Hotter and hotter

Lots of media coverage of the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which paints a fearsome picture of the anticipated accelerated rate of world temperature increase.

The Independent, not by any means a scare-monger among the dailies, has the headline “The hellish vision of life on a hotter planet”. This cataclysm, including the very real probability of the end of civilised life, is now predicted to happen before the end of this century, unless very drastic international steps are taken.

I can't remember ever being so shocked at reading a newspaper article.

Yet what is the response? Within 24 hours the news focus has moved to Jonny Wilkinson's comeback for England rugby; political sniping about Tony Blair's future; and a re-run of scares about bird flu.

Climate change is the biggest threat ever to our modern world. Perhaps because of this we just can't take it in, and prefer to pretend it's not really happening, or that scientists will come charging to the rescue.

Proof of that is the way that, despite all the blaring sirens about the direction we are heading, nothing seems to dampen our desire to carry on regardless. The advert below the very news article in The Independent (p5 03/02/07) is American Airline's tempting carrot (perhaps that should be doughnut) of a return flight to New York for £199. That's the price of a pair of good-quality shoes to fly from Heathrow to JFK. Environmental madness.

This week's TV schedules had the usual fare of “house in the sun” programmes featuring quite ordinary families and couples being propelled by pretty presenters into buying second homes in Spain, where apparently 1 million Brits now have property. This, of course, is built on cheap and cheerful short-haul flights which add massively to aviation carbon emission.

That's the problem with global warming. It demands that we actually do something to alter our lifestyles, and we don't want to do that if it demands more than a bit of occasional recycling. Our lifestyles and ambitions (greed, perhaps, is not too strong a word) make us rely on cheap and plentiful energy and easy access to cars and planes, with little more than a “what can you do?” shrug at the environmental consequences.

Global warming represents a huge political challenge at every level, and demands an awareness and response from each of us. There needs to be a massive wake-up call throughout the UK, Europe and the World, and strong leadership to understand the nature of the crisis, and ways of encouraging each of us to take responsibility for acting to address it.