I have just read an article on the Times On-line website - Artificial trees and brightened clouds may help to cool us down - where there is talk about planting willow trees, burning the wood and then burying the charcoal so that the carbon dioxide is not released into the atmosphere or of creating artificial trees to recycle the carbon dioxide and pumping out oxygen.
On the face of it these seem clever thoughts but these theories deserve some much deeper consideration - are we not just trying to develop technologies that will allow us to continue on the same course of destruction by merely prolonging the date?
Surely, by definition, planet earth is not sustainable. We have consumed much of what the earth has to offer without putting much back and at some stage, regardless of how careful we wish to be from now on, life as we know it will inevitably become extinct.
Maybe, without human life, the world will regenerate over time and once again, re-produce much of the life giving properties that were once in such abundance?
I am beginning to enjoy the way we are all turning our attentions to 'sustainability'. To some it is merely a buzzword or just a statement. Others are enjoying the fashion accessories that accompany the lifestyle.
For the rest it is truly the only way that we can go but, and I feel passionately about this, we need to operate a policy of sustainability on a global scale.
Man rushed to ditch the horse and the cart when the combustion engine became widely available. There is no doubt that the car, lorry and petrol machinery changed the world but what wasn't known back at the start of the 1900's was for every positive from a social and commercial view point, there now seem to be many negatives that cannot be undone.
We are now thinking of food miles as a nation rather than a few sixties style eco-warriors who wanted to 'opt out.'
My personal view is we should embrace communism in a much broader sense and start to cooperate in much tighter geographical circles.
Assuming that we have to concede, at least for the immediate future, that Tesco, Sainsbury's et al will remain as they are (although I can see the hypermarket demise within ten years) I want to see each shop become responsible for its own produce and be given a maximum radius allowance for those purchases.
If we can deploy a policy of minimum food miles and community produce on a wide scale I feel we can limit delivery distances and reduce carbon emissions.
This may sound wacky but why on earth can't we start using the horse again? Why can't the local farmer slaughter on-site and deliver to the local town for sale and consumption on a Saturday morning?
I remember, as a kid, walking a few minutes from my home on a Saturday morning to a house on the edge of the Blackmoor estate. A lady called Mrs Turner - rather portly with red cheeks wearing flowery dress and wrinkled stockings - cultivated a huge allotment/vegetable patch.
Although I liked sweets just like the next kid we used to pop in and buy a fresh carrot and invariably we were allowed to pull the carrot up ourselves.
Local people (within walking distance) bought fresh and in-season vegetables from her.
Back to the point - should we be looking at wholesale lifestyle change rather than asking science to find ways of prolonging our present one?
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