Global warming trumps legitimate environmentalism

Climate change is the new Socialism. Just as the fight to end inequality and class oppression justified sidelining all other practical and ethical concerns in the 20th Century, so the struggle against global warming takes precedence today. The left love it because it justifies regulations, interference, bloated bureaucracies; it also legitimises ignoring the democratic wishes of electorates, the flip side of which is the supposed need to move towards globalised governance, nations being too small and too concerned with their particular interest to be trusted.

There are many levels of environmentalism: noise and air pollution are legitimate health issues irrespective of the Climate Change hypothesis; even without the hopelessly optimistic threadbareness of the economic arguments, they are enough to justify opposing the 3rd runway at Heathrow. None of that matters much: expansion of air traffic is BAD for Climate Change and it is this front which the government had to defend on the Today Programme (5 December 2008): how does it square with its Climate Change targets and pledges to the EU? Of course it shows how bogus the government's environmentalism is: despite the global warming rhetoric, so beloved of pontificators and summit junkies on the left, they allow the third runway because they can meet their targets in some other way (by outsourcing British industry for example – which of course moves to more intensively polluting factories in China – they fall foul of the targets, not us). There are other issues of more direct concern to people living near Heathrow: the noise levels will increase and the air quality will degrade, bad news for the long-suffering residents of West London and Thames Valley; but they can be classed as nimbies, Not In My Back-yard, small-minded bourgeios, who fail to see the global picture. Nor has there been an intelligent debate about the supposed economic benefits or yet more air traffic in an area that is traditionally overheated economically. Yet everything is seen through the prism of climate change rather than realistic environmental or economic concerns.

There is a good argument for saving energy: it is called national security. Minimise reliance on energy from unfriendly powers. If governments emphasized this, people might be more willing to look at how they as individuals increase demand; global concerns don’t provide the same motivation.

Moreover global concerns, as defined by our liberal overlords in the labour-libdem caucus and the media, can conflict with our legitimate interests, even our safety. The popular discontent with the new orthodoxy can be sampled in a rake of letters in the Daily Telegraph about the new energy saving light bulbs. These show a common-sense scepticism related to their practical defects and the hazards associated with their use, namely the headache-inducing quality of the light, their slowness to turn on when speed is required, their mercury content. Christopher Howse summarised this at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/christopher_howse/blog/2008/12/02/bits_of_light_bulb_in_your_tuna_sandwich in the Telegraph.

This shows how the battle against climate change trumps not only practical and cost concerns but also health and environmental issues. That the government should encourage the use of mercury in light bulbs in spite of its extreme toxicity shows how the interests of people and extreme envionmental hazards are subsumed to the greater global struggle. If it breaks we are supposed to leave the room. What about if you have children? Mine like to play ball in the living room and hall; they have even been known to throw things at the lights. Their health is secondary of course to the global problem. You can see how every problem will be subordinated to the Climate Change agenda.