When's the rock from space going to hit?
Or the tidal wave from the Canaries collapsing; the super-volcano in Yellowstone/Indonesia wherever; perhaps catastrophic global warming, all coastal cities flooded, viable farmland only existing North of the Arctic Circle.
When are the numbskull narrow financial interests in the US; the extremist Islamists; the petty squabblers over a few square inches of dried-out dust going to realise? The differences between us are not as thick as the fibres in a piece of fine paper. One way or another we're heading for huge challenges to our comfortable - at least for some in the West - "way of life".
We live in an extraordinary time. Our Western dominated technological civilisation spans much less than 0.5% of the time since the retreat of glaciers in the last Ice Age. Our planet may be going through the most benign time in its 4.5 billion year history in terms of natural cycles. And it won't, can't last.
The Americans reckon their polluting businesses and ours can't possibly be responsible for 3 degC of warming over the last decades. Maybe they aren't. It doesn't matter. The Greenland glaciers are melting at five times the expected rate. The glaciers in North America and Everest are disappearing. The Great Barrier Reef and Belize reef are dying. The Amazon rainforest is disappearing. Droughts in Africa. Droughts in Southern England!!! And so on ...
Whether we're influencing the climate or not, we have to get a grip on our own possible impact. Else our children may have nowhere to go.
When are the numbskull narrow financial interests in the US; the extremist Islamists; the petty squabblers over a few square inches of dried-out dust going to realise? The differences between us are not as thick as the fibres in a piece of fine paper. One way or another we're heading for huge challenges to our comfortable - at least for some in the West - "way of life".
We live in an extraordinary time. Our Western dominated technological civilisation spans much less than 0.5% of the time since the retreat of glaciers in the last Ice Age. Our planet may be going through the most benign time in its 4.5 billion year history in terms of natural cycles. And it won't, can't last.
The Americans reckon their polluting businesses and ours can't possibly be responsible for 3 degC of warming over the last decades. Maybe they aren't. It doesn't matter. The Greenland glaciers are melting at five times the expected rate. The glaciers in North America and Everest are disappearing. The Great Barrier Reef and Belize reef are dying. The Amazon rainforest is disappearing. Droughts in Africa. Droughts in Southern England!!! And so on ...
Whether we're influencing the climate or not, we have to get a grip on our own possible impact. Else our children may have nowhere to go.
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