The long-anticipated shift from “climate change is a leftie anti-progress hoax” to “it’s too late to do anything except geo-engineer the planet” is underway.
Speaking on the far-right television programme GB News on Wednesday 16th October s, former Conservative minister Jacob Rees-Mogg on Wednesday 16th October said the following
“When it comes to climate change, most of the public discourse surrounds hair shirt measures to cut emissions and phase out fossil fuels. But is this really where our focus ought to be?
“Perhaps, instead of being obsessed by futile attempts to stop climate change, a goal that’s looking increasingly out of reach, we should turn our attention to the virtues of green technologies and innovative developments to tackle some of the most practical and immediate challenges.”
[continues ad nauseam]
For once failing to meet the award-winning standards for fierce scrutiny, historical awareness and political balance for which GN News is globally respected [yes, that is SARCASM] the journalist in question failed to ask Rees-Mogg the following questions
a) Had he ever peddled climate skepticism (e.g. in a 2013 opinion piece in the Telegraph), despite his political hero Margaret Thatcher having made several ‘time to save the world’ speeches in 1988-1990
b) Had he tried to stop his mate Michael Gove in an (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to remove climate change from the National Curriculum.
c) Had he ever tried to stop his former boss, Prime Minister David Cameron from “cutting the green crap” like house insulation, greener transport etc, that would have led to lower bills (and probably lower emissions)
d) Is this not simply a classic ‘reverse-ferret’ – changing position so quickly that everyone will be too busy feeling their head spin to ask obvious questions about intelligence, integrity and the rest of it (that nobody expects from politicians anymore anyway).
The answers are, of course. Yes, no., no, and yes.
Sources on Rees-Mogg’s climate positions – Guardian, Big Issue, They Work For You, Desmog
This switch from “not happening” to “too late to do anything” is time-honoured, and across many issues. See this 1986 clip from the classic BBC sitcom Yes Prime Minister. “The standard Foreign Office four stage procedure”
It’s been happening around climate, intermittently, since the late 2000s.