GLOBAL YAWNING

ON THE CLIMATE THING

Who says the climate we have now is the right one?


I totally agree that banging out CO2 and methane into the atmosphere is damaging however it’s easy to sit in one’s armchair and point the finger at industry saying that it’s their fault and there’s nothing I can do about it. China is commissioning a new coal powered plant every two weeks and truth be told – there really is nothing we can do as it’s their time for industrial revolution, we’ve had ours and little old me in Reading can do little to sway the Chinese – nor for that matter can Green Reading, Greenpeace or the Campaign against Climate Change – they don’t care what you think.


GREENHOUSE GASES


How would the average farmer feel if a green alliance tree hugging love child of an Inuit and Native American Indian couple visited him and told him in no uncertain terms that if the human race really wants to act on global warming then we’ve all got to stop eating meat? Cow and sheep burps account for by far the majority of methane (22 x more damaging than CO2) sent into the atmosphere dwarfing industrial output?


Are we going to stop eating meat? Can we invent a pill that stops sheep burping? No and no.


Using PV, wave and wind delivery systems really is a no brainer. We’ll never be able to keep up with the Chinese and Indians building their coal plants but reducing our emissions can to a minor extent dampen the blow to the atmosphere. To do this in the UK however we need to remove the NIMBY chant ‘it will ruin my view’ and publish more data proving once and for all that wind turbines do not make sheep abort, there’s no such thing as wind slap and a turbine can only ever be 100% efficient – see below.


WATER


No-one has ever died from a lack of water on planet Earth – rather a lack of investment required to get them to the water or the water to them. We can pump oil thousands of miles across Siberia so it can be done with water however the wealth of the Ethiopian/Somalian and value of his land forbids it.


A typical Nimitz class aircraft carrier can desalinate 400,000 gallons of sea water into potable drinking water per day however the wealth of the Ethiopian/Somalian and value of his land forbids it.


INVESTMENT


Where am I going with all of this? Well if you’re an African and you have to walk twenty miles to get water then move. If your land doesn’t support crops then move. As cynical as this sounds – over the last five years the largest greenhouse development in the world was constructed in Ethiopia – encouraging news don’t you think. It grows flowers for export.

SUSTAINABILITY


There is far more land available for crop growing than is being utilized and you don’t have to go to Somalia or the Australian outback to find it. England is supposedly the most populated country in Europe but ask anyone who’s landed at Heathrow what you see as you fly in and the answer is hundreds of thousands of acres of land on set-aside or growing biofuel destined oil seed rape.


THE FUTURE


Britain is the only country actually looking forward to climate change. In years to come we will be growing olives, lemons, limes and oranges and do you know the downside to all of this? We lose Portsmouth to rising sea levels – that’s a win/win situation if ever I heard one.

AUSTRALIA


In Australia there is an abundance of water – the sea. There is an abundance of renewable energy – the sun. Power availability plus sea water = desalination yet the Australian Government still allows their farmers to wallow in dust following the fourth/fifth/sixth year of low rainfall.


I don’t know the economics of Australia or the plight of the Australian farmer in any depth however I do totally understand the equation that a wind turbine or a PV energy capture plant can never be viewed as inefficient (power in divided by power out) when the energy source in is free – still you (Australia) can only boast less than 0.2% of your energy coming from solar – embarrassing.


I love renewable energy and campaign against NIMBY groups in the UK – this is where we should be diverting our energies (in my opinion).