Climate Change: Who’s Afraid?
Greens have been frequently and often rightly accused of playing the fear and alarm game. But are greens the only ones?
Let’s look at an email I recently received on behalf of a group called The Carbon Sense Coalition. The email comes courtesy of Hans Schreuder, whose website I Love My Carbon Dioxide appears to know no bounds of context, reason or exaggeration.
“The only thing that lifted mankind from the Stone Age was carbon energy from coal, oil and gas – for heating; for steam power; for electricity and water; for mining, smelting and refining of metals; for transport on land, sea and air; for lighting, heating, cooling and communications; for production of food and chemicals; and for power for processing and manufacturing.
…
“All of this comfort, safety, convenience and prosperity is now threatened by hysterical claims that man’s carbon emissions can and should be stopped. Even though the weather records and the science deny the doomsday forecasts, the politicians, like lemmings, are leading us over the Greenhouse Cliff. Without the nuclear parachute, it will not be a pleasant fall.
The first paragraph clearly sets the scene for the alarm bell that is to come, and I wouldn’t dispute a word of it. - Yes, thank you very much fossil fuel, we’ve never questioned the benefits you have brought us for a moment. It’s just that now your time is coming to an end. You see, not only are you in finite supply, but your resulting emissions are now getting dangerous. One can sometimes get too much of a good thing.
Comfortable and warm with our fossil fuels, the reader is hit by the torpedo in the second paragraph - the world is about to take a huge step backwards, civilisation may be at an end, and our world is about to belong to the tree huggers. No more comfort, safety and convenience for us. Progress is to be replaced by regression.
Back to reality
The trouble is, I haven’t seen any serious proposals which are anywhere near as draconian - I struggle to find any currently proposed measures that will have a sudden and dramatic effect on “comfort, safety, convenience and prosperity”. I’ll admit that there are many extreme loony suggestions out there. Just like the movie Apollo 13, cries of “turn everything off now” can be heard. But I know of no government who will dream of going that far, and I know of very few credible environmentalists who seriously consider such proposals.
What is proposed by sensible climate campaigners everywhere - the TalkClimateChange Greens - are measured long term actions to encourage efficiency, eliminate energy waste, implement alternative energy sources, and implement more sustainable practices to the long term benefit of businesses and consumers.
I’ve written before about the often counter productive exchanges in the global warming debate. Please everybody, let’s have a reasoned discussion and stop playing to the fears of the general public. Alarmism serves nothing but special interests.
The sky is not falling and the end of the world is not nigh?
Who knew, I was convinced we had killed off 90% of the species and were wading across central europe becuase of sea level rise.The final ice shelf just collapsed in the Antarctic and the last polar bear drown trying to swim to the Arctic Ice Cap.
I do agree the greens and blues here are much more level headed then us crazy reds! Green energy policies will cause higher energy and food prices, taxes would be raised on cars, fuels and motorways. Forced transfer of wealth from companies into renewable research and development. All that wild exagerrated speculation we engage in, we are such wingnuts!
BTW: I would just once like to be a special interest instead of the middle-class joe who pays for all the “special interest” programs.
Ok had a bad day an no coffee and maybe too much sugar.
I do agree with the underlying premise of this post, and can say a discussion where both sides listen really is required.