The World Is Broken

Another of the 'glaciers are melting' stories that are cropping up with disturbing regularity while governments twiddle their thumbs and build more roads.

New research suggests that glaciers on Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak and in the Peruvian Andes are retreating even more rapidly than previously thought and may disappear within 10 to 20 years. The Guardian quotes Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University as saying that the Quelcayya glacier in Peru has retreated 32-times faster in the past two years than in the 20 years between 1963 and 1983. Similarly on Kilimanjaro, glaciers have retreated by at least 80 per-cent since 1912

Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published yesterday predicts that the impacts of climate change will be far worse than previously thought and, unless action is taken immediately to curb the release of greenhouse gases, will have massive consequences. Melting ice caps, and disappearing glaciers will lead to flooding and disappearing fresh water supplies respectively and increased rainfall in Europe will cause regular flooding.

As my mum would have said, you won't be happy till you've broken it will you? Ever had the feeling that no-one's listening?