Saturday, December 19, 2009

Global warming?

Surely, they couldn't have chosen a worse setting than Copenhagen in December to impress world leaders that something needs to be done about global warming. This morning in Belgium we woke up to a 'blistering' minus 10 degrees C, and I don't think it's much warmer at all in Copenhagen...

How about Athens in August? Now that would have highlighted the problem much better.

And why everyone or no one? If the US, China, Europe and the rest of the industrialised nations reach an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, why forsake the agreement just because a few banana republics refuse to join the agreement? It's the industrialised nations that are causing the vast bulk of greenhouse gas emissions, anyway. We should just forge ahead and move over to renewable energy technologies. The banana republics are bound to follow suit, eventually, as happens in all spheres where technology is concerned.

They want to "limit" the average global temperature rise to 2 degrees C. Now I wonder how we can avoid going beyond this point. It's almost like saying that I'll be taking measures so that tomorrow it won't rain (or snow as things stand at the moment). It's simply an impossible target, since it's beyond our control.

Our target should be much clearer and simpler, and is basically this: to stop burning fossil fuels and restore the world's forests.

No comments: