“THE world is on fire.”
It’s safe to assume that Greta Thunberg wasn’t specifically talking about people in Ballywatticock feeling “sweltered” after the mercury tipped over 31 degrees Celsius.
But when word came into the newsroom this week that the gritters usually associated with sub-zero temperatures would be spreading sand on roads to stop the tar blistering it felt uncomfortably like she was.
Our record-breaking temperatures will hopefully not reach the more than 49.6C of the recent deadly heatwave in the US and Canada.
London’s current scorchio weather follows hot on the heels of flash-flooding with a month’s rainfall in 24 hours.
That was small fry compared with the deluge in central Europe, where dozens of people drowned in the Rhine basin and tens of thousands of homes flooded after 148 litres of rain fell within 48 hours in an area that usually sees 80 litres in the whole of July.
This week more than 30 people died in Mumbai due to changing monsoon patterns and in China’s Henan province massive flooding disrupted the lives of tens of millions.
It shouldn’t take the actual water from the defrosted polar ice caps to flood your living room for you to take `science’ seriously, but us humans are who we are.
Some people will still insist they remember when far worse heat/floodings/plagues of locust was commonplace.
We’re all on a bit of a journey when it comes to climate change – some of us have further to go than others.
I have a friend who used to luxuriate in her rapid turnover of high-octane cars, scoff at recycling and declare she couldn’t wait for global warming as “who doesn’t want Northern Ireland to be sunnier, drier and hotter?”
That same friend has gone on to become an environmental activist and was last seen wondering if it would be better to nurse her tiny-engined vehicle through the rest of her lifespan or to join the electric revolution.
Never underestimate the human capacity for to evolve – look at how bees have gone from being reviled to being treasured as tiny fuzzy superheroes in my relatively short lifetime.
Unfortunately we don’t have another lifetime left to fix the problems it has taken two-and-a-half centuries to create.
We learned this week that the Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb and is now an accelerant of the climate crisis.
Most of the emissions were caused by fires, many deliberately set to clear land for beef and soy production.
US envoy John Kerry is leading the pressure on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of accelerating his dismantling of the rainforest, with `an area the size of the Isle of Man’ cleared in one month alone.
July’s extreme weather events have led analysts to warn that human-caused climate disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted.
India, Indonesia, Latin American countries and other emerging economies are forecast to create around 90 per cent of the growth in emissions, but are falling behind in clean energy investments.
But while people in North Down might be experiencing a bit more prickly heat in the short term, it is the population of these countries that are likely to be in the front line of the devastation.
And often their governments are facing a Hobson’s Choice of committing to sacrificing vital economic growth – or simply survival – to save the world.
It is no wonder they don’t take kindly to being lectured to by countries who have had a couple of hundred years' head start on fossil fuel burning to build their own wealth.
Consider that today only around one per cent of Scotland’s native pinewoods remain.
Would its 18th century industrialists have compromised their expansion if asked politely by someone from Brazil?
If they truly want to put out the fire the world’s richest nations need to be prepared to pay back what they took to build that wealth in the first place.