Neal Lawson is a UK political commentator, managing editor of the quarterly progressive policy journal “Renewal” and formerly an adviser to Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a researcher for the Transport and General Workers' Union (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Lawson ).
Neal Lawson on the importance of Green Socialism for the UK (2009): “How green socialism can save the UK. Britain is ideally placed to lead the world on renewable energy. But a free market lacks the nerve to avert climate change crisis… It may be a crisis that is too good to waste but we have to move fast to define and win support for a progressive response to the failures of the market. But a new socialism can only be built on the politics of sustainability.We must remember that it is not just banks that have failed. Two years into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, with more than 2.4 million already without work, the official closure earlier this month of Britain's only wind turbine blade manufacturing plant, Vestas, is a sharp reminder of the failure of blind reliance on free markets to solve the economic and climate change crises. The plant's closure, with the loss of 400 jobs, was blamed on the slow pace of growth in the UK's wind turbine market and the drawn out local planning process to agree projects… The stakes are too high to left to anonymous free market forces driven by fossil fuel and nuclear interests. The economic cost of inaction – laid out in the authoritative Stern Review report – is bleak. Stern estimated the cost to the world economy of unabated climate change would be around 5% to 20% of gross domestic product per year – a figure that would dwarf the cost of the banking crisis. An alliance of red and green politics would transform the landscape of Britain. The moment to do it is now.” [1].
[1]. Neal Lawson, “How green socialism can save the UK”, Guardian, Comment is Free, 30 August 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/aug/30/green-socialism-uk-renewable .