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Boris Johnson is no green superhero The Tories will destroy the countryside — not save the planet

Not a beaver in sight (PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty)


October 25, 2021   5 mins

I watched a lot of superhero movies when I was a kid. Spiderman was the best. I wasn’t cool and could relate to Peter Parker. Those TV superheroes saved the world every Saturday morning — usually from a stray meteorite or from a grinning criminal mastermind. Of course, in real life the threat to the world is man-made climate change, and us destroying ecosystems.

Where are our superheroes? You and I don’t make laws or trade policies or regulate the extraction of fossil fuels, or set the rules on engines or flights, or whether soy or palm oil can be shipped to the UK from destroyed rainforests. It takes gatherings like COP26 to make the big changes, gatherings where our brightest and best (hopefully) are sent to negotiate targets or binding commitments to minimise fossil fuel usage or stop trashing ecosystems.

We are sending Boris Johnson to represent us in this vital juncture in human history. It’s like being in grave danger and needing Spiderman to rescue you, and Mr Bean turning up. You take one look, and know you are screwed.

It was when Boris started babbling on about “Build Back Beaver” at the Conservative Party Conference that my usually optimistic soul withered and died. There are a great many reasons for getting more nature back in the British countryside and being serious about climate change. But when politicians start using ‘rewilding’ as a Right-wing trope to mask policies that are actually making the countryside worse, then we are all in big trouble.

Our food chains are collapsing because of the mismanagement of Covid and labour shortages caused by Brexit. No problem, Build Back Beaver. 120,000 pigs to be culled and incinerated because of government mismanagement. No problem, Build Back Beaver. I have no issue with Beavers. I’m merely lamenting their being used by fuckwits.

Climate change is pretty simple. Since the industrial revolution we have released vast quantities of trapped CO2 through the burning of fossil fuels. Agriculture is complicit in the problem, but if you think my cows burps or farts are a major cause of climate change you’ve lost all sense of proportion. Our farm has been carbon audited: it turns out that we sequester far more carbon than we release, and they measured everything down to the food I buy for the sheepdogs. Since then, we have planted close to 20,000 saplings and radically improved our soil carbon levels in our pastures.

Our farm isn’t typical, or perfect, but it shows what can be done. UK agriculture has significant problems. But 90% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are not agricultural: 27% are estimated to be from the transport sector, 21% from energy supply, 17% from business, 15% from the residential sector and 10% from agriculture. So if COP26 overly focuses on meat-bashing, and fake food, then you should smell a rat.

Even when we look closely at agriculture in the UK it turns out that about 60% of the problem is associated with growing crops. This won’t surprise anyone who watched Clarkson’s Farm. In some plant crop systems, the ratio of fossil fuels used in a fertiliser to the amount of food energy created is sometimes as disastrous as 10:1.

The other 40% of agricultural emissions are associated with livestock — largely thanks to the massive numbers of intensively indoor-raised livestock eating human foodstuffs such as grain or corn. But if cattle graze on green (and permanently unploughed) pastures, with a healthy number of trees and hedgerows in the mix, and if those pastures are rested for long periods so plants in the soil optimise the downward flow of carbon through their roots, and (crucially) they aren’t fed grain, then it is entirely possible for the farms to sequester more carbon than they release. Such farming may result in fewer cows, and more expensive meat, but it can be done.

If we really want to solve the problems of British food and farming then we have to get real and engage with the issues properly. But agricultural illiteracy seems to be the norm among our political class. Some of them think that you can copy the American agricultural and food model and provide token bits of wilderness and wildlife around the edges, and all will be fine.

What we actually need is thoughtful reform of our whole model of food production so farming is more mixed (including livestock and cover crops), more rotational, and with landscape design which is sensitive to the habitats and processes that British flora and fauna need. We need to gradually regulate out of existence some of the worst fossil-fuel-reliant forms of farming and raise the cost of fossil fuels in agriculture. We need to grapple with the power of the cartel of supermarkets. We need to rebuild local food systems, such as local abattoirs and food markets.

There is no such thing as an ideal global diet, Britain has a temperate climate and is brilliant at growing grass and grazing livestock. We can also change our diets to eat more British fruit and vegetables from local small-scale horticulture, as this has a small land-use and is super productive. But when we do these tricky but essential things, we then need to protect a more progressive British system from being undercut by more ecologically destructive systems overseas.

Keeping the ecological footprint of our food as British as possible is almost certainly a good idea. It is not a choice between farming or nature, but how we marry the two. To do that we need brilliant thoughtful farmers and inspired local food systems. No one at COP26 knows anything about all this, so don’t be surprised if their solutions are wrong. Sustainable farming can play a massive role in the solutions, but isn’t even on the COP26 agenda.

This summer, Matterdale, where we farm, looked surprisingly like Tuscany. Brown fields under a burning sun. Sheep and cattle panting beneath our old oak trees, flicking their ears to clear the flies. For a month or so we found we couldn’t work through the heat of the day; our sheepdogs and sheep were so hot they wouldn’t move, so we jumped in the lake instead or had forty winks in the shade. We worked earlier, gathering the fell at 6am, and later to get the work done. Heat sounds romantic in a cold wet northern place, but if the future is hotter and drier then our farming will need to change. We have had fairly regular spells of drought in recent years and have built twenty ponds around the farm, so we always have water where we need it.

We have already experienced record-breaking rainfall events. The beautiful 18th century bridge that crumbled and was swept away from Pooley Bridge in 2015 was a very visible sign that we are already subject to pressures that our infrastructure can’t cope with. Our landscapes need to hold and store vastly more water in wetlands and ponds (and probably man-made infrastructures) to slow the flow from causing horrific damage downstream. Perhaps the best way to store lots of this water is in our agricultural soils, simply by making those soils healthy and aerated through better soil management.

The politicians and activists at COP26 haven’t a clue about this. So they latch instead on to batshit dietary choices and technological solutions such as carbon capture and synthetic farm-free food. They like solutions that can be delivered by people like them, from the top down, imposed through their own lofty power and influence. Bill Gates will fix it, or Monsanto, or Prince William or David Attenborough. But the real world doesn’t really work like that; the people at ground level aren’t interested in being passive victims of a massive corporate power grab of their land and their food supply.

We need to believe in farmers more, to help them to provide the complex mix of things we really need. The bad news is that the great and the good who attend events like COP26 seem almost completely disinterested in bottom-up changes, lost in a world of virtuous slogans and simplistic ideas. Or, worse, believe in solutions that are already alienating rural and farming people and creating a culture war.

Environmentalism has gone mainstream. That ought to be good news. But in reality, it is being mugged, used, abused and exploited wherever you look. The sad thing is that we have never needed good leadership so badly — yet all we get is a sinister clown blurting out ‘Bring Back Beaver’.


James Rebanks is a fell farmer and the best-selling author of The Shepherd’s Life. His new book, English Pastoral, came out in September 2020.

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Trevor Law
Trevor Law
2 years ago

There is much in this piece I like. Thank you. However, any debate on the subject of climate change seems to coalesce around two banners. In one camp we have those who see CO2 and fossil fuels as the two-headed demon which will visit catastrophic misfortune on all of mankind if we don’t just stop it. NOW! And then there are those who insist that the whole thing is just a scam and that CO2 emissions have NO impact on global temperatures. It seems to me that neither of these positions are likely to be true. The global climate system is hugely complicated and chaotic. It is fiendishly difficult to spot any signal amidst the noise. A fairly cursory look at even the IPCC reports will confirm that there is no agreement amongst climate scientists as to the degree to which rising CO2 emissions may affect the global average temperature, even after decades of research and millions of dollars paid to thousands of “experts”. So, we face what may prove to be a big problem in the long term and we should think carefully about the best way to respond to it; all in the context of uncertainty. What we absolutely shouldn’t do is panic, announce a crisis or an emergency, or hurl ourselves over a precipice in an attempt to get rid of the very fossil fuels upon which we currently all depend; crushing humanity now in the hope of saving it in the future.
So, you had an unusually hot and dry spell this summer in your little bit of the world? And you had some “unprecedented” flooding in your little bit of the world? I didn’t (in my little bit of the world, just a few hundred miles away). The global climate is just that: global, not local. And it is measured over decades, not single years. Everything else is just weather. 

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

In one camp we have those who see CO2 and fossil fuels as the two-headed demon which will visit catastrophic misfortune on all of mankind if we don’t just stop it. NOW! And then there are those who insist that the whole thing is just a scam and that CO2 emissions have NO impact on global temperatures.

No. The former camp does exist. The latter “camp” does not. It is claimed by the former camp to exist. The former camp further claims that every single person who disagrees with any word of its own dogma belongs to that camp.
It’s important to clear that point up. Not every opponent of Marxism is a Na zi. It’s just something Marxists and ecofascists have made up to delegitimise disagreement with them.

Dennis Boylon
Dennis Boylon
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Spot on. Thanks

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

“It is fiendishly difficult to spot any signal amidst the noise”.
Agreed. Which is why hundreds of statisticians and mathematicians are employed to do this precise task.
“A fairly cursory look at even the IPCC reports will confirm that there is no agreement amongst climate scientists as to the degree to which rising CO2 emissions may affect the global average temperature”.
Show me where WG1 says this. If you mean ‘do we have a figure for climate sensitivity’ then the answer is No…..but we do know that it’s higher than all the climate sceptics were arguing for a few years ago!

