Boris Johnson might seem an unusual place to start an essay on creeping climate change Authoritarianism, until one recognises the British chattering classes centred around London, like all highly educated elites, enjoying their overwhelming cultural power, were never going to forgive him for delivering a Brexit which wasn’t a watered down compromise, Brexit in name only. We may not live in the days of the Roman Republic where the weight of the votes of the few massively outweighs the votes of the many, but for the many it can sometimes feel that way.
Despite his own elite origins and affectations, Boris was the living incarnation everything the cosmopolitans resented about Brexit, and the fact that they only managed to win over a portion of the plebeian class with their doom-mongering predictions and dry narrow focus on the economy. They completely missed the point, it wasn’t about that, even if at least some minor economic harms have effected the UK since Brexit (most noticeable in trading intensity and the currency devaluating of Sterling relative to the Euro). Instead, it was about two things- immigration and the democratic mandate.
For some Brexit voters, especially the more educated and affluent, it was never about immigration. But we have to acknowledge the economic scarcity and damage to the economic interests of the blue collar class through neoliberalism, the free movement of peoples and immigration throughout the West. Sure, blue collar migration may create jobs for agency consultants and their admins, for property agents and lawyers, but that’s little consolation to construction workers in the UK who saw their wages more than half in the nineties.
To farm labourers, factory workers, drivers, maintenance techs, installers, non-seasonal agricultural workers, sales reps and warehouse workers, all of whose wages used to exceed those of the salaries of university educated office dullards, immigration over the past 25 years have been an absolute disaster. Most earned significantly more than the minimum wage, some still do- but buried in the economic figures of only about a 10% decline in wages at the bottom of the labour force, is the understanding that immigration has created opportunities for the more able and educated C1’s- the apparatchik of our modern economies- at the expense of the blue collar class.
But far more fundamental to this discussion is an understanding of the future need for the democratic mandate, the veto of the ballot box. At the time of Brexit, I voted to remain. Although I too found the sheer waste, mindless bureaucracy and lack of democratic accountability of the EU frustrating, I thought the benefits of EU membership outweighed the negative. I was wrong.
It’s become clear since the pandemic that the luxury beliefs of the highly educated class are going to become more and more of hindrance to the average person, more and more a tyranny. If they want us to give up driving petrol cars then make cheaper EVs. If they want us to stop using fossil fuels to power and heat our homes, build a new generation of nuclear power plants to provide cheap, safe and abundant power as both the French and Swedes have done. And don’t, whatever you do, expect us to stop eating meat, to shift to a plant-based diet or eating insects. Are they mad?
As it happens, I’m a pescatarian- I eat fish and dairy, but not meat. But I’ve never been one of those preachy types and made the decision after hearing a few detail from a friend who had worked intensive livestock farming during the summer. I was all of sixteen. But good job too. During a stint working as business-to-business sales exec, very much in the spirit of Glengarry Glen Ross, I experienced hypertension and went to the doctors- only to find that my cholesterol levels were 9.3. So I have other reasons for sticking to fish, and now take statins.
But what really crystallised it for me, the future intention to impose a rather bleak and authoritarian future upon us was news from the Netherlands. Apparently, a Dutch administrative court had taken it upon itself to rule that the Dutch government was in breach of EU regulations, and this court decision has led to political actions will likely result in a 30% reduction in total Dutch cattle. Just for fun- I thought I would link the news from an environmentalist website.
Farmers in the Netherlands may have to cut livestock production by 30% due to concerns about nitrogen and ammonia pollution (from the article)
The problem is it’s complete bollocks from a policy perspective. I don’t want to go into too much technical detail, but there are a huge raft of methods which can be used to reduce ammonia production from cattle and their contribution to coastal dead zones, ranging from more prolonged grazing to better manure and slurry storage, from managing feed and reducing crude protein, to using lower emission techniques for spreading slurries and digestate on land, none of which require a total reduction in cattle. In addition, cattle aren’t the only source of ammonia in agriculture and as well as changing types of fertiliser agricultural colleges have been pioneering soil testing so that farmers can be more sparing with both fertilisers and herbicides, without impacting yields.
