Global Warming?
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I've been reading and listening to the multitude of recent new/rehashed arguments about Global Warming and the forum on matador. Global Warming? The very phrase now leaves me cold. There are, undoubtedly, changes in the weather systems. There are, undoubtedly, changes in the climate. I have no doubt that we, the human species, have contributed in some way. However... I am tired of the political exploitation of the phrase 'Global warming', (I have a vivid memory of a senior UK politician giving a sincere, heartfelt interview about his concerns for the environment and demanding that we, the 'General Public', should consider our own behaviour, our travel. (The Politician was giving this interview on a chartered executive jet flying him to the city of Manchester UK from the city of London UK in the spring of 2007). I am tired of the commercial exploitation of the phrase. Organic food costs an average of 15% to 20% more than the usually produced food stuffs. The so called 'Environmentally Friendly' products in the stores are always more expensive than the products we all used to buy but they still come in the same plastic and cardboard packaging, much more than is needed to transport it in. I'm tired of the scientific worlds opposing views. I've listened to scientists hammer on about this gas and that pollutant. I've also listened to other scientists hammer on about sunspots effecting the oceans, amongst other contributory factors. I'm tired of the charities exploiation of the term. My biggest bugbear is GreenPeace and the sheer hypocrisy they fail to see they preach. Without question, the single biggest polluting machines on this planet are ships. Ships chuck out tons and tons of carbon emissions every time they start their engines, far more than any other machine, factory, process yet there we have Greenpeace and their ships sailing all round the world and to boot, I'd wager that most of their onboard garbage turns into 'seaboard' garbage more than once per trip. As for "...donate for the sake of your children and your childrens children" Sorry, don't wash as I have no children. If I did, I don't wear emotional blackmail. The earth does go through climatic cycles and some of the cycles are extreme. Have we contributed to an extra extreme in this particular cycle? In all probability yes we have. Is there anything we can do about it? In all probability no, there isn't. Many, many people are changing their behaviour, buying smaller cars, recycling their household waste, installing energy efficient this and energy efficient the next thing. Wonderful. Bloody futile. Why? Because a car is a car and it still produces carbon emissions. An energy efficient light bulb is still a lightbulb and uses energy, just as switching on the kettle for a brew does when we step back to proudly admire our new energy efficient this that and the next thing. Recycling as much as possible is great, in the UK and here in Europe, there are specially produced PLASTIC bags and bins for our recyclable plastics, boxes, paper, tins and bottles. All collected by huge gas guzzling lorries taken to either energy hungry recycling stations for sorting, (approx 60% of the waste is NOT suitable for recycling and is either incinerated or put in landfill sites or dumped at sea from barges) then transferred on to other energy hungry factories for processing. Much of it is put in containers and put on gas guzzling ships to be transported to places such as India and China for processing whom we then accuse of being excessively polluting. Which they may well be but largely because we send them the bulk of our crap to process. I agree that we can-not judge climatic change on local weather, as I write this it is literally teeming down with rain and has been for the last 16 hours, I think it has rained like this on and off since last November, I have a flooded utility room down stairs to prove it!. Last year at this time it was 36 degrees Celsius. So? We had this same rain fall four years ago. My own view is the earth is well into one of it's major climatic changes, changes that it has undertaken many times in its billions of years of existence. As mentioned earlier, I do believe we, the human race, have contributed to a possible acceleration of this change but, we are not the cause of it and we will not be able to stop it either. Modifying our behaviour may make individuals feel better and lay claim to being greener beings but, as said, a car is a car and the emissions it produces may be less but emissions it does produce. The manufacturing of the car, the processing of the raw materials, the fuel it uses... the same applies to all manufactured goods we purchase. It may well have a 'Green Badge' to wear, but the same damage was done in it's production and emissions are still produced. If you're reading this, you have a computer. Oh dear, thats not very environmentally friendly is it. If you really want to help the environment, why not start by NOT fly-tipping your rubbish in country lanes, that does include the tissue you blew nose on too. Of course, all of us in this community have an issue with global warming, we are all travellers, oh, does that make us environmentally Un-Friendly? |
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