REDISTRIBUTE NATURAL WEALTH NOW! How to claim your own land

Prior to the coming into force of the Land Registration Act 2002, a squatter could acquire the right to be registered as proprietor of a registered estate if they had been in adverse possession of the land for a minimum of 12 years. However, the doctrine of adverse possession did not fit easily with the concept of indefeasibility of title that underlies the system of land registration. Nor could it be justified by the uncertainties as to ownership which can arise where land is unregistered; the legal estate is vested in the registered proprietor and they are identified in the register.

More from Ken at Kerrbear Adventures

The Land Registration Act 2002 has created a new regime that applies only to registered land. This new regime is set out in Schedule 6 to the Act. It makes it more likely that a registered proprietor will be able to prevent an application for adverse possession of their land being completed. The following paragraphs provide a brief overview of the new regime; the remaining sections of this guide discuss it in more detail.

adverse possession of registered land for 12 years of itself will no longer affect the registered proprietor’s title

after 10 years’ adverse possession, the squatter will be entitled to apply to be registered as proprietor in place of the registered proprietor of the land

on such an application being made the registered proprietor (and certain other persons interested in the land) will be notified and given the opportunity to oppose the application

if the application is not opposed (by ‘opposed’ we mean that a counter notice is served; see Giving counter notice to the registrar in response to notice. Instead, or at the same time, the registered proprietor may object to the application on the ground that there has not been the necessary 10 years’ adverse possession; see Objecting to the squatter’s application for the implications of such an objection.), the squatter will be registered as proprietor in place of the registered proprietor of the land

if the application is opposed, it will be rejected unless either

it would be unconscionable because of an equity by estoppel for the registered proprietor to seek to dispossess the squatter and the squatter ought in the circumstances to be registered as proprietor
the squatter is for some other reason entitled to be registered as proprietor

the squatter has been in adverse possession of land adjacent to their own under the mistaken but reasonable belief that they are the owner of it, the exact line of the boundary with this adjacent land has not been determined and the estate to which the application relates was registered more than a year prior to the date of the application.

in the event that the application is rejected but the squatter remains in adverse possession for a further 2 years, they will then be able, subject to certain exceptions, to reapply to be registered as proprietor and this time will be so registered whether or not anyone opposes the application

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adverse-possession-of-registered-land/practice-guide-4-adverse-possession-of-registered-land

Response to the Guardian Editorial on Wed 15th February 2023 – “The Guardian view on Labour and antisemitism: two cheers for Keir Starmer”
Ref: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/the-guardian-view-on-labour-and-antisemitism-two-cheers-for-keir-starmer

The Guardian chose not to publish my letter which was in response to their 15th Feb editorial about Jeremy Corbyn – “The Guardian view on Labour & antisemitism: 2 cheers for Keir Starmer.” I published my letter here: https://t.co/X3Bn8GnGbQ

— Mark Brown (@Marki_Brown) March 28, 2023

On 28th February 2023, I sent the following letter in response to the Guardian Editorial mentioned above to Guardian Letters (guardian.letters@theguardian.com) for publication on the Guardian Letters page. One month on, the Guardian Letters’ Editor Rory Foster has confirmed it was considered but not published.

The Land Is Ours  28Feb23 letter to The Guardian:

The Guardian view on Labour and antisemitism: two cheers for Keir Starmer, 15 February stated that Jeremy Corbyn was “too slow and too defensive” in dealing with antisemitism in the Labour Party under his leadership. This is demonstrably untrue. Al Jazeera’s three-part documentary series, titled “The Labour Files: The Purge” exposed how rather than failing to build a functioning complaints and disciplinary process capable of dealing with allegations of antisemitism, the vast majority of cases reported were reported BEFORE Corbyn overhauled and re-organised Labour’s complaints and disciplinary process dealing with antisemitism. The documentary revealed Corbyn’s leadership team were undermined by officials within the party’s governance and legal unit.

The headliner being constantly repeated to paint Corbyn as having been responsible for antisemitism is that “the party under Corbyn broke the law and discriminated against Jews”. Whereas the statement broad and sweeping as it is is true, it is also misleading for the reasons just mentioned, but credit where credit is due. It is a smear which has been orchestrated quite brilliantly, to denigrate the reputation of a man who has spent his life fighting antisemitism and all forms of racism. Furthermore, of those who were investigated for antisemitism in the Labour Party, a disproportionate number were actually Jewish – in all cases for criticizing the conduct of the Israeli state. This whole episode may speak volumes about the extent of the reach of the Israeli state in influencing our politics. In 2017, a senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy in London was secretly filmed talking about how he would like to “take down” UK foreign office minister Alan Duncan, a vocal opponent of illegal Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. Food for thought.

Mark Simon Brown, The Land is Ours (UK landrights campaign)

Thousands march across Dartmoor to demand right to wild camp

More than 3,000 people protest on estate of Alexander Darwall after his court victory ends right to wild camp in England

The Dartmoor march was one of the largest countryside access protests the UK has ever seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/21/thousands-march-across-dartmoor-to-demand-right-to-wild-camp

More than 3,000 people joined one of the UK’s largest ever countryside access protests on Saturday on the Dartmoor estate of a wealthy landowner who won a case ending the right to wild camp in England.

Groups of walkers, families, students and local people arrived by foot, shuttle bus and bike to the small Dartmoor village of Cornwood throughout the morning and then thronged for hours along moss- and ivy-draped lanes up on to the rugged, boulder-strewn moorland owned by the Conservative party donor and hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall.

Darwall, Dartmoor’s sixth-largest landowner, sparked outrage earlier this month when he won a case in the high court overturning the right to freely camp on large parts of Dartmoor, arguing that the right had never existed. The area had been the only place in England where there was a right to wild camp without seeking permission.

“There has never been a time when it has been more essential for humans to be connected to nature – but we’re having our right of access removed,” said Laurie Huggett, 38, who travelled with her family to the protest from Cornwall. “We felt shock and horror when we heard about the ruling. We had to come today.”

Many were riled up rather than appeased by the announcement last week of a hastily negotiated permissive access deal between the moor’s leading landowners and Dartmoor National Park Authority, which allows people to camp in a smaller area of the park in exchange for a yet-to-be-decided management fee paid out of public funds. A representative for Darwall confirmed some of his land had been entered into the wild camping scheme.

“It sticks in my craw,” says Duncan Hutchinson, 71, who lives nearby with his wife. “We are not accepting favours from our masters. We are not their serfs. It isn’t the 19th century. Dartmoor is not a private gentlemen’s shooting estate.”

The prospect of the park authority having to pay landowners for access angered others. “Taxpayers are now having to pay for something that was free for all of us a week ago. That’s wrong. And these areas can be easily withdrawn,” said Steve Ward-Booth, 48, a local GP, who wild camps with his children. “It’s a short step to fencing off the land for pheasant shoots for the privileged minority and stopping walkers. Where does it end?”

The agreement has been denounced as a “stitch-up” by campaigners, with a diverse range of outdoor organisations from the Ramblers, British Mountaineering Council and British Canoeing opposing any deal that replaces public rights with permissive arrangements, which can be withdrawn by landowners at any time. Analysis by the Right to Roam Campaign, which organised the protest, shows more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) have been lost to wild campers under the deal, amounting to an 18% reduction in the land available for walkers to pitch tents carried in backpacks.

One outdoor volunteer said she was taking a group of children training for the Ten Tors challenge to camp in a pub garden this weekend. “We don’t have permission [to camp] in January,” said Rebecca Trebilcock. “We are camping in a beer garden tonight. We’ve lost two weekends when we could have been wild camping as a result of the ruling. It is heartbreaking.”

The walk culminated in a theatrical ceremony to summon an ancient Dartmoor spirit called Old Crockern on the bleak expanse of Stall Moor, which forms part of the Darwalls’ estate. Hundreds of protesters cheered in the bright winter sunshine as the moor’s ghostly guardian, who, according to folklore, rode a skeleton horse and punished the avarice of a rich Dartmoor merchant, appeared on the brow of the hill.

Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said it was one of the largest countryside access protests the UK had ever seen. “This is by far the biggest right-to-roam mobilisation since the campaign to open up the countryside more than two decades ago – and one of the largest since the protests and trespasses of the 1930s that led to the formation of national parks. It shows how deeply people care about access to this country’s most beautiful landscapes.”

About 400 working-class ramblers battled Duke of Devonshire gamekeepers to reach the Kinder Scout plateau in the Peak District in 1932. The prosecution and jailing of five of the trespassers led to a rally of close to 10,000 in nearby Winnats Pass calling for free access to the mountains. In 1999 the Ramblers association brought 2,500 people on to Chiltern hills in Oxfordshire to demand a right to roam.

Ashbrook, who is a vice-president of the Ramblers, said the court case may prove to be the catalyst for a new movement. “The strength of feeling on display is about far more than the right to wild camping on Dartmoor’s commons. The ruling has lit a fire in the public’s imagination, and people see this as a threat to their rights and freedoms, and realise the injustice of having access rights to only 8% of England,” she said.

Alexander Darwall has been contacted for comment on Saturday’s protests. Responding to the high court judgment earlier this month, Darwall and his wife, Diana, said: “We are grateful to the high court for its thoroughness in clarifying the matter. We now hope to engage with the Dartmoor National Park Authority, so that we can improve outcomes on the ground. Working together, we can improve conservation of the Dartmoor commons and improve the experience for those enjoying the commons legitimately.”

Farmers Alexander and Diana Darwall brought a successful legal challenge over wild camping.

Tom Pilgrim – Friday 13 January 2023 16:40

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dartmoor-high-court-alex-sobel-ramblers-labour-b2261746.html

Farmers Alexander and Diana Darwall brought a successful legal challenge over wild camping (Ben Birchall/PA)

A High Court ruling that people do not have a right to wild camp in Dartmoor National Park without landowners permission has been called a ‘huge step backward’, as disappointed campaigners vowed to ‘go to war’ and challenge the decision.

Farmers Alexander and Diana Darwall brought a successful legal challenge over wild camping, claiming some campers cause problems to livestock and the environment.

Mr and Mrs Darwall, who keep cattle on Stall Moor, which forms part of their more-than 3,450-acre estate in the southern part of Dartmoor, secured a finding from a judge that a 1985 law that regulates access to moorland does not provide a right to wild camp.

The Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), which defended the High Court claim, said it was really disappointed by Sir Julian Flauxs ruling and would be considering whether to appeal.

The Ramblers Association, a walking charity now known as the Ramblers, tweeted: This decision is a huge step backward for the right of everyone to access nature.

It said it supported the long-established precedent of wild camping on Dartmoor and said it would fight to defend our rights of access & overturn this result.

The charity later said it was concerned the legal case could be the thin end of the wedge for peoples rights to explore nature.

Access to nature helps everyone stay connected to the environment and passionate about protecting it for future generations, it added.

The Right to Roam campaign tweeted that the judges ruling was an absolute outrage and that it now goes to war.

It said it was launching a ferocious campaign to fight for our right to sleep under the stars and called for people to join a march on Mr Darwalls land later this month.

Emma Linford, an outdoor education professional with 20 years experience, and part of The Stars are for Everyone campaign, told the PA news agency that she felt rage about the rights of privilege and entitlement of how one person can remove such an important right for so many.

Ms Linford, who has led skills training on Dartmoor, added that Wild camping is not an occupation, it is transitory, it is recreation. Recreation that connects, inspires, develops rounded human beings.

