Greenism

I'm stumped. I've been it before. I will be again. And I certainly am now. And it is epitomised by this: MEP HITS OUT AT MEDIA OVER CLIMATE CHANGE DOUBT...

... from a press release which I print in full here:

LUCAS LIKENS CLIMATE SCEPTICISM TO HOLOCAUST DENIAL - GREEN MEP Caroline Lucas has hit out at the media after a poll revealed that a majority of people in the UK believe that scientists aren’t agreed about the facts of climate change – or that it is being caused by human activity. According to latest figures by pollsters Ipsos-MORI, some 56 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Many leading experts still question if human activity is contributing to climate change”. Just 22 per cent disagreed. Dr Lucas, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Environment and Climate Change committees, said: “This is very worrying. Politicians will never take the steps necessary to cut emissions unless voters demand that they do so, and they won’t demand it if they remain sceptical about their role in changing the climate in the first place. “The media are, at least in part, to blame: their obsession with appearing to be balanced means discussions of climate change tend to have a naysayer arguing either that climate change isn’t happening, or that it isn’t manmade, as though there is a serious ongoing scientific debate about this. “But the fact is that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change: almost every scientist in the world agrees that climate change is happening, that it is being fuelled by human activity, and that our best chance of ameliorating its worst impacts lies in dramatically cutting global greenhouse gas emissions. “By suggesting otherwise the media is, albeit inadvertently, promoting dangerous scepticism about climate change – and undermining our chances of doing anything about it.” Dr Lucas, who was named Politician of the Year in the recent Observer Ethical Awards 2007, likened climate change scepticism to holocaust denial. “The media’s attempt to seem balanced is in fact distorting the public’s understanding of perhaps the most pressing issue facing us all today – and it’s tragic. It doesn’t make any sense: would the media insist on having a holocaust-denier to balance any report about the second word war? Of course not - but by insisting on giving so much airtime to climate change deniers, it is doing exactly the same thing.”

This is yet another, oddly familiar salvo, that can be added to the exchanges noted of late, including some we've had most latterly on these very pages just yesterday.

Here I am, trying to do my best to do what's best for my kids' futures on this planet, and I seem to have found myself in the BOFDi camp.

Let me be clear. I think the evidence for climate change (Global warming is getting pretty discredited as a term , at least to use in public debate, as low temperatures and flash floods are hard to reconcile with the term) is pretty clear. I also believe that, at best, what mankind is doing sure isn't helping. So anything we do... now... in mitigation to slow, halt and reverse the process is a priority, especially as, to this 'live for tomorrow' society, we are talking efforts that equate to turning a supertanker, inasmuch as what we do today won't get noticed - good or bad - for several decades.

But...

I simply cannot go along with the notion that 'green is always good', and in the name of climate change action all manner of statements and/or initiatives can be allowed to go undebated as to validity and value. I guess it is one of the greater failings of the democratic process, especially when time is of the essence.

But while I have great respect for Dr. Lucas, when I see such as this '...their obsession with appearing to be balanced means discussions of climate change tend to have a naysayer arguing either that climate change isn’t happening...' I have to fall on the side of a much maligned (usually by me) media.

What is she saying? That 'we' shouldn't try to be balanced? There is an inherent arrogance here, that the majority are not to fit to make up their own minds up, and need to have only what is fit to shape them spoonfed by independent sources, such (well, within certain boundaries of credibility) as the media.

If the naysayers are holding sway, why are the majority of people accepting their stances? This is what needs to be addressed, and in ways civilised society is used to and must expect: debate and persuasion.

I simply can't accept you 'rig' it to suit your point of view prevailing, not matter how urgent the need to get moving.

And let's not forget, as noted also on these pages, climate change is also being used as a very convenient tool to excuse, distract from or otherwise promote activities that do still bear scrutiny, along with the agendas of those making the most noise, and with the most to profit from ROI over enviROI, especially if... when... they become the Gods of Green, whose word is taken as gospel with no naysaying permitted.

I'd hate to get to a situation similar to the one often found, for instance with Africa, where legitimate concerns on activities conducted and claims made can be easily deflected by accusations of 'racism'.

Please not let's have 'greenism' being bandied about in the same way.