Itâ€s hard to know when it happened exactly. Counting back the years to when we worried about aerosol cans and then global warming, itâ€s almost impossible to see where we flipped. [emphasis, links added]
Just when did we go from relatively sensible concerns about polar bears on the ice floes of the Arctic and the adult responsibility of polluting the planet less and conserving it more to a kind of blind panic about something of which we know very little?
There was a time when joining hippy causes like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace elicited a little chuckle around the Sunday lunch table.
Those who did it were viewed as idealistic eccentrics who would soon grow out of it. Well, take a look around, because now theyâ€ve taken over.
Well-educated and fanatical individuals are now happy to serve lengthy jail sentences as punishment for increasingly disruptive acts of civil disobedience whether itâ€s for Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion.
Theyâ€re not eccentrics anymore. Theyâ€re downright extremists. And of course, they now have their champions in the mainstream worlds of media and politics.
If Greta Thunberg is the wayward, naughty child of the climate movement who is beginning to grow out of it, Ed Milliband is the crazy uncle whoâ€s taken to flying around the world seeking to impress everyone with his secret knowledge that itâ€s all going to burn to the ground.
This week Red Ed is in Baku – the capital of Azerbaijan – the oil-rich host nation for COP29. And heâ€s been busy explaining to his followers on social media just what heâ€s aiming to do.
“Back in 2008,†he quipped on X, “The Dark Knight was top of the box office and I was a fresh-faced Energy Secretary.
“Now like Batman Iâ€ve returned.â€
Well, not quite Mr Milliband. Youâ€re less like Batman and more like the Joker – hopelessly fighting the wrong corner and selling a message that most people in Britain are now seeing right through.
And if the Joker is a delusional psychopath hell-bent on the destruction of Gotham, what does that make the man with two kitchens who had difficulty eating a bacon sandwich?
Letâ€s face it, back in 2008 Milliband was the guy who encouraged us all to drive diesel cars because they were more environmentally friendly. How did that turn out? Now the message is no less ridiculous. He talks of better jobs, lower energy bills, and more growth.
But none of those things is true. And on the matrix of government funding, theyâ€re not likely to become true either.
And at this point, weâ€d have to ask the question – is Ed Milliband a liar or a fool? There does not appear to be a third option. And some people will tell you that he could be both.
On the one hand, he says we must do away with gas boilers, clampdown on petrol cars, and encourage people to use less electricity. But then he claims none of this will affect our lives.
Under Sir Keir Starmer, the Milliband green delusion has been allowed to flourish and grow. In Baku, the Prime Minister pledged to cut UK carbon emissions by 81 percent in 10 years. No one believes itâ€s possible.
He talked of creating a clean-energy superpower on these shores which will lead the world in industries of the future. Baku to the future indeed. The problem is that no one believes him.
Climate scientists admit a reduction of this magnitude would only be possible if we stopped eating so much red meat and dairy. And if we stopped traveling so much.
Only this month have we learned a new word for the annual autumn calming of the winds around Britain. It comes from Germany and describes a kind of gloomy, windless weather that renders both onshore and offshore wind farms practically useless.
Dunkelflaute has been afflicting the national grid for most of October and November so far. And as a result, we have been more reliant than ever on fossil fuel sources to power the nation.
In addition, Ofgem has approved more and more undersea cable connections to mainland Europe just this week – ensuring that Britain will continue to be more and more reliant on foreign energy sources.
Starmer promised a freeze on energy prices if he became Prime Minister. That hasnâ€t happened and instead, energy prices have gone up again. There are no new jobs on the horizon, green or otherwise.
The Treasuryâ€s insistence on balancing the books means employers will be paying out more and more money simply to continue to run their businesses.
At last count there were 400 private jets sitting on the runway in Baku – waiting to fly back to a world that canâ€t afford a green revolution but continues to press for one anyway.
Read rest at Telegraph