The Dartmoor Preservation Association, an independent organisation interested in the moors ecology, said on Twitter that the judgment was a great let-down for all who love Dartmoor.

It added: This is just the latest in a historical assault on public rights of access to the countryside at a time when we desperately need more, not less time in nature.

Also on Twitter, MP Alex Sobel, Labours shadow minister for environment, said: Our National Parks should be open to all and access to Dartmoor is integral to that.

Labour will expand the right to roam as part of our programme for Government.

Our natural spaces are here for us all to share for biodiversity, wellbeing and equity.

Ruth Marvel, chief executive of The Duke of Edinburghs Award scheme, said: We are extremely disappointed by todays decision.

This generation of young people are grappling with the aftershocks of a devastating pandemic and a once-in-a-lifetime cost-of-living crisis, which are taking a harmful toll on their mental health.

Now is the time to protect and extend their right to explore the great outdoors and get off the beaten track, with all the vital mental and physical benefits that brings, not limit it further.

She said the scheme was liaising with the DNPA and hoped to ensure that young people who explore our countryside for their DofE wont lose out on the unique thrill of solitude, independence and adventure that wild camping brings.

Article 40 of the Russian Constitution states that everyone has the right to housing and nobody may be deprived of such housing arbitrarily

http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-03.htm#40

Russian Constitution (2014) Article 40

1. Everyone shall have the right to a home. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of his or her home.

2. The bodies of state authority and local self-government shall encourage housing construction and create conditions for exercising the right to a home.

3. Low-income people and other persons mentioned in law and in need of a home shall receive it gratis or for reasonable payment from the state, municipal and other housing stocks according to the norms fixed by law.

The Battle For Soledar (Jan23) With Scott Ritter

Former UN Weapons Inspector and Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter concludes his analysis with comment on California shanty towns and Article 40 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation

Students at University of Manchester on rent strike over cost of living crisis

Organisers say they are seeking 30% monthly cut and that more than 150 people have signed up
Ref: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/09/students-at-university-of-manchester-on-rent-strike-over-cost-of-living-crisis
The Guardian, Mon 9th Jan 2023

Hundreds of students in halls of residence at the University of Manchester are withholding their rent payments this month over the cost of living crisis.

The students are seeking to pressure their university into offering a 30% cut on monthly rent payments, including a rebate for fees already paid, which they claim have become unaffordable.

The organisers said: “We know that the university can do much more to materially help students deal with this crisis. The money is there to support UoM students without ripping us off.”
The organisers said that more than 150 students have signed up to take part so far, of whom some had already cancelled their direct debits while others would manually withhold their rent payment on the week of 19 January.

They said this amounted to more than £100,000, since average payments for the spring term are about £1,800, although the organisers are anticipating that more than £300,000 could be withheld.

A survey by the Office for National Statistics in November found half of all students in England were facing financial difficulties, with a quarter taking on additional debts and three in 10 skipping lectures and tutorials to cut costs.

Fraser McGuire, a first year history and politics student, said he was moved to help organise the strike after realising he would be left to live off £200 from his maintenance loan for four months after paying rent.

He said students felt “worried, stressed, angry and powerless”. “Lots are in a lot of financial difficulty. Out of a lot of people’s maintenance loan payments, 70, 80, 90% of that goes on rent. Students are working up to full-time hours to help get them through their studies,” he added.

He said the organisers had taken tips from the students who went on strike in 2020, securing a 30% rebate worth £4m from the university to compensate them for their dissatisfaction with their pandemic experience, and they were in talks with students at other universities.

Manchester students are also asking for no further increases in rent over the next three years, and for 40% of halls to meet the National Union of Students’ definition of affordability, which is 50% of the highest student maintenance loan. They believe that this could be funded through Manchester’s record £119.7m surplus.

The affordability of student accommodation is a problem across universities as rents have risen far more rapidly than inflation. Estimates by the NUS and the student housing charity Unipol suggest average costs have risen by 60% over the past decade to reach £7,347, surpassing the average £6,900 student maintenance loan.

A University of Manchester spokesperson said the university had implemented a £9m range of measures to help students with the cost of living crisis, including £2,000 support payments, £170 for every student and cheaper food options.

He added that rents in university halls included bills and were lower than similar private sector accommodation, with increases in 2022-23 between 1.5% and 6%.

He said: “We will do everything we can to support students who are unable to pay their rent and urge anyone struggling to speak to us as soon as possible. We are not currently aware of any students refusing to pay their rent but are aware of recent online comments made by a small number of campaigners.”

Dutch farmers battle technocratic forces driving them into oblivion

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/12/08/dutch-farmers-technocratic-plan/

Nash Landesman – December 8, 2022

Dutch farmers are in open struggle against a cartel of multinational corporations, Davos-aligned parties and NGOs seeking control over the global food supply. They are sweeping the culture from the land, a farmer laments.

HEERENVEEN, NETHERLANDS The Netherlands is a patchwork of quaint towns and cities interwoven with flat expanses of immaculately-kept green agricultural pasture. The road and rail infrastructure are near-flawless. You could search for weeks without finding a pothole. It is one of the most expensive countries in the world, and makes some of the best steak, cheese, yogurt and milk on the planet. The land is fertile, valuable, and strategically located with easy access to the north Atlantic coast. So, for these reasons and more, legions of committees composed of unelected, largely unknown figures serving on the boards of an interwoven network of even lesser known private and multilateral bodies, insists on seizing it all, on account of saving the planet from its deadliest enemy: man himself. Their target: the Dutch farmer. They are slowly killing us with regulation, one farmer told The Grayzone. It is death by a thousand paper-cuts, or The Art of War by the modern technocrat.

First, some background: Holland exports the most food on earth, behind only America, on a landmass roughly the size of Indiana. Farmers the world over come to study Dutch techniques. The country embraces whats known as the Mansholt theorya philosophy of ensuring food security and self-sufficiency that emerged from the second world war as a response to Nazi-imposed famine. To stave-off a similar tragedy, Dutch agriculture embraces the Haber-Bosch process, a method of infusing fertilizer with nitrogen to increase yield efficiency. Invented in the early 1900s by a pair of Nobel Prize-winning chemists, Haber-Bosch is responsible for the existence of half the worlds population today (and is known in Malthusian circles as the detonator of the population explosion), thanks to its ability to grow more food on less land.

But now global bodies like the World Banks Climate Smart Agriculture program, the UNs protected area initiatives, the European Commission and armies of well-funded NGOs are executing a wholly-comprehensive platform targeting Dutch farmers restricting both organic and artificial fertilizer use while asserting biodiversity protection as the pretext for snatching land from the productive.

Dutch farmers, in protest, have driven tractors to the Hague, tossed flaming trash onto the roads and sprayed manure across government buildings.

Its worth reemphasizing that the Dutch government is carrying out the same radical experiment conducted in Sri Lanka earlier this year eliminating nitrogen-based fertilizer, the basis of modern survival. In the southeast Asian country, it led to a famine that toppled the government. The Sri Lankan disaster fronted a simple premise: replace something with nothing. And to eliminate Russian gas from the geopolitical scene. The Colombo declaration, signed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2019, celebrated the end of food security and sovereignty, offering in its place a model for import-dependency and agricultural destruction now being imposed on the Dutch.

They are sweeping the culture from the land, says Sieta Van Keimpema, a sturdy 6-foot Dutchwoman in her 50s with short, wavy black hair. She is head of the European Milk Board, and leader of the Dutch farmers de-facto political arm, Farmers Defense Force (FDF).

Our government has made laws and laws that put us in a corner that you cannot come back from, she says. If people cannot put food on the table you get riots. You get an unstable society. I dont see the benefits to this. Her group, Farmers Defense Force, is characterized as vigilante populist heroes by some; and as troublemakers responsible for sparking the protests by others. FDF originated after environmental activists, Meat the Victims, forcefully occupied a pig farm in a small Dutch town in 2019. Instead of taking action, police sent in negotiators, prolonging the ordeal. FDF subsequently created a Bat Signal whereby farmers can call on a special WhatsApp group to rally others to come to the rescue.

When they arent producing food, members can be found battling Brussels or butting heads in the Hague. We have a government spending 25 billion euros to reduce agricultural production, Sieta says, confirming official policy. According to heavily-redacted European Commission documents, the goal is terminating farms through overregulation, deploying mandatory buyouts if necessary.

Official justifications are not up for debate. Take some of the most insulting regulations, made in the name of flood prevention, a puzzle the Dutch have solved since the countrys inception, erecting dykes, walls, levies and canals to build a civilization out of the oceans (as half of Holland lies below sea-level). In its green manifesto, the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency preaches that more radical policies are needed, particularly for flood protectionThe main emphasis is on the planet dimensiona Netherlands that is more sustainable and Future-Proof. Accordingly, some computer models predict with 80% certainty a sea-level rise of 20 meters within the next century, after having risen 2 cm across the last one.

A related justification is that nitrogen leakage caused by agriculture makes Dutch tap water undrinkable, and so farming must be eliminated. The reality is that Hollands tap water was awarded second best on the continent by the European Water Awards; behind Austria, in a debatable placement. Dutch drinking water is so crisp and clean, it almost makes Evian taste like toilet sludge. The real problem: Holland is 50% composed of mostly independently-owned agricultural operations, and they occupy prime real-estate.

The Dutch environmental report further seems to justify what many have been speculating: The inflow of foreign migrants [caused in no small part by U.S. wars] feeds the need for expansion, calling for the elimination of 300,000 hectares of farmland between now and 2040. This will be initiated by the conversion of agricultural land into nature conservation areas, without irony. Additionally, rich people need second homes, since it is assumed that families with a high income will opt to live in green areas. Dutch households display a marked preference for single-family homes with a garden. The Dutch concept of the ideal home will shift, possibly in the direction of gated communities, [and] more second home ownership.

To nobodys surprise, housing developers subsidized by the government and working with the Society for Preservation of Nature Monuments in the Netherlands, have already begun to erect houses in protected areas, on lands wrested from farmers.

In the Netherlands around 800,000 people work in agriculture. If you reduce half the sector theres not critical mass anymore to continue, Sieta explains. The big dairies need a certain amount of milk to have a viable cost priceI think we are the only country in the world that has a minister of nitrogenwho really doesnt know what shes talking about. She admitted I really dont know what Im saying. I say, go home, because what shes doing is destroying a whole sector.

Meanwhile, many farmers have reached consensus about the forces they believe to be behind the attack on their livelihoods.

Left-wing parties like Democrats 66, which promises, well be working towards reducing the cattle population by half, are very close to Klaus Schwab, Sieta says. They go to Davos and dont deny it. Its a fact that the WEF [World Economic Forum/Davos Group] is pushing legislation that isnt decided in a democratic way. If you comment on that, as I did in the meeting, the civil servants get really aggressive. The Netherlands is pushing legislation that has never been discussed in the parliament. Mention that the air is comprised of 85% nitrogen, and youre slammed as a climate denier.

The D for democracy has become dictation. They have no shame, Sieta says. The government has given an enormous subsidy to artificial meat; lab meat, and theyre calling it future food. But Im not going to eat insects. Im going to eat beef and chicken. The bottom line, according to Sieta: They produce hot air, we produce food on the tableThey dont want innovation, they want buyouts.

