October 2023. An Unfriendly World.

An Unfriendly World.

I was reminded how pertinent this title is when a friend related his reading of an article on Solar Storms, one which had seemingly struck the earth 14000 years ago. This electric Armageddon would have destroyed all modern life on earth - obliterating all electrical grids and communicating systems had they existed. I fancy it gives a different perspective to so called Climate Warming, but those who harangue we doubters can hide behind the camouflage of Man-Made climate change, and not the earth being beastly! How much damage can modern man - who appeared on the earth, say 12000 years ago, - actually do to the environment that the earth, in its six-million-year history, hasn’t done already? 

In the climate debate it’s probably better to balance these phenomena with that which the planet has already indulged in without any help from us. We are not even pimples on its surface. When the African and European plates bumped into each other and pushed Italy out of the water, it was a land still covered in very abusive volcanoes. Its modern descendants have not yet ceased to cause trouble, and can, when active, spell doom to thousands of people. The modern inhabitants of Naples, I’m told, still keep a leery eye on Mount Vesuvius. They also cast a leery eye on the hubris of Climate Change activists. Perhaps the presence of a grumbling volcano or two in Britain would gender a very different mind-set!

Close up, the latest philosophy of Net Zero is like a rabbit chasing a lion! I’m being indulgent when I say they are merely placing all their eggs in the wrong basket! In human terms the philosophy is too recent to produce a definitive answer to the question of man’s involvement in the process, or creation, of Climate Change, despite the arguments and evidence that is said to generate this phenomenon. I’m more inclined to question the negative aspects of man’s endeavours to circumvent change than the positive, mainly because the protagonists are always too eager to sweep problems under the carpet, than discuss how to circumvent them. For example, just recently, scientists are concerned that Coastal Wind Farm’s electromagnetic fields, produced by underwater cables, may be the reason for deformities in baby lobsters. Let’s see how far that one travels, before they reach for the broom!

We really can’t blame the scientists. Those tackling the climate crisis seemingly have the results of their research - those that don’t align with change - intentionally disregarded. We can hardly know what to make of the discovery that carbon dioxide (CO2) is an essential factor in the growth of plants! Indeed, it seems that most of the pro climate protest is in defence of an illusion! The fact that we have ‘clouds’ and that ‘day becomes night’ means that the earth has an energy balance - thankfully neither within the control of man. Scientists have established, I suspect, Wild Fires are sometimes a condition of discarded cigarette butts, as much as summer heat. As a seven-year-old, living with my parents in the New Forest, I remember fires took place as regularly as the floods. No one muttered about Global Warming, and rather more about smoking in motor cars. Such things were not a product of nature the locals had learnt to live with!

However, the UK’s worst enemy is not the weather, but Westminster. Both political parties of any moment are wedded to Net Zero which, in reality, is about as big a criminal event as one can imagine. Criminal events have to be physical - remember that childhood mantra “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!”- I have to tell you, it isn’t true! A Government policy - words written on paper, such as the modern canon on Climate Change - can cause a lot of pain if it ever becomes reality. As Aristotle said: It is extremes in any direction that ruins states.

I think, we may well see a lot of back-tracking, by both parties, on the question of Net Zero, as we near a general election!

Scientist will tell you that the earth has warmed approximately 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th. century, a fluctuation that can go down as well as up. This is the story of nature - grapes and citrus fruits were grown in the United Kingdom during a period of the Roman occupation c.100 BC/AD, but 20,000 years earlier, nothing lived in an ice age where temperatures had slumped to minus 46 degrees! Therefore, I am not saying “Climate Change” does not exist, only the premise, that it’s solely “Man Made” given the fact that it’s been very hot and very cold before our basic ancestors even arrived in the place.

At the same time scientists have established that the essential carbon dioxide increases and decreases are caused by nature rather than humans, an oscillation that can indeed cause us a great deal of trouble, perhaps requiring some sort of Government action at the very extremes of its fluctuation - which are not present at this moment, and may not be for centuries to come! Add that to the revelation that the sun’s heat is not static and its changes can have strong influences on the earth’s temperature. One can, I believe, build a case for calling the Governments crisis policy a sinister tactic against its people.

For example, there is a very questionable reason for the governments romance with electric vehicles, heat pumps and off shore wind farms that are not completely obvious, and we have only a very one-sided argument to juggle with. They are deaf to reason, and seem only to have an ear for the Siren voices! This hypocritical stance leads them to tolerate the tragic labour associated with mining Lithium, possibly because without it, electric cars would not exist, a factor to which they turn a blind eye, when considering the production of this environmentally toxic material. They don’t care as long as the EV’s are rolling off the line, ignoring the little detail that though it is cheaper to fully charge an EV than fill the tank of a petrol vehicle, the latter may go twice as far, and a diesel car three times the distance. They also ignore yet another argument that solar and wind farms are far from economically viable and rely on subsidies from the public purse to alleviate the fact they are more expensive than oil or gas! Heat pumps, on the other hand, are slipping under the radar, no one caring to mention that they become more inefficient as the temperature drops, necessitating a switch to electricity. They are also devastatingly quiet on the cost of installation, supposedly whispering about the possibility of a c. £5,000 subsidy, ignoring the fact that they cost from £10,000 upwards, therefore still be beyond the means of many. Ditto, that they may only last for 10/15 years. They also don’t function successfully below 40°F/5°C.

From every direction the charlatans are gulling the public.

Sorry folks, whichever way we turn, Governments, Left or Right, seem determined to make sure we exist in an unfriendly world.