Save
the planet, eat a vegan
"Cows eat grass and silage. This is melting the ice caps and killing us
all. So they need a new foodstuff: something that is rich in iron, calcium
and natural goodness. Plainly they can’t eat meat so here’s an idea to chew
on. Why don’t we feed them vegetarians?"
Lets
build a giant hosepipe into space!
"The fact is this. Global warming’s coming, so you can don your King
Canute hat and stand on the beach waving your Toyota Prius at the advancing
heatwave, but it won’t make a ha’p’orth of difference. But don’t worry,
because I have a plan. The biggest threat we face, according to the British
Broadcasting Corporation, is rising sea levels. Plainly, then, there is too
much water in the world, so why don’t we just call Nasa and ask it to take
some of it into space? Space is only 75 miles from the surface of the Earth,
so why not make a giant hosepipe, dip one end in the sea and take the other
end out into the void, where, of course, there is a vacuum. That means the
water will be sucked up the pipe without the need for any energy-absorbing
pumps."
A
Labour MP calls for my execution
"Last week the environmental protest about my way of life took an
altogether more sinister turn when a Labour MP called Colin Challen made a
speech in which he said he wanted me to be killed. No more pies. No more
early days motions. Executed. Maybe he was joking, maybe he wasn’t."
The
planet will sort itself out
"Ecologically speaking, a spilt tanker load is like sticking a safety pin
into an elephant’s foot. The planet barely notices. After the Exxon Valdez
accident in Alaska the oil company spent billions tidying up the coastline,
but it was a waste of money because the waves were cleaning up faster than
Exxon could. Environmentalists can never accept the planet’s ability to
self-heal"
Save
rural Britain by selling it to the rich
"For the past 19 years the European Union has been paying farmers large lumps
of our money to grow nothing at all. It’s called the set-aside policy and
I’ve always hated its communist overtones. I should have been delighted when
I heard that this autumn it’s expected to be abolished. But I’m not. I’m
filled with an awful sense that something truly terrible is about to
happen."
My
fast, powerful car lets me see more of my children
"I derive no pleasure at all from doing 180mph — if I’m honest, it’s a
little bit frightening — but I derive a huge amount of pleasure from
covering 180 miles in an hour. It means I get wherever I’m going more
quickly. And that means I have more time to do stuff that is worthwhile.
This is what the socialists and the environmentalists just can’t get into
their thick heads. Their lives may be empty and friendless, but some of us
don’t have the time to dawdle. If I leave London after work in a ponderous
and hopeless diesel car, then I do not have sufficient power to overtake
slower-moving traffic on the run from Oxford to Chipping Norton. This means
I get home after the children have gone to bed, which means they don’t see
me. And that in turn means they’ll grow up to be glue sniffers or Liberal
Democrats."
Why
electric cars are a con
"You may save the planet with this car. But you could well lose a leg in
the process. You will certainly lose all your friends because to justify
your significant £7,000 purchase you will need to explain, loudly and often,
that it uses no fuel, that you simply charge it up at night – using power
from a power station."
Drip-drip-drip
of a revolution
"Chelsea Tractors are reviled because these are symbols of middle-class
success. You have to remember that trade unionists and antinuclear
campaigners didn’t go away. They just morphed into eco-mentalists because
they realised that global warming was a better weapon than striking, or
doing lesbionics for mother Russia in Berkshire."
My
kingdom for a speedboat
"I spent some of my holiday in Canada this summer, and it was like lying
in a nest of cotton wool, being hypnotised by a tin of treacle. I liked to
swim in the morning, when the mist was rising, and in the afternoon I’d go
kayaking for hours round all the islands and through the forests,
soundlessly, apart from the paddles making eddies in the water. And the
occasional satisfying crack as the beavers gnawed their way through another
pine. At night I’d lie in bed listening to the loons, those beautiful diving
birds, and the gentle slop of the calm waters lapping against the untouched
shoreline. And I couldn’t help thinking: what I need to make this the best
place on earth is a speedboat . . ."
Is
there light on Mars?
"There is, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, now so
much light pollution in Britain that, you’d be hard-pressed to spot a Nazi
searchlight. The mongers of doom even go so far as to single out Oxfordshire
as a particularly unpleasant white spot, saying that there is not a single
part of the county that gives a “zero” light reading. Really? How come then
that as Mars came to within six thousand trillion miles, it was providing
enough light in Chipping Norton to read by?"
The
polar bear is a big, dirty, savage brute - long live extinction
"We’re told that because of the Range Rover all the ice at the North Pole
is melting and that as a result the polar bear has nowhere to live. Contrary
to what you may have been led to believe by Steiff’s cute and squishy cuddly
toys, the polar bear is a big savage brute; the colour of nicotine, with a
mean ugly pointy face and claws that, were they to be found in Nottingham on
a Saturday night, would be confiscated as offensive weapons."
My
cure for the common cold
"If we can push the winter so far back that by the time it comes along
we’re already into the spring, all should be well. To cure the common cold
we simply need to get rid of its breeding season. This means producing as
much carbon dioxide as possible. Yup. The cure for the common cold may well
turn out to be the Range Rover"
Doing
my own bit for the environment
"Does anyone really imagine for a moment that my wife gives two stuffs
about global warming? She certainly didn’t appear to be all that bothered on
Thursday evening when, during the great carbon-saving switch-off, I ran
round the house furiously turning on every light, hair dryer, dishwasher and
toaster."
The
greens under the bed
"Recently, Boris Johnson jokingly wondered what had happened to all those
Trots and Bolsheviks from the 1970s. Boris, my dear chap, they never went
away. And now there are many more of them, living among us, posing as
normal, respectable members of the human race. It’s just that they’re not
called Trots and Bolsheviks any more. They’re called environmentalists and
health and safety officers. Think about it. A single health and safety man
can inflict more damage on business and industry than an army of Red
Robboes. And the goals of an environmentalist far exceed the aspirations of
even the most hardbitten 1970s communist."
On
second thoughts... the end is nigh!
"I am also fearful that unless we stop thinking of ways to prevent global
warming, and start to address the problems it will cause when it gets here,
our children are going to finish their days in an overcrowded, superheated
vision of hell. Where they can’t even get a cold drink, because all the
corner shopkeepers have been made to go and live in Pakistan."
