Atticus Fox

The Economics of Renewable Energy pt 2 – Solar

Ed Miliband has stated many times that renewable energy is cheaper than gas and will bring down household energy bills. We all instinctively knew that Ed was lying but I’m going to present the evidence that he was lying. I will present the economics of solar in this post, having already presented wind energy in a recent post.

1) Ed is proud that the UK is leading the way on renewable energy yet the UK has the highest energy costs in the G20. The UK’s energy costs are 4 times those of US.

2) A report commissioned in 2020 by the World Bank ranked the UK’s suitability for solar energy production at 229th out of 230 countries (Ireland came last). .

https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/466331592817725242/global-photovoltaic-power-potential-by-country

3) The UK currently spends approx. £8bn on natural gas per year. Ed wants to spend £260-£290bn by 2030 on his Clean Power plan – £43bn to £48bn per year. Much of this spending is to connect remote windfarms. Prices cannot come down when costs are skyrocketing.
https://www.neso.energy/publications/clean-power-2030

4) The UK paid over £12bn on subsidies for renewal energy in 2024. Plus £2.5bn for grid balancing and £1bn for the capacity market. Solar energy’s share of these costs is aporox. £3bn. Yet Ed wants to increase solar energy capacity from 15GW to 47GW by 2030. More capacity equals more subsidies.

5) In 2023, according to energy trends data, the UK generated 135.8TWh from all renewables, mostly wind, solar and biomass. The subsidies and extra costs for this electricity cost us around £113 per MWh. Adding the market price of electricity would mean the total cost of renewables is around £180 per MWh. The market price of gas is around £60 per MWh

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-section-6-renewables

6) The govt applies a carbon tax to gas of approx. £60 per MWh, thereby almost doubling the price paid by consumers. When Ed tells you that renewables are cheaper than gas, he is referring to the market price of renewables without subsidies (£180 – £113 = £67 per MWh) compared to the retail price of natural gas, inclusive of carbon tax (£60 + £60 = £120 per MWh.
Whereas the economic cost of renewables is £180 per MWh compared to £60 per MWh for gas.

Most revenue for renewable energy is comprised of govt subsidy

7) A commitment to increase total solar capacity from 15GW to 47GW within a decade implies a minimum level of subsidies of £6 billion per year at 2023 prices.

8) After 3 years, the efficacy of solar panels reduces by 1% to 2% per year.
As such, useful economic life of solar panels is 20 years. However, the payback period for solar plants – the overnight capital cost divided by the annual operating margin – is 35 years based on the average prices from 2017 to 2023 (cf. usual commercial average of payback period of 10 years). This confirms that solar plants will always require subsidies to attract private investment.

9) The breakeven price of electricity for new investment in solar plants is about £150 per MWh at 2023 prices over a 25-year life. (Cf. £60 per MWh for natural gas). Another reason that UK energy prices will be staying high.

10) NESO has confirmed that all existing gas power stations will need to be retained as backup for when renewable energy isn’t sufficient. NESO predict 5% of energy will continue to come from gas. This means all the fixed costs of gas stations will remain. Also, gas stations are less efficient when not running at full capacity meaning much higher per unit gas prices.

11) Ed’s predictions for ‘saved’ carbon emissions from Renewables do not include the emissions from manufacturing solar panels in China nor the emissions from shipping the panels to the UK.

12) Energy from renewables cannot be effectively stored. The battery plants that are being proposed will be hugely expensive and will not be able to provide energy at a national scale for more than a couple of minutes. Plus, they are highly inefficient meaning much of the stored energy is lost.

Conclusion – The combination of limited solar resources plus high capital and operating costs imply that solar plants are and will continue to be a poor investment in purely commercial terms, requiring huge subsidies and associated infrastructure costs. Very high energy prices are here to stay. Ed may well choose to bury the true costs of renewables in the public finances, but, one way or the other, UK taxpayers will still be paying to run 2 energy systems in parallel, one of which is loss-making.

The Economics of Renewable Energy pt. 1 – Wind

Here’s why everything Miliband says about Renewable energy is false.

Firstly, everyone needs to recognise that Renewable energy infrastructure is a second energy system that will operate in parallel with the existing energy system.

NESO have admitted in their Clean Power 2030 report that all existing gas power stations will need to be retained in order to provide back up. As such, all the costs of wind power documented here are in addition to existing costs of maintaining gas stations.

Prices will not be coming down.

• The UK currently spends approx. £7bn on natural gas per year. Ed wants to spend £260-£290bn by 2030 on his ‘Clean Power 2030’ plan – £43bn to £48bn per year or £1,500 to £1,650 per household. Much of this spending is to connect remote windfarms. Energy prices cannot drop when costs are skyrocketing.

• Assuming a cost of capital of 8% and operations and maintenance costs of 2% for CP2030, would give an ongoing cost of £26-29bn per year or £900-1,000 per household. Energy costs will not be falling any time soon.

