It’s too late to be reasonable

I would go a step further. If construction is to play its part in delivering the radical low carbon economy the world so badly needs, the three Cs must also stand for carbon, carbon and carbon. (Carbon will be the currency of the 21st century, Oxford University economists predict.)

In response to your leader the previous week, “Let’s be reasonable”, again I’d like to offer a more radical view. You say: “Britain’s drive to meet the Kyoto carbon target is laudable.” I agree. But isn’t it deeper than than? Carbon reduction, globally, is necessary, inevitable and desirable.

It was progressive, “reasonable” thinking that got us into this mess. Radical thinking, and more important, radical action, is needed – globally – to kick the habit of fossil fuel addiction and to “come off” the dominant paradigm, that our happiness is somehow linked to burning oil.

What can the UK do? Not much. But we can chose to lead, or not, and that is what this is about. The volte-face on the energy part of the Building Regulations is a scandal. But worse, it is a missed commercial opportunity for UK plc to lead.

Einstein commented that you cannot solve problems with the same type of thinking that caused the problem. The Building Regulations and other key government instruments are far too important to be left solely to those who have been responsible for being reasonable about them in the past.