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| The leave campaign doesn’t want to talk about the environment. Here’s why | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| It is perhaps the one area where the evidence is close to being unequivocal: the EU has benefited the UK’s nature and environment, and leaving poses a significant risk. Yet analysis by Loughborough University found that as a proportion of issues dominating the referendum coverage, the environment has received 0% of coverage from television, and 1.7% in the press. | It is perhaps the one area where the evidence is close to being unequivocal: the EU has benefited the UK’s nature and environment, and leaving poses a significant risk. Yet analysis by Loughborough University found that as a proportion of issues dominating the referendum coverage, the environment has received 0% of coverage from television, and 1.7% in the press. |
| You could argue that it is simply because no one cares – but I don’t think that’s true. As of 2013, one in 10 UK adults belongs to an environmental organisation. You’d think that this would warrant the subject at least being discussed. | You could argue that it is simply because no one cares – but I don’t think that’s true. As of 2013, one in 10 UK adults belongs to an environmental organisation. You’d think that this would warrant the subject at least being discussed. |
| Related: MPs warn vote to leave EU would threaten UK environmental policy | Related: MPs warn vote to leave EU would threaten UK environmental policy |
| In the past two weeks, WWF and the RSPB – two of the biggest wildlife organisations in the UK – chose to follow the lead of groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Wildlife Trusts and throw their hats into the ring for remain. Green groups, academics and environmentalists across the political spectrum have chosen to highlight the environmental benefits of the EU, which include cleaner beaches, more stringent action on air pollution and increased protection for UK nature. | In the past two weeks, WWF and the RSPB – two of the biggest wildlife organisations in the UK – chose to follow the lead of groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Wildlife Trusts and throw their hats into the ring for remain. Green groups, academics and environmentalists across the political spectrum have chosen to highlight the environmental benefits of the EU, which include cleaner beaches, more stringent action on air pollution and increased protection for UK nature. |
| Why have we all chosen to speak out? If you were to believe the Eurosceptics, it is because we have all been bought off by the EU. This lazy attempt to delegitimise opponents and shout down those who dare to speak up is an all too common tactic. If leave campaigners want to proclaim that a near unanimity of major environmental groups are inserting themselves into perhaps the most divisive political debate of recent history solely because of financial concern, and not principle, then it says more about them than us. | Why have we all chosen to speak out? If you were to believe the Eurosceptics, it is because we have all been bought off by the EU. This lazy attempt to delegitimise opponents and shout down those who dare to speak up is an all too common tactic. If leave campaigners want to proclaim that a near unanimity of major environmental groups are inserting themselves into perhaps the most divisive political debate of recent history solely because of financial concern, and not principle, then it says more about them than us. |
| But for me, the real question is: why doesn’t the leave campaign like talking about the environment? One reason is that effective, practical environmentalism is anathema to the very essence of the leave campaign. Dealing with the environmental challenges of the future – be they climate change, the destruction of nature or deadly air pollution – requires countries to collaborate, cooperate and yes, at times, compromise. | But for me, the real question is: why doesn’t the leave campaign like talking about the environment? One reason is that effective, practical environmentalism is anathema to the very essence of the leave campaign. Dealing with the environmental challenges of the future – be they climate change, the destruction of nature or deadly air pollution – requires countries to collaborate, cooperate and yes, at times, compromise. |
| It’s hard to see where such principles fit into a leave campaign predicated on a sensationalised fear of the other and ideas about British exceptionalism, and victory bonfires of “red tape”. Indeed, on the few occasions when the leave camp have dipped their toes in the water on the environment, they only succeeded in confirming their desire to kill off hugely successful European environmental legislation. George Eustice, the Brexit-supporting farming minister, told the Guardian that the directives protecting our birds and habitats would go, describing them as “spirit crushing”. Last week, the former minister for environment, food and rural affairs Owen Paterson announced in a speech his intention to water down the precautionary principle upon exit, so as to allow the reauthorisation of bee-harming pesticides. | It’s hard to see where such principles fit into a leave campaign predicated on a sensationalised fear of the other and ideas about British exceptionalism, and victory bonfires of “red tape”. Indeed, on the few occasions when the leave camp have dipped their toes in the water on the environment, they only succeeded in confirming their desire to kill off hugely successful European environmental legislation. George Eustice, the Brexit-supporting farming minister, told the Guardian that the directives protecting our birds and habitats would go, describing them as “spirit crushing”. Last week, the former minister for environment, food and rural affairs Owen Paterson announced in a speech his intention to water down the precautionary principle upon exit, so as to allow the reauthorisation of bee-harming pesticides. |
| Now almost 95% of our beaches are safe to swim in. It’s all my children have ever known – and that really isn’t nothing | Now almost 95% of our beaches are safe to swim in. It’s all my children have ever known – and that really isn’t nothing |
| But perhaps more importantly, in a country that has been drip-fed nonsense for decades when it comes to the EU, and in a debate that continues to remain abstract and distant to many, the environment offers something different. Something tangible, something you can walk through, something you can grasp between your toes, something to get up and go to a voting booth for. Everything a leave campaign, whose best chance of victory is that a despondent majority stay at home on 23 June, fears. | But perhaps more importantly, in a country that has been drip-fed nonsense for decades when it comes to the EU, and in a debate that continues to remain abstract and distant to many, the environment offers something different. Something tangible, something you can walk through, something you can grasp between your toes, something to get up and go to a voting booth for. Everything a leave campaign, whose best chance of victory is that a despondent majority stay at home on 23 June, fears. |
| I grew up in Essex, and my childhood memories of trips to the beach, while fond, are littered with human refuse and waste. We were the last country in Europe to pump untreated sewage directly into the ocean. Not only were we damaging our own environment, we were damaging that of our continental neighbours. As EU directives began to take effect, and we finally began to clean up our act, I lived through the transition, year after year, week after week. Now almost 95% of our beaches are safe to swim in. It’s all my children have ever known. And that really isn’t nothing. And I’ll be damned if I’m not going to tell people about it. | I grew up in Essex, and my childhood memories of trips to the beach, while fond, are littered with human refuse and waste. We were the last country in Europe to pump untreated sewage directly into the ocean. Not only were we damaging our own environment, we were damaging that of our continental neighbours. As EU directives began to take effect, and we finally began to clean up our act, I lived through the transition, year after year, week after week. Now almost 95% of our beaches are safe to swim in. It’s all my children have ever known. And that really isn’t nothing. And I’ll be damned if I’m not going to tell people about it. |