Don't Touch That Kettle - Brief Article

Ecologist, The, April, 2000 by George Monbiot

There's a cruel logic to global warming: the people whose lives will be most sorely affected are those who use the least fossil fuel, says George Monbiot. Already East Africa is witnessing droughts every four or five years of the kind they used to see once every forty years, whilst in India, the source of the river Ganges could dry up by 2040.

The consequences would be an immigration crisis of unimaginable proportions. Sajeeda Choudhury, Bangladesh's environment minister, says that climate change will leave her country with 20 million refugees. And it will be up to nations like Britain to bail them out. Global warming has placed us in the extraordinary position in which hitherto harmless actions have become deadly. 'Our moral responsibility is incontestable: every time you turn on your kettle in Birmingham, you are helping to flood Bangladesh'. There is only one way forward: We have to curb our carbon emissions, not by the 1020 per cent that rich nations envisage, 'but by 90 per cent, within the next ten year s. Is any government brave enough to do this?' asks Monbiot. 'Is any government brave enough not to?'