Written while sweating, my weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (26.5.26) documenting the obvious. We are in the Year of Trade Union Climate Action, and you’d hardly know it. Last September the Trades Union Congress agreed to force transfer away from fossil fuels and demand action, not least fr a maximum workplace temperature, esp for drivers, construction workers and kitchen staff. Now even government advisers have said the same, but with no response given the employers’ hold over government. They’ll lose money if we down tools at 30C+. Actually it’s dangerous to maintain manual labour when conditions are over 20C, so we’re only asking fr the very least in health & safety. It will take mass strike action to force the issue – refuse to risk your life at work, or is that too extreme? I think not!

My unedited column below:

Hot again. Records ripped-through again. These extremes of weather are confirming the scientific truths of climate change. There’s no denying it now.

Everyone accepts that the global climate is changing rapidly, and despite some silly obfuscation from the oil and gas lobby, there’s little objection to the fact that the burning of fossil fuels is the cause. CO2 and methane emissions heat the planet.

The hostile debate today is about what is to be done. Our young people, raised through thirteen years of classroom climate projects, are resigned to a future of climate crisis and bored by the repeated warnings. We know. Watching the latest climate calamity and hearing the repeated politicians’ complacency, we’ll just have to put-up with whatever’s coming.

Adaptation is the latest language of denial. It’s going to get hotter and we face water shortages, disruption to harvests and food supplies, and fires. We’ll all need air conditioned homes and workplaces. Well, all, that is, of those of us who can afford the kit and electricity. All of only those who work for ethical employers who comply with a maximum level of heat allowed in the workplace and are prepared to invest in our safety and comfort.

Those of us without the wherewithal are going to suffer the worst of the early consequences of decades of inaction, and we are the majority – those in deprived communities, precarious employment, reliant on disability benefits (about to be slashed again if Reform UK get into government locally or nationally), and the majority of elderly people poorly resourced by the low state pension. The majority of the working class are expected to just get on with heat exhaustion, flooded homes and mouldy walls.

We need urgent action to slow the crisis, not just adapt to it. Yes, the government should be prioritising retro-fit of 14 million homes in Britain to be fit for heavy rains and scorching heatwaves. Yes, the roll-out of solar panels and heat pumps to end gas burning and reduce electricity demand is an absolute essential.

And yes, the one-in-every-five of our homes now sitting on flood plains have to be protected by massive investment in a scale of civil engineering the size of the idiotic HS2 white elephant. And yes, the fossil fuel corporations who have made their billions in private wealth out of destroying the Planet should be made to pay the price of adaptation, their profits taken into public ownership, not tax-exempted.

This heat is a killer. It’s only going to get hotter until we tip into a completely new geological epoch – coming soon. The political order of the day is “Transformation, not just Adaptation”. Human society has to be reformed before climate disaster destroys us. It is that serious whether we are prepared to confront it or not.

We need system change. All facets of the fossil-fuel infrastructure have to be replaced. Quickly.

Emissions that trap the heat in our atmosphere and oceans have to be stopped. 95% of Europe’s land area experienced above-average temperature in 2025. The geographical expanse of the continent of Europe, which includes Britain, experienced its largest wildfire season on record, with over a million hectares burned.

A “Super” El Niño is now the most likely outcome by this year’s end. The human cost could be staggering

Sea level rise is confirmed and accelerating, and is going to continue. Staggeringly high temperature anomalies of +15 to about +22 degrees C (+ 27 to + 40 degrees F) above average fare being recorded over large parts of the Arctic. What we call the “Gulf Stream” has a more than 50/50 likelihood of shutting-down this century. Anyone listening?

These figures do not capture the full costs borne by lower-income countries, uninsured communities, or the long-term setbacks to development that rarely appear in loss accounting. The people of the Global South are suffering the worst, right now, but the costs are not even recorded. India with its population of 1.48 billion, is being mass murdered by fossil fuel corporations and their political accomplices. This is at ‘just’ at 1.45°C. Most of the populated area of the globe is 6 or more degrees C above normal. That includes places where it is winter and places where it is summer.

Okay then, Capitalists, forget humanity, since you only care about your money and private property. Insurance companies record that in 2025, the Americas recorded the greatest economic losses from climate disasters of any region – US$110.6 billion, or 65.2% of the global total of US$169.7 billion lost to extreme weather last year. The Climate crisis is set to wreck your global economy.

We live in the Age of Extremes. A new Age of Catastrophe. We’re living on borrowed time. And the paid-for loyalty of politicians are tied to the oil companies, not the working class. We have to organise for climate action to save ourselves.