Climate grief

The summer has been horrific: fires everywhere, arid and beige fields as far as the eye can see. All the while, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, among with many other crucial shipping routes. Fuel prices are going up, food is getting more expensive and my whole country is on fire. All the while AI data centres are expanding at the rate of knots, creating island heating effects of 9c+ in their wake. But thank god! How else would we generate Fruit Love Island slop?

It's overwhelming as fuck. No one with power is addressing this. We're getting worse conditions next year and no one's planning ahead. The system continues to get worse, more extractive and predatory while we literally burn to death. The relentless march of fascism continues: israhell continues their genocidal crusade while Europe and North America calls it "defense", Trump perpetuates a pointless standoff war with Iran choking the world's supply of energy (even if it is fossil fuels). It feels like the very fabric of our society is rotting from the inside out.

I'm exhausted. Being disabled with POTS in a summer of inescapable heat is terrifying. You look at the forecast, you can see your flare up on the horizon: back to back 35c+ temperatures for a whole week. The sinking feeling slowly floods the pits of your stomach like a tsunami when you realize that: not only is this the new normal, but that it'll only get worse from here. Sure next week might be cooler, and the Autumn certainly will be; but this is only so much consolation when the escape is temporary.

I grieve the warm days that give you the freedom of leaving the house without a coat, without worrying about rain or constantly hunting for scarce bits of shade or aircon in concrete jungles. It feels like I was hibernating the whole summer; I was unable to leave the house due to the scorching heat. It made everything so much harder than it needed to be: the bereavements, starting my new job and navigating my new diagnosis. It's so much more than being "just a bit hot".

Looking ahead to next year feels weird: it feels impossible that it could be worse, and even more unthinkable that we could have a major supply chain crisis on top. This is the ecological and social collapse climate scientists have been warning us of for decades, and yet? This is barely just the beginning. If we think this is bad, we need to look ahead 3 or 4 decades with no further action on climate change to see what unspeakable terror lies ahead of us.

Worse yet, seeing society just carry on as normal feels sickening. Our prime minister wants to drill for oil in the north sea for fucks sake. That takes a level of abject carelessness that I can't even begin to fathom. We have solar, we have wind, we have so many ways of investing in sustainable energy and we're choosing the sources that will make this crisis worse. Leaders aside, the electorate despair me. SO many of them are proudly incorrect about how immigrants, trans people and welfare claimants are the ones eroding our country. Surely this anger should be directed at unchecked billionaire wealth and power?

All this being said, I don't things have to end badly. Half of our electricity comes from renewables, and most are aware of and support renewable energy. It feels like more people are becoming class aware, that its getting rightfully more popular to hate billionaires. Better yet, The Green Party have surged in the polls this last year, and have retained their membership gains. There is hope in the urban design revolution that's taking place in architecture, where more attention is being focused on reducing urban heat islands and green spaces.

But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard to embody that hope sometimes.