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

Are you sure any statisticians or mathematicians are thus employed? My understanding is that it is mostly activist scientists doing this, and that they tend not to have backgrounds in any such hard science. They are a bit like me and wine: they don’t know a lot about it but they know what they like.
Certainly no proper statistician could have produced Michael Mann’s hockey stick.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

No. My Department is full of PhD oceanographers, atmospheric chemists, physicists, statisticians. So was my previous Department. I can’t think of any of them who you would call an ‘activist’. Mann’s hockey stick has been replicated dozens of times using non-tree ring proxies. You’re flogging a dead horse I’m afraid.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

Are any of them opposed to the ecofascist agenda?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago

Just like no one who takes gender studies is a rabid feminist

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

I don’t dispute the science at all – it’s the solutions I find arguable.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Yes. And this is worth arguing about….

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

I guarantee we and the world will be here when Jesus comes back.

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago

Michael Mann’s work has been totally discredited. Only a fool would use tree ring data in an attempt to link temperature to CO2 when it is obvious that CO2 is also a big factor in tree growth as well as many other factors. Mann selected data that proved his point and ignored the data that didn’t and also used statistical methods that have been discredited. There was a court case about this.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

They had global warming in the Babylonian empire which ended when the Persian Empire defeated them. Then came a cooling off period.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

If you do not agree with global warming as a scientist you stop getting money for research so you have to agree with it unless you are very brave. Same as Covid. Those who disagree with the narrative get cancelled.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

Bit of a straw man argument there, it has been apparent for decades that the climate change controversy is a spectrum from total moral certainty on one side to complete denialism on the other. Most people sit in the middle somewhere.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
2 years ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Can you explain the temperature changes since the last Ice Age, the Last 2.6M years and since the Cretaceous peak temperature. Perhaps when we understand temperatures changes in the past we can predict the future.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

I think we are too fearful. We see a slight rise and then we panic with theories. It’s a waste of time and we damage our country economically because of it.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

Personally I think both ignore the elephant in the room. 3 to 7 billion population growth in the last 50 years.

chris sullivan
chris sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

I think that elephant has joined the horse that has long since bolted- to employ mixed metaphors – they are hopefully grazing peacefully somewhere unaffected by greedy arrogant foolish humans !

hugh bennett
hugh bennett
2 years ago
Reply to  chris sullivan

One newly reintroduced Beaver to another, “They did a great job finding us this nice little river. Those nice scientists are continuing to work hard, well.. working like beavers really…but they haven’t found a solution for man induced climate change yet, but they`re definitely getting warmer.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Yeah that is a big problem. Living on wind power will not solve it.

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

This is science you are discussing. Science works by putting forward a hypothesis which then has to be proven. There is no empirical evidence to link our activities to temperature changes. Therefore, the hypothesis has not been proven and should be dropped. Every paper written in the subject is wrong because they all ignore the laws of thermodynamics. It is madness to believe that we can control the climate. I thought that lesson has been learned when we stopped burning witches for weather cooking.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

I think you are correct Alan. It has not been proved and is only political. Those countries who believe in it will see their economies crash, as we are beginning to see in Britain, leaving China to be the big industrial power in the world.

Edward De Beukelaer
Edward De Beukelaer
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

Dear Trevor (an all those who support his argument). It is a pity that you divert from this important topic of farming. Yes, the motivation of the article is climate change, which you do not like, but in essence, the change proposed in this article in relation to farming (an essential change) will have as a greater benefit the improvement of health of the environment and yourselves. Unless your and your fellow beings’ health is of no consequence to you, please continue criticising this piece. If you think it is of value , see through the handle that triggered the article and ask for an agriculture that produces healthy produce, not the ‘plastic’ stuff that comes out of industrial farming.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

I agree but it is another subject. One doesn’t have to believe in Global Warming to make the best use of agriculture as they try to claim.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Law

I’m in the second boat. I think it is just a big deception and not proved. We should deal with pollution but the scientific basis of global warming has not been proved. It is just political and maybe something the globalists dreamed up. Just because the deception is far and wide doesn’t mean it is true. Plants actually need CO2.

D Glover
D Glover
2 years ago

A good article, but it doesn’t mention population growth once.
I was born in the early fifties, when the UK population was 50 million; now it is 68 million. All that extra food needed has to come from somewhere. Either soya from ruined rainforests, or beef from grain-fed indoors cattle.
If you want the population to rise forever, as politicians do, then letting the beavers take back the valleys is a simple impossibility, and the least of your worries.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
2 years ago
Reply to  D Glover

Yes, 50 million and no loss of fauna and flora, no polluted oceans, no diseased trees, very little plastic, hoards of insects (remember scraping the car windscreen just to see out?), no mono culture, mixed farming, a lot better animal welfare, less stressed childhoods, less obesity, less bureaucracy and rules, more freedom – generally less ugliness. Whether you are talking carbon footprint or destruction of habitat a baby is the biggest contributor. Not sure how Boris squares this with his record.

Stuart McCullough
Stuart McCullough
2 years ago
Reply to  D Glover

68 million, whilst the supermarkets calculate that they are feeding closer to 80 million.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

Many have gone to ground and do not figure in the census.

Edward De Beukelaer
Edward De Beukelaer
2 years ago
Reply to  D Glover

That is what the ‘farming industry’ lobby wants you to believe,. To feed everybody nutritious food will need changes though

Hugh Marcus
Hugh Marcus
2 years ago
Reply to  D Glover

D Nemo. Don’t fall for the simplistic grain fed cattle indoors. Join the dots. It’s as simple as that old anthem the English live to sing (Jerusalem). You know the green & pleasant land. A simple lesson in farm economics. Grazed grass – £12 per tonne Ensiled grass – £60 per tonne. Concentrate feeds – currently trending at over £300 per tonne. Now, what do you think UK livestock are being fed. In addition as all farmers know, you can only add a limited amount of cereals to a ruminants diet. Too much & you’ll kill then in half an hour through acidosis. Even in the most intensive systems grain is used to fatten the animal prior to slaughter

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  D Glover

That’s through immigration. The white birth rate is actually dropping fast, maybe due to mass abortion. Over nine million since the 67 Act.

Andrew Masterman
Andrew Masterman
2 years ago

Whilst the author makes, to my mind anyway, a compelling case for a reworking of British agriculture towards sustainability, it seems to me that his argument is contingent on the great British public paying more for their food. Unfortunately the trend amongst shoppers is the opposite: Lidl and Aldi have increased their market share with lower prices. Given other inflationary pressures right now, I just can’t see this government (or the opposition for that matter) bringing fair prices for farmers. Perhaps we need a fair trade mark on British produce so we know their being paid fairly for sustainable produce? But even the, it would only be the same well to do middle class shoppers paying the mark up. Not optimistic…

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago

Climate change is simple. We are not causing it. Until this is understood decisions will be wrong. Journalists and others writing about it should try reading a book on basic thermodynamics and thinking for themselves.

Last edited 2 years ago by Alan Thorpe
Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

Nonsense. And in other news, the Earth is not flat and the Moon is not made of cheese.

M Dance
M Dance
2 years ago

CO2 is a trace gas = comprises 4% of earth’s atmosphere & man-made CO2 ± 5% of that. No correlation of CO2 with the Roman warm period (250-400AD) or the Medieval warm period (900- 1250AD)

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  M Dance

You’re wrong about the earth’s atmosphere. And wrong about the RWP and MWP too. These were regional! Does it not embarrass you to talk about something that you haven’t a clue about?

Francisco Menezes
Francisco Menezes
2 years ago

No they were not. There is evidence from North-America and China that they had similar circumstance. Remember that MWP was during the Song dynasty, a highly developed civilisation. Besides, what is the relevance of regional versus global?

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

You could mean what is the evidence of.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

You cannot prove that. The Babylonians knew about it but most countries probably just accepted it and were probably not the type of people to document it.

Martin Brumby
Martin Brumby
2 years ago
Reply to  M Dance

0.04% of atmosphere.
410 parts per million by volume.

Dennis Boylon
Dennis Boylon
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Brumby

I was about to say he was way off.

Ian Morris
Ian Morris
2 years ago
Reply to  M Dance

Yes its a trace gas and essential for life. But it makes up even less of the atmosphere than you state. It is 0.04%. That is four hundredths of one percent. Only about 5% of that tiny amount is estimated ( as you say) to be anthropogenic. So this is an absolutely minuscule proportion of the atmosphere which is alleged to be causing our climate crisis. On the face of it this is stretching credibility. We should base policy on proven science not hypothesis.

Mike Bell
Mike Bell
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Morris

Have you seen the experiment where infra-red light is passed through gases with different amounts of CO2 in them? A tiny amount makes a big difference.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Mike Bell

A difference to what?

