How climate change will transform London: a guide to the city in 10, 50 and 100 years
One summer day two years ago, a compost heap in Wennington, East London, spontaneously caught fire. It was July 19, 2022, the hottest day since British records began, with temperatures pushing 40°C across the capital, the flames spreading quickly along a garden fence. Firefighters struggled to keep up: one told LBC: “It felt apocalyptic… we had no chance of stopping it”, as the blaze reached homes nearby. One resident said her house burned down within two minutes. Locals took shelter in nearby St Mary and St Peter's Church, which became filled with smoke. Luckily, no one died, but 19 houses were destroyed...
Climate change author Jeff Goodell...
A century is a long time off – so there are all sorts of things we can’t predict. What we do know is that almost everything is likely to change, from politics to pets. Goodell says it’s likely that “cuddly” animals, like cats and dogs, will struggle in the heat, and wonders if there could be a change in our favourite animals. “I think everybody will have big iguanas,” he says.
10 comments:
"everybody will have big iguanas"
These people are insane, there's just no other way to describe them.
"I think everybody will have big iguanas"
An absolute gem of a comedy line. How to sabotage your own credibility in one pithy sentence.
I suspect that the evidence for the 'Spontaneously' bit is weak to absent.
I would obtain 35 iguanas and let them loose in the houses of parliament.
On the other hand if anthropocentric climate change is as minor as some say (climate change being driven mostly by planetary orbits, sun luminance, and ocean currents) then in 100 years time we could see only cold acclimated pets (those that had not been already eaten).
Peter - yes they are insane, certainly in the sense that if everyone reasons to that standard then everything collapses. Maybe we need to bring back asylums and workhouses.
Sam - it's lines like that which made me wonder if the guy was having his leg pulled because it's just an outrage piece where the writer knows it's all a bit silly. I hope so anyway.
decnine - I agree, so unlikely I don't believe it.
Tammly - pets for all the lizard people?
DJ - it's all so uncertain that significant global cooling would be no surprise in 100 years, or even 10 years. Some climate change activities such as insulation do make sense because that works for cooling too.
And in 50 years time, we'll still have Chris Packham ranting on and on and on...
Scrobs - or a recording of his voice on an endless loop.
I think you may be on to something over the iguanas and leg-pulling: it’s got to be more than just a coincidence…
“All the way down the creek, perched in the windows of the office blocks and department stores, the iguanas watched them go past, their hard frozen heads jerking stiffly… Without the reptiles, the lagoons and the creeks of office blocks half-submerged in the immense heat would have had a strange dream-like beauty, but the iguanas and basilisks brought the fantasy down to earth. As their seats in the one-time board-rooms indicated, the reptiles had taken over the city. Once again they were the dominant form of life.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World
Macheath - ah, that must be it. Those big iguanas are more than pets, they wear suits and sit in the board-rooms.
Post a Comment