Sitting in a 620 bus the other day I was pondering the benefits of using public transport rather than travelling in a private car that was producing far too much CO2. Apparently car drivers are responsible for over nine times as much CO2 as each seated passenger in a full bus.

In the last 10 years the number of cars in the UK has increased by almost two million, and using them is now five per cent cheaper compared with the rise in bus fares, so it’s not surprising that fewer than 10 per cent use buses.

This partly explains why from the start of 2019 the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had increased by almost three and a half parts per million in just 12 months.

We need to remember that Instead of 412 parts per million we must get the figure down to at least 350 to stop us destabilising the climate completely and raising sea levels. That means that we must begin to behave differently particularly at a personal level as well as politically.

As I looked around the bus I noticed that I was the only one looking out of the window as all the others, young and old, men and women, had their eyes focussed on a remarkable piece of electrical engineering that began life as a hand held phone, but now gave unlimited access to the internet.

Thank goodness I don’t own one, and if I need access to detailed information I log into the simple computer system I have at home. It stays on the table, and thankfully doesn’t follow me about with all the temptations this must bring.

I suspect that very few folk realise that the internet uses as much electricity as global air travel and is increasing at even faster rate, some seven per cent a year, leading to double the current emissions in just a decade.

If the internet was a country it would rank fourth in the world for emissions, after China, India and the USA, and it somehow is most attractive to many millions of users and especially many young people.

Those who have grown up in the internet age take this technology for granted and they seem to have little appreciation of the electricity used, with a considerable amount of it produced by burning coal, oil and gas.