Having held off over the years to avoid creating an echo chamber of sorts I must admit the last few months I’ve been making good use of that function on here 
Displacement. Millions upon millions of people looking to cool off. That is what sent me here from Florida.
I don’t do it for those merely with different opinions, generally it’s for those that are quite unpleasant and who needs that in their life. My rule of thumb is would I be happy to go for a pint and a chat with this person.
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I’m with you on that but I find more and more the correlation between those with different views and those who are quite unpleasant is often strong…
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I think John Birt, DG of the bbc - might resent being called a ‘charlatan’.
In the 25 years since he ceased being DG of the BBC it’s become a very trite meaningless bit of corporate-speak though hasn’t it, along with pushing the envelope etc
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God I loathe Birt. I had some dealings with him at Eutelsat many years ago and i cant tell you how hideous he was. It makes me so angry how some have tried to whitewash many o& his more disastrous decisions during his beeb tenure. Also, Saatchi & Saatchi had a blue sky room in the 80s so I bet they’d have something to say about his claim to have created it. It was quite the room, they brought it back in the noughties and we got to work on some projects with them and visit.
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What I heard.
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To my mind the climate is indeed changing, and I say this because of what I have seen out of my window during the 35 years that I’ve been frequenting western France rather than from consulting scientific papers. Yes, we used to have good ‘beach weather’ summers, but now the late afternoon showers and periods of soft evening / night time rain seem to have gone and thus fields, hedgerows, and grass verges have become a lot browner in summer over the years.
Of course it has always rained here in winter, but now the rain is more prolonged and often torrential for days and weeks on end. The rain comes on the traditional south westerly winds, but in winter when it isn’t raining it’s usually because the wind is blowing the ‘wrong way’ (north easterly) and although dry it is darn cold.
I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently if human beings stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, then it would take the planet around 300 years to return to the previous status quo. So as a species we seem to have shot ourselves in the foot, are bleeding profusely, and have no bandages available. It would seem that even if we can put a stop to the causational factors, the planet is still going to be experiencing further climate change for many decades.
No doubt it will be the people in the poorest countries that will suffer the most, as the richer countries will to a great extent be able to engineer their way to reducing the adverse climate change effect on their peoples by building reservoirs and sea defenses to name but two things. The irony is that in so doing, the vast construction projects needed will actually make the situation worse.
Migration of climate change displaced persons will continue at an accelerating rate, so the residents of the richer countries will have to decide whether or not to pull up the drawbridge. Welcome these people and recognise that the existing societal structure will disappear, or repel them, in which case the manufacture of munitions needs to be expanded.
No doubt you may think that I’m being ridiculous, but ask yourself how the situation will pan out when the numbers of people camped on the Channel coast seeking to reach the UK number not thousands, but hundreds of thousands. It won’t be small boats then, but rather a lot of very much larger ones because desperate people do desperate things. I wonder what the response will be when there is a column of thousands of people walking to the UK through the tunnel.
The basic problem is not too much CO2 (that is just a symptom), it is the ever increasing rate of global population growth. More people require more water, more food, more energy, and the supply is not inexhaustible. At the end of the day Mother Nature will sort out the problems that humans create by reducing the population. The way along the road of famine, pestilence, and war will not be pretty, but it will be effective. The process has already started if we care to see it rather than look the other way out of short lived convenience.
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A large proportion of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere will be gone within decades to centuries, much of it absorbed by the oceans with the rest being absorbed through other routes including photosynthesis. A proportion will take much longer to disappear, mainly through various chemical processes. So, not only will we get increasing acidification of the oceans, which is arguably a bigger threat than global warming, we’ll still hold onto a proportion of that extra CO2 for a long time to come..
Twas ever thus, and shall always be.
Not at all. Probably a bit too realistic for some people. Although I may not agree with some of what you write after this, I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of it.
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Did anybody see the 1st 2 episodes of ‘The War Between The Sea and The Earth’ last night.
I watched because it was the 1st of a series so perfect to decide if I was interested or not, no point joining later part way through. Halfway through the 1st one I had decided it wasn’t for me but stayed 'till the end anyway, unimpressed. Then I watched the 2nd one and felt a little better about it but when it became clear that it was a massive condemnation of the way we are destroying the rivers and therefore the oceans I became more interested.
I still think it is a little bit silly, science fiction and fantasy is not really my thing, but I might just check out episode 3 before dumping it. 
I started watching it but fairly quickly gave up . Isn’t it supposed to be a Dr Who spin off?
