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

I've just written an opinion piece here: A25324382.

I want to know what people think before I tart it up and submit it to the Post.

This is well-written and thunderingly heartfelt, therefore eminently readable.

A few typos:

happeninng in the [sea?] acros the world

richer in greenhouse gases, namely [mainly?] (you guessed it) [if namely, then gas]

volcanism --> vulcanism? Chambers gives both, but chooses vulcanism as the principal version (I hadn't come across volcanism before)

because you*r* marshalled your arguments

so scie*b*nce looks for the evidence

Otherwise, fine. It is in my view a pity to equate or correlate obstinancy with right-wingness: it may be a well-established correlation, but it remains a caricature; but after all this is an opinion piece for the post, not a potential edited-entry, and it is your view that counts here.

So, forge ahead! It is important for such strong words to be published and read.

If you want an example (albeit, a fictional one, but no doubt close to the truth) of left-wing obstinacy, you won't find one much better than Peter Sellers and his cohorts in 'I'm Alright Jack'.

I think the point I'm trying to make here is that it's a particular *kind* of obstinacy that I euate with right wing views; a knee-jerk reaction when confronted with environmental issues. I'm old enough to remember Eric Heffer and Red Robbo, and the corrosive influence they had on left-wing politics for years in Britain. So I don't exclusively associate obstinact with the Right. It's just that this issue is bigger than anything any politician has ever had to deal with before.

I can't agree with the political bias you've put on some paragraphs, much of what people think of as 'the right' are the landed gentry, and they generally know quite a lot about land management and natural cause and effect, and I think your argument is stronger without politics. It just gives people something else to snipe at - discredit a sentence to discredit the argument, that old Bill Clinton tactic.

I seem recall reading that as the ph level of the ocean alters then plankton production alters, and when CO2 levels are high masses of algae is supposed to rise to the surface and absorb it all - which allegedly - is how the CO2 was removed from the atmosphere earlier in the planet's history.

I think you could talk about those who think they can buy their way out of this mess - carbon trading, and tree planting, and the sheer blinkeredness of their beliefs.

I'm nor trying to make out that all of the right are like this: it's just that most of the climate change denials seem to be coming from that side at the moment. There's a certain subset of the right that are really worked up about trying to discredit this issue.

Also, I think that many of the landed gentry have a very vingnetted perspective on the environment. They don't think globally, just locally.

I don't know enough about #buying our way of this mess' to comment upon it.

I've sorted out the typos now.

Beautiful sunset tonight. Kind of chemical tinge. Pink vapour trails. The heavy scent of high octane fuel on the air. A banana yellow moon. The squeal of a distant pine martin.