{"id":258074,"date":"2023-05-19T11:37:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T09:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=258074"},"modified":"2023-05-19T11:37:20","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T09:37:20","slug":"the-working-class-revolt-against-net-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=258074","title":{"rendered":"The working-class revolt against Net Zero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From spiked<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brendan O\u2019Neill<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Danish truckers are the latest workers to rise up against eco-authoritarianism.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
ASHFORD, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 22: Lorry drivers wearing face masks rest and talk at Ashford International Truck Stop as restrictions on traveling to the continent continue on December 22, 2020 in Ashford, United Kingdom. Nearly 1000 lorries remained stacked up in Kent as drivers waited for a resumption of travel from the port of Dover to France. On Sunday, France abruptly halted freight and passenger travel from the UK over concerns about the UK’s surging covid-19 cases and a new variant of the virus. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two kinds of road-blocking are taking place in Europe right now. In the first, the sons and daughters of privilege, people with names like Edred and Tilly, are holding up traffic to put pressure on governments to speed up Net Zero. If we don\u2019t cut carbon emissions drastically, they say in their cut-glass tones, our poor planet will be consumed in a heat death of rotten mankind\u2019s own making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second, working people \u2013 farmers, truckers, cab drivers \u2013 are clogging the streets to put pressure on governments to slow down<\/em> Net Zero. Or better still, scrap it altogether. If we don\u2019t cut out the Net Zero nonsense, say these people who make and deliver things for the Edreds and Tillys of the world, farms will close, jobs will be lost and economic precarity will intensify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whose side should you take? It\u2019s a no-brainer. This is a clash between the luxury doom-mongering of an upper-middle class more concerned with its own self-importance than with the self-sufficiency of society, and the common sense of working people who understand that farming, food production, energy creation and transportation are essential to the survival of our species. Between an elite driven mad by visions of a climate-change apocalypse and ordinary people who still inhabit the reality-based world. Between Net Zero fanatics who want to wind back modernity and Net Zero sceptics who think modernity works pretty well, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the latter road-blockers \u2013 the people using their HGVs, tractors and taxis to send a stern message to our eco-elites \u2013 that we should be cheering. Their revolt against Net Zero represents a daring populist strike against the delusions and complacency of the 21st-century establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Danish truckers are the latest workers to join the rebellion against green authoritarianism. Yesterday, they caused\u00a0\u2018road havoc\u2019 in Denmark<\/a>. They parked their huge hauliers side by side on key roads. Sections of the border with Germany were affected, as were the M11 and M16 around Copenhagen. Roads towards the ferry docks at Helsingor \u2013\u00a0\u2018one of the most important ports in Denmark\u2019<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 were also briefly clogged by angry truckers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their beef? The government\u2019s plan to introduce a \u2018truck tax\u2019<\/a> in 2025. As part of its devotion to the cult of Net Zero, the Danish ruling class wants to slash carbon emissions by 70 per cent before 2030. And one way it intends to do that is by imposing a punitive mileage-based eco-tax on the drivers of diesel trucks, in the hope that the financial pressure will become so unbearable that they\u2019ll switch to electric trucks instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ingratitude is staggering. Truckers are the lifeblood of a modern society. They transport the fuel, food and other goods that are essential to everyday life. They drive alone, for hours, in all weathers, to keep society well stocked. And how do the elites in Copenhagen repay these people who, without fuss or fanfare, bring them everything they need? By slapping them with a new kind of sin tax \u2013 the sin in this case being to drive a vehicle that the eco-minded consider to be \u2018dirty\u2019 and \u2018polluting\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No wonder the truckers are angry. Others are, too. Dutch farmers<\/a> have been in a state of revolt for a couple of years now. They\u2019re raging against their government\u2019s plans to cut nitrogen emissions by half before 2030, which would entail farmers getting rid of vast numbers of their livestock and possibly lead to the closure of 3,000 farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nitrogen-slashing policy was drawn up under pressure from the eco-oligarchs in the EU, who are heaping pressure on all member states to hurry toward that secular heaven of Net Zero. In Ireland, too,\u00a0farmers are simmering<\/a>\u00a0over government plans to cut \u2018farm emissions\u2019 by up to 30 per cent in order that Ireland might achieve its \u2018climate goals\u2019. They\u2019re