Global Warming

Don Herbison-Evans ( donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )

(updated 24 November 2009)

Dairy cattle are being raised in Alaska and in Greenland where a hundred years ago only polar bears could live. The icecaps are shrinking. Ninety per cent of the worlds glaciers are receding, so that in fifty years time, rivers like the Ganges may dry up. The world is warming. The warmer the seas get: the less carbon dioxide they can dissolve, so they will release their carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which will heat up the planet even faster.

It does not matter whether this was initiated by our activities or not. Blame will not help us. Our only hope of controlling this disaster is substantially to reduce the carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere. It will be expensive. Insurance costs money. But the cost of doing nothing is likely to be

  • the swamping of the worlds major coastal cities by the rising oceans,
  • the swallowing of islands,
  • the loss of animal species, and
  • even eventually making the air unbreathable by humans.

    Our efforts may be futile or they may be unnecessary. We cannot predict the future. We can only extrapolate from the past. Insurance is not about certainties, but is about likelihoods.

    I have children, and I would like them and their future generations to inherit a planet like it is now.

    Opponents of measures to curb our carbon dioxide production have their heads buried in the sands of denial, and seem obsessed with the shapes of sand grains. The ignorance and short-sighted self-interest shown by such people pose a severe threat to the future of the earth.

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