Heatwave

I remember lying out in the sun for hours sunbathing & developing a tan. I also remember sunburn. Eventually it dawned on me that keeping a tan required time & dedication & there were better things to do with my time. We also became aware that UV light is dangerous to health, especially if, like me, you had auburn hair & fair skin. 

Now I dread very hot weather. It is a real trial - I simply can't cope with it. I have to remain indoors in the coolest, darkened, room. Even then I am acutely uncomfortable because the weather exacerbates all my medical conditions. Nights in a heatwave are even more sleepless than usual. 

I am not alone. It is not just a question of discomfort. People die. There were 1,311 heat-associated deaths during the 4 heat episodes in the summer of 2024. Somehow you don't associate good weather with illness & death. Despite a pacemaker, I am acutely aware of the effect of any exertion. It's exhausting. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2024/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2024

The UK isn't adapted for extreme heat. Mediterranean counties are, but even they struggle. The US has air con everywhere.

Europe has adapted to excess heat through widespread infrastructural retrofits, urban greening & mandatory heat health action plans. Cities use passive cooling, such as cool roofs and shaded green infrastructure. Meanwhile, healthcare systems have scaled up early warning systems to dramatically reduce heatwave mortality. Cities have increased tree canopy cover, converted asphalt to permeable surfaces, & installed green roofs - Even green bus stops to lower ambient temperatures. Europeans have adapted labour laws & modified outdoor working hours, have shaded breaks & suspended heavy physical labour. School timetable are different.

The European Environment Agency has just published a report looking at climate risk & resilience.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/extreme-weather-and-uneven-climate-adaptation-challenge-europes-resilience  

The UK is really not ready for this. We are being catapulted into a situation that Europe, particularly the Mediterranean countries, have taken years to adapt to. Climate Change needs to be at the top of any government agenda. The trouble is there are so many other serious issues. Not least the threat of war with Russia & other rogue nations. Then there is Poverty, Housing, the NHS & Social care, Privatised utilities etc....

Who would be a politician today? There are no easy answers & there certainly isn't any money unless we all pay more & ask for less. 

  

 

 

Extinction

Extinction is the complete disappearance of a species, either naturally or due to human activity. Given the announcement this week that Russia has developed a nuclear powered missile that NATO calls Skyfall, which flew at Mach 10 for 8,700 miles & can pierce any defence shield, it seems that we are in another dangerous cold war, with unstable, undemocratic, leaders in charge of several well armed & powerful countries. This obviously threatens mass extinction.

Human-caused extinction rates are currently thousands of times higher than natural rates, driven primarily by habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and over exploitation. Darwin showed that variations in a species may make some individuals better suited to their environment, while less-adapted individuals may fail to reproduce - survival of the fittest. So extinction is, to an extent, normal. 99% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Challenges like habitat fragmentation, climate change, natural disasters, disease, or competition for resources may outpace ability to adapt. But you can't adapt to nuclear weapons.

The geological record shows five major mass extinction events in Earth's history. The first was 443 million years ago. The fifth was 55 million years ago. Many scientists believe the planet is currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction event, driven largely by human activity. This extinction rate is estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background rates.  

A 2019 report by the IPBES found that 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. There is a knock on effect of an extinction. The loss of a species, particularly a keystone species, can unbalance an ecosystem and trigger a cascade of further extinctions, that could take millions of years to recover. 

We humans are literally fighting a battle on two fronts to stop extinction. We need to stop unstainable exploitation of the earth & seas. We also need to learn how to co-exist with other nations & not use devastatingly destructive wars to settle disagreements over territory & culture.

 

Unfortunately I can't see much evidence of that happening. Essentially we humans are selfish rather than altruistic. Historically there are 10 civilisations that have gone extinct due to environmental changes, internal strife, warfare, or a combination of factors. This time we are talking about a world mass extinction. 

We don't seem capable of learning the lessons of history. We are in serious danger of being the agents of our own destruction. 
  

 

Remembrance, Memory & War

Remembrance & memory are two different things. Remembrance is an action. Something we usually do deliberately. Memory is the mind storing something from the past. As I've aged I have realised that there have been many memories & a great deal of data stored in my brain over 80 years. Sadly remembrance is becoming more difficult as the years pass.

In the case of memories no one's life is filled with happiness & people or events that are good memories. There are usually things that we would rather forget. It seems that we have little control over what is remembered & what is forgotten. It might be good if we could chose which memories to store & which to erase. Apparently there are techniques to influence & improve memory. But I think it's a bit late for me to do that. The brain itself selects which memories to solidify & which to forget. A lot depends on the emotional impact of the event. 

We are currently celebrating 80 years since VE day. Personally I am very ambivalent about this sort of remembrance. Human history is littered with wars of varying magnitude from skirmishes to full blown world wars. England fought in over 120 wars across 170 countries post the Act of Union in 1707. Prior to 1707 England fought in the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of the Roses, and the English Civil War for example.

We do not celebrate anniversaries of all these wars I'm glad to say. I can see nothing to celebrate about war. It is pointless, cruel & destructive. It is generally brought about by men seeking territory, power & wealth. There is huge death, destruction & suffering. Often it is the weak & defenceless - women, children & the elderly who suffer most. What is there to celebrate? 

