We Are All Doomed…..Maybe

The media reports on COP27 suggest we are all doomed as it is unlikely that we will keep to the target of 1.5 degrees of global warming. This is an unduly pessimistic outcome. A rise in temperature can actually be beneficial in many parts of the world, if damaging in others.

It is certainly sensible to try and reduce carbon emissions in the long-term but there needs to be a cost/benefit justification and a focus on countries that are the biggest carbon emitters – namely China, India, USA, and Russia. For the UK to aim for net zero makes no economic sense.

Meanwhile the UK Government has committed £11.6 billion to a “climate fund” to support a mix of energy transition, climate financing and forest and nature preservation measures. Some of these may be worthy objects but can the country really afford many billions on such projects when our own population is suffering from shortages of food and heating?

There is also a demand for “reparations” for the damage that has been caused by high carbon emissions that has resulted in floods and droughts. That is debateable to begin with and it ignores the benefits brought to the world by the cheap energy available from oil and gas. That has increased food production and enabled the world population to increase to a level that would otherwise have starved. See the book “How the World Really Works” by Prof. Vaclav Smil for the evidence on this subject. Reparations should certainly therefore be rejected.

I am certainly not supportive of the Just Stop Oil campaigners who are simply irrational and I will personally continue to invest in oil/gas companies but not in coal mining companies while I have been investing in alternative energy funds. Burning coal is a bad option in comparison with generating electricity from wind farms, hydro-electric schemes, solar arrays and other projects.

But we do need to reduce the world’s population if we are to improve the environment which is an objective most of the climate campaigners simply ignore.

How to stop the Just Oil Campaign who disrupted the M25 again today? One thing the Government could do to demoralise and undermine that campaign is simply to publicly announce that the Government will not be changing its mind and will continue to grant new licences for oil/gas production.

They should not just rely on tougher legislation and more active policing to halt such disruptive campaigns which I am sure the vast majority of people oppose. Those who think we can do without oil and gas are simply mistaken because they have not looked into the many uses of those products.

Roger Lawson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

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Stopping Just Stop Oil

The Just Stop Oil campaign is causing major disruption to the road network in London. This is in reality a terrorist organisation aiming to achieve their objectives by other than democratic means. But they now face a new measure to frustrate their activities.

Transport for London (TfL) have obtained a court injunction which is wide in scope to stop them – see https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/injunction-order-18

It covers blocking, slowing down, obstructing or otherwise interfering with the flow of traffic onto or along or off the specified roads for the purpose of protesting. The roads specified include several of the Thames bridges and major arterial roads such as Victoria Embankment, Park Lane, Elephant and Castle, Rotherhithe and Blackwall Tunnels.

This is a good step to stop these unnecessary and disruptive demonstrations as breaching a court injunction is a contempt of court to which severe penalties can be invoked. Protestors can be arrested if they breach the injunction and held until they appear in court.

It just needs the police to take vigorous action which for reasons that are unclear they have seemed reluctant to do in the past.  

The despicable activities of Just Stop Oil need to be stopped by all legal means possible.

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Transport Disruptions and How to Stop Them

In the South-East of England we are suffering from major transport disruptions. First from rail strikes affecting London commuters and second by the activities of Just Stop Oil on the road network.

The RMT union have announced further strikes on November 3, 5 and 7 and are balloting their members on pursuing them for another six months. I issued a tweet yesterday which suggested the way to stop these strikes was to give an ultimatum to employees to either work normally or get fired. The problem is that train drivers are so highly paid that a few days out is affordable.

Rather surprisingly I got a response from the RMT which said “In your haste to sound draconian you’ve not considered who would staff the railway or train the replacements if you’ve fired them all? Nothing would move for years!!”.

My response was “Well it worked when Ronald Reagan did it for air traffic controllers, did it not?”. This refers to the events in August 1981 in the USA. To quote from Wikipedia: “After PATCO workers’ refusal to return to work [over a pay dispute], the Reagan administration fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order, and banned them from federal service for life. In the wake of the strike and mass firings, the FAA was faced with the difficult task of hiring and training enough controllers to replace those that had been fired. Under normal conditions, it took three years to train new controllers. Until replacements could be trained, the vacant positions were temporarily filled with a mix of non-participating controllers, supervisors, staff personnel, some non-rated personnel, military controllers, and controllers transferred temporarily from other facilities”.

The US airlines continued operations with minimal disruptions and the Reagan move had a significant impact on union activities in other organisations effectively resetting labour relationships in the USA. Strikes fell in subsequent years. From 370 major strikes in 1970 the number fell to 11 in 2010, and it had a positive effect in reducing inflation.

Just as Margaret Thatcher handled the coal miners in the UK, Reagan’s firm resolve on facing up to the unions created a new and better culture.

As regards the Just Stop Oil (JSO) campaign the closure of the Dartford Bridge created enormous traffic jams and delayed people for many hours. The whole of south-east London was affected as many people commute around the M25. The Metropolitan Police tweeted they had “made 404 arrests linked to JSO activity. We have needed nearly 5500 officer shifts diverted from local communities in London, to deal with the serious disruption caused by this activity”. The total cost including the delays to people must be many millions of pounds.

The Police seem to be totally ineffective in stopping the activities of JSO. People get arrested but then released. Fines, if any, are minimal. There is a Bill currently going through Parliament that might assist – The Public Order Bill – see https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2022-23/publicorder . It creates a number of new offences relating to “locking-on”, obstructing major transport works and interfering with the use or operation of key national infrastructure. It also confers preventative powers for the police to search for and seize articles related to protest-related offences and provides for a new preventative court order, the Serious Disruption Prevention Order, to disrupt the activities of repeat offenders”. But will it be applied vigorously?

The Police already have considerable powers that are not used and JSO could be proscribed as a “terrorist organisation” as they meet the criteria. Let us hope the Public Order Bill is passed quickly. But it’s really down to the Government to take a lead on this matter even if they may be distracted by financial matters at present.

Peaceful demonstrations are OK but disruption to normal life should not be permitted under any circumstances.

Roger Lawson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

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