"This is life under Net Zero"

"Greens have been dreaming about jailing ‘climate criminals’ for a very long time. Climate-change deniers in particular will ‘one day have to answer for their crimes’, said eco-author Mark Lynas a few years back. Well, Gaia’s authoritarian army might finally be getting its way....
    "'The Telegraph' is reporting that [UK] property owners who fail to adhere to ‘energy-performance regulations’ could ‘face prison’ under the government’s crazy plans. There is concern that homeowners, landlords and business bosses could be whacked with fines of up to £15,000 or a year behind bars if they fall foul of regulations on energy consumption....
    "We can now see the iron fist in the green glove. There’s been a creeping criminalisation of eco-disobedient behaviour for some time now. In the UK, we’ve had ‘rubbish police’ looking through people’s bags of trash and slapping them with a £100 fine if they are not properly recycling plastic and paper. Under Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes, officious local councils erect eyesore bollards to stop people from driving on certain roads, and fine them if they fail to comply....
    "These fines on the eco-wayward are a kind of green penance; economic punishment for one’s failure to adhere to the ideology of Net Zero. Things that were once seen as a normal, essential part of everyday life – throwing out the trash, dropping the kids at school – have become punishable activities thanks to Net Zero’s redefinition of human activity as ‘dirty’, polluting, bad. It is entirely logical that other everyday activities – heating your home, say, or keeping the lights on – might also become fineable offences in the future.... This is life under Net Zero, then.
    "Net Zero is an authoritarian assault on our liberty and our living standards. At root, [it] is an act of wilful self-impoverishment by a West that has lost faith in modernity. It is the formalisation of our elites’ slow but sure turn against the ideals of industry, growth and just comfort."

~ Brendan O'Neill, from his column 'The iron fist in the green glove'