Hottest years make chilling reading. Here’s how you can still do something about Climate Change

The facts-objective, verified and indisputable- are chilling. The last three years of this decade have been the hottest on record. Vast areas are now being ravaged by wildfires or drowning in immeasurable floods. The latest gloomy news comes from Nature Briefing: a group of people who are as calm, objective and well-informed as any we have come across. :early Temperatures Reach Dangerous Highs, they report:

This year looks likely to tie with 2023 as the second-hottest ever on record. Last year was the hottest. “The three-year average for 2023-2025 is on track to exceed 1.5 ℃ for the first time,” says Samantha Burgess of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, referring to the Paris Agreement pledge to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. “These milestones are not abstract — they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Euronews | 2 min read

As we were once more digesting these gloomy words in the LSS Boardroom, Selina the tea lady came in with this morning’s refreshments. “Good heavens!” she observed. Well, that was the gist of what she observed. “Are you lot really going to put out another gloomy blog on Climate Change? Give them some hope, for once, why don’t you” Again we paraphrase: suffice to say we understand where her grandchildren derived the terms they used when we tried to stop them from vandalising the cars in the office car park. But she is right: why don’t we tell you that there is something you can do? Take agency and all that. It shall be by supporting or donating to the organisations which we have listed below. We have chosen all of them for their integrity, hard work and track records. But above all for their moderate, pragmatic approach to this problem. We are deeply suspicious of more extreme outfits who in our view only help Big Oil by alienating ordinary people. Here, then is that list. All need money. It is nearly Christmas. We leave you to join the dots between those last statements.

World Wide Fund for Nature | WWF

Greenpeace UK

Home | Carbon180

Friends of the Earth | Home

Rainforest Alliance | Creating a Better World for People and Nature

For professional reasons we will be unable to produce another blog until next week

#global warming #climate change #big oil #pollution #ecology #environment

Why Net Zero threatens a wonderful land-that was

Kingston on Thames, Surrey, England. Spring 1962. A brand new Ford Zodiac pushes out from a brand-new house on a brand-new estate to begin a Sunday outing down to the south coast. Mum, Dad and their two kids on the back seat pass rows of new houses, all like theirs, all lived in by people like them. With cars like theirs at the fronts. This is Macmillan’s England, and people have never had it so good. Even, for the first time, the working classes. As the last new estates around Chessington drop behind and the real country begins at Box Hill, someone puts on the car radio. Listen! It’s the Shadows Wonderful Land,: and here, today, its dreamy tones are true. For as they head south on the A24 (soon to be massively widened) the temples of all this wonderful modernity are still visible in the brave new petrol stations and car showrooms sprouting across the sleepy countryside. The car has made people profoundly mobile and independent. People talk about them endlessly. Buy them, sell them Discuss performance. Your car is a badge of who you are, where you have arrived at, especially if you are a man. As our travellers pull into Worthing for a welcome ice cream they have indeed crossed a wonderful land.

This is the brave new world still remembered as the base line by the two children in the back of the Zodiac. Fast forward 2025 and they are well into their seventh decade. But they still remember the promise of those years with aching nostalgia. Their own lives, minus the usual vicissitudes of marital, family and work problems, have been tolerable enough: prosperous even, as their waistlines testify. But outside the narrow world of work and golf club, there have been disturbing changes. First crack in the wall came with the 1973 oil crisis, which demonstrated their country’s humiliating dependence on foreign oil. Tax cuts and North Sea Oil brought a brief sugar rush of prosperity: but now the world is a dark distrustful place hopelessly split between rich and poor where nothing ever works and everything is broken, from roads to trains to hospitals. Foreigners just keep coming and coming and coming. Above all the USA, their great patron and guarantor of all their security, is rapidly losing its ability to prosper and protect.

