Look, let’s just cut out the hot air

IT is immaterial in a very real sense whether human agency has caused any of the current cycle of global warming. But it is essential is that we stop poisoning ourselves with increasingly avoidable noxious atmospheric emissions into the atmosphere as soon as possible and turn to clean energy options that science is developing.

EARTH’S climate is a dynamic entity, far beyond the present capacity of humans to control or even influence in more than a minor, localised way. Neither Al Gore nor all the money he hoped to make from carbon sinks after persuading the world to embrace de-development as a sensible policy option, nor all the other rhetoricians conscripted to the doomsday cause, can make an iota of difference.

WE cannot stop economic advance. We must recognise that this inevitably means more and more people living in cities and earning their wages in non-agricultural pursuits - and the corollary to that, which is that the real job is to make cities truly liveable; and in countries such as Indonesia, to create a real economy that will give citizens real jobs.

THE developed world must fully recognise - that is, beyond its rhetoric and concessional loans - that the developing world in the 21st century can no longer be ignored. There must be compromises. These will have to come predominantly from the developed world, for practical and well as political reasons.

The message of the moment is that now is the time to embrace change. So let’s embrace it. But hold the hot air.