Bournemouth Echo published a letter from South East Dorset Green Party’s chairman, Mark Chivers, in which he said he was saddened by comments from their reporter Faith Eckersall on the actions taken by the Philippine envoy at the climate talks in Poland.
He did not, as she claimed, blame climate change for the typhoon, but pointed out that it is responsible for increasing the intensity of storms and, if we fail to take action, will lead to disasters like this becoming more frequent. This is because a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour (seven per cent for every 1°C rise) and the air above our oceans already holds four per cent more moisture than 30 years ago. Her denial of global warming runs contrary to the National Academy of Science, to the opinion of over 97 per cent of scientists and to countless bodies from the RSPB to the World Bank.
The recent report from the IPCC shows that scientists are now as certain manmade climate change is real as they are that there is a link between smoking and lung cancer.
Staggeringly some of the same organisations which said there was no risk from smoking are now creating doubt over climate change. The science is based on 800,000 years of evidence from ice cores, which confirms the link between CO2 and temperature, and highlights the fact that, with 400ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere already, we are approaching levels previously associated with mass extinction events.
Ultimately we will all be affected by this but it is those in the most vulnerable regions who will suffer the most. Carrying on as we are not only puts millions of people at risk in the near term but will lead to potential catastrophe for all our future generations.
Taking the side of those who deny the science, adding to the doubt, campaigning against developments that may reduce the risks, is what is ‘truly disgusting’ in this, not the envoy or his supporters.
Helen Woodall
