Several grisly bloodsports, legal or otherwise, are enjoyed in the English countryside. But none is as popular as shooting the messenger. Rather than attend to our environmental crisis, politicians, lobbyists and the media prefer to hunt the people seeking to address the problem. No quarry is pursued as keenly as the government’s conservation agency Natural England.
This weekend, a full-spectrum attack was launched in the billionaire press. The Sunday Telegraph raged against the agency’s call for “nutrient neutrality”. This means that new housing or business developments should not increase the amount of shit in our rivers. The paper also attacked Natural England’s advice that when new homes are built there should be no net increase in air pollution. It quoted a mysterious “insider” accusing the agency of “green activism”. What’s the betting that this “insider” is a property developer? A similar attack was launched in the Times on Monday.
