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You want to see how fast animals species are being made extinct. Check this out.

Another major issue is that ordinary honey bees are dying by their thousands daily. This may not appeat to be a problem at first glance, but it has the potential to be a huge disaster.

If the USA are only thinking of changing their attitudes to glaobal warming from about 205 onwards, the damage over the next five years could be enormous.

Last year, I did a number of cycle rides around a nature reserve close to where I live. It has some stunning panoramic views of JHB, Heidleberg and Alberton.

You should see what the air over JHB looks like. It is the dense cloud of thick brown gunk.

And yet we still continue to build coal burning power stations, more and more motor cars, jet arcraft, ships and other foscil fuel hungry air poluting devices at an alarming rate.

The writing is clearly on the wall and yet we choose to ingore it.

A propos "writing on the wall", are you not all expecting too much and painting the devil on the wall?

When has the fight against polution started? I don't know, but it is not that many years ago. Lately things have started to roll the right way. In Germany lots of small and big towns have started to develop solar energy in order to be independent what power, heat, hot water etc are concerned and is now used as a model in almost all european countries. The public transports in many towns and cities have become gas free. All those local initiatives take time. The creation of bio gas installations is growing.

You cannot stop the industries that polute from one day to the other, it must be economically sustainable if not, a lot of people will end up on the street and we will have a wave of poverty all over the world.

I agree with the fact that not enough is done, but the big countries have feet of clay and will forever repeat: "If you don't, I won't" This especially in the case of USA against the developing countries. India is not even trying yet, as far as I have understood. It cannot all happen within a year or two or ten. What is important is the the problem is acknowledged as such.

Try to be realistic and weigh your words before speaking. Wish thinking will not get us anywhere and neither will catastrophical thinking. And please leave the religion out of this.

I watch as many wildlife programs as I possibly can with limited access to Television channels. (No DSTV, that sort of thing.) I also happened to watch a program, think it was called an inconvenient truth or similar. It was basically Warren Buffet discussing global warming.

So, maybe M, we have three camps as we usually do. Those who may be alarmist, those who are on the opposite and those in the middlle ground. Most peeps I speak to have no idea what gobal warming is, or do not se it as a threat to life on earth. They seem to think it won't happen for another several hundred years.

Now I may be on the alarmist side right now, because I see this an imminent threat. The signs of Global warming are there. The polar caps are melting and yet we see a laid back attitude by many.

I truly hope that I am wrong, but I saw another program discussing how long the sun would last. They showed the generally accepted lifespan of a sun and what changes it would undergo. One of those was a gradual increase in heat radiation until it eventually expires.

So, given the increasing temp of the sun, and global warming due to our wn superb efforts, I think the problem is far more serious than most will admit.

If we saw more and greater effort to reduce greenhouse gas and we saw an immediate halt on deforrestation, then we still have a chance.

It scares me that I / we have left this legacy for my / our children and that they will never be fortunate enough to see their own grand children grow up.

It is right to be alarmed, because there is a danger, a serious danger, only I do not see it as emminent. The sun is supposed to last for another 5 billion years more or less, if our astromeners are right. We are probably loosing more living creatures now than 1000 years ago, but what is 1000 years in the history of the Earth, which has survived the glacial age, the arid age and what more.

Too many people? Yes to many people! Too much desert? Yes too much desert! and a lot of other facts too, but what is going to happen if we decide not to give food to the ones suffering the famine, not to treat the diseases, let the wars kill as many as possible, yes, it would be a solution to certain problems, but what would we feel like seeing millions dying because we want to save our piece of Earth for the grandchildren of our grandchildren and not giving a chance to the children to be of those unfortunate?

Nice to see you're a super-optimist, Micetta. The world needs more of such people.

There are so many ways of viewing the current state of affairs of our environment - and the effects that this will have on life on earth - that the debate is endless. What is fairly certain, though, is that, if things continue in the careless manner it has, the lives of future generations will be far less certain.

There are definite changes to our world that will have negative impacts on all life, and some of these have been well documented - for example, the rising oceans will drown out many islands and life thereon; the melting ice-caps will have a huge impact on Arctic and Antarctic life; the exposed parts of the ozone will ensure destruction of much life beneath them; and the rising of the average global temperature affects weather patterns (which we are already seeing).

Whatever the viewpoints of people are, it will be the factual, actual changes that affect us. This is what we need to concentrate on - to make a meaningful impact here. If not, it is scary to think that even our own children and grandchildren may face daunting challenges, and thereby a much reduced quality of life.

It is going to take a loooong time and grandchildrens grandchildren will probably still be working on the same problems or other problems that will have damaged the Earth.

A global climate change discussion! At last!
I agree BH, that this is a serious problem and I also agree with you Micetta that the effects of what we are doing today are not going to affect the earth to the full extent for at least 100 years.

