Environmental crisis

My first long read of 2023, looking at how thoroughly catastrophic climate change made itself apparent in 2022, and yet how, still, our political leaders and our mainstream media continue to ignore the gravity of the situation. Instead, it is left to climate scientists and climate activists to take the lead, and I review their efforts last year, via the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and via activism including road blocks, targeting oil refineries and private airports, and, most visibly, throwing soup on Van Gogh’s ’Sunflowers’, also examining whether or not these techniques are successful. I conclude by urging UK readers to consider another option: the velvet revolution envisaged by Extinction Rebellion, who are calling for 100,000 people to turn up outside Parliament on Friday April 21, and to refuse to go away until the dreadful stasis of 21st century capitalism’s toxic ‘business as usual’ is brought to an end.

My report about the failures of the COP27 climate summit, the implausibility of keeping the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the widespread actions by protestors over the last two months, and the need for a velvet revolution to bring about the change we need, in the face of paralysis from our leaders.

Now that Rishi Sunak has become the Conservative Party’s fourth Brexit Prime Minister in six years, I look at the colossal challenges he faces — on the ‘cost of living’ crisis, the climate crisis, and Brexit in particular — and express serious doubts that either he, or his Cabinet, are capable of providing anything like the leadership that we need.

With Liz Truss resigning just 44 days into her role as Prime Minister, after crashing the economy with her irresponsible ‘mini-budget’, delivered by Kwasi Kwarteng just 27 days ago, and with the Tories now shamelessly jostling to elect a successor in the next week, they need to recognise that they have completely run out of legitimacy and credibility, and call a General Election instead. Labour currently have a 36-point lead, but it will mean nothing, if an election does go ahead, if they fail to recognise the damage caused by Brexit, and don’t take steps to address it, if they don’t fully take on board the catastrophic nature of the climate crisis, and if they remain tied to too much economic orthodoxy.

With the government of Liz Truss in chaos, having crashed the economy, but still committed to widening inequality and trashing the environment, there’s never been a better time to get involved in protests taking place in London from October 1 to October 16, involving Just Stop Oil, Enough Is Enough, the UK Guantánamo Network, the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign, and Extinction Rebellion.

My detailed analysis of the extraordinary coup staged by Liz Truss and her Cabinet, who, without a mandate from the British people, have delivered an energy price cap that will be paid for by taxpayers, and an energy policy that prioritises new fossil fuel extraction over renewables, and, via the new Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, a ‘mini-budget’ that further widens the chasm between the rich and the poor. This is through tax cuts that overwhelmingly favour the rich, accompanied by a promise to punish the unemployed, as well as attempts to set up rights-free “investment zones” across the country — all policies drawn from the adherence of Truss and her colleagues to the far-right ‘libertarian’ think-tanks in Tufton Street in Westminster that also helped to secure the Brexit vote, and are now seeking to fulfil their dream of an utterly unregulated Britain, with no workers’ rights or environmental protections.

My latest quarterly fundraising appeal, in which I’m asking for your support, if you can, to enable me to continue my work, as a reader-funded independent journalist and activist, on Guantánamo, and on other topics, including the climate crisis, over the next three months. Any donations you make will be very gratefully received.

My analysis of Liz Truss’s scandalous proposal to cap the rising energy bills that threaten to destroy the British economy by borrowing at least £100 billion to compensate energy producers for their reduced profits, and then making UK taxpayers pay it back over the next ten to 20 years, instead of levying a windfall tax on those same companies’ unearned £176 billion in profits. Truss also lifted the moratorium on fracking, and pledged to allow new fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea, completely ignoring renewable energy sources, even though they are cheaper, environmentally sound, and can be brought online swiftly. Although the announcement on Wednesday was immediately overshadowed by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it is imperative that resistance to this outrageous plan is kept alive until Parliament resumes its business after the Queen’s funeral.

As the weather turns hostile, even in London, which is experiencing its hottest summer ever, I look at the dangerous disconnect between everyday life and the grim future that awaits us if we don’t take immediate and concerted action to address catastrophic climate change. Failed by politicians, by the oil and gas industry and by the mainstream media, can we find a way out of our predicament before it is too late?

As temperatures reach 40°C in the UK for the first time ever, I look at the failures of politicians, the media and ourselves to take the required action necessary to keep the earth habitable, and particularly ask why, after the COP26 climate summit in November, we’re not seeing any efforts to implement the 7% cuts in emissions that are necessary to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030, a target that we are all supposed to have agreed to.