There's a great opinion piece in today's Independent, in which Johann Hari argues that leaving the fate of planet to consumer choice and voluntary action isn't going to work. His words echo those of George Monbiot and Mark Lynas, and he looks to government to force us all to use less stuff:
In reality, dispersed consumer choices are not going to keep the climate this side of a disastrous temperature rise. The only way that can ever happen is by governments legislating to force us all – green and anti-green – to shift towards cleaner behaviour. Just as the government in the Second World War did not ask people to eat less voluntarily, governments today cannot ask us to burn fewer greenhouse gases voluntarily.
Restricting personal freedoms is a knotty problem but I can't help agreeing with Hari's conclusion: that personal liberty ends when you're harming someone else. Outside the boxing ring, no one would argue that we should have the freedom to beat up another person, but when you're talking about crops failing and water sources disappearing due to dramatic shifts in climate, the freedom to own a 4x4 or take umpteen flights a year becomes less defensible.
(He also gives us and other campaign groups a nice plug - cheers!)
Do we need legislation to make us consume less and create far fewer greenhouse gas emissions, or is our current government's faith in the market sufficient? Let me know what you think.
