We need a Great Leap Forward. Not like the Chinese one, obviously. But a wholesale rejection of the systems and policies which have got us into this mess.
We can no longer trust those loyal to those systems - which, after all, have enabled them to thrive. Our Prime Minister takes private planes. His idea of a Vision has been best expressed by his acquisitive backstory: his hedge fund, TCI, undermining ABN Amro Bank in order to engineer massive profits. The 2008 financial crash ensued.
That dated model - trading goods, services and money to maximise short-term profits, with no regard to the human and environmental consequences - is past its sell-by date. Rishi Sunak is, apparently, “uninterested” in the climate crisis. So while he’s probably rewatching The Big Short, enjoying the nostalgia of destroying people’s lives entirely through financial chicanery, the planet is going to hell.
More than two billion people lack clean water; 800 million lack sufficient food; biodiversity is shrinking; CO2 emissions are rising; we’re missing net zero targets; extreme weather events are ever more frequent. As fossil fuel use continues, the global temperature nears the 1.5℃ tipping point. Rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, flooding, desertification, drought, resource conflict resulting in displacement, refugee crises - the consequences of the climate crisis are already here.
Many of Mr Sunak’s generation understand the problem. Economists like Marianna Mazzucato and Kate Raworth are defining our century’s agenda. But for Mr Sunak and others of his monied and mulleted mindset, "the environment" is an add-on, a kind of cheese board for those interested. The UN’s António Guterres tells us we need “transformation, not tinkering”. But our UK political leaders are off the pace, somewhere between Woolworth’s and Blockbuster.
But how ready is Scotland for a Green Industrial Revolution? Unfortunately, while Bute House is hamstrung by issues of competence, trustworthiness, and, in the case of the Greens, downright weirdness, we should not expect too much.
The litmus test is Keir Starmer’s pledge that a Labour government would not grant licences for further oil and gas exploration. He has also committed to a £28bn per annum plan for green investment. Although some 10 right-wing newspapers criticised the North Sea policy, along with the GMB’s Gary Smith, more than 140 organisations - including WWF-UK, Unison Scotland, Friends of the Earth, RSPB, Save the Children and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes - have praised it. They say: “The only way to ensure we have secure, affordable energy is to accelerate domestic renewable energy production and improve the energy efficiency of our buildings. New oil and gas fields put more money in the hands of rich energy companies and foreign governments whilst leaving Britain colder and poorer.”
So we’re edging to the necessary transition. A net zero economy might build on the hydrogen work at Opportunity Cromarty Firth, and create a model of how to retrain workforces to play a part in a 21st-century economy.
Keir, you just have to hold your nerve. Rishi, put down the calculator and read some George Monbiot.
Michael Gregson is an Inverness-based teacher and writer
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