Chilling results from carbon data

h DEAR. After all the huffing and puffing about the imperative of meeting the most ambitious climate change targets in the world, Scotland’s carbon emissions went up last year, not down. Our greenhouse gases rose by 9 per cent, according to statistics from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

Environmental groups are now warning that the Scottish Government needs to “up its game” . A “step change” is now needed, they say. The cold weather and the economic recovery are blamed. But this raises two conundrums. Since the thesis at the heart of global warming is, well, global warming, how come we had colder, not warmer weather?

As for “economic recovery”, the implication here is that the Scottish Government needs to up its game by driving us into recession to meet those climate change targets. If only we had more plant closures, less household spending, more people unemployed and less stuff being consumed, how much better off we would be on those CCC statistics. The next step must surely be to strap wind turbines on our foreheads, mothball all buses and cars and force us on to bicycles – and the colder it gets, the more drastically this policy should be enforced. We would be fitter and healthier, and with cleaner air – for those who survived.