• Offshore wind providers were guaranteed an average price of £153 per MWh in 2024. At an average reference – ie market – price of £67 per MWh, this meant subsidies of £86 per MWh were paid by the taxpayer, meaning that on average offshore wind farms received more of their revenue from subsidies (56%) than from selling their power on the market.

• The average retail price of onshore wind farms are guaranteed an average of £111.6 per MWh. The market price was £63.6 per MWh. The subsidy paid by the govt was £48 per MWh (43%).

Looks like the taxpayers are taking it up the tailpipe

• Over last 20 years there have been two major spikes in the price of gas – in 2008 and 2021-23. Omitting those years the average market price at 2024 prices was £56 and there has been no clear trend in real market prices during those 20 years.

• There is much talk that the UK’s system of ‘Marginal Cost Pricing’ keeps UK energy costs artificially high because energy prices are linked to international price of gas. The truth is if marginal cost pricing were to be scrapped, wind farms would still need to receive £111 per MWh (onshore) or £153 per MWh (offshore). A lower market price would have to be topped up with bigger subsidies.

• The cost of renewables is rising and projects like Norfolk Boreas and Hornsea Project Four have been cancelled because the developers cannot make money at the prices they agreed during contract actions.

• Onshore wind requires about ~370x the land area for the production of the equivalent amount of energy as nuclear (offshore requires ~200x the area of nuclear). Think about how many wind turbines will be required to run a single AI data centre.

• Uk has capacity factor of 29.8% for onshore wind and 25% for offshore wind. Cf refers to amount of energy generated as proportion of its technical maximun. When you hear that a new wind farm can power 600 homes, apply the CF calculation.

• The CF of wind turbines reduces with age, dropping by about 1% per year, thus increasing the backup required. The useful life of a turbine is about 20 to 25 years (less for offshore locations). Turbines need to be replaced frequently, and require extensive upkeep and maintenance. The blades are not recyclable so go to landfill.

• We can expect the total cost of subsidies of about £12bn, or the equivalent of £420 per household to continue to go up over the next few years. UK renewables are subsidised by three different schemes.

• Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs) fund mostly solar power. The latest report for 2022-23 shows the scheme cost over £1.7bn and average total payment was ~£193/MWh.

• Contracts for Difference (CfDs) fund a range of technologies, but most of the subsidy goes to offshore wind. The total CfD subsidy paid for the last 12 months is over £2bn.

• By far the biggest subsidy scheme is Renewables Obligations Certificates, costing over £7bn per year.

• In addition, we pay extra for balancing the grid when the wind is not blowing (or blowing too hard) and the sun is not shining. In the year ending March 2024, these balancing services cost £2.46bn

• All wind farms are govt subsidised. The more farms, the more subsidies will be required. Also, the strike prices are index-linked throughout the life of the contract meaning that costs do not drop in real terms with each passing year. Energy costs will not be coming down

• Over the last 20 years, the proportion of the energy prices paid by businesses to cover the costs of buying electricity at wholesale prices has fallen from an average of 71% of the total energy in 2005-06 to 29% in 2023-24. For households the proportion has fallen from 41% to 24%.
These drops are explained by the costs of Renewables – taxes, subsidies, system and network charges – which have been going up over time.

Some Ukraine Context

Let’s document the context of the Russia-Ukraine war

1990: US Secretary of State, James Baker guarantees Gorbachev that NATO will not expand “one inch to the east”.

1994: Clinton administration adopts policy to isolate Russia from the Black Sea through gradual NATO expansion to the East. Policy was followed by all subsequent American presidents

1999: 3 countries join NATO – Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep

2004: US-influenced “colour revolution” in Ukraine

2004: 7 countries join NATO – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia

2008: NATO announces intention to admit Ukraine as a member. Putin makes statement at same summit that Ukraine was a ‘red line’.

2009: 2 countries join NATO – Albania, Croatia

2014: Maidan coup engineered by US in which pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovych was ousted in favour of a pro-NATO candidate.

2014: Start of Ukrainian civil war between pro-Russian separatists in Donbas and Ukrainian govt.

2014: Russia annexed Crimea (to ensure continued Russian access to Black Sea).

2016: Substantial US financial and military assistance to Ukraine, totalling $1.95b plus its de facto integration into NATO structures. Meanwhile, US and other Western countries armed and trained the Ukrainian military, and reaffirmed the commitment that Kyiv would join the Western Alliance.

2017: Montenegro joins NATO.

2019: Trump administration unilaterally withdraws from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Fearing that this boosted the risk of a US first strike, Moscow sought new, mutual restrictions and moratoria on missile deployments. The US dismissed these proposals.

December 19th, 2019: Zelenskyy and Putin sign Minsk agreements. Minsk agreements aimed to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine and grant a measure of self-government to Donbas.

2020: North Macedonia joins NATO.

