Pack your bags, we're all going to the planet Titan, the only place handy out there for the support of human life. The only thing is, you'll have to bring some containers of water, methane and cylinders of oxygen to keep you going until Titan develops an atmosphere.! Well, while this may be amusing speculation, we are faced with the unpalatable facts that indicate climate change this winter. March 1997 brough threats of water shortage, we had floods in August and just now as Christmas approaches, we are suffering serious flooding of roads and farmland as well as unprecedented mildness. 'Kyoto One' has just commenced, that is a conference of a great number of nations being held in Japan, to discuss and decide on strategies for the well being of the Earth; to keep it habitable for future generations. As we continue to burn more and more fossil fuels, we are producing more and more carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a colourless, odourless gas which is not toxic (except in very dense amounts), but it does have the property of letting sunshine pass through it, while not permitting reflected heat from the earth's surface to pass outward . This means that it acts as a blanket keeping the heat from the earth's surface inside it.

Meanwhile, we continue to use oil as if future generations were not important, at the same time as we mess up the atmosphere. If the planet becomes 1.4 degrees warmer, the snow and ice on the poles of the earth will gradually begin to melt and vast areas of land in low lying countries will become flooded and uninhabitable, displacing some 300 million people: but that is a worst case scenario that might take place over a century. Most accurate predictions of a rise in sea level are of the order of 3mm. per annum.

At present in our area, along Sandymount strand, there is suspected evidence of climate shift. The migratory wildfowl, swans and geese are late in their winter arrival. Those that have arrived have come in very small numbers, with groups of about twenty instead of the aggregate flock of around three hundred Brent Geese. So far on Merrion Strand other species of birds are greatly down in number, among them red-shank and sanderling.

Biologists regard the presence or absence of birds as an important indicator of the good health of humans. Let us hope that all this flooding and warm weather is just a blip in our weather system, and not the beginning of some more drastic change.