Beyond a Silent Spring – A New Years Wish

When Rachael Carson wrote her book, many of the effects that she predicted didn’t happen because action was taken. When a hole was discovered in the Ozone layer of the atmosphere, we were fortunate as it was located at the South Pole, and while it will take fifty to seventy-five more years to heal, it is healing as action was taken to stop that pollution.

However, the difficulty we all face now with Climate Change is that we are not prepared to stop the pollution. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, the effects of what we have burnt already will not stop for two hundred years.

This is why Climate Change is the greatest challenge that humanity faces, the biggest threat to our existence, much greater than Terrorism or any natural disaster.

The examples of DDT and its effects upon the environment and those of CFCs are apt as the solution found was to ban them. Yet while this is eventually what we need to do with using Fossil fuels, what needs to occur now is that we use them to built new methods of sustainable energy production.

The real problem with DDT was that it was used irresponsibly. If users had just used the insecticide as instructed then it would have remained effective. But some people over used it, so that it built up in the environment and impacted upon other species, fish and birds. Or people used it in a weaker solution to make it go further. That caused resistance for the chemical to build up in some agricultural pests. Therefore more and more of the chemical was used, polluting the environment and more importantly the food chain.

Had the manufactures been more careful about ensuring that it was used sensibly, and not tried to maximise sales and profits by tacitly encouraging over use, it could well be that this effective chemical would be available today to deal with malaria carrying mosquitoes and Blue Tongue carrying Midges.

It is the same with CFCs a very effective refrigerant, but again manufacturers wanted more sales and greater profits so it went into every aerosol product you could think of.

We were lucky as the hole the CFCs made happened at the South Pole and at the equator, as deaths would have occurred in the millions before we ever knew what was going on. Had CFCs just been kept as a refrigerant, we would have some very energy efficient refrigerators and air conditioners.

The difficulty we need to overcome is our thinking on climate changing gasses is to adjust our attitude towards the environment. There is nothing we can do to stop the effects of a changing climate; we have already emitted more than enough CO2 in to the atmosphere to seriously damage our planet.

That change in attitude primarily means that we need to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels. By burning them we are releasing Carbon that our planet locked away millions of years ago. Had that not happened we would not have evolved. Further, if we don’t change we will (Humans) become an evolutionary footnote in our biological record.

That is not just the obvious uses of energy, heating and lighting but all the hidden energy that arises from manufactured goods. That means not changing or upgrading consumer goods. If something needs to be replaced why not buy second hand? Or something refurbished?

Buy your food locally, shipping costs obviously are adding to the price as well as the carbon burnt to get that food to you. Equally why not get together with your neighbours so that only one shopping trip is made for three or four homes. Instantly you can reduce the cost to the environment by a quarter.

However, the real change that needs to happen is to start building or installing other means of power generation, wind turbines, Solar even geo-thermal. It will cost money, but if this doesn’t happen now none of us will have energy at all. The increase in Sea levels will flood oil terminals and ports hampering or even preventing the distribution of fossil fuels will force us into an energy famine.

Further, we need to force our governments to start cooperating and build sustainable power stations. We already have the technology to do this, but all governments balk at the idea of giving away expensive advanced technology. Further, because this would aid developing nations, all the developed nations hate the idea of advancing another countries economy. Yet, they fail to see the larger picture. By helping countries in North Africa as an example, to build solar power stations, photovoltaic and mirror farms, we enable them to get out of poverty. That will stop the economic migration from these nations and will stop the poverty that feeds into extremism, violence and terrorism.

One of the lessons that we learnt in the UK from the terrorism in Northern Ireland was that poor education and poverty fed the prejudices that spawned the violence. Equally NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) have for years known that helping educate people, especially women helped resolve many of the problems in the world. That is why I despair at the attitude of the American Government who link aid to the direct financial and trade benefits of the US. Other countries do this too but the US is most blatant. Yet by aiding these developing countries to generate power from natural sustainable recourses, we can stop the problems of poverty, health and famine.

We can do this and it could all be done in twenty-five years. The technology exists, and by fairly distributing the know how and recourses around the world we can eliminate almost all the Carbon pollution around the world. Further, we can stop the poverty that leads to conflict.

I know that most people that read this will think that this is an unrealistic dream, but it is my wish for this coming year and for many years to come.