Is Britain pissing in the wind when it comes to climate change.

 

When it comes to the debate about climate change, I am something of an agnostic. Like many people, I do recognise that we do things that are ultimately injurious to the environment and the planet. Deforestation in the Amazon would be a good example.

Yet, If I look at the British environment today, it's a vast improvement in terms of what I saw as a young boy growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. Children today don't know what a 'pea souper' is and London isn't plagued with the smog's that were frequent occurrence in the city. Things were so bad in London that people became disoriented and fell in the River Thames. The Great London Smog of 1952, is estimated to have caused around 12,000 deaths, though an immediate death toll of 4,000, was reported during the event. Nor do we see today, how pollution blackened buildings that were covered in a black soot.  We often walked to school with a handkerchief over our mouths and you could hardly see a couple of yards in front of you. Car drivers drove in daylight hours with their lights on so they could be seen.

Things improved with the Clean Air Act and when coal fires were gradually replaced by gas fires. In the North of England, primary school children were given sunray treatment to counter vitamin D deficiency.

Starmer-oid's Labour government and Ed Millipede, are obsessed with 'Net Zero', renewables and 'carbon capture and storage'. But if countries like China and India continue to spew out pollution, then what we do in Britain, is hardly likely to make one iota of difference to the climate. It's tantamount to pissing in the wind. The U.S. under the Trump administration is committed to the use of fossil fuels. Donald Trump says "Drill, Baby, Drill."