‘The brain-dead eco snobs’ otherwise referred to as ‘eco pagan pixies’ or ’well-heeled social parasites’ at the forefront of Extinction Rebellion have laid themselves open to satire as well as irritation as they cause havoc on the streets of London in the name of climate change. Plastic bottles and bags proliferate; careless talk is thrown around about workers, who have to earn a living, abandoning their jobs to join them on the streets; and luvvie Emma Thompson has swept in – by air from Los Angeles – to give them succour.
The reality is that the UK is way ahead of most countries in reducing CO2 emissions. The UK has made some of the largest reductions in the OECD and has recorded a 38 per cent decrease in CO2 output since 1990; and has almost entirely abandoned coal as an energy source. Emissions in the UK are now at their lowest point since the 19th century. The worst offenders are China (by far), India, USA and Russia.
And even for the UK the demands of the activists are unrealistic. To achieve zero net emissions by 2025, entire industries would have to be wiped out and there would be wholesale restrictions on household items, eradication of air travel and a ban on meat production. A Zero Carbon Britain would need to build around 130,000 new wind turbines in an off-shore location to achieve net emissions by 2030 – which would take up a space twice the size of Wales.
Emma Thompson, has long been an outspoken campaigner for environmental issues and human rights, at times attracting criticism for her strident tone. Born 15 April 1959 she’s an upfront Aries with an afflicted Mercury in Aries square Mars in Cancer opposition Saturn and inconjunct Pluto – so she will have a tendency to come across as rough-edged and at times overly forceful and aggravating. She doesn’t look as if she is winning much this year with tr Neptune slipping and sliding its way round three of her midpoints; tr Uranus causing a catastrophe or two as it collides with her Mars/Pluto midpoint with the prospect of worse in 2020 as her Solar Arc Mars is conjunct her Pluto and tr Pluto starts to square her Sun – maybe she’ll go full suffragette and get herself incarcerated to make a point.
Which isn’t to say there isn’t a sensible, indeed urgent point to be made about climate change. But the strategy of XR appears to be short circuiting badly.