The Green Dilemma

Green programmes tend to focus on reducing the amount of carbon that we dig up out of the ground in the form of fossil fuels for burning. But if we continue to dig it up at all, then it will inevitably all end up in the atmosphere as CO2 (any forests around absorbing it only temporarily). So, whatever programme we adopt, we are still going to reach a point when the greenhouse gas levels become so high that they cause catastrophic global warming. The only way that I can see of avoiding this particular Armageddon is wholly to convert to renewable/nuclear sources, and to use some of the energy thereby obtained to transform a percentage of the carbon that's already out there back into plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc.

But that's in the future, and the planet must wait for public opinion to catch on. Meanwhile, we need to be as green as we can, in order to buy a little more time.

To vote or not to vote - that is the question?

Quite a lot of Winchester residents visit the Winchester City Council website, and a number are sufficiently interested in making their views known to take the trouble to click on the poll about voting intentions. But the current state of the poll (evening of Friday 5 February) is that an astonishing 64% have already decided not to vote in the forthcoming elections! We would all do well to remember Edmund Burke's famous aphorism:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

We surely ought to vote?