A chara, – Mary Phelan (August 12th) provides us with a typical example of the speculative reasoning employed by the climate change lobby. To attribute the recent extreme weather events seen in various parts of our planet to anthropogenic factors is moot. Such freak occurrences have always been, and always will be with us.
Would she care to explain the record snowfalls observed in 2008 in places as far-flung as Texas, Tibet, Iran and Greece? Of course, these episodes were largely ignored by the media, which Ms Phelan has the effrontery to disparage. The reality is that the mainstream media has always enthusiastically embraced the theory of man-made global warming, ever since the foundation of the IPCC over two decades ago.
Her letter warns that our present economic woes will be dwarfed by the coming “environmental meltdown”. Ironically, this is almost correct. However, the real meltdown is occurring not in our climatic phenomena, but in our parliamentary institutions.
What society needs to understand is the fact that, if Western governments fulfil their promises to slash carbon dioxide emissions, this will be tantamount to economic suicide. The door will then be left open for up-and-coming powers such as China and India who, tellingly, remain somewhat less obsequious to the bullying tactics of global warming alarmists. – Is mise,
Dr GARETH P KEELEY,
Department of Chemistry,
Université Joseph Fourier,
Rue de la Chimie,
Grenoble, France.