‘Green is the new red, white and blue’

Here is a trailer from a documentary called Carbon Nation. As you will see, it’s a far cry from the usual doom and gloom narrative of climate videos.

A note of caution: the idea that greening the economy will lead to full-employment and an age of abundance is, at the moment at least, pie in the sky thinking. It reminds me of film clips we sometimes  see from the 1950s or 60s where scientists and inventors predicted that future generations would be served by robots and enjoy four day weekends. I hope we won’t see a rash of climate ads and initiatives propagating similarly fanciful ideas today.

Nevertheless, I do like the fact that the documentary is upbeat. It celebrates green patriotism as ‘the new red, white and blue’ and presents commonsense, rather than hysterical, arguments for change.

This can only be a good thing.

"Ee by gum, it's parky out"

UKPA – David Cameron has promised to make the coalition the “greenest government ever”. Speaking to the Department for Energy and  Climate Change (DECC), Cameron announced:

The three things I would pick out are first of all the green economy; we’ve got a real opportunity to drive the green economy, green jobs, green growth and make sure we have our share of the industries of the future. Clearly there’s the climate change agenda where we have got to get back on track both nationally and internationally, and third there is the issue of energy security which I think is vitally important and I think we need to do a huge amount of work on.

New Energy Focus – looks at the latest additions to the DECC.

The Mirror – reckons that in the UK we spend six months of our lives talking about the weather!

Best of the Web

Paul Krugman in the NYTimes – on building a green economy. Krugman explores in length whether it is possible to: “make drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions without destroying our economy?”

Another heavyweight economist, Larry Summers, makes a strong case for energy and climate legislation.

According to Joss Garman of LeftFootForward, the “great green transition has already begun.”

Over at the American based Climate Progress, the irony of British peer and climatechange denialist Lord Monckton’s involvement in the Tea Party movement is not lost.

LA Times – reports on the Prague nuclear treaty between the US and Russia. Check back later for more coverage and analysis of this story later.