I've long been in awe of the power of nature - the power to completely destroy enormous structures in a matter of seconds is seen whenever there is footage of a hurricane striking land or when a tornado rolls through a built up area. Maybe it's my childhood memories of witnessing a tornado in Ohio ripping up trees that has just stuck with me - it certainly is an image to behold.

But I'm also completely in awe of the healing power of nature which is every bit as effective. We are constantly being warned about our environmental damage pushing towards "tipping points" or "irreversible damage" being done to our planet. Of course, these warnings are based only on the old favourite - computer modelling, and we all know where that has got us before. You only have to look back a few months to remember the fallout from the dodgy warming statistics emanating from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University. It is strange how computer modelling never seems to take into account nature's healing effect and the ability to reverse damaging situations.

A perfect example of the healing power of nature came to light recently. During the 1980s many years of manufacturing beside Glasgow's River Clyde, was widely believed to have permanently damaged the quality of the river water to the extent that nothing was able to live in the river there.

Since then of course manufacturing in the UK has declined somewhat, and in Glasgow there is little left beside the river that would suggest it had once been a major industrial manufacturing base. The lack of pollution at that part of the river has resulted in the water becoming not only cleaner looking to the naked eye, but it is now officially cleaner.

SEPA - the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency - has been carrying out tests in the river and they have discovered some 20 different species of fish thriving in the river. Some of them were never even there before. It is entirely possible that some of these species could not have survived if some of the previous inhabitants had still been there. You could say, therefore, that pollution cleared out the area and allowed new species to flourish after time!

It is all too easy to warn of impending doom, constantly looking at the negative aspects of something. But you have to take a balanced view and look at both sides of the equation, the good and the bad. In this case the short term problem caused by the pollution was the eradication of fish life abundant elsewhere in the region; the long term benefit being some totally new species introduced to the area.

Similarly we often hear the doom mongers talking about global warming causing thousands of deaths a year because of increased Summer temperatures, but they never talk about the eradication of even more deaths caused every year due to hypothermia or pneumonia in cold climates that would, by definition of global warming, become more temperate; or that global food production would benefit from a 3degree Celsius rise - and this according to the IPCC's own report!

Next time you hear the global warming alarmists telling their scare stories, try to think what the long term benefit may be...it's amazing how it changes your perspective on the problem. And you can sleep securely in the knowledge that you are basing your beliefs on historical fact rather than a dubious computer model.