Tackling climate crisis key to survival

Sir, – While 100,000 Rangers supporters will have been commiserating with each other and many more back home in Scotland, they did miss out in watching STV News last night.

I am not a Rangers fan, and it is disappointing that they did not win, they did well to get to the final and Scottish football will derive benefit from their efforts.

The players are already well remunerated after all.

Twenty minutes and 45 seconds into the STV Player programme, Tom Bradby introduced an item on climate crisis.

Parts of India and Pakistan ‘enjoying’ temperatures of 51C. Atmospheric CO2 is still increasing, The acidification of the oceans is increasing. Sea levels are rising.

On this last point the Suffolk coast was discussed and the soft sandy soil is being eroded, and coastal properties and many more are likely to topple into the North Sea in a few years.

However, we don’t need to travel that far south, ask any Montrose golfer and they can provide you with the prognosis for some of the holes on their golf course.

Yesterday a report from the group monitoring internally displaced peoples, advised that 60 million are fleeing from their homes. Ukraine added an extra eight million to that total. What was revealing is that many of these displaced people are being driven out of their homes due to climate change either directly by the climate or indirectly by conflict caused by lack of food as in Sri Lanka.

Following up on Ukraine, some of the millions of tons of wheat stored in silos in Odessa is blockaded by Mr Putin’s illegal war. This will, according to watchers, drive more conflict over food and displacement of peoples.

The warning is clear, higher temperatures will drive more conflict and more people movement to where the food is. This has been the reason for migration for millennia. Driven by the need to survive.

It is clear, solving the climate crisis by reducing CO2 emissions will take the heat out of the atmosphere, reduce these conflicts, and reduce the migratory movements.

It is a survival win/win. Alistair Ballantyne. Birkhill,

Angus.