Climate Thoughts with Brian

‘Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years, all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument acknowledges that we know what is happening and what needs to be done.

Only you know if we did it.’-

Magnason 2019

In 2019, a solemn warning to the future was unveiled, via a memorial plaque on the Okjökull glacier, as the first glacier worldwide was lost to climate change,

The memorial on the lost glacier can surely be compared to Armstrong’s ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’ in 1969. Armstrong’s words will be etched in history as a time of expansion for the human race. In much the same way, these words on this memorial to the first of the glaciers to have been lost will be etched in history, as a time when humanity’s expansion threatened the existence of humanity- all within the short span of 50 years.

‘You can tell stories. You must tell stories.’

‘This book is about time and water. Over the next hundred years, there will be foundational changes in the nature of water on our Earth. Glaciers will melt away. Ocean level’s will rise…All this will happen during the lifetime of a child who is born today and lives to be my grandmother’s age, ninety-five.’

Magnason defines clearly the purpose of his book quite early on and identifies one of the biggest issues facing climate change- that of communication and action.  ‘For most people the phrase ‘climate change’ is just white noise.’ He asks the question about how we connect people to a global crisis in a way that moves them- what language will they understand? ‘Should we draw words for discussing the Earth from science, emotion, statistics or religion? How personal and sentimental can we get?’

He acknowledges the difficulty of trying to fully grasp the issue of the climate crisis for an individual and what that means as a priority for them. ‘It affects everyone we know, everyone we love. We are confronted by changes that are more complex that most of what our minds typically deal with.’ At the same time, he reinforces that we do have the tools to better engage a public, who can be afflicted with mass apathy regarding a global problem that they see as being too big for them to be a part of the solution. ‘The only way to write about the subject is to go past it, to the side, below it, into the past and the future, to be personal and also scientific and to use mythological language.’

It’s not often in a book review where I can squeeze in a quotation from Tolkien- but it seems fitting considering his connections with Iceland. The character of Pippin says to his friend that maybe they are too small to make a difference. ‘Pippin: Maybe Treebeard’s right. We don’t belong here, Merry. It’s too big for us. What can we do in the end? We’ve got the Shire. Maybe we should go home.’ To which, Tolkien has the character Merry respond, ‘The fires of Isengard will spread. And the woods of Tuckborough and Buckland will burn. And all that was once green and good in this world will be gone.’

Magnason rightly suggests that what connects us all is mythology and that language is bound up in identity. ‘Words affect our emotions, our feelings. Words enable us to get a handhold on the state of being.’

How do we tell stories that are bigger than ourselves? How do we build the foundations of culture and connection?

It is not an accident that we have been telling the story of a family travelling on a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for almost 2,000 years.

We have been telling the story of a cataclysmic flood, across multiple cultures, for thousands of years.

We’ve told stories of Norse Gods and Greek heroes in a way to understand our world and our place in it.

We have always been storytellers.

We are a bridge over time

The personal and intimate cadence of Magnason’s story fills the spaces of this book and echoes the refrain throughout. The book starts with personal familial connections, to know who we are and where we are from- in a bid to honour our ancestors and descendants.  Magnason’s message repeated throughout is that ‘this world is heavily interdependent. We are all interdependent. That’s the reality.’ The language used in the media of the phrase ‘by the end of the century’, Magnason argues is one which is blinding us to the reality of the crisis. He argues that humans are bad at understanding the geological age of the Earth and that using phrases like ‘by 2100’ can make us miss that connection with our responsibilities to the future.

Magnason repeats his argument that, ‘Two hundred and sixty-two years. That’s the length of time you connect across. You’ll know the people who span this time. Your time is the time of the people you know and love, the time that moulds you. And your time is also the time of the people you will know and love.’ He does this through memories and conversations of family members, who calculate how many years will pass between generations. This part of the book and this message really connected with me, as it will with many people who have young families.

My son is 5 and he is lucky enough to have great-grandparents who are 95. This means that they were born in 1927. If my son also lives to be 95, then he will see the year 2112. 12 years past the ‘end of the century’. Continuing this idea, if my son, also becomes a great-grandparent when he is 90, and that child lives to be 95, then that child will see the year 2202.

Over 270 years of connections and history within one family, with one child being the bridge across generations. What will the Earth be like by 2112, with current emissions and global temperature rise?

What will the Earth be like by 2202?

Magnason makes the point that, ‘For the Earth, one hundred years is like a moment.’ He continues more intently that there is an obligation to the future, as well as a recognition of the past. If my life is in danger, if my earth and my descendants are in danger, aren’t I obligated to understand what’s at stake? What words manage to define the world?