This week we are celebrating the end of the 2nd world war. All wars do end. History shows us that war achieves nothing positive. Over the years millions of people have been killed or maimed. Homes & infrastructure has been destroyed & rebuilt. 

Its a repeating, man made cycle. We now have ways of fighting that don't involve hand to hand fighting. It is done from control centres miles away from the actual conflict. Soldiers kill without even seeing the "enemy", led by powerful men in capital cities who have never been in harms way & have no concern for the "collateral damage" they instigate.

The only winners from war are the people & companies who profit from the clearing up & rebuilding after the devastation. Malthus had a theory that because population expands at a faster rate than the earths ability to provide what we need, we need events to control population. War, pestilence & famine.

 

If there is a god perhaps this is the inbuilt way of control & balance? If there isn't maybe we live in a self controlling universe that will carry on despite us & our pathetic ways of trying to be in control of something much greater than us. 

Digital Marketing, Data Centres & the Carbon Footprint

When we think about carbon footprints aviation tends to top the list, with energy, industry & fashion. The Ecologist has done a piece this week about Digital Marketing. When I see images of cities like Tokyo, New York & London for example, I wonder why we don't consider this a complete waste of energy. It is costly in both financial & energy terms. It also causes huge light pollution & could possibly over stimulate the brain. Personally I can't see anything to recommend it.

https://theecologist.org/2025/mar/05/digital-marketings-carbon-footprint    

Data centres, which power everything from websites to social media, digital ads & streaming, online gaming, cryptocurrency & blockchain services, account for 2.5 per cent of global CO2 emissions - more than the entire aviation industry at 2.1 per cent. As the internet grows, so does its footprint. Data centers have a significant environmental impact due to their high energy consumption for running servers and cooling systems, contributing to increased carbon emissions and climate change. They also generate e-waste and require substantial infrastructure, including materials for construction and cooling systems. Data centres use about 1-1.3% of global electricity, largely sourced from fossil fuel, releasing substantial amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. 

As of March 2024, there were approximately 11,800 data centers worldwide, with the United States leading with 5,381, followed by Germany (521), and the United Kingdom (514). Data centers come in various sizes, ranging from small, micro data centers to massive hyperscale facilities, with the average full-scale data center typically occupying around 100,000 square feet. That's over two football fields.

If we are truly going to take action to stop our devastating CO2 emissions causing the Climate Emergency we really need to look at how much energy we are wasting on trivia. We do need to switch off our lights when no one is in the room, but frankly that is a drop in the ocean of CO2. We need to tackle the waste & pollution our digital world is creating.

Are Humans Parasites?

I'm reading a book by a Norwegian author that suggests humans are parasites engaged in collective suicide. At first it seemed a bit drastic, but it intrigued me. I did A Level biology so I know what a parasite is - a living organism that lives on or inside another organism, (the Host), & harms it. The analogy is that our World is the Host & we are destroying it. 

Well, actually I can't argue with that. We are polluting our world in all manner of ways. Man made Climate change is proof of that, as are dying species, oceans & rivers. We are destroying the forests & ecosystems that are a vital part of the whole of our complex world. We are grabbing natural resources that are finite & in doing so we destroy the places where we find them.

The difference between humans & other parasites is that we are sentient beings. We know what we are doing. We are presented with the evidence every day, both in our own lives & through the scientific evidence & news media. That is why this is collective suicide. 

So I accept the premise. The question is why we continue to do something which any intelligent person must see has the real probability that it will ultimately cause our own destruction?

I think that most of us are cocooned, (protected from pain or an unpleasant situation), in a mindset that we can't reverse this. That we individually cannot exert any control. That anything one person does will not even have the effect of a butterfly wing. We are selfish. We want to carry on doing all the things that we have become accustomed to doing. Someone else will sort this out in the fullness of time. Technology will be the solution.

We are deluded.

Each & every one of us has to make a personal effort to stop doing the things that make us parasites. We all have to stand up to the powerful, wealthy, vested interests that are now controlling our politics & international companies. 

If you don't believe me look at what is happening in America now that Trump has been elected. The people in charge of Trumps America include;-

• Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, who is under investigation ny the ethics committee & is very right wing.
• Robert F Kennedy as Health & Human Services Secretary, promoter of baseless conspiracy theories about vaccines and other public health staples, such as water fluoridation.

There is a whole list in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/14/trump-cabinet-administration-maga-extremism  America has power, money & influence. It doesn't look as if it will go in the right direction when Trump actually becomes president for the second time. Obviously the lesson of the first presidency has not been learnt. 

Or perhaps it has. Maybe the Parasites are winning & we are actually participating in our own collective suicide. If we are, hopefully the Host, (the World), will recover without us.
 

Choices

There is always a choice. Life isn't binary. 

We are sentient & intelligent beings, but we have made many choices & decisions for decades that are harmful or wrong. We are now realising that & paying a high price. Importantly, we now have crucial choices to make to either put things right, or go on mindlessly with those destructive & disfunctional ways of living, ultimately destroying the world we inhabit. 