worried that 58,000 farm jobs could be lost to the elites\u2019 slavish devotion to the Net Zero ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, cab drivers and hauliers in England have blocked roads<\/a> over the introduction of \u2018clean air\u2019 taxes on anyone who drives an allegedly dirty vehicle. Some Londoners have taken direct action<\/a> against the ugly bollards erected in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods to discourage driving, and against the cameras that are being installed to monitor the movements of \u2018high-pollution\u2019 vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And let\u2019s not forget that the great\u00a0gilets jaunes<\/em>\u00a0revolt in France of 2018 to 2020 started out as an uprising against a hike in fuel tax that was introduced as part of the government\u2019s plan to\u00a0\u2018reduce greenhouse-gas emissions\u2019<\/a>. Yet another Net Zero assault on working people\u2019s pockets. The French knew very well that this eco-punishment was an act of Jupiterian overreach by Emmanuel Macron. And Danish truckers, Dutch farmers, British cabbies and other working-class blasphemers against the religion of Net Zero clearly feel similarly about the green policies being imposed on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These uprisings throw into sharp relief the elitism of the climate-change ideology. They expose the class element in the green tyranny. It is increasingly clear that where the pursuit of Net Zero might benefit the elites, providing them with a sense of moral mission as they tackle the fantasy apocalypse of their own fever dreams, it is incredibly destructive for working-class communities. Our rulers\u2019 fretful turn against industrial society threatens to decimate jobs in \u2018dirty\u2019 industries and further raise the cost of energy and driving, leaving the hard-up even harder up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s even more serious than a class war, though. The brewing tension between the elite and the people over carbon-cutting feels existential. It speaks to a modern establishment so infused with post-industrial prejudice, so indoctrinated by the religion of Net Zero, so corrupted by moral relativism, that it cannot even see how important production, farming,\u00a0food<\/em>\u00a0are to everyday life. The cavalier assaults on farms, trucks and cars speak to an elite that has fully taken leave of the realm of reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final twist in this tale is that the European left is on the side of the posh road-blockers, not the working-class ones. The left sings the praises of Extinction Rebellion\u2019s plummy disruptors of traffic, while either ignoring the revolting farmers and truckers or denouncing them as eco-sinners and dangerous populists. That\u2019s another thing we should thank the rebels for \u2013 they\u2019ve driven a truck through the modern left\u2019s pretence that it gives a damn about working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendan O\u2019Neill is spiked\u2019s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O\u2019Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If we don\u2019t cut out the Net Zero nonsense, say these people who make and deliver things for the Edreds and Tillys of the world, farms will close, jobs will be lost and economic precarity will intensify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":258081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818076,691818154],"class_list":{"0":"post-258074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-co2","9":"tag-net-zero","11":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/039158500451_3d6fce9e93_b.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-158u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":193811,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=193811","url_meta":{"origin":258074,"position":0},"title":"Calculated Destruction: Counting the True Costs of Net-Zero CO2 Emissions Madness","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"30\/03\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"For renewable energy rent-seekers, the path to net-zero CO2 emissions targets is lined with endless taxpayers\u2019 gold. 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In the famous BBC Sitcom \u201cYes Minister\u201d, MP Jim Hacker and his adversary Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby ran the \u201cDepartment of Administrative Affairs\u201d, a fictional Whitehall ministry which had poorly defined\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"BBC\"","block_context":{"text":"BBC","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bbc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/0-Sir-Keir-Starmer.jpeg?fit=1160%2C773&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/0-Sir-Keir-Starmer.jpeg?fit=1160%2C773&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/0-Sir-Keir-Starmer.jpeg?fit=1160%2C773&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/0-Sir-Keir-Starmer.jpeg?fit=1160%2C773&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/0-Sir-Keir-Starmer.jpeg?fit=1160%2C773&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":381758,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=381758","url_meta":{"origin":258074,"position":4},"title":"Net Zero Straitjacket","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/06\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Net Zero Straitjacket: Five Reasons Net Zero Will Bankrupt Britain, has been published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). 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