I’m preparing for COP26. It’s the climate conference in Glasgow, next week. Even though it sounds like a neo-nazi organisation. Which perhaps is nearer to the truth by accident, as Climateers (as I’ll call them just to spare saying ‘climate change obsessives’ all the time) are generally the most nasty, intolerant, dogmatic, undemocratic bunch around. You agree with them ENTIRELY or YOU ARE WRONG AND DESTROYING THE PLANET!!!!! No middle ground, no need for debate, no wiggle room whatsoever. The Attenborough-Thunbergs run a tight ship. And their devoted followers misspelt the word ‘adherent’ and instead used ‘adhesive’ to glue their sorry backsides to the M25. Which was abhorrent. Misspell that ya tossers.

David Attenborough himself (blessed be He; the love-child of Jesus Christ, Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin) pre-empted the meeting by saying how we must ‘act TODAY, tomorrow is too late’ to save the planet. Greta Thunberg is on her way. By bicycle.

And its not like I’m not almost the ultimate eco-warrior. I’m sympathetic to the cause. I recycle my waste! (Otherwise Barnet council charge me a thousand quid which would otherwise be spent on petrol. At current price rises, that’s about 27 gallons worth.) I married a ‘bag for life’, let alone carry one. I turn the thermostat down on the heating. Not just to antagonise Mel.

But let’s just get a little logical. The ‘Industrial Revolution’ started in the early 18th century. Mainly when they replaced burning wood and charcoal with burning coal, and later coke, which was easier, hotter and better for producing iron and glass. Which led on to making proper machinery for factories and farms. Which led to steam engines, allowing faster transport, so goods could be moved around to other factories. Which could use those machines to make other machines.

It’s not so much a ‘revolution’ as an ‘evolution’. Because the machines beget better machines as accuracy and reproducibility improve. And you follow this right along until the nuclear age, in the mid 20th century, and onwards to computers about 60 years ago.

And if we didn’t have computers we would not be aware of the damage all of the above has done to the planet.

So its fine for Sir David to say ‘this is all our fault’ because the great man is making the fatal error of effectively judging the past in present day terms. Unless he’s saying that we must return to a more cave living, self-sufficiency, get rid of ALL technology mode of life.

We wouldn’t be ‘here’ today, watching him on tv, flying to Glasgow, calculating carbon levels, without the industrial revolution which was the cause of the entire problem. And it took us 400 years to arrive ‘here’. Undoing it may take a little more than we could possibly achieve ‘today’.

Happy Zero Emission Wednesday

Greta xxxx