Environmental collapse – a threat to security and a redacted report
JVL Introduction
News is out about another (somewhat redacted) report that said what is now blindingly obvious to anyone who has paid attention to the scientific consensus over the last more than twenty years. The relentless rise in planetary greenhouse gas emissions and the consequent global warming and destabilisation of weather systems coupled with unsustainable destructive agriculture is inexorably leading to the collapse of ecosystems essential for the flourishing of life and of economic and social systems. This time it is the report from the Joint Intelligence Committee which oversees MI5 and MI6. It spells out the danger of imminent security breakdown.
This was also the view expressed by Retired Lieutenant General Richard Nugee for the National Emergency Briefing on Climate and Nature in November 2025. Despite the demands from many of its own MPs the government is stalling on issuing a full unredacted report. It is in denial. The scale of this national emergency – requires regular Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBRA) meetings, putting the country on the same kind of emergency footing as was done for the Covid Pandemic or more accurately, in responding to the threats of the 2nd World War. Instead, the UK government is allowing citizens to face these threats without anywhere near adequate preparation for what is coming in the next few years, rather cutting funds to address climate change and increasing funds for weapons.
TB
This article was originally published by The Guardian on Thu 9 Jul 2026. Read the original here.
UK has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening national security
MPs demand publication of full report that outlines catastrophic consequences amid concerns for food security
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Actually: ‘The world has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening global security’
See just a couple of days reporting on this excellent site, Climate and the economy a compilation by a man from the Scottish Isles of news from around the world;
https://climateandeconomy.com/
In the next UK general election it will be interesting to see whether 18 year olds trump WWII aged voters and insist the government changes it’s priorities from war to supporting ecosystems and so food and water sustainability.
Datacentres drive up big tech’s carbon emissions to a third of those of France | Datacenters | The Guardian
Aegrescit Mendendo
blind faith in the latest ‘magic bullet’ in the big tech arsenal turns a blind eye to the collateral damage that the global exponential growth in AI data centres is inflicting upon the planet. Our only planet.
as a species we have known about the potential damage that ‘carbonic acid’ can cause to the climate since the late nineteenth century. A century later Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil, spent hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars to investigate whether or not the fossil fuels industry posed an existential threat… and when he found that it did – unarguably – spent even more pumping out disinformation and misinformation to cover up what John Kerry memorably described as ‘The Inconvenient Truth’
THAT is the nature of the beast. Being ‘economical with the truth’… so that the industry and the consumers could slither into terminal DENIAL.
The game’s up. And we lost. Species extinction by negligence. The planet will survive, all the better for the disappearance of Mankind. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Sally, I am insulted by your comment about WW11 aged voters- my contemporaries and myself – many of whom have stood for and practised as far as possible sustainability and environmental care at home and abroad. Anti-militarism has been part of it, and protest at the constant mantra by government on ‘growth’ (i.e. destruction of nature and of peace).
Yes, we rely on younger and young people to work harder, to share awareness and action more widely and more vigorously but don’t disparage us please.
This report is certainly consequential but is but one in a long line of reports which have said the same thing for two or three decades. Perhaps it’s good that the UK government has been warned yet again of the impending (and current) climate change crisis, but mitigating steps have been left too late. The emphasis now will be on adaptation, and that’s not going to be easy as things get steadily worse. New weather patterns, long predicted, are still quite often seen as exceptional. The agricultural sector in the UK is going to be decimated at this rate. Mary Creagh comes across as a bit complacent. I always sense that when government ministers talk about being ‘laser’ focused. They will say that about anything.
“Chris Hinchliff, the Labour MP, and a member of the committee, contrasted the £15bn to be added to the defence budget with the lack of funding to protect critical ecosystems.”
It is important to understand the enormous level of access to government enjoyed by the arms companies despite them not being the biggest corporations.
A spokesman for the Campaign Against the Arms Trade states:
“This is a broken system. No industry should have this level of influence over government, especially one that deals in death and destruction. This level of influence is profoundly undemocratic and means that shareholder profits are protected at all costs – even if this means complicity in appalling war crimes. Radical measures are urgently needed to break the arms industry’s stranglehold on government policy.”
https://caat.org.uk/news/new-report-reveals-unparalleled-access-and-deeply-entrenched-influence-of-arms-industry-in-uk-government/
Well done JVL for publishing this vital information. I like to think I’m well informed but I know nothing about government’s devious manoeuvres to keep this defence review largely hidden from the public.