Students from University College Falmouth have this week produced a fictional edition of the Packet looking at what life might be like in 50 years if little or nothing is done to stop climate change.

The issue, which can be seen by clicking onto the link below, is a warning to everyone that something has to be done if future generations are to have a world to live in.

You can place your comments to the special edition below.

Helping to co-ordinate the supplement was Paul Sullivan, the College's Business Fellow in Professional Writing and a former broadsheet journalist.

"The supplement is timed to coincide with a Climate Awareness Day at the Combined Universities in Cornwall campus. The fact that it's been printed and distributed by a well-respected local paper helps to promote awareness in the wider community as well," he said.

Tom Scott, who lectures on the college's MA Professional Writing course, said that producing the supplement had involved some tricky questions of editorial judgement. "How do you bring home the grim reality of what scientists are saying about climate change without alienating your audience - but at the same time without turning the whole thing into a joke? I think the students have risen to the challenge with great flair, coming up with solidly researched stories that illustrate the likely impacts on people's lives.

"They've had to think hard about the big picture in order to create a convincing global scenario, but they've also added an element of humour, which comes from identifying familiar themes from today's local news and transposing these into the future."

One story featured Falmouth residents' complaints about boy-racers on hydrogen-powered scooters causing havoc around Falmouth (just like their petrol-driven counterparts of fifty years earlier). Another revealed plans for a new, Eden-like domes attraction, designed to give overheating tourists a taste of how the English seasons used to be before global warming.

It quotes a local council officer explaining that Cornwall's coastline is disappearing as a result of rising sea-levels, and that there is hence a need for the tourism sector to "think beyond the beach".

In the insert's Letters section, an elderly correspondent complains that it is not fair for youngsters to dismiss the older generation as selfish and irresponsible wasters who allowed the world to go to ruin, and details some of the positive actions that were taken to address the danger of global warming - albeit too little and too late.

"We had a lot of fun working on this project, which stretched our imaginations as well as calling for some serious research," said Professional Writing student David Bate. "But we hope that it will make readers think about the direction in which the world - and this small part of it - is heading. The real message that we were trying to get over is that nowhere will be immune from the consequences of runaway climate change, and that the future depends on people's actions now."