Unfortunately, Magnason laments the banality of our lives and our attention spans. He states that ‘The same week in October 2018, the United Nations IPCC issued a kind of ‘final warning’, the internet was consumed by an array of variously trivial things.’ A phenomenon that we have seen repeated as COP15 closed. A critical, once-in-a-decade biodiversity crisis disappeared in a torrent of social media activity over what the owner of Twitter would do next. There’s always a celebrity who generates much angst and anger over their comments online- more anger than is ever generated by the plight of the planet. Indeed, these climate and biodiversity summits are sometimes ridiculed as achieving little, ‘The Earth has abandoned geological speed; it is changing at human speed. And yet our response happens at a glacial pace. We hold a conference to determine the location for the next conference.’

The risks to humans

Although Magnason repeats the scientific evidence of the risk to humans, this does not feel like his primary message. The repetition of warnings about the climate crisis have not yet been heeded. Either we are not listening properly, or the story needs to change.

Magnason, perhaps rightly then, gives the headline statements, in case his reader is new to this topic. In a carefully neutral voice, he intones:

• ‘Glacial melting can have the most drastic consequences; millions, even billions of people are at risk.’
• Earth’s most densely populated regions lie around the Himalayas. Three nuclear powers surround them; Pakistan, India and China.
• Scientists have pointed out that we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction period for animal species in the Earth’s history.
• According to a 2019 UN assessment, just under a million animal species are in danger of extinction.

This is the point. If you are ‘climate literate’, you will be aware of this information- though what you are doing with this knowledge in terms of climate action is debatable. If this is the first time that you have seen and read this information, then how do you respond and on what level? Magnason identifies that perhaps we do not understand the immediacy of the crisis and that we view it still as a problem ‘tomorrow’. What people really mean here is that they will be dead and gone and so they won’t be impacted and so they feel it has nothing to do with them.

This degree of a lack of connection with the future lies at the heart of this text. Rhetorically, if you were told- ‘Your behaviour and actions right now could significantly alter the quality of life that your child has for the worst’- would you quit that behaviour? The concept of sticking to boundaries may be the inherent fault in humanity’s stars. Magnason suggests that, ‘The problem is, humans don’t seem to know any boundaries. They do not know when they are satisfied, nor when they’ve gone too far.’

We are standing at a crossroads

With humanity’s goal of lowering carbon emissions and reducing the ever-increasing global average temperature, we really are at a crossroads.

By 2050, we may have wide ranging government action across countries, as we did when the ozone layer was threatened. We acted quickly and collectively.

Knowing where we are and our point in time is crucial. As Magnason states, we must notice the present. ‘In the last ten years, we’ve seen the eight hottest years since temperature record-keeping began in the mid-nineteenth century. Since the turn of the century, the Icelandic glaciers have retreated more than they retreated in the entire previous hundred years. There’s a reason to take notice of the present. The time of greatest change is upon us.’

Will we seize this as an opportunity to agree at a global level, that we need to change. That what we have done to this point cannot serve our futures. What we owe to the future, from parent to child, has always been the opportunity that their life will be better that ours. That our children do not need to face the same struggles that we have faced. That we have sacrificed, so that they can benefit.

Why has this responsibility been lost?

Magnason notes that ‘Nothing we have done will be considered remarkable if achieving it has meant closing our eyes to science and throwing away the life and happiness of future generations.’

As a species, we have lost our compass as well as our path.

It is fitting to return to metaphorical language of directions, bearings and journeys, as this book is littered with journeys. From the physical journeys on glaciers from Magnason’s family, to the emotional and spiritual journey of Magnason himself, to that of the journey of the glaciers themselves. Stories about journeys that are connected. We all journey.

Magnason closes the text by driving home the responsibility that is owed to future generations not to rob and deprive them of so much of this Earth that is of value. For us to begin to tell the stories of why we value what we value, so it can be protected before it is lost.

‘And now we need to think and behave differently than we did before. We have the tools, all the devices and all the knowledge to do it.

And, if we do not, we fail both our ancestors and our descendants.’

Waiting for some other person, or some other time, is no longer an option.

‘The Climate Book’ really is the one-stop shop for all climate issues. There are contributions from over 100 global experts in their fields, some of which are summaries of their own books, but which address the latest position on the climate crisis and what needs to be done to avert the worst of the climate disasters. My fear in listing some of these climate leaders is that the list needs to include everyone. Reducing the list, or offering a preference for some articles over others would only indicate my own European and Northern hemisphere bias. Thunberg sets out her aim for the book- that the knowledge from the range of experts will help each reader on their own journey of climate education, ‘The idea behind this book, is that, taken together, their knowledge in their respective areas of expertise will lead you to a point where you can start to connect the dots yourself.’

