Some of you may find what follows, especially the Conclusion, troubling. But I had to write it because the level of lobbying, coupled with contempt for our people, is now at unacceptable levels.
And while I still see the third sector as a gravy train for otherwise unemployable Labourites, and remain convinced that senior civil servants are Westminster’s fifth column, the role of environmental pressure groups has become impossible to ignore.
Or maybe I should have said, what started out as environmental groups, or are regarded as environmental groups. For they have moved beyond environmentalism.
Hopefully, my use of italics gives a clue as to what you’re about to read.
♦
THE MORE THINGS FALL APART THE MORE DESPERATE THEY BECOME
Those I’m discussing, have, in my lifetime, moved beyond individual species, like the whale or the panda, and identifiable environments like the Amazon rainforest, to go global. Not only that, but they now argue that to save the planet many things become necessary, most importantly, controlling human behaviour.
Even human movement. The focus is now on us humans. For we are the problem. All of us, collectively, simply by existing.
To deal with ‘the people problem’, the caring souls I’m writing about have agreed to serve as foot-soldiers for an elite that sees itself as an unelected world government.
But I sense the campaign by the former panda cuddlers on behalf of the would-be totalitarians is not going well. Maybe I should clarify that by saying things are faltering on the global level but still progressing rather well in Wales.
Globally, those things they’ve demanded we believe in look less and less credible. This results in people questioning the propaganda, and wondering what lies behind it.
After 50 years of preaching climate disaster, rising sea levels, polar ice loss, and polar bear extinction, you can’t be surprised that the public gets a wee bit sceptical when things stay the same . . . except that the Great Barrier Reef has never been healthier, the ice sheets are expanding in both Arctic and Antarctic, and there are now more polar bears than ever.
When the facts so obviously contradict the propaganda the propagandists are in trouble.
And so I think this exposing of the lies explains what I see as a certain change of tack from the environmental lobby, coupled with an increasing desperation on the part of those pulling their strings.
By a change of tack, I mean that the emphasis has shifted from the global Armageddon believed in only by the brainwashed, to more nuanced and local issues under headings like, “biodiversity“, “habitat loss” and “environmental degradation“.
Because in addition to there being no climate catastrophe most people have trouble thinking in global terms. But persuade them things are bad on their patch, and then say, “It’s the same all over “, and you might still fool them.
An accepted environmental tactic known as ‘Think globally, act locally’.
In practice, it means we’re told there are fewer wild flowers than our parents knew. Or that land can be ‘improved’ if handed over to such-and-such a group. Or that our rivers are being destroyed. In fact, to believe George Monbiot, the Wye is now just an open sewer.
I’ve dealt with these issues recently in Clear Water, Poisoned Debate (08.11.2022) and The Alliance Against Livestock Farming (16.11.2022).
But just as with the death cult predictions the remedy is the same – radical changes in human behaviour that require restrictions on movement and other freedoms we and our ancestors have taken for granted.
As I just suggested with one of those links, an obvious connection between puppets and puppet-masters is them putting a disproportionate amount of the blame for the world’s ills on farmers. Especially livestock farmers.
Not that that makes any sense in the real world. But taking control of the world’s farming is a central ambition of the Globalist agenda. And it’s already happening.
In the Netherlands, the government plans to implement orders from the World Economic Forum, channelled through the European Union, to forcibly buy 3,000 farms (the most efficient farms in the world), and EU legislation will prohibit the displaced Dutch families from farming anywhere else in the EU!
And now, in Ireland, the government recently announced that the country ‘needs’ to cull some 200,000 cows to meet its Net Zero targets.
All because someone decided it would be a good idea to pretend that methane is at dangerous levels, and that CO2 is a threat to the planet.
The truth is that cows belching and farting make little or no difference to methane levels, while life on Earth would be impossible without CO2, which has been at much higher levels many times in the past.
This ’emissions’ nonsense is about control of energy and the food supply. Control these – as the Globalists want – and you control the people.
These attacks on farmers originate with those who operate behind the scenes; but they get bodies like the EU, national governments, and sub-national administrations to implement their instructions.
