Squeaky clean

Yesterday's Guardian included a prominent piece about how it was going to do its bit to save the planet. Most of this was about giving more coverage to save the planet related news, including here both the science and the facts on the ground - this last being the various weather related events - disasters even - that we seem to be increasingly prone to. Some of it was about to moving the Guardian operation itself to a carbon neutral position, although I did not take in exactly how they propose to do this.

Then, towards the back of the paper, we had a full page advertisement for a cruise in the Antarctica, a cruise which appears to involve catching a plane to the other end of the world and then catching a ship in which to go and disturb the pristine, snowy wastes. Just the sort of activity we need to roll back, if we are indeed to save the planet.

I am reminded of a law of physics which says that you cannot measure anything without disturbing it. So all those scientists busily running around the Antarctic, collecting evidence for global warming, are themselves contributing, albeit in a small way, to that same global warming. Hopefully an irony that most of them are fully aware of.

A reminder also that it is hard to be squeaky clean. Almost as hard a trick as being immaculate, in the manner the mother of Jesus.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/advertisement.html. A sample of my own coverage of the matter.