Ed Miliband: 'Britain is sleepwalking to a climate crisis'

Dither – and denial – over the widely agreed cause of extreme weather are paralysing government and steering the country towards a security crisis, believes the Labour leaderWe are on the 3.30pm train from Birmingham to London and it feels like a race against time. Outside, the fields are flooded and the rain is lashing down. More bad weather is heading in fast from the west. Two days before, on Wednesday, Virgin Trains called a temporary, early-evening halt to services in and out of Euston and passengers are worried it may do so again.Aside from a nagging anxiety about getting home, Ed Miliband is having a decent day. Earlier, he dropped in on south Manchester, where Labour had won the Wythenshawe and Sale East byelection with ease, before heading to Birmingham to explain his union reforms to a group of mostly enthusiastic party activists.Now, however, he wants to discuss something far more important: climate change, its consequences, and his plans to combat its worst effects. Between 2008 and 2010, Miliband was secretary of state for energy and climate change at a time when David Cameron was positioning himself as a believer in everything green. It seems like an age ago that they trod such similar ground."I genuinely believed he believed it," he says of the prime minister's ultra-green phase as opposition leader. "He talked a lot about it. It seemed to be close to his heart."Since then, though, much water has passed under the Tory bridge and Miliband is not at all sure ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: David Cameron Flooding World news Ed Miliband Climate change Politics UK news The Observer Climate change scepticism Environment Science Source Type: news