May 2020: NATO conducts a live-fire training exercise inside Estonia, 70 miles from Russia

2020: Zelensky signals that he had no intention of implementing Minsk agreements. In mid-July 2020, Zelensky proposes holding local elections throughout Ukraine, yet the plan excluded Donbas which was supposed to have new elections under Minsk

Feb 2021: Zelensky shuts down 3 television networks tied to his main political opposition, which advocated better ties with Russia. A Zelensky aide disclosed that this crackdown was “conceived as a welcome gift to the Biden administration,” which offered its endorsement of Zelensky’s effort to “counter Russia’s malign influence.”

Mar 2021: Biden administration approves $125m Ukraine military package. Ukraine’s National Security & Defense Council approves strategy to recover all of Crimea from Russian control, including by force. Military leaders also announced that they were ready to retake Donbas by force, with the help of NATO allies

2021: By end of 2021, Ukraine had Europe’s largest non-Russian standing land force, fully prepared for large-scale conflict

Feb 2022: Unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine

Dec 2022: Former German Chancellor Merkel admits the Minsk agreement was merely to buy time for Ukraine’s arms build-up

‘There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think.’ – Ayn Rand

#CriticalThinking

Legally Breaking The Law

Did you know that, since 2021, government agencies are legally allowed to plant evidence and produce false witness statements?

The UK Covert Human Intelligence (Criminal Conduct) Act (2021) – known as ‘CHIS’ – gives 14 government agencies the mandate to commit crimes with impunity under certain circumstances.

The government bodies covered by the protections of the Act range from the intelligence services, the police and the military to the Department of Health and Social Care, the Food Standards Agency and, ironically, the Ministry of Justice. All can commit crimes against the people if the circumstances demand it.

What are the permissible circumstances?

“in the interests of national security; for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder; or in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom”.

There is no express limit within the Act on the type of criminal conduct that can be authorised. In theory, agents or officers of the state could engage in torture, rape or even murder. An amendment to exclude such serious crimes from the protections of the Bill was defeated.

The Act was a response to a case where MI5 narrowly won a ruling that its undercover agents lawfully broke the law(!)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/20/mi5-informants-investigatory-powers-tribunal-lawful-serious-crimes

The CHIS Act was subsequently rushed through parliament to ensure that the law on law-breaking was clarified. The act explicitly makes authorised conduct ‘lawful for all purposes’

Furthermore, the CHIS Act gives agents of the State immunity from prosecution and so, even if you had a watertight case proving State crimes, there would be no defendant to bring it against. Of course, there’s no chance that such powers could ever be abused!

Another blow to the increasingly risible adage that no one is above the law.

Clear and Present Voltaire

Voltaire quotes are always worth having in your back pocket. Here are 5 that are particularly relevant to where we are now:

‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’     – this was very evident during lockdowns. The majority, suffering from a ‘mass formation’, started to harbour violent thoughts towards the minority, prompted by the media and other epistemological organisations. And let’s not forget the atrocity of forcing people to take an experimental medical treatment for which the harms hugely outweighed the benefits.

‘It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.’     – all of the organs of The Establishment have the same views on all of the main topics of the day. Despite the mantra of ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’, diversity of opinion can result in ostracism and even jail in today’s society.

‘The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.’       – the body can do amazing things when it isn’t being poisoned.

‘Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.’
– Doctors can’t possibly read all the research so they follow the guidance provided for them by Big Pharma and centralised health agencies (who are funded by Big Pharma).

‘It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.’ – fools don’t know they are in chains.

In short: be sceptical, do you own research and don’t follow the herd.

#CriticalThinking

Net Zero Endgame

Let’s explore how Net Zero is going to cause hyperinflation in the UK.

Think of the economy as a pyramid comprised of 3 layers.

The bottom layer is occupied by energy and resources. These are the building blocks of an economy.
Goods and services appear in the middle layer of the pyramid. These are the products of an economy.
Money is at the top of the pyramid. Money has no value in and of itself, it is merely a tool that facilitates the exchange of energy, resources, goods and services.

Each layer is dependent on the layer below for its existence. (Note that resources are also dependent on energy to extract and process them).

Therefore, the size of an economy is directly related to the amount of energy and resources a country uses. (There are no rich ‘low energy’ countries).

Net Zero is going to drastically reduce the UK’s access to energy and resources. The inevitable end point of Net Zero will be to stop the exploration, extraction and import of fossil fuels. The Climate and Nature Bill having its 2nd reading in parliament today explicitly states this in section 2.6.d:

‘d) ensuring the end of the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels by the United Kingdom as rapidly as possible.’

Currently, gas and imports comprise 50% to 70% of UK energy use. Other energy sources will not be able to make up this shortfall.

Therefore, Net Zero will cause a sharp fall in the UK’s access to energy and resources which will lead to a sharp fall in the availability of goods and services.

