The October 2018 release of the IPCC Report on Global Warming followed by the IPBES' 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services this month are dire reminders that the World is facing an existential crisis.

While reports can be a challenge to wade through, there has been plenty of coverage of both in the press. The underlying message from both is that we are rapidly running out of time to save ourselves. The crisis is in full swing already and the actions that are so desperately needed should have been started years ago. Each passing year simply exacerbates the problems and makes the "medicine' more expensive and harder to swallow.

In her book, 'This changes everything', Naomi Klein comments: "The truth is that if we want to live within ecological limits, we would need to return to a lifestyle similar to the one we had in the 1970s, before consumption levels went crazy in the 1980s". For someone who remembers the 60s & 70s, life was pretty good. We never felt deprived but of course we had not yet been seduced by the dazzling array of consumption choices that most of us in the 'Western World' are now exhorted to indulge in, mostly, needlessly.

The release of David Attenborough's documentary 'Climate Change the Facts' around was a motivating factor in drawing many in the UK to join the Extinction Rebellion actions in London over the Easter period. 66% of people in the UK now believe that there is a climate emergency. Wow, it must pack a punch in delivering the 'crisis' message.

I went searching for the documentary but found that it is blocked by the BBC for our region. No doubt it will be release here in due course - maybe too late? However, a search of YouTube uncovered it. We have included a link to the YouTube version - it is only an hour long and is a must see. We have wasted the 30 years since Al Gore first gave his presentation on climate change and 13 years since the movie 'An inconvenient truth'. In between, emissions have continued to rise. We don't even have another 13 years to waste - time is up!

The availability of the documentary on YouTube is probably only temporary so please accept our apologies if the link becomes broken.