With ‘environmental’ organisations doing the close up and dirty work.
With more and more people becoming aware of the WEF, and how it operates through local political establishments, there is something of a panic in Davos to promote The Agenda before too many politicians get elected on anti-WEF platforms.
Which also explains why the growing rejection of the Globalist agenda is described in the mainstream media – now funded and controlled by major WEF backers – as “right wing“.
For those of us who oppose climate hysteria, the butchering of confused teenagers, open borders, and the other elements of The Agenda must be described this way to smear us and deter others from listening.
◊
HOW DOES THIS SYSTEM OPERATE IN WALES?
Let’s kick off with a subject causing a great deal of debate, and anger, across Wales right now – 20mph speed limits.
It was obvious all the way through that this measure was being pushed onto our self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ by agencies originally external to Wales. Principally, an outfit called 20’s Plenty for Us.
A good source drew my attention to this report on the BBC Wales News website. Where we can read:
Fiona Andrews, member of the “20’s Plenty” campaign group, told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast the speed limit was “more human, friendlier” and better for the environment.
Ms Andrews, who lives in St Dogmaels, Pembrokeshire, which has been trialling the speed limit for two years, said it had made a big difference.
It should go without saying that Fiona Andrews is not native to Llandudoch. My source suggests that she and her partner, Piers Graham Partridge, moved from Bristol in 2018.
Andrews also appears in this report from July 2021. The image of Andrews used is even credited to her partner. So she’s not new to the game of influencing politicians to push the Globalist agenda. Or, it would seem, to using the media.
In addition to being a photographer, Partridge is a businessman, with an old family firm called Cardigan Mercantile Company Ltd.
And when he’s not photographing his wife, or running his business, it seems he likes to hang out with thigh-slapping, latte-sipping, Anglo-Saxon volk; and someone wrapped in a gaudy flag. (Partridge is in the blue shirt.)
They also dance. Calling themselves the Traditional Turf Dancers of Santa Dogmales. Is this their idea of Welsh culture? Or are they just taking the piss?
North Pembrokeshire and south Ceredigion must be delighted with this cultural enrichment. Not to mention, being told what they’ve been doing wrong all these centuries.
But Llandudoch is doubly blessed. Not only to have Andrews and Partridge come to enlighten them but, as I mentioned in Clear Water, Poisoned Debate, Jessica McQuade is another recent arrival.
Her Linkedin page (pdf version) reveals that her career path has been: ‘Welsh Government’, WCVA, WWF Cymru, WWF UK (even though she’s based in Wales).
Since January this year, McQuade has been WWF UK’s Wholescape Programme Manager, with a focus on food. (And we are not talking here of bamboo shoots for pandas.)
She also busies herself with the Save the Teifi campaign. Any problems with the Teifi will be mainly blamed on farmers.
I say that because when I researched last November’s pieces the suspicion grew that an understanding had been reached between the ‘Welsh Government’, Dŵr Cymru / Welsh Water, and the environmental / water groups that resulted in public money passing to the savers of the planet in return for them giving the water company an easy ride and concentrating their attacks on livestock farmers.
An arrangement that served a number of agendas.
Which might explain how, in defiance of common sense, English water companies seemed to be in the news almost every day for polluting rivers and seas while our own water company was, apparently, above reproach.
Recently I’ve learnt of other organisations operating behind the scenes. So hold your nose and we’ll dive a little deeper into the swamp that is government and public life in Wales.
And we’re going to focus on another group making the headlines at the moment, Extinction Rebellion (XR). I introduce this lot because another source found info telling us that the ‘Welsh Government’ has been in cahoots with XR, since at least May 2019. As this FoI response makes clear.
The May 2019 notation refers to:
Correspondence between the Minister for Rural Affairs,
North Wales & Trefnydd (MinRANWT) and Extinction Rebellion.
At that time, the minister was Lesley Griffiths, but I doubt if many of you reading this had even heard of Extinction Rebellion four years ago. I certainly hadn’t.