Inflation is caused either by too much money supply OR too few goods. When both conditions apply the result is hyperinflation.
The only way to avoid hyperinflation would be to reduce the money supply in line with the reduction in energy use but there are no indications that the governnent plans to do this.

I’ll let you do your own research as to what happens to a country undergoing hyperinflation.

A Thought Experiment

On covid19 reflection day, perhaps you will join me in a little experiment in critical thinking

Is it technically possible for a government to employ psychological manipulation to scare the population into believing that a non-existant new pathogen is killing people in large numbers?

This isn’t a question about motives, just a question about the power of propaganda.

In order to convince the public that a non-existant pathogen has emerged, I suggest that the following steps would need to be taken:
• Restrict assembly so that people cannot easily share. information about the pathogen.

• Engineer a high initial death rate associated with the virus.

• Blame the “new pathogen” for the high death rate.

• Remove certain safeguards to make it easier for deaths to be attributed to the new pathogen.

• Report that hospitals are overloaded with patients suffering from the “new pathogen”.

• Make available a test kit for the new pathogen that records a high rate of false positives.

• Declare that recipients of false positive tests are ‘asymptomatic carriers / transmitters’.

• Silence / censor experts who have alternative explanations for what is going on and how it is being handled.

• Instigate round-the-clock fear propaganda via nudge units and media

Entirely by accident, the UK government took all of the steps described above in 2020.

High initial death rate:
The mortality rate for 2020 was unexceptional. The only mortality spike occurred in March / April which coincided with elderly and vulnerable people with complex health issues people being denied hospital care while in care homes:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/nhs-made-secret-pandemic-plan-deny-care-elderly/

We also know that there was excessive over-use of ‘Do Not Resuccitate’ notices at this time:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-matt-hancock-do-not-resuscitate-judicial-threat-kate-masters-nhs-a9612451.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55163009

Plus, the NHS was using midazolam like it was going out of fashion:

https://expose-news.com/2024/02/18/midazolam-murders-nhs-document/

As a result of these factors, deaths in care homes were 195% higher in April 2020 compared to the previous 5 year average.

Remove safeguards:
The process for death certification was relaxed so that only 1 doctor needed to sign the death certificate and, as long as the notes had been read, the doctor did not need to have seen the patient.
Plus, doctors were encouraged to add c19 to the death certificate if there was any suspicion that c19 could have been a factor. This would have artificially boosted the c19 death toll. This explains why Flu deaths dropped to virtually zero during the pandemic – Doctors switched from adding ‘flu’ to the death certificate to adding ‘covid’ instead.

Also, jury inquests into deaths were suspended:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/part/1/crossheading/inquests/enacted

Hospitals are overloaded:

Contrary to what we were told, figures show that hospitals were the quietest in living memory.
In the 3 months of April to June, hospital bed occupancy was 63% (34,140 empty beds)

Hence, all those TikTok videos of dancing medical staff.

Pathogen test kit:

The PCR test is not a diagnostic tool. It can find a gene sequence it is looking for but it cannot determine whether the sequence is active nor inactive. Nor can it determine if the viral sequence exists in sufficient quantities to make you ill. Plus, countries were accused of turning up the PCR amplication up to over 40 cycles which makes the test highly sensitive. Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR, said:

“with PCR you can find anything in anything”.

https://youtu.be/ZmZft4fXhQQ?si=hWvKZ6DU28gJ1Wh4

Using PCR tests with a high amplication rate is guaranteed to produce high numbers of positive cases which led to the interpretation of ‘asymptomatic transmission’.

I’m not saying that is what happened. I’m merely asking, as an exercise in Critical Thinking, if a government could fake a pandemic.

I suspect it is technically possible and we must always be alert to that possibility.

A Citizen Tries to Engage an MP in Critical Thinking on the CAN Bill

A private members bill known as the ‘Climate and Nature’ Bill is currently wending its way through the British parliament. The objective of the Bill is to save the planet. To do so, the Bill outlines a series of open-ended, ill-defined measures that the government can co-opt in order to do whatever it (the govt) deems necessary to save the planet. I will post a summary of the Bill in my next post. However, for the purposes of this post, I am focusing on the Bill’s determination to drastically reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions and what this will mean for the UK’s ability to produce enough energy to support the economy.
My MP, Marie Goldman, who likes to think of herself as a ‘Good Person’ and wants others to see her as a ‘Good Person’, supports this Bill. As such, I had no choice but to contact her, by email, in an effort to prompt Goldman into some critical thinking.
Below, I document my email exchanges with Marie Goldman. There are 3 messages, so far: 2 from me with 1 response from MG.

