Michael Fry in The National
There are columns I try not to miss in The National but I'll admit Michael Fry's is not one of them. I find his views quite hard to take. He calls himself 'a classical liberal.' To be honest, I'm not too sure what that is. Well, I know what the individual words mean, just not what the phrase adds up t
Today his column seemed to give him the right to slag off Greta Thunberg, take a few pot-shots at the alternative sources of power Scotland is pretty famous for (wind power especially) and conclude that capitalism as the way to save us all.
His column is supposed to be about economist William Nordhaus, a Yale professor, but you can read the whole thing and learn next to nothing about Nordhaus - though you'll learn a few things about Michael Fry.
He spends a lot of time attacking Greta Thunberg. I see few signs of his liberalism here, just the usual elderly white man's response to her: he says she 'bawled' at the UN, that she's a product of of 'absolute privilege in the Swedish cultural elite' as if she had any control over her own origins; calls her 'coddled'; and wishes her 'every success in the rest of her acting career,' which suggests what she's doing is fake. He says she owns a smartphone, 'probably several.' Why does he think that? No reason at all that I can see. It's just another way to get at her.
He dismisses wind power because you need steel 'on a massive scale' to make turbines and 'that can only be done in an expanding industrial economy.' Is that true? I have the feeling turbines make a more lasting contribution to cutting costs than burning fossil fuels. In fact, I'm absolutely certain of that: turbines don't have to be burned on a daily basis but can be around for a long time. He also doesn't understand why the Scottish Government refuses to build new nuclear power stations, even though they're expensive. He claims 'old (nuclear) stations are more likely to blow up than new ones' completely missing a couple of points: new nuclear power stations soon become old and thus likely to blow up - and in any case the view of people in Scotland (and a lot of western Europe) is that they don't want them.
His comments on Scotland's future - 'independence will make us richer - and primarily through the consumption of carbon resources' - shows a complete failure to understand what the independence movement is about. Contrary to what he believes, 'it's Scotland's oil' is not the main motivator of people who want independence and never has been.
I find his most amazing statement to be this one, which he presents as a means of controlling the carbon excesses of the world's two worst polluters, the USA and China:
'I suspect that in the end the answer will be capitalism anyway, which is all about
the ever more efficient and innovative use of resources.'
Maybe Michael Fry should have inserted the words 'uncontrolled and finite' in that sentence just in front of 'resources'.
Heaven help us all if his last sentence is correct: 'innovation and capitalism can take over.' Isn't that what landed planet Earth in its current state?
Today his column seemed to give him the right to slag off Greta Thunberg, take a few pot-shots at the alternative sources of power Scotland is pretty famous for (wind power especially) and conclude that capitalism as the way to save us all.
His column is supposed to be about economist William Nordhaus, a Yale professor, but you can read the whole thing and learn next to nothing about Nordhaus - though you'll learn a few things about Michael Fry.
He spends a lot of time attacking Greta Thunberg. I see few signs of his liberalism here, just the usual elderly white man's response to her: he says she 'bawled' at the UN, that she's a product of of 'absolute privilege in the Swedish cultural elite' as if she had any control over her own origins; calls her 'coddled'; and wishes her 'every success in the rest of her acting career,' which suggests what she's doing is fake. He says she owns a smartphone, 'probably several.' Why does he think that? No reason at all that I can see. It's just another way to get at her.
He dismisses wind power because you need steel 'on a massive scale' to make turbines and 'that can only be done in an expanding industrial economy.' Is that true? I have the feeling turbines make a more lasting contribution to cutting costs than burning fossil fuels. In fact, I'm absolutely certain of that: turbines don't have to be burned on a daily basis but can be around for a long time. He also doesn't understand why the Scottish Government refuses to build new nuclear power stations, even though they're expensive. He claims 'old (nuclear) stations are more likely to blow up than new ones' completely missing a couple of points: new nuclear power stations soon become old and thus likely to blow up - and in any case the view of people in Scotland (and a lot of western Europe) is that they don't want them.
His comments on Scotland's future - 'independence will make us richer - and primarily through the consumption of carbon resources' - shows a complete failure to understand what the independence movement is about. Contrary to what he believes, 'it's Scotland's oil' is not the main motivator of people who want independence and never has been.
I find his most amazing statement to be this one, which he presents as a means of controlling the carbon excesses of the world's two worst polluters, the USA and China:
'I suspect that in the end the answer will be capitalism anyway, which is all about
the ever more efficient and innovative use of resources.'
Maybe Michael Fry should have inserted the words 'uncontrolled and finite' in that sentence just in front of 'resources'.
Heaven help us all if his last sentence is correct: 'innovation and capitalism can take over.' Isn't that what landed planet Earth in its current state?
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