Revealed: New UK Datacentre’s MASSIVE Carbon Footprint | Novara Live

Good evening and welcome to Nvara Live. Coming up tonight, with the record heat waves finally subsiding and El Nino on its way, Havering Council decides that this is the perfect moment to announce the UK's largest data center build. Stay tuned for a preview of an interview with Eli Clifton and Lustik, authors of Israel's Lobby, America in the Grip of a Foreign Power, and Greenpeace send a scorched earth message to Prime Minister Andy Burnham. I'm Steven Methan and I'm joined tonight by Helena aka No Justice MTG. Helena, thanks for being here. How are you doing? >> I'm not too bad. You can't keep me away, can you? >> No, we can't and I'm glad of it. Very glad of it. >> Building on Britain's green belt is always controversial, but usually debates over green belt usage concentrate on the muchneeded residential developments necessary to solve the UK's massive housing crisis. What if instead of new housing though, 2 million square meters of green belt were used to build one of the biggest data centers in Europe? Well, that's what's being proposed by Digital Reef in this promotional mockup of the site. Digital Reef has asked for planning permission to build next to the leafy village of North Oendon in London. Digital Reef claims on their website that the development will bring plenty of benefits to the burough of Havering where it will be situated, including 14.7 billion pounds worth of investment, 13 million pounds of revenue for the local authority, and over 600 jobs for the local area. Now, that all sounds pretty appealing if you're a planning officer for the council, but the planning application tells a little bit of a different story. Matthew Paris for the Guardian did some digging and found this buried in the document. In the planning application, Digital Reef says the 14.7 billion pound project does not align with a sciencebased 1.5° centigrade compatible trajectory and achieving net zero by 2050. Documents estimate the development would generate more than 72 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over its projected 60-year lifespan span, 1.2 million tons annually once fully operational. Guardian analysis of planning documents for the dozens of proposed uh data centers in the UK shows that the East Havering data center campus has the highest projected carbon admission emissions disclosed by a developer. The Guardian has also reported that according to the International Civil Aviation Organization's carbon emissions calculator, the 1.2 million annual emissions from the proposed data center would be equivalent to almost, and it's kind of an unbelievable figure, almost 27,000 flights to New York. and it would use enough electricity to power up to 1 million homes. In May, Reform UK swept through the council in their record local election results. The formula locally controlled administration was supportive of the project with former council leader Ray Morgon saying the scheme would be beneficial. Beneficial to who? The new leaders of the council, Keith Prince, however, was pretty clear on his view when in opposition. I'll make this very clear to everybody here. If reform are elected to run this council on May the 7th in order that this is not a political stand. This is a planning committee. Would you please sit down now? Finished. Thank you very much. >> We will catch the elder. Well, his position seems to have changed now that reform are in control. However, the Guardian reports this. Councelor Keith Prince, Reform UK leader of Haven Council, said that as a decision on on EHDCC is made by the local planning authority, it would be wrong to comment until that decision was made. He was doing plenty of commentary just a year ago. Odd that he's now so circumspect though over the proposals having been so forthright in opposition before. The environmental impact of the AI and tech boom is coming into very sharp focus given the multiple temperature records that have been broken this year alongside the unprecedented number of wildfires and a month-long drought in some areas of the country. That's now all compounded by the news today that the Met office has warned that this year's El Nino will be the biggest for over a century. El Nino is the name given to the climate phenomenon that occurs when the surface temperature of the eastern Pacific Ocean increases and causes shifts in weather patterns and climate just across the globe in general. 1 to2 degrees of heating is usual for El Nino, but this year suggests surface temperatures increasing by 3°. An unprecedented level that hasn't been seen since the 19th century. This is going to create a stormier and rainier autumn according to the Met Office head of long range forecasting Adam Sca which whilst being a relief to those droughtstricken areas of the UK runs the risk of potential flooding and in the months to come and that's because as water falls to it it won't be observe absorbed rather by the bone dry earth left by by drought and and record temperatures and those record temperatures this year could still be broken next year as well as a consequence of this super El Nino event with The Guardian reporting this. Bill Magcguire, professor emeritus of geohysical and climate hazards at UCL said, "The addition of much of this heat to the atmosphere will make it extremely likely that next year will be the hottest on record globally, perhaps even reaching even exceeding 1.7° C above pre-industrial times. Given that 1.5 degrees of warming is the target limit for average global temperatures due to anthropogenic climate change, a 1.7 degree increase next year could really give us a glimpse of the kind of effects this will have on the world going forward. Forecasters have predicted that potentially 50 million people could be pushed into food insecurity because of El Nino across Africa and the Americas and could further push up food prices globally. Given the cost of living crisis and the shortages of fertilizer due to the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hermuz, the addition of next year's potential poor harvest could trigger a wave of climate inflation with Goldman Sachs estimating a 15% rise 15% in global food commodity prices. That's huge. The public belief in the effects of climate change being exaggerated rose to a 5-year high earlier this year, but the unprecedented events from last month's heat wave pushed it back down to 21%, its lowest level since 2023. Now, lots of political parties have been keen to show the AI industry they're willing to seed ground amid these climate concerns. Labour changed the rules to give data centers the same national significance as power plants and reservoir reservoirs in terms of the