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For me it’s roughly – myself, close family, friends and other family, neighbourhood, town, country, continent, everyone else. And let’s be nicer to animals.

Traditionally the centre-right like to talk about morality (as does every other faction!) but a lot of them think “we” (the West/ the UK / UK-US or whatever) should hang onto the Chagos Islands.

UK/US jointly booted the Chagos Islanders so US could build a military base there to help win the cold war. It’s very useful strategically, even with floating air bases (carriers). We won the cold war. We should thank the Chagos Islanders. They want their island paradise back. Who wouldn’t. It’s their home.

The next ‘war’ will be different. Nobody can be certain how but ‘hybrid war’ is much talked-of. Chatham House constantly talk of a multipolar world and ‘recognition’. I personally see a bipolar element ie G7 v BRICS as well but we’ll see (neither G7 nor BRICS are anywhere close to monolithic ofc).

The US base is to remain for 99 years (in the current as-yet-unconfirmed ‘deal’ (I put ‘deal’ in quotes because they weren’t ‘ours’ in the first place)).

Even in purely realpolitik terms, ‘recognition’ is gonna be big (I do this s**t fulltime and CH are experts).

I’ll go along with whatever, but do not listen to the carping from the sidelines. Listen to experts and practitioners.

I am aware that the ‘deal’ doesn’t grant sovereignty to the Chagos Islanders. Mauritius gets sovereignty for now, for complicated reasons. But it’s what the Chagos Islanders prefer to what they have now, collectively.

We won’t bully our way in a multipolar world, morality aside.

So it’s pretty obvious, right?

We need to deal with the changing climate.

Climate change is real, it’s clearly already happening, it’s going to get worse, and what we do now will make a massive difference to how bad it gets.

Don’t worry about 50,000-100,000 year cycles.

I know about the 11 year sun cycle. I know about the less prominent but still observable 30 year cycle. I know about the so-called Maunder Minimum (not global)  and the little ice age (not global). Crucially, so do the world’s scientists.

I know about politics, power, and the media too.

I’m 50 years old. I saw the green moment in Europe when I was 16. I wish I’d been a climate activist from then.

We know this.

Either join in or get out of the way.

You can’t trust the tories with the NHS. Pretty much an iron law of British politics. They come into power, they underfund and mismanage it for years, then when it starts to fall apart due to their failure, they start to claim that “the model doesn’t work”. And that despite their terrible governments being the cause of the problems in the NHS, we should trust them to fix them. No, the solution is to get the tories out of government.

Their ideology is garbage. Their economics is garbage. They’ve failed the NHS time and time again. They are the problem, not the solution. The NHS, and social care, needs better funding AND reform, but the tories are the last people who should be trusted to do it. This is always true, but with the current crop of intellectual pygmies, truer than ever. They are clueless, corrupt, and a busted flush like I’ve never seen before. Worse than the last days of John Major, and even he doesn’t trust this lot with the NHS – he said so a long time ago.

When the government is worse than the Major government, it’s time to get rid.

The number 10 spokesperson (and by extension, Sunak) is talking rubbish. The NHS blatantly doesn’t have the funding it needs – nothing could be more obvious – it has been underfunded for years. And while covid is adding unusual pressures, along with the usual winter pressures, the long-term underfunding is the major cause of both the immediate crisis and the long-term issues.

A and E and the ambulance service is a disaster, it has been bad and getting worse for years – there is no excuse for the government letting it get to this state, it is not a surprise. The underfunding has lead to lack of capacity, lack of staff, enormous backlogs, 300-500 unnecessary deaths A WEEK, lack of investment in preventative care, lack of capital investment, the list goes on.

The government has failed to recruit and retain doctors and nurses over many years. They stupidly got rid of the bursaries for nurses, making nursing less attractive (indeed impossible for some). They messed with NHS pensions, making a career in the NHS less attractive. We now have a staffing crisis in the NHS in many areas. Tens of thousands of unfilled positions, leading to inadequate staffing in departments throughout the service. Inevitably, quality of care suffers.

Yes, we have an ageing population requiring more care. But these people have paid taxes for decades, on the understanding that when they reach old age, their half-century of work (!) will be respected and the system will pay them back through necessary health and social care. This has been a major part of the UK’s social contract since 1948 and the current bunch of ideological idiots have no right to tear it up. Especially as their ideology and economics is such garbage. The government is a disgrace, as is it’s local representatives. They deserve no sympathy, pity, or, frankly, politeness, for the shocking state they have reduced healthcare to. The government and the entire modern tory party is a shambles and a disgrace.

And then they lie and dissemble. They talk of “record investment” endlessly – but in real terms it’s cuts and underfunding year after year after year..

And they’re rubbish at just about everything else as well!

There’s no doubt that the climate is changing and there’s no doubt that it’s locked-in to change a lot more. We are a very long way off doing what we need to do. We need to AT LEAST stabilise atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (418ppm – way higher than pre-industrial levels and guaranteed to cause further problems even at that level). But we are not stabilising atmospheric CO2, we are emitting record amounts worldwide every year. And are these record amounts of emissions falling? No, global emissions are still rising. Falling emissions, even dramatically falling emissions, would still be raising the CO2 level year-on-year, increasing global temperature rise, but emissions – ADDITIONAL CO2 – are not even heading in the right direction. So not only is the level of atmospheric CO2 increasing, the RATE OF CHANGE of atmospheric CO2 is increasing. It used to rise by 1ppm per year, then it was 2ppm per year, now it’s 3ppm per year. This is so far off what needs to be happening. And don’t fall for any “what can anything measured in ppm do?” – it is well established that CO2 at that concentration has a greenhouse effect (and methane at much lower concentrations). There’s a daft argument that “human beings can’t affect the planet” – we extract approx 11½ billion litres of oil a day, most of which is burned. Plus coal and natural gas. Over the years that’s a LOT.

