Sunday 31 July 2022

On the UN’s “Sustainable Development Goals”

I went for a walk in the Surrey countryside yesterday. It was beautiful. Many birds were chirping in the undergrowth. Butterflies were fluttering, rabbits were running, pigs were snuffling in their pens, cows were lying in the shade of a tree. The flowers were starting to look a bit scraggly towards the end of a good summer; but most of the harvest is already in, early. I saw a red kite, unusual in my neck of the woods. And as I drove back, a deer sauntered across the road in front of me. It was pleasantly warm; and the local animals obviously enjoy warm weather. Nature was out in full force, and it looked pretty healthy too.

And yet, if you believe the mainstream media and the politicians, not to mention the United Nations, the entire planet is, to use a phrase, going to hell in a handbasket. To the point where, almost seven years ago in September 2015, the UN convened a “Sustainable Development Summit,” attended by more than 150 world leaders. At that meeting, they agreed a document called Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. You can find the text at [[1]].

I had previously only skim-read that document, and thought of it as little more than an earnest-sounding wish-list. But recently, while studying the history of the UN, I decided to examine the agenda more fully. Imagine my horror when I found that it is nothing less than a blueprint for the complete destruction of human civilization as we know it today, and for tyranny by a self-appointed global ruling class over every human being alive. I therefore thought it worth my while to write down and publish my thoughts on the matter.

The Sustainable Development Summit

The agenda was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit on September 25th-27th, 2015. Invitees included: “the United Nations funds and programmes and the specialized agencies of the United Nations system, as well as the Bretton Woods institutions, including the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the regional development banks, the regional commissions of the United Nations and other relevant stakeholders, including parliamentarians, academia, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, major groups and the private sector” ([[2]], paragraph 7). Oh, and one of the keynote speakers was the pope. Just about every faction of the global establishment was there.

This summit was a culmination of a long series of UN resolutions and summits, which took place in (at least) 2000, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 and earlier in 2015. All these, in turn, followed on from the 1992 Rio “Earth Summit” on Environment and Development. Which, in its turn, arose out of the 1987 UN report “Our Common Future.” I have given a brief potted history of the green agenda, concentrating on “global warming” and “climate change” in particular, here: [[3]].

Attendees at the summit included then UK prime minister David Cameron, who spoke at the UN plenary on September 28th, 2015: [[4]]. Cameron said: “We need a new global partnership, to ensure that all our policies – on things like tax, trade and transparency – really help to deliver progress for the poorest. The UK will lead the way on this internationally, just as we did in leading this agenda with our G8 Presidency in 2013.”

This is an amazing statement. First, because government has no remit to benefit only the poorest. Any government worth the name must deliver nett benefits for everyone it is supposed to serve. Second, because no government or “global partnership” has any right to interfere with the internal policies of any other country. Most of all, when that country is (or is supposed to be) a democracy. In a democracy, it ought to be the people who determine the direction in which a country moves, not some unaccountable third party. And third, because it was an explicit admission that the UK has been a major leader in the stampede towards the “sustainable development” agenda.

As you can see from the potted history I linked to above, successive UK governments have been seeking to force on us a globalist and green agenda since at least 1992. Indeed, John Major was the first world leader to commit to going to the 1992 Rio summit. As to Labour’s performance, I need only give you a link to the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.” [[5]]

Your – and my – supposed “representatives” signed up to this agenda, willingly and even gladly. Yet they did so without allowing us, the people they are supposed to serve, any other choice, or any chance to object. And without consulting us even once in three whole decades! Yet, they like to make out that the UK is a democracy? That’s a total sham.

Anyway, let’s have a look at what they agreed to do to us, shall we?

Preamble

“This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity… All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan.” What incredible arrogance! To think that they have a right to tell everyone in the world, including all individuals and all democracies, what direction each of us should be taking.

“We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path.” You might be determined, but why should we be? Why should we believe the mainstream media, or anyone else, when they tell us that “transformative steps,” or anything else, are urgently needed, yet never provide any objective, quantitative, checkable evidence that this is so? Where is the proof, beyond reasonable doubt, that the results of these steps would indeed be “sustainable and resilient” as claimed? And where is the honest, quantitative cost-benefit analysis of the effects of these proposals on the human beings affected by them?

People

“We are determined to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? But what have been the effects in practice of the transition to organic agriculture, that has been recently forced on millions of Sri Lankans by their government as part of this “sustainable development” agenda? Harvest failure, collapse of the economy, and 22 per cent of the country’s population now needing food aid. But far from trying to rectify the problems, the Sri Lankan ruling class are doubling down, and brutally assaulting the ordinary people who have been protesting about what has been done to them.

“…and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality.” Again, sounds great. But how can people fulfil their potential in a modern economy, if they are denied modern necessities such as reliable, affordable energy? As is happening in countries like the UK and Germany, because of persistently bad energy policies over several decades. UK politicians have banned fracking, failed to develop nuclear power, and put in place a strategy of trying to run an industrial economy on “renewable” energies that anyone with half an ounce of common sense can see are simply not up to the task. All these bad policies have been driven by the “sustainable development” agenda.

And how can people possibly live in dignity, if they are victims of predatory taxation, or of other restrictions on their economic freedom? If they are stalked by cameras everywhere they go? Or if their freedom of speech is under serious threat?

Moreover, what kind of “equality” should we be looking for? Should it be a moral equality, where what is right for one to do is right for another to do in similar circumstances, and vice versa – often known as “the rule of law?” Or some kind of “equality” constructed by a ruling class, through which they claim a right to impose on other people agendas that favour them, and their supporters and hangers-on, at the expense of everyone else? I think I know what the proponents of this Agenda mean by “equality.” It’s the second kind of equality they want, not the first.

Planet

“We are determined to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and future generations.” But what is “degradation” is, to a large extent, a subjective matter. For example, when the ancient Athenians quarried large amounts of marble to build the Parthenon in the 5th century BC, did they degrade the planet? To anyone who appreciates Western civilization, the utility and beauty of the Parthenon were big positives, compared to leaving the marble where it was. But an extreme deep green fundamentalist, hostile to Western civilization and human progress, might well think otherwise.

Moreover, I know what “sustainable” means: “able to endure into the future.” And I know that truly sustainable development is dynamic and progressive, like the Industrial Revolution in its heartland of the UK. It was sustainable because, as is natural to us, we kept on improving our techniques and making progress. It was as if, as soon as one advance had been made, a new industry would pop up to make use of it. Which, in its turn, would generate new advances to seed yet further progress. The Industrial Revolution was sustainable in the same way that a bush-fire or a nuclear reaction is sustainable. That is sustainable development.

I also know what a truly sustainable economy is. It is one from which no wealth is lost. Where those, who earn wealth, are able to spend it on goods and services from people like themselves. And to keep it away from politicians, bureaucrats, political activists and the like.

What we suffer under today, though, is exactly the opposite of sustainable. The wealth earned by productive people is stolen by a political class of parasites and pests. The parasites use these resources to enrich themselves and their cronies. The pests go further. They like to use political power to control people, to persecute those they don’t like, and to screw up people’s lives with unnecessary and harmful policies like “taking urgent action on climate change.”

And the “sustainable development” these pests want to force on us is the total opposite of the dynamism and progress of the Industrial Revolution. They want, ultimately, a world on which humans leave no mark.  These are the kind of humanity haters, that would have sought to stop the building of the Parthenon, and to leave the marble in the cliff. In reality, they do not want sustainable development, but stasis. And stasis is death.

