One of the good things that occurred in Gujurat

 

Global Schwarming

‘Dad, are the Himalayan glaciers melting?’ Dad, looked up from the recycling bins in surprise at his twelve year-old daughter’s question and the serious expression that accompanied it.
‘Er … I don’t know. What makes you ask?’ He was buying time as they both sorted and checked their respective bins - he the plastic and her the cans - during their routine environmentally friendly chore.
‘Well my teacher was telling us the other day that according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - they call that IPCC for short - that the Himalayan glaciers will all be gone by 2035.’ Shona paused before dropping the baked bean can into the green wheelie bin that stood at chest height before her concentrated features as she squinted into the early morning sun that reflected from the snow as it melted into a thin crust on the lawn of the families semi-detached house.
‘I imagine that your teacher knows what they are saying. I presume they research their facts carefully before they present them to their students, so I guess they are quite correct.’ Dad returned to removing the cellophane film from the packaging and stuffing it into the plastic bag looped around his wrist for the purpose.
‘Yeah, I thought so too, but it says in your paper today that that simply isn’t true,’ she looked for reassurance to her father who now paused and looked down at the pile of newspapers, mainly the Daily Express, that stood in a separate pile awaiting disposal at his feet ‘how can that be?’
‘Well, I would have to read the article before I could comment love, but not everything that’s printed in newspapers can be trusted you know.’ he averred, knowing full well that his propensity for that particular publication owed itself to his father’s preference and therefore a comfortable acquaintance with its editorial style rather than actual content.
‘It was on the news on the telly too. It seems that the United Nations report it was in wasn’t actually based on scientific evidence at all but came from an eight year-old news report.’ she continued confidently to report herself without ceasing from her can sorting.
‘Well, even the UN makes mistakes love. Be careful with those cans there, we don’t want any accidents sweetie.’ he glanced and marvelled at her dexterity and intellectual maturity.
‘Well I know, but how could they base such an important claim, that’s central to the climate change argument on a brief telephone conversation with a relatively unknown Indian scientist. Surely it was inevitable that it would be shown to be false?’ She dropped the can with a purposeful clang into the pile that now occupied the entire base of the wheelie bin.
‘Well, again, mistakes happen in large organisations love, what can I say?’ He knew only too well from his own position as an employee of the local authority how commonplace such ‘mistakes’ were.
‘Robin Davey says that climate change and global warming are all a load of government propaganda intended to manipulate the population into fear and to subjugate third world nations.’
‘Robin Davey says what?’ he shook his head to emphasise his surprise. ‘Who’s Robin Davey when he’s at home?’
‘Oh, this boy in our class. He reckons that Al Gore is making a fortune out of it all and he says that the wealthy governments and political parties are just cynically manipulating the discourse to raise taxes and keep China and India from outstripping them economically.’
‘Does he now? Blimey, where does he get stuff like that from?’ an old head on young shoulders normally had some parental input he mused silently to himself.
‘His mum and dad are into that counter-culture stuff, you know, ‘conspiracy theories,’ she used her now empty hands to draw quotation marks in the air as she spoke ‘and all that stuff. He thinks we’re all idiots. He’ll love this. He reckons recycling's a waste of time, that all this ends up in landfill dumps or transported to China where they just burn it anyway.’
‘Is that a fact? What evidence does he have for that then?’ He’d heard similar rumblings of discontent before and knew there was no simple answer he could offer.
‘He doesn’t usually have to give evidence, more create suspicion, though this’ll be meat and drink to him - well not meat, he’s a vegan, like his folks actually.’ She continued now with sorting the paper and cardboard from the pile that stood between them.
‘Do you think our doing this and turning off our electrical items from standby actually does make the slightest difference dad?’
‘Everything makes a difference love, you can’t let stuff like this compromise everything you believe in, just because of an error, however glaring it may look. You remember what we talked about with regard to peak-oil and sustainable power sources?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well that doesn’t change because of this. Whether or not the Himalayan glaciers will last another ten thousand years we’re running out of fossil fuels and they are the single biggest cause of conflict of modern times.’ He felt deflated by the need to repeat these simple truths that he maintained but continued as calmly and confidently as his slightly depressed mood allowed. ‘It may seem like a drop in the ocean, what we’re doing here, but it isn’t about counter-balancing what is happening in China love.’
