The human race is psychologically incapable of contemplating and preparing for its own demise. So why are people expecting such events as the Climate Summit in Copenhagen to succeed or have any impact? Even in our everyday lives very few of us will make a will, or take out life insurance or a funeral plan although we know for certain that we are going to die very soon. We still smoke, drink, and eat stuff that we know can kill us in the end from heart disease, liver disease or cancer. We go out in the sun, take part in dangerous sports, visit disease ridden countries, engage in unsafe sex, go down dark alleys at night, wander into slums and red light districts oblivious of the risks. Yes, to quote Dad’s Army, we are doomed. We have always have been and always will be.
Of course the climate is changing (probably as a consequence of a new warming cycle). Of course humans have been and are still contributing to some of this. There is, apparantly, no denying this. We don’t need scientists to prove it to us, we know it already. However, holding talks about reducing the so-called carbon emissions is akin to your doctors telling you to stop smoking, drinking alcohol or eating cheese; you probably won’t do it or not until you’ve had your first heart attack. Therefore, in spite of all the talk , it will be impossible to reduce man made carbon emissions especially as the planetary die is already cast and we are totally addicted to all the industries and activities that have grown up like flying in aeroplanes or driving cars . So what to do?
On the positive side however, the human race IS psychologically capable of and adept at getting out of a jam and surviving disaster. Therefore, we should be directing our efforts, technological and political, at adapting to and preparing for drastic climate change. This means huge infrastructure projects, population movements, organisational changes to society and implementing new energy sources. There is no denying that most cities will end up like scenes from the movie Blade Runner ( Shanghai is already like this) and we will have to adapt to this. The living environment for our children in the next century will look very different from what it is now, just as our living and psychological environment is different from those of our forebears in earlier times. Taking steps to reduce our so-called ‘carbon footprint’ will not stop or delay climate change. A large volcanic eruption, release of trapped methane in Siberian tundra, change of direction in an ocean current, magnetic pole reversal (which is overdue) all would have a much larger effect on climate than man made emissions – it is these things we should be preparing to survive.
So by all means undertake ‘disaster planning’ to mitigate … errm … disasters. Global talking shops like Copenhagen are all very well but it is abit like whistling in a hurricane – no-one can hear you even if they are listening.
As the man says, you will have to prise the fingers of my cold dead hands from the steering wheel of my SUV.
Not another climate denier! I suppose all the stuff about CFCs and the ozone layer was all made up?
“Of course the climate is changing (probably as a consequence of a new warming cycle).”
Except that we are currently in a cool-down cycle – hence the record cold temperatures that hit Florida, and the record snow storms that hit Washington DC and Baltimore these past few weeks, along with much colder than usual weather in China, etc.