First email from Atticus Fox to Marie Goldman on 11th Jan 2025:

‘Dear Ms Goldman,
Can you explain why you support the Climate and Nature Bill?
Can you include in your answer details on the effects you believe the Bill will have on British industry and construction? What effects do you think this Bill will have on British living standards?
What effects do you think this Bill will have on domestic energy consumption?
What effects do you think this Bill will have on food production and food import?
What effect do you think this Bill will have on Global temperatures?
Regards,
Xxxxxxxx’

Atticus: I dashed off the email above without much thought. I hadn’t even read the Bill at this stage. I expected that Goldman would respond with a pre-scripted boilerplate response so I didn’t want to invest a lot of time and effort.

First response from Marie Goldman to Atticus Fox on 17th Jan, 2025:

‘Dear Xxxxxxx,
Thank you for your kind email regarding the Climate and Nature Bill.
Climate change is an existential threat. Soaring temperatures leading to wildfires, floods, droughts and rising sea levels are affecting millions of people directly, and billions more through falling food production and rising prices. Urgent action is needed – in the UK and around the world – to achieve net zero and avert catastrophe.
At the same time, sky-high energy bills are hurting families and businesses, fuelling the cost-of-living crisis. Russia’s assault on Ukraine has reinforced the need to significantly reduce the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels and invest in renewables – both to cut energy bills and to deliver energy security.
I be (Sic) in attendance of the second reading [AF: 2nd reading of the Bill scheduled for 24th Jan] – it’s already in my diary. I look forward to encouraging its progress in Parliament.
Many thanks for your correspondence.
Kind regards,
Marie Goldman MP
Member of Parliament for Chelmsford’

Atticus: As expected, boilerplate. Not engaging with any of my questions. In the meantime, I had read an interesting analysis on Substack, by Richard Lyon, that laid out the relationship between a country’s energy use and its economy. I decided to respond to Goldman using the Lyon piece as a sub-structure.

My response to Goldman on 22nd Jan, 2025:

‘Dear Marie,
Thank you for your response.
By way of rejoinder, I would like to point out an economic truth: the debt-based economy of the UK is wholly dependent on growing the economy each year by an amount sufficient to generate enough tax receipts to keep funding the expanding commitments of the UK government. That economic growth is entirely driven by the UK’s energy production. Net Zero will result in government bankruptcy.
Let me explain.
The UK economy – any country’s economy – is a pyramid whereby energy and resources comprise the bottom layer of the pyramid that supports the rest of the economy.
Thus, there is a direct relationship between the quantity of energy and the size of the economy. For example, a low energy country cannot support a car industry (nor any other kind of industry for that matter). Nor could such a country build 1.5m homes in the next 4 years. Mud huts, maybe.
Hence why there are no rich ‘low energy’ countries. A ‘rich’ country that decimates its energy levels will become a poor country very quickly. And that economic shrinkage will not happen in a calm and tidy manner. We are talking about hyperinflation as the value of money becomes worthless because there is not enough energy to support the goods and services that make a country rich. (Lots of money tokens chasing far fewer good and services). Pensions would be wiped out.
People would freeze to death through not being able to heat their homes. (Cold weather kills 15 times more people than hot weather). Money would flee the country, ports and airports would shut due to lack of traffic, cars would disappear from the roads and even local travel would become difficult.
Starvation would ensue. Starvation is always a risk in a country that only produces half of the food that it needs. However, without the fertiliser derived from hydrocarbons, even less food would be produced in the UK. The CAN Bill indicates that the carbon emissions of imports will be included in calculations suggesting that food imports would drastically reduce (not that a country undergoing hyper-inflation would be able to afford imports).
There would be no power to run sewage treatment plants or hydrocarbon-based chemicals to clean the water.
(The irony is that wind turbines are made from hydrocarbons, further impacting on the ‘debit’ side of our carbon emissions ledger. The energy needed to make both turbines and solar panels can only come from fossil fuels. Wind power and solar energy does not have the energy density necessary to manufacture these items, hence the loss of industry referred to above – the energy produced by a windmill cannot build a windmill).
The CAN Bill is all about significantly reducing the amount of high density energy the UK produces in a short space of time. The only possible outcome of de-industrialising Britain is to take Britain’s economy back to pre-industrial levels. 200 years of progress in health and living standards would be undone in less than 20 under conditions of extreme social turmoil.
In this email I have only focused on the economic consequences of CAN as these consequences alone are more than enough to contest this Bill. As this email is already longer than intended I shall ignore the egregious assaults on property rights and personal autonomy that are also built into the Bill. The subject of a subsequent email, perhaps.
Net Zero will eventually collapse under the weight of its own monumental scientific and economic illiteracy. I beseech you to understand the consequences of this Bill before too much irreparable harm is done.
This email is my evidence that I tried to warn you. The CAN Bill will do more damage to the well-being of this country than Climate Change ever will.
If you have evidence that contradicts the narrative I have outlined above, I would welcome the opportunity to review it.
Best regards,
Xxxxxxxx’

Atticus: I will add Marie’s response in a future post.

6 Lessons On How To Argue With A Leftist

A note on terminology:

By ‘Leftist’ I mean the people from the Far Left who are apologists for migrant rape gangs and push for the destruction for Western culture at every opportunity.

