John Gibbons: Climate clock ticks towards midnight and we've run out of excuses

Latest report on climate change is the latest in a series of dire warnings we seem determined to ignore, writes John Gibbons

Train coaches are seen toppled over following mudslides triggered by heavy rains at New Haflong railway station on the Lumding-Silchar route at Dima Hasao district, in northeastern Assam state, India.

“I get all the news I need on the weather report”. That line is from a classic Simon & Garfunkel song from 1970 capturing the zeitgeist of an era, real or imagined, where the most you had to worry about was what to wear to the beach.

Half a century later, and now the weather itself is the news. The release this week by the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) of its ‘State of the Global Climate in 2021’ was just the latest in a seemingly endless series of dire warnings emanating from the scientific community about the rapidly deteriorating global climate system.