Summary of the global eco-crisis
The overarching issue is climate change and how to reverse it. We have a brief window of opportunity, and unless we act now, the chances of avoiding a serious collapse are remote.
(Excerpt from S.V. October2010)
Reversing changes of climate? Now there’s a thing. Doesn’t that get you excited? It does me – I just can’t wait to see where our brothers and sisters in that powerhouse in Sussex, I just can’t wait to see where they will start. Since it is the ‘overarching’ issue – I like that word overarching, don’t you? – I expect that they will not delay.
What will they start with? Will it be the TSI, the Total Solar Irradiance? If they could do that, then the Earth would surely cool. Or are they after the Pacific Decadal Oscillation? Or will they start with more homely things, like dispersing clouds? I have a confession to make here – when I was a callow youth, when on top of Kinder Scout, my companion suggested that we try dispersing clouds, as per a book we had read by a certain Mr Alexander. You know what, we had some success, and later that day when we went to the cinema in the centre of Manchester, we even tried dispersing people – again with some success. But of course, that was wrong, it was a sort of use of psychic powers, black magic, never to be tried again.
But what our brothers in Sussex are attempting is to save the Environment, to reverse changes of climate, all for the sake of the planet. So where will they start? That’s the burning question. And just how far back do they wish to reverse these climate changes, and will they be specific in advance as to the changes in climate that there is the ‘overarching’ need to tackle?
Since we all have friends in Indonesia might one start with reversing the eruptions of Mt Merapi? After all that occurred only a week ago, or is it still ongoing? And if climate is to be reversed, what about the people who have already copped it? I mean, heck, they are already dead! Surely…the mind boggles.
There are some 29 major climate systems on this Earth and hundreds of microclimates. Perhaps it would be better and safer to start with a microclimate first.
Say the microclimate of Dungeness? But that would hardly make a splash – I guess very few Yanks and even fewer Aussies have even heard of Dungeness.
Perhaps they could start with Russia, ‘cos everyone has heard of Russia, haven’t they? It was unusually hot there all around Moscow this summer and ‘reversing’ that climate would be a boon. But I guess I must have misunderstood. It seems to me that we have missed the boat. It is a bit difficult to reverse something that has already happened and the consequences we all can see.
Do you notice how people no longer talk about changes in climate patterns but they talk about climatechange all in one word, so that it has become a concept. But does this concept actually have any meaning? I mean if we said that the monsoons in the Indian sub-continent were no longer arriving at the expected times, that would indeed be a change of climate. But, it has not happened, has it? If we were to say that the Mistral no longer blows in the South of France affecting the Provence region in particular, then we might say that their climate had changed. But, it still blows, does it not? If we were to say that the Nile no longer floods and produces a natural irrigation system, then indeed we could say that that climate had changed. But it still floods annually, just as it has done for some 3,000 years! If we were to say that the Roaring Forties no longer blew, then that would be a climatic change. But the Roaring Forties are still blowing. If the westerlies, which help bring the Gulf Stream to our Northern
islands were to stop in its tracks, that would indeed be a change that we would all experience.
Climatechange however has become a meaningless cliché, which even Prime Ministers, Princes, Archbishops and Members of Parliament are prone to use. Should we be surprised? Their intention is not clarity of thought but emotional response. For their purposes the very meaningless of the phrase is its most useful property.
But if we were to judge – Heaven forbid that we should judge – but just IF intelligence were linked to the correct use of language, that is to say that words should relate to meanings, then surely we would be propelled to some unusual conclusions about our world leaders.
November 12th 2010
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