You are now entering dystopia… please swim carefully

I read this week that the new President of the Maldives is going to set up a fund to buy land somewhere else (possibly India) when his archipelago sinks beneath the waves. Interestingly, nobody has suggested that we should be paying for this, as the ultimate cause of his country's destruction, handing over the billions while flagellating our leaders (particularly the CBI and Margaret Thatcher, dead or not) for persuading us that this kind of lifestyle was ever morally responsible. 

Why don't we make eye-for-an-eye? He's got a tropical paradise which isn't long for this world. We've got Cornwall, or California - hand them over. And beg for forgiveness. One of the screaming, awful ironies is that the first casualties of our arrogance and greed will be those who've never polluted, never driven, flown, never had a weekend in Dubai or the Keys or wherever. We, on the other hand, will always be able to afford a higher bit of mountain. I favour Norway. Mmmm… socialist and cold. No really, that is pretty much perfection for me. I quite like the sound of the Faroes too, though I'm not so keen on fish.

When the Maldives go, we'll be living in the sci-fi apocalypse (try Baxter's stupid but poignant Flood) my parents spent so many years trying to stop me reading about. Who needs Atlantis when we'll have to explain to our grandchildren (maybe our children) that there used to be a place called the Maldives in that spot of ocean, and that Daddy and Mummy used to get into a whacking great metal thing which burned poison to sit (oh the irony) on an unspoiled beach?