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Crisis? What Crisis?

Concerned, confused or clueless about threats from global warming and the looming energy crisis? You and me and a whole lot of others then.

Mainstream media coverage of climate change seems to consist largely of images of melting icebergs (with optional starving Polar bear), devastating storms and unprecedented droughts, all heavily overdubbed with celebrity sound-bites and earnest hand-wringing eco-drivel.

Reportage on the issues surrounding oil depletion focus on queues at gas stations with occasional dark mutterings about commodity speculators and the rising cost of everything else that depends on oil, such as food.

I’m screwed, you’re screwed, we’re all screwed. Nothing but misery, pain and a ghastly death await.

It seem that for every pundit pedalling some brand of Apocalypse Soon, there’s another flouting the Dangerous Dogma Act (1989) with a different doom laden yarn, and for every one of those there’s yet another who can “prove” the whole climate scare thing doesn’t amount to a pile of rat droppings and oil will last for centuries to come.

But filter out the fringe lunacies, political agendas, fashionable opinions and other assorted froth, and the thick tarry stuff at the bottom of the barrel contains a mix of reasonably plausible scenarios.

Because certainly, as impending train wrecks go, these two have the potential to seriously derail life as we presently know it (enough locomotive imagery I think).

How things might pan out is of course The Big Question for which we will have to consult the bottom of the barrel. But there is little doubt about these basic facts:

• The climate is changing; the debate is over why and how.
• Energy sources are already under pressure and this will not get better by itself.
• Climate and energy are intimately connected and you don’t have to be a genius (as I was fortunate to discover) to figure this out.

Ch ch ch ch changes

Anyone with even a superficial interest in our planet’s climate and geology is perfectly well aware that “change” is very much business as usual.

The continents move around, land slips under the sea, new land arises, sometimes it’s significantly warmer, sometimes considerably colder. Change is normal and not necessarily something to be feared and if possible averted.

Throughout all time nothing has ever stayed the same and things are not about to change. Things, of course, being the exception to the rule.

Evidence of climate change is not by itself evidence of anthropogenic causes. The climate has constantly changed before, why should it cease to do so now?

It’s possible that some (or even many) of the changes we now observe and anticipate might form part of a “normal” pattern - things beyond our influence that would have happened regardless.

In all that has ever gone before, the balance between the planet and its inhabitants has been massively unequal. Mankind has always had to adapt to whatever nature threw its way - it has never once been the other way around. So, is it different this time?

Unfortunately, much of the debate has been manipulated, hijacked and set to serve dubious agendas with the result that the entire topic now seems mired in hysteria, ignorance and disingenuous claims. Ironically, given the circumstances, generating a lot more heat than light.

Blame The Fossil

Climate concerns are predominantly focused on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. And all this CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas). In other words energy consumption (though there is suspicion in some quarters that vast clouds of noxious vapour incessantly spewing from Michael Moore could be a factor).

However, if the finger does point at recent human activity, any charges that might be fairly laid at our door are almost certainly traceable back to oil.

The very fabric of modern society is steeped in the stuff, and burning oil (and other fossil fuels - coal, gas, wood, dung) is largely the cause of all the extra CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.

But these fuels are a finite resource and most experts (i.e. people who do indeed know how many beans make five, and not TV reporters) concur that we’re about halfway through all there is to be had.

Relatively cheap oil cannot continue forever or indeed for very much longer at all. So we have to ask, because it’s a very good question, what happens when the oil runs out?

At the very least the principal villain of the piece will be out of the picture and the oil burning, CO2 emitting binge of the past century will soon be filling up at the Last Chance Gas Station. Yippee - we’re saved!

Err, no. Look around you. Look in front of you. That plastic thing you’re reading this on.

Petroleum products were used in its manufacture, and even to insulate the wires that feed it electricity which itself likely came from burning fossil fuels. Cars, planes, factories, lighting, communications, plastics, pesticides, fertilizers, the list goes on - all thanks to oil.

A world without oil is a thoroughly grim prospect, but there is a much, much worse alternative.

Alternative being the operative word. Many “alternative” fuel proposals are near unbeatable as case studies of cures worse than the disease.

Don’t think you knew you were in this song

So, will the twin man-made tsunami’s of global warming and oil depletion combine to wash away civilisation as we know it or might they yet cancel each other out by compelling us to change our ways?

Apportioning blame (or, more helpfully, identifying causes) is only useful if we can act on the information to avert whatever unpleasantness lies ahead for us and our children.

If we can ameliorate the symptoms and begin to tackle the underlying causes, we can alleviate much later misery. But we tend to be idle, selfish creatures who procrastinate until the need to act is forced upon us, by which time it’s often far too late for effective preventive measures.

Nevertheless, individual efforts do make a difference, not only to the individuals concerned but when taken as a whole. And anyway, waiting for Governments to take effective action would represent forlorn and misplaced trust bordering on insanity.

When the dreaded effects do start showing up we would do well to at the very least a) expect them and b) have some notion of how to respond.

As you might have begun to suspect, I’m no tofu-toting tree-hugging gnasher-n-wailer. I don’t do sentimental and have scant time and less patience for soft-headed. But don’t confuse robust with callous or indifferent.

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating.

When you strip it right down, all we have as humans is our planet, our time upon it and our ingenuity.

Oh, and of course our breathtaking ability to waste all three, as all the while the clock slowly ticks.