Happy New Year (!)

So here it is, my first post for People & Planet! I’ve been wondering for the past few minutes exactly what to talk about, which issues would make my first post, how? what? when? where? why? Then I realised that there are a few select things I should quickly cover before diving in head-first with the appropriate diving gear which I think are absolutely key:

• The world cup begins in the summer in South Africa!
• We are apparently expecting another ‘’sizzling” summer
• The last ever series of Big Brother (thank god.)

Having scratched my head for other key ingredients to the year, such as the third Twilight film in the Summer, the penultimate Harry Potter near the end of the year, SATC 2 (Sex and The City for those who don’t know the abbreviation,) and countless other tit-bits of information that have stemmed from my friend’s mind and taken up refuge in my own head, my mind now turns to the notion of my first post.

Our present climate.

Enjoying the weather are we? Yes for around 20 consecutive days so far it has snowed somewhere in the UK every day. Temperatures have plummeted to as low as -20 something in Scotland and -10 where I live in West Yorkshire! Sure for the first week or so it was fun to have snow cover the grounds and make snowmen and have snowball fights. Days off work, college, schools, uni have been enjoyable  but now it is quite annoying. Trains have been delayed and cancelled, airports have closed down, buses have vanished and taxis never turn up, the weekend sport fixtures have taken a back seat and now we are in the grip of Britain longest cold snap for 30 years. Now I’m not a preacher of anything, I’m apathetic towards religion, open-minded about people’s sexualities, personalities, attitudes and the present situation in world politics but this winter has been the coldest I’ve ever encountered (except the record is held by the years 1962 - 1963 my Grandma has reminded me.)

So a question was posed to me and my group of friends after a hard day shopping in Leeds for the return to university. After slipping and sliding around for two hours we decided enough was simply enough. Grabbing our laptops we sprung surprise orders on Amazon and play.com and then clambered into the nearest coffee house for much needed fixes. The question that was posed to me was a question my friend had heard in a Science and Environment paper on the Internet: THE END OF THE WORLD SHALL COME IN 2010.

Now. Calm down! Don’t start packing your belongings and writing an emergency list of much needed supplies before you barricade yourself in your house never to come out; surely this is a stupid question. The world is going to end in 2012 (anyone who has seen the film 2012 shall agree with me here,) so we have two years to wait. (phew.)

She quickly explained what the article had said: that due to the temperatures rising the climate was changing too. Now the climate is something we all should be worried about but here, especially in the UK, we’re not that bothered. Why? Well it’s the British mentality to find something funny in even the most dire situations. Surely the recent influx of disaster movies should have stirred out hearts (or loins?) No because we believe it isn’t real and sure it isn’t but that’s not to say it couldn’t happen. I’ve tried my hardest to change my views on the environment; I drive but my car is a hybrid; running partially on both diesel and lithium ion batteries (which let me tell you are a PAIN sometimes especially in this cold snap,) I dont’ leave appliciances on for longer than needed, I only use what’s needed and so on, but something bigger is needed to shift the mentality of the UK and indeed the world into action.

Look at the recent Cophenhagan conference; what exactly was accomplished? A lot of talking, nodding, agreeing but was anything truly amazing brought out of the meetings? I don’t think so, at least nothing that’s going to make me and my friends sit up andgo

“Damn we are losing our environment and need to change now. Let’s go and save our communities!”

Instead it’s going to go something along the lines of

“Damn we are losing our environment and need to change now. Let’s go and save our communities!” But wait… Match of the Day is on and folllowing that I’m off out so I’ll do it…tomorrow…maybe…”

See? We need something to push us. Articles like the one my friend was reading is a key environmental issue that will not go away, everyone knows we are using up everything faster than the world can re-supply us with it; so as we left the coffee house and descended back into our homes powered by fossil fuels I wondered; if we found out the world was indeed going to end in 2010, could we actually survive it? Could we actually prevent it or limit the damage quick enough so that we as a race could not only continue but perserve our simply stunning and amazing climate? Could we end poverty, save the environment and challenge human rights? Can we actually save the world just by ourselves? Do we have the government’s support to do so?

Right now? I don’t think we could.

Happy New Year (this time without a !)

Tags: apathy, climate change, new year

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Environmental Issues, In The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.