Editor

I was very saddened to read the letter from Mr Haskell (Letters, 16 January). Some of the details of what he writes are correct, but they are diluted with misconceptions.

It is really important for the future of life as we know it that we get the facts correct.

We are not on the brink of global warming. Rather, it has actually started. This is being measured by countless scientists using a multitude of methods. The temperature is rising. The permafrost is melting and glaciers are retreating. The sea is rising. The extra heat energy is fuelling bigger and more frequent storms. Rain comes unpredictably, unreasonably or not at all.

As for the future, scientists will never say that any prediction is absolutely certain, rather they will give you degrees of likelihood. They have, however, for decades been moving ever nearer to certainty with regard to anthropogenic climate change, and although they would certainly agree that the climate has always fluctuated, they now say with almost 100 per cent confidence that it has never changed so fast before.

It is not Extinction Rebellion and politicians who are saying that dangerous warming has started - it is the scientists.

When you finally face what the graphs and trends actually say, your world changes for ever. You can never be totally carefree again. Just the opposite. It is terribly hard to cope with the grief. Grief for the living world.

It becomes an act of courage to stay alive and try to do what one can in the face of the greatest crisis to have ever faced our species.

One feels so small. That is why we need everyone to pull together. Everyone. That is the only hope that the world will be habitable for our grandchildren, the only hope that the forests and grasslands of the world will not become giant funeral pyres for what is left of the wild animals of the world.

To assert that there is “no real evidence anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are a major ... warming influence” is a complete contradiction of what scientists are saying.

Of course carbon dioxide is good for plants. No-one argues otherwise. There has to be some in the atmosphere for life to continue. But there must be a balance. If there is too much in the atmosphere, more than about 350 parts per million, the temperature gets too high.

It would be hard to argue that the fires in Australia - the worst ever known - are good for plants. Still less for koalas, kangaroos and people.

We have disturbed the precious balance which has made the world such a beautiful and wonderful home. We have triggered the extinction of thousands of species, the melting of glaciers and ice-caps, and our civilisation will learn how fragile it is in the face of that simple but so powerful substance - water. Billions of refugees competing for the remaining land, reduced harvests, war, starvation. Is that not worth trying with every sinew to prevent?

Carol Nixon Penuwch, Tregaron

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