Insight with Colin Challen MP- Climate Change: a Perfect Storm
Date: April 28, 2009 7:00 PM
According to the UK government chief scientist Prof John Beddington, by 2030 the growing world population will cause a "perfect storm" of food, energy and water shortages. As the population tops 8.3 billion, demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%.
Labour MP Colin Challen will be discussing the issued raised in his new book Too Little, Too Late: the Politics of Climate Change, and asking why tougher policies are not being followed through to tackle climate change, presenting arguments from the perspective of an elected politician. Challen condemns the inability of political parties to form consensus around meaningful responses and in this one-on-one discussion, offers suggestions to a governmental solution of the problem.
This unique insight will touch upon the causation and prevention of climate change and will discuss the policies that can be implemented by the British and international governments to avoid the global problems of the impending ‘perfect storm’.
Colin Challen has been a labour MP for Morley and Rothwell since 2001 and has campaigned on the issue of Climate change in parliament, both presenting Bills and speaking up for radical action. He is also a founding member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change.
His other publications are: The Quarrelsome Quill, Hull’s Radical Press from 1832 (Hull, 1984); In Defence of the Party: The Secret State, the Conservative Party and dirty tricks (with Mike Hughes) (Leeds, 1996); Save as you Travel: New Directions in Mutual Ownership (Wakefield, 1999); The Price of Power: the secret funding of the Conservative Party (London, 1998). He was editor, Labour Organiser 1997 to 2001.
This event is chaired by Julian Rush, Science and Environment Correspondent of Channel 4 News. Julian has won several British Environment Media Awards for his environment new reporting.
Tags for this entry: Books, Climate Change
2 Comments
With the greatest of respect Ryan, you are rather missing the point in your own fantastically alarmist way.
First, a large number of measures which are good from a conservation point of view are equally sensible from an economic point of view. As a nation, for example, it is cheaper to save energy than to build new power stations.
Second, if you believe that the rest of the world is going to pursue more environmentally-sound policies, thus creating a market for technologies and products which are 'green', I would hope that we would put UK manufacturers in a position to capture a significant portion of that market. Again, greenery and UK growth are not opposites, they may be complementary.
Third, I agree with you that some measures to promote a green economy may indeed be market-distorting, some may even be "invasive" and "regressive". Such measures should be avoided. However, to lump all "green" policies together as such seems a tad close-minded and unimaginative. The "green" measures that will work are those that go with the grain of capitalism and growth, not those that oppose it.
I hope that you come to the discussion, as you seem pretty lively in your opinions.
I think these alarmists need locking up for their own, and our, mental and economic health.
In the midst of the worst financial crisis in several centuries, the last thing we need is a bunch of invasive, regressive measures that will stifle recovery and impose heavy taxes on us all.
Notwithstanding the fact that the entire theory of anthropogenic climate change is under serious threat due to the ongoing solar minimum we are experiencing.