Griffiths is a long-standing enemy of farmers. So was it XR that advised her (and Gary) to introduce the insane and punitive all-Wales NVZ legislation designed to put farmers out of business?
It might get a bit messy now, because I was sent a load of stuff in the form of (often incomplete and undated) screenshots. Even so, what I have is fascinating, and damning.
For not only does it tell us that the ‘Welsh Government’ is sitting down for tea and Hobnobs with extremist groups to discuss how Wales should be run, those groups are even dictating to the ‘Welsh Government’ what its priorities should be.
The first complete minutes I have are for a meeting in January 2021. (Available here in pdf format.)
These minutes pose many questions. Not least, why was a representative of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) at a meeting discussing internal Welsh matters?
What next – will the Orange Order be invited?
The ‘JO’ referred to is almost certainly James Owen, the former ‘Welsh Government’ Deputy Director, Land Management
While ‘SL’ is, I suspect, Sue Lewis, of Wrecsam. When she’s not laying down the law to the ‘Welsh Government’, she’s telling local authorities what to do.
From that report it’s clear that Extinction Rebellion and Friends of the Earth are working together, but how close are they?
Anyway, I now want to focus on Extinction Rebellion’s Political Engagement Team. The purpose of this little gang is quite simple – to get politicians and governments to do its bidding.
Here’s an example.
And in Wales, that’s easy.
Now, unfortunately, I don’t have a date for the XR correspondence below, but the ‘FM’ referred to is not another gang of environmental shriekers but our very own First Minister, Mark Drakeford, of high renown.
The highlighting is mine.
In addition to what I’ve highlighted, I’m intrigued by the final paragraph. Would there be some way other than legislation for, “mandating fossil fuel divestment from public sector investments“.
This, remember, is our money, much of it paid in council tax; but Extinction Rebellion wants to dictate how that money is invested. Are we ever consulted?
The issue crops up again in this screenshot involving Llyr Gruffydd, Plaid Cymru regional member for north Wales, and interim leader.
I could go on, but I’ll just introduce one more ‘campaigner’ who has come to live among us. This is Paula Renzel, who describes herself as “German-French” but now resides in Llanberis in Eryri.
Paula has quite an interesting background. Here’s her Linkedin page. (Here in pdf.)
She arrived in Cardiff in April 2018 to work for The Ramblers. Interestingly, someone who has always been involved with The Ramblers is former minister, Jane Davidson, mother of the OPD, and driving force behind the Future Generations legislation.
Then, in October 2020, Paula Renzel joined Sustrans. Another pressure group with a ministerial connection. This one still in government. I’m talking now of Lee Waters, who represents Llanelli (from his home in Penarth) and is Deputy Minister for Climate Change. As his official bio tells us:
He previously ran the sustainable transport charity Sustrans Cymru where he led the campaign for the Active Travel Act
So many connections!
Since February 2022 Paula Renzel has worked for the Transport Action Network. She is almost certainly the “new Welsh worker” mentioned in the May 2022 clip (above) from XR’s Political Engagement Team.
Below is her entry on the TAN website. You’ll see that among her battle honours she lists closing Cardiff’s Castle Street to private vehicles.
In fact Sustrans gets involved in all sorts of things. This publication from the ‘Welsh Government almost a year ago is titled: ‘Evolving approach to gender budgeting in Wales‘.
Not only does the WEF get a mention, but also Sustrans.
Active travel is a key part of the Welsh Government’s vision for the Welsh transport network. A gender budgeting pilot is specifically focused on the Wales E-Move programme, which operates low-cost community-based e-bike hire and loan schemes in five areas in Wales – most with high levels of deprivation. The Welsh Government is working alongside Sustrans Cymru, who are delivering the scheme, to better understand how a gender budgeting approach could add value and inform future delivery.
So the ‘Welsh Government’ is working with Sustrans to provide electric bikes, for women living in deprived areas, and this somehow links with ‘gender budgeting’? Is that what this convoluted bullshit is trying to say?
Who writes this stuff?
