I AM deeply alarmed at the news that many British service people and reservists in the Gulf are unwilling to submit themselves to inoculations. In particular, they are reluctant to undergo simultaneous vaccination against anthrax and smallpox.
Lewis Moonie, the junior defence minister, had told me last year that these injections would be spaced out. In the current haste to prepare for war it seems that this is no longer the case. I understand something of their reluctance as I remember well the precarious medical condition of several service people who fought in the last Gulf war. They had gone to Kuwait in 1991 fit as a fiddle only to return home some months later to gradual debilitating illness. They had all been inoculated with a concoction against both anthrax and smallpox.
Clearly there can sometimes be a risk in having an injection, but there could be an even greater risk if they are not vaccinated and war breaks out in the Gulf. I am told that the smallpox and anthrax vaccinations are compulsory in the US armed forces, but they are voluntary for the British armed forces. So British service people have to decide for themselves whether to have the vaccinations or not, and there鈥檚 the rub. How do they do that?
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THIS magazine鈥檚 special issue on mountains included a particularly noteworthy contribution to the arcane topic of just how fragile mountain ecosystems can be (2 November 2002, p 30). In the past, too little attention has been given to mountains in this respect, perhaps on the grounds that they seem big enough to look after themselves and the habitats they offer. In reality, mountain ecosystems are among the most sensitive to climate change. It is right, therefore, that the seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in March 2004, is earmarking mountain biological diversity for in-depth consideration.
The really critical issue will be the impact of climate change on mountain ecosystems. The Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2001, emphasised that climatic warming in Arctic and alpine ecosystems could be between 4 掳C and 10 掳C by the end of the 21st century. One shudders at the prospect of the climate extremes that this could cause: shortened snowmelt seasons, with the rapidly released water creating floods and then droughts later in the growing season. Biologists in Scotland fear that several mountain species, such as the mountain ringlet butterfly, could lose suitable climate space in 20 years鈥� time.
I asked Elliot Morley, the junior environment minister with responsibility for floods and forestry, what the government is doing to counter such problems. Morley replied that Britain is on course to achieving its Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 12.5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. This is thanks to Britain鈥檚 climate change programme, which sets out a flexible and cost-effective action plan to reduce emissions.
Britain and the other member states of the European Union simultaneously ratified the Kyoto Protocol on 31 May 2002, and together they are urging their international partners to follow suit and ratify the protocol as soon as possible. 鈥淏ritain is also working to engage with its international partners on the further action that must be taken to tackle climate change,鈥� added Morley.
Clearly, this government is not for copping out on its responsibilities for getting greenhouse gas emissions under control, even if others are.
