In recent times there’s been an interesting – and welcome – shift as regards the terms of the environmental debate. Arguments against taking action on our environment have shifted to a large degree from “it doesn’t matter” to “even if it does matter, you can’t do anything about it”.

So rather than denying global warming outright, sceptics more and more deploy arguments along the lines of, “well changing your light bulbs isn’t going to do any good given how many new power stations China is building”.

Although this argument is normally presented as a matter-of-fact, 100% watertight, no doubts entertained, copper-bottomed case, it is deeply flawed. And those of us who want to secure more and quicker action to tackling climate change need to engage it head on.

So here are my seven reasons why that argument is wrong:

1. Perhaps the biggest obstacle we face to getting more green policies in place in developing countries is the tag of hypocrisy and greediness. We in the developed world did all sorts of environmental damage when getting rich and industrialised – so why should we then turn round and stop others doing the same? That’s why showing that we too are taking action is important. Imagine if George W Bush came over to the UK and lectured us on reducing fuel consumption – would his lectures sound more persuasive if he was telling Americans to do the same or if he was telling American they don’t need to do anything?

2. Small actions add up. Just as the old joke goes – you eat a big elephant in small mouthfuls. Changing one light bulb at home today won’t do much to save the world, but changing more light bulbs at home overtime and having more and more people change their light bulbs too – that does add up. And it’s not just in area you can take small actions but across a whole range of areas. Done the light bulb? Now how about making sure your tyres are at optimum pressure? And maybe next month start recycling your glass jars? And perhaps something else a few months after that? All those little steps add up as little step follows little step.

3. As regards air travel – the basic argument rolled out against taking action on the environmental damage caused by flights is that they make up only around one in twenty parts of the UK’s CO2 emissions. True – but this will grow to one in four by 2050 at current rates. So small actions now with only small immediate effects can have a massive long-term impact if they help head off huge growth.

4. It’s good for our economy to take action now. The more that we do and the sooner that we do it, the greater the boost to the British economy and British firms who produce environmentally friendly goods and services. Greater support for tidal power is a good example – it won’t just help the environment but it will also help ensure that UK jobs are gained by getting a bigger share of the international market for such technology. There is an example for us to follow in Denmark, which is now a world leader in wind turbine technology and reaping the jobs and profits that go with that. The UK could easily have been – we have just as much wind as they do – but chose instead to stand on the sidelines whilst others developed that industry.

5. It’s also often good for our own wallets right here and now. Changing light bulbs or using more fuel-efficient vehicles saves you money. Even though the low energy bulb costs more, you’re quickly into profit from the lower fuel bills and longer bulb life. Keeping your tyres at the right pressure, driving in a fuel efficient way and when you next change cars switching to a more economical one all saves you money in petrol bills. So you don’t have to like the planet – you can just hate petrol taxes! It’s a win for you even if you don’t worry about pollution.

6. It’s right in principle. All my previous points are about pragmatic decisions. But sometimes it’s right to do the right thing just because it is the right thing, regardless of what impact it may or may not have.Living our own lives in as considerate and caring way as possible is the right thing to do – even if there are others who aren’t doing that.

7. And finally – as you might expect a politician to say! – politics matters. Governments set thousands of law, tens of thousands of regulations and spend billions of pounds. That all adds up to a massive amount of influence and power, and it is under the control of politicians. But even this is amenable to the collective voice of many people all taking small actions themselves – both in the ballot box(putting a cross on a piece of paper once every few years is a pretty minimal degree of effort for having a say in how billions of pounds are spent!) and in their own lives. Because the more individuals are seen as taking action in their own lives, however small, the more politicians will be convinced that people do care about the issue and will react and change.

So next time you are sat there staring at your light bulb – don’t worry about the Chinese power station that is out of your control, but remember all the power that lies with you.

This article first appeared on the New Statesman blog.

