Carry on as usual... while people drown and poison themselves

What a very strange country this one is? When it comes to matters of public health and climate it is as though we have a drunk permanently in charge at the wheel. The pollution clouds of recent days provide  evidence that we are effectively poisoning ourselves. While the French cut car use when such things happen, here we just blunder on, picking up the health bills later. Business as usual, the spirit of the blitz - it is all cover for wilful ignorance born of denial as to what humankind is doing to the planet.
The reality of the dire warnings coming from the UN climate panel regarding climate change need to be heeded. Instead of adopting the flat earth society position of denying that climate change is happening the reality seems to be that the previous reports really were far too conservative and it is happening but far quicker than anyone realised. The recent floods were another example of these rapid changes. But how does the elected government react - well it puts its collective head in the sand, not even the economic opportunities that green technology offers for employment seems able to wake them from a collective stupor. Instead, in the case of the Conservatives they merely wail Don Quixote like at wind turbines, whilst Britain literally chokes and drowns

* Wanstead and Woodford Guardian - 17/4/2014
Ilford Recorder - 10/4/2014