A Note On The Environment

There has been a lot of recent coverage of environmental issues, most of it welcome.

It seems to me that, if the prognosis of climate change is true (can we afford the risk that it isn’t?) and if mankind is minded to do something about it (an observing alien might say this doesn’t appear to be a given), then science should advise on the lowest cost / lowest risk choice between finding a new planet and recovering this one. Now, we appear to make a half-hearted attempt at both.

It seems intuitively obvious that recovering our current home to a state of sustainability is the better of the two options (it is, as we used to be told at college, left as an exercise for the student to prove), however, finding a new planet appeals to the pioneering nature of mankind, whereas fixing this one is a tacit admission of failure.

It may also be that the socio-economic costs of recovering this planet to a state of sustainability are already too high. Any political party publishing a manifesto that seeks to limit population, curtail international travel, and control the consumption of red meat need not prepare for government.

The “bet”…