But, I thought I'd give you guys something to research wrt global climate change (which I believe is the correct term, as "global warming" seems to create many sceptics as there are large expanses of the earth which are actually getting colder). Please google "oceanic circulatory system" when you get a chance. This is incredibly interesting. It shows what will happen to the earth if the oceans natural circulatory system collapses. Basically, the effects which should take a few 100 years will occur far quicker than predicted. An example is: if you compare the average temperature along a certain line of latitude in Europe to the average temperature along the same line in Canada, the temperatures differ by at least 10 degrees celcius. This is because the oceanic current which flows from the equator, past europe, to greenland warms europe's average temperature. So if this had to collapse, Europe would be a whole lot colder - and similarly other areas would be a whole lot hotter (not receiving the cold arctic and antarctic waters).

Another interesting thing to research is the global hotspots of the earth and how they interact. An example is the Sahara Desert and the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon relies on the dust which travels with circulatory winds from the Sahara, without which the trees would not have the needed minerals and the whole ecosystem could collapse. Now, with the increase in the number of people in the Sahara, scientists have generated "desert hybrid plants" which means that people are slowly starting to green the Sahara Desert - which will have predictable effects on the Amazon Rainforest.

So while the effects are going to be extreme, after reading this information (just google the two topics), the Earth (it seems) is ready to adapt to many of the blunders we have made (which obviously doesn't excuse them) and is a lot more resilient than we believe. Even if it means our grandchildren will be visiting the Sahara Rainforest and the Amazon Desert....

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I had to share it as it is a new approach which we should all be aware of - the complexity of the Earth is incredible!!

BF, of course your excellent contribution is not off-topic! Fascinating relationship (odd as it may seem at first glance) there between the dusty Sahara and the lush Amazon! And then there is the ocean-current saga, which has such a huge impact on life on our planet.
Thanks for sharing ...

BushFairy. Let us get some scientific facts into the discussion and leave the emotions in the corner for a moment.

The Gulf stream has always been a very important factor in european climate. It was one of the first things we were teached in 'Geografy', when I went to school. It makes northern Europe much warmer that it would be otherwise as BF explained. Why is Scotland never very cold [size=50(]and not very warm either )[/size]? The Gulf stream, coming from the Gulf of Mexico.

Weather changes have always happened ever since the Big Bang.

I agree Micetta Weather changes HAVE ALWAYS been around and life on Earth has ALWAYS adapted. But statistically, the increase in carbon means that these weather "trends" which cause global changes in weather patterns which usually occur every however many thousands of years will now occur at a more rapid rate. It is as simple as this. So, while in the past life on earth has been allowed to slowly adapt and "evolve" to the changes, the increased carbon levels mean that some of the less resillient species will perish as they are not able to adapt to changes as "quickly (hundreds of years) as other species. This is one of the main reasons why this (partly human induced) global climate change differs from previous climate change events IMO.

Not only the carbon levels but also the exaggerated tree cutting, but both can be corrected in time by man

BushFairy, we have ruined this thread with our common sense and your knowledge of the facts

I agree Micetta, as long as we start correcting both these problems asap, life on Earth will survive and so will man! But, despite what is being said... like you Micetta... I am an optimist

Interestingly a good history / travel book I am reading called "The Great North Road" by Lawrence Green relates how there was allready concern as far back as 70 yers ago for the shrinking ice and snow fields on Mount Neru and Mount Kilimanjaro .

Thanks ndloti! Very interesting! I will have to get my hands on a copy of that book - sounds facinating!!

Personally, I think you have way too much faith in human kind, but that's just my opinion.

The situation in KNP is that the elephants have reached a threshold, where if they continue to increase in numbers, they will threaten the rest of the animals in the reserve due to the destruction of habitat.

Similarly, I beleive that earth can only support x number of people under normal conditions. The problem is that more people, means more space is needed to house them, and more space is needed to grow food to support them. On the other hand, we are busy destroying the panet with our industry and pollution. We are overfishing the oceans and surely we are doing to our environment what the ellies are doing to KNP. More space for peoplr to live means less space to grow food or feed cattle which provide the bulk of our meat and leather.

Does that mean we cull humans? Not my call. Imagine what the world population might have been today if 53 million people were not killed during the 2nd WW. War is also not the answer. Only a small percentage of the population are killed. Disease is something natural, but we got too clever and learned how to combat some of them. This means more people live and there are more people to breed.

My concern is very much the fact that our current lifestyle (cars, aeroplanes and industry) is fouling up the air we breath and this is going to get us frst.)

Even if mankind has only been on the planet for a very short space of time, relatively speaking, he has done a bang-up job of being the most destructive creature on it and it's this destruction that causes me to believe that we will not be around for another 50 to 100 years at the present rate of destruction.

Do we take precendence over wildlife and the natural habitat? I don't know. I just know that we have been given dominion over the earth and the creatures in it, but given our record of behaviour, it seems we believe that we are the ultimate creature and that it's notimportant to preserve anything, just as long as we can feed the teaming millions, the poor and the destitute.

I am not trying to argue that we have more or less rights, just expressing my beliefe that we are unable to see that we are being destructive, and will continue the destruction until it's way too late. Therefore, I think that life on earth is threatened.