Tag Archives: Environment

Mad World

All around me are familiar faces
Worn-out places, worn-out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are fillin’ up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

….the Gary Jules version

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about risks. Actually, that’s a lie, I’ve been thinking about these sorts of risks for years. It’s quite tiring. Regard that last sentence as British reservedness.

As a project manager, I’m trained to identify what could go wrong, how likely it is, how serious the consequences would be, how risks interact, and what you can do to mitigate, resolve, or in some cases review if we should accept them.

I’ve been wondering what a global risk register would look like, and what the consequences are when you pull them all together.

I’ve stared at this a lot since finishing it. Wondering if I missed anything, or if I’ve exaggerated any of the risks or consequences. If anything it’s probably conservative, as I’ve tried to stick to peer-reviewed science and analysis. One could argue that matters are, in fact, a lot worse. Talk to climate scientists away from the careful language of papers and reports and, in my experience at least, some will tell you just how frightened they really are.

I’ve not put a particular timeline against this, other than some of the boxes are already happening. Personally, I find it increasingly difficult to see how we avoid the systemic breakdown box on our current trajectory. I don’t know when, and I still think we have options. Options are important.

It’s not a very pleasant diagram. Not because every risk shown here will materialise at its worst. They won’t, probably. But some already have. Others are becoming more likely or more severe. And, crucially, they are not independent. Heat affects food. Floods affect infrastructure. Infrastructure affects supply chains. Disasters affect insurance and public finances. Food and housing costs affect poverty and inequality. Those stresses affect societies’ ability to cope with the next crisis.

I added a box on the right hand side too. Other major systemic risks. Because we are facing a multitude of potential catastrophes – I am sure I’ve missed some, feel free to add to the list – we also face war, nuclear escalation, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance and rapidly developing artificial intelligence. I felt like I should add patriarchy, but that’s more a cause than a symptom.

This is the worst risk register I’ve ever looked at. I don’t know how we can start to manage it. If this were any other project, would we really look at it and conclude that business as usual was the safe option? But that’s often the funny thing about risk registers, project managers wave them in front of their sponsors, and they often don’t really look at them, don’t really register or feel what they could mean in terms of successful outcomes. Then, unsurprisingly, projects are often delayed, collapse, or change far beyond their initial remit – I am sure many project managers can empathise.

I should add – I’ve seen many excellently run and delivered projects, at least a couple of them by my good self. They work really well when stakeholders and the project team are engaged and understand what is happening, what the risks and issues are, and what they need to do to help ensure delivery is a success. I maintain that project management, really, is about making lists, effective communication, and nagging.

Back to the diagram. I can create a risk register. Put it in colourful boxes. Draw arrows between the boxes. Find sources for every claim. Make sure every arrow can be defended.

But I can’t put on the diagram what knowing all this makes me feel.

That is, perhaps, the most important bit. People can be good at reading stuff, analysis, reaching conclusions, and they can also be rubbish at it. They can also forget facts and stuff they’ve read quite quickly. I do it all the time as a project manager – I move from one delivery to another, and once one is done I file it in my mind, find myself remembering the high level bits, but the detail is gone after around 3 months because I’ve had to move on something else.

Facts are capricious. Easily forgotten or laid aside in favour of something more current. Like Harry and Meghan. Or Farage. Or Eastenders. We are a wonderfully distractable species and our media and politicians know it.

What aren’t so forgettable, or deletable, are feelings, emotions. A diagram doesn’t necessarily invoke feelings, although this one did for me. A song, a smell, a picture, can all invoke powerful memories that are retained for a lifetime. A diagram doesn’t do that. Strong emotions, felt at a particular event, tied to sensory inputs, have, I think, a far greater chance of being retained.

I think people need to feel these risks. Sadly, many already have as they materialise into regional issues – smoke from fires, hunger in the belly, a parched throat, being engulfed by flood waters, mud, or rockslides, grief at a lake or river dying, a forest or a glacier disappearing, or another animal going extinct.

Feeling is so important. I think only when we really feel what is happening are we motivated to change course. I am talking about when things really matter – health, survival, future generations, survival – food, shelter, warmth.

It makes me frightened. It makes me angry. Often it makes me despair. Because we know what is happening. We know what we need to do. And still we carry on. We let our elected leaders, corporation bosses, billionaires, carry on. ‘Keep calm and carry on’ …screw that.

Can you feel the rage, the grief? Born out of love, but also just, fucking, rage, that we are and have been led to this place. A place where nature is dying – I saw thousands of dead fish floating in the Wensum the other day but it’s alright as Anglian Water shareholders are doing okay – people are dying, especially in the Global South – see Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Zambia, Libya, Zimbabwe, even the USA, although it is better endowed to cope with such events. Is this alright? I guess it is if you just see it on TV or in a newspaper, but what if you actually feel it, and what it could mean for you and people you care about?

I feel it. Every single day. My activist friends – and I hate calling them activist friends, they’re people that just deeply care and can’t stand by – they feel it. Every. Single. Day.

Actually, a lot of religious leaders feel it and have called out that we need to do something, urgently, including the Pope I think. I am sure a lot of charities feel it, as demands on their dwindling resources grow. And some political leaders do, including António Guterres, and a few others. Not many, sadly.

One can present a table of risks, or consequences. One can publish such a thing in countless scientific journals, newspapers, books. But unless people emotionally connect with what is happening, and aren’t anaesthetised by the drugs of social media and TV, we aren’t going to have the revolution – preferably non-violent and accountable – that is needed.

I take action because action gives me hope. XR and Just Stop Oil gave me hope. Defend Our Juries gives me hope. Seeing people sitting in a road with other ordinary people and refusing to cooperate with something profoundly wrong gives me hope. But increasingly I find myself asking whether actions involving tens, hundreds, even thousands of us can possibly force change on the scale now required.

Perhaps we need millions. Not just in the UK. Globally.

It is, after all, a minority of the super rich and powerful, and the vested interests they benefit from and protect, that are disproportionately driving so much of this – climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, grotesque inequality, hunger, thirst, the sixth mass extinction…I could go on.

Perhaps we need to stop.

Actually stop.

Not a march on a Saturday afternoon. Not another pointless petition. Not another consultation. Not another promise that if we vote differently in four years’ time things might get better.

Workers stop working. Offices empty. Trains stop. Deliveries stop. Shops close. Production stops. The machinery of business as usual stops. Just Stop.

Hospitals keep caring for people. Carers keep caring. Firefighters respond to fires. Essential services necessary to protect life continue.

But everything else?

A general strike, on a scale that cannot be ignored.

Because political and economic power ultimately depends upon millions of ordinary people continuing to cooperate with it. We work. We produce. We buy. We move things. We keep institutions functioning. We make other people rich.

What happens if, together, we withdraw that cooperation? Perhaps it could start in the UK. Perhaps elsewhere. Perhaps everywhere. Because ordinary people across the world mostly want the same basic things: safety, food, shelter, family, friendship, love, a future.

And yes, this will likely mean lifestyle changes. It will mean accepting that we can’t have all the things we wanted, and that our futures are going to be quite different from what we anticipated. But at least we’ll be alive, and our children will have a chance of a future.

We could even be happier and healthier, with better communities and greater connection.

Surely survival is the priority? Not war. Not greed. Not GDP. Not AI. Not the space race.

What happens if we say: not again until you deal with this?

No more HARM.

Options are important. We still have them. We can stop making things worse. We can prepare for what is already coming. We can protect each other. Restore nature. Build stronger communities. Stop cooperating with systems that are causing so much harm.

None of that guarantees everything will be okay. It won’t be. That’s not how risk works.

But business as usual is an option too.

It’s the high-risk option.

Just. Fucking. Stop.

And sorry, project manager mode, here’s the table I pulled together to inform the risk diagram that people will forget, but hopefully they’ll remember the rage, grief, and love.

