We seem to
be living in cloud cuckoo land where we can carry on regardless despite our
environmental and economic woes. The political Left and Right trade punches as
if nothing substantial needs to change. Our politicians’ work to court popular
opinion, not use logical analysis to reach conclusions that lead to action. What
of the notion that our leaders should be trying to work out what is best for
society and then trying to make it so? This seems sensible to me but the
politics of spin seems to be all about populism not about bold leaders who
persuade the population to follow them in doing what is right and necessary. In
this political climate, the output of focus groups has more influence than the
opinion of experts when it comes to setting policy.
In the same
week that the world’s leading climate scientists finalise a report that makes deeply
disturbing reading, Ed Milliband announces that he will freeze energy prices if
he is elected as Prime Minister. Astonishingly, his popularity has risen as a
result, instead of sealing his fate through championing policy that will lead
us yet deeper into trouble. In cloud cuckoo land, we like such policy so we can
keep living our lives without worrying about what tomorrow may bring. This
would be an amusing aside worthy of a Wallace and Gromit story if the Labour
Party was not making the promise with a straight face and people were not
taking it at face value without looking beyond the sound bite to what it would
mean.
Cheap energy
prices have fuelled our economy for as long as anyone can remember based on
cheap fossil fuel. To kick the habit of fossil-fuel dependency means energy
prices must rise. The Conservative Party are not much better as they are
reported considering reining back on incentives for renewable energy to limit the
levy on fuel prices. Our politicians are vying to have us all live in cloud
cuckoo land, where Wallace will be elected Prime Minister (with Gromit as the
Chancellor of the Exchequer), energy prices will be pegged and the warming
climate will lead to nothing more worrying than the possibility of better English
wine.
As the
winter draws in we can look to what to do over Christmas to enjoy the season of
excessive eating, copious drinking with the thermostats turned up high. Instead
of planning to go to see Santa in his Grotto in the local department store, why
not book a day trip to Lapland. With all the money that we should be spending
on insulation to keep our energy use (and bills) in check we could fly to
Finland, have a ride on a real reindeer sledge and see Santa in his mountain
grotto. This is the offer I found in this weekend’s papers for the ‘small’
price of £500 per person. It doesn’t matter that this trip has a higher carbon
footprint than an entire village for a year in Bangladesh. Such a village is
likely to be flooded by rising sea levels in any case so what “what the hell”
let’s put on our big carbon dancing boots and be merry.
With Wallace
in charge, he is bound to come up with some contraption that will make it
alright. This could be huge set of bellows to capture the hot air from our
politicians and drive a machine to generate power to keep cloud cuckoo land
running smoothly without us noticing any disruption. This is a good place to be
until reality intrudes…