As to climate change, we don’t need urgent action to stop some alleged change in the global climate. What we need is to create some climate change. We need to change the climate of thought. Away from today’s bad politics, towards a free, dynamic, de-politicized and truly sustainable economy, from which all parasites and pests are excluded.

Prosperity

“We are determined to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives and that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.”

Again, good sounding, but completely misses the vital point. Economic, social and technological progress must take place, not in harmony with some idol called “nature,” but in harmony with our nature, human nature. It is in our nature to be creative, to build civilizations, and to take control of, and leave our mark on, our surroundings.

This planet is our planet. Is it not? Any human being worth the name knows, deep down inside, that this planet and its resources are ours to use as we see fit, in order to make a home and garden fit for a civilized species. Is that not our right, as much as lions have a right to catch and kill zebra, and giraffes have a right to pick fruit and leaves off the tops of tall trees?

Yet the promoters of this agenda want to take that right away from us. And to set themselves over us as judge, jury and executioner. But to those that say this is not our planet, I answer: Then it sure as hell isn’t your planet! So, get yourselves off our backs.

Peace

“We are determined to foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies which are free from fear and violence.” Yet again, sounds good. But what, exactly, do they mean by “just?” Do they envision a milieu of individual, objective, common-sense justice? Where every individual is treated, over the long run, in the round and as far as practicable, as he or she treats others? Or do they seek some kind of nebulously defined “social justice?” In which those with political power may do on behalf of what they call “society” whatever it suits them to do? Including enriching themselves and their cronies, and doing severe injustices to people who don’t agree with their agendas and schemes? Once again, I think I know the answer. It’s the second kind of justice they want, not the first.

“There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.” Whatever “sustainable development” actually means. The official definition is development “which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” But some seem to regard it as more like “economic development that is conducted without depletion of natural resources.” The latter is not far away from saying that no development can ever be sustainable.

The first of their two statements is certainly true, at least if you use the official definition of “sustainable development.” The second is at least 180 degrees away from reality. In truth, there can be no peace when and where there is politics. And, in particular, there can be no lasting peace when there exist political states. “War is the health of the state,” as Randolph Bourne rightly told us. Peace and the state are polar opposites. If the promoters of this agenda really do want, as they claim later on, to “build a better future for all people,” then getting rid of politics and political states has to be a big part of the way forward. Does it not?

Partnership

“We are determined to mobilize the means required to implement this Agenda through a revitalised Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.” Mumbo-jumbo takes over here. “Global Partnership for Sustainable Development,” what the hell is that? It seems to mean “a self-appointed élite group that wants to use this agenda to take control over the world.”

There is a stench of collectivism, of top-down command and control, about this whole Agenda. The agenda promoters seem to have let their arrogance run away with them to such an extent, that they are looking simply to do all this stuff, regardless of the consequences to the people impacted by it. They are behaving like psychopathic criminals. Recklessly, dishonestly, and without any empathy or remorse towards their victims.

Some people like to call the world-view, that leads individuals to promote or support this agenda and similar policies, “cultural Marxism.” For me, though, this agenda has little if anything to do with Marxism. It does not align with the Marxist view that ordinary working people “have nothing to lose but their chains.” Quite the opposite, in fact. The main thrust of the agenda is a global power grab by an international élite of the rich and powerful, at the expense of ordinary people. This agenda is as far-right and “conservative” as you can get.

I have come to the conclusion that the world-view of those peddling this UN agenda is a globalist, feminist form of fascism. In which, “the Fatherland” is replaced by “Mother Earth,” and the planet is to be worshipped as fascists worship the nation. In which, in consonance with the gender change from male to female, women are to be regarded as superior to men.  And in which everyone and everything is to be “mobilized” in support of the agenda of “sustainable development.”

There are more parallels with fascism, too. Like the early fascists, the promoters and supporters of the agenda see civilization as in a crisis, which only massive and urgent action towards their chosen goals can solve. Like fascists, they desire economic and social regimentation, and have no concern at all for individual human beings. Like fascists, they are élitist. And they maintain a constant barrage of propaganda in every kind of media, and seek to suppress dissenting voices.

Declaration

There is so much to pick up on here, that I’ll confine myself to a few of the lowest low-lights.

§2: “On behalf of the peoples we serve, we have adopted a historic decision on a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative Goals and targets. We commit ourselves to working tirelessly for the full implementation of this Agenda by 2030.” But wait a moment! I have never even been consulted about any of this! Who the hell are these arrogant monkeys that claim a right to set “goals” or “targets” for me? Only one individual has any right to set goals or targets for my life. And that individual is me.

I have never had any chance to say No to the UN and its agendas, or to the fascistic world they are seeking to create. Furthermore, having been a non-voter at every UK general election from 1992 onwards, I have never authorized any politician, or anyone else, to act on my behalf with regard to any such scheme. And I will never commit to “working tirelessly for the full implementation of this Agenda” or any other political scheme. Now get off my back, monkeys, and get back in your box. Permanently.

§4: “As we embark on this great collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind.” That sounds uncomfortably like “you’re going to be forced to do all this, whether you like it or not.”

§7-9: “In these Goals and targets, we are setting out a supremely ambitious and transformational vision.” I can agree that some of the things they put forward – like access for everyone to affordable and reliable energy and sufficient, clean water – are worth working towards. But the package as a whole comes over as utopian mumbo-jumbo.

§11-13: “We reaffirm the outcomes of all major UN conferences and summits which have laid a solid foundation for sustainable development and have helped to shape the new Agenda.” Followed by a whole list of things the UN has agreed from 1992 onwards, none of which I have ever been consulted on, and virtually all of which I would have opposed with all my strength, had I had any opportunity to.

§14: “The survival of many societies, and of the biological support systems of the planet, is at risk.” Well, that’s not what the evidence of my senses told me when I was out on my walk. As far as I can work it out, pretty much all the problems in the world today are caused by politics of one kind of another. Get rid of politics, and the world will be a far better place.

§18: “We reaffirm that every State has, and shall freely exercise, full permanent sovereignty over all its wealth, natural resources and economic activity.” Also §38: “We reaffirm, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the need to respect the territorial integrity and political independence of States.” This seems to be a bit of a walk back from the “global government” or “world federation” idea, proposed by Albert Einstein among others, and still popular with many internationalists. It looks as if the UN have decided to accommodate the national politicians’ desire to continue using the “Westphalian” nation state as a tool to enrich themselves and their cronies, and to hurt those they don’t like.

§51. “Children and young women and men are critical agents of change and will find in the new Goals a platform to channel their infinite capacities for activism into the creation of a better world.” And §37, “Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development.” Hmmm… Hitler Youth, anyone?

Sustainable Development Goals

Goal 1: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere.” A fine sounding idea. But ask yourself: when and where the inhabitants of countries have managed to lift themselves out of poverty in the past, how did they do it? Through industry and business, as exemplified by the Industrial Revolution. And this could only happen where the governments of the time allowed it to happen, by at least tacitly encouraging free enterprise, and by not taking so much of the profits in taxes as to stifle progress.