Indeed, Hollands world-famous agricultural innovation hub, Wageningen University, the Stanford /Silicon Valley of farming, has ceased developing techniques that help farmers. Instead theyre now focused on producing bugs for human consumption. The World Economic Forum promote this agenda with ads featuring Hollywood stars like Nicole Kidman chomping down on a bowl of crickets, putting an Aussie-accented celebrity glow on a grim and deeply disturbing future.

The farmers have seen what is happening with the World Economic Forum, with Bill Gates, etcthats why they are so active, Sieta adds. They know that what they are fighting is a very strong lobby of multinationals who really want to control food. After the war we decided we should never have hunger again, to produce as much food as possible and to use nitrogen and fertilizer to do it. But now they are pushing an agenda very similar to what Hitler wanted. If you control food then you control everything.

The Dutch government has teamed up with pools of private capital and NGOs linked to international institutions to mobilize over $25 billion to terminate Dutch farmers. One group in particular strikes fear into the heart of farmers: the relentless, racketeering eco-lobby, MOBilization for the Environment, known as MOB.

We have MOB. When we go to court we lose because of legislation; the provinces will fight the MOB. MOB is fighting the provinces, Sieta says. It all started in may 2019 when the court decided our program for nitrogen was not good. They made us guinea pigs, like in Sri Lanka.

MOB has a superpower: to sniff-out any leeway that a Dutch provincial government may be offering to a farmer to aid in his survival, and to sue that government into imposing more rules, harsher restrictions, tighter regulations until his existence is terminated.

Mainline Dutch media called MOBs leader, Johan Vollenbroek, the most hated man in the Netherlands by some. And on the groups dominance over recent nitrogen negations:  MOB is of course not in charge; the cabinet will eventually have to make the decision. But MOB and a number of other nature organizations do have an important means of pressure: lawsuits. In recent years they have carried hundreds of them and very often the judges proved them right.

MOBs mandate runs from the petty theyll sue to reject a single farms grazing application to the grandiose, setting new and major national legal precedents, like revamping the countrys entire nitrogen program in 2019. Governments fear them. Farmers cannot stop them. And this is how Vollenbroek supposedly spends his retirement. Of course he is likely an agent of those who wrote the treaties to begin with.

While Vollenbroek applauds the fact that five Dutch farms are destroyed each day, he also argues that more work is needed to be done. Vollenbroek receives death threats and lives most of the time in France, according to reports. Dutch royalty, the Order of Orange-Nassau, has even knighted Vollenbroek for his efforts against farming. He is not a lawyer. Nor an activist. He is a corporate chemical engineer and somehow a treaty expert who consults EU nations on how to override their own laws in obedience to a galaxy of global treaties written over three decades ago at the 1991 Rio Earth Summit. Every country has its own versions of such groups built-into the framework of the global system: inside-experts posing as environmentalists to enforce or extend vaguely-written treaties for the sake of opportunistic exploitation, fulfilling geopolitical goals and long-term plans. But in Holland, MOB has a track record for setting anti-farming precedents that stick.

As Vollenbroek stated, Once youve concluded a treaty, you cant just break it open and negotiate againThe livestock population simply has to be drastically reduced, a large number of farmers have to stop There is no alternative.

MOB is responsible for revoking thousands of Dutch farming permits in court. According to part of MOBs lengthly mission statement/public manifesto, translated from Dutch:

I am ashamed to be Dutch. Time is running out, especially for the people of the rich countries, to open their eyes to a disturbing truth: we have colonized the future. The Netherlands has become a developing country in terms of environmental sustainability. The pariah of Europe.

It is on this basis that MOB has singled out farmers as the main source of the nations supposed environmental problems. They have been ringing this same alarm bell for thirty years now, ever since the group was founded in the early 1990s. And yet somehow, the Netherlands still stands.

Four Dutch farmers

Johan/Paula: Theyve left us with no room to move into the future

From an environmental perspective, no country on earth could be less environmentally menacing than Holland.

Near the Dutch town of Emmen, along the German border, Johan and his wife Paula struggle to survive as 5^th generation dairy farmers. Milk runs through my veins, Johan says, standing with his hands on his hips, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette out back behind his shabby house. Home is where the cows are. Yet Johans down-home wisdom and minimalistic way of life are being eradicated, as his wife, Paula, chimes in: They are slowly killing us with more rules and regulations. Theyve left us with no room to move into the future.

The family plan to flee to Ireland where they perceive climate regulation to be less stringent. Their children, enrolled in agricultural school, will not be able to inherit the family farm as intended. Under a new Dutch law, once you stop farming, you and your entire kin are forever banned from farming in the Netherlands again.

The family is not being offered a buyout because their land falls within a so-called protected area, making it illegal to milk cows or perform agricultural activity under the EU/World Banks GEF (Global Environmental Facility) Natura 2000 treaty. They are also forbidden from planting corn until late fall, when the crop is no longer viable.

There is a push pull dynamic that offers farmers some breathing room, provided they can pay for it. You can buy carbon and phosphate offset rights, giving the rich a chance to prosper in the new green economy. But every time they make an allowance, they take it back, Paula says, pointing to the Dutch governments recent encouragement of farmers to build specialized, $100,000 mechanical barn floors to separate fecal matter from urine (thus reducing ammonia).

The floor allowance held up briefly, with farmers taking out huge loans to build them. But soon enough, the litigious MOB came and argued it wasnt good enough, Johan says. They won the court battle. If you pay the MOB enough money they will back off. Thats why theyre called the mob, after all, he laughs.

The government has already snatched a parcel of his familys property due to its being within 30 meters of a protected watershed. Soon its going to be 40 meters, then 400, Paula says. Eventually they will take everything.

Nelly: There have been many suicides. People get sick and ill and depressed.

In the Friesian town of Hoogeveen, resides Nelly, a 73-year-old champion horse-breeder and dairy farmer. She says she is tired of fighting both breast cancer and overregulation. Nelly receives regular control checks by bureaucrats visiting her farm up to five times a week, ensuring her withering operation abide by increasingly unrealistic standards. They check for everything. Ear tags, manure, cows, your yard. Now you need a permit to mow grass between stones, which is totally crazy since it has nothing to do with dairy farming.

Her farm requires an endless array of new permits just to function, and everything she does is tracked. The cows have the ear tags and the horses have a transponder under their skin, registered in the system. The government wants to know where everything is, so if a horse has to go to a training stable, we have to put it in the computer so they can see, she says, pointing to an Excel sheet on her laptop. They make the rules stronger and stronger. It gets harder and harder to survive. Soon, Nelly surmises, we will need a permit to ride our own horses. Things are heading in that direction. The weeds between boulders in her front yard have grown unwieldy, as Nelly has not yet received her renewed mowing permit for the year.

The irony, of course, as Nelly explains, is that the government says we need to get rid of the farmers, that we need nature; but if they send the farmers away then it will be one big mess. We do not only milk cows, but we keep our pastures and the forest in good condition. Everything is kept neat by the farmers.

Nellys farm is emptier than usual, due to a new law stating that you can keep no more than 1.5 cows per hectare, an impossibly small number down from four. The regulation favoring large landowners has already cost Nelly a third of her cows.

We have to sell 17 cows out of 55 and a heifer counts as two, she says. We live in the middle of a forest and have only a few hectares out front so we cannot use pasture, but we have loads of land. If we dont give it up, they take it away from our milking money. They know how to find you.

The nature of the project is not lost on Nelly. Holland wants to be the best little boy out of the class, she says. We start with this nonsense and the other countries are following. They are now talking about nitrogen, phosphates.

Simply put, they just draw a map and say how many cows should go there. You are not allowed to spread manure, even organic. There have been many suicides. People get sick and ill and depressed. What people do not understand is that farming is a way of life.

Nellys farm is deemed insufficient nature by the UN/World Banks development plan, its return to nature ethos embodied in a program called re-wilding, under which it is illegal to harm predators. So, last month, wolves ate four of Nellys cows, including one calf, and bit one of her prized filly horses in the leg, forcing Nelly to put it down. Shoot a deadly wolf, go to jail. Thats just the way things go around here.

Jos: Theres nothing scientific about it whatever.

Still, other farmers remain defiant. We will win, asserts a rangy, 67, thirty-something Jos Ubels, standing on his beef cattle ranch in denim overalls, his face and arms covered in dirt and mud and grime. Jos makes no apologies, offering a simple critique of the governments policies: Its hideous, its crazy what theyre imposing. Theres nothing logical about it. Mr. Ubels cows live better than many people. They are free to graze in the sun most of the time, before it all ends in one bad day.

As Jos explains, They dont want nitrogen because certain specific plants hate nitrogen; they only grow on poor soils, so they want the soil to be poor. And they are saying that the farmers are causing the soil to get richer. So, if youre farming more effectively than what is allowed, youre in trouble.

Official logic is reason inverted: The growth of obscure plants supersedes food production.

The threat posed by nitrogen, a gas that returns to the ground to feed nutrients in the soil, is grossly overstated if not wholly fictitious. As Jos notes: Its stupid because nitrogen is actually circular. In farming its absorbed back into the soil. But they only take into account the output. And they use flawed computer models to calculate this. Theres nothing scientific about it whatsoever.

Across the West, as we have seen with wildly inaccurate Covid predictions, flawed computer models have become a stand-in for science, not a supplement to it. But this is about politics, so those on the take are indifferent to reason, let alone to the fate of Dutch agriculture.

If you have people who live on the government payroll, they dont have to produce anything, says Jos. They can just dream all day about idealistic solutions for problems that dont exist. If you ask them about real problems, they say its not our problem and they dont have a solution. Everything is the fault of the farmers.

Compounding the crisis confronting the farmers is a massive, growing fertilizer shortage. Within 1 or 2 months there will be no fertilizer in Europe, Jos predicts, So you can try to buy it but you cant find any. They are using the last of what they have in store. The price is 100x higher than it used to be. This will create a crisis because the demand is very high and there will be nothing left in stock. We need fertilizer but there is no production and no import because the biggest importer was Russia. Theres not enough gas.

He adds that the government still buys the very same Russian gas, only these days through middle-men at huge markups on the spot market.

The WEF [World Economic Forum] is radically trying to change the world, Jos notes. And their front man Klaus Schwab says in the end you will own nothing. The funny thing is that he will own everything. The rules they are coming up with are sick. Thats why you see the upside-down flags, its a sign of distress. Its to show the people of the Netherlands dont support this.

Unfortunately, it seems the environmental lawyers of the mobilization for the environment (MOB) have the know-how (and funding) to routinely defend anti-farming laws successfully in court.

Our government made some stupid laws. So for a smart lawyer from MOB, they know how to break down the laws because they are not very well constructed. And they do this on a regular basis. The government already lost four cases against them, and had to invent new laws. So theyre getting scared to fight MOB. When they have a problem, like with farming, they dont ask the farmers how to solve it. They ask MOB because the farmers do not get high-priced lawyers to fight the law. MOB has a key position because the government is not smart enough.

The question: how much longer can such an assault go on? If people are fed you can keep them happy so long as you have a good story, says Jos. But if they are getting hungry then the government will lose everything. In the first week, people cant buy anything; by the 2^nd week they start complaining. By the third week they go to the Hague and rip the people out of office. Decades ago we decided as a nation that we want to have good agriculture. Now we have perfect agriculture and they want to shut it down. I think the roads will burn again.

Despite exceeding previously-set climate goals, the state is imposing even more stringent restrictions on Dutch farmers.