There may not be a representative voice for every reader in this collection, but that is precisely Thunberg’s point- that we can all be our own representation.

Waiting for some other person, or some other time, is no longer an option.

How it is structured

The book is helpfully colour coded throughout, with Thunberg’s own words contained as introductions to the main chapter headings, before she gives way to the scientists and experts.

Thunberg breaks down the climate issues into a holistic chronological approach, outlining for a general audience the basics of how climate works, before moving on to how our planet is changing. Thunberg then focuses on how the changing planet affects us, outlines what we as a species have done about this impact, and then concludes with a strong message on what needs to be done now. The climate stripes, pioneered by Ed Hawkins, are used at the start of each chapter, as a visual representation of our progress and an alignment of what stage we are at now.

‘The climate and ecological crisis is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced.’

The opening chapters to ‘The Climate Book’ are deliberately stark and blunt, as Thunberg is famous for ‘telling it as it is’- indeed, this is the charge that gives to her readers. She states, ‘When it comes to the climate and ecological crisis, we have solid unequivocal scientific evidence of the need for change…That ship has sailed. The science is as solid as it gets.’ She then suggests that what is needed is for scientists to speak a different language, ‘What largely remain is tactics. How to package, frame and convey the information. How disruptive do scientists dare to be?’

Thunberg’s comments in this book are stylistically unique. She lays out the facts and then offers simple choices. She dismisses despair and ‘doomerism’ and instead focuses on the positives of action. ‘And there is no time for despair; it is never too late to start saving as much as we can possibly save.’ She reminds us that the debt we owe to the past is also owed to the future, but that we should be grateful that we are alive now, so that we can be part of the greatest movement for change in humanity’s history. ‘We have the unfathomably great opportunity to be alive at the most decisive time in the history of humanity. The time has come for us to tell this story, and perhaps even change the ending. Together, we can still avoid the worst consequences.’

What about COP27?

There will be some who will claim that the timing of the book release by Thunberg is no accident though. That, with COP27 starting barely a week after the publication date, that she is trying to switch the spotlight onto her views. More cynical observers may categorise this as simply good marketing. As Thunberg resolutely and regularly advocates the listening to climate scientists and has done since she started her climate protests in 2018, it would seem churlish to argue genuinely that the timing of the book release is just self-serving for Thunberg. She makes the relevant case that ‘the EU will not update its climate targets in time for COP27’ and points out that when the media focus during COP fades, then urgency is lost and that ‘this is exactly how you create a catastrophe.’

On the other hand, do we really need another book telling us that time to act on the climate is running out and that time for climate action must now happen. Some readers may feel that there are few new messages in this book and that climate books by themselves will not be the tipping point for climate action. Thunberg acknowledges this claim head on, ‘There is nothing new about this…All the words that we say have been spoken by others. All our speeches, books and articles follow in the footsteps of those who pioneered the climate and environmental movement.’

In recent times though, we have seen an upsurge in non-violent political protest, which has been both applauded and criticised for not winning over any new followers, as some are ‘put off’ by the more direct action from protesters. Thunberg demonstrates in the book that, ‘Social norms can easily be changed’, which is a hopeful outlook on the necessary speed that is needed from an active society. Thunberg argues that ‘We need a whole new way of thinking’ as a main priority to wake people up from a deeply flawed system.

Yet, the climate clock is only getting louder and louder, as the sands of time disappear and the window narrows for options, leaving only the truly desperate measures left available. ‘All geoengineering schemes are attempts to manipulate the Earth with the same domineering mindset that got us into the climate crisis in the first place.’ Niclas Hällström, Jennie C Stephens and Isak Stoddard

 Thunberg argues that this collision course of time and action must be met bravely and advocates for systemic change, ‘Our safety as a species is on a collision course with our current system.’

An unprecedented time

Perhaps this book comes at the perfect time then, to remind us that not everyone needs to be convinced of the need for climate action, nor perhaps that everyone could be convinced of the need. Instead of wasting time trying to win over the remaining ‘dismissives’ and ‘delayers’, perhaps an awakening and activation of social behaviour is what we need. Thunberg herself comments that ‘We as individuals should use our voices, and whatever platforms we have, to become activists and communicate the urgency of the situation to those around us. We should all become active citizens and hold the people in power accountable for their actions and inactions.’ Thunberg also reminds us of the stark warning from the IPCC that ‘limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.’

