There are some serious scientific brains working around the world on whether climate change is a consequence of human activity, or something way beyond our control.
Most of the world’s best brains have concluded that the climate is changing, that it is the result of human endeavour, and unless we take action our very survival as a species is under threat.
On the other side there are a number of vested interests against the changes that are being implemented, or proposed, to reduce our consumption of finite resources, or to tax pollution. The oil and gas industry, their bankers and financiers and everyone else who feeds off them who employ their own ‘experts’ to challenge studies and propagate doubt about some of the measures being undertaken.
Battle lines were revealed in the recent debate over the phasing out of incandesent light bulbs for low energy alternatives.
We know experts don’t always get things right and it is right to question their findings, but where the climate is concerned I think cautious acceptance has to be the right way forward.
If the climate change sceptics are right, the worst that can happen is that we slow down our economic growth. We may have to wait just a little longer to become a little more prosperous.
If on the other hand they are wrong, our ability to survive on this planet may be so short that a generation already born may be around to witness the death of our species.
In that context energy saving light bulbs are a small price to pay for a future.
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