Right lads, we are now officially drinking in the Last Chance Saloon when it comes to saving the planet.
When the world’s top scientists put out a major report warning we are now at “Code Red” for humanity, we should be afraid.
That mankind is a driver of climate change can no longer be denied – unless you are the sort of cove who thinks the US election was stolen from Donald Trump and Boris Johnson is as honest as the day is long.
Some flood defences are on watercourses that once held tank traps and barbed wire to hold back a Nazi invasion. Now we are trying to hold back Mother Nature
The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is a stark warning about soaring global temperatures, rising sea levels and more lethal extreme weather events, like the recent devastating floods in Germany and the wildfires razing vast swathes of Greece to the ground.
‘Once in 50 year’ floods are happening annually
And don’t think it’s all fine and dandy here in our quiet patch in the north-east of Scotland. It isn’t. What were “once in 50 year” floods are coming around what feels like annually.
I can look out of my window and see work on the extensive flood defences going up around Stonehaven. Ironically, some of them are on watercourses that once held tank traps and barbed wire to hold back a Nazi invasion. Now we are trying to hold back Mother Nature.
It’s not as if we weren’t warned about the effects humans are having on the environment.
Some 45 years ago, my modern studies class was taught about the potentially catastrophic impacts of humanity on the planet.
We have the course of action we need to take. We need the courage to do it, to make the sacrifices required. This Age of Waste we live in cannot continue
The key worries then were pollution and overpopulation. At that time there were 3.5 billion people on the planet. Today there are 7.6 billion. Want to join the dots?
So, we’ve spent at least half a century ignoring the warnings. We’ve become adept at waving off the day of reckoning as something which is decades, maybe even centuries, away. Something for another generation to deal with.
But that day of reckoning is upon us. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but it might be the day after that. We are the generation that has to deal with it.
Leaders must not flinch at COP26
We have the facts in front of us. We have the course of action we need to take laid out before us. We need the courage to do it, to make the sacrifices required. This Age of Waste we live in cannot continue.
Of course, individuals must play their part, but to get this tanker turned around from the deadly storm we are heading into takes a united, global effort.
Emissions must be cut on a national level, tough decisions must be made – including leaving oil and coal in the ground. And, yes, that is a sore one.
These are the issues our world leaders must not flinch from at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow later this year.
It is one of the most important international gatherings in our lifetime. To be blunt, it will determine how that lifetime will play out and whether or not there will be more lifetimes to follow.
Scott Begbie is entertainment editor for The Press & Journal and Evening Express
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