All's Well with the World?

          For us, the inhabitants of the British Isles, a heatwave used to be considered a bit of a treat. Knowing it would disappear within a few days, we would soak up the sun with neither restraint nor modesty, so that it was common to see people proudly displaying the damage – skin peeling off their noses and shoulders, revealing tender red patches beneath – as if it were a trophy. Then the Australians discovered a connection between sunburn and skin cancer, invented greasy sunblock and exported it to Britain.

          Well, that’s the way it seemed to me at the time: the beginning of a sensible approach to ‘catching some rays’. Mind you, it didn’t appeal to everybody, as is apparent from our balcony. Presently, we are living next to a small, scruffy, inner-city beach and, whenever there’s a heatwave – as there is right now – it turns into a pop-up holiday destination for the locals, some of whom appear to be doing their utmost to toast themselves.

          Do they not know about the connection with cancer? Do they know but don’t care? Do they think they are immune? Have they not heard the news about heatwaves lasting longer and becoming more intense because of climate change? Do they not know that the urgency to binge has diminished?

          Maybe it’s about joining the dots. Chris Packham has made a short film, National Emergency Briefing, that does just that. In it, scientists explain how climate change is affecting every aspect of life as we are used to living it: food security, healthcare, national defence and economic systems are all threatened. The effects are already measurable – though some of us may not recognise the connections – and tipping points are inevitable unless there is immediate remedial action. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but how else is the danger to be expressed other than bluntly?

          But a world in which rational decisions are made about important issues exists only on the fictional planet Vulcan. On Earth, a rational person is necessarily one who factors emotional behaviour in to their thought processes: that’s entirely logical, given human nature.

          We are reminded, by Chris Packham, that Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world – though you may be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Our countryside has a reputation for being beautiful, magnificent, lush (in places) and fertile, all of which qualities are still to be found but to a diminishing extent.

          We spent a couple of days last week in a rural corner of Suffolk, where the towns are quaint and weighted with history, the higgledy-piggledy villages populated with cute, well-kept cottages whose gardens spill over with iconic hollyhocks in every pastel colour imaginable. In between, the farmland appeared fecund and prosperity was in the air, not least around the attractions that draw in visitors. Walking through the wooded heath, where deer roam free and butterflies flutter, to the beach at Dunwich, the depletion of nature was not the first thing that came to mind.

          Discovering the ‘best bits’ of Britain is like going to a theme park: all your expectations are met or surpassed (vagaries of weather duly factored in). But coming to generalised conclusions, i.e. ‘Suffolk is nice’, is a trap into which we humans too readily fall. There must be parts of Suffolk that are grotty and, if so, they should be taken into account when measuring up.

          What with all this sunny weather causing folk to flock to the beaches, countryside havens, beer gardens and barbecues, the question of what lies behind it can be easy to overlook. It may feel like an endless summer, but there’s an ominous ending in sight. Join the dots.