The Adriatic Sea washes into St. Marks Basilica,

it's marble columns which once symbolised Venetian power

for a millennium are crumbling away.

The outback towns of Boggabilia and Goondiwindi could be soon

abandoned as river systems face collapse.

The scale and intensity of bush fires are no longer a seasonal event.

Cities are being engulfed in toxic smoke haze as bush fires rage on for weeks at a time. Some of Sydney’s beaches are becoming clogged with black ash that laps the shore.

Even the Florida Everglades are drying out.

The Larsen B ice shelf in the Antarctic is expected to disintegrate next year

adding further to sea level rises.

Already eight islands in the Pacific Ocean have disappeared and large coastal communities

are under imminent threat.

And yet, we still bury our heads in the sand continuing to feed our rapacious appetites for

burning coal with no inclination to curb our relentless consumerism of goods that we don't

really need, many of which we will eventually discard, adding to an ever increasing detritus, much of which is ecologically harmful.

We may well have already passed the point of any recovery to save our ailing planet

which has existed for over 4 billion years.

Mankind might just succeed in making it completely uninhabitable, though  not in our

life times, which in a perverse way supports our denial.

Not heeding the warning from climatologists and scientists will ultimately be at our own peril.

Our ' getting and spending ' has to change, we have to start taking care of something much more important than our selves if life on this planet is to be sustained.