Joe Baron has a TCW piece on Net Zero, attributing it to what he calls the 'loony left.'
Net Zero – a national act of self-harm sponsored by the loony left
THE planned re-imposition of the green levy on our energy bills, set to cost households £170 a year, reminds us of Net Zero’s insatiable appetite for devouring the hard-earned money of struggling families. If you are unlucky enough to live in one of the 32 London boroughs (as I am) and own a diesel vehicle (as I do) you’ll not only have to buy a new ULEZ-compliant car, but you’ll also have to pay the reintroduced green tax – and let’s not forget your already soaring energy bills, living costs and mortgage payments.
For what? To save the world from anthropogenic global warming? Pull the other one. Britain accounts for only 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. China (33 per cent) isn’t going to follow our example. Nor is India. They want to develop and become richer. They’ve got billions to feed, after all.
THE planned re-imposition of the green levy on our energy bills, set to cost households £170 a year, reminds us of Net Zero’s insatiable appetite for devouring the hard-earned money of struggling families. If you are unlucky enough to live in one of the 32 London boroughs (as I am) and own a diesel vehicle (as I do) you’ll not only have to buy a new ULEZ-compliant car, but you’ll also have to pay the reintroduced green tax – and let’s not forget your already soaring energy bills, living costs and mortgage payments.
For what? To save the world from anthropogenic global warming? Pull the other one. Britain accounts for only 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. China (33 per cent) isn’t going to follow our example. Nor is India. They want to develop and become richer. They’ve got billions to feed, after all.
The piece is worth reading as a reminder that it isn't only the loony left pushing Net Zero here in the UK, but to a very good approximation it is Parliament as a whole. If anything, it highlights the problem of distinguishing political left and right.
Instead of battling with that issue, suppose we whizz off at a tangent, because one possibility emerging from the Net Zero lunacy is that there are people who must have enormous opinions rather than small, everyday ones.
That would be 'enormous' in the sense of heavily portentous opinions. Opinions which others ought to take note of but possibly don't, perhaps because they can't quite bear the moral weight of them while still managing to function socially.
Instead of battling with that issue, suppose we whizz off at a tangent, because one possibility emerging from the Net Zero lunacy is that there are people who must have enormous opinions rather than small, everyday ones.
That would be 'enormous' in the sense of heavily portentous opinions. Opinions which others ought to take note of but possibly don't, perhaps because they can't quite bear the moral weight of them while still managing to function socially.
There certainly are people who appear to need portentous opinions. Some of them even have to demonstrate the vastness of their views by sitting in the road or by interrupting sporting events in as public a manner as possible. As if they need urgently momentous opinions to lend weight to an otherwise feeble personality.
3 comments:
There are all these pearls around... they're not going to clutch themselves are they?
The People That Matter and their partners have no insight or fellow feeling for any classes lower than their own. Artisanal Polenta just turns up in Waitrose as if by magic, so the fact that the Rude Mechanicals involved in the supply chain are finding it more expensive to live is neither here or there.
Those portentous opinions are pretty seductive. They appeal to natural gloomsters and the clinically depressed; they are also attractive to those who like spoiling other people's lives and telling folk what to do. And if you read up on topics, you can become a scientific "expert" with relatively little effort. The threat is not from extremist loonies. It is from "ordinary" people with too much time on their hands who are gradually adopting those portentous opinions so that they become a type of "common sense".
Luckily, their common sense has little effect on their behaviour, so we can keep referring to their hypocrisy.
DJ - I agree, People That Matter have no fellow feeling for classes lower than their own. I suspect most of us are like that. I don't experience much fellow feeling for rough areas near here if I happen to drive through them.
Sam - one problem they leave us with is how to remain tolerably optimistic when their doom-laden views drag us towards a different doom. Otherwise we end up with portentous opinions too. A temptation to predict seems to be part of that.
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