The idea of better climate communication, especially in the face of an unwilling media and fossil fuel interests, is a solution that is returned to many times in the ‘The Climate Book’. There is perhaps quite a shocking statement from George Monbiot that, ‘If you were to ask me which industry is most responsible for the destruction of life on Earth, I would say the media.’ Thunberg is typically blunter, ‘We have been lied to.’ Although this is more in reference to the fossil fuel industry which knew about the impact of their actions, but which choose short-term capitalistic growth, over planetary interests.

‘This is not the ‘new normal’- this is only the very beginning of a changing climate’

‘The Climate Book’ focuses heavily on the science. There are over 80 articles from leading scientists, experts and community leaders, with most articles being a manageable 3 or 4 pages only. Almost every page and article has a quotable message that sums up a narrative that has been allowed to continue for too long.

Thunberg herself comments, ‘We are all in the same storm, but we are definitely not in the same boat.’ She continues, ‘But the climate is not just changing. It is destabilizing. It is breaking down.’

This is supported by the argument from Dr Friederike Otto, who has a similar blunt style to that of Thunberg. ‘Today, those of us who are not completely delusional have realized that climate change is not something happening somewhere else, at some point in the future, but a phenomenon that is killing people here and now.’

As you would expect, there are repeated messages in the book: humanity’s reliance and dependence on fossil fuels has to stop, holistic solutions are best, and the evidence that humanity can change quickly in the face of global emergencies.

 ‘We need to take immediate action. First and foremost, we must immediately and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’ Jennifer L. Soong

‘We must immediately stop extracting fossil fuel from reserves in the Arctic’ Örjan Gustafsson

‘The climate crisis is upon us, powered by our addiction to fossil fuels.’ Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

‘And still, instead of taking steps to overcome our fossil fuel dependency, we are deepening it,’ Thunberg

The other repeated message in the book, is that holistic solutions are needed to face a multi-faceted problem of the climate crisis- that there is no one silver bullet that can be used quickly to solve and perhaps absolve governments and companies from years of inaction. Margaret Atwood argues that, ‘The climate crisis is multidimensional; any solution to it will have to be multidimensional as well.’ On the other hand, Naomi Klein believes that this transformational approach has yet to be attempted, ‘Holistic transformations, on the other hand, have never been tried in the face of the climate crisis.’

The equality of climate justice and the acceptance that ‘loss and damages’ is a requirement and not just a political phrase is argued strongly. As Saleemul Huq says ‘Loss and damages’ is also a diplomatically negotiated euphemism for something we’re not allowed to talk about: ’liability and compensation.’ Finally, the principle that the polluter must pay echoes throughout the text and is given space and time by Thunberg.

What we can learn from recent global emergencies such as COVID, is that humanity has demonstrably acted in self-preservation before, be that during world wars, managing the hole in the ozone, or in the face of global pandemics. As Seth Klein argues convincingly in the book, better communication can lead to better outcomes. ‘In frequency and tone, in words and in action, emergencies need to look and sound and feel like emergencies. The Second World War leaders we remember best were outstanding communicators who were forthright with the public about the gravity of the crisis yet still managed to impart hope.’

‘Winning slowly is the same thing as losing.’- Alex Steffen

Thunberg concludes ‘The Climate Book’ by heading straight into the imagery and language of ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, both the original and the remake. The iconic 1951 film concludes with the words, ‘this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.’ The remake in 2008, uses similar language about the human species reaching their adaption point. ‘You say we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment.’

Thunberg finishes using a similar metaphor to that of film fiction, ‘There is still time to undo our mistakes, to step back from the edge of the cliff and choose a new path, a sustainable path, a just path. A path which leads to a future for everyone. And no matter how dark things may become, giving up will never be an option. Because every fraction of a degree and every tonne of carbon dioxide will always matter. It will never be too late for us to save as much as we can possibly save.’

Correctly, the final word should not go to Thunberg, indeed she advocates against that herself.

George Monbiot calls up the cultural imagery and reference to the public awareness, boosted by Rachel Carson when he states,‘We can replace our silent spring with a raucous summer.’

Perhaps what is required, expected and demanded of each individual now, is that they renew their view of the relationship with nature and realise that there is no planet B and that our environment is worth fighting for.

‘Do not gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ -Dylan Thomas

Review of ‘The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet’ by Leah Thomas

‘Climate justice is only justice if it includes all of us.’ Vanessa Nakate

An environment book that made a soft landing in September was ‘The Intersectional Environmentalist’ by Leah Thomas. In recent weeks, this book has made a larger impact, as audiences have noted its authenticity and values of caring.

‘The Intersectional Environmentalist’ is rooted in identity, advocacy and people.