By ‘Rightist’ I mean everyone else.

I’ve had hundreds of on-line ‘debates’ with Leftists over the years. As you will know, it is very hard to debate a Leftist because they debate in a very different way from Rightists.

We think that someone will change their minds when presented with facts and logic that counter their argument, but while this approach will work against a Rightist, it won’t work against a Leftist because Leftists do not use facts to build their political philosophy in the first place. A Leftist’s philosophy is entirely built on emotion and so facts have no power over them.

This was brought home to me a couple of years ago when I was having a face-to-face debate with a Leftist in a pub – probably not a good idea – and I stated something the Leftist shrugged off. In response to his shrug I pointed out that what I had just said was not just an opinion, it was a fact. To which the Leftist, in an unguarded – drunk! – moment responded ‘I don’t give a f*** about facts’.

It’s easy to think pub-talk cannot be taken seriously but his words were an eye-opening moment for me. Sometimes, rarely, a Leftist will tell the truth!

Leftists will always dismiss facts as being manipulated or biased or funded by bad actors. Or the facts are out of context. Or that other influencing factors have not been taken into account. A Leftist will always find a way to dismiss facts therefore leaving facts with no power.

Lesson #1: don’t employ facts against a Leftist as they don’t cut through the Leftist’s emotional motivations.

A Leftist will make their mind on a political issue based on which perspective will make them feel good about themselves and support their self-identification as a ‘good person’. This binary approach is a very simplistic way to approach complex issues. A Rightist would never think so simplistically because a Rightist knows that things are always more complicated than a Leftist would make out. However, for a Leftist, everything is either black or white and people are either good or Nazis.

A Rightist considers the Bigger Picture. In this way the Rightest is building up a deeper understanding of the issue in a way that considers a wider set of implications. By comparison, the Leftist’s binary consideration of an issue is very child-like.

This is Lesson #2: A Leftist has a very child-like understanding of political issues and this must be taken into account when debating with them.

As a result of seeing themselves as good people, Leftists see themselves as moral people. Whilst they see everyone else as motivated by greed or hate, only they are motivated by doing ‘what is right’. As a result, in any debate, the Leftist will immediately take up the moral high-ground. This is what makes Leftists virtually undefeatable in a debate. It’s hard to win the argument by pointing out cost/benefit ratios – or whatever other logic the Rightist is using to make his case – when the Leftist is appealing to the ‘morally right thing to do’. In order to gain parity, the Rightist also needs to present his case in moral terms. Proposing a moral alternative is the only way to introduce uncertainty on the side of the Leftist. If you’re not coming at this from a moral perspective, the Leftist will dismiss you out of hand as a bad person. However, if can can convince them that your approach to political philosophy is the same as theirs, they lose their power. They don’t know how to respond. Their usual weapons of ad hominens cannot be used against someone who is making a moral argument.

Lesson #3: find a way to present your position as a moral argument. This is like Kryptonite for Leftists. They find it hard to tear down a moral argument. This doesn’t mean that they will agree with you. No, their emotional position is deeply embedded but they will find it hard to argue with you.

The other thing about Leftists that can be used to your advantage is that they see themselves as anti -Establishment. It us truly bizarre that Leftists still think they are sticking it to ‘the man’ when they have adopted the Establishment position on every single issue of the day. Rightists are now the real anti- Establishmentists and this can be used to our advantage.

Lesson #4: Position your argument as being the anti-Establishment position. This renders Leftists useless because they will find it hard to argue with you without being seen as pro-Establishment (which they definitely will not want to be seen doing).

You have probably heard of the Logical Fallacy known as ‘Appeal to Authority’ whereby someone asserts that a claim is true simply because an authority figure or expert said it is true, without providing additional evidence or reasoning. Well, I have come up with a twist on this that scores points against Leftists. My version is the ‘Appeal to Minority’ whereby I direct the Leftist to a minority person that agrees with my position on the subject. As we know, Leftists find it very difficult to criticise minorities – only bigots do that. This means the argument is strengthened by the addition of the minority comment with very little downside.

Lesson #5: Use ‘Appeal to Minority’ to bolster your argument whilst enjoying watching the Leftist navigate the minefield you have just dropped in front of them.

NOTE: The minority person used cannot be anyone that breaches Lesson #6, below.

Finally, there is just one more lesson.

Lesson #6: Do not reference terms / people that are triggering to Leftists.

Even if you have followed the other 5 lessons you can still lose the debate if you use a ‘dog whistle’ term that Leftists associate with the ‘Far Right’. Examples of such references include Tommy Robinson; cultural differences where the difference is negative for a non-white culture; Trump (obviously); any Right wing media outlet; any Right wing politician; any Right wing journalist. I was even recently witness to a Leftist claiming a moral victory because somone in the debate had referenced ‘Elon Musk’. (They clutched their pearls and said they couldn’t believe they were in a debate where someone had referenced Musk! I kid you not!)

