When it comes to using government coercion to force a multi-trillion dollar “net zero” energy transition upon the world, many things can go wrong. At this website I have focused on multiple potential calamities likely to flow from this effort: things like whether the proposed “renewable” wind and solar generators can actually work, whether they can produce sufficient electricity and at the right times, how much energy storage would be needed, the risk of blackouts, and how much all of this would inevitably cost.
My list of potential calamities is far from comprehensive. Here is a huge issue that I have barely touched upon: The threat to human freedom posed by the process of forcing this energy transition.
My friends at Net Zero Watch are now setting out to cure that omission. (Full disclosure: I am on the board of Net Zero Watch’s American affiliate, known as American Friends of the GWPF.).
Net Zero Watch has commissioned a series of reports on the subject of Net Zero and Human Freedom. On February 19 NZW will present an in-person event in New York City with the title “Net Zero & Freedom.” Here is a copy of the full flyer for the event:
The event is free and open to the public. (You do need to register in advance due to space limitations.). All MC readers are invited and welcome!
Andrew Montford is the Executive Director of NZW. Messrs. Baker and Constable are authors of two Reports published by NZW in December. Mr. Baker’s Report is titled, “Net Zero and the Threat to Human Liberty.” Here is a brief excerpt to whet your interest:
Lord Vallance’s call for a ‘transformation at every level of society’ epitomises the belief that only sweeping top-down direction can meet ambitious Net Zero targets. This vision of an all-encompassing revolution mirrors past experiments in central planning: it underestimates the knowledge problem, overlooks local variation, and substitutes bureaucratic diktats for organic development. It is founded on the fatal conceit behind every authoritarian revolution: the pretence of knowledge. . . . Proponents of these old, failed ideas often lean on alarmist rhetoric to justify intrusive mandates, forgetting that neither fearful appeals nor state coercion can sustainably overcome the dynamic facts of the world as it is or the reality of the human condition.
Professor Constable’s Report has the title “Powering Freedom: The Thermodynamic Roots of Modernity.” Here is a short excerpt from Professor Constable’s Report:
[E]nergy is far from being just one economic input amongst many. Energy is the key property of all economic inputs, and thus it determines the only thing that really matters in any economic system: namely the potential to change the world in order to satisfy human requirements: to make us free to maintain and protect our bodies and those of our offspring, to kill pathogens, to make us warmer or cooler, to move things or people here and there as we wish. In short, it enables us to broaden the human ecological niche and enhance our prosperity. But what is energy that it should be so indispensable, and what of the fuels from which we obtain it?
This promises to be an entertaining evening. Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be served. I hope there will be a good turnout of MC readers. Since space is limited, don’t forget to RSVP.
Here is a huge issue that I have barely touched upon: The threat to human freedom posed by the process of forcing this energy transition.
Yes. The problem is that a government (such as the UK government) finds itself telling its population something that is obvious false – namely that Net Zero will lower prices and increase energy security. In fact it leads to increased costs which find their way into prices and to less reliability.
At this point in a democracy dissent starts to appear on social media and political opposition arises in the form of Reform, and starts winning elections.
You denounce the doubters as committing hate speech and misinformation and arrange for the police to call on them and record their social media posts as Non Crime Hate Incidents. Along with all the flood of posts claiming that the difference between men and women is biological, that
women do not have penises, and that people do not want their local hotels populated by illegal immigrants.
This is a real problem since at the same time you are telling your country a whole bunch of similar nonsense about race and gender. And elections, elections are coming up in May, that is only months away. You are at previously unseen low levels in the polls, this is going to be a wipeout.
Simple: cancel the elections.
But now the problem appears in a different form. Rather as the hidden cost increases reappeared in the form of prices. Your leader is now the most unpopular any Prime Minister has ever been, and challengers start going on manoeuvres.
Simple: Fix the selection process so none of the challengers can stand for Parliament, so they cannot mount a leadership challenge. For instance, by having short lists women only, or ethnic minority only.
In another part of the wood the government is postponing issuance of guidelines which would implement a recent court decision. The decision held that the distinction between men and woman is biological, not what you say you are. The country probably agrees, Reform probably agrees, but not this Government.
Simple: just pretend the decision never happened.
Somewhere in the North of England, around Manchester, a bunch of people are sitting around a table as we write. They are discussing this tactic, and are slowly coming to realize there is a simple solution.
Andy Burnham announces that he is identifying as a woman! And not just any woman, no, he is identifying as a lesbian with Asian and African heritage. Yes, he looks like a guy, very like a guy. But anyone calling attention to that will be most unkind, transphobic in fact, liable to be spoken to about a non criminal hate incident. In fact, the whole concept of ‘looking like a guy’ is probably transphobic. So he can qualify for the candidate short list, get on the by-election, win it, then mount a challenge and get rid of Starmer and save our jobs.
Yes, but will he in fact win? And should we really risk it? Maybe this election too should be postponed? Elections are so very expensive and distracting from the task of changing Britain.
A decision on whether to short list Mr or Ms Burnham as a candidate in the upcoming by-election is supposed to happen today. Inquiring minds are watching with interest.
Because the covid mandates ultimately failed because there was no actual disease that needed the jab, evil people have invented a new fear that of glowbull boiling of the earth.
The sun is the only source of energy to keep earth relatively warm and the CO2 produced by life forms using oxygen to produce CO2 is in balance with life forms that consume CO2 to produce oxygen.