h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting if a bit predictable. We have been told for years that ‘We have to do something’ or that we should ’stop doing something’. The reality is that actually the earth will sort itself out and that nature has some pretty powerful repair mechanisms.

A recent example was the hurricane that hit the UK and ‘decimated’ several forest and homes. Oh the tragedy, the disaster to nature this caused. We must go to the woods and help nature heal itself. What was found a year after the event was that where well intentioned people had been in and cleared the fallen trees to help nature, they had actually caused significant damage. Areas that were left untouched recovered faster and more vibrantly. Biologists became excited to discover plants, fungi and animals, thought to be lost were sprouting up in and around the fallen rotting trees.

There are trees that are several hundreds of years old. But they will die and their offspring will grow. Surprisingly, nature had sorted this all out long before humans made their presence felt on the earth.

Additionally, the concept of man induced global warming is flawed. The history of the Earth has had hot and cold spells. Certain parts of northern Europe have signs of once being a lot warmer than currently and the Ice age is quite well documented. This all happened without the intervention of humans. Of course if we had been around just before the last ice age and had prevented it, we would be hiding in the forests from the large carnivorous lizards today, and we would be saying how good it was that we stopped the Global Cooling happening.

Still, I suppose it gives the ‘Well Intentioned’ people something to berate the rest of us with. What is really interesting is why those in authority jump on this band wagon so readily. If I were a cynic, I might think it is all one big distraction technique so we don’t find out what they are really up to. There was an argument that Global Warming was just a rouse to stop Africa digging up it’s natural resources and becoming an industrialised region to compete with America, Europe and China put together. Come to think of it – why hasn’t Africa developed like elsewhere?