Global warming and the threat to Britain
The cost of flooding alone is expected to soar from £1.2 billion a year to between £1.5 billion and £3.5 billion by the 2020s, and £12 billion by 2080.
Climate change in Britain will cause insurance premiums to rocket, sewers to overflow and roads to crumble according to the report published today by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
It lists 100 potential consequences of global warming including hotter summers, warmer winters and the threat of pest and insect invasion from abroad.
Around 5,900 more people could die as a result of hot summers although up to 24,000 cold-related deaths in winter could be avoided.
Other risks include increased demand for crop irrigation and loss of land to erosion (link below).
Expressing an opinion on climate change immediately opens you up to fierce criticism, like opening a discussion on capital punishment or arguing whether animals have rights (For the record I believe they do).
If your views don’t fit into the current global green agenda you run the risk of being branded a pariah.
This week climate change sceptic Lord Lawson said global warming was a “fallacy” prompting an immediate attack from the lurking army of green zealots.
During a debate on BBC’s Today Programme he denied global warning was an issue sparking a barrage of abuse and being branded a “liar” and “a lone nutcase”.
He isn’t the only one who has a controversial opinion on the issue.
This week I spoke to Dr Benny Peiser, of the Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation, to ask his comments on the new report.
He told me: “I think this is a little bit of scaremongering.
“The report assumes there will be significant warming over the next 100 years, but the fact is we don’t know that for sure.
“It also claims that if the planet is warming thousands of cold-related deaths would be prevented and this is surely a positive thing.
“The truth is nobody knows to what extent the planet is warming or what the effects are going to be.”
My view is people tend to take an idealistic approach to global warming whichever side of the fence they are on.
The green lobby pushes to limit the use of energy urging people to shun their cars, turn off the electricity at home, and use less petrol.
But this seems to merely be plugging the ever expanding hole in the climate change dyke.
I just don’t think it is that simple – my logic seems to push me towards the other side.
I have to admit I really don't know what to believe, but as with most things, I have an opinion.
I believe no amount of leaving your phone off or turning the heating down one degree will compensate the soaring use of machinery, blazing lights, and towering office buildings once filled with files and typewriters now stocked with computers and air conditioning.
And the argument for driving electric cars baffles me.
An electric car uses the same amount of energy, presumably, to move from A to B as a petrol driven car - that's basic physics.
Energy is either supplied in the form of petrol or diesel pumped directly into the vehicle or generated by fuel elsewhere, packaged as electricity, and pumped into the car.
In either case energy expenditure is the same (If both vehicles have the same mass and move the same distance) and so leave the carbon footprint?
I would be interested if someone could explain this argument.
The human race aggressively strives to increase its population (successfully) at any cost.
Yet at the same time we'e told we should drastically cut our energy usage to stop us all sinking into the sea.
This surely is not possible?
Any species wants to survive, multiply and expand at any cost and we are no different (except humans tend to do so at the expense of other species sharing the planet).
And it is, I think, a natural consequence we use more fuel and produce more carbon dioxide as a result.
A bacteria will multiply over and over, constantly producing toxins until eventually it kills its host in its pursuit of domination.In its mind does it think "we must slow down or we’ll end up killing this 'planet'".
In the end I don't think anyone really knows. There are theories and with those come opposition while the climate change battle field continues to get bloodier.
What ever happens, will any of us be around to find out?
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