The “Climate and Nature Emergency” Hydra

Image credit: climateemergencycentre.org.uk

I thought I had completed my series of essays on the current UK political situation, and was ready to move on to my diagnosis phase. But I have been interrupted by the following.

Back in June, I attended a screening of the “People’s Emergency Briefing” climate-and-nature-crisis propaganda film. My report is here: [[1]]. I will make it plain, at the outset, that I do not believe there is, in the real world, any “climate crisis” or “nature crisis.” And certainly not one provably caused by human activities. I have even gone so far as to document in some detail why there is no climate crisis: [[2]].

The drums continue

The immediate target of those organizing the film showing was: “a prime-time televised emergency briefing to the nation.” And the drum-beat has continued. It surfaced again in a Guardian article last week, linked from the source at which I found the story: [[3]].

The author there makes it clear that the film is not available on the Internet. The reason given is that it is “designed to be watched together with a facilitated discussion afterwards.” This is the same technique they used at the screening I went to. Discussion was tightly controlled. Those behind the propaganda want to keep control over where and how people see the film, and do not want anyone to be able to ask any potentially awkward questions in public.

This is a clear case of intellectual cowardice. Any group that seeks to control people in such a way is obviously up to no good. Moreover, they want senior government figures to help them by raising an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and despair in which they can peddle their noxious propaganda.

Local action

I am still on the local organizers’ list of those who attended the showing. And last Tuesday, I received an e-mail inviting me to a meeting next week, the second in a series of follow-ups to the screening. (I don’t plan to go). That was what prompted me to write this missive, and to do some googling to find the facts to support it.

The meeting’s purpose is to “pick up on the themes we discussed at the previous meeting, consider any others and in particular look at actions we can take.” The e-mail also says: “There are quite a few climate and nature initiatives in the area that people may not be aware of, so we’ll make sure you know about these as well.”

About the 2026 UK harvest

To a specific example of a “climate and nature emergency” message, that we have been bombarded with this year. The meme that, because of the dry weather, the crop harvest was going to be dreadful.

ECIU’s pronouncements

I give you this, from the “Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit.” [[4]]. Titled “UK harvest even worse than previously thought – new data” and published in the middle of August, this suggested, among much else, that “food production is on the front line of climate change.” And it is “increasingly likely that four of the five worst harvests on record will have occurred this decade (2020, 2024, 2025 and 2026).”

There is an updated report from last week, here: [[5]]. It claims: “2026 is now the worst harvest on record, pushing 2020 into second place.” (Worse than 1315, or 1816? Or just about any harvest before the 1930s? [[6]])

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit [[7]], by the way, is a non-profit organisation that “supports informed debate on energy and climate change issues in the UK.” To gauge this organization, you need only click on the links at the bottom of the page to the “philanthropic foundations and donors” that fund it. The European Climate Foundation, for example, “Empowering people across society to create a net-zero world.” Or the Quadrature Climate Foundation, “Building resilience where crises intersect,” whose motto is “Secure today. Transform tomorrow.” Clearly, this is part of a network of alarmist political organizations.

The government’s statistics

Now, let’s look at the facts about the harvest, from government statisticians: [[8]]. The report is professional, and neutral in tone. A rare example of honesty from government! Reading it, you would not believe that they and ECIU are talking about the same harvest. But they are.

The picture is complicated by the fact that farmers are not fools, so they tend to plant more of the crops they expect will bring them the most revenue. That explains why, for example, planted acreages of oats and barley are well down this year compared with last. While oilseed rape is well up (by 36%!), and wheat is about the same.

The key graph in the government report is Figure 2, showing the yields per hectare of each of the crops since 2004. After all, bad (or good) weather for growing will affect the yield per hectare, regardless of the area planted! The graph shows good harvests in 2015, 2019 and 2022 for all four crops. And bad ones in 2007, 2012 or 2013 (except barley), 2018 (except oilseed rape), 2020, and – depending on the crop – one of the last three years.

