I’d like to believe there is no military conflict in the Middle East but I don’t have that choice. People are dying. Neither do we have a choice as to whether to believe in AGW/CC. (I’m ignoring flat earthers here.) It is happening. It is serious and we are causing it. But I’m a rational person with an understanding of science, politics and the Enlightenment. Many hold to belief systems which are not typically subjected to scientific scrutiny. As someone who is very much not “a person of faith” I am appalled by the content some religious beliefs. The rapture and all manner of medieval superstitions and prejudices come to mind. Many have faith and this can lead them to ignore or dismiss science. Believing vs thinking.

But this is not, thankfully, true of all people of faith. The Right Rev Richard Chartres is the Bishop of London. He’s been in the headlines for a few days following his pronouncement on sin and flying. Now sin is not a word I’m inclined to use but his explanation appeals;

“Sin means living a life that is turned in upon itself, “missing the mark” and not connecting with the world around you. But growing numbers of people are experiencing a conversion.

Being converted means experiencing a change of mind to look in a completely different way at the world – not missing the mark. People are realising their profound dependence on the health of the planet. They are learning the extent of human influence on that health. In the light of that conversion you start noticing how many of your lifestyle decisions are selfish. You realise how much of the Earth’s resources you’ve taken for granted: water, clean air, temperate weather. And you start to change the way you organise your life.”

For the full piece go to: http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1834831,00.html

Yup – bring on that carbon consciousness.

Douglas Coker

I don’t know the Data. What is climate change? Nought point nought nought three of a celcius or what? Who says this is significant?

Even if I did have the data would I have the Knowledge to understand what I was looking at and what it meant? Statistics, models, hypotheses, eye of newt and toe of baboon.

And would I Trust the integrity of the people who produced it? Governments, government, corporate or independent. What’s independent? How many agendas do I need to understand in order to be able to smell bias?

When am I supposed to give myself the Time do the reading and unpack this stuff.?

I am a natural skeptic – as an excuse for laziness. I was handed Bjorn Lomborg but never read it. I like the precautionary principle – but I own and run a car. I distrust reactionary populism. Did the Bishop of whatsit do the science before he claimed/decreed that cheap flights are immoral?

I don’t buy Kenyan beans or Brazillian mangoes. Sooner or later I’ll buy a solar water heater and convert my car to LPG. But I like bananas and coffee.

And I wonder if there is any way that us clever monkeys, squatting atop the leavings of our primordial soup, could ever actually change the vastness above us?

After all, heat wave, by definition, refers to ‘a bout of unusually hot weather’. If climate models are proven right, and they appear to be spot on (besides failing to predict the very rapid pace of advancing climate change), they suggest that the summer we are presently experiencing not only will be seen as normative in years to come but by comparison will seem moderate to summers only decades from now.

If so, the term heat wave, I suppose, will go the same way as those other pleasant summers we once experienced – a distant memory confined to less extreme times. I wonder then what will be the euphemism of the day? Blazing infernos, perhaps.

Those who stubbornly resist the AGW/CC message are sad, flat earthers who will eventually be dragged kicking and screaming into the new reality.

Douglas Coker