The Unsuitablog

Cast your minds back to 2006, when the UK Conservative Party (actually, still the Conservative and Unionist Party, for completists) snuffed out their “hand holding torch” logo, and switched to the “Green Tree” logo. It was to be a new dawn for the new green Conservative Party; an age of environmental respect and a new found compassion for the natural world, where all was once soaked in the ooze of corporate loving Tory malfeasance. The ecology was to be given (at least) equal billing with the economy; something that was drummed into the British public’s heads with the party’s press releases, and David Cameron’s rhetoric:

I believe that tackling climate change is a key part of my ambition for the Conservative Party to lead a new green revolution. Above all today, I want to recapture climate change from the pessimists. Of course it presents huge challenges. Of course the issues are complex. Of course it will require us to change. But when I think about climate change and our response to it, I don’t think of doom and gloom, costs and sacrifice.

I think of a cleaner, greener world for our children to enjoy and inherit.

The rhetoric hasn’t changed, at least from Tory Central Office – hell, you can buy a Green Tree Keyring, if you really want – but look more closely at Cameron’s speech even back in 2006 and you will see a few things that throw a dirty grey veil over the shiny green promises. The role of the market, is one such thing…

we understand the power of markets, and how they work. We know that markets will have a crucial part to play – internationally and nationally – in driving down carbon emissions and creating green, sustainable growth.

and then…

We have to liberate ourselves from the myth that we have to choose between protecting the environment and promoting prosperity…There’s a direct connection between environmental protection and wealth creation…We have to make it clear that we want, we need – and crucially, that we have the ability to achieve – economic growth and a sustainable environment; indeed that one supports the other.

Economic growth compatible with with environmental protection and sustainability; now where have we hard that before?

Miliband Poznan BBC Sun 13 December 2008

Ah yes, a prominent member of the party that David Cameron hopes to usurp. All reading from the same hymn sheet and preaching the Holy Gospel of Market Capitalism. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you cannot have a growing material economy without degrading the natural capital that sustains all life on Earth. Failure to recognise this is why it is so easy for politicians to push the growth agenda, proliferating the view that we can spend our way out of this mess.

Spend our way into oblivion, is more like it.

But all the time the corporations make deals behind the scenes — deals that will decide who benefits most from a Conservative government –The Conservatives continue to wax lyrical about their commitment to environmental care:

A Conservative Government will make Britain greener by tackling climate change and enhancing our environment.

We believe quality of life and environmental issues must be at the heart of politics – which is why we have pledged to improve Britain’s environment by reversing the decline in our biodiversity, improving urban green spaces, providing incentives to recycle and working towards zero waste.

Well, I say “wax lyrical”, but read on and you see that the agenda is dominated by waste and recycling, not reducing consumption or bringing people back into a deep connection with the real world (heaven forbid!). There is also a bit of that traditional Conservative colonialism creeping in, with the ominous phrases “our fish stocks” and “our marine habitats”, as though humans (or rather civilised, political humans) own the oceans.

Not to let personal agendas get in the way of doing work for the people is Shadow Environment and Rural Affairs Minister, Nick Herbert, a former director of the British BloodField Sports Society, and founder member of the Countryside Alliance, who suggested that “Lord Stern’s call for people to give up eating meat [to reduce greenhouse gas emissions] was totally irresponsible and damaging to our livestock industry”. Although, to give him his due, it seems that he is not in a political minority, as shown by Labour MP Jane Kennedy, who said: “In British sausage week we celebrate a varied diet. If it is a proposal that vegetarianism should save the world then I’m not sure it’s a world I want to live in.”

Well, stick a skewer up my arse and call me a kebab! I guess I’m in a living hell, then.

Further truths about Conservative Greenwashing have recently emerged, with the unsurprising revelation that prominent Tory members and writers are climate change sceptics

David Cameron is facing a growing challenge to his authority from senior members of his own party who say they have doubts about the Conservatives’ stance on global warming.

Leading figures including Peter Lilley, the former cabinet minister, Andrew Tyrie and Ann Widdecombe are openly questioning the political consensus on climate change.

And today David Davis, the former shadow Home Secretary, warns in The Independent that the policy of tough targets to cut carbon emissions, supported by Mr Cameron, is “destined to collapse”. He criticises “the fixation of the green movement with setting ever tougher targets, in the face of failure to meet earlier promises”. He adds: “The ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds – is bound to cause a reaction in any democratic country.”

Some Tory frontbenchers are also said to have private doubts about climate change. John Maples, the deputy Tory chairman, told the Commons last year that he no longer accepted the consensus on the issue. “I do not believe that the science is anything like as settled as the proponents of the [Climate Change] Bill are making out,” he said. He declined to comment yesterday.

Backbenchers were happy to speak out. Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley, admitted he did not share Mr Cameron’s views on the subject, and warned that a Tory government would harm the economy if it took unilateral action to cut emissions.

Well, at least Philip Davies got one thing right: dealing with climate change will hurt the economy. Oh yes!

And it’s pretty obvious what the Conservatives will support if they have to make a choice between the Economy and the Ecology…

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N.B. The author does not vote any more