Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won't Even Save the Planet)

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Given the failure of the world to come to an end, it is tempting to say, just as we do when religious cults and other fantasists make doom-laden predictions which fail to come to pass: well, the whole thing must be a hoax.” KeyQuotes Clark discussed his views on the Left and the term “climate change denial” in a column for the Spectator: 17 Ross Clark. “ Liam Fox falls foul of the climate change cult,” Spectator, April 26, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.

Ross Clark (born 12 September 1966) is a British journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Spectator, The Times and other publications. [1] He is the author of several books, including How to Label a Goat: the silly Rules and Regulations that are strangling Britain and The Great Before, a novel which satirised the pessimism of the Green movement. [2] He is a frequent critic of British government policy, especially on its interventions in the housing market. [3] Early life [ edit ] Cambridge News (1 July 2003). "City's depressing housing under fire". Cambridge News. Archived from the original on 20 December 2013. In an article for the Spectator, Clark stated that he had investments in both the oil industry and renewable energy companies. 9 Ross Clark. “ New York’s fight against the oil giants is political posturing at its worst,” Spectator, January 11, 2018. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Clark wrote a columnfor the Spectator claiming schoolchildren who attend climate strikes “may be suffering from trauma”, as they are “victims of the hyperbole they have been fed”. 74 Ross Clark. “ Child climate change protestors aren’t truants, they’re traumatised,” Spectator, February 15, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Clark also called for green-minded rebel MPs to push for “increasing investment in gas”, before concluding that the so-called “rebel MPs” should “leave [onshore wind] well alone”.

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Clark wrotethat Extinction Rebellion grew out of anti-globalisation movements “whose unashamed purpose was to try to bring down the economic system as we know it and replace it with a kind of primitive socialism”. He also said the activists were open in “wanting to destroy you”. 59 Ross Clark. “ Kowtowing to Greta won’t save woke corporations from the wrath of the anti-capitalist Green movement,” Telegraph, January 22, 2020. Archived April 3, 2020. Archive URL: http://archive.fo/jqqKk A Broom Cupboard of One’s Own: The housing crisis and how to solve it by boosting home-ownership, Harriman House,2012 This was later resharedby the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group. 62 Ross Clark. “ Christian Aid should drop the climate rubbish,” Global Warming Policy Foundation, December 29, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archive URL: http://archive.fo/ShsZc However, the report stated that while “region-wide hard coral cover” had recovered and reached “the highest level recorded in the past 36 years of monitoring” in two regions of the GBR, the reefs “continue to be exposed to cumulative stressors”, and that “while the observed recovery offers good news for the overall state of the GBR, there is increasing concern for its ability to maintain this state”. 38 Australian Institute of Marine Science. “ Annual Summary Report of Coral Reef Condition 2021/22,” August 4, 2022. Archived October 28, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YBIAS Clark describedreports published by the UK government’s official advisor the Committee of Climate Change as documents that “trot out the familiar scary predictions and somewhat dubious statistics”. 88 Ross Clark. “ Waving while drowning,” Spectator, September 25, 2010. Archived April 4, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Affiliations

To hear today’s reaction to the news that Michael Gove has granted permission to build Britain’s first deep coal mine for a generation is to step through the looking glass into a bizarre world where a Conservative government is considered evil for helping to create mining jobs in a de-industrialised region – and the ‘enlightened’ position is to eradicate the very last traces of the coal industry.”In a Telegraph article comment piece titled “A windfall tax on oil and gas is just Left-wing populism”, Clark argued: “When Starmer calls for a windfall tax what he is really saying is: I want to cut your pension to feed yet more government expenditure”. 40 Ross Clark. “ A windfall tax on oil and gas is just Left-wing populism”, The Telegraph, April 28, 2022. Archived August 2, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/JvFiT Clark regularly questions climate science in columns for the Spectator, arguing, for instance,that while “climatic observations” should be trusted, predictions should be taken with “a pinch of salt” because “the only near-certain thing is that they will all be wrong”. 3 Ross Clark. “ Climate change isn’t responsible for Australia’s hailstorms,” Spectator, January 21, 2020. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Describing quotes from two child climate strikers as “disturbed statements”, Clark blamed “climate change alarmism” on “the traumatising power of watching frightening films at an impressionable age”. Children will be taught, for example, the ‘impact of diet choices for land usage and environmental impact’ […] That isn’t educating children to think for themselves; it is trying to train them to be the next generation of environmental activists.” Clark defended oil and gas companies in a Spectator column: 26 Ross Clark. “ Don’t blame oil and coal companies for climate change,” Spectator, October 10, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.

