My book, Dark Green, is nearing its completion. It’s all about the dangerous folly of net zero and how investors can profit from it. But the last third of the book, which I didn’t want to include at all, has a very different theme…
Given the impossibility of net zero, for a long list of reasons, it might seem obvious that governments will simply abandon it. This has already dawned on some politicians.
Indeed, in past weekend editions of The Daily Reckoning Australia, I’ve explained how Australia always seems one step behind the rest of the world’s reckoning with net zero.
In the past, we looked into why net zero isn’t possible. Then we looked into the growing realisation that net zero isn’t plausible. Then we looked into how net zero is increasingly being abandoned by governments around the world.
This week, The Australian Financial Review suggested that Australia has finally caught on to the implausibility of the Government’s commitment:
‘It is 10 months since the Federal Labor Government legislated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
‘The key plank underpinning these targets is 82% renewables in the electricity grid by 2030. Experts and industry leaders have confirmed the government’s 82% target will almost certainly not be achieved.
[…]
‘Senior energy figures have told this masthead the 82% target is “herculean”, “impossible” and they “can’t see it happening”; others are “too frightened of some kind of retribution” to say what they really think.’
Ah yes, a climate of fear. But this emperor has no clothes. It’s only a matter of time…
The next step is to have politicians acknowledge the truth. Which is a disappointingly melodramatic thing when it happens. I mean, you might think that politicians who committed us to something that we cannot achieve would resign in disgrace or face some sort of accountability. A CEO who announced a massive corporate restructuring based on a blatantly flawed belief that was never properly analysed wouldn’t last long.
But, so far, the news from politicians around the world who have faced this situation is disappointingly lacking any sort of consequences…except those who exposed the dodgy dealings of the net zero campaigners and the wilfully blind members of parliament who backed them instead of asking questions.
A good example of just how smoothly politicians are turning their back on net zero comes from the UK, where net zero has become a dirty word. The recent Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK (a bit like the Treasurer) claims that the public was ‘misled’ over the cost of net zero by ‘systematically dishonest’ politicians. The problem is, he’s the one who passed the legislation and should’ve been doing the cost estimates that were never completed…
But at least it has dawned on Europe’s politicians that they’re not going to make net zero by way of a renewable energy boom. Australia should be somewhere behind, again. But the reckoning is coming. If it’s politically correct enough to publish in The Australian Financial Review, it might not be far off.
But what if governments don’t give up on net zero quite so easily?
They are trying to save the planet, after all. At least, they claim that’s what they’re doing when they jet around the world and buy up beachfront property by the million.
The trouble with the climate change cause is that it justifies anything. Even gluing yourself to the street or dunking the Mona Lisa in even more paint.
Every time I laugh at such stunts, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach because of what the final third of my book revealed. The power of climate change to provide an ‘ends justify the means’ argument to politicians is downright terrifying.
You see, there are two ways to reach net zero. One is to build a new green energy system and economy. Which isn’t possible, if you ask me (and all the other experts who have run the numbers, which is what my book is about).
The other option is to crush our standard of living into whatever box they label as ‘net zero’. Which is a surprisingly arbitrary definition, by the way. Burning Canadian wood is, after all, a major form of renewable energy in Europe…similarly, imports are judged to be emissions-free because emissions are only counted on a territorial basis. Thus, if every Western country imported all its goods and services from somewhere else, they’d all have zero emissions! This is, of course, not what’s going on at all. It doesn’t explain the reductions in emissions that Western countries have made so far…
But back to our dystopian future. If we can’t roll out a green energy system to satisfy today’s living standards, what would life under net zero look like?
Reaching net zero might require shutting down all airports, for example. Which probably sounds a bit drastic to you and me. But it’s what’s required according to a group of UK universities which studied what net zero really means in practice.
And that’s only the beginning of what they discovered would have to be cut. And they’re not the only ones.
According to economist Steve Keen, who has taken a rather active interest in what sort of economy it’d take to save the planet, our future is going to make Second World War rationing look like child’s play. ‘We might regard [Second World War] ration[ing] with envy at a collective level if we see the sort of thing I’m seeing in the academic literature,’ he told one interviewer.
And he’s not the only one. The UK’s newspaper, The Times, revealed:
‘How to fix global warming? Bring back rationing, say scientists Second World War-style rationing of petrol, household energy and meat could help to fight climate change, British scientists have recommended.’
Just imagine what the sort of people who are willing to glue themselves to the streets are willing to do to you in order to save the planet. That’s what’s coming if we don’t abandon net zero pledges.
Actually, you need not imagine. Because they’re already preparing for the policies they’ll need to impose.
For every article declaring 15-minute cities to be a conspiracy, there are more detailing the creation of such cities. In the UK town of Bath, they even call the various sectors where people are restricted from moving between ‘cells’. Somerset Live reported on the plans:
‘Bath locals have had a thing or two to say about the council’s new “journey to net zero” consultation. It has proposed, among other things, that the city would be split into four “cells” and that there would be no through traffic in the city centre. There will only be one or two access points on each of the outer boundaries for vehicles and they will be prevented from passing from one cell to another, although movement for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport will be unrestricted.’
Funnily enough, Bath is famous for having Roman Baths. This is from when the Romans colonised Britain during what climate scientists call the ‘Roman Warming Period’…
You might’ve noticed that your mobile banking app now has carbon tracking features on your spending. I wonder what governments could use those for…
But how could the government track and control our spending accurately? CBDCs, that’s how.
The French have already banned short-haul flights for which train journeys are available — a constraint that would wreak financial and scheduling havoc on my travel plans next year if Japan were to impose the same policy.
Fossil fuel car bans are all the rage as governments try to shift us to buying electric. But are there enough resources in the world to allow us to have the number of cars we do today? And if not (which is one thing my book digs into), how will they be…rationed? How will people living outside of 15-minute cities get around?
The point is that they couldn’t be giving conspiracy theorists more fuel to work with if they tried. By declaring the goal of net zero without first figuring out whether it’s achievable, and then putting in place the infrastructure needed to constrain our consumption to comply with the draconian policies needed to achieve net zero, they’ve left us with only one possible conclusion: you’d be foolish to ignore the risk of climate lockdowns.
Regards,
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Nickolai Hubble,
Editor, The Daily Reckoning Australia Weekend
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