As even OECD admits, Environmental agreements, which are more or less binding substitutes for regulation, have been successful in a number of areas in the Netherlands; the European Commission concurring, Monitoring data show a downward trend in nitrate concentration in groundwater. Nevertheless, Implementation of environmental agreements should be accompanied more systematically by transparency mechanisms and the threat of penalties for farmers. (And its list of demands runs on for hundreds of pages, extending far beyond the scope of nature).

The farmer shall accept that the fertilizer application and account can be subject to control. Periodic nitrogen and phosphorus analysis in soil shall be performed for each farm. A fertilization account shall be kept for each farmland. It shall be submitted to the competent authority for each calendar year

It seems that nothing Dutch farmers can do will be adequate. We have a million less cows than in 1991 when [the global environmental treaty] Natura 2000 came, because of protected areas [where agriculture is forbidden or restricted], Sieta says. We already reduced 70 percent of emissions, a marked improvement confirmed by OECD as being insufficient. But a lot of politicians want an end to dairy. They say ammonia from animals is the worst thing that can happen.

So whats to replace food-production? One more stated plan, far-fetched as it might seem in the midst of Europes energy crisis, is to build a new kind of metropolis, a megacity encompassing parts of Holland, Germany and Belgium, called the Tristate-City.

The Tristate-City website brands the project as Europes new super-cityan organically green network metropol where urban and rural space remain in balance. Details are sparse, but the planners wholeheartedly promise: This model has no relation whatsoever with the nitrogen policy of the Dutch government!

The environmental debate in Britain is maintained by a few unaccountable figures elevated to the role of eco-gate-keepers – which is why the ecological debate fails to make any real progress

 

Page bookmarks

(Use Hotkey & ‘number’ to jump to that section)

1. MLM: ‘Through a glass, darkly’
2. George Monbiot’s ‘accuracy problem’
3. Ecomodernism’s ‘data problem’
4. George’s fallacies on fermentation
5. Conclusion: If ecomodernism’s tinkering has failed, it suggests that their model is wrong

 

We should be holding the political establishment’s feet to the wild-fire on ecological issues. Instead, a handful of ‘reformers’, promoting schemes or proposals which don’t radically up-end the ideological landscape, are given preferential access to the public debate; to peddle, ‘multi-level marketing-style’, demonstrably wrong ideas about how to solve the ecological crisis. How do we hold these media-constructed pundits, who claim to represent our interests, to account? It’s all about the evidence.

 

This is a necessarily long and detailed dive into the role ‘green pundits’ have in the ecological debate – and whether that role is truly representative given the available evidence. To be clear, this isn’t just about George Monbiot specifically. By its nature, this also a discussion about the overwhelming class divide¹ in the ‘English’ environmental movement² (since it’s the London-centric English media and campaign groups which dominate this space).

As a Guardian columnist³, George Monbiot essentially states opinion, not facts. The problem is, in the public debate which then ensues from those opinions, his narrowly focussed articles are cited as if what is said were wholly true – when in fact the wider evidence base is being strategically ignored.

Monbiot is not alone: I could equally cite journalists such as David Shukman; ideological media constructs such as ‘Countryfile’⁴; pundits like Mark Lynas; or ‘green’ entrepreneurs such as Dale Vince. As these figures overwhelmingly embody the affluent middle class values⁵ of the establishment, that debate not only downplays the trends⁶ which are the result of that lifestyle; but also fails to connect to the people who stand to benefit⁷ the most from this debate – the ‘average’ person⁸ living within the increasingly precarious⁹ UK economy.

Instead, what passes for¹⁰ ‘radicalism’ in English environmentalism are groups like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil. But these groups are not ‘radical’¹¹: They are once again dominated by the middle class; their metropolitan focus alienates them¹² from the rest of Britain; and they have no specific project other than that governments ‘tell the truth’¹³ and take action¹⁴ on climate change.

Therein, like the media’s green pundits, the groups considered to be ‘radicals’ in the public debate are ‘statist’¹⁵: Their unwillingness to look beyond the ideology, structures, and lifestyle created by Western affluence and consumption, cannot encompass – in terms of it’s original meaning of, ‘from the roots’¹⁶ – any truly radical solution to the ecological crisis.

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MLM: ‘Through a glass, darkly’

That preface made, we come to the reason for this article: There are subtle changes in ‘green’ lobbying taking place, driven by changes in the media.

In the 1990s I was an elected director of Friends of the Earth at an auspicious moment¹⁷. ‘Green’ had gone mainstream¹⁸, and the pressure was on to drop any ‘hair shirted’ ideas¹⁹ for ecological change: Not only to ride that media machine to get coverage; but also to soak-up the cash sloshing around from government and corporate interests desperate to greenwash²⁰ their image. I opposed the idea, and ‘green consumerism’²¹ in general; but the pressure from the staff of nearly all mainstream campaign groups was to ‘take the money’, because of the access and influence that it promised.

Three decades on and that approach has clearly failed²² – and arguably has diluted the movement’s influence²³ within the ‘noise’ created around these issues. More recently, though, this process has shifted, reflecting the economic pressures on the ‘legacy media’²⁴, driven by the new on-line/social influencer ‘multi-level marketing’²⁵ (MLM) machine.

As green issues have matured against that ‘background noise’ of the ecological crisis; and as government inaction has shifted to the lackadaisical definition of targets, quotas, and especially subsidies; the pressures for environmentalists²⁶ to promote certain issues has shifted from one of ‘making change’, to promoting ‘a business plan’²⁷. In part the result of neoliberal values infiltrating all levels of society, ‘green’ ideas have ceased to be²⁸ an advocacy for political action. Instead they advocate for one infrastructure plan or another which seeks to ‘green’ the modern lifestyle – without changing it.

This position was openly articulated by Jonathon Porritt²⁹ – one of those most directly responsible for ejecting radical thinking from first the Green Party, then Friends of the Earth. In his 2005 book, ‘Capitalism as if the World Matters’³⁰, he states:

“Incremental change is the name of the game, not transformation. And that, of course, means that the emerging solutions have to be made to work within the embrace of capitalism. Like it or not, capitalism is now the only economic game in town… For fear, perhaps, of arriving at a different conclusion, there is an unspoken (and largely untested) assumption that there need be no fundamental contradiction between sustainable development and capitalism.”

(my emphasis in bold)

As ‘regulation’, let alone ‘limits’ or ‘prohibition’ becomes a dirty word in the skewed-to-the-right media environment, so ecological issues are expected to perform within the processes of the corporate world. This is the environment which has spawned, ‘ecomodernism’³¹.

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George Monbiot’s ‘accuracy problem’

The basis for most discussions about ‘future change’ today, is ‘stasis’: Proposals do not challenge ‘business as usual’³², which is why the ideas being publicly debated seek to preserve the core of the way things are. This is the contradictory paradigm within which George Monbiot³³ is trapped.

I specifically use the word, ‘trapped’: If he moved out of that niche I’m sure he would lose that media profile. He is permitted to perform that role in the media environment precisely because of the values he advocates, not because of the veracity of the ideas he promotes. It is his own, personal cost-benefit exercise that he chooses to occupy that role – but that doesn’t mean it is evidentially correct.

I first bumped into George Monbiot at events in Oxford, and on roads protests, in the early 1990s. We occasionally corresponded, but that ended when he gave support to nuclear power in the late 2000s. Or to be more precisely, I kept trying to advance the alternative case and he simply refused to respond – even when we met in public.

These days, when I publicly challenge his assumptions he never responds. He also blocks people on social media who query his work.

The difficulties with The Guardian – the largest remaining allegedly ‘politically liberal’ broadsheet within Britain’s right-biased media – have been growing for some time. Recent campaigns to ‘dump The Guardian’³⁴, and high-profile resignations³⁵, have called into question the quality of their reporting. Once again, this highlights both the intellectual boundaries within which George Monbiot operates, and the ‘conformity’ those pressures may apply to the subjects he covers.

His columns in The Guardian are sparsely sourced, and sometimes factually flawed. My last ‘public’ deconstruction³⁶ of one of his columns was published in May 2020 – when he attacked the then recently released film, ‘Planet of the Humans’³⁷.

At the time I published a short blog post, which had been extracted from a twenty page complaint (with forty references, mostly to academic journals and official data sources) which I wrote to The Guardian’s ‘Reader’s Editor’³⁸. I never received an acknowledgement… despite sending it twice!

Critical of Michael Moore, the structural flaw in that article was the fallacy of ‘affirming the consequent’³⁹: It suggested that as right-wing climate deniers liked Michael Moore’s new film; then the position that Moore depicted must be friendly to climate denial too. In reality, many ‘anti-greens’ didn’t like⁴⁰ the film’s message. The reason they talked-up the film was precisely because its message made liberal environmentalists feel uncomfortable.

The article attacked the film’s assertion that photovoltaic (PV) panels produce little energy once the manufacturing costs⁴¹ are considered – stating that, “On average, a solar panel generates 26 units of solar energy for every unit of fossil energy required to build and install it”. It would appear he hadn’t read his source⁴², which stated those statistics could not be quoted in that context because it would under-estimate the impacts of PV by 30% to 250%.

In that paragraph he also attacks the film-makers statement that, “You use more fossil fuels to do this than you’re getting benefit from it. You would have been better off just burning fossil fuels in the first place.” That quote has been taken out of context. That statement is not about solar PV, or wind power; it’s about the gas-fired Ivanpah Solar Array⁴⁵ – a wholly different type of technology to PV.

The article then goes on to state, “Planet of the Humans also claims that you can’t reduce fossil fuel use through renewable energy: coal is instead being replaced by gas.” Unfortunately that is precisely what the official energy statistics in the USA show is happening (see graph, right). From 2010 to 2019, as old coal-fired plants were retired, they were replaced with new, larger gas-fired plants using the large quantities of fracked natural gas being produced at that time. There is also academic research⁴⁶ to back-up the point made in the film.

The article then goes on to state that, “in the third quarter of 2019, renewables in the UK generated more electricity than coal, oil and gas plants put together. As a result of the switch to renewables in this country, the amount of fossil fuel used for power generation has halved since 2010.”

That statement is a manipulation of objective fact:

The ‘third-quarter’ is late Summer, when power demand is at its lowest and solar hits maximum. It’s not representative of average demand and supply.

More significantly though, what’s been dominating energy trends in Britain has been the collapse of electricity demand (see graph, right). That is in part the result of austerity choking growth, and especially heavy industries, such as metals and chemicals, moving off-shore. Those effects are far more significant than new renewable capacity in cutting fossil fuel use – but that doesn’t even merit a mention.

Especially over 2015/16, much of the retired coal-fired capacity was matched by natural gas, not new renewable capacity. And the fact electricity demand shrank by a over a fifth from 2010 to 2019 means that in percentage terms – without adding a single wind turbine or solar panel – the proportion of renewable energy would have increased anyway.

The article then introduces the most toxic argument⁴⁷ which ecomodernists promote to silence opposition: Accusations of Malthusian ‘population control’ – where again the film is misquoted:

“The film offers only one concrete solution to our predicament: the most toxic of all possible answers. ‘We really have got to start dealing with the issue of population… without seeing some sort of major die-off in population, there’s no turning back.’”

That ellipsis – the ‘…’ highlighted above: That’s not skipping a few words or a sentence; it skips about 80 seconds of discussions. In running those statements together, it completely ignores the context within which each was made – specifically, the issue regarding the use of energy in agriculture.

