We are running out of time to reduce our carbon footprints

Joe Gill’s article on Irish grass (Irish Examiner, Aug 15) has much to commend it, but it does not reflect a good grasp of the science of climate change.

Climate change has indeed been with us forever, but the climate ‘forcing’ that we are now witnessing due to excess carbon being pumped into the atmosphere by human activity — carbon stored over millions of years in the form of fossil fuel — has certainly never occurred before.

The difference is critical as the time scale is so short, now occurring over decades, rather than thousands, of years.