SO we’re nearly there: the final run-up to the latest talking shop by all the learned people who really know about such things. Like UK PM Johnson for instance. It is supposed to be about saving the planet from eventual self-destruction, but where does one begin?

Let’s start with Johnson and his accomplice, pro-tem, Liz Truss. Over the last couple of months we have had the announcements of the wonderful trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, which are going to transform our lives forever. All that lovely cheap and tasty meat which will enable us all to sit back and fall asleep after lunch or dinner with a satisfied smile on our faces. We will forget all about the fact that its very arrival on our shores will have spelled the end of the economic survival of large parts of our country and life as we know it, due to it undercutting the price of our excellent quality home-grown products.

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How did it get here? Presumably by making a very long sea journey, or maybe even flying high above the clouds by superjet. Is this not the sort of activity that the coming conference in Glasgow is supposed to be planning to prevent? Surely these faraway countries should be trading with nations in their own hemisphere, thereby helping to cut down pollution?

Then there is the question of those attending the Glasgow junket. A number well into five figures, it would appear. Hopefully all the European contingents will come by land, by electric trains (I hope!), but what about these from further afield? I presume that they all set out by rowing boat some weeks ago and are doing a Greta Thunberg as we speak.

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What about that alleged “special relationship” pal from across the pond? My bet is that he will turn up in that huge eco-friendly Air Force 1, while another similar eco-friendly example will have arrived at Prestwick carrying all his convoy of gas-guzzling SUVs. They will then proceed to grumble their way around the streets of Glasgow spreading good cheer.

And what of the many thousands of other delegates who arrive? They will have to stay somewhere, which means they will also have to travel into Glasgow to attend to the affairs which brought them here in the first place. Doubtless this will result in fleets of helicopters overhead at all hours of the day and night as all this takes place. This is the sort of behaviour which we all have to delete from our lives if any meaningful result is to come from this gathering.

One last point; the boss man of Heathrow Airport has just stated that he does not think that the trade through that international transport hub will get back to its pre-pandemic level until 2026. Surely it should be that it never gets back to that figure at all! If it does, I fear that the fine words of Scotsman Fraser in Dad’s Army could be all too true – “We’re A’ Doomed”.

George M Mitchell
Dunblane

THE Stuart Hall Foundation has organised a number of very important discussions about climate change involving activist scholars from the Global South. In the one streamed on Tuesday night the speaker from Jamaica pointed out that many participants from the Global South will be excluded from COP26 because the event will be “in person” and they cannot comply with the Covid regulations.

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It will be important for us – the Yes movement and The National in particular – to find ways of helping them to make their voices and experiences heard. There has been little coverage, for example, of the recent drought in Jamaica which has caused enormous difficulty for women in particular in their work keeping agriculture going and feeding their families. We have an important role to play, especially if we feel sidelined ourselves.

Cathie Lloyd
Edinburgh