their ability to bypass local planning consent in January this year. This came after a policy paper last year championing the delivery of so-called AI growth zones. The opposition parties haven't disagreed at all and shadow energy secretary Cla Coutinho has previously uh called for more data centers in the UK regardless of emissions to quote not fall behind in one of the most transformative technologies which can bring growth to Britain. Reform UK MP Danny Krueger also supports data center construction claiming they are quote the key industrial asset of the future. Maybe that could be why reform council, the reform council in Havering might be changing their minds on the plans in North Odin. Helena, it's very interesting, isn't it? The idea that sort of AI data centers, all of the stuff around the tech boom boom is is kind of it's a bit like the oil industry in a way. I mean, you know, it's not it's not the fuel that's going to cause, you know, carbon emissions, but so many um fudges, allowances, uh special circumstances are being created in order to support an industry that is going to potentially, unless we get the grid greened, potentially going to cause great great harm to the climate. This has been a really big hot button topic in the United States and it probably will be here once the data centers start going up and these planning applications start being approved or being put through like this one is an LDO as we mentioned in the clip that we saw which means that it's like a more kind of faster process and going through the regular town and country planning act. So it's clear that the people who support these things are happy to go through the channels with which the make sure as little scrutiny is placed upon those developments as possible regardless first of all of local concerns and I'm you know obviously I'm pretty nimritical so I won't go too much into that but also in terms of climate problems that's also potential reasons they would be unpopular. I don't see much popularity in data centers here or in the United States again with the US it's really really really big to the point which most politicians are now looking at a data center moratorium because it's impacting farming habits in the south will obviously take up farmland that's be would be used to create this data center in North Oendon and yet one thing that our political parties in the UK seem like incredibly steadfast on is trying to appeal to their supposed like mythical median voter and it's only certain issues in which they move out of step of that because of you know political lobby wellbeing or broader concerns in terms of vested interests which shows you the fact that the whole uni party tries reform labor they're all pretty hell for leather not just on being pro AI and being pro the integration of AI in the state and integration of AI in terms of the delivery of public services but also in terms of again doing something like putting data center construction and planning on the same level of national importance as power generation wind farms um water reservoirs waste water like actual more critical infrastructure stuff like transport. These things are definitely more important as far as I'm concerned than data centers. It makes you wonder how they're all getting to this position all at once where they somehow say, well, actually, you know, data centers are as nationally important. Now, clearly they're nationally important in terms of trying to override public concern. But it's weird how this is the one thing where they don't go with this kind of triangulation around public opinion and they're willing to kind of steamroll through it to try and make sure they get all the big bucks in terms of AI. What's interesting on top of that though on the kind of the the other side I was reading this bit by the FT recently talking about that actually the Footsie is doing okay like British stocks went up like 19% I believe it was this year which isn't bad and yet one of the reasons why it's being attractive is because it's not very tech focused all of the claims of we need to get in on the tech boom to be an internationally competitive economy well the data showing that actually we're being internationally competitive because we don't have any of these big tech firms there's been a lot skepticism in the runup in this year in terms of the actual potential scale of money to be made and the potential in terms of the business case for AI. Uh we've seen in terms of the stock prices of people like Nvidia or whatever and people are coming to Footsie stocks because it's more actual businesses that produce real things in the economy. Uh and so we've seen kind of a retreat from chasing AI stocks and chasing the the supposed boom that again still has yet to materialize. Loads of capital investment, very little of profit in these sectors and they're moving into the kind of more boilerplate stuff that we still make in this country. So maybe might even be on the broader economic concerns a bit of a misstep to go hell for leather. I mean, look, but that that could also just be an indication that investors have have just started to feel at this point that those tech tech shares are just over overvalued and so they're diversifying into more, you know, they've decided that's the limit that they're prepared to go to in terms of investment in uh speculative um it's incredibly speculative speculative industry. Uh and so you know further investments are going into more bread and butter sort of forms of more material or you know services or whatever um that are that that that are more reliable in some way. But like you know like what about the argument that the government is making that you know there there is some kind of fabled and potentially very real actually you know technoindustrial revolution on the horizon that um Britain's got to be a part of from from the get-go if it's going to reap any of the the benefits of that. Now like I'm not I I I myself have so many worries about AI and have so many and and actually have I wouldn't call it a worry but you know fair confidence that workers are not really going to tolerate the it its over introduction into into um various various forms of labor. Um so I'm skeptical about you know how much it's actually going to going to going to change things. Um but let's say it does. I mean what about that argument that actually the economic benefits are are so great and also ongoing over time you know it won't just be you know that early entry is is quite important I mean I don't necessarily think the early entry be important but if that does tend to be the case what will actually be a ne negative to us will be a lack of AI sovereignty if we don't get in on construction