You shouldn’t be bracing yourself for yet another horror story about ‘our planet’ being shallow-fried, or else about water levels rising to swallow women and children.
The 3,000 victims have only lost their jobs, not yet their lives. And the culprit isn’t non-existent global warming but the swindle that uses it for nefarious purposes.
One such purpose seems to be downgrading, ideally destroying, domestic industry, leaving us at the strategic mercy of foreign suppliers who aren’t always our friends. In that spirit, Tata Steel has announced that 2,800 jobs will be lost at its Port Talbot plant over the next 18 months, with another 300 to go soon thereafter.
By putting 3,000 men on the street Tata Steel hopes to save ‘our planet’ from looming disaster. You see, its blast furnaces and coke ovens emit too much carbon dioxide for Greta Thunberg’s taste. Hence they must be replaced with an electric arc furnace, which reduces emissions to the planet-saving levels.
The new furnace is set to cost £1.25 billion, with the government chipping in to the tune of £500 million. Rishi Sunak is happy to contribute half a billion quid of our money, plus however much it will take to provide for another 3,000 unemployed. That was to be expected. Being woke seems to be not only an ironclad requirement for our politicians, but increasingly the sole qualification they must possess.
Yet Mr Sunak has gone beyond such a limited job description by also displaying an enviable knack for demagoguery. You know how shops pass spending for saving? You must have seen hundreds of ads saying: “Now you can save £150…” by spending £2,000, is the unspoken refrain.
Well, our Rishi-washy PM used the same logic to justify this blow to 3,000 families: “The alternative, by the way, was it, the entire plant, will be closed and all 8,000 jobs will be lost, but the Government worked with the company. The company is investing more money in order to safeguard thousands of jobs, and that’s something that the UK Government has done.”
You see, this isn’t about dumping 3,000 jobs. It’s about saving the remaining 5,000. Well done, Rishi. The former adman in me applauds, while the present commentator boos.
There is a distinct possibility that, by trying to achieve net zero emissions in heavy industry, we’ll end up with net zero heavy industry. Meanwhile, what are those 3,000 men going to do (I’m assuming most of them are men)?
They probably had the benefit of the low end of our generally abysmal public education. Hence they won’t be able to retrain as systems analysts or financial advisers in a hurry, if at all. My guess is that most of them won’t be able to feed their families without some assistance from the public purse.
I’m sure that, as they go to the social for their meagre cheque every week, they’ll feel happy that ‘our planet’ is out of imminent danger. That’s more than one can say for their country.
Britain is on her way to becoming the only major economy unable to produce its own steel. Juxtaposing this fact with the daily expert predictions of an approaching war with Russia, one gets the picture of a country at a huge strategic disadvantage.
We’ll have to depend on outside suppliers, mainly China, the world’s biggest steel producer. Such outsourcing is unlikely to benefit ‘our planet’ because the Chinese aren’t unduly bothered about carbon emissions. They are more interested in the strategic and economic advantages of producing enough steel for both domestic needs and export. ‘Our planet’ can take care of itself as far as they are concerned.
Our insane drive for net zero will lead to any number of disasters, but the damage done to heavy industry is among the worst ones. Wind farms and solar panels may keep an average semi-detached house going, but believing they can fuel steel plants, auto works, ship building and chemical plants is cloud cuckoo land.
Since our need for the products of heavy industry is only ever going to increase, more and more manufacturing will be outsourced to variously tyrannical countries seeing us as existential enemies. Such supplies could be cut off at a moment’s notice, with predictable dire results.
We are probably beggaring ourselves and definitely exposing ourselves strategically to comply with stupid demands based on slapdash, not to say larcenous, science. ‘Our planet’ has always had periods of warmer or colder climate, and it has been warmer than now for 85 per cent of the earth’s existence.
The global warming swindle is just another prong in a sustained attack on our civilisation, specifically in this case on how it has made itself so uniformly prosperous. The same people who march against nuclear energy or for Muslim terrorism also scream about ‘our planet’ being killed by greedy capitalists (if you don’t believe me, read some of Greta Thunberg’s harangues).
Our politicians obediently sit up and listen lest they may be accused of being insufficiently woke. The media, predominantly staffed with marginally better educated Gretas, go along with alacrity. The combined efforts of government and media spivs produce torrents of propaganda drowning the few voices of reason, which are muffled with ease.
People like the 3,000 Port Talbot workers fall immediate victims; the rest of us will follow in due course. See you on the bread line – if I don’t see you in the foxholes first.
The most expensive scam in history.
Air circulates the planet, so if Asians countries are opening more coal-fired power stations and steel plants it’s ludicrous to western nations doing the opposite.
Off the Australian coast at various locations such as Newcastle, Gladstone or Port Kembla there are a plethora of ships lining up to take the coal we dare not burn. Guess the destination, well it might be to a distant galaxy as the Australian Government is strictly against coal burning.
Combining this with the previous day’s post, perhaps the local government will pitch in and build a monument to these men who are being sacrificed at the altar of stupidity.
As for importing steel or batteries or anything else we’re too scared to produce, I would say “out of sight out of mind.” We cannot see the emissions of factories in other countries, so it doesn’t exist.
Every few years (since the so-called “oil embargos” in the 70s) some politician will try to garner votes using the phrase “energy independence”. Some people listen, but most simply cannot understand the implications. I suppose no schools teach the lessons of the Second World War? The West’s doctrine of appeasement, disarmament, and deindustrialization just might spell our doom.