A vast, uncontrolled experiment on our life-support system
Re: The climate change debate, Have Your Say this week.
Science? “Fake” science? Or no science? No one can agree on climate change – not the global experts, not the politicians, not even the erudite philosophers of Have Your Say. The science simply is not there. What the scientists can tell us though, is that everything is getting hotter/drier/wetter than predicted, weather events supposed to happen only once every 50, 100, 1,000 or whatever number of years are happening more frequently, agriculture is becoming impossible in a large part of the Middle East, and we now have the ludicrous reality of a sea route through the Arctic. Yes, it is true that climate change can be a natural phenomenon, but over geological time, not within the space of a single human generation.
So let us try (I know it’s difficult for some of us) to apply common sense. Here is a thought experiment. Suppose you set off by foot from Bangkok to circumnavigate the world, walking and paddling at 5 kilometres per hour, it would take you a whole year. Now suppose you were to climb vertically upwards into the sky, at the same speed, you would find there was no oxygen to breathe within just one hour and a half. Into this woefully thin 8-kilometre envelope of life-giving atmosphere we are spewing diesel fumes, power station effluents, pesticides, barbecue smoke, hamburger gases, armpit spray, bad breath, belches and flatulence on a monstrous scale. Not only that, we are busily ripping out forests and paving over green fields that help maintain some kind of balance, all in the name of economic growth.
Sticking-plaster remedies such as veganism or supposedly “green” energy are irrelevant. The elephant in the room is overpopulation. The UN predicts a 30 per cent increase in global population by mid-century and few seem to care, least of all our “growth-ist” world leaders. The mantra is “predict and provide” as they continue their pursuit of more and more and more.
With no science to guide us, here we find ourselves in a monstrous uncontrolled experiment on our own life support system. Do we need to worry? Yes.
Nigel Pike
Phang Nga
