''Oil and gas are “not the problem” for the climate, but the carbon emissions arising from them are, the UK’s net zero minister has told MPs.
In words that suggested the UK could place yet more emphasis on technologies to capture and store carbon, Graham Stuart said fossil fuel production was not driving climate change, but demand for fossil fuels, in a bullish defence of the government’s much-criticised stance. The Minister went onto say “I don’t think supply is the key driver – it is demand we need to focus on''.
Obviously, reference was made to greater reliance on carbon capture and carbon scrubbing technology and renewable energy generation to clean up our act in conjunction with increasingly more strict emission standards, is not the flavour of the month for Green Peace and other environmentalists who are highly critical of this new government position. A government position that starts to take on board the reality of how are people to pay for the massive infrastructure and behavioural change going forward, when in reality the environmentalists have no solutions as to how everyday life will go on in eg a plastic free world if there is no future for hydrocarbons, animals in the food chain etc.
Yet on the other hand we also have environmentalists against the creation of an energy generating tidal barrier in the Wash because of a wild bird sanctuary might be disturbed. We have people objecting against land based wind turbines in Scotland, yet in contrast locally our entire coastline around Morecambe Bay has been changed forever by a massive ever growing wind farms with little or no local objection as the pragmatic realisation that we need the green energy supply to move forward. Recognising that by 2050,it is predicted that most of where I live will be under water with the rising sea levels..................
It all reminds me of an hour long nature programme that focused nearly all of the programme on the loss of puffins (and sand eels they feed on ) from part of the NW coastline and the natural disaster it represented in the immediate vicinity. Only at the very end of a program full of climate change and local eco disaster chest beating, did it in the closing minutes to point out that the sand eels and therefore their predators the Puffins had moved further north and were thriving there.
We certainly need to clean up our act, otherwise I'm sure that the microplastics in our water will eventually see us all off. We need more pragmatic affordable solutions, whilst not destroying our economy under the knife of global warming, recognising that our domestic consumerism is driving green house gasses production elsewhere in the world and we do need to change some behaviours but not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Mind you I do worry when recent research indicated that a recent unexpected increases in sea temperatures maybe linked to cleaning up shipping emissions and that the reduction in soot being emitted by shipping may be reducing the amount of the sun's rays being deflected and hence the sea is warming up....not all soot is a bad thing and how much of our temperature increase is due to the cleaner less sooty environment .
Last edited by JohnHarris; 09/11/23 11:15 AM.
