Global warming - so what?

It’s been a couple of years since the last one, and sure enough tomorrow sees the latest western liberal self-hate fest – this time it’s called Live Earth. Lots of showbiz types will demonstrate their concern for the environment on various stages around the globe. Presumably they will all travel to their respective venues by bicycle, sailing ship and their own two feet only, to avoid any charges of hypocrisy.

Sorry if I sound cynical, but I had to get that out of the way first. Let me now explain my take on environmental policy:

Security of energy supply is vital for the economic and, in some cases, actual health of our nation. Let’s face it, a significant factor in Western foreign policy has been, and will continue to be, shaped by the need to secure energy supplies. The less we rely on oil then the less we have to be concerned with the often dodgy parts of the world where it comes out of the ground – the Middle East, Nigeria, Venezuela. Frankly, we should not be so reticent about admitting the importance of oil in our adventures in the Middle East. Oil is important. Sure, some people make a lot of money out of it – so what? Far more rely on it for everyday living – and they’re not all driving 4×4s. The argument goes for all fossil fuels, in fact: the less reliant we are on gas then the less we need worry about what side of bed Vladimir Putin got out of.

Energy efficiency, of course, makes economic sense, as well as contributing to the energy security and environmental aims.

Reducing pollution – not just carbon, but particulate pollution, acid rain and the other classic forms – will remain desirable whether we are in a greenhouse or a new ice age.

That is why green politics is important – in fact, too important to allow the Left to have a free run with their tired high-taxation low-freedom investment-strangling policies. Too many environmental policies have resembled socialism in green clothing.

Notice that so far I have not mentioned man-made climate change (MMCC).

Surely the biggest danger from the point of view of the Live Earth supporters is not that awareness isn’t high enough, it is that so much is being staked on the MMCC theory and forecasts that if, in ten or fifteen years’ time, the science is shown to be flawed, then many very sensible policies could be abandoned or discredited – policies which make sense even without the justification provided by MMCC. It could be genuinely disastrous if we were to throw out the babies of energy self-sufficiency and efficiency with the bathwater of MMCC.

What do I mean “if…the science is shown to be flawed”? I am fully aware, contrary to what we are ordered to think these days, that there is no scientific consensus and the debate is clearly not over, whether it’s on (a) the basic question of whether MMCC is actually happening or (b) if it is happening, the actual extent of man’s influence. I am aware that in the history of science, most of the ideas that we take for granted today – a round(-ish) Earth, evolution, an awful lot of medical knowledge – started as a minority view, not in keeping with the consensus of the day. There may be a majority view in favour of MMCC or the estimates of the extent of the resulting global warming, but science doesn’t work by taking a vote among some ape descendents in white coats on this tiny piece of rock and the universe henceforth being so.

Who knows? Maybe MMCC is real and the IPCC’s forecasts are right, and I am not going to rule it out, but the precautionary principle (the concept so often cited by MMCC supporters) surely dictates that we should keep our options open until we have a better idea of what lies ahead.

What should this mean for Conservative environmental policy? If our strategy is to broaden our support, rather than simply shifting ourselves to the centre ground only, then notice must be taken of the 56% of people who feel that there are still questions over the veracity of man-made global warming and that there is no consensus. It means, in blunt terms, saying “Global warming – so what? There are plenty of good reasons to be green other than just climate change”.

It means moving up the agenda the other objectives of any sensible environmental policy: to secure our energy supplies and reduce energy demand and general pollution - for these are challenges that we know are ahead - but which by happy coincidence will also help tackle “global warming”. Put simply, let’s not put all our green policy “eggs” in the climate change basket.