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Morris

It could be a globalist scheme to bring fear and then take over if Covid doesn’t do it.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  M Dance

Or the warm period at the time of the Babylonian Empire. Cooling off during the Persian Empire after Babylon.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago

Simplistic, child-brained rubbish.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I agree.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

I agree with Alan personally. You can believe that little Swedish girl if you want.

B Luck
B Luck
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

I doubt anything to do with the weather of an entire planet could be called simple. What is causing it then, in your view?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

The likeliest cause would be whatever previously caused it. Antarctica was warmer 1,000 years ago, as was northern Europe.
Historically, something called aeromancy was quite big in some human thinking. It is the divination of human fortunes from a study of the atmosphere, which is of course the same assumption as that underpinning climate science.
Human thinking, like the temperature, goes in cycles.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

‘The likeliest cause would be whatever previously caused it’. Why? Forest fires happened long before humans arrived on Earth. Does that mean the forest fires can’t be also caused by humans now? We know about past drivers of climate, but they are not responsible for current warming. Basic physics is (plus some chemistry).
This is like having conversations with sceptics about 20 years ago!

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

The temperature changed significantly in the past without humans. There’s therefore no particular reason to posit that humans are the main reason it will change in the future. It is actual aeromancy.
The trouble you face, and perhaps don’t understand that you face, is that academia is left wing, and is therefore not generally trusted. Left wingers can be relied upon to deny objective truth and thus to lie wherever the facts conflict with their political prejudices, which is where they primarily take instruction from. Lysenkoism was invented by the left, gender was invented by the left, climate alarmism was invented by the left, punitive psychiatry was invented by the left, and so on. The burden of proof that they are not all simply Marxist lies is thus much, much higher than that on, say, a classics don who thinks there were three Plinys rather than two, or whatever.
A few hundred years of data the left has not fiddled with would be reasonably persuasive. But in the meanwhile, if you’re an academic and you’re studying anything with a potential impact on public policy, you’re a leftist first and foremost, you’re not a scientist at all in the sense of being an objective seeker after truth, and therefore you’re probably lying most of the time. You should perhaps reflect on why you’re held in such low regard (the pay is a clue) but it’s essentially because your contribution’s not valuable.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jon Redman
Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

You know nothing about my politics. The fact that I subscribe to Unherd might tell you that I’m a critical thinker and do not accept at face value much of what ‘the left’ says. I do agree that universities are full of strongly left wing people, but this is mainly in the humanities. And climate science is a STEM subject.
I’m not going to bother arguing with you about the science….you won’t accept basic physics and I can’t do much about that. Your views have been left behind now and it looks like the markets and goverments are getting on with dealing with the problem.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago

You’ve also missed the point spectacularly about pay. The reason people go into science is because it’s a vocation. After all, highly intelligent, numerate people with PhDs can earn far more money in, say, banking than in academia. Yet the last time we had a junior lectureship advertised we got more than 100 applications; about 95 of them with PhDs.
I also run a climate science consultancy….so am very well paid thanks!

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

You don’t actually know what I believe either Stephan, but your own beliefs are partly religious, partly economic greed and partly political. I’ll leave you with two thoughts though.
One is that your claim leftism is largely confined to the humanities is not borne out by surveys that regularly show 80 to 90% of the academy to be left wing. Unless you imagine that most of academe is the humanities, the sciences clearly have the same problem. Medicine isn’t one of the humanities but look at the tosh – about vaccines, gender and COVID for example – that still makes it into The Lancet.
The second is that I wouldn’t count your chickens quite yet about all this being a done deal. 100 years ago Zeppelins were the future of passenger travel. 75 years ago we were told nuclear power was the future of energy. Look what dead ends those turned out to be. When people’s gas boilers pack up and they’re told that instead of a £700 replacement that works, they have to fit a heat pump that doesn’t, costs £15,000 that they haven’t got, and even if they do they can’t have one anyway because there’s nowhere to put it – that’s when we’ll see how bought in we all are.
By about 2050, I suspect we’ll be on much the same level of fossil fuel use as we are now.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I agree with you 100%. Whatever happens in the future will not consist of heat pumps running up to save the planet. I once had a conversation with somebody about ground-source heat pumps and how they took heat from the soil and gave it back to us humans. She said, “But what about the poor worms?”
I reckon it would not be difficult to argue that worms are what keeps the planet going and that ground source heat pumps would be environmentally bad. Shall we ask Sir David?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

The long term consequences of widespread heat pump use have not, AIUI, ever been looked into. I think it’s just assumed there are none or that they’re all benign.
I doubt we’ll ever find out. Someone will have to row back on banning gas boilers in the end. You can’t be in power when pensioners are dying of the cold, because a new boiler’s £15,000, and expect no electoral consequences.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Not to mention the petrol prices for people with older cars. Usually the poorer people. That’s if they can find a garage that does it.

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I have a suspicion that simple electric radiators will end up winning in the long run

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago

How arrogant! I am a scientist and run my own business. I wouldn’t speak to others as you do.

Last edited 2 years ago by Chris Wheatley
Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

He’s a climate activist first. Everything else is secondary.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

These obsessions are dangerous for other people.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Come on Chris, this is the internet – never take it personally. When people are rude to me it bothers me as much as a squirrel barking at me wile I walk my dog. You are a good poster, that is all which counts.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Now I know who you are.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Thank you for that Chris.

Will R
Will R
2 years ago

Thanks Stephan, a voice of reason among the borderline conspiracy theorists on here, stuck in their cosy self centred timewarps

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Will R

Thanks Will. It’s a shame really as it goes against the reason why I read Unherd….which is to hear people think critically about things. In my career I’ve often argued against other climate scientists who I think haven’t properly thought through their research. For instance, I’ve argued strongly against some of the climate model work, including on impacts; which I think is often simplistic. I’ve also argued against the uncritical attribution studies on things like flooding that have come out and I’m (quite) well known in my field for not accepting what other scientists say about glaciations.
But because I accept the (scientifically obvious) view on atmospheric physics and the role of greenhouse gases like C02 in driving warming, I’m treated here like some sort of Marxist eco-fascist!

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago

We value you here Stephen, getting views from all sides is Excellent, keep it up. (even although I am a WWG1WGA conspiracy loon, MAGA, Gadsden flag waving, American (and UK) Patriot, I think it good to hear from you here.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

I’m probably classed as a conspiracy loon and my name happens to be Gadsden.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

Many scientist would disagree with you. You have to accept that.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Will R

More insults from the global warmists I presume.

Martin Brumby
Martin Brumby
2 years ago

Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics etc are STEM subjects.
You really think that “Climate Science” is a STEM subject? When it is very largely based on computer modelling which has consistently failed to accurately ‘predict’ the past. Let alone the future.

Sorry to disappoint. But if you imagine this is “basic Physics” you should try reading up the peer reviewed scientific papers which conclusively show that the shroud waving is enormously exaggerated, when not totally bogus.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Brumby

‘Climate Science’ is an umbrella term. As I have said before, in my Dept are physicists, climate modellers, chemists, ecologists, geomorphologists, mathematicians and others; all of whom are studing climate science.
It’s not ‘very largely based on computer modelling’ as you say. And the Greenhouse effect is ‘basic physics’. First developed in the 19th century..

Andrew Wise
Andrew Wise
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Brumby

Climate Science is like COVID modelling and economic forecasting… undertaken by over confident spread sheet jockeys with ever more complex models add ever larger computers.
The results of their predictions are usually revised some while later when the facts come in.

Mike Bell
Mike Bell
2 years ago

Thanks Stephen. Acentral problem is that our school GCSE science course does not equip adults to understand even simple science concepts.
We know from research that, in the absence of a well-tested theory to explain an observation, that the brain manufactures one. One of the main obstacles in science education is not so much teaching the new material, but in removing the misconceptions.
What we see with climate (and COVID) sceptics is the reversion to a medieval mindset where things are explained in terms of dark forces. In medieval times these were gods, spirits etc. Now the same mindset invents evil-intentioned politicians, scientists etc.
In the short-term there is not much hope, but, if we could improve science ed. on key issues (eg virus/DNA/mRNA/ribosome/antibody/immunity/vaccine) and also critical-thinking skill, we may have longer-term hope.
(ex science teacher UK)

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

Yes unfortunately but I agree with Jon as it happens.

B Luck
B Luck
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I think the generally accepted most plausible candidate for causing the glacial-interglacial cycles has been the periodic changes in the orbital eccentricity of the earth around the sun. If this is the cause we should now be in a cooling phase, not a warming one, yet global temperatures have risen since the advent of the twentieth century. I suppose it could be a large statistical anomaly, but that seems unlikely. On the other hand, we know that the increase of certain gases in the atmosphere has the potential to create a warming effect, and we—i.e. humans—have certainly been causing an increase in these gases, especially in the last 150 years. It doesn’t seem unreasonable then to think that perhaps we have had a hand in this recent warming. I agree that climate alarmism can be sometimes hysterical and ill thought out (in the popular imagination something like the film ‘2012’) and in fact I get particularly angry at how climate alarmists can damage the way their children think (I tutor children). But to dismiss it all as a left-wing conspiracy seems also wrong-headed. The climate does appear to be changing, it will probably affect us in the U.K. much less than in some parts of the world, nevertheless we should be preparing for this change, and if we can mitigate it we should try. The mass extinction event is another matter, and it always annoys me that climate activists conflate this with climate change. But that’s beside the point. Also re. academia being left-wing. Well it often is, but I have found this generally to be far truer in the humanities than the sciences (I was a humanities student, but many of my friends were scientists). If anything, many of the scientists I know are relatively apolitical, or at least have little interest in politics.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

I agree. And I also agree with your views on climate alarmism. I once gave a public talk and pointed out that sea level rise by 2100 will be around 1-1.5metres. Someone came up to me at the end and was very angry that I wasn’t being alarmist enough! She wanted me to say that sea level rise would be nearer 20 metres by the end of the century.
Her confusion was to mix up short term sea level rise with the longer term (thousands of years?) commitment.

