Aside from the exceedingly disturbing daily news coverage about the ongoing genocide in Palestine, Putin’s war on Ukraine and the occasional account on the war in Sudan in which an estimated 24.6 million people are suffering acute hunger, are the regular reports of the dismal state of the health of the biosphere. The most recent one to get media attention is the ‘State of the UK Climate 2024’ by the UK Met Office which states that the extreme weather we have experienced on these islands over the last few years is the new norm.
Among its findings is that the UK climate has been warming at approximately 0.25 C per decade and the last three years have been amongst the warmest on record. Winters are getting wetter, the leaf-season is getting longer, frosty days are becoming fewer, severe storms and flooding have become more frequent and the rise in the sea-level is accelerating. The Met Office says that 2025 is on track to be the warmest since records began in 1884. So far this year there have been three extended periods of exceedingly hot weather and large parts of the Republic of Ireland and the UK are experiencing drought with restrictions placed on the use of water.
Bad as this weather is for our health, farming, biodiversity, personal convenience and finances the young of today will in future years likely look back on this decade as a period of mild weather and good living. This is because scientific studies suggest that the warming world is going to lead to the collapse of ecosystems and thus the global economy including agriculture as we know it.
The science-based expectation is that by 2070, which is within the expected life-span of many alive today, one third of the planet will be uninhabitable which means that three billion people will have nowhere to live. While most of these people are in the global south, what was once called the Third World, they also live in our own archipelago.
Factors that will account for the loss of habitable land include drought and the rise in sea level caused by the melting of glaciers, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and ocean thermal expansion. According to the high-level emission scenario, which given the steady rise in the outpouring of global warming gases is more likely than the medium and low-level emission scenarios, the sea level is projected to rise by over 100 cm by 2100, with, as the UK Met Office graph shows, a rapid rise occurring after 2050.
The predicted rise in sea-level will render every coastal village, town and city on this island uninhabitable as well as settlements build by major rivers. Unlike in the story of Noah’s Ark there will be no place of refuge, no place we can paddle or sail to as most countries will suffer a similar loss of habitable land if not caused by the rise in sea level then by prolonged drought. In some cases the loss will be due to both.
What is utterly bewildering is why in knowing that the only outcome there can be from our consumer-based way of life is the creation of an inhospitable world that is unable to provide sustenance for our children are we so set on hurrying towards this catastrophe? The horror of which could be said to be depicted by Francisco de Goya’s 19th century painting of Saturn devouring his son (on display in the Museo de Prado, Madrid).
The truth is we are Saturn in that through our sense of entitlement, love of convenience and ravenous appetite for goods and experiences, underpinned by the religious-like belief in continual economic growth, we are devouring our children’s future. We are gobbling-up all the food on the table leaving nothing for those you will come after us.
A plausible explanation for the disconnect between our behaviour and its unpleasant outcomes, which many millions are experiencing today in the form of extreme weather events and chronic poverty is that we often fail to see the world as it actually is. As Leor Zmigrod points out in her book The Ideological Brain (2025) “We comprehend only a fraction of reality and neglect its entirety.” (p.170) This is largely due to the fact that we overlook inconsistencies and irrationalities that challenge our view of the world.
Aware of it or not many people are prone to screen out, downplay and ridicule information that undermines their worldview including religious beliefs they might hold. In wishing to maintain the imagined integrity of an outlook some will go as far as telling themselves that in particular circumstances 2 + 2 = 7. In politics and business this can take the form of telling oneself that although a certain type of behaviour is immoral it is warranted. This might be selling weapons, or allowing the transfer of weapons, to a government that is committing genocide. Or it might be lobbying for the opening of a mine that will ruin habitat, farm land and poison rivers and aquifers. It includes fly-tipping and throwing litter out of car windows.
As reality can be what we conceive it to be as illustrated by the case of seeing an object or animal on a dark night as something other than what it is, we as a society have opted to believe that the meaning of life is to be found on shop shelves, owning a large bulky personal vehicle, having a beach-holiday, wearing the latest fashion or having whatever we think confers prestige and thus allows us to feel that we are significant and live meaningful lives.
Yet, if we don’t awaken to the negative consequences of how we live our descendants will regard us as either villains or completely deluded. How, they will ask, did we with our technological inventiveness, amazing management skills, ability to create artistic wonders and immense capacity for compassion allow ourselves to believe in the fairytale of unlimited economic growth without catastrophic consequences.