Thomas lays out in depth how climate injustice has impacted communities such as Black Americans, Latinx Americans, Indigenous communities, and Asian American and Native Hawaiians/ Pacific Islanders. For each group, she identifies the challenges of air quality, extreme heat, food security and water access that each group historically had had to face, as well as outlining the continuing issues faced by each group. Although Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental educator, writer, and creative based in Southern California, she’s also passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism globally and feels that every voice needs to be amplified.

Thomas builds on the work of Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who is a Black feminist legal theorist, who in the late 1980s, focused heavily on the intersecting identities of discrimination that were identifiable then in the legal courts. “Intersectionality was a prism to bring to light dynamics within discrimination law that weren’t being appreciated by the courts”. For Thomas then, intersectionality is the ‘complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism and classism) combine, overlap , or intersect, especially in the experience of marginalized individuals or groups.’ She aims to focus on the ‘sometimes double or triple marginalization that people with several oppressed identities faced.’

Unheard voices

As Thomas states in her introduction, ‘We can’t save the planet without uplifting the voices of its people, especially those most often unheard. As a society, we often forget that humans are a part of our global ecosystem and that we don’t exist separately from nature; we coexist with it each and every day.’

Thomas acknowledges that, in 2020, she felt ‘alone and unheard, without much acknowledgement from the wider environmental community.’ She comments that ‘Our identities flow through our politics, our advocacy, what we care about- whether we realize it or not.’ When her intersectional environment graphic went viral, Thomas realised that there was a global audience wanting to hear this message and that her identity and her voice, were part of the narrative. Thomas’s aim in this book is to inform and acknowledge that ‘social justice and environmentalism are deeply intertwined and that addressing this interconnection is crucial for attaining justice for both people and planet.’ Her drive for an audience to seek out stories of marginalised groups and address the relevant social injustices echoes strongly throughout her message. Indeed, she comments that ‘It is an immense privilege to create space for and hold a piece of their magic and legacies every time the word ‘intersectionality’ is said or written down.’

Thomas divides her book into clear focus areas- Intersectional theory, Feminism and Intersectional Environmentalism, Environmental Justice, Unpacking Privilege, Who’s Affected: the Reality for BIPOC Communities and then effectively concludes with People and Planet.

Thomas argues that ‘Intersectional Environmentalism (IE) is an inclusive approach to environmentalism that advocates for the protection of both people and the planet. IE argues that social and environmental justice are intertwined and that environmental advocacy that disregards this connection is harmful and incomplete.’ She continues that ‘Intersectional environmentalism argues that the same systems of oppression that oppress people also oppress and degrade the planet.’ As Diandra Marizet puts it: ‘Intersectional environmentalism is the lens. Environmental justice is the goal.’

Understanding privilege

As a white male, in the Northern hemisphere, I questioned whether I was being challenged with this book to feel uncomfortable. I felt that it was not Thomas’s goal to finger point and blame, but rather to acknowledge the past and understand that our present is rooted in the past. As Thomas says, ‘The more we talk about our identities and the ways they influence how we experience the world, the better we can understand how they’re connected to both the privileges and prejudices we might experience. The truth is, ignoring our differences doesn’t stop discrimination or lead to systemic change.’ Am I being asked to listen and to understand? Yes. Is this a negative? No.

It is important to note that repeated point in the book, that social injustices didn’t magically stop at some point in the 1970s or 1980s. Thomas points to the many examples of recurring prejudice towards minority communities, whether in Flint, Michigan, or post hurricane disasters. She cites Paul Mohai, an environmental justice expert and professor who found that ‘even when socioeconomic factors are similar across white and non-white communities, the community of color is still more likely to be near environmental hazards.’ ‘Startingly, as of 2019, race is still the number one indicator of where waste facilities are located in the U.S.’

What can I do?

Thomas asks of us all that we abide by the IE tenet: ‘I will amplify the messages of Black, Indigenous and POC activists and environmental leaders. I will not remain silent during pivotal political and cultural moments that impact Black, Indigenous, and POC communities and all marginalized identities.’

She argues that ‘This tenet of the pledge is one of the most important. It’s twofold: it encourages you to 1) amplify the messages of diverse climate leaders and activists and 2) not remain silent.

Silence is what allows the status quo to continue. Together all of our voices are so powerful—much more powerful than we might think.’

Thomas concludes her inclusive approach by saying, ‘One day I hope that when people think of an environmentalist, they’ll automatically envision a person who cares very deeply about both people and planet.

The future can and will be intersectional.’

UK Water companies waste 3 billion litres of water every day

With heatwaves, droughts and hosepipe bans part of Yorkshire summers, how effective is our response?

