As The Guardian reports this morning:
More than 200,000 people have fled or been ordered to lock down as huge wildfires swept Spain and France on Friday, prompting Madrid to declare a national emergency and the French authorities to order the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country's best-known holiday spots.
They added:
Authorities in south-west France ordered the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast to be evacuated “village by village” in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) of forest.
And let's be clear: fires are out of control in Wales and Scotland as well right now.
What is more, this situation is only going to get worse: we have passed the point where we can stop that being the case. Unless we take action soon, climate change risk will enter the zone of being entirely unpredictable.
In 2008, I co-authored the first Green New Deal report. I wrote most of the subsequent reports. The group that wrote that report is now defunct, killed by Ann Pettifor's visceral hatred of modern monetary theory (although she seems to actually embrace all it says, whilst thinking MMT is about Friedman's helicopter money). That does not matter, though: the point is that it was obvious that these risks existed, and nothing happened.
More worryingly, nothing still is happening. Has Andy Burnham talked about this during his first week in office? Has he ever? Does he have any awareness of this issue? It seems to me that he has very little. And despite appointing a minister for net zero with Cabinet rank, he then raided the climate budget to pay for his £2 bus fare cap in an act of such small-mindedness it defies belief - whilst reinforcing his neoliberal belief with an approach reminiscent of the Washington Consensus, which this morning's infographic is about.
The question to ask then is a simple one. It is, are we now kissing our planet goodbye? And do we care? Or has our focus on hedonistic pleasure in the moment reduced us to the point where concern for its consequences now does not occur to most people?
I can worry about Trump, fascism, neoliberal failure and more. But they're all lower-order issues compared to climate change, and what worries me is that it is not being talked about by almost anyone, whilst the fascists even deny it is happening.
When are we going to get as scared witless as we should be?
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I can hear Greta’s words, “Your house is on fire”, with the evidence there to see and nothing being done. Not to mention the biblical levels of flooding we had in Devon in February that didn’t even make the news. Schools were closed, multiple roads and railways flooded and even the M5 had to be closed and resurfaced. Yet nothing is said or done. I understand why Caroline Lucas felt she needed to get out of parliament so she could focus on climate change. You don’t need a PhD to see that what we are experiencing this year is not normal or desirable. I am fortunate to live in an old cob house which copes well but I can imagine how awful it is for those in city high rises and for those with medical conditions that have less resilience. Why is this not seen as the emergency it is? Money will not solve this crisis, although the rich chantry and insulate themselves, but it seems we are in total denial.
Much to agree with
Carry out the thought experiment. You’re ordered to leave home.
What do you put in your car and where are you going?
And, yes, it makes me scared; it suddenly becomes personal.
We assume the Fire Brigade will be there and put out that fire, but will they? Now, I don’t know and regrets are now forever present.
I don’t think we should be scared witless because we need our wits to solve the problem.
🙂
Its pretty bad. I thought it was somewhat indicative of peoples inability to think. A tourist from the UK who was on R4 last night saying how terrible it was said that he flew there every year for a holiday! So he obviously was too stupid to realise that that was contributing to climate breakdown!!!! Not that the interviewer mentioned it either.
Agreed
and don’t forget the bees, there has been a massive reduction in the worlds pollinators, that is going to have a unprecedented effect on crops and economies, again head in sand. I can’t grow courgettes as they are not being pollinated this year and it is totally noticable difference in the noise of the garden. It is then sickening musk is saying data centres in space and the stuff he’s meddling in is out of this world and mind blowing i mean why actually has he been up to with the planet without oversight. Add that to the genetic moskitos released with untold consequences again no oversight, I really fear for our planet not the 2050 or 2100 I think its closer much closer than we think
Thank you.
You are right.
There is a lot of talk about the summer of 1976 BUT 1976 was 1976. It didnt happen again in 1977/8 etc but the extreme heat of 2025 was followed by the same this year.
We need action, to reduce fire risk, build reservoirs, keep our homes cool, protect infrastructure but it isnt happening
Discuss………
Noted. Agreed. I remember the summer of ‘77. It was good, too.
Caroline Lucas has produced a podcast on the Rest is Politics channel called Britain’s Ticking Time Bomb: The Food Security Crisis. It is well worth a listen but it frightens the living daylight out of me. It will not be long before the public starts to join the dots and point the finger of blame at today’s political class.
I must take a listen
Maybe some of us are scared witless and we are just burying our heads in the sand? Add in the myths about money and you have a perfect mechanism for doing nothing and enabling the worst to happen. It all stinks of design to me, ensuring that certain people keeps themselves in the manner they have become used to.
Ah, we don’t need any wits anyway.
AI will solve everything!
It will miraculously make it rain massively everywhere where there’s a fire.
Unfortunately this will create a flood that will be fought by beautifully digging massive channels to everywhere.
The digging naturally has caused massive de-housing but the AI simply uses the soil it has excavated to somehow form new islands where houses can be rebuild.
This awesome process naturally needs a lot of wood, so cutting down more forests will even prevent another fire from happening!
Problem solved.
Easy!
God, I wish irony actually could solve problems…..
There’s Prof Kevin Anderson who looks at carbon budgets, suggests to stay within existing targets a global reduction of 8% (every year) for the next two decades…’Don’t Look Up’ and inertia are easy to fall into if all one has known or if interests are best served by TINA. ‘First major IPCC report:1990, Rio Earth Summit establishing the UNFCCC: 1992, The Kyoto protocol:1997, Paris COP 2015, Glasgow COP 2021, So why haven’t we bent the emissions curve in 30 years? We conclude power concentrated in ‘elites’ is a major obstacle to change’
The correct conclusion
We are facing an intertwined climate and nature crisis. Climate often takes precedence over the nature/biodiversity crisis because climate is reduced to a problem of greenhouse gases and carbon cycle management, which can be solved with technology which can remove the problem…. Yea right! This national security report which has been supressed to a large extent, highlights some of the issues government should be planning for as a result of biodiversity loss. Bambi Burn’em and his government would seem oblivious cos Bambi is too busy making TikTok clips. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0eae719d837d69afc7de/National_security_assessment_-_global_biodiversity_loss__ecosystem_collapse_and_national_security.pdf
Thank you
“burned through more than 19,000 hectares”…..roughly a square 14kms by 14kms (or roughly 10 miles by 10 miles) that is a lot of forest.
Agreed
But in the wider culture ‘Net Zero’ has somehow become a sort of swearword uttered by fanatics and obsessives, and is to blame for ‘costing us billions'<p>
Badenoch thinks shes onto a winner banning any prospective Conservative candidates if they show signs of taking the climate threat seriously.<p>
It is beginning to seem like ‘Don’t Look Up’. On a farming programme early today some Welsh Farmer was gutturally against ‘ regenerative farming’, said Net Zero was madness and said he didn’t want the Welsh countryside destroyed by windmills. No one put it to him that the previous news bulletin could suggest that the ‘Welsh countryside’ could soon be reduced to an ash-covered desert.
Much to agree with