The canary in the coal mine: the energy crisis and Net Zero | Charlie Goulbourne
While Thatcher’s privatisation of our energy industry had facilitated efficient development of our gas-powered grid, without further change, it began to undo the resilience it had created. Instead of remedying the structural instability, Labour continued their hostility to domestic fossil fuel production and insisted on market-driven energy policy which favoured gas imports. In much the same way as nuclear energy, correction has become impossible.
Reclaiming our environmental imagination | Charlie Goulbourne
Our approach must be simple. To gently encourage children to do what they do without prompt- to explore their small patch of earth with its lonely woods and tranquil brooks, to discover and to cultivate their interior life in mirthful play here and not through the empty world that is on the other side of our phones.
Cumbrian coal mine scandal does not expose conservative environmental hypocrisy | Charlie Goulbourne
When activists speak of leaving behind “dirty jobs” of coal mining, they have never really proposed to eliminate these industries, but rather export them to poorer countries with weaker environmental regulations. Despite the cries of “environmental injustice” that are now compelled to accompany any discussion regarding climate change, many seem happy to continue to shift the burden of industrial emissions to developing nations, import their goods (releasing yet more emissions) and then proudly declare themselves carbon neutral …
I am afraid that there is a conflict between utopia and reality happening here. Whatever becomes of the Cumbria coal mine, it does not represent the choice between an enlightened green future and a regressive industrialism. If it does go ahead, it is due to a pragmatism that understands that mining coal in order to produce steel closer to the point of use, instead of shipping it halfway across the globe, is environmentally sensible, never mind that it will finally re-shore some industry to our ailing economy.
Technology will not save us; how the new environmentalism is doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past | Charlie Goulbourne
The much-loved liberal maxim “global problems require global solutions” may finally be proven false. The greatest global crisis of our time, climate change, is perhaps best tackled with local, not global, initiatives. Traditional environmental and agricultural practises of local agroforestry, intercropping, crop rotation and organic composting may be amongst the most effective ways of mitigating the effects of climate change.
The corporate and metropolitan assault on the British countryside | Adam James Pollock
While a sensible degree of competition is healthy and integral in capitalist societies, malicious intent is not; the CEO of Impossible Foods, Patrick Brown, has recently stated that his sole aim is to “put the animal agriculture industry out of business”.
The British countryside: our green and pleasant land | Adam James Pollock
When it comes to the countryside, people are growing weary of presenters such as Chris Packham presenting his own views as if they were mainstream in rural areas, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. In a fantastic recent article by the newly elevated Lord Ian Botham, Packham is derided as being utterly imprudent regarding all true rural issues… He could hardly represent rural communities less if he had spent his entire life in a Hackney estate.
British security in a heating world | Dominic Lawson
The global economic system relies upon an edifice of interconnected networks which are extremely fragile in the face of exogenous shocks, or ‘black swans.’ Any successful British security policy needs to take account of, and fully recognise, how dependent we have become on the various nodes within this greater system along with the dangers this represents. Serious, potentially severe challenges lay ahead for states in the coming decades and Britain’s shall be no exception.
Environmentalists are conservative by nature | Christopher Barnard
Ultimately, it seems rather bizarre that the left has managed to monopolise the environment- at least from a philosophical perspective. Again, that is partly due to the fact that conservatives have tended to avoid this issue like the plague, uncomfortable with the orthodoxy that large state solutions reign supreme on these matters. Yet, from the defence of existing beauty and value to the avoidance of disorder and chaos, conservatism innately promotes the conservation of our planet for the benefit of generations to come.
Asian wet markets: brutal culinary norms that need to stop | Gabriel Baraldi
As the globe’s second biggest economy, it’s high time China joined the rest of the world in laying out tougher laws and regulation for animal rights, including a change in their brutal cultural norms. The suffering and unethical, unhygienic culinary habits have to change. Before we are forced to endure yet another destabilising global crisis.