Streets

Local

I had waited for the rain showers to pass before heading out today, but I was forced to shelter from a fresh cloudburst beneath a bowed old horse chestnut tree. Sheets of water slid down the road and dampened my enthusiasm. I had, however, spotted the map symbol for a pub on today’s grid square, and I had little to do later.

‘Go for a look around the square, and after that you can go to the pub,’ I bargained with myself.

It had been a warm and humid day between the heavy showers. Aside from traditional British grumbles, which we all enjoy, the weath- er had not actually been too bad recently compared with, say, the year 1816, when ash clouds from a volcanic eruption in Indonesia shrouded the world in an extended winter. Mount Tambora’s blast was heard 1,600 miles away and plunged the 350 miles around the volcano into darkness for two days. It was the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded human history.

Over the next year, a cloud of ash spread through the atmosphere, wreaking havoc with the weather for three years. The resulting potato famine in Ireland led to a terrible outbreak of typhus and mass emi- gration. North America’s arable economy crashed, causing the panic of 1819 that pushed the country from being a commercial colony towards becoming an independent economy. In China, three consecutive har- vests failed, prompting farmers to plant poppies in place of rice, with far-reaching and long-lasting global consequences.

But while Tambora’s eruption caused widespread famine and dis- ruption, the strange weather also influenced an output of poetic and musical works infused with gloomy genius and named for the Greek god of fire: Byron’s Prometheus, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus, and Schubert’s first commission, the cantata Prometheus, composed to a poem of the same name by Goethe.

Volcanoes erupt now and then, and weather conditions also swing back and forth naturally, but sane people are in agreement that human behaviour is now causing climate breakdown far beyond natural var- iations. A clear and alarming demonstration of our extravagant and irresponsible way of life was the occurrence of ‘Earth Overshoot Day’.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s annual demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what the planet can regenerate in that year. It means we’ve used up our sustainable bio- capacity for the year. We deal with the deficit for the rest of the year by borrowing from the future and gobbling limited reserves of ecological resources more quickly than they can be replaced, if at all.

Qatar and Luxembourg’s Overshoot Days for the year were back in February. Britain’s was in May. The only reason the world’s Overshoot Day as a whole is as late as August is because the poorest countries are still living within their means. They prop us up, while also bearing most of the burden and consequences of climate change.

Sustainable living dictates that you must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We are clearly failing to do that. How long would you tolerate the behaviour of a friend who guzzled voraciously, overspent in his own interests, then came to you each August asking you to bail him out for the rest of the year?