and it does become this thing which is not just important to have the access to but ensure that you have control over because of the potential implications ations for national security concerns rather than just like every other kind of tech company where we've become just an outgrowth of being tied to like the American economy for example like I believe it was Aaron point out the UK public sector servers still run on Amazon web services right so we are still entirely beholden on having access to the data and tech infrastructure of the United States the political problem comes though is that again especially when it comes to the conservatives and reform in trying to be part of this if they want to do so is that These are traditionally the nimi parties, right? Like they've always kind of opposed these things in terms of housing construction. So a very funny photo of Oliver Dowin standing in the middle of a field going, "Oh, this field might be where they build new houses." Yet suddenly when it's data centers, they change tack almost immediately and suddenly the concerns of their own voters seem to go down pretty poorly. It will probably end up being a line of attack, I think, politically from I guess the less economic growthminded parties. of the Green Party. I believe in havering the the chair of the party has been very clear in wanting to oppose the data center for ecological concerns and of course for climate concerns given as as you pointed out in that piece because of all what's happening with Alino and the potential problems with the emissions that these are all going to cause and of course it's going to be another demand extra on energy prices for everybody as well. The question of course politically comes well if the gains are all going to go up to the top if all of those gains that you know are at the very the moment kind of ephemeral in terms of economic gains from these products even if they do become well adopted and do become this big splash in terms of the adoption being necessary are those gains all going to filter up to the top regardless anyway in which case we're still sh out of luck >> let's go on to um El Nino for a minute because I think what was really interesting in in in in in in the the piece was the data that um skepticism about the climate is at the lowest point it's been since 2023 which is not actually that long ago actually that's only 3 years ago but the lowest point it's been since then it was lowered by um the existence of you know the the heat waves the wildfires the droughts over the summer and you know they may come back I don't I looked at the forecast um and it may be exacerbated by particularly wet autumn or floods or you know that come along Do you think that this El Nino event uh which we're expecting uh even though it's going to be incredibly negative in terms of food production uh in terms of pe people's lives might actually hold benefits overall for the sort of get for campaigning on behalf of the climate for reducing climate skepticism because one of the terrible things and it's really annoying about human beings is that you know they're skeptical of the science. many they think it's a sort of scam and a con to try and change their lives to sort of I don't know introduce a world government or you know all kinds of things um and so they need like the proof of concept which is like actual reality changing for the worse for them in order to to believe it so do you think I mean that seems to be what the that drop in skepticism shows um do you think that that's does that mean that this in some sense you know a harsher El Nino uh period might be overall beneficial What's interesting is there's actually no data showing that this particularly strong El Nino that's super elino is anything to do with climate change maybe like strengthening and weakening of like the El Nino Elino cycle whatever it is right but I think you're correct in saying that >> directly seeing the results of climate change and of global warming does help kind of target public opinion towards climate action. It was a really in really kind of deep spike we saw cuz actually it was around 17 16% in terms of that same polling around 5 years ago and the skepticism was growing broadly up until recently just continue to go up into the skepticism about climate change in my opinion I don't have any data to show that this is true but it seems to be the case that that really um coalesed around and coincided with the right-wing politics you know with reforms about like net stupid zero for example the issue that I have is that a lot of the negative external alities of a very strong El Nino affectsing global temperatures as we saw from there like huge levels of um acute mal malnutrition and hunger in the global south potentially famines in the global south as well uh unbearably hot conditions for living that will trigger another wave of climate refugees right and what's the one thing that's the two things really that we've seen that have been the biggest drivers of the politics of fear and which has been capitalized on by the far right has been increasing refugees into Europe which we've seen them go down like small boat crossings and irregular migration to Europe has been less this year than it was last year but if that increases again we could see another wave of rising populism alongside the cost of living crisis people's concerns in terms of food prices especially in the bottom end of society right whilst those 15% rises will mostly be felt in the global south there will still be an increase in food prices in Europe too and will probably be seen most acutely in staples at the bottom of the scale right when you look at more of like the Vime's boots index of the increasing price of like the value options at the supermarket where it's harder for businesses to absorb costs of increased volatile prices that will be directly passed on to consumers in the form of cost push inflation which was exactly the reason why reform got so popular in the first place because we saw the biggest collapse in living standards since the Napoleonic wars right that's what's really worrying to me >> yeah and of course all of that will drive sentiment against those climates climate migrants as well because they will of course be scapegoed for scarcity any scarity that occurs and we're already seeing a kind of a rise of like kind of eco-fascist viewpoint as well which is that climate change is real but overpopulation is a problem and those kinds of viewpoints can be they can be exacerbated by climate refugees too. >> Sure. I mean just back going back to El Nino of course the the opposite effect of the of of worse weather uh more dramatic climate um impacts um will just mean that