View from Trefonen

 I’m writing this third post partly because I am concerned at the level of what is called ‘climate anxiety’ in the general population, and particularly among young people. This has clearly been caused by the media heavily emphasizing every possible negative climate story, as well as talking up the disaster theories, not least because these headlines ‘sell newspapers’, as we used to say (!). Our current climate mania seems still to be stuck in the ‘hockey stick’ era, with every new piece of research seized upon by the media and stacked up with all the rest to create terror; and the scientists have - understandably but I think without fully considering the effects of all the media hype - allowed this to happen because it captures public attention and increases the likelihood that policy makers will actually address the issues. However, this global anxiety is, in my view, largely misplaced and may actually be dangerous, not only to individuals who are being made anxious, but also beca...

In my first blog in this series I mentioned the Gulf Stream and its relationship with the warming and cooling of the North European climate. It is thought by many climate historians that the cooling effect of the Gulf Stream weakening has happened before, in fairly recent times, during the early part of the Holocene. After the last ice age ended, around 15,000 years ago, there was a period of rapid warming. Ice sheets retreated, sea levels rose – and the Gulf Stream currents, overwhelmed by the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet over Canada, switched off. Almost immediately, in climate terms, global temperatures fell sharply, leading to what is known as the Younger Dryas event, about 12,800 years ago. Ice sheets that had been in retreat across northern Europe re-formed, and global warming went into reverse – for a while. Then the warming trend reanimated and the period we call the Holocene began, usually dated from about 10,000 years ago. Climate change is so unpredictable, by its v...

 In the last few days I have seen various mentions in the news of a report on the state of the system of currents that form the Gulf Stream, which keeps northern Europe warmer than its latitude would normally allow. As I understand it, when a lot of fresh water pours into the North Atlantic, usually as a result of the melting of ice sheets in North America, the salinity of the ocean is reduced and the currents drop lower, rather than staying near the surface. As a result of global warming, there has been a lot of quite rapid melting of glaciers in Canada, and the current system is becoming unstable. If it collapses completely the warming effect of the Gulf Stream would stop, bringing about (fairly swiftly, probably over a couple of decades) abrupt cooling of north-western Europe. A New York Times news item this morning explains: ‘… a crucial ocean circulation system in the Atlantic Ocean, which helps stabilize the climate in Europe, is now starting to slow down. While the [IPCC...

 Watching the BBC documentary Uprising , as well as being horrified by the story of the 1981 fire and its aftermath, I was reassured that we  have come some way away from the racism that caused the events focused on in the programme, though there has been a regression back towards it in the last ten years or so. We clearly need to take this resurgence seriously and make sure it is kept in the public eye, for laws and public utterances will only take us so far. If racism remains in hearts and minds, undetected perhaps even by the individual himself (or herself, but it seems sadly more characteristic of a certain type of male), it will continue to be a corrosive poison on relations within the many multi-racial communities in this country, and a stain on our national life. Football, as it so often does, has crystallised this in the last few weeks. Our wonderful national team, who have rightly won so many plaudits and continue to command our admiration and loyalty, in spite of t...

  Like it or not, on 19th July many if not all of our social restrictions that have been used to manage the pandemic in the UK will be swept away. 'Freedom Day', some are calling it (unwisely, in my view). The government believe it is necessary, because of non-COVID problems such as a rise in mental health issues and the toll of the long months without 'normal' social contact. Others murmur dark and ominous predictions suggesting that it will be a disaster, with Delta-variant COVID infections still increasing and the younger third of our population not fully vaccinated. Not for the first time, our country is divided about our response to world events. But you could argue that the whole of our pandemic response from August 2020 onwards has been a giant experiment, unintentional it is true, but powerful as a guide to the rest of the world. First we selected seven vaccines which we would pre-order large supplies of, and began organising what would end up being an extraor...