Journalism

Metro 84

The latest report on global warming makes for depressing reading, with predictions of temperature rise, flooding and worse. None of us are doing enough to stop it. And the thing is we’re not going to, are we? We’re all thinking, “I’ll make the change when everyone else does!”

Are you going to stop using your car? I’m not. I’m writing this in my car right now, with the engine running and the air conditioning on. It’s making me a bit too cold to be honest, but I’ve paid for this air conditioning and I am bloody well going to use it. 

Scientists are only 95% certain that humans are the dominant cause of all of this and with that 5% uncertainty I feel pretty confident that we can carry on with this reckless behaviour.

One of the things we could do to abate global warming is to stop leaving our televisions on standby mode. If we all turned them off properly it would make a real difference. But come on, that would mean getting up out of your chair, walking three or four paces across the room, bending over and pressing a button with your finger, like in Victorian times, then back to your seat! That’s too much to ask.

It almost sounds sarcastic when I put it like that, but that’s not the whole picture. Because the next time you want to watch TV, you’d have to get up, another four paces, another bend, another button press and  back again. That’s sixteen paces, two bends, two pushes, two get ups and two sit-downs. You can understand why people are reluctant to go to all that trouble just to prevent the destruction of human civilisation.

In fifty years time the planet might be covered by oceans. Your children will be treading water, wailing, “Why? Why am in water? It’s so wet. Why did this happen?” and they’ll be told, “Well, it’s partly because your parents left their TVs on stand-by.”

“Oh! But they can’t have known this would have happened if they did that.”

“The thing is, they did know. But think of it from their point of view. All that walking, bending, pressing buttons….”

Clearly, we can’t stop any of this, none of us want to cut down on pointless wastage of energy, so I’ve come up with three much easier solutions:

1)    The oceans will rise, so how can we get rid of all this extra water? Simple. We can drink it. There are 60 million people in this country. If we all drank an extra litre of water every day and just held it in, then sixty million litres of water would disappear! That is the capacity of the Pacific Ocean (I’m guessing, it sounds like a lot). If that proves too much for your bladder then you’ll just have to go in the bath with the plug in.

2)    Evolve! If we all develop flippers and gills in the next five decades then none of this will matter. We must all go out and procreate with fish and dolphins. This philosophy has led me to quite a few run-ins with the police. Don’t they understand I am trying to save the world here?

3) Within decades all fuel will be depleted, so I suggest that our descendants start burning old people. Heat the planet with bonfires of the very people who got the world into this mess – us! The ultimate fossil fuel. We won’t mind, we’ll be old. As we’re engulfed by avenging flame we’ll be complaining, “Ooooh, it’s a bit parky. Pass me another cardie!”

 

The latest report on global warming makes for depressing reading, with predictions of temperature rise, flooding and worse. None of us are doing enough to stop it. And the thing is we’re not going to, are we? We’re all thinking, “I’ll make the change when everyone else does!”

Are you going to stop using your car? I’m not. I’m writing this in my car right now, with the engine running and the air conditioning on. It’s making me a bit too cold to be honest, but I’ve paid for this air conditioning and I am bloody well going to use it. 

Scientists are only 95% certain that humans are the dominant cause of all of this and with that 5% uncertainty I feel pretty confident that we can carry on with this reckless behaviour.

One of the things we could do to abate global warming is to stop leaving our televisions on standby mode. If we all turned them off properly it would make a real difference. But come on, that would mean getting up out of your chair, walking three or four paces across the room, bending over and pressing a button with your finger, like in Victorian times, then back to your seat! That’s too much to ask.

It almost sounds sarcastic when I put it like that, but that’s not the whole picture. Because the next time you want to watch TV, you’d have to get up, another four paces, another bend, another button press and  back again. That’s sixteen paces, two bends, two pushes, two get ups and two sit-downs. You can understand why people are reluctant to go to all that trouble just to prevent the destruction of human civilisation.

In fifty years time the planet might be covered by oceans. Your children will be treading water, wailing, “Why? Why am in water? It’s so wet. Why did this happen?” and they’ll be told, “Well, it’s partly because your parents left their TVs on stand-by.”

“Oh! But they can’t have known this would have happened if they did that.”

“The thing is, they did know. But think of it from their point of view. All that walking, bending, pressing buttons….”

Clearly, we can’t stop any of this, none of us want to cut down on pointless wastage of energy, so I’ve come up with three much easier solutions:

1)    The oceans will rise, so how can we get rid of all this extra water? Simple. We can drink it. There are 60 million people in this country. If we all drank an extra litre of water every day and just held it in, then sixty million litres of water would disappear! That is the capacity of the Pacific Ocean (I’m guessing, it sounds like a lot). If that proves too much for your bladder then you’ll just have to go in the bath with the plug in.

2)    Evolve! If we all develop flippers and gills in the next five decades then none of this will matter. We must all go out and procreate with fish and dolphins. This philosophy has led me to quite a few run-ins with the police. Don’t they understand I am trying to save the world here?

3) Within decades all fuel will be depleted, so I suggest that our descendants start burning old people. Heat the planet with bonfires of the very people who got the world into this mess – us! The ultimate fossil fuel. We won’t mind, we’ll be old. As we’re engulfed by avenging flame we’ll be complaining, “Ooooh, it’s a bit parky. Pass me another cardie!”