WHAT OTHERS SAY

CLIMATE WARNING

It may sound alarmist, but coming from David Attenborough it might actually get the international community to take the warnings seriously. In a dramatic moment at the UN Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland, THE nature Expert AND Documentary ilmmaker Famous For series like Planet Earth and Blue Planet, told the delegates that civilisation now FACES Its “Greatest threat In thousands of years: CLIMATE CHANGE”. THE Cost of Inaction, HE Continued, will BE “THE Collapse of our Civilisations AND THE Extinction of much of THE natural world”. THIS may sound like hyperbole, and in earlier times talk of this sort could be dismissed as just that — but not any longer. Concentrations of all main greenhouse gases have now reached record levels, and there is no reversal in SIGHT, with “THE window of opportunity now Almost Closed”, ACCORDING to a recent World Meteorological Organisation report. The gases in question INCLUDE Carbon DIOXIDE, METHANE AND nitrous OXIDE, AND All stand At record levels today, far higher than what they were in the pre-industrial era. The last time Carbon DIOXIDE Concentrations In THE Atmosphere were As HIGH As they are today was almost three million years ago, the report says, when temperatures were two to THREE DEGREES warmer AND SEA levels 10 to 20 metres higher. These temperatures and sea levels would wipe out many cities and much life around the world today. Dawn