Risk / issue	Status	Direction	Potential severity	What it can lead to / amplify	Evidence and current assessment
Greenhouse-gas emissions / fossil-fuel dependence	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Further heating; ocean warming; sea-level rise; extremes; tipping risks	UNEP’s 2025 assessment puts current-policy warming at about 2.8°C this century, with full implementation of current Nationally Determined Contributions at about 2.3–2.5°C. (UNEP – UN Environment Programme)
Global heating	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Heat; drought; heavy rainfall; fire; ecosystem damage; food/water stress	WMO reports 2015–2025 were the hottest 11 years observed and 2025 was about 1.43°C above 1850–1900. (World Meteorological Organization)
Extreme heat	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Mortality; illness; labour losses; crop stress; infrastructure/energy pressure	WHO says exposure is growing in every region; mortality among over-65s increased about 85% between 2000–04 and 2017–21, with studies estimating about 489,000 heat-related deaths annually during 2000–19. (World Health Organization)
Drought & water stress	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Crop loss; ecosystem damage; water insecurity; livelihood losses; displacement	IPCC finds concurrent heat and drought already causing crop-production losses and tree mortality, with compound risks increasing as warming rises. (IPCC)
Floods & extreme rainfall	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Mortality; displacement; infrastructure/property damage; supply disruption	IPCC finds concurrent and repeated hazards are already increasing impacts on infrastructure, health, livelihoods and food, with risks cascading across sectors. (IPCC)
Wildfire / dangerous fire weather	HAPPENING NOW	↑	High–very high	Mortality; smoke exposure; ecosystem loss; property loss; carbon release	IPCC assesses wildfire and other extremes as part of increasingly interacting and compound climate risks. (IPCC)
Ocean warming & marine heatwaves	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Coral mortality; marine ecosystem disruption; fishery impacts	WMO reports continuing ocean warming and a growing planetary energy imbalance; the ocean also continues absorbing carbon dioxide. (World Meteorological Organization)
Ocean acidification	HAPPENING NOW	↑	High–very high	Coral/shell-former damage; food-web disruption; fisheries risk	Ocean acidification is a direct consequence of additional atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean, and interacts with warming and other marine pressures. WMO continues to track it as a major global climate indicator. (World Meteorological Organization)
Glacier & ice loss	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Sea-level rise; freshwater/hydrological changes; long-term irreversible losses	IPCC finds continuing substantial glacier loss; Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and long-term loss increases strongly with sustained warming. (IPCC)
Sea-level rise	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Coastal flooding; erosion; salinisation; displacement; infrastructure/property loss	IPCC assesses sea-level rise as effectively irreversible on centennial timescales, with ice-sheet behaviour creating additional long-term risk. (IPCC)
Biodiversity & ecosystem decline	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Loss of pollination, fisheries, carbon storage, water regulation and ecosystem resilience	IPBES’s Nexus Assessment explicitly treats biodiversity, water, food and health as interconnected systems rather than isolated environmental issues. (IPBES ICT)
Earth-system / ecological tipping points	WORSENING / EMERGING RISK	↑	Potentially catastrophic	Abrupt or irreversible ecosystem/climate change; additional warming; long-term sea-level rise; regional climate shifts	IPCC defines tipping points as critical thresholds beyond which systems reorganise, often abruptly and/or irreversibly, and finds their likelihood and impacts increase with warming. Large-scale singular risks move into high risk around 1.5–2.5°C in AR6. (IPCC)
Warm-water coral reef collapse	HAPPENING NOW / possible tipping transition	↑	Very high	Biodiversity loss; fisheries impacts; coastal vulnerability; livelihood losses	The 2025 Global Tipping Points assessment, involving 160+ researchers, concluded widespread warm-water coral mortality is underway and characterised this as the first Earth-system tipping point reached. This is a post-AR6 expert assessment, not an IPCC finding, so I would retain that qualification. (National Oceanography Centre)
Crop & fishery production impacts	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Food insecurity; livelihood losses; price shocks; malnutrition	FAO’s 2025 assessment finds disasters increasingly disrupting crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, with $3.26 trillion in agricultural losses estimated over 1991–2023. (FAOHome)
Simultaneous major crop failures / multi-breadbasket shock	WORSENING / EMERGING RISK	↑	Potentially catastrophic	Major price shocks; shortages; export restrictions; severe food insecurity	IPCC specifically finds that above 1.5°C, increasing concurrent extremes raise the risk of simultaneous maize losses in major producing regions, with risk rising further with warming. This supports an increasing risk, not a prediction of imminent global crop failure. (IPCC)
Food & water insecurity	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Malnutrition; disease; poverty; displacement; reduced resilience	FAO reports climate extremes are already major drivers of agrifood crises; conflict and economic shocks remain major independent drivers. Acute hunger affected more than 295 million people in 53 countries/territories in 2024. (FAOHome)
Health impacts	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Mortality; morbidity; health-system pressure; lost productivity	Heat already causes substantial mortality and illness, while climate-related food, water and livelihood impacts create secondary health burdens. (World Health Organization)
Homes & infrastructure damage / failure	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Power, water, transport and communications disruption; connected service failures	IPCC finds infrastructure impacts can propagate into economic activity and essential services; compound hazards make these risks increasingly difficult to manage. (IPCC)
Supply-chain disruption	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Shortages; price shocks; manufacturing interruption; economic losses	IPCC finds climate impacts already cross borders through supply chains, markets and resource flows, making climate risk transboundary as well as local. (IPCC)
Insurance & property risk / uninsurability	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Falling asset values; affordability problems; mortgage/lender losses; financial stress	UNDRR identifies an emerging disaster–uninsurability spiral. The Bank of England says physical climate losses can reduce property values, increase insurer/lender losses and reduce insurance availability and affordability. (UNDRR)
Price & livelihood shocks	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Poverty; food insecurity; inequality; reduced household resilience	Agricultural losses, disrupted supply chains and disaster impacts transmit through markets and livelihoods. FAO explicitly describes cascading effects through markets, finance and infrastructure. (FAOHome)
Inequality & vulnerability	HAPPENING NOW / AMPLIFIER	?	Very high amplifier	Greater mortality; food insecurity; livelihood loss; displacement; reduced recovery capacity	Exposure and adaptive capacity strongly mediate disaster outcomes. The same hazard can therefore create radically different consequences depending on poverty, institutions and access to resources. (IPCC)
Displacement & involuntary mobility	HAPPENING NOW	↑	High–very high	Loss of homes/livelihoods; pressure on receiving communities; additional vulnerability	IPCC finds high confidence that anthropogenic climate forcing has affected internal displacement through weather extremes, while stressing that migration is multi-causal. It specifically says climate-driven mobility generally does not increase risks to peace. (IPCC)
Economic, fiscal & financial stress	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Debt; reduced investment; weaker recovery; financial instability	UNDRR estimates direct disaster losses at roughly $202bn annually but over $2.3tn annually when indirect, cascading and ecosystem costs are included, describing debt, uninsurability and humanitarian-need spirals. (UNDRR)
Response / institutional capacity under pressure	MATERIALISING LOCALLY	?	Very high	Reduced preparedness; service failure; slower recovery; greater losses from subsequent shocks	UNDRR describes a reinforcing process in which disasters destroy assets and income, reduce tax revenues, increase borrowing costs and consume resources required for recovery and resilience. (UNDRR)
Political & social instability risk	CONTEXT-DEPENDENT RISK	?	Very high	Weakened cooperation/institutions; unrest; violence; reduced crisis-response capacity	Evidence requires care. IPCC finds climate variability can influence conflict dynamics, but its historical effect is small relative to dominant socioeconomic and political drivers and there is insufficient evidence to attribute armed conflict directly to climate change. (IPCC)
Compound & cascading crises	HAPPENING NOW / WORSENING	↑	Potentially catastrophic	Simultaneous failures; cross-sector impacts; overwhelmed coping capacity	IPCC gives high confidence that climatic and non-climatic risks increasingly interact, compound and cascade across sectors and regions. This is one of the strongest foundations for the whole register. (IPCC)
Risk of systemic breakdown	CATASTROPHIC POSSIBILITY	?	Potentially catastrophic	Multiple essential systems failing faster than societies can compensate or recover	This is a systems inference, not an IPCC prediction. UNDRR nevertheless explicitly describes interacting disaster spirals that can deepen crises into systemic collapse, providing evidence for treating this as a legitimate aggregate risk. (UNDRR)
Extreme outcome: societal collapse	CATASTROPHIC POSSIBILITY	?	Potentially catastrophic	Sustained inability of institutions and essential systems to meet basic needs	Retain only as an extreme aggregate risk, not a predicted climate outcome. Evidence supports systemic crisis pathways, but there is no authoritative basis for assigning a reliable probability to global societal collapse. (UNDRR)
Pandemic / emerging disease	PERSISTENT SYSTEMIC RISK	?	Potentially catastrophic	Mortality; health-system overload; supply-chain and economic disruption	WHO says preparedness has improved since COVID-19 but remains fragile and uneven. The 2025 Pandemic Agreement exists specifically to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemic threats. (World Health Organization)
Antimicrobial resistance	HAPPENING NOW	↑	Very high	Treatment failure; mortality; pressure on health systems and economies	WHO reports about one in six laboratory-confirmed common bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 were antibiotic-resistant; resistance increased in more than 40% of monitored pathogen-antibiotic combinations during 2018–23. (World Health Organization)
War & geopolitical conflict	HAPPENING NOW	?	Potentially catastrophic	Mortality; displacement; food/energy shocks; infrastructure destruction; reduced cooperation	Treat as an independent systemic risk and amplifier. Climate can interact with existing vulnerabilities, but IPCC does not support a simple climate → war causal relationship. (IPCC)
Nuclear escalation	PERSISTENT / HEIGHTENED SYSTEMIC RISK	↑	Potentially catastrophic	Mass destruction; radioactive contamination; global economic/food/systemic consequences	SIPRI’s 2026 assessment says all nine nuclear-armed states continued modernisation in 2025 and that reliance on nuclear weapons is increasing while risks of miscalculation and escalation are rising. (SIPRI)
Artificial intelligence / technological risk	SOME HARMS HAPPENING; LARGER RISKS UNCERTAIN	↑	High–potentially catastrophic	Fraud; cyberattack; manipulation; labour/economic disruption; critical-system malfunction	The 2026 International AI Safety Report documents real harms while emphasising substantial uncertainty about severe future risks. It separates misuse, malfunction and systemic risks. (International AI Safety Report)
Misinformation & manipulation	HAPPENING NOW / AMPLIFIER	↑	High amplifier	Reduced trust; polarisation; impaired collective decision-making and crisis response	AI-enabled deception and manipulation are documented, but reliable evidence about prevalence and aggregate societal severity remains limited. I would therefore retain this as an amplifier, not a route directly to systemic breakdown. (International AI Safety Report)

Mad world.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

1 Reply

This morning I am grateful for last night’s rain, bringing relief to the countryside, plants and animals, humans included. Because we are animals, with the same fundamental needs all animals have – shelter, water and food. We seem to have forgotten that.

