Letters / Piling it on for effect
Here we go again (‘Wildlife photographer’s climate warning’, SN 5/12/14).
Few would argue against the importance of caring for the environment we live in.
That’s why many people think it’s a rotten idea to cover pristine wilderness, e.g. Rannoch Moor and Da Lang Kames, with wind turbines, leaving concrete foundations in their wake which will be there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, with the side effect, meanwhile, of transferring billions from the poor to the rich.
Now, along comes Doug Allen with his interesting photographic show to warn us of the impending disaster of “man-made climate change”, a threadbare marketing tool, if ever there was one.
But Doug Allen “….has been a first hand witness to the impact of climate change, which he describes as “the most important issue facing the planet”.”
And he has spent fifteen years, filming in the Antarctic. Gosh, this must be serious!
Well, no, actually, he’s just piling it on for effect, a sales pitch.
“But I have seen it, believe me”, protests Allen.
As an eyewitness (to the “ravages of climate change”), he joins the illustrious ranks of “Husky Dave” Cameron and our own Lord Lieutenant Bobby Hunter. In so doing, he demonstrates his lack of understanding of even the most basic tenets of climate change.
In fact, Antarctic sea ice extent is currently at its highest level “since records began”: http://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/antarctic-winter-sea-ice-extent-sets-new-record-2014
So, like Bobby Hunter, Mr Allan hasn’t “been a first-hand witness” to the “ravages of climate change”, unless, of course, he thinks we are heading for another ice age?
Alternatively, he may come from the school of “any climatic change, anywhere, even cooling, is a manifestation of man-made global warming”?
Furthermore, Earth’s climate is not analogous to a still-frame photograph.
Rather, it has been changing continuously, often in spectacular fashion, for about five billion years. Every living organism, including humans, contributes to that, along with many inanimate effects, notably, solar, orbital and volcanic effects.
Tropical animals like alligators and tapirs once roamed the high Arctic, in Spitzbergen and Ellesmere Island and they are no longer there because the climate changed and ice sheets covered vast areas of Europe, Asia and North America, long before humans ever existed.
So, at precisely what instant in the last five billion years, does Mr Allen consider the climate to have been the “correct” one, and how does he propose we might restore that happy state of affairs?
John Tulloch
Lyndon, Arrochar
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