Cameron Gets Rid Of "The Green Crap": Sacks Environment Minister, 2 Other Senior Ministers Resign

[hatrack]

First the “badgers moved the goalposts”. Now environment secretary, Owen Paterson, has been shown the red card in a cabinet reshuffle. The environmental views of Paterson's replacement, Liz Truss, are little known, but the former Shell employee is a free market enthusiast who backed the doomed sell-off of public forests. That suggests someone who – like Paterson – sees environmental protection as so much red tape to cut.

Elsewhere in the reshuffle, the departure of foreign secretary, William Hague, who clearly recognised climate change as the global strategic threat it is, and irrepressible green cheerleader Greg Barker as energy minister, removes two of a rare breed: strong green Tory voices in government.

Only time will reveal Truss's views but the absolute minimum required is that – unlike Paterson – she accepts global warming as a manmade danger. It was fundamentally ridiculous to have a climate change sceptic leading the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and damaging too. Paterson slashed the funding for adapting to climate change by 40%, just as the warnings of rising risks becoming deafening.

But in fact many of the crises – floods, horsemeat, badger culling – that paved the way to Paterson's sacking pre-dated his arrival at Defra in September 2012. The controversial badger cull policy had already been in place by his predecessor Caroline Spelman. As the culls limped towards their predictable failure, another environment secretary might have dumped them – and Truss should. But the obsessed Paterson waded in ever deeper. No10 wanted to bury the bad news of the cull along with the badgers. Instead, the controversy worsened.

EDIT

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2014/jul/15/cameron-reshuffle-owen-paterson-liz-truss

[defacto7]

1. Simple idea...

Exchanging one green for another.