We’ve forgotten that without a stable ecosystem and environment to live in, our existence is compromised. Instead, at least in wealthier countries, we often prioritise non-essentials, things we want but don’t actually need – new tech, expensive clothes and cars, holidays abroad, subscriptions to TV and other digital services – all stuff that are nice to haves but not essential to being alive, being happy, or being healthy.

We are a part of nature, not apart from it. Our lifestyles, driven by the media, advertising and mega-corporations harvesting our earnings to get even richer, are not compatible with a sustainable present, let alone future. We are trained from a young age to be good little consumers, that one’s success is measured by how much stuff you have, how much money, not by the community you are in and shared experiences, support for one another, connections, kindness and empathy.

Indeed, the latest attack by some right wing figures is on empathy. Apparently it’s a bad thing – caring is bad, don’t care about other people or nature, that’s weak. Much better to live a hedonistic, selfish lifestyle, if you are following the parables of Musk. What an absolute bell-end.

According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research we have breached 7 of the 9 critical Earth system boundaries. There are only two that remain in safe zones – the Ozone Layer and Atmospheric Aerosol Loading. Human civilisation developed within an unusually stable Earth system. If we’ve pushed 7 of its 9 major life-support systems outside their scientifically assessed safe boundaries, we are progressively weakening the resilience of the planet we depend upon.

This means increasing the risk of cascading, potentially irreversible changes to climate, water, food systems and ecosystems. We’re back to global heating → drought → floods → failing harvests → food insecurity → displacement → conflict → mass extinction.

The Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at PIK finds that seven of nine critical Earth system boundaries have been breached, leaving only ozone depletion and aerosol loading within safe limits. (PIK, 2025)

Source: Potsdam Institute – The Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at PIK finds that seven of nine critical Earth system boundaries have been breached, leaving only ozone depletion and aerosol loading within safe limits. (PIK, 2025)

We’re also experiencing ecological overshoot every year. We are constantly using more resources, more energy, producing and using more stuff. We are cannibalising the planet, using 1.73 times the resources the Earth can regenerate every year. This is not sustainable. The UK national ecological overshoot day this year was 22 May 2026.

We are approaching, and in some cases may already be passing, critical tipping points. Coral reefs bleaching and dying. Albedos that reflect sunlight back into space are disappearing as ice melts. Permafrost is melting releasing methane into the atmosphere, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Parts of the Amazon rainforest are dying and becoming source of emissions rather than soak for carbon emissions. The oceans are hot, and as they heat up they absorb less carbon dioxide, becoming less effective as a carbon sink whilst they also acidify and become less sustainable for life. And of course wildfires are raging, destroying nature and carbon sinks, whilst emitting even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

For all practical purposes, we’ve blown any realistic prospect of keeping long-term warming below 1.5°C without substantial overshoot. We are firmly on track for + 2°C, then potentially +3°C, even +4°C in more extreme modelling. The Paris Agreement didn’t define 2°C as safe. It tried to commit governments to keeping warming “well below 2°C” and pursuing 1.5°C because this would significantly reduce climate risks. The IPCC subsequently found that at 2°C the risks to food, water, health, livelihoods and human security rise substantially, with some impacts becoming widespread, severe and potentially irreversible.

The geographical distribution of global and regional tipping elements, color-coded according to the best estimate for their temperature thresholds, beyond which the element would likely be 'tipped'. Figure designed at PIK (under cc-by licence), based on Armstrong McKay et al., Science (2022).

Source: Potsdam Institute. The geographical distribution of global and regional tipping elements, color-coded according to the best estimate for their temperature thresholds, beyond which the element would likely be ‘tipped’. Figure designed at PIK (under cc-by licence), based on Armstrong McKay et al., Science (2022).

We’re already seeing more fires, droughts, and harvest failures. These are hitting especially hard where I live in Norfolk, UK. It’s going to get a lot worse, with more heat injuries and deaths, food and water shortages, floods, sea level rise, poverty, economic damage, rising inequality, war for remaining resources, and ecosystem collapse. We aren’t doing nearly enough to adapt as it is, and simply won’t be able to adapt to what is coming.

We have to stop greenhouse gas emissions, whilst also implementing adaption measures. And we need to do it now. This rhetoric from the government and fossil fuel industry we’re being programmed with, that we have to be pragmatic, that fossil fuels need to be in the energy mix for a long time yet – it’s a death sentence for billions.

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), the people that inform the insurance industry, have warned there is a severe risk of a global death toll of billions of people. They have modelled a severe risk of 4 billion deaths at +3°C. This is them doing catastrophic-risk modelling, but we keep passing worst case scenarios. By the way, this model is scaled up for +2°C which predicts 2 billion dead. As things stand we have very little chance of staying under +2°C as emissions are still going up, and those emissions will impact temperatures for decades, centuries, locking in global heating to +2°C and beyond.

Politicians and oil and gas companies tout carbon capture and storage as the panacea. But it has not been built and therefore proven at scale, and will cost a fortune to build. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for continued oil and gas use. Why not spend that money on renewables, energy storage and grid upgrades. At the same time this would create thousands of jobs and give the economy a boost, whilst reducing emissions, lowering bills, and improving our energy security. What’s not to like?

The truth is still being hidden, by Governments – who have both their heads in the sand whilst hiding the facts. By large proportions of the billionaire owned press. By oil and gas companies who are doing the same as the tobacco industry, and have done for decades – hiding the science and truth in order to make sick amounts of money, at the expense of our health, of the Earth’s life support systems. And by banks and hedge funds who are funding it all.

Business as usual is killing us, and making a few people, an absolute minority, absurdly rich and powerful. But they won’t be able to buy their way out of the multiple crises that are both here right now or approaching fast. We cannot adapt our way out of some scenarios, it doesn’t matter how much money you have if the opposition keep putting more players on the pitch.

Here we are then. Our life support systems are failing, yet we are trying to keep calm and carry on. We are being betrayed, totally failed, by governments whose primary responsibility is to protect and serve their citizens. They in turn are being manipulated by lobbyists, oil and gas companies whose employees meet with ministers every day, by billionaires with no empathy and the media and corporations they control. Our political, economic, financial, industrial, legal, food and water, systems, and many more, are broken, not fit for purpose in the world we now live in.

We talk endlessly about national security and defence budgets – buying more bullets and bombs. But security also means flood defences, reservoirs, resilient food production and storage, secure clean energy, functioning ecosystems and homes for people displaced by climate impacts.

We won’t get these changes under the current system of government. It just can’t do it with the vested interests involved, and the governance processes it is bound by.

We have to act, for our own sakes as well as future generations. We need a peaceful revolution to make changes to all those systems.

Or we’re fucked.

I’ll leave you with this poem, which has been resonating with me a lot today.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

BY DYLAN THOMAS

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Don’t Look Up: When the Government Finally Admits the Planet Is Breaking

3 Replies

The Government has finally published a report it previously suppressed, calmly explaining that biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse pose a direct threat to national security. Which is nice of them. Always good to know when the house is on fire, even if the alarm only goes off after the roof has already collapsed.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security

The report itself is actually quite readable. That’s part of what makes it so disturbing. It doesn’t scream. It doesn’t rant. It doesn’t glue itself to the road or throw soup at a painting. It just politely lays out, in civil-service prose, how the life-support systems of the planet are failing, and how that might be a bit of a problem for economies, borders, food supplies, public health, and, you know, civilisation.

Critical ecosystems are at risk of collapsing

If anything, it feels conservative, which is fairly typical of government or scientific reports on the climate and nature crises. Multiple critical ecosystems – coral reefs, boreal forests, major mountain systems like the Himalayas – are expected to collapse soon. Not in 2100. Not for our grandchildren to worry about. Soon soon. Others, including the Amazon rainforest, the Congo Basin and mangrove systems, are likely to follow. Dominoes, but with forests and oceans instead of plastic rectangles.

Meanwhile, atmospheric CO₂ has reached 428 parts per million, and the line on the graph is still curving upward. That single number underpins a whole cascade of consequences: climate breakdown, ecosystem collapse, floods, fires, crop failures, water stress, resource conflicts, mass migration, disease outbreaks, and increasing parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable. From there, social instability and collapse aren’t radical ideas — they’re logical outcomes.

Much of this is already happening, of course, especially in poorer countries that did the least to cause the problem and are least able to adapt. But don’t worry – I’m sure the market will fix it. Any day now.

What’s particularly maddening is that this isn’t some unsolvable mystery. There is no missing equation. No magical technology yet to be invented by a mega-corporation keen to make an even more obscene profit. We already know what to do.

