If you’ve been following my ‘rant’s’ on the environment, check this one out. Just to clarify, I ain’t against environmental protection, I’m very much a huge supporter of protecting our environment, wild life and eco-systems. What I’m against is politicians and companies hijacking the whole ‘global-warming’ pop-culture for their own ends, and trying to impose their own prejudiced views on other countries and cultures, treating them like naughty school kids, whilst jetting around and wallowing in excesses of food and technology.
In case you haven’t heard the jury is still out on Man’s impact on the phenomenon of ‘global warming’. Check out this link on a re-evaluation of data on the subject. That global warming is occuring is undisputed, we are still coming out from a ice-age. The people who think shutting down the Western technology eg stopping air-travel, driving cars etc are deluded. I believe firmly that poverty is what destroys the environment, by distruction of natural habitats in favour of subsistence farming. Much in the same way that the business of river/canal fishing in this country has lead to the revitalisation of the UK’s rivers, eco-tourism driven by low cost air fares is often the only thing standing between the survival of ecosystems such as the African savanas and oblivion. Helping the people in these regions to get richer will be what saves the environment and this is something the West can do, but we can’t do it if we cripple ourselves.
Technology is forever advancing. I drive today an LPG vehicle which is cleaner by ordes of magnitude and emits a fraction of the fumes that my first car did. I have low energy bulbs throughout the house and have done for nearly 20 years, because its cheaper! At work we use LCD screens which consume a fraction of the energy that the old VDUs did. Aircraft today are incredibly clean and efficient compared to even 10 years ago. We need to help other countries to adopt these technologies and to improve upon them ourselves. By going forward we will ‘save the planet’ not by going backwards, and believe you me the planet needs saving, not from global warming which is happening whether we like it or not, but from overfishing, pollution, rainforest destruction and desertification from poor farming practices.
Finally if you still think we ’caused’ global warming, note that Mars, Jupiter and Pluto are planets which have been observed to have significant global warming over the last century, and I suspect Man has had nothing to do with that …
Another environmental ‘rant’ done, back to the techie stuff next time.
Cheers
Dave
Dave Mc's Blog 
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