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A Not So Cold Snap

It's March. It's been a bit cold here for the last couple of weeks. We've had on-off smatterings of snow - and even one morning when for a whole couple of hours it was a bit tricky getting to work.

Here's the thing. To listen to the forecasters on TV, you'd think we'd just been through an ice age. They get so excited, those girls, when they get a chance to dress up in their thick scarves. And I know it's worse in Scotland, and I know this is a subjective opinion, but...

It just hasn't seemed that cold. Memory might be failing me here, but I'm sure I can remember winters before the 1990s when temperatures in the UK sometimes fell well below freezing - not just a couple of degrees overnight.

It's getting warmer. This is not new news. Everyone knows it. We know it so well, in fact, that it barely registers with the media when the President of the Royal Society, Lord May, publicly criticises George Bush for fiddling while the world burns.

Kyoto won't work. Almost all the signatories to the treaty are going to miss their targets. The US refuses to take part. And meanwhile the International Energy Agency predict that global CO2 emissions will rise by around 62% by 2030. Driven largely by developing countries galloping full-tilt towards the kind of lifestyle enjoyed by US citizens - a lifestyle assidously promoted in every part of the world by Hollywood and Washington.

Meanwhile, we need a cut of around 60% in global CO2 levels to control climate change. You do the math.

Suddenly scientists aren't just talking about 3 degrees by the end of the century. They're hinting at double that figure, accompanied by a rise in global sea levels of 16 feet, the collapse of the Gulf Stream, and the world's oceans turning acid.

I know: scientists can be wrong. But we're fucked if even half of it's true.

I don't mean here in the UK. We'd lose some of our coastline, I expect, and have to drink a lot more British wine (or give it up - no-one's really sure what that Gulf Stream thing means). The real problem lies elsewhere. Africa, for instance: Bob Geldof and Gordon Brown have spent the last couple of days banging on about the difficulty of solving the Africa problem without once attempting to factor in the effects of a 4 or 5 degree temperature rise. Sooner or later, large numbers of people are going to die. And those that remain are going to be very very pissed off.

Meanwhile, we sit around admiring our iPods. We get heated about fox-hunting. We whinge when we go to hospital and don't get treated like we're shopping at Harrods. We waffle about how we couldn't live without the family 4x4 when we only need it one morning a year. We buy groceries dressed up in so much packaging that we immediately throw away a third of the net weight of our shopping, then pat ourselves on the back because we drove to the recycling centre with our carefully sorted empty wine bottles. Conveniently forgetting the environmental cost of the fuel we used getting there.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. I'm as guilty as the next citizen, and I know it. And I don't know what to do about it.

That's the problem, right there. The potential effects of global warming are so big, we none of us know what to do. From George Bush right on down to the last African farmer.

So - just like George - we turn our attention to the short-term. Will Al-Qaida hit us again? Will Anti-Social Behaviour Orders clean up our streets? Will house prices fall? Will we be able to afford a new sofa if we get it from IKEA? Will Chelsea win the league?

There's an election coming up. I'd love to think there are candidates standing who give a damn about their children's children. I'd love to find a way to make them think about it. I'd love to think we might elect people with the moral courage to say this is an emergency we're facing and we're not going to wait for the rest of the world to join in we're by God going to lead by example and help our citizens live a sustainable lifestyle even if it makes us unpopular because this has to be done and it has to be done now.

But I'm dreadfully afraid that all they'll do - as they always do - is talk about health and crime and taxes.