WE are living in a beautiful world where for at least 10,000 years the climate has been relatively stable, making our planet habitable. That state, however, is starting to change.

This is caused by the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, much of it man-made.

We are starting to experience droughts, heatwaves, floods, rising sea levels and people migrating to more liveable places, things we will see a lot more of in the future as the impact of climate change gathers pace.

The human actions which we can take to reduce global warming have been well documented in these articles over the past few years, but the already rising temperatures are making our actions even more vital as we see climate change accelerate.

As climate change continues, the northern latitudes are warming the most. This means that ice is melting faster in these regions than ever before. Once ice is lost, the soils beneath start to lose the carbon they have been storing for thousands of years. This is happening now.

The wildfires that we see across the world have all increased because of climate change and these emit further amounts of carbon into the atmosphere as well as reducing the amount of tree cover that can capture carbon. As the planet continues to warm, this is going to become an ever-increasing problem.

Areas of tree cover and grassland (and moorland areas as in Cornwall) are going to be even more susceptible to these devastating fires. Although many of the fires have human causes (such as the irresponsible use of disposable barbecues), others are completely out of our control.

All we can do is to try our utmost to reduce our share of the greenhouse gases – and encourage others to do the same – as soon as we can!