The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has given a stark warning. Global warming is almost certainly man-made and it will get bad – very bad indeed. Drawing on the research of 2,500 scientists over six years, it is the most comprehensive survey of climate change ever.
The findings advise a 90% certainty of our complicity. The most damning evidence comes from Antarctic ice cores showing larger concentrations of carbon dioxide today than in the recordable past.
Effects will be many. There are predictions of severe droughts and freak storms as the norm. Advising a 1 – 6 degree rise in global temperature by the end of the century, sea levels will cause the map of the world to be redrawn.
Enough of this. The evidence is overwhelming. If you’re a doubter, you may also doubt that you’ll get burgled tonight, but I bet you have insurance – I bet you lock your door if you go out. It’s called the Pracautionary Principle. Strange how we automatically use it for some things but not the major ones.
This is the problem, and the reason the argument is far from over. What is over, as such, is the science. Of course, the science will rightly go on, but it is time for the focus to shift to us – the general public.
Governments are trying to do something – some of them, at least. But this is simply cosmetic. No government can take correct action because, first, drastic action would result in losing votes, and, second, we live in the Fossil Age.
Power comes from fossils, such as coal, gas and oil. Alternative energies have been starved of funds, regardless of what governments say, because the multi-nats will not want to lose their power. You see, proper alternative energy would not require huge corporations to run them, but smaller, local concerns.
This puts fear into the corporate boss, and similarly into the politician. True measures to fight climate change would destroy centralized power. But eventually, we will have to move out of the Fossil Age before WE become the fossils.

© Anthony North, Feb 2007

Find more on the Environment on my Beyond the Blog