Morefloods, more droughts, food and water shortages and disease. Such is the grim forecast provided by the latest report from the Inter govern mental Panel on Climate Change.
Evidence is mounting that climate change is under way, with scientific studies finding the signs in the real world and computer models making predictions. The IPCC report gets a bit shrill at times and the weakness of the predictions is clear given the variability in the numbers offered. For example, world average annual temperature rise by the end of this century varies between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees centigrade. Sea level rise ranges from 30 centimetres to well over a metre.
Haggling over these numbers, however, is as pointless as counting deckchairs on the Titanic. The trends are clear.
The shrillness of the report is to a degree understandable given that the IPCC is attempting to win international governments to the cause of slowing down climate change by direct action. Climate change is being brought on by global warming which in turn seems definitively linked to an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The gas acts like a blanket, trapping in the warmth created when sunlight strikes the Earth.
Here lies the problem for the IPCC and any body that advocated a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. The gas comes from burning fuel, the energy we use every day to heat homes and businesses, power cars and make our lifestyles comfortable. We might all be for the planet, but won't readily give up our cars and central heating.
Energy consumption is the driver for economic development and wealth. We in the industrialised world have arrived, but developing countries also strive for improvements. They too want a betterment of lifestyles that would mean more energy burned and more carbon dioxide released.
We can hardly say to these countries to abandon hope of a better future when we are unwilling to give up our comforts. And so the IGCC and other bodies must frighten and bully us all into changing the way we do business, encouraging us to reduce consumption as a way to reduce carbon dioxide.
These exhortations could have some impact in time or perhaps scientists will come up with some kind of "fix" that gives us cheap, safe power without the environmental consequences. But in the meantime climate change is rolling and we have to learn to live with its consequences.
Effort should be going into coming up with ways of coping with climate change. Governments should be making plans and preparing for the difficulties that will arise in agriculture, with clean water and sanitation and with the particular risks facing coasts and ports.
Our Government is doing little to prepare in this sense. We will likely fail to meet carbon dioxide reduction requirements set by Kyoto. If we aren't putting muscle behind the preventative measures we shouldn't be surprised the Government isn't investing in preparative measures.
How the Government performs now could mean the difference between the maintenance of at least some of the comforts we enjoy and an alternative impoverishment brought on by damage to our infrastructure, to agriculture and other means of production.
It is not good enough to hide behind claims that we don't know how things will go so we have to wait before doing anything. There are facts related to climate change that are already here. Sea levels will rise, brought on by melting ice, by thermal expansion as the water warms and storm surges brought by more violent weather.
The processes are under way. South American and Africa will have few or no mountain ice caps and glaciers within 15 years, according to the latest research. Europe's ice may disappear sooner.
We should be thinking about contingency plans for ports and coastal cities. What do we do about clean water and sanitation? How much will it cost?
Even if money is not spent on infrastructure, money should be spent on how we are to cope if even the least frightening scenario comes true. We will then have to hope we aren't visited by the worst-case scenario.
Frank McNally adds: A dramatic rise in the temperature of the North Atlantic could "switch off" an oceanic heat distribution system, causing "catastrophic" climate change, according a Trinity College Dublin academic.
Mr Pete Coxon, a senior lecturer in geography, said that without the "global heat conveyor," of which the Gulf Stream forms part Ireland would be an average seven degrees colder, making the climate more like Alaska's.
The conveyor moderates global climate by distributing tropical warmth towards the poles, but rising temperatures in the North Atlantic could switch the system off, as happened at the time of the last ice age, 11,000 calendar years ago.