Climate change
Dear Sir,
Once again Ray Fleming displays his ignorance on matters scientific (I have suggested in the past that he should stick to matters on which he is knowledgeable and leave scientific matters to others).
Alas, it appears that my remarks have gone unheeded.
His latest howler occurs in his Viewpoint piece in today’s Daily Bulletin.
I quote its last sentence: “The only positive outcome so far is that the reality of climate change and its effects will not be disputed so readily in future”.
No-one with a modicum of scientific knowledge has ever disputed the reality of climate change.
How could they when the Earth was in the depth of an ice age as recently as 350 years ago - a period in which the River Thames regularly froze over bank-to-bank - and when, 350 years before that, temperatures were markedly higher than in the recent past.
The plain fact of the matter is that Earth’s climate has always been subject to change and always will be.
Ray confuses “climate change” with “human-caused climate change”.
The only dispute, such as it is, is whether or not these changes are caused by current emissions of carbon dioxide.
Since atmospheric concentrations of that gas have, in the geological past, been up to 20 times higher than they are now with no discernible effect on temperature, it seems unlikely - to put it mildly - that carbon dioxide has any role in current climate changes.
G B M Oliver. B.Sc., C.Eng., M.I.C.E.