Blow my own trumpet
The statements this week, by the UK government’s chief energy scientist, are right up my street. See Britons creating ‘more emissions’ on the BBC.
It’s obvious really.
- Over the last few decades our (meaning the UK and all western nations’) manufacturing industries have collapsed.
- Yet we can still buy stuff, more and more stuff actually.
- By making stuff, we, as humans invariably use energy and create pollution as either a by-product of energy consumption and/or the manufacturing process itself.
- Where is the pollution if we don’t make it here?
- Overseas obviously, where the factories are….
- Where are the factories?
- In China, mainly.
This much we all know, but we choose to forget it. We want a DVD, we buy it. We don’t care where it was made or how it got here. All we want is it to be cheaper than yesterday.
Industry!
And the same goes for everything. Even plastic bags….
Trumpet
And so to my trumpet-blowing.
Back in May 2008 I posted exactly the same as Prof MacKay has so eloquently said. He said that all our supposed anti-pollution efforts ……….
are an illusion.
And he’s also recognised the duplicitous facts of our behaviour in making China et al the arch-culprits of pollution – because they are not.
They behave that way because they are copying us and our actions since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
Back in May 2008 I said,
China is the great factory for the world. While the rest of the world struggled, China just got on and made stuff and did stuff. The result is lots of pollution. Basically, it’s exported pollution from all the global companies that moved their production to China over the last few decades. In other words – it’s our pollution, but in China!
Ironbridge: 1779. Dawn of the Industrial Revolution?
Now finally, someone at the top is saying the same and we might finally get some positive action to reverse our spiralling energy consumption and physical debt to the planet that we live on and from which there is no escape.
Hooray!
The Professor said this,
“Back in 1910 we were burning per capita the same amount as Americans do today so that’s an argument for saying we really have an ethical duty to take a lead and show the way and show that it is possible for a developed country to seriously de-carbonise its economy.
“By historical emissions per capita the top three are America, Germany and Britain so we are right up there on the winners podium for carbon dioxide emissions per person over the last 125 years. “
….which is a firm statement, putting the guilt and the ownership of affirmative action soundly onto our shoulders, specifically the UK, Germany and the USA. He’s saying ‘we’re the ones wot done it – we should fix it’!!
Cause and effect?
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