Nine years ago, on this day, July 20, 2014, former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson blames sacking on “the Green Blob” – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/20/owen-paterson-sacked-cabinet-appease-green-lobby
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 399.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Cameron, perhaps bruised by his “get rid of the green crap” comments getting reported in late 2013, and needing a scapegoat, had sacked Owen Paterson (there’s only so many bullets that a flak jacket can take before you need a new one.)
What I think we can learn from this is that nothing is ever your fault if you’re an old white entitled man. His genius has simply been disrespected by a bunch of lunatics. And communists.
What happened next
Cameron’s government continued to “cut the green crap.” And, for example, got rid of the house buildings zero carbon targets, made life incredibly difficult for onshore wind, supported tracking and nuclear etc. And Owen Patterson? He was ultimately really the beginning of the end for his political ally Boris Johnson. He was suspended from Parliament for breaching lobbying rules (but of course this must have been the fault of the green blob). Johnson’s attempt to defend Patterson caused significant unease and undermined what the little residual political capital Johnson had so that when shit went south he had far fewer friends, and ended up having to resign.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.