It is your choice. Each & every one of you. It isn't a choice to be made on your behalf by someone else.

Every day is full of choices - mundane routine ones, what time to get up, what to wear, what to eat...we develop habits & we then mindlessly follow them. Some of those routine choices need to change. For example our idea that water is going to remain drinkable & instantly available in any quantity we need.

Water is a finite resource in a climate emergency world. Yes, we have just had a very wet spring, but if that is followed by a very long dry summer water will be rationed. If the climate continues to get more & more extreme we won't be able to rely on our water system. Our privatised water companies have already polluted every single river in the UK. In a world where millions don't have access to clean water we may well see mass population migrations & water wars. So, do you leave your taps running when you brush your teeth & wash? Do you ensure that you fill your washing machine & dishwasher? Do you use a pressure washer & garden hose? Do you flush every time you pee? Do you make the effort to save waste water? 

Choices, choices. Choices that matter, all the time, because every bit of water you waste cumulatively puts huge pressure on our creaking water system. 

That is just one example of choices that matter. The food we choose to eat also matters. Is it local & in season? Is it fresh or highly processed? Has it travelled miles? If so how, air, sea or land? 

The clothes we wear matter. Do we slavishly follow the dictates of fashion? Some fashion chains change their range more than 4 traditional collections a year. How long do we wear the clothes we have? (I reckon I don't need to buy any more clothes in my life except possibly underwear). What do we do with clothes & shoes we no longer wear? The fashion industry is notoriously unsustainable. https://hbr.org/2022/01/the-myth-of-sustainable-fashion

 

In a year of elections, world instability & the climate emergency make our individual choices matter more than normal. It is critical that we put people in power who do have an understanding of sustainability issues, who are not tied into powerful, wealthy, lobbyists, who will make the difficult decisions necessary in order to come out of this very challenging world situation. We need good leaders because we have had too many self seeking, power & money grabbing ones for a long time. 

Everyones choice matters, both on a daily basis & politically.

Refugees & Population Movements

Homo Sapiens began their migration out of Africa about 60,000 years ago. That should make us think on many levels. For a start we are obviously all descended from what were, presumably, black Africans. So racial discrimination seems rather silly & pointless. At that time there were no borders. There was just land & hunter gatherer people. Borders are a human construct. The first border was established in 1278 for Andorra. Our present system is only 350 years old. The British and French drew the modern borders of the Middle East, the borders of Africa, in Asia after the independence of the British Raj and French Indochina and the borders of Europe after World War I as victors, as a result of the Paris treaties. 

Now we build walls & have armed soldiers on border crossings. We spend vast amounts of money trying to keep people in or out. People have always moved around to try to improve their life chances. People are aspirational & often brave. Trying to stem the tide of population movement, for whatever reason, goes against an inherent instinct in people. If life conditions are bad, we try to make them better. We don't just accept. It's a survival instinct, not just for the individual, but for the generations to follow.

If you accept my premise, you have to seriously consider the validity of what countries & governments are doing today in the face of population movements due to war, dictatorships, climate change, famine & lack of the basic necessities of life. We must find a way to deal with this equitably because it is going to get worse. The world is more unstable than for a very long time. Instability due to War, Famine & Climate Change is not going to go away. Some places on earth are going to be uninhabitable.

I have no faith in the United Nations ability to deal with this for two main reasons. Firstly there is a worrying amount of corruption in the UN. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/22/united-nations-development-programme-undp-bribery-claims-iraq-aid-project  I also think that the fact that countries like Russia & China have the power of veto means that decision making is flawed & voting always results in compromise & inaction. Not particularly happy about the USA veto either.

I'm not a politician. But I think I'm reasonably intelligent. It seems to me that the present course of action is unsustainable & will ultimately cause even more death, destruction & upheaval. Maybe that is desirable to some? Are we, individually, going to tolerate living with the impact of that on other people who want the same good life that we have? Personally I can't.

I don't know if my solution is viable. But for what it's worth, this is it.

I think that trying to get a truly international agreement about dealing with population migration in a humane & equitable way is impossible. So I think we should focus on getting an agreement in Europe. Our lives are ruled by algorithms. Surely it is possible to consider factors like habitable land mass, population size, demographics, infrastructure, wealth & resources and come up with a plan for the assimilation of migrants in a fair way. Each country should take the number of migrants as determined by the calculation. Some countries, like Germany, need migrants because of their demographics. Some countries, like the UK have a relatively small land mass & are islands, so goods have to be imported.

We need fresh thinking. Now. Before this extremely difficult problem results in civil unrest or worse.

Idleness, Heatwaves & Politics

I have spent this week of heatwave doing very little. Most of the time I have been in my study, which faces North & is the shadiest & coolest place in the house. I always have things to do, managing my life, being on the computer, reading, listening to the radio, gardening, swimming.....The problem I have with very hot weather is that I simply don't have the energy to do much at all. Any exertion makes me breathless & exhausted.

So I have even watched daytime TV, which is frankly anathema to me. Such a waste of my life & time.

