The inexorable process

The European Parliament has made plans to prohibit the sale of patio heaters. Quite what happens to those already in use is not clear.

Why was this act needed? In large measure it was because of the recent smoking ban. Many non-smokers, and I am in the number, felt that the smoking ban was an illiberal ban. Surely everybody would have been happy if pubs/restaurants had been given permission to be either "smoking allowed" or "smoking banned", as the decision of owner and traditional customers. We could have had drinking and eating places designated to one or the other. Workers and customers could have chosen which they would be associated with.

It is a nonsense to ban an activity which is elsewhere legal, but the anti-smoking lobby wanted complete victory. The result is that some pubs and restaurants installed patio heaters, as an outdoor comfort for smokers. (Some claim that the heaters are not very effective, but that is beside the point.) The result, according to the pub industry is that they stand to lose as much as £250 million pounds a year, if use of the heaters is banned.

There are two pieces of nonsense here.

The first is that the first illiberal measure has led to a second. I presume that I may still have a fire, and scouts a campfire, to warm my family in our garden (- or are these to be banned also?)
Then why may I not do it commercially?

The second is that the measure is a symbolic act that will make very little difference to the climate. If they wanted to make a real difference, they could stop organising environment conferences in exotic places like Bali, which are attended by experts like John Prescott and an entourage of officials at great expense and carbon emission. The end result of all the effort is a lot of hot air, in travel and in talking, but with little to show as a consequence. The emissions dwarf those of the patio heaters. Could the measure, I called it a symbol, really be a fig leaf to cover the impotence of governments?

Governments are failing to achieve the grand targets they set, and so they revise to even more difficult targets. If they got their act together, and arranged global collective policy, then they would not have to worry about patio heaters.