I experienced it myself in Florida. When I first moved there in ‘63 when I was a kid, we didn’t have air conditioning in our first house. Only June, July, August and September were basically unbearable. When I left 3 years ago, the only months you could even leave the house (or any air conditioned space) were January and February, and even then, there were plenty of days when the temp was near 30C. I don’t need any convincing.
Robert - Interesting views - and responses. But why is it only the UK you refer to when you mention ‘numbers of people camped out on the Channel’ ? Surely there will be better places than the UK to escape to ?
I just wondered if, should there were any forward looking organisations/governments who - worst case scenario that climate change is happening, that mankind has taken it over the tipping point and there is nothing we can do to stop it - if there are any future plans to access the areas that would become ‘green’, what the problems might be - and how to best use these new ‘greener’ areas.
Or maybe in 13,000 years time when the earth has half-completed another circle round the solar system - there might be another Ice Age !!
As for population numbers - I totally agree with you about over-population. Mr David Attenborough has made that point on many occasions. On the times I have referred to the problem - especially on the comment sections of the Guardian - I have been subjected to the most appalling abuse - by those who refuse to accept there is - will be - a huge problem. (I won’t use the words/phrases here - because I’d probably have post deleted - or be banned to the naughty step - but it was very nasty).
As an aside, a UN report published several years ago concerning ‘Quality of Life’ - stated that for the UK to be self-sufficient in food, energy, water etc - and for its citizens to have decent housing, transport, access to open spaces and leisure -
the UK population should be no more than 35 - 40 million
- 35-40 million - and the UK at present has a ‘known’ population of almost 70 million - with the government now actually admitting they have no idea of how many illegals there are in the country).
A UN report… (and no, I’m sorry I don’t have the link -it was several years ago; probably on my computer in france to which I do not at the moment have access - so apologies for not being able to follow the format of ‘providing a link’ ).
Recent ONS figures now looking at the number of children in schools who do not have english as a first language - it appears to be 1 in 5 - and the incredible strains this is causing for teachers and schools spending money on having translations or translators in classes, and for the damaging effect on those for whom english is their first language.
Think it’s time for coffee and brandy after interesting conversation … !!!
I tend to give a show two episodes before I decide, as the first one is often a bit disjointed while they introduce the characters and the story.
I don’t know, if I had been told I wouldn’t have watched it, that’s a kids’ programme isn’t it? 
Of course BUT that is positing a stable population of say 40 million mainly useful productive people plus children who will soon be useful and productive, it doesn’t mean a load of dead weight eg old or ill or unproductive people. So what do you suggest being done about them? Eugenics? Euthanasia of the ill and old? Would you have it means-tested? Or just if you’re past your sell-by date, off you pop? And who decides? For it to be fair you’d need a cutoff age and I suspect most of us here would be over it. Be careful of what you wish for.
Speaking entirely for myself I’d have no problem with getting euthanasia for myself when I need to be looked after but I quite see that lots of people wouldn’t agree, shades of that bit in The Children of Men where the old people get taken out to sea and drowned.
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Eskimos on the ice etc..
I had understood that in the medium term the opposite was of significant concern, that as you say, there may be more older people in the short to medium term, but in fact underpopulation will be the real concern as younger generations have less children and so there will be less people of an age to actually make the world run, at least in large chunks of the world. It’s something that doesn’t get as much attention as it should, partly at least because it runs the risk of appearing to legitimise some of the far right rhetoric around the Muslims, the Africans, whoever they’re targeting this week, repopulating the earth, and filling predominantly white countries with themselves, the supposed ‘great replacement theory’ of Camus, but there’s no doubt there’s real concern from some that, not just from an economic standpoint but from a civilisation one too, we could be heading into a crisis where we’ll end up with too few people on the planet, and of those too few useful ones, to sustain the current situation. Which might prove good for the planet, but less good for humans.
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In some societies it is normal for elderly people who realise that they have become a burden rather than an asset to just take themselves off into the wilderness and die. The Australian Aboriginals call it ‘Going Walkabout’ and there is a similar practice among a number of the native north American tribes.
No doubt the above will not be sufficient on a global scale, so sadly, this is where famine, pestilence, and warfare are more effective. We are seeing this happen today in both Ukraine and Gaza where the invaders certainly don’t want the people, nor the buildings, and so in both places there is a systematic total destruction in progress intended to either kill or displace the original inhabitants. The aggressors just want the land, together with what can be grown on it, or dug out from under it, in order to better serve their own existing population. A similar thing is happening in the horn of Africa where people are being forcibly displaced by others who really don’t care if those displaced live or die.
You may well be right about that one, but I mentioned the Channel issue as the UK does seem to be a place that a lot of migrants currently aspire to be, and also because it is a location where there is a situation with which the majority of readers here will be familiar.