UK Govt: Coronavirus Is Terrible, But on the Upside the Country’s Carbon Footprint is Falling

The long-term preoccupations of the British government were laid momentarily bare Monday when the Prime Minister’s coronavirus recovery strategy document hailed the partial shutdown of the economy as bringing “significant benefits”.

The United Kingdom has been under government lockdown orders for almost two months, with many businesses shuttered, huge numbers of workers shunted from gainful employment to state welfare through the furlough scheme, and many of those still working forced to do so from home.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a slight relaxation of the regime Sunday evening, details of which followed on Monday afternoon in a 50-page Cabinet Office briefing document.

While the paper — presumably drafted by civil servants on behalf of Downing Street — offered further detail on the present and future phases of lockdown including mask-wearing in public to slow the continued spread of the virus and the re-opening of schools, it also cited at least one perceived upside.

Noting the impacts of the British economy being devastated by coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown, the paper reported that at least the reduction in economic activity — namely travelling to a place of work — had reduced the United Kingdom’s carbon footprint.

The paper said:

Many businesses across the UK have already been highly innovative in developing new, durable ways of doing business, such as moving online or adapting to a delivery model. Many of these changes, like increased home working, have significant benefits, for example, reducing the carbon footprint associated with commuting.

As has already been noted — particularly by Breitbart’s James Delingpole — the severely reduced state of humanity, with its collapsing economic activity, fall in consumption, and nearly utterly destroyed global aviation industry, is a strong blueprint for the net-zero new world order hoped for by radical green activists.

Indeed, British celebrity scientist and regular contributor to the nation’s state broadcaster Professor Brian Cox revealed such thinking when observing the state of humanity early in the lockdown, when he said the planet under lockdown had “shown us what a future with less pollution and more active wildlife could be like.”

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