I am used to pacing myself. I am used to varying what I do between physical & sedentary things. I am not used to doing as little as I have done this week. I found I don't even have the mental capacity I normally have. I was continuously too exhausted to make much effort at all. Even night time brought no relief. It's too hot for restful sleep.

None of this is a serious issue. It's just a trial to get through & hopefully this week will bring respite as temperatures return to normal.

According to the Office for National Statistics June 2023 was the hottest June in the UK since records began in 1884. July 2023 was the world's warmest month on record & saw the world's hottest day with heatwaves across many parts of Europe, China, and the US.

Britain recorded its hottest day of 2023 so far on Saturday, with provisional data showing a high of 33.2 degrees Celsius (91.8 degrees Fahrenheit) Saturday was also the sixth day in a row the country has recorded a temperature above 30 C, well above average for the time of year. This year's previous high was 32.6 C, reached on Thursday. Britain has experienced its eighth warmest summer since 1884, with June the hottest on record in the UK. The highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom was 40.3°C. This was recorded in Coningsby, Lincolnshire on July 19th 2022.

Approximately 64% of adults in Great Britain said they were somewhat or very worried about the impact of climate change. 45% of UK adults thought the country was "not at all prepared" for more hot summers. Around 55% (15.7 million homes) of the UK's housing stock would fail the "bedroom overheating" test. Mine certainly did.

Are our politicians taking enough action to tackle the Cilmate Emergency? The first carbon budget (2008-12) and the second (2013-17) have been met and the UK is on track to outperform the third (2018-22). However, it is not on track to meet the fourth (2023-27) or the fifth (2028-32) Carbon Budgets are recommended by the Climate Change Committee and accepted by the UK Government. Lord Deben the outgoing chairman is critical of the government. 

https://www.theccc.org.uk/uk-action-on-climate-change/progress-snapshot/

In 2019 the government put the goal of reaching net zero by 2050 into law, but recently the future of the Conservative Party's green agenda has been the subject of intense debate. Downing Street has confirmed ministers are scrutinising existing pledges "in light of some of the cost of living challenges". Sunak is considering watering down proposals, saying measures must be "proportionate and pragmatic", instead of adding cost and "hassle" to households.

For f.... sake! This isn't negotiable. When facing direct evidence of the grim reality of man made climate change you need comitted, decisive, politicians who are prepared to face resitance & unpopularity in the best interests of humanity & our fragile ecosystem.

It isn't about staying in power it's about survival of everything we know. There really isn't a choice. 

 

 

 

Fire, Flood & Drought

In 1996 we went to Madeira for the first time on a walking holiday. One of the walks was the well known Valley of the Nuns walk from Eira do Serrado. However my intrepid husband wanted to do it in reverse for some reason I can't remember. This meant climbing up out of the Valley of the Nuns rather than descending into it, which would have been much easier. 

It's very steep. Every time you think you can see the summit disappointment follows when you get there. At some point I realised there was quite a bit of smoke to our left, blown towards us by the wind, which was gusty. I became more & more concerned. We had reached the point of no return & started to walk through recently burnt undergrowth. My husband insisted we were fine. I believed him. So we continued upwards.

We did reach the top having walked for hours meeting no one. When we got there it was like Offa's Dyke. Loads of Germans there to see the views & people picking chestnuts. 

My point is that it was probably really foolish. Instead of blindly following my husband I should possibly have done what instinct told me to & returned to some semblance of civilisation. But I trusted him. We had been in dodgy situations before on our travels & always survived. Often having had amazing experinces that holidaymakers don't have. I always believed I could achieve anything so long as we were together. He was unflappable.

Nearly 30 years on the world has changed. Wildfires now are affecting every region of the world because of complex socio economic factors. Records are being broken all the time for area burned, numbers of fires & fire intensity. 

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MOD14A1_M_FIRE/MOD_LSTD_M

In January 2009, the second time we went to Madeira, my house was flooded by a water escape from the loft while we were away, which devastated two thirds of my house. It took months to dry out & a full year to rebuild. That was clean water. 

Now the world is suffering from flooding on a scale unimaginable a decade or so ago. We are getting used to torrential rain even in the UK. Flooding, landslides, crop failure, death & disaster result.

https://floodlist.com/

Drought impacts food, fuel, and freshwater. Droughts result in significant, long-term economic losses  &  can cause major human health impacts. https://www.drought.gov/international

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/5dceec104a384df094e65af12a274959/

The point is it isn't that we don't know what is happening. We live in an age of instant communication & reliable scientific research. But we are human. We all have this capacity to ignore our better instincts & put uncomfortable truths into boxes in our brains. We believe that things will sort themselves out. We resist real change & want to maintain the status quo. 

It won't work this time. We do have the capacity to solve this existential climate emergency. But we have to make difficult decisions & make difficult changes. Time is running out. We just need to all face up to it. 

Or my 18 year old grandsons don't have a future anything like my past. 

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The Climate of Life & Death

When it rains I wear a Gortex coat or carry an umbrella. When it's frosty or snows I wrap up warm & wear boots with a good tread. When it's very windy I find it difficult to walk against the wind. When it's very hot & sunny I tend to try to stay in the shade & cool. In other words, sensible people adapt to weather conditions. 

