The Red Gateway leads to an almost unimaginable world. Yet it models the prospects for a future very like the one we are sleepwalking towards at present. We will arrive there if we do nothing to turn away from business as usual. Stephen Blackmore
On a misty, moisty Sunday morning there is not much chance of doing useful work in the garden..Another weekend’s work undone. I’m now so late getting seeds in the ground, our vegetables may not see the light of day this year and the fields around Pond Cottage are not doing any better. So I’ve been digging out old documents on climate change instead.
That quote above is from Stephen Blackmore’s chapter on the different scenarios presented by a warming planet. Gardening the Earth – Gateways to a Sustainable Future, published four years ago, is an ultimately optimistic book offering hope as long as we learn to treat the environment with the care and understanding of a good gardener. But Professor Blackmore, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, also issues a chilling message: “Business as usual” will cause catastrophic climate change and the greatest mass extinction of species since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
With the thermometer struggling to get into two figures, an extra two degrees upwards sounds quite pleasant. But of course it’s not that simple. Besides (on a roller-coaster of extreme variations) we’re now hurtling towards a rise of 4°C with those unimaginable consequences. Not just for polar bears on the melted north pole, not just for far-away islands drowned at sea, but also for cities like London, New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tokyo – ever-growing centres of civilisation as we know it – facing inundation from oceans which could rise by 40 metres.
Who cares? Who believes it will happen? I listened with exasperation as BBC Today’s Caroline Quinn questioned James Hansen, former NASA climate change campaigner, on the ‘confusion’ of climate change evidence. No confusion, he firmly replied. Among the overwhelming majority of scientists there is no doubt: human behaviour is causing climate change; the planet is warming fast, and climate change predictions are based on hard evidence of what happened the last time Earth’s atmosphere contained such a high concentration of carbon dioxide. Hansen is now busy campaigning against the dash for oil from tar sands which would enable us to pump out even more CO2.
Business as usual, warns Lord Stern in another report, propels us towards an Earth which cannot feed or shelter its growing population. But business as usual is all politicians really understand. They seem unable or unwilling to inspire disillusioned voters with alternatives which could create a properly sustainable economy. Building affordable energy efficient houses on public transport routes would be a good start; building hope, employment and homes at the same time! But our ‘swivel-eyed’ British government is far too busy fighting internal battles to bother about securing the environment: fiddling with Europe while the planet burns.
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