First up welcome to my blog. This is the first one I have done away from Facebook in quite a while. I used to have a livejournal account but I quite frankly forgot my login and password, and beside from that I thought a change of scene was due. I have sent some of my previous blogs to some online magazines, all of whom rejected my offerings. Apparently my posts are too "personalised" and not "objective" enough. Well thank the Lord we have the BBC and Bristol's Evening Post to bring in balanced reporting and sent an example for all of us. And don't even get me started on Murdoch. Anyhoo, I decided to take some of my thoughts for the day and add them on here. Someone told me they may stand out from my Facebook Notes. I am more bothered about that damn man Zuckerberg changing the interface for it all the time anyway, but if this helps it exposure than so be it. Without further ado I will begin.
The first topic I would like to cover are my views on Environmentalism. To sum up my position. I believe that climate change is real and iminant. I believe that government can make a real and crucial difference in the battle against climate change. Having said that, I believe the fight has now become a split case: prevention against climate change and building defences against it's iminent effects. On the latter, ironically it is the third world predominantly that are going to need the most help. Indeed recently in the run up to the Mexico Climate Change summit small island nations such as Tuvalu and Nauru (in the Pacific) have formed a political alliance (the name of which escapes me) with the mission of pointing out the evidently obvious: rising sea levels will wipe out their respective nations. Do I think anything will come of the summit? Hell no. Mainly because I think at the moment developed countries and some developing ones (BRIC-Brazil, Russia, India and China) are at the moment within their comfort zones. In the comfort zones in terms of physical effects of global warming on their nations as well as energy prices. Some day I believe this may change, unfortunately not nearly soon enough.
Who's to blame for the world's slow U-turn towards taking environmentalism seriously? Well I have to say a large part has to do with the mindset of it's activists. Let me be clear (as clear as I can be after 4 pints of ale and walking for 4 miles in sub zero temperatures), in order to tackle climate change we need to engage AND respect those who may not necessarily have the near apocalyptic views of the problem as I and many green activists do. That means engaging with the right wing. Yes, yes I know they are scary and wierd and often have funny views about the free market solving everything. But they are a numerous breed and are not entirely unreasonable. And continously scaring them and making them look as evil as Genghis Khan just because they don't necessarily see the problem through our eyes will not help us. In fact it will shoot us in the foot.
Going back to basics, the question to ask is when will people change their lifestyles? The answer is when it is convenient AND advantageous for them to do so. They want their energy as cheap as they can get it, they HAVE to have it as cheap as they can get. They will recycle if such facilities are accessible AND will resent being sent a bill for their waste if other obligations (such as family) get in the way of it. Green TAXES I say is the wrong message to send. Tax INCENTIVES are the well forward. To my Conservative colleagues across the Commons floor in the future I would say, I will give companies their corporate tax back IF they earn it by doing their best to be sustainable AND prove it.
And what is this fools errand with the left wanting GOVERNMENT to be the main driver behind innovation in green technology and the right wanting the PRIVATE SECTOR to do the same? Why not both? I raise you better, why not both COMPETING against each other to drive down the price of the said technology and more importantly increase it's effectiveness?
Recently I stood for selection unsuccessfully for a council seat heavily contested by the Green Party. Long story short (which I cannot get into, nor do I really want to) I did not get in. But during my pitch (which exposed my weakness in public speaking) I expressed my heartfelt view that the UK Green Party are a threat to the politics of this country as well as the well being of it's population.
I believe that now and I believe that then. The Green Party are lead by a vanguard of inverted snobs and middle class hippies. They will huff at buying "processed foods" but will think nothing at paying a lot more for organic produce which is often developed through farming practices just as damaging as industrialised farming ones. They will turn their noses up at those who cannot be scared into accepting a smaller economy in place of the urgent change they advertise.
In sum the Green Party represent the following false argument: that tackling climate change must be met by a huge reduction in personal freedom, personal wealth and isolationist internal trade for food stuffs. I say no way honey: the free market's goalposts can be changed to make the necessary changes in peoples lives painless and common sense. The economy can carry on growing though innovation in obtaining new ideas to tackle this global problem. And REGIONAL trade is what we need. Food self sufficiency is a lie, unless we want to tear up a lot more forests and habitats that we are trying to preserve in the first place. In conclusion, don't be fooled.
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