A modest set of proposals for starting to put the world to rights
FAIR play to the Dutch government in their efforts to begin addressing the issue of global warming. Ministers and officials were supplied recently with data which showed that the country was falling short of target in the national drive to curb CO2 emissions. So what did they do? Did they wring their hands and make vague promises to do better in future? Did they blame the cows which produce milk used in Gouda or Edam cheeses for burping too much? Did they conclude that evil immigrants were coming into the country to light bonfires which blast a smoky hole in the ozone layer over Hilversum and The Hague?
No, no, no. They simply recognised that there had been a collective failure and that immediate action was required to make up for the shortcoming. So they issued an edict requiring all motorists using the Dutch motorway system to observe a 100 kilometres per hour speed limit. What a brilliant piece of environmental first aid! Any driver knows that higher revs means higher fuel consumption, so a modest reduction in speed has to make for more efficient motoring. It will also mean a reduction in time (and money too) spent standing on the forecourt at the petrol pump.
Less fumes coming out of the exhausts, less wear on engines and tyres, and less money spent at the service station. It’s a win, win, win.
While the scientists and the engineers beaver away devising long term ways of reversing climate change, it behoves all of us – and not only the Dutch - to consider other smart immediate ways of facing up to the problems which confront our planet. Humanity really does have a lot to answer for, dragging our feet n spite of growing evidence that weather patterns are being destroyed and sea levels are rising.
One. We need to plant more trees. So let’s do it. Instead of Planta-Tree-Week every year, let’s have Plant-a-Tree-Week every month. Let’s slip young saplings into any and every spare foot of ground. And let’s ban plastic artificial grass from everywhere except sports pitches while we are at it. Better always to pop in a pine or stick in a sycamore than roll out a sterile astroturf carpet.
Two. We have too many cattle, or we are told. So support a government which will host great beefy banquets compulsory for all citizens organised over a two year period to dispose of existing livestock. This time of carnivore excess, complete with state-sponsored gravy and mandatory Yorkshire puddings, will be followed by legally enforceable vegan weeks.
Three. We need to fly less. Let’s take the glamour out of air travel by switching off the heating and air-conditioning systems in airports throughout the world. International travel by aeroplane is backed up by an expectation that the temperature in each terminal around the globe will be 21 dependable degrees centigrade. No more, no less. Instead, turn off the heat in Dublin airport to send people on their way shivering and simultaneously switch off the air-con in Dubai to have them fry on arrival. That should dampen demand.
Four. We burn too much coal. Best take the coal miners out of the pit and re-train them as home knitters producing chunky jumpers for their former customers.
Five. The elephant in the room. We have too many people. We need a cull. Simple as. We need to tap into the mind-set of great thinkers who have gone before us – thelikes of Dean Swift, Malthus and that much misunderstood philanthropist Stalin. There are plenty of Third World dictators who would offer to help out. A few crates of AK47’s, a well primed account in a Cayman Islands bank and life tenancy in a Mediterranean villa would surely suffice to have them wipe out large swathes of their own populations.
We must resist all bargain offers from such tin-pot tyrants as the people they would eliminate are not the ones who should be earmarked for oblivion. The poor of sub-Saharan Africa use up pitifully little of the world’s resources. To effect real energy and emission savings, we need to take aim at some plumper game, richer folk with bigger cars, such as the ones which cruise along those motorways in the Netherlands, albeit at a sedate 100 km/h. Would the people of Holland really be missed?
Besides, with global warming pushing up sea levels, the polder dwellers are all doomed anyway. Sorry, Hans, but needs must.