The Music Stops

Papers
Written By Gwythian Prins

In this collection of essays, three eminent authors make the case that Net Zero is a real and present danger to national security.

In ‘The Music Stops: steel, electricity and national security’, Professor Gwythian Prins, a defence expert, argues that the vulnerability of our offshore infrastructure, and the reliance of the electricity grid on natural gas make the Net Zero project tantamount to national surrender.

In ‘Dangerous Fantasies:‘zero-carbon’ planes, tanks and ships in numbers’, Professor Gautam Kalghatgi, an engineer, looks at efforts to decarbonise the armed forces, and finds much to ridicule.

In ‘The Man in the Diesel Tank is King’, the historian Guy de la Bédoyère shows how technologically disadvantaged countries have always been conquered, and wonders at efforts to put the UK in this position.

The paper, with a foreword by former Minister for International Security Strategy, Sir Gerald Howarth, can be downloaded below.

Gwythian Prins

The author is Research Professor Emeritus at the LSE, where he directed the Mackinder Programme, 2002–13. He was convenor of the Hartwell Group on Climate Change and Energy 2007–19, and has served as adviser to both the Japanese and (former) Czechoslovak governments on energy and environment issues. Before that he was the first security consultant to the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the Meteorological Office, loaned by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency of the MoD (1999–2001). Afterwards, he was a member of the Chiefs of the Defence Staff’s Strategy Advisory Panel. During his early career, he was a fellow in history at Emmanuel College and university lecturer in politics at the University of Cambridge

Next

The Retreat from Net Zero