The Green Will Fade...

I haven't said much about this ongoing financial crisis, credit crunch, end of civilisation or whatever it is - enough ink has been wasted elsewhere - but I do have one observation. Emotionally and psychologically, if we're honest, it was a kind of relief, wasn't it? We knew the bubble had to burst, the house of cards must collapse and we must return to something more like reality. As long as it lasted, it felt good, but, at a deeper level, it felt wrong, even sinful, and we knew we were going to have to pay for it in the end. It was to ease our nagging consciences, I would contend, that we fell for the 'green' agenda, its easy and satisfying acts of atonement, its Mea Culpas - and the louder and more unreal the Mea Culpa the better (as in '80 Percent Ed's' recent excesses). Now, as the economic realities kick in and the pips begin to squeak, we're going to be in no mood for voluntary acts of self-punishment, however trivial - and still less for having our wallets drained in the name of 'green' virtue. We're paying for our sins now - or we shall be very soon - and we shan't be feeling the need to pay a 'green' excess. Indeeed, on a micro and a macro level, we shan't be able to afford it.
So I predict (with hope in my heart) a big turning away from the 'green' agenda - a fad of excessive affluence, if ever there was one, and a bubble in itself that must surely burst. When the lights start going out and the Russians have us in their vice-like g, we're not going to be fussy about how we get more power - nuclear, coal-fired, whatever - so long as we're generating it ourselves and we've got plenty of it. It might even happen that, over the coming years, the politicians will (rather than drop the scientific figleaf altogether) start paying attention to more sceptical scientists, outside the Gadarene consensus that has driven the green hysteria so far. Or maybe there I'm just dreaming...