I struggle to understand why environmental politics are traditionally regarded as left-wing.  They are not.  The environment is the only place that we have.  The place where we live matters to us; in our local communities and in the wider world.  It is all about respect and stewardship.

Disputes about the science of manmade climate change may be rife, but they are entirely irrelevant.  It might be suggested that only a brave or very foolish person (or a publicity-seeker) would take issue with the consensual opinion of the world’s leading scientists – but in the end this too is irrelevant.

The point is this:  waste of any kind is a bad thing, so we must stop wasting energy, food and material resources.  Fossil fuels are finite, so we must find ways of being less dependent upon them, and sooner rather than later.  Natural resources are limited, not limitless as we in the West have implicitly regarded them for two-hundred years, so we must start trying to obey the laws of Nature.  If Nature goes bust, there will be no bail out.

Conservative-minded people can embrace our current environmental challenges wholeheartedly, passionately and with every confidence in a right of centre political inheritance and vision.

We believe in the merits of order and security: two benefits of civilisation, which are threatened by environmental disruption and the pressure of global population growth.

We recognise the responsibility of stewardship.  We respect the past, and hold the present in trust for future generations.  As Margaret Thatcher said: “Mankind has no freehold on the Earth, only a full repairing lease.”  We need to look after the place where we, and all other creatures, live; not just for ourselves but for those who will come after us.

We understand the need for global action and diplomacy in order to ensure advantages at home and around the world.  In world affairs the conservative approach is pragmatic rather than ideological.

We believe that local actions, in our own communities, rather than Big Government initiatives, can help make changes for the better. The environment is both local and global, and a passion for local solutions can help build and strengthen our communities.

Finally, the conservative understands that whilst politicians have a vitally important role in shaping the framework for action on green issues, only the market can deliver the results.   The paradox is inescapable; it was the power of the market which, through driving unsustainable growth, created the problems mankind now faces. But it now offers the only sure way out of them.

Meeting the various challenges presented by environmental pressures is already creating huge market opportunities for those with the vision, technology and access to capital to seize them. According to HSBC, global turnover in low carbon goods and services last year overtook the value of the defence and aerospace industries. This is no cottage industry.

An unhelpful tendency exists to lecture people on the need for “behavioural change”. Of course those who have made changes in the way that they live in order to reduce their impact on natural resources should be applauded; people who, for example, have determined to drive less, recycle more, buy ethically sourced products, install micro-renewable energy systems, or switch off the lights when leaving a room. I have tried most of these things myself; but we are part of a small minority which has, by and large, made a deliberate political or social choice.

Human behaviour will only naturally change on the massive scale required when change is cheaper or more convenient than sticking with the status quo. Most people don’t want to make deliberate political or social choices; and why should they? It’s what they elect politicians to do. If heroes are to emerge from the battle to manage and defeat environmental damage they will not be eco-warriors, but engineers, physicists, designers, inventors and entrepreneurs. The true friends of the Earth are gradually emerging, and they are not those who spend their time screaming at the capitalist system. They are those who respect our duty of stewardship over the natural environment we have inherited, and embrace capitalism as the most powerful tool for change on the planet.

You can visit the CEN’s website or join their Facebook group

The Telegraph has a fantastic article about rubbish in Bali today.

I know – not exactly something you are desperately keen to read over breakfast, but necessary: this recycling plant in Bali takes in 140 lorryloads of waste a week, and only properly throws away 10. This is exactly the kind of thing we need to do more of.

I’ve had my questions over parts of the Conservatives’ plans for local government (why mandate weekly bin collection? Or, while a good thing in itself,  I don’t really understand how freezing council tax centrally for two years is very localist…) but they are really minor quibbles. What I want to see more of is things like George Osborne’s freeing up of councils to reward people who recycle rather than punish those who don’t – because carrots work better than sticks.

I probably recycle about three bags for every two rubbish bags I throw out. I want to recycle more; my council doesn’t do most plastics, for example, and I would really like them to take food waste separately. I also want supermarkets to reduce their packaging, and I want them to take back their excess without argument – I do feel a bit of a loon unwrapping things at the checkout sometimes. And you should hear the shock when I buy vegetables without a plastic bag…

Even if you don’t subscribe to man-made climate change as a theory, we do all want to reduce the cost of our consumption and maintain a clean environment. Schemes like the one in Bali work because they were local initiatives to solve a problem; it has resulted in jobs and in cleaner surroundings. Of course there are problems translating it directly to the UK. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Barely a day goes by without another acknowledgement of this Government’s failure to help those who placed the most faith in it.  Only last week, one report showing that 13% of children in the UK are living in poverty was followed by a devastating critique from a Government body of New Labour’s record on inequality.

