The polluted centre of London taken together with a mean temperature 3 degrees C warmer than the UK average, should ordain an ecosystem that has long collapsed. This would be a reasonable conclusion based on Mary Colwell’s article “Creation in Peril” (The Tablet, 11 October 2014).
Quite to the contrary, the honey bee, that bellwether of environmental health, is flourishing. A former prominent bee-keeper in the London area told me recently of honey yields up to ten times more than normal.
Satellite records stretch back to 1979 and confirm increasing levels of leaf cover as the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere climbs upwards. At the same time the monitoring stations show an increasing intensity in the annual cycle of the peaks and troughs of carbon dioxide concentration. The surge of photosynthetic absorption of spring/summer is mainly replaced by emission in the cooler seasons as the plants consume some part of their developed carbohydrate energy stocks. This intensifying cycle has been likened to the planet breathing more deeply. Almost all surface life depends on captured photosynthetic energy for its existence and we can see the supply increasing. Of course there are some downsides to higher carbon dioxide levels, but it is certainly not all bad.
Dr Michael Hughes, Newbury
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