(Neil's Note: This is the main part of my consultation response from last July. It shows up the enormity of the fraud which has been committed against us human beings, over 50 years, by the deep green environmentalists and their political soulmates.)
3. History
of the green agenda
1970 to 1992
Those of you who have studied the green agenda will already
know that the driver of it, all along, has been the United Nations. This has been
so for 50 years; ever since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day. The then UN
Secretary General, U Thant, personally sanctioned the Earth Day idea.
In 1972, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) was started, under
the directorship of Maurice Strong. Strong was a Canadian oil baron, and he had
a scandal ridden career. His attitude can be summed up by the following quote,
from a 1997 magazine interview: “Frankly, we may get to the point where the
only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.”
Later, Strong was implicated in the Oil-for-Food scandal of 2005, went to live
in China, and died in 2015.
When the dust has settled enough that historians can write
an objective history of the 20th century, I think Strong will be right
up there with Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot in the race for most evil
individual of the century. Stalin committed genocide in Ukraine, starting a
famine that killed millions; and caused millions of deaths in other parts of
the Soviet Union, too. Mao attempted genocide against the people of his country.
Pol Pot did the same, but on a smaller scale. Hitler was responsible for the
Holocaust against Jews and others. But Strong went further than any of them; he
set out to bring down our Western civilization, world-wide.
In 1982, the UN put forward a Resolution called the World
Charter for Nature. This included extreme and totalitarian statements, like: “Activities
which might have an impact on nature shall be controlled.” And: “Where potential
adverse effects are not fully understood, the activities should not proceed.”
The Charter was passed in the UN by 111 votes to 1, with 18 abstentions. The USA
was the only country voting against.
In 1987, a new UN report was published, titled Our Common
Future. This is the document, which set in motion the green political juggernaut
that has had a huge adverse effect on the lives of all good people in the Western
world. Unsurprisingly, Maurice Strong was on the commission that produced it.
Our Common Future raised alarms about fourteen
issues: Desertification. Clearing of forests. Species loss. Acid rain. Global
warming, due to human emissions of CO2. Ozone layer depletion. Loss
of coral reefs. Military proliferation and the threat of nuclear war. Toxic and
nuclear waste disposal. Increasing incidence of disasters. Population growth.
Poverty. International economic inequality. And what they called “the interests
of future generations.”
On many of these issues, much progress has been made in
the intervening decades. Poverty in the third world and population growth in
the West, for example, have both been much reduced. So have emissions of serious
pollutants like sulphur dioxide. The ozone layer has recovered. Desertification
and forest clearing are no longer major problems. Things are getting better on
several of the others, too. And claimed recent loss of species and of coral
reefs have not been proven beyond doubt to be either real problems or caused by
humans. Haven’t we done well?
Of these issues, three are today being actively pushed. Acid
rain has been re-badged as air quality. Species loss is still being hyped, as shown
by the name of extremist group Extinction Rebellion. And the global warming scare
is being hyped hardest of all.
As to transport, Our Common Future focused mainly
on cars in third world countries and cities. The agenda to force people in the
West out of our cars came later. And interestingly, Our Common Future fails
to mention air transport at all.
In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
was established. It’s a UN organization. Its mission statement is: “to provide
governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to
develop climate policies. IPCC reports are also a key input into international
climate change negotiations.” It has prepared five major reports so far; the first
in 1990, the most recent in 2013. Superficially, it looks as if it should be independent
and unbiased. But of course, being a UN organization, it is not.
Our Common Future led to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit,
to whose extreme agenda politicians like then UK prime minister, John Major, signed
up without consulting the people. As I like to put it, they sold us all down
the Rio. In particular, they signed up to a binding Framework Convention on
Climate Change, and to Agenda 21 (which has since morphed into Agenda
2030). They also signed up to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,
stating 27 principles intended to achieve something called “sustainable development.”
The Framework Convention on Climate Change led to the
yearly “Conference of the Parties” (COP) meetings, about which you will have
heard so much. As to Agenda 21, it includes demands such as: “Significant
changes in the consumption patterns of industries, governments, households and
individuals.” And “Favouring high-occupancy public transport.” This was where
the agenda came in of seeking to force drivers in Western countries out of our
cars. Moreover, Agenda 21 was to be implemented at the local government
level. So, it passed under many people’s political radar. A clever trick, no?
Climate change
Soon after Rio, the UK spin machine went into overdrive. Our
TV screens showed (staged) pictures of rural roads chock-a-block with cars. Of
traffic jams in foggy weather, complete with smoking exhaust-pipes. Of the aftermaths
of accidents. It was hard, even then, to avoid thinking that we drivers were being
set up. And organizations that should have defended us, like the Automobile Association,
abdicated their responsibility. Worse, they even took part in the witch-hunt,
blaming us for destroying the environment by driving our “gas guzzlers”.