In response to David Attenborough’s BBC documentary Climate Change: The Facts, Clark wrote an articlearguing that the broadcaster “cannot be allowed to get away with the propaganda element of his latest piece”. He wrote: 73 Ross Clark. “ What David Attenborough’s climate change show didn’t tell you,” Spectator, April 20, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Ross Clark argues that it is a terrible mistake, an impractical hostage to fortune which will have massive downsides. Achieving the target is predicated on the rapid development of technologies that are either non-existent, highly speculative or untested. Clark shows that efforts to achieve the target will inevitably result in a huge hit to living standards, which will clobber the poorest hardest, and gift a massive geopolitical advantage to hostile superpowers such as China and Russia. The unrealistic and rigid timetable it imposes could also result in our committing to technologies which turn out to be ineffective, all while distracting ourselves from the far more important objective of adaptation. The article concludedthat, “we are still a long way from efficient CCS, but there is nothing to say that it can’t outflank technologies such as hydrogen and battery storage, to become a large part of a transition to zero carbon. So, no, it is not a foregone conclusion that oil companies will be brought down and their assets stranded – even if Greenpeace would very much like them tobe.”I am delighted to announce another acquisition by Forum Press: Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won’t Even Save the Planet)by Ross Clark. Clark, Ross (2017). War Against Cash: the plot to empty your wallet and own your financial future - and why you must fight it. Harriman House. ISBN 978-0857196255. Extinction Rebellion is no group of visionaries – just a left-wing mob determined to disrupt the lives of the rest of us. They need to be treated as such.” If Rishi Sunak concedes to the demands of a group of (reportedly) around 50 MPs and lifts the moratorium on onshore wind which has been in place for seven years, it won’t take long before we find out why it was imposed in the first place. There are few places in England where you can build a wind farm of any size without either causing serious annoyance to locals or compromising valued landscapes.” In an article titled “Good news: we now have until 2030 to save the Earth”, Clark argued that IPCC reports in 2018, which told governments they had 12 years to avert climate catastrophe, were a good sign, as previous organisations had given a stricter deadline: 18 Ross Clark. “ Good news: we now have until 2030 to save the earth,” Spectator, October 8, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.

Clark wrote an article for The Spectator criticising the government’s proposals to ban the sale of new gas boilers after 2025 as part of a net zero decarbonisation strategy to be implemented by 2050. 44 Ross Clark. “ The boiler ban fiasco and the true cost of net zero,” The Spectator, 25 May 2021. Archived June 1, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/qRlL7

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Expressing his scepticism on the scientific knowledge of the child strikers in a Spectator column, Clark challenged headteachers to set their children climate research essays, writing “I would genuinely be interested in reading the results”. Clark wrote an article for The Telegraph criticising the Climate Change Committee ( CCC)’s advice to the government to ban gas boilers by 2033, referring to it as “yet another pointless eco-catastrophe.” 51 Ross Clark. “ A ban on gas boilers would be yet another pointless eco catastrophe,” The Telegraph, December 9, 2020. Archived December 14, 2020. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/ SXHl1 Clark added: It is right to build new homes to high energy efficiency standards, but it is sadly all too easy to predict the result of a rushed scheme to retrofit all existing homes to make them zero carbon. Homeowners will be fleeced, left with damp, chilly homes. Worse, the costs are bound to fall disproportionately on the lowest- income homeowners.” In an articletitled “The trouble with Greta Thunberg”, Clark wrote that he was tired of the “fawning attitude” the media was taking towards the climate activist. He argued that Thunberg is a “well-crafted piece of PR” and that she is being used as a speaker for the climate movement because no-one “will dare criticise a 16-year-old with Asperger’s”. 72 Ross Clark. “ The trouble with Greta Thunberg,” Spectator, April 23, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.