REFERRING to your Midweek front page 'Roasting in Risborough' headline about global warming dated March 6, I appreciate that Cllr Chris Oliver of Risborough is very likely a public spirited and intelligent person who no doubt is blessed with a haughty sense of humour.

Has the councillor however considered the consequences of climate change as dramatic as those forecast by the former BBC weatherman Bill Giles? Mr Giles uses the expression "untold damage" in his description of changing weather patterns.

I cannot help thinking that the comments such as "it would be excellent, and, I wouldn't have to go on holiday again" made by Cllr Oliver both trivialises a serious comment by Mr Giles but also underlines mankind's lack of foresight for both environmental and humanitarian issues.

Perhaps Cllr Oliver has not got any children and does not look forward to any grandchildren enjoying the relative freedom and beauty of the magnificent Chiltern countryside or indeed the beauty and diversity of the British Isles as a whole.

It does not take a great deal of imagination to envisage a barren landscape bereft of our characteristic beechwoods and with the diversity of native species in serious decline. With the complexity of the ecosystems within which we live (and we do live in and depend upon them) even a small change in an area's flora can have an irreversible "knock-on" effect.

Cllr Oliver may not have noticed the unusual weather of the last 20 plus years and may be unaffected by the recent flooding which many scientists attribute to global warming, but if the current trends continue the councillor's grandchildren, apart from the wholesale change in landscape, can also look forward to the joys of having to import a lot of produce which is taken for granted in Britain at the moment.

I am sure we will all be having such a great time in our new warmer climate to even notice that most of our species of bird no longer sing in the trees and hedgerows or that the said flora may even be replaced by rows of citrus fruit trees.

I'm sure we won't notice that there are malaria carrying mosquitoes in our back gardens either. Have a happy holiday councillor.

Michael Clifford, Eaton Avenue, High Wycombe