It is telling that when we received the suggestion for this weeks topic the question that was actually asked of us was: ‘Is global warming fact or fiction?’ The very fact that is even remains a legitimate question to ask in this day and age, when every credible scientific investigation into the subject has come back with the same answer, and all you have on the other side is politically minded rhetoric and flat earth Neanderthal journalism is quite frankly enough to make me want to go on some kind of rampage through the streets. I could strip naked and paint myself in woad, and wield some kind of axe. That would be good.

I’ll try and resist the urge to just type the word ‘FACT’ in big bold letters again and again until my website looks like something written by Jack Nicholson in the Shining. But I do find it remarkable that this debate even exists in modern society, and I think it represents final evidence that science is no longer held to be the bastion of perceived wisdom that it was for me when I grew up. Last week BBC showed an episode of Panorama about this very topic called ‘Science under Attack’ (which you can watch here if you actually want some of that there ‘evidence’ that scientists like to use and you are based in the UK or are clever enough to get around such geographical rules) which made the point that in today’s information age the idea of truth has lost its value. Everything is debatable, nothing is fact and all voices are equal out here in Internet land, meaning that you can search for global warming on Google and find equal representation given to both the scientific evidence, and the kind of people who believe that they require tin foil on their heads in order to keep the government thought control out.

While this is certainly true, I think that a lot of the reason that the global warming argument has failed to convince is that some of the people who deny it are not the internet crazies, but rather the kinds of people you would expect to be well researched and not cuckoo for caca , like politicians and journalists. Of course we all know the Mail and the Telegraph, the Tea Party and UKIP are collectively as balanced and sane as a convention of people who like to smear themselves in excrement while listening to Phil Collins and drinking month old milk, but that’s because you dear readers of this blog are intelligent, not to mention attractive and pleasant smelling. But this message doesn’t seem to have gotten through to everyone for some reason.

So the truth remains under attack on a constant basis, despite the very best evidence they can call on is the fact that a researcher failed to label ONE graph correctly. So they just keep quoting each other over and over, their delusions becoming like a self fulfilling prophecy.

So where does that leave us? Well for my generation it doesn’t really matter a shit, I suspect, unless the finite resources of this planet we call home start to fail over the course of our lifetimes. This is why it is so easy for our generation to ignore it all, mumbling excuses about recessions and deficits and if the economy was better, all the while the situation seems to be becoming ever less reversible with time. As individuals we’re all very good at putting stuff off until the last minute, and this doesn’t feel like the last minute yet, and it probably won’t be until the waters are lapping at our ankles that we will start to think about seriously acting.

But I digress. The question which started all this off was ‘Global Warming, fact or fiction?’ Well to be honest I doubt very much that if you are reading this you have yet to make up your mind. If you agree with me then excellent, and if you disagree with me in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence then it’s not really very likely that my hastily constructed thoughts on this are going to to sway you. But as much as I believe that the answer to that is firmly the former, I have to ask, what does it matter? If there is even the remotest possibility that the actions we take now impact on the environment around us and potentially damage the world we hand down to the next generation and the generations after them, don’t we owe it to them to at least try and stop that from happening?

In an age of austerity and financial uncertainty the environmental agenda gets lost in the mist somewhere, but that is a huge opportunity missed. Changing to a green world will cost a lot of money, yes, but that money will go to jobs and industry that will fuel this change, and provide the next generation with the infrastructure of renewable energy and sustainable long term growth, as well as technological advances. It will make the air cleaner, reduce our reliance on foreign oil (which will also help to deal with certain of the tensions in the area that the oil itself comes from) and even if global warming turns out to be a massive fabrication will ensure this generation leaves the planet in better shape than we found it.

Successive generations have had things they can be proud of, from the industrial revolution, the birth of democracy, the defeat of fascism, the invention of popular culture. We are seriously in danger of missing the opportunity that is at our feet at the moment, and with every stalled world conference, blown treaty or even right wing attack we make it that much harder for the generation that comes after us (which incidentally, doesn’t seem to want to go to bed tonight, perhaps she senses the huge burden that will fall on her shoulders. Maybe not, it could just be that I shouldn’t have given her any chocolate this evening) to pick up our mess.

Put it this way. If science is wrong, we get massive benefits if we follow their advice. If the Daily Mail and all the nutters out there in crazyland are wrong, they could well spell the and of civilization itself. Perhaps just this once we should err on the side of caution?

Anyway, that’s my thoughts. Now let’s all pile on over to see what Gray makes of it all.

One of the advantages of the kind of unsociable hours that Ellen works is that come the weekend it is perfectly possible for her to work both Saturday and Sunday and with a judicious use of time management still be able to have a full weekend of family fun and activities. Given the doom-mongering nature of weather forecasters over the last few weeks declaring that this would be the last decent weekend of the summer before the onslaught of another brutal Yorkshire winter, we decided to make the most of it.

I have to admit that when I got home on Friday my thoughts turned immediately to the prospect of a Saturday free of plans and rejoiced, only to have my idyllic notions of a peaceful day shattered when Ellen reminded me that Rosie, and by extension us, had been invited to the birthday party of one of her nursery friends. As far as things I’d rather not do go, attending the party of a child I’ve never met and making small talk with parents I’ve nothing in common with ranks somewhere in between attending the live final of Big Brother and getting my feet hacksawed off, but actually the event itself turned out to be a really good day.

