I know I tend to go off at irrelevant tangents in these discussions, but I do wonder just how many subscribers to the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system visit this site, and if they are also members of the Flat Earth Society.

Global warming is as certain a fact as natural evolution is (well, if I'm going to be controversial, why stop at global warming?). Actually, global warming isn't controversial: all the major and respectable scientific academies and institutions agree. It's controversial to deny it - just like denying the holocaust. This summer, the Arctic ice cap was the smallest it's ever been since records began, and the North West Passage was open for the first time; Greenland will soon be able to live up to its name; and Antarctica is sloughing off icebergs as large as countries. All that melted water has to go somewhere, and consequently, Tuvalu faces total submersion as the sea levels rise, despite the fact that that poor nation produces virtually no pollution at all - less than the pollution produced by a small American town.

I also understand that Indonesia is one of the places suffering already from rising sea levels. And so far as land falling into the sea is concerned, land erosion is speeded up by rising sea levels and harsher weather conditions. Weather conditions are changing noticeably – or maybe you hadn’t noticed? Look at Bangladesh, then. That might not be due to global warming, but, hey, who are you fooling if you say it isn’t?

Earth is now 9 degrees warmer than it was in the depths of the last ice age, and in 100 years time, it's expected to be us much as 6 degrees warmer still. Unless, of course, someone has evidence to prove those projections wrong. Ther is a long-term trend towards higher temperatures. I don't know whose fault that is: Nature's or mankind's, but it is within our power to influence it.

We must all wake up and smell the coffee ...yuck - it's tainted with salt water! I do detect an "I'm OK, so the rest of the world can f*** itself attitude emanating from the west.” Fortunately, it’s the poorer and least influential countries that will suffer the most, so why worry? Certainly not politicians. (By west, I am don’t mean USA alone, although USA is probably the most blatant, I mean ALL developed countries.). We have a duty to ourselves, and to the whole world to minimise the adverse consequences of global warming – and to take advantage of any beneficial windfalls – maybe English wine will replace Californian. But burying our heads in the sand isn’t a viable option.

We can't shoot the sea as it breaks into our homes and washes away our property and drowns our loved ones, can we? So what are we waiting for? Why aren’t we “shooting” the intruder now before it gets us, by taking serious steps to mitigate the potential damage? We all have an inalienable right to keep our feet dry, and God help the bastards who try to take it away from us!