Tony Blair. I always thought it impossible ever to be disappointed by the man, such are my already low expectations of him. Even so, I cannot believe that he has backed down on his comments about not giving up long-haul flights. He has now given some mealy-mouthed promise to ‘offset the carbon emissions caused by his personal travel’.
I supported his original stance. A shame that he has now given in to the clamouring of envirofascists all across the land.
January 9th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Bel: When do you think the public will realise that only 3% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by air travel? Someone commented on my blog last year that I was selfish for choosing air travel and having a widescreen television!
The majority of emissions are caused by households and industry. I’m not giving up my flights to let China belch more pollutants out in to the atmosphere.
January 9th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Well said, Andrew! You are 100% right.
I suppose one may say that the Government stoked up this row by introducing dodgy science into the public domain as a pretext to raising taxes. Irresponsible in the extreme. Blair is now realising the folly of that. But does he care? I don’t think he does.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
This clearly defines Blair’s lack of leadership and proves he cannot be taken seriously on such an important issue. How can he expect other countries to tackle climate change with this kind of inconsistency?
January 10th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
For once he said the right thing, now he has ruined it. No surprise there then.
He was so right though, attacking airlines is a soft option likfe 4×4’s. No government is ready yet for the hard slog that real change will require.
I note they can’t even agree yet to more nuclear power stations!
January 10th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Not saying that he is thus BUT…..a wise man knows which battles to save his energy for.