The Sceptical Green.......

I remember growing up in the 1980s nuclear war was the ultimate threat. Today that scare has been replaced by climate change.

While climate change is certainly happening nobody knows for sure how severe the impact may be. Journalists tend to report the worst case doomsday scenarios.

I very much doubt that the West will change it's behaviour sufficiently to curb greenhouse gases. The amount of 4x4s on city streets bears witness to that. To really make a difference we would have to significantly change our way of life, and how many of us are really willing to do that? How many people practically can anyway? having wind turbines in your garden may be fine if you are affluent, but can you do that in a block of flats? Somehow I can't see anyone investing in low budget housing with wind turbines or solar power included. Do many people really want to give up their holidays abroad?

Perhaps best we can hope for is that the worst case scenario does not come into being. It becomes a matter not of stopping climate change but of having an infrastructure in place that is able to deal with it. Perhaps that is too optimistic though, as the anarchic nature of global capitalism is by it's nature disordered.

Perhaps people may just come to realise that capitalism is inadequate or unable to deal with environmental damage. A non profit driven system, with decentralisation of economic and political power, may be the only environmentally sustainable one.