Matt Ridley’s latest article in The Daily Telegraph is a welcome offering from a publication that usually serves little purpose beyond lining budgie cages. Though I wouldn’t dream of dirtying myself by paying for a copy, this one article deserves attention for its critique of the British Government’s green energy madness.

Ridley systematically dismantles the false promises of the net zero agenda, exposing it as a policy framework that sacrifices economic stability and individual welfare on the altar of green ideology. He points out the flaws in renewable energy—its unreliability and exorbitant costs. Wind turbines and solar panels are not the solutions they are marketed as; they are intermittent and resource-intensive, requiring great tracts of land and materials extracted through destructive processes. Far from saving the planet, they enrich a select few while loading everyone else with unpayable energy bills and declining living standards.

More damningly, Ridley points out that Britain’s contribution to global emissions is negligible—less than one per cent of the total. This makes the country’s masochistic drive not only futile but laughable. While Britain cripples its industrial base and impoverishes its citizens, major polluters like China and India continue their rapid growth, unbothered by the sermons preached from Westminster.

However, the scandal runs deeper than simple incompetence. The real beneficiaries of the net zero agenda are not the environment or the public, but the ruling class. These elites have turned climate alarmism into a cash cow, funnelling subsidies and government contracts into their own pockets while ordinary people are left to pay the cost. For them, the green agenda is not a moral crusade but a cynical power grab. The resulting poverty is not an unfortunate side effects—it is a feature. A cold and hungry population is easier to control, and the thinning of that population through hardship is a bonus for those who see other human beings as an inconvenience when they go shopping or on holiday.

Ridley also touches on the broader implications of this madness, and he is right to do so. The transition to renewables is not just an economic disaster; it is a geopolitical blunder. By abandoning reliable energy sources like nuclear and domestic gas production, Britain has made itself dependent on foreign imports and vulnerable to external shocks.

None of this, of course, will trouble the Government. Labour has seamlessly picked up where the Conservatives left off, both parties united in their determination to drag Britain into third-world status. The goal appears to be the creation of a nation with a lower per capita GDP than North Korea—a feat that, at the current rate, they may well achieve by 2030. Ridley’s article, however clear and persuasive, will be ignored because it does not align with the ruling class narrative. Its members have no interest in debate or dissent. Their focus is on consolidating wealth and power at the expense of everyone else.

Ridley’s article is a rare voice of reason in a debate dominated by hysteria and bad faith. It serves as a reminder that not everyone has been taken in by the propaganda machine. But unless the British people wake up to the reality of what is being done to them, the future will be awful. The choice is clear: either reject the lies and demand a return to common sense or continue down this path of decline. Let us hope it is not already too late.