The article then concludes this section by stating:

“High consumption is concentrated in countries where population growth is low… When wealthy people, such as Moore and Gibbs, point to this issue without the necessary caveats, they are saying, in effect, ‘it’s not Us consuming, it’s Them breeding.’ It’s not hard to see why the far right loves this film”.

I challenge The Guardian’s editors to find any point in the transcript of the film where this is implied – and to listen to the “caveats” about rich-nation’s consumption which were made throughout the film. In fact, during that ‘ellipsis’ where Monbiot omits what is discussed, it is stated, “We have to have our abilities to consume reigned in, because we’re not good at reigning them in if there are seemingly unrestrained resources”.

George Monbiot is not promoting an objective, evidence-based view of our predicament. He is promoting an ideological, idealised vision where the affluent states can continue their current lifestyle by adopting new and more efficient technologies – a sort of ecological, “have your cake and eat it too”.

That’s not a problem: Objectively, I’m doing the same, too, by making these observations – albeit from a radically different perspective.

What we need to pursue is why George Monbiot, apparently willingly: Misquotes what is said in a film to cast slurs about right-wing conspiracies; uses academic research in a manner that is specifically excluded by its authors; misrepresents official energy statistics to imply something they do not show; and thus, overall, denies what a large body of research evidence now demonstrates to be a fair assessment of our ecological predicament.

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Ecomodernism’s ‘data problem’

First advanced by figures such as Stewart Brand⁴⁸, Kevin Kelly⁴⁹, and Amory Lovins⁵⁰, ‘ecomodernism’ came out of the American environmental movement in the 1980s proposing a simple idea: The only way to beat the destructive business process is to ‘do business’ better than they can, in an ecological way; the assumption being that higher efficiency would enable economic competition due to higher productivity, and hence profitability.

Though there are various manifestos⁵¹ and institutes⁵², ‘ecomodernism’ is not a coherent group. It represents a spectrum of ideas stretching from: The loosely ecological (e.g. George Monbiot); to progress-obsessed techno-Utopians (e.g. Mark Lynas⁵³); to ideologically right-wing libertarians (e.g. Michael Shellenberger⁵⁴); to corporate-oriented eco-technocrats (e.g. Jonathan Symons⁵⁵).

Generally, though, ecomodernism is heavily influenced by liberal economic theory: The idea of free, globalised markets; a reliance on technological innovation and efficiency, to drive down impacts while driving up productivity; the maintenance of property rights; and moreover, an unquestioning adherence to the economic hegemony of the ‘Western lifestyle’ – and the need to perpetuate the affluence and material consumption that lifestyle demands.

This is where ecomodernism hits the reality of the ecological crisis. For all their protestations, basically ‘the thermodynamics says no’⁵⁶. In particular:

• Energy efficiency⁵⁷ is not open-ended – it is a one-time saving, after which wholly new technologies must be invented, or systems significantly changed – and in general it is a diminishing return with fixed theoretical limits, where each improvement saves less-and-less;
• The heart of this idea is ‘decoupling’⁵⁸ – the assumption that the use of technology can break the link between human lifestyles and their ecological impact – which currently has no strong evidence⁵⁹ to support it;
• As with neoliberal ideology in general, ecomodernism will not accept strong ‘ecological limits’⁶⁰ – despite the fact recent research confirms that after 50 years⁶¹ the ‘Limits to Growth’⁶² study is still on-track⁶³; and
• They do not consider the embodied footprint⁶⁴ of their activities on resource depletion and pollution⁶⁵ – and often invoke the quasi-mystical power of ‘innovation’ to solve that without proof of its feasibility.

Perhaps the area where the ignorance of ecomodernism reigns supreme is in the area of energy resources. It is assumed that we can simply turn-off fossil fuels and switch-on ‘clean’ renewables:

For the strongly technocratic end of the ecomodernist spectrum that transition is innately connected to nuclear power – despite the fact there’s not enough uranium⁶⁶ to do this (they argue that there’s more than enough uranium in sea water⁶⁷, despite the fact this process has yet to be commercialised, and has questionable economics⁶⁸).

For the strongly ecological end of ecomodernism that transition is connected to the use of “100% renewable energy”⁶⁹ – despite the growing evidence to show that there are insufficient mineral resources⁷⁰, and complex barriers⁷¹, to construct the scale of infrastructure required to replace the ‘energy service’ of fossil fuels.

When I give lectures, this is the point where people are often confused: If the highly technological solution to climate change is not possible, and the renewable solution to climate change is not possible, then what option is there?

The fact people commonly ask this question demonstrates why George Monbiot, and the other ecomodernists pundits in the media, have become an obstruction to the ecological debate.

There is an entire movement around degrowth⁷², and the ‘simplification’⁷³ of human lifestyles, which is not currently being referenced within the UK media debate. It challenges⁷⁴ the implicit bias of mainstream environmentalism: It entails reducing material affluence, and tackling the excesses of consuming lifestyles through the national and global redistribution of resources.

Take, for example, electric cars: The media debate is presented as a divide between ‘petrol heads’ and ‘affluent green consumers’ – but neither side ever enters in to a discussion to justify maintaining the ‘private car’ as the priority for moving around.

In 2020, the Climate Change Committee⁷⁵ (CCC) canvassed opinion on electric vehicles. An expert panel assembled by the Natural History Museum told the CCC⁷⁶ that:

“To replace all UK-based vehicles today with electric vehicles, assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate, at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This represents, just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and 12% of the world’s copper production during 2018. Even ensuring the annual supply of electric vehicles only, from 2035 as pledged, will require the UK to annually import the equivalent of the entire annual cobalt needs of European industry.”

Mineral resources are a significant barrier. And the CCC’s response to this critical issue, being spelled-out by Britain’s pre-eminent geological institute was… silence. A briefing⁷⁷ they published later doesn’t even mention the issue.

Put that case differently: A grid-powered trolleybus moves passengers many-times more efficiently than multiple battery-powered cars. So where is ‘the lobby’ for the elimination of cars? It does exist⁷⁸, but gets little media coverage as it challenges the dominant assumptions of the consumer lifestyle – in this case, the primacy of the ‘private car’.

Renewable energy and green technologies, such as electric cars, are dependent upon mass electrification; and as a result, a huge expansion⁷⁹ in metal production using resources⁸⁰ which have a finite, limited supply. There is also growing evidence that the extraction of those resources across the globe could be especially damaging to biodiversity ⁸¹.

Some of these metals – such as copper, cobalt, or rare earths – are so limited that they are a barrier to a ‘Green New Deal’-type plan⁸²; and the energy return of renewable technologies will continually fall⁸³ in the future, as these metals deplete, as the energy used in their extraction⁸⁴ increases. Even if we ‘innovate’, such as swapping lithium with sodium⁸⁵ in batteries, trace amounts of rare earths and other metals are still required; and the yet to be invented nano-technologies proposed as substitutes have an uncertain efficiency or efficacy.

How then can groups promoting the ‘Green New Deal’ – such as the ‘Zero Carbon Britain’⁸⁶ (ZCB) – advocate 100% renewable energy without also advising of the resource or pollution risks inherent in that project? The reason, from my own experience arguing with ZCB for over a decade, is they just ignore them: They ignore them because ‘people in power’ – like the CCC – don’t want to hear them, and so they exclude them from their considerations.

What is certain is that while a segment of the globally affluent may be able to scrape a carbon-free lifestyle, there are not sufficient resources to allow everyone else⁸⁷ on the planet to consume in that way. And the over-riding reliance on a single metric to judge progress – carbon emissions – is leading to a willing ignorance over both the global pollution, resource depletion, or biodiversity loss, that would result from such a ‘green’ future.

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George’s fallacies on fermentation

Firstly, as others have demanded my opinion on this recently, do I think that George Monbiot is being funded by corporate interests to talk about precision fermentation?

I really don’t think that matters at all! Whether he’s being funded or not doesn’t change the underlying technical arguments; and to raise that as an issue distracts from the evidence for why he is wrong. Motive is not the issue here; the issue is evidence.

Let’s address the big issue first: Technically there is no ‘food production’ crisis!

As George Monbiot commented in his interview with Owen Jones⁸⁸, world hunger is rising – now probably extending to a billion people or more, including in the most developed states. That last part is the critical issue: The reason people in affluent states skip meals is the same reason those in poor states die of malnutrition – it’s an issue of allocation, not production.

The reasons for world hunger⁸⁹ and malnutrition in both poor and rich states are variously, depending upon the location, the result of:

• Economic inequality;
• Climate change;
• Conflict or displacement;
• Natural disasters;
• Urbanisation and/or isolation from the land, restricting access to food except by payment;
• Poor diet due to the economic or social barriers to accessing good quality food; and
• Social/state imposed barriers restricting access to land or food by certain groups.

Precision fermentation⁹⁰ is the idea that by using genetically engineered micro-organisms, grown inside industrial vats, protein can be produced far more ‘efficiently’; and with secondary processing and chemical additives, those simple proteins can be engineered into ‘nutritious’ meat substitutes⁹¹.

Given that brief summary, does anything stated there address the points in the list above of the primary reasons behind global hunger? No.

To even talk about precision fermentation in the same context as hunger belittles the the global inequalities⁹² that drive it; and distracts from the necessary changes⁹³ to national and global governance⁹⁴ in order to address those issues.

The root of global hunger is inequality: Global inequality is not the ‘fault’ of those who are hungry; it is due to the ‘choices’ of those running national and global governance systems. That system is dominated by a globally affluent elite (see graph, right): Where the 10% of the world’s population⁹⁵ benefiting from that mechanism consume half of everything⁹⁶; while the ‘bottom half’ consume just 10%.

Let’s be absolutely clear on this: There is a Human Right to Food⁹⁷. The fact hundreds of millions are hungry, yet enough food is produced for all, is a matter of political ‘choice’⁹⁸, not ‘fate’.

I’ve read George Monbiot’s book, ‘Regenesis’⁹⁹. Personally, I’ve found his recent books rather rambling – lamenting the ills of the world, yet ignoring the ‘radical’ solutions available if he could remove his mental shackles to society, ‘as it is’. We need to stop worrying about how bad things are, and concentrate on the simplest ways to make them better.

For example, in chapter 5 he says:

“City farms, allotments, and guerrilla gardens help us to feel a sense of connection to the land and engage our minds and hands in satisfying work. But, with one or two exceptions it’s unlikely to satisfy more than a tiny fraction of demand. The reason should be obvious: land in cities is scarce and expensive.”

Why is land in cities expensive? Because it is owned by a minute minority of the population called ‘landlords’. Why is that an ecological issue?

Climate change is a physical restriction on humanity. How much food you can grow on a square metre of soil is also a physical restriction. ‘Property rights’ are completely abstract¹⁰⁰ – they do not exist, just like the monetary values property rights are traded with. They are not a ‘physical’ restriction.

If we are truly saying that climate change and ecological breakdown are ‘existential’ – that society lives or dies by what we do in the next decade – who could support a wholly ‘abstract’ division of the land in a way which prevents people from providing their needs in the most low impact way?

Once again, we come back to the issue of inequality: In Britain, less than 1%¹⁰¹ of the population own ~50% of the land. In ‘Regenesis’, George argues that the intellectual property rights on the technological solutions to climate change must be weakened. Why, then, can’t we also restrict property rights on the land, or cap land values or tax excess wealth, to facilitate low impact lifestyles?

