My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (7.4.26), where I write a piece, edit it down to the maximum of 600 words, and then it’s edited again to meet the so-called “standards” of the corporate media. Little surprises me these days, but to see my phrase “Distracted from paedophile Presidents and Princes…” have the term “paedophile” edited out did raise my eyebrows. I thought, at least, that Trump has had a court case rule him as such, and that Randy Andy had been stripped of all titles and wealth because his alliance with Epstein. Oh well, there we go, the article is about the Climate crisis anyway!

The unedited version below, or read the published article by expanding the picture.

The latest HD pictures of the Earth from space are undeniably moving. An expressed emotional response often includes something about vulnerability.

So it should. One look at the globe and its obvious that everything is connected. The question is, what should we focus upon? Is there a first priority if we are to protect and sustain life on Earth?

Where should we start? Right now, moonshots are distracting from illegal wars and genocide distracting from the rise of fascist organisations distracting from paedophile Presidents and Princes distracting from corrupt exploitative billionaires and all distracting from the climate crisis.

And there it is. One look at our world and it should be clear that climate and environment are top and centre.

“Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits”, announced United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reporting on the 2025 State of the Global Climate Report, completely eclipsed in its urgency and warnings by the war in the Middle East. The Earth’s energy imbalance – the gap between heat absorbed and heat released – is the highest on record. The vast majority of the heat, 91%, is absorbed by the ocean, harming marine life, fuelling storms and causing ice melt. Arctic and Antarctic ice loss together with melting glaciers are driving sea-level rise. Our weather has become more extreme. In 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms and flooding impacted hundreds of millions of people and caused billions in economic losses.

In February this year, the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee, on which heads of MI5 and MI6 sit, released a heavily edited version of its national security assessment of the climate crisis. It came with a stark warning: “some ecosystems will start to collapse by 2030 or sooner”, suggesting an immediate threat to national security, prosperity, food systems and public health.

Government intelligence agencies have compiled full scientific reports on the imminent national security implications of climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and global ecosystem collapse.There’s talk across the Establishment of adaptation to a world at an average temperature 3C higher than 150 years ago. We are locked-in to a return to Pliocene conditions, 3C hotter and, eventually, a 20m sea-level rise.

You may expect the government to share this knowledge with everyone so we can all make important life decisions. But the UK’s Defra has refused a Freedom of Information request to see the full, uncensored report prepared by the Joint Intelligence Chiefs in connection with national security threats associated with climate and ecological breakdown.

The question remains unanswered: what do we need to do to be able live in these conditions? Perhaps die in our billions? Those who have significant resources to build away from floods and fires, insulate our homes against severe temperatures, access nutritious foods that are grown despite soil-depletion and chemical pollution, will live. But that’s not the most of us.

It is no coincidence that the far-Right is being sponsored to call-out climate science as false conspiracy, and oppose net-zero targets at the ballot box. “Drill, Drill, Drill!” Is the cry of the oil industry lobbyists, echoed by far-Right idiots hoping for crumbs of cash and power from the Billionaires’ tables. The barbaric decadence at the top of global capitalist society has never been more obvious, now funding climate denial to a greater extent than their previous campaigns denying cancer from smoking or asbestosis from unsafe chemical production. Starmer complies with support for new drilling at the Rosebank field in the North Sea.

The global North is being lulled into believing we’re safe from the climate crisis. Those in the tropics and Earth’s southern regions are already suffering climate chaos. As Jane Fonda said last week, “There’d be no climate crisis without racism!” This is probably the main reason behind Trump and Farage opposing net zero goals away from fossil fuel dependency: in the first instance, stopping climate chaos will be of primary benefit to the countries of the global south, non-white populations! To hell with that, let them die first! Racist it is, but also very short sighted – the worse chaos global heating causes the tropics, the more likely the temperate zones will suffer seasonal dissonance, extreme weather and food shortages. The climate does not recognise national boundaries or human cultural differences.

The climate crisis is not a matter of opinion. The real conspiracy is the opposite of that spouted by The Deniers – governments have compiled the information on the Climate Crisis already – they’re just not letting us see it, preferring to distract us with photos from space. We should each make the links and act now.

We are each at liberty, for now, to submit a Freedom of Information request to government to release the full report produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee on the national security implications of climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and global ecosystem collapse. Email your Freedom of Information (FoI) to informationrequests@defra.gov.uk

In the meantime, stop war to stop the murder, massive environmental destruction, pollution and global heating carbon emissions, and campaign against the opening of any and all oil and gas fields, most urgently, Stop Rosebank!