Sir, – As a constituent, I would like to respond to Danny Healy-Rae’s views on climate change. While Mr Healy-Rae believes that God is solely responsible for climate change, Pope Francis does not share this belief. Pope Francis has stated “most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases released mainly as a result of human activity”. He has called on Catholics around the world to take action.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global expert body appointed by the UN, in 2014 warned “human influence on the climate system is clear . . . Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia”. Furthermore, the IPCC warned that without a significant global effort to counter negative human impact on the climate, we face “substantial species extinction, [and] global and regional food insecurity”. I would encourage our otherwise excellent constituency TD to access Trócaire’s vast resources on climate change, which clearly outline the devastating impacts being felt in the developing world.
I fear that by attempting to convince the Kerry, and Irish, public that the world’s leading experts and Pope Francis are wrong on the issue of climate change, he is doing his constituents and his country a disservice. – Yours, etc,
ALAN WHELAN,
Killarney, Co Kerry.