Now add something worse. All those grandchildren they sent off to University have come home to tell them that everything they believed in was wrong. That burning oil warms the planet to disastrous levels. [1] That vehicle emissions are a massive cause of mental and physical health disorders.[2] So are the plastics made from oils in abundance , which now pollute every imaginable stretch of sea air and land.[3] That, therefore, the whole cult of buying cars, comparing them, fiddling with them and collecting them turns out to have been as deluded as say smoking tobacco ,drinking alcohol or keeping slaves. That in effect, their whole lives have been a bit of a mistake That they now, with so little time left to enjoy , must give it all up.

It’s a big ask. Especially when incredibly rich industries run incredibly well funded political and media campaigns to tell these same baby boomers that they not only can go on burning fossil fuels, they really ought to- must. Because only that way lies the road to a better yesterday when the world was young. And straight. And white. Here is the challenge facing all of us who call ourselves progressive or educated . We have no idea if we shall succeed We know we will need swimming lessons if we do not,

[1] Burning of fossil fuels – Understanding Global Change

[2] Air pollution and health risks due to vehicle traffic – PMC

[3] 5 Harmful Effects of Plastic on Human Health

(See also LSS 9 4 24;26 9 24; 20 9 25)

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=the+shadows+wonderful+land&&mid=E99EB6B5B2B6CEBD22FBE99EB6B5B2B6CEBD22FB&&FORM=VRDGAR

Hidden Dangers: The Conversation on PFCs

Photo by u041bu044eu0441u0438 u0414u0440u0435u043cu0430u043bu043eu0432 on Pexels.com

Today we unashamedly and wholeheartedly turn over our blog to a straight lift from The Conversation. And an excellent article from Professor Patrick Byrne of Liverpool John Moore University. Who has devoted his life’s work and formidable intelligence to tracking the sources of PFCs in the River Mersey (the one the Beatles grew up near)[1]

For those who want to come up to speed here are two paragraphs from Patrick’s article

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), more commonly known as “forever chemicals”, are a large family of human-made chemicals found in everyday products like food packaging, water-repellent clothes and fire-fighting foams. They are valued for their ability to resist very high temperatures and to repel water and oil, but these same properties make them extremely persistent.

Once released, some PFAS could take thousands of years to break down. They accumulate in the environment, build up – with different compounds accumulating at different rates – inside the bodies of wildlife and people, and have been associated with harms to health. The most studied types have been linked to cancers, hormone disruption and immune system problems.

And one elegaic, personal thought.Back in the 1960s when those same Beatles were growing up, the world was a different place. All those plastics and chemicals, now in Patrick’s rubbish dumps seemed part of a bright, dynamic new landscape of progress: a brave new world. There can indeed be progress, But be very careful how you go about it

https://theconversation.com/how-i-tracked-the-biggest-hidden-sources-of-forever-chemical-pollution-in-uk-rivers-new-study-261967?utm_medium=email&

#plastics #endocrine disruptors # PFCs #pollution #environment #toxins

Driving drives Dementia

Cars, don’t you love them? They cost a lot of money, they run people over, they allow cities to sprawl out over the countryside. Now comes evidence that the pollution that they cause, along with many other sources of pollution it has to be said, may be causing a special form of dementia called Lewy Body Dementia. [1] Ian Sample of the Guardian reports on a massive study of 56.5 million patients carried out by Dr Xiaobo Mao of Johns Hopkins University in the United States. The team found that fine particulate matter called PM_2.5 (LSS passim) caused proteins in the brain to form toxic clumps which slowly destroy nerve function leading to cognitive decline characterised by to memory loss, poor attention spans, visual hallucinations and sleep disturbance. The team went further and found the deadly particles induced similar symptoms in mice, confirming their evidence from population studies in humans .

