The likelihood of an effective global response to climate warming is slim, a reader writes. Photo / File
The likelihood of an effective global response to climate warming is slim, a reader writes. Photo / File
Climate threat
We read in the Chronicle (September 29) a new study finds that another 0.9C rise in global temperatures will be sufficient to activate irreversible melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet, resulting in a 5m rise in ocean levels. Why this issue of global warming is not beingacted on with the same levels of attention or greater, in what is a crisis, than the global response to Covid-19 is confounding and dismaying.
I suspect the answer to that question concerns the issue of immediacy. Covid-19 is here right now and affecting health, our economies and for many the matter is life or death. Covid-19 is an immediate disaster, whereas climate-change consequences are seen as a near-future disaster, but they are an inevitable one of far more dire consequences. They require us, if we are to prevent these consequences, to act effectively now, even as to this point we are only getting a small taste of the looming calamity, when any action will be too late.
The crisis is now, and as some astute scientists and commentators have pointed out, the likelihood of a necessary effective global response to climate warming is slim while leaders, Governments and nations pursue the ever-dangling carrot of economic and nationalistic financial interests ahead of what they actually do know is required to prevent planetary calamity.
A 180-degree change in values, systems and orientations seems the only hope. It could be framed in the question: will we continue clinging to esteeming and putting dollar considerations first even to our own demise and the demise of our planet? A further question: are those considerations worth even that extreme in our estimations of what actually matters in this life? PAUL BABER Aramoho
The Chronicle front-page article (October 12) hinges entirely on a metaphor, "better to die like a dog". That metaphor fails a most serious discussion by the breadth of irrationality when we consider that so far, none of us has seen a dog whistle, followed by a man or woman coming to heel behind its owner, or, running off obediently to round up sheep by the hundreds, or, being trialled at Hunterville for the Shemozzle by the wealthy canines. Dogs and humans are not equal, yet there is a sector in our country who are of the opinion metaphors are fact. F R HALPIN Whanganui