With Yorkshire Water today calling for a hosepipe ban to start in two weeks’ time, we can now add water restrictions to the growing list of heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and rivers drying up that are now part of the UK summer.

Neil Dewis, Yorkshire Water’s director of water, said: ‘“Parts of Yorkshire have seen the lowest rainfall since our records began more than 130 years ago. The hot, dry, weather means that Yorkshire’s rivers are running low and our reservoirs are around 20% lower than we would expect for this time of year.”’ 

Could this drought have been prevented?

Jim McMahon, the shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, commented on social media that, ‘This crisis in our system was entirely predictable. The government and water companies should have anticipated and planned for it. In a country with plenty of rain outside of mid-summer, we should not need to rely on hosepipe bans to get us through the dry months.’

Climate scientist, Ed Hawkins, of University of Reading echoed the predictability of this drought, stating that this was not a ‘one-off’ event.

‘It’s not just the summer – this is the 4th consecutive season of low or very low rainfall. And warmer temperatures cause more evaporation and soils to dry out faster, making the drought worse’

The Independent reports Kathryn Brown, the director of climate change and evidence at The Wildlife Trusts as saying, “Government doesn’t have a plan at all for dealing with the effects on the natural environment from these drought conditions.”

What were the warnings?

As well as having the data from the last 4 years in order to create a plan, there seems to have been more political posturing than climate action. Only last month, the Climate Change Committee highlighted the urgent and immediate need to plan to mitigate ‘risks to soil health from increased flooding and drought.’

Yorkshire Water, like many water companies had produced a drought plan, where they asserted that ‘we also develop scenarios to represent events worse than those we have experienced previously to ensure we are as resilient as possible to future, more extreme events.’ They have clear measures that they adopt, with customer communication, to reduce the demand on the service. This is the first hosepipe ban that Yorkshire Water have called in 27 years.

Although Yorkshire Water claim that ‘Our level of service has improved since 2001 through leakage reduction, grid extension and additional abstraction licences. Customers place a high value on the reliability of water supply, and we have the same level of service for all of our customers’, the leakage reported per property per day through 2021-2021, was 130 litres of water. With over 5 million customers, that would amount to approximately 650 million litres lost through leakage a day.

The BBC reported today that water companies lose approximately 3 billion litres of water a day through leakage.

Proactive planning needed to mitigate losses

North Yorkshire Council, although declaring a climate emergency in July of this year, has been criticised for its plan lacking in concrete detail. North Yorkshire Councillor Andy Brown told me that, ‘Like so many other councils, North Yorkshire are very good at grand announcements. When the Green group asked to see an actual costed plan with timescales and for a scrutiny committee to be set up, the ruling group blocked any discussion of the plan in full council.’ More locally, Harrogate Borough Council never declared a climate emergency at all, despite two motions, instead passing a motion for a much softer ‘this Council supports measures to address the climate emergency.’

Local strategies to reduce carbon emissions

Harrogate Borough Council have 8 Strategic Themes as part of their Carbon Reduction Strategy and it is through this strategy plan that measures emerge to reduce emissions. Their themes range from Domestic Energy demand, which includes retrofit housing, to Land Use, which includes tree planting. Other themes include council buildings and the Harrogate Convention Centre, as well as reducing emissions through operations and staff transport. One of their core strategic themes is sustainable transport, which focuses on improving the district’s electric vehicle infrastructure.

Harrogate Borough Council are keen to promote their roll-out of electric vehicle charging points, with 34 spaces being created on council owned property across Harrogate, Ripon, Pateley Bridge, Masham and Knaresborough. A council spokesperson told me that they were waiting for a funding bid to be approved, but that this has been delayed from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles. ‘We always intended to get more than this through using the approved funding at match for central government funding. We have just had word that the NYCC bid we supported was meant to let us know ‘early August’.

Cllr Keane Duncan, executive member for highways and transport, also commented on the funding bid, saying: “We are currently developing plans to deliver charging points across the county so that more residents and visitors are able to choose electric vehicles and charge up conveniently. “In the meantime, we continue to pursue funding opportunities through central government. We have recently submitted a bid to the Government’s Local Electrical Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, which will enable us to deliver around 70 chargers in deeply rural areas that would otherwise be left behind due to a lack of private investment.”

With Harrogate Borough Council being abolished in 2023, it is hoped that NYCC’s Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle Strategy will continue to maintain the contract with Connected Kerb. The council will receive the money from residents charging cars, with any revenue raised being used to expand the network further, but this is all still uncertain at this point as the transition between councils takes place.

Environmental impact of electric vehicles?

