IN recent months, wildfires in Canada have severely affected parts of the United States, blanketing cities in smog that significantly reduced visibility and particularly affecting persons with lung and breathing difficulties.

Wildfires have also wreaked havoc in several parts of Greece, including the island of Rhodes, causing tourists and residents alike to flee, fearing for their lives and later in the Hawaiian island of Maui, where over 100 people died.

The total cost of this level of destruction is immeasurable and multi-pronged – ecological, economic/financial and, not so obvious, psychological. For wildfires have, over the years, destroyed millions of acres of land, killing everything in their path – plant and animal life, trees and birds and levelling houses and businesses.

In places like California, precious grape vines, many carefully cultivated and tended over generations, were reduced to ashes in an instant. Householders rearing livestock scrambled to save their animals and entire livestock regions in Australia were decimated by wildfires which raged out of control for months.

The cost to the states and nations affected is still being calculated, inclusive of disruption of electricity and water supplies and their subsequent restoration.

The toll on firefighting equipment, including helicopters and small planes, man hours and the tragic loss of life in the civilian and firefighting communities has led to anxiety and stress for the survivors, while the authorities and homeowners have been faced with the mammoth task of rebuilding.

And there are ‘hidden’ costs, which may be minimal initially but which, over time, amount to a considerable sum.

All of this has given rise to the clarion cry of global warming, though there is a scientific school of thought which claims that the atmosphere is actually getting cooler. Of course this is dismissed as a conspiracy theory, while the mainstream is vocal in laying the blame for our radical and often sudden changes in global temperature at the ‘feet’ of climate change caused primarily by the human use of fossil fuels.

Indeed the United Nations defines climate change as “…long term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns”, while acknowledging that “such shifts can result from the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions”. The burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal are however considered to be “the main driver” since the 19th century.

Experts explain that burning fossil fuel generates greenhouse gas emissions that act as a “blanket wrapped around the earth trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures”.

The main greenhouses gases causing the change are methane and carbon dioxide – the latter mainly from agriculture, oil and gas operations and the former from clearing and cutting down forests and gasoline driven cars and coal used for heating.

Hence the energy industry, transport, buildings agriculture and land use are “among the main sectors causing greenhouse gases.”

Scientists put the blame for global warming firmly on humans, who, by the generation of greenhouse gases are causing the world to heat faster” than at any time in at least the last two thousand years.”

In an alarming report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says, “Many of the changes are unprecedented in thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes set in motion – such as continued sea-level rise – are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years”.

In its 2023 Synthesis Report the IPCC observed that “Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-usage change, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and consumption and production across regions, between and within countries and among individuals (high confidence).”

The Panel also noted “widespread and rapid changes” in the ocean, atmosphere, biosphere and cryosphere”, stating that human-caused climate change is now affecting many climate and weather extremes across the globe.

And in a forceful statement on CNN, Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, said that wealthy countries and corporations, who have contributed to the climate crisis must do their part to address its very grave global consequences.

Ms Mottley did not ‘pull her punches’ when she blamed the developed world for its part in causing global warming, urging that we have to make this planet livable and quipping that she did not see any plans for us to occupy Mars.

In response to a question from interviewer, Fareed Zakaria, on whether we were taking the right steps, she said, “I do think we’re moving in the right direction, but I don’t think we’re moving with the pace or with the scope that’s necessary”.

The formidable Barbadian Premier called for the formation of a coalition of concerned parties to provide the very substantial funding to bring about effective and immediate climate change.