The world is now experiencing more & more extreme weather events. Changing our clothing is not going to protect us from floods, droughts, heatwaves & forest fires. According to the European Environment Agency "Extreme weather events pose an increased risk to nature, buildings, infrastructure, and human health. These events, expected to increase in frequency and intensity because of climate change, are already causing substantial damage and loss. We must adapt and prepare for life in a changing climate". https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/extreme-weather-floods-droughts-and-heatwaves

People are being injured & are dying due to extreme weather events. Last year more than 61,000 people died from the heatwave in Europe. This year it is set to be worse. 

According to ReliefWeb in 2022 "The Pakistan June-September floods affected 33 million people, causing 1,739 deaths and economic damage costing US$ 15 billion. Monsoon floods also struck India (2,035 deaths, US$ 4.2 B), Bangladesh (7.2 M people affected), and China (US$ 5 B)" https://reliefweb.int/report/world/2022-disasters-numbers

According to the EU Science hub the EU 2022 wildfire season was the second worst on record. Wildfires in 45 observed countries burnt an area about the size of Montenegro, hitting Natura 2000 protected sites hard. This year, France has already surpassed its annual average of fire-ravaged area. https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/eu-2022-wildfire-season-was-second-worst-record-2023-05-02_en

Extreme weather costs lives, impacts health, costs huge amounts of money & causes immense human suffering. Extreme weather is a reality now & scientific research shows that events are increasing exponentially. The UN Climate Change report 2023 by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that "the world is likely to surpass its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — by the early 2030s. Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end".

 

Time is running out to actually take action. We are asleep at the wheel & continuing on putting a sticking plaster on a real existential threat. There have been 5 great Mass Extinctions in earth's history. This could be the 6th.

Multinational Duplicity

Last night I watched the film "Dark Waters" about one lawyers decades long fight to hold DuPont accountable for the massive contamination of water due to chemicals in "Teflon", which the company had known about, but supressed & ignored.

https://time.com/5737451/dark-waters-true-story-rob-bilott/

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/03/29/attorney-who-sued-dupont-over-tainted-water-takes-his-case-nationwide/7158116001/

I knew nothing about this particular case, but I do remember buying "Teflon" pans when I first got married in 1966. Teflon cookware containing PFOA, which has been shown to come with serious health risks, wasn't banned in the UK until 2005. This chemical was banned globally in 2019. Teflon manufactured after 2005 in the UK does not contain PFOA.

Rob Billott has tried to make DuPont accountable for the harms they knew about for over 20 years. He is an amazingly tenacious man whose whole life was taken over by trying to make a hugely powerful & wealthy multinational company accountable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bilott 

The thing that gets me is that DuPont is by no means alone in having their own scientific evidence proving the ecological & human harm their products do & ignoring it. The bottom line is always profit & the profits are beyond imagination. So "collateral damage" is accepted. The companies spend huge amounts of money, lobby & obfusticate, denying scientific fact. Exxon Mobil is another prime example. In 1985 the French secret service actually bombed Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand because they were protesting against nuclear testing because of the environmental & human harm it was doing.

The world is finally waking up to the harm that has been done. Multinationals like Coca Cola & Danone are being taken to court because of the massive plastic pollution they have caused. INEOS is being taken to court over new plastics manufacturing projects. Greenpeace publishes a list of the 10 most plastic polluting companies.

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/18876/these-10-companies-are-flooding-the-planet-with-throwaway-plastic/

Multinationals are finally being held responsible & accountable. But it may be too late. People worldwide have microplastics & chemicals in their bodies already. No one knows what the long term impact of that will be. People are suffering from diseases directly caused by pollution. Babies are being born with defects caused by pollution. Eco systems are being destroyed. Species are declining worldwide.

The behaviour of the multinationals is completely unacceptable. Rampant consumerism & massive profits have resulted in a world where hardly a corner is untouched by contamination & pollution. But that isn't the worst part of the story. We are running out of time to reverse this. The damage is huge, some things are already lost & cannot be reversed. 

The only real hope is a massive public outcry, huge amounts of money to clean up & develop new technologies to live in a better way in harmony with our environment. That will take enormous political will from every continent. 

I don't see much sign of that happening at the moment.

Water of Life - Not!

I've been emailing Thames Water, having watched the BBC2 documentary "Our troubled Rivers" on Sunday evenings. The current situation, (excuse the pun, because it isn't funny), is shown graphically. I got a bland response to the first email, so have now copied the CEO Sarah Bentley, who gets £2m a year plus a £727,000 bonus, into my response. I will be interested to see what she says because I simply cannot see that the Water companies can justify their abysmal record.

Water companies offer customers free water saving devices & discounted water butts, but Thames Water doesn't.

The Guardian states that "Thames Water had 68 complaints per 10,000 connections last year, compared with Wessex Water which had 10 and Anglian Water which had 17". 16 Oct 2022. "Thames Water's creaking infrastructure loses 635m litres in leaks every single day". 24 Aug 2022 

The Times said "Thames Water, which has said it will ban hosepipes in the coming weeks, paid shareholders £37.1 million last year and £1.6 billion over the past 12 years". 13 Aug 2022

Thames Water have a real time map showing the dumping of effluent into rivers & seas so they know exactly how much they are doing it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/23/thames-waters-real-time-map-raw-sewage-discharges-rivers  Water companies are literally killing rivers & everything in them except for algae. Bathers are swimming in effluent in rivers & seas. T W has missed compliance on water treatment & received the biggest fine of £51m, and will have to return money to customers in the form of lower bills in the 2023-24 financial year. 

