As a number of people thought my last post ‘a bit bleak’ I thought it might be a good idea to see if there aren’t glimmers of hope. Believe me though – it’s not easy.

Take this for a start:

It’s a graph showing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 1980 and the present day. It hardly needs any explanation. What I like about this is the way in which it cuts the ground from under the feet of the present government and their tendency to brag about the brilliant progress they are making on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The problem of course is that the earth’s atmosphere is something we share with the rest of humanity – not to mention other living things — and however well we might persuade ourselves we are doing nationally, the graph keeps on climbing.

So what is to be done?

It seems to me there are two alternatives:

The first is to give up any realistic hope of averting climate disaster and start preparing to live with it. I described this response in my last post, where I speculated that Johnson and his wealthy backers might be planning to ride out the crisis. Interestingly there are a significant number of climate activists – notably Rupert Read, co-author of This Civilisation is Finished, and Jem Bendell, author of Deep Adaptation – who share what at first sight sees like a similar view . Both authors invite us to ‘gaze into the abyss’ and to face the prospect of a very different sort of future. In Johnson’s case however, the approach is passed off (dishonestly in my opinion) as a sincere attempt to work with the rest of the world in averting disaster. To which I can only respond: “Well if that’s the case, then it’s high time you started getting a lot more serious about it.”

The second alternative would be to place the country on a ‘war footing’ with the intent of curbing greenhouse gas emissions by the earliest possible date. This will require diverting industrial capabilities and natural resources to the rapid provision of energy-efficient housing, transport and agriculture as well as to the development of closed-cycle, non-polluting manufacturing processes. The potential for worthwhile, inventive and creative work would be immense, with significant positive side-effects in both physical and mental health. However, the inevitable opposition of powerful vested interests, working hand in hand with the mainstream media, would render such developments virtually inconceivable under present political circumstances. Only something like a ‘government of national unity’ could summon the required degree of resolve. This might have been the case during World War 2 but then wars are specially effective at concentrating the mind. Quite how that sort of transition could come about in peacetime is hard to imagine.

Even if something like the second of these two alternatives can be brought about, people will still be inclined to say: “But we are still a small island and our efforts but a drop in the ocean.” And, of course, they have a point. Without serious efforts on a global scale, national efforts are likely to be insufficient. But what alternative do we have? A green industrial revolution might at least result in this country being able to offer advanced, sustainable technologies to the rest of the world and to foster, in our people, a spirit of optimism, confidence and self-reliance – all of which has to be preferable to closing the gates and taking refuge in a nightmare, survivalist bunker ruled over by psychopaths.

Oh dear, and I said I would try to be more hopeful.

PS: I don’t imagine that there is anything here that hasn’t been said many times before and already understood to varying degrees by most people reading this so please forgive me if it comes across as preachy or (heaven forbid) boring. For myself, I find it helps to try to order my thoughts on the climate emergency and to remind myself that we have barely begun to address it.