The Majority Are Wrong About Net Zero

 

Distraught at the good news that the UK government has approved extraction from the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, the usual climate bedwetters have put on their parts about the cataclysmic effect this will have on the goal to reach "net zero".

Let me offer an alternative perspective. We have many big problems in the UK - one of the most serious of which is this crass, top-down imposition of “net zero”, with its projected economically ruinous cost of £500 billion, for which British taxpayers continue to foot the bill. It’s a policy of such folly that only the most reckless thinkers would support it - yet enough incompetent people in power do support it, so we have it unjustly imposed on us in the form of higher taxes, higher prices, less money in our pockets, and a less efficient economy. 

Now, I know what you might push back with. Opinion polls show that 60% to 65% of the public explicitly support the UK's legal commitment to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, so isn’t’ it more democratic that politicians enact it? I knew you were going to ask that - but in a word, no - not really, because it misses something important. Democracy has its merits, but it also comes with the hazard of throwing up advocation for highly damaging policies on the dubious pretext of uncritical consensus. These should be challenged at every juncture.

Support for Net Zero is rather like a toxic marriage of dependency made on the condition that nobody actually reads the prenuptial agreement. Public devotion to Net Zero flourishes precisely because it operates behind a philosophical Rawslian 'veil of ignorance', whereby voters enthusiastically endorse an ideal without ever auditing the economic realities required to achieve it. It’s a luxury belief - or perhaps more accurately, an unexamined luxury good - because professed endorsement exceeds any personal civic immediate cost, as most of the costs are spread more thinly in terms of diffusely inflated consumer prices, stealth taxation, compounding inflation and unseen opportunity costs

It behoves the rest of us - those who see policies with more considered cost-benefit analyses - to continue the challenge against damaging political ideas like Net Zero. A bit like a situation when a young child thinks having ice cream for every meal is a good idea, but a responsible parent would counsel against it, having the child's longer term well-being and future best interests at heart. In fact, that analogy works especially well here, because it conveys the idea of an appealing, feel-good, short-term indulgence that ignores long-term health and consequences.

Similarly, voting MPs into power should not give them the right to convert someone else’s resources into communal property in such a reckless way. Coercion disguised as “democracy” is still coercion, and catastrophic policies that are mandated by narrow-minded elected politicians are still catastrophic, even if the majority have been primed into believing they prefer ice cream for dinner. 

Further reading:
People Are Finally Starting To Wake Up To The 'Net Zero' Madness
Net Zero: Created By Madness For Madness