 

Thames Water & Southern Water are top of a league that shames all water companies who are simply not doing their job effectively. The public is becoming ever more aware of the damage that is being done to the environment generally & rivers & seas specifically. Water companies were privatised in 1989 under the Conservative Thatcher government - 34 years ago. Initially that resulted in unprecedented spending and cleaning of our beaches and rivers to reach record quality levels. Now, sadly, the record is profit over people & planet. https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o2076

What can consumers do? Not pay their water bills? Stage demonstrations? Complain? Well yes, but how effective & speedy will that be? 

This is a serious & massive issue. It needs political will to force privatised companies to clean up their act. Or it needs current legislation to be enforced through the courts. A NGO like ClientEarth could be very effective. 

It's so prevalent & so serious it probably needs all of this to happen at the same time.

 

Armageddon??

Book of Revelation - "The End Times". Megiddo is an actual place, inhabited since Neolithic times, which is prophesied as the site of a battle at the end of the world.

It is tempting to think that the world is fast approaching it's end. We just can't know exactly when, or what will end. Today there are armed conflicts in too many places to mention here, but it's a frightening list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts

Action Against Hunger gives the appalling number of countries experiencing famine or extreme hunger. People are dying every day.

https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/the-hunger-crisis/world-hunger-facts/the-worlds-hungriest-countries/ 

The AHA centre has statisitics for natural disasters worldwide now.

https://ahacentre.org/weekly-disaster-update/weekly-disaster-update-9-15-january-2023/

Last but not least we have the overriding problem of the Climate Emergency threatening everything. 

On top of these major world calamities, we in the UK face economic decline, recession, strikes, food banks, serious problems in providing effective healthcare, education & transport, increasing poverty & a glaring, unacceptable, wealth divide. We have politicians who are unable to meet these challenges resulting in a total lack of confidence by the public.

It's a very complex world we live in. Everyone has to work to find solutions. It's everyones problem. It is a battle for survival of the world as we know it. We cannot afford to loose.

Gifts

It's New Years Eve, a time to reflect on not just last year, which was possibly one of the worst I can remember worldwide. It's also a time to reflect personally on achievements & failures. However, the past is simply that. Gone. Impossible to change. But there are lessons to be learned if we are open to change ourselves.

I find myself thinking about gifts, both tangible & experiential. I was remembering childhood postwar Christmasses with a friend. We both came from very ordinary homes with very little money. Christmas was far simpler, but there was still huge anticipation. There were not many presents in our stockings or under the tree, but we don't feel that we were deprived. 

Christmas today is a totally different celebration. It is undoubtedly far more commercialised & starts much earlier. There is constant advertising pressure to spend, which raises expectations. Retail makes a huge percentage of annual profit over the Christmas period. There is a massive amount of money involved, even in the current financial situation. https://www.finder.com/uk/christmas-shopping-statistics

We humans have always been given gifts that we didn't value. There are the unwanted presents that go now to the "present drawer" or the charity shop. At least they aren't thrown out, but there is a huge amount of waste - Christmas food is a prime example.

Modern communications have made us well aware that we have been given environmental gifts which are priceless & we have unthinkingly squandered them. We have been like children at Christmas - we have torn the wrapping off, used the gift briefly & then discarded it instead of recognising it's worth.

We have been given the supreme gift of intelligence. We are aware of the consequences to the world we inhabit of our greedy & thoughtless actions. We have to stop thinking of ourselves as special & entitled. We do not have the right to continue using up the finite resouces we have been given. We do not have the right to destroy habitats & everything in them to satisfy our own rampant greed.

There is a price to pay for gifts. They do not come free. We need to change our actions, attitudes & expectations. We have been profligate & selfish & created the Climate Emergency. We are clever & inventive. We have the capacity to rectify the mistakes of the past. The time to put that right is now, before it's too late. 

If we don't I can't bear to think of the gift we are leaving to our grandchildren.

 

COP 27 - 30 Years of Lobbying & Greenwashing

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. COP = Conference of the Parties. In diplomatic language “the parties” refers to the 197 nations that agreed to the new environmental pact.

Thirty years of talking about Climate Change. Thirty years of empty promises, agreements & resolutions not fulfilled. Thirty years of increasing scientific evidence of just how much we are destroying the world we live in. 

The Paris Agreement is the legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was a landmark in the multilateral climate change process because, for the first time, a binding agreement brings all nations into a common cause, to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement

Iran and Libya – both among the 14-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) – as well as Yemen and Eritrea have not ratified the agreement. The US withdrew under Trump, from November 2020. Biden rejoined the pact on his first day in office, 20 January 2021, and formally re-entered the global treaty 30 days later.

