Proclamations of doom used to dominate the television screens as the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 couldn’t wait to broadcast yet another demonstration from an environmental group. You couldn’t help but think the UK had gone environment-mad with the amount of stunts, protests and demonstrations over the environment. The huge and ambitious ‘net-zero- targets were pushed through parliament with no real debate. Scores of jobs in heavy industry were lost in places like Wales and the North of England as CO2-heavy industries closed and moved elsewhere. You’d think that the Green Party would surge to prominence to continue the ‘Green revolution’. Surely the ‘linear progress’ of society some fresh sociology students believed showed the inexorable rise of the environment as the number one issue? Lectures from King Charles, Prince William and so many ‘infomercials’ kept emphasising our need to do more to protect the environment.
Well, someone should have told them that most of the general public don’t really want to listen to this any more. The jaded expressions on people’s faces when they are told that the planet is dying and we are to blame is incredible. The general election has reflected this as the ‘net-zero’ term is used and then forgotten about as the conversation from politicians moves to something else. There is no appetite in the public domain for this. Britain has done more than its fair share to combat climate change and yet in this country we see the most vociferous climate protesters in the western world.
Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rising, Just Stop Oil, to name a few are constantly in the news and we are giving them air time in the hope that their message will resonate with the public. Marry that with the fact that this country has de-carbonised more than most other countries and the world’s 7th largest economy, 4th largest exporter, emmits 1% of the world’s CO2. We no longer manufacture steel and other heavy duty materials. The UK is littered with wind turbines and solar panels. Vast swathes of the British coastline are littered with wind turbines. British people have been paying 20% of their electricity bills for the last 10 or more years to give money to companies that make these monstrosities. We have placed an arbitrary ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 and we have some of the highest percentages of conservation areas relative to our population density. We have vast areas of cities all over the UK designated as Ultra Low Emission Zones, netting millions of pounds in fines and payments. Yet we are told it isn’t enough.
We were told that we would be the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind’ according to Boris Johnson. Green jobs, something Ed Milliband has been keen to emphasise from Labour, would spring up in the region of 650,000. Energy would be good, clean and for all. We were told that this would help save the planet. And yet the climate alarmists say we haven’t gone far enough. Like indulging a child with sweets, the demand is only for more. Energy has become so expensive it is up to three times more expensive than in Europe. Businesses either leave or simply dump their waste into the rivers in an effort to cut costs of things like high energy prices. More jobs have been lost than gained and the wind-manufacturing industry has all but abandoned off-shore wind farms due to their high costs. Wind turbines are made from non-recyclable materials and solar panels require almost 100 years of usage before they become a net-benefit to the economy when taking into consideration manufacturing. Lithium, the core component of batteries to store all of this energy, is in short supply and requires a lot of harm to the environment to extract. Most Lithium deposits are located within areas economically dominated by China. The increased reliance on China for electric cars has become so great that it is increasingly obvious that the drive to net-zero requires China to dominate our economy. We have gotten poorer, more subservient to foreign powers and people have had enough.
The smart meters from energy companies that are pushed into homes in preparation for ‘surge pricing’ as the National Grid struggles to cope with intermittent energy sources is a warning for people up and down the land. Things are not getting better and it looks like the cost of going green is to go dark, to go cold and to go hungry. The future looks bleak the more green-mad we seem to get. Cars will get more expensive as the petrol car is banned. Energy prices will only go up. The politicians scrambling for Nucleur Energy from all of the major parties after finding out the dire state of British energy will find out that Nucleur sites take over twenty years to go from building to coming online. Once again, China will be called upon to build these things as they have already been called upon. The National Grid say that oil and gas will still be needed by a factor of at least 25% in 2050. The estimated cost of net-zero and decarbonisation is around 2 trillion pounds.
This is why the Green movement in Europe has been hammered recently in the European Elections all over the place. This is why the Green Party in the UK have barely seen any movement in the polls despite the febrile political atmosphere. This is why green policies are not talked about in this general election that much bar the odd question in a TV debate. Though the main parties generally agree on net-zero they know talking about it will lose them support. Labour have barely mentioned it in their campaigning as they know it’s unpopular. When they get into power it will be full net-zero steam ahead, but this general election is obviously devoid of the environmental debate; it is a debate people are fed up of.
This article will not go into the merits or otherwise of the envrionmental debate. That is for the experts to talk about (https://youtu.be/A24fWmNA6lM?si=STMa7Khq7BYOHIDR), but the point is that the environment and environmentalism are two different things. Generally, the UK wants to protect the environment, but only if the costs don’t outweigh the benefits. Environmentalism is a movement generally confined to the upper-middle classes, often those in the ‘new elite’ as described by Professor Matt Goodwin. They are a small group of the electorate confined mostly to the major cities. They are the graduate elite who find environmentalism a source of acquiring status. The rest of the country doesn’t listen to them, and the farmers have had enough. Farmer demonstrations against green policies have been seen from France to Belgium to the Netherlands and to Germany and there seems to be a revolt here too against it. The country seems to be moving against the tide of environmentalism now as there seems to be a sense of a target that shouldn’t be achieved, rather than a target that is pretty much impossible to achieve. This one policy is the most obvious in separating out the elite class from the rest of the country, with immigration coming in a close second. People in this country are some of the most compassionate about animals and having pets is almost a major part of British culture, but the sacrifices demanded of the country for the sake of ‘net-zero’, a policy completely undone by the actions of China and the developing world where in China alone 80 new coal-fired power stations are built every year. Whether we save the planet or not is not down to the residents of the UK, overtaxed and over-inconvenienced by climate fanatics, but by the developing world which would rather have the benefits we enjoy than the lectures and constraints we don’t.
This election will not be won or lost by who promises to do more for the envrionment. It is an issue that will be sorted out in the shadows as we elect based on economic and cultural concerns. The Labour Party will win and they will increase the effort on the green agenda with their commitment to giving no new drilling licenses in the North Sea, banning fracking and bringing the ban on petrol cars to 2030. The Tories wiould do much the same as they have overseen a massive transfer of wealth from the British public to ‘green’ energy companies in the form of tax and levies. The Lib Dems would do the same as Labour and the Greens…well…they will look to reuse caves as a great net-zero source of living. The Reform Party are the only mainstream party advocating a total re-think on net-zero and a massive climb-down on commitments made without much popular support. It might just give them a few more percentage points in the polls here.
Perhaps this is the next Brexit battle after immigration. Perhaps this requires a referendum? Perhaps no one cares about it any more. The main thing to consider is what will the people we elect do with it when they are in charge? Think warm thoughts - it’ll help in winter.
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
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