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Environment

We need to discuss several uncomfortable truths with regard to the environment.

This is not a climate emergency. This is climate change. Yes, we need to clean up our collective act, but an emergency, No.

This is a record of the temperature change in Greenland across the last 15,000 years. Please, show me the climate emergency and the impact of industrialisation?

Greenland temperature change 15000 years

Our Government is in the process of commiting us to over £1.5 Trillion in spending in order to achieve net zero by 2050 (National Grid have estimated closer to £3 Trillion). If that is the current Government cost estimate we can safely double it & not be far away from the reality of the situation.

We also haven’t had a definition of ‘Net Zero’ so I suspect that for different governments it will mean different things.

What will the outcome be from this colossal investment? My guess is nothing. Unless EVERY economy on the planet commits to the same insane level of debt, we will not affect the global climate at all. It will make no difference. China, India, much of Asia and Africa is not on board with our current dreams and fantasies. The increase in their output negates any annual savings we make, leaving the planet no better off. In fact it will be worse.

In my opinion we would be far better off investing that money to adapt our lives to the changing climate. We need to learn to live with the fact that the climate has changed for millions of years. In both directions. In previous warming phases it has warmed far faster than it has done during and since industrialisation. It calls into question how much our activity has actually warmed the planet and whether achieving net zero worldwide would in fact reverse the warming process?

The sun has the most impact on global temperatures and it is cyclical.

It also just needs one volcano to erupt in any year to totally surpass any man made CO2 emissions. On average more than one volcano erupts annually.

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Pollution

Worldwide, pollution and rubbish is an environment problem we can tackle. Plastic fragments should not be found in our food supply.

Pollution is a massive issue, not just fumes and gasses, but the massive waste plastic issue. The Pacific plastic island alone is THREE times the size of France!

We do need to look after our planet, to recycle, to use resources wisely and as frugally as possible. We need to clean up the damage we have already caused, we need to remove the waste plastic from our oceans and our food supply.

More importantly we need to stop adding to the problem. We need to ask how UK packaging washes up on the beaches of Asia? It hasn’t washed up there from our rivers. It hasn’t drifted there on the tides after being dropped on a beach here. But, we do export millions of tons of waste abroad for ‘recycling’. Could it be that much of this waste isn’t actually recycled but instead dumped?

Zero carbon is a red herring used to enrage and manipulate public opinion. To achieve net zero we would need to stop all travel by car and plane, including all lorries delivering food and goods. We would need to live in unheated homes, cut our consumption drastically from current levels and make lifestyle changes that in reality are unlikely to ever happen.

Technology is likely to resolve many of these issues for us in the coming years, but at what cost?

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We are currently tinkering at the edges of the environment problem, with the adoption of wind turbines that generate energy that we currently can’t store.

Our existing power generation infrastructure isn’t designed to allow for wind power supplementation. We can’t switch off gas and nuclear power plants on demand as the wind blows and fire them up in real time when the wind drops. Much of our wind generated power is currently wasted. The same applies to solar generation.

We build reservoirs to store rainwater until we need it and we need to create the storage capacity for electricity if we are ever going to have a sustainable renewables energy sector.

At the current rate of growth, by 2025, 300,000 electric cars on our roads would have the capacity to store around 4GW of electricity. By comparison, a nuclear power station generates 1GW, meaning that we would potentially have an existing storage resource of vehicles that spend around 95% of their time stationary, doing nothing. (not all on the M25 hopefully).

There are also plans in progress for home storage batteries similar to the Tesla batteries currently used to store solar power generated by your roof panels. If every home had these batteries, they could be topped up when the wind was blowing and help to allow power companies to balance the supply across the country.

In time these issues will possibly be resolved with super capacitors. Giant storage facilities. Imagine a future where a giant oil tanker sized floating battery ship docked in a hot sunny country, charged its batteries from solar power and then sailed to where the electricity was needed. The ship then docks in Liverpool or wherever and plugs in, powering the city for weeks or months with green energy.

Currently we don’t have the capacity to power the future world as it’s been described to us. If we all switched to electric vehicles tomorrow, we wouldn’t have the electricity to power them. Not forgetting the precious metals and materials needed to create that many cars are also not readily available. The creation of that many batteries would require more than the existing global supply of Cobalt… and thats assuming you are happy with the child labour used to mine such materials.

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Due to the carbon used in the manufacturing process of an electric car, it needs to travel 73,000 miles before it becomes carbon neutral. Every mile after that is carbon positive. But, how long will the batteries last before they need replacing? Only time will tell.

We have a lot to do to clean up the mess we have made, and to stop making the situation worse.

If we achieve “Net Zero” by 2050 will the planet cool back to pre industrial levels? Will the global temperature stop climbing? Personally I think that it is unlikely to make any difference to our environment.

Global environment temperature is driven my sea temperature, in turn driven by solar activity. Our planet climate has changed for millions of years and will continue to do so regardless of our attempted interventions, but this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take steps to stop pollution wherever we can.

We are at a point in time where we are happy with sea levels where they are, next to our beach front homes. We are attempting to freezeframe our climate how we like it and that is in all likelihood a farfetched pipedream.

Ever since acid rain failed to kill all our crops or cause worldwide famine in the 1980’s and the Maldives didn’t disappear beneath the waves in the 1990’s the need to take remedial steps to save the planet has been growing. But successive fear campaigns have all proved incorrect.

Lobbists are in danger of crying wolf.

I am sceptical about the end of days predictions for the environment currently doing the rounds. We should clean up the mess we have made and look after our home going forwards. But we need everyone on board.

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If just the western world takes steps and the developing world carries on polluting then we will just be spending £ Trillions creating a very small corner of the “swimming pool of the world” with no pee in it. The rest, the pool, the other 99% will still be full of pee!

There is currently so much uncertainty regarding natural climate variation that our efforts and investments in reducing emissions may prove completely pointless.

Harry Palmer is the Reform Party Spokesman for the South West Bedfordshire Constituency. All opinions on this website www.harrypalmer.uk are personal opinions & views on different areas of policy & government. Harry supports Reform Party policy but wants potential supporters and voters to understand his personal views and opinions. For official Reform Party policy please visit: https://www.reformparty.uk

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