Inside Climte News reports “Our results indicate that the framework of the agreement is working pretty well. The Paris Agreement is getting countries to make ambitious pledges; last year nearly all countries updated those pledges and made them even more ambitious. What’s needed next is better systems for checking to see whether countries are actually delivering what they promise.”

We have to continue to hold countries & politicians to account. Greta Thunberg notably isn't going to COP27. She reckons it’s just a chance for the powerful to get away with “greenwashing, lying and cheating”, and that the annual summits of national governments, policy experts, spruikers and hangers-on aren’t working. At COP26 Countries agreed to limit global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – an advancement on the landmark 2015 Paris agreement – and acknowledged that meant immediately considering how to ratchet up action this decade. But 2022 has not delivered on that promise. Only 24 countries have updated their voluntary pledges to the UN, and only India and Australia have taken noteworthy strides forward, the latter from a very low base.

 

An estimated 35,000 people from government, Indigenous nations, climate groups and fossil-fuel multinationals will be getting on planes to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in the hopes of hastening (or hindering) the global movement to net zero. “It’s like a giant trade fair with Greenpeace at one kiosk and Exxon at the next,” said one lifelong environmentalist who stayed home. 

My cynical brain asks what the Carbon cost of that will be.

Manna from Heaven - How to feed the World?

According to the Bible God made the world & everything in it in 7 days. Presumably when he did that there was balance & the complex interrelated systems & biosphere worked effectively. Over the millennia we, who were created thinking, sentient, beings, have managed to wreak havoc & destruction on this beautiful planet. 

Not only that, we have multiplied to the point where we are using up all the natural resources at an unsustainable rate. Look at the Population Matters website, the bare statistics are there in easily assimilatable form.

https://populationmatters.org/the-facts

https://populationmatters.org/news/2022/02/un-report-food-systems-at-breaking-point/

That world population needs to be fed. Currently David Beasley, head of the U.N. World Food Program, said its latest analysis shows that "a record 345 million acutely hungry people are marching to the brink of starvation" — a 25% increase from 276 million at the start of 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Globally, hunger levels are alarmingly high. According to the 2022 State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI) report, the number of people affected by hunger rose in 2021 to 828 million, an increase of about 46 million since 2020 and 150 million since 2019, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.The inequality of access to good, nourishing food is shocking.

https://feedbackglobal.org/knowledge-hub/food-waste-scandal/ 

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-update

Add to this mix that there is increasing probability of acute water shortages & any intelligent person can see that we are marching towards a massive problem. The combination of both food & water shortages is a recipe for disaster.

We need to change our behaviour before it's too late. Food & water are so basic to life that countries need to be as self sufficient & sustainable as possible. The UK is an island. Importing food from around the world isn't sustainable any more. The world has the capacity to produce enough food for everyone & make sure that it is shared equitably. But that will need political will to make difficult decisions as well as individuals in the world of the "haves" to share equitably with the world of the "have nots". Otherwise there will be civil unrest on a huge scale.

Unfortunately I don't believe in "manna from heaven". We created this mess. We have to sort it out & there isn't much time.

Red Extreme Heat Warning

This is a first. It is a National Emergency. Temperatures of 40 degrees plus.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/heat-health/?tab=heatHealth&season=normal 

Hopefully it will serve as a warning to all the Climate Emergency deniers. 

Many people will feel very unwell. People will die. In 2020 across the 3 heatwave episodes, the total cumulative all-cause excess mortality was estimated to be 2,556. This is likely to be higher. 

I have a front North / rear South facing house. I can't bear to be at the back from early morning onwards. The rear extension has big windows & bifold doors which don't, as yet have any blinds. Renovation isn't finished. Fortunately I had shutters fitted in the front study just before this event, so I can retreat. I close the windows at the back & lower the blind in my bedroom, which is at the back. I open windows on the shady side if the air is cooler.

I know enough about protecting myself to feel reasonably safe, despite being elderly with a pacemaker & pre-existing conditions which make me vulnerable. But I'm not able to do anything much during the day apart from read & doze. Such a waste of time! I'm normally very busy. Any exertion makes me breathless & sweat profusely. My legs feel like lead weights are attached.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I cannot imagine going to work in this heat. I cannot imagine living in a bedsit or flat with little ventilation. My car has air con, public transport must be dreadful. Most of our building aren't adequately built for extremes of weather. 

We haven't prepared. Much of the responsibility for preparing lies with the government who are way behind the curve. But we, individually, have a responsibility too. We either accept the fact that we should make our own homes climate change ready, or we suffer in both summer & winter. Unless we are prepared to effectively lobby government to make the changes & pay more in taxes for those changes, we will continue to suffer episodes like this.

We are at a critical turning point. The current government is in a state of flux. The new leader needs to take action. There may be an election before the end of this parliament. The next government needs to have this as the highest priority.

It's no good being stoic & passive & resisting change. This is here now. We need serious actions.

Personality tests

I've just done the Myers Briggs "16 Personalities" test. It's very comprehensive & interesting. Also, in my case, really accurate I think. 

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

I'm a "Protagonist". But interestingly I was an "Executive" when I last did it in 2018. I can't remember ever doing it before, but I am interested that my personality has changed.

