[Forum] This letter to the editor is in reply to several letters that appeared in Coast Community News edition 230, pertaining to climate change.
There are two camps, the climate change alarmists and the climate change deniers.
Both of these extreme views do not have a solid foundation in fact.
The climate has been changing for the last 4,500 million years, so the deniers have it completely wrong, not having any basic understanding of Earth Sciences.
Alternatively, the climate change alarmists do not have a good case.
To say that the planet had heated up by 1 degree C, for example, over a very short period, defies statistical reasoning.
With the variations in temperature from place to place and from time to time, and at what distance from the surface you measure it, and over what time period you compare it, it would be hard to find any statistical significance, unless the change was much larger than the predictions from their dubious computer models.
The climate change alarmists focus their attention on emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, which is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels.
They point out that CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from about 200 ppm to 400 ppm since the Industrial Revolution and they assume that the cause is combustion of fossil fuels.
This looks huge until you observe the units.
The increase since the Industrial Revolution is 200 ppm which is 0.02 per cent.
This is a miniscule change in concentration of the atmosphere even though it has doubled in that time.
It can be conclusively shown that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Being a greenhouse gas is a necessary but insufficient condition to claim that a miniscule change of 0.02 per cent of CO2 in the atmosphere will heat the surface of the planet to any material extent.
Unless the climate alarmists can show that a miniscule increase in CO2 in the atmosphere can materially affect temperature on the surface of the planet, they do not have a case for predicting catastrophe in the short term.
In other words, the climate change alarmists cannot be taken seriously unless they can demonstrate the potency of a miniscule change in CO2 concentration.
Where is the evidence for this?
I have never seen any evidence of this.
What they are saying is just opinion without factual back up.
It is like the leap of faith you must have to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
The Europeans, who do not have a fossil fuel industry, have got on the bandwagon with great enthusiasm.
Finding cost effective genuine replacement for fossil fuels is necessary, at least in the long term, as they are a non-renewable resource, but for the time being, humanity is dependent on fossil fuels and nuclear.
Email, Feb 27
Charles Hemmings, Woy Woy