View of the Common Man - Global Warming

Common sense appears to be a thing of the past in our society today and I find myself more and more in tune with Jeremy Clarkson and even perhaps Victor Meldrew.

So I thought why not start a blog. When I feel like letting off steam, instead of taking it out on the cat, put my rantings down on paper and (hopefully) feel better. I might even include some of my musings about the meaning of life. It all seems so confusing as I get older but maybe wiser. So here I am. Not that I expect anyone to read it of course!

So, first topic - global warming. Is it just me or is everything that happens today put down to global warming? Bloody hot February - must be global warming. Windy in March - must be global warming. Snow at easter - must be global warming. Who knows, maybe the sun will come out this summer - yes must be global warming. And as for banning patio heaters.......

Now I do believe that the weather is changing. But it's always changed and always will. How did the polar bears get through the last time the earth warmed up? Presumably they shed some fur and spent some time sunbathing on dry land. Surely that's evolution? At various points in the past the icecaps have melted and then re-formed. The med has dried up and then filled up again.

The logic that we could be having more effect on the climate than the unimaginable forces of the sun, the moon and all the other things I don't understand about nature seems to me to be barmy. So why would we risk ruining our economy while the Chinese and Indians keep building a new coal fired power station every other minute? It won't make any difference and it's pointless!

Some feel they have the right to say that these emerging economies should be held back while we insist on trying to prevent them polluting our environment. What right do we have to do that? It's just that some perspective needs to be taken. I read the other day that the pollution produced by production of concrete exceeds the emissions of all the aeroplanes in the world each year. But when was the last time you heard anyone saying we should stop building things out of concrete? Cow dung pollutes more than man does in the UK so let's kill all the cows! (have you noticed how many eco-freaks are veggies?)

Again, as you'll discover if you happen to stumble across these blogs once I've written a few, I don't know all the facts. But to be basing all our assumptions about what's going to happen to our economy in future on the rantings of some dozy bloke who's the mate of Gordy Brown seems to be a little foolish. There are leading academic experts on these things who think the guy's crazy.

God help me agreeing with George Bush but some of the leading scientific minds are absolutely confident that in the next couple of decades we will have come up with some pretty nifty alternatives to oil and gas. And we need to. Forget global warming - relying for our energy on Osama's mates (or even worse enemies) and/or Putin's cronies isn't very sensible. It's only a matter of time before we're held to ransom. So let's get on and build the nuclear power stations and encourage scientists to get on with developing the alternative energy sources we'll need.

In the meantime let's hope we get some decent weather this summer!