It’s also important to stress that cattle are a vital part of the carbon life cycle. They are key to any regenerative farming strategy, as grass-fed cows are vital for soil sequestration and actually deposit nitrogen in the soil over time. This may surprise some, but recent research which looked at soil carbon measurements for the first time, decisively shows that grass-fed cattle are significantly superior to feedlot cattle, in terms of tacking climate change- to the extent that grass-fed cattle sequester 6.65kg of CO2 per 1kg of carcass weight, compared to 6.12kg of CO2 produced per 1kg of carcass weight, a net saving of nearly 13kg of CO2 per 1kg of carcass weight from switching for feedlot cattle to grass-fed. Far from being a problem for climate change, grass-fed cattle a vital part of sequestering carbon and restoring over-farmed land. Meanwhile, an AHDB study in the UK of dairy cows showed that crude proteins could be lowered to 14% without substantially reducing yields or having other negative implications, reducing the costs of feed by shifting from soybean meal to grass, whilst also reducing the cost of manure storage. Even modest (1.5%) reductions in crude proteins can lower ammonia production by as much as 30%.
Indeed, the Dutch ministry already had a plan for implementing a system of feed reductions, which they subsequently scrapped. The Dutch dairy farming industry had complained that the plan wasn’t farm specific, didn’t take account of the need to use protein-rich feeds to help vulnerable cattle recover. Instead they published their own plan which set the ambitious target for reducing total protein consumption of 3%. But as is so typical of the desire of government mandarinates to impose top-down rules from above, their own plans were hastily scrapped, the dairy farm industry proposals ignored, and the individual farms subjected to a tragedy of the commons where the lack of a universally applied but individually tailored plan meant that each farm feared to lose out in terms of competition and risk, by implementing plans individually.
What a mess! It’s so typical of government. As I’ve previously shown, even modest reductions in crude proteins can substantially reduce ammonia production and grass fed cattle not only sequester carbon, but their diet is inherently lower in crude proteins. Plus, once allows for the use of protein-rich feed sources in necessary circumstances, it can lower costs for farmers. Why not simply trial the system for three to four years, a period eminently suitable to overcome initial resistance and scepticism? Simple- less of a role for government in regulatory terms, especially given that measurements and policing would need to be carried out by the industry itself, with its expertise in cattle health and vulnerability.
But here’s the real scoop. Livestock cattle raised for food are outnumbered by dairy cows by a ratio of four to one. Beef cattle are a 400,000 population in the Netherlands, compared to 1.6 million dairy cows. Cutting beef cattle by 30% represents a 6% reduction in ammonia, whilst even the more measured proposals of the dairy farming industry could have reduced total ammonia production by 24%. But government doesn’t like feedback, or being usurped by people with specific expertise in the industries being interfered with. They prefer a top-down approach which is inimical to commerce, liberty and capitalism in general- staffing vast bureaucracies with regulatory apparatchik, with a net result which is far, far worse in tackling climate change, as well as broader environmental considerations such as coastal dead zones, and already overextended fisheries.
And this is the most important aspect of Brexit- with a growth in citizen journalism, and a combination of local and national politics, it should finally be possible to hold unaccountable civil service mandarinates and the elected politicians theoretically in charge of them accountable at the ballot box. In America, the federal system paired with a benign sounding Congressional legislative agenda can lead to the formation of federal regulatory bodies which lack any real congressional oversight, for the simple reason that Congress lacks the expertise to oversee anything, which has been made particularly apparent in much of their questioning of social media companies.
