“What’s Going On” (as Marvin Gaye would have sung)

I’m glad I’m not a politician – it’s got to be one of the most unenviable jobs known to man (or woman), notwithstanding the fact that there are (and will always be) those who are inexorably drawn to taking their chances at standing for public office and indeed becoming an MP – and then hopefully one day being appointed to a job with ministerial authority.

This hasn’t stopped me, of course, being free with my strident opinions – including that, generally-speaking, anyone who aspires to public office should be automatically barred from entering politics (by definition and law) for being unsuitable.

Since its publication this week, most Rusters will have been aware of the latest gloomy predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (“IPCC”) – cue a fading video clip from the BBC Television series Dad’s Army featuring actor John Laurie as the Scottish Private Fraser, panicking at the latest Home Guard developments, repeating “We’re Doomed! We’re Doomed”.

As we stand, the world seems in a hell of a mess.

For over a century now various governments, the United Nations and endless numbers of scientists, medics and campaigners of various hues have been warning that – resources upon Earth generally being finite and the adverse effects of human activity upon the planet all too plain to see – something had got to give.

And soon.

Yest, of course, precious little has ever been done about it.

That said, talk – okay, lip service – is cheap and there’s certainly been plenty of that.

As you’d expect, at the macro-level, governments and continents the world over have been doing their best to advance the well-being and prosperity of their populations with varying results.

Everyone has been approaching the future as if what they’ve already achieved is not just “in the bank” but a matter of entitlement for their country-folk, after which what they’re looking for is further “advancement” whilst – in broad terms – in some sense also “looking after those most unfortunate amongst their own”.

There’s an inevitable difference between those governments which are dictatorships or similar in effect (let’s call them “non-democracies”) and those who hold themselves to be democracies  – in other words, periodically and notionally, they place themselves at the mercy of a public vote in one form or another … and then, as it were, “live and/or die by that sword”.

However, when one looks at the eye-watering projected figures computed as the cost of doing anything worthwhile about preventing further climate change – I read somewhere whilst researching this piece that the UK’s current projection of the cost of its current legally-committed (climate change) measures is somewhere in the region of £1.4 trillion – the brutal truth is that the sums just don’t add up.

Compare that amount with what anyone in authority will dare to admit is the extra amount that would be acceptable to the average member of the UK public, whom (obviously) would balk at the prospect of paying another £400 to £2,000 per annum for their heating bills, let alone the additional costs of switching to electric-powered cars and the rest.

To put the problem in a nutshell …

The human world is now in a place where the cost of rendering the planet safe from the future effects of human activity – broken down to what the average man/woman in the street would have to contribute personally – is way beyond what (they’d say) they could afford and/or would be prepared to pay.

Therefore those in charge of the world community have a dilemma.

Either accept that there is nothing that the world can collectively do about the future effects of failing to act upon climate control … and plan for that.

Or else decide that it doesn’t matter any more what “the people” might think – for the future good of the human race, leading governments will simply have to impose unpalatable things upon their populations that hitherto would have been impossible to even discuss, still less act upon.

And then plan deal with the push-back reaction that will inevitably follow.

Martial law, anyone?