A LOT'S happened since I started writing this column ten years ago.

The world population was barely over six billion then and now it’s well past seven billion. That's 80 million extra every year – so another 'Germany' every twelve months.

Total world vehicles have increased from 800 million in 2007 to 1,300 million now, and by 2020 will number 1,500 million. Most still use CO2 producing fossil fuel.

Air travel is increasing at five percent annually and so doubles every fourteen years. Unfortunately there's no alternative to fossil fuels for flying, and the resulting emissions aren't counted in national figures.

Cutting down forests is still happening, and in the last decade it’s been another one per cent a year, a half million square kilometers in total – that's forty times bigger than Yorkshire, our largest county. So less CO2 is trapped and it isn't helped by more forest fires.

Globally the fire season is now weeks longer, and since 2,000 the fires have been fiercer in the USA, Russia, Australia and Indonesia. In the latter the damage is twice the cost of the 2004 tsunami, and for weeks these fires produce more CO2 than the whole of the USA.

Since 2005 the temperature has increased half a degree so more ice has melted and sea water has expanded leading to higher sea levels. The rate, now four millimetres per year, is increasing.

Record droughts have occurred in every continent leading to food shortages, the movement of desperate people, and often local warfare.

None of this is surprising as all these changes result from a continuing rise in atmospheric gases that increase temperatures. In this short period CO2 has increased from 384 ppm to 404, and methane is now adding over 10 parts per billion annually, to reach over 1800.

Surely that’s enough warming warning.