In the last few days, a number of highly respected columnists have underscored the dangerous political and economic nonsenses now being inflicted upon us in the name of ‘global warming’. Even more interesting, however, has been the tone of the comment - I have detected, for the first time, the bite of genuine anger over government deceit and outright folly, especially with respect to energy costs. I recommend two seminal articles, as examples.

First, today, there is Dominic Lawson’s scathing piece about the horrific cost of renewable energy and its impact on the poor [‘The staggering cost of renewable energy. The commitment will lead to an increase of about 40 per cent in annual electricity bills’, The Independent, April 22]:

“By chance, I spoke about this last week to the head of E.ON UK, the British arm of Europe’s biggest supplier of wind power. Paul Golby explained to me that, because it was very hard to envisage much of a contribution from renewables for energy used by transport , this means that we would need to generate about 45 per cent of our domestic electricity bills from such sources - principally wind power – in order to conform with the EU directive known as the Renewables Obligation.

According to Mr Golby, meeting such a commitment will involve an increase in electricity generating costs of about £10 billion per year; this is equivalent to almost £400 per household – or, in the roughest terms, an increase of about 40 per cent in annual electricity bills. Try selling that to the British public; and, of course, the Government hasn’t.

As Mr Golby told me, with understandably diplomatic understatement: ‘The politicians have not been entirely honest about the cost of our renewables commitment, and so the public don’t really know what’s coming their way.’”

Just so.

“The Idiocracy”

The second is a brilliant, and deeply honest, article by Simon Jenkins on ‘Comment is Free’ in The Guardian (April 16) [‘The cost of green tinkering is in famine and starvation’]:

“Farewell the age of reason, welcome the idiocracy. Only George Orwell could have invented - and named - the government’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) that came into operation yesterday. It is the latest in a long line of measures intended to ease the conscience of the rich while keeping the poor miserable, in this case spectacularly so.

The consequences of the RTFO have been much trumpeted on these pages. It says enough that one car tank of bio petrol needs as much grain as it takes to feed an African for a year, or that a reported one-third of American grain production is now subsidised for conversion into biofuel. Jeremy Paxman pleaded the cause of this latest green wheeze on Monday’s Newsnight, while the United Nations food expert, Jean Ziegler, screamed for it to stop: ‘Children are dying ... It is a crime.’”

I saw that exchange, and I was equally shocked by Paxman’s approach. It seemed totally out of character. Jenkins then goes on to expose the green madness we have to endure, day in, day out:

“If I have changed my mind, I am not sure the same applies to many greens. I have rarely encountered so much fanaticism and blind faith. Did those demanding fuel subsidies not realise that palm oil would wipe out rainforests and that ethanol from corn would use as much carbon as it saved? Did those pleading for wind farms really think they could ever substitute for nuclear power; or those wanting eco-towns not realise they would just add to car emissions? Did they not understand that, once the tap of public money is turned on, lobbyists will ensure it is never turned off - however harmful?”

“Befuddled Romanticism”

As both of these commentators hint, the politicians are now in a bind of their own, ill-judged making. Under current economic pressures, Joe and Jane Public are rumbling the green con. Ipsos-Mori polling data, published last week by the Financial Times, shows that, over the 12 months to January 2008, the proportion of those in Britain declaring “the environment” to be their biggest concern fell from almost 20 per cent to just 8 per cent. In the US battle for the Presidency, a recent major poll put interest in ‘global warming’ as a key issue at zero!

So, how are the politicians going to escape their ill-thought out rhetoric? Dominic Lawson again:

“In fact, after his taxing experience of the past few weeks, I imagine that Gordon Brown will be wondering just how to get out of the Government’s commitment to do exactly that [the 40% rise in fuel bills], as part of the EU Renewables Obligation. He’ll be in company, of course - the company of every other European leader. The only uncertainty is whether they’ll admit it – even to each other, in private.”

I believe it is time for some uncompromising anger on the part of those of us who see the whole ‘global warming’ green gobbledygook for what it is - a danger to the poor, to developing countries, and to the world economy at a fragile time.

We have surely had enough of what the Oxford economist, Paul Collier, has called “befuddled romanticism”. The green self-indulgence of the rich is becoming a danger to us all.

We must return to the practical world, or else the cost of those little dials on the electricity meter (above) will become - and I use this word with chosen irony - ‘unsustainable’ for so many.