Around the same time, there were attempts in parliament to
set binding targets for reductions in road traffic. The first of these was made
in 1994 by a Welsh nationalist MP, with a bill that had actually been written
by Friends of the Earth and the Green Party! Not exactly independent or unbiased,
then. And not representing the people, either.
A Road Traffic Reduction Act followed in 1997, followed by
several attempts to set explicit national targets or limits for road traffic.
Meanwhile, things were happening at the IPCC. The IPCC
reports are supposed to summarize the peer reviewed scientific literature on the
subjects they cover. But parts of the reports – including the keynote Summary for
Policymakers – are approved line by line by government officials. In the 1995/6
report, part of the Summary was re-worded in a more alarmist way at the behest of
governments. And the technical reports were then updated to match. That is not peer
reviewed science!
On now to 2002, and one of the most egregious examples of dishonesty
by the UK government in this whole sorry story. That is, their perversion, indeed
inversion, of the precautionary principle. Which, at its root, is “Look before
you leap,” or even “First, do no harm.”
The Rio Declaration had included a statement (Principle
15) on the precautionary principle. “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary
approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or
irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason
for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”
Now, I find that idea bizarre. For, if you don’t have a high degree of
scientific certainty about the size and likelihood of a problem, how can you possibly
assess whether or not a proposed counter-measure is cost-effective?
But the Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment’s
2002 report – Ref [[1]] – twists this
into the following: “The purpose of the precautionary principle is to create an
impetus to take a decision notwithstanding scientific uncertainty about the
nature and extent of the risk.” “‘Absence of evidence of risk’ should never be confused
with, or taken as, ‘evidence of absence of risk.’” And “the burden of proof
shifts away from the regulator having to demonstrate potential for harm towards
the hazard creator having to demonstrate an acceptable level of safety.”
Do you see what they did there? They abandoned all pretence
of presuming us innocent until proven guilty. They said, in effect: “If in
doubt, government should act.” So, we are all guilty, until we prove our innocence.
That’s if they even allow us an opportunity to do that, of course.
Moreover, they have inverted the burden of proof. They demand that we, the accused, must show
that everything we are doing is safe. They require us to prove a negative, that
we are not causing a problem. Which, in general, is impossible. And even if we’re
not actually causing any risk at all, they can use the ‘absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence’ trick to find us guilty anyway!
In, say, a murder trial, such bad faith ought to lead to immediate
dismissal of the case, and prosecution for perverting the course of justice.
How much worse, then, is conduct of this kind when our whole human civilization
is on the line?
On to 2006, and the Stern Review. This was an (apparent)
attempt to provide a cost versus benefits analysis for policy action or
inaction on reducing CO2 emissions. But of the three tools (called integrated
assessment models) Stern had available to him, he chose the one which gave by far
the most pessimistic estimate of the social cost of CO2. He also
made other assumptions, which resulted in a grossly exaggerated estimate of the
cost of not taking action. One economist commented: “the Review's radical policy
recommendations depend upon controversial extreme assumptions and
unconventional discount rates that most mainstream economists would consider much
too low.” Again, bad faith by the UK government.
Then, of course, there’s the BBC. In 2006, the BBC held a
meeting of what they claimed were “the best scientific experts” to decide their
policy on climate change reporting. When the list of attendees was eventually unearthed,
it included only three scientists; all of them alarmists. It also included the Head
of Campaigns for Greenpeace. Not surprisingly, the BBC has continued to
maintain a strongly alarmist stance.
More recently (2018), the BBC likened allowing climate
change skeptics to speak to “letting someone deny last week’s football scores.”
Even though their own guidelines say: “We are committed to reflecting a wide
range of subject matter and perspectives… so that no significant strand of
thought is under-represented or omitted.” In the murder trial analogy, this
amounts to denying us the right to speak up in our own defence, and to have our
witnesses – including experts – heard at all.
Next, to the 2008 UK climate change bill. They did make a
token attempt at a cost benefit analysis. But if I recall right, there was a factor
of 7 uncertainty in the costs, and a factor of 12 in the putative “benefits,” of
taking action to reduce CO2 emissions in order to mitigate climate
change. If we could believe the figures in the first place! Such numbers are
useless for making any kind of objective decisions. Yet, the politicians just went
ahead anyway, without consulting the people. Bad faith, no?
Before the second reading of that bill, I sent “my” MP
(Jeremy Hunt) a nine-page letter, with 20 references. In that letter, I set out
the relevant facts as logically as I could. I urged him to fully inform himself
on the issue, and, having done that, to vote against the bill. He never even
deigned to acknowledge that letter, let alone respond to it; even when I reminded
him almost two years later. And, of course, he voted for the bill. He showed no
interest at all in my legitimate concern. That isn’t democracy. At the very
least, he should have replied: I have passed on your letter to <XXXX>,
who is better qualified to answer your questions than I am, and will reply to
you within <YYYY> days.