Most third world countries today, though, are run by corrupt cliques of parasites and worse, dedicated primarily to their own profit. The Rajapaksa dynasty in Sri Lanka is a case in point. There is an obvious way to allow people in the third world to haul themselves out of poverty; just get rid of the parasites and pests, and let the ordinary people have common-sense justice and full economic freedom! But this, of course, is not something which the corrupt and parasitic élites can ever allow to happen. That is the root cause of third world poverty.

And when you look at the more detailed list of “targets” that lies beneath this goal, it appears that the plan is not to make ordinary people more productive and prosperous, but to erect more and more schemes of political re-distribution. That will only make poverty worse, by disheartening and dis-engaging the most skilled and industrious people.

Goal 2: “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.” But these goals are not compatible with each other! As shown by recent events in the Netherlands, the second biggest food exporter in the world. In the name of reducing nitrogen emissions to promote “biodiversity” and “sustainable agriculture,” farmers are threatened with being forced to cull a large proportion of their livestock. Which will not only lower Dutch food exports and harm the Dutch economy as a whole, but also reduce food security in importing countries such as the UK. On top of that, the UK government is now offering incentives to farmers to retire early. And across the pond in Canada, government seems to be limbering up to hit the farmers with a double whammy; mandating huge emissions reductions, and slapping a big tax on import of fertilizers.

It’s hard to avoid the thought that reducing food security is part of the élites’ master-plan. But there’s more. If small farmers, for whatever reason, sell up and retire from farming, who will buy their prime real estate? And what will the buyers do with it? We’ll have to follow the money trail to find out cui bono. Not since the Enclosures of Tudor times has there been such a land-grab.

As to nutrition, any kind of centralized scheme to “improve nutrition” will become nothing but a meddler’s charter. For different people have different needs and tastes, and everyone gets to know over time what works for them and what doesn’t. Those, who know what works for them, will not take kindly to being forced to change their diet!

Goal 3: “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Who could be against that? But in the “targets,” mixed in with sensible ideas like reducing infant mortality, we find: “Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.” “By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.” (In just five years? Dream on.) Moreover: “Strengthen the implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in all countries, as appropriate.” These are yet more excuses for restricting our freedoms and pleasures, and meddling more and more in everyone’s lives. No wonder that we are now mired in a culture of “safety at any cost,” that subjects us to ever more and tighter restrictions, while spying on us to catch us out in the smallest violation.

But then Cameron did promise, in that speech in 2015, to “reduce preventable deaths to zero.” How’s that been going, Dave, for example with those airstrikes you ordered in Syria, just months after that speech?

Goal 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Again, who would not want such things? But the targets list sounds like little more than a recipe for increasing centralized control over education. And there is no mention at all of those whose responsibility it is to provide their children with education, and whose right it is to decide how best to educate them. The words “parent” and “parents” are entirely missing from the document!

Goal 5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” The agenda here is explicitly sexist. They say, for example, “Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres,” where they could far better have said, “Eliminate all forms of aggressive violence against all human beings.”

Myself, I take the view that it shouldn’t matter who an individual is, only how that individual behaves. Under this view, discriminating against people merely because of their gender is simply silly and wrong. None of this “gender equality” crapola is necessary.

Goal 6: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.” I can agree with the desire for everyone to have access to affordable and hygienic water supplies. But they slipped in at least one curve-ball, too. “By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.” That sounds like yet another meddler’s charter, and it may explain why there have been so many ructions in the USA over their “clean water rule.” “Minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials” could easily be used as an excuse for meddling, too.

Goal 7: “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” Sounds marvellous! But when you look at the “targets,” you see an obvious contradiction between “By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services” and “By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.” The problem is, that renewable energy isn’t reliable! Its affordability over its entire life cycle is very dubious too, particularly once you take into account the need to provide back-up energy sources when wind and solar aren’t working.

Goal 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” If I believed they were sincere, I could actually agree with this one! Including “encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises.”

The UK government, however, surely won’t be on board on this. Otherwise, why would they have ruined my career as a one-man enterprise with a bad tax law called IR35? Indeed, governments in the last few decades have steadily increased harassment of the “little people” like me. It seems that they have a deep-seated hatred of the individual, and of people who want to be independent. I think it no accident that the people worst hit by COVID restrictions were small shopkeepers and other small business people. Or that they recently targeted lorry drivers with that same bad law IR35, precipitating a supply chain crisis.

For decades now, the UK government have hugely favoured big business over small. With the result that the politically well connected get richer, and the politically poor get poorer.

Goal 9: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.” Again, sounds good. But then, “By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable.” Do they not understand that large industrial projects – power plants, for example – take many years to build and to get working? And that is once the planning phase, which can also take years, is complete? Doing this by 2030 looks to me like pie in the sky, powered by unicorn farts.

Goal 10: “Reduce inequality within and among countries.” “Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality.” This is a recipe for government micro-management of everything, and the total destruction of economic freedom. We already know that such a system can never work for the people, most of all for the “little people.” In fact, it will make economic inequality worse.

Top-down economic control failed in the Soviet Union. Back in the 1820s, it failed even in the voluntary socialist community at New Harmony, Indiana. It didn’t work in fascist Italy, either. As to the nazi economy… all I’ll say is, read up about it.

Goal 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” “By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.” If I read that right, it means “force us all into cities.” Where we can enjoy “safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport.” And not much else. No, thanks.

Goal 12: “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” “Implement the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, all countries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead.” Who the hell are these arrogant sods, that want to set a “10-year framework of programmes” for people in a supposed democracy, without ever giving us the chance to object or even to comment? And there’s more. “By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels.” “Substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.” These, also, will provide ample opportunities for the state to spy on us and to meddle with our lives.

Goal 13: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” That warlike metaphor, “combat climate change,” tells a lot. As does a quote from the David Cameron speech I referenced above: “There can be no attack on poverty without an assault on climate change.” Yes, they like to use militaristic language. They really are like fascists!

That climate change caused by human activities has never been proven to be a significant problem for the planet, or indeed to be a problem at all, is a truth not (yet) understood by enough people. But it is a truth, nonetheless. To try to prevent people realizing this, virtually all the mainstream media, and most of all the BBC, pump out torrents of lies, misinformation and fear on the subject. The Met Office is in on it, too. As to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is supposed to review and report on the science of the matter, it’s a UN organization.

Further, as I recounted in my essay linked earlier, government has gone so far as to re-write and pervert the precautionary principle into a tool for tyranny, and to suppress any possibility of doing objective cost-benefit analysis on anything involving carbon dioxide emissions. But the reality is that, just as no-one is actually sure how much impact various human activities have on the climate, so no-one is actually sure what would be the effect on the climate of policies restricting these human activities. It could easily be that even deep cuts in human emissions of greenhouse gases could turn out to have no effect at all on the climate. If that were to be so, all the sacrifices people were forced to make would have been in vain.

Yet, this does not stop the promoters of the green agenda from pushing ahead with the recklessness, arrogance and dishonesty so characteristic of them, and making political laws to “combat” climate change. And what policies do they propose to fix the non-problem of alleged climate change? Ones that enable them to destroy our prosperity and our freedoms. Up to and including the destruction of human industrial civilization.

And who will benefit from such policies? Exactly the cabal, including the World Economic Forum and World Bank, multinational corporations, political governments and the UN, that are pushing their wet dream of “Global Redesign,” “Great Reset,” and “sustainable development.” As the saying goes, follow the money.

Goal 14: “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” Again, sounds good. But among much else, they want: “By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.” Another meddler’s charter.

