So, COP15 is over and every one is banging their heads, blaming the Damish Prime Minister for ending the world and calling the whole thing a disaster. In the meanwhile, Denmark just saw its coldest December night since 1981.
The world has been ending ever since as far back as I can remember. As a boy I went on sponsored walks to save otters, collected rubbish at the side of the road to stop pollution and believed I was making a difference by joining the World Wildlife Fund (Now called the World Wide Fund for Nature).
The stories of the chaos in Copenhagen indicate only one thing to me; No one has a clue. Nothing has been proven about man made global warming, but the politicians speak as if it were. Polar Bears are celebrated as being on the verge of extinction, and yet the worlds leading expert on the snow bears was told to stay the hell away because he was being 'unhelpful' for pointing out there are currently more Polar Bears than at any time in recorded history. Greenpeace, whom as a boy I regarded as a neutral organisation, paraded themselves in Polar Bear suits. Suffice to say, I can only regard Greenpeace as self appointed crusaders today. Watching the footage and hearing the stories of how 'activists' turned Copenhagen into a running conflict with the police, all I can wonder is, who benefits from such 'demonstrations' of hysteria?
Its been twenty years since I first heard of global warming. Back then they were talking about the sea rising by six metres by 2005. I remember this clearly because I plotted out a graphic novel based on the assumption that Århus would be drowned by a Ballardesque tropical swamp. Of course I never drew it because in those days I never finished any of my projects.
To date the sea hasn't risen six metres and Århus is still here.
I'm told the global temperature has risen. I don't know why, I don't know what the truth is. What I do know is that 'the good guys' have been caught withholding data, the 'bad guys' are crowing loudly, every ones getting funded by some one, and Denmarks most credible opponent of man made global warming went and had a minor heart attack on live TV so he never got to present his case, and I'm still none the wiser. Hope he gets better.
Twenty years ago, the world was the same though. There were a lot of stories. A lot of political ambitions masquerading as altruism; Greenpeace, CND, Friends of the Earth. Who are all these people?.
Thirty years ago it was much the same. My memory doen't go much further back than that.
From 1986, remember this?
Or this from the days before colour had been invented?
James Burke said in 'The Day the Universe Changed'; "The only constant is change", but the older I get, the more it seems nothing ever really changes. Its December. I'm ill. Its fucking cold. Its Christmas in a few days time and the 'good guys' are fighting with the police, in the streets, to save the world.
2 comments:
I'm not sure I believe in global warming either. History shows us that there are season changes that range from the mild to the extreme. 200 years ago winters were much colder but summers much warmer - France almost starved because of the cold. For me it seems that the annual temperature is just more consistent.
Well global warming is fairly well established, its the cause thats questionable. Even now I'm inclined to believe its man made, and I'd like to see global emissiones brought under control. I'd also like to see over population dealt with, but given the animosity of the third world nations towards the richer countries (Lumumba Di-aping, chairman of the G77 group called the deal a "solution based on the same values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces,") I can't see that happening.
It looks to me, like humanity is going to eat its way into catastrophe, or not.
Actually I think were basically up the creek. The size of our respective populations, are too big for the land to sustain and when oil prices put an end to cheap food transportation, a lot of places (the UK included I suspect) are in for famine.
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