I have been reading the correspondence in the Advertiser about the risk of catastrophic climate change and I am not impressed!
I note that in a recent report, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Professor Hughes has considered issues about the transition from hydrocarbons to green technologies such as wind and solar.
His report shows that the insanity of net zero is becoming clearer day by day.
The idea that hydrocarbons — a natural resource whose use from medicines to reliable energy is ubiquitous in modern industrial society — can be removed within less than 30 years is plainly ridiculous because it is likely that the amount of new investment needed for such a transition will be a minimum of 5% of gross domestic product for the next 20 years and might even exceed 7.5% of GDP.
There is no chance of borrowing such a huge amount and the only viable way to raise the cash for the huge capital expenditure needed would be a two decades-long reduction in private consumption of up to 10%.
I cannot accept the make-believe world inhabited by net zero proponents where it is claimed that costs will magically come down, new technologies will somehow be invented and promised green growth will pay for everything.
Any future Government proposing to continue to follow the path to net zero will have to choose to reduce public services and will need to mandate savage cuts in everyone’s household expenditure.
Our economy has not suffered a shock such as this in the last century, outside of war time, and it is not likely that our electorate would accept this.
We need to wake up and to recognise reality of the consequences before we collapse further into this madness! — R. Sheppard, Beckingham.
