A storm is coming

There were storms in London last week. London's now regular rainy season arrived with torrential downpours, thunder and lightning.

The weather is a great topic of conversation, and it affects our lives in ways that often aren't obvious. There's another storm coming. Before we talk about that, let's identify how climate change is affecting London this summer:

• The Tube. Ah, the Tube. There can be no Londoner who doesn't have an opinion about the Tube, especially at the moment. The Tube is hot. Muggy. Stifling. It's hot enough in the sunshine when you're travelling overground. As soon as you get underground the problem escalates. The heatwave - climate change induced - is raising temperatures on the Tube. Millions of people are uncomfortable, complaining. They get drowsy, angry, thirsty, ill, tired, smelly, irritable, because of climate change. This phenomenon of the atmosphere is affecting our mood and our ability to think straight, and our opinion of how we get around.

• Power cuts. Whilst California is going through a series of blackouts caused by an extreme heatwave pushing up use of air conditioning equipment (and thus contributing further to climate change), London has suffered through another mechanism. Lightning. The now regular late July monsoon weather knocked out electricity distribution in central London this past week. People left work early, unable to do anything without power. No bad thing on an individual basis, however the knock-on effects on the financial solvency of the companies those people work for could end up wiping their 'early-home-smiles' off their faces.
  

• Food. The heatwave is wilting crops out in the farmland around London. Come the autumn there will be a shortage of vegetables and grains, which will raise prices.

• The Drought. Londoners can be proud of themselves. Water consumption is down 7% in response to hosepipe bans and drought warnings. Changing behaviour to meet a situation of this sort is an excellent way to act. And I suspect that no one has inconvenienced themselves in any way with their water reductions. 7% is great, and it will all be from easy stuff - turning off taps, taking less time in the shower. The hard stuff comes later, if stand pipes are put in streets.
  

• Death. Those vulnerable to heat are dying. People around you are dying due to the heatwave. Someone you saw today, perhaps an older person, could now be dead. Maybe it's a young mother whose baby overheated. What will her life be like, when she realises that she contributed to the climate change that killed her baby? Uncomfortable words to write, uncomfortable words to read. I, also, have contributed to the deaths of people dying in every country currently affected by a heatwave. Whenever we knowingly do something that degrades our environment, we commit what is now known as an envirocrime. That's a word in use in government organisations, and is generally applied to graffiti, litter, fly-tipping and abandoning vehicles. But envirocrime is a concept, not a set of examples. It applies to those who use hosepipes when there's a ban - indeed, even those who don't use hosepipes, but deliberately use the same amount of water through some other method and kid themselves that "it's alright, I'm not using a hosepipe!". It applies when we make choices that make no positive contribution to stopping this coming storm. Envirocriminals are all around us.

• Barbecues. They're brilliant aren't they? Sitting outside, with food cooked like in the old days. If the weather's going to be warmer, may as well have a barbie. Unless you have asthma. Oh dear, here's the preaching. A man in my office was in hospital for 7 days in the past couple of weeks, following a major asthma attack. The attack was caused by raised levels of pollutants that have come from the massive increase of barbecues in the capital. It's not just food poisoning you have to worry about. Climate change is a killer.

• RyanAir. Lovely! Cheap flights, let's get out of the country then. This point is not about carbon emissions. It's about Sweden. RyanAir is considering pulling out of Sweden because their government wants to impose an environmental tax on planes. Either way, we, the customer lose out. Either we can't visit Sweden (and whilst it may be among the first of countries to consider this tax, it certainly won't remain alone for long, so if you're no fan of Sweden ... just wait) or we pay more for our flights.

Just when life was getting good, when society was built to meet every indiviual's need, it suddenly seems to be going all wrong.

Our choices are starting to drop away. Do we choose to fly abroad and pay more, or choose to lose flights to certain places because the airline won't accept these new environmental taxes?

Do we choose to be like everyone else, and have unlimited barbecues, and by extension choose to harm people with asthma, or do we choose to limit the number of barbecues we have (not forgo, just limit)?

Do we choose to kill people by our actions? Do we choose to commit envirocrimes? Do we choose to put ourselves in the firing line of an increasing number of people who are victims of our envirocrimes? Do we want to face their anger, their ire?

Do we choose to use water like it's a free resource? Do we choose to change behaviours only when these pressures are in crisis mode? Or do we choose to avoid these crises?

Do we choose to cripple our food production? Do we choose supermarkets with empty shelves and expensive goods? When we are, as never before, ultra-aware of the food we eat and what it does to our bodies, do we choose to destroy our means of growing it? What will we do when there's not enough food? What course of action will we choose?

Do we choose powercuts like the Californians are experiencing? Do we choose to remove electricity from hospitals and street lighting?

Do we choose to travel by Tube, to swelter and bake? Or do we forget the Tube, and choose our cars, and make the situation worse? Do we choose a rock or a hard place?

There were storms in London last week.

Another storm is coming, and we're in its path. We have to face it head one. After all, what choice do we have?