Some will say that following these 6 lessons means playing by ‘their’ rules. That it is an example of ceding ground to Leftists in the culture wars. I agree, it is, but you must remember Lesson #2: Leftists are child-like. They are not capable of sophisticated arguments. You wouldn’t debate a child in the same way as an adult. You would try to come down to their level in order for them to understand your point. It’s the same for Leftists. Plus, it makes it extra fun to beat them at their own game.

You will never change a Leftist’s mind, of course, but you can mute them to a large extent and you will gain moral victories

Although I drew these lessons only recently, I’ve already had much more success than previously. Just this week I had 4 Leftists going at me on the subject of cultural differences at play in Northern UK towns and none of them were able to get a bite out of me. (My moral argument was for the victims and, of course, I adopted a strong anti-establishment position). One by one, they all gave up. They knew they had lost. They kept impuning my motives but I stayed tight, keeping to these 6 lessons.

I hope these Lessons can be of use to others.

A Conversation With a Farmer

I recently had an opportunity to talk to a farmer of my acquaintance about her feelings for the future of farming in light of the UK government’s current overhaul.

She expressed concerns but also felt that changes were needed. Later that day she forwarded me an email that she had recently received from the Pathways project that provided lots of links to a recent food seminar that had recently taken place. The farmer added the following covering note:

‘I thought I’d share this newsletter, lots of organisations out there doing good and they use the phrase ‘farming evolution’ and that’s very much how I’d describe it. Just another part of the continual evolution of everything whether it be for good or bad… I can only influence/control/react how I can with the resources I have at that time…’

In response, I organised my own thoughts about the governments intentions for farming that gave a less optimistic perspective.

This was my response:

Hi Xxxxx,
Yes, a good talk. It was good to see that you, a farmer, are not overly pessimistic about the changes on the horizon.
Here are my thoughts on what is going on. This is the first time I have shared my thoughts on farming and the first person to read them will be an actual farmer so I am aware I am almost certainly teaching my grandmother to suck eggs! I expect to receive a lot of corrections but here goes:

My concern is that changes are being forced on the system of farming that will put many farmers out of business and lead to much less food production in Britain.
Farming is a complex system that has evolved to where it is now over hundreds of years. Now the government has decided to design a new farming system. That’s a red flag for a start – whenever the government thinks it can take a complex system and re-design it, it never works out well. And if the govt were merely trying to optimise the existing system for the benefit of farmers, that would still be something that the govt would likely mess up with bureaucracy and inflexibility.
However, the govt is not tweaking the existing system for the benefit of farmers. Instead the govt is attempting something much more ambitious than that: they are attempting to implement a brand new system based on a new ideology – controlling the Earth’s climate – for the benefit of society at large.
In this new system, food production is not placed first and foremost, political ideology is.
Trying to optimise farming around a new model with different financial incentives whilst adhering to low carbon ideology is a root and branch overhaul of a complex system. There are too many moving parts and the govt is guaranteed to mess it up on an epic scale. And farmers will almost certainly come off worse because none of this is being done for their benefit, nor is it being done in consultation with farmers. As far as I can tell, it’s all being worked out by technocrats.
Take your email from the Pathways Project, for example: not a farmer in sight, that I could see. My take is that these are technocrats wanting to put their theories into practise. What could possibly go wrong?! Were any farmers in attendance at the Action Task Force seminar? Did any farmers present their persoective to the assembled experts? The whole redesign does not appear to be collaborative, it seems like a top-down implementation. So I can understand why farmers are suspicious of what is going on.

I notice the repeated references to the importance of ‘sustainability’ in the email. I don’t see any references to the importance of producing enough food! Not a good sign. In my experience, ‘sustainability’ is a codeword for ‘restrictions’.
Once it is messed up and farmers are forced out of business, those farmers will be lost forever. I think this has the possibility of being a catastrophic blow for farming whose impact will be felt for years to come. And the rest of society will not reap any benefits anyway (unless you think that the UK govt can control the planet’s weather. That’s a whole contentious subject right there). Instead, the odds are that food will be more expensive and many farmers will have been pushed out of the business.

A cynic could suggest that this is part of a deliberate plan to force small farmers out of business in place of more corporate farming. As in other sectors of the economy, more regulation will be introduced which big firms can absorb more easily than small firms.
There’s also a suspicion that the govt is using this opportunity to incentivise us to change our eating habits. For example, eating less meat (about which there are endless articles in the mainstream media). So, again, we have additional indications that the new system is not about food production, it’s about ideology.
I hope I’m wrong but the portents are not good.
I would value your feedback. Am I totally off-track? I have no inside knowledge, all of the above is based on articles I have read together with extrapolating the direction of travel. Some of it is educated guesswork but the message is that we need to be vigilent to ensure that our food security isn’t jeopardised.

