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The British countryside vs Net Zero - Was Undecided Now Decided (17th Feb 2025 - 09:57:21) Over the weekend I was on a regular long-distance journey but was finally able to do it in good weather. But what I was seeing upset me. Whole swathes of the beautiful, green British countryside replaced with literally miles of commercial solar panels. Past Ropley, an entire hill-side is being ripped out at the moment, all greenery removed and hard-core and concrete bases being installed for more solar panels. Whatever wildlife, grass or trees that were there are completely gone. On the A34, again acre after acre of glass panels, construction works. A landscape of glass, metal and concrete. Further into Wales - row after row of (unmoving) wind turbines - ironically placed in natural wildlife habitats. No-one talks about the future cost of 'solar trash' which is that the entire industry is unprepared for the deluge of hazardous waste that is to come when solar farms reach the end of their useful lives. And yet our current overlords and our Net Zero Zealot Miliband turn their nose at nuclear, which due to modern tech offers clean energy, energy security and significantly less impact on the countryside.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - Sam (17th Feb 2025 - 17:40:34) Couldn’t agree more, utterly disgusting that a field could be used to capture free energy from the sun, I’d much rather we dig that field up in the hunt for something we can burn to generate electricity

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - John Jonson (18th Feb 2025 - 08:11:39) Environmentalism behaves like any new religion in-vogue. Mushrooming in popularity and fast ever-expanding reach / encroachment. They go extreme, they compete in virtue signalling one-upmanship and grand-standing on the local / global stage. Over-zealous thinking ignores counter-productive harmful outcomes. They actively suppress discussions that point out likely issues with their compulsive missions. A good mixture of energy sources is the way forward. Solar panels and wind turbines are good in the right place and done properly. Solar panels over green land increases heat emission (ads to global warming), increases flood risk and depletes groundwater available for both nature and humans. Too many wind turbines will adversely affect flying animals and will ultimately change wind trends - hence will change the weather thus the global climate. Historically humans refused to believe that their initial local energy / industrial works could ever affect the global environment. Their spectacles were rose-tinted with local, short-term profit. Now we SHOULD know better. What hope has our countryside with a government that is: Environmentalist over zealous, hates the farmers and hates rural British communities, and welcomes in uncontrolled immigration?

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - John Jonson (18th Feb 2025 - 08:27:30) We can generously hope that our environmentalists vision and intentions are well meaning. They could easily be driven by corrupt industry links and a search for political power. The end result is a mislead direction of vanity projects adversely affecting the environment.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - Charlie (18th Feb 2025 - 13:36:56) Could not agree more with these posts. Well said all of you. Human beings as a race are shortsighted, selfish, greedy, uncaring and in many ways just cruel. Look how many animals only have one predator and that is the human race.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - John Jonson (18th Feb 2025 - 14:15:28) Humans are a species, not a race. There are no species who "care" for the wellbeing and good fortune for other species. The exceptions are symbionts, who benefit THEMSELVES by promoting/protecting a fellow species. Vested narrow interest. So it's each to their own, with all species. Humans can be uncaring to individuals/groups within their own fellow species, as occurs within many other species. All species are "trying" to persist and prevail. Humanity is feeling for its way onward in ignorance how to persist and prevail, altering the environment as they do so. Coming back to the subject thread: It's only "natural" for humans to be altering the planet.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - Was Undecided Now Decided (18th Feb 2025 - 15:29:12) It's always good to 'follow the money' to understand who really benefits from schemes such as covering our countryside in future 'solar trash'. Even a little research starts to uncover the amount of money hedge fund investors are putting into buying British farmland and countryside to turn into solar farms. BlackRock have an initial fund of £100m invested - and are buying up British farms at scale to convert into future solar trash. The EQT Network - of which BlackRock is a major shareholder - front up many of the solar farms through their InstaVolt brand. Then we have Ecotricity, with their direct link through multi-millionaire activist Vince who funds JSO and Labour. Net Zero is a massive, global 'get rich quick' scheme for the liberal elites, make no bones about it. And the beauty of the scheme is that they have convinced individual consumers that they, and they alone, are responsible for global warming and must be taxed more. Our countryside is already ruined for a generation, when other proven and more green technologies exist.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - Charlie (18th Feb 2025 - 17:39:20) John Johnson Yes I agree in the Animal Kingdom it is “survival of the fittest” and animals can and do have symbiotic relationships. What animals in the wild do not do is kill for pleasure and sport as humans do. They kill to protect themselves, their territory and their young . Wild animals do not destroy the planet for gain. I am sure it will be pointed out that elephants and some other animals in the wild do create a certain amount of destruction with regard to their feeding habits etc but the planet has survived this for thousands of years and somehow the planet has repaired itself. Any damage animals have caused is nowhere near the destruction that humans have done particularly what has been done in the last 200 years.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - er (18th Feb 2025 - 18:26:50) The danger is that when a movement (any movement) operates under an absolute belief in its own infallibility and supreme righteousness, so to question it is heresy, soon it moves from good intentions into high handedness and oppression against anything and anyone that stands in it's way. The environmental movement doesn't hate countryside per se, it just sees it as expendable (as everything else is) to achieve it's primary objective of saving us from ourselves, with as little red tape as possible to hinder it's plans, we must be forced if necessary to accept their enlightened vision for our salvation and what's more, to show our gratitude. The alternative is to suffer the angry wrath of the Sun, as the Ancient Egyptians knew only too well, to upset Ra is to invite disaster! Amen:)

