Irish Examiner view: Time to heed the warnings

Climate change isn't the only subject where persistent warnings have been dismissed or ignored. It should not come as a surprise to be alerted again this week to the persistent failings in our health service

Cork University Hospital, which has experienced high levels of overcrowding this week. File picture: Dan Linehan

Pandemics cast a searchlight over society and reveal its failings and shortcomings. They highlight all that is strong in our communities and should spur us on to tackle the challenges that are now impossible to ignore.

On Monday, with the publication of a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we saw, in the starkest terms, what happens when we disregard repeated warnings. Human activity is now changing the earth’s climate in unprecedented ways and if we don’t cut greenhouse gases rapidly and drastically in the next decade, we face climate breakdown.