Broken/Special:Badtitle/NS100:JamesMoore/Fewer babies less CO2

On Monday the 3rd December 2012 I came across an article in the Metro, the UK's most popular free newspaper with a distribution of 1.3 million copies per day (all buses and train stations dish them out every weekday morning, so commuters are the usual type of readership). The article was called Greenhouse gases peak but 'nobody is listening' and it stated that we are on track for a 6°C (11°F) rise, in presumably global average temperature, by the year 2100 unless there is a radical plan to cut emissions soon.

I haven't done a satisfactory amount of research into the impact of a 6°C rise upon Earth's ecosystem and civilisations but there are indications that it could possibly result in the melting of all polar icecaps and permafrost, the latter of which contains a very large amount of methane that is 20 times more powerful in heating our atmosphere than is CO2. That sounds pretty bad to me.

There is a documentary about the effects of a 6°C rise called Six Degrees Could Change The World. Have you seen it and what is your opinion about it and about the effects of a 6 degree rise? It has some interesting facts such as 6 degrees is the temperature difference between the last ice age and now. During the last ice age there was a glacier 1 mile thick covering much of the UK. Its obviously gone now so think about that 1 mile thick glacier being melted by a 6 degree shift upwards and imagine what another 6 degree rise from now to the year 2100 could cause.

Anyway I was passionate enough to write to the newspaper about the only feasible solution to the climate change problem: birth control.

My e-mail letter appeared in the next days edition of the newspaper albeit somewhat shortened. On the subsequent 2 days there were several responses which I found quite interesting. You can read them all by clicking the links below. I think you'll see that some people do have their heads stuck on the correct way but I'm still not sure whether we'll have enough collective sense to avoid the worst-case scenario of primeval type weather systems and dare I say it, a man-made mass extinction event.

• Article that gave me passion: File:Greenhouse gas at peak but nobody listening.pdf
• My e-mail letter: File:Fewer babies less co2.pdf
• The first set of responses to my letter: File:Fewer babies less co2 response1.pdf
• The second set of responses to my letter: File:Fewer babies less co2 response2.pdf