The random witterings of Jonathan Morris, writer.

Wednesday 16 December 2009

The Heat Is On

Let us, for the sake of amusement, pretend the Climate Change sceptics are right.

Maybe the Earth’s climate is changing – but not as a result of man’s activities. All the coal power stations, all the cars, all the cows, don’t make the slightest difference. It’s all a natural process. If there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to global warming, then it’s due to them being released from peat bogs.

Well, if this is the case, then isn’t that EVEN MORE CAUSE TO PANIC?

I mean, if it’s a man-made problem, then at least we are in a position to mitigate it at source. If it’s a natural problem, then all we can hope to do is to alleviate the effects.

It’s the difference between your house being on fire, because you’ve left the gas on, and your house being on fire, even though you don’t have gas. In the former case, at least you have the hope that if you switch off the gas off the fire might not increase.

But in both instances, you still have to fight the fire.

If climate change is a natural process – it isn’t, but just for the sake of amusment let’s pretend – then Carbon Capture technologies are even more essential.

Of course, the argument is that if it’s a natural process, then the Earth will sort it out of its own accord, just as it has done in the past. Which is sort-of true, if you overlook the fact that the ‘sorting out’ took millions of years. In the short-term, the only way the planet will deal with the problem will be by increasing the frequency of droughts, floods and hurricanes. Which, admittedly, will help to reduce the source of global warming, over-population, but in a rather unpleasant fashion.