Goal 15: “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.” And: “Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.” But “degradation” is a subjective thing. And to “halt” biodiversity loss would be a very tall order indeed. It would, in essence, require the Earth and everything on it, human influenced or not, to remain unchanged for ever. That world-view is an extreme, ultra-conservative one. And moreover, it isn’t how nature works.

And all this comes at an enormous cost to human beings. If we are to be expected to preserve the natural habitat for animals, should we not also expect our own natural habitat to be preserved? That is, the peace, justice and freedom which we need to fulfil ourselves, and the free market and free trade which must underpin a prosperous economy? And yet, this Agenda seeks to take away our habitat from us, and to subject us to the rule of fascist-style meddlers.

Goal 16: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.” Apart from the dubious reference to “sustainable development,” that seems fine at first reading. And the list of “targets” lists several, with which I can actively agree! “Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms.” “Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.” “Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels.”

But ask yourself: How do the promoters, supporters and implementors of this Agenda – and the UK government in particular – behave towards us? Do they behave with transparency? No. Are they free from corruption? No. Do they accept accountability when things go wrong? No. Are their decision-making processes responsive, or participatory, or inclusive of those of us who prefer human freedom to political nonsense? Not a chance. Such dishonesty and hypocrisy are endemic among political classes everywhere.

Goal 17: “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.” “Strengthen domestic resource mobilization… to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection.” So, now we know (if we didn’t before) what the “digital ID” and “central bank digital currency” schemes being touted are really for. We are to be treated as no more than “resources” to be taxed and “mobilized” at their will. There’s another word for that: slaves.

But mainly, this “goal” comes over as a rallying cry for those with vested interests in the agenda. Bankers and other “money men.” Big Academe and Green Tech. National politicians. “Stakeholders,” Big Business, Big Tech. Government bureaucracies, quangos, “public-private initiatives,” and quaintly named “civil society organizations.” And, of course, the mainstream media, their propaganda arm. With globalist organizations like the World Bank, World Economic Forum and International Monetary Fund in there too. And the UN and its agencies pulling the strings from the top.

It's unstated, but obvious, that we the “little people” will be right at the bottom. Far poorer than we deserve to be, and treated as serfs or slaves. If, of course, they allow us to live at all. And with our rights, freedoms and prosperity having been stolen from us by the same vested interests that will have handsomely profited from the agenda.

What isn’t in there

One of the remarkable things about this Agenda is the words which you would expect ought to be in it, but aren’t. Or, at least, are found only a very few times. I already mentioned the complete absence of the word “parent” or “parents.” To talk about education without using that word at least once is… revealing.

The word “freedom” or “freedoms,” to give another example, occurs just three times. In the second sentence of the Preamble, there is a reference to “in larger freedom,” which is mealy-mouthed to say the least. There is a reference to “freedoms” in §19 as part of a very brief nod to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And one of the “targets” of Goal 16 says that governments should “protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.” A bit of a cop-out, no? No, freedom for human beings is not one of the things this Agenda is about.

The word “rights” does occur 23 times, 14 of them as “human rights.” As a comparison, “women” appears 31 times and “men” 12. “Justice” gets only six mentions, while “equality” gets 18, two-thirds of them as “gender equality.” The word “democracy” occurs just once, where it is listed as something “essential for sustainable development.” And “rule of law” gets four mentions only, one of them in the same place as “democracy.” So, these are not important concepts in this agenda. Certainly not compared to “sustainable,” which gets 160 mentions, 91 of them as “sustainable development.”

There is no doubt in my mind, that those that promote this agenda have no respect at all for us human beings, or for our rights or freedoms. The saccharine coating of their words disguises a raging desire to use us as objects for their profit, and to hit and to hurt us if we step out of line in any way.

The promoters and supporters of the “sustainable development” agenda are parasites, or pests, or both. They are traitors to human civilization. They are our enemies, not our friends. We human beings must push back against them. And the first step in the push-back must be for people to recognize them as the parasites and pests they are.

To sum up

·       The United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals” agenda is a blueprint for the destruction of human civilization as we know it, and for tyranny by a self-appointed global ruling class over every human being alive.

·       For at least 30 years, the UK government has been a major leader in the stampede towards the “sustainable development” agenda. They have done this without allowing us, the people they are supposed to serve, any other choice, or any chance to object.

·       The main thrust of the agenda is a global power grab by an international élite of the rich and powerful, at the expense of ordinary people. The world-view of its promoters, far from being “cultural Marxism” or anything like it, seems to be a globalist, feminist form of fascism.

·       The promoters of this agenda use saccharine-coated words to disguise a raging desire to use us human beings as objects for their profit, and to hit and to hurt us if we step out of line in any way. The agenda is a charter for government meddling and centralized control.

·       The negative effects of the agenda are now plain for all to see. For example, in food shortages and economic collapse in Sri Lanka. Energy shortages in the UK and Germany. And serious political disruption to farming in the Netherlands and in Canada.

·       It is becoming clear that the “sustainable development” agenda, wherever implemented, will produce results that are quite the opposite of sustainable.

·       The promoters and supporters of this agenda are traitors to human civilization. It is high time that we human beings started to push back against their agenda and against them.

Friday 22 July 2022

Axe the Tax on Fuel, Gas and Electricity - An Open Letter to the UK Media

Dear Sirs

It's time to Axe the Tax on Fuel, Gas and Electricity. Will you be covering the Axe The Tax campaign from #Together?

I am a member of grassroots campaign organization #Together. We, Together's over 300,000 signatories, today call on the next leader of this country to #AxeTheTax on fuel, gas and electricity. Specifically:

·       Axe fuel duty – currently 52%

·       Axe VAT on domestic gas & electricity bills – currently 5%

·       Axe VAT on fuel – currently 20%

·       Axe Government, environmental & social schemes tax on domestic gas and electricity – currently approx. 15%

·       Price cap of £1,300 for direct debit and pre-payment customers

The cost of COVID lockdowns has been enormous, and has hit small business people and workers in sectors such as hospitality particularly hard. These policies have been both unjust and harmful, as well as seriously impinging on our human rights and freedoms.

On top of this, we now face a cost-of-living crisis, with energy and fuel prices skyrocketing. While some of this may be the fault of Mr. Putin, by far the greatest cause of the unaffordability of energy today in the UK is government’s persistently bad energy policies over several decades. They have banned fracking, failed to develop nuclear power, and put in place a strategy of trying to run an industrial economy on “renewable” energies that are simply not up to the task. All for no better reason than to flaunt their “green” credentials to the UN and other bodies, that ought to have no say at all in how we the people of the UK run our democracy.

This situation is unsustainable and unacceptable. “Heat or eat” is already a very real dilemma for many families and older people across the country. For the next leader to fail to treat the people of the UK as the human beings we are, or to fail to rectify the insane environmental, economic, and energy policies currently being followed in the UK, would be political suicide.

We have come #Together to demand action and we think you should cover the Axe The Tax campaign (www.axethetax.uk) because this topic affects every one of us.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Lock

 

Thursday 14 July 2022

The week the green agenda tanked

July 5th-12th, 2022

In recent weeks, events have moved apace. In two countries in particular, there have been uprisings, both caused by political imposition of green policies on farmers.

