Thread by @SteB777

I made a point about this a few weeks ago. That what are basically climate change deniers in the Conservative Party, are attempting to take advantage of Boris Johnson's weakness, and need to appease all factions, to undermine climate policy.
theguardian.com/politics/2022/…

It is part of a whole agenda to shift all policy to extreme right. They are as the article implies trying to make climate denial part of their culture war agenda. However, I disagree, that this has only started now.

Whilst there has always been a pro-oil, free market, libertarian streak in Conservative politics, both sides of the Atlantic, it has only been in the last 15 years that a left right divide has started to appear over climate policy.

Personally, I think it occurred after Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, that the right was able to start characterizing climate policy, as a left right issue. Simply by highlighting Gore's politics, and saying there you are.

Yes, the British Conservative Party, have paid lip service to climate and environmental policy, but this is skin deep. As was proven by David Cameron's the "greenest ever government" guff, to "let's get rid of the green crap, in just a few years".

The British Conservative Party, in reality seem to see environmental policy, purely as a PR issue. They're aware many of their voters are concerned about the climate crisis, and maybe more potential voters - probably from focus groups.

So the Tories see a need to keep the concerned happy with soothing words, enough to fool the uninformed public. However, anyone familiar with the climate crisis, the state of British biodiversity, habitat and conservation, know how shallow this is. It is superficial.

However, what is lost in the discussion in this article, is just how far away any mainstream politician in the world is from understanding just how serious the climate and ecological emergency is, and how little time we have to take action to make a real difference.