Climate Change - radical action NOW!

I went to a lecture on Climate Change by Sir David King, the recently retired Chief Government Scientist, in the Bristol Council building this week. It was packed - about 400 people waiting to hear the facts and the arguments put by someone with impeccabble authority. He delivered it all in a dry, academic style that employed facts and research to drive home the message that time is short. Among the more chilling revelations was that England will be largely flooded under the Worst Case Scenario, if we don't rapidly re-build our flood defences and drainage systems. There was much talk of the upper limit of tolerable carbon emissions of 450 parts per million in the atmosphere. This is what the international community is working to, but in order to achieve it there needs to be very rapid and radical action right now - not next year or after the 'next round of talks'. Asked what his own recommended upper limit would have been, he suggested 300 ppm.

So - how does this leave us all feeling? Most people seem to be stunned into inactivity by such talk. Those of us who talk publicly about Climate Change are advised never to alarm people lest we generate despair. Yet is seems to be only a form of desperation that drives people to take really effective measures. My own view is that we need to see this as a moral issue as well as a practical one - and go from there, making our own small (or big) changes as we respond to our own moral questioning. Decent behaviour isn't something we need to argue about, is it?

I would be interested in your thoughts. We are tackling these issues in a new book to be called What About China? It will be out in the Spring.

Trains, planes and help please

Another good train journey over the New Year, from Bristol down to La Rochelle. I talk so much about carbon footprints that I am trying hard massively to cut back on flying - so far with success for about a year. I trained to the south of France and Frankfurt in 2007, in both cases with serious benefits - such as getting to know the beautiful Strasbourg, largely ignored by British travellers becasue there is no nearby airport. For New Year we spent a night en route in Paris, which was a real plus. I don't pretend for one minute that train travel is cheap - though it can match air travel on many routes - but I do think that a train creates a proper 'journey'. And they don't get diverted because of fog.

Having said all that, what on earth to do about my long-awaited trip to Mount Athos, in Greece? I fear that the train will be painfully long-winded and expensive and that I will be reduced to flying. Any better ideas - other than 'don't go'. Mt Athos is a special case...