Extinction Rebellion price tag

The anti-capitalist agitprop conspiracy Extinction Rebellion has been in the news quite a lot during the past year. Regrettably it has to be conceded that its street protests have achieved some success in influencing public opinion. Parliament and numerous local authorities have declared that we are now in a climate emergency, and the supposed threat to the climate has moved up the political agenda.

Also the BBC now never misses an opportunity to introduce the threat of climate change into a wide range of topics which on the surface appear to have little connection with the main subject under discussion. Those being interviewed are keen to show their eagerness to parrot the received orthodoxy that climate change is contributing to a host of problems faced by society. So this is a battle which climate realists are losing to a rampant out of control climate alarmist lobby that appears to have become well entrenched in all of our major institutions.

It is seriously disturbing that so many people who should know better have credulously been taken in by the climate alarmist hoax. The reality is that there has been no change to the global climate, and there is no likelihood that there will be in the foreseeable future. The facts and the evidence are compelling. During the past 60 years, since records began, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by about 30%. But during the past 140 years global temperature has fluctuated within a range of one degree Celsius. Thus there is very little correlation between the increase in the harmless trace gas CO2 and the global climate. So projections that global temperature will increase by four to five degrees Celsius by the end of this century are clearly evidence-free nonsensical alarmist pseudo-science.

Regrettably all political parties have been spooked by the climate alarmists and the Government has now set a target of being ‘carbon neutral’ by 2050. Why is it that when British governments take unilateral action in a supposedly virtuous cause such as climate change it is seen as ‘Britain taking a lead’, but when they do the same for a non virtuous cause like reclaiming national sovereignty by leaving the European Union they are denounced by the same people as ‘leaving Britain isolated’?

Britain has to some extent succeeded in reducing its CO2 emissions by introducing vast numbers of inefficient, highly subsidised and unsightly wind turbines. These have in part replaced efficient and less costly coal fired power stations. We have also outsourced a lot of our manufacturing capacity to China. But these are the low hanging fruit and the path to achieving any future emissions reduction will be much more difficult and is likely to arouse considerable public hostility.

The inevitable outcome of what is deemed necessary to reach the 2050 carbon neutral target will be to destroy the living standards of the British public, to make us all considerably poorer in real terms and return the country to a pre-industrial way of life. Amongst other things it will mean individuals being compelled to fund the replacement of 25 million gas boilers with less efficient and more costly alternatives, the severe curtailment of air travel, the replacement of all petrol and diesel vehicles resulting in a huge increase in home electricity costs to offset the loss of fuel duty, massive changes in farming and the nation’s dietary habits to reduce meat and dairy consumption, and plenty more. All this to address a non-existent problem.

Fortunately if any Government recklessly decided to implement these madcap policies in an attempt to meet the 2050 target, it would very quickly trigger the debate we have never had on the exaggerated and hysterical claims of the climate alarmists. Far from giving a lead to the rest of the world any British government pursuing such a destructive agenda would soon find itself completely isolated as no other country is likely to be quite so foolhardy as to follow suit.