COMMON SENSE IN BRITAIN – AT 10:25 P.M. ET:  With our own government in the grips of environmental trendiness, we aren't fully aware of the degree to which the British government is similarly stricken.  Now, a leading Tory is calling for an end to the adolescent silliness.  We hope to see more cries like this here.  From London's Daily Mail:

The Coalition’s obsession with climate change is damaging Britain’s recovery from recession, former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson warns today.

That's chancellor of the exchequer, their equivalent of secretary of the Treasury.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Lord Lawson delivers a scathing assessment of David Cameron’s so-called ‘green agenda’ and says it is ‘time this Government grew up’.

Lord Lawson, one of the most respected Tory figures of recent decades, accuses the Prime Minister of risking Britain’s economy to make a ‘symbolic’ point.

In a devastating verdict he writes: ‘The Government’s highly damaging decarbonisation policy, enshrined in the absurd Climate Change Act, does not have a leg to stand on. It is intended, at massive cost, to be symbolic: To make good David Cameron’s ambition to make his administration “the greenest government ever”.

‘My dictionary defines green as “unripe, immature, undeveloped”.’

Hear, hear, Lord Lawson!

His comments came after former Civil Service chief Lord Turnbull accused ministers and officials of pandering to global warming ‘alarmists’ and piling huge, unnecessary costs on ordinary families.

Lord Lawson, Chancellor under Margaret Thatcher, goes further today, saying that plastering Britain with wind farms will push up bills to families and businesses without producing any real benefits. The switch to ‘low-carbon’ energy is expected to add £200 to annual energy bills.

He writes: ‘This price increase would be economically damaging at the best of times; and these are not the best of times.’

COMMENT:  Some common sense from across the pond.  What good will a "green" economy be if it plunges a country into poverty and want?  We hope Lawson's clear-mindedness makes it to our shores, where even the Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, has spoken favorably of "climate change" trendiness.  American energy prices are soaring at just the moment that low prices are needed to restart the economy.  The president seems completely out of touch.

June 11, 2011