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - John Jonson (19th Feb 2025 - 16:57:52) - er (18th Feb 2025 - 18:26:50) Your first paragraph is spot-on! - Charlie (18th Feb 2025 - 17:39:20) What may seem as pointless "pleasure" for one is an essential way of living for another. What may seem as excessive "gain" for one would be essential living for another. Let's be less judgmental even when we're criticising our own species, or at least be as judgemental as you are with other species. We increasingly learn of top predator species who sometimes kill for play/training or wasteful/conspicuous consumption. One's play is another's sport. The lines are blurred. Little point trying to portray humans as pure evil and all other species are pure goodies. "Damage" to the planet depends on the point of view. Increasingly many species are classified as 'ecosystem engineering' species. They also modify the environment to better suit their own interests regardless of other affected species. One's "damage" is another's "modification". This planet never has, and never will have static, unchangeable environments. Wholesale total reshuffle of species composition, species dominance is the way of Earth's ecology through time. Humans are a product of and part of nature. Everything they do is thus natural. They ARE changing the world just as many other factors have done. There will always be winners and losers, and they will always change-over. Back to the subject: Our countryside is being destroyed by the environmentalism movement. It's ironic, foolish and the wrong way forward.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - M (19th Feb 2025 - 19:47:26) WOW...is it me or is this all getting exceedingly high brow and informative! Who knew we had such educated and enlightened posters on little old Liphook Talkback.....or has ChatGPT and Google AI been a bit over worked today?

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - Charlie (20th Feb 2025 - 11:17:08) John Jonson Please elaborate and give some examples to justify your statement “What may seem as pointless "pleasure" for one is an essential way of living for another. What may seem as excessive "gain" for one would be essential living for another.” I disagree with most of your post for obvious reasons so I won’t reply line by line. Rather I think we should agree to disagree. I would like to say however that no animal, to my knowledge, living in the wild (not domestic animals as in the case of methane produced by cows) has contributed to global warming which is by far the biggest threat to our planet and has been and still is being caused by human activity.

Re: The British countryside vs Net Zero - John Jonson (20th Feb 2025 - 16:41:14) Charlie, it will be my total pleasure to agree to disagree with you. To your questions. There are still existing humans who totally depend on hunting for mere survival, others depend on hunting for indispensable living needs, yet others will have other levels of depending on hunting. Dipping in & out. Some will appear to the uninitiated onlooker to be hunting just for fun. Thanks for mentioning cows just incidentally in-passing. There are living human tribes totally dependent on cows to be used for all manner products. Learn to accept the Other, accept human diversity, accept others have some right to their way of life. I bet the ignorant environmentalists assume all cows are a Western evil. Accept Environmentalism has no higher moral ground over various (often traditional) human ways of life. Environmentalists have cooked some science to claim cows are the work of the devil. Let's entertain their shouty-shouty claims for the sake of argument: Evil human ingenuity has eventually created cows who will alter the Earth via the greenhouse effect contribution. It's well known that the first photosynthetic successful creatures have drastically altered our environment, caused the total reshuffling of species. That Great Oxidation Event is non human - is it also evil? Many successive stages in life's history were a progression through periods of drastic modifications, wipe-outs, domination, outcompeting etc. Some creatures become successful in their ways at the expense of others. Disallowing humans to progress on their turn of modifying the environment is un-natural and may thus be described as 'evil'. Who do the Greta people think they are to be dictating and preaching about "correct" balance? Throughout life Change and upheaval were the constant.

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