“The fallout from the financial crisis might be ready to claim another casualty: Europe’s ambitious plans to tackle climate change… Or, as Germany’s foreign minister said last week: “This crisis changes priorities.” And where Europe’s biggest economies lead, others follow. The British, French, and Italians are also all getting cold feet about imposing more-expensive climate legislation on European businesses. The British, dependent as an island nation on air travel, don’t want aviation included in emissions schemes. The Germans want an out for heavy industry… That contrasts with newfound enthusiasm for climate-change policy in the U.S., which seems more likely to pass Congress if energy prices keep falling. Both presidential candidates, if not quite both vice-presidential candidates, have plans to fight global warming.” Read more here.
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
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I have been reading quite a bit about this of late. Only the French seem keen anymore for various reasons members of the EU are back peddling, some are in outright opposition. I have noticed practically nothing is getting into the OZ media. I would ask why not? A recession/depression would surely reduce emissions significantly so why are the greens so concern? Loss of power?
I was reading through a Scottish newspaper online the other day as I followed news on the kamikaze Scottish international soccer team. There was an article on Gordon Brown, the UK Labour Leader, and he is being lauded for a plan that bailed out UK banks. Apparently his plan is being copied throughtout Europe, and even in the US. It has also apparently broken through the stalemate between pro Scottish Nationalists and the present London-based government. Scottish banks were faltering and Brown helped them out.
I’m being the Devil’s advocate here so please don’t take me too literally. Anyone who knows British politics knows the Labour Party are socialists. What Brown has done is apply pure socialism to bail out the banks, and everyone else has copied him. Of course, in the US, they claim to detest bailouts of private coporations with public money, but, hey, if it helps businesses to stay afloat, it helps out the country, and everyone benefits. So, socialism is great if applied correctly, meaning, if it benefits private enterprise.
Brown has been hanging on by the skin of his teeth due to the carbon programs he and Blair had introduced. Blair began to see the folly in that a few years ago and admitted Kyoto would not work in its present form. It seems that socialism has come to the rescue of the British Labour Party after they had gone to such lengths to hush it up. There’s no way Brown will be going back to the carbon agenda, one would think, after this reprieve.
BTW…in hard times, many people favour socialism. After WWII, Britain was in such bad shape economically the British public turned out their hero Churchill and bought into socialism in a big way.