Brown should go Green

I was looking at some Labour Bloggers, and found an interesting piece arguing why Labour are really Green, and whats wrong with the Green Party. See it at www.labourhome.org/story/2007/10/16/113619/73

‘Labour has a good record on the environment. From signing and promoting the Kyoto Agreement (and being one of the few governments internationally to be set to meet their Kyoto targets) to the Climate Change bill, Labour has seen the necessity of action to stem the tide of climate change, and defend ourselves against it’s worst effects. However, too often such measures have not been seen as part of a consistent strategy, or as pertaining to an overarching ethos, but as piecemeal measures, reacting to events and headlines. While this is an unfair assessment of the Government’s attitude to the environment, it is a damning indictment of their ability to speak to this agenda. Too often – as with other more traditional Labour measures - good has been done by stealth, allowing others to accuse us of either incoherence or inaction. This is a perfect moment to reclaim this agenda in a bold way, and show that the environment is not only the natural territory of the Labour Party, but that only the Labour Party is able to deal with the challenges of climate change in such a way that is true to our egalitarian principles.’

When youve stopped laughing, lets look at the arguments. You wouldn’t know, listening to this, that under Labour emissions are up, and GB hasn’t even mentioned the environment lately.

Listen to the words of a Labour commentator on the text above.
‘I cannot see a Brown leadership getting even close to what's required. He is wedded to the smoke and mirrors deception that is carbon trading, and the government appears to be convinced by the arguments of the nuclear lobby for energy policy. For me, I think our next manifesto should reverse the decision on Trident weapons (you can't have respect for the natural environment when you possess the capacity to blow it to Kingdom come), rule out nuclear power and have a massive investment in renewables including introducing the feed-in tarrif as they have in Germany and elsewhere. Further, I think we should argue that the EU should start to raise its own levels of environmental protection and that trade tarrifs should be introduced against those countries who seek an economic advantage by ignoring the environmental costs of their production. In addition, transport policy must be revisited with new roads and runways ruled out, gradual renatitionalisation of the railways as contracts come to an end, investment in trams, busses and trains, and huge improvements in urban cycle facilities. In planning, all new houses should, as a minimum, be built with solar panels in the roof for micro generation.’