Subs that collide in the night

We thought the collision of two satellites in outer space last week unlikely enough. Now we have the absurd spectacle of two submarines, one British, one French, so completely in their “Secret Squirreledness” that they’ve actually collided with each other.

So secret, indeed, was the collision that we’ve only heard about it nearly two weeks after the event. Each was nuclear powered and, more to the point, each was nuclear armed. Jolly funny.

Not so fast. There was, of course, no loss of life – but there well could have been. And it throws into sharp relief what Mr Obama has been telling us, that the availability and quantity of nuclear arms around the world remains a dangerous threat.

I’m writing this on the heels of a briefing on climate change from quasi-governmental sources which, frankly, scares me rigid. It would seem the world has very little time in which to gather round and execute a global endeavour to reverse what we are doing.

What is extraordinary is that the capacity to do so is hugely enhanced by the current breakdown in the old economic order. Yet is not the mindset here that we’ll get through it and then everything will be just the same as it ever was?

There is another strand, however, that recognises that if the upcoming London summit of the G20 nations can be galvanised into recognising it, it would be possible to use green technologies and opportunities to produce an economy which is both environmentally and monetarily sustainable.

The London summit feeds through to the Copenhagen summit in December. The funny thing is, London is seen as simply about the economic crisis, whilst it should be seen as embracing climate change as well. And Copenhagen is seen as climate change only, whilst it should be seen as part of the mechanism for rebooting the global economy.

Now, where did those subs come in? Oh, yes, they could have just detonated the lot of us. And then where would we be?