So, Who Is Causing Public Disorder Now?

I was on the front page of Reddit this week with over 2 million views. Good Morning Britain had called me to appear on the show and asked whether it was okay for everyone to have air conditioning.

I said 2C is now locked in and if we don't overcome capitalism we'll have far more important things to worry about than AC — like starving to death.

He decided it would not be good for me to go on... Reddit seems to think otherwise!

This has been a week of broken records and broken arguments. Europe's heat is historic. Paris recorded more days above 40C in five days than in the previous 147 years combined. As the heat became unbearable, shoppers in France started shoving one another over AC units. The beginning of a riot is always dangerously close at high temperatures. 

This is the real public disorder of climate collapse, not the supposed public nuisance that I was sentenced to 5 years in prison for. I advised on a motorway disruption intended to force the reality of climate breakdown onto the public agenda. The judge told me climate science was not a valid defence and refused to let the jury hear it. The UN Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, who sat in the gallery and watched me be physically dragged from the dock three times, called the trial a dark day for anyone concerned with fundamental freedoms. This week of historic heat and thousands of deaths was a dark one for the fundamentals of life - a liveable biosphere. Here are my takes as the week unfolded.

Fighting for ACs in Paris

French shoppers clash over air conditioners as deadly heatwave sweeps Europe

Footage shows shoppers elbowing their way through the crowd and clambering over one another to snatch portable air conditioners and fans from the shelves.

New York PostAdam Silverstein

So who is causing public disorder now?

All those judges who worship Hobbes should reconsider whether the people creating disorder are those who act to prevent climate and social breakdown, or the corporate fossil fuel class that is locking in the greatest levels of disorder in human history.

The maths, since no one else will do it

France in heatwave temperatures:

• 2014: 26C to 30C
• 2026: 35C to 39C
• 2038: 43C to 47C

The 2050 heatwave temperatures predicted in 2014 occurred 24 years early, in 2026. The difference between the heatwaves in 2014 and 2026 is 9 °C. Do a simple linear projection, and in 2038 temperatures hit an average of 45C in a heatwave, and 50C on a bad heatwave day.

This means the country's entire infrastructure will need to be replaced — roads, wiring, insulation, everything. Agricultural production will plummet by 50% or more in a bad year. In the context of the same happening across the EU and the rest of the world, the French state and society will be in total crisis. French civilisation will collapse. 

This is just the beginning. At 2C, which we will hit in the mid-2030s, all the Earth's system feedbacks will be triggered. It will just get worse and worse.

So when is someone going to call out and prosecute the French far right for their denial of the greatest threat to the French nation for a thousand years? When is someone going to say what they actually are: traitors to the French nation. Absolute criminals engaging in an absolute crime.

Three questions about Paris

1. Is anyone seriously suggesting there is not a real possibility, in the next decade, that France will not experience seven days in a row of temperatures over 40C, given we are going to be hitting 2C by the mid-2030s?
2. Is anyone seriously suggesting that such an event will not destroy agricultural production in France and more widely across the EU, given that the prediction is that production will decline by 20 to 50%?
3. Is anyone seriously suggesting, as a result, there will not be a revolution?

After all, there’s a history to these things — this is Paris.

Predictions vs Reality

I asked an AI chatbot what seven consecutive days of 40C heat would do to UK food production. The answer: a catastrophic drop of 20% to 50% in agricultural production for that year. Extreme conditions trigger severe drought, rapid water loss from soils, and heat stress, causing arable crops to fail or wilt and dairy and livestock yields to plummet.

Most revolutions are triggered by food riots. Just saying.

Now look at what the science predicted for the UK at 1.5C:

35C or above roughly once every other year on average, with London and the south-east approaching annual occurrence by end of century.

Now look at what actually happened in 2026, before the end of June:

35C — 24 May

35C — 25 May

36C — 24 June

36C — 25 June

And five days above 35C in a single run before the month was out.

The takeaway: the science predictions are systematically biased to underestimate reality, because of non-linear dynamics in the system. It will always be so much worse than previously thought. Always.

Not Just Another “Super” El Niño Article

The world is bracing, quite rightly, for a newly confirmed and likely very strong El Niño event, but the real risks lay in what follows.

Climate UncoveredTom Harris

What human extinction actually means

As the UK passes five days of 35C or more before the end of June, those of you who understand that 2+2=4 — regardless of what you want it to equal — may wish to remind yourselves of where this is heading.

"2027 will likely soar to between 1.7C and 1.8C for the calendar year average."

"Permanently passing 2C next decade now seems unavoidable."

"This places the planet squarely in the danger zone for a number of the great tipping elements including the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, boreal permafrost abrupt thawing, ocean current disruption and Amazon collapse."

And this final quote requires translation into plain language:

"We can only hope that these upcoming systemic shocks finally jolt global leadership and the voting public into treating the crisis with the structural seriousness it demands."

"With the structural seriousness it demands" means millions of people go on the streets and remove the regime. Revolutions. "The crisis" means billions of people die — quick violent deaths from social breakdown, or slow agonising deaths from starvation.

Human extinction is now the main scenario. Seeing — or rather feeling hot — is believing.

The Guardian's paid advertising supports mass death

As the poor of the UK and Europe experience the most extreme heat ever recorded, and as the permanent destruction of physical infrastructure in formerly temperate countries becomes inevitable, what does the Guardian do? It accepts paid advertorial articles suggesting the western middle classes should continue to fly around the world just because they still can.

We know what the present editor of the Guardian would have done if faced with responding to the Atlantic slave trade. Out of sight, out of mind. No worries.

No worries: enjoy sun, sea and serenity on this restorative Australian holiday

This relaxing route takes you from the tropics of north Queensland to bountiful Perth via Australia’s cultural capital, Melbourne. If you’re looking to wine, dine and unwind then this is the trip for you

The GuardianGuardian staff reporter

The calm before the storm

I was invited to speak alongside senior figures from Liberty, Amnesty and the UN at Cambridge recently. I outlined the insurance industry’s warning that 3°C of warming could mean billions of deaths.

No one challenged it. No one asked a question. No one followed up. 

This is the calm before the storm.

Finally, to those Redditers who sent my comment viral and for all of you, I have a poem. 

Fear Not Reddit Hobbits

Amidst the sweltering noise of collapse,
In the sparkle of a flickering light,
The angel of truth presents herself,
Entrancing us with her delicious irrelevance.

In this world of iron instruments,
"Come", she says, "and enjoy temporary release",
In the dizzying immersion of beauty for its own sake,
To tell it as it is, gives us a glimpse of holiness,
A place of peace, hidden from the clamour for power.

And God, blessed be the old man, rewards us,
Not every time, but sometimes,
With the gift of fame and fortune,
Far greater than those who clamour will ever see.
For it is only in the embrace of his presence,
In the still moment of his truth,
That we are graced with the power
We so surely spurned.

And God laughs, as if to say, "I told you so,
Closeness to my good self is the only way to be."
For all the reasons it is still worth being in this
Forsaken world.

Roger tells the truth - support him with a donation for the team to continue to shine a light on the absolute criminality of continued emissions.

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