Why politicians must stop ignoring climate change warnings

Isn’t it ironic that in the week that our newly elected local councillors are wittering on about their opposition to Net Zero Targets we are experiencing the highest May temperatures on record.

They are echoing the thoughts of leading national politicians who either don’t believe in the issue of global warming – or think it is too inconvenient to try to do anything about it.

I have to declare an interest here.

I’ve never been comfortable in hot weather.

My fair complexion (my hair was red before it turned white!) means I cannot go out in the summer without loads of sunscreen and I find the heat energy-sapping.

So while some have been delighting in the heatwave, for me it’s been one of the most uncomfortable bank holiday weekends I can remember and I’m clearly not the only person to feel like that.

There have been lots of charts and news stories published about this, and while this May is something of a one-off the long-term statistics cannot be ignored.

Or at least they cannot be ignored by anyone with any real interest or expertise in the subject.

It is clear that over the last century global temperatures are increasing and that since the start of the millennium that increase has accelerated.

At the same time humans are putting more carbon into the atmosphere and all reputable climatologists recognise these two facts are linked.

So surely it is only logical that humans should try to take action to try to reduce the amount of damage they are doing to the planet.

As a first step the aim of reaching net zero in as short a period of time as possible has to be the right approach.

It might be inconvenient in the short term but if global warming continues on its current trajectory then it will be far more than inconvenient.

Vast tracts of the earth’s surface will be unable to produce the food needed to sustain its population.

Humans will be unable to live in areas that become hotter, and the reaction of people and governments in more temperate countries suggests they wouldn’t be happy about opening their doors to millions driven from their homes by starvation and the loss of productive land.

Sources of net zero carbon energy have to be pursued now if we are to avoid disaster later this century.

That means we have to see more nuclear power stations and more renewable generation including wind farms (onshore and offshore), solar generation from both small-scale panels on roofs and large solar farms, and other more innovative schemes possibly including barriers across The Wash and the Bristol Channel.

I know these would damage some wildlife areas but they would also create different habitats and could provide massive amounts of reliable clean energy that would not be dependent on weather.

The problem we are facing, of course, is that most of today’s politicians couldn’t give a damn about the long-term future.

They are only interested in the next election or possibly the one after that.

They think, probably with some justification, that voters are also only really worried about the next five or ten years.

What happens in two or three hundred years doesn’t worry them at all.

We won’t be around then so why should we worry about what people think about those who make the short-term decisions that benefit them now.

Probably Robert Clive and Edward Colston thought the same back in the eighteenth century when they were carving up India or facilitating the slave trade.

If human civilisation survives into the year 2300 how will historians of that century look back on the politicians of the 21st century who could see the world warming up but were too cowardly to do anything about it.

The one thing we can be sure of today is that we will never know the answer to that question!