Sent Homewards Tae Think Again

Last month I wrote a post entitled "The Absence Of Shame" after the Scottish Government decided to try and wriggle their way out of their own carbon emissions reductions targets.

The country is committed to 42% reductions by 2020, but the Scottish Government proposed giving themselves a target of just 0.5% this year and next.

It was shameful and unjustifiable, no matter how much bluster Alex Salmond could muster in Parliament.

Yesterday, the government were sent homeward to think again. Led by Patrick Harvie, the Climate Change Committee rejected the government's proposals and they now have just two weeks left to either come up with a new plan or try and get their proposals through the full parliament.

The cynical part of me thinks that this is exactly what they will try, so that they can turn around later and say that they have tried to tackle climate change but the parliament willnae let them.

The optimistic part of me hopes that they can come up with a proper plan to reduce emissions adequately over the next two years.

I've said it before - the fact that the targets will be hard to achieve doesn't mean that you shouldn't attempt to achieve them. Being scared of failure (and the negative headlines) will mean you never strive to succeed.

And god help me, I'm starting to sound like an American Life Guru!