I won’t bother with any outlandish fantasy horror, as there is something really scary out there at the moment anyway, something that can give me nightmares now I’ve long outgrown ghosts and zombies and the Borg. I’m talking about the ecological collapse into which we’re sleepwalking, and of which by far the most visible aspect is climate change.

Someone who I thought deserved a bit of a scare was my MP, James Purnell. In the spirit of the season, I wrote James the following letter:

Dear James Purnell,

The Climate Change Bill is likely to get a second reading in December before being debated in Spring. While it is good to see environmental targets being enshrined in law, the law doesn’t go nearly far enough, and I hope you will do what you can to make it go further. The three following amendments would be particularly welcome.

1/ A higher 2050 target
Even Gordon Brown has acknowledged that a 60% cut in emissions may 2050 may not be satisfactory. Some prominent climate scientists go much further than that, and I hope we can commit to at least an 80% cut.

2/ Binding annual targets
If a week is a long time in politics, 43 years is an eternity. Few of us are convinced that governments would pay much attention to a 2050 target in setting day-to-day policy. We need legally-binding annual milestones on the way to any 2050 target, or the latter will become just so much “aspirational” PR.
Incidentally, these milestones will be a great help to the businesses and entrepeneurs whose interests New Labour takes so seriously, and for whom the current uncertainty can only be frustrating.

3/ Include shipping and aviation
Currently, emissions from shipping and aviation are excluded from the UK’s emissions total. Given the amount contributed by these sectors, as well as the massive growth currently projected, this makes a mockery of the whole system. I have heard the justification that working out how much of the emissions associated with a flight are attributable to which country are too complex, but this is nonsense: attribute half the emissions to the country of departure and half to the country of arrival.

The UK is on target to meet its Kyoto targets merely because of the savings inherent in the politically-motivated flight from coal to gas. As coal mining starts to expand once more, and with imminent massive airport expansion, there is a real danger of our emissions rising dramatically without strong government action. Even the U.N., in its latest reports, acknowledges the immense dangers posed by climate change to our very survival as a species, and I trust you will take these concerns as seriously as they merit.

On an unrelated note, I also hope you take some steps in the aftermath of this Photoshop incident to reassure your constituents that their confidence in you is justified, perhaps by supporting the Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception) Bill introduced by Adam Price MP of Plaid Cymru.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Sewell

I suggest you drop yours a line (click here to send a quick email, here to go further); even if they’re a slippery toerag you’d never contemplate voting for, they are supposed to at least try and represent you. Post your letters here in the comments section if you like.

Incidentally, the amendments suggested here are those of the I-Count campaign (h/t the Coffee House), but they’re by no means enough to make it perfect (nor, in my view, will even 80% be enough, but it’s a start). I could also have complained, for example, about the potential for wriggling out of any commitments with dodgy trading schemes, but that’s a complex argument that I don’t think there’s any point me having out in emails with my MP. We need to raise the level of debate on the issue first, and in the meantime there is scope for vastly improving the bill with those three amendments that I reckon we can all agree with based on existing information. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and all that.