people like you know Julia Hartley Brewer who loves to say it's just weather will be able to say well it's just super weather caused by Elino it's nothing to do with climate change. So in fact it may not budge the dial to >> be fair people kept saying that all the time through the last heat wave. or was 19 it's like 1976 whatever it was you know and did that actually change public opinion well it didn't have any effect as we saw from the graph in terms of polarizing people towards climate action and we saw the response broadly to I guess Andy Bernham's reticence to call the co meeting till being pushed to by Zack Balansky in show actually people did really want to see action and in terms of broad concern for climate change the UK is more concerned than most other countries in fact we've consistently shown more concern than France and the US for example in terms of a broad societywide support of climate action even amongst conservative voters as well. >> Yeah, that um what was the result of that COB meeting? It was just an emergency alert that nearly gave me a heart attack in my local Morrison's right >> although I believe discussions about the potential for food inflation caused by things like that was included apparently in the paper meeting. >> There's a new book out and it is a doozy. Why is that? because it deals in extraordinary detail with a topic our political and media class really don't want us to discuss. Called Israel's lobby, America in the grip of a foreign power. It explores the extent of Israel's interference in US domestic politics via Apac and other groups. Now, it comes at a very, very precient moment with Apac and the Israel lobby more generally becoming increasingly loud topic of descent in US politics. After all, we've just seen Democratic Socialist Alliance member Abdul Alsad win the Democratic nomination in Michigan's Senate election later this year. Part of his platform was being vocally anti-Apac with his Democratic competitor Haley Stevens backed the sum of $32 million by the group, a topic that he kept bringing up to some success and obviously she lost. So perhaps things are changing, but also perhaps not fast enough. Israel's Lobby was written by Quincy Institute co-founder and investigative journalist Eli Clifton and political scientist Ian Lustik. They joined me earlier today for a very wide-ranging interview in which they explain how the lobby has subverted American national interests to Israel's and as well as Britain's too. My full interview with Eli and Iron will premiere on the channel at 11:00 tomorrow morning, but I've got a couple of previews lined up for you now. In this part of the interview, I ask Eli and Iron about the nature of Israel's lobby in Britain. >> I don't shock easily in this area, but I have been shocked at how extreme uh the lo the lobby that does exist in Britain and the influence operations that Israel is conducting through its supporters and perhaps directly in Britain have resulted in the mobilization of the ferocious power of the state against simple dissident. uh as terrorists. This is something which we have not yet seen in the United States. The state mobilized against American citizens treated as terrorists because they criticize Israel or protest treatment of Palestinians. But we do see it in Britain. And uh why and what what I'm afraid of frankly is that that is partly what the future could be in the United States if there is not the response that we are starting to see uh in defense not only of American national interests abroad but of freedoms at home threatened by the lobby's conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. Also it can in the endanger Jews. I'm Jewish. So is Eli. We are very aware that the witch hunt we describe in the book and we call it an anti-semitism witch hunt which is going on in Britain as well uh is not like the 17th century 18th century witch hunts because there actually are witches. There are some quite a few anti-semmites. And what you treat Israel as the collective Jew, which is how the lobby treats it, then whatever Israel does seems to be what Jews do. And that helps the anti-semites spread their influence and make sense of their otherwise wacky conspiracy theories that figure the Jews is responsible for all kinds of terrible things in the world. So from our point of view, we are fighting the real fight against anti-semitism as well as trying to express our solidarity and the solidarity of of of ethically oriented Jews toward Palestinian suffering. >> Uh I I would just add that uh I think it's first of all important to I know as basic as this is, but to answer your your your question, is there an Israel lobby in in the UK? There there absolutely is. There's BCOM, the British Israel Communications and Research Center. Uh there's been an excellent documentary that I believe aired on Al Jazzer uh that detailed the activities of Israel's lobby inside the UK. Uh and in particular the efforts to smear uh politicians and activists uh obviously BICOM has very good relations both in the Labor and the Conservative Party. that is uh something that that Israel's lobby the United States seeks to pursue as well is that they don't operate just uh in one party or avoiding partisan lines. Uh and I think very much the United Kingdom has uh has has has an active Israel lobby. And again the what's so scary is to watch how they can function in countries where actually the price of influence is much lower. And in the United States, the cost of influencing elections, that marketplace has become so big that it requires enormous sums of money, which the lobby is rather uniquely qualified and capable of bringing to bear. But in a country like the UK or elsewhere where the cost of influence in influencing elections and influencing politicians is less, they are certainly going to take advantage of that of that opportunity. uh and in the marketplace of ideas and especially in countries where uh civil liberties are not as extensively pro protected as they are in the United States. The lobby will find that to be a particularly easy and useful uh environment to operate in. So I think there absolutely is is the Israel lobby in the UK uh and it's something to watch very closely. Anybody who denies that there is one is clearly a part of it andor trying to uh really uh conceal what's going on. Again, just go look at what BCOM says they are about. Look at what their mission statement is. That's as much as one should need. Uh and the argument that I I know used to be popular in the United States that this this lobby doesn't exist. It simply just doesn't pass the smell test. When you go and look at do these organizations exist and what do they say that they're doing? Uh we in the