And will these bikes have crossbars?
I ask because ‘Welsh Government’ takes orders on matters sexual from Stonewall. Which means that if you want a good, long laugh, just ask a Welsh Labour politician to give you a definition of a woman.
As I said earlier, I could go on, but it gets depressing after a while. So I’ll just skip to my concluding thoughts.
◊
CONCLUSION
After reading what I’ve written here it should be obvious to anyone where the idea for 20mph speed limits now being imposed on Welsh communities originated.
We can also see who was behind Lee Waters’ announcement in February that there would be no new roads in Wales.
In fact, they boast about these ‘victories’ . . . over us.
But that’s the norm in Corruption Bay. If Stonewall can dictate Welsh education policy why be surprised that followers of the global death cult are allowed to decide on 20mph speed limits, and no bypass for Llanbedr?
No doubt those I’ve written about argue they’re saving a planet facing an existential crisis. Which is absolute nonsense because there is no looming climate disaster. What they’re really doing is forcing on Wales the Globalists’ de-growth, anti-people, restrict and control agenda.
But what does it say about Welsh democracy? We elect politicians to serve the best interests of our communities and our country, but then they are taken over by pressure groups and told to implement the agendas of those groups.
To all intents and purposes the ‘Welsh Government’ is serving Extinction Rebellion, Sustrans, Greenpeace, 20’s Plenty for us and the other pressure groups. But not us.
What’s worse, the word is obviously out that Wales is the place to come to get your agenda implemented. Just look at the activists who’ve moved here in recent years.
Are they here on secondment? Have their moving costs been paid?
Whatever the answer, we have people who know bugger all about Wales framing legislation for Wales. But Wales doesn’t matter to them. Our country is just an easy place for them to implement their agendas. Thanks to ‘our’ politicians.
And because the pressure groups are now in control, things can only get worse.
Whatever you want to call this system, it’s not democracy.
And it’s not a form of devolution worth keeping.
♦ end ♦
That tweet of yours featuring juvenile sour yoofs and a suspect adult sums up Rhun’s chances of ever getting Plaid taken seriously by that part of the electorate remotely interested in the democratic process.They are doomed to being a junior partner at those times that Labour needs one. They will on this evidence blend well with the “special interest groups”that thrive in Labour’s bubble . Chixwivdix, shirtlifters and paedos will thrive.
I would have thought that for any sane Plaid supporter that picture was was very discouraging. And for anyone thinking of giving Plaid a try, a real turn-off.
Off topic, but another bizarre appointment,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/65919265
Richard Collier-Keywood was born and brought up in England, went to University in England, spent his entire business life in England and lives in England.
When I knew him, he had no discernible interest in Wales or Rugby Union. He was keen on tennis — as befits a nice middle-class English boy.
The feebleness of his connection to Wales is indicated by the claim his “mother grew up in Maesteg”. Well, possibly, but given his Collier-Keywood’s age, this will have been in the 1930s, almost a century ago.
So, why has Collier-Keywood been appointed Chair of the Welsh Rugby Union? He appears to have absolutely no obvious qualifications at all for the job.
I read the WM article an hour or so ago. It is very odd. My feeling is that this has little to do with rugby, or sport. It’s about taking control of an ‘alternative focus of loyalty’. Sport in Wales is to become more inclusive, more diverse, less Welsh, and under more political control.
Following yesterday’s piece that told us Carwyn Jones was considered for that job, it’s tempting me to put out a short piece on the blog. Any info you have on Collier-Keywood would be appreciated at editor@jacothenorth.net
It all seems true to form for a body which had to doff its cap to England’s royals in appointing Ponce Willy as its patron. The image of Baldilocks giving our players pats on the head in the locker room, a representation personified of the worst aspect of the national consciousness of our greatest sporting rival, would be absurd if it wasn’t unfortunately true.
Have you got the right guy? The bloke appointed to the WRU was born in 1961.
Almost prompted me to use that most unlikely phrase : “Carwyn Jones would have been a better choice” then I woke up and left it unsaid.
