People are changing Earth so much, warming and polluting it, that many scientists are turning to a new way to describe the time we live in.

SEA levels are set to rise by up to a metre within a century due to global warming, a new Australian report said yesterday as it warned this could make “once-a-century” coastal flooding much more common.

A leading Australian scientist believes that the world has just 20 years to turn the tide on global warming and that leaders at a summit in Sydney next week must take concrete steps to tackle the problem.