An inhabited island – and an island that was inhabited by 10,000 people – has fallen victim to the rising sea levels of climate change.

Lohachara is, or rather was, in the India’s part of the Sundarbans, where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal. It was home to 10,000 people. They have become refugees on the nearby island of Sagar, joining many of the people of another island Ghoramara, which has lost two-thirds of its area to the sea.

I went for a wander down Tottenham Court Road this evening about 5pm, and watched the inexorable retail cycle grinding its way onwards. On this Christmas Eve many of the shops were how shut, their “Boxing Day sale – 50% off” posters already plastered across the windows, in preparation for the return to the fray after tomorrow’s brief hiatus. In those that had just shut the shop assistants were in mid-plaster – some with beer bottles from hasty work “celebrations” in hand, the 50% signs lying uncomfortably beside the battered tinsel and “Christmas special” labels.

A few were open still, with “post-Christmas sale” prices already running – a bonus for the brave and foolhardy souls who really believe in last-minute Christmas shopping. One man, had however, left it that little bit too late, pleading fruitlessly at the closed door of the mobile phone shop: “But I know exactly what I want…”

I stopped, however, at the corner of Oxford Street, for it was still packed with fierce-faced shoppers whose stuffed plastic carrier bags formed tank-like protusions around them; too much for this flaneuse to face…

A solid piece in The Sunday Times (not something I say often) about the huge energy consumption of high street stores – the super-bright lighting, the OTT heating, and most ridiculously, the insistence on leaving the door open as though they were actually trying to heat up the whole planet.

According to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, retailers use 275 kilowatt hours (kWh) per square metre.
That’s vastly more than, say, local government offices (39kWh), factories (47kWh), warehouses (81kWh) and commercial offices (95kWh).
One explanation for the waste is lighting: many stores are lit to the same intensity as television studios. And now to heaters, the craziest of which must surely be the ones installed over the open front door, which typically have a rating of 500 kilowatts — roughly 17 times as powerful as a domestic fan heater.
Environmentalists say the best way for consumers to tackle retailers’ wasteful emissions would be to stop going to shops altogether and buy everything online. Department for Transport studies show that replacing shoppers in private cars with delivery vehicles would reduce traffic by 70%. And without customers to dazzle and roast in shops, retailers could become wholesalers and reduce utility bills on their premises.

So get clicking next time you need to buy something…!