According to the National Equality Panel, “comparison with measures based on tax records suggests that this is the highest level of income inequality since soon after the Second World War.”  Read that sentence again and then ask yourself the very simple question – what is a Labour Government for?  After 13 years of Labour Government, inequality has widened and social mobility has gone backwards.  That is most certainly not what people signed up to in 1997.  What would Keir Hardie or Nye Bevan have thought of this?  Come to think of it, I would imagine that the likes of Hugh Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins would have been shocked.  Even Ramsay Macdonald would have been horrified.

That such a report comes out and Labour ministers are not utterly shamed by the findings says so much about what the Labour Party has become.  The party that was once, “a moral crusade or it is nothing” has been reduced to a mere political calculating machine.  Nowhere in the Ministerial statements about the report were there any new ideas about how the problem could be resolved and how poverty and inequality could be reduced.

The report makes quite clear that the accident of birth plays far too important a role in determining life chances.  It makes quite clear that too many children are let down by education in deprived areas.  That is why radical new progressive Conservative policies are aimed at establishing new schools in the most deprived areas and introducing a pupil premium where schools are given extra money.

Tackling inequality and poverty will be one of the priorities of an incoming Conservative Government.  Labour have failed the poorest in society.  It is now up to us to ensure that life chances are not decided at birth; the causes of inequality and poverty are tackled; and that Britain becomes a fairer society after 13 years of Labour’s diminished hope and broken promises.

I do find it depressing to continually read headlines basically hinting that Tories don’t care about the environment. It’s simply not true. It is getting boring to regularly write on here why, even if you don’t believe climate change scientists (and – let’s be fair – many of their recent antics have undermined their authority), many of the ways in which we can act against climate change are also beneficial in financial terms.

Given our current economic malaise, though, we do have an amazing opportunity at the moment. It’s not the answer to all our problems, and it won’t cut our emissions by anything like enough, but as they say in the ads, every little helps.

There are two key points here – firstly that the Tories are thinking in very serious terms about how to encourage green growth.  And secondly, that being energy efficient and thereby reducing your carbon footprint has the fantastic side-effect of reducing your bills.

None of this is rocket science. Being a bit greener does not mean living in a cave. New technologies are only expensive to install at the moment because they are not used widely enough to make them more efficient both in operational and in installation terms (ie the more people use them, the better they are and the easier it is to use them – a classic virtuous circle). Reducing your energy consumption will (generally) reduce your energy bills.

So I do wish people would return to the previously much-vaunted “Politics of And“. In this area in particular, it’s there, it’s sensible, and it works.

Look at this initiative from former Governor Jon Hunstman (R-OH – yes, a Republican governor of Ohio). It’s a fantastic, multi-stranded initiative: by encouraging state employees to compress their work into a four day week (so instead of working 9 til 5, they work 8 til 6 and have Fridays off), by carpooling, and by tripchaining (ie making one trip with several stops, rather than going backwards and forwards from home several times a day), the programme has cut a million miles of travel and saved over 50, 000 US gallons of petrol. 

But another key benefit is that state workers are reporting higher levels of job satisfaction, better family relationships, fewer sick days and greater availibility of state services (partly because the state offices are open at times when people can actually get to them).

This dual purpose is what the “Politics of And” is all about. Quality of life, environmentalism, reducings costs… It’s what we can and should do here.

On a slightly different note to what I  normally write about…

I had heard about this but yesterday went to see it. The Living Wall in the new Anthropolgie store on Regent Street is amazing. The shop itself is full of slightly odd things, but they have an amazing three-storey high wall of plants growing inside.

These photos don’t really do it justice – it is enormous! Apparently there are fourteen different types of plant in it.

I suppose it’s really not that different to having a load of pot plants, but it’s a great way to decorate and be green. It’s fed with rainwater from the roof, so is completely self-sustaining.

I’m thinking of trying the same thing one day at home. I suspect it’s more complicated than just attaching some pots to a wall. But a study from NASA has found that indoor plants can improve your air quality significantly. So what isn’t to like about a decorative feature that also improves your environment?