Two Doctors: Security: June 2008 Archives

Security: June 2008 Archives

A worthy response.

on June 25, 2008 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a lot of debate going on about where aircraft carriers should be built. But surprisingly, given the £4bn cost, no debate about whether they should be built.

This despite many in the near-pacifist left in the SNP knowing that the carriers are designed, in the Navy's own words, to provide "a coercive presence worldwide".

So late last night we chipped in, arguing that the carriers shouldn't be built at all, and that the skills on the Clyde and the money from the Treasury should instead be redeployed to develop cutting-edge renewables industries and other similar green tech.

The prize for the best response goes to the following, found in my inbox this morning.

"Are you suggesting that we shouldn't be spending billions on the world's biggest floating cocktail party venues? Where will Prince William be able to land his jets? This all sounds dangerously close to treason to me."

It's like watching a junkie picking a new drug.

James

on June 22, 2008 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So we're on the cusp of the post-oil age, as you know.

There are questions to be answered, like "will we prepare for it properly, or persist with business as usual as long as possible instead". But sooner or later, that's what's happening.

Which would mean we'll no longer be dependent on the Saudi despots for our energy. Unless Gordon Brown has his way, sadly.

In what might be the most incompetent decision of his brief premiership, he's trying to get us to invest in their dead-end dinosaur wine, while giving them a share of our endlessly productive renewables.

The current failure to prepare for post-oil economics (the opposite of masterly inactivity) means we may have to go cold turkey on fossil fuels. While having made ourselves economically dependent even for our own wind power.

Update: a similar assessment has been made elsewhere of the Bush policies.