When we did out background research for this article we were quickly overwhelmed by the amount of available evidence. This report [2] by the UK Government waxes lyrical on the different types of air pollutants-particulates, NO₂ SO₃, ammonia. and many more.. as well as the many symptoms the pollution causes in the human body. And this from the Alzheimers Society [3] puts the ball in the polluters’ court when it comes to neurodegenerative diseases particularly. We weren’t ever going to fit all that in paragraph two of a three paragraph blog, so we won’t try

What we will do instead is ask where does all this pollution comes from. Cars? Sort of. Factories? In a way. But the real source is a set of misguided economic policies which value growth numbers above all else. You have to have more growth than your neighbours or younare not reaklly worth anything at all. There must be more new cars, new washing machines new mobile phones, bright new shiny anythings, so that we can create a frantic cycle of production and consumption to prove how rich and clever and successful we are. But is the definition of the good life really to drive an overpriced automobile over concrete flyovers for a few years, followed by a long cognitive decline into dementia, really such a good life? Answers please-we’d love to hear them.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/04/fine-particulate-air-pollution-trigger-forms-dementia-study-lewy-body

[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-air-pollution/health-matters-air-pollution

[3]https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia/air-pollution

#automobiles #pollution #dementia #health # neurology

Here is the weather forecast: there will be a World government, soon

We at LSS might not want a world government: we might be quite happy with the State we’re in. But you can’t avoid the inevitable. And the hard data, the ineluctable facts from the weather forecasters, suggest that this inevitable may come sooner rather than later, But before we draw our conclusions: what are these facts?

If we break 1.5⁰C global warming (and all the evidence suggests we shall) the effects will be dramatic. There will be alternating cycles of fires and floods in many countries, and for the first time the trend of ever rising food production will go into reverse. The loss of land, and the beginning of floods in coastal cities will lead to rapidly increasing migration pressures. Many would say that is already happening. But it’s as nothing compared to smashing the 2⁰C limit. At that point, sea levels will rise by 40cm by the end of this century, displacing hundreds of millions and wrecking the pattern of the world economy. The surviving lands, wracked by floods and droughts, will start to lose their capacity to produce food at all . The resulting migration pressures will make todays numbers look negligible. As for 3⁰C? It’s too scary to give the full details. But its got something to do with complete collapse of the seasons, fires in the tundras, and social unrest brought about by massive flows of refugees.

In such circumstances a World Government would form very quickly. Because it would be the only body capable of addressing the multiple threats at a global level; Which is the only level at which they can be tackled. History shows that sudden changes in ecology (usually plagues or climate changes) produce truly massive, paradigmatic changes in politics and society . The ending of the Roman Climatic Optimum meant the end of the Ancient world. All its customs, norms and beliefs were washed away in a new Medieval Europe. Similarly it was the Black Death that nailed the coffin of Feudalism, and an utterly new capitalist world was born. The nation state has served us well for hundreds of years. But then-so did cathode ray TVs, plastic musical records and steam trains. So-do we cling to what we’ve got? Or replace it it in anticipation, saving everybody time in the long run?

Could global warming have been avoided?

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

Historians of the future (assuming there will be any such) will probably point to the 2020s as the decade when the world began its short unhappy slide into climate catastrophe. The Greek forest fires of 2021; the Californian ones of 2023, combined with floods in Pakistan in the same year that drowned fully one third of that country, were proof, attributable proof ,[1] that human induced climate change had started to wreak incontrollable and irreversible destruction to the fabric of planet’s surface. A fabric that human beings needed to be intact if they were to survive. They will also ask how it was possible that a society with the most advanced techniques of science and communication had allowed itself to arrive at such a point.

Starting in the 1960s, the warnings had been coming, like the steady rise if a beating drum. The Keeling curve and the concerns of the LBJ administration were early examples. In the 1970s even the CIA (hardly a bastion of Green Woke Communism) had got in on the Act. Through the 1980s and 1990s there were conferences, resolutions and rising alarm. All action was undermined, subverted and rendered null by the fossil fuel industry and the petrostates. Whose actions bore such a resemblance to the tobacco industry and its efforts to deny the links of their product to lung cancer.[3] Perhaps the last reasonable chance to act in time was the Kyoto summit of 1997. Which, if its recommendations had been implemented in full, might have avoided the enormous costs, both economic and in lives, of what was unstoppable by 2020.

