Earlier this month, the G7 met in Bavaria; its seven members are the major European and North American economies, plus Japan. The G7 is the successor to the G8—Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been suspended, having invaded and annexed parts of Ukraine, and now actively making mischief on NATO’s Baltic border. ISIS, meanwhile, is murdering its way through the Middle East, and China is building islands in international waters. So the G7 had quite a full plate; nonetheless, they found time to issue a declaration on climate change.

The G7 have affirmed their “strong determination to adopt” a climate change plan that, they say, will—through “binding rules”—“enable all countries to follow a low-carbon .  .  . pathway .  .  . to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2° C.” A lot of this is just hot air and civic posturing. But to the extent they are serious about climate change, the G7 should pay close attention to some other recent European news: 

In January, a forest was discovered east of Norwich, an English city that’s northeast of London. You’d think by now most European forests would have been discovered; after all, every inch of the continent has been photographed by satellite. What makes this forest unusual is that it’s under 600 feet of water, in the North Sea.

It’s an oak forest, and it stands on Doggerland, an enormous tract of territory that once connected Britain to the low countries and Denmark. A geologist named Martin Warren called Doggerland “a country Europe forgot”; it was forgotten because, about 10,000 years ago, global warming triggered a rise in sea levels, which—by about 6,500 b.c.—had sunk Doggerland beneath the waves. It wasn’t rediscovered until 1931, when a fishing trawler pulled up a piece of an antler.