A World Fit For Our Kids

I don't know how many times I got texted and emailed when the heavy snows were about with the pithy line, 'Global warming, my arse.' I even perpetuated it by sending around a text saying, 'The Conference on Global Warming has been cancelled due to heavy snow.' Ha, ha.

Many of my good friends are massive sceptics when it comes to the environment and believe it is some sort of conspiracy that perpetuates the myth that humans affect the world in which they live, as there if there is instant financial gain in saying that. Without delving into the facts, a simple appraisal says that in the earth's 13 billion year history, there has never been an intelligent species like man and in the last 100 years or so we have invented things that have polluted our environment from smoke to gases to radio active bombs that have not been in the natural order of things before. Just as when Mount St Helena exploded had profound environmental effects and was a natural phenomenon, so too when Chernobyl melted down, radioactive rain poured on the sheep of North Wales.

To think, in this short time, man has not had an affect on the environment is surely illogical for those reasons alone.

Putting our heads in the sand does not help even if some of the facts are wrong. The point is that as parents, our first priority should be giving our kids a future, yet we behave so differently. Yes, we want them to learn to read and write but what point would that be if future generations face a world so badly polluted that it becomes less sustaining of life.

Somehow, the environment and the future of the planet must get some credence. Just as the Cold War threatened the world we found a way to get round it when national differences are put to one side. Perhaps the same can happen again when the United States stops worrying about how much oil China needs.

Again, as I watch my little boy play in the safety of his playpen, I hope that the wider world will be as safe and as welcoming to him in the future.


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