Expectations and Estuaries

A rather depressing analysis from The Guardian’s Mark Lynas today. See the full article here, but in summary he wonders how little we are going to achieve and how late. The article is pessimistically entitled ‘Climate chaos is inevitable. We can only avert oblivion’. I’d like to say I think this is melodrama, but alas his perfectly cogent argument smacks of realism and scholarly orderliness. He poses the devastating, but just question: ‘At best we will limit the extent of global warming, but Kyoto barely helps. Does humanity have the foresight to save itself?’

I have seen Mr Lynas talk on several occasions and have also read his books. They are disturbingly calm and well thought-out, as is he, but nonetheless arrive at the inevitable conclusion that we are doomed if we insist on remaining paralysed and refusing to act. Here’s a link to Mr Lynas’s own website.

Another story proving popular today is that of the barrage. The plans to use this as a means of generating green electricity may be laudable, but most of the large environmental groups oppose it, and it seems with good reason. The plan is set to “fundamentally change the nature of the estuary,” according to the RSPB’s Chief Executive, Graham Wynne and other groups such as WWF and National Trust seem to concur. Certainly, many of the tens ofthousands of birds who currently feed on the estuary now set to be flooded look to be at risk, as does other wildlife such as eels and elvers.Obviously, there is a need to up investment into renewable energy sources and for Britain to generate more green electricity: nobody is disputing this fact. What is contentious, however, is whether or not this project would represent an ecologically (or indeed economically) sound means of pursuing that agenda.