Madam, - Isn't the weather only gorgeous? Met Éireann has reported that last month was one of the hottest, sunniest and driest Aprils ever with many weather stations breaking all previous temperature records.
This should be cause for alarm, or at least serious discussion, yet the public mood is one of joy and elation. Indeed your own paper happily reported that the good weather was set to continue. Not a mention of climate change. Not one article even suggesting a link. While there is consensus amongst the scientific community that global warming is well under way and that the causes are man-made we remain in denial that it is even happening at all.
We must listen to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This organisation, established by the UN, draws on the expertise of thousands of scientists from around the world and we are perilously close to reaching their predicted danger point of a 2º average global temperature rise. To most of us this may not seem like much and may be a welcome change for Ireland in the short term. However, it represents the tipping point above which feedback will cause further unstoppable temperature rises.
We have a small window of opportunity, 10 to 30 years at best, within which to reel in our CO² emissions. If we fail to act it will not be some distant generation that will suffer the consequences but our own children. And yet there is no debate, no discussion. We remain silent about what's happening around us except to say "Isn't the weather only gorgeous?" - Yours, etc,
BRIAN DILLON, Ballyline, Callan, Co Kilkenny.