Quote Originally Posted by rolymiller View Post
Reasonable points Monts and probably why we are up sh it creek. If it is true we need to be all singing off the same hymn sheet (which could be our last resort literally!) 12 years, if that is the magical number, is not a long time to rehearse properly. The lack of foresight you mention could also come back to haunt us. We should have been starting to tackle these problems when we first started noticing them maybe 30/ 40 years ago but as you say we chose to ignore them because it wasn't deemed as urgent and the here and now mattered most. The problem is even if we got together magically now even today with some sort of educated plan as a species to try and tackle the problem it could very well be too late. We can hope that the scientists are wrong of course and they are exaggerating the timescale of events but this can work 2 ways; it could be that they have underestimated how quickly this is going to happen as well. They are already saying the Earth's temperature is rising faster than they thought. It ain't good.

In a way, I'm a bit pissed off because I will probably be gone before finding out what happens! Did Humans survive or didn't they? Its like watching a thrilling movie and missing the end because you have to dash to the bog! Still I might have an idea of the result if we are 4-0 down when I snuff if with 5 minutes left.
That, if we are honest is exactly why Capitalism is genearlly successful, pandering to our basic instincts greed being probably at the top of the list
Deregulation [a la Thatcher mantra ] can be held as one of the main reasons to encourage such instincts ,let the market decide etc

Kerr demonstrates on a regular & frequent basis his love of such instincts but I'm sure he doesn't forget to drop a coin or two into those begging on the street [notice how their number increases daily in spite of his generousity]

I think the answer is 42