidence, which they cannot do because there is NONE
Tell them a further 2-3 % is made saving data around the world( cat videos!) or bit coin mining
And then the electrical energy requirement of AI…
Wales and Ireland look nice and blue. Speaking of Ireland, seen the protests on GBN with those Police fascists who are the useful idiots of the state spraying pepper spray even at Councillors now. Those pigs make my blood boil, if they piled on me I’d at least want to severely damage one of them. When were the Irish people asked to be dumped on like this.
“When were the Irish people asked to be dumped on like this”
And when the English?
..or the Welsh??
The assumption behind the warmists case is that the world was an ideal place around 1930. All change in the climat and all weather events since then have been the fault of mankind and before that we had millenia of calm, routine (yawn) boring sameness in the climate and weather.
Daft, of course, but that seems to be their starting point.
Perhaps they read “End of History” and believed it. Thought it also applied to science.
Thanks Chris – excellent article as usual.
Environmentalism became the new home for Socialists as their idol the USSR imploded. Socialism is all about planning and control using pseudo-scientism to predict and manage social and economic outcomes.
Spontaneous, emergent order terrifies the Socialist as they lose control particularly when outcomes are more successful than their plans. For them it’s all about process, best outcome is not the priority.
Commercial greenhouse maintain an air concentration of carbon dioxide between 1 000ppm to 1 200ppm which is optimum for plant growth, to speed up growth to produce strong, healthy plants requiring less water and fertiliser. (And, strange to report, none of these greenhouses ‘boil’ or catch fire.)
All that new plant growth around the World is also new habitat for myriad fauna. And food-crop yields have also increased.
Why do people obsessed with ‘rewilding’, ecosystems, biodiversity, etc want to kill off natural ‘rewilding’ and all those plants and animals on a massive scale by reducing CO2 (an absurdity anyway) to meet their ideological fantasies? Why do they want people to go hungry?
“Greening created by agricultural irrigation of fields can “obliterate arid-land ecosystems”.
But clearing vast tracts of natural vegetation – and keeping them clear of regrowth – to accommodate planting of non-native trees as ‘carbon-offset’ for royalty and celebs private-jetting around the World is OK?
You are right about greenhouse management. I think a fair bit of it is done by using the exhaust from gas fired heating; no need to waste it by exporting it into the outside air.
Correct, which is why Eart Day is on Lenin’s birthday
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/dr-green-will-see-you-now/
Roger Watson at thenewconservative with a cracking taking apart of ‘Dr Green’ aka The Royal College of Physicians and their “Green physician tool kit.’
“I leave you with this gem (not made up) which is given as an example of what a physician could say to a patient: ‘When cars burn petrol, they emit toxic air pollutants that can be bad for your health. Remember to carry an inhaler, avoid busy roads where possible and consider wearing a mask outside.’ As I may have mentioned already, who said Covid-19 lockdowns were not softening us up for something?”
I saw an old 1963 film where Sir John Betjeman travelled the long lost Dorset and Somerset railway from Shelton Mallet to Burnham on Sea.
Most notable the landscape was barren and lacked vegetation. I know that area well and today it is like a forest, rich in trees and hedges.
The Net Zero bandwagon is simply a gang of fanatics and business people with vested interests in scaring people to death, it’s Covid Mk2.
No——-The climate scare was there 30 years before covid.
It goes to prove that the planet can quite happily look after itself despite (not because of) our interference. .
‘This recovery of CO2 levels in the atmosphere holds out hope for higher food resources in many parts of the world that suffer from periodic famines.’
Excellent as always from Chris. But I’ve seen the point made that extra bulk greenery doesn’t mean proportional extra nutritional value. A parallel increase in nitrogen is needed for that.
Opinions, please.