Saturday, September 29, 2007

Greens at the Conservative conference

Green events absolutely dominate the Conservative conference fringe. Forty-two events by my count fitted into the four days.

At times there are so many green events that more than one starts at the same time. How will the earnest "Blue-Green" Tory choose between The New Economics Foundation's "Do Good Lives Have To Cost the Earth?" or IPPR's "Positive Energy: How can we harness people power to prevent climate change?" - which I assumme is a call for a giant hamster wheel in every town. Both start at 7.30pm on Sunday.

MTV are pushing the green cause in a big way starting with their a reception on Sunday evening. Blue-greens won't be able to stay out too late, though, in case they miss Vicky Pope discussing "The Latest Science of Climate Change" at 7.30 the following morning. The Energy Saving Trust, the Met Office and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) all have stalls from mid-day till 6 in the evening to explain various climate change issues.

My favourite green event titles are Christian Aid's "Climate Change - A Question of Faith", which is so absurd it defies parody, and the hilariously patronising "Storm in a Teacup: Beauty Care that's better for the Planet" being run by the Women's Environmental Network and the Soil Association.

No other cause is being promoted in such a manner. Even other issues close to the current leadership's heart like family breakdown. At what point does focussing on green issues become obsession?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you happened to be at the Vicky Pope thing, you could ask her why the Hadley Centre refuses to publish the raw data and code underlying its estimate of the global temperature anomoly.

Dave Cole said...

To be honest, I think it already has. I wonder how much of it is 'greenwash'.

Even though I'm a card-carrying Labour member, there are things that the government gets wrong. I worry that the obsession with being green and being seen to be green is distracting the Tories from being the opposition.

Vindico said...

lol. vote green, go mad!

Ruthie said...

Even the Pope's speech before the UN was about climate change...

"My favourite green event titles are Christian Aid's "Climate Change - A Question of Faith", which is so absurd it defies parody, and the hilariously patronising "Storm in a Teacup: Beauty Care that's better for the Planet" being run by the Women's Environmental Network and the Soil Association."

That's so tantalizing. I wish you'd gone to those particular events and reported all the fun.