An email popped into my House of Lords inbox last week from Lt Gen. Richard Nugee with the subject line ‘National Emergency Briefing’. Ooh, I thought. That sounds interesting. Will it be about the pitiful state of our armed forces? The threat of war with Russia? The penetration of Britain’s deep state by the Chinese Communist party? Nothing so sexy, unfortunately. The ‘emergency’ in question is our old friend the climate emergency, with the usual suspects being wheeled out in Westminster Central Hall next month to tell us how little time we have left to avert the looming disaster.
This seems a little tin-eared. The past 12 months have witnessed the collapse of the global consensus about climate change. I’m not just talking about the election of Donald Trump and the appointment of Chris Wright as US Energy Secretary, which effectively put paid to the Paris Agreement. The finance bros have seen the writing on the wall and are now treating green investment opportunities as if they were sub-prime mortgages. Cue a mass exodus from ‘ethical’ funds.
In the UK, Ed Miliband has been fighting a losing battle to maintain public support for net zero – a recent poll in the Times revealed that less than a third of voters want to ban new diesel and petrol cars, down from 51 per cent in 2021 – and now faces the prospect of Jeremy Clarkson standing against him in Doncaster North. Even Saint Greta has ditched climate justice for anti-Zionism. Eco-activists are fond of plucking random numbers out of thin air and claiming that’s how long we have left to save the Earth, but it looks like they’re now facing a ‘tipping point’ of their own. Six months to save Planet Organic! Or has that already been tossed on the compost heap?
It’s a bit baffling that the green blob’s response to this haemorrhaging of support is to keep up the drumbeat of doom. If running around screaming ‘The end is nigh!’ is no longer scaring people, why double down on the hysteria? According to the organisers of next month’s briefing, we’re facing a ‘multi-pronged emergency’ that will affect every aspect of British life: ‘Experts will provide attendees with the latest assessments across all dimensions of the crisis, from food security to national security, and outline science-based pathways forward.’
You can bet Clarkson’s farm that these ‘non-partisan’, ‘peer-reviewed’ proposals – that’s what they’re calling them – will involve transferring more and more control over energy policy to ‘experts’ like them. It’s almost as if they don’t trust the electorate to make the right choices, so want to bypass the ballot box altogether. Thankfully, the Tories have committed to repealing the Climate Change Act, so there’ll be a chance – a last chance, perhaps – to stop this power grab at the next election.
Climate hysterics, why not try something new and engage in some honest debate?
The eco-loons have other ‘solutions’ up their sleeves, all equally undemocratic. Last month, it was reported that the Australian Human Rights Commission has urged the federal government to pass a new law to stop the spread of ‘climate-related misinformation and disinformation’. But hang on a second, wannabe Torquemadas. Isn’t there a risk that might backfire? In the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore predicted that within a decade there would be no snow left on Kilimanjaro. That was in 2006. Do I have permission to submit this photograph of Kilimanjaro into court, Your Honour? Case closed. That’ll be two years of hard labour, Mr Vice-President.
I’m aware of Sun Tzu’s maxim that you should never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake, but I’m beginning to feel sorry for the climate hysterics. It’s getting too easy for sceptics like me to win the public debate. So here’s a suggestion: instead of pretending your opponents are ‘climate change deniers’ or in the pay of the oil and gas industry, instead of continuing to lie about green energy bringing down household bills, why not try something new and engage in some honest, good-faith debate? Admit that all your alarmist claims – extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, wildfires are caused by climate change, Arctic sea ice is shrinking, the polar bear population is declining, the Great Barrier Reef is evaporating, the Gulf Stream is collapsing etc, etc – are not incontestable facts, but areas of legitimate scientific debate.
Stop smearing and demonising your opponents and start behaving like grown-ups. Describing points of view you disagree with as mis- or disinformation is just a way of avoiding the hard intellectual work you need to do. You’re not going to win this argument by screaming louder.
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