Not living in the real world
There’s an article in today’s Observer about Milliband and Brown scrapping about climate change. So far, so tedious. I was happily sat with the paper and a coffee when I read a splutteringly preposterous comment from a Friends of the Earth spokesperson, which I just have to share with you. For context, he was talking about personal carbon allowances, something I think I probably support. The article says:
Official figures recently released to parliament showed better progress in reducing CO2 levels had actually been made under the Tories in the years 1990-97 than under Labour after the election, he said, although not due to any eco-friendly efforts they made: ‘We were switching at that time from coal fired power stations to [cleaner] gas stations but it was more driven by Arthur Scargill and the miners’ strike than the environment.
Okay. Then the money shot:
‘The recesssion did also help a bit: during times of recession people aren’t going to work and are driving less.’
See what I mean?! Not the same world as the rest of us. Never mind millions of unemployed people and people losing their homes right left and centre; the early 80s recession was good because it decreased carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, of course. As was commented to me earlier today, I’m sure there was decreased carbon consumption during the Black Death - doesn’t mean we should hope for a pandemic to decrease our carbon footprint. More seriously, don’t people like FOE realise that buying in ordinary people who like having a job and being able to pay the rent or mortgage is pretty vital in creating a coalition big enough to force action on climate change?
Hold on I don’t think the journalist is saying it’s good to have a recession. I think they’re saying that recession was good for Co2 emissions. That’s an important point because it highlights how economic “progress” can be at odds with environmental concerns. Of course no-one thinks the solution to the climate change problem is to send markets into a meltdown, and nor would anyone suggest that the Tories deliberately encouraged recession to save the planet. Still if a policy of economic interests being prioritised ahead of environmental concerns continues to be pursued by governments in the way that the Labour government currently does - it won’t be very long at all before there is no habitable planet on which to conduct said economics.
I’d have blamed Thatcher rather than Scargill and he’s not shown much tact, but it’s generally true.
Labour shortages caused by the Black Death, caused hyper-inflation and brought the feudal system to its knees. Landowners were reduced to poaching peasants, who found were able to negotiate improvements to pay and conditions for the first time.
(I’m probably being pedantic.)
I think:
“The recesssion did also help a bit:”
is an extraordinarily poor choice of words from someone who, you’d imagine, wants to win people over to their campaign.
That said, the underlying point is part of the real world debate - that we may have to choose to a greater extent than we do now between environmental stability and achieving the maximum level of economic productivity.
On the specific point, I don’t think more people being unemployed and staying at home for that reason is something many of us would be in favour of but more people working from home and/or getting jobs nearer to where they live is a better idea for many people, and not just for environmental reasons.
Antonia’s taking the argument to absurdity. The FoE spokesperson was not actually saying recession is generally a good thing. The “helped a bit” comment is clearly purely in relation to environmental impact, but they are not advocating recession generally as a cure for environment ills.
I think Antonia probably knows that, to be fair!
“Landowners were reduced to poaching peasants”
I didn’t realise starvation had spread so far up the social scale.