David Amess
Apparently Virginia Crosbie wears a stab vest to her surgeries. I appreciate people here aren’t all keen on the Conservatives, but for Christ’s sake, this isn’t Belfast in the 1970s!
Does she also wear an “old fashioned belt” ?
A what?
David Smith, I guess Dicky Prober means a ‘chastity belt’.
Ah. Well the death threat she was sent did look like it was written by a child, so it might be advised to wear such protection against a potential waist-high assailant.
the Great Barrier Reef has never been healthier, the ice sheets are expanding in both Arctic and Antarctic, and there are now more polar bears than ever.
Where do you get this rubbish from?
The Great Barrier Reef has certainly been healthier in living memory. Admittedly, most of the damage has been caused by pollution run-off, but the rise in ocean temperature and acidification have not helped. I cite https://www.barrierreef.org/the-reef/threats among many references in support. There have been suggestions that introducing more resistant corals from elsewhere and by genetic manipulation, but time may be against the scientists.
The Antarctic ice-sheet was reported to have spread by a small percentage a few years ago, but ice coverage of the continent is thinning and glaciers are moving faster. NASA has found that ice is being shed faster than it is being replaced.
There is much more open water in the Arctic than there used to be. Polar bears are probably declining along with their habitat. What is probably happening is that they are more visible as they venture more into human settlements in search of food.
I agree with you about the damage to the democratic process presented by pressure groups (and by Special Advisers and consultants) but disregard for hard evidence does not help the case.
“Oh, ye of little faith!”
Here’s someone almost rejecting good news.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is suffering from lots of undersea volcanoes, which doom-mongers prefer to ignore. Elsewhere, ice is increasing. But sod all to do with wicked mankind. But just remember the predictions that said there shouldn’t be any left by now.
As for polar bears, even the WWF has to admit, “Although most of the world’s 19 populations have returned to healthy numbers” it still has to preach doom and gloom, “By 2040, scientists predict that only a fringe of ice will remain in Northeast Canada and Northern Greenland when all other large areas of summer ice are gone. This ”Last Ice Area” is likely to become important for polar bears and other life that depends on ice.”
https://www.arcticwwf.org/wildlife/polar-bear/polar-bear-population/
This is the mañana catastrophe you’re defending. It’s always “mañana”.
Wales being the guinea pig for the 20’s Plenty bollocks reminds me of Scotland being the same for the Poll Tax under Maggie. Such contemptuous and brazen Ivory Tower twattitude would never happen in a federal state. Imagine Berlin or DC trying these kinds of ‘pilot schemes’ on in Bavaria or Texas, the respective Supreme Courts would laugh heartily before throwing them out! No such luck in this ‘United’ Kingdom (by England, for England™️).
A question that needs to be put to these types is why they don’t direct all these considerable resources towards nuclear fusion research instead of persecuting people and businesses. Could it be: A) Major OPEC states have an obvious vested interest in not seeing it cracked and are too powerful to bully and push around, unlike small independent states like Ireland or the Netherlands, or minority ‘subnational’ territories like Wales? Or B) As you discuss, saving the environment really is just a smokescreen?
You refer to 20 mph speed limit Jac. Following response from Ceredigion Council to my FOI request, I have now directed another enquiry to Welsh Government [WG]. Copy of correspondence below. Currently awaiting reply from WG.
Freedom of Information Officer
Information Rights Unit
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ
My Ref: NCC/WJ/59
Your Ref:
Date: 25 May 2023
cc: Ceredigion County Council – FOI Team Ref: EIR-PLR-22370 [for information]
Dear Freedom of Information Officer
Subject: Speed Limit – Cardigan Town
I refer to the above subject and to my request for information addressed to Ceredigion County Council [CCC] dated 6 April 2023. I have today received a response from CCC – under reference EIR-PLR-22370 – as reproduced below in indented blue text. The “integrated impact assessment” undertaken by CCC is attached hereto for your information.
Dear Wynne Jones,
Thank you for your request for information dated 6th April 2023, and please accept our sincere apologies for the delay in providing a response.
