Seven green policies the Daily Mail might just like

NO to the conservatory tax! NO to ugly, bird-killing wind turbines! NO to outlandishly expensive renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency programmes and infrastructure upgrades! It’s easy to caricature those parts of the media who seem to object by reflex to any environmentally positive policy suggestion. But it’s important in this time of coalition to find ways of working together. So here at SE², we’ve come up with some environmental policies that we think the Daily Mail just might have to like:

1. It’s all about aspiration

There could be a bad pun about air source heat pumps here, but I’ll avoid it. Instead, aspiration is about people having the opportunity to achieve what they want: it’s about moving into a bigger house, buying a better car, having the latest gadget. So what better than an Energy Performance Certificate to tell you if you’ve reached the pinnacle of your ambitions: an A-rating?

2. None of your interfering nanny state

It’s all about being given the freedom to make your own decisions, without being told what to do by some suit-wearing, tofu-eating, beard-stroking, red-brick-university, social-sciences graduate in Whitehall.

This freedom creates a perfect landscape for decentralised energy. Homes, villages, towns taking control of their own energy destiny, breaking free of the stranglehold of a Government-regulated, corporate-controlled, profitmongering energy industry. Energy independence for all!

3. The Golden Age

There was a time when children were silent and so were movies, a golden age when skylarks sang in the fields and there was honey still for tea. Let us hark back to that glorious time by using the latest in construction products: sheep’s wool insulation; hemp and straw construction; wood burning boilers; mini-hydro waterwheels; recycled construction materials and aggregates. Who said technology and nostalgia couldn’t work hand in hand?

4. Fair’s fair

There’s nothing worse than injustice. Indolent scroungers living in mansions paid for by the state. Criminals walking free from court, laughing at YOU! Yes, YOU! So in the interests of absolute fairness, how about revisiting Personal Carbon Allowances or, at the very least, the Carbon Reduction Commitment? Nice, fair, equitable systems for all... 

5. If you’ve got it, flaunt it

A phrase more commonly associated with a picture of something pert, but how about flaunting your energy credentials with a smart meter? No, it’s not a spying energy company intruding into your home and counting how many kilowatt hours you consume. It’s a chance to show off just how energy-slim you’ve become.

6. Young people are lazy and feckless

And thank God, because if they weren’t slobbing around on park benches and long-forgotten bandstands, they’d be out in the streets rioting. But what can energy policy do to remove these threatening hordes from our public spaces? How about a programme that helps create warm homes for people to live in? That way the feckless youth can be feckless at home rather than out on the streets...

7.  There is a miracle cure

Last but not least that stalwart of the modern, mid-market, screeching tabloid: the miracle cure. Cures for cancer. Amazing diets. The secret to stopping smoking. Too fat? Too thin? Doesn’t matter: we can help. If it wasn’t so dangerous, it would be funny, but that’s another blog for another day.

Here, at least, they have us. Yep. I admit defeat. The Daily Mail wants a miracle cure for everything and I just haven’t got one for energy policy. Face it: it’s complicated. It’s messy. It involves decisions, trade-offs, things that will make some people unhappy. It involves thinking in the long-term, deciding on investments now that will impact how we live for decades or even centuries. It can’t be summarised into a neat little headline or a pithy soundbite. Energy policy is too important to be made by people who are trying to shift newspapers. The sooner policymakers come to terms with that, the better the outcome for all of us.