The FT has a long analysis piece this morning on how the political salience of environmental issues is faring in Britain as the economy nosedives. The news ain’t good:
At a time of falling house prices and rising household costs, people are telling pollsters that they are no longer quite so interested in saving the planet. Ipsos Mori has found that environmental concerns reached a pinnacle in January 2007, when 19 per cent of people, unprompted, named the environment as one of the biggest issues facing Britain today, compared with just a few per cent several years earlier. But by January 2008, that figure had fallen to 8 per cent, while the economy was rated a top concern by one in five. One very senior member of the shadow cabinet put it more strongly: “People hate this green stuff.”
But on the other hand, CNN has this:
At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate. The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.
Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less — that’s 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.”
The question, then: as far as climate change is concerned, does a drop in public concern for the environment actually matter, as long as the oil price keeps on rising? Answer: yes, because there’s absolutely no law to say that pursuing enery independence is necessarily green.
Exhibit A: corn-based ethanol. Pointless as a climate mitigation measure (and seriously harmful on the food security front). As an energy security measure, unfortunately, rather effective.
Exhibit B: liquid fuels from coal. The US National Association of Mining is already out there making the arguments. Also rather effective from an energy security point of view, but not good at all for the climate.
All this adds up to a pretty good case for policymakers to focus heavy fire on unlocking electric cars, it seems to me, given how far away hydrogen still looks.
