And another thing

Faced with a mix of recession and a muddle of climate change denial, it's time to extol green joys, not taxes, says Martin Wright.

Are we in danger of a ‘perfect storm’? Of a recession combining with a surge in populist denial of global warming?

That was the first thought that struck me on seeing how gleefully some of the press picked up on a study by scientists on shifts in ocean circulation. Researchers had suggestedthese could lead to lower temperatures, offsetting the effects of global warming till 2015 or so.

The Telegraph’s headline, “Global warming may stop, scientists predict”, epitomised the mischief of a media desperate for ammunition to dent the scientific consensus. To be fair, the article itself concluded with a decent, balanced account. But how many of the paper’s readers would bother to get that far once their prejudices had been confirmed? Precious few, to judge by the surge in posts to the paper’s ‘Have Your Say’ slot, citing the new study as yet more evidence of “the biggest con-trick ever played on the human race” – an excuse for the government to tax us to death.

Small wonder, perhaps, that polls show growing scepticism on climate change. Left unchecked, its impacts will almost certainly dwarf the worst that any recession can throw at us. But while most of those remain on the distant horizon, they can seem small and inconsequential by comparison – especially when viewed through a veil of rain.

All of which makes it tough for politicians to justify anything approaching ‘green’ taxes – however reasonable. And that’s why it’s all the more vital to stress the many ‘winwins’ on offer in tackling climate change. Such as the joys of slow travel and local food, the thrifty nobrainer of energy efficiency, and the virtues, in security terms, of generating more of our energy from our own winds, woods, waves and sun.

It might be tempting to keep banging on about the looming apocalypse, but it’s likely to be selfdefeating – like crying wolf when all seems quiet. If the vast majority of climate scientists are right, then global warming will soon be back on the front pages, whether we like it or not.

Travelling hopefully

If you said ‘slow travel’ to someone a year or so ago, they’d have assumed you were describing a particularly gruesome crawl into Paddington.

Now the Sunday supplements are filled with features extolling the joys of the Slow Train to Provence. Like its slow food cousin, this comes imbued with a sense of quality, of luxury even.

None of which has escaped the attention of the upmarket tour companies, who’ve cottoned on to the fact that they can charge a lot more for a slow week in France than a fast fortnight in Bali. Everyone, it seems, is tripping over themselves in a race to go slow.

And not before time. There’s little prospect of zero-carbon planes taxiing down the crowded runways. Sooner or later, we may simply not have the luxury of choice. It’ll be go slow, or don’t go at all.

Which may be no bad thing. In rediscovering the ‘essential slowness’ of travel, perhaps we’ll reacquaint ourselves with the lost virtues of reflection, of contemplation. We may appreciate the subtle shifts in geography, in culture, which can come into focus through the windows of a train, say, rather than passing in a blur between departure lounge and hotel. Maybe it’s a chance to take the slow route to the soul…

Or maybe it’s just a bit of a middle-class fad. Another excuse to look down our noses at the hoi-polloi, jetting off on their Ryanair stag breaks to Rejkyavik, while we enlightened few feel all smug and insulated on that slow train south…

If so, it won’t be the first time that an element of aspiration has helped drive behaviour change: it happened with organic food, it happened with fair trade, and it could happen with green energy, too.

But it might take a while. Chairing a debate on slow travel at the RSA recently, I carried out a couple of impromptu surveys. First, I asked everyone willing to give up long-haul holiday flights to show their hands. A scattering of palms were raised – maybe 1 in 10, at most. And that, remember, was flying for pleasure alone – not work or ‘love miles’.

Then I asked how many people would find it easier to give up their car than give up flying. The room was a sea of raised hands…

Martin Wright is Editor (at Large) of Green Futures.  

30 June 2008

Martin Wright