Admissions of extreme, eco-caused national security threats foreground importance of climate adaptation to bring much needed urgency and agency.
On the minor matter of a security assessment that went to COBRA that the UK Government tried to bury…and which says that imminent likely ecological collapses are a fateful national security threat for this country. Caroline Lucas and Rupert Read explore the implications, including crucially what can be done about it.
It is a terrible but, it would seem, deliberate irony that just as all the world’s attention was on bellicose threats from Trump, an official report has been sneaked out that demonstrates that even larger risks are posed: by ecosystem collapse.
This is a report which, unlike predecessors, can’t be waved away as ‘overstatement’ from ‘usual suspects’ (i.e. environmental organisations or academics): it’s from very *unusual* suspects – ie the country’s intelligence chiefs – and they don’t pull their punches…
Consider this headline “key judgement” from the report, which comes with “High” confidence:
“Ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse ([i.e.] irreversible loss of function beyond repair).”
And this inference that they draw from it:
“Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.”
This sort of language is unprecedented in official documents at large, and in particular in security assessments.
Perhaps that’s why the Government didn’t want us to see it at all. They tried to suppress it, as reported last October. Now they have been forced to release it; they tried to smuggle it out…in the middle of the Greenland crisis. The Times has now revealed that the 14 page document is only a summary of a longer piece of work; and has brought some further tidbits of that deeply-concerning longer report into the public domain.
What a scandal, that the Government is still stopping citizens from knowing what they (we) are up against. But the ultimate scandal is quite simply that citizens have been left not knowing exactly what horrors we are likely to have to endure in the coming years. Every one of us has a right to know the full, unexpurgated version of what is in this security assessment: because otherwise we aren’t informed enough to be able to start to try to adapt to the national-security and local-living implications of these forecasted ecosystem collapses.
It’s likely that the Government keeps trying to hush this report up in various ways because it shows starkly that they are failing to keep us safe. But it is possible that an additional motivation is that they fear that citizens can’t cope with the very bad news contained in the report. If they are motivated by that thought, then we need to insist on a different logic:
Politicians/experts must stop telling the public only what we think it can manage to bear and instead create the conditions for people to turn true knowledge into action. This requires local, practical, depolarising preparedness-building, that naturally creates capacity for further agency. It requires too emotional support to deal with and process the difficult truths, including those outlined in this report, and collective awareness among the silent majority that you are absolutely not alone in fearing collapse. The new security assessment requires these as its concomitants, or it may just cause depression or defeatism.
It is meaningless to recognise the gravity of the impending climate/nature collapses without taking mutually self-protective action to build resilience and to adapt, strategically: which means building decarbonisation and nature-recovery into one’s efforts throughout. Luckily, increasing numbers of citizens are engaged in building just such resilience from the bottom up. But they badly need help from the top, too, if their efforts are to be sufficient. For, as the UK’s Office of Environmental Protection recently laid out, the U.K. Government is grossly failing thus far to adequately protect biodiversity and ecology. Consider for example that the OEP singled out “reduced risk of harm from natural hazards” as an area where Government action has slipped back over the last year; exactly consonant with the new “Ecological Collapse and National Security” report which this column is about.
Implementing a strategy of very-well-resourced, nature-based based climate adaptation is the most important single thing we need to do, once we have taken on board the awful forecasts contained in this report. The Government will be risking the lives of many citizens — and irrevocably so — if it does not swiftly put together a very-well-funded plan of preparedness (including, crucially, adequately resourcing local efforts tailored to local circumstance, impacts and threats) to enable us all to cope with what is going to be coming at us over the next decade. This is now definitively a national security threat: let’s treat it like one.
An effective coalition to demand that this report be the basis of a step-change in Britain’s strategic preparedness for impacts, to reach the same kind of level of seriousness as the Government’s ‘missions’, might be able to convince the current government to act. And even if it didn’t, it could certainly lay the groundwork for some level of unity in a ‘Popular Front’, an alternative to the disastrous denialism of Badenoch and Farage. For parties such as the LibDems and the Greens will surely find common ground here, and a post-Starmer pre-2029 Labour Government could meet them on that common ground: for the common good, and to prevent all our efforts being swept away. This is another reason why we ought to move to a kind of war footing.
Moreover, doing so could provide a basis for the international solidarity recently called for so well by Mark Carney at Davos. For, after all, everyone knows that ultimately this is a matter for us all, wherever we live. Developing preparedness together will be a great way to build a spirit of mutual protection.
For what our Government’s own forecasts now say is likely coming.
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(Thanks to Liam Kavanagh for invaluable research- and editorial- help with this piece.)
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She's 10 years ago – and maybe more. Still back in the Green-New-Deal-and-party-on era.