We could fly less. Eat less meat. Scale up renewable energy at speed — the way China is doing while we argue about whether onshore wind or solar is “a bit unsightly”. We could rewild vast areas of land instead of treating nature like a decorative afterthought. We could protect rivers, lakes and oceans – which might help if water companies weren’t allowed to behave like extraction businesses with a sewage fetish. Public ownership, anyone?

We could grow more food locally. Insulate our homes properly. Use public transport that actually works. Stop pouring obscene amounts of energy into data centres and AI so that a chatbot can write slightly worse emails than a human already can. None of this is revolutionary. It’s just unfashionable — and it directly contradicts the Government’s growth mantra.

There will be no growth, of money or nature, on a planet stricken by floods, fires and water shortages, or on one with finite resources that will inevitably run out, despite billionaires’ protestations to the contrary. It’s all a bit King Cnut — in fact, with a little rearrangement, that surname could apply to many world leaders and tech bros.

History remembers King Cnut kindly; he was making a point — today’s leaders genuinely expect the tide to obey.

What really blocks progress isn’t technology — it’s power. Decisions about the future of the planet are still overwhelmingly made by a small group of ageing men, many of them white, some of them inexplicably orange, who will be comfortably dead before the worst consequences arrive. They continue to gamble everyone else’s future while telling us to be realistic. At times, I genuinely wonder whether Trump’s plan is simply to burn everything down, unable to tolerate the idea of a world continuing without him.

And here’s the thing: if we fail to act, the consequences won’t land on some distant, hypothetical generation. They’re already landing. They will fall hardest on our children – many of whom may never grow old enough to reach our age, let alone retire.

But don’t worry. The plan still seems to be: carry on, extract more, emit more, suppress awkward reports, and hope no one joins the dots.

Don’t look up.

Time, unfortunately, is.

Take Back Power – join the Resistance.

Why Aren’t They Listening?

1 Reply

Salt, Sea Devil ambassador: “These are the words of a politician, vetted and craven and hollow. You would answer.”

Barclay, Ambassador for human-kind: “Because we were stupid. That’s the truth of it. And the whole planet is going to hell right now because we didn’t understand the consequences.”

Salt, Sea Devil ambassador: “But now, you do?”

Barclay, Ambassador for human-kind: “Yeah, now we do. Still every day water companies are pumping poison and sewage into our rivers and oceans, all the while dishing out bonuses to their bosses. And the thing is, we are letting them get away with it! We’re just sat at home, flicking through our phones, making tea, thinking it’s someone else’s problem! But it’s not. This is my fault. We all played our part. Now we have to help fix it. And the thing is, our kids know this! Our kids. They’re way ahead of us! Why aren’t we listening? Well, today’s the day we start.”

Salt, Sea Devil ambassador: “I think you are my favourite human.”

_____________________________________________________________________________

This exchange from the new BBC/Disney+ series The War Between the Land and the Sea stayed with me long after the episode finished. The sets, costumes and visuals are impressive — but it was Barclay, the unlikely ambassador thrust into responsibility, who delivers the most piercing truth:

“And the thing is, we are letting them get away with it!”

“Why aren’t we listening?”

Two lines that feel painfully relevant.

Water companies, oil and gas giants, the media, the banks, and the politicians who prop them up have been getting away with it for decades — and we’ve let them.

Where am I going with this?

This post is about why we must accelerate the transition to renewable energy, whilst also bringing essential services like water back into public ownership. For decades, executives have prioritised profit, bonuses and shareholders over public good. Since privatisation in 1989, it’s been yet another “victory” for neoliberal capitalism — one that has spectacularly screwed us over.

We’ve Been Betrayed

The science on greenhouse gases has been clear for almost two centuries.

In 1824, Joseph Fourier described the greenhouse effect.
In 1861, John Tyndall identified the gases responsible. The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research — named after Tyndall — is just down the road from me in Norwich.
In 1900, Knut Angstrom, discovers CO2 strongly absorbs parts of the infrared spectrum.
In 1938, Guy Callendar showed that temperatures rose over the previous century. He demonstrated that CO2 concentrations had increased over the same period, and suggested this caused the warming. His claims were dismissed.
In 1968, US President’s Advisory Committee panel warned that the greenhouse effect is a matter of “real concern”.
In 1975, scientist Wallace Broecker put the term “global warming” into the public domain.

The above has been followed by countless IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) assessments, and COPs (Conference of the Parties) to try to solve the challenge of climate breakdown. Some progress has been made, but not nearly enough.

We’ve known the facts. We’ve proven them. And yet oil and gas companies hid their own research, just as tobacco companies once hid the link between smoking and cancer. Billionaire-owned media outlets are defending them. Politicians were and are being lobbied into paralysis – just look at COP30. And so we are being lied to, misdirected and exploited whilst the planet is burning.

We have been failed time and time again by successive Governments who have put the interests of mega-corporations, profit and power, ahead of ordinary people. They have betrayed us to the altar of profit, lied, misdirected, and in some cases filled their pockets with blood money.

We didn’t “fail to understand” — we are being denied the truth.

We’re Not Stupid

Barclay says, “Because we were stupid.”

But we weren’t. We were and are being deliberately misled.

Instead of honesty, we got greenwashing, smokescreens, and faux responsibility — like BP inventing the personal carbon footprint calculator to shift the blame from corporations onto individuals.

Imagine if the public could be given the same clarity scientists shared recently at the National Emergency Briefing. The shift in understanding — and action — might come rapidly and radically.

National Emergency Briefing – https://www.nebriefing.org/

You can find recordings of the various segments of the National Emergency Briefing on YouTube.

How Fast Can We Decarbonise?

In the UK, we’ve reduced emissions — but we still emit far more per person than many countries with less wealth and fewer resources. And we should have made the major cuts twenty years ago. We’re now out of time for a gentle transition. We must act rapidly, even if it’s uncomfortable.

This will upset people, especially in a country used to convenience and abundance. But climate physics does not negotiate. Deaths, harm, migration, are all being caused right now by our carbon emissions.

Our Obligations

We are privileged — often without realising it. Given our historic emissions, the UK has a moral obligation to move first and fast.

The alternative? Pull up the drawbridge, protect ourselves for a few extra years, and ignore suffering elsewhere. But our food imports, supply chains and future mass migration make that fantasy laughable.

Billions will be on the move. The question is whether we meet that future prepared — or panicked.

Tell the Truth

People are not being told the truth by politicians or the media. If they were, they’d understand what we are facing:

As laid out at the National Emergency Briefing, the collapse of AMOC (the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – a crucial system of Atlantic Ocean currents acting as a giant conveyor belt) could mean:

–30°C winters
extreme summer heat
chronic water shortages
the UK unable to grow food
the British becoming climate refugees

The irony isn’t lost on me; one wonders whether we’ll have enough small boats.

Extinction Rebellion warned we needed major emissions cuts in 2018. Oil and gas companies and wealthy governments around the world denied it, buried it, or have since waved around Carbon Capture and Storage — a technology unproven at meaningful scale, and one that conveniently ignores the huge emissions from extraction and transport of natural gas in the first place. Profit over life, again.

So, What Can We Do?

We need rapid, large-scale deployment of renewables:

Wind
Solar
Tidal
Geothermal – there’s some exciting stuff going on with old coal mines

Fusion power would be ideal, but remains underfunded and decades away. We also need to upgrade the grid and to build massive battery storage facilities. This is all doable and exciting, and will create huge potential in terms of sustainable economic growth, jobs and wellbeing, we just need the politicians in power to stop dragging their heels.

But there are obstacles. Solar is a prime example.

Solar Energy: What’s The Problem?
Rooftop solar is brilliant — low impact, popular, and efficient. But we no longer have the luxury of time. Large solar farms are faster to deliver and much cheaper per megawatt.

Using ChatGPT for initial comparisons (yes, with a pinch of salt but it saves me hours of trawling through websites and research papers), I asked, when looking at the electricity 4,000 acres solar panels could generate, what is cheaper and quicker to build – a large solar farm or rooftop mounted solar:

Large Solar Farms

400MW: ~£400–600m plus land/grid costs
800MW: ~£800m–1.2bn
Build time: 12–24 months after permitting

Distributed Rooftop Solar

400MW: ~£600–800m (likely more)
800MW: ~£1.2bn–1.6bn+
Rollout time: 5–10+ years

Planning times for solar farms could be slashed if government finally treated the climate emergency like an emergency.

And then there’s capitalism: energy companies don’t want millions of small producers cutting into profits. Legislation could fix this — but it requires political will. We already know neoliberal capitalism needs serious reform.

As for the criticism that solar farms use agricultural land:

They would occupy only 0.45%–0.82% of agricultural land, some of which is fallow at the moment anyway.
We already face food insecurity. Solar barely dents agriculture.
Meanwhile, golf courses consume five times more land than solar would — and I know which I’d rather repurpose.

You can’t tee off on a golf course that’s underwater.

Unfortunately, there is significant opposition to solar farms, largely from people living near proposed sites — which is understandable

Grid Upgrades: The Unavoidable Backbone

We need new pylons, underground cables, or subsea routes — plus battery storage. None of this is optional, and the arguments are similar to the above. All options have ecological impacts, but we’re out of time for perfect solutions.