And that future was to be? As the temperature gradients warmed through 2⁰, 2.5⁰ and 3⁰C , rising sea levels and wildly fluctuating weather conditions caused whole societies to collapse. The resulting waves of refugees were halted, temporarily, on the borders of safer lands, Until those fleeing returned with armies and weapons which could never be stopped; and the last bastions of order fell. Like a smoker dying of cancer, or a boozer from liver failure: humanity as a whole could just not kick its habit.

[1]https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/

[2]https://earth.org/data_visualization/the-keeling-curve-explained/

[3]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53640382

#global warming #forest fire #climate change #flood #oil industry #fossil fuel #cancer #tobacco industry #greece #california #pakistan

Paracetamol from Plastic Bottles-this could be the start of something big

Remember how your mum always made you swallow water to wash down your headache pills? What if those pills had been made from the remains of a long discarded plastic bottle that some other child had been forced to undergo? According to the resourceful Nicola Davis of the Guardian, it’s about to happen.[1] And the implications are enormous.

A team lead by Professor Stephen Wallace of the University of Edinburgh has actually gone and turned old plastic bottles into medicine. Combining the very best in organic chemistry and genetic engineering, they have modified a strain of E. coli to make good old paracetamol, that standby of every household drugs stash the world over. [2] The details of how they do it may be read in the links supplied. But our interest today is somewhat different.

At last someone has found a use for all those mountains of ghastly plastic waste which so disfigure this once beautiful planet. It can be made into something which millions, no billions, of people can deploy every day: and to some beneficent purpose. And if paracetamol, why not other things? Meanwhile. fans of economics will note the creation of a demand., Soon people may be fighting each other in the streets to get the best plastic bottles to sell to wholesalers. Nations will go to war to gain access to those vast disgusting rafts of waste which currently drift around the oceans. There’s one sure way to modify the behaviour of the ignorant mass of humankind- Turn virtue into economics and let them make some money from it. The Professor and his team may have done just that.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/23/scientists-use-e-coli-bacteria-to-turn-plastic-waste-into-paracetamol-painkiller

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-025-01845-5

#genetic engineering #organic chemistry #plastic #pollution #medicine

Climate Change denial: latest round in a long war of deception

First deny there’s a problem. Then do all you can to delay a solution. Buy up politicians, scientists, bloggers, and bots. The tactics of the fossil fuel industry and outriding nations as they seek above all to protect their comfy lifestyles and exorbitant profits. It’s not just made abundantly clear in this report by Damien Carrington in the Guardian: it nails down every last nail to be had into the coffin lid. [1]

But we’ve seen it all before gentle readers. We recall walking down an alley in London in 1971 with a close relative who assured us there was no definite, provable link between smoking and cancer, OK!? (he died of the latter) Why was he able to state this? Because for decades the tobacco industry had managed a huge campaign of deception, obfuscation and general misinformation designed to give him and his peers every excuse they needed to continue their tragic addiction. Using exactly the same techniques now employed by climate change deniers, funnily enough.. The only difference was that they didn’t have the Interweb to turbocharge their propaganda and illusioning. This rather depressing link to the WHO explains the ghastly details to anyone who may want to know more about the fundamentals of human nature [2]

And what are these fundamentals, by the way? We don’t know them all But we can hazard a guess at some, provisional though we may well be

1 Some people will do anything to make some quick cash, Anything at all.

2 Many people will do anything to avoid facing the consequences of the vile little habits which they have acquired in the course of a lifetime of self indulgence and self deception.