In a short film¹⁰² on ‘Regenesis’, George states:

“…in Finland, scientists are brewing-up an entirely different kind of food. Inside these tanks, protein is being produced by… bacteria. The only inputs are water, carbon from the air, a sprinkling of nutrients and electricity to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. And the only waste product… is water.”

In the previous section I outlined the problems with ideas like the ‘Green New Deal’, and the material and geopolitical barriers to expanding renewable energy to match fossil fuels. By advocating the use of electricity to produce protein – perhaps up to 25 times more¹⁰³ energy per unit of protein – it necessarily involves: A certain level of mineral extraction; a certain level of pollution; and a certain level of biodiversity loss as a result of those operations.

Are any of those impacts factored into George’s presentation of the process? No.

Finland is a good example: While 26% of their electricity comes from hydro and wind, around the same comes from nuclear – and that is projected to rise as their new, delayed, and massively over-budget EPR nuclear plant comes on-line. Does the fermentation process, therefore, consume uranium and produce high-level nuclear waste? Arguably yes. Is that considered in George’s model? No.

I don’t want to labour the point, but this model of how the process works is highly misleading: It does not measure the related impacts of creating the electricity; or extracting and purifying the artificial nutrients; or the associated energy and pollution costs of processing the ‘protein gloop’ into ‘cultured meat’. It is very much like the nuclear industry’s argument that ‘nuclear power doesn’t emit carbon dioxide’; and yet from the concrete in the reactor, to ore processing at the uranium mine, greenhouse gases are embodied throughout that process.

In affluent states the major source of protein is meat; but in poor states the major source of protein is vegetables and cereals¹⁰⁴. How does that square with Monbiot’s assumption that meat production for the global population¹⁰⁵ is a homogeneous issue?

Likewise, humans need roughly 50g to 60g¹⁰⁶ of protein per day. On average most countries scrape that amount in their national diet; but in the affluent world people on average consume at least twice that¹⁰⁷ amount or more. Does George Monbiot discuss the inequality of global protein intakes, and how that too leads to damaging health impacts, just as too little protein does? Not that I can find.

Turning to George Monbiot’s recent column¹⁰⁸ in The Guardian, we see this same simplistic, narrow-boundary analysis applied as a justification:

“The first is to shrink to a remarkable degree the footprint of food production. One paper estimates that precision fermentation using methanol needs 1,700 times less land than the most efficient agricultural means of producing protein: soy grown in the US. This suggests it might use, respectively, 138,000 and 157,000 times less land than the least efficient means: beef and lamb production.”

According to both his book and his column, then, the choice is between intensive animal agriculture, intensive soy production, or precision fermentation: That’s an entirely ‘false dilemma’¹⁰⁹, ignoring the large body of evidence on viable alternative options.

His book, ‘Regenesis’, doesn’t discuss ‘permaculture’¹¹⁰, or ‘integrated polyculture’¹¹¹ – even though recent research¹¹² shows those systems to be far less polluting, and as much if not more¹¹³ productive, and economically far more beneficial to those involved, than the intensive farming system he rails against. Even urban allotments¹¹⁴ – which he dismisses in the book – are as good as, if not more¹¹⁵ productive than intensive agriculture, with higher levels of biodiversity¹¹⁶.

If we know there are easily implementable systems that can produce the same, if not more food, with less impacts, why doesn’t George evaluate these ‘other’ options? Why doesn’t he investigate the the details behind why a third of the world’s food is grown by ‘small farmers’ using only a quarter¹¹⁷ of the farmed land area? (hence, a third-more productive than intensive agriculture) And how does his characterisation of the problem of protein production fit to the varied models of small-scale agriculture – or indigenous animal herders or hunters – who do not practise intensive production? These alternatives are dismissed without investigation.

Interviewed by Aaron Bastani¹¹⁸ – the man who wrote the book on, ‘Fully-Automated Luxury Communism’¹¹⁹ – one-hour in George states:

“By doing it this way you can localise your food production, and you can it can be much cheaper. You’re not paying soft currencies for hard currencies, you’re not using your local currency to buy stuff on the dollar market. You’re producing your own food locally, and it could have a massive impact in reducing hunger but also in allowing people to assert sovereignty over their own food supply.”

Those points apply even more strongly to locally-based agriculture, or small-scale production on plots or urban allotments, than to precision fermentation.

He also fails to note the up-front demand for electricity, water, concentrated nutrients, and a processing capacity to turn the ‘protein gloop’ into an appetising foodstuff. Are those factors which are all locally available? Clearly, not. Even ‘locally produced’ solar electricity requires photovoltaic panels which are the product of a globalised mining, manufacturing, and logistics chain, that operates on the hard ‘dollar’ currencies he’s being critical of.

George Monbiot’s analysis of the land required to support ‘cultured meat’ is incomplete. It doesn’t include the land-take of the system’s ‘externalities’¹²⁰ such as: Power generation; nutrient production; or the land mined for metal or phosphate resources. Unless that essential part of the system is included, he is not making a ‘like-for-like’ comparison, and so no claims can be made as to its advantage.

In contrast, what do localised permaculture or integrated polyculture systems depend upon? Seeds. Literally, the most complex part of a local food system is developing the right seed variety for the local climatic conditions; and once obtained, they can be simply grown and shared – no hard currencies or mechanised logistics chains required.

Small-scale animal agriculture, integrated into fodder cover and nutrient cycling, may be part of that process – especially at higher latitudes where the growing season is shorter. That, again, is something that requires a local assessment of the best options for food production. But to reduce this entire debate to, “Technology Will Save Us All!”, is simplistic, illogical, and not based upon evidence.

I have wrestled with ‘Regenesis’ since I read it. His recent Guardian columns only add to my concern about his public pronouncements. I can rationalise their flaws and failures in only one way: The levels of compromise George Monbiot engages in, to maintain his position within the media environment, mean that he can no longer represent ecological reality to his audience.

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Conclusion: If ecomodernism’s tinkering has failed, it suggests that their model is wrong

Multi-level marketing, created off the back of the social media boom, is as revolutionary as the fears raised by Vance Packard¹²¹ about the marketing boom of the 1950s¹²². Whether by direct payment, goods-in-kind, or just because of the ‘group identity’ it confers, the manipulation of ‘social influencers’¹²³ by political, financial, and industrial interests, represents a new ‘wild west’ in – to use Edward Bernays’ famous phrase – ‘The Engineering of Consent’¹²⁴.

George Monbiot is such an influencer – and a valued one as his audience is largely made-up of the affluent middle class with disposable incomes. And in the marketing of that message – unlike other advertisers – he is wholly unaccountable as he ‘accentuates the positive’¹²⁵ and buries the bad news.

Although Jonathon Porritt may have felt either the honesty, or entitlement to state the assumptions behind the ‘ecomodernist’ viewpoint, many do not. They bend and twist their ideas to avoid ever confronting reality: That their technocratic machinations are devised to maintain their material entitlements.

We must revivify the ‘radicalism’¹²⁶ that Porritt and others excluded from the movement in the 1980s as they sought compromise with the establishment; and reinvigorate the deep ecological debate¹²⁷ on ‘materialism’ and ‘inequality’¹²⁸ that has been suppressed for too long.

Ecomodernism can never address the economic and social inequalities which benefit the globally affluent, while creating suffering or hunger for other living beings (humans included). Just like the establishment’s failure to address colonialism, doing so would question their own political and economic advantage in the here-and-now – raising difficult questions of justice and accountability for past policies.

When I raise the issue of class identity, affluence, and the ecological crisis, a number of people in the environment movement – especially of the ‘ecomodernist persuasion’ – are driven to apoplexy.

I understand that: It challenges the very basis of their self-identity, and hence their security and well-being. But it’s equally valid to require anyone objecting to this approach, to view the issue from the opposite side: From the majority who are economically excluded from the debate; and why the low-tech/low impact options for change are excluded from that debate, as the privileged pundits leading it feel uncomfortable talking about them.

Through his columns in The Guardian, and his recent book, George Monbiot has created talking points that seek an ecologically-benign ‘stasis’ in the human system – ignoring the needs and current predicament of the nationally and globally poor: To even mention the word ‘hunger’ in the context of precision fermantation, I find offensive; to talk of technocratic solutions that are reliant upon globalised commodity systems, when the barriers to accessing food are the result of the neocolonial domination of the resource production, I find repugnant.

What I have not raised here is his ‘Reboot Food’¹²⁹ initiative, and in particular his ‘manifesto’¹³⁰ – including its: Calls to legalising gene editing (without specifying which of the many processes available should be made ‘legal’); calls for ‘rewilding’ (without specifying what that means, and to what extent ‘rewilding people’ is permitted’); and calls for greater food labelling (which presumes the perpetuation of the highly centralised industrial food production and distribution system). That ‘manifesto’ deserves a deep-dive of its own!

If ‘ecomodernism’ is focussed on enabling certain technological or consumer choices, when many are excluded from those choices not simply by price, but by the fact they can barely scrape the basics for a viable lifestyle, then how is that debate going to ever create a mass movement for change? Worse still, the political-right that George seems so afraid of, will weaponise that failure to engage across the social spectrum, to obstruct change, and alienate those making such arguments.

George Monbiot has a highly privileged position which he could use positively: He could deconstruct the economic and social processes that created his privilege; and through that process, both advocate for radical ecological change, and build bridges with those economically excluded from the advantage that he has benefited from.

He chooses not to do that. Instead, he advocates for ‘solutions’ which preserve the economic advantage of the Western lifestyle above any criticism that it is physically and practically beyond salvage.

We need seeds, not solenoids; plots not vats; gardens, not economic globalism. Above all we need land rights, and access to land, to disengage from the global economic system that is the root of human exploitation and ecological destruction. For a catchy soundbite to encompass that, let’s say, “we need to rewild the people alongside all the other animals”.

As I have reviewed here: George Monbiot’s representation of ecological issues in the media has become increasingly narrow; biased towards the perpetuation of affluence and establishment power; and as a result, he is apparently twisting, misquoting, or stating incomplete information, in order to maintain that position. What he promotes is an ‘extreme centrism’, which, through highly questionable technocratic schemes, seeks to preserve the entitlements of affluence against the inevitable crash of that lifestyle. As a result, he is sanitising ecological destruction and global inequality, to maintain the artificial lifestyle of the affluent minority who have benefited the most from industrialisation – which, in the end, is what has created the ecological crisis, and which must be curtailed to avert it.

Inside King Charles III’s $25 Billion Real Estate Empire

https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2022/10/21/inside-king-charles-iiis-25-billion-real-estate-empire/

Giacomo Tognini Forbes Staff Staff Writer, Wealth Team. Oct 21, 2022,

The new British monarch lords over seven palaces, 10 castles, 12 homes, 56 cottages, and 14 ancient ruins where he can hang up his crown

Charles III’s official coronation may not occur until May 6, but the new British monarch has already inherited a $25 billion real estate portfolio fit for a king.

When he acceded the throne in September, the 73-year-old sovereign assumed control of a $42 billion empire, much of it in real estate. Forbes scoured property records, annual reports, audits, archives and legislative documents to find all of the king’s new possessions. His holdings span from Buckingham Palace­the official headquarters of the monarchy, which Forbes estimates is worth $4.9 billion­to Highgrove House, a country residence in Gloucestershire that Charles first purchased in 1980 for £865,000 ($3.7 million today,) now valued at $39 million.