In many ways, the EU and Brussels are even worse. As an institution, it provides a layer of democratic unaccountability which is embedded at the structural level. Even if were possible to mobilise large segments of a national population to reject conventional politics and elect their own politicians armed with a specific list of issues to address, the regulatory apparatus would remain impervious for the simple reason that it sits above the level of national politics. It is by this measure alone we can see that Brexit was entirely justified and contains the last best hope in America and Europe of providing a reasonable alternative to the whims of unaccountable bureaucracies, provided Britain’s electorate can be shaken out of its lethargy and choose an alternative to the establishment parties. The French Yellow jacket movement points to the fact that Europe will likely burn in protests and rioting at the imposition of Environmental Authoritarianism, whilst British sovereignty at least contains the possibility that tyranny can be overthrown through the quiet and dignified method of the ballot box.
And here’s where we come to the role of the World Economic Forum, because once one strips away the often alarming slogans, soundbites and mission statements and find someone who has bothered to trawl through the reams of text, it becomes apparent that the only real policy prescription advocated for by WEF is the desire to see green infrastructure embedded in government expenditure. But I would argue that this isn’t the limit of their aims and ambitions, or indeed their methodology- with their role in advising governments and supranational organisations its clear that their agenda might also include such radical policies as the degrowth of entire industries, socially engineering populations towards plant-based diets and influencing the great and good towards supporting such policies, if they feel that the environmental and climate needs are a sufficient emergency to warrant such measures.
We’ve been here before, with foreign aid. Western government largesse accounted for over 2.3 trillion dollars in aid. Although there were successes in areas like medicine, education and other areas such as clean water, in the primary goal of shifting the ‘Third World’ out of poverty it was a singular failure. Why? Because when funds where allocated by Westerners brainstorming in offices the money was wasted. A good example of this relates to mosquito nets, where initially nets were thrown away or misused for everything from fishing nets to materials used in the manufacture of bridal gowns. However, in instances where effects were organised from the ground-up in the Developing World, the allocation of these resources proved astoundingly successful. In the instance given, real inroads were made when the mosquito nets were actually sold to the rich and powerful, becoming a high status good, and nurses were given cash incentives for getting their patients to choose mosquito nets, through advocacy. Needless to say the bulk of funding and decision-making was made educated Westerners with failure the most likely response, whilst expertise-led initiative planned from the ground-up in Africa remained a rarity, despite their often comparatively astounding success.
The real problem is the support of the cosmopolitan class for such policies. They are the influencers and shakers of our societies (or at least they have been until recently), and their ideas have a habit of filtering down into society as a whole. It doesn’t matter that in this particular case that they are completely wrong- they will proliferate their bad ideas on activist websites, circulating terrible, destructive ideas to other cosmopolitans and, ultimately, to schoolchildren. They were told that cattle were a major source of methane and had a high carbon cost, and now it’s been proved wrong- with some studies suggesting that shifting to a plant-based diet only reduces a person’s carbon footprint by around 3% to 4%. But they’ve held onto their anchor bias- that meat, and by extension cattle must be bad for the climate, because they want the world to atone for climate change. Nitrogen and ammonia levels are a convenient mechanism for implementing the types of population-level sacrifices they had originally envisaged and hoped for because of cattle methane.
It’s a superstition. A luxury belief which amounts to a mini-religion. They believe that humans are a cancer on the planet and we should be punished for our sins against Mother Earth, when the truth is we’ve been radically influencing ecosystems and climate for about 10,000 years, ever since the advent of the agricultural age. The core element of this luxury belief is that ‘we’ must sacrifice for the sake of the planet- it’s the only thing which captures their attention in narrative terms. It why they wholeheartedly reject nuclear despite the fact that it has been proven safe, far less harmful to humans than other energy sources, and can be built both cheaply and abundantly given the approach taken by either the French or the Swedes.
