Thursday, May 31, 2012

The [UK] energy bill is misleading, manipulative and destructive – and so are Davey's claims

New father George Monbiot (congrats!) isn't saving a lot of patience for dealing with Ed Davey.

The energy bill is misleading, manipulative and destructive – and so are Davey's claims | George Monbiot | Environment | guardian.co.uk:
"On Tuesday, the Guardian published a letter from Davey, in which he claimed that I mistake his "short-term methods" (approving more gas and coal plants) for his "long-term goals" (stopping climate change). It's easy to mix them up, isn't it? Approving more gas and coal plants looks so much like stopping climate change that I'm sure he can understand my confusion.
But the question it raises is what he means by "short-term". As I explained in my column this week, his energy bill allows gas plants to produce more carbon dioxide than they do today, until 2045. It imposes no restrictions at all on coal plants, as long as they undertake that one day in the indeterminate future they will "demonstrate" that carbon capture and storage equipment could reduce an unspecified quantity of their emissions. So the short term, in Davey's view, expires at some time between 2045 and the end of the solar system."
Read the entire column at George Monbiot's blog

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