Of the four crops, oats and to a lesser extent barley perform poorly in extended warm, dry conditions. While oilseed rape does much better, and wheat is somewhere in the middle. Bearing this in mind, I don’t see anything in the data to suggest that 2026 has been the worst harvest since 2004 for any of the crops except oats. Indeed, for oilseed rape it has been one of the best in all that period, and for wheat it has at least beaten 2025.

My verdict

ECIU have judged the harvests on total crop volume, not on yields per hectare of individual crops. They also did not take into account the increase in acreage for oilseed rape, a lower-tonnage but more lucrative crop than the others. (I told you farmers are not fools!)

I wonder why they decided to pick that measure, rather than the far more logical approach of using yields? Did they, perhaps, do it deliberately, to allow them to interpret the data as pessimistically as they possibly could?

The local movement

The e-mail also prompted me to look a bit further into those peddling the “climate and nature emergency” meme in my local area.

The local leader

The Chair of Trustees of the local movement is Rieks Drijver, a Dutch national. He has been a His (or Her?) Majesty’s Inspector at Ofsted. A senior civil servant at the quango, whose self-stated remit is: “We inspect services providing education and skills for learners of all ages. We also inspect and regulate services that care for children and young people.”

Mr Drijver has “previous” on environmental issues. In 2023, he protested with Extinction Rebellion against expansion of Farnborough airport: [[9]]. I do not know if he was still a civil servant at the time, but if so, this would very likely have contravened the Civil Service Code.

Be that as it may, back in 2021, Mr Drijver’s was among the published pen portraits of senior Ofsted inspectors. Today, he is no longer in that list.

Extinction Rebellion

Back in 2019, Extinction Rebellion were quite a force in UK politics. They even had an official meeting with Michael Gove, then secretary of state for the environment: [[10]]. But today, even on their home turf, species extinctions, they are looking oh-so-twentieth-century.

As evidence, in an earlier essay on the corruption of science [[11]], I referred to the UN IPBES panel’s 2019 report, which claimed that humans were threatening millions of species with extinction. But a 2025 paper from the Royal Society [[12]] shows that in 200+ years, there have never been more than about 50 extinctions in any decade – from all causes. And the numbers of extinctions are not accelerating.

It should not, therefore, surprise anyone that I, and others like me, do not believe that there is any real “nature crisis” at all, and totally oppose all political agendas that claim the existence of such a thing.

What Next?

Mr Drijver also has a website, “What Next?” [[13]]. The organization brands itself as “Climate Emergency Centres for Waverley.” (Waverley being the local borough). It is, apparently, a registered charity. Its purpose, according to Mr Drijver, is “to raise public awareness and provide opportunities for public engagement in issues relating to the climate and ecological emergency through a diverse range of events, activities and projects.” Its Chair of Trustees was a Green Party candidate in Godalming North in the 2026 West Surrey elections.

They hold local Climate Action Workshops, a Climate Club, an Eco-Theatre Group, a “Library of Things” (in conjunction with three local councils), a Planetarian Food Project, and a Repair Café. The site also has a “News and Information” section. This offers links to official reports from cohorts of the alarmist movement. Such as the IPCC, the UK government and its Climate Change Committee (CCC), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The green religion

I will repeat something I wrote in my report on the film screening. “I felt like an atheist who had strayed into a church service. In the kind of church that does not allow anyone to criticize any of its dogmas, however false or silly they might be.”

This is what rational thinkers like myself, along with increasing numbers of people who are starting to wake up to the scale of the frauds being committed against us all, are facing up to. The green religion is a highly intolerant one; and its tenets are based on nothing but lies, dishonest propaganda, hype and scares.

The high priests of this religion include every UK prime minister since Margaret Thatcher (inclusive), except Liz Truss. Along with the UN, the EU, the WEF, all the globalists and internationalists, and pretty much all the UK government, mainstream political, academic, corporate and media establishment. They want to destroy the Western civilization which we have built over centuries. They want to impoverish us all. And they want to force everyone to obey their every diktat, however nonsensical or destructive.

The Climate Emergency Centre

Mr Drijver’s local group is just one among many “climate emergency centres.” They are collected together under the umbrella of this organization: [[14]]. It describes its mission as follows. “CEC Teams approach local councils who have declared a climate emergency (over 300 in the UK) or private property developers to begin negotiations over a meanwhile lease to set up a thriving eco-community hub in their town or city.”

