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There’s a scene in the new Michael Jackson movie ‘This Is It’ which bridges into ‘Earth Song’ in which he’s talking about his love for planet earth which really chimes with a thought that keeps whirring around my head.  According to the late, great musical genius that is MJ, we’re killing the planet but, he says, it’s not just down to governments to do something about it.  It’s down to all of us.

He’s right, of course.  But how do you get ‘all of us’ behind a unified, common goal of such enormous scale – especially when the apparent short-term cost and effort seems to keep on clouding the long-term yet vital goal.  It’s been an interesting week in which to weigh up this argument.  Here are some of the UK news headlines:

The Daily Mail “The green car tax blitz: £3,300 levy on new vehicles as fuel duty soars” The Daily Telegraph “Green tax proposals ‘would increase household energy bills by £800 a year”

It’s not surprising that the real messages about climate change, and the responsibility on all of us to actually do something about it, are getting lost within all this ‘noise’.  You can’t really blame consumers on a mass scale for caring more about Jedward being worthy of remaining in (or not) the talent competition that is ITV’s – or should I say Simon Cowell’s – X Factor.  We are living in tough economic times, with declining property values, and the looming spectre of a return to the 1970s with postal strikes and, who knows, maybe even the odd power cut or two.  It’s hardly surprising that a Saturday night TV entertainment event is a great if temporary escape from reality.

Okay, I’m possibly exaggerating for effect, but it stands that most people feel they have better things to do than worry about carbon emissions, and our news media doesn’t help that much in this situation – not that we should blame the Press for doing its job of reporting ‘the news’.  Plus, we have a general election on the horizon in the UK in 2010, so let’s face it, a positive spin on saving the planet doesn’t stand a chance!

And so back to MJ.  He may have had a somewhat troubled and eventful life that was tragically short.  And he may divide opinion with regards to his private life.  But he does leave a truly amazing legacy in his music and, also, the thought that we need to operate as a collective and take some pain in order to achieve some real gain on the planet stuff.  The “£3,300″ car tax and the “£800″ energy bills may be utterly distasteful to the many, but we may actually have to wise up to the fact that this is a reality we must face up to in order to find new ways to generate and manage our energy and the demands we make on the planet’s natural resources.

These “green taxes” might just be the tip of an iceberg that even global warming cannot melt.