While We Argue...

I believe it was a French physicist, back in about 1900, who first predicted the likelihood of climate change if we didn’t stop polluting the atmosphere. Nobody believed him, of course. People are far more ready to believe convenient lies than inconvenient truths. It wasn’t until the early eighties that environmental concerns began to nudge their way into the public’s consciousness.

The vested interest groups argued vehemently against it. They said it was scaremongering. America, the biggest polluter of all and the country with the most to lose economically, declined to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. The financial and commercial giants said they ‘didn’t believe the science.’ GW famously said that he wouldn’t sign up to anything that harmed the economic interests of American citizens.

Well, now we’ve reached a point where evidence of climate change is becoming incontrovertible. Polar ice gaps are melting at an unprecedented rate. What the scientists said would happen is happening. The vested interest groups, however, remain in denial. A few continue to maintain that the changes are merely an expression of natural cycles. Others admit that there’s obviously more to it than that, but claim that it isn’t being caused by the toxic detritus of an increasingly greedy and industrialised world. And because the science is complicated, they can always get a few scientists to back them up.

I don’t know, of course. I’m not a scientist. Simple minded as I am, however, I can’t help noticing that there is at least a circumstantial link between what has been predicted for several decades, and what is now happening. And is it even more simple minded to wonder how we can pump billions of tons of toxic chemicals into the air every day without causing some change to the climate control mechanisms sooner or later?

And that’s why I look at the death and devastation ravaging Pakistan and China, and wonder. Should we in the greedy, industrialised countries of the world be taking at least some of the blame for the horror that is now gripping the lives of thousands of ordinary people? I rather think we should. When are we going to stop putting £20 on our credit cards to help the aid effort and salve our consciences? When are we going to start being serious about addressing the cause? And the biggest question of all: is it too late?