It’s mad to think that it’s 20 years ago this week that I started my Politics degree at Swansea university (and just over 17 years ago I since I founded Green Energy Solutions -the original Neath & Swansea solar panel installers). And so naturally I find myself reflecting on the last couple of decades: what has changed in all that time? What has stayed the same?
I’ll spare readers my musings beyond our remit of government policy relevant to the core of Ecotekk´s business of solar panel installation and renewable energy. This after all, is not an autobiography. But looking specifically at issues pertaining to the environment, economics, as well as human security and well-being, my thesis, so to speak, would be that the faces of the politicians change, the bullshit stays the same.
My recollections of my first term at university, perhaps understandingly, being a little bit vague, I had to ask google to remind me what the big new stories of Autumn 2006 had been, and in the time it takes for an automated ballistic missile detection system to initiate nuclear war, google AI replied that:
The top UK environmental politics news stories of autumn 2006 were (drum roll)…
1 Record warm temperatures
2 Slashing funding fro DEFRA
3 The shift in Political Climate following David Cameron’s high-profile trip to the Arctic in April 2006, forcing all major UK political parties to adopt aggressive “green” stances and vie over environmental credibility.
4 The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, which warned that inaction on global warming would cost vastly more than both World Wars.
2006´s record warm temperatures by this point evoke nostalgic feelings of glorious, but completely tolerable summer sun; it seems now like each year is hotter than the last, with hundreds of UK climate records being broken in the two decades since then. In the last 20 years consecutive governments have taken woefully little action to prepare the country for the new reality, and far too little also to bring emissions down and transition away from fossil fuels entirely. They’re happy to ban hosepipes and gas barbecues, but not gas guzzling Chelsea Tractors, much less fossil fuel extraction or use more broadly.
I could never have forgotten about David Cameron flying to the arctic to´ pose with huskies whilst pledging to lead ´the greenest government ever´, but I though this happened at some later time -my memory playing tricks on me. It was him telling his cabinet that it ´was time to cut out all the green crap´, I was thinking of, that happened a few years later. And of course, this type of behaviour, which we see time and again from politicians that talk the talk about taking meaningful action on climate change, but ultimately flatter, only to deceive.
Similarly, I remember hearing the news about the DEFRA cuts, and how, specifically, there was going to be a huge cut in funding for flood defences, and commenting that it was taking to placing a massive bet on rain not falling -and this in a famously wet country within a wider context of rising global temperatures which would lead to a greater frequency as well as severity of flood events in Great Britain. You couldn’t write it.
The Stern review of the Economics of Climate Change, warned that inaction on global warming would cost vastly more than both World Wars. As far as UK politician go, it might as well have fallen on deaf ears. It blows my mind that there’s any kind of debate, now, at the time of writing this, September 2026, not only is there a serious debate going on about opening 2 new sites for drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, but its actually seems like the media is preparing us all for another government u-turn, and one more broken promise on the environment.
Im not going to re-capitulate the economic case for making a war like effort to de-carbonise the economy. That argument was won decades ago and is only becoming more apparent with every passing season. The problem is political, not economic, and certainly not technical. It requires governments embarking a bold and brave course of action, rather than pandering to their wealthy donors and patrons in the billionaire owned corporate media. The costs of taking the necessary action to avert catastrophic climate change, absolutely pale next to the cost of inaction. Not to mention the fact that absent a functional ecosystem and planet, there is no economic activity whatsoever. Yet the greed, corruption and short sightedness of politicians has meant that the can has been kicked down the road, to the point that the road is running out, and the can is going over the cliff with us following it.
Needless to say, in the 20 years between autumn 2006 and the present, there has been more and more extreme climate events; funding to environmental agencies has been further cut, the costs of not taking action to avert climate breakdown continue to climb compared with those of taking meaningful steps, and from politicians of every stripe (except Green, of course), its just more of he same old: big promises on climate, little action, some kind of pathetic justification for not doing enough, and a return to business as usual while the climate gets worse, and extreme weather events get ever more deadly and expensive.
I could have gone through all the wasted opportunities, broken promises and lame excuses, that the UK has endured because this overwhelming dereliction of duty by its governors. But ive already written more than intended, and in any case, just looking at these two snapshots of politics and the environment, 20 years apart, I´ve more than proved my point already. So much just had to be left out.
They say that a day is a long time in politics, so you could reasonably expect that in over 7000 of them, governments around the world (or just one, the UK government), would have had ample time to address the biggest problem the world faces in the 21st century -anthropogenic climate change- and to take the action necessary to avert climate break down and societal collapse. You´d think.
I frequently get asked by customers what I studied at university. When I tell them Politics, the most common response is fro them to tell me that they dint like politicians. I tell them that mostly I agree; that politics is murky shit, and the deeper you go into studying the subject, it only gets murkier and murkier. It’s difficult not to be cynical, when the more you learn, the more the student is confirmed in the validity of their cynicism.
The Ecological society is coming, make no mistake. But does it develop out of the current international politico-economic system, or the ruins which it leaves behind? That is the question.