September 4, 2026

A UN Report tells us that the world is not going to be able to stop the global temperature rise from exceeding the 1.5°C increase that was set as the limit by the Paris Accords. The report tells us we will exceed this temperature in the next few years. The purpose of the report is to plead with the world to limit the magnitude and duration of the overshoot. It also highlights the need for countries that are most responsible for causing this problem to give support to the poorer countries that will be most affected by these changes.

The problem is, the western world is never going to do anything suggested in this report. It is full speed ahead with burning fossil fuels, cutting regulations, and turning our back on the rest of the world. I would like to hope that the majority of people in these western democracies will wake up to the dangers we are heading towards, but when the same people who are causing the problem are the ones controlling most of the media, that is never going to happen.

I know Margaret Atwood tells us that we "always have to try our utmost to believe the positive, because what did believing in the negative ever get us except depressed? Whereas with the positive we found the strength to carry on", but I just can't find anything in our present circumstances that gives me hope that we will start to reverse any of this in my lifetime.