Feeling Hot? Why the Left Needs To Pressure Andy Burnham on Climate Change
First the City, the Mail and two unions block Ed Miliband as chancellor because he supports net zero, and now the new PM is set to back North Sea drilling. This deadly denial on the climate must end.
Editor’s note: It is only six weeks since Zeteo UK soft-launched, and we already approaching 40,000 total subscribers. To all of you who subscribed: thank you! It's a great start, but we still need many more paid subscribers to compete with the mainstream media. Right now we are in ‘soft launch’ mode, publishing occasional articles and interviews. We go live with the full offering of columns, podcasts, and more on September 14th with a big live launch event in London! - Mehdi
Last month, Britain stewed in a deadly heatwave. A southerly flow drew hot Saharan air over Western Europe, where it was trapped in an “omega block” – a bulge of high pressure parked between colder fronts. The air stagnated and heat accumulated, raising maximum temperatures to 37.7 degrees. Fifty years ago, temperatures of that magnitude in June would have been impossible. Climate change added 3-4 degrees to the maximum.
Our lives are planetary, but our experience is parochial. Abstracted from climate change, a crushing heat dome is just bad weather. And that is just how recent record temperatures were reported, with almost three quarters of articles making no mention of climate change. We get the bleak facts, stripped of their meaning.
Westminster, too, demonstrated this schizoid split. As the country sweltered, causing a surge in cardiac arrests and thousands of heat deaths among the most vulnerable, a strange coalition formed. City investors, the Daily Mail and the Economist allied with two of Britain’s biggest unions, Unite and the GMB, to block the appointment of Ed Miliband as chancellor in a new government led by Andy Burnham. Their joint issue: Miliband’s support for “net zero” carbon emissions.
 | A guest post by
|