Five years ago Boris was a climate change denier*, a year ago he didn’t understand it**; in a month he’s hosting a summit on it. Be afraid***.

I couldn’t bear to have a picture of Boris Johnson on this blog, so here’s a photo of his nemesis, the great-crested newt, apparently “a massive drag on the prosperity of this country”.

Johnson’s recent climate change rhetoric indicates he’s actually learnt a thing or two in the last five years, but unfortunately he’s still an utter moron. And rhetoric is still rhetoric. In fact, it’s complete bollocks.

Whilst Johnson talks his bollocks all I see around me is trees being cut down, housing estates destroying fields, new roads being created,, more cars on the roads, bins over-flowing with plastic crap and a thousand other things big and small all contributing to the erosion of nature and biodiversity and contributing to climate change.

A new coal mine in Cumbria is still planned; exploration of new oil and gas reserves is going ahead; overseas aid has been slashed; the government’s green homes grant has been scrapped; hydrogen energy is being promoted even though it’s made from fossil methane; Johnson’s ‘build build build’ project is in full swing, with huge housing estates destroying fields and countryside to solve the mythical ‘housing crisis’; new roads are being built, destroying countryside; HS2 is still going ahead – aside from the environmental destruction, the project is apparently “worse value for money than improving existing rail network” (the cost of HS2 has risen to over £110bn, yet – say – providing everyone in the UK with free bus travel for a year would cost £3bn, and be far more beneficial).

And here lies the crux of things: with the environment, the biggest differences can be the cheapest and simplest (giving coaches a motorway lane and moving coach stations out of cities to motorway junctions or turning golf courses – an obscene sport for an elite few taking up too much land – into parks) but these don’t benefit the construction business (I would say, generally, the construction industry and the environment are not the best of friends – pouring tons of concrete over nature is probably not going to benefit it), the most corrupt industry in the world, apparently controlled in New York and Italy by the Mafia (who have terrible taste in architecture), and in more general terms as kickbacks for politicians. Words like improving, converting, adjusting, reusing, recycling – which require little destruction, building and concrete – and which don’t make money have little interest for people like Johnson.

It baffles me why politicians are even allowed to have any say in the environment. Politicians presumably go into politics for narcissistic reasons, I wouldn’t expect them to have any shred of humanity or care for the planet (unless it affects business and industry). I care more for the life of a single great-crested newt than Boris Johnson.

We’ve all had to endure draconian Covid laws, a tiny blip compared to climate change, so why aren’t governments enforcing us to use less of – if not banning – say, cars, meat, dairy, single-use plastic and herbicides (which would all be a good start)? Well, mainly because it wouldn’t make them money. Banning isn’t producing. And industry must go on.

There’s a sense, especially since lockdowns, of desperately wanting to return to normal (obvs not me). Despite – or because of – climate change, Covid, Brexit, and now a shortage of lorry drivers and an energy crisis, with queues of cars for miles around petrol stations, still there’s this desire for normality – for cars and lorries to choke up the roads, for planes to foreign holidays – when everything from climate change and air pollution to mental health and well-being is screaming out for us to stop.

Peaceful protesting – a democratic right – is under fire. A blind Paralympian has just been jailed for a year for glueing himself to an airplane in 2019 as part of the Extinction Rebellion protests. The verdict sent out a stern warning as Judge Gregory Perrins (who in April unsuccessfully tried to convince a jury to convict six members of Extinction Rebellion for causing criminal damage on the Shell Headquarters in London; they were all acquitted) said protesters “will face serious consequences”.

Similarly, peaceful protesters from Insulate Britain occupying roads around Dover now find themselves in contempt of court as the government swiftly introduced a new law last week.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps is urging motorists to “carry on as normal” and said, “it is unacceptable that people cannot go about their day-to-day businesses”. Hold on – isn’t ‘normal’ and ‘day-to-day businesses’ what got us into the climate crisis in the first place? Haven’t we realised that the ‘normal’ of the last hundred years is completely wrong? Amazingly, politicians have labelled the peaceful protesters '‘selfish’ instead of the motorists who fuel climate change and cause air pollution by driving their cars.

Even aside from the environmental damage, that ‘normal’ of commuting to shit jobs, traffic jams, crap TV, nightmare holidays with the family, soulless weekends spent consuming, is that really what we all want? Isn’t it all – like capitalism itself – an unsustainable, deeply unsatisfying illusion anyway?

Obviously I can’t blame that on Johnson; people’s selfish hunger for cars, holidays and material goods seems inexhaustible but it’s inexcusable, yet he’s what the people voted for. And now the future of the planet, bizarrely, hinges on a summit in a country the Natural History Museum says has ‘led the world in destroying the natural environment’ with the lowest biodiversity in Europe, hosted by a clueless, uncaring, lying, narcissistic, bumbling muppet.

Previously on Barnflakes
Turning car parks into parks
G7: all sett to destroy Carbis Bay
Letters of complaint
Notes on Extinciton Rebellion
The world’s top ten biggest environmental problems (and how to solve them)
Notes on dog poop bags
Don’t blame us
Aspire to be average
In 100 years everyone in the world will be dead
Busy bein’ busy
Blight of the plastic bag
Water as it Oughta

Coming soon to Barnflakes
A ten year plan to save the planet

*See his articles in the Daily Telegraph at least up to 2015.

**“He doesn’t really get it”, Claire O’Neill, sacked head of the COP 26 global climate change conference, 2020.

***Be Very Afraid.