All the scientific evidence continues to be that high levels of C02 are a huge risk. The presence of C02 retains heat in the atmosphere and that has been proved again and again by verifiable scientific testing. It isn’t a matter of dispute it is a matter of physics and chemistry. C02 also dissolves in water to produce a mild acid. Coral reefs are made of alkaline material and are damaged by ocean acidification. That is a matter of chemistry and biology not of opinion.
The globe is now at 407 parts of c02 per million and rising faster than ever. We know what is going wrong with absolute certainty and instead of reducing the problem we are making it worse. The rise in industrial production in India and China is the prime cause of this increase. So is the wider adoption of consumer lifestyles that require a lot of energy to keep them going.
All of which would be very depressing if there were nothing we could do or it was hard to do anything to prevent the future damage. Fortunately, the exact opposite is true. The course of action we need to follow to change this situation is pretty clear and it is in our self interest as a nation to be one of the first to adapt to it. Our future success as a trading nation depends on being first to adopt new technology.
Some of the more obvious measures we need to take are as follows:
* Major investment in technology that cuts energy use such as insulation of homes, increased industrial efficiency, lower energy use consumer products.
* Investment in increasing the efficiency of energy storage systems both at small scales via batteries and at larger scales to even out variations in supply & demand
* Subsidising green energy production and ending government encouragement of oil and gas production and use
* Fostering the electric vehicle businesses and encouraging use via insisting all new homes and supermarkets have electric car charging points and subsidising installation in existing premises and businesses
* Switching freight off roads and onto railways via subsidies and incentives
* Government support for research and development of efficient products and efficient production processes
* Government support for companies to commercialise research ideas
* Massive improvements in efforts to recycle and to reduce wasteful consumption
As it happens you will find reference to some of these policies in the government’s Industrial Strategy. Just don’t try reading it too carefully. Because if you do then you’ll find that the strategy puts pathetically small amounts of propaganda money behind helpful measures and reserves its serious heavyweight policies for fracking, north sea oil, and new road schemes. This is the government that effectively banned all onshore wind farms by allowing one local objection to prevent development whilst offering bribes and overturning local decision making powers in order to encourage fracking. That makes it the bluest government ever not the greenest.
The two major political parties get the idea that the public is worried about the environment. But they get it at the level of fearing that they will lose votes if they don’t say a few nice things whilst doing very little. They don’t remotely get the urgency of the need, the totality of the necessary technological transformation, the speed with which it will happen or the scale of the opportunity for the UK if it is ahead of the pack. China is investing billions in electric vehicle technology. The UK can’t even require new house builders to put a £20 charging point in the thousands of new homes that they are covering the countryside with.
The problem is mainly an intellectual one. Every sensible person who has looked at the issue in any depth and with any degree of open mindedness knows we have a major problem on our hands. Every scientist worth their salt is telling us that we have to act and act quickly and that we might well have left it too late. We have record high temperatures in the arctic and continually reducing amounts of reflecting ice cover and greater amounts of darker open oceans. Yet when it comes to action there is a continued failure to understand the nature of the transformation in the economy that is required. Too many Conservatives don’t even understand the scale of the business opportunity and too many Labour politicians cave in whenever the interests of a trade union clash with those of the environment.
It can be a long hard struggle to get the need for fundamental change understood. All too often the issue doesn’t even appear on the campaign trail if a Green isn’t standing. Yet we are in a struggle for our very survival that must be placed at the centre of all our decision making. That is why it is so important for an independent green view to be put before the electorate at every opportunity.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/carbon-emissions-record-high-2017-energy-demand-greenhouse-gas-a8269336.html