TalkClimateChange

Last week, I wrote about the frustrations of being an environmentalist that questions the world around him. This Easter weekend, I was presented with an excellent example: the Observer Magazine published “The Climate Change Issue”. Edited by pop star Thom Yorke, with 94 pages at its disposal, this Issue comprehensively failed to mention World Water Day (see below for the significance of this).

There is not enough space here to dissect the magazine line by line, but here are a few things that stood out to me:

• Thom Yorke tells us the UK Climate Change Bill target of 60% reduction (which he calls “old science”!?) is not enough, while failing to mention aviation and shipping, and the comparison of fossil fuels burnt onshore (which would be included in the bill) to the CO2 emitted by UK business abroad, which will not.
• Yorke making it clear that he supports action while barely knowing anything about the issue, let alone the implications of political and economic change (“Initially, I attracted some criticism, but you just have to accept it … and get on with your life”).
• Mentions of US maple syrup, marmots, the sex life of seals, and goldfinches – see Climate Heretic’s comment on my frustrations post.
• Celebrities on bikes. Need I say more?
• Richard Hawkins, a modern day Ghandi having moved into campaigning after studying Law, who once chained himself to a digger with George Monbiot, encouraging people to protest (not that he’s been influenced by the Socialist Workers Party at all). He doesn’t like coal, but fails to mention UK energy security or carbon capture and storage. He believes the government isn’t doing enough (surprise!) and that we’ll be a “zero-carbon society” by 2020, without mentioning the fact that we’re running headlong into recession.
• Pictures of Amazon deforestation, with no mention of indigenous people. It talks about cattle flatulence, without mentioning cattle eructation. That meat consumption has increased massively over the last 50 years, without mentioning the economic policies that have encouraged this.
• Pictures of glaciers melting, rubbish in Lagos, etc - all the usual suspects that should be up for debate, not conclusive finger pointing at you because you left your TV on standby last night.

One saving grace of the magazine is a little article with Amory Lovins, a man who is in my experience really worth listening to. It’s a shame the Obs Mag only gave him half a page out of the 94 available. And the article on Freiburg in Germany is very good. However, I struggle to forgive the publishers for printing a magazine dated 23^rd of March, that fails to mention World Water Day on the 22^nd March.

Why World Water Day?

Water has long been an interest of mine, and I will write more on the subject at Talk Climate Change in coming weeks. Water is fundamental to climate change for two reasons:-

1) The hydrological cycle is connected to the carbon cycle: “the postulated climate change due to increased anthropogenic carbon forcing in the last century relies heavily on assumptions of positive feedbacks from the hydrological cycle, which generate large surface warming”

2) The problems of water and sanitation are very similar to the problems of climate change for people in both developed and developing countries. The issues can barely be separated.

The Observer, and Thom Yorke, are for many people authoritative voices on climate change. That they failed to mention World Water Day this weekend, coupled with the poor observations discussed above, is indicative of the real problem when it comes to the environment: too many activists, not enough information.

If we continue down this road of regurgitating inherited information, rather than questioning and debating real problems and approaches and finding new information, we will surely fail to create ourselves a sustainable environment.

Further reading: http://www.worldwaterday.org/