UK goes into armageddon mode

Hundreds of millions of refugees!

40% of species extinct!

1 in 6 people facing water shortages!

£3.68 trillion economic cost!

The end is nigh unless the state spends £184 billion to avoid it.

Yes, the UK is agrip of a madness - environmental madness, and it has a new report to fuel it. The big news here comes from an absurd report soon to be released by Sir Nicholas Stern (former chief economist of the World Bank) has been released in the UK saying if greenhouse gases are not reduced, the world will end.

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So what has been the reaction?
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- You’d hope there might be some informed debate about whether this prediction is realistic?
- You’d hope someone would ask whether £184 billion would be better spent on improving people’s lives in other ways (take the Bjorn Lomborg proposal that clean water would do more for the world's poor than tackling climate change)?
- You’d hope someone would say, even if this IS correct, there is little point the UK acting alone when it is responsible for under 2% of greenhouse gases (though shutting down completely would make a difference), so why cripple your economy until you’ve convinced China, India and the US to do the same?
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No – almost all of the media has presented one view, a sheepish following of the report.
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UK Environment Minister David Milliband has hopped on the bandwagon proposing new taxes such as:

- Annual rises in fuel tax;
- Taxes on incandescent light bulbs;

- Exhorbitant taxes on vehicle ownership;

- Taxes on inefficient washing machines;
- Taxes on flights to EU countries.
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The fuel tax proposal is particularly cheeky, saying that if oil prices drop then fuel tax should increase to make up the difference!! So if oil is plentiful and cheap, the UK will pay more and more in tax. None of the proposals have any assessment as to the net effect on the economy, on the environment and on demand for air travel, driving etc. It is, essentially, a left wing manifesto of ecological taxation.

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As Professor Philip Stott of University of London says "despite all the evidence that green policies make no difference, 'environmentalism' takes an ever stronger hold on our way of life" He says that "much 'environmental' policy is little more than discredited Left-wing thinking dressed up as pseudo science to look acceptable. Worse still, these green myths have become a back door for a new strand of authoritarianism."

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He's right - we are seeing this in the obsession with recycling, an obsession that isn't properly investigated (PC has a useful post about it here). People get fined in the UK for not recycling, regardless of the phenomenal cost to subsidise it, without even thinking twice about getting people to pay the actual cost of landfill use (so putting out the rubbish isn't subsidised as well!). Stupid policies (subsidised landfills) beget more stupid policies (subsidised recycling). Don't dare question recycling though -the EU says it is good so all bow down to to Brussels - almost none of the mainstream media here questions recycling.
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So what does Her Majesty's loyal opposition say? The BBC reports David Cameron AGREES and so do the Lib Dems. Wonderful! So no debate on such a radical issue. Not even questioning why the UK should tax itself silly in a way that makes no difference at all to climate change. It is like stopping one person pissing in the pool while the others continue unabated.

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and what would I do? Well, not a lot. Here are some ideas for the UK:

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1. Phase out all agricultural and industrial subsidies, why tax "bad behaviour" while propping up inefficient producers?

2. Spend fuel tax money on maintaining properly the road network and funding efficient road improvements before privatising the entire road network (allowing the new owners to toll it);

3. End subsidies to public transport;

4. End subsidies to energy use;

5. Privatise British Energy, letting the energy market operate unrestricted. Eliminate price control for energy.

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You see then people would use less energy and less transport because it wouldn't be subsidised by anyone else - but that wouldn't mean the central planners would have much to do then would it? The UK should, at the very least, pause for a second and realise it should not act to destroy wealth when it seeks to act unilaterally on the environment. It should simply remove government restrictions and subsidies that most blatantly are bad for the environment - and there are plenty of those.