Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won't Even Save the Planet)

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Going vegan, or giving up the car commute for a cycle ride, might be pleasant enough options for the well-off, but the poor are not going to be prepared to shiver or go hungry in the name of cutting carbon emissions. And they really would shiver and go hungry. If you want to reach net zero in the next few years through the curtailment of lifestyles, you are not going to achieve it without returning society to a pre-industrial level of subsistence. Clark has been strongly critical of climate activist Greta Thunberg, calling hera “well-crafted piece of PR”, 4 Ross Clark. “ The trouble with Greta Thunberg,” Spectator, April 23, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. and the activist group Extinction Rebellion, which he has describedas a “wannabe Marxist revolution in disguise”. 5 Ross Clark. “ Extinction Rebellion is a wannabe Marxist revolution in disguise,” Spectator, November 21, 2018. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. He has describeda David Attenborough documentary on climate change as “propaganda”. 6 Ross Clark. “ What David Attenborough’s climate change show didn’t tell you,” Spectator, April 20, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Clark wrote an article for The Daily Mail criticising the government’s plans to replace 600,000 gas boilers with heat pumps by 2028 as part of an attempt to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. 45 Ross Clark. “ ROSS CLARK: How absurd you may be banned from selling your own home if you don’t meet draconian new eco rules (which just happen to cost the earth),” The Daily Mail, April 6, 2021. Archived April 6, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/8XSiF

Clark arguedthat the 2019 Conservative leadership candidates were “falling over themselves to say the same thing on climate — only louder than their rivals”. Clark accused the politicians of “greenwashing” as the “national mood moves towards mass panic”. 71 Ross Clark. “ Greener than thou,” Spectator, June 15, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.O’Brien, Neil; Clark, Ross (2010), The Renewal of Government, A manifesto for whoever wins the election (PDF), Policy Exchange Clark, Ross (2020). The Denial: a satirical novel of climate change. Lume Books. ISBN 978-1839012105. Clark, Ross (2007). The Road to Southend Pier: One man's struggle against the Surveillance Society (1sted.). Harriman House. ISBN 978-1905641444. Wind turbines are great galumphing things that despoil Britain’s rural landscapes, pummel the prices of nearby houses and plague residents with terrible noise and light pollution […] Yet the blind insistence of eco-zealots on more and more wind power – and the weakness of our Prime Minister in potentially bowing to their demands – means we risk pursuing such a barmy policy”.

It is little wonder that terrified kids are skipping school to protest against climate change. Never mind climate change denial, a worse problem is the constant exaggeration of the subject. I had thought David Attenborough would be above resorting to the subtle propaganda which others have been propagating, linking every adverse weather event to climate change. But apparently not.” Clark suggestedthat the reason many people in Britain would describe the majority of the world’s population as living in poverty is partly due to the “fantasy” that wealthy lifestyles in the West is fuelling climate change. 76 Ross Clark. “ What the rise of the middle class reveals about the global poverty myth,” Spectator, October 3, 2018. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. He concluded the article by suggesting that blaming oil and gas companies for climate change is an attempt to “palm off responsibility”: 27 Ross Clark. “ Don’t blame oil and coal companies for climate change,” Spectator, October 10, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.A Broom Cupboard of One’s Own: The housing crisis and how to solve it by boosting home-ownership, Harriman House,2012 By 2019, Britain was well on its way to phasing out coal power and generating around 15 per cent of its electricity from wind farms and solar farms. A small proportion of electric cars were already on the road. But fossil fuel-free aviation? Decarbonisation of the steel and cement industries? Satisfying an enormous hike in demand for power as cars and domestic heating were switched from oil and gas to electricity? Energy storage to cope with the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy?

Fair enough, but that will mean millions of homes cannot have a heat pump installed by British Gas. There are eight million homes in Britain which have solid walls and which, as a result, are hard to bring up to required insulation standards at a reasonable cost. If other companies follow British Gas’ example, the Government will have no hope of achieving its target of retro-fitting 600,000 homes a year with a heat pump by the end of this decade. British Gas has just thrown a very large spanner into the Government’s net zero ambitions. To hear today’s reaction to the news that Michael Gove has granted permission to build Britain’s first deep coal mine for a generation is to step through the looking glass into a bizarre world where a Conservative government is considered evil for helping to create mining jobs in a de-industrialised region – and the ‘enlightened’ position is to eradicate the very last traces of the coal industry.” Clark wrote an article for The Spectator criticising the government’s proposals to ban the sale of new gas boilers after 2025 as part of a net zero decarbonisation strategy to be implemented by 2050. 44 Ross Clark. “ The boiler ban fiasco and the true cost of net zero,” The Spectator, 25 May 2021. Archived June 1, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/qRlL7

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This was later resharedby the Global Warming Policy Foundation. 86 Ross Clark. “ Why don’t we hear about the beneficial side of Climate Change?” Global Warming Policy Foundation, November 29, 2014. Archived April 4, 2020. Archive URL: http://archive.fo/eRwDl Flying, too, will become a preserve of the rich, since aviation is going to be one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. Planes might even have to be relegated to museums. Yes, Rolls-Royce has proved you can get an electric plane into the air – but that’s only practical for a light aircraft flying a few miles. It’s a world away from a passenger jet crossing the Atlantic. Clark also wrote that COP26 would contribute to China becoming the world’s main economic superpower and that it would continue to be the investor of choice for “developing countries in Africa.”