book as as you know uh show how insiders in the lobby sometimes break uh forget that the mic is on and talk very very frankly with a kind of braggadocio about just how much influence the lobby has and how many politicians are under their thumb uh with relatively crude language which I won't use on air that that reflects the inside beliefs of those who govern the lobby and how they raise money. That is, they raise money by telling donors just how much influence these organizations have over American politics over who will be appointed to key posts in the State Department and elsewhere. These are quotations we have in the book. >> Yeah, there and those are like absolutely fascinating quotations as well and there's many of them. Um just sticking on the UK for for one more minute just is is that you know one of the ways I think the Israel lobby operates really effectively here is via the integration of the military infrastructure of the two countries. So as you know Palestine Action the group that was prescribed as a terrorist organization many in this country think ridiculously because all because you know primarily what they were doing was property damage um have you know their their express aim was that they wanted Elbit out of this country. Um and one of the most striking examples in which I think that integration or the role of the lobby there um has affected things here is that you know in April 2024 three British citizens were killed in Gaza as part of the World Central Kitchen convoy which was you know I'm sure you remember a determined um threepart strike on three vehicles when one car was blown up. The survivors ran to the other car that was then blown up. The survivors of that ran to the other car until all but one person, I believe, was killed. And three of those people who were killed were British citizens. Two of them veterans, former servicemen. And according to Heret's um you know, Israeli intelligence sources that at the time had said that the the means by which those those weapons were were delivered was an Elbert 450 drone. We have not heard anything about how that happened, why it happened. One of the family members has been calling for the British military to release surveillance records that it has because we've been flying surveillance planes over Gaza throughout the the the the the relentless assault by Israel on the enclave. Um you know is that integration of like defense industries weapon making is that is that part of how the lobby functions in in this country? >> Absolutely. And I would extend it also into the tech sector. You know, when you look at the cross-pollination between the Israeli uh defense tech space and the American VC companies and defense tech as well, uh you very often see that Israel is a place where these technologies are developed. It's also a place where these technologies can be tested on human beings and that's something that uh you don't really find that many opportunities and it's an opportunity if you are one of these companies uh in order to battle test your your your be it an AI system or a drone uh or what have you uh and to do so knowing that you will face uh very very little political pressure or repercussions uh if and when those tools are used to kill civilians. just uh one example of the the the fascinating nature of that discussion. Um, another thing that has impacted our speech and our ability to be loudly anti-ionist here in Britain as well as in the US across the Atlantic is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance or IH definition of anti-semitism. That's a definition that's been adopted by literally countless institutions in the UK including our government, the major political parties and many universities. I asked Ian and Eli about the social and political role that definition definition has played here and in the US. >> The formula itself is a hoax. It was developed in order to deflect and and promulgated in order to deflect and suppress criticism of Israel as anti- by classifying it as anti-semitism. Not only that, but the if you look at the formula itself, anyone with looks at it seriously knows it's not a definition at all of anything because it starts off saying anti-semitism may be dot dot dot. That's like saying a triangle may be a polygon with three sides, but it might implying it could be a polygon with four or five or six sides or not even a polygon. So it is absurd to think of the IH definition quote unquote as something that was adopted because this actually describes anti-semitism. It doesn't. Even the world's uh agencies of the World Zionist organization reject uh used what is now the the Jerusalem declaration uh declar definition which is anti-semitism is prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Jews as Jews. That was the traditional definition. And it was abandoned when the Israel lobby and Israel Hazbara propaganda decided they could no longer defend Israeli policies in front of American or world audiences. It was necessary to come up with a way to make arguments disappear from the public debate and that was to use the anti-semitism card. That required a much broader definition. Finally, I'd note that the single individual most responsible for the wording of that definition, Kenneth Stern, who uh developed it as part of the American Jewish Committee uh decades ago, has has repudiated it. He wrote a whole book saying, "Hey, this was a big mistake. Totally misunderstood. I completely repudiated it. It should not be used as a definition of anti-semitism. It was a formula for a technical uh ideas for how to collect data." None of that affects the campaign the lobby has made to make people think that if you don't accept this bizarre definition which forces you to to uh avoid criticizing Israel because otherwise you would be anti-semitic and which forces you to use a double standard against Israel. Why is that true? Because the definition, the formula says you can't use you can't call Israel a racist state, but you can call other states a racist state. At the same time, it says you can't use a double standard against Israel. But it says you must use a double standard because you can't when you're thinking about questions regarding racism. The whole thing is a hoax. And the fact that it's it's not known widely as that is an intellectual and political embarrassment. I >> I think it's important to contextualize the IH definition in the overarching trends both in terms of public opinion as well as how the lobby has responded to it. And what that shows, I think, is that the emergence of the IHR definition or so-called definition uh comes alongside a period of time in which Israel's lobby faced a slow but steady decline in public support. And in doing