A Green Inheritance

One of the most distressing things about climate change is its momentum. Much of the greenhouse gas we emit today will go on affecting our planet for centuries. Molecules of carbon dioxide from today’s shopping trip or journey to work will still be knocking about in the atmosphere when our grandchildren’s grandchildren first emerge into the warmer world of the 22nd century. To use a deliberately ironic metaphor, the effect of all the greenhouse gas we are adding to the atmosphere, day in, day out, is like never-ending snowfall at the top of a glacier. The more snow that falls, the bigger the glacier gets and the more far-reaching its impacts. So every kilogram of carbon dioxide, every extra jet flight or office light, is another flurry to join the world-changing glacier of global warming. The big difference, of course, is that most of the world’s real glaciers are shrinking precisely because our greenhouse ‘glacier’ is growing.