EnviroSpin Watch

As Cameron completely loses it, 'Our George' starts to get it.....

I have to say that David Cameron, as the Green Guru, makes me wince. He is embarrassing, a kind of middle class Coriolanus dinner party 'See my wounds' type of host, with yummy mummy in tow. Melanie Phillips is just the right sort of commentator to 'out' the red-faced Boy Wonder on his sled: 'Even greener than he thinks' (April 24):

"I have returned from holiday to find that the British Conservative party has passed beyond parody. While lesser political beings were doing tedious things like preside over the disintegration of the health service, have their collars felt by the police over political corruption, fail to deal with the fact that people are being murdered by those notionally being supervised by state-funded officials and other boring little things like that, the Tory party leader David Cameron dressed as a polar explorer and posed with a sled drawn by huskies on the Scott-Tuner glacier in Svalbard in Norway to show how cool he was... er, sorry, the grievous effects of global warming in shrinking the Arctic ice. Alas for Mr Cameron – he was indeed sledging on thin ice, but not in the way he thought....." (read on)

By contrast, back at The Gloomiad, 'Savonarola George', our very own Monbiot, has started to get it (if only a bit), going for gas and carbon storage: 'This is embarrassing, but I've become a fossil fuel supporter' (The Guardian, April 25):

"So in two respects, the future seems to lie in the seabed. Our natural gas supplies will be secured and our carbon dioxide buried in old gas fields and salt deposits. All my instincts rebel against this prospect, but there don't seem to be any other answers..." (read on)

Mind you, George can't yet bring himself to accept the return of King Coal:

"Even in my confessional mood, I cannot bring myself to support coal. I defy anyone who knows what open-cast mining looks like to say the words 'clean coal' without blushing. This leaves only gas....."

But, at least, the thought is there. Watch this space.

The only viable mid-term future for the UK is a sensible mix of gas, coal, and nuclear, plus so-called 'renewables' at the edges. Thankfully, elements of this reality are beginning to dawn in the least likely of media worlds.....

..... meanwhile, back in Tory Toy Town, Cameron flies a private jet to be drawn by huskies to see a melting glacier in a land where many glaciers are expanding while he espouses tiny wind farms on the roof of his house:

"Young King Con was a merry young soul, and a merry young soul was he;
He called for his sled to examine our plight
And he called for his huskies three.
Every glacier was melting fast, so a very fine mush had he;
Oh there's none so daft as can compare
With King Con and his huskies three."

Give me George any time.

Philip, off for coffee. Cameron's stunt was just risible. This is such a disaster for British politics. We desperately need brave politicians who can talk hard sense about climate change hysteria.