And so, we were forcibly embarked on a never-ending round
of green taxes and more green taxes. Of five-year “carbon budgets,” a Soviet-style
idea both ridiculous and dictatorial. Of energy policies that favour solar and
wind, both of which supply power that is far too intermittent ever to be able to
generate base load for a Western industrial country. Of idiocies like converting
Drax power station to burn wood chips imported from the USA. Of green lies, fabrications,
scares and hype; though I myself am now immune to that stuff, having stopped watching
TV ten years ago. And of more and more crazy and totalitarian proposals, culminating
in this “zero carbon” nonsense.
In 2009, the UK government committed another outrageous
dishonesty. Prior to that year, they used – at least in theory – a social cost
approach to valuing the effects of CO2 emissions when considering
policies. Though, as the Stern report showed, they were not above fiddling the
numbers to suit their own aims.
The government’s page on this subject – Ref [[2]]
– says: “The SCC (social cost of carbon) matters because it signals what
society should, in theory, be willing to pay now to avoid the future damage
caused by incremental carbon emissions.” Yes, indeed. A social cost approach is
by far the best (indeed, probably the only) basis for objective assessment of
the costs of damage against the costs of taking steps to avoid that damage.
But in 2009, the UK government abandoned any attempt or
pretence at trying to work out how big the CO2 problem really was. As
the government’s page says: “the new approach will set the valuation of carbon
at a level consistent with the UK’s short and long-term greenhouse gas emissions
targets.” Cynically paraphrased, their argument seems to have been: “We know we
can’t do a credible cost-benefit analysis that justifies any political action on
this. But we’re already committed to political action. So, we’ll make up
numbers to match the commitments, and hope that no-one notices.”
Abandoning the social cost approach, in my view, was an
act of atrociously bad faith. Particularly because more recent research has suggested
that when the beneficial side-effects of CO2 emissions, such as
increased plant growth, are taken into account, it’s possible that the true social
cost of these emissions might even become negative. That is, CO2 emissions
would become a nett benefit, not a nett cost. If that were so, all arguments for
restrictive action on CO2 emissions would be blown right out of the
water. And the totalitarians obviously don’t want that, do they?
2009 was also the year of the Copenhagen COP meeting. At
this meeting, the politicians were aiming to reach binding agreements to keep
global temperatures below some completely arbitrary limit. But not long before
the meeting, “Climategate” happened.
Climategate was a release of e-mails from a climate research
unit at the University of East Anglia. These e-mails showed, to those who
bothered to look, that alarmists had interfered with the review and publication
process for papers on which the IPCC was supposed to rely. They had dropped,
spliced or misrepresented data to produce alarming effects. They had refused to
share data to allow others to replicate their work. They had plotted to delete
data to evade Freedom of Information requests. They had conspired against journal
editors who published skeptical papers. And more. Whatever they were doing, it
was neither science nor honest. And so, since taxpayers had paid for them to do
honest science, these “climate researchers” were committing fraud against us.
The UK government commissioned no less than three inquiries
into Climategate. First, a parliamentary committee, which seemingly chose to
avoid the most important questions. Second came the Oxburgh inquiry. It did not
interview any critics of the CRU. It claimed that it would assess the quality
of CRU’s science; but the papers it chose to look at did not cover the controversial
areas, and did not address work done for the IPCC. Yet the UK’s chief scientist
at the time described Oxburgh’s inquiry as “a blinder well played.” The third
review, by Muir Russell, examined the CRU’s scientific practices, but not the
science itself. It avoided answering the important questions, and the ones it
did investigate were largely irrelevant. So, the outcome of all three inquiries
was no more than a whitewash. Bad faith, bad faith, bad faith.
In 2015, there was another COP meeting, in Paris. At which,
the politicians again sought to reach a binding agreement to keep global temperatures
below some completely arbitrary limit. Not that anyone has ever proved beyond
reasonable doubt that restrictions on CO2 emissions, large or small,
would actually achieve this target or any other. If we don’t know what caused the
earlier warm periods, how can we know that another warm – or cold – period might
not kick in again, without human intervention?
The “limit” touted prior to Paris was 2 degrees Celsius
above “pre-industrial levels.” (Whatever that means.) But in 2015, it looked, before
the El Niño which started in that year, as though global warming had stopped,
and was not going to reach 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, or anywhere
near it. So, they arbitrarily lowered the limit from 2 degrees to 1.5! That was
moving the goalposts, no? Yet another example of extreme bad faith.
The mad parliament
The UK parliament of 2019 showed itself, by its conduct, to
be the most atrocious in many centuries. I dub it the mad parliament.