Sheesh. The problem is resource depletion and energy reduction (both availability and quality). The entropic results of our frenzied energy-burn are biodiversity loss and an altered climate. But to address the latter without addressing the former is to peddle a falsehood.
The trouble with politicians – tell the truth and you don't get voted in, which leaves?
You're exactly right, pokiwi. We cannot address this kind of thing through what we now call "politics," for precisely the reason you so clearly stated.
Here's how I'm understanding it all right now, paradigmatically: The Megamachine (Mumford and Scheidler) has an "imaginary" (in the French philosophical sense). The imaginary resembles ideology, but it is not reducible to mere ideology. The imaginary operates one level deeper than ideology, and ideology sets on top of it like a chair sits on a floor. The imaginary is a relational field we all live in, but it's damned difficult to understand it thoroughly, because it is not one simple thing with simple temporal and spatial location. But the Megamachine's "imaginary" is nearly everywhere right now. It is why "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." It tells us what is possible and impossible. It tells us how to even think about possibility and impossibility. It keeps us in the dark about what it possible, meaningful, real and true. It filters all of our thoughts and perceptions. It quietly locks the exit doors.
We do not really know or understand the Megamachine unless we can see its imaginary in operation. It tells us what is good, right, true, meaningful. And that becomes what we are capable and incapable of. It does our thinking for us rather automatically. And this is why politics cannot liberate us from this mess. It's purpose is to feed the Megamachine, keep it alive.
My purpose is to replace the Megamachine. But I know that this is really the work of the imaginary. So that's my work now. I'm an imaginary worker. I'm doing the work of waking up from the Megamachine's imaginary, so I can be among those who help us find our way in the dark. This is the real work now — for all of us.
I'm writing both a novel and non-fiction works on this. It's slow work. That's why you don't see my articles and essays in here much these days.
Sadly, only a few academics seem to be aware of the notion of "the imaginary" I'm referring to. My version (and there are many!) is nearer to that of Cornelius Castoriadis' version than most, but I am not in complete agreement with Castoriadis, either. Long story.
Actually, having just read a bit more about Castoriadis's notion of "the imaginary," I'm sensing too many basic disagreements with him to say that my version is similar to his. My version is closer to how the word is now being used in much of current French social thought. But I'll have to explain that in an essay, which I hope to make available soon. It will either be posted in Resilience.org or linked to an article here.
I'm basically working out a theory of the Megamachine's very own imaginary.
The present mode (structure, form…) of the world economy cannot be sustained. Period. This is especially true of countries like the USA (where I live) and the UK, and all of the "developed" countries of the so-called Global North. Everything which cannot be sustained is ultimately rooted in fossil fuel use and dependency at a rate which is far, far greater than what is necessary to meet real human needs (as compared with human greed).
Did I recently read that in the UK about 40% of food is imported from outside of the UK? And surely almost all of this food is produced with a very high fossil fuel footprint. If you want to know what adaptation and mitigation ultimately amount to, see them as one and the same act: reducing use and dependency on fossil fuels — which is over 80% of the world's technological energy use at present, and so over 80% of our current mode of economy.
To reduce fossil fuel use and dependency necessarily means not just re-regionalizing food production and distribution, but mostly localizing food production and distribution. So my advice to you in the UK is to prioritize just that, as if your lives depend upon it. They actually do.
If it is possible for you to learn and practice permaculture methods of household and neighborhood food production and distribution — either as households or neighborhoods, please do that. Lead the way, UK. Show the rest of us how. We need you. And remember. Food is not a commodity. It is life, along with water and air.
We are going through a heatwave here in South Australia. Yesterday it was 46C here on my property and northern areas hit over 49C. Our veggies survived but only because of the ability to pump bore water. Without that water or the pumps to take water from the River Murray for Adelaide and the Riverland or desalination our whole State population of nearly 2 million people becomes nonviable. That's sobering but a fact. I don't know where we go from here.
Regarding the " Plan for Preparedness " I am looking at the interpretation of this response and what is missing. I am still new to this so I asked ChatGPT to run through it. Here is what it gave back:
Review of the UK Government Response to the National Resilience Petition
1. What the Government Does Address
There are genuine elements of adaptation policy in the response. These are the strongest points:
A. Acknowledgement of Risk
The response explicitly accepts that climate impacts are accelerating.
It agrees that further action is needed, which is an important admission.
Adaptation is framed as a policy priority, at least rhetorically.
B. Existing Legal & Planning Frameworks
The government relies heavily on:
Climate Change Act (2008)
Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) every 5 years
National Adaptation Programme (NAP) cycle
Resilience Action Plan (July 2025) using an “all hazards” approach
These do exist and provide a formal structure.
C. Specific Areas of Action
Concrete areas mentioned include:
Flood and coastal erosion defences
Natural flood management (£300m)
Environmental Land Management (ELMs)
Soil health, wildfire resilience
Sustainable Drainage standards (SuDS)
Review of infrastructure resilience standards
Local Nature Recovery Strategies
These are real interventions, not invented.