Although he has only had the crown for a few weeks, Charles is expected to break with seven generations of tradition and reject Buckingham Palace as his London residence to remain in his current home at Clarence House (estimated value: $72 million.) But he will also reportedly continue to spend some time at Highgrove. That means he’ll have to pay about $740,000 in annual rent to his son William, who succeeded him as Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and now holds Highgrove under the Duchy of Cornwall.

KING OF THESE CASTLES

Charles III’s $25 billion real estate empire is spread across the United Kingdom as well as two cottages in Transylvania. Here are all the properties where he can stow thrones.

Those properties are part of a vast collection of at least seven palaces, 10 castles, 12 homes, 56 holiday cottages and 14 ancient ruins, per Forbes’ count. Aside from Balmoral Castle in Scotland and Sandringham House in Norfolk, which he inherited from the Queen and now personally owns, none of these opulent residences and historic monuments are directly owned by the King. Most are held by the Crown Estate, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, institutions held “in right of the Crown” for the duration of his reign. Others are controlled by the monarchy itself “in trust” for his successors and the nation, while another four properties are held by two foundations which the King established when he was Prince of Wales.

And it’s not just palaces and countryside homes: through the Crown Estate and the Duchies, Charles now also oversees $12.9 billion in commercial, residential and agricultural properties throughout the U.K., ranging from Ascot Racecourse and the Oval cricket ground to at least three golf courses, a private airfield and the Savoy Chapel in Westminster, the private church of the reigning monarch. The Crown also holds one of England’s most famous monuments, Stonehenge, which was given “to the nation” in 1918 by Cecil Chubb, a local resident who purchased it for £6,600 in 1915 (about $590,000 today).

As the head of state in 15 Commonwealth realms­ in addition to 13 British territories and three crown dependencies­ Charles also has access to at least 49 residences for state visits across the globe, at the homes of his representatives in each nation. Whether he’s traveling to Canada (Rideau Hall in Ottawa,) the Caribbean (King’s House in Jamaica) or the Pacific (Admiralty House in Sydney,) the new monarch always has a place to rest the head that wears the crown.

Closer to home, the lavish estates, extravagant mansions and crumbling ruins maintained by the British monarchy, royal foundations or by the King personally are spread throughout three of the four nations of the United Kingdom, plus two cottages in Transylvania. And there used to be more: between 1998 and 1999, the Crown Estate ceded ownership of six castles, two palaces and one fort in Scotland ­including the millennium-old Edinburgh Castle­to the Scottish government.

But only a small number of homes­ fourteen­ serve as official residences of the King and the royal family. Two more royal residences are personally owned by other family members­ Charles’s sister, Princess Anne, owns Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire (estimated value: $29 million), while the Duke of Gloucester, his first cousin once removed, has put his Barnwell Manor in Northamptonshire up for sale for $5.4 million. Another of Charles’ new digs, the royal palace in Northern Ireland at Hillsborough Castle, is owned directly by the British government, which purchased it in 1925 for £24,000 (or $1.3 million today.)

Average citizens can also get in on a piece of the royal lifestyle: the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster operate 56 holiday homes and cottages across England, Wales and the Isles of Scilly that can be rented out, while the Prince of Wales’ Charitable Fund operates two bed-and-breakfasts in Romania. Everything else, including medieval masterpieces such as the Tower of London and Caernarfon Castle, is a tourist attraction managed by various charities and trusts.

Forbes valued these properties with the help of estimates provided by Lenka Dušková Munter, a sales specialist for historical properties at Czech real estate agency Luxent, and Colby Short, co-founder and CEO of estate agent website GetAgent.co.uk. Here’s a breakdown of King Charles III’s real estate empire.

ENGLAND

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

Est. Value: $4.9 BILLION
The official residence of the royal family since 1837, the 775-room palace with a private swimming pool is also King Charles’s birthplace. First purchased by George III in 1761 when it was still a house, construction to convert it into a palace began in 1820 and only completed in 1847 with the addition of a new wing for Queen Victoria’s growing family, financed largely by the sale of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton for £53,000 ($5.4 million today.) Despite an extensive renovation which began in 2017 and will cost more than $400 million, Charles is known to dislike the “big house.”

HAMPTON COURT PALACE

Est. Value: $1.2 B
Known as the Tudor Palace, Hampton Court is where King Henry VIII spent most of his time, with all six of his wives: by the 1530s, he had added a hotel, theater and numerous works of art; visitors can now see Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar plus works by Caravaggio and Rembrandt. The palace also features a grand colonnade, Fountain Court­designed by Sir Christopher Wren­which had a cameo in the second season of Netflix’s Bridgerton.

TOWER OF LONDON
Est. Value: $1.1 B
Built by William the Conqueror in the late 11th century, the towering castle at the heart of London is home to the Crown Jewels, worth an estimated $4 billion. Three Queens of England­Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Jane Grey­were executed here in the 1500s.

WINDSOR CASTLE
Est. Value: $743 MILLION
Windsor Castle was completed in 1086, one year before William the Conqueror’s death. In 1377, King Edward III spent £50,000 (some $57 million today) to convert it from a military fort into a gothic palace­the largest expense of any medieval king on a single building. Over its nearly thousand-year history, the castle been home to 40 monarchs and is still a favorite of the royal family. The surrounding estate includes Windsor Great Park, golf courses and Ascot Racecourse.

ST. JAMES’S PALACE
Est. Value: $700 M
Overlooking Green Park and St. James’s Park in London­two of the eight royal parks in the capital held by the Crown­St. James’s Palace was once the home of Elizabeth I during the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1558. More recently, it was also the location of King Charles’s accession ceremony on September 10.

LANCASTER CASTLE
Est. value: $674 M
Over its thousand-plus-year history, Lancaster Castle has served as a Roman fort, the site of witch trials and as a prison­until it was decommissioned and converted into a tourist attraction in 2011.

KENSINGTON PALACE
Est. Value: $630 M
The childhood home of Prince William and Prince Harry, Kensington was known as the “party palace” in the late 17th century for hosting extravagant balls where guests “ate, drank, gambled and flirted until dawn.” The palace is still William and Kate’s official London residence, while Prince Harry and Meghan Markle live in a $23 million mansion in Montecito, California, replete with 9 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, a private pool, spa, theater and tennis court.

BANQUETING HOUSE
Est. Value: $296 M
The only remnant of the Palace of Whitehall­once the largest palace in Europe until its destruction in a fire in 1698­Banqueting House in London is home to a 2,420-square-foot ceiling painting by Peter Paul Rubens commissioned by Charles I in 1629. (Rubens was paid £3,000 for the work­some $540,000 today­plus a heavy gold chain.) It’s also where Charles I met a gruesome end on January 30, 1649: just two decades after commissioning the Rubens ceiling, he walked under it and was then executed outside Banqueting House.

CARISBROOKE CASTLE
Est. value: $225 M
Located on the Isle of Wight, Carisbrooke Castle carries much darker memories for the royals: After its capture by parliamentary forces in 1642 during the English Civil War, the dethroned King Charles I was imprisoned there in the years leading up to his execution.

ELTHAM PALACE
Est. Value: $211 M
Described as “unique marriage between a medieval and Tudor palace and a 1930s millionaire’s mansion,” Eltham Palace was used as a royal palace by monarchs who hunted in the surrounding parks from the 14th to the 16th century. Henry VIII, the last king to reside there, spent his childhood at Eltham. In 1933, millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld took a 99-year-lease on the palace from the Crown and installed a bomb shelter in the basement during World War II; they eventually moved out in 1944 after growing tired of the repeated air raids from the German Luftwaffe.

THATCHED HOUSE LODGE
Est. Value: $131 M
Thatched House Lodge is a Regency-era home built in the early 18th century on a 4-acre estate in Richmond Park, the largest park in London and another royal possession. The property is home to Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin Princess Alexandra, who has rented it from the Crown Estate since 1963 and paid a £670,000 premium ($1.4 million today) to extend the lease in 1994.

RESTORMEL MANOR
(14 Properties) Est. Value: $86 M
The Duchy of Cornwall’s 14 holiday properties near the medieval town of Lostwithiel in Cornwall are housed in and around Restormel Manor, a 500-year-old Gothic-style mansion with a steam room, sauna, tennis court and an indoor heated swimming pool. But living like an English lord is pricey: one week at the nine-bedroom Restormel Manor property in December will cost $4,000.

SANDRINGHAM ESTATE
Est. Value: $73 M
One of two properties personally owned by King Charles, which he inherited from his late mother, Sandringham in Norfolk has been in the royal family since 1862. The estate includes the Royal Studs, a thoroughbred horse farm first established in 1886, as well as rental properties spread across 13 nearby villages­with a notorious “no cats” policy for would-be renters, reportedly due to the Queen’s fears the felines would kill the pheasants and partridges kept as game birds. Charles is also reportedly looking to sell some of the Queen’s prized race horses and scale down the Royal Studs.

CLARENCE HOUSE
Est. Value: $72 M
King Charles’s longtime home is one of the last surviving aristocratic townhouses in London, a stuccoed mansion completed in 1827 at the cost of £22,232 ($2 million today)­more than double the original estimate. The Queen also lived there while she was still a princess, and it served as the home of her mother’s impressive art collection, featuring works by Fabergé and John Piper.

KEW PALACE
Est. Value: $70 M
Set among the Royal Botanic Gardens­home to more than 50,000 plants including rare and threatened species housed in a grand Victorian-era greenhouse­Kew Palace was the private retreat of King George III during a long period of mental illness, starting in 1788. The gardens are also home to the Chinese-style Great Pagoda, a 163-foot-tall tower with 80 dragons carved from gilded wood. The dragons, removed in 1784 and restored in 2018, were rumored to have been sold to pay off King George IV’s gambling debts.

DOVER CASTLE
Est. Value: $66 M
Standing guard over the Strait of Dover, the shortest sea crossing between England and Europe, Dover Castle originated as a Roman fort in 43 CE. Another castle on the site was erected in 1066 by William the Conqueror, who captured the city after the Battle of Hastings. The structure that stands today was established by Henry II in 1189. And while British royals haven’t used the castle since 1625, it’s been used in warfare throughout the centuries, including as a garrison for 16,000 troops during the First World War, a hospital in World War II and as a backup seat of government in case of a nuclear attack during the Cold War.

CARLISLE CASTLE
Est. value: $45 M
Located about ten miles south of the modern English-Scottish border, Carlisle Castle served as the Kingdom of England’s fortress against the Scots for half a century until the two realms were united in 1603. Built on the ruins of a Roman fort that provided support for garrisons on Hadrian’s Wall, the castle was besieged seven times by the Scots between 1173 and 1461, when it was again besieged during the English Wars of the Roses. It served as a base for Edward I in 1296; the prison of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1567; and as a British army barracks from the 1820s until 1959.

BAGSHOT PARK
Est. Value: $39 M
Built in 1879 on the orders of Queen Victoria as a home for her third son, Prince Arthur, Bagshot Park in Surrey is a Tudor Gothic-style mansion set on 52 acres of gardens, including stables and a working farm. Prince Edward, Charles’s youngest brother, has lived there since 1998, paying roughly $100,000 in annual rent to the Crown Estate. Charles’ other brother, Prince Andrew, lives a 20-minute drive away at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, which he rented with a 75-year-lease in 2003 for a one-time payment of £1 million (or $1.8 million now).