The family, who obviously were a lot more flush than we, had hired a converted double-decker bus filled with soft play things and Rosie had a grand time, and then there was cake and a garden party and for the adults, beer and Pims. Alas, it seemed we were not allowed to deviate from our assigned gender roles, and I was stuck with a beer while Ellen drank a delicious-looking glass of red summer nectar. Oh well. As well as this, while the atmosphere was a little stilted to begin with, most of the parents there were not the stuck-up middle class types I expected, and we even managed to make friends with a couple who we could talk about taking our kids to festivals and the prospect of trying to get them to read good books. Had the whole afternoon comprised nothing but small talk I would have hated it, but there were some genuinely nice people there, who made the event fly by quite quickly. The sun was shining, Rosie had a grand time and was so exhausted when she got home that she only managed to stay up for one episode of the Simpsons and fell asleep during Down In The Woods At Sleepytime.

Sunday heralded a hectic morning with Rosie alternating between being a cat, and being the most irritable version of herself that she could muster, before we met up with Ellen at lunchtime and headed to the York Peace Festival. We attended this same event last year, and the first thing that we noticed was how much it had grown, with the whole of Rowntree Park heaving under tents, activities, and stages crammed with live music of varying quality. And of course, this being a Peace festival, there were tents declaring a thousand different ways to save the world, ranging from head massages to renewable energy, to the ever present worship of a benevolent zombie. No doubt my younger self would have been itching to engage with these stalls, but as I age I find myself less and less able to tolerate their collective do-goodyism. I may be changing into a Daily mail reader as I type. If any of them were to have a genuine path to enlightenment and world peace then I’m sure I would have been impressed, but the vast majority of them smack of nothing more than middle class guilt and hobbyism. Perhaps I am being harsh, but thankfully we spent a lot less time at these tents than we did with Rosie in Rowntree Park’s excellent and huge playground.

Thankfully Rosie is now at the age where she can be trusted to handle herself without too much supervision when it comes to playgrounds, and she was again quickly wearing herself out by running and climbing at a thousand miles an hour, and then we wandered over to the Arena stage and watched some salsa band who were incredibly tight and good, if you like that sort of thing, and Rosie danced for a bit along with a few other kids, and then we wandered back along the river with Rosie on my shoulders, meowing away as she went back into cat mode. And then it was back again for a few more episodes of the Simpsons with Rosie, then a nice evening with a couple of bottles of wine, the Swedish Wallander (depressing but excellent) followed by watching Grosse Point Blank for the first time in years and finding it to be as excellent as I had remembered, although Ellen disagreed, having the temerity to state that to her it would be a three star film. No respect for the 90’s that girl. All told, if I could have a picture postcard weekend to sum up what’s nice about being a parent and being part of a family, it would be this one. And if it turns out to be the last of the summer we see this year, perhaps that’s for the best.

Dear Rosie

Last time I wrote you a letter on here, it was to give you advice. This time, it’s an apology.  You see, as I write this it would appear that my generation and the one that came before it has utterly and totally screwed you. Sorry.  Global warming is currently a threat. One we’ve known about for years but one on which virtually no real action has been taken by the people in power. 

But for you global warming will in all likelihood be a massive problem, one which will mean you have no chance to grow up in the kind of world I did.  One which will mean that our home nation may be underwater, that the world’s economy is devastated and that famine and plagues and floods are the standard order of the day.  One if that really is the world you are faced with, I’m sorry.

You see, one of the real problems faced by mankind (other than all the harmful Co2 we keep spewing into the atmosphere) is an attitude that loves nothing more than to put things off.  We are experts in using delaying tactics, much like the sort that you yourself will be doing in a few years time. For example, putting off your homework by saying you need to tidy your room. Or you need to finish the chapter in your book. Or there’s a really good show on, and you promise you’ll do it as soon as it’s finished.

Except when you look at the politicians today, it’s the same thing but on a much larger scale. ‘We would tackle the environment but we need to keep our economies afloat.’ Or; ‘But if we cut emissions then other countries will overtake us.’  That kind of thing. But what we all know and nobody is saying is that every government is saying; ‘It’s not gonna start causing chaos just yet, so let the next guy deal with it.’

But the more and more we put it off, the more the scientists speak with more urgency about the need to act.  And so we do token gestures. Countires agree to small reductions as long as they can buy the right to pollute more. A few people take up cycling while the vast majority still drive. We recycle our cans and bottles.  And all the while we know deep down that it’s not enough.

But there is room for hope. In America the most powerful man on the planet (no, not the leader of China, but America, they were really important back when you were little) seems to be serious on solving this issue (once he’s sorted out all the other ones of course) and at our next election the choice is between three party leaders who all seem to be serious about the environment too. (Although I wouldn’t trust one of them in all honesty. You can check if I was right, he was the next Prime Minister after I wrote this. No seriously, we elected a haircut. Sorry about that as well.)

And there are millions of people across the planet who care, and who don’t want to leave a mess behind for you and your generation to live through.  Today over 8000 bloggers are writing things about this subject.  That might not sound like a lot, but a lot of them have a lot more readers than me.  So it may well be that as more and more people wake up to the reality of climate change we may just do something to sort it all out before you are looking at a world absolutely devastated.  I really do hope so.

But in case we don’t, I’m sorry.

Love from your Daddy.