This is a plea for sanity. The promulgation of theories on Environmental-Whatever, Global Warming, Ecology etc., you name it, is a new industry, rapidly being built and for no sane reason – its only product is a bandwagon upon which all the politician are scrambling for fear of being thought uncaring of the state of the Earth, at election time. Scientists have been warning them for many decades, and it is only now the flavour of the month. Hundreds must be beavering away at statistics, theories, slogans, advertising, speeches, spending taxes and going to meetings, but none seem to have looked into the logic of their platform, especially No 10.
We represent 0,67% of the world population of 9 Billion, we have lost all our heavy engineering to the very countries not too worried about global warming, but we still buy from them. In spite of the goading we are receiving, we are steadily improving pollution and waste and the message has got home here, if not in those huge countries with the huge populations including the USA. But the thing I found most absurd was the latest publicity, which probably cost a bomb, energy saving by switching off standby systems. Some systems use almost nothing, others from 1 to 5 watts, some can’t be switched off without inconvenience – rechargeable phones and satellite TV, (the TV itself should be off for safety,) but they are low anyway and are at night, when more electricity is being generated than used. Weigh this sort of saving against the School Run – but of course, revenue comes from petrol, the sale and resale of cars, taxes etc – a rethink on Public Transport would not match up. In the 40’s and early 50’s, we couldn’t afford a car, we travelled everywhere by an efficient, readily available public system – Progress??