The northlondonhippy

The UN’s Inter­na­tional Panel on Cli­mate Change, or IPCC as it is known, has issued the stark­est warn­ing so far on the expected effects of cli­mate change. Check out what the “news­pa­per of record”, the NYT has to say about it by click­ing RIGHT HERE.

The group, who were co-winners of the Nobel Peace Prize this year, along with Al Gore, have said that if we don’t get our shit together and soon, we’re all going to die.

Ok, per­haps those weren’t the exact words the panel used in their report, but trust me, that’s what they meant. Our con­tin­ued con­sump­tion of all the resources mother earth has to offer is screw­ing up the planet and we won’t be able to recover from this one.

The report says that we all have to take some dra­matic action to avert this loom­ing envi­ron­men­tal disaster.

As if!

Sure, China will stop build­ing their coal-burning pow­er­plants at the rate of a new one every week.

Of course, peo­ple will junk their gas-guzzling SUVs and sports cars in favour of bicycles.

And we’ll all charge our iPods less fre­quently and sit around in dark rooms, not watch­ing TV.

Let’s face facts; no one is going to change their lifestyle in the slight­est to pre­serve the future of life on the planet. Why would we? We like our mod­ern con­ve­niences, our cen­tral heat­ing, our air-conditioning, our refridger­a­tors. We love our com­put­ers and tele­vi­sions. We love noth­ing bet­ter than tak­ing a joy ride in our big, com­bus­tion motor pro­pelled vehi­cles and our cheap Easy­jet flights that cost less than train jour­neys. We like our fresh sea­sonal fruit and veg, flown in from what­ever coun­try is cur­rently in sea­son. I had some fresh sugar snap peas last week that came from Latin Amer­ica – who would want frozen or tinned?

The IPCC should be com­mended for the work they are doing, but let’s not live under any illu­sions that the rec­om­men­da­tions they’ve made will be widely adopted. They won’t be. We’re fucked. Seri­ously. Fucked.

Some of you will be fright­ened by this, but most of us will take it in our stride and go about our days like noth­ing is wrong. Works for me!

What’s the point of wor­ry­ing about some­thing you can’t pre­vent? Cli­mate change, global warm­ing, what­ever you want to call it, seems as inevitable as death and taxes, though once we’re all dead, there will be no more taxes. See, there is a bright side.

I would sug­gest you all turn your cen­tral heat­ing (or air­con) up to full blast, fill up your tank with super-premium petrol and go for a long drive. Leave your lights on at home and throw all your glass, paper, plas­tic and card­board in the non-recycling bin. If we’re all going to have to die, we might as well enjoy the ride while we can, so smoke ‘em if you got ‘em and that includes fos­sil fuels!

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