| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Climate Change / Collapse the elephant in the room? | |
| Posted by: | Sam Hearn | |
| Date/Time: | 07/08/26 13:56:00 |
| Can we please focus on how to deal with elephant in the room? Except for a vanishingly small number of people it is accepted that the much of the climate volatility that we are experiencing has been exacerbated and/or triggered by the effects of human activity. The question is how we deal with the climate volatility that is coming home to roost. The simple answer is that we can actually do little in the short to medium term. It is just too late. This is not pessimism it is realism and it is time all of us took this message on board. Even if ALL human activity were to cease NOW it would be decades before there was any measurable reduction in climate volatity. Furthermore it would take centuries for the climate to return to "normal". Follow the link for more information https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-long-will-it-take-temperatures-stop-rising-or-return-normal-if-we-stop-emitting. There are many who believe that this country should persist with a "net-zero-by-2050" policy and that this will somehow save us all from the effects of climate volatility. The truth is that this country has already done much to reduce its carbon footprint and further reductions are already built into existing projects, plans and changes in laws and regulations. BUT, and it is a big BUT, the UK accounts for less than 1% of global emissions of greenhouse gases (perhaps 1.5% if off-shored industrial activity is included). Even if all human activity in the UK ceased tomorrow it would have little or no discernible impact on climate volatility - it would not even make the dial flicker. Once these truths are acknowledged we can begin to ask more sensible questions. Since we cannot make the elephant leave the room or reduce it in size can we learn how to live with it? In my opinion we should, as a nation, as a city, as a borough and as individuals be asking how we can build resilience and sustainability into our policies, projects and long term plans. Building resilience and sustainability into all we do should be our first priority if we are not to descend into a dystopia where communal infrastructure fails, the strong survive and the weak die, and effective government at all levels fractures and unravels and chaos ensues. There are many obvious examples that I could quote but the clear direction for all of us should be to redirect scarce resources away from worthy net-zero-projects to those that directly support resilience and sustainability. That said some net-zero projects will improve resilience etc by reducing our exposure to foreign owned and controlled energy sources. Please, please do not continue to believe that there is a Hollywood style happy ending to the nightmare that we a living through. Some argue that we should not be explaining this to school children and young adults because it is "all too scary" - speaking frankly unless we do share this information widely with everyone how can we expect them to make good life choices and vote for a government that acts sensibly. |