Letters From A Tory

If you think that recycling is too much effort and you just can’t be bothered, that is your choice.   But don’t come running to me for sympathy when you are sent to hell - which is precisely what will happen according to the Pope.

Dear David King,

Your interview with the Guardian this morning has left me with a sense of anger that I specifically reserve for annoying environmentalists who ruin the debate over climate change time and time again.

Green activists are a serious problem and they risk damaging the whole environmental movement through their ignorance and stupidity.  I am convinced that something is not right with the global environment and I’m therefore happy to listen to suggestions for the best way forward in protecting the planet, although I don’t think the situation is as disastrous as some people make out.  Having said that, I very much agree with you that idiots calling for us to “just use less energy”, as you mentioned, is pointless and totally unrealistic.  We cannot expect people to stop using their cars or stop flying, which is what the ‘green’ movement seems to be suggesting.  Any solution to climate change must be fair, realistic, effective and preferably on a global scale - which some ‘greens’ don’t seem to understand.

I don’t know how much success you’ll have with fighting off these stupid extremists, but I certainly wish you all the best in trying - it’s very very important that they either start making sensible suggestions or get excluded from the debate altogether.

Regards,

A.Tory

Dear Al Gore,

Opinion of your work on climate change seems to split people into one of two camps - those who think you are a saint, and those who think you are a fraud.  I would not question the passion that you have for introducing measures that will protect the environment over the coming years and decades, but I fear your effort may be wasted.

The reality is that only money (more specifically the threat of losing money) that will change a country’s attitude to climate change.  According to the newspapers today, there was a verbal slanging match between EU and US officials about America’s refusal to sign up to binding targets on reducing CO2 emissions at the Bali conference.  But regardless of much respect people have for your commitment to climate change, even you cannot force America to sign up to anything that it doesn’t want to.  You raised the issue of George Bush leaving office shortly but I cannot believe that the next President of the United States will suddenly fall over backwards to save the environment, such is the economic pressure on the US economy.

In short, nothing less than serious penalties on international trade will ever make a country like America or China change their ways - and it is only the EU that could ever get close to introducing such measures.  As a trading block, the EU is effectively the biggest economy in the world.  It therefore comes down to the EU to make things happen on climate change rather than talking-shop conferences.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory