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Denia,
June 19
Dear Editor,
Do we need any more clues that the world is heading for climate disaster?
The last few months in Spain should be enough to convince anyone that we are approaching a tipping point and there might be no way back.
First two months of rain in March and April which appeared to augur well for the months to come, with a temperate start to summer. Then, after just a couple of weeks of clement weather, the summer started in the middle of May.
The May heatwave has not abated. It feels like August in June with horrible hot nights and stifling daytime temperatures. Forest fires are raging around the country as the mercury rising above 40 degrees in many inland areas – including ‘temperate’ Navarre region.
This is just a taste of what we have to come – next year, the year after and into the next decade. I’m a pensioner and it’s the first time that I’ve ever thought that I’m glad that I’m old. Imagine being a teenager now and what they will have to live with when they are in their 70s. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
It is as plain as the nose on your face that governments will not do enough to prevent the climate disaster which is already in full swing. It will come down to us – the people – to do something. Small actions. Recycling, buying a low emissions or electric car if possible (or not using the car at all!), walking or cycling to places, cutting down electricity use, picking up plastic and rubbish when we spot it in the sea, on the beach or in the countryside.
These are small things, but it will take a collective effort to get us out of this mess.
The human race has spent more than a century pumping trillions of tonnes of harmful gases into the atmosphere. Did we really think that this would not have an impact on our beautiful planet?
Collectively we are a greedy and selfish race. It is often no use appealing to people’s better nature (no pun intended). But I would urge people to think of their children and grandchildren.
You claim you love them? Then do something now to make sure that they have a decent future.
Michael Palmer