2. Core Problems With the Response
This is where the response fails substantively.
3. Structural Deflection: “We Already Have a Plan”
“We do not consider a separate National Climate Resilience Plan to be necessary.”
This is the central deflection.
Why this matters
The petition calls for a joined-up, integrated resilience strategy
The government replies by pointing to fragmented, sector-specific programmes
No single document:
integrates housing, food, health, water, energy, ecosystems, and community resilience
sets shared assumptions, scenarios, and failure thresholds
defines national preparedness levels
This is coordination theatre: lots of activity, no unifying spine.
4. Numbers Without Context (Classic Greenwash Pattern)
The response lists spending figures, but never answers the key questions.
Example: Flood Spending
£10.5 billion by March 2036
Missing context:
Is this more or less than previous decades?
Adjusted for inflation?
Compared to increasing risk exposure?
Compared to insured vs uninsured losses?
Compared to adaptation needs identified by the CCC?
Without context, large numbers sound reassuring but are meaningless.
Example: £2.7bn per year for farming & nature
Missing:
How much of this is new money?
How much replaces old CAP funding?
How much is explicitly tied to adaptation outcomes, not biodiversity or income support?
What proportion addresses flood risk, drought, heat stress, food security?
This is relabelled spending, not necessarily expanded resilience.
5. No “What Will This Achieve?” Metrics
Nowhere does the response answer:
How much risk reduction will this buy?
How many degrees of warming is the system designed for?
What failure rates are acceptable?
Which risks remain unmanaged?
There are no outcome metrics, only inputs.
6. Avoidance of Climate Scenarios
A critical omission.
The government:
Asked the CCC (in 2025) for advice on minimum climate scenarios
Is “considering” advice given in October 2025
Will maybe reflect this in NAP4 in 2028
What’s missing
No declared planning baseline (e.g. +2°C, +3°C, +4°C)
No time horizon (2030? 2050? 2100?)
No commitment that infrastructure, housing, or health systems will be designed for plausible worst-case scenarios
This allows perpetual delay while risks accelerate.
7. Over-Reliance on Future Promises
Key actions are deferred:
“Ambitious fourth NAP in 2028”
“Review of standards”
“Considering CCC advice”
“Setting stronger objectives”
This is a policy horizon problem:
Impacts are accelerating now
Decisions affecting housing, water, food, and infrastructure are being locked in this decade
Promising future frameworks does not protect current communities
8. Local & Community Resilience Is Underpowered
The petition stresses:
Local funding
Community resilience
Public education
The response:
Mentions local strategies
Does not commit to:
sustained local authority funding
public climate risk education
household-level preparedness
social resilience (cooling, evacuation, care, insurance gaps)
Resilience is treated as infrastructure-heavy, not people-centred.
9. Nature-Based Solutions Are Underscaled
While nature-based solutions are mentioned:
£300m for natural flood management is small relative to:
catchment-scale needs
ongoing land-use pressures
ecosystem degradation trends
Nature is framed as a supplement, not a core defence system.
10. What’s Completely Missing
A. No National Risk Acceptance Statement
What level of loss is the UK prepared to accept?
Which areas may become uninsurable or uninhabitable?
What is the plan for managed retreat?
B. No Social Justice Lens
Who bears the risk?
Who pays when insurance fails?
How are vulnerable groups protected during heatwaves, floods, food shocks?
C. No Public Transparency
No accessible national dashboard
No annual resilience scorecard
No independent stress-testing of claims
11. Summary Table
Addressed
✔ Acknowledgement of climate risk
✔ Existence of legal frameworks
✔ Some funding and standards
✔ Agreement that more action is needed
Missed / Greenwashed
✖ No integrated national resilience strategy
✖ Spending figures without context
✖ No outcome-based targets
✖ No declared climate scenarios
✖ Heavy reliance on future plans
✖ Weak local & social resilience focus
✖ Nature-based solutions underfunded
✖ No discussion of unavoidable losses
12. Bottom Line (Plain Language)
This response shows activity, not adequacy.
It reassures the public that:
something is being done
but avoids answering:
whether it is enough
whether it is fast enough
whether it is designed for the climate we are actually heading into
That gap — between procedural compliance and real-world preparedness — is exactly what the petition was trying to expose.
— – – – – – – – — – –
This response includes clues about what work needs to be done to properly track risks and risk mitigation.
– Clarify who is going to pay for the risk
– Which areas are most affected, and forecast what that means to the local populations and the adjoining ones.
– identify what resources would be needed to meet the events that are coming our way
– Create a national dashboard to make it clear what is projected and what is currently happening
– Create an annual resilience scoreboard
– Independently stress test the claims.