Sir, – I have just finished reading Denis McClean’s interesting article about the loss of glacier volume in the Swiss Alps (“I saw Switzerland’s Alpine treasures melting away. It was a sobering experience”, An Irish Diary, October 2nd).
He describes the Swiss glaciers as “the squawking chicken in the coal mine of climate change”, indicating the impending disaster. I cannot dispute this but I think he has got the wrong bird.
My understanding is that it was a canary that was brought into a mine to indicate possible disaster and when disaster struck the bird did not squawk but succumbed to the effects of the mine gas. – Yours, etc,
TONY GREANY,
RM Block
Mornington,
Co Meath.
