Climate chaos

TOM Ballantine expresses his outrage that anybody might think he financially benefits from denouncing catastrophic global warming (aka climate change, aka climate chaos) on the grounds that “I receive no remuneration from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland” (Letters, 6 September).

I would have been much more impressed if Mr Ballantine had been able to say who does pay him and if his position as head of SCCS is career enhancing or not. I have not found any senior member of the “environmental” community who is not ultimately paid out of our taxes.

He gives, as his sole reason for supporting the claim that we are experiencing catastrophic warming (or whatever) the assertion that “97 per cent of climate scientists” accept it, but we will have to disagree on whether this is sufficient to prove it.

I challenge him to name a single one of those “scientists”, or indeed a single scientist, anywhere in the world who supports catastrophe claims and is not paid by the state.

I have asked tens of thousands of alarmists, worldwide (including [Scottish Green Party leader] Patrick Harvie on air), but not one has been able to present a name, who did not turn out either to be a supporter of alarmism or to be paid from taxes.

HL Mencken once opined: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

The fact that nobody has been able to cite a single independent scientist who supports warming alarmism strongly suggests it is such a hobgoblin.

But perhaps Mr Ballantine will be able to provide a name.

Neil Craig

Woodlands Road

Glasgow

PERHAPS Tom Ballantine (Letters, 6 September) of Stop Climate Chaos could tell us two things?

Firstly, could he share with us the source of his claim that 97 per cent of climate experts assert that abnormal climate change is likely to be man-made, or is this another of his numbers drawn out of his hat?

Secondly, could he tell us precisely how his organisation is going to “Stop Climate Chaos in Scotland” as its name implies it will do?

GM Lindsay

Whinfield Gardens

Kinross

TOM Ballantine’s assertion (Letters, 6 September) that he bases his position on the views of 97 per cent of climate experts puts me in mind of Albert Einstein’s reply, when he heard that many leading German scientists had denounced relativity – “If I was wrong, one would have sufficed.”

Otto Inglis

Inveralmond Grove

Cramond

Edinburgh

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