Klimaatverandering 71

In tegenstelling tot de NRC neemt de Britse kwaliteitskrant de Independent de klimaatverandering uiterst serieus. Vanochtend bericht het:

'EU: Climate change will transform the face of the continent.
By Michael McCarthy and Stephen Castle.
Published: 10 January 2007 .

Europe, the richest and most fertile continent and the model for the modern world, will be devastated by climate change, the European Union predicts today.
The ecosystems that have underpinned all European societies from Ancient Greece and Rome to present-day Britain and France, and which helped European civilisation gain global pre-eminence, will be disabled by remorselessly rising temperatures, EU scientists forecast in a remarkable report which is as ominous as it is detailed.
Much of the continent's age-old fertility, which gave the world the vine and the olive and now produces mountains of grain and dairy products, will not survive the climate change forecast for the coming century, the scientists say, and its wildlife will be devastated.
Europe's modern lifestyles, from summer package tours to winter skiing trips, will go the same way, they say, as the Mediterranean becomes too hot for holidays and snow and ice disappear from mountain ranges such as the Alps - with enormous economic consequences. The social consequences will also be felt as heat-related deaths rise and extreme weather events, such as storms and floods, become more violent.
The report, stark and uncompromising, marks a step change in Europe's own role in pushing for international action to combat climate change, as it will be used in a bid to commit the EU to ambitious new targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.
The European Commission wants to hold back the rise in global temperatures to 2C above the pre-industrial level (at present, the level is 0.6C). To do that, it wants member states to commit to cutting back emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, to 30 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, as long as other developed countries agree to do the same.
Failing that, the EU would observe a unilateral target of a 20 per cent cut.
The Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, gave US President George Bush a preview of the new policy during a visit to the White House this week.
The force of today's report lies in its setting out of the scale of the continent-wide threat to Europe's "ecosystem services".
That is a relatively new but powerful concept, which recognises essential elements of civilised life - such as food, water, wood and fuel - which may generally be taken for granted, are all ultimately dependent on the proper functioning of ecosystems in the natural world. Historians have recognised that Europe was particularly lucky in this respect from the start, compared to Africa or pre-Columbian America - and this was a major reason for Europe's rise to global pre-eminence.'

Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2140265.ece

Dit was de opening van de Independent. Hoe opent de Volkskrant vanochtend? Met een 5 kolommen brede foto van een man die zijn gras maait onder het kopje 'Grasmaaien in hartje winter.' Opnieuw: man bijt hond. Grappig, leuk detail, vooral ook als de Volkskrant consument medegedeeld wordt dat het warme weer 'toch gauw 100 tot 150 euro per huishouden' scheelt. Fijn, de klimaatverandering heeft zo haar voordelen. Over het beklemmende rapport van de Europese Unie geen woord. Het provincialisme in Nederland heeft autistische kantjes. Het is alsof we tussen gekken leven. Het bijschrift bij de Volkskrant-foto is deze: 'Een bewoner uit Horssen, een plaatsje in het Land van Maas en Waal, is druk bezig zijn gazon te maaien. Door de winter is de natuur behoorlijk van slag.' En ik maar denken dat de natuur slechts reageert op de mens die 'behoorlijk van slag is.' Het is net als bij kinderen die hun hoofd aan de tafelrand stoten en dan de tafel de schuld geven. Het is werkelijk een zegen om dit land te wonen.