THE Uninhabitable Earth is a book by American David Wallace-Wells, and it should be essential reading, particularly for us older ones as we destroy the planet for all our youngsters.

While he stresses the extremes of our climate abuse the outcome in any event means that we are in deep trouble. He reckons the evidence suggests the following:

We’re close to the two degree temperature rise that will speed up the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, raising sea level by many feet.

By the end of the century the atmosphere will contain 500 parts per million of CO2, rather than below the required 350. It’s over 10 million years since it was that figure, and then temperature rose by five degrees and sea level by more than 100 feet.

Even a two degree rise over means half a billion people will suffer water shortages, and the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands.

At three degrees southern Europe and North Africa would be in permanent drought and ravaged by fires while many areas, such as India, Bangladesh and the UK will have record river flooding beyond anything we have experienced to date.

The frozen ground, the permafrost, nearer to the Arctic, up to a fifth of the landmass area, has started to melt releasing increasing amounts of methane so warming the climate even faster than the CO2 it later becomes.

By the end of the century the Arctic will have released over a hundred billion tons of climate warming gases, the equivalent of half the carbon we have been responsible for since industrialisation began.

The increasing warmth means that mosquito transmitted Malaria and the tick spread Lyme disease are now common in Europe and the United States despite being almost unknown just 20 years ago in 1999.

Despite the 2015 Paris agreement to stabilise extra emissions at two degrees only a few countries, like Gambia, Morocco, Bhutan and Costa Rica are anywhere close. Indeed in 2017 carbon emissions grew by over one and a half per cent and are still on the increase.

The future depends on me and you.