These words quickly come to mind when I consider the words of Frances Cairncross, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
She is expected to tell delegates at their annual festival that even maximal deployment of the best technology cannot stop climate change.
In my opinion, this is certainly true. Considering historical global warming trends, and changes in consumption and standard of living would make anyone’s “educated guess” agree with Cairncross’s assessment.
This is my concern: that many who understand some amount of climate change is inevitable may use global warming’s inevitability to advocate doing nothing to combat it’s augmentation. While I definitely believe the earth and everything created is temporary, we should do our best to protect the environment in which we live.
Nonetheless, I was intrigued by Caincross because it is not often that I hear scientists appeal to the inevitability of climate change. Maybe, we are reluctant to admit the sisyphean quality of our work…