Quietly does it...

Just quietly slipping into your feed again after a short break.

No fanfare. No big announcements. No grand plans. Just this, after an extended hiatus, followed by a planned "grand" return that fizzled out before beginning. 

It's just like another corporation quietly dropping their net zero ambitions, expecting nobody to notice. 

Why now?

If you haven't been living under a rock the last few months (and I'd be slightly envious if you have) you will be well aware of the climate related news.  We have seen tumbling temperature records already this summer. Highest May and June temperatures in the UK, record temperatures across much of Europe and parts of North America.  Events for the US semiquincentennial celebrations were cancelled in DC due to extreme heat and New York City had established cooling centres for vulnerable people. The UK has had three heatwaves already by mid-July.

Wildfires are widespread with multiple fatalities in Spain and hundreds of thousands evacuated around Bordeaux in France.  Closer to home, 10 sq km of forest and moorland in the Cairngorm Mountains - an area normally cooler and wetter. In Canada massive wildfires have poured smoke across a wide area, causing unhealthy air quality in New York where you could smell the smoke - hundreds of miles from the source. I've been told it is even worse in Chicago. The wildfires season has plenty to run before cooler wetter weather reduces the risk.

Drought is starting to affect parts of the UK, with hosepipe bans in parts of England (an increasingly common feature of English summer) and parts of Wales declaring drought conditions.  Wales is on track for the driest July in two hundred years. 

To compound this, we are seeing the start of an El Niño. Predictions are that it will be a big one: a super El Niño. Some even say a Godzilla El Niño. It does sound like sensationalist hyperbole but indication are that it may be as severe as the last big one in 2015-16 and possibly as bad as the 1877-78 event which resulted in famine in many areas and over 50 million deaths (against a much smaller global population than today). There are not many data points for the 1877 event compared with modern observations and models so direct comparison is not possible. 

Taken together it looks like some Biblical End of Days. Fire, famine and flood. But I am a Rational Human. This is no divine intervention; it is the consequence of our actions. Not directly but the multiple temperature records, forest fires and stronger El Niños are all more likely due increasing energy in our climate system due to the greenhouse effect. 

But we are dealing with climate change, aren't we?

Well. After a few positive years, the tide appears to be turning against positive climate action.  Trump, the trailblazing trendsetter may have been one of the first powerful leaders to begin the push back against woke lefty climate change legislation and Net Zero goals but others leaders, wannabes and has-beens have joined the clamour. Now we have political figures at supposedly opposite ends of the spectrum pushing back against Net Zero, for example Nigel Farage of the Reform UK party and Tony Blair of the Labour Party. Even the EU is proposing to slow cuts to businesses' greenhouse gas emissions. 

A combination of a stagnating economy and a corporate desire to curry favour with political decision makers has led to many companies quietly delaying, diluting or completely dropping commitments on Net Zero, climate change and other ESG goals. The same applies to Diversity, Equity/Equality and Inclusion policies. This hasn't all happened at once, but quietly piece by piece.

While the evidence for a pressing need to decarbonise grows, the political and commercial imperative to act slows. Is this some kind of perverse reverse feedback loop?

So, what's next?

Stopping release of global warming gasses tomorrow won't stop this summer's extremes. It is likely to take decades after reducing emissions for forced warming effects to stabilise and reverse. The current evidence in front of us should not only be a warning sign that we need to urgently act on decarbonisation. The sooner we reach Net Zero and, ultimately, net negative emissions the better but we need to be prepared to deal with the consequences in the meantime.

We need to build resilience into our systems, our societies and the infrastructure on which we rely. And we need to do this in parallel with decarbonisation in a sustainable way. In developed nations, aging infrastructure and years of under investment in maintenance of infrastructure gives both a challenge and an opportunity. While pieces of infrastructure may be nearing the end of their useful life, they can be replaced with something more appropriate for the twenty first century.

What does this mean for the EcoWarriorMe?

All this has driven me to re-examine older articles and look for solutions to both decarbonisation and developing resilience. There will be slight change of focus, leaning into both my engineering background and another decade of life experience, seeking and evaluating solutions to some of these  challenges. The blog has been renamed "The Engineering EcoWarrior" to reflect this new direction.

Some old posts will be either updated or augmented with a follow up post written to evaluate developments over the years. In addition, there will be some completely new and interesting content, beginning next week with an article on climate resilience of railway infrastructure in the UK. This will be followed by a review of biofuel predictions: how does reality compare with the predictions...

Ona a personal note, my situation has changed and I'm temporarily living in the United States of America. This is certainly giving me a different perspective on life and many of the issues around climate change and sustainability, and I hope to share some of these insights.

And Finally...

In an effort to make the archive more discoverable and accessible, new pages introduce the main themes of the blog and provide a pathway to key posts. They are anchored in the About page: About Me

This page contains links to pages on Energy and Climate Change, Transportation, Sustainability, and Nature Stories.  There is also a Subject Index with a word cloud drawn up of all post tags/labels. (Warning: it's big and messy and work in progress.) 

EWM, July 2026