Billions of human beings may drown because UK plumbers aren’t diverse enough. The oceans will, as Al Gore put it, boil.

Mass extinction can only be avoided if plumbers in the UK become more diverse and inclusive. Government experts in the formerly Great Britain have a study proving that carbon emissions are linked to the insufficient number of non-white, non-male plumbers in the industry.

Hyperbole? Surely. But that is the basic upshot of this ridiculous story in The Telegraph.

Plumbers have an image problem that may derail the Government’s net zero ambitions, experts have warned.

Replacing gas boilers and switching to heat pumps is a central tenet of the Government’s ambitions for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050, and the installation will largely be done by upskilling current gas and oil boiler installers.

But almost all plumbers are middle-aged white men close to retirement, a government report has found, raising concerns that there will not be enough competent installers to reach the Government’s goal of 600,000 heat pumps being installed every year by 2028.

The study, by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), found that plumbers think recruiting young people is important but that “if the same recruitment practices and promotional activities continue within the sector, the pool of potential employees recruited to grow the sector may be restricted and the lack of diversity may persist”.

I would be willing to wager that as long as there have been plumbers in Great Britain the majority have been white and male, and a substantial fraction has been middle-aged. Does anybody want to take me up on that wager?

Perhaps, though, this is why the oceans are currently boiling. At no point in Earth’s history has the majority of British plumbers been diverse, and at no point in history have heat pumps dominated UK heating and cooling. Ergo, Britain must install 600,000 heat pumps every year using female minority plumbers.

QED.

Mica May, co-director of Stopcocks Women Plumbers, told The Telegraph that the industry “is not presenting an attractive face” for prospective plumbers.

“If everyone goes to university the country will fall on its face,” she said. “You’ve got people saying ‘only thickos go into trades’ and young people don’t see the skilled aspect of it.

“Quite frankly, out there in the culture, if there’s anybody who is a tradesperson in a soap then at best they are a scally – they may even be a murderer.

“There’s not a good impression being given of the variety of the job and what a satisfying career it can be, as well as the fact that it can be quite well paid.

“Only when we have enough workers, and enough workers who properly represent the wide variety of people in the UK, will there be space for the innovation we need to meet net zero.”

Bollocks, as the Brits would say. A load of tosh. Mica May’s take proves she is a gobby.

It boils down to this: the British government wants to save the world by replacing fossil fuel heating with electric heating and cooling to save the Earth. They also want to push DEI because of course they do.

So they combine both their policies into an all-purpose “hair on fire” excuse to recruit so-called “diverse” plumbers.

And the way to do that is to insult White male plumbers. “Thick” here refers to their intelligence, not their girth.

Ms May added that good plumbers “are absolutely vital to green outcomes” but are not being included in conversations about saving the planet.

“You’re more encouraged to go on an Extinction Rebellion demonstration, which does have validity, than you are to actually start installing this stuff that is going to make a difference.”

A BEIS spokesman said: “We expect most people installing heat pumps over the next five years to be existing gas and oil boiler installers who have trained to install heat pumps, and heating engineers can complete this training in one week or less.

“Government is working closely with industry to encourage new apprentices to join the sector, and access the high-paid, high-skilled jobs that will be vital to reducing emissions from the UK’s buildings.”

I haven’t much of an opinion about gas heating versus heat pumps, which are much more efficient than resistance heaters. Ducting may be a problem in older British houses, I would expect, and the transition is likely to be costly for a lot of people and for the country as a whole. So it sounds pretty stupid, but I don’t really know the ins and outs of British housing and energy.

And it’s not like Britain is brimming with excess electricity, nor is it likely that wind and solar installations will be adequate to provide the necessary electricity in winter. So my guess is that this whole push is a disaster waiting to happen. But what do I know?

But if the policy serves to increase the number of Muslim female plumbers the program will be worth it.