“It would be easy to laugh this off were it not so obviously counterproductive. The idea that tackling climate change means accepting profound levels of intrusion into our everyday lives – and the economic disaster of dramatic drops in consumption and living standards – is an illusion that is actually shared by the Green left and the libertarian right.”
“First, guilt-tripping doesn’t work as a campaigning strategy. If you make people feel bad about what they do, you must give them a realistic and feasible alternative. Second, pragmatism beats purism. Every time.”
“At 1.24 am on 26 April 1986 Chernobyl’s Unit 4 reactor exploded after staff disabled safety systems and performed an ill-advised experiment to check – ironically enough – the reactor’s safety.”
“I particularly dislike the high-profile switch-off campaigns where whole cities are plunged into darkness for an hour as a supposedly symbolic gesture about energy use. So is the implication that we all need to live in constant gloom to reduce CO2 emissions?”