THE TIMES: Climate change survival and energy policy

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Sir, Your leading article (“Making the Weather”, July 28) contained some surprising statements. Human beings 50 million years ago did not survive temperatures ten degrees warmer than at present — modern humans originated less than a million years ago. When the UK was four degrees colder 22,000 years ago, humanity did exist but the UK was uninhabited for reasons of temperature: this is one way to cope but perhaps not the one the article was implying.

We should not underplay the risks of global warming. Adopting a new dress code might make people more comfortable but it will not buy us time in regard to the world’s future food supply, securing water resources for London, protecting against an 80cm rise in sea level rise this century (with more later), the potential for higher-temperature diseases such as malaria returning to Europe, or climate refugees.

Comfort is not a defence. It is fiddling while the world burns.
Professor Albert Zijlstra
University of Manchester