Shall we stand idly by?

Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here? Up and down my street, blinds are down and curtains drawn against the midday heat. Overnight, from bedroom windows, strangely alien aircon flues dangle. Parks and lawns are Sahel-brown, hosepipes are banned across the South [of England], and with warm, dry weather forecast for August, we’re all beginning to hope for a spot of rain. Maybe by the time you read this we’ll have had some.

This year is shaping up to be a record-breaker. In May, we had the hottest day ever recorded for the month, and then in June, the same again. Globally, June was the second-hottest on record, just slightly below record-holding 2024. And there’s an intense El Niño brewing in the Pacific that looks like it’s going to set yet more unwelcome records. Phew, what a scorcher.

Almost nobody now says climate change isn’t happening. I mean, it’d be hard to argue, wouldn’t it? And hardly anyone thinks it isn’t caused by us – a scientific consensus stretching across all major universities and scientific associations, again hard to argue. And nobody at all is saying we shouldn’t do something about it. The only question is “what?”