Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds... said the Green Party

Much as I admire 80 year old eco-warriors super gluing themselves to all manner of things in the name of the environment I do have a few teensy weensy little concerns with it.

The first might just be that an 80 year old has not just lived through, er, 80 years of varying degrees of economic and industrial growth but has in all likelihood contributed and definitely benefited from it. I wonder how many cars they have bought in that time, and clothes and all manner of consumerist goods from further and further afield as time went by. So I just find it a little bit much that they should put themselves front and centre in the argument. Unless of course they all wear a sign that says, heh look, really sorry but this is all our fault and, having had all these wonderful benefits and flown around the world on holidays for many a decade we hate to have to say we were wrong and now repent and ask you not to do, or enjoy, the kind of life we did... thanks!

But that's only a small part of my concern. My bigger concern is, as is so often the case, one of economics. It would be far too complicated to follow and one line on the subject so... let me just, for the sake of argument, try this instead.

Imagine if, after all the demonstrations and, the way things are going, injuries and quite possible deaths, that somehow the whole world cut back on 'stuff' by 5%. There you go, it's a start if everything is reduced by 5%. Power, flights, holidays, coffees, cars, t-shirts, food production etc etc. All sounds so good. After all less power means less fossil fuel extracted and burnt and less food means less cows bred and slaughtered so 5% less methane produced. It's all good. At least it would be if oil producers actually cut production and farmers stopped cutting down rain forest for beef production, only they probably would not. But... let's say the world were that simple.

What then happens? Well, global production would fall. Wage growth around the world would reverse as there are a growing population and suddenly 5% less stuff being produced. So either 5% less people employed or a general cut in wages so the same number are employed but get less pay. That in turn leads to an increase in world poverty levels which, although already bad, have been falling for a long long time.

And that's not just in faraway land, that's right here too. And 5% less things produced requires 5% less people to sell them, that means 5% less employed, 5% less income taxes being paid, less to spend on government spending and yet 5% more people requiring benefits in a country that actually can still afford to pay benefits.

One way of stopping people buying things is the tried and tested taxation route. Simply adding nn% on to food or t-shirts or cars will reduce the number of sales therefore the number produced. Which assumes that the whole world has forgotten how to innovate and reduce costs either through productivity like automation, changes in material, changes in labour etc. But lets just imagine it does.

Following a route were people just stop buying things or having holidays or where taxation is used to cajole people into stopping will have an affect somewhere that is not good. In fact it will have an unfavourable impact upon the human world altogether. That might seem like a righteous thing to do and after all humans caused all these issues so therefore they should suffer. It's just when I hear that argument from people they seem mostly to be pointing in random directions not fully appreciating that the effect and the people affected are right there next to them. Indeed they are there in the mirror looking back at them.

Again, fair enough, if you are prepared for the impact then lets have a vote and see what happens. And... even if the whole world voted and decided yes, we need to take the pain it strikes me the first world countries have a responsibility to burden more of the impact as they have not just benefited most but caused it all, one way or another, in the first place. I look forward to watching the fires that'll start, which will not exactly help matters.

And I wonder, what should we do with all the people that, around the world, suddenly find themselves unemployed and on the verge of starvation? The world has found ways of dealing with mass unemployment caused by outside nations ruining their meagre economy. And a war would deal with one problem such as over crowding but the more it dealt with one problem the more likely it would be to cause another non-environmentally friendly problem.

Even though I agree and understand the 'climate emergency' protesters, I really do, the long term solutions will have to be exactly that, long term. Nobody is just going to stop doing stuff. Sure they might think more carefully and some will cut back and make life changes. But will it be enough to make a change to the environment. Seems unlikely. It will be reminiscent of a South Park episode with smug pollution! But the ice will continue to melt and the sea will continue to rise.

Lets say the 500 million of the EU all cut back and accept the impact on the economies. It will make little difference if the cast populations of Asia and the Americas do nothing. What then for the eco-warriors? Declare war? Mass extinction would certainly help the world get back on a stable path but it is a little radical.

Anyway, if we do or do not change our ways, nature will deal with it. I don't mean it will shrug its shoulders and carry on. It will continue to change the world to balance things out. If that means higher temperatures resulting in less food because there are less places to grow it and higher water levels destroying all low lying habitations and also making a great deal of drinking water undrinkable in the process, then so be it. Nature will eradicate vast swathes of the population one way or another, its got history. Also, the earth has a finite lifespan anyway. The planet is a living thing, in a non-standard way, it was born and it will die. Very very slowly all the water on earth will slowly drift out of the atmosphere and into space, but that'll take a few million years.

To change things and help slow and maybe stop climate change, will take mass government intervention and it will take decades to make the changes without causing incredible damage upon fellow inhabitants throughout the world. That is, assuming, those 80 year old eco warriors glued to the 7:15 to Paddington care about anybody outside of their direct family members and also assuming they are happy for them to accept that their descendants for years or decades to come will have a lower standard of living than they had. Oh my, how complicated, it'll make Brexit look like a puzzle for a 3-5 year old from Boots!