WEEKENDER: Changes Afoot, by Wiggia

I have not been the only one to quote the phrase ‘never let a good crisis go unused’ or versions of, and I did mention how the Net Zero brigade had reinforced their objectives under the guise of Covid, two years in the formation and now being unleashed into the general narrative.

The video of the unprepared Nigel Farage being unable to counter Dale Vince on his own program was not a unique occasion but it was a relatively high profile one and a missed opportunity to debunk the whole push for Net Zero that Boris despite evident minor concessions is still pushing ahead with.

Even in a week when Ukraine naturally dominates the headlines the Greens are still issuing statements on how we should be looking to live in the not too distant future; some of it is trivial and unnecessary nonsense but it still keeps the whole Net Zero train on the tracks when it should be in a siding.

While taking the wife shopping this week to Waitrose, a bastion of all things Green, I picked up their free Weekender magazine; you may well ask why, but those that know are aware that I read anything, no catalogue that plops onto the mat goes unscanned and reading women's magazines in the dentists waiting room is de rigueur, all the while picking up snippets of useless and sometimes very interesting information on things that would normally pass me by.

In the aforementioned Weekender, after scanning pages of politically correct photos of various ethnic people dominating the images I saw an article on saving water. We have done this one and the fact that water companies have totally failed to increase capture and storage despite an ever-rising population; doubtless it is still all our fault for having the temerity to use the stuff in the first place. So we get a lifestyle change piece on how to save water and if possible not even use it.

But the article is not quite as innocent as it appears. Anna Shepard is the author ‘My Year of Living Sustainably’ and this is No. 11 in the series; I have not seen any of the others but would think this one is par for course. Anna also wrote for the Times under her Eco Worrier tag and has written books on green living plus naturally she is a go-to for the BBC radio and TV. I mention all this because this type of eco approach is everywhere: women's magazines (see, I told you it would come in useful) for some reason are full of articles on sustainability and green living.

Anyway in this piece, No. 11, she talks about her family's way of dealing with water usage. Water for some reason is no longer a basic necessity but a power-using commodity that should be used sparingly (see earlier note on water companies): heating water increases carbon emissions and the evil gas boiler is the culprit here.

Showers by nature are evil incarnate if you shower and actually use the thing more than the seven to eight minutes which we are told is standard, which I don’t actually believe; we should take a minute less and save the world. She supplies all sorts of tips like using a timer and a hardly-get-you-wet shower head, and turn it off if washing hair in shower whilst soaping; her husband, being a good boy, turns the temperature down, which evidently boosts his immune system - lucky him, no Covid in that house.

And finally she excuses her love of a long soak in the tub, for which she would normally lose brownie points for admitting such a heinous act, by sharing or leaving the water for someone else to get into; and finally, a gold star for having days when they don’t wash at all.

I am with Anna on this one, or would have been, though I doubt it would have saved any water - after all, who would want to leave the shower in a situation like that !

The detail from this one article is in line with the endless shelves in supermarkets that have pretend meat on them as the push to cut meat out entirely from diets goes full steam ahead. Meat of course is a prime (!) mover in producing emissions and so should be cut as rapidly as possible along with the inevitable removal of all dairy products as a natural consequence. Lab grown meat is already an item and will be with you soon; soya milk is a substitute for dairy milk - though soya production uses lots of water so cross that one off; strange how avocados are bad, needing lots of water in production, but soya is fine as indirectly it gets rid of meat.

The banning of the use of plastics continues apace, being a by product of oil which today is the devil itself, though no one has addressed how we will replace items like plastic piping and everything else which we take for granted in the modern age; the alternatives, should there be enough natural materials to make some of these items, are all very expensive which will in turn mean that the man on the Clapham omnibus (for that is all that there will be left to travel on) will be further impoverished, not only will he have to use less water, it will probably be rationed and a communal standpipe will be the local gathering point as in Africa, all those toxic plastic delivery pipes having been banned.

Polyester clothing will follow the route of extinction, we will return to use of pure cotton - no, that's out, its links to slavery make it a no-no; so wool will return to the top of the clothing tree, except that sheep have by then been eliminated as meat is also a no-no, banished to the past as when we were hunter-gatherers. Are there enough silk worms in the world to take up the slack?

