Much of this is right. There do need to be political solutions.
However, the issue is increasingly being politicised along left and right lines (but not traditional left/right), that is not healthy and there is so much dishonesty in the debate. Greta and that whole movement, through no fault of her own because I think she is sincere but naive and ill-advised, have set the cause back years. The rhetoric is both divisive and borderline hysterical.
People were coming around. Habits were changing, people were starting to consider electric cars, eating less meat, had woke up to the issue of plastic pollution etc. Now, all they see are people closing roads, digging up lawns, going on marches with questionable political undercurrents and being lectured and hectored almost always by wealthy middle-class elites.
Net zero by 2050. Fine, but let's be honest about what that means. It means higher taxes, higher energy bills, fewer flights and much else. This will impact on the poor far more, in which case let's lay that out and have that discussion honestly. Electric car? Fine if you live in a detached in the suburbs, but what if you live on a row of Victorian terraces, with cars double-parked on both sides and mounting the kerbs. No solution has been put forward that will enable the infrastructure to be put in place to allow for all current car owners to switch over in time. It will be the less well off who make the sacrifice and give up their car, only to be forced onto a rail network where expansion of capacity is always opposed by, you guessed it, the wealthy middle-class nimbys.
Renewable energy - again, only the wealthy can afford it. The FIT scheme was only taken up by those who pay £10,000+ for a system, all to gain access to a subsidy which over time will make them a lot of money. All paid for by a surcharge on bills paid by the rest of us. A few had solar for free, but behind that are people making a lot of money out of it.
I think of pensioners. People who have worked hard all their life. Often people with the smallest carbon footprints - no car, travel by bus, holiday in the UK, wear the sames clothes for years, don't waste food, don't spend their whole day glued to devices - I think of them watching Greta and with her 'how dare you' rants, this around the same time they were being labelled 'gammon' and the likes of Terry Christian were urging them to hurry up and die. Is it any wonder people are kicking back? A lot of this is driven by the liberal left, and they wonder why they don't win elections anymore.
Actually, we probably agree on a lot of what needs to be done. But, while I have nothing against her and accept there are some loonies on the fringes of the climate denial movement who are utterly batshit, she - and the adults who fawn over her - aren't helping. We may have passed the point of no return too - not in terms of the climate, but in terms of ever been able to build a consensus where we're all (aside from a few crazies) on the same page.