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007

When I was first elected to Parliament, I looked forward to meeting and seeing in action close up our major politicians, many of whom had previously only been a face on the TV to me. But Gordon Brown has been strangely absent from my Parliamentary experience. Despite having a huge influence that strays well beyond the Treasury, he rarely debates, rarely answers questions and even in his own Treasury patch leaves most of the Parliamentary speaking to his junior ministers.

And not just in Parliament. On issue after issue, and Iraq above all, he had to be dragged almost kicking and screaming to speak up for his party’s policies – even though all the time he has been signing the cheques for them.

What a weird Prime Minstership it would be to have someone who shies away so much from public leadership. You do not get the impression that this is someone spoiling to get stuck into arguing his corner. Indeed, granting independence to the Bank of England – Labour’s most striking policy in 1997 – was carefully kept out of their election manifesto and away from public debate.

So – will we see a different Brown if he makes it to Number Ten? After all, you can’t send your minions in to bat for you at Prime Minister’s Questions. But even if we do, this background means Brown is surprisingly unpractised in defending his positions in public under sustained pressure. Will he manage it? Judging by what I have seen so far in Parliament, it is an open question.

The breadth of his carefully prepared and cautiously expressed views has, to his credit, been striking at times: such as his sweeping analysis of the way in which during the twentieth century the switch in income tax from being a tax on a small part of the population to being a tax on much of the population has necessitated a significant change in the way that taxes and public spending are defended and justified.

Being Prime Minister, however, is not the same as writing interesting academic treatises. And his big ideas are a very mixed bag: tax credits have been a vastly over-complicated failure and Tube privatisation in London has seen millions squandered, whilst independence for the Bank of England (a policy lifted from the Liberal Democrats) has worked and much credit is due to him on Third World debt and aid.

On that issue he showed decisiveness and leadership, but on far too many others – such as pensions, the NHS and climate change – his response has been to set up long-term commissions under outsiders to tell him what to do. We have all had to suffer from lack of action whilst he has inched towards a conclusion.

Now, I’m no objector to careful consideration of issues, getting in advice, or preparing the ground carefully – but reviews need to be a means to making an effective, timely decision – and not a means to prevaricate. This slow moving, hugely cautious approach could – like his shying away from public leadership – be caught out very badly if he is in Number 10.

A liability too could be the long, long history of political infighting involving Brown and others. This dates much further back than Blair announcing he would not fight another election. As Philip Gould has recounted, it even goes back before the 1992 general election:

“The whole thing was so debilitating because every time Gordon appeared on TV, someone in John [Smith]’s camp would say, ‘Look, it’s another bid for the leadership’, Patricia [Hewitt] remembers.”

Someone I can’t quite see fifteen plus years of squabbling stop overnight at the leadership election. Indeed, Brown’s habit of cutting out others from decisions (as with cutting our Blair from key decisions on the Euro and the public by keeping his independence for the Bank of England policies secret during the 1997 election) makes for an unlikely leader of a team.

Neither is he a likely candidate to give Labour a fresh new look. He is very firmly one of the faces of now not-so New Labour. James Carville, who helped Bill Clinton win the US Presidency in 1992, famously wrote a sign in the office saying the election was about, “the economy, stupid”. But people tend to forget what Carville wrote before that on his sign – ‘Change vs more of the same’. And Brown is definitely more of the same. Blair’s record as Premier is as much about Brown as it is about Blair.

In fact, look at all those issues that most motivated Labour supporters to switch to us in 2005: top up fees, (lack of) free care for the elderly, Iraq and more. They all have Gordon Brown’s fingerprints all over them. Is Labour’s saviour really to be found in the man deeply immersed in the policies that drove millions of voters and tens of thousands of activists away?

There is though, one issue on which Brown’s judgement has been impeccable. As he told Paddy Ashdown a few years ago whilst discussing our parties’ respective economic policies: “You lot [i.e. the Liberal Democrats] were right.”

Now that would make a fun election poster for the next election!

This article first appeared in Liberal Democrat News. For subscription details, click here.

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007