Anna even manages to get in on another article on the following page, following the well-worn path of 'cars are bad so don’t use them.' This time she manages to find a fellow eco convert in Emma, who is stressed by driving and the bus is relaxing and convenient (not round here, on the reduced services of one an hour), but still Emma has joined the carless society. The reduction in petrol driven vehicles as EVs take over is to be applauded, but wait a minute, Sandra from We Are Possible! says EVs only ‘lower’ emissions and that is not enough: we need to reduce all cars on the road. Emma is a rent fanatic, she believes renting cars plus everything else will save the world, and the lockdowns showed the way with emissions being down by around 50%; Emma would like that figure to remain: people working, travelling etc. is such a dated concept, the magic money tree will take care of any problems arising.

As Emma so succinctly puts when signing off, ‘Do I need to do so much?’ even though it appears she is doing very little now.

No doubt Emma will be delighted when all cars are finally banned and we take to public transport; could this be the future?...

On the same page Matthew McNulty, actor, has a question and answer session. If you could eat anywhere in the world today where would you go? Now a decent modern progressive would say ‘my local Chinese’ as we can walk there and cut emissions, but McNulty makes a statement that will turn Greta apoplectic should she read it, how dare you indeed, by declaring ‘The Arctic. I’d catch fish then cook and eat it in the cold, appreciating hot food in a cold place is the ideal.' I have news for McNulty: appreciating hot food in any climate may soon be a luxury at home, never mind the Arctic.

The Weekender as with all newspapers and journals knows which side its bread is buttered when it comes to advertising: no anti Covid items when the NHS (us) was paying for the non stop advertising and no irony in having articles on sustainability on the page before the travel section starts with exotic holidays in all points of the globe being pushed - it’s funny how they have to accept advertising which goes against their eco agendas as a means to survive, but the little people will have to choose to heat or eat!

So there it is in a nutshell, actually Waitrose's Weekender: we have the current viewpoint on all things eco. All these sage words are apparently uttered by people who not only have no concept of what it is like to not be able to put the heating on but actively encourage it. Another cashmere jumper, an extra duvet, take the dog for a walk several times a day (naturally the dog will be fed with one of the new non meat pet foods) and light small fires in the living room with non-emission-emitting copies of Weekender - as they say, today’s newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper, or in this case firelighter; it’s all we have.

I am not convinced that dogs really want a vegan diet, this chap certainly has reservations:

I am not totally without sympathy to the cause, we all have to make an effort however small to save the planet. I have already gone out on a limb and got rid of all my petrol-engined mowers and strimmers and replaced with an eco version I found in the local paper; it may just be a way of saving livestock from their impending demise at the same time:

An addendum:

Dale Vince, mentioned in my piece last week on Nigel Farage, is another who does not want the truth about himself made any more public than necessary. He denied he had made a fortune when asked on Nigel’s program and claimed his company is a not for profit organisation, yet for all that he is a major shareholder and chairman at Forest Green Rovers, who are about to make it into the football league (even small football clubs do not come cheap), and he settled an old divorce case with a payment of half a million pounds in court costs. He is a vegan, naturally, and supports the Green Party (ditto) and donated to the Greens and the Labour party; he also endorsed Caroline Lucas. The gory details are all here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Vince

As can be seen he is a full on eco zealot, something that Nigel could have found out by clicking the same link as I did. As with so many of these people, give them the smallest opportunity and they will force their ideals on you without asking - note he has banned all meat products at the football ground and all his players are vegan.

So I think we can take his rather biased view on wind and solar power with a pinch of salt as he is no different from anyone else jumping on the eco wagon. He is fully entitled to his view but his answers were not quite the full story when he appeared on Talk Radio on Thursday giving more biased reasons for not following any other route other than wind and solar (despite the obvious shortcomings and the costly need for a parallel back up system or the lights go out.)

And once again the presenter was not on the ball with the questions and answers.

They should have let those who commented from the public afterwards interview him, they had most of the facts about this scam.