B Luck
B Luck
2 years ago

There was a good discussion of the damage of alarmism on Scott Alexander’s site a few weeks back https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on-having-kids (and he could hardly be called left-wing).

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

It still contains a lot of lies, though. For example, the assertion that “This has already been pretty bad, with unusually many hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts” is not true. If we’ve already gotten about 25-30% of the global warming we’re likely to see, then we can relax because 3 to 4x nothing is also nothing.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

Donna LaFramboise’s book takes this apart quite comprehensively. A large percentage of what goes into the IPCC reports originates with activists and is not “science” at all.
It’s also very instructive that there’s never a peep from the climate science industry when something manifestly untruthful but helpful to the cause is published, such as the famous “Himalayan glaciers gone by 2035”, “Snowfalls will be a thing of the past” nonsense. Untruths are fine as long as they’re on-message.
I broadly agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is likely to cause the temperature to rise in a trivial way. We’ve seen much larger changes in the past, however, so it is either hubris or leftism to make the simple connection that western civilisation = planetary catastrophe, which is a central tenet of climate alarmism.
A further clue that this is Marxism rather than science is the reaction to any challenge to it. You’re not allowed to be in anyway sceptical; if you are, you’re an opponent deserving of hatred and scorn – just as, to a Marxist, you’re either for it or you’re an enemy. One academic has called for sceptics to be judicially murdered, for example. There was no wave of criticism of this view from other academics. As Paul Embery noted in his article about David Amess, the left is glad when its opponents are murdered.
The appropriate response to climate scientists’ moderately interesting conjectures is none, for about another 100 years. By that time we’ll be so rich that even if they’re right, mitigation will be a trivial cost to a global economy that’s 50 times bigger.
The USSR collapsed largely because it was trying to finance a military larger than America’s from an economy smaller than London’s. We should beware of repeating any more Communist mistakes.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I agree with the thrust of what you’re saying – even though I don’t dispute the science in any particular way XR, BLM, 4th wave feminism and so on and so on all appear to have a common thread and modus operandi which are suspiciously similar. Their solutions are the only ones, their interpretations are the only ones – as if anyone of a conservative or even centrist persuasion is actively determined to destroy the planet. And they are the cure. Their piety and torch and pitchfork certainty make me recoil from them instinctively and I don’t know why as I’m a classical liberal at heart who is fully on board with a cleaner planet and putting the brakes on rapacious corporate greed. I don’t have much truck with their opposite numbers on the right – but it’s not the right who are controlling the narrative.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

A feature of the left is that there is only one acceptable opinion on anything, namely theirs. If you hold any other opinion, you’re a racist, fascist etc.
The problem is that individual smithereens of the left can’t always agree what the one opinion is. This means they spend as much time and vitriol hating other bits of the left as they do on hating the right. In fact, the left often hates the rest of the left worse than the right, because while the latter are evil scum, the dissident left are traitorous scum.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

The problem with all this is that the person who has read the latest article wins the argument. Nevertheless, what we are doing is silly. For such an apparently serious condition, more thought is required. Instead, we seem to be trying to win a race, a one-horse race as well.

Last edited 2 years ago by Chris Wheatley
Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”― Upton Sinclair
He had chaps like Stephan in mind when he said that.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

If it was money that motivated me I’d have accepted that job in a merchant bank that was offered to me about 25 years ago…..

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

Job offers are a dime a dozen. It’s keeping the job that’s hard.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

But doesn’t this gas just get blown around the world by the wind? If that is the case there is not much that a few countries can do.

hayden eastwood
hayden eastwood
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

It is a logical fallacy to conclude that an idea is wrong simply because the left believe in it. The left does not even have a consistent position on things, and neither do those who oppose them. For example:

  1. In the 1930s the left wanted to destroy the environment because they perceived the environment (and its beauty) as being something the landed gentry and middleclasses liked. Environmentalism was a conservative issue in this period.
  2. In the 1960s, the left adopted environmentalism because anti-capitalist ideas could be smuggled in. At which point, conservatives like yourself decided instantly that all (or most) environmental issues raised were unfounded, because the left were raising them.
  3. In the 1990s, the libertarian conservatives wanted open borders mass migration because it was good for businesses. The left wanted closed borders and to look after the workers interests.
  4. In the 2000s, the left discovered that immigrants could be weaponised in the race and culture wars that they waged, and so suddenly wanted open borders, at which point libertarians suddenly decided they wanted closed borders (Of course, the likes of Amazon loved this, because they could get open borders outcomes for low wages, while simultaneously playing the compassionate woke card).

Though I personally find your assessment of the left generally very astute, I do disagree with the notion that ALL of climate change science is driven by corrupt activists “looking for funding”.
As someone who has myself sold out, as it were, and left academia, I can assure you that, when the time comes to sell, one’s soul goes to the highest bidder, and not the lowest one (Academic salaries are 3-5x less than they are in industry).

Where we likely align is that I find much of the debate on the environment, in general, is dominated by what I would call “carbon fundamentalists”, who believe humanity’s environmental woes begin and end with carbon.

None of these fellows seem interested in the data of catastrophic ecosystem collapse that I have observed in Southern Africa, and which is driven far more by overpopulation and subsequent deforestation in, for example, water catchment areas, than it is by changing climate (which, in any case, happens on a far slower timescale than the destruction waged by plagues of goats and charcoalers).
I’m pleased that James Rebanks looks at the full ecosystem issues we’re facing and sees climate change with a sense of proportion versus other factors.

Last edited 2 years ago by hayden eastwood
Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

Hi Hayden
I don’t think an idea is automatically bad because leftists agree with it. It’s more that, if leftists act as gatekeepers of the evidence that purports to uphold any given point of view, we should be deeply sceptical of it because the left has infiltrated and subverted the academy for a reason like it infiltrates and subverts everything else.
The way the left has taken control of climate science, notably in painting as a “denier” anyone who disagrees even slightly with its tenets and included supposed solutions into those tenets, shows that this is Marxist politics, not science.
If palaeontology were controlled and practised entirely by religious fundamentalists, we can be quite sure that no fossil would ever have been found. There would be a complete consensus among such scientists that there was no evidence for the earth being older than about 5,000 years. If you presented a fossil you had dug up yourself you would be dismissed as “not a palaeontologist”.
In both cases there is an obvious attempt to suppress disagreement by telling you that you aren’t qualified to disagree.
The fact is that nobody knows what the population will be in 2100, or what the consumption and price of energy will be, or what the most significant technology advances will be. Nobody could have said what those would be in 1941 for 2021. And if you don’t know those, you have no basis to propose anything at all, other than a political basis.

hayden eastwood
hayden eastwood
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Jon: (By the way it’s not I who have downvoted you here)
I had a conversation just the other day with a mad leftist. By their reckoning the scientific lobby is an organ of white supremacy run by cis-gendered heteronormative male chauvinists (ie like me).
From this point they concluded that all data (and logic) indicating that sex is biologically real was proof of the conspiracy of a hegemonic andocratic order underpinned by horrible people (ie like me). And, moreover, any protestations of mine that the science said otherwise, was met with, “ah ha, but you would say that wouldn’t you!”
ie disagreement with their point of view was taken as proof that their point of view was correct.
To me there are parallels with the above reasoning and your own, whereby you accused someone with a professed belief in climate change to be badly motivated, as if there is a 1 to 1 correspondence between mad lefties and climate scientists, and no room for one to be a subset of the other.

