Watching the 10 o’clock new a few nights ago, it struck me that the connection between fossil fuel use and climate change isn’t present in the BBC’s editorial meetings. One of the headlines was the continued threat of strikes by fuel tanker drivers. Their gripes include pay and training/safety, but are also linked to rates of fuel taxation in the UK. As usual, climate change didn’t feature in the coverage.
10 minutes later in the same news bulletin and we have the UK’s current weather patterns: large fluctuations in temperature grab the headline, but they also report the drought over the south of the country. Insightfully this includes implications of climate change predictions for gardeners and farmers. The coverage shows dry crumbling soil on a typical arable farm and moots the potential economic cost.
Climate change deniers will probably point out that fuel taxes won’t solve climate change on their own, and that fluctuations in weather aren’t the same as climate change. Both of those are true. But then cutting taxes will make climate change harder to address, and will slow down the UK economy’s adaptation to global carbon constraints… increasing our risks of future economic problems. Also, having led the world into fossil-fueled industrialization, we should lead on the low-carbon alternative.
On patterns in the climate, the logic of this argument is that we need to see a long term trend, which means that by the time we are sure it is happening it will definitely be too late (is it already?). More to the point is this is what is predicted for the future, so if we are wondering if climate policies are worth it, take a look around. We have an exceptional drought, we have had increased incidence of flooding in the UK, we have had hard winter cold snaps the last few years. All of these are in line with climate change predictions. If it looks like climate change, and smells like climate change …
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