Today we publish a final exclusive extract from Chris Morrison’s explosive new book that is shooting up the bestseller charts and sending shockwaves through both the ‘settled’ climate science community and the hard-Left promoters of the wicked Net Zero lunacy.
However many lies are told, the fact remains that running an electricity grid on intermittent wind and solar is for the surviving birds. Nothing beats hydrocarbons for providing almost instant power, a fact that is constantly glossed over by windy fanatics. Taking away hydrocarbon power and expecting a much larger grid, as yet unbuilt, to cope with all our energy requirements is a recipe for economic and societal collapse. Windmills have had a good run since they were first seen in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189), but in a modern industrial society they should be regarded as little more than a curiosity piece.
Without enormous cash subsidies, few if any practical entrepreneurs would invest in wind energy. According to Professor Gordon Hughes, a former political economist at the University of Edinburgh and senior energy adviser to the World Bank, green subsidies now account for three quarters of the price of electricity in the UK, while “the cost of Net Zero to the public is much higher than politicians are willing to admit“.
In a recent paper co-authored with Dr Lee Moroney, Associate Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, it is noted that the British consumer has been forced over the last two decades to pay a staggering £274 billion (at 2025 prices) to support electricity generated from renewable sources. The numerous direct and indirect annual subsidies for the unreliable breezes and beams have risen from £0.2 billion in 2005 to £22.6 billion last year. That sum, suggest the authors, is expected to grow rapidly under current Government plans and could exceed UK defence spending by 2030.
Who will stop this out-of-control spending on a system that also requires the further massive expense of a full stand-by gas station network for what the Germans call dunkelflaute (rough translation: no frigging wind) and 18 hours of sunless winter nights. All subsidies and other distorting charges on gas considered, Hughes and Moroney state that for every £1 that electricity users would have paid in 2025, they ended up paying £3.90.
The next time someone lies to you that the price of electricity is set by gas, renewables are getting cheaper while energy security is just around the corner, it will be time to not only count the spoons but to audit the full cutlery canteen.
It is difficult to argue with the conclusion drawn by Hughes and Moroney.
Even by modern standards of government profligacy, support for renewable generation is a ridiculous boondoggle, lining the pockets of rent-seekers and grifters first and foremost. Its direct impact on households via electricity bills is large, but domestic consumption only accounts for 35% of total final consumption. The remainder of the cost is borne by industry, commercial and other customers. Their higher costs are passed on via higher prices for goods and services.
In December 2023, the Mirror fell victim to the Great Climate Flood Sting. It informed its bewildered, if rapidly vanishing, readers that large parts of London could be under water within less than 30 years, while huge areas above Cambridge to Hull could disappear beneath the waves. According to senior reporter Liam Gilliver, a new interactive map that shows what the country could look like in 2050, “has ramped up the fear”.
To a practised eye able to spot climate cobblers of this admittedly very high calibre, it was not difficult to observe the handiwork of the billionaire-backed operation Climate Central. This US-based bundle of fun specialises in custom-made flood catastrophe copy, usually aimed at local media. Current sea level rises are around 3mm, so the city of Hull at four metres elevation is due to last well over 1,200 years before inundation might become a problem. The Mirror was persuaded to run a ludicrous story based on a short-term sea level rise that was over 50 times higher than the current level.
Who on earth is still paying good money to read this ramped up rubbish?
It could have been worse. In 2022, the Wiltshire Times used the interactive map to report that waters could be lapping the steps of Gloucester Cathedral by 2050. Way to go – the Cathedral is 19 metres above sea level.
US-based Climate Central is heavily backed by the Schmidt Foundation with money first provided by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and chairman of Google. It specialises in publication-ready climate agitprop where it seems to find an eager market among many cash-strapped media operations. Apart from Schmidt, there is a lengthy list of foundation donors including Bezos Earth Fund, Hewlett, Landers, Quadrivium and Silicon Valley Community.
In this chapter I have given a few examples of how billionaires use their billions to help curate the fearmongering stories backing the invented climate crisis and the Net Zero fantasy. But an entire book could – and a large one at that – be written about the scale of dark green money. Mike Bloomberg alone is estimated to spend around $500 million on climate advocacy every year, while Sir Christopher Hohn is a £200 million player. The two men are the principal sponsors of the Lord Sadiq Khan co-chaired C40 group that aims to co-ordinate various Net Zero measures in around 100 worldwide cities. The billionaire hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham is another high roller, having funded three UK university-based Grantham Institutes, including one at Imperial. This London college is the home of Dr Freiderike Otto’s press-friendly World Weather Attribution, and its bills are picked up by Grantham along with European Climate Foundation and Bezos Earth.
All in a day’s work for Jeremiah Jeremy, who seeks climate influence and is willing to pay for it. In 2009, he spoke to an investment group in Copenhagen about the approaching climate apocalypse, and asked rhetorically: “What should I do, you say?” His suggestion: “You should lobby your government officials – invest in an election and buy some politicians. I am happy to say we do quite a bit of that at the Grantham Foundation… We will vote for any party – any candidate as long as they are green.”
The scale of this green money largesse is unknown to most members of the public. Instead, heavy smoke is blown around with risible fake claims that ‘fossil fuel’ cash is financing climate science scepticism. The last 25 years have seen mainstream media along with Uniparty politicians go into overdrive to promote the invented climate crisis and push the Net Zero project. However implausible most of the stories are, we can be reassured that a great deal of time and effort has been expended to bring you the finest climate BS that money can buy.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X. His new best-selling book is IMPLAUSIBLE: How scientists, activist politicians and journalists invented a climate crisis, weaponised junk computer model findings and claimed a fake consensus to promote the collectivist Net Zero fantasy – out now and currently No. 1 in Amazon paperbacks in Global Warming and Ecology and Amazon downloads in Mass Media, where it has a five-star rating. Only £3.99 for the download and £8.99 for the paperback.