I value what you and Xxxxxxx are doing. Long may you continue!

Regards,
Atticus Fox

In response, the farmer sent this reply:

Good to chat this morning. It’s certainly a minefield out there, I try and bring it back to simplicity whenever I can and delve more when I have the headspace/energy/interest. Currently, I think I need a break from it!!

I thought I’d share this newsletter, lots of organisations out there doing good and they use the phrase ‘farming evolution’ and that’s very much how I’d describe it. Just another part of the continual evolution of everything whether it be for good or bad… I can only influence/control/react how I can with the resources I have at that time.

Enjoy the sun today, see you soon.
Xxxxx

This is email that the farmer had forwarded to me. I have not included working links but I am sure you could find them online using the information included:

Begin forwarded message:

Agriculture Policy in a Changing World | Spring 2024
On March 7, the For Sustainable Food Forum convened with over 70 in attendance, serving as a pivotal platform for discussing sustainable practices within the European livestock sector.

The forum aimed to tackle environmental impacts while addressing the growing societal demand for safe, nutritious, and affordable meat and dairy products.

Recognising the urgency for change in both the industry and broader society, PATHWAYS presented innovative strategies throughout the day to pave the way for a sustainable future in European agriculture. Participants highlighted comprehensive recommendations such as Performance-Based Payments (PBP) within the Collective Agricultural Policy (CAP), an emission reduction mechanism, and the diversification of protein sources to align with climate goals and nutritional needs.

The event was a resounding success thanks to all attendees, both in-person and online!

For further details and highlights, visit our website, and check out the photo album here.

Project Updates

Towards Climate Smart Livestock Systems

In recognising the multifaceted role of livestock systems in Africa, efforts must prioritise livelihoods, adopt a systems approach, and address climate change impacts, while considering disparities in distribution and proposing sustainable solution for both industrial and agrarian food systems. Read more here.

Sustainable livestock systems: What does this mean?

Sustainability within the European livestock sector presents a multifaceted challenge, requiring tailored solutions, innovative practices at the farm level, and meaningful engagement of young farmers to steer the course of agricultural evolution. Read more here.

Trade-Offs for the Future of Livestock Husbandry

In view of making livestock husbandry more sustainable, Catherine Pfeifer explains the need of evaluating trade-offs between efficiency, environmental footprint, and animal welfare. Watch here.

A Holistic Approach for Sustainable Food Systems

Pietro Goglio from the University of Perugia, Italy, explores the holistic approach employed in the PATWAYS project, the importance of agronomy in addressing livestock-crop interactions and how PATHWAYS is employing principles of circularity for enhanced sustainability in livestock systems. Watch here.
Policy Recommendations

Following the event’s thorough discussions, this policy brief summarises the main points reached during the forum storyline sessions regarding the real PATHWAYS – the possible futures for agriculture in Europe. Read more here via LinkedIn.
Upcoming Events

5th Global Food Security Conference
April 9 – 12
Leuven, Belgium

S-LCA 2024
May 28 – 31
Curitiba, Brazil

The 75th EAAP Annual Meeting
September 1 – 5
Florence, Italy

LCA Food 2024
September 8 – 12
Barcelona, Spain
Learn more
Related projects

The farmer responded as follows:

You’re certainly informed, it’s great that you are so aware to it all.

You’re right the mainstream media has an awful lot to answer for, and not just when it comes to food, it’s so hard to avoid all the additional influence we are subject to. The food system is incredibly delicate and complex, the more I understand of it the more I can see how it’s got to where it has.

Farmers may not be the ones setting new policies but they are called upon to consult and I do feel it’s collaborative but maybe not equally favourable to all those involved. However, your concerns are very real and farmers are most certainly not the priority of governments but I don’t think they can be with so many factors involved in the food system.

I think you’re right, ’sustainability’ does mean ‘restrictions’ but I see that as a positive thing. For example, food seasonality and understanding that strawberries shouldn’t be on the shelves the entire year. Only having them available when they’re in season would be a ‘restriction’ but ultimately more ’sustainable’. That’s a very top level example but that’s how I see it being driven, producers have to deliver what customers want but also on their own terms based upon their values and what they believe, as producers, to be sustainable. That for me personally is less about conforming to the ideology of changing the earth’s climate but more about us, as humans, generally consuming less.

I think policies are always generalised and quite overwhelming because of that. They will always be open to interpretation and managed as per each farm sees fit. As for farms being lost, yes there is that danger and it is a real possibility but, this isn’t a new thing. Smaller farms who haven’t adapted have had to sell up but often to larger farming businesses, all still independent, farms that have been in families for generations are given new leases of life with fresh sets of eyes.

It’s bloody complicated and there is only so much I/we can do, ultimately it’s up to farmers and consumers to educate themselves. It’s certainly a time full of change for the agricultural industry, I just hope farmers aren’t burying their heads in the sand and can adapt with the changes to come. Only time will tell .