We Need to Bring Society On Board

Despite decades of buccaneering leadership by representatives of Shell and British Petroleum, the European Parliament is still having trouble reaching agreement on how much to procrastinate over the climate emergency. The European People's Party, from which Britain's late Head Boy withdrew the greenest government ever because he found it too left-wing and preferred to associate with chancers and Holocaust revisionists, is doing its best to weaken a resolution over a form of words. Since the UN's environmental agency has said that emissions must fall by more than seven per cent annually to keep the situation merely extremely dangerous, governments are increasingly worried about how to avoid taking action and thereby endangering their members' retirement plans. Without the sunny outlook of a friendly environment and a comfortable climate, the golden handshakes may turn rare and rusty and the company directorships may start to wither away. Keeping the planet habitable is all very well as an ideal, but there are real-world practicalities to consider.