Even as the problem of global warming gets more alarming by the day, countries are thinking up ingenious ways to avoid the inevitable – a cut in the emission of greenhouse gases. I cannot help being reminded by the current discourse on this issue, of the book by Andy Grove – Intel’s chairman, Only the Paranoid Survive.
In the book he had mentioned that one of the things that CEO’s do to avoid facing the really crucial issues, is to involve themselves in productive but really unimportant issues. Something similar seems to be happening here. There is a lot of talk of using bio fuel. There is also some steps being taken towards using more bio fuels instead of oil. There is a lot of emphasis suddenly on nuclear fuel, especially here in India. There is also some talk of harnessing solar and wind energy, though nothing substantial has been done in this area. These steps, though in themselves are good, and a century or so ago, when global warming was not even a bleep on the horizon and our emission levels were well below the danger level, could have had significant benefits.
But not now. Not when scientists are saying we have less than fifteen years to save the world from skidding towards the brink of an environmental precipice.
One of the plans mooted to contain global warming is building forest sinks. You would have read in your school that trees use carbon dioxide and give out oxygen, now our policy makers are hell bent on turning this school lesson into a weapon to fight global warming. Checking deforestation, reducing the use of wood, aforestation, are sold as substantial steps to check global warming.
America is one of the champions of this method of combating global warming, so is Australia. Australia has succeeded in meeting is Kyoto protocol targets by simply reducing deforestation. Even as its industries have continued spew out toxic fumes. Such issues are soft solutions if not downright frauds.
It is clear that they have not been carefully thought out. Even if we switch to using other materials, like plastic, or glass, instead of wood, these things would still have to be produced. And the production would add even more to global warming than cutting wood does.
We must also remember that carbon dioxide is not the only pollutant; which means that forests would not be able to fully absorb global warming even if they are planted in a sufficiently large scale.
As long as we continue to use the planet’s resources as callously as we do now there is really no way to stop global warming.
We need substantial cuts in the emission levels, and we need it fast. Governments have been avoiding this issue because the only way this can be done is by rolling back industrialization, something that no government wants to do. Who would agree to roll back the movement – industrialization – that was supposed to be the cure to virtually all the evils of the world ? Which was supposed to unlock the potential of the earth and herald a golden age sans poverty? That even today is pushed as the panacea to all the ills of the developing world?
But the writing is on the wall, and it is time our leaders recognized it.
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Image courtesy Greenpeace
