Two e-mails from Gordon Brown in fifteen minutes – further proof that the environment is now mainstream

It’s nothing to do with ‘saving the planet’, but reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a pressing problem facing the international community. A rudimentary knowledge of geology is all that’s needed to understand that it’s our species that’s at risk, not the globe we live on.

It’s a mark of human vanity that ‘saving the planet’ has become a battle cry for many in the green movement. But, were our species to die out today, it would leave barely a trace in the fossil records unlike, for example, the dinosaurs who were around for ages.

But climate change does pose a threat to our species. At worst it could cause the earth to become uninhabitable for creatures like us. But this is unlikely to happen. More likely would be a reduction in the total population as more areas became difficult to sustain an existence in.

So what’s to be done? Carrot or stick, unilateral or multinational? Any one who tells you there is an easy solution is lying.

The heartening news is that the topic is now firmly on the agenda of governments rather than only the subject of political fringe meetings.

The Independent, amongst others, has noted that this is Gordon Brown’s baby in Britain. Hence the e-mails to party members. If he can help bring the sort of stability to the world’s climate that he’s brought to the British economy, he really will earn his place in history...