‘Well that’s another thing that Robin Davey says.’
‘What is?’
He says what is the point in recycling when China is building one thousand new coal-fired power stations. He reckons we are just fooling ourselves by thinking that any efforts we make can alter anything. He also reckons that we are being arrogant to assume that man-made pollution can have such a serious affect on the world’s climate.’
‘Has he even read the scientific evidence?’ dad, now returning to his old bulwark was irritated by this young man’s regurgitation of the same old ostrich-like arguments.
‘I wouldn’t even dare to tell him that again after this dad.’ Shona looked equally disconsolate as she hesitated from her previously enthusiastic sorting of the family’s rubbish. Her dad, Brian sighed deeply and, resting both hands on the lip of the brown wheelie bin turned his head and looked at the earnest expression of concern that contorted her beautiful face.
‘It’s hard to argue with cynicism because the very first thing cynics do is to attack the arguer, and not the argument.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s very good at that, always undermining me when I speak up in class. He’s got this sneering ‘what-do-you-know’ attitude and always puts anyone down who doesn’t agree with him.’ She remembered bitterly how, when on the last occasion she had defended her joining an environmental group at the school, he had mocked her enthusiasm by calling her ‘Al Gore’s bitch’ and claimed that ‘There’s lots of green to be made by turning green’. He’d even accused her of supporting the Tories because of David Cameron’s relatively recent defection to environmentalism by the simple - and some may say cynical -acquisition of a mountain bike. She’d cried bitter tears as Robin taunted her by stating that he was ‘going home to burn some old tyres and plastic’ and she’d fled his sneering and mocking laughter as his friend, Kevin Thorpe taunted her by shouting ‘Having another rant love? What’s up, got your period again?’ They’d even emailed her a Youtube link in which Penn and Teller, the media hardened ‘disillusionists’ of American TV amused themselves and their audience with the gullibility of American recyclers. She wondered what she might be greeted with on Monday next when no doubt she’d be confronted by this latest ‘Catch-22’ of the environmental divide.
Returning to the house they washed their hands in depressed silence before settling down at the breakfast table where Shona desultorily searched the internet for some good news about the bad news.
‘What are you doing love?’ her mother enquired as she loaded the dishwasher.
‘I’m trying to find some positive argument for negative news.’ she replied, a little too testily for her mother’s liking who nevertheless hesitated to respond in kind.
‘Set the bar a little high there love.’ Mum’s know a lot about their daughters and she didn’t wish to press the detonate button that lies concealed behind every adolescent girls offhand remark.
‘Do you believe that the world is going to become uninhabitable unless our leaders can agree some formula, any formula, to reduce carbon emissions mum?’ It was a big question even by Shona’s standards and her mum had stepped into too many traps she had laid for her to shoot from the hip over this, her most obsessive and therefore dominant teenage preoccupation.
‘I believe that unless the human race changes its rationale from one of consumption to conservation that we are in for enormous difficulties and tremendous suffering.’ she diplomatically replied.
‘Hmph, and how are we going to achieve that!’ shot back Shona, testing her own argument by countering her mother’s.
‘With people like you.’ It was an ineluctable argument which Shona nevertheless proceeded to chase down.
‘And how exactly am I, a teenage girl whose schoolmates laugh at her, likely to be able to do that all on my own? It’s a bit like how are my friends in Greenpeace likely to be able to persuade the Chinese and Indian Governments that their people remaining poor is in the best interests of the rest of the world?’
‘By training yourself to adapt to a time, which will come, when everyone of us are subjected to regulation when the supply of fossil fuels, and therefore conventional power sources, are effectively exhausted.’ Her mother paused in reflection as she considered a world without labour-saving devices such as the one she was currently loading. ‘There are billions of people in the world who will never know what a washing machine is love and when the electricity is either too expensive or simply rationed it is them that you will be competing with for resources and it will be those who can adapt to that sort of existence who survive.’
‘That’s a pretty depressing outlook mum,’ she said glumly ‘How am I going to sell that argument to boys who are lashed to their X-boxes and girls who simply can’t go out without their makeup!’ She mimed the sort of girl who’s idea of environmentalism was a new ‘low-carbon’ footprint shopping mall or having to share a ride in a four-wheel drive people carrier.
