The news media would have it that VE Day is the most important news of the day.
They might offer the prospect of a US trade deal as an alternative.
Some will be obsessed with the election of a new Pope.
The truth is, though, that the most important news of the day is buried deep in the pages of the FT, where it has been reported that:
Scientists' fears of a breach of the 1.5C warming level set down in the Paris accord escalated, after the latest data showing the monthly average global temperature had topped the threshold for 21 out of the past 22 months.
They added:
The second hottest April ever was recorded at 14.96C — or 1.51C above the estimated 1850-1900 average and just 0.07C cooler than the record April of 2024, the European earth service Copernicus said.
The global average temperature over the 12-month period to the end of April was 1.58C above the pre-industrial level.
That is easily the most important news of the day.
We are at risk. It is an existential risk. That is the most important news of the day. And no one is paying attention, and none of our politicians are taking the need to do anything about it seriously anymore.
Our politicians can, apparently, senselessly celebrate the past, without thinking about what it means. But worrying about the future is beyond their comprehension, and pay-grade, so small-minded are they.
And that is why we are in deep political, social, economic and climate-related trouble.
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Oh, the 1.5 degree target is history. The question is whether we can actually stabilise the climate at a point compatible with our human civilisation continuing much as it is today or not. 2 degrees, 2.5, 3, more.
We are already living in a world with changing patterns of heat and rainfall. Droughts and floods, hurricanes and typhoons, crop failures and water shortages. Sea levels have risen about 10 centimetres in 30 years, about a third due to melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica, and there is a good chance of another metre or two in the next century which would be catastrophic. Islands and coastal cities will disappear. The North Atlantic current could switch off, plunging Northern Europe into Canadian and Siberian cold.
All of that is going to drive significant changes in ecology of plants and animals, and in where people can actually live, and so migration to survive. Access to water and food and other natural resources are already factors in the conflicts, in Israel and Palestine, and in India and Pakistan. War, famine, pestilence, death. The four horsemen ride together.
On the plus side the UK would see cooler temperatures if the Gulf Stream is shut down !
https://geographical.co.uk/climate-change/what-would-happen-if-the-gulf-stream-collapsed
That is emphatically not a plus
Do you want much colder winters
What do you think the cost would be?
Tongue firmly in cheek
For a sober reflection on how the UK population reacted to the VE and VJ celebrations I recommend the May edition of History Today the article by Steven Casey which ends with:
“Britain by the end of the war was simply too exhausted to party too hard. After six years of war of intense sacrifice, people were relieved that fighting and dying had finally ended. But they were also impatient for a real change that would lift them out of wartime austerity”.
Agreed
Nicholas Monserrat who wrote the Cruel Sea was a Naval officer. He published a book comprising stories and observations of his war service. I read it at 15 and it remained with me. He and the other officers had discussions about what would happen after the war. Would men be the monkeys to an organ grinder singing for pennies? Would people sell their medals in the street. Would disabled soldiers be selling boxes of matches on the street-like last time? An army that fought across Africa and up Italy would not put up with it. Would men who had survived the Atlantic convoys accept what happened before?
The service vote was counted separately and it showed the people who fought the war voted for change.
We could do with that determination today.
Agreed
Indeed Richard.
And that’s not all, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University [1] monitors and defines “The planetary boundaries concept presents a set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come”. To date 6 out of 9 boundaries are in an unsafe operating space, with CO2 being a lower risk than other planetary health risks.
Microplastics is one area I taught for many years and a planetary injury, with as yet, unknown consequences [2,3]. As I understand it microplastics can degrade in size, year on, until perhaps they’ll challenge biological life itself? [4]
[1] https://www.stockholmresilience.org (search their planetary boundaries section).
[2] https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JC014719
[3] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08818-1
[4] https://doi.org/10.3349/ymj.2023.0048
Agreed, noted and frightening, to be candid.
But the right wing will deny it all.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
Churchill’s great great grandson, Alexander, has been wheeled out to keep the show going.
My paternal grandfather, his brother and their cousins served in the RAF in WW2, based in East Anglia and Lincolnshire. They reported criticism of Churchill and even the royal family by English colleagues. It seems that the Churchill myth is a much more recent invention.
I remember his funeral
I think that was when the myth began
Per The National”
“Any day now we can expect Keir Starmer to announce that he will intercede with the new Pope Leo XIV in order to get Churchill elevated to sainthood.”
One would think that Starmer would have better ways to utilize his time but this sounds like something Sir Keir would do! LOL! LOL!
🙂
And now we’ve got to the point where climbing on his statue is to become a specific offence!
Last year I watched again Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth”. It is over 20 years old now. What makes it terrifying is that many of his predictions as to what will happen in 20 years time ( I.e. now) seem prophetic if somewhat understated. Yet our politicians refuse to address the gravity of the situation.
Thanks
My mother was with the troops in Italy, largely based at Monte Casina. Colonel Smithers is (as always) very polite in refering to ‘criticism’ of Churchill. However, my mother was more blunt and always said that he was a figure of fun for the troops who saw him more as a ‘ruddy nuisance’
They voted him out
And rightly so
From The National’s Wee Ginger Dug:
“It speaks volumes about the woeful state of British broadcasting that a silent livestream of a chimney on a Vatican roof was for a while the most insightful and intelligent thing on British TV news.’
I LOVE old Wee Ginger Dug!
He’s great
Wee Ginger Dug was Paul’s late dog.
Not forgetting the two seagulls!