Deindustrialization Confession

I've come across an article, thanks to my friend and fellow researcher Heidi King, which is a review of an episode of the BBC TV series The Human Universe. This is presented by... of course!... Prof. Brian Cox. It's currently available on BBCi Player: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hr6bk/horizon-20082009-10-star-on-earth. I've not seen the episode yet, but was interested to read what the critic said; this is Dave Darby writing for the environmental website LowImpact.org. It takes the form of an open letter to Prof. Cox. It is extremely revealing about the environmental movement. The author wishes to comment on two points Cox made, about democracy and nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is a subject I've covered before and it is an experimental method of energy generation through fusing hydrogen nuclei, as opposed to nuclear fission which is the splitting of uranium nuclei. Fusion is said to have advantages over fission because it is cleaner and safer, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/return-to-culham.html. Dave Darby quite rightly points out Cox' rather naive pronouncements on democracy and explains that the real power lies with a superclass; as regular HPANWO readers know, that's what I'm always saying too. However the really remarkable bit in when Darby goes on to give his views on nuclear fusion. Like many greens, with a lowercase G and a capital one, he laments about the length of time it's taking to develop the process. Cox has pointed out that fusion "works!" yet the enormous engineering challenges have made many feel doubtful because of the extremely long delay for it. The scale and urgency of the Earth's energy problems, whether real or perceived, mean that fusion is seen as effectively useless. This is an argument I'm familiar with; however the next thing Darby says is almost without precedent. He claims that the advent of useable and widespread nuclear fusion power could threaten democracy and degrade the environment. That's a new one on me. See: http://www.lowimpact.org/why-brian-cox-is-wrong-about-nuclear-fusion/.

Dave Darby says that by introducing nuclear fusion into the world as it is, humanity will suddenly have access to far more energy than ever before and this will generate massive economic growth, which will mean more human activity like road-building, holiday resorts, cars, mines, second homes and factories etc. This will cause even more displacement of nature than that which it currently suffers. This is completely at odds with a most of the current environmentalist rhetoric which focuses almost exclusively on the problem of Carbon™ emissions and climate change. If we can get those licked, so they say, we home and dry, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/2015-and-climate-change.html. The only other ecologist I've heard utter the same position as Darby is Erik Pianka, the great depopulator. He is so misanthropic that he calls Homo sapiens "Homo saps!" and thinks that we shouldn't have nuclear fusion because we'd just use it to level mountains, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/erik-pianka-and-overpopulation.html. Darby says that nuclear fusion would only be safe in the hands of a "steady state" economy, one based on zero growth; this would be an economy managed to stay "within nature’s limits". He says: "The introduction of fusion into an economy whose only purpose seems to be to increase in size could be a very different, and dangerous matter." Darby then goes on to talk about some other issues that I agree with him on, like fusion energy being taken over by a few mega corporations, as if that isn't already the case with fossil fuels. He's also an opponent of GMO's in an age where major environmental spokesmen are being foolishly seduced by the idea, like Mark Lynas, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/rothamsted-update.html. He also attempts to dampen Prof. Cox' ardour for space exploration, not least because rockets are very environmentally unfriendly. However he also feels we need to get our own house in order first before heading out to mess up other planets. What amazes me about Dave Darby's letter to Cox is that fact that he is effectively confessing something that few ecologists do, an open call for global deindustrialization. This means a reversal of the industrial revolution and a return to agrarian society, small scale production, generating electricity locally and organizing politically on a small scale. To be fair, I'm drawn to some aspects of that model; however it is a theory with a dark and light side. The end of the New World Order and the dawn of the post-Illuminati era will inevitably mean a slowdown and eventual halt of many mass centralized industries, simply because they're caused by pathological consumerism. This process will happen naturally; the same goes for decentralizing power. However a very superficially similar model is also proposed by the supporters of that very New World Order; a perverted and warped version of it in which a greatly reduced human population exists under the complete control of a global tyranny with a planned resource-based economy. This is actually a very extreme form of communism. The removal of unnatural and malevolent government in itself will be enough to prevent the nightmare Darby fears. Humans are social creatures and we will regulate our own activity naturally, if left to our own devices. Therefore I warn Dave Darby not to become harnessed to the various movements which use people's fear of ecological destruction to fool them into taking part in a scheme for a globalist dictatorship, the Club of Rome, Agenda 21 etc. As for Prof. Brian Cox, he will allow himself to be used for whatever propaganda the producers of his TV shows want, see here for more details: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/prof-brian-cox-watch-this-space.html. This issue has got me thinking. I've talked a lot before about a plan to suppress free energy; is it possible that some people behind that conspiracy are environmentalists like Dave Darby? Sure I know nuclear fusion is not technically free energy, but it is very similar in that it will greatly increase energy output with none of the costs and practical concerns of the fossil fuel infrastructure. Their fears of free energy could be similar to Darby's fears of a world run on nuclear fusion. See here for more details: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/ben-emlyn-jones-live-at-bufog.html.