We're pretty powerless against Mother Nature. New Orleans shows that.
When it comes to pollution, she's got some of the nastiest, smelliest,
global warmingest ways imaginable in her repertoire.
And as one looks at a contrail etch across the sky it's hard to imagine
how that, and the daily thousands more like it, stack up when the
planetary engine kicks over and the exhaust vents itself out of a Mt
St. Helens or Pinatubo.
There's not much that can be done about such events, especially on this
scale, because we have no control over them.
But we do over our own actions.
So I simply share the following from the news today, quoted from the
Royal Geographical Society's annual international conference in London:
'Burning peat bogs set alight by rainforest clearance in Indonesia are
releasing up to a seventh of the world's total fossil fuel emissions in
a single year'.
One seventh. 14%.
Now I'm sure there'll be some debate, and another bunch of experts who
will pop up to make a counter-assessment, but the RGS seem like a
pretty well informed bunch to me. So I'll go with these facts.
As you know, my greatest concern in the whole planet-saving debate is
global warming, and in turn that seems to be tracing back to greenhouse
gasses.
So anything that tackles these emissions gets my full attention. And I
really rather hope it will attract those others who profess to share my
concerns so that they commit as much effort to this... seventh... as
they do to the [how much?] popping out of the back of a Fiat Panda 4x4.
In saying this of course I do not advocate we do not still address all
other areas of man-created pollution and waste, as this would indeed
represent a joining the Hoe-down in the Forum. But not to prioritise
our efforts in the face of such information as above is surely
Emperor-level folly on an equal scale.
It will be interesting to see what noises get made by the major noise
makers about all this. I'm sure they'll need a conference about it. So
if it helps, Bali is right next door.