In Sri Lanka, by early March a government-mandated “transition to organic agriculture” [[1]] had caused the production of rice (Sri Lankans’ staple food) and tea (their main export) to plummet by more than 20% in just a few months. The failure of the harvest in March led directly to the mass protests that have, as of July 12th, unseated from power Sri Lankan president Rajapaksa and several of his family. But this doesn’t mean at all that the suffering is over for Sri Lankans. Prospects for the next harvest look to be even worse: [[2]]. All supporters of green policies ought to feel shame and remorse, now they have seen the effects.

In the Netherlands, the world’s second largest food exporter, farmers have been protesting since 2019 against regulations aiming to halve emissions of gaseous nitrogen compounds, particularly ammonia, by 2030. These regulations are part of the EU’s so-called “Green Deal,” which in its turn has been prompted by the United Nations. At one of the protests on July 5th, Dutch police fired live ammunition at a tractor driving away from them. The protests [[3]] have begun to spread to other countries, notably Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland.

And yet, it is not at all clear that emissions of nitrogen compounds from farming cause any real and significant negative effects. This article [[4]] gives an idea of what is going on. The claim seems to be that there is a loss of “biodiversity” in certain “protected areas” that are part of an EU project called “Natura 2000.” But ask yourself: Which is more important? Some ill-defined, hard to measure thing called “biodiversity?” Or food for human beings?

What has happened in Sri Lanka shows that green meddling by politicians costs, not only prosperity, but also peace and lives. Rajapaksa has committed crimes against humanity, on a similar scale to Stalin’s policies that caused the Holodomor famine in Ukraine.

And Mark Rutte, Dutch prime minister, is an “agenda contributor” at the World Economic Forum, an organization that seeks to destroy our human civilization and prosperity, and to subject us to a globalist “Great Reset.” Yet the name of Rutte’s party, translated into English, is the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy! Freedom? Democracy? Concern for people? The “Great Reset” is none of these things. It, too, is a crime against humanity.

Wednesday 6 July 2022

On the US Abortion Impasse

Recently, the US Supreme Court published a ruling that, in effect, overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion precedent, and returns responsibility for deciding policy on abortion to individual states. One conservative commentator paraphrased the decision as “sorry, but the Constitution doesn’t say anything about a right to abortion, so it’s up to the states.”

This has been met with furore in US “progressive” quarters. The judgment of the three dissenting justices says: “Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that the Constitution safeguards a woman’s right to decide for herself whether to bear a child. Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that in the first stages of pregnancy, the government could not make that choice for women. The government could not control a woman’s body or the course of a woman’s life: It could not determine what the woman’s future would be.” Fine words, perhaps; but they do not disguise the anti-democratic desire of these justices to stop individual states setting their own rules on abortion, even if a majority of the people in the state desire them.

But on the other hand, extreme conservatives have been heard muttering about seeking a constitutional amendment to prevent Congress or the states legalizing abortion. Indeed, such an amendment reached the floor of the Senate in 1983, but was defeated.

Here is the nub of the issue, as I see it. The abortion question – when it should be permitted, and when not – appears at first sight to be, and is being treated as, a political question. But it is not, in reality, a political question at all. It is an ethical question; a fundamental question of what is right and what is wrong. The issue, simply stated, is: exactly when does a fetus become a human being, and so acquire the right to life?

The way I see, there are four ethically tenable positions on abortion:

1.     The “Catholic position.” A fetus becomes human at the moment of conception.

2.     The Roe v. Wade position, that a fetus becomes human once it is capable of surviving outside the womb. (This decision, by the way, strikes me as a typical political compromise, trying to appease both sides in an ethical war, while satisfying neither.)

3.     The common-sense position, that a fetus becomes human, and acquires human rights, at the moment of birth.

4.     This is a bit of a curveball, but there are some who say that the criterion for being human is self-awareness. That isn’t usually achieved for some months after birth. So, these people think it should be OK to commit infanticide, if the child will never have a chance of a decent life – for example, due to autism.

None of these positions can be said to be right or wrong in an absolute sense. The matter, then, ought not to be the subject of legislation! That it is, is I think the cause of the immense divisions over the issue between Americans of different persuasions.

I myself take the common-sense position, number (3). That means that, until birth, the fetus is not yet a human being, only a potential. So, the mother must have the right to say “I won’t go through with this.” There is, it’s true, a somewhat grey area over how long before the birth is due the mother should actually be allowed to undergo abortion. But certainly, in the first third of the pregnancy, if the mother feels it is the right thing to do, abortion ought to be permitted.

This is even more important when we consider that parents have the responsibility to bring up and educate their children. If they (or the mother alone, if the man is no longer around) feel that they cannot discharge the responsibility, then they (or she) must have the right to say: “No, I can’t go through with this; so, I’ll abort the pregnancy.” And most of all, if (as in a case in Ireland a few years ago) the pregnancy was caused by rape.

Now, what does the Supreme Court decision actually do? It places the power to regulate abortion in the USA back where it was before Roe v. Wade, with the governments of individual states. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t moving the power to make political decisions down towards the lowest possible level a good thing? Then, if you don’t like a particular policy in one place, you can go somewhere else more congenial to your views. In the case in point, even if the state a woman lives in goes so far as to ban abortion totally, if she wants an abortion badly enough, why can she not travel to another, more abortion-friendly state?

The fact is, that it is simply tyrannical and unjust to enforce on people whose view on the ethics of abortion is on one side, laws which reflect the views of those on the other side. Being an ethical dispute not a political one, it isn’t something which can be met by a compromise half-way. This was exactly what the Roe v. Wade verdict tried, and failed, to do. So, it was always doomed to fail eventually. At least this ruling will allow ordinary people some degree of choice, at least, in what abortion régime they live under.

So, I think the Supreme Court has probably done the right thing with this ruling, even if it may not have been for the right reasons.

Saturday 2 July 2022

Google has already implemented the “on-line safety bill!”

An hour or so ago, I did this Google search:



That query is reasonably well phrased, no?

Yet the three articles listed below were published a week or so ago in the UK media; two of them in the mainstream. Why do they not appear on the first page of the search results?

·       https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/27/online-safety-bill-has-terrifying-implications/

·       https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10955423/Lord-Frost-warns-bill-clean-internet-highly-damaging-free-speech.html

·       https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-online-safety-bill-explained-summary/

So, we now have evidence that Google is already biasing the content it links to. I call foul.

Friday 1 July 2022

Freedom of speech and the culture of “safety at any cost”

In the UK, there is an “on-line safety” bill, currently under discussion in parliament. Whose name has recently – and somewhat strangely – been changed from “on-line harms” to “on-line safety.” As I looked closer and closer at what is going on, I found that this is only one aspect of a rising wave of government infringements on our rights and freedoms. COVID measures and environmental regulations are two other aspects. There may well be more.

But I’ll begin with the on-line safety bill. Here is the government’s “fact sheet” from about two months ago: [[1]]. I’ve also had a look at an analysis of and response to the bill by barrister Francis Hoar: [[2]]. This is dated May 26th, 2022.

Freedom of speech on-line: the current situation

Existing regulations on communications over the Internet and social media in the UK are based on common-law principles. There is a relatively clear boundary between criminal offences such as death threats, and mere torts, such as uttering abusive words without intending to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Among service providers, there is a distinction between a “publisher” (someone who is able to review and edit statements made before publication) and a “platform” (someone who merely provides a facility for others to publish). A publisher is responsible for the content of what it publishes, willy-nilly. On a platform, the poster is responsible for the content he or she uploads. But the platform itself does not have any responsibility for content, unless and until it has been informed of that content. At that point, the platform host can consider the ramifications of leaving up, or taking down, the content in question. And make a decision.

