Global warning

‘In the face of impending catastrophe whose warning signs are already unbearably disastrous, weak action is unwise. No action is dangerous.’ (William Ruto)

‘I had only heard about plane accidents on the news, but now I was about to experience one. Interesting, I thought. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the flight attendant announced, oddly calm, like she had done this all the time. ‘We are going to need to prepare for a crash landing. I need you to listen to me very carefully.’’ These are the gripping opening words in Mark Smeby’s book, ‘Losing Control.’ I love his sense of humour in what must have been an utterly terrifying experience.

Having just closed those pages this morning whilst on a visit to Germany, my mobile phone beeped with an ominous message: ‘Extreme Danger’. Something about a ‘Warning’ and ending with a word that looked like ‘Catastrophe’. ‘Oh…a scam?’, I thought. Then, a few minutes later, it beeped again. Same message. I looked out of the window. No sign of anything alarming. Should I get up quick and crawl under the table? Turned out to be an annual Bavarian state test signal.
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It could have been, however, a serious precursor to what did happen next. I flicked on the TV. ‘Today, I’m pleased to make the largest deregulatory announcement in US history.’ Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the now painfully-ironically-named US Environmental Protection Agency. He was proudly declaring, with astonishingly gleeful smile, the reckless actions of a superpower that could accelerate the consignment of all life on earth to the non-existent history books.

3 warnings. 2 turned out OK. The 3rd is a slow-motion crash and burn we may not survive.