Last edited 2 years ago by hayden eastwood
hayden eastwood
hayden eastwood
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

On a separate note: your statement “you have no basis to propose anything at all, other than a political basis” to me indicates a tendency to disagree with climate science because you don’t like climate policy. The two are in fact different things, though I often get the impression that dislike of climate policy drives rejection of climate science. It is possible to disagree with one, and agree with the other.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

Hi Hayden
The equivalence you make between someone doubting climate science and someone doubting the existence of biological sex doesn’t work, for me.
In the former case, the doubt being raised is about something that’s just been invented and whose authority derives from a suspiciously exclusionary claimed consensus. In the second, the doubt being raised is about something that’s always been around and is observable everywhere, and it’s the doubt itself, not the underlying scientific contention, that’s just been invented and is based on a suspiciously exclusionary claimed consensus.
In either case, the arguments from climate fanatics and gender loonies rely on gaslighting (telling people that obvious truths are not true, and telling people that obvious untruths are true), on dismissing contrary evidence, and on understating or denying the fact of anything doubtful in the evidence. In no other field than climate science do you hear of people saying you have to choose between being honest and being effective. In few other fields (psychology is another) is there complete silence when a helpful lie or a sloppy conclusion is reached. When that fool wrote his article about “Snowfall will be a thing of the past” nobody like Stephan wrote to the press to say Actually, that is absolute ba11s. It was allowed to stand because it was a helpful, on-message lie.
The only reason anyone would go about “science” in this way is if they need it to justify doing without democratic consent something nobody would ever vote for. If you asked people to vote for or against paying 20 times more for a boiler that makes a racket, blights the appearance of buildings and doesn’t even work properly, it’s obvious what they’ll do. So instead, you tell them that their opinion is worthless and will not be sought.
Going back as far as eugenics, it’s only the left that you ever see doing this. The specific reason the left likes climate science and its loony fringe solutions is because it will wreck and impoverish the west, which the left hates because it is successful and rich through cheap energy and capitalism. Nobody will vote for this, so you wish it on them anyway by telling them the science is settled and there’s no need for a vote.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jon Redman
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I agree. If climate activism was purely about saving the planet, without fear nor favour, they’d be talking about overpopulation. But they’re not.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Yeah I think you are right. There has always been some loonies about but the trouble now is that they seem to have some power to tax our lives.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago

How about another theory? Forest fires are caused by people, who call themselves ‘environmentalists’, using matches. Difficult to prove, difficult to unprove.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Many of the grass fire in the South Wales valleys have been provenly caused by children (of all ages) using matches.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug Pingel

The recent fires in Greece all occurred on public land. It was ill kept. Private land was properly kept and saw none.
Climate change was a good excuse for why nobody needed to be fired.

Martin Brumby
Martin Brumby
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

It was warmer in the 1930s in the northern Hemisphere and significantly warmer during the Mycean, Roman and medieval Climate Optimums, so called for the great benefits then experienced by mankind.

The GangGreen Climate Charlatans have spents much effort and treasure “adjusting’ the temperature records to disguise this fact.

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Brumby

These were regional. Why do you think it’s called ‘Global Warming’?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

We only have leftists’ word for it that they were regional, and they are not to be trusted. Furthermore, the Mediaeval Warm Period (which Jonathan Overpeck said “we’ve got to get rid of”, for some reason) included Antarctica.
Stephen Schneider said that fellow climate alarmists had to choose between being honest and being effective. Which are you being here?
Meanwhile, there’s nothing for it: the past is just going to have to get colder.

John Lee
John Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Meanwhile, there’s nothing for it: the past is just going to have to get colder.”
Great, I wish I had said that!!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Yeah the fashion will change to something else after we have wasted billions and taxed everyone to the hilt.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

There has also been changes in weather. In scripture it does speak about the birth pangs of nature with divers earthquakes and such. I don’t rule that out but I think it is silly to live on wind power and the new petrol is less efficient than before which affects us financially as with a lot of these things they want to do because of global warming.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we are producing much more of it than in geologically recent times. Do you think it is scientifically and conceptually impossible that humans could be contributing to climate change? If so, why? Presumably massive volcanic activity can’t then influence the climate either. In the Carboniferous period, CO2 levels were much higher, and the climate a lot warmer. That is when the coal seams were laid down.

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Will R
Will R
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

I’d have thought that a few billion cars,lorries, planes, ships, houses,power stations, factories and so on pumping out noxious gases to be trapped in the atmosphere for the last 150 years might just have some impact on the world

chris sullivan
chris sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

Yeah but does it matter what or who has caused it – it needs to be moderated either way, and we have created an economic system predicated on growth or bust and are now irrevocably locked into that – plus humans breeding to the starvation point – so realistically what IS actually possible to improve that. Methinks only widespread chaos can change that system or , much better, the slow train crash model where humans keep fighting a rearguard action in the face of a losing battle characterised by an increasing fortress scenario from the ‘haves’. I have not heard a better big perspective view so unfortunately this discussion is just another skirmish of rearguard action in a losing/doomed war – but good luck to its goals ! and maybe there is some human ‘magic, possible out there.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  chris sullivan

If humans didn’t cause it then it is laughable hubris to think we can moderate it.
Previous attempts at managing the sky have rarely ended well.

chris sullivan
chris sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

True that !

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

Cows actually produce more CO2 than factories or cars, but trees breathe it in and give out oxygen. Unfortunately it comes down to who is best at persuading government the same way Big Pharma has persuaded government on Covid and is reaping in billions.

patrick macaskie
patrick macaskie
2 years ago

I also have a small farm doing grass fed beef and lamb sold direct to the customer locally and I totally second everything he says. I believe my carbon foot print is close to zero.
Scaling up responsible farming will be difficult because it involves educating the consumer to behave differently. we need to halve the intensity in the national herd, eat better in a broad sense and reduce our weekly meat intake. Pushing that beyond the educated classes is nothing less than a social revolution.
If Boris is serious about the environment he should continue the single farm payment up to a limit of 100 acres for every farm. The small farms and holdings are run on a shoe string by enthusiasts, who already subsidise good practise. they also subsidise local employment in the countryside. they won’t be able to game the new rules in the way big farming will do and they have already done most of the things that would qualify them for rewards under the new regime. many will go to the wall without the simplicity of the basic payment
he also needs to mobilise our retired domestic gods and goddesses to train the young in domestic economy. cooking must be at centre of the moral revival needed before we will have a chance of cutting emissions.
I know in my heart the green machine, with it grands projets, is already too set in its ways to listen to a word of this and in this sense my hope is extinguished.

V Solar
V Solar
2 years ago

This is a interesting comment with lots of detail that helps me to understand the situation better. The last two paragraphs interest me because I am a retired domestic goddess and I would love to pass on my skills. It’s distressing to hear that you feel your hope has been extinguished but at least you’ve given me some. Just the seed of an idea is forming…

John Urwin
John Urwin
2 years ago

I agree with the above and also with the comments below supporting James Rebanks. The problem is, as was stated by another contributor, that most people will not pay the price for food that is produced as James Rebanks would like. His only hope is that people will learn and some will cough up as I do. However, many people simply cannot afford such food. The result is a population that is largely not physically well and an overloaded health sysem. Professor Tim Spector in his books has shown the importance of taking considerable care with what we eat.
How disappointing that much of the discussion degenerated into a slanging match over climate change…

Deborah B
Deborah B
2 years ago

Thank you for making points relating to the article and adding to the discussion. Quite dispiriting to read the tone of arguments so far that failed to pay respect to the subject.

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

Please UnHerd – no more bitter Remoaners doing anti-Boris stuff. I could easily read the Guardian if I was into that sort of thing. Instead I pay a subscription for your site. I expect better.

Our food chains are collapsing because of the mismanagement of Covid and labour shortages caused by Brexit. No problem, Build Back Beaver. 120,000 pigs to be culled and incinerated because of government mismanagement.

Donnez moi un break! My Sainsbury’s has no empty shelves but lots of pigs-in-blankets. My milkman is making his rounds. The tank of my car is full and Amazon keep delivering parcels.

Those excess pigs didn’t get culled despite the PR blitz. The Road Haulage Association have got their comeuppance – frozen out of all government meetings – for starting fuel scare stories (and the government has demonstrated that it can re-stock forecourts in the face a panic buying). Covid cases are trending down without the govt caving in to the demands of the bed-wetters. Things are looking up!

Most importantly, we are finally implementing a normal work visa policy and Open Borders fanatics like the author, with a vested interest in keeping cheap foreign workers, are unhappy. Fine but we had a referendum, they lost and now the government are fulfilling their manifesto promises.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

So I take it you expect UnHerd to publish only points of view similar to your own. In which case you might just have missed something fundamental?

Trevor Q
Trevor Q
2 years ago

A strange article- part rant and part compelling analysis of the way forward for hill farming. The problem with rants is that they reduce the impact of the very good points you are making.

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

Trying to criticise the allegedly green noises coming out of Boris’ face is admittedly an exercise in irrelevance and futility. It is like criticising Goldilocks and the Three Bears on the basis that bears don’t talk. Not buying fossil fuel cars after 2030? Just over 8 years away, ain’t gonna happen. Zero carbon electricity by 2035 or whenever?? Ain’t gonna happen. Especially if you are pushing loads of that zero carbon electricity into the electric cars….. Never mind, COP26 will be over in a few weeks and the media circus will move on to some other hysteria until COP27.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
2 years ago

Interesting article from a farmer’s perspective and experience. Although I count myself as a man-made Global Warming sceptic, interesting to hear a view about sustainable farming. But according to many Climate Scientists, if weather becomes slowly warmer (a bit over 1C since the Industrial Revolution) the weather is supposed to be slightly wetter, not drier. You can’t blame any bad weather event on Climate Change like hot, dry weather (one of the worst so far already happened in the 30s US), huge floods ( like recent ones in parts of Germany, which weren’t as bad as the ones in the same areas 4 centuries ago) and fires, which actually proved bad husbandry of forests, especially in California. Even some of the Climate Warmers admitted so much…
But the author is right that most people who will attend COP26, have no clue about how to maintain sustainable farming or really protecting the Environment. Huge rare metal mining will destroy many environmentally beautiful areas in Asia and Africa for ever increasing need of electric batteries. Will somebody speak up about the monumental task of recycling the nearly non-destructible batteries, windmill blades or solar panels, which will make our plastic bags and straws recycling a walk in the forrest.

patrick macaskie
patrick macaskie
2 years ago

And I guess you don’t need to buy the climate science agenda, to identify with kinder animal husbandry and to worry about the soil

V Solar
V Solar
2 years ago

James Redbanks sounds like a wise farmer to me. If I thought there was a political party that had policies in line with his views on farming maybe I would support it.