I have always thought that people can change over time. This seems to prove it. If it weren't true then what would be the point of our life experience? If our brain changes physically over time then why shouldn't our personality modify & learn?

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319185#Normal-brain-aging

Human beings are amazing. We are the sum of inherited characteristics & learned experience. Although I don't believe in religion or a god. I do believe that there is a purpose to existance. I do also believe that there is far too much synchronicity in our world for it all to be due to random development & modification. 

Just as each human being is a complex, interconnected, system of mind & body. So too is our world a hugely complex, interconnected & interdependent system. Our purpose is to individually become the best that we can be.

We each have the capacity to do that. If we could only manage it, think what an amazing world we could create.

Streams, Rivers & Oceans

 "A drop in the ocean". Rain droplets fall from the sky, nourish the earth & fill the rivers & ultimately the seas. Each small droplet is important. 

Lack of rain is a huge worldwide problem. At least 1.5 billion people have been directly affected by drought this century, and the economic cost over roughly that time has been estimated at $124bn (£89bn). 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/17/the-next-pandemic-drought-is-a-hidden-global-crisis-un-says

We are in a climate crisis. Weather patterns have changed & become far more volatile. The current, (excuse the pun), concern relates to AMOC - the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation - Commonly known as the Gulf Stream. New evidence says that it has been losing stability & may potentially collapse at any time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210805115420.htm

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/atlantic-ocean-current-tipping-point-b1897600.html 

If this happens the consequences will be severe. 

So each drop of rain & where is falls is important to human existence & the health of the planet. Yet we, knowingly, interfere with the natural patterns. Countries build dams on rivers, regardless of the detrimental effect this has on other countries downstream. Industrialisation has had a huge damaging impact on climate change. https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jest.2016.301.316

 

It isn't scaremongering to suggest Water Wars. 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jan/08/water-wars-early-warning-tool-uses-climate-data-to-predict-conflict-hotspots  

Acess to water is not universal. Acess to clean water is even less available worldwide. People need water for hydration, washing, cooking... If there is no water for irrigation, crops fail & there is famine. Desperate, disadvantaged people take desperate measures. 

So the next time you admire a  green & fertile landscape, think how fortunate you are. The next time you complain about the rain, think how millions of people watch the sky desperately hoping to see clouds. 

Every drop is important, but now some of us are getting far more drops, for longer, than is normal, with the resulting floods. At the same time desertification is creeping like a dust cloud over many parts of the world. 

We in Europe flush our loos with clean pure water. How bonkers is that!?

 

 

Being Human in a "Mass Extinction"

I've just calculated that I've lived for approximately 27,925 days (I'm 76.5 years old). Lets not quibble, call it 28,000 days. That's a lot of life experience.

Do humans learn from experience? Am I a better person now than I was as a child, a teenager, a young adult? I really hope so - I do believe I am. "We 'construct' our knowledge through experience – by doing. The human mind is better equipped to gather information about the world by operating within it than by reading about it, hearing lectures on it, or studying abstract models of it" - https://www.changelearning.ca/get-informed-understanding-human-learning-how-humans-learn-best.html

If you accept my premise, then as long as the learning is beneficial for the individual & for the society in which the individual lives, everyone benefits from "good" learning. "Humans have changed the world tremendously in the past centuries. They have invented technical devices, institutions that regulate cooperation and competition, and symbol systems, such as script and mathematics, that serve as reasoning tools"- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-016-0003-0  Learning results in long term change - for everyone. Humans are capable of becoming better people as they learn from experience & age. 

Unfortunately the opposite is also true, we live in a world of opposites. Why do humans become bad, cruel, evil? Is it because we dehumanise our victims? Or do we "see other people as blameworthy, as morally responsible, as themselves cruel, as not giving us what we deserve, as taking more than they deserve"? https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/12/14/16687388/cruelty-border-immigration-psychology-human-nature  History is full of the appalling things humans have done & continue to do to eachother.

Is it simply good & evil, God & the devil, right & wrong...?

I don't know. But I do know that in my lifetime, humans have created a completely different world, which I have had to adapt to & live in. In doing that I too have changed. It is a world which is infinitely more complex, more populated, more demanding of resources, simply more everything.

That model is not sustainable. Humans are living longer. Population is growing - "world population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.7 billion today". "Life expectancy, which measures the age of death, has doubled in every region".

 

Humans are voraciously using up everything in the world larder of resources. In doing so they are destroying their own habitat. Ultimately humans will destroy themselves if they don't stop. It isn't that we don't know what is happening - We don't truly see. We don't internalise. We don't want to change. 

It's on a knife edge. Will humans draw back from the brink of extinction? Have they learned from experience? 

It probably won't happen in my lifetime. But unless there is radical change it will. "Evidence shows that a sixth mass extinction is occurring now. Unlike previous mass extinctions, the sixth extinction is due to human actions". https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%3A_Introductory_Biology_(CK-12)/06%3A_Ecology/6.26%3A_Human_Actions_and_the_Sixth_Mass_Extinction

The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the Sixth Mass Extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is ongoing as a result of human activity.

That's you & me.