Islington Tribune - Letters: Climate fears go global

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Islington Tribune - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 27 April 2007

Climate fears go global

• IF concerns over climate change were merely a fashion, as alleged by Tim Newark, then it would be the longest-running fashion in history (Last-gasp bid to tackle air quality, April 20). Far from having “sexed-up increasingly alarmist statements”, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expresses views that have arguably softened since the 20th century.
Limits to Growth (1972) predicted that the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase from 321 parts per million (1971) to 380 by 2000. However this was not, in the event, achieved until last year.
In the 1970s our concerns were split between resource depletion, climate change due to the greenhouse effect and the heating effect of the use of energy per se. The IPCC now considers the total emissions of heat from man’s use of energy are probably only of significance to those who live in urban areas.
All concentrations of humanity have had to acknowledge the combination of the effect their activities have on the environment and changes due to natural causes.
Governments have always had to legislate to moderate the adverse excesses of their civilisation’s effect on their environs. London examples are planning and building legislation and the Clean Air Act 1956, prompted by the great smog of 1952.
What distinguishes the 21st century is that governments have finally realised that a globalised economy has a global impact and that failure to adapt will leave, not only us, but all earth species with nowhere to go.
CHRIS GRAHAM
Tollington Park, N4

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Islington Tribune, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@islingtontribune.co.uk. Deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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