Julie Burchill, in a piece for Spiked, takes aim at the increasingly bizarre environmental initiatives in the U.K. and Ireland. From proposed mass culls of cattle to rewilding efforts, Burchill argues these measures jeopardise economic stability and the livelihoods of farmers and pet owners. Here’s an excerpt:

One of the more disappointing developments in British politics over the past two decades – apart from the strange desire of most parties to pander to the tiny transvestite vote, never seen as vital in the past – has been the decline of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, after the death of its founder, Screaming Lord Sutch, in 1999. Still, with the Greens behaving in an increasingly unhinged manner, maybe they might merge? Green is such a lovely colour – not a bit descriptive of a party which seems, like the nature it worships, increasingly red in tooth and claw. The late lord’s party’s handle seems far more appropriate.

The latest eco-insanity comes from Ireland, where the Government has proposed a mass cull of cattle in order to meet its Net Zero targets. Ireland has often held somewhat eccentric views in recent times, such as that unmarried mothers should be treated as dangerous criminals and set to work in forced labour camps. Brendan O’Neill has written of Ireland’s eagerness to jump from one bad religion to another, from Catholicism to transgenderism, both of which are linked by magical thinking and the belief in transubstantiation. And it seems Ireland has embraced the modern green religion, too.

The Irish Department of Agriculture has suggested spending around €600million on killing 200,000 dairy cattle. This is to punish them for being flatulent and thus accounting for more than half of Ireland’s greenhouse-gas emissions. Considering that Ireland is an agrarian society, this doesn’t seem a very clever move. Its dairy industry makes more than €13 billion a year. As a baffled farmer complained to national broadcaster RTÉ News: “We’re being made out as if we’re killing the planet.” They’ll come for the beef cattle next, no doubt, meaning that cheap beef from Brazil will be flying across the world, when once could have been sent a few miles down the road in a lorry.

Read More