The Road to Copenhagen

I said I'd say a bit about the meeting. It's now a week plus later, and to be honest I don't remember all that much, except that there was in the end a good debate about coal fired power stations. One man, an experienced engineer, pointed out that if you replace an old coal fired power station running at 35% efficiency by a modern one, even without carbon capture, running at 46% efficiency then by building 'new coal' you're actually reducing CO2 emissions. This didn't go down too well with the green brigade, but to me the only answer is to ask how you can be sure it's a replacement and not an addition. That would be my worry.

I'm beginning to realise that a majority of people in the developed world are going to have to make major changes in their lifestyle if we are going to succeed in keeping global warming to a level where it won't be a total disaster. Those who suggest it's not man made miss the point, here: it's not in doubt that man contributes to greenhouse gases, and if that's the case than we can lower the rate of warming by contributing substantially less. (Actually, the world's major science academies all agree that the phenomenon is human caused: one researcher tried to find what the balance was between scientific papers in refereeed journals which supported the idea that global warming is man made and those that opposed that idea. She found the ratio was 100% in favour: no papers at all in her substantial sample suggested that this is a natural phenomenon. It's only irresponsible journalists like Melanie Phillips, on Question Time recently, who suggest differently: Melanie had the gall to say that the ice caps aren't melting and polar bears are thriving. She's clearly on a different planet: the evidence is overwhelming.

So what sort of changes will we all have to make? One suggestion is we should go vegan, because of the amount of methane produced by livestock. But I do wonder about this one... what about the methane produced by all those bean-eating vegans! I want to look for some proper research on this one, and haven't got round to that yet. And I don't believe we've evolved to be vegans. If the problem, then, is too many cows, surely the answer is eat less meat rather than no meat, and eat meat other than beef which is apparently the chief offender. Having just eaten a delicious piece of Farmers Market local leg of lamb, I'm not feeling in the least guilty. Maybe more insulation (but how many emissions were produced in making it?) and more public transport (but I've done only about 1500 miles in six months in the car, hardly heavy motoring!) are part of the answer. But then..... you'll have seen I'm resisting not having my milk and cheese. Others will similarly resist not having their 4x4 or their long haul flight holidays..... and there are no easy answers.

I'm not optimistic about Copenhagen. There will be millions of words, but will it save even as much in the way of emissions as was created by having the conference in the first place? Somehow I can't feel sure even of that. But watch this space: you never know.