Pretoria - South African climate scientist Bruce Hewitson took a swipe at bottled water at the start of a four-day national dialogue on climate change.
Dubbed the “doyen of climate change science” by colleagues, the UCT researcher gave a briefing to the media on Sunday on the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The briefing was to bring the media up to date on the report before a four-day dialogue hosted jointly by the Department of Environmental Affairs and the IPCC.
As Hewitson walked to the podium, he lifted up one of the many plastic bottles of water laid out on tables by Environmental Affairs staff, and said: “This is one of our problems: plastic bottled water. It contributes to the problem we have.”
Asked to elaborate later, Hewitson said plastic was made from fossil fuels and was “extremely energy intensive” to manufacture.
“And then there is the energy in transporting the bottles around the place and the carbon emissions associated with that.
“I was at a conference in Jamaica where we were given water that had been bottled in the Scottish highlands.
“Why don’t they just do jugs of iced water?”
Cape Times