As of July 2022, there were approximately 520,000 battery electric vehicles in the UK, out of a global total of 16 million electric vehicles and a UK total of 32.9 million cars. The rise of popularity of electric vehicles prompts those critical of EVs to complain about the environmental impact of lithium mining- lithium being one of the components in electric vehicles.

Lithium is also a component in the 6 billion smartphones in the world, the 16 million laptops and other household electronics. Yet there only appears to be criticism of the lithium needed for electric vehicle batteries, rather than for all goods.

For example, between 1955 and 1980, 125,000 tonnes of lithium were mined globally, without the level of concern about the environmental impact of lithium mining, leaving me to conclude that these criticisms are not about the impact of mining, but as the last bastion of the fossil fuel car industry holding on.

We have opportunities at a local council level to reduce the impact of the climate emergency, if we choose to implement them.

We have opportunities at a national level to reduce the impact of the climate emergency, if we chose to implement them.

‘To have even the tiniest chance of keeping the global average temperature rise below 1.5°C, we need to see emissions down 45% by 2030.’

Over the last few days, Prof Bill McGuire’s latest book ‘Hothouse Earth’ came out. The Guardian newspaper gave a review/summary here, which gave the impression that Prof McGuire was saying that it was too late to do anything about the climate crisis. The article and headline claimed that ‘total climate meltdown cannot be stopped according to a leading UK scientist.’

 I raised this with Prof McGuire, who responded ‘My message is NOT that it’s too late. We need to act now to stop dangerous climate breakdown becoming cataclysmic.’

 In a separate tweet, he then made it even more abundantly clear and distanced himself from the headline in the article: ‘Just wanted to say, the ‘total climate meltdown’ is the headline writer, not me. I don’t say this, nor does the article. And I still believe we can avoid #climate cataclysm is we act now.’

With this context, I wanted to see for myself what the message in his text was and what I found is below.

‘HotHouse Earth’

McGuire structures this book very coherently, opening with his vision and charting the difference between how generations have experienced life on the planet. The aim is simple: ‘To have even the tiniest chance of keeping the global average temperature rise below 1.5°C, we need to see emissions down 45% by 2030. In theory, this might be possible, but in the real world- barring some unforeseen miracle- it isn’t going to happen.’

If it doesn’t happen then we will have made a commitment to the generations that follow, as well as betraying those who have come before- ‘…this is the hothouse planet we are committed to living on; one that would be utterly alien to our grandparents.’

McGuire does not shy away from the charge that he is raising an alarm, when he states: ‘Raising the alarm, in our current circumstances, is a good thing. It fits with the precautionary principle and also with the idea that we need to really know our enemy…’ He sets out that this text should be seem as the one of the most pressing call to arms that we have had and in this call makes it clear that he still believes there is time.

‘The fact that the future looks dismal is not an excuse to do nothing, to imagine it’s all too late. On the contrary, it is a call to arms.’

He does acknowledge the ‘waste of breath the years behind’ at the end of the text where he makes the point that we are running out of time and have few straws left, owing to interference from bad actors intent on delay tactics. ‘In the decades since the first Un COP Climate Change Conference in 1995, we have used up an entire bale in prevarication and inertia, so all we are left to clutch is the last straw. We cannot fail to grasp it.’

‘We have repeatedly refused to listen and chosen not to act.’

McGuire charts the number of times that the IPCC has sounded the alarm since its inception and, like a tanker, we have been very slow to change direction. ‘We have been put on notice time and time again about the potentially catastrophic impact of rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, but we have repeatedly refused to listen and chosen not to act.’

With over 30 years of positive, assertive action, the world could be in a much better position that that in which it now finds itself. Instead we find ourselves in a situation where hardly any countries are on target with their emission reductions and where total greenhouse gases have risen by 43% in roughly the last 30 years. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 354ppm to 420ppm, an increase of 19%. We cannot wait for a ‘tipping point’ to occur before acting- by this time it will be far too late. Prevention is always better than impact management.

‘From Narnia to Eden’

In a stroke of mythological genius, McGuire takes the time to explore the transition of our species from Narnia to Eden, or from Ice Age to present. The impact of humans on the environment ‘is written across every corner of the natural world; a time when our pollution, be it carbon dioxide, radioactive isotopes, or microplastics, infiltrates and contaminates everything, down to pristine Antarctica ice and the placentas of pregnant women.’

He also makes the crucial point that more desperate measures may be considered the ‘longer we maintain the human greenhouse’ and we have seen these already being discussed in geoengineering terms.

