Achieving affluence the Kalahari way

A taxi driver told me this week that global warming was "all a con by the government to tax the motorist". But listening to Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, at an Earthwatch lecture in Oxford on Wednesday I was wondering if the taxi driver might be mistaken.

Prof. Rapley is as certain as anyone can be that global warming is happening. Moreover, he doesn't hedge his bets by talking only about climate change that could be explained as a cyclical thing. He says that we're to blame. Us. People. That's you, me, the taxi driver and Prof Rapley. It's our mums and dads, neighbours and relatives and Karl Benz.

I wouldn't include the Kalahari bushmen, the aborigines or the pygmies in this list. Little children, too, might escape blame, although they will not escape the legacy of a 20th century that will probably be remembered - if the human race lives long enough to enjoy a memory - as the age of the internal combustion engine or maybe the oil age.

Prof Rapley showed us graphs where the line over time is a gentle, almost imperceptible upward slope - population, atmospheric carbon levels and mean global temperature. Then suddenly when the historic clock reaches the late 19th century the graph curves steeply as if it's met a big wall.

He showed us pictures of breaking ice sheets, the melting arctic and polar bears swimming (although there was a story this week of polar bear populations rising. How come?). "This stuff isn't rocket science," he said, "And I should know. I am a rocket scientist."

Saying something like that on a platform must be every rocket scientist's dream. You'd make sure you practiced that line in front of the mirror. Anyway it got a laugh.

But global warming itself is no longer a laughing matter. Neither is it a matter only for Al Gore or the next Earth summit. We all have to do our bit. I'm doing bugger all whenever I can since doing bugger all is very helpful at combating global warming.

Original affluent society

Anthropologists have noted the way that the Hadza bush tribes spend much of their time sitting around throwing dice because they don't need to hunt much to survive. "Hadza men seem more concerned with games of chance rather than chances of game," wrote Marshall Sahlins who described them as the "original affluent society".

The Kalahari bush people have life taped. They walk around as hunter gathers have always done, living off the land. They can carry all they use for the hunt and for living. Yes, they need everything they have, but they have everything they need. Now their life is endangered since diamond mining interests are shifting them off the land they have walked for thousands of years.

An ancient and successful way of life is being destroyed because diamonds are a girl's best friend. It's the price of bling.

While the rest of us are busy measuring our carbon footprints, its worth recalling that the Hadza leave scarcely a footprint. Not even Ray Mears could manage that.

If you're dubious about my doing-bugger-all approach and want to get serious about carbon offsetting, visit this site and read all about it