Last edited 2 years ago by V Solar
Ellen Finkle
Ellen Finkle
2 years ago

A modest proposal on editorial standards. When an author quotes statistics, a source must be given, so the reader can judge how reliable they are.

J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago

There’s a long debate in this thread about whether climate change is man-made or not. My challenge to Unherd is to commission articles from leading climate scientists to present a summary of the data for both sides of the argument. That type of reasoned, balanced content is hard to find in one place and is, in my view, ‘unherd’.

Red Sanders
Red Sanders
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Here in the U.S., government funding of research overwhelmingly favors those that embrace liberal’s/progressive’s/socialist’s thinking. Those that dissent are labeled “deniers” and are ridiculed, both by government and the press.

There are documented cases of scientists manipulating and fabricating data to gain favor of the global warming crowd. Myths are created to support the “fact” of global warming/climate change, such as the demise of polar bears.

History tells us that scientists, explorers, etc. have been swayed by government, be it kings and queens, dictators, democracies, etc. But, today’s very biased mass media has fabricated a public trust of those that are favored to a level never experienced before.

A recent perfect example is the trust placed with Dr. Anthony Fauci. ​

As an old biology teacher, it saddens me that scientific publications that I used to read regulary have embraced the global warming/clinate change mania.

In none of these do I find a healthy debate about such – it is as if edtors and authors seem compelled to include some reference to that “fact” in almost every article.

So, I expect little or no success in creating such a gathering.

T Doyle
T Doyle
2 years ago

Absolutely brilliant article. Any chance of Bojo and Carrie reading this? Don’t think so!

Jean Nutley
Jean Nutley
2 years ago

The Govt. of the day will always ruin the countryside. Seem totally unable to realise the countryside is a working place, those green fields are growing crops or meat. They are not just pretty places in which people can picnic, or run about in.
We are not backing our farming industry enough, on the one hand we exhort them to feed the nation, on the other we allow the ruination of prime farmland for housing, roads and high speed trains.
Sheer folly. We won’t know what we have lost until it has gone. Think I might have my next picnic on the doorstep of 10, Downing Street, and leave my rubbish behind!

Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Jean Nutley

Agree. And bit by bit, the countryside is being built over. It’s like death by a thousand cuts.

Hugh Eveleigh
Hugh Eveleigh
2 years ago

A joyously honest article in many ways and that from one who is not bothered one whit about the climate and the slightly increased CO2 – behaving as it has done for hundreds nay thousands of years. Just read a few history books for a refreshingly contemporary take on recentish recorded history and then verify the facts. I see that many comments have hitched onto the climate point which is understandable as the PM is an obsessive and we are about to be inundated by the whole jamboree at which Glasgow will be the epicentre. Putting it aside …
I agree with the thrust of the article and although one must acknowledge that the products of this mixed farming sometimes (but by no means always) will be more expensive we have sufficient free trade agreements with other countries particularly Aust/NZ that cheaper meat, for instance, will be available in most superparkets albeit produced with lower animal welfare standards. I happen to do 80% of my shopping from independent local outlets but that’s what I feel is best for me and them but others may not be able or wish to do that. Fine. But the old adage ‘charity begins at home’ has veracity and what’s more it makes sense. If we can produce it ourselves then let’s support it. Some products may be slightly more expensive now and then but overall it’s for the general good. Farmers who are supported can then innovate with new methods on their farms. A local (pig) farmer here in Shropshire produces all his electricity from manure and sells the surplus 80% to the national grid. Whooppee for him.
As for rewilding I can see many perils on that front. But with collective madness (aka ‘group think’) in abundance these days some zealots will propose reintroducing without the needed research and opinion and with disastrous consequences. (Australia is a great place for examples of introductions which went awry but to be fair they were not rewilding.) With our population growing to levels where our infrastructures are tottering and with hundreds and thousands of undocumented others arriving by dinghy daily, we certainly need some answers quickly. Getting to grips with farming and the use of the land is one of them.

George Knight
George Knight
2 years ago

There are some good points in this article about improving British farming. Sadly, they were all pretty well negated by the childish Boris/Brexit bashing. Next time please just focus on delivering a grown-up article!

Last edited 2 years ago by George Knight
GA Woolley
GA Woolley
2 years ago
Reply to  George Knight

He’s a remainer moaning about the loss of cheap foreign labour.

Graeme Laws
Graeme Laws
2 years ago

Fascinating string. I’m not in a position to argue about the problem, although I have a healthy scepticism about anything that comes from the UN.

But ask me if it makes sense to price energy in such a way that most heavy manufacturing has to go elsewhere, I will say “no”. That fridge freezer has to be made somewhere. The global warming impact is the same unless we find a way to make it on Mars.

How about insisting on retro fitting heat pumps into existing housing stock? Crazy. Most houses have nowhere to put the thing, they only work if you keep the windows shut and you need the odd draught to deal with that virus.

When push comes to shove, the Chinese and the Indians will go on burning coal. So will the Germans. And there is nothing we can do about it.

Last edited 2 years ago by Graeme Laws
Penelope Lane
Penelope Lane
2 years ago

Such a perceptive, informative article! Content-wise, this is hugely valuable stuff.
One editorial point—an important one for clarity of meaning—which I offer in a warm, appreciative and constructive mood:
The bad news is that the great and the good who attend events like COP26 seem almost completely disinterested in bottom-up changes
should read:
The bad news is that the great and the good who attend events like COP26 seem almost completely uninterested in bottom-up changes
or perhaps:
The bad news is that the great and the good who attend events like COP26 seem to lack any interest in bottom-up changes
The word “disinterested” means impartial, objective, not having any skin in the game. Its connotations are positive, implying no conflict of interest, no bias. Clearly, the author does not mean this. Quite the opposite.
“Uninterested” simply means not having any interest in something, couldn’t care less, don’t want to know about it.
Hope this helps!

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Penelope Lane

The word “disinterested” means impartial, objective, not having any skin in the game. Its connotations are positive, implying no conflict of interest, no bias. 

There used to be a Viz character called “Lazy Disinterested Shopgirl”. I always used to think, So – she’s not all bad then?

Paul Fraser
Paul Fraser
2 years ago

I stopped reading at “fuckwits”. If you want people to read your articles, perhaps you should dispense with the puerile name-calling. Or perhaps just go all in and call them “scum”.

Wendy George
Wendy George
2 years ago

Reading some of these blogs makes me wonder if they have read the article on farming by James Rebanks! I find it sensible and concerning. I believe that Boris has no idea about farming, wants to rewild, as also Clarkson’s Farm would testify, and my opinion is that Boris wants to offshore as much carbon footprint as possible to reach his Zero Carbon destiny. Be it in farming, manufacturing, anything…..all of which will make us poorer beyond belief. And is such hypocrisy. I fear for the country.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago

On starting to read this, I bristled, because there was a brief rant about Johnson (no more to blame than many other politicians, and his flowery language shouldn’t be used as a criticism), and then one on Brexit*, but I persisted, and happen to agree with the bulk of the article.
One thing, though; “You and I don’t make laws or trade policies or regulate the extraction of fossil fuels, or set the rules on engines or flights, or whether soy or palm oil can be shipped to the UK from destroyed rainforests.”
No, but rather than brainwashing children, why not educate them to be curious about the world, such as what is in the food it is so easy to buy at a supermarket, and what its effect on the world is (e.g. palm oil)? Politicians in democratic countries have to get elected, and shouldn’t pander to lobbying to impose policies on us, which may, or may not, be soundly based.
*My unemployed son couldn’t even get an interview at a farm 1 mile away, and of course not, because it has a large force of Romanians and Bulgarians living in its substantial caravan village, supplied no doubt by the same agent who ignored my son’s application. This same farm used to employ local British, but of course having workers on site and on call, willing to work very long days when required is better for today’s soft and top fruit business. It has not been affected by Brexit.

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
2 years ago

So refreshing to hear someone write on this subject who is actively involved.
It is not just agricultural illiteracy that our politicians suffer from. They know little about education and possibly about medicine and engineering too. They seem to think that anyone who has been to school can direct education policy but, although I have been to the dentist, I doubt they would let me have a go at filling their teeth.

