The end of the world isn't nigh?

On Sunday, Frankie Boyle opined: "I like the way every episode of [Blue Planet II] ends with the news that everything we've just watched is utterly doomed." I'd noticed that, too, seeing it as a very deliberate reality check for anyone still sceptical about climate change and a fundamentally depressing reminder for the rest of us.

Perhaps, though, the doom and gloom is overstated. Though it's admittedly beyond the remit of Blue Planet II, perhaps more emphasis should be placed on what can be (and is being) done to prevent environmental apocalypse, as a way of combating the fatalism and apathy that inevitably set in when the severity of the situation is made apparent.

In that spirit, the Guardian's environment editor Damian Carrington has identified the "seven megatrends that could beat global warming". There are actually only six - plant-based meat grown in labs, renewable energy, the declining use of coal, electric cars, cheaper and longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries, energy efficiency - as the seventh, deforestation, is a negative trend. Nevertheless,  the piece is actually gives cause for cautious optimism at a time when the imbecile in the White House is busy backing out of the Paris Agreement and appointing a climate sceptic to head up the US' Environmental Protection Agency.

(Thanks to Lyndsey for the link.)