On April 30th of that year, minister Michael
Gove met with Extinction Rebellion, a green activist group that had been
carrying out disruptive protests over the previous several weeks. Later in the
year south-east England’s anti-terrorist police, in my view rightly, included Extinction
Rebellion in a list of extremist organizations; though they were eventually forced
to withdraw this. But Extinction Rebellion proved their extremism and destructiveness
in February 2020, by digging up a famous lawn at Trinity College, Cambridge – my
college.
On May 1st, the day following that meeting, the
parliament declared a “climate emergency.” Without any hard evidence that such
an emergency existed, and without even taking a vote.
Interestingly, on May 2nd Sky News published the
results of a poll – Ref [[3]]
– of a random sample of their subscribers. 56% said they would be unwilling to
drive significantly less to protect the environment. And 53% said they would be
unwilling even in principle to significantly reduce the amount they fly. Clearly,
the politicians had lost the plot, and were completely out of touch with the people
they were supposed to be serving.
In June, the government put forward, and the parliament passed,
a bill to introduce “a target for at least a 100% reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions (compared to 1990 levels) in the UK by 2050.” (At least 100%? Maybe
more? Crazy). Select committees also initiated a scheme of “citizens’ climate
assemblies,” one of the demands put forward by Extinction Rebellion. It’s amazing
that those who are supposed to be serving the people kow-towed to a disruptive extremist
group, but never even bothered to ask us the people what we thought. What a bunch
of con artists.
Where did all this panic come from? A report – Ref [[4]]
– was published in May by the Committee for Climate Change (CCC). This report
recommended “a new emissions target for the UK: net-zero greenhouse gases by
2050.”
Now, the CCC is supposed to be an independent and
impartial advisory body. But in my view, it’s about as impartial as Extinction
Rebellion. There are mugshots and bios of eight CCC members at the beginning of
the report. There may well be conflicts of interest for several of them between
their outside careers and investments, and being on a supposedly independent
advisory board. And when you supplement the bios with a few morsels from
Wikipedia, they tell a story. I’ll let you, my readers, fill in the details for
yourselves; but I will point out that one of the eight is an economist called
Paul Johnson. Johnson was one of the reviewers of the 2009 decision to abandon
the use of the social cost of carbon. And he supported that change.
One upshot of the bill was a report – Ref [[5]]
– published last November by five UK universities, using the collective moniker
“UK FIRES.” I confess that when I first found out about this, if I hadn’t been
given the link by a reputable source, I would have thought it was just a sick
joke. But sadly, it’s real. And, after just a single pass through the diagram summarizing
the proposals, I could see that the whole idea is a nightmare. The proposals
read like the edicts of a crazed, ultra-conservative dictator; and they make
Soviet five-year plans look like a cake-walk. In analogy to Mao Tse-Tung’s genocidal
Great Leap Forward, I dubbed them the Great Leap Backward. And the ideas in the
more recent “setting the challenge” document, to which I am responding, are just
more of the same.
But this parliament was crazed in more ways than just seeking
to destroy our economy and our freedoms for the sake of nothing more than a
pack of green falsehoods. They tried to stop Brexit, several times. This went
against David Cameron’s written promise that the government would honour the result
of the Brexit referendum. They tried to stop a newly appointed prime minister
discharging promises which he had made to the people. And they even tried to prevent
him calling a general election in order to resolve the situation.
Species extinction
The mention of Extinction Rebellion calls to mind one of
the two other issues from Our Common Future which are still active.
Namely, species loss.
No-one knows for sure just how many different species
there are on planet Earth. The best estimate I could find was 8.7 million multi-cellular
species. What this means is that the claim that species extinction is a real
problem can only be justified by reference to examples of particular species, which
humans have extinguished. Further, any species that was killed off by humans must
have been killed off by one or more individuals or groups of humans.
Now, my view is that, if there is a problem for which I am
not responsible in any way, I have no responsibility to do anything about it; on
the same basis that innocent people should not be punished for crimes they did
not commit. So, my demand to environmentalists is: Name and describe a species
to whose extinction I contributed, and say what I did, and approximately when,
to contribute to the extinction. I’ve never had an answer from even a single one
of them!
Air pollution
Since cars are the major subject of this consultation, I’ll
end this chapter with a brief mention of the other issue which green activists
have been trying to use to force us out of our cars. Namely, air pollution. Here,
as with climate change, there is a sordid backstory. I cover that backstory in the
talk here: [[6]]. Of
particular note are the commitments to the UN’s Gothenburg protocol in 1999 and
2012, and the EU emissions limits set in 2016.
[[1]]
United Kingdom Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment (UK-ILGRA),
2002: The Precautionary Principle: Policy and Application.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/carbon-valuation--2
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