Such a system is imperfect, surely. But it seems to have been tolerably workable up to now.

What they’re doing

Now, along come the proponents of the on-line safety bill, with a slew of new and very complicated proposals. First, they want to force social media companies to put in place systems to monitor speech that might be “harmful.” And all companies within the scope of the bill must do risk assessments to identify the risks of having users upload illegal content to their service.

Second, they want to empower Ofcom, a UK regulatory bureaucracy, to monitor compliance with the bill’s provisions, and to be able to impose very stiff fines on companies it considers to be in breach. As a result, platforms will end up being held responsible for content they publish, even when they have not had the content brought to their attention. Yet there is no clear, objective definition of where the dividing line is between what ought to be removed and what not. This is likely to lead to platforms becoming far keener to take down content pre-emptively, on the grounds that it might breach some regulation. Instead of “publish and be damned,” their default attitude is likely to become “censor and be safe.”

Third, the bill’s backers want to create a criminal offence of “harmful communication.” This will make it a crime to express any opinion, for which there is a real risk that some adult might suffer “psychological harm amounting to at least serious distress.” But what, exactly, is “serious distress?” And who is to make the judgement? Is it to be left to the subjective feelings of those who feel aggrieved by this “harmful communication?” Surely not! For in many places today, and most of all in American universities, there are lobbies that regard the expression of any viewpoint different from their own as a cause of distress. And they go so far as to seek to ban all expression of such viewpoints within their echo chamber, using methods such as “de-platforming.” Taken to its logical conclusion, this measure would end up banning expression of all viewpoints that do not accord with the political dogmas of the in-crowd of the day.

This “risk of harm amounting to serious distress” standard is not only a subjective one, but will also put innocent people at risk of censorship far more than does the existing law, which requires a communication to be at least “grossly offensive” before it can constitute a crime.

Combine all three of these proposals, and quite clearly, no opinion expressed on an Internet platform or on social media will be safe from suppression. The platform hosts have so much at stake, that they will likely feel pushed into a mode of “if in doubt, remove.” But even if the material was left up, and the case came to court, the court would have to make a political judgement on whether the communication really was harmful, and whether or not it could be justified by being in the public interest. That isn’t what courts are supposed to be for.

Fourth, they want to create another criminal offence of “false communication.” This will require only evidence of “non-trivial harm” to constitute a crime. Such an accusation will be very hard to defend against, and most of all when the statement made is actually true, but goes against the dogma of the day. The accused will be in a similar situation to the victims of the Inquisitions! The likely effect is that many platforms will routinely censor any discussion, even purely factual discussion, on any controversial subject, if it does not support the establishment line (as represented by Ofcom’s line).

Those of us, for example, who oppose the “nett zero” agenda, because there is no hard evidence proving beyond reasonable doubt that human emissions of carbon dioxide gas have caused or will cause any significant damage to the global climate, can expect to be “cancelled,” and our comments or posts deleted. Even if the case came to court, it would leave the court in the position of having to adjudicate the truth or otherwise of the statement made. Which it would almost certainly be unable, and very likely also unwilling, to do.

There is another important point here. There is a considerable gain to the public at large in allowing all points of view to be expressed freely, including offensive ones, biased ones, unpopular ones, and ones that are just plain wrong. If people are not exposed to all these points of view, how are they ever going to acquire the skill of critically analyzing ideas, to see whether they hold up or not? Or the skill of countering bad ideas by reasoned argument?

Fifth, there is a category of “priority content,” material that is already illegal that, according to the government’s fact sheet on the bill, “all platforms in scope of the Bill will need to proactively remove.” Yet it appears that the government will be able to change the definition of what is “priority content” at any time, without parliament or anyone else being able to challenge or amend the definition.

Sixth, the bill will apply not just to publishers and platforms, but to search engines too. The fact sheet is rather coy about what the impacts will be on search engines, saying only that they “will have tailored duties focussed on minimising the presentation of harmful search results to users.” This could mean almost anything! At one extreme, it could require only that the search engines do not inadvertently breach the bill themselves by showing excerpts from “priority content.” At the other, it could force search engines to perform full-on censorship, and not to show links to any page that they think might breach a regulation. Or even to de-list, or degrade the ordering priority of, all links to platforms they consider untrustworthy.

Seventh, there are some rather strange seeming changes in the latest version of the bill, supposedly to protect “democratic” and “journalistic” content. What exactly constitutes such content, and what not, I expect to be a very grey area. (For example, would an article pointing out serious flaws in democracy, and suggesting radical changes, qualify as “democratic content?” Would this article itself qualify for either of these two protections?)

The devil will be in the detail, but I suspect that many platforms will be reluctant to accept that content written by ordinary people can be protected under either of these headings. While views from well-known people will be OK. If that happens, they will be violating our right to equality before the law.

How they’re doing it

To return to the fact sheet. There’s a lot of political correctness in there, and hand-wringing about all this not being nearly as bad as it sounds. But that is just window-dressing.

I found myself growling and gritting my teeth when I read: “Freedom of expression will be protected because these laws are not about imposing excessive regulation or state removal of content, but ensuring that companies have the systems and processes in place to ensure users’ safety.” But, as I observed above, the likely effect of these laws is that no opinion expressed on the Internet or on social media will be safe from suppression, and many platforms will routinely censor any expressed position on a controversial subject that does not support the establishment line. And platform hosts that do censor, and those brave ones who don’t, will become separate “echo chambers,” with no communication between them. That is hardly protecting freedom of expression!

I was not much happier when I read that they had “amended the legislation to no longer defer the power to bring in criminal sanctions for failures to comply with information notices.” In other words, companies will become liable to criminal punishments almost immediately the law is passed, with no time to pilot procedures for dealing with the new situation. So, the instant Silly Lizzie approves that bill, all our on-line freedoms will be pretty much gone. It’s yet another sign of the breathless rush the establishment are in to destroy our freedoms.

Ofcom will “be able to bring criminal sanctions against senior managers who fail to ensure their company complies with Ofcom’s information requests, or who deliberately destroy or withhold information, should companies fail to take the new rules seriously.” “The regulator will have the powers necessary to take appropriate action against all companies in scope, no matter where they are based. This is essential given the global nature of the internet.”

Do you see where this is leading? It means that, as soon as the régime of legalized censorship starts, smaller companies with less resources to deal with all the rigmarole and red tape will be at a serious disadvantage. And does anyone think that a such an egregious violation of our rights, and one so convenient to the globalist establishment, will not be picked up on by other governments, and similar legislation made in other places? So, foreign governments will start playing tit-for-tat, and attacking UK based service companies.

I expect that only the biggest, and most establishment friendly, companies will be able to survive that double whammy. The world market for Internet and social media service provision will be restricted to a handful of large, global, politically correct companies. Far from competition pressuring them to serve their customers as they should, companies with names like Fishhook and Twatter will end up in even more dominant market positions than they have now. And the “little people” will lose out. Yet again.

I’m also concerned about the possibility that platforms will be allowed to take down content published before the bill comes into effect. That strikes me as equivalent to book-burning.

Moreover: “News publishers’ websites are not in scope of online safety regulation.” What exactly is a “news publisher?” And if you are not one already, how do you become one? This looks to me like a ruse to entrench existing news publishers in their positions of privilege, and protect them from upstart competitors.

