I've kept out of this debate because it always seems to sink into a slanging match.
I am not a climate change sceptic. The data is overwhelming. On the most simplistic level, 40 years ago we had lying snow every winter in south Devon, now it's very rare - it's happened just twice in the last 20 years, and then only for couple of days. But to establish averages you need periods when temperatures are above average and equally below average - that's the nature of averages! Climate changes - always has, always will. Human activity may even be a contributing factor, but not, I suspect, the over riding one.
At the end of the Cretaceous period which marked the end of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, global temperatures were significantly higher than they are now, and CO2 content of the atmosphere significantly greater. If you think this was all a very long time ago and that things are different now, it is very recent in geological terms. The earth was 98.5% of its current age, or to use the 24 hour clock analogy, the Cretaceous period (and the end of the dinosaurs) came at 20 mins to midnight. So not so very long ago really!
CO2 content of the atomosphere reached an all time low about 1,000 years ago and has risen significantly in the last century. It is now the highest that it has been for 600,000 years. That means that 600,001 years ago CO2 content was higher than it is now. Why? We don't know, but I don't think it was down to early Neanderthal man's campfires. There are natural cycles at work here that we still don't fully understand. There are also plenty of examples of early civilisations being obliterated through climate change - especially drought. This is nothing new.
My personal view is that since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago we have had a period of unprecedented climate stability which may have been a contributary factor in the rise of civilisation and turning us from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to farmers and city dwellers. It may just be that this period of climatic stability is coming to an end and normal service is being resumed - i.e. that of climate change. Discuss!
So do we do nothing? Absolutely not. We have no moral right to consume the planets entire reserves of oil in just a few generations. Our descendants will curse us for our profligacy. Nor can reducing pollution be a "bad thing". In the event that we are responsible for climate change it will be tackling the problem, and at the very worst we will be making the world a cleaner and more pleasant place in which to live, both for ourselves and the millions of species with which we share it..
From a climate change perspective, plastic bags are a red herring, but as a global pollution and litter problem they are a nightmare. They will take centuries to breakdown. I first went trekking in the Moroccan desert in 1972. I returned a couple of years ago, and the biggest difference was that out in the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere, the desert was covered by thousands of black plastic bags blowing in the wind for mile after mile. It was so depressing. Likewise, there are ocean eddies in the Pacific that have gathered millions of plastic bags to form a "plastic bag soup" that is decimating the wildlife. It's so unnecessary and we should be deeply ashamed. A partial answer may simply be to use reusable string bags and to tax non biodegradable plastic wrapping heavily. Maybe even ban the use of non- biodegradable plastic bags. It's in all our power to stop using plastic bags and if there is no demand the supply will dry up. And it will have absolutely no detrimental effect on our standard of living. We just need to stop being so apathetically lazy.
I could go on but I won't. We really do need to clean up our act for environmental reasons - but I remain to be convinced that we can actually do anything to control the climate, regardless of whether we are responsible or not. But we can stop wrecking our only inhabitable planet, for ourselves and for all the creatures with which we have to share it.
I am not a climate change sceptic. The data is overwhelming. On the most simplistic level, 40 years ago we had lying snow every winter in south Devon, now it's very rare - it's happened just twice in the last 20 years, and then only for couple of days. But to establish averages you need periods when temperatures are above average and equally below average - that's the nature of averages! Climate changes - always has, always will. Human activity may even be a contributing factor, but not, I suspect, the over riding one.
At the end of the Cretaceous period which marked the end of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, global temperatures were significantly higher than they are now, and CO2 content of the atmosphere significantly greater. If you think this was all a very long time ago and that things are different now, it is very recent in geological terms. The earth was 98.5% of its current age, or to use the 24 hour clock analogy, the Cretaceous period (and the end of the dinosaurs) came at 20 mins to midnight. So not so very long ago really!
CO2 content of the atomosphere reached an all time low about 1,000 years ago and has risen significantly in the last century. It is now the highest that it has been for 600,000 years. That means that 600,001 years ago CO2 content was higher than it is now. Why? We don't know, but I don't think it was down to early Neanderthal man's campfires. There are natural cycles at work here that we still don't fully understand. There are also plenty of examples of early civilisations being obliterated through climate change - especially drought. This is nothing new.
My personal view is that since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago we have had a period of unprecedented climate stability which may have been a contributary factor in the rise of civilisation and turning us from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to farmers and city dwellers. It may just be that this period of climatic stability is coming to an end and normal service is being resumed - i.e. that of climate change. Discuss!
So do we do nothing? Absolutely not. We have no moral right to consume the planets entire reserves of oil in just a few generations. Our descendants will curse us for our profligacy. Nor can reducing pollution be a "bad thing". In the event that we are responsible for climate change it will be tackling the problem, and at the very worst we will be making the world a cleaner and more pleasant place in which to live, both for ourselves and the millions of species with which we share it..
From a climate change perspective, plastic bags are a red herring, but as a global pollution and litter problem they are a nightmare. They will take centuries to breakdown. I first went trekking in the Moroccan desert in 1972. I returned a couple of years ago, and the biggest difference was that out in the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere, the desert was covered by thousands of black plastic bags blowing in the wind for mile after mile. It was so depressing. Likewise, there are ocean eddies in the Pacific that have gathered millions of plastic bags to form a "plastic bag soup" that is decimating the wildlife. It's so unnecessary and we should be deeply ashamed. A partial answer may simply be to use reusable string bags and to tax non biodegradable plastic wrapping heavily. Maybe even ban the use of non- biodegradable plastic bags. It's in all our power to stop using plastic bags and if there is no demand the supply will dry up. And it will have absolutely no detrimental effect on our standard of living. We just need to stop being so apathetically lazy.
I could go on but I won't. We really do need to clean up our act for environmental reasons - but I remain to be convinced that we can actually do anything to control the climate, regardless of whether we are responsible or not. But we can stop wrecking our only inhabitable planet, for ourselves and for all the creatures with which we have to share it.