so, the efforts that they made to to respond and to rebut the arguments they were facing change. It goes from trying to engage with the arguments, maybe deflect sometimes, but ultimately to challenge the assertions that are being made about Israel and about its mistreatment of Palestinians or the fact that Israel was uh continuing to expand settlements or the fact that there appeared to be less and less possibility of the two-state solution either being imposed or being implemented by the parties in the region uh turns into something else. And what it clearly comes in and then that's where I think the IH uh uh formulation uh very much runs in parallel. This is an effort no longer to engage with arguments but to simply say any criticism of Israel, any criticism of Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic and therefore beyond the pale and one cannot have that conversation. One cannot discuss Israel's behavior in a critical manner. And one certainly can't try to mobilize public support to take action in the manner that BDS was was and is still trying to do. >> But isn't it sort of you know such an indictment of in some way of like American political power domestically, political culture domestically that you know something which seems so clearly an affront to your your constitutional rights to free speech could be so easily accepted by by by by the government? Well, it's actually gotten a lot worse. And we've seen over the past uh year or two, certainly during the second Trump administration, uh efforts that are really weaponizing uh uh the state in ways that, you know, bringing the coercive power of the government in ways that civil society uh really can't. >> That was Eli Clifton and Lustik speaking to me about their new book, Israel's Lobby, earlier today, and I I honestly I can't recommend it enough. Truly thorough and fascinating read. And as I said, the full interview will premiere tomorrow morning at 11 on our channel. So don't miss that. Over these unusually hot and dry summer months, wildfires have blazed across Britain, destroying acres of heaths, moors, woodlands, and even homes. We don't yet know how much wildlife has been destroyed in those fires and what the impact will be on next year's breeding cycles. It's been devastating to watch, and it's left few in doubt of the climate emergency that's facing us. Last month, Connie in North Wales fell victim to such a blaze with 230 acres of mountain grasslands destroyed and 36 residents required to evacuate their homes after the flames came perilously close to destroying properties. North Wales Fire and Rescue Services declared a major incident with more than 70 firefighters required to bring the inferno under control. And the devastation that it left behind is shocking. This footage was posted online by a trail runner showing the extent of the damage with the earth and rocks blackened as far as the eye can see. Little in the way of vegetation survived the flames, and it's hard to see how much wildlife could have either. Residents have since moved back into the village, though they're now surrounded by scenes of devastation. And some of them were pretty upset when a mural appeared overnight on the blackened earth depicting Prime Minister Andy Burnham tipping a barrel emlazed with a Shell logo and the words oil and gas towards a blazing fire. It also says, "Our house is on fire, Andy." And it's not small either. It measures over a thousand square meters in size. Ellie Evans, a local resident who who'd been forced to evacuate, said this about her reaction to the mural. I can't remember having been so angry and upset all at once. It was so disrespectful to the landscapes. It was also an intrusion into local grief, which is how we felt when we came back home to see the mountains so utterly changed. It added insult to injury. I couldn't understand how an organization that wants to protect the environment can graffiti the earth and stain rocks which are millions of years old. Evans also said this about how urgently she felt she needed to act. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep that night unless we acted that evening. We were concerned a lot of people would want to go up the mountain to see the graffiti and the hillside would get trashed. They had painted over soil. They painted over rocks too, completely staining them. The ground was so porous that it was unlikely to wash off easily. Now the mural mural rather was painted by Greenpeace who've responded to the criticism saying this. We took great care to minimize our impact on the land. The artwork was temporary by design, created with a water-based paint, often used on sports turf and safe for grass, plants, and soil. It was applied to an area where the fire had already burned away all living vegetation, leaving just rocks and ash. We wanted to challenge the system that caused this damage and send a vital message to the prime minister. The science shows that more oil and gas drilling means more communities left to cope with the devastation brought by heat, droughts, and wildfires. Helena, I think it's an interesting sort of quandry here about um the kind of political protest that Greenpeace was making um over you know what you might think of as the charred remains of a landscape that was really dear to the people who who lived in it and probably for you know many of them in that in that village uh a landscape that we were really deeply familiar with that you know was constantly in in in view. Um, do you think anyone's acted badly here? >> I mean, I can understand the point of view of the person uh from Connie, the resident, when she said that it was kind of adding insult to injury, right? They're having to deal with the fact that their local area literally went up in flames and having someone come along and then use it for what is a political stunt, whether you agree with the stunt or not. Again, it can seem like it is maybe you could have waited a little bit if you were going to do something like this. Not directly impacting and directly um again, you know, getting in the way whilst they were trying to again grieve over this land that had being destroyed. But at the end of the day, right, at the end of the day, the tension comes to the fact that well, if we'd have not bothered, if we'd have sorry, if we'd stopped actually having the approach to or the lackluster approach to climate change at some point before now, I guess globally, as well as in the UK, we might have been able to prevent the level of hot weather that we'd seen that allowed wildfires like this to become so widespread, not just in in Wales, but across the country, across the United Kingdom. We've seen wildfires all over the place and it seems to me