The Metro published an article on Thursday about the UN climate change summit. Government ministers and the heads of influential environmental charities from more than 190 countries are represented. Rather fittingly, on the first night of the summit the lives of six Durban residents were taken by torrential rain, unseasonal weather for that area. Our thoughts of course go to the families of the six victims, and UN climate chief Christiana Figueres used the incident to demonstrate how weather is likely to get more extreme as the planet heats up.
This is our last chance to save the planet from global warming. Perhaps one of the reasons we don't act is because the biggest impact is on the world's poorest people, despite them being the least responsible. Here in the west we are causing the problem, but so far the changes have been so gradual that we can ignore them. I'm reminded of Al Gore's comments in his book 'An Inconvenient Truth. He said 'If we experience a significant change in our circumstances gradually and slowly, we are capable of sitting still and failing to recognise the seriousness of what is happening to us until it's too late. Global warming may seem gradual in the context of a single lifetime, but in the context of the Earth's history, it is actually happening with lightning speed.'
When I was at high school we watched a film called 'Two Seconds to Midnight'. The basic theory of the film is that if you think of the entire history of Earth as a 24 hour clock, so the Big Bang is at midnight on the first night and present day at midnight on the second night, then humans only arrived on the planet at two seconds to midnight. However, we have had more impact than any other inhabitants. I saw the film in the mid-90s, and it was old then. Although our attitude to environmental concerns have changed in the past 15 years, I think 'Two Seconds to Midnight' would still be relevant today. My old high school probably are still showing it on VCR.
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