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A Stark Message

Mon 11th Apr 2022

Globalwarming is the issue of the age and unlike other issues this is not transitory. Globalwarming will never vanish and for many years to come, humanity will be grappling with this problem.

If the last twenty years has proved anything it is that all the major political parties of all the countries in the world do not have the inclination to do what is necessary and make extremely unpopular decisions on their watch.

There you have it, the nub of the problem.

Green Parties of all complexions are the only ones who WILL act for our good! If you are wary of voting for them, we believe you should be because drastic situations need drastic measures. Present day 'won't do politicians' have, with our connivance, brought us to this disastrous position.

Regrettably, tomorrow is too late to act

Exhausted Options

Wed 20th Apr 2022

It's a shame last week's grim report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - advising that "transport pricing" should favour energy-efficient modes - wasn't published earlier.

If Rishi Sunak had realised petrol and diesel cars are bad for the environment, he might not have cut fuel duty by 5p a litre in his spring statement - on top of the real-terms cut from fuel duty being frozen for more than a decade - after whacking up fares on trains and London buses.

Last year his government's transport decarbonation plan pledged to reverse the trend, where motoring costs had plummeted by 15 percent in real terms over 20 years while rail fares had increased by 20 percent and bus fares by more than 40 percent. But Sunak doesn't apparently read his own government's plans.

Rationing On The Cards

Thu 21st Apr 2022

The government's new "British energy security strategy", a remarkably short document, can't bear the weight of it's title. It's no more than a slight beefing-up of the "green industrial revolution" (2020) and "net zero carbon" (2021) policies, rebranded with a "security" tag.

It's too late now to take out an energy insurance policy for 2022 when the threat is already present. A meaningful security strategy for right now would include measures to address the worst out come should it befall. In that case, although the document is entirely silent on the matter, there is no doubt whatever, that energy rationing will be needed.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps airily says ministers don't want that. Maybe not - but then again, they're too young to remember how the energy crisis of 1973-4 was managed. Oil rationing took place on national and global levels. If Putin cuts off the gas and oil, or if western buyers boycott him there will be nothing else to do, and rationing by organised means has certain societal advantages over the alternative, which is rationing by price (aka letting granny freeze).

At the same time, the document rehearses existing policy for improving energy efficiency and home insulation - one of he very few things that might make an immediate contribution (Eye 1570). But government ineffectiveness on this is neatly illustrated by one of the statistics cited, namely that "2,300 social housing homes are in the process of being improved". That's out of a total of just under 4m!