that the discussion here seems to be very similar between what was had around like um insulate Britain and just stop oil when they were doing protests that were you know significantly more disruptive. it wasn't just kind of adding insult to injury on what is a burned landscape, right? Like I I understand, you know, these uh if the paint wasn't done correctly, it might have not been easy to get rid of, but I trust Greenpeace when they say that they were careful to make sure that it's something that could wash off cuz it it is a burnt area. I I hate to be how should I put this? I hate to be kind of um glib over this, but once it's been burnt down, I hardly think that an additional amount of paint is going to be a really huge difference on the long-term impact on what's happening in this particular area, but drastic times call for drastic measures. That's what Just thought, that's what Insulate Britain thought. And when we're looking at the wildfires and we look at the level to which that not only are we seeing the problems in terms of of the increase in global temperatures, we'll see even more concerns when we get a if we get a cold winter, which looks like we might do this year when the insulation of houses would have kept bills low for loads of people, right? So all the people who are slow marching or gluing themselves to the roads or indeed be annoying local residents post wildfire, they'll the the ultimate vindication comes down on the side of the fact well these actions are necessary because the government will not act and no party politically has acted far enough to be able to stop the potential for further climate change down the road. I think Ollie Dogmore was correct in our New Statesman podcast when he said that I think that continuing oil and gas drilling in the North Sea is an extreme position. is an extreme position to take when we know it's not compatible with trying to stay within a 1.5 degrees C of global warming. Right? We're going to see more than that just next year as we were discussing earlier in the show because of the warming effects of the super El Nino alongside anthropogenic climate change all at the same time. And that will have effects globally and we'll have all of the negative externalities magnified in next year. We'll see. Well, next you will see what all these negative externalities will look like in reality and people will have to grasp the fact that well paint on some burnt wildfire. It's kind of frustrating. People slow marching in the middle of the street. That's quite annoying. People conspiring to commit public muence as a crime. But at the end of the day, the biggest problem that we face as a country, the biggest national security problem we face as a country is going to be the the negative externalities of climate change. >> Yeah. One thing I will say about this story which is you know I I do I do have you know like I have immense sympathy for the the for the people um of Connie because you know they have lost the the the kind of the environment that they that they know and that they and that they they they love and which is incredibly beautiful that's been taken away by uh climate change by um in by the these intense um weather weather events and weather weather cycles. And I can see that, you know, if you love something so much, to see it lying destroyed and then for someone to sort of in a way sort of sacrilegiously put something on it is really upsetting. Um, and I agree with you that actually some of the the urgency of the situation requires that actually, you know, some of these feelings might need to be it might be legitimate to set them aside in order to make a point. But actually, I don't think this would have been a story at all if the villagers hadn't gone out and removed the the mural because I didn't see any reporting of it until it would actually been it had been the case that the villagers were like, "No, no, we we we" and it's not all of them. It's really it's two people who are who are who who have been spoken to. But when they said, "Actually, we don't want this. This is an affront." Then it became a story because the media love stories about people hating uh climate activism. Um and I'm not saying that these people do hate climate climate activism. They may actually be climate activists themselves. They just were really offended by uh the nature, the fact that the mural was um painted over, you know, the remains of something that they loved really really dearly. But I think the fact that they yeah went out and cleaned it meant that this has been reported and seen by many many more people. And I think a lot of people will think actually like the urgency of the situation sort of justifies it especially since it was time to be revealed on this last day of consultation for Rosebank which as you put it as a kind of extreme position right further drilling there. >> Another thing I think is interesting too there was I think it was an article in the Telegraph that I was reading that was just I think maybe it was Tim Stanley correct me if I'm wrong who was decrying a lack of kind of conservative concern for the environment. Like if there's one thing that you know the conservatives love cuz they keep opposing building houses because of it is the green and pleasant land. And I'm sorry first of all it's not particularly green and present if it's brown and arid which of course is the reason why we had the wildfires in the first place because of the the baking hot temperatures and the drought and the lack of rainfall causing all of these places to dry out and then become uh then to go brown as they did in the way they did in terms of the uh the vegetation. But on top of this, it's also not green and pleasant land if it's on fire. I will point that out as well. And so whilst I understand why, you know, the the misplaced economic concerns for wanting to drill for for oil in the North Sea, I understand the justification people make for it, even if I think the justification is wrong. But I'm you have to look inside and see, well, what's the the long-term problem here? Will the short-term gains of drilling oil and gas in the North Sea like small amount of tax revenue that seems to be most of it or was it 25 jobs that are supposed to be being created for the extra drilling at Jack Door? I'm not saying that getting jobs good union jobs potentially for people in the prochemical sector is a bad thing. Clearly it isn't. Clearly extra extra tax revenue is also a good thing. How much money is that say? How much money is that going to generate? How much revenue is that generating? How many jobs is that generating compared to how many how much revenue and how much the economy and how many jobs will be destroyed by