In a previous piece about how the pandemic was a very useful smokescreen for the surreptitious advancement of all things green, I laid out several examples.
Even in the short space of time since then other relevant items have surfaced; one in particular was interesting as it was an example of how big business is having more and more of a stake in pushing the green agenda for its own purposes.
The item was about how meat producers in the USA are being bought out by businesses who are in the substitute meat manufacturing game. They see a potential huge market for lab-made beef or other meat substitutes as the climate change lobby push for higher meat prices, and eventually the elimination of cattle as they produce nasty gases that evidently are causing climate change?
With the western world going down this path of de-meatifyng the populace, using climate change and health as factors that they have discovered very few will object to if those two items are the prefix to any green introductions bingo, it is the magic key to doing anything they like, the west having discovered the magic formula will plough on and make this one of those must-do items on the green agenda.
It has been suggested that by 2040 most meat would not be coming from slaughtered animals. The companies benefiting from this will be the lab-meat producers and it has been noted they are hastening the trend in their favour by buying grazing land in the US to force the speed of the changeover to their products.
Companies too are getting in on the act; this is one of the first now many who have joined the anti-meat agenda:
The cynic in me would say all these companies have seen a way of cutting expenses whilst polishing their green credentials.
This link gives a rather more cynical view of green badging of companies:
https://financefeeds.com/green-bandwagon-thankfully-not-on-agenda-of-the-fx-industry/
Back in 2009 a Guardian article had this headline:
“The public sector has accepted the need to tackle climate change, but can't go it alone – business and the people must be engaged too“
Of course the public sector went along with it: what have they to lose? and whose money would they be investing anyway? - not theirs.
As consumers are nudged towards non meat or faux meat products with the help of the health fascists making sure that real meat products eventually price themselves out of reach of the average consumer, we are still not told what the costs of the lab produced article will be. Once that tipping point is reached you can guarantee veg prices will rise as the choice will become in effect none at all.
One of the reasons aired for the eventual erasing of real meat is its huge demand for water. That of course depends largely on demand and they are going to restrict and do away with demand so water will be saved. Of course as with much else on the green agenda; that doesn’t take into account the rise of world populations who all need water in one form or another, reckoned to reach 9.4 billion by 2040 from 7.6 billion today and it just keeps rising. The biggest increases are in African countries which cannot or will not sustain themselves and so mass immigration follows which will not stop but increase, bringing the potential earnings ratio ever lower in places like GB. Many surveys show we have been in decline with earnings since the 2008 crash, which again makes almost all the green projects unaffordable for the average man.
I have to state I am not personally against lab produced meat as long as it tastes the same and is competitively priced. The slaughter house side of meat production is something nearly all of us pretend doesn’t happen when we buy our steak. Will it provide the same taste experience or will it be bland and Quorn like? This article suggests it may be OK for certain types of meat, but this one is hardly your go-to in the Co-Op
There is also a push for vertical farming. This is not new: I recall articles on this innovation decades ago, a modern version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The principle is you stack floors of greenhouses on top of one another in a city environment, saving transport costs and land usage, all using hydroponics. This saves hugely on water usage and run-off, but as usual there are big disadvantages that have never been solved: being stacked, unlike a conventional single storey greenhouse, all apart from the top one get uneven light which is no good for producing uniform crops so artificial light has to be used, and you guessed it that needs energy and the linking of solar power and inbuilt windmills just doesn’t cut it, so they are not viable. Other types have been suggested but they all need energy, so save water but need a lot more energy = non viable.
https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2010/12/11/does-it-really-stack-up
To add to the food misery is this: neatly following on from yesterday's greenprint, the government advisors are suggesting taxing salt and sugar
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57838103
The NHS are involved here by prescribing vegetables as an alternative, so the NHS is also in that push to eliminate meat and turn us all vegan. I would be more impressed if the NHS did what we pay them to do, treat people with diseases and ailments.
Needless to say Bojo is playing it soft by saying he does not think taxing people is the right way to go but will discuss and let everyone know in six months, meaning he will tax sugar and salt in one form or another. Boris has certainly made up for all the U turns Mrs Thatcher didn’t make; he also lies a lot.
I like the bit in that link that says any taxes will go towards more free school meals. that makes it all right then, they have seen what St Rashford has done and jumped on the bandwagon. of course any extra tax neve goes directly to anything, it goes in the pot.
Skyscraper farming, where does all that energy for lighting come from? Not solar that’s for sure. There is also the question of what happens to the land previously inhabited by cattle; grazing land despite what the greenies say is not suitable for arable crops, which is why, obviously, it was grazing land in the first place. So far the answers to that are few and none, the only proposal put forward, from the greens, is the re-wilding of everything, a countryside like the middle ages with wild boar, herds of bloody deer (haven’t we enough?) beavers damming all the rivers, birds of prey such as Golden Eagles and a landscape out of Jurassic Park. Perhaps that is the end game: not being able to access enough water, no energy to power anything, freezing houses in winter as energy becomes limited to off-peak because too expensive at any other time, food limited by price and choice, and an exploding population. Yes, that is the answer: free holidays for all in Jurassic Park and the humans become the food; problem solved.