Your request has been dealt with in accordance with the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
The information you have requested is as follows:
“I refer to “Ceredigion County Council [20mph, 30mph, 40mph and 50mph Speed Limits and Derestricted Roads][Consolidation] Order 2014” and attach hereto abstract from the interactive map downloaded from your website.
I note the proposed change to speed limit at Cardigan Town, as outlined on plan.
I would be grateful if you could arrange to provide me with a copy of the “Impact Assessment” undertaken by Ceredigion County Council to support and justify the proposed changes to be introduced under the above Order. Thank you.”
No specific Impact Assessment was taken for the 20mph project since this is a duty that continues to fall under the delegated powers that the Local Highway Authority has and is a change to the existing 2014 consolidation Order. The attached document will continue to be applicable to this, however, Welsh Government will have carried out a wider assessment on the impact of 20mph which is applicable to all Local Authorities – 20mph speed limits | Sub-topic | GOV.WALES
We hope that the above information will be of assistance, however should you have any complaints in relation to this EIR response the Council operates an internal appeals procedure. If you wish to utilise this procedure please respond to this e-mail, marked for the attention of: Mr Alun Williams, Corporate Lead Officer for Policy, Performance and Public Protection, within 40 working days of the date of this response.
Following internal review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision on the matter. Generally, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the appeals procedure provided by the Council.
The Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office – Wales
2nd Floor, Churchill House
Churchill Way
Cardiff
CF10 2HH
Should you have any queries regarding the above response please do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours sincerely,
Amelia Davies
Complaints and Freedom of Information Officer
Policy, Performance and Public Protection Service
Ceredigion County Council
Rhodfa Padarn
Llanbadarn Fawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 3UE
The content of the response from CCC should be self-explanatory. I would be grateful if Welsh Government could arrange to provide me with a copy of the “wider assessment of the impact of 20 mph applicable to all Local Authorities in Wales” undertaken by Welsh Government, referred to in the response from CCC.
I look forward to receiving the information at your earliest convenience. Thank you.
Yours sincerely
When you have pressure groups to advise you, who needs impact assessments?
I problem I don’t think anyone’s considered with this 20MPH agenda is that in standard, road-legal cars, the gear ratios are tuned so that fourth gear produces a smooth ride at 30MPH and upwards. The first three are in place only to be iterated through, to accelerate to cruising at the speed limit at fourth and possibly fifth; at least that’s the impression I get anyway, not being any sort of ‘petrolhead’. Having to drop down to third to avoid the engine labouring at 20, with the quicker acceleration it produces, results in a jerkier, more agitating ride. I half expect this additional distraction to cause more accidents than it prevents.
That “Romanian porn” still that features in your earlier tweet should of interest to our Police forces unless they are colluding with low budget film makers to provide in-house entertainment when Stonewall come on an inspection visit. The freak on the right is brandishing a blade which should earn him a custodial sentence, especially if there are multiple images of him using threatening language. After all over 99% of the population fall into the Fash category as defined by those weirdos
Do y’know, I hadn’t noticed the knife. If I had, then all sorts of plays on ‘chopper’ would have been possible. Anyway, have now put out a tweet drawing GogPlod’s attention to ‘Marius’.
I now learn that it’s from a movie, and the guy holding the knife is Brad Pitt.
Good work Jac. Keep digging. I campaigned for years to get an ‘Assembly’ and now it’s been here for a couple of decades, and has evolved into a so called ‘Wales Government’, I do not feel it represents me in any shape or form. I walk around my community and talk to the ordinary folk, of every age,and they feel exactly the same as me. Let me level a question here to all Senedd Members of all political groups – “Who do think you really represent?”. It’s not me. nor anybody I know. No Senedd Member will come on this BLOG to answer the question. So readers, can you all submit that simple question above directly to all your own local five Senedd Members for your area. I cannot bring myself to call them ‘representatives’.
A comment I saw today at Bella Caledonia read, “Are people reacting to the enormity of the climate crisis by shutting down discussion?”, and went on to talk about denialism.
