LITTLE ENGLAND

There are two ways of looking at the anti-wind nimbies, and in both cases one is advised to do so from a distance.

The first acknowledges that the short-term selfishness of anti-windfarm nimbies simply plays into the hands of those lobbyists for the nuclear and fossil fuel industries. Anti-windfarm groups really do lap up the misleading stories presented to the right-wing press by forces opposed to the development of clean energy. This results in a feedback mechanism. Lobbyists for nuclear power leak anti-windfarm myths, which are then enthusiastically spread about my anti-windfarm campaigners who would rather spout silly stories and blatant lies than do some proper research. The outcome is a populace which has some really very strange ideas about wind power and a handful of MPs who are eager to speak on the subject when they don't have a clue about it.

The alternative approach recognises that nimbyism is now the British Disease. And so David Cameron fulminates against the numerous protesters against the proposed High-Speed Rail Link between London and Birmingham. In so doing, Cameron emphasises the chaotic thinking at the heart of the coalition government. While Eric Pickles promises to put decision-making in the hands of tiny covens of local busybodies, the government is obliged for good economic reasons to put the country's interests ahead of those of a few diehard nimbies who don't want to see progress if there's a chance it might spoil their views.

We have argued before that there is little to differentiate the self-serving anti-wind nimbies from the equally head-in-the-sand anti-HS2 nimbies - or any other nimby, for that matter. Interestingly, all these groups insist that they're not nimbies. They all advance the same atrociously inaccurate and unsustainable arguments, they're all opposed to something Good on the grounds that they might have to look at it, but none of them admit to being nimbies. Each group believes that it has a God-given right to stand in the way of progress, guaranteed by the fact that they - uniquely - are not nimbies. Ha!!!

Listening to the facile nonsense of the anti-wind lobby, you could be forgiven for imagining that the UK is alone in the world, and that only in Britain is a conspiracy of government, multinational corporations and green activists determined to foist windfarms and other forms of renewable power on a land of tinpot nimbies. Not so. The rest of the world is charging ahead with renewables. Why? Because we have to. So while the nimby nutters try to foster yet another false impression (only in Britain is wind power being pursued so single-mindedly), the rest of the world forges ahead. Just as our European neighbours did with High-Speed Rail.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has published figures which indicate that global investment in clean energy is set to reach $240 billion this year (up 20% on 2010). The main thrust behind this massive advance is coming from China, India and Brazil.

We already know that the US has been investing heavily in green energy (just don't mention climate change in Texas, where they see their windfarms as economically sensible, rather than ecologically vital). China, too, is getting into wind power in a big way. So does this mean that the world's emerging super economy is falling into the same traps as Britain by being hoodwinked by green business interests?

No. What it means is that the world has woken up to the need for renewables, and countries such as China, India and Brazil are responding to the challenge with admirable gusto.

Meanwhile, back in The Shire, the cretinous Daily Mail readers of Middle England are opposed to all this. Well, that is, they're opposed if it impinges to the slightest degree on their miserable existence. If they bought a house in the country - even just a second home - they refuse to allow an inspiring windfarm or an exciting high-speed train to go anywhere near it. They imagine that they bought the scenery when they built their detached eyesore. And so, just to shut them up, we have to play the game of pretending that they're not nimbies.

Britain needs to wake up, fast. The rest of the world is rapidly leaving us behind, as our more witless fellow countrymen do everything in their power to prevent Britain from realising its potential. Worse, they lie openly and brazenly in order to achieve their empty-headed aims, the myth-mongering nimbies of VVASP being a case in point.

It's embarrassing, really, isn't it? Emerging economies are massively increasing their investments in green technology and driving the development of a global green economy. But here in England, little, short-sighted, selfish England, all that has to stop.

Just to please a bunch of ignorant, greedy, dishonest and foolish nimbies.