Wartime values to save the planet...

[KiwiCoromandel]

Sir David Attenborough, the elder statesman of the natural world, called yesterday for a return to wartime values to save the planet from global warming.

He hit out at four-wheel-drives, electrical standby facilities and lights that were left on unnecessarily as he demanded a change in moral and intellectual attitudes towards climate change.

He said that even tiny amounts of wasted electricity were immoral because they put "our grandchildren's lives in danger".

"I grew up during the war and during the war it was a common value that wasting food was wrong," he told British MPs. "It wasn't that we thought we were going to beat Hitler by eating every bit of gristle of meat, but it was accepted as wrong to waste food. People felt that widely, universally."

Such attitudes, Sir David said, should be revived.

"There should be a general moral view that wasting energy is wrong," he said.

"It doesn't matter if it's a tiny bit or a big bit. It's a general attitude to life. We are putting in hazards for our grandchildren. Everything we do goes up and stays up for 100 years in terms of carbon dioxide. The more it does the hotter it will get."

Sir David made his call for change a few hours after the Met Office announced that 2006 was about to go down in history as the hottest in Britain since records began.

After a year of record high temperatures for July, September and the period from April to October, 2006 has an average daily temperature of 10.84C with only two weeks to go. The previous hottest years since British records began in 1659 were 1990 and 1999.

Worldwide, the temperatures are following a similar pattern, with this year the sixth hottest since global records began in 1850, while the 10 warmest years have all been recorded in the past 12 years.

Climatologist David Parker said: "2006 has been quite extraordinary in terms of the UK temperature, with several records being broken."

Officials said the world's figures supported recent research showing a link between human activity and global warming. World temperatures were kept slightly cooler than they might have been because of the La Nina effect - which causes cooler ocean temperatures - early in the year.

A weak but strengthening El Nino, which warms equatorial oceans and disrupts global weather patterns, has replaced La Nina and temperatures are now rising.

The overall average temperature for the world has risen more in the northern hemisphere, by 0.58C above the 1961-90 average, than in the southern hemisphere, where the rise was 0.26C.

For the northern hemisphere, this year was the fourth hottest since records began in 1850, while for the southern hemisphere it was the seventh warmest.

Sir David, who was giving evidence to the Commons Environment Select Committee, said it was not all doom and gloom. He was convinced the public's attitude was changing.

"I'm hopeful that there's real change taking place in moral attitudes, which isn't to do with saving a penny here and there. The moral drive is there," he said.

"It can only be done by changing the moral and intellectual climate."

source:The Times

image:www.bbc.co.uk:SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH calls for "a return to wartime values" to help save the ENVIRONMENT...

[Hemoglobin Harry]

When I clicked on the thread I assumed he was going to call for a German invasion of Poland.

I was brought up to believe wasting food was wrong too.

[KiwiCoromandel]

same here..the "never waste food" mantra is part of a set of basic values that i have attempted to instill into my 2 kids over the years....

[slum_goddess]

i try never to waste ANYthing including food, old clothing, whatever. but this is sooo not gonna go down well in the States, the way things are.

YOU GO SIR DAVID!