Am I alone?

I’ve been avoiding the news of late. I realised I needed to take a serious time out from it last week when I caught myself day dreaming of launching a cheap and nourishing breakfast cereal which I’d call ‘Credit Crunch’.

Last night though, I thought I’d risk a glimpse – perhaps the sacking of Luiz Filipe Scolari by Chelsea (and let’s not forget Portsmouth’s dismissal of Tony Adams too) might provide a little colour in the monochrome news diet.

I have to say I was flabbergasted, not by (or perhaps that should be not only by) Scolari’s reported pay out, but by a report from Northern Ireland.  Predictably it involved two words, each starting with C – but this time they represented a different global threat – Climate Change.

It would seem that Environment Minister, Sammy Wilson has banned government television adverts in Northern Ireland warning of the effects of climate change.

The DUP man said he was not prepared to allow “insidious New Labour propaganda” about the impact of climate change which would have been screened on UTV.

Mr Wilson said the adverts attempted to tell people that simple measures like changing their lightbulbs and turning off TVs from stand-by mode could help prevent them “wrecking the world”.
“The vast majority of people are not prepared to accept this view of life any more and are certainly not prepared to bear the massive financial consequences.” He told the Belfast Telegraph.

Mr Wilson has been heavily criticised by environmentalists for claiming that ongoing climatic shifts are down to nature and not mankind.  But while acknowledging his views on global warming may not be popular, the East Antrim MP is not prepared to be bullied by eco fundamentalists. “I’ll not be stopped saying what I believe needs to be said about climate change,” he said.

This really scared me, I’m all for free speech, and I’m not comfortable with ‘insidious propaganda’ but I’m at a loss to see how avoiding over consumption can be wrong on any level.

Am I alone?