‘Green’ lobby should be more careful what they are wishing for

The high usage of fossil fuels really got started with the advent of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine.

For many centuries before that we had been dependent on wind, water, horse, camel and ox power, but it’s obvious that these were insufficient to kick-start modern industrialisation, and it’s pretty clear that they would in themselves be insufficient to maintain it either. The likes of wind and water turbines, and solar panels could, at substantial cost, supply a part of our needs, but will never be able to supply the whole.

So if we are looking to dispense with fossil fuels, while maintaining a modern way of life, then the only available option under current technology is to revert to the steam engine with nuclear power boiling the water, and to use the generated electricity for everything else. So far as Guernsey is concerned, we know that nuclear reactors have been able to power vessels such as submarines, so it looks like a mini-nuclear reactor to generate our electricity may well be technically feasible, though whether it would be economic on such a small scale I do not know. Of course countries would have problems associated with the disposal of radioactive waste, but we can’t have it both ways.

Guernsey and Jersey have already had a small foretaste of political problems that would undoubtedly arise if we bought all our electricity via an undersea cable. Any country on whom we were entirely dependent for an electricity supply would have us over a barrel, and not just over fishing rights, and we shouldn’t think that having a contract would help us, because at an international level how could it be enforced?

But what the world should really have been worrying about over the years, and should certainly be worrying about now, are the very real dangers inherent in world over-population. The mushrooming world population is such an intractable problem that few even want to think about it, and those that do just seem to end up in denial of any solution.

Global warming of the man-made variety is in itself unlikely to wipe out the human race, even if it makes things somewhat uncomfortable. But world overpopulation? Who knows?

World overpopulation will lead to shortages of mineral ores, and ironically the rare metals needed for rechargeable batteries may be the first to suffer. It is also leading to shortages of land on which to grow food, continuing loss of natural habitats, water shortages, and shortages of food itself. This may in turn lead to wars, invasions and conquests, and increasing urbanisation will make us more susceptible to pandemics (likely also to be more common unless we can control some scientists’ apparent enthusiasm for gain-of-function virus research).

So we need to see global warming in this context, and in my view, we would be most unwise to pursue so-called ‘green’ policies, if in doing so we risked putting extra strains on our economy, especially when huge countries such as China have different agendas and ambitions, which are very likely on present trajectories to prove to be at our cost and their benefit.

We in the West may deplore China’s human rights record, and their attitude to fossil fuel usage, but we can be sure that China doesn’t care what we think. China is already overtaking the US and Europe both militarily and economically, and President Xi Jinping has the strong ambition for China to become the world’s dominant nation. Both he and China have the power and ability to achieve this, and are already well on the way towards doing so.

So we need to be looking after ourselves, and not trying single-handedly to point the way towards so-called green policies which are purely relative, and only partial solutions, in any case.

The UK under Boris and others, is getting more and more unrealistically extreme in response to a so-called ‘green’ lobby who really ought to be more careful what they are wishing for. They should think things through a lot better, especially bearing in mind that computer models are no better than the data and programs provided by human beings, and can reflect expected or preferred outcomes. This has been amply demonstrated for example, by some of the models produced in the course of the pandemic.

BOB PERKINS

Les Corneilles,

Rue de la Ronde Cheminee

Castel

GY5 7GD