‘Well you’re not, so I wouldn’t even try love.’ her mum’s matter-of-factness flying in the face of her own fundamentalism. ‘It’s what you do, not what you say. Education is a matter of what you need to learn to survive and prosper and there’s little if any point in fighting ignorance with clever words.’ Mary, who’d watched her husband and daughter’s fanaticism develop and confound itself many times on the blunt edge of resistance had always preferred what the Chinese referred to as ‘the third way’.
‘But I just don’t understand how intelligent boys like Robin Davey can deny the scientific evidence, even though some of it is flawed, and insist on rubbishing perfectly rational perspectives. It’s almost like they are determined that we are all going to die.’
‘Perhaps he’s a nihilist?’
‘A nihilist?’ She’d heard the word and now needed the meaning.
‘A nihilist is someone who chooses to believe in nothing as a way of remaining free from all other notions of ideological programming.’
‘Yeah, that sounds like Robin alright. But he’s so bright and is exactly the sort of person who could inspire other young people to change their ways.’
‘Not all leaders are intelligent people and not all intelligent people are capable of leadership. To lead you have to believe in the righteousness of an idea.’ She saw her daughter’s frustration and wanted to sustain her idealism but reinforce it with some pragmatism before she despaired from such negativity.
‘You know he’s even set up this website called ‘Global Schwarming’ and today there’s a link to an article in the Daily Express which says “CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL: 100 REASONS WHY” It is soo depressing mum. I feel like giving up and agreeing with him that we’re all going to hell in a handcart. It’s just like we are fiddling whilst Rome burns, like that mad Roman emperor, what was his name?’
‘Oh, Nero. Yes, it does seem like that sometimes, but it is also healthy to consider both sides of any discourse dear.’ She closed the door on the dishwasher but hesitated to press the ‘on’ button, at least for the moment. ‘It is always much easier to oppose an argument, however logically based, and much easier to attack those who support it. In fact being a nihilist is the easiest thing of all, after all, how much effort is required to suspend belief? What these people conveniently overlook is that we are depleting the earth’s natural resources at such a profligate rate that we actually need three planet’s to sustain the current rate of consumption. Where exactly we are likely to find the other two-and-a-bit planets’ worth of resources from isn’t something any nihilist is likely to want to answer. If the population continues to grow at the present rate then it will be impossible to sustain life in its present form until the end of this century. Everyone with any imagination at all can see that. People are living longer and it is inevitable, even given the vapid arguments of those who deny the problem, that famine, drought and of course war will be the only way of controlling the competition for food, water and power.’
‘That’s a pretty bleak outlook mum. You’re really cheering me up here!’
‘Sorry love, but that’s exactly why it is important that people like you do believe in trying to change not only the way we think but most importantly the way we act. We need young people like you, tomorrow’s leaders, to begin the process of looking for a better set of values than simply consume, consume, consume until everything has been literally consumed!’ The motor on the dishwasher started its programme as Shona’s mum involuntarily pressed the ‘start programme’ mechanism as she made her final emphatic point.
‘You sound like one of those ‘envirogenicals’ as Rob Davey calls them mum,’ Shona smiled at her mum’s passion realising how much of it ran through her own bloodstream. Maybe I will start referring to him as a ‘environihilist’ and see how he likes that?’
‘I wouldn’t waste my breath love. Save your energy for those who want to be saved, not the ones who are content to drown, or burn.’ She smiled, relieved to see the spirit returning to her daughter’s eyes. She’d no wish to see her passion blunted by the scepticism of the boy in question, however ardent he was. She was just as concerned that her daughter didn’t become a hostile fanatic, using such loaded terms as ‘climate change denier’ as if anyone uncertain about what the future held were themselves some kind of latter-day heretic. She loathed the media’s polarisation of the debate which played with the earnest and derided the undecided in equal measure, undermining as it did the level ground of reasoned discussion and intelligent argument, and saw all too clearly the fecund appeal of counter-culture to young minds as febrile but narcissistic as her daughter’s tormentor.
‘Maybe I’ll write an essay and submit it to his website stating “One Hundred Reasons Why Climate Change is Natural, and One Good Reason Why We Must Act Now.’
‘Oh yes love, and what would that be?’
’Survival of the species mum.’
‘Good point love. What kind of fool would argue with that premise!’