By ‘we’ must sacrifice, they mean us. Nothing incensed the doyens of legacy media that a more than doubling of gas prices in America didn’t initially lead to a reduction of fuel consumption of more than 5%. Didn’t the peasants know that it was in their best interests to sacrifice and use public transport rather than drive, despite the impracticality and longer journey times? They won’t give up their smartphones or social media, even though power usage from these sources equalled those of all global air travel in 2019. And at least when they make the ‘sacrifice’ of having a plant-based meal, they get the psychic profit from the status which comes from the approval of their friends. For mere lesser mortals, a plant-based meal is more likely to elicit a grimace, and a discrete question as to whether the wife is insisting upon a diet again.
The problem is that however smart of educated the highly influential cosmopolitan class may be, they don’t have the discipline to become experts across multiple domains. They will claim to have read a study, when in reality they’ve just read an article about a study- and often just the headline and the first couple of paragraphs. And a little knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge at all, especially when they belong to a class which is used to getting its own way, successfully advocating for the implementation of policies the implications of which they little understand. And the rest of us are made to suffer as food, petrol, energy and whole slew of other goods become increasingly out of reach, whilst they suffer not at all, with their middling high incomes and families they can tap for loans with no intentions of paying back.
Meanwhile Dutch police are shooting at tractors, potentially hitting enraged farmers, justifiably upset that their livelihoods are being taken away due to the ignorance, obstinance and obtuse nature of government, supranational bureaucracies and a top-down central planning approach which is guaranteed to cause catastrophic harms, whilst achieving nothing near the successes on climate and environment that a market-led approach could manage. Welcome to the WEF’s dark dystopia. This is what happens when we let ignorant highly educated types make decisions far removed from the knowledge instilled by the ‘shop floor’ of commerce.
You'll be so much happier, safer and equal to all others once you submit and obey, Geary. Why do you resist so? Easy...easy...relax...trust us...we know best. You, I mean we, are all in this together, so just submit and obey and utopia is ours, I mean yours.
Hello Geary, unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to read your post carefully, but i would like to contact you to share a Theory that i have come about the conflict in ukraine, and why everybody in Europe behaves like a "going down the hill on a suicide route", so when you have time just drop a line.
A now the little bit of tar in the vat full of honey: how many peasant uprisings were successful in the history? Sri Lanka is still fighting, You can count French revolution in maybe. The real peasants that take up arms that they have on their farms and march to the cities - I do not remember one but maybe I am overlooking something.
They all end up as the trackers did in Canada or just get ignored.
The main point is however not this but something else: the silly policies of the government in countries where the administration works may cause millions to die as it happened with Holodomor (which contrary to fairytales spread by MSM killed also 3m Russian and unknown number of Kazach peasants but that is another story). These policies are not limited to agriculture and covid. They do this with energy - prices go up allegedly because of Putin. Meanwhile I am sure there is a war because I watch non-western media but I am also sure that the war is just a ruse by the western elites to force their own programs. Get also this: Germany still insists it will go into lockdown in Winter. These people are dangerous because they are ignorant and intelligent enough to raise up in the hierarchy.
I am not overly optimistic about this. Stalin when ordering changes that directly led to Holodomor took notice of their infectivity because the catastrophe was so massive. They modify the measures somewhat so that people did not have to die and went on to rule for another 60y or so. NK did survived famines and Venezuela is still in its predicament. We may be in it for a long unpleasant ride.
Interesting analysis, Geary. I’d pipe up to say that plant based diets also aren’t nearly as healthy as they purport to be! Humans are omnivores. We need plants AND meat/eggs/fish. Sigh. But my vegetarian sister thinks meat is murder and humans are a stain on the environment so what can I do.
Once past the start this essay is a stunning piece of work. It analyses the bureaucratic mindset with a precision and mercilessness that is precise and astute.
The start does need a bit of work though. Two areas stand out - firstly Boris Johnson's character. He is, sad to say, not a man of the people. He is and always has been one of the elite but has been prepared to position himself as a 'likely lad' able to understand the ordinary voter's needs and aspirations. He neither understands nor cares about these beyond using them to lever himself into power. His actual behaviour manifests a particular disdain for the ordinary voter though.