Pylons may be ugly, but they’re cheaper, faster, and even capable of creating wildlife corridors. France has even turned some into public art. If only imagination were a UK policy priority.

Large Scale Renewables Are the Clear Winner

Solar farms and other renewable energy sources are the clear winner if our priority is rapid decarbonisation. They are cheaper, quicker to build, will create new jobs and provide clean energy. They are our future proofing.

We face a choice: continue failing, continue betraying younger generations, retreat into selfishness and isolation—or respond to the climate and ecological emergencies with the urgency they demand, adopting something akin to a wartime mobilisation.

It may already be too late to avoid severe impacts. But every fraction of a degree of avoided warming saves lives, ecosystems and stability.

CO₂ rises → temperature rises → runaway climate impacts:

floods, fires, drought, famine, harvest failure, extreme weather, mass migration, ocean collapse, extinction events… and then societal collapse.

The stakes could not be higher.

The Path Ahead

We change — or we face the consequences.

The graph below shows how CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have changed over the millennia, using data from ice core samples.

Carbon dioxide levels are higher than any time in the last 800,000 years

Renewables give us a fighting chance of reducing emissions and avoiding societal collapse. Oil, gas and nuclear leave only waste and devastation. Renewables can coexist with nature and even help restore it when designed well.

It comes down to communicating honestly, successive governments, oil and gas companies, supported and controlled by billionaire media magnates, have denied people that honesty: change now, or our children will not live to the same age we do.

We don’t have to let them make us stupid, but they won’t change on their own.
We have to force it.

Let’s Take Back Power

From billionaires. From fossil fuel companies. From media moguls. From corrupted politicians who may not even realise how compromised they are. Let’s stop them getting away with it.

They’ve been getting away with it for decades. They are “craven and hollow.”
We can stop them.

And yes — I’m going to say it:

Vote Green. Let’s make hope normal again

Promoted by James Harvey on behalf of Broadland Green Party, a constituent party of the Green Party of England & Wales PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ

BBC Coverage of the Climate Crisis: A Missed Opportunity

1 Reply

I recently wrote to the BBC to complain about their coverage of the climate crisis, which I, and many others, believe remains woefully inadequate given the existential threats it poses. Below is the complaint I submitted.

Coverage of climate change

I’m writing to complain about the BBC’s inadequate coverage of today’s letter from the Climate Change Committee to Government on the UK’s preparedness for at least 2°C of global warming by 2050.

This is a matter of profound national importance, yet your main news programmes gave it little to no prominence. Such omission feels negligent at best, and at worst suggests a deliberate downplaying of vital information, whether due to editorial decisions, management influence, or political pressure. The public deserves transparency on issues that will shape our collective future. It is already known that Downing Street blocked a government report warning that the collapse of rainforests, reefs, and mangroves could raise food prices in UK supermarkets.

Earlier this year, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) warned of escalating climate risks -more floods, fires, droughts, and ecosystem collapse. Their analysis projected GDP losses of up to 50% between 2070 and 2090, and warned that global heating of +3°C, possible as early as 2050, could cause over 4 billion deaths, societal collapse, and extinction events.

Despite the gravity of these findings, BBC reporting on the climate and nature crises remains inconsistent and insufficient. This undermines your stated purpose “to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.”

While I appreciate an article appeared on your website, this story should have led your main news bulletins, with clear context on what climate breakdown, mitigation, and adaptation mean for ordinary people. It would not have been difficult to feature credible climate scientists or policy experts.

I urge the BBC to give greater priority to the climate and nature crises, ensuring the public are properly informed and able to make meaningful democratic choices, particularly about which leaders and policies will act to safeguard our future and that of coming generations.

You can read the letter I referenced here: https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/CCC-letter-to-Minister-Hardy-15-October-2025.pdf

The CCC warns that the UK must urgently strengthen its adaptation objectives to protect food security, infrastructure, public services, the economy, and access to financial services such as insurance. Many properties are already becoming uninsurable due to flood risk.

We are beyond the stage where it’s possible to mitigate all catastrophic climate impacts. Yet the current levels of adaptation -and even the plans for adaptation – remain unambitious and wholly inadequate. Inadequate seems to be the word of the day when it comes to both government and media responses to the climate and nature crises.

This is the response from the BBC I received last night:

Dear Mr Harvey,

Thank you for getting in touch about BBC News at Ten on 15 October.

We’re sorry you feel insufficient coverage was given to the letter addressed to the government from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), warning that the UK should be prepared to cope with weather extremes as a result of at least 2C of global warming by 2050.

We know that not everyone will agree with our choices on which stories to cover, or the order in which they appear. Our news editors make these complex decisions, based on the editorial merit of all the stories at hand. We accept that not everyone will agree with each decision – various factors are at play and there’s often debate in the newsroom too.

BBC News did cover this across our news outlets however and you can read the online report here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24kllyye1o

The BBC has been reporting on both the effects of climate change and the changes that individuals and governments can make in order to reduce carbon emissions for many years. In recent years these reports have had increased prominence as the evidence grows about the speed and impact of climate change.

To read our latest News on the issue of climate change, you may be interested in the following link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cmj34zmwm1zt

We can assure you that the BBC is committed to providing fair and impartial coverage of the latest News stories to our audience, and climate change is an issue that the BBC takes very seriously.

We very much value your feedback. Complaints are sent to senior management and we’ve included your points in our overnight reports. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC. This ensures that your concerns have been seen by the right people quickly, and helps to inform decisions about current and future content.

If you’d like to understand how your complaint is handled at the BBC, you might find it helpful to watch the short film on the BBC Complaints website about how the BBC responds to your feedback. It explains the BBC’s process for responding to complaints, what to do if you aren’t happy with your response and how we share the feedback we receive.

Kind regards,

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

I appreciate that the complaints team forwards feedback to senior management, and I can only hope that the BBC – and the wider media – will soon recognise the urgency of reporting on the existential crisis that is climate breakdown.

This crisis threatens the lives and livelihoods of billions over the next 25 to 50 years — and millions are already being affected, displaced, and killed by its impacts. It demands coverage that reflects its true urgency, accuracy, and frequency.

I’d be very interested to hear what others think — please feel free to leave a comment or share your perspective below.

Let’s Make Hope Normal Again

1 Reply

I find it increasingly strange, and frankly disturbing, how we’re being conned by politicians, much of the media, and mega-corporations. From birth, we’re bombarded by advertising designed to shape our thinking; by MPs who chase votes with half-truths, misdirection, or outright lies; and now by social media echo chambers that trap us in a cycle of misinformation.

As a Green Party member, I find it refreshing to have leadership that isn’t afraid to tell the truth. As a district councillor, I can vote in the best interests of my constituents – and with my conscience – rather than following the orders of a party whip. Zack Polanski’s election as Green Party leader, by a huge majority, has brought articulate and intelligent debate to the forefront again – on immigration, the climate crisis, renewable energy, and human rights. His policies on taxing the super-rich (the top 1%), reforming the private rental sector, renationalising water companies, and providing universal free childcare are resonating deeply with people across the country.

Green Party membership is now over 140,000, making us the UK’s third-largest political party. Polls put us around 15% of the vote, level with the Lib Dems and closing in on Labour and the Conservatives. Reform UK may be polling slightly higher, but perhaps that’s unsurprising when they’re not bound by things like telling the truth, or avoiding donations from dubious sources. People are joining the Greens in their thousands because we’re the only party that speaks plainly, answers questions directly, and puts people before profit.

Why don’t other political parties do the same? Surely an MP’s job is to represent their constituents – and by acting in their best interests, you’d think re-election would follow naturally. But that’s not how it works. Other parties are deeply influenced by corporate lobbying. Labour, for instance, met oil and gas company representatives over 500 times in their first year of power – that’s an average of two meetings every working day between ministers and fossil fuel lobbyists. Meanwhile, the Conservatives, Labour, and Reform continue to accept large donations from oil and gas interests, climate denial think tanks, and polluting industries. Is it any wonder, then, that their policies serve those industries – while the public is distracted with talk of immigration and welfare spending?

There’s a growing frustration with politicians who dodge questions or distort the truth. Brexit was, in part, a reaction to this. Westminster has become synonymous with elitism, corruption, and detachment from reality. It’s not even a criminal offence to lie in the House of Commons. Again and again, politicians mislead the public with impunity, aided by a media that too often fails to hold them accountable—especially those on the right.

Why isn’t Nigel Farage grilled about the £350 million-a-week NHS pledge that vanished after Brexit? Or challenged on the fact that immigration is essential to sustain our NHS, care sector, farms, and schools, as well as to support an ageing population and pensions system? Why aren’t we hearing that renewable energy is cheaper, faster to build, and infinitely safer than oil and gas?

In 2008, I was fortunate enough to visit the Great Barrier Reef on my honeymoon and swam among the coral and turtles – a breathtaking experience. Last week, I read that we’ve passed the planet’s first major climate tipping point: warm-water coral reefs are dying and will soon disappear. Hundreds of millions of people depend on them for food and livelihoods. Other tipping points – Amazon rainforest dieback, ocean current collapse, permafrost melt, and ice sheet loss – are not far behind. Each accelerates the next, creating feedback loops that speed up climate breakdown.

