British philosopher John Gray is very skeptical about net zero, and the conventional green policies that accompany it.
The British philosopher John Gray is no climate “denier,” to use that grotesque term. Writing in UnHerd, he cites the belief of his friend James Lovelock, famously or infamously, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, that “climate change would consist of sudden jumps and it could transform things quite quickly, in a couple of decades. We might be in the middle of it.” That’s Gray’s view. He’s no climate skeptic.
But he is very skeptical about net zero, and the conventional green policies that accompany it:
Firstly, they were launched before the infrastructure was there — before the technology was developed that could make them work.
C is meant to follow B is meant to follow A. But’s that’s not necessarily true when central planners are on the scene. And so governments mandate EVs before charging systems are ready, or tear down reliable power stations without previously reworking the grid to the extent necessary to replace it with systems of equal reliability.
And nor are central planners known for the breadth of their vision.
Gray:
No consideration was given to the fact that many of the raw materials that were needed for the inputs, the batteries and so on, were now substantially or even largely controlled by China in Africa and elsewhere.
And nor are they known for their attention to the detail that actually matters:
Now, [these raw materials] might be found in other countries; in Sweden and America, various deposits have been found. But they are not easily developed. And in the meantime, these programmes can’t go ahead. Nor were the economic costs of these green programmes properly assessed. Nor were the economic costs of these green programmes properly assessed. . . .
Gray is not a man known for his optimism, but his view that “there is a serious possibility that we’re now in the early stages of runaway climate change” leads him to dismiss net zero (at least in Europe, but it’s hard to confine his argument there) as narcissism, about feelings (“We’ve got to, we’ve got to show that we’re on the right side”), a waste of time and resources, which in his view we might not be able to afford.
Instead:
We should be focusing everything we’ve got — not on having an infinitesimal impact on global carbon levels, which would be the case even if the whole net-zero programme was implemented, but on policies of adaptation. And adaptation is not going to be easy. . . .
Almost wherever you stand on climate change, adaptation ought (to the extent that logic is allowed to enter the discussion) to be playing the leading role. Even those who believe that climate change is not a problem ought to have little disagreement with the idea of toughening our defenses against “mother” nature (better coastal defenses for low-lying cities and so on). Such spending generally pays for itself over time, and creates net new jobs, which is more than can be said for the colossal waste that is net zero.
Gray:
I’ve said previously we’re living in an age of tragedy. I’m not too sure about that anymore. I think we’ve advanced further than tragedy. We’re entering an age of absurdity. Consider German climate policy. Germany, as we keep hearing, is incomparably more adult, more advanced, more modern, and in every way superior to bungling Britain. But in Germany, the result of their closing down of nuclear and going for renewables has been an increased reliance on the dirtiest kind of coal. Well, this is tragic, but it’s even more than tragic. It is completely absurd.
And Gray turns his attention to the moment when net zero collides with political reality, something that is beginning to occur as people realize how much net zero will cost, and how much of their own personal autonomy it will crush:
I think conventional climate policy is for therapeutic people to feel good. They don’t want to feel powerless, so they deceive themselves.
But with these policies, there is also the question of political legitimacy. And what’s being discovered now is that there are limits to political legitimacy for policies that severely disrupt the practical lives and incomes of large numbers of people in society. So, if you impose a Ulez [ultra-low emission zone] scheme in an area where there’s practically no public transport, that has a severe impact on people trying to get to work. And there’s also the subjective feeling, which is very important, of being imprisoned in one of these 15-minute cities — of somebody doing something to you which you resist.
In London, there are reports of people going round and smashing or disabling Ulez cameras. What will happen is that these numbers will build and either the policy will eventually be overturned or you’ll have a period of anarchy. I remember when Thatcher, having tried and failed to impose the poll tax in Scotland, introduced it in England. And this happens to all leaders, whether they are liberals or not. They tend to become anti-empirical. They double down instead of learning from their mistakes. For Thatcher, this resulted in riots and her being toppled. And something similar could happen with these green policies — because not only is it a huge blow to the worldview of the technocratic elites who support it, but also to our perception of their competence.