If you don't think that the removal of your car is high up on the political agenda, you have not been listening to them.
Today's generation of MPs don't understand why you can't just walk or cycle.
They have no idea what you use the car for or why you unimportant little people would need or want one.
You having a car is a problem they want to solve.
So walk.
"Reducing the cost [of public transport] relative [to private transport]" means taxing people out of their cars.
No political party currently sitting in Westminster has any intention of asking questions about that massive change to our ways of life.
It will therefore happen.
It's easy to get misled into believing that the climate change debate is about whether climate change is happening or is not happening.
Whether climate change is happening or not, it has become the basis of politics without regard for the degree to which it is happening.
This tells us that there is an *ideology* of climate change, distinct from the scientific facts of climate change.
"Decarbonisation" is more about transforming society than it is about transforming the ways we use energy.
In this transformation, governments and politicians believe it is their place to decide how you should live.
This is a radical departure from the principles of democratic governance.
Whether or not climate change is real, it is a ruse.
That is not a conspiracy theory. The dynamic is not one of a conspiracy, but of a degenerate political class & wider political establishment that has lost any meaningful connection with the public.
In a democracy, the principles of the political parties' green agendas would be tested.
The most basic question that would be asked is: "is green policy worse than climate change".
Despite alarmist claims, it might be better to suffer the climate change than try to prevent it.
The scale of green ambitions is no smaller than the scale of twentieth century ideologues' ambitions.
And all of the parties being committed to the same radical, political agenda means we are effectively living under a one-party state.
They dismiss all criticism as 'climate change denial'.
They admit no criticism to their discussions.
They are not interested. It would deprive them of their places, and their reasons for being there.
Banning cars is an extremely political act, dressed up as science.
A news report that features no criticism of MPs, no intellectual curiosity about the ideology, no journalistic scepticism about the legitimacy of the agenda.
So what's the difference between @SkyNews and Chinese state media?
@UKmacD@SkyNews That's not hyperbole. It's a serious question.
If broadcast media and political parties are not able or willing to deviate from alignment with the government, what is the difference between a one-party state and state-controlled media, and our 'liberal democracy'?
Greens want the radical transformation of society & the total reorganisation of the economy, requiring the regulation of lifestyle, dismantling of democratic politics, deindustrialisation & degrowth...
But they think that people who disagree with them are driven by ideology.
Greens think that people who disagree with them should not be allowed on campuses, should not be free to publish or broadcast, should not be able to take part in politics...
Because they believe people who disagree with greens are the ones driven by extreme ideology.
Ideology is one hell of a powerful drug.
But it's not people who fail to worship Gaia who are its actual victims.
You don't see climate sceptics vandalising cultural artefacts.
The RCP's "green physician toolkit" is precisely the same patronising nonsense as the WHO's toolkit of the same name, discussed here a few months ago...
The two main ideas behind the toolkit are A) that doctors routinely make "unnecessary" decisions that have environmental impact, and that B) they should use their authority to advance an ideological agenda.
Currently, Britain's average electricity demand, not including peak demand, is equivalent to the average output of a wind farm with a footprint of 20,538KM^2.
But that is before we consider the electrification of everything -- transport, heating, and so on.
And then we need to store a vast amount of power, perhaps using hydrogen, for when there is no wind and no sunshine.
Misleading... "1.5GW of clean power" is only capacity. The capacity factor of solar PV in the UK is approximately 10%. So these installations that will occupy a vast area have a net capacity of 150MW. They will produce power at lunchtime, and mostly in the summer.
So whereas, for example, the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station has a physical footprint of about 1 square km, to produce the same average output, a solar farm would need to have a footprint of 268 times larger.
And you'd still need backup for evening, night & winter.
That's a solar farm on a square area of land, 10 miles on each side, producing expensive energy, on land that is charging immense rents, not on demand, which needs matched capacity, displacing agriculture, amenity or wildlife.
Seven reasons to be cheerful, despite the inevitability of Thursday's results and the next government... A thread and an article. Link at end...
1. The Net Zero cat is out of the bag. Even the government and opposition are rolling back expensive and unworkable policies.
2. There are completely different public discussion about science and policy today, compared with the recent past. Terms like 'denier' now cut no ice, and politicians don't find it as easy to hid behind scientific authority, thanks to lockdowns.
3. European & global politics are incapable of supporting domestic unilateral climate policy such as the Climate Change Act. The rest of the world is not going to follow us, and there is less than zero chance of persuading emerging economies to join our Net Zero suicide.
Radical environmentalism is a way that narcissistic but entirely mediocre individuals can make themselves feel extremely important -- above society, its norms and laws.
It's time to make them the subject of discussion, not participants. They are specimens, not peers.