The
latest report on global warming makes for depressing reading, with predictions
of temperature rise, flooding and worse. None of us are doing enough to stop it.
And the thing is we’re not going to, are we? We’re all thinking, “I’ll make the
change when everyone else does!”
Are
you going to stop using your car? I’m not. I’m writing this in my car right
now, with the engine running and the air conditioning on. It’s making me a bit
too cold to be honest, but I’ve paid for this air conditioning and I am bloody
well going to use it.
Scientists
are only 95% certain that humans are the dominant cause of all of this and with
that 5% uncertainty I feel pretty confident that we can carry on with this
reckless behaviour.
One
of the things we could do to abate global warming is to stop leaving our
televisions on standby mode. If we all turned them off properly it would make a
real difference. But come on, that would mean getting up out of your chair,
walking three or four paces across the room, bending over and pressing a button
with your finger, like in Victorian times, then back to your seat! That’s too
much to ask.
It almost
sounds sarcastic when I put it like that, but that’s not the whole picture. Because
the next time you want to watch TV, you’d have to get up, another four paces,
another bend, another button press and
back again. That’s sixteen paces, two bends, two pushes, two get ups and
two sit-downs. You can understand why people are reluctant to go to all that trouble
just to prevent the destruction of human civilisation.
In
fifty years time the planet might be covered by oceans. Your children will be
treading water, wailing, “Why? Why am in water? It’s so wet. Why did this
happen?” and they’ll be told, “Well, it’s partly because your parents left
their TVs on stand-by.”
“Oh!
But they can’t have known this would have happened if they did that.”
“The
thing is, they did know. But think of
it from their point of view. All that walking, bending, pressing buttons….”
Clearly,
we can’t stop any of this, none of us want to cut down on pointless wastage of
energy, so I’ve come up with three much easier solutions:
1)
The
oceans will rise, so how can we get rid of all this extra water? Simple. We can
drink it. There are 60 million people in this country. If we all drank an extra
litre of water every day and just held it in, then sixty million litres of
water would disappear! That is the capacity of the Pacific Ocean (I’m guessing,
it sounds like a lot). If that proves too much for your bladder then you’ll just
have to go in the bath with the plug in.
2)
Evolve!
If we all develop flippers and gills in the next five decades then none of this
will matter. We must all go out and procreate with fish and dolphins. This
philosophy has led me to quite a few run-ins with the police. Don’t they
understand I am trying to save the world here?
3) Within decades all fuel will be depleted, so I suggest
that our descendants start burning old people. Heat the planet with bonfires of
the very people who got the world into this mess – us! The ultimate fossil
fuel. We won’t mind, we’ll be old. As we’re engulfed by avenging flame we’ll be
complaining, “Ooooh, it’s a bit parky. Pass me another cardie!”
The
latest report on global warming makes for depressing reading, with predictions
of temperature rise, flooding and worse. None of us are doing enough to stop it.
And the thing is we’re not going to, are we? We’re all thinking, “I’ll make the
change when everyone else does!”
Are
you going to stop using your car? I’m not. I’m writing this in my car right
now, with the engine running and the air conditioning on. It’s making me a bit
too cold to be honest, but I’ve paid for this air conditioning and I am bloody
well going to use it.
Scientists
are only 95% certain that humans are the dominant cause of all of this and with
that 5% uncertainty I feel pretty confident that we can carry on with this
reckless behaviour.
One
of the things we could do to abate global warming is to stop leaving our
televisions on standby mode. If we all turned them off properly it would make a
real difference. But come on, that would mean getting up out of your chair,
walking three or four paces across the room, bending over and pressing a button
with your finger, like in Victorian times, then back to your seat! That’s too
much to ask.
It almost
sounds sarcastic when I put it like that, but that’s not the whole picture. Because
the next time you want to watch TV, you’d have to get up, another four paces,
another bend, another button press and
back again. That’s sixteen paces, two bends, two pushes, two get ups and
two sit-downs. You can understand why people are reluctant to go to all that trouble
just to prevent the destruction of human civilisation.
In
fifty years time the planet might be covered by oceans. Your children will be
treading water, wailing, “Why? Why am in water? It’s so wet. Why did this
happen?” and they’ll be told, “Well, it’s partly because your parents left
their TVs on stand-by.”
“Oh!
But they can’t have known this would have happened if they did that.”
“The
thing is, they did know. But think of
it from their point of view. All that walking, bending, pressing buttons….”
Clearly,
we can’t stop any of this, none of us want to cut down on pointless wastage of
energy, so I’ve come up with three much easier solutions:
1)
The
oceans will rise, so how can we get rid of all this extra water? Simple. We can
drink it. There are 60 million people in this country. If we all drank an extra
litre of water every day and just held it in, then sixty million litres of
water would disappear! That is the capacity of the Pacific Ocean (I’m guessing,
it sounds like a lot). If that proves too much for your bladder then you’ll just
have to go in the bath with the plug in.
2)
Evolve!
If we all develop flippers and gills in the next five decades then none of this
will matter. We must all go out and procreate with fish and dolphins. This
philosophy has led me to quite a few run-ins with the police. Don’t they
understand I am trying to save the world here?
3) Within decades all fuel will be depleted, so I suggest
that our descendants start burning old people. Heat the planet with bonfires of
the very people who got the world into this mess – us! The ultimate fossil
fuel. We won’t mind, we’ll be old. As we’re engulfed by avenging flame we’ll be
complaining, “Ooooh, it’s a bit parky. Pass me another cardie!”
