Visit to a small planet

October 31, 2021, 10:57 pm , by News desk

Richard Lutz, in Glasgow, awaits the crowds for Cop26

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MY new home is a quick forty minute walk from where the Cop26 climate conference takes place over the next two weeks.

So far the Glasgow trains are quiet, the roads sluggish and the Sunday shopping street slick with rain and not too many visitors. But there is the keen eyed presence of armed police at strategic rail stations and the sudden emergence now and again of a big cavalcade of black limos heading off to lord knows where to make you aware that a big international bash is about to erupt in the city. The fun begins anytime now: the world leaders, the protests, the big speeches, the 100,000 expected at a weekend march, the out and out spectacle of it all.

So, before it gets too crazy, just time enough to check out one of the tough little wonders of late autumn. High up in the Scottish hills, not a million miles from Cop26, the deer grass (above) bursts into a thousand strands of colour.

Here’s another. Both paint the ground on a remote hill called Craiglee:

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Way down in the rich green valley is a splurge (what else to call it? ) of brittleneck fungi, healthy in cool autumn weather:

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And sitting up straight and alone is Coprinaceae, which I think is a member of the dung mushroom family. (Don’t quote me as I’m getting all this from a dandy new app that identifies plants as you photo them. I pointed it at my friend Pete the other day and it declared he was ‘Not Identifiable’ as a living organism).

Next, another picture taken today:

A bit misty and ominous but telling. That big lump is a 1300 foot high chunk of volcanic rock sitting off the Scottish coast. It’s called Ailsa Crag.

The faintly piratical ship passing by is The Rainbow Warrior crewed by Greenpeace. The floating activists are heading up the River Clyde that winds through Glasgow and I have a feeling they’re not really wanted at the Cop26 climate confab. Rumours abound the yacht will be turned back.

This whole two week bash means the big wigs are gathering to have a stab at changing the way we live and the way we sloppily exploit this rock we live on. And in the lead up, time after time, people shrug and say it all adds up to less than nothing to safeguard the ecology of our planet for future generations…not only for us but for generations too of brittleneck fungi and tigers and bumblebees and springer spaniels and alley cats.

Well, I’m of a lifespan, along with most of my friends, that will be propping up daisies in a decade or two (if any daisies will be around) and will probably miss the dire effects of ecological suicide. And our sons and daughters will probably see out their nine decades of life too pretty much unscathed.

But I do really wonder and worry about the kids’ kids, the grandchildren, the ones that are still bouncing on someone’s rickety knee or blowing out candles on their third birthday or peering at the way rain drips down a window on a wet day.

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It’s that very young generation that will see out life at the turn of the next century that are going to get hit hard. The Cop26 best intentions are simply that- best intentions and no more than that somehow, crazily, will be undermined and stopped by the boycotts and shortsighted intransigence of Russia and China and other ecologic Luddites.

Politicians will still have their say, of course. It will run from outright hope to downright gloom.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is popping up all over the place saying the Glasgow get together is our last chance. And I agree. But as a political commentator wanly put it: Johnson is keen on manufacturing a success of Cop26. He needs a legacy. But other world leaders aren’t that keen on helping the PM prop up his historic reputation. They have their own political careers (and their voters) to think about as we slowly despoil and rob this rich earth of ours.

It is this political short termism that will kill off any long term solution to halt our death trip over the environmental precipice. And that is the way of the world, our world which we are insanely ruining.

Pic of Ailsa Craig by RJL