Oops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam

I couln’t find my socks. I looked everywhere but no luck, they had disapeared without trace.
Suddenly, I knew what had happened, I knew what was responsible — climate change.

For those readers who have been asleep since 1975 when US scientist Wallace Broecker published a scientific paper with the term “global warming”, Climate Change is responsible for all human ills, from the global level down to my missing socks.

Could my missing socks be our planet’s retribution for my part in releasing carbon dioxide, CO2, into its atmosphere? I had personally released huge quantities of this greenhouse gas when working with CO2 lasers, both in the UK and in Israel. Cylinder after cylinder of CO2 flowed freely through my lasers, getting a bit of stimulation from a High Voltage power supply on its way into the atmosphere. But, as someone once said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Climate Change had not yet been invented and I did not know that I was destroying the planet.

A glance at the newspaper, any newspaper, on any day you like, will reveal at least one horror story telling of the damage caused by climate change. Only this week we had the story of the Whaley Bridge Dam in Derbyshire. This dam was in danger of collapse with potentially catastrophic results for the inhabitants of the small township of Whaley Bridge. Another sure sign of climate change said the BBC. They rushed to get the low-down from a retired dam engineer. Unfortunately for the BBC, the engineer had not been properly briefed and he explained that this dam, built in the nineteenth century, was ancient, decaying and poorly-built. Its soft and un-compacted infrastructure was totally unsuited to the current heavy but perfectly normal rainfall. Move along, please, no climate change here.

But that was yesterday. Today, climate change is back with a new name — climate emergency. The UK Telegraph warns us that only diet change can save the world from climate change.

In the UK, around half of food-related greenhouse gas emissions are due to beef and dairy production. So red meat is out, grass is in; we must become vegetarians.

The climate emergency, we are told, is now the greatest threat to global stability. It is a major driver of migration, disease and war. So now we know why we have enemies comitted to our destruction on all our borders.

Hezbollah is worried about Climate Change. They see Israeli restaurants overflowing with diners enjoying a nice sirloin steak and worry about the planet. Hamas sees our supermarket meat counters offering us “specials” at very low prices, with no thought for the long-suffering Earth.

No wonder that the brave Palestinian defenders of our planet are prepared to go to any lengths. What is the slaughter of an innocent yeshiva student compared to the imperative of cutting carbon dioxide. But at least we now know what our Palestinian neighbours really want. We humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. To save the planet, Israelis must stop breathing.