3 Just because you are educated and slightly more far seeing than others around you does not give you tactical superiority in the current wars between the intelligent and our enemies They are incredibly cunning and well funded

4 This ain’t over yet. Keep a close eye on rising sea levels, if you want to live

We will be ready with further insights. inspirations and bons motifs in future blogs. Keep reading. And thanks for all the recent sigh ups and likes. Keep ’em coming.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/climate-misinformation-turning-crisis-into-catastrophe-ipie-report

[2]https://www.who.int/news/item/16-11-2023-new-who-campaign-highlights-tobacco-industry-tactics-to-influence-public-health-policies

#climate change #global warming #ecology #fossil fuels #tobacco #cancer

Renewable energy from seaweed Now there’s a thought

If we are going to get through the current climate crisis, and come out alive at the other end, we ‘ll need to consider every new idea, however outre it may sound at first sight, Which is why we want to showcase, via the Conversation,[1] the work of Mike Allen , Professor of Genomics at the University of Exeter and founder of SeaGen,[2] a company which has the courage and vision to think differently. ]For Mike thinks that by using robotics, he can harness the enormous biomass of seaweed in the sargasso sea, and other places

Now we’ve always been pro- seaweed here. Veteran readers may recall our promotion of the new Sussex kelp forest, both on this site and in articles in local newspapers and websites [3] and we certainly talked about how the stuff, especially kelp, could be a source of all kinds of useful things like food and fertiliser. But as his article and website makes clear, Mike is taking this to a whole new level. By using autonomous robotic systems, the harvesting and processing of the weeds can be done on an ergonomic and industrial scale.

We have no financial or any other connection to this man or his company. But we are massive fans of the hopeful start-up. Because we believe that progress, real progress grows form that complicated network of new companies , university departments, government agencies and anonymous little industrial estates where the real dreams of the future are born. We’ve done stories like this before, and will do more in the future. If you really need a declaration of interest it is this: they may help us to survive.

[1]https://theconversation.com/how-seaweed-is-a-powerful-yet-surprising-climate-solution-251195?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%

[2]https://www.seagen.io/

[3]https://www.sussexgreenliving.org.uk/sussex-kelp-forest-leads-the-way-by-keir-hartley-first-published-in-west-sussex-county-times/

#seagen #seaweed #sustainability #robotics #ocean #climate change

Do glaciers have political opinions? and some other mystery questions do get you thinking

Instead of all those discourses on things like microbiology or economic history, we thought we’d offer you something a little different today, gentle readers. We’ve decided to come up with one of those puzzle exercises, you know, brain teasers they call them. So here are 11 questions designed to get you thinking, to stretch the old grey matter as t’were. And the good news is: Most of the answers will be available somewhere on the Interweb, or via the websites we have so helpfully posted below.

1 How do you explain the change in the ratio of C₁₃ to C₁₂ in the atmosphere since 1850? Why did this ratio seem have fallen especially quickly after 1950?

2 Since 1750 about 2400 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide have been added to the atmosphere. If this call came from volcanoes, why is the isotopic signature of atmospheric CO₂so different from that from volcanic sources?

3 Do glaciers retreat because they share the political opinions of the Green Party, or is all this melting caused by something else?

4 Why have global surface temperatures increased by 1.2% since the late nineteenth century, but stratospheric temperatures actually fallen?

5 Why is the ocean warming faster than the land? Why would the land warm fastest first if all this were caused by the Sun?

6 Why does spring arrive earlier and earlier in the Northern hemisphere?

7 Do fish conspire with extremists,or have their migrating patterns changed for other reasons?

8 What is causing all these temperature rises anyway?

9 Why is the atmosphere of Venus so hot? And why is the atmosphere of Mars so cold?

10 Do you think rises in sea levels will drive increases in human migration?

11 If scientists are right about cures for cancer, physics, astronomy computers and many other things, why are they suddenly wrong about climate science?

[1]https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/

[2]https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/

[3]https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what-evidence-exists-earth-warming-and-humans-are-main-cause

#climate change #global warming #climate science #carbon dioxide #ecology #pollution