On Climate Change

Climate Change is happening.

But, like young Sheldon, I have questions.

The UK’s carbon emissions are, according to the government’s official figures, 1.1%, while China, USA, India, Russia and Japan produce 58% between them: will the UK reducing its output by 1.1% to zero make any substantive difference to carbon levels and the climate?

Why, as Tony Blair asked last week, are ordinary households being expected to foot the bill for the UK government’s net zero measures? Why not those who produce the most carbon?

When China alone produces 28% of the world’s emissions, and is doing nothing to reduce these – in fact it is increasing them year on year – what use will it be if the UK impoverishes itself in its drive to net zero?

Why does the UK government feel the need to regard itself as a world leader in the drive to net zero when no-one cares what the UK is doing?

Is net zero achievable when the generation of power always produces some level of pollution? How is global net zero achievable when powers like China and Russia refuse to reduce their carbon emissions?

If there is widescale changeover to electric vehicles by 2030 (a UK target for new cars) will there be enough electricity to power them? How will all this extra electricity be generated?

Given most carbon emissions worldwide are from electricity plants, why is the population being ‘encouraged’ to change from oil powered vehicles to electric ones that require electricity plants to create their fuel?

Why do Just Stop Oil and other eco-activists travel to their demonstrations in transport powered by oil and other fossil fuels? Why do they heat their homes using these same fuels? Why do they have mobile phones made from plastic derived from oil, to communicate with each other? Why don’t they demonstrate themselves the kind of behaviour they demand from everyone else?

Why does one of Just Stop Oil‘s leading spokespersons, Dr Grahame Buss, take a £1 million pound pension from Shell Oil while demanding ‘the masses’ must be the ones to make radical changes?

Why do politicians travel by private jet and in motorcades to Climate Change conferences? Why don’t they demonstrate themselves the kind of behaviour they demand from everyone else?

Why, when climate is defined as weather over prolonged periods of time, does the media show us pictures of isolated weather conditions to illustrate climate change?

Do forests spontaneously and naturally combust?

Did the recent wildfires in Greece and elsewhere spontaneously combust as the direct result of high atmospheric temperatures or were they, as the evidence suggests, started either deliberately or through human carelessness? If so, why does the media portray them as examples of the effects of climate change?

Who decided that scrub and undergrowth in forests should no longer be cleared? Why did they, when layers of scrub and undergrowth, once alight, ensure fires spread more rapidly?

If, according to NASA, there has been a decrease in the total number of square kilometers burned each year (and) between 2003 and 2019, that number has dropped by roughly 25 percent’, why are recent, highly localised fires being represented – even by NASA! – as an increase attributable to climate change? 

According to UN Secretary General António Guterres, ‘the era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived’. What exactly is it that is ‘boiling’? Is it oceans, rivers and lakes? Soil and rocks? Animal bodies? If so, where is the evidence that this is happening? Is such alarmist hyperbole persuasive or remotely helpful in combatting climate change? Or does it lead ‘the masses’ to believe politicians exaggerate the extent of climate change?

Can we slow down or even reverse climate change when it is a natural, inevitable part of nature’s cycle and, in terms of our own contribution, the biggest polluters are not interested?

Are we all doomed?