Gold Top, Anyone?

Dear Mark,

I am fairly convinced that the real issues to be addressed are that we are all expected to motor to work, and hours are less sociable than years ago, when it would have been easier to walk, cycle or use a public system, and most seriously the issue of air travel. This is projected to expand hugely, but how can this possibly occur without a masiive increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emisions?

Then we also face the major problem of how emerging economic powers are going to be convinced that the US lifestyle is not the way they want to go. Fine for a nation with a population the size of the US to go in this style for a while, but imagine if China and India want to join in the same game!

I think many home truths will be addressed in even the more modest consumptive style of Europe. Why for example are street lights left on all night? Surely if pub closing was moved to say ten again we could turn out two thirds of them by midnight at least. Perhaps a curfew would also be a necessary addition for light saving? I am perfectly serious, and if anyone doubt it they might like to look back at my posts (in the Rubber Room) which have been ridiculed as the rantings of a latter man with boards reading 'The End IS Nigh!'

Much has to be addressed if the planet is going to be habitable in one let alone two generation's time, in my view.

We face a huge issue with the US governement, so dominated by Oilmen, and until the the US itself gets a grip, then it is a bit much to expect emerging economies to really see why they should curb their own potential consumption of rather finite resources, which never-the-less can completely unhinge the ecologoly of our small, fragile, and rather wonderful planet.

I can see a future where I shall be glad to be old or dead.

I wish I had been born in 1921 rather than 1961, for then I would be either gone or past worrying.

Fredrik

Dear Fredrik

I happen to agree with you and think that our current lifestyles have a very limited span of time.

Although it is true to say that the earth has technically been warming up for the last 12000 years owing to being in an inter-glacial period, it is indisputable that humanity has contributed enormously, in the last couple of hundred years, to the increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere and that we are now on the brink of heating up the world beyond control.

I think it is inevitable that restrictions will be imposed upon us shortly, as people are too slow, or too unwilling, voluntarily to make their own concessions.

Sorry if my flippancy offended.

Regards

Mark

Dear Mark,

I have been worried about this sort of thing since the early seventies, when it was definately cranky, and not typical for a pre-teenager!

I noted no flippancy at all. You are perfectly right in my view. Heaven knows were this will lead in the next ten years let alone in the future generation's time!

Fredrik

Dear Fredrik

I will not admit to having been concerned as long as that! Indeed, I have believed until very recently that global warming was a perfectly natural phenomenon and merely a part of earth's cycle of freezing and warming owing to precession and orbital anomalies as the earth has certainly been warmer in the past.

However, my view has changed very recently, and the pace at which the ice caps are melting and our weather is changing have altered my opinion.

I now believe action is required sooner rather than later.

Mark

Dear Mark,

I suspect that those who think something actually needs doing are still a minority in the developed world. In these conditions how will the brakes ever be applied in the aspiring developing world? Please don't think I want you to answer the question, but the point needs addressing very soon I think, if the whole thing is not to go wrong in the most unimaginable way.

I remain the biggest pessimist I know on the whole issue, and am staggered by the fact that it hardly seems to register with most [otherwise] intelligent people!

I am the boardman, with a silly message for most people! Fredrik

Dear Fredrik,

Something WILL be done as it has to. China and India are the long term threats as they develop, as they have such huge populations and are experiencing industrial revolutions at the double and on enormous scales. But action must start with the developed world and of Europe and the US it is the US attitude that worries me the most.

However, I maintain an optomistic view. They WILL change when they realise their very future is being threatened. People will wake up very quickly and global warming, I think you will find, will now make its way to the top of every news agenda.

Don't give up hope my friend.

Regards

Mark.

Dear Mark,

If you are right, then I promise to become an optimist, as my own pathetic worrying will not have been at least without foresight! Fredrik.

PS: I am getting a bit tired an emotional, so forgive me saying, 'Goodnight, and Bless!'

Goodnight dear Fredrik.

Yes, Lech is a sort of knockout drops, but it does not kill you next day. Fred.

Milk bill this morning. £11.25, which barely amounts to a round anymore!

Must write the cheque out before bedtime.

Fredrik