Time to check anti-green disinformation

REGULAR readers will know the names of the small number of extremely regular correspondents raging away against almost anything green.

While first and foremost they throw around the insults calling the rest of us eco warriors, snowflakes, green apostles and brainwashed idiots, they also spread FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).

While this is a new label, FUD has a proud history. Opposing the blackout during the Blitz as “inconvenient” and condemning seatbelts as “dangerous” to name but two previous FUD campaigns. I picture the Fuders sitting in front of their black and white TVS muttering, “colour is just a gimmick to get you to pay more!”, or perhaps walking into their back kitchens from their outside toilets safe in the knowledge that “it’s more hygienic!”

Standard FUD technique boils down to looking like you are taking part in a genuine battle of ideas as part of a public debate between two reasonable and intelligent points of view while in fact just lying.

“EVS are a bigger fire risk than Internal Combustion Engines (ICE)” Actual fact: EVS are less than a third of 1 per cent of the fire risk of ICE cars.

“The batteries don’t last!” Fact: only for ten to 15 years-plus.

“You need half the water in the North Sea and a hole in the ground the size of the moon to make a battery.” Fact: much less mining than for ICE and batteries are 95 per cent plus recyclable, whereas most of the stuff extracted for ICE just gets burned.

“We are paying a green tax!” Actual fact: we pay billions in subsidies to the oil and gas companies who are already making record-breaking profits.

“The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine!” Fact: batteries.

We see this kind of nonsense in these pages week in and week out. I would love it if this paper’s august editors had the time to annotate such lies, perhaps with a subtle “*FUD”, but meanwhile we will just have to hope readers have time to check for themselves.

Mark Edon.