Adam Smith Institute

Chris Wilkinson writing on The Guardian's website on this year's Edinburgh Festival concludes: "No one seems quite sure how to tackle green issues successfully at this year's festival". Oh, I didn't realise that was what the festival was for.

That said, the clear message that last year's summer floods were the first horseman of the apocalypse didn't slip past the astute Wilkinson:

The most directly and emotionally engaging piece at the festival that touches on these issues is The Caravan at the Pleasance. Strictly speaking, this is not a show about climate change at all. Rather it is a verbatim piece based on testimony from the victims of last year's severe summer floods. Yet while it is always difficult to prove a direct link between any specific weather event and global warming, the suffering that these people have experienced acts as a stark warning of what is to come.

He also writes:

Ironically, the show that might actually have the most positive impact on reducing our carbon footprints, is Charlie Victor Romeo, a piece that doesn't mention the environment once. The script is based on the black box recordings of doomed passenger planes. It's a bleak, depressing bit of work - and once you have seen it, you are not going to want to set foot in a plane anytime soon.

This is typical stuff from The Guardian in its quest to spread fear and moral outrage throughout its readership. On this occasion it achieves this by tying together the loose ends of the Edinburgh Festival into an easily swallowable pill of guilt.

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