Grant Lewison's Letter

To my grand-daughter, Erin,

We hear a lot about the effects of climate change, and in many countries they are already occurring. In Britain, they do not seem so bad, although the record summer temperature this year of 40 degrees gave us a foretaste of what will come. Many of the predictions are about the situation in the year 2100, and to me that seems very distant, and a time that I shall never see. But it is likely that you will still be alive then as you were born well into the 21st century, and the effects of global warming will be a big problem for you and your contemporaries.
There are likely to be two main effects on the UK, and neither seems to be getting the attention needed from our politicians. The first is the pressure from migration, as huge numbers of people from tropical countries will find that life is impossible and will have to move north in order to survive. This movement of people, if properly managed, will benefit both those who are migrating and their host nations, many of which are short of labour, particularly in the service sectors such as the provision of social care. The second is that our consumption of material possessions will be seen as completely unsustainable, and will need to be curtailed through rationing, as occurred during the second World War.
These two effects will need to be addressed by agreement between the different political parties on the measures that need to be taken, and a massive public information campaign to inform and persuade the public of the urgency of the need to change our attitudes and way of life. Put concisely, we shall need to live more simply that others may simply live.