Will Britain pay for the Industrial Revolution? New climate change lawsuits could make it possible - warns Toby Neal
Keep your head down, deny all knowledge, play dumb, and maybe we'll get away with it.
Because the compensation demands are coming. We'll soon be in the dock for our crimes against the world.
In a ground-breaking decision, the International Court of Justice has paved the way for countries to sue each other for the part they have played in climate change.
All round the globe eyes are suddenly lighting up with dollar signs. This is easy money for those victim countries who will be getting together the legal papers to slap on those culpable industrialised nations, particularly the UK, which led the way in pumping out planet-destroying smoke from foundries and factories while exploiting and enslaving members of the working class.
The claimants will have plenty of support within Britain from those who strive to ensure we are all suitably ashamed of our past and should be held accountable through the paying of exemplary reparations.
There's a sentiment that them's that's guilty should pay, and to be British today is to be guilty of something.
Yet how can it be fair for Welsh hill farmers, apple growers in Kent, and tree planters in the Scottish lowlands to be slapped with extra tax to pay for climate change compensation to faraway nations? They have done nothing to contribute to the problem, although a distinction will have to be drawn between arable farmers and those farmers who breed livestock which breaks wind, releasing gasses which contribute to global warming.