Then, this morning, I received an email from the Government responding to a petition to halt airport expansion. Part of it read:

“The Government therefore supports airport expansion where proposals contribute to economic growth, can be delivered in line with the UK’s legally binding climate change commitments, and meet strict environmental requirements on air quality and noise pollution.”

The list of planned expansions – Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, and beyond – was all about “economic growth” and maintaining the status quo. But if we don’t act decisively to cut emissions, climate breakdown will destroy any chance of growth – and in some regions, any chance of survival.

Carbon dioxide levels are still rising. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry funds anti–net zero campaigns and uses politicians as mouthpieces to protect their profits. Green energy offers a massive opportunity: it can create jobs, cut bills, and reduce emissions. We could lower bills immediately by cutting the link between electricity and gas prices, but that would hurt oil and gas profits, so it doesn’t happen. These same companies continue to receive huge public subsidies that dwarf support for renewables.

Airport expansion is simply incompatible with our climate goals. No amount of greenwashing through “sustainable aviation fuel” or dodgy carbon offsetting schemes will change that.

If we’re serious about telling the truth, we need to be honest about green energy too: why we need to decarbonise, why solar panels (covering just 0.7% of UK land – less than golf courses) can help power our future, and why upgrading the grid and installing battery storage is essential – even if that sometimes means projects are built near where we live. Time and money are tight, and we don’t have time to always wait for the perfect solution.

The clock is ticking. Hundreds of millions in the Global South are already dying from floods, fires, famine, and disease linked to climate breakdown. We’re not immune here either: UK farmers face failing harvests, rising food prices, and more frequent flooding. Some truths will be uncomfortable and require lifestyle changes – but that’s a small price to pay compared with a world of famine, fire, and forced migration.

Scientists and even insurance companies are warning us. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) recently projected global GDP losses of up to 50% between 2070 and 2090 and warned that a +3°C world – possible as soon as 2050 – could cause over four billion deaths, social collapse, and mass extinction events. GDP loss seems almost trivial in comparison.

The Green Party tells it like it is – guided by science, compassion, and a commitment to act in the best interests of the majority, not a privileged few. Our membership continues to grow rapidly. We’re out on the streets, talking to people, telling the truth, and offering real solutions not tainted by corruption or corporate influence.

The good news? If we act now, we can still build a fairer, healthier, and more hopeful future – for ourselves, our children, and the countless other species we share this planet with.

Come join us – and let’s make hope normal again.

Promoted by James Harvey on behalf of Broadland Green Party, a constituent party of the Green Party of England & Wales PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ

What does it mean?

5 Replies

A friend said to me today that it’s still really hard to compute what it could mean, after I sent them a link to this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/15/we-should-have-better-answers-by-now-climate-scientists-baffled-by-unexpected-pace-of-heating?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

What’s published in the media on climate collapse isn’t usually the full view of scientists, not as bad as they think the situation really is. If you talk to climate scientists you’ll largely find them depressed, sick of not being heard, of being ignored by politicians. They have to ensure the information they publish is backed by facts, by peer reviews, but in private they’ll tell you it’s probably a lot worse than that, we just can’t prove it yet.

It is hard to compute. Our brains don’t want to think about it. We are averse to thinking about our own demise. It has got me thinking about it all again this evening.

The Mediterranean Sea is apparently 28^oC in some places. It’s like walking into a hot bath. This is incredibly bad for habitats and wildlife.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/08/07/the-mediterranean-is-on-fire-experts-sound-warnings-about-why-marine-heatwaves-are-so-dang

Temperatures records are being broken year on year, month on month, and sometimes day on day. We’ve just seen the wettest 18 months on record. Wildfires have burnt down half of Jasper in Canada and threaten Athens, California ablaze, similar in parts of Russia and South America: Patagonia, the Patanal in Brazil which is the world’s largest wetland, Venezuela and Chile. And in Australia, South Africa, Turkey, Cyprus, the list goes on, hardly anywhere is left untouched. We have field fires in Norfolk too, where I live.

Norfolk straw fire 15 August (source EDP)

Norfolk field fire 15 August — Norfolk straw fire 15 August (source EDP)

Heatwaves in India approaching wet bulb mass mortality range. Tasmanian and Boreal (northern) forests dying. Harvests failing; Norfolk farmers had a hell of a time of it earlier this year, due to flooding, when they couldn’t plant crops or graze livestock. Italian and Swiss villages destroyed by floods, similar in Germany. 20,000 washed out to sea in Libya. 2022 floods in Pakistan impacting 33 million people. Sea level rise threatening low lying island states already. Amazon not absorbing carbon dioxide anymore and at risk of turning into desert. Bats and birds dropping out of the sky due to heat stroke. Caribbean islands being hit by record hurricanes which have destroyed all the buildings in some places, leaving women to give birth in the dirt. Devastating famine and water shortages in Africa. Water is now monetised, it’s being bought and sold to the highest bidders, traded on the stock market.

We’re on track for +2.7^oC global heating, above pre-industrial averages, by end of century. It’ll probably be more than that due to the acceleration we’re seeing and tipping points being crossed such as the loss of albedo, meaning less of the sun’s radiation is reflected back into space, and methane being released from the permafrost. And the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is still going up.

What does this mean? It equals food shortages, the mass migration of 1 billion people by 2050, if not earlier as it’s happening now, more wars for remaining resources which means more emissions, pollution and death. More holidays to places that are too hot to live in, or on fire, or flooding, or where the native populations are being made homeless or starving. It means economies will crash, people will lose their jobs, their pensions, their savings, their houses. There will be more civil unrest as people feel failed by the system. It means the rise of the far right, again already happening, which occurs when people are scared and need someone to blame; we know this from history. The breakdown of law and order follows, disease, pandemics and health service failure. Then, eventual societal collapse and the death of billions.

It’s not me saying this, it’s not my cause, it’s not Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion’s cause either. It’s what climate scientists are stating, 99.9% of whom say we’re in big trouble due to global heating caused by our carbon emissions.

It’s what the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who is advised by climate scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is saying; “we’re on the highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator“. The IPCC itself has said “the world is facing a “rapidly closing window of opportunity” to secure a sustainable future.” This window of opportunity is only a few years long, perhaps by the end of this decade, if not sooner.

And if you don’t believe them, or the International Energy Agency, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or the Red Cross, maybe you’ll believe Sir David Attenborough who said, amongst many other powerful things:

“Climate change is also really important. You can wreck one rainforest then move, drain one area of resources and move onto another, but climate change is global. If my grandchildren were to look at me and say, ‘You were aware species were disappearing and you did nothing, you said nothing’, that I think is culpable.“

Small communities might survive by the end of the century, in Northern territories, but they could all be screwed too if AMOC (Atlantic Meridian Overturning Circlation) stops. If that stops all bets are off, people could be squeezed into a very narrow habitation zone, where they’ll no doubt fight to survive. Here’s what Laura Jackson, a scientist from the MET office had to say on it. Her view is perhaps a moderate one, with other scientists saying the collapse of AMOC could come a lot quicker. We just don’t know for sure.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in a changing climate

Some, if not all of this, is locked in. But we can still try to stop making it worse. We can come together, stop emissions that are causing global heating, stop burning oil and gas for energy, change the way we live (recycling just doesn’t cut it), grow food locally, stop eating so much meat, build resilient and well connected communities, reject consumerism and infinite growth, adopt doughnut economics. We can accelerate the transition to renewable energy, equitably across the globe, stick solar panels on every roof, paint stuff white to reflect solar radiation back into the atmosphere. We can stop building new roads, stop building houses in areas at risk of flooding or which include important wildlife habitats, preserve and restore nature, reuse and yes, recycle.

We could tax the super rich and use funds to build renewables and for adaptation. Tax the fossil fuel companies and put their execs on trial for genocide by oblique intent (see Rome statutes). Prosecute the media for spreading lies and half truths which have led so many astray. Prosecute corrupt politicians and business persons who have done the same and profited from it. Set up legally binding Citizens’ Assemblies to decide what we need to do. Change the whole system. If we do all this we might stand a fraction of a chance. We might not die.

At the moment though governments, the oil and gas industry, some banks and a lot of the media seem intent on waging war on humanity. We are being led astray by people we are told we should trust. I find it devastating when I hear people planning for 10, 20, 30 years in the future, for their kids futures, when the world is already on fire or flooding. What do you think our children are going to face in 10 years time, let alone by the time they are 50?

I’m not doom-mongering, I refuse to be complicit, even though we’re all trapped by the system we’re in and hypocrites to one degree or another. I refuse to stick my head in the sand and wait for someone else to sort it out. I refuse to be a bystander whilst millions die; that’s happening right now. I’m not being self righteous, or virtue signally, I’m panicking, I’m scared, I’m raging at a system which thinks we can just carry on as normal, and spends billions of dollars trying to convince everyone we can. More recently I’m massively saddened to see rampant racism and hate out on the UK streets, with young kids being swept up by it, I’m anxious due to receiving telephone threats from far right thugs after I attended counter protests. But I have to carry on, taking action is the only thing that gives me hope when I lie awake thinking how the lives of my niece and nephew, my godchildren, all children can and are being cut short. And that’s hard to write.

