Eco Blog - St. George's Berlin

 Recent weather catastrophes have made the arguments for addressing the climate crisis more urgent. As the Guardian editorial on 25 July 2021 commented : "Reminders that our planet is wilting under the impact of human-driven climate change have been hard to avoid this month." ( SOURCE )  The problem is clearly political as well as an economic, as the Guardian editorial goes on to say: "This terrifying prospect has come about because politicians and business leaders have failed, for several decades, to appreciate the risks involved in massively interfering with the make-up of our atmosphere and to instigate measures to limit the damage."  The institutional resistance  to ecologic change appears to be deeply embedded in services that seem normally to be highly trustworthy.  For example, on Saturday 24 July 2021 the Guardian reported: "A former police officer who is now a prominent climate crisis campaigner has accused the ...

 It is almost as if a biblical prophet predicting the catastrophes. War and famine have not yet made it to the list, but they may not be far behind. What we have at present are clear signs of an ecological catastrophe of biblical scale that includes killing heat and deadly floods, combined with COVID19 as a form of pestilence. Ironically COVID has helped by reducing travel and restricting meetings. Nine months ago on 15 September 2020 the Guardian had an article by Art Cullen called: "Drought, plague, fire: the apocalypse feels nigh. Yet we have tools to stop it." ( SOURCE ) Last Friday (16 July 2021) Jonathan Watts wrote an article called: "Climate scientists shocked by scale of floods in Germany: Deluge raises fears human-caused disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted." ( SOURCE )  As the biblical prophets knew all too well, human memory is remarkably short, and as soon as the immediate problem is gone, people wish to...

  Extreme heat has been in the headlines in areas that typically do not suffer from heat, including northern parts of  British Columbia in Canada, and Washington state in the US. The Guardian reports: " More than 31 million people across the US west and south-west are bracing for a brutal heatwave that could bring triple-digit temperatures this weekend, with authorities warning that records could be broken in many regions of California and Nevada." ( SOURCE ) The problem is serious:  "More than 5 million people die each year globally because of excessively hot or cold conditions, a 20-year study has found – and heat-related deaths are on the rise." ( SOURCE ) One of the possible causes of this extreme heat could be changes in the jet stream: "Experts at the Potsdam Institute and elsewhere believe the rapid heating in the Arctic and decline of sea ice is making the jet stream wiggle in large, meandering patterns, so-called Rossby resonance waves, trappi...