Goodbye, coral reefs?

After reading this piece about the likely disapearance of the coral reefs last night, I felt compelled to write to my British MP..

Dear MP,

I am writing about climate change and peak oil. I am currently studying something called "Permaculture" in Ireland.

Last night I read a piece about how the Coral Reefs are most likely doomed. Combined with the projection that African Elephants might be extinct in 10 years, the decline of polar bears, and hundreds and thousands of other species extinctions that don't make the headlines, I found this piece incredibly distressing.

After having a rather bad night's sleep, I came upon the analogy this morning of sitting and having breakfast, pondering what the weather might be like on the weekend, while my house burned down.

The recession is not my house burning down. It is a pay cut, a loss of job, a change of circumstance. Climate change is something rather more severe. And we - you, me, all the MPs, most of the population in general - don't appear to be getting it. Because the supermarkets still have food, we don't have to worry about it.

But we DO have to worry about it. The course textbook for my Permaculture course is called "The Earth Care Manual" by Patrick Whitefield, and at the start of it he shows a couple of pie charts linking our environmental impacts with the things we do. He suggests that food consumption is something like 30-35% of our impact - if you include fertiliser, transport and so on. I have heard that for every calorie of energy we get from eating food, 10 are used to grow, harvest and transport it.

The fact that "globalisation" means we both export and import large amounts of beef, lamb, pork and so on is reprehensible. And the thing is, it is probably also suicidal.

Yesterday afternoon I walked out of town across a bridge on the Bandon river, and was lucky enough to see a couple of otters - one had just caught a fish and was eating it. I stood for a long time looking at the water, even after they had disappeared from view.

I continued on my journey, the purpose of which was to forage for food - sea beet, alexanders, sorrel, horseradish - and, after collecting what became today's lunch, sat and watched the sea for a time.

It was beautiful. And we are all making a terrible mess, for... the opportunity to drive to work. To buy mangoes. And strawberries, out of season.

It doesn't matter - none of that matters. I feel so sad, and I realise I am just one person, with one view that is one of many. I appreciate the fact you drive a hybrid car. But it isn't enough. In my opinion.

I want my children to be able to see otters, to eat healthy fresh locally grown food, to breathe clean air. And I am terribly afraid they won't be able to.

Yours sincerely,

David Evans