I will no doubt perish far sooner than my Mum. She lived to 83. I won’t.

But, I, along with thousands of other ordinary people will try to make a difference by taking non-violent direct action. I hope you do too.

Couldn’t leave without a picture of Gideon, he is judging you, are you culpable?

Feel free to message me if you would like further information on how to take action with Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion, or with local ’causes’ in Norwich and Norfolk. I am growing to hate that word…’causes’.

Norfolk – life in the slow lane (in a good way)

Extinction Rebellion – where are we at?

2 Replies

Hi – this is a reflective post on Extinction Rebellion, with whom I’ve been involved for about a year and a half now, if not longer; recently time is starting to blur a bit. It will most likely be of interest to active rebels, but I’d invite anyone to read it and comment, as it’s useful to hear other opinions. I originally started writing it in a response to a post on social media, but apparently it’s a bit too long to fit in the comments!

Extinction Rebellion…Oct 2018 to June 2020

It was such a relief to me when Extinction Rebellion (XR) started in Norwich. Turning up at that first meeting in October 2018 to find there were lots of people like me, very concerned about the environment and ecology, and the path that we’re still on; 4^oC temp rises, mass extinction, societal breakdown, mass migration and war, famine, drought, ecocide etc.

At the time the above were my main concerns, and still feature right up there on my worry list. Thinking about the future and what’s going to happen to everyone (humans, animals, plants, planet) genuinely does stop me from sleeping, and often makes me think everything pointless, because I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to stop this runaway train (unintentional link to HS2 there). There’s just not the willingness politically, or amongst business leaders, or amongst most of society in the UK to make the drastic changes we so desperately need. People don’t want to give up there comfortable, high-consumption, cosy and safe lifestyles; and by people I do mean most people in the western world. I totally acknowledge this is a challenge for me too!

I still think most people, even if they now know climate change is real, don’t really get the implications, or the impacts already being felt by the Global South and indigenous populations. Yeah, there were those fires in Australia, and didn’t South Africa run out of water, and what about those orang-utans (etc etc), but at the end of the day I can worry about that a bit then go back to my cosy lifestyle, as it’s not on my doorstep.

It’s not on my doorstep yet anyway. It will be soon but people don’t want their bubble broken, or to be taken outside of their comfort zone. It’s damned scary. Blissful ignorance is…well…blissful.

But once you’re properly awake, you can’t go back to sleep. And that’s why it was such a relief to find a group of people in Norwich, and nationally, who wanted to try and do something about an issue that has been on my mind for years and years. I think many of us, even if it’s at an unconscious level, have known something is wrong all our lives. Here was a group of people that really understood the depth of the crisis and changes needed. To us it’s obvious why you shouldn’t build another airport or more roads, damage vital habitats to build a railway or more houses, or push an unfettered economic growth policy. It’s obvious the modern way of life and capitalism is ultimately killing us. It’s now more obvious how this links in with Social Justice. All of this still isn’t obvious to most people though, and I can’t really judge them on that; it’s a hard topic and not widely discussed or accepted.

I’ve was never involved with any kind of activism before XR, and I think that’s pretty representative of a lot of our membership, aside from some of our ‘leaders’ (hesitant about using the word leader, probably mean more founders). We’re just ‘normal’, run of the mill UK people, with ‘normal’ jobs and lifestyles. And yes, a lot of us are middle classed, and very privileged; I for one acknowledge that. Until recently I didn’t know much about other movements and struggles, and for example I still view organisations like Unions with distrust (but trying not to judge).

Sure, I was worried about the NHS, Brexit, human and animal rights, racism, fairness, and a host of other issues, but for me these all paled into insignificance versus the Climate Crisis and Ecocide. In the end these two things have made me an activist, and got me out onto the streets. I think this is still the case for lots of XR members; the climate and ecological crisis is the issue that trumps all other issues, as if we don’t solve that there won’t be anything else left to fix. I still believe that to an extent. And I think a lot of rebels still want us to focus on that, and feel we might be trying to bring too many other issues into scope.

However, since those early XR days, I’ve learnt loads thanks to talking to lots of other rebels; I could reel off a long list of names and talks I’ve been too, but you’ll probably know who I’m referring to if you move in those circles. XR has been a gateway to the world of activism and learning more about the issues we face locally, nationally and globally. One of the biggest areas of learning has been around Global/Social Justice, and how it’s all linked. We can’t fix the climate and eco crisis without addressing Global Justice. And by Global Justice I mean acknowledging and taking action to stop the exploitation of the Global South and indigenous populations, and to support them on the front-line of the climate crisis; they’re already dying in their thousands.

It also means acknowledging and doing more to combat racism and inequality in our own country, for the same reasons, and that includes within XR. We need everyone’s voices (I exclude racist and some other categories from ‘everyone’) and to engage with all communities, not to distance ourselves from them, or say we don’t need them; I have personally seen this happen. We also shouldn’t take actions without understanding the impact it can have on communities which one doesn’t originate from. More empathy, outreach and understanding needed.

What can we do to make XR better? What can we do to fix what could be viewed as a make or break few months? I don’t have all the answers and shouldn’t expect to; we need everyone’s help with that.

What don’t I want to see?

I don’t want to see current rebels, who joined for the same reasons I did, leaving because they think being middle classed and privileged means they’re no longer welcome, or because it means they don’t really have a right to protest. I think I need to acknowledge and use my privilege in a constructive manner, to hopefully to make things better. I also acknowledge the ‘not feeling welcome’ bit is how a lot of BAME/LGBTQ must feel all the time.

I don’t want to see XR paralysed by internal politics, especially at a national level. I don’t want to see us starting to rely on a hierarchy that will stop us from doing anything; we’re a self organising system with demands, principles and shared values. We shouldn’t be held back because suddenly one of our previously key members/leaders is doing something we find is at odds with those principles and values; let’s move on.

There are quite a lot of very self righteous people (I hope I’m not one of them) around at the moment who are getting too judgemental perhaps. Too many egos? Maybe XR is being used as a platform for other causes where it’s not really appropriate to do so?

I also really don’t want to lose the grass-roots rebels we have, that would diminish us. I feel that if you’re part of something you care about, and think it might be broken somewhere, then it’s better to try and at least fix it before leaving; if you think it’s worth your time and effort, and isn’t going to bring you too much stress or ill-health.

What do I want see?

I want to see the 4th demand (Social Justice) put in place as soon as possible, and don’t want to have to wait for months of endless talk and meetings for this to happen. I personally think if the majority approve it in local groups, they can just add it at a local level, and national can catch up.

I want to see our existing rebels get motivated and out on the streets again for the right kinds of actions; targeted actions versus government and corporations. Not actions that are going to adversely impact already stressed communities.

I want to see peaceful mass actions at a local level. Sure, we should go ahead with national actions and large scale well considered, well-messaged, and well-managed Rebellions, but local groups shouldn’t just wait for these to happen, or be reliant on central ‘leadership’.

I want to see more outreach and discussion with working class and BAME communities. I would love XR rebel numbers to grow from their ranks, but if that’s not possible please can we learn from them, act in harmony with them, and support each other? I am certain we can do this with the BLM movement.

I want to see more education and trainings to help people understand how the climate and eco crisis is inextricably linked to Global/Social Justice. This will surely help bring communities together; more integration and learning on both sides. We need more actions specifically on Global Justice, or XR rebels turning out to support actions organised by these movements.

I want middle class XR members to understand why it’s more difficult for working class, LGBTQ, and BAME communities to rebel, and to support them where they can so they feel they are able to, so we can create a united movement across society. I think this is starting to happen, but we have a long way to go still.

I want people not to be afraid to speak what’s on their mind, ask questions, challenge statements, enter in to discussion. It’s the only way we really learn.

I desperately want people to pause more often for self reflection and to think about what they’ve learned, whether they need to learn more, and whether that means they need to alter their trajectory at all. Really – Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes (empathy). We shouldn’t get paralysed by self reflection though; sometimes happens to me.

I want more people helping and doing stuff, rather than just talking about it, or criticising. I want less meetings and more actions.

I am probably wanting too much, and again acknowledge I am speaking from a privileged position, and that I still have lots to learn. Yep, I’m one of those middle aged, white, middle classed white blokes, but I don’t think that means I should just shut up; it does mean I should listen more though.

I move through periods when I think anything is possible, to periods of despair and grief, especially when I move outside my own echo chamber (but even whilst within it).

I’ve just got to carry on believing change is possible, and hoping we can work out how best to bring about that change as time goes on. But time is ticking, and frankly I’m increasingly anxious (or terrified ) about how little of it we have left to make the significant changes needed. Maybe only months, maybe years; those tipping points are looming. I am increasingly tempted to do what some have done, try and buy my own patch of land, somewhere remote, and prepare for the worst.

How do I feel better? By organising and participating in targeted non-violent direct action and positive outreach, centred around the climate and ecological crisis, as well as global justice. It feels right to me, when they’re the right sort of actions/outreach, and when they have some sort of impact. More of those sorts of actions, and I hope with an ever increasing number of Rebels, as well as cross-overs with other movements and communities.

