Before the flood - We must act on warnings on sea levels

EVEN the most resilient and optimistic among us must be approaching misery overload. If the economy and soaring unemployment figures don’t push you towards the edge then there’s always the predictions about the awful impact climate change will have on our world, especially our children’s world.

At this point the phrase “climate change conference” has become shorthand for a gloomfest predicting almost unsurmountable challenges that can be as frightening as they are frustrating. This week’s climate change conference in Copenhagen is a classic of its kind but, unless we continue to be willfully negligent, we can’t keep pretending the warnings have nothing to do with us.

In Copenhagen on Tuesday scientists warned that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond forecasts made two years ago. Just like the economy it seems the “naysayers” are right and the official line is well off the pace, deliberately or otherwise.