Hot and bothered by climate change

Published on Saturday 5 December 2009 18:52

NO WONDER only 41 per cent of adults in the UK accept that man-made global warming is taking place ("Too hot to handle", 29 November) when Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change comes out with even worse nonsense than that put out by government before the Copenhagen conference ("Warming will wipe out billions", 29 November). As one of the 59 per cent who are "sceptics", I consider unproven pronouncements of this nature to be

Peter Fitch, Elgin

YOUR claim that the cocktail of gases in the atmosphere acts like the glass in a greenhouse ('Too hot to handle', 29 November) is incorrect.

A greenhouse warms because the sun heats the ground in the greenhouse and hence the air above it. This air is then trapped inside the greenhouse. But global warming is caused by a different mechanism.

The Sun's radiation, mostly at short wavelengths because of the high temperature of the Sun, warms the Earth's surface. But the surface of the Earth, being at a lower temperature, radiates at longer wavelengths and much of this energy is absorbed by gases such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, so warming the atmosphere. In turn these gases radiate some of the energy back to the surface and some out into space.

This process has been responsible for keeping the surface of the Earth habitable, 33C higher than if we had no atmosphere.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

WE SHOULD ban politicians and scientists from climate change debate, and instead pick people at random from the streets. The latest hysterical fear of mankind being virtually wiped out is ridiculous scaremongering. In any case, population growth is a major factor in the situation.

Computer models are extremely suspect and open to pre-programming to produce a desired response. In any case, how is it possible to predict long-range weather, which is constantly varying?

However, the past provides verifiable fact, and historical observation shows that increased carbon dioxide production actually follows periods of warming, not the other way round.

Gordon Brown now proposes spending billions on sea defences in places like Bangladesh (to counter crazed Al Gore's predicted 20 feet increase?) yet there is massive ongoing sea level building in Edinburgh.

The one certainty is that the Copenhagen conference will result in another extended deadline for action.

Robert Dow, Tranent