I do see more evidence of pushback and there are multiple reasons for it. One is panic fatigue. If the problems were real, those whose job is to do something really would be doing something. If they’re not, it’s a performance. Coupled with this is the inequity of ‘think globally, act locally’. If I act by recycling more bottle tops while the world’s thinkers are jetting off to another conference or awards ceremony, I’m going to conclude it’s a con. A third is the breaking of the environmental / non-environmental barrier, so that, for example, ‘trans rights’ becomes an inseparable part of saving the planet, even though ‘trans rights’ is a big win for Big Pharma and Big Surgery. ESG scores – paving the way for individual social credit ratings – are the final straw on this camel’s back.
“Don’t do as I do, do as I say” gets a bit wearing after a while. Also, it’s the simple fact that the ‘climate crisis’ isn’t happening anywhere outside of political and media circles. That, and the fact that the measures demanded to ‘save the planet’ all seem to demand restrictions on individual freedoms and movement. People are waking up.
Note the use of words to mean the opposite: “establish a Citizens’ Assembly to enhance the democratic mandate for action”, i.e., bypass the tiresome normal channels. If elected, it would duplicate the Senedd. If NOT duplicating the Senedd, it would need to be unelected, and so undemocratic. We saw the same rubbish from the Occupy movement and it may well be the same people.
One idea is to pick members at random, like jury service except that, being voluntary, only the zealots would show up and they’d then run the show according to a pre-arranged plan. Climate sceptics would be barred from contributing, through defining their views as out-of-scope.
The campaigners I wrote about are acutely aware that they lack public support. So they bypass elections and campaigning to target politicians. ‘Citizens’ assemblies’ are designed to overcome this problem by giving a veneer of credibility and public support.
I had considered mentioning this, but the piece was already too long.
The concept of “Citizens Assemblies” or “Soviets” as a mechanism was invented in July 1917 by the Bolshevik Party in Russia. After the spring revolution which deposed the monarchy and established a form of democracy the Bolsheviks had a problem in that they only had support in small enclaves and by July of that year who became restless with uprisings, mainly in Petrograd. Lenin refused to meet the local leaders while Trotsky thought that a route to power rested in these ad-hoc organisations.
This ‘split’ has always haunted the left.
The call for ‘Citizens Assemblies” has remained a tactic in Trotskyite thinking to this day. Most visible by campaigns from the Socialist Workers Party on campaigns ‘against racism’ and ‘trades union rights’. More recently the concept of the ‘Citizens Assembly’ is used as a propaganda tactic of leverage in the middle class ‘ishoos’ of climate and gender, even penetrating aspects of the independence movement in Wales. It’s a product of entryism.
The problem is not farting cows producing Methane but Nitrogen (aka poo etc).
Dutch farmers, for example, have about 1.3 million dairy cows, 2.2 million cattle, 11.5 million pigs and 100 million chickens (broiler + egg laying).
That’s a lot of ‘nitrogen’ waste.
If you take just the 1.3 million dairy cows, each of which produces a minimum of 60 litres of waste a day, that’s approx 80 million litres of poo etc per day for the dairy industry as a whole.
In a country with an area of approx 40,000 sq kilometres that’s about 2,000 litres (over 2 tonnes) of pong per sq km per day.
The farmers may be aggrieved by any reduction, but I’d guess the rest of the population is delighted !!
P.S. the EU farm purchase scheme is voluntary.
Impressive research, Ian, but it avoids confronting the true reason behind the farm purchases. It didn’t begin with the Dutch government, and it has sod all to do with emissions. And the scheme is ‘voluntary’ only in the sense that Dutch farmers are being guided to the writing on the wall, which reads: ‘Sell up or it’ll be compulsory purchase’. Is that ‘voluntary’?
On the subject of farming, what’s your take on Bill Gates getting involved in breeding mosquitoes? In Medellin, of all places!
