Really, what the world needs saving from are those who think they can save the world. The meddlers, the seconders, the peddlers of an eco-zealot ideology that is green – but only in terms of its naivety and execution.
A dogma that always seems to do more harm than good, with the burden falling not upon powerful industrial polluters like Drax burning biomass while taking £2million a day in subsidies, but ordinary citizens who are threatened with £300 fines for improper log-burning use. It hardly seems fair, but does Ed Miliband care?
The Labour Government’s blind devotion to Net Zero is harming the UK’s self-sufficiency and crushing its economic growth. Renewable energy is supposed to be the future, but how can we have faith in the system when December’s Storm Darragh damaged solar farms and wind turbines across the country? The UK’s largest solar farm, Porth Wen in Anglesey, was ripped to shreds and is still out of action.
Yet to express even a whiff of Net Zero scepticism is to be accused of going ‘off to the Wacky Races’ according to Miliband. That doesn’t make any sense and isn’t even funny, like so many of his policy positions.
A great number of voters hold grave doubts about this Mili-path forwards and I doubt very much that even his own party is 100 per cent behind the madness of Net Zero, but at least the Just Stop Oil lot are having a laugh.
They say they are going to stop protesting because the Energy Secretary has been so obliging, promising to wean the UK off fossil fuels and whatnot. ‘We’ve kept four billion barrels of oil in the ground,’ boasted JSO this week, as if that were something to be proud of. ‘And our original demand, no new oil and gas licences, is now government policy.’
The eco-activist group, known for a string of infuriating high-profile protests including blocking motorway traffic, throwing soup at paintings and disrupting events such as the World Snooker Championship and a West End play, said it was ‘hanging up the hi-vis’ in a self-congratulatory statement. Although they are claiming a moral victory, let’s not forget their leaders are in jail and the organisation has had infighting over its provocative methods.
Louise Murguia stole a crippled lamb from Hile Farm in Sturminster Newton, Dorset last year. She thought she could care for it better than an evil farmer
A court heard this week how Louise nearly killed the poor creature with her cackhanded attempts to rear it
Meanwhile, to add to the eco-pain, here comes Emma Pinchbeck. She is the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the quango that advises the government in general and Mr E Miliband in particular on climate matters. Emma is the kind of Net Zero nutter who said this week she believes rich people should fly less frequently and be taxed on their travel more, so poor people can still take their yearly summer holidays abroad without ‘worsening’ the impact on the planet.
What is this? The Communist Change Committee? Foreign travel isn’t a right and people who have worked hard for their holidays deserve to enjoy them without being further penalised by this tax-crazy government. It doesn’t sound as if Emma even knows air passenger duty already exists, with taxes levied for both distance travelled and class of travel. Where is it all going to end?
Perhaps in a field with Louise Murguia, a committed and ‘proud’ vegan activist. She believes that farmers are bad people who exploit animals. Apparently they ‘abuse lambs from day one,’ she said. ‘Why people think farmers care so much is just ignorant.’
Speaking of which, focusing on the eco-ignorati for a moment, consider that Louise stole a crippled lamb from Hile Farm in Sturminster Newton, Dorset last year. She thought she could care for it better than an evil farmer. If there is a better metaphor for misguided environmental activism anywhere on this rotten old planet, I have yet to meet it.
A court heard this week how Murguia nearly killed the poor creature with her cackhanded attempts to rear it.
Instead of getting the lamb treatment for its broken leg, she fixed on a splint. She tied a nappy on to its bottom and tried to make it drink cow’s milk. That was a bust, so she bought formula milk from Amazon and that didn’t work either.
The lamb was confined to her house for three weeks. When it was recovered by the police it was malnourished and nearly dead – well done, Dr Dolittle. Murguia, 49, was found guilty of animal cruelty – but is unrepentant.
‘I just wish people weren’t so obsessed with eating meat. But I feel I am in the minority and people are just blood hungry. I am a vegan, hate me if you like. I love and respect animals.’
No one who truly cares about animals would have done such a thing. Once again, we have sanctimony masquerading as compassion in a world where the green know-nothings demonstrate their witlessness while believing their views are superior.
The soon-to-splinter JSO group has said its last protest – to be held at the end of April – will mark ‘the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets’.
They are so proud of themselves it’s just unbearable – and I don’t believe for a second that we have heard the last of them. They will be back with more disruptive tactics but under a new name and with a new, as yet unspecified, objective. Save the Silly Sheep? And for once I am not talking about Mr Miliband.
