How glorious that Britain's green economy is shrinking
We can always trust The Guardian to get the wrong end of any economic stick:
Britain’s green economy has shrunk since 2014, heightening concerns that the government will miss targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the decade.
The number of people employed in the “low carbon and renewable energy economy” declined by more than 11,000 to 235,900 between 2014 and 2018, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Green businesses fared little better, seeing their numbers drop from an estimated 93,500 to 88,500 over the same four-year period.
This is something to glory in, not complain about.
All are agreed, even The Guardian, that UK emissions have fallen and are falling - yea whether we include emissions embedded in imports or not. Excellent, that’s the desired target. Well, as always when discussing this subject that’s what we’re told our desired target is.
The complaint here is that we’re reaching that target while using less human labour to do so. That not being something to complain about, that being something to marvel at, glory in the existence of.
For, as we keep having to remind people, jobs are a cost, not a benefit. Human labour is an input into the process, we like using fewer inputs to reach our goal than more - it means we’re being more productive, that ultimate underpinning of our standard of living.
After all, if one bloke with a magic machine could solve climate change just by flipping the switch then we’d all be delighted. Two blokes means a second person has to stop working in the NHS, providing us with ballet, producing vital grievance studies output, therefore the extra job means we’re poorer by some amount of health care, dance and or grievance. 11,000 people not providing us with green stuff is 11,000 more grievance lecturers and aren’t we the lucky ones?
Gaining our goal by using less human labour is something to be celebrated, not worried about. For the advance of civilisation comes from the process of killing jobs.