The nitrogen content of the average tonne of dry cow manure is only 90Kg made up of (60% ammonia, from the wee, and 40% in organic substrate, from the poo). The catastrophic error as the “cows are bad lobby” in the calculation is that they assume all the slurry volume is nitrogen. 900Kg of it is degraded cellulose, loam to the soil, and about 10kg of other plant life including bacteria for good soil health. Important to remember that the Netherlands is a big grower of market garden vegetables and flowers. Applying cow muck to the polder means less fossil fuel (Ammoniam Nitrate) required to grow. For every cow removed, a sack of oil-based fertiliser is required to replace it. It’s also why the allotments near me get a trailer full of cow muck every year from a local cattle farmer, and good gardeners on the Gwendraeth wee in their compost heaps. It adds nitrogen for stronger plants.
That’s how it always was until some wise guys in governments decades ago started to encourage farmers to use synthetic, manufactured fertilisers on their land. Well meaning, perhaps, but just as misleading as the propaganda now being churned out by the “cows are killing us” lobby. I think it was some theme like “efficiency” and “productivity” that got people off on the wrong track in the first half of the 20th century. Now it’s “sustainability”and “saving the earth” except of course this lot have a far more intense Fascist orientation in rejecting any alternative thoughts or, heaven forbid, scientific proof. They may say that they rely on science but the harsh reality is that the science has been corrupted by an overload of hype, spin and downright opportunistic posturing.
Alway like to be driven by the evidence me.
So, when the various climate apocalypse pundits say ‘trust the scientists’ that’s exactly what I do. The thing is, after you dig through the wave of ‘experts in media relations’ to get at the science, that is not what it tells us. A telltale sign is when someone claims a melt (which it is not) of the north pole ice sheet will contribute to rising sea levels. No scientist will have missed Archimedes in the bath in their formative years. An ice cube melting in your G&T will not make you drink overflow. The claim is fake.
I recently decided to check out the other claim that the Antarctic Ice sheet melting will explain our imminent inundation at the other side of the planet. Ice melt from land would indeed add to the volume of sea water, especially as ice shelves block the flow of land ice cap into the ocean for the great melt. We are told that ‘the scientists’ tell us of this other such an apocalypse.
It is here.
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/2059/2023/
What it tells us is there is indeed a net annual melt of the west Antarctic (the volcano mountains pointy bit that sticks out toward south America) ice sheet. Some 12,000 square kilometres of Ice lost since the 1970s. However, the report also tells us that that was gain of over14,000 square kilometres over this period in east Antactica, the bits where the major ice shelves do dwell. So, there’s a net gain in the Antarctic ice sheet over the period in question. Ice cap gain. The reality is the western peninsular is a localised weather fluctuation with glacial ebb and flow in the throughout the centuries. Chronology of the glacial moraines tells us that story.
Trust the science not the spin doctors.
Agree entirely. But those who want to push the ‘climate catastrophe’ message have far too much influence in the media. And too many journalists prefer a disaster scenario to the truth.
Particularly evident at the BBC. Remember they kept publishing the photo of the Afon Cleddau near Carew castle last year to illustrate the unprecedented drought caused by global warming? The photo was actually taken when the tide went out, happens twice a day, exposing the dried mud. The river there is tidal.
It wasn’t just the Welsh media. That image even appeared in the Telegraph. I reached out to the photographer, Matthew Horwood, asking him to put the record straight. There was no response. As for the BBC, a big problem there is that they take on activists as correspondents.
All these people are influencers of the worst sort. They believe they are intelligent and messianic but in reality they are dim, dogmatic, illiberal ideologues. And, of course, they then meet and match up with exactly the same types within the Labour party dominated state of Wales. It becomes a vicious circle that simply reinforces cult behaviour.
True. And some of them become politicians.
We also see the hypocrasy. In the 20s Plenty household of St Dogmaels we see Piers grew up in Australia which he likes to fly to in a jet going 600mph spewing CO2. In the dancing video we even see him spreading fossil fuel fertiliser in the form of Ammonium Nitrate pellets prior to laying his new lawn after arriving from Bristol. Utter hypocrites. Saving the planet is something we have to do and sacrifice, but not for them.