Will climate change action be too late?

Your editorial on climate change is welcome (March 31), but I wonder is it all simply too late?

We have taken billions of tonnes of trapped carbon from under the earth and pumped it into the atmosphere with devastating effect.

Even if we stopped the practice dead in its tracks, scientists say it’s likely we would feel the consequences for generations. To stop the destruction we would have to go against the most pernicious human trait of all – greed.

I don’t think we have a prayer, frankly. There are interest groups who have denied and fought the issue of climate change every step of the way, going so far as to fund bogus science to ‘protect their interests’, just as was done with tobacco before it.

The amount of environmental issues is snowballing — from freak weather events to fatally damaged ecosystems.

We seem incapable of the kind of sacrifice required to solve the great problems — climate change, poverty, unemployment.

In your editorial you mention vulnerable communities. Perhaps if we had been aware all along of the fact we live in an ecosystem we might have managed this better.

The reality is human activity is threatening practically all life forms on the planet. Our ethnocentricity, our egotistical placing of ourselves on the top of the pile, has resulted in destruction for all and everything.

Isn’t it sad to think that for most life forms on this planet the extinction of humans would be a good thing? The action needed now to slow, stop and reverse climate change would require steps of a magnitude probably beyond our contemplation. It would require coordinated willpower by political leaders of a level never seen before.

How do we sustain hope? Is there any reason to hope? Perhaps we can find solace in a phrase of Victor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz, who said that even in the bleakest situation “we can always choose our attitude”.

What practical steps can we take? Conserve fuel and journey less, turn our heating down, wear heavier clothes indoors in cold weather, plant as many trees as we can (they are carbon stores).

Think of air miles when buying food, holiday at home.

Gerard Fitzpatrick

Mallow

Co Cork