Now, an “eco-community hub” sounds fluffy and non-threatening. Why should I mind if people want to get together and practice their eco-religion, as long as they don’t try to force me to follow their lead? But what I deeply resent is that, because of what these people are doing, I am subjected against my will to policies like “nett zero” and ever-tightening “targets and limits,” that emanate from the UN and its “sustainable development goals.” And I have never had any chance to say “no” to this crap.

I know enough about the back-story to this whole agenda to have no doubt at all that the accusation that human civilization is damaging the planet is without any proven foundation. And is, therefore, both fraudulent, and a violation of our right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

How any local council could be allowed to declare a (non-existent) “climate emergency” without any reference to the people they were supposed to be serving, is a moot question. I suspect they were put under pressure by Boris Johnson’s Tory government, beginning in May 2019 with parliament declaring a “climate emergency” without even taking a vote, and tightened in the run-up to the Environment Act 2021. That would explain, for example, why Surrey County Council made in 2021 a Local Transport Plan that was so viciously anti-car.

Climate Emergency

Climate Emergency is an organization (linked from the Climate Emergency Centre site), that applies pressure to local councils through climate “action scorecards” and things like “education to accelerate climate action.” [[15]]. This looks to be a nerve centre of the army of crusaders, that are pushing the “climate emergency” foofaraw at the local government level.

Space Generators

The copyright in the Climate Emergency Centre website is held by a UK charity (another one!) called “Space Generators.” This name also appears, on the same page, as a “climate group seeking space” in Camden, London. It seems a bit odd that “Space Generators” can’t find a space in which to create its own hub. But I digress.

Their website [[16]] gives among their aims: “Providing space for the critically needed infrastructure for a sustainable future.” And “The Establishment of vacant property as inspirational community hubs for the benefit of people and Planet.”

A hydra in the swamp

What I have uncovered here is many disparate local organizations, that seem to be all working together towards a common agenda. Like the Lernaean hydra of Greek mythology, the monster has many heads, but they are all part of the same swamp-dwelling beast.

Some of these heads are disguised as charities. Some of them seem to have an extraordinary level of influence over local governments; a level of influence that is totally unacceptable in a democracy. But they all seem to be, at root, lobbying organizations for a destructive, extreme green political agenda. An agenda that is being pushed by the UN, EU, and many different groups of vested interests, including not only the Greens, but also all the political parties that have had power in the last half century. An agenda that has already made the UK a far less free place to live, and the people in the UK far poorer than we deserve to be.

Yet this agenda is based on nothing beyond some vague notion of a “climate and nature emergency.” Which, on objective examination, turns out to be a chimera of lies, propaganda, hype and scares. Otherwise put, a fraud.

To use a phrase favoured by our enemies, this situation is not sustainable. I now see the “climate and nature emergency” narrative as like a dam, held together by nothing more than a pack of lies and the gullibility of those who have not yet woken up to those lies. Who are becoming fewer by the day.

And what will happen, when the dam finally bursts?

It will be time to drain the swamp.

[[1]] https://libertarianism.uk/2026/06/30/notes-on-the-peoples-emergency-briefing-film/

[[2]] https://libertarianism.uk/2025/06/27/why-there-is-no-climate-crisis/

[[3]] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/10/10/national-emergency-briefing-demand-uk-prime-time-tv-for-their-climate-emergency-broadcast/

[[4]] https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/uk-harvest-even-worse-than-previously-thought-new-data

[[5]] https://eciu.net/analysis/reports/england-cereals-and-oilseeds-harvests-ranked-harvest-2026

[[6]] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cereal-yields-uk

[[7]] https://eciu.net/about/who-we-are

[[8]] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cereal-and-oilseed-rape-production/provisional-cereal-and-oilseed-production-estimates-for-england-2026

[[9]] https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2023/11/04/activists-block-farnborough-airport-to-protest-plans-to-double-private-jet-flights/

[[10]] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/30/extinction-rebellion-tells-politicians-to-declare-emergency