Greta first came to attention last year when she inspired many other schoolchildren to take a day off school to protest against global warming. It was a success and, thanks to social media, her call for a “school strike for climate” went viral with a huge uptake across the developed world and Europe in particular. Mind, I can’t help thinking, it wouldn’t take too much persuasion for young schoolchildren to prefer having fun spending a day dressing up and waving placards in a street protest to being stuck in a stuffy classroom doing academic studies. How many would remain enthusiastic though, if they understood that in supporting extreme green politics they would have to one day give up their smartphones, have to walk to school instead of being ferried in mummy’s SUV, no longer jet off on foreign holidays and have to replace their PlayStation with a bat and ball? Not many, I wager. However, since the
success of her school climate strike, Greta has become a champion spokesperson for those concerned about the effects of climate change. Indeed, in January this year, she addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos and last month gave UK MP’s a dressing down on their lack of green policies saying children’s future has been ‘sold down the line’ and if not radically addressed catastrophic climate change will mean we probably won’t even have a future any more. Needless to say, her emotive speech was enthusiastically received by many including: Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn and Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas and not forgetting, soon to be replaced, Prime Minister Theresa May whose last act as leader is to pledge that the UK will be a zero carbon country by 2050. I think most people acknowledge that industrial
pollution and the increasing use of fossil fuels can be harmful to human health and is having a
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detrimental impact on other parts of the planet’s fauna and flora. However, this is not the same as directly causing catastrophic climate change. For quite some time, there has
been some lively debate on the subject of climate change from sceptics and supporters in equal numbers. Both sides express with fervent passion and often quote from a variety of academic and scientific sources to back up their position.
People like Professor Martin Seigert, a British
glaciologist at Imperial College, London and co- director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Dr Aradhna Tripati, a professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of California are just two examples of well-respected authorities in his field. According to climate change experts, like them, it was over three million years ago the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are now with global temperatures five to ten degrees higher and sea levels over twenty metres greater than today. Also back then there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and
Greenland. This all occurred well before mankind, never mind aeroplanes and coal fired power stations, inhabited the planet. To me, this illustrates very clearly that
catastrophic climate change is a natural occurrence that has taken place many times since the birth of the Earth. That said, it is highly possible our over reliance on fossil fuels and energy dependent existence is perhaps contributing to the current rise in CO2 and may even be hastening ‘mother nature’s’ next phase of extreme climate. However, we must grow up and acknowledge that climate change is coming regardless of mankind’s impact. Therefore, rather than waste £billions trying to
‘control the uncontrollable’ perhaps we ought to invest in adapting to the inevitable instead?
Angus Long is owner of Impression Marketing and Writers4U 45
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