We've seen it with COVID - the sheer surprise of a nation who got over the novelty of lockdown, working from home, staying away from restaurants and retail outlets and began to resume their 'normal' lives, only to see a huge spike in the number of Coronavirus infections and - of course - the inevitable bonkers government response that again I don't think I've got the energy or the will to go into (hey everyone, let's go grouse shooting, that way the coronavirus won't kill us all - Excuse me but WHAT THE SH*TTING EFF?)
We're way past the point where the current Government are even bothering to hide the fact that they're the bad guys, in fact flouting international law over Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg - an iceberg that is slowly, slowly melting and will probably drown all those idiots sitting in Westminster who choose to ignore climate change. The Thames Barrier is there, after all, right?
But after watching a stark BBC documentary about climate change, which I'm surprised the Government let air, considering the amount of criticism the UK and worldwide governments were getting in it, it feels like the heady moment encapsulated by Greta Thunberg's plaintive cries to adults to stop shafting the planet, alongside all of the other horrors going on in 2020, it really does feel like everyone's attention has been diverted back to the one thing they never fail to give their utmost focus to - themselves.
Selfishness is in all of us, yes even this humble blogger. We are all guilty of it, and every single one of us could do way better than we do when it comes to the environment. This is a constant topic of discussion at home though we do our very best to reuse, recycle and be as ecologically minded as we can in our daily lives.
The real question is should we really be feeling as guilty as the programme that aired makes us feel? Are we, the consumer, ultimately responsible for - well - consuming what we do when the real criminals of this passion play are those who ultimately think that a zillion dollar house is somehow immune to flooding, wildfires or any of the other climate catastrophes we're now living through on a yearly basis, and a zillion dollar company's shareholders are far more important than their customers?
As I type, we're in the final week of September. By now, you think you'd at least be slipping your middle duvet on, maybe the odd sweater in the evenings - and yet it appears that I have now lost my favourite season for good. Autumn doesn't exist as it once did, as the season of mellow fruitfulness, a crisp chill in the air, frequent rainstorms and (for me at least) a more comfortable night's sleep. But we no longer have Autumn or Spring. Summer segues into a mild winter in a country where those four easily identifiable seasons have now been crunged into two unrecognisable ones (unrecognisable from my childhood at least, yet we still hear old folk joking about how atrocious the UK summer is, all rain, rain, rain, soggy chips and miserable seasides - when the truth is it's hotter than most overseas holiday destinations most of the time now).
You get the impression that most folk consider climate crisis as something that science will rescue us (or if you're really insane, religion). Alas, scientists have more or less given up hope of trying to get people to understand their stark messages - some of which they've been repeating for the past quarter of a century. Despite so much research looking into ways to reverse the horrific rise in temperatures globally, scientists do not have the political weight or the interest of big business to do what is necessary, vital to the survival of the planet. Instead we helplessly look on as year on year, international laws are flouted by governments as corrupt as our own, purely in order to keep multinationals growing richer, floating tanking economies while sitting on gold-plated toilets dumping stinking effluent into our rapidly emptying seas.
Then there's the press. Again no point in even trying to deny that the press are contributing to all of this in the way they misreport the current climate crisis (if they even bother to report on it at all). Those jolly happy headlines of "Phew, what a scorcher! Hottest September on record!" still gleefully delight in the fact that a bit o'nice weather and the chance to air your stinking barbecue will cheer everyone up. Just the ticket under the current circumstances. Won't matter anyway because we'll be long gone by the time the earth is uninhabitable which, by current estimates, could be in a mere 10-15 years time.
If you haven't already given up and joined the throngs who are 'over' climate change - here are ten ideas from the BBC themselves to back up their programme. Ten things you could do to 'do your bit'
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181102-what-can-i-do-about-climate-change
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