This week, the Met Office’s Hadley Centre published the results of a study into the potential effects of climate change, and the level of action required to avoid drastic increases in temperature over the next 100 years. They estimate that anything but ‘early and rapid’ action against climate change will result in a rise in global temperature of 2.9 degrees centigrade or more by 2100.

Also this week, Drax, Britains’s biggest coal-fired power station, announced that they are investing in direct-injection biomass co-firing systems for all 6 of their coal-fired units, which should cut their CO2 emissions by more than 2.5 million tonnes per year.

So here is a recognised weather authority giving a clear warning, and a recognised polluter taking positive action. If Global Warming is just a great corporate plot, then what is the point of all this action? I don’t think that the Met Office are particularly known for being ordered around by the government, and as for Drax, well I thought that power suppliers just wanted to build more power stations!

I have followed the Global Warming / Climate Change debate with interest for a long time. I’ve obviously always been more persuaded by the ‘for’ than the ‘against’, but I’ve also been fascinated to observe the typical human reaction to warnings of ‘future catastrophe’. ‘Give me proof!’ they say, and, when there’s no immediate catastrophe for them to feel and touch, they go on as before. ‘What’s the point?’ they say, pointing to the other polluters who are doing nothing about reducing their CO2 emissions. ‘It’s not my fault!’ they say, abstaining all responsibility and continuing as before.

Most of us just won’t believe that something is wrong until it bashes us over the head. The problem in this case is that by the time Climate Change bashes us over the head it will probably be too late - at least that’s what the Met Office are saying, and they are by no means the first.

So back to the question in the title: What’s it going to take for us to realise that things are going wrong, and that we need to take action, and lots of it? Well I have to admit that we’re not really being helped by our government making promises out of one side of their mouth and reneging on them out of the other side, but these moves by 2 disparate UK institutions this week brought it home to me. Let’s stop fannying around or maybe it really will be too late.

So what are you waiting for? Floods? Hurricanes? Killer freeze or killer heatwaves? Why bother waiting? There’s plenty you can do right now that really won’t stretch you, and if we all did it, maybe we can avoid that catastrophem whether we believe in it or not. Only one problem, though. If we do take action and avoid catastrophe, there will always be the naysayers saying ‘Told you so! There wasn’t a catastrophe in the first place!’