The World Keep on Turning

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A climate scientist interviewed on Radio Four's Today this morning expressed sadness and concern at the lack of real work done at COP27. Having acknowledged the 'loss & damage'  decision to help poorer countries deal financially with the real-time effects of climate change, she says that '...meanwhile the world keeps on turning, and warming continues [to push inexorably towards the rubicon of one-and-a-half degrees by 2030]...' (I paraphrase). The point of the COPs is to deal with underlying climate change, not simply to deal with the inevitable economic fallout.

When push comes to shove, we are all in this together, and kicking the can further and further down the road in order to satisfy the oil producers and the markets simply isn't going to cut it any more, and what time is left to us to effect real change is getting mighty slim: there'll come a point when we won't be able to move fast enough to prevent what some say is already inevitable. I know which side I would back in all of this, and it ain't the markets or the capitalists. We need to listen, and listen hard, to the science. Not the fossil-fuel lobbies, not the money-men, not the swivel-eyed climate deniers, but the scientists.

We've known about the consequences of our actions for the planet for over fifty years, and done precious little for forty-odd of those. We need political and economic change on such a vast scale and in such a short time-frame that it seems inevitable that we will fail: given the inertia shown at every COP so far - all 27 of them - that's over a quarter of a century of practical inaction and mutual back-slapping. Do the math, peeps... I'm minded of a Peter Green song from the eponymous "Fleetwood Mac" album of 1968, the first verse of which goes:

 

The World Keep on Turning - Peter Green
 
Don't look for no worriesWorries and troubles come aroundYes, I don't look for no worries, peopleWorries and troubles come aroundThe world keep on turningI got to keep my feet on the ground

 

And whilst we're on the subject of prescient balladeering, I think we might turn to one David Bowie, as he nailed it back in 1972, with the first verse of the first track on "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars":

 

Five Years - David Bowie
 
Pushing through the market squareSo many mothers sighing (sighing)News had just come overWe had five years left to cry in (cry in)News guy wept and told usEarth was really dying (dying)Cried so much his face was wetThen I knew he was not lying (lying)

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