HIGHGROVE HOUSE
Est. Value: $39 M
King Charles’ longtime family home, Highgrove was built in 1798 and acquired by the then-Prince of Wales in 1980. The estate is home to 15 acres of organic gardens with heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables and an adjacent shop where visitors can buy eggs, wine and spirits made on the property. It’s also a short drive from Ray Mill House, the private home of Charles’ wife, Camilla, the Queen Consort. She purchased the six-bedroom countryside cottage for £850,000 ($1.7 million today) in January 1996, a year after her divorce from her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles­and just seven months before Charles’s own divorce with Princess Diana in August that year. Diana died a year later, in August 1997.

FROGMORE HOUSE
Est. Value: $35 M
Named for the numerous amphibians that live in the marshes around the property, Frogmore House was purchased by King George III in 1792 as a country retreat for his wife, Queen Charlotte. The mansion’s Britannia Room features paintings, porcelain and furniture taken from the interior of the royal yacht, HMY Britannia, after it was decommissioned in 1997. The Frogmore estate is also home to the mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and Frogmore Cottage, the U.K. residence of Prince Harry and Meghan. In September 2020, the couple repaid $3.2 million in refurbishing expenses, originally covered by British taxpayers.

CHESTER CASTLE
Est. Value: $22 M
One of the many castles built by William the Conqueror in 1070, Chester Castle served as the military headquarters for Henry III’s and Edward I’s conquest of Wales, and as a Royalist headquarters during the English Civil War. The castle, which was used by the British military until 1999, features a chapel with wall paintings dating to 1240.

OSBORNE HOUSE
Est. Value: $19 M
This Italianate mansion was purchased by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1845 for £28,000 ($3 million today) as a seaside retreat on the Isle of Wight. The eclectic mansion was designed with architectural features drawn from around the world: the Italian palazzo-style home with extensive terraces; the Indian-style Durbar Wing, in honor of Victoria’s status as Empress of India; and the Swiss Cottage, an “educational tool” for the royal children, where they grew fruit, flowers and vegetables.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER COTTAGES
(16 Properties) Est. Value: $12 M
The Duchy of Lancaster owns fifteen holiday cottages in Scarborough, a seaside resort located near North York Moors national park. A one-night stay at the 8-bedroom Scalby Lodge in late November will set you back some $720. Root Farm Cottage is a two-bedroom property in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire, forming part of the Whitewell Estate, last visited by the Queen Elizabeth in 2006 for her 80th birthday celebrations.

LOSKEYLE COTTAGES
(2 Properties) Est. Value: $4.1 M
The Duchy of Cornwall owns four holiday cottages­with complimentary fishing for guests­in St Tudy, a small countryside village in Cornwall. A seven-night stay in November in Menhenick, a two-story, three-bedroom barn, costs $735.

DOLPHIN HOUSE
Est. Value: $2 M
The six-bedroom home on the island of Tresco is housed in an old granite rectory, with hilltop views of the Atlantic Ocean and the 19th-century Round Island lighthouse.

TAMARISK
Est. Value: $1.5 M
Tamarisk is a four-bedroom cottage on Garrison Hill in Hugh Town on the island of St. Mary’s. Its name comes from the tamarisk trees on the property, a flowering plant mentioned in the Old Testament and the Iliad. While still an official royal residence, Charles and Diana snubbed the home on their vacations to the Isles of Scilly, preferring to stay with friends in Tresco.

BERKHAMSTED CASTLE
Before it crumbled into ruins, Berkhamsted Castle was a motte-and-bailey built out of timber in 1070. It was briefly the home of Thomas Becket, then Archbishop of Canterbury, who rebuilt the castle in stone between 1155 and 1164. From 1225 to 1272, it was refurbished and expanded to serve as the palace of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, believed to be the richest man in England at the time.

BOLINGBROKE CASTLE
King Henry IV was born in the 13th-century Bolingbroke Castle in 1367, but all that remains are the sunken hexagonal walls and surrounding earthworks.

CROMWELL’S CASTLE
One of the few remaining fortifications from the Interregnum­the period between 1649 and 1660 when Oliver Cromwell ruled England after executing Charles I­Cromwell’s Castle is a circular gun tower built in 1651, after Cromwell’s forces recaptured the Isles of Scilly from the royalists.

KING CHARLES’S CASTLE
Adjacent to Cromwell’s castle on the island of Tresco, King Charles’s Castle was built during the reign of King Edward VI and renamed by pro-Charles I royalists during the English Civil War. The gambit didn’t work­parliamentarian troops bypassed the now-ruined castle by landing on the other side of Tresco in 1651.

LAUNCESTON CASTLE
Launceston Castle is a ruined 13th-century round tower and the remnants of a castle originally built by William the Conqueror for his half-brother. It later served as a prison where George Fox, founder of the Quakers, was detained in 1656 and held executions until 1821.

LYDFORD CASTLE
Lydford Castle sits on the western edge of Dartmoor national park, a vast expanse of moorlands where the Duchy of Cornwall owns a third of the land. The 12th-century square castle was a prison from the Middle Ages until the 1700s.

MAIDEN CASTLE
Described as “one of the largest and most complex Iron Age hillforts in Europe,” Maiden Castle is the size of 50 soccer pitches, with enormous ramparts dating to the 1st century BCE.

PEVERIL CASTLE
Now in ruins, Peveril Castle, was one of the earliest Norman fortresses in England, with a keep built by Henry II in 1176.

RESTORMEL CASTLE
Once a “luxurious retreat” in the 14th century and the home of Edward, the first Duke of Cornwall, Restormel Castle is now a ruin with a large circular keep.

ST. MARY’S COTTAGES
(3 properties)
Besides Tamarisk, the Duchy of Cornwall also owns three more holiday homes on St. Mary’s, including a two-bedroom property in a 17th-century guard house and another housed in a former gun battery.

TICKHILL CASTLE
Now occupied by a private tenant who rents the land from the Duchy of Lancaster, the 11th-century Tickhill Castle was expanded by several English kings until its decline during the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century: King Henry I built a gatehouse and a wall with ramparts in 1130, and Henry II added a new keep and a stone bridge in 1182.

TINTAGEL CASTLE
Located on the rugged northern coast of Cornwall, little remains of this 13th-century castle.

TRESCO COTTAGES
(15 properties)
The Duchy of Cornwall­which owns nearly all of the land on the Isles of Scilly­has 15 holiday cottages on the island of Tresco, in addition to Dolphin House.

TREMATON CASTLE
The ruins of Trematon Castle in eastern Cornwall were converted into a private garden with evergreen oaks and wild flowers in 2012, when it was leased by garden designers Julian and Isabel Bannerman from the Duchy of Cornwall.

TUTBURY CASTLE
Built in 1071 for Norman baron Henry de Ferrers, this now-ruined castle was confiscated by Henry III during the Second Barons’ War in 1267. Elizabeth I imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots at Tutbury multiple times between 1569 and 1585, when she was moved 80 miles south to Fotheringhay Castle and executed.

WALES

CAERNARFON CASTLE
Est. Value: $289 M
Inspired by imperial Roman architecture and the walls of ancient Constantinople, the 13th-century Caernarfon Castle is ringed by 2,400 feet of stone walls studded with 12 octagonal towers and surrounded by a moat. King Edward I ordered its construction in 1283 after the conquest of Wales, but the colossal structure took 47 years and £25,000 (more than $23 million today) to complete­roughly 90% of England’s annual income at the time. It also holds a special resonance to the new king: Charles was invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon in 1969.

LLWYNYWERMOD
Est. Value: $3.9 M
Located near the mountains of Brecon Beacons national park, Llwynywermod was King Charles III’s Welsh retreat while he was Prince of Wales. The 192-acre estate is now in the hands of his son, Prince William, who has his own Welsh connection: The wedding ring he gave Kate Middleton in 2011 is made of Welsh gold, and the couple lived on the isle of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales while William worked as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot.

MYDDFAI COTTAGES
(2 properties)
The Duchy of Cornwall owns two cottages on the Llwynywermod estate, housed in converted barns. Guests can expect to pay $1,000 for a weeklong stay at the smaller two-bedroom West Range cottage for the privilege of being William and Kate’s neighbor.

OGMORE CASTLE
The oval-shaped ruins of Ogmore Castle feature a twelfth-century stone keep and date to 1116, when the castle was founded by the Norman de Londres family.

ROMANIA

THE PRINCE OF WALES’S GUESTHOUSE
Est. value: $1.1 M
One of only two properties held by King Charles outside of the U.K., he purchased this private nature retreat and guesthouse in the rural Transylvanian village of Valea Z lanului­known locally by its Hungarian moniker Zalánpatak­through Ecologic Transilvania SRL, a Romanian subsidiary of the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund. Visitors can go horse riding at the property’s stables or take advantage of a wood-fired “salty hot-tub” and a mineral water pool in the summer, or horse-drawn sleigh rides with mulled wine in the winter.

THE PRINCE OF WALES’S HOUSE
Est. value: $1.1 M
Located a two-hour drive west of Valea Z lanului in the town of Viscri, Charles’s second Romanian property is a bed and breakfast that doubles as a traditional crafts and training center housed in an 18th-century Saxon home. Beyond these two homes, Charles has another, centuries-old link to Transylvania: he is a distant relative of Vlad the Impaler, who ruled what is now Romania in the 15th century and served as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

SCOTLAND

BALMORAL CASTLE
Est. Value: $118 M
Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite residence, she spent her final days at Balmoral before she died on September 8 at age 96. Purchased by Prince Albert for his wife, Queen Victoria, in 1852 for £32,000 ($3.9 million today,) the castle was built in the Scottish Baronial style out of local white granite. The 50,000-acre estate includes a golf course, woodlands, a bridge across the river Dee designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and an obelisk commemorating Prince Albert. Along with Sandringham, it’s one of two properties personally owned by King Charles, which he inherited from the Queen.

PALACE OF HOLYROOD HOUSE
Est. Value: $83 M
The official residence of the monarchy in Scotland, Holyroodhouse sits on one end of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, which connects the palace to Edinburgh Castle. Founded by King David I of Scotland as an Augustinian monastery in 1128­a structure that’s still intact today as Holyrood Abbey­James IV built a palace on the grounds in 1501, and later residents included Mary, Queen of Scots. (A box containing her hair is on display in her former chambers.) The palace rooms feature treasures from the Royal Collection, including the Darnley Jewel, a heart-shaped gold locket studded with Burmese rubies and Indian emerald.

DUMFRIES HOUSE
Est. Value: $46 M
Set on 2,000 acres of land in rural Ayrshire in southwestern Scotland, Dumfries House is a Palladian, 18th-century mansion purchased by Charles in 2007 for £45 million (or $77 million today) through a trust. Built in 1759 by William Chrichton-Dalrymple, the Earl of Dumfries, and designed by the architect Robert Adam and his two brothers, the home is known for retaining its original 18th-century furniture from the workshop of Thomas Chippendale. Now in the hands of the Prince’s Foundation, a charity Charles set up in 1986, Dumfries House is open to visitors and is also used for training young people in traditional skills and crafts.

CASTLE OF MEY
Est. Value: $15 M
Built in 1567 by George, the Earl of Caithness on the northeastern coast of Scotland, the Castle of Mey features a grand entrance and dining room designed by William Burn in 1819. It fell into disrepair in the 20th century until it was purchased by the Queen Elizabeth’s mother in 1952, who renovated the castle and its 30 acres of gardens and parklands and restored the property’s original name. The Queen Mother handed the castle over to a trust in 1996, which now forms part of The Prince’s Foundation.