If you spotted the pun in the above title, then award yourself a coconut. In fact, award yourself two; I'm feeling generous today. If you don't get it, then let me explain:
Every year, bloggers get together and write about a particular issue such as poverty or animal rights. All their posts are published on one day: Blog Action Day, also know as BAD (see, you get it now, don't you?). This year, the topic for discussion is climate change, which, as we all know, is a terrible thing.
But what to do? Cutting personal greenhouse gas emissions is pretty difficult, and cutting corporate emissions is no walk in the park either. Renewable energy is still at a relatively embryonic stage (although it's getting better by the second, I have to say), people don't trust nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion is still the domain of theoretical physicists. And even if we did stop emitting carbon dioxide and cutting down rainforests and generally having a good time at the planet's expense, would it work? Perhaps not. Some people, in particular James Lovelock (of Gaia hypothesis fame), believe that no matter what we do, climate change is inevitable. So should we prepare the tinned food stockpiles and buy some real estate in the Arctic now, before it's too late? Should we sit it out in our icy bunkers, waiting for the Earth to start behaving itself again? Bear in mind that, according to Lovelock, it could be another 100,000 years before everything calms down. That's a lot of tinned food.
So maybe it's not time to give up the battle just yet, unless you like living off baked beans and tins of sardines. Keep on recycling and being energy efficient and who knows? Maybe you'll save the planet after all. But if you stop trying, then we're all screwed. And, as I'm sure you can imagine, knowing you're screwed is not a nice feeling.
And besides, even if it does all go pear-shaped, you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that you gave it your best shot. 'Cause it ain't the winning that matters, it's the taking part.
N.B. The above post was published on the 15th of October, but was in fact written on the 3rd. It is therefore possible that I have changed my environmental policy since writing this post, and that it no longer properly represents my views on climate change. Fat chance of that happening, though.