Last edited 2 years ago by Judy Johnson
William Cameron
William Cameron
2 years ago

But the author avoids the biggest issue. The Uk could pretty much feed itself in 1950s . Population around 50m . Today its 70m and increasing by another million every couple of years.
Why not start there ? Stop importing people.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

90% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are not agricultural

I don’t buy the climate panic myself – it seems far too conveniently aligned with the objectives of neo-Marxist sociopaths – but leaving that aside, this observation makes no sense.
If you want to change something, a sensible person throws their resources at wherever they can make the most difference. If you want to improve the sales of a chain of shoe shops, you don’t run promotions at the ones that are doing badly – you run them at the ones that are already doing well. If you want to advance against the German front line in 1916, you don’t reinforce the areas where you’ve bogged down; you reinforce those where you’ve broken through. In other words you apply your effort wherever it’s mostly likely to make a difference, which in the case of emissions isn’t necessarily where most originate.
The amount of emission reductions achievable through reduction of agriculture’s contribution may turn out to be more elastic than elsewhere. Significantly changing the emissions of homes, buildings and transport requires wholesale redesign and reinstallation which can’t be achieved overnight if at all. Plus, if James hasn’t noticed, these are being targeted too.

Our farm has been carbon audited: it turns out that we sequester far more carbon than we release

So what? The point is could you sequester more? I can’t plant trees in the garden of my flat because it’s on the first floor so it doesn’t have one. Once I’ve changed the boiler and double glazed it that’s my lot, I can do no more. But you can.
If you were to say the whole thing is stupid I’d agree with you, but begging an exception for farmers isn’t going to work because this policy is expressly totalitarian and expressly intends to affect every single on of us.

B Luck
B Luck
2 years ago

But 90% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are not agricultural: 27% are estimated to be from the transport sector, 21% from energy supply, 17% from business, 15% from the residential sector and 10% from agriculture. […] The other 40% of agricultural emissions are associated with livestock

I certainly don’t like the “meat-bashing” and “fake food” altenatives the author refers to, but I feel like he might weaken his argument by a (perhaps accidental) sleight of hand here. He states that 4% of all UK greenhouse gas emissions are associated with livestock (10%*4%), and therefore livestock are not a major element to be considered re. climate change. But I was under the impression that methane contributed far more to changes in the atmosphere than CO2—i.e. it is far more ‘potent’ than CO2—and over half of agricultural emissions by weight were of methane. So when assessing the amount of potential damage that a particular sector is causing to the environment shouldn’t we be careful not to compare apples with oysters? Methane emissions should be weighted accordingly such that a ton of methane is worth x tons of CO2, and so on. If this were the case I’d imagine the case against livestock farming would grow. Hopefully not by too much.

B Luck
B Luck
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

If this were the case I’d imagine the case

Terrible jargon. Quiller-Couch would not approve—I am ashamed.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
2 years ago
Reply to  B Luck

Methane output varies according to diet.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

Boris wants to go green, he’s hated for it. Boris doesn’t go green, he’s hated for it. I am getting the distinct impression that it doesn’t matter what he does. He’s a Tory therefore……
That’s the level of political debate on the left.

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

. . . and the right.

Mikey Mike
Mikey Mike
2 years ago

It’s always the people who live comfortably who think it’s a good idea to make poor people spend a larger share of their paychecks to feed themselves and their families. And it’s all done as a sacrifice to the Gods of leftist environmental fantasy. While dude is changing his diet to eat more British fruit and vegetables (as an American, I can’t even picture what those are if not potatoes), people with a grasp of the global produce market and a need to stretch their food budget will be filling their shopping carts with Costa Rican bananas and Canadian broccoli. You can inspire your local food system all you want but you’re not growing bananas in Manchester.

Last edited 2 years ago by Mikey Mike
Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
2 years ago
Reply to  Mikey Mike

Boris told us 4 years ago that meat and farming products will be cheaper as we’ll have trade agreements with Australia, Argentina and African States. Now all this is bad, animals fart and shipping is bad for the Climate. Wonder that anybody trusts a word he is uttering. Next thing, he’ll divorce his wife and marries somebody who is a Climate Heretic and policies will be reversed again…

Mikey Mike
Mikey Mike
2 years ago

Farting and shipping is bad for the (capital C) Climate. And people still wonder why the hysteria isn’t catching.

Kate Heusser
Kate Heusser
2 years ago

Boris told us 4 years ago that meat and farming products will be cheaper as we’ll have trade agreements with Australia, Argentina and African States.’ Did he? I don’t remember that bit. Perhaps I was too busy believing the slogan on a different bus. Gullible me!
I do find it irritating when the debate gets bogged down in fiercely-contested details, though. Such as ‘is climate change real’ and ‘to what extent is climate change man-made?’ Because, to me, it’s a re-run of the days before the Flood. The contest then was over whether human behaviour (sexual immorality, worshipping of false gods etc., etc.) was or was not about to draw down the wrath of the One God upon the earth. But Noah, who had an inside tip as to what was needed – even if he didn’t know the details of the impending catastrophe – got on with building a very expensive, labour-intensive mechanism for survival.
We all know we’re a much bigger world population than we used to be. We’re all beneficiaries of the more comfortable lifestyle (wars excepted, even the poorest in the world have longer life-expectancy than before the industrial revolution). We all now know that we consume the world’s resources at a greater annual rate than they are replenished so that, unless this situation is changed, we’re running towards a sharp decline if not a cliff edge.
As my background is in the humanities, rather than the sciences, I’m more drawn to ark-building. Ignoring the tribal politics, the lead article makes some salient points about how we go about building the 21st century ark before the floodwaters make it impossible. The Soil Association has been banging on about this for a century or so. Perhaps it’s time we started listening to them.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago

I’m sure James Rebanks has a very good point in decrying the sloganeering and empty rhetoric of summits like COP26. That is almost to be expected. But he veers onto conspiracist territory talking about ‘the people at ground level aren’t interested in being passive victims of a massive corporate power grab of their land and their food supply’. Which power grab? Where is this coming from? Clear evidence please.
Agricultural protectionist lobbies across the developed world are well known for fighting against competition, pushing up prices for ordinary people. This has been the case since the 19th century Corn Laws, and their eventual abolition, to the great benefit of most of the population. To do this they typically use any emotive arguments at hand at the time, whether, ‘food security’, ‘environmental’, ‘natural’ versus ‘industrial’ farming (opposing any technical progress?), etc, to get their way.

Simon Hodgson
Simon Hodgson
2 years ago

We need ministers who are able to get technical and scientific understanding of the issues. Following focus groups and whatever is trending on twitter is a disaster. As is probably anyone with Oxford PPE or Classic Degrees who clearly skipped any lessons in science or mathematics. Trashing the Western Industrial basis and shipping carbon production east, surely even someone with a Classic Degree and understand this is not going to have any beneficial effect.
The UK countryside is the result of humanities interference undoing in a couple of decades that is unlikely to help anyone and will certainly not solve climate change.

Peter Rigg
Peter Rigg
2 years ago

When I read “Of course, in real life the threat to the world is man-made climate change, and us destroying ecosystems.” my usually optimistic soul also withered and died, James.

Leslie Cook
Leslie Cook
2 years ago

Thank you! So tired of elite out of touch solutions. Just because you made a billion peddling vaccines or software, does not qualify you to impose those solutions on the rest humanity.

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago

There is no climate crisis. There is no physics to support it. The climate scientists have perverted known physics to make it fit their agenda. There is no empirical evidence which everybody should be able to see. Every prediction of melting ice caps, damage to coral reefs, dying polar bears and islands vanishing under riding seas has been wrong. Rising temperatures do not cause wild fires, paper burns at 451F. When has that temperature been achieved?
it is time to wake up to this utter nonsense. Kamikaze Johnson will destroy everything we have if we do not stop him and others like him.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

I’m a natural sceptic, and hate the mindless brainwashing people like the BBC impose on us of their own wish. To blame one specific drought, or hurricane, or wildfire, or flood on climate change is absurd. Furthermore, there have been climate changes in the past before man was able to affect anything – the last ice age was only 12,000 years ago, the blink of an eye, in the natural world, but it is fact that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing, and there has been a huge amount of scientific work on it in the last few years, and the conclusions are generally to support the theory of change. It can then utilise trends and statistics, and cause and effect.
And there’s one thing which is seldom mentioned; climate change is not necessarily steady. The world is not meteorologically stable, and it is possible that an ocean current or jet stream may switch suddenly so as to produce changes which are impossible for man’s civilisation to survive. That would make us wish that we had merely experienced the northward drift of warmer weather in the northern hemisphere. .

Last edited 2 years ago by Colin Elliott
Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
2 years ago

When will a sensible person with the wherewithal to bang heads together put a halt to this anthropogenic gibberish? Climate may be changing, it does it four times a year with average t° range between -10° and +20°, but we live on a tiny proportion of the 9% of the planet which can sustain 7 billion people. We overproduce everything, food for example is chucked away, enough to feed the 3rd world if it could be treated and distributed efficiently. Children’s bedrooms are littered with plastic toys flown in from China. This drive to electrify everything by using fossil fuels in the short term to provide the production power is folly. Our resources should be husbanded better rather than penalise a tiny element of rich people who invest in our employment albeit as a by product of their activities.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

The simplest solutions are not being considered (local, seasonal food, self sufficiency, consume less). And the elephants in the room are being ignored (overpopulation, global supply chains, too much cheap plastic tat).
All this climate change stuff is a smokescreen. It’s about giving the global oligarchs new markets, new profits, more power. And conditioning the people to not question it.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago

“Agricultural illiteracy seems to be the norm amongst our political class.”