Which takes me back to the newsletter I spoke about before from Anglia Water on the way forward: we would pay in advance - with no obvious benefits for us - for the renewal of infrastructure for a private company; shares all round, and we will still be asked to share baths etc. in the future to save the planet.
How on earth the average working family is going to be able to afford all these vainglorious projects that our leaders claim are essential to the planet and our well being (?) is a mystery in a global low wage economy. Not one politician to my knowledge has explained how the money will be raised other than ever higher taxes that the many will not pay and the fewer will pay ever more. They talk about sustainability; what they spout is not sustainable. They will either collapse the country - they are not needing much of a push in that direction - or they will have to bin much of this self-proclaimed roadmap into nirvana.
The latter is preferable as very little of it will make one iota of difference to the planet, but as with Covid “if it saves one life” these clowns will plough on, having already tied us to ridiculous agreements. Thanks, Theresa May, your legacy will be noted.
Bang on cue the government announce their ‘greenprint’: all that has been mooted is coming to pass, EVs will not only have to pay tax as petrol cars do but road pricing is coming as well, so not only do EVs cost a lot more and have batteries that currently can’t be disposed of, they will also have double taxes.
HGVs will not be sold after 2040. This could get interesting, it is not an area Deliveroo can step into and help; we await the electric substitute!
Air travel will be carbon neutral, whatever that means; what it really means is that air travel will be for the few as the new fuels will cost more and passengers will pay a carbon tax.
All the usual suspects from green lobby groups naturally support all this as do various think tanks of industry, claiming that our world leading stance on all this will lead to new jobs (and lose many more elsewhere) and reduce our emissions. All this to from a country that contributes less than 1% of the world's CO2 emissions and whose effort to reach carbon neutral by 2050 will have been in vain as the world at large ploughs on and the increasing populations make it all pointless.
You will note in this paper there is not one single word about the big elephant in the room: where is all this extra very expensive energy coming from? We discussed earlier the fact that wind and solar cannot produce enough and even if they could it would be intermittent and we would have rolling blackouts, and that is at current demands; the mere thought about for instance what electric HGVs will require for charging is mind-boggling.
In the video in that link, the usual disingenuous waffle about 50% of our energy being produced by wind power is voiced. As we all know, it only works when the wind blows; even just last week, wind on one day contributed just under 1% of our total energy needs; the difference is made up by buying in energy from abroad, which is hardly a way forward in energy security.
The other item of note and which is already happening is the shutting down of our cities to the motor car. In many ways we can agree on that, but walking or cycling more with an ageing population is not a viable alternative, and unless better public transport is subsidised (more taxpayer's money) many will not be able to afford even that. We can all remember the ticket prices when the buses deregulated; now add on horrendously expensive hydrogen: it is currently 10x more expensive than gas for example. So buses powered by electricity or hydrogen will see prices rocket, unless again they are subsidised, and the subsidy once again falls on those least able to afford it, the taxpayer. They really don’t want the little man to travel anywhere.
The only amusing thing in that video was the appalling state of the city road shown; so much for investment.
Still at least John Lewis have the solution: bring back trams. There is little to say on this other than who is going to support yet another form of transport which requires its own dedicated and electrified lane? Bonkers!
A window into the not-so-distant future, is this from California. Look familiar?
“Last August, after rolling blackouts hit California during a heat wave, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation."
The report on the root causes of the August blackouts was completed in January. The problem was caused by lack of “resource adequacy” and “planning.” The people making decisions about how much power would be needed in California were routinely underestimating the demand for electricity.
It’s happening again. Summer, it turns out, was unexpected.
The great thing about underestimating California’s power needs is that everybody can pretend the state can run on solar and wind energy, thereby feeling good that we’re doing something to stop climate change. Unmentioned is that California now imports more electricity than any other state, and how that power is generated is somebody else’s problem.”
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/california-electricity-shortage-issues/
We are following the same pattern.
And as usual in all of this not a single questioning voice is heard. Just why are they pushing this, with the lack of infrastructure to support it, to mention just one problem? A familiar story and oft repeated.
4 comments:
Your comment on uneven growing light recalls another tech solution: pyramidal plantscrapers, with slowly rotating shelves! The use of natural light would probably be far outweighed by the manufacture, powering and maintenance of the structure.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2255494/The-plant-skyscrapers-Giant-greenhouses-city-centres-herald-new-age-farming.html
@Skyscraper farming, where does all that energy for lighting come from? Not solar that’s for sure.
"For sure"? Why do you say that?
Seems to me that if a crop only needs daylight-hours energy input (& let's face it, most crops are like that!!), nothing could be more logical than to use solar
I work in the energy industry, and can tell you that the march of solar - and batteries - is not lightly to be underestimated. Whether you like it or not is another matter. Likewise the appalling labour conditions asociated with the battery manufacturing supply-chain ...
In Ohio, the government merely slapped on extra charges to register hybrids and electric cars, to make up for the missing gasoline taxes.
Post a Comment