Climategate or the Fall-out
Photo: Lu Guang
I never bought into the whole Climate Change and we are all going to die because I have heard it all before. One of my most prominent memories of early elementary school revolves around the fear I felt knowing that the sun was going to burn out and we would all be trying to survive an ice age where millions upon millions of people would simply perish in the cold.
A few years later, I was told in school that I didn’t have to worry about dying in the new Ice Age because the population explosion would happen before the sun went nova. Then we were all going to die in the massive wide spread famine which would be the natural consequences of the unchecked population explosion.
By the time I left grade 6, I was taught I didn’t have to worry about the population explosion and subsequent famine; because we were all going to die in the initial fallout from a nuclear bomb going off or in the nuclear winter brought on by the denotation of nuclear weapons. And even if no dropped the bomb; there was a significant risk of one of our nuclear power plants going into meltdown and we would all die in the fallout. According to the progressive policies of my teachers, it should be considered a blessed miracle I will be experiencing my 47th year of life this year.. What I really wonder now is how I ever managed to survive the fears produced from my early elementary education which is why I never believed the global warming alarmists and still don’t because it just wasn’t sensible. However, as much as I enjoy a good debunking, I would caution my conservation contemporaries from over indulgence in their glee over the fall-out of the church of global warming.
The truth is, everything on this earth is a very finite resource. Soil erosion is a real and ongoing issue for vast stretches of the earth. The consequences of air and water pollution are dire. Take a good hard look at what wanton and unregulated industrialize pollution is doing to the local population in places like China and India – or even the environmental consequences of the Alberta tar-sands.
As much as I disagree with a number of environmental measures which have been instituted in my own city such as the plastic ban surcharge it doesn’t mean I don’t believe conservation and preservation of all resources are not worthy goals. Furthermore, the search for viable alternatives for cleaner energy sources to replace our dependance on both oil and gas consumption is a pursuit worth all our time and attention. We don’t have to embrace our inner Luddite to be conservationists but we do have to acknowledge that pollution and reckless consumption come with dire quality of life issues – if not in our generation then consider what we leave behind for the generations to come.
While I understand your ‘joy’ in the fall out over the ‘climate sciences’ realize your actions have consequences, mostly, that it will inhibit change or the pursuit of knowledge which would make our lives less toxic and harmful to environment which surrounds and nurtures us. Now, while resources are plentiful, is the time to institute change and policy which make conservation of resources the watch word of the day.
Not glee. Well, OK, perhaps schadenfreude. I never doubted that the Earth has been getting warmer for a while (when was the last the Thames or the East River froze solid?), but the IPCC after all was formed to study human influence on climate amd went from not considering other things (like that bright thing in the sky for part of the day) to denying that there are other influences. Bah.
Personally, I largely agree with the suggestions of Professor Bjorn Lomborg – albeit I disagree with his continuing belief that climate change is, as the IPCC says, primarily driven by human actvity. Don’t shut down technological civilisation, expand it. Lots cheaper (he estimates about 90 per cent less than the CO2 focus) and more effective. Hey, a nuclear electric plant or water desalinization complex is useful whether [global] temperature goes up or down!