Fred Pearce:

I'm currently working my way through With Speed and Violence. It makes for unsettling reading.

My interest in climate change has grown as a result of being a parent. I'm concerned about the world we'll be leaving for our children. The book discusses various climate tipping points - irreversible events where the climate may spiral out of control - it appears there are potentially plenty. One of which, a rapidly moving glacier, has appeared in the news recently, described as the soft underbelly of the antarctic.

My concern is our lack of knowledge. Scientists can only speculate and make reasoned judgements as to what will happen. Some events have some more obvious consequences - an area of ice the size of France being dumped into the southern ocean raising sea levels above New York. Yep, I get that one. However, in many cases, we can only speculate... What would be the effect of shutting down the Atlantic current, for instance, and what would it take to shut it down in the first place?

My point is, do we really want to gamble with this? We don't have an alternative planet to move to if we lose.

A growing admiration for Mr de Boer:

Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said in a telephone interview with Reuters that 2050 emission targets would be an easy way for politicians to push the hard work of cutting emissions into the future because most of them would be dead by then.

Seems like a perfectly valid point to me. However, I would be more inclined to believe that most politicians only think about 5 or 10 years in advance, depending upon their potential term in office. Frankly, leaving the decision to do something about the future state of the planet to individuals who exist for short-term gain, seems a tad foolhardy.