The second is the understanding of poverty in the current digital world. In the West it is minimal. True poverty as experienced by the Victorian working man simply doesn't exist. One just needs to read the accounts of what it was like to be constantly hungry and having to work 12 hour days on top of that to understand just how entitled we are today. The elite were far worse then than now. Unchecked the capitalist approach leads inexorably to this sort of situation. We're far from it now.
You'll be so much happier, safer and equal to all others once you submit and obey, Geary. Why do you resist so? Easy...easy...relax...trust us...we know best. You, I mean we, are all in this together, so just submit and obey and utopia is ours, I mean yours.
"grass-fed cattle sequester 6.65kg of CO2 per 1kg of carcass weight, compared to 6.12kg of CO2 produced per 1kg of carcass weight"
That's really interesting, can you elaborate or provide a link?
BTW, this essay rambles a bit, Geary.
Hello Geary, unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to read your post carefully, but i would like to contact you to share a Theory that i have come about the conflict in ukraine, and why everybody in Europe behaves like a "going down the hill on a suicide route", so when you have time just drop a line.
Best regards
how true.
A now the little bit of tar in the vat full of honey: how many peasant uprisings were successful in the history? Sri Lanka is still fighting, You can count French revolution in maybe. The real peasants that take up arms that they have on their farms and march to the cities - I do not remember one but maybe I am overlooking something.
They all end up as the trackers did in Canada or just get ignored.
The main point is however not this but something else: the silly policies of the government in countries where the administration works may cause millions to die as it happened with Holodomor (which contrary to fairytales spread by MSM killed also 3m Russian and unknown number of Kazach peasants but that is another story). These policies are not limited to agriculture and covid. They do this with energy - prices go up allegedly because of Putin. Meanwhile I am sure there is a war because I watch non-western media but I am also sure that the war is just a ruse by the western elites to force their own programs. Get also this: Germany still insists it will go into lockdown in Winter. These people are dangerous because they are ignorant and intelligent enough to raise up in the hierarchy.
I am not overly optimistic about this. Stalin when ordering changes that directly led to Holodomor took notice of their infectivity because the catastrophe was so massive. They modify the measures somewhat so that people did not have to die and went on to rule for another 60y or so. NK did survived famines and Venezuela is still in its predicament. We may be in it for a long unpleasant ride.
Interesting analysis, Geary. I’d pipe up to say that plant based diets also aren’t nearly as healthy as they purport to be! Humans are omnivores. We need plants AND meat/eggs/fish. Sigh. But my vegetarian sister thinks meat is murder and humans are a stain on the environment so what can I do.
🤔
Thank You very much, Sir Geary. Enjoyed it immensely. TYTY.
Once past the start this essay is a stunning piece of work. It analyses the bureaucratic mindset with a precision and mercilessness that is precise and astute.
The start does need a bit of work though. Two areas stand out - firstly Boris Johnson's character. He is, sad to say, not a man of the people. He is and always has been one of the elite but has been prepared to position himself as a 'likely lad' able to understand the ordinary voter's needs and aspirations. He neither understands nor cares about these beyond using them to lever himself into power. His actual behaviour manifests a particular disdain for the ordinary voter though.
The second is the understanding of poverty in the current digital world. In the West it is minimal. True poverty as experienced by the Victorian working man simply doesn't exist. One just needs to read the accounts of what it was like to be constantly hungry and having to work 12 hour days on top of that to understand just how entitled we are today. The elite were far worse then than now. Unchecked the capitalist approach leads inexorably to this sort of situation. We're far from it now.
Thanks for your essays! I now follow you on Twitter as @cannygrannies (aka LocalUpEverything) I clipped part of your essay as a Tweet. I'm new to substack, as your comment here> https://quillette.com/2023/01/11/a-report-from-the-stanford-academic-freedom-conference/ brought me to your substack.