The requirements on search engines are particularly worrying. For they are likely to enable a second level of gatekeeping, in effect blocking access by the general public to content that goes against politically correct dogmas. Is there not a danger, for example, of search engines being subtly tweaked to obstruct access to the websites of organizations which promote civil liberties, such as Together [[3]] or Liberty [[4]]?

Whatever the motives behind this bill, it’s abundantly clear that its proponents do not regard freedom of speech for ordinary people as important at all. They want to replace a tolerably workable legal framework by one that actively encourages censorship of ideas that are not mainstream and “approved.” And we are unlikely to get much if any help from our elected “representatives.” For members of parliament, being themselves often subjected to attacks (justified or not) on social media and the Internet, will have selfish reasons to support the bill. And so, to destroy freedom of speech for the “constituents” they are supposed to “represent.”

If it goes through, the on-line safety bill will be a bad law. I am minded of Edmund Burke’s famous dictum: “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

Oh, and a fun thought for you. Would not the government be in breach of its own proposed regulations, by publishing – or even having published – the specific content in this fact sheet? Is the statement “these laws are not about imposing excessive regulation or state removal of content” not itself a “false communication?” For in reality, this is the state threatening to hit Big Tech with a big stick, in order to ensure that it removes content the state wants removed. There is no difference in outcome between this and the state removing the content itself. So, I regard the statement as at the very least dishonest. And dishonesty by government towards the people should never be tolerated in any democracy worth the name.

Moreover, is this same statement not also “harmful communication,” because it seriously raises the hackles and the tempers of anyone who cares about human rights and freedoms? Including me?

A culture of safety at any cost

All this is sold to us under a pretext of “keeping people safe.” Safety, defined as “the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury,” is a good thing, isn’t it?

To which my answer is: well, sometimes. Of course, other things being equal, it is better to be safe from a particular hazard than to be exposed to it. But other things are not always equal. If there are costs associated with lessening your exposure to a particular hazard, it is a real question how much it makes sense for you to spend to avoid that hazard. The answer will depend on the relation between those costs and the likelihood and severity of loss due to the hazard. And since some individuals are more risk-averse than others, and perceptions of different risks vary, there is always a subjective element to the decision.

Further, when governments make laws to promote some particular ideal of safety, there will always be winners and losers. One man’s apparent increase in safety, for example, may mean the ruin of another man’s livelihood. Think, for example, of the effects of the on-line safety bill on those who earn their living through publishing on controversial subjects.

Yet more and more, governments have come to treat safety as like a deity; something to be worshipped, and whose worship is to be enforced on others. They seem to regard a higher level of safety as a desirable, even where the costs are far higher than any benefits that can be objectively expected, and regardless of any negative effects that might be caused to some individuals or groups of people.

To make things worse, governments are always inclined to err on the side of over-restriction. This is because the individuals making the decisions will get kudos from their peers if the restrictions are (or appear to be) successful. Yet they themselves are not held accountable for the consequences to the people government is supposed to be serving, and will not pick up any of the tab. It is the ordinary people who will end up both suffering the over-restrictions and paying the costs. The result is a culture of safety at any cost, which favours, and tends to increase the level of, government overreach and tyranny.

It is not only in the area of freedom of speech that this culture is rampant. The speed-bumps, chicanes and creeping reductions in speed limits on the roads, which we have suffered over 20 years and more, have not brought anything like the kind of reductions in UK road deaths which had been achieved in previous decades. Road deaths were pretty much static from 2011 to 2019, yet speed limits have continued to be progressively tightened. All this has slowed our journeys, and made driving more arduous. It has also reduced our freedom of movement, and increased the general level of frustration in our lives.

Risk and the green agenda

There is evidence that successive UK governments have deliberately helped along this culture of safety at any cost. Most notable was the 2002 report of the Inter-departmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment (ILGRA), which in effect re-wrote the precautionary principle to enshrine an attitude of “if in doubt about a risk, government must act.” I covered this in an article here: [[5]]. The ILGRA report itself is here: [[6]]. It is worthy of note that the ILGRA began their work in 1994, not long after the UK government had signed up to the extreme green agenda at the 1992 Rio summit, and that the document explicitly references the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in its Summary section.

They saw the purpose of the principle as “to create an impetus to take a decision notwithstanding scientific uncertainty about the nature and extent of the risk.” And they wanted to invoke the principle “even if the likelihood of harm is remote.” They said, too, that “the precautionary principle carries a general presumption that 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.” And they misused an aphorism attributed to Carl Sagan, saying: “‘Absence of evidence of risk’ should never be confused with, or taken as, ‘evidence of absence of risk’.”

By doing this, they threw away any pretence of objective, unbiased analysis and assessment of risks. They also inverted the burden of proof, requiring the defendants (that’s us, who want to do things like heat our homes and drive our cars) to prove a negative. And they in effect decreed, contrary to our right to the presumption of innocence, that absence of evidence of guilt is not evidence of absence of guilt. We skeptics of the green agenda have been denied, for decades, our right to a fair and public hearing. And our experts have been harassed and, in some cases, lost their jobs or been forced to leave their field altogether. Is that not bad faith by the UK government, and others, against the people they are supposed to serve?

And it’s not just on the side of exaggerating risks that the UK government has shown bad faith over the green agenda. They have also made it impossible to assess objectively the costs versus benefits of actions proposed to “mitigate” the risk of climate change. Here’s how they did it. Prior to 2009, they used a measure based on the “social cost of carbon” (the total cost to all affected of the effects of UK carbon dioxide emissions) to calculate the predicted damage resulting from human emissions in the UK of carbon dioxide gas. That’s fair enough, as long as the social cost is calculated accurately. But in 2009, they dropped this in favour of a system called “mitigation/adaptation curves.” This made it, in practice, impossible to answer the question: “How much harm would CO2 emissions cause if we did nothing at all to reduce them?” A question which must be answered before you can even assess whether there’s a real problem or not!

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.” This was a clear case of politics masquerading as science. I wrote an article uncovering what they did, and much more, here: [[7]]. And even in 2019 when plans were made to go full steam ahead with the “nett zero” project in the UK, there was no objective, quantitative, unbiased cost-benefit analysis of the consequences to the people.

It’s fair to say that, in their actions on this matter, the UK government have showed extreme bad faith towards the people.

COVID

And then there’s COVID. We have had proposals for vaccine passports to be mandatory in order to enter social venues, and for health care workers who are unwilling to be vaccinated to be sacked from their jobs. Now, it so happens that I have spent a lot of time over the last two years looking at world-wide COVID statistics. I recently wrote a report [[8]] which, among much else, plotted cases per million against percentage fully vaccinated for more than 200 reporting countries. That showed cases per million going up by about 3,000 (0.3% of the population) for every per cent increase in the proportion fully vaccinated! That doesn’t prove beyond doubt that the vaccines don’t help to lessen the spread of cases. But it certainly does suggest that they fall far short of being the “magic bullet” for controlling the spread, that we were led to believe they would be. And in consequence, to attempt to make vaccination mandatory for the performance of any activity was, and is, ethically wrong.

