My Green New Deal and Finance for the Future colleague Colin Hines has this letter in the Guardian:
Andy Beckett is right to find some optimism in the record of the exceptional Green MP Caroline Lucas and the party's growing number of councillors (The Greens are on the brink of power – is it more than a political blip?, 27 August). However, the crucial route to power for green politics lies in cooperation with non-Tory parties to gain enough public support for effective environmental policies.
The government promises much, but there is a dearth of concrete policies. The chancellor hasn't even announced his green bonds initiative that is supposed to appear this summer. Our research has shown that were savers to be adequately incentivised, this could provide billions to finance the “green new deal”, if it was announced as a green recovery Isa, enabling usually older savers to fund green jobs.
Beckett's other key point, that the climate crisis tends to leave voters feeling overwhelmed, paralysed or in denial, can be overcome if its solutions are seen as generating work everywhere. Equally, it must be seen as compensating poorer sections of society for the transitions to dearer, more sustainable food and energy supplies while retraining those whose jobs are threatened.
The French gilet jaunes were right to say that their main worry was about the end of the month, not the end of the world. The answer lies in making a credible case for how to fund such a transition. This will require green quantitative easing (QE), whereby government-created money is invested directly in public- and private-sector projects, as well as using savings and progressive taxation. In short we need a QuEST (QE, savings and taxation) to immediately finance the crucial green transformation.
Colin Hines
Convener, Green New Deal UK
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The point about ‘end of the month’ is well observed.
A population kept in fear will have little time for bigger questions. It makes evident the rather self sustaining cycle of this sort of Governance.
Tories bitch about crowding out capitalism whilst their policies crowd out humanity, long term thinking, stability, innovation and even curiosity, thereby propagating ignorance.
This article challenges the IPCC’s climate crisis narrative; http://www.ijaos.org/article/298/10.11648.j.ijaos.20210502.12
The conclusion reads;
“The atmosphere, mainly due to the beneficial characteristics
and impact of H2O absorption spectra, proves to be a highly
stable moderator of global temperatures. There is no
impending climate emergency and CO2 is not the control
parameter of global temperatures, that accolade falls to H2O.
CO2 is simply the supporter of life on this planet as a result of
the miracle of photosynthesis. ”
Is the science “settled”?
I scanned it
Based on that, yes the science is welted and they are not changing it
Clearly, Richard et al have shown the necessary money could be generated and ring-fenced for public/private green recovery projects and associated jobs. However, this self serving, incompetent government is bereft of joined-up policies to address the environmental crisis. Costed policies must precede targeted, pump-priming and tax incentivised new money.
We need a government of the brightest and best of all parties as we had post WW2 led by Atlee- the complete opposite of what we have at present. The Green’s policies are a good start but can they get enough political traction with like-minded liberals and others against our present rigged FPTP electoral system? I, like Richard, live in hope.