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Green Issues

A weekly column on current issues by John A Burton of the World Land Trust. The views expressed are personal, and do not necessarily reflect those of the WLT. Feedback and comments are welcomed.

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"The Great Global Warming Swindle"

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The recent TV programme claiming to debunk all the claims made about global warming is missing the point. First, no one who is interested in the science of anthropogenic (man-induced) climate change, would refer to it as global warming. This is because climate change does not always mean warming. Second,whether or not climate change is occurrring, the human induced factors such as emissions of pollutants, and the use of pesticides, to name but two, are very unlikely to be doing any good; in fact they cause demonstrable harm. But, of course the real issue is simply too many humans consuming far too many of the world's resources in an extremely wasteful manner. While I have no sympathy with climate change denyers (none of us will be around long enough to know whether or not they are right), I would make two, very much more important, points.

First, doing nothing is not an option. If the forecasts of climate change have any anthropogenic basis, we MUST do something, because time is already running out.

Second, the world is clearly in a mess, with thousands of plants and animals becoming extinct, millions of people living in poverty, and resources such as water in increasingly short supply.

With the biomass of humans, domestic livestock and crops far outweighing the carrying capacity of the planet over anything but the extreme short term, one thing we can be fairly certain of, is that disasters will occur on an ever increasing scale, and some of those will be natural -- such as volcanic erruptions and tsunamis, others with be man-made, such as avian 'flu' epidemics, and others will be totally avoidable, but not avaided, such as wars. The mega-ecosystem that is the world, is clearly out of balance, and any biologist knows what happens. There will be massive perturbations, before a new equilibrium is established. Now fashionably called Gaia Theory, it is demonstrable at the micro, macro and mega levels.

It's time we faced a few hard truths. The climate change issue has reached a position where it is clearly irresponsible for anyone who understands what is happening to reproduce. This is for two obvious reasons: First it is the increasing human population, and its insistence on economic growth and consumerism, that is the primary driving force behind the ever increasing demands for energy, and hence CO2 emissions; and second, to bring children into a world, where predictions of the future are far from promising would be irresponsible.

Consequently governments should not just be urging us all to reduce energy, to stop travelling, to recycle etc; they should be urging us all to stop having babies. An unpalatable thought for many people, but nonetheless true. Every new person born into this world, will bring disaster closer.

Labels: Climate Change and Carbon

Posted by John Tuesday, March 13, 2007
 
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2 Comments:

Your comments about the untenable growth in the world population are welcome.

Unfortunately it appears most of the world's politicians are too afraid to discuss the issue. China did take the issue head on and prove it can be tackled, although their tactics were questionable.

I get hot under the collar when i hear politicians arguing that their particular country needs more births to satisfy economic considerations.

As part of the response to climate change it would be good to see population growth as one of the primary challenges with appropriate targets attached.

By  roger bartley, at 22 March, 2007 13:00  

I love the fact that you say man-made climate change doesn't always mean global warming, when that is exactly what the media would have us believe! If you subscribe to Michael Chrichton's breed of conspiracy theories, the government is propogating this myth in order to keep the country united to a cause and thus happy with our lot.

I also love that you mention population growth as a major factor. Very few people are brave enough to say this even now, and I have made enemies of some of my best friends by arguing this point! Thankyou for trying.

By  Anonymous, at 27 March, 2007 11:58  

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