So David Cameron the political shape-shifter, just like Odo from Deep Space Nine but with less humanity, is spinning away the true nature of the Tory Party again today.

This seems to be his main tactic - either lie about what your party believes in, ignore anything your party may have believed in the past, or preferably believe nothing at all.
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When someone says they can “put an end to extinction,” you tend to listen to them. That’s exactly what a group of Norwegians claimed earlier this year, when they placed 100 million food crop seeds in a “Doomsday vault,” built into the side of an Arctic mountain.

A letter dropped on the doormat yesterday. If you live on an estate (that’s council, not country), you may have had something similar.

RE: Proposed Removal of Recycling Bins on [road]

I am writing to inform you that we have received several complaints regarding the misuse of recycling bins on [estate]; due to the area round the bins becoming an eyesore. Currently we have placed this area on our weekend hot spot list and therefore a lorry removes all items round the bins on a Saturday morning. During the week the cleaner also has been instructed to ensure this area is tidy. Despite these efforts users of the recycling bins are constantly leaving recycling items outside the bins causing an eyesore.

We would like to offer an opportunity for residents who live near where the bins are situated to voice their opinion on this issue of whether they will be in favour of the bins being removed.

Yours faithfully

I live about 5 houses away, less than fifty yards. Overleaf there’s a few lines of space for me to fill in my views (and it would appear that I may not continue on a separate sheet…). It would be a waste of space, I guess, to use them to comment on the death of the comma in local govermnent communications. So,

I am not in favour of their removal. My 4-year-old puts her rubbish in the bin. Are we now outsourcing recycling policy in Hackney to a few slobs who can’t even manage that?

But maybe I’m just an old idealist. Can you come up with something better? You’ve got 2 sentences, 3 short ones tops, and an impeccably left-liberal brief.  I may even nick yours; the posting deadline is Monday.

What’s in it for them, eh? That must have crossed your mind on reading this chirpy piece from Green London mayoral candidate Siân Berry in the New Statesman hitching her wagon to the Labour party.

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LOLcat, if you don’t know, has become a popular internet phenomena where pictures of cats are given speech bubbles with funny messages in pidgin English. Sometimes, pictures of cats are super-imposed on random pictures too. See: Icanhascheezburger

I have a new suggestion. LOL-blair. In this game we find pictures of Tony Blair from his latest new and exciting plan to change the world, write captions, and speculate on what he’s going on move on to next.
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Well there’s a headline I never thought I’d write. It may normally be the epitome of all evil, but yesterday I was taken aback by a front-page campaign in the Mail calling for a ban on plastic bags. No really, they’re being serious about it.

There were pictures of animals dying because of plastic bags, like above, in the paper and on its website. I’m impressed. There’s even a petition I’ve signed (though I did feel slightly dirty after).

Could the Irish and M&S lead the way here? [updated]
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The climate change denial blog has an interesting post from Roman Krznaric entitled ‘Does The Left Really Believe in Climate Change’. Krznaric recounts his attendance at a leftist conference on Latin America that he attended last year in London. He recounts that not only did none of the speakers mention climate change as a factor to be considered in Latin American politics, but support for Chavez in Venezuela appears to condone his reliance on oil to fund the ‘Bolivarian revolution’.

Krznaric says that

I can’t help concluding that the Progressive Left doesn’t yet really believe in climate change.

He gives the following reasons for this:

One factor concerns hope. For the first time in years there is a sense of hope about Latin America amongst the Progressive Left. Neoliberalism is in retreat and left-leaning governments are being elected throughout the region. Chavez is challenging the US and the multinationals, and having an impact on poverty reduction. Bolivia has its first indigenous President. But none of this, I believe, is an excuse for ignoring climate change.

A second factor is that many activists and policy-makers continue to keep human development issues separate from what they think of as ‘environmental’ issues. If you are interested in tackling poverty in the favelas of Rio, it is quite normal not even to consider that climate change is a related issue. I think there is a real need for development agencies and activists on the one hand, and environmentally-oriented organisations and campaigners on the other, to merge their thinking to create a new Ecological Humanism, so that climate change and social justice are considered interdependent issues.

A third, possibly deeper factor, is psychological denial. As individuals, we have an extraordinary capacity to shut our minds to the realities of issues that we think are frightening or insurmountable. Climate change is one of them. The good news is that people in rich countries are starting to overcome their denial and accept that climate change is not only happening, but will change their own lives, and that they have to adapt to and embrace the changes. The bad news is that most of them remain in denial when it comes to the world’s poorest countries. As a recent Oxfam report points out, the rich world is sorely lagging behind in its response to the need for developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change link..

The time has come for us to take our struggle against denial a stage further, and recognise that climate change is a reality not only for ourselves, but for the world’s poorest people in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions.

This article is absolutely right that in many left wing and liberal circles, climate change is nowhere near higher enough up the agenda. It’s also right to skewer the neo-Bolivarians for their short-termist relianceon petrodollars. But I can’t help thinking that the source of the problem isn’t so much denial or the other reasons Krznaric gives, so much as a more intractable problem with politics itself.

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Predictably, the post-Bali conference fallout is one of claim and counter-claim. Is it a disappointing cop-out? A great day for the environment? The best that could be hoped for under the circumstances? I’ll leave this one to the multitudes who claim to be experts on this topic. What I am struck by though, is the increasing number of commentators who argue that whatever the deal reached in Bali, whatever action we take, we are too late to avoid a period of considerable climate change-related turmoil.

I was very disturbed by a recent article by well-regarded writer on climate change Ross Gelbspan. Gelbspan’s message is harsh in the extreme:
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