I took a walk yesterday and would say that “Agricultural illiteracy seems to be the norm amongst our agricultural class.”

The essay suffers from a common fault : someone who sees life as a science expects everyone else to do the same. This is why doctors can’t run a health service and unions can’t run factories.

ralph bell
ralph bell
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

People who work in sectors, whether health or agriculture have very insightful and valid understanding to add to the debate. I am not saying they should control the debate but I am very disappointed that this article, whilst making many valid points is being dismissed by members who appear to want Unherd to exist in its own ‘thought box’.

I agree with the author, that the ‘Green Agenda’ just like the ‘Inclusive Agenda’ has been completely highjacked by the vacuous corporations and woke media, rather than looking closer to home and thinking for relevant and workable solutions that can be embedded step by step for the long term.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Reply to  ralph bell

The problem is that UnHerd members will spend days and days arguing about something they don’t understand – maybe they’ve read an article somewhere. I know a couple of farmers and they would just laugh at the idea that the ‘farming community’ has any special knowledge.
They will tell you that their sons and daughters are really interested in farming, as long as it means sitting behind computer screens, not actually doing any farming.

Last edited 2 years ago by Chris Wheatley
Stephan Harrison
Stephan Harrison
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

You said: “The problem is that UnHerd members will spend days and days arguing about something they don’t understand – maybe they’ve read an article somewhere”.
Indeed. See Jon Redman’s and Alan Thorpe’s posts on climate change!

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago

I have just replied to them.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson
2 years ago

Bravo. Well said all round!

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago

I’m a Boris-sceptic these days so I like the headline, but then tripped up on quite a few parts that I don’t really agree with about the apparently increasing extremes that climate change is supposed to guarantee: I don’t accept this, or at least do not accept the simplistic model-driven arguments that claim that it’s all down to CO2.
But this paragraph:

“The politicians and activists at COP26 haven’t a clue about this. So they latch instead on to batshit dietary choices and technological solutions such as carbon capture and synthetic farm-free food. They like solutions that can be delivered by people like them, from the top down, imposed through their own lofty power and influence. Bill Gates will fix it, or Monsanto, or Prince William or David Attenborough. But the real world doesn’t really work like that; the people at ground level aren’t interested in being passive victims of a massive corporate power grab of their land and their food supply.”

has me back on side entirely. Perfectly expressed and I could not agree more.

But while I agree with many points in the article, I still can’t get onboard with the obvious priority towards CO2: it is clearly wrong, for instance, to argue for more land-intensive farming methods in the interest of CO2 sequestration if you want at the same time to reduce humanity’s footprint on the planet: this is an alias for the organic farming movement which if applied universally would destroy almost every last natural habitat on earth. Modern intensive farming, with fertilisers, pesticides and GMO technology, whether you agree with it or not, is achieving one very big thing: it is reducing human land use and returning land to nature. There are problems with it too, I am not claiming otherwise, but those problems demand refinement, not giving up on the mission to use less land for food production.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
David Lonsdale
David Lonsdale
2 years ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I used to work on a horticultural nursery run on vaguely organic principals. The soil was dark, crumbly and very productive. The other side of the fence was an arable farm. The soil there was heavy clay, large pale lumps which smeared when ploughed and provided anchorage for the cereals but little else, all feed had to be applied. I found this quite depressing.

Dennis Boylon
Dennis Boylon
2 years ago

I was listening to Roger Hallam give an interview on triggernometry about a year ago. He emphatically stated that there would be no ice left in all of Greenland in 12 years. So…11 years to go. I’ve got this bookmarked and quoted. I am going to relentlessly troll him in 11 years.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
2 years ago
Reply to  Dennis Boylon

We heard from the BBC that children won’t experience snow 15 years ago. Sadly people forget this nonsense.

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

I think I heard that glorious forecast from an expert on the BEEB around 2000. That’s the great thing about these long range forecasts. By the time 2021 arrives, the expert has:

1. Died

2. Retired on index linked pension.

3. Been utterly forgotten among the flood of prophets clogging the media

or

4. Thought up fresh reasons why his 2000 forecast was inaccurate, but here is his terrifying scenario for 2050……

Jehovah’s Witnesses have had loads of dud prophecies. But at least they are not on the public payroll.

Last edited 2 years ago by William Murphy
Tam Griffiths
Tam Griffiths
2 years ago

What an excellent article!

Francisco Menezes
Francisco Menezes
2 years ago

The problem with apocalypses is, they never happen. But credulous silly people roughly replace themselves every 25 years. Get lost with your CO2 nonsense. A period of 150 years would be indicative of the atmospheric circumstance on earth? Read Patrick Moore’s book and see how you are duped by the totalitarians. Why don’t they march on Glasgow, as the great Italian fascist leader marched on Rome 99 years ago?

Last edited 2 years ago by Francisco Menezes
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

What I really want to know is – what is the Boris vision for this NetZero world? What is Starmer’s too? What will it look like in reality, how will it feel for everyday people doing everyday things? What might we lose and what might we gain? Do they even know themselves? If not, why are they commiting so much to it? Something I really hate about politicians is the terrible lack of clear communication. Everything is in bits and pieces and swaddled in waffle. If they could inspire us with a vision and a roadmap the public might just get on board with it – or point out the flaws before we waste time and money on something that won’t work. Yeah I know I’m living in Lalaland.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

One has to have a little sympathy; on everything they say, and sometimes do, politicians will bear in mind its effect at the next election.

Jasper Carrot
Jasper Carrot
2 years ago

Politicians & so-called experts are good at blathering but, as the article clearly indicates, they fail to understand much & certainly have yet to obtain genuine progressive solutions. COP, & especially the UN as a whole, is too big to achieve much – it’s a talking medium – to achieve any aspiration or consensus inevitably falls into high ideals & targets that have yet to be reached.
The mad weather, as I refer to it, is just that: the extremes of heat, floods, winds are not seasonal but irrational & intensely damaging; mass migration will deteriorate into something far worse, as potable water & food production dwindles. Look at various parts of our planet & the evidence is clear. Man-made disasters, geological shocks or wild fires – all contribute to the many problems that are changing the world’s environment. The UK cannot afford to be a key global example, when we are now one of the smallest polluters – pollution travels & we will still suffer from the big polluters to our West, South & East.
Our politicians are ill-suited to their roles & certainly lack real experience, save for very few of them, to realise what needs to be done & how sensible but progressive strategies need to be developed. Agriculture & the environment has to be considered within the scope of all government departments – each of them needs to work together – there is meant to be a Fusion Strategy – it doesn’t achieve what is required.
Without a full review & reform of governance, starting with smaller cabinet, with more devolved to the regions, our political nominees & so-called elites will continue to avoid the hard decisions because they will lose power, privilege & prestige. Politicians (now so-called experts) & honesty are rare bed fellows.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago

Climate change is very simple to understand and very difficult to fix. It is driven by a mind set that pursues GDP growth. Until we can understand that we need a global aspiration for Degrowth we shall only exacerbate our problems. Growth requires more people and more money. The world is already overpopulated by a factor of three, and overloaded with affluent people who feel entitled to a lifestyle which is destroying our planet. This mind set is difficult to change and requires an emotional quality which is very uncommon within our coercive consumer society, namely humility. Humility dawns within Humanity, resulting in a Chance to Change | by Barbara Williams | Oct, 2021 | Medium

Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
2 years ago

This green fantasy world where 2/3 of the world population, the young productive element, disappears would have us, an elderly sick village scrubbing our clothes down by the river. Which is why there is one deranged not so humble green MP at Westminster and Germany voting in increasing numbers to drag a successful nation back into the Stone Age. The problem with espousing a false religion based on scientific half truths and cynical lies.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
Reply to  Zorro Tomorrow

If one accepts that we should keep breeding so as to have young people to look after the old, then sooner or later, the whole Ponzi scheme will come tumbling down, because there will be a shortage of food, housing, medical care, education, green fields and wood, and wild life. In fact, it’s already happening.
And a second thing; not only is the population increasing, it is doing so spectacularly in places in which the quality of life is surely declining; Nigeria and several other African countries, Bangladesh, Brazil, etc., while countries onve thought of as having plenty of space of new populations are becoming short of water.

Julie Kemp
Julie Kemp
2 years ago

Good, pert, apt, funny, incisive article! Your PM (i’m Australian) is what the ‘Peter Principle’ was all about as i recall. Being Mayor is his ‘level’ it seems – no ‘plus ultra’ sadly. Dear England. Dear Britain. Dear Ireland – my ancestry! So much supreme talent in way earlier days but really the same goes for ‘these days’ too. Seems generally though that ‘talk to the hand’ is still applied, albeit there is no brain, no spirit sending it signals. The constipation’s cause? All the vanities of too much ‘low’ consciousness. Of course one great exception is THE Queen. Many fully functioning others i could name, and a lot more to boot whom i can’t!
Thank you James – you Man of Soil, Light and Energy.