Even beyond this, to force anyone to take against their wills any medical treatment beyond emergency and palliative care is extremely unethical. It ought to have been included in the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, but wasn’t. For a precedent that shows how unethical this is, consider the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. They sought to subject unfortunate victims, who were judged “unfit to reproduce” by some cabal of doctors, to forced sterilization. In the USA, more than 60,000 people were sterilized in this way. And when the nazis got their hands on the idea, they sterilized more than 400,000 people. Yet for several decades up to 1939, eugenics was supported by many of the “great and good” of the day, including Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes.

Then there are the things we were told about the vaccines. As late as November 2020, even scientists working on predicting the future of the epidemic were assuming that one jab would provide strong protection. Then it was two jabs needed, then there were boosters required. (More profits for Big Pharma!) We were also told that RNA vaccines would be able to react to new variants of the virus as they arose. That was dubious from the start; and when omicron arrived, they hardly seemed to work against it at all. We were lied to. Or, at the very least, we were fed hype, when what we needed was facts, and rational, unbiased assessments of them.

Then there was the question of legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers for damage caused by side effects of COVID vaccines. The UK government chose to give them immunity (you can’t prosecute them) rather than the far more sensible indemnity (if you prosecute them and win, the government picks up the tab). See this article from The Conversation [[9]]. It does seem odd, as the article says, that the government was not “putting its money where its mouth is.” Again, this gives a strong ethical reason for refusing to take the vaccine.

Then there is the question of how much immunity against the virus you have when you have had the disease and recovered from it. This is very important to me, since I caught COVID so early that I fell ill with it on the very day the first confirmed UK case was reported. In the summer of 2021, the Office for National Statistics were reporting that up to that point, if you had already recovered from the disease, you had only one chance in a thousand of getting it again. Omicron has changed that proportion. The latest UK figures show around 5% of all cases as having been re-infections. Even so, having had the disease gives far better protection than any number of vaccinations. But were we simply told the facts, and left to make our own judgements on them? No. Instead, we got vaccine passports and “no jab, no job.”

Then there have been lockdowns. Now, I am not one of the extremists who think lockdowns were never necessary or justified. If a health care system has a fixed capacity, and credible predictions show it in danger of being exceeded because of the speed of spread of an infection, then some kind of temporary restrictions on association may be justifiable. I think this situation was reached in March and April 2020. But after this, the lockdowns went on far longer than they need have done. In particular, the lockdown that began early in 2021 lasted well into April, when the peak of the cases wave, in my area at least, had been receding since mid-February. This was a consequence of the abandonment of the tiered lockdown system, which operated in the autumn of 2020 and seemed to have been designed quite sensibly, in favour of a much harsher nation-wide lockdown régime.

Then there is SAGE. In October 2020, I wrote an article about this group of highly powerful, unaccountable, freedom-hating technocrats: [[10]]. It is clear that it was SAGE that politicked to bring about the abandonment of the tiered lockdown system. It is also clear that to have such a group driving policy is not in any way in the interests of the people. This episode perfectly illustrates my point about lack of accountability in government encouraging the culture of safety at any cost, and so creating tyranny.

And then there is the jewel in the crown of SAGE, “Professor Lockdown” Neil Ferguson. In my article on SAGE, I referenced some newspaper articles about his “projections,” and now I will compare them with the outcomes.

On March 16th 2020, he told ministers that the UK “might face more than 500,000 deaths if the government took no action.” That was what triggered the first lockdown. Although, with hindsight, the quality of the mathematical model he used was dubious. But it gets worse.

Prediction: On March 25th 2020, Ferguson was “reasonably confident” that “total deaths in the United Kingdom will be held below 20,000.” Outcome: The 20,000th COVID death in the UK was reported on April 21st, 2020. By the end of June 2020, the death count was above 40,000. As at June 28th, 2022, the total of UK COVID deaths exceeds 180,000.

Prediction: On August 17th 2020, Ferguson was optimistic that: “Europe won't see very large numbers of new COVID-19 cases this year.”  At that date, the European cases total was 3.2 million. Outcome: By December 31st 2020, the total had risen to 23.8 million.

Then, on September 22nd 2020, he claimed that his “projection” of 500,000 COVID deaths if the government took no action had been an under-estimate! Well, that may conceivably have been so. Though given his March 25th prediction, he seems to have had an extreme faith in the efficacy of lockdowns at saving lives. With hindsight, though, it doesn’t look as if there is much evidence for lockdowns having saved many lives. Indeed, my own analysis, which I referenced above, shows a positive correlation between deaths per million and average lockdown stringency throughout the epidemic.

This is a so-called expert! The leader of a team of the best scientific minds on the subject! Yet, as his August 17th prediction shows, he didn’t see the second wave coming. Even though he had already discussed the possibility in earlier papers. And at a time when, again with hindsight, that second wave had already started in Europe.

Moreover, his prediction of March 25th was worse than wrong. Did he, perhaps, give a deliberately low number in an effort to make people believe the lockdowns were having a big positive effect? And his claims on September 22nd were part of the moves SAGE were making in their fight to take over control of lockdown policy. I have to ask, could Ferguson have been using the mask of “scientist” to advance his and his friends’ own political agendas? If so, this was dishonesty and bad faith towards the people.

Government and science

Epidemiological models are, mathematically, very simple. If epidemiologists can get it as wrong as Ferguson did, how much more likely are errors when the models under consideration are far more complex? As, for example, with atmospheric and oceanic climate models (AOGCMs), or the “integrated assessment models” (IAMs) which are used to assess the likely economic impacts of changes in the climate? And is it unthinkable that climate “scientists” with activist political views might try to bias their results towards the politics they favour? Particularly if their paymasters and the government also share their bias?

Those questions, of course, are rhetorical. In my more than averagely informed view, that is exactly what has happened with the catastrophic human-caused global warming scam. Forces with a political agenda hostile to ordinary people have corrupted supposedly independent “scientists.” And as a result, they have corrupted not only the direction taken by policy, but also science itself.

It’s interesting to note that climate scientists and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, like Ferguson, also make “projections,” not predictions. That is telling, because “projections” play no part in the scientific method. A true scientist makes falsifiable predictions from his hypothesis, then tests those predictions. If the predictions are not borne out, the hypothesis must be modified. But that does not happen in climate science. Nor, so it would seem, in epidemiology.

To sum up

Whatever are the motives of the proponents of the UK “on-line safety” bill, it’s clear that they do not regard freedom of speech on-line for ordinary people as important at all. They are seeking to tear down a tolerably workable common-law framework, and replace it by one which actively encourages censorship, particularly of ideas outside the mainstream.

In governments today, and in the UK in particular, there has grown up a culture of “safety at any cost.” This culture favours, and tends to increase the level of, government overreach and tyranny. It has its origins in agreements committed to by John Major at the 1992 Rio “Earth Summit.” But it has spread into other areas of government too, notably freedom of speech and the handling of the COVID epidemic.

Under the current system, government officials and advisors involved in policy decisions are not held accountable for the effects of those decisions on the people. This favours the growth of the “safety at any cost” culture. It has also allowed and even encouraged them to act with dishonesty and bad faith towards the people they are supposed to be serving.

Successive UK governments since 1992 have deliberately helped along the culture of safety at any cost. In several of these instances, they have been extremely dishonest towards the people they are supposed to be serving. In at least a few cases, the dishonesty has been so great that it constitutes clear bad faith towards the people.

Among the consequences of this culture have been policies which are against the interests of the people, corruption at the interface between government and science, politics masquerading as science, and corruption of science itself.