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Here Be Dragons

On Climate Change, Ed Miliband Is Just Another Tory

He's just as willing to fuck over the children for the sake of appeasing the parents.

Image via the Department of Energy and Climate Change Flickr

The Earth is getting warmer, humans are almost certainly responsible and action is needed quickly to reduce the consequences. These were the initial findings of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report on climate change, which were released last week, and the accepted reality in the scientific community – if not in the dark and fevered imaginations of cranks, eccentrics and Paul Dacre.

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Naturally, the report naturally caused a few tantrums in the usual quarters, with the BBC going out of its way to "balance" science reporting with contributions from random upset members of the public who’ve sunken into a state of deep denial. The BBC’s rationale for this was bizarre – admitting that it could not find any British scientists who disagreed with the IPCC’s findings, the broadcaster turned to random bloggers and an Australian geologist. As Steve Jones told the Guardian, “you wouldn’t have a homeopath speaking alongside a brain surgeon for balance”.

With the 2015 general election only 18 months away, the time is right for politicians to step up and show us how they intend to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, we don’t have the most inspiring set of politicians in Westminster at the moment. On the Conservative side, Owen Paterson could be seen frothing about how it might be quite pleasant in Britain if it were a few degrees warmer – the rest of the world can presumably go fuck itself. As for Labour, Ed Miliband decided to announce a brave new energy policy: freezing energy prices for an arbitrarily small period of time after the general election.

This tackles a problem that doesn’t really exist. As the Economist pointed out, British energy prices are already lower than the European average, energy company profit margins (around 5 percent) aren’t particularly high and they have to invest billions in new capacity while dealing with volatile wholesale costs. That’s not to say that energy suppliers are saints, but they’re not Voldemort, either.

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Meanwhile, for all their whining and wailing about rising bills, consumers show fuck all interest in taking even the most basic steps to reduce them. The switch to energy saving light bulbs a few years ago caused such an epic hissy fit that at one point it looked like Daily Mail readers were ready to invade Brussels, yet anyone clinging to obsolete 100W bulbs has zero right to complain about their energy bill. Hell, if energy companies could find a way to charge them extra, they should. I’m writing this by the light of four 4W LED bulbs, consuming a grand total of 16 Watts. Why should I have to deal with the extra emissions created by people who are too stupid or obstinate to change a bulb? Fuck them.

The same screwed up logic applies on the road. Thankfully, we seem to have reached "Peak Car", with travel on British roads holding steady for several years now. Everybody complains about petrol prices, and yet again a vast amount of car use is either unnecessary or actively harmful – there should be a special place in Hell for parents who drive their fat little over-protected kids to school. By all means, we should be helping people who can’t afford fuel bills, but the last thing we want to do is encourage more energy usage when we waste such a vast amount of it already, especially when burning fossil fuels carries such a big environmental cost.

If we want to have a future with abundant clean energy, we need to invest in green capacity now. This is something Germany – with considerably higher energy prices – has done with great success, but Britain seems to be dragging its heels. That’s perhaps the most perverse part of Ed Miliband’s populist policy gimmick – by fucking with the projected profits of energy suppliers, he’s managed to discourage investment in them before even coming to power. Why would you invest billions in wind farms or solar generators if you knew there was a high chance the next government were going to strip away any profit you’d make from them? Of course that might be less of an issue if Ed were planning large-scale public investment in energy production on taking power, but then the whole idea of cheap energy becomes essentially a bit of a con. Ed won’t be making energy any cheaper, just hiding the immediate costs from Daily Mail readers.

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What’s fascinating and horrible about the next election is the extent to which Miliband and Cameron have settled on the same broad policies for the same reasons. Both are willing to fuck over the children for the sake of appeasing the same whining, home-owning, over-entitled, middle-class over-fifties. The Tories, a party whose average age is now a staggering 68, view twenty-something adults as contemptible sub-humans. To their cataract-ridden eyes, the young are a work-shy generation who clearly chose to leave their schools and universities in the midst of the worst recession in decades.

At least they have an opinion, though. The alternative is a career politician, the narcissists with no discernable ideology and no interest in the future beyond the results of the next opinion poll. If punching an easy target in the face gets Ed two points up over the Tories next week, who gives a fuck what it means for things like energy security, poverty or climate change? On energy policy at least, it seems as though it doesn’t matter if the country loses, as long as the Labour leader wins.

The 2015 election will be one of the most ball-achingly depressing in living memory. Two lightweights, devoid of ideas, viewed with almost as much contempt on their own sides as they are by the wider public, tearing lumps off each other in a race to the grubby arse-end of politics. If either man had an ounce of conviction or courage, they’d tell the public the truth – the cost of energy is going to rise, and it will keep rising until somebody has the guts to stand up against the grasping, greedy hands of the public and address our addiction to fossil fuels.

But of course they won’t. Looking at the current field of losers, liars and lightweights, it’s hard to imagine who would.

Follow Martin on Twitter: @mjrobbins

Martin Robbins is a writer and talker who blogs about weird and wonderful things for the Guardian and New Statesman. Here Be Dragons is a column that explores denial, conflict and mystery at the wild fringes of science and human understanding. Find him on Twitter @mjrobbins, or email tips and feedback to martin@mjrobbins.net.

Previously – For the Last Time: There's No Proof That Video Games Make People Violent