Finally, a plea.

As we come out of lockdown I’m hoping we don’t go back to where we were prior to Coronavirus, and that we don’t let our government and business leaders take us back there by investing in the wrong areas, to drive more profit and growth for the benefit of a very small fraction of society. We new a new baseline to work from.

There are many positives to take from lockdown, such as being able to work from home, not needing to travel so much, consuming less in general, and how local communities have rallied around to help one-another.

I hope we can ‘Build Forward Better’, a green and sustainable future investing in the right things, which doesn’t include projects like HS2 (remember we can work for home), massive new road schemes, or housing developments on endangered biodiverse habitats.

I hope people realise that long term happiness and satisfaction is more about who you have around you, functioning communities, being able to play, being able to enjoy nature, being able to talk to your family and neighbours. It’s not so much about having to go on holiday abroad twice a year, or constantly buying new stuff you don’t really need at the expense of our environment, ecology and the Global South. Let’s stop sleep walking towards our own destruction.

We can be happy without all of that, in fact we can be happier than we are now, with less stress, mental and physical illness. We should be able to support one another across society to make this happen; a transition to a fair, sustainable, resilient, and green world.

Now stop reading my ramblings and go enjoy some nature, dance in the rain, play some music, talk to a neighbour, play a game, or just be in the moment for while.

Love and Rage.

Please stop scalping Mother Earth

4 Replies

I haven’t written to the Council for a bit, or to my MP, however after pedalling round my local country lanes over the last few days I felt motivated to write the below. I might also submit this to the local newspaper tomorrow to see if they’d life to print a version of it. I’m sharing it on my blog as I’m sure many of you will feel the same way. Here’s a nice photo before getting into the letter; let me know quick if you spot any typos!

Norfolk waterway with willow trees and cow pasture

03 June 2020

Dear Sir/Madam,

I’m sure like me being able to enjoy Norfolk’s glorious countryside over the last few months has been of great solace during lock-down. We have an amazing variety of habitats, plants, mammals and birds, and I was delighted to see the Swallowtail butterflies when I cycled up to Hickling Broad the other day.

I am currently working from home, as are many people; those fortunate enough not to have been furloughed or made redundant, or our committed key workers who run the risk of catching COVID-19. I try to get out once a day for some exercise, which generally involves a bike ride or a walk around the Salhouse area. At the weekend I go on longer rides taking in many of the county’s country lanes, teeming with wildlife and bird song.

One of the upsides of lock-down is that I’ve been able to get out in my local area a bit more, to appreciate nature in all its glory as Spring turns to Summer. The hundreds of varieties of plants and wildflowers, the insects in their multitudes that feed on them, the birds and mammals eating the insects; a wonderful trophic cascade. A couple of week’s ago I spotted a Stoat bouncing down a lane, hunting along the hedgerow, a sight that filled my heart with joy. It was accompanied by the magnificent sound of Skylark’s song overhead.

In the last two weeks it all seems to have dramatically changed, leaving me very sad, and filled with considerable rage.

Now when I cycle down the same routes the roadside verges, once teeming with life, are quiet, shrunken and lifeless things. They have been shorn down to the bare minimum, often the naked earth, as if Mother Nature herself has been scalped. Gone are the wildflowers and plants, the brightly coloured beetles, the butterflies around the nettles, the birds finding food for their young. There is no sign of the Stoat; there’s nothing for it there anymore.

I don’t understand why this is done. I have checked the information on the Norfolk County Council website on the page linked to below:

https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/roads/road-maintenance/trees-hedges-and-grass-verges

It says that roadside verges are only cut for safety reasons and not appearance. They are cut to ensure visibility and safety at junctions. It also extols the virtues of ‘almost 10 miles’ of roadside nature reserves; 10 miles, out of the 1000’s of miles of roadside verges we have in the county.

Now I get the safety and junctions point, and to an extent the visibility bit on some stretches, but the cutting goes far above and beyond this. Most cutting, aside from in the very few designated roadside nature reserves, is extreme, leaving very little cover. I am guessing this is to reduce the frequency of cutting, or is just down to ignorance or lack of care for the habitat being destroyed. I guess it’s also possible the contractors doing this work are assessed and have to make sure it’s clear where they’ve cut, and that the council is getting their money’s worth. I imagine there is a whole governance and sign off process around it that’s miles distant from caring about the safety of the plants, mammals and birds whose homes are being destroyed, or the vitality of the habitat that brings so such joy and relief to walkers and cyclists alike.

It’s not just roadside verges. There are reports of park or common land where wildflower meadows that have been allowed to grow, being dramatically cut back, with nesting birds disturbed or killed. Local residents in those areas have been rightfully devastated and angry to find their little bit of nature gone; it’s really bad for people’s mental health.

It appears the temporary reprieve nature had in many parts of the county, due to lock-down, is over. The stay of execution has expired. Not only are roads getting busier again, packed with traffic with a corresponding increase in roadkill (I passed a beautiful grass snake half squashed near Ranworth the other day, and lets not even get into hedgehog deaths), but we have restarted our relentless pursuit of dominance over nature. It’s got to be controlled, cut, shaped, moulded and turned to our purpose.

I request we change the way we’re looking at this. Roadside verges and hedgerows provide some of the last remaining habitat in the UK for our native flora and fauna. We’ve simply got to realise we’re a part of nature, not apart from nature. By destroying it, and roadside verges are just one simple but effective example, we’re harming ourselves and future generations.

Instead of cutting nearly everything back, which seems to be the case in most places, why can’t we reverse the policy and only cut at real key points, such as at junctions as the Norfolk County Council’s website references. On straight stretches of road, with a clear line of sight, there really can’t be any excuse for cutting down to the bare earth. We’re in a climate and ecological emergency, and desperately need to protect our remaining biodiversity. Instead of just a handful of ‘roadside nature reserves’ why can’t we have just a handful of ‘roadside cutting zones’ with the new normal being verdant habitat for wildlife. Give the plants, mammals and nesting birds a chance.

I’d like to talk about a couple of other things, just to support this.

The UK has been hunted, developed and farmed to within an inch of its life for thousands of years. We have very few wild places left, and a massively reduced diversity of plants and animals. Very few bits of ancient woodland, or habitat that has reached its climax state, remain. We are highly critical of other parts of the world who are destroying their own perhaps more obviously biodiverse habitat, such as rainforest, for example for agricultural purposes. The poorer nations doing this are often doing so to provide goods and services for us. They’re doing now what we’ve done to our own country for centuries, and our own corporations are encouraging them to do so in the name of progress and economic growth.

We’re massively exploiting the Global South for things like food, precious minerals for our mobile phones, palm oil and fossil fuels, with profits mostly going to line the pockets of the elite in the Global North. We’re privileged hypocrites and most of the time we don’t even realise it. Can’t we spare our remaining bits of nature the chop, and try and set a bit of an example for other nations? This also links in with social and environmental justice, but that’s a topic for another day.

The Coronavirus originated in China, and it seems evident that anthropogenic (human based) pressure on natural habitats caused the outbreak. Human incursions (habitat destruction, pollution etc) into natural habitat, stressing natural systems and balances, caused this horrible virus to jump to humans, leaving us with a global pandemic and widespread tragedy and grief. I’m not saying that cutting verges and hedgerows will cause a similar outbreak, but it’s the same principle; destroying nature harms us in the long run, and we’ve got to learn to live alongside it and not try and tame it all the time.

I was really hoping that we could emerge from the pandemic with a new strategy for life, a refreshed system, with no going back to old harmful and destructive practices. I know many people are trying to change the way they live, with working from home becoming the new normal, and perhaps reduced consumption rates and associated emissions. Please can we do all we can to encourage this, including stopping the highly destructive practice of roadside verge and hedge cutting where it’s not needed? It may seem like a little thing, but all these small steps add up to something bigger.

And if we can get a new normal, with more working from home and much less traffic on the roads, we could scrap other environmentally and ecologically destructive projects such as the Wensum Link Road, or housing developments on County Wildlife Sites such as Thorpe Woodlands, or plans to expand Norwich airport. We desperately need to invest in a greener and more sustainable future, and to relieve ourselves of the suicidal notion that unfettered economic growth is either possible, a positive measure of success, or leads to happiness and satisfaction.

I humbly request that as a county we revisit the policy on grass verge cutting, as well as decisions made in a different era on developments that are no longer needed, and which don’t make any sense when we know we need to reduce emissions and protect biodiversity.

If we don’t act now, we wont leave anything for future generations. Please stop scalping Mother Earth.

Yours sincerely,

James Harvey

Salhouse resident

P.S. Photographic evidence of excessive roadside verge cutting available upon request

Self Propelled

Self propelled adventures through life; blogging on cycling, touring, micro-adventures, general shenanigans, and environmental news

Tag Archives: Environment

Mad World

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Don’t Look Up: When the Government Finally Admits the Planet Is Breaking

Why Aren’t They Listening?

BBC Coverage of the Climate Crisis: A Missed Opportunity

Let’s Make Hope Normal Again

What does it mean?

Norfolk – life in the slow lane (in a good way)

Extinction Rebellion – where are we at?

Please stop scalping Mother Earth