As this text was written in 2021, McGuire has missed out on many of the temperature records that have tumbled this year. With the UK temperature record of 38.7°C significantly broken at 40.3°C- a country that is not prepared or suited to temperatures of this high, but one which needs to prepare dramatically, as more will follow. Most days will feature climate stories, whether these are wildfires, heatwaves, or flooding, causing untold financial damage and cost to human life. Climate breakdown is happening today and we can all be witnesses to this. Climate breakdown is ‘not something that belongs to the distant future’, as McGuire phrases it. An issue that used to be thought of impacting grandchildren and future generations has sped up and we care now impacted by it today- at only 1.2°C higher than pre-industrial times.

Not everywhere is heating at the same rate and McGuire concisely focuses on the Arctic and the impact of rapid heating there. The different scenarios from the IPCC are also outlined clearly for new readers, but McGuire does not do this flippantly. He emphasises the point that ‘every degree of temperature rise, even every tenth of a degree, chips away that little bit more of our previously benign climate’ and therefore every tenth of a degree is worth fighting for, so that we can save ‘All We Can Save.’

The end of the century and 2100 seem so far away from 2022. But with fewer than 80 years to go, this can easily be in the lifetime of children born today. With heatwaves increasing in frequency and extremity, many different parts of the world may be uninhabitable well before this ‘target’ date of 2100.

The danger of switching off

As images of wildfires and climate disasters such as droughts and floods continue to feature more regularly on our screens, will this be enough to prompt action? In short, how bad does it have to become and for whom, before countries act with purpose with global collective action? It seems that already the Australian fires of recent years have disappeared from our memories- floods seem to happen to ‘other people’.

How long can our attention be focused on climate action and what part does the media and politicians have in sustaining this attention?

Will there be enough fresh water in case of water shortages and emergency response management? Will there be enough food as harvests fail and famines occur?

How high will sea level rise be under different scenarios? Why is the rate of rise increasing? Who is being impacted by this just now and who is likely to be impacted by this in the future? How will sea level rise impact coastal infrastructure?

These are some of the questions that McGuire takes time to explore in this book and these are questions that need to be addressed and solutions thought of now, now only in response to events. Prevention and mitigation are both key.

What I like about this text is that McGuire explains clearly about some of the big topics relating to the climate: soil, oceans, Greenland, Antarctica, methane, AMOC, etc and after explaining each, evaluates how likely each could be and how they are being impacted by the continuing ‘business as usual.’

Climate migrants, refugees

The Sahel, Yemen, Syria are places which are outlined as being in need of humanitarian response, but on whom does this responsibility lie: financially? Legally? or morally? Which countries are prepared to take in hundreds of millions of possible climate migrants and will conflict over water and fertile land produce more future climate flashpoints. McGuire warns that ‘There is no easy way to say it, but the world of our children and their children will be a far more perilous one. As resources and habitable land diminishes will turn against in an effort to maintain or gain what they feel is their share and their right.’ As this has been the history of our civilisation and tribal people, there is no reason to assume that mankind will suddenly stop this behaviour.

Serious questions need honesty

There are serious questions raised in this book, which McGuire does not shy away from. He addresses them honestly and calmly. He acknowledges the difficulty and uncertainty of the future and this approach is a welcome one. Consequences are not absolute, nor does the climate crisis necessitate binary, drastic solutions. McGuire offers pathways to action that are available to all of us to make us empowered rather than being crippled by eco-anxiety and eco-grief. ‘Fossil fuel companies, responsible for leaking around half of all methane emitted by human activities, need to be made-by law- to clean up their act immediately.’ McGuire calls for punitive measures for fossil fuel companies and argues that there can be no fossil future, when he describes the continuation of new exploration licences as ‘bordering in the insane.’

McGuire has been criticised for the seeming rushed ending to this book, where ‘solutions’ are listed, almost in a list. In truth though, we know what the solutions are, as equally we know who is causing much of the problems. With a renewed focus on the impact of decision makers on the climate and with everyone asking the same question, is this decision good or not for the climate, McGuire argues that ‘the coming decade is very likely the most critical in human history’. A point of view that is not new to the climate crisis narrative.

Who is failing whom?

McGuire concludes by offering the moral argument that the mark of great societies is one where all the citizens are looked after, regardless of status and that stewardship of the planet should be a priority. To act otherwise, makes us no better than the smoking companies and fossil fuels companies, who know their products were dangerous, but did nothing, so lonely as the profits came in.

‘The measure of the maturity of any society must be how well it looks after the needs of every one of its people, and how it cares for the planet and all life thereon, by which metric we are little more than toddlers flailing about aimlessly in the dark.’

Those resident in the UK, and indeed in other countries, may watch helplessly on the side-lines, as we see politicians focus on any topic other than the climate crisis, as a means to foster short term support.

But we are not helpless. We are not voiceless. And we can be powerful.