Ideological Environmentalism

It’s a shame how the slightest deviation from some currently perceived wisdom risks piling obloquy (or worse) on one’s head. My regular readers will know that (not least because I have personally witnessed the potentially catastrophic results of climate change in both Arctic and Antarctic) I am a strong supporter of the CoP26 target of Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050. I hold that view despite some of my best friends and supporters who are critical of it, arguing that the cost will be greater than the benefit to the Globe.Amongst other things (and again at a personal political cost from some otherwise close supporters), I therefore strongly support the switch to renewable sources of power. That environmental conviction is redoubled since it is now plain to all that we must seek a way of becoming self-sufficient in power if we are to remove our dependence on both carbon and Russia (the two being equally obnoxious.)So I support most of the proposals in this week’s Government White Paper on Energy (shame it can’t be called a Green paper). I support off-shore wind, and solar power - in suitable locations. I was delighted to see, for example, one of the largest solar farms in Europe during a visit to MoD Lyneham – a brilliant use of otherwise redundant military land and unseen from every direction.But when I went onto the media to say that I oppose the vast solar farms being proposed at Minety, at Sevington and elsewhere as a vandalistic desecration of the countryside and a wicked misuse of agricultural land which post-Ukraine will be so necessary, it was as if I had committed some appalling heresy. My mailbag was full of outrage from those who would like to cover the whole of the UK under hideous windmills and vast vanity mirrors. Is it not possible to support the principle of renewables, to hope for net zero by 2050, to be pretty green in so many ways, yet to oppose particular sites in the unspoiled Wiltshire countryside?That dent in my green credentials was then further deepened by my welcome for the re-examination of fracking and finally wrecked by my enthusiastic support for nuclear power- both large nuclear power stations such as those as nearby Hinckley Point and the Small Modular Reactors manufactured by Rolls Royce, which could provide power for every town in Britain. The mere mention of the word ‘nuclear’ seems to produce a horrified over-reaction from the truly committed.To them only the most extreme of solutions, only the most ideologically pure of views is acceptable, and any of we sinners who fall short of their high ideals must be cast out of the environmental tent and vilified for our wilful ignorance. Would it not, o ye green ideologues, be better to cuddle and encourage we backsliders in our ignorance in the hope of nudging us along the true path to purity?Like most things British, the end result will surely be some kind of compromise; a moderate muddle through the middle. Let’s do our best, do what we can. But let us not bankrupt the nation in doing so; let’s keep what’s so good about our landscapes and our farming as well. And above all in this, as in so many other areas of public concern, let us reinvent our tolerance of other people’s views despite their failure to achieve the high ideological purity we would expect of them.