And as CO2 concentration rises, the planet warms. And there is a lag effect on that, meaning the planet will continue to warm for decades after CO2 stabilises or even falls (if we ever achieve that). And there is an even longer lag effect, probably of centuries, with melting ice ie sea-level rise. And there are potential accelerating feedback loops but we won’t know for sure till they are confirmed to be happening. There may be decelerating feedback loops eg reduced albedo effect but I wouldn’t hang all our hopes on that. We don’t magically get saved.

Also, atmospheric methane, the second most significant greenhouse gas, has gone up by a record amount in the last year recorded. Nobody knows why but it is concerning. It could be increased release from industry, possibly fracking, but it could be increased release from thawing permafrost, which could be an accelerating feedback loop. I’m not saying it is – I massively hope it’s not – but atmospheric methane HAS gone up by a record amount – again the rate of change is in the wrong direction, not just the change.

The likely effects of increased global temperature are well-known – sea-level rise, crop failure on a large scale, parts of the world simply too hot to live, stronger storms, wildfires etc. Don’t kid yourself – it’ll be bad if we don’t tackle this. And it will affect everyone on our highly interconnected planet. Producing sparkling wines in the North of England is gonna be little compensation in the long-term.

We have to tackle this. We have to leave a livable world to future generations (and today’s younger people). This is really happening – it will be real human beings (and other creatures) who will suffer if we don’t tackle this. It will be difficult but we can avoid the worst. We have to – nothing matters more.

I am not offering the solution – for the simple reason that I do not have it. The solution will involve cooperation on a global scale I know that. It’s much easier to identify a problem than to come up with a solution but this is all I can do. No point pretending otherwise. I do have some thoughts on what the solution looks like and I’ll get more into that but I don’t have all the answers. But I do know enough to know that we have to tackle this.

I know it’s not a very cheerful message but head-in-the-sand won’t help. We won’t tackle this problem unless we are fully understanding of the seriousness of it. Talk of “catastrophising” young people is garbage – worrying about a coming problem is not as bad as the problem itself would be – not even close. We have to be aware – it’s ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

We CAN do this – but it will be hard.

Thanks for reading this far. ❤

The IPCC report gives cause for optimism, I think, in two ways.

1. Delegates from all 195 national governments signed off on the report. So we now know that every national government in the world at least UNDERSTANDS how serious cc is, and that rapid, global reductions in ghg emissions is essential, ultimately getting to at least net zero.
2. The report outlines some very different projections for average global temperature rise, depending on how quickly and how much we reduce ghg emissions. The lower projections are (to me) surprisingly low – average global temperature only rising to slightly above +1.5°C and then falling as a consequence of net reduction of CO2 levels due to massive CO2 removal. Now I realise that this lowest projection is going to take an enormous, concerted effort that we are not at all close to currently, and that massive CO2 removal is dependent on as yet unscaled technology (unless one believes that tree-planting/ rewilding can do this, which is questionable) BUT it does show what is possible if we get our act together. We COULD keep the rise to “not too bad”. We COULD avoid tipping points (feedback loops). We COULD leave a world to our successors (and currently living young people) that is eminently liveable. We COULD be decent custodians of the planet for the future.

On the other hand, the worst projections are horrendous. So let’s make the right choice. And let’s make our leaders make the right choice. Accept nothing less. 🌐

I am calling on the world’s government’s to agree to suspend intellectual property rights regarding vaccine technology, and allow the full manufacturing capacity of the world to be used to combat covid-19, globally.

There is so much at stake, this one-time abrogation of IP rights is the right thing to do. MANY OTHER FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED.

People of the world have had so many basic rights suspended. The right to work, the right to leave your own house. The right to run a business. All abrogated by govts for the greater good. What’s so special about intellectual property rights?

Needs must. Bigger picture.

Covid-19 is having a devastating effect around the world. People continue to die, to suffer, to get long covid which will change their lives forever. The effects on economies around the world are devastating. Hundreds of millions of additional people face going into severe poverty.

Vaccines are a way out of this mess. For the sake of billions of people worldwide, governments of the world should agree to suspend intellectual property rights regarding vaccines, as a one-off measure for uniquely important reasons, to allow all available vaccine manufacturing capacity to be used to combat this crisis. The world is far from out of trouble.

Even if you only care about the situation here in the UK, and nothing else, this would still be the right move, because combating covid worldwide is immensely important to the UK, for 3 reasons. Firstly, viruses do not respect international borders. Secondly, the number of new variants, and hence the number of more deadly or more transmissible variants, is roughly proportional to how many people get infected with covid, and any new variants will eventually reach us. And thirdly, the economic effects resulting in other countries will obviously have a knock-on effect in the UK. We live in a global economy and an interconnected world.

We really should do this.

❤

Climate change is real, it is already happening with a lot more locked-in. If we as a species take action to greatly reduce our CO2 emissions we can reduce the negative consequences. No-one knows for sure, yet, what the outcome will be if we do not, but they will be serious with a significant possibility of being catastrophic for all of us (or all of our descendants, anyway). For example, up to a billion people flooded out of their homes by rising oceans. Another example, changes to rainfall patterns throwing hundreds of years of agriculture into turmoil.

It is completely irresponsible for us not to treat this as a high political priority and take concerted action. It is DISGRACEFUL for anyone of influence to spread the myth that climate change is not happening or that it is not driven largely by human activities (chiefly CO2 emissions). Or to spread disinformation such as “increased CO2 levels is good for plant life” (plants do need CO2 to photosynthesise but 250ppm seemed to be perfectly sufficient for thousands of years).

We must win this fight.

Thank you for reading.

Dave