The last couple of weeks have brought a series of doom-laden stories indicating that global warming is happening faster and/or with greater inevitability than we had thought, and another series of government responses to it.
It started the week before last with a report which should have made banner headlines across all the front pages, but was actually tucked away in small paragraphs on inside pages: that scientists had found that over a ten-year period the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the waters of the north Atlantic has halved. That means that the oceans - or at least that bit of them - are no longer soaking up some of the excess CO2 we keep pumping into the atmosphere, but actually releasing some more. We're relying heavily on oceanic uptake, so this is seriously bad news.
The other carbon sink we rely on is the world's forest, but there was a report just today that the northern forests aren't doing their assigned job either. Forest fires are destroying forests and releasing CO2 almost as fast as new growth soaks it up.
A couple of days after the north Atlantic story we had the British Antarctic Survey reporting that the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere was 35% higher than we thought it was. That makes the IPCC's forecast of temperature rises this century of up to 6.4 degrees "seem unduly optimistic". Given that 6.4 degrees would be a death sentence for the human race (see the blog of April 19th, "No hiding place") that is very scary.
A week ago the United Nations Environment Programme reported that the failure of governments to prioritise responses to climate change was "putting humanity at risk", then a couple of days later respected environmentalist James Lovelock declared that it was already too late to tackle climate change.
So what is the government doing about it? Re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. They started by admitting that they were actually retreating from the target they set for themselves - an extremely modest one, given the seriousness of the threat - to increase the proportion of energy generated from renewables to 20% by 2020. Then we had a report that food miles by air have increased by 31% in the last year - not actually by government fiat, but for lack of any restraint.
We did get a "strengthening" of the Climate Change Bill, but it will still include targets only every five years, and no legal responsibility on ministers to achieve them. Given the government's track record of setting itself modest targets then abolishing them as soon as they begin to look difficult to meet, this does not inspire confidence.
Then just a couple of days ago we had Ruth Kelly announcing a transport plan that's all about maximising economic competitiveness, and includes road building and further expansion of aviation. It beggars belief.
My metaphor was wrong. This is not re-arranging the deckchairs as the Titanic heads for the iceberg - it is countermanding the order of "Hard a-port!" to "Steady as she goes". The Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats. Spaceship Earth doesn't have any.
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