One could view in similar terms the affect (our analogy relates ONLY to the affects!) per degree Celcius on global warming and its damage to the prospects of life on Earth: each subsequent 1º increase could be thought of in terms of a factor of ten worsening of adverse conditions. We had a 'mini ice-age' in pre-industrial times when the Thames froze over:  this is impossible today because of a rise of a mere 0.6 degrees Celcius.  Instead Arctic and Antarctic ice is fast disappearing).  By the time we reach an increase of 3º - 4C, a number of positive and negative feedbacks – both of them detrimental to our survival and frightening in their affect upon life forms – come into play leading to probable runaway and irreversible global warming.

We should perhaps examine the current situation (<1º up on pre-industrial levels) and compare the probable future with what occurred in Earth’s past, when last global temperatures rose sharply.

Yet the stark reality is that never did temperatures rise so much in so short a period – certainly not in the three-million-year history of mankind! And the worst is yet to come: the probable sudden spewing out from the ocean depths of thousands of years’ worth of sequestered carbon and methane (the latter twenty times more potent in its pernicious affect upon life forms, and also highly flammable, bringing, in the worst future scenario, likely fireballs with the destructive power of dozens of nuclear weapons exploding upon coastal cities).

The tropical rain-forests, and especially the Amazon – together with the cold ocean depths - were the essential ‘green lung’ that, until recent decades, re-cycled and absorbed the extra carbon released by man from the oil and coal reserves of the deep earth, their semi-permanent ‘sink’ –yet we have carelessly ignored both. Within the lifetime of our children, the Amazon rain forest will be no more. The very existence of all higher life-forms is threatened.

We will look in turn at the probable negative effects of each 1º rise in global temperature over the coming times. The most respected world body reporting in this field, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has recently upped its possible maximum in this century alone to 6.4º increase – an Armageddon-type prognosis.

And yet the IPCC’s record is of repeated underestimation of global temperature increase.

Those who choose to blame variations in sun-spots activity are just burying their heads in the sand. No one denies there are other factors at work. But no respected scientist any longer denies anthropomorphic climate change. We can do something about the latter – but not the former.

Nor are voices like ours mere Cassandra sirens.

The reality of speedy global warming is too obvious to ignore: and too serious to delay drastic remedial action.

… more on climate change to come …