climate change by things being on fire by continual um problems with the economy in terms of increased food prices or the increase in all of the economic negative externalities that are going to be caused by climate change. >> Yeah. And you don't even have I mean like the e economic externalities are very important but they're ones that impact you know human beings. There's also a lot of other creatures that live in live live live in our country um who have a right to to not be burned alive um when fires blaze out of control to be able to have breeding cycles themselves which aren't interrupted by the destruction of nests or them having to move to other places or to be in a state where you know they can't get get the food required to sort of give them sufficient nutrition for the next time around. I mean, you know, I think I've, you know, I agree with all the all of all of the economic arguments, but I also think I'm very sympathetic to people who live out in the in the country as I as I, you know, like as I have periods in in my life and where where it's it's, you know, like those are things that you can really care about as well. And >> there's a really interesting conversation I was having with Natalie Bennett, the um I'm a Green Party member of the House of Lords, and there's a proposal for a a bill for the rights of nature, right? When you look in terms of how we deal with how we do statecraftraft, right? When you have this kind of single brain market logic dictating how you view the country where people have values, labor and capital has value, but the nature that you're impacting is an is only treated as an externality rather than an actual thing with its own rights that can be taken into account in the decisions that we make when we are engaging in statecraftraft. Really interesting conversation that we had there. And I think that's an important point, right? like all of these things that we are supposed to be the custodians of as a society. All of the different ecosystems that we are a part of and that we are impacting for our own actions, those things take a second seat as you pointed just out there. Even myself saying, well, think about the economy, think about this, think about that. Right. Well, the actual nature itself is something that's going to be impacted and that should be the primary focus when it comes to how we deal with ecological collapse, which again will be one of the potential things that comes down from climate change. even just future wildfires as we're seeing has burned through in the new forest like loads of ancient woodland which we have very little left right one of the big concerns about HS2 is the destruction of ancient woodland now a huge amount of ancient woodland is just gone in the new forest is tragic >> yeah that idea of custodianship um of all kinds is sort of so alien to the way that politicians is politics is practiced in democracies these days I mean I don't know if it was ever the case that politicians cared about what what happened after their term ended or if there was a sort of sense that actually policy decisions, economic decisions, environmental decisions should be with an eye to you know the longer term whether it's for you know future generations or whether it's for nature itself but I just feel like I never see that now at all and it whether it means you know more drilling for short-term economic benefit the building of data centers um on green belt land um for you know potentially quite short-term economic benefit but maybe longer term we don't really know I suppose is um and oh I had another one I was going to think about. uh you know just sort of the the the erosion of centuries old traditions of and understandings of how justice works for short-term political gains and reactions to groups >> it shouldn't be you thought of I think as necessarily a conservative kind of point of view to want to be able to protect nature and to conserve what we have that's kind of the the clues from the name but that had always been historically I think I think it is a kind of a new development there's really great I think Pet Ro said which is that in the past like even Tory politicians we disagreed with but they felt they had a role to be able to pass down a better country to who came after them, right? And that's just kind of gone from conservative thought to this really narrow market logic centered kind of cultural neoliberalism which means that everything is a price, everything is a value. And when there's no price and there's no value on the the the ecology of this country, the the nature systems of this country or indeed just broadly just broadly the nature of this country, then that drops out of their thinking. And I think Tim Stanley, I believe it was Tim Stanley in the article. >> Correct. I think he's absolutely correct. It should be a conservative. Well, I mean, it should be I think universal in politics, but if you believe in conservatism, you should take this stuff really seriously. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I think we're going to come uh to the end of the show now, but before we go, I I wanted to just leave you with a uh a little bit of good news. um five um Palestine Action activists um who who were found guilty of of criminal damage um for spray painting and splintering the windows of a a Barclay's Bank in Burnley. Uh there was a trial there was a hearing today for where a judge was going to decide whether a terror connection would be found in this case. Uh there isn't one. He's decided that there is no terror connection. That means that although you know they've yet to be sentenced that will be happening in early September they won't face heightened sentences that come with terror connection they won't face 15 years of registering after they've finished whatever their sentences happen to be it may not even be custodial sentences we don't know. Um so that is that is some good news that um this uh habit of um associating direct actionists uh with terror for uh you know criminal damage. I'm not saying criminal damage isn't serious serious. I just don't think anyone seriously believes it's terrorism. Uh it looks like maybe that at least in this one case has hit a speed bump. Helena, thank you so much for joining me tonight. >> It's been an absolute pleasure. Everyone home, remember to check out 11 a.m. tomorrow for that interview with Eli Cohen and Iron Last. Looks very, very, very good. >> Yeah, I think it's super interesting. I think you'll all enjoy it. Uh, thank you everyone for tuning in. Uh, after you've watched the the interview tomorrow, remember to come back on Monday for another live stream from 6 p.m. For now, you've been watching Navar Media. Good night, everyone.