Points of view

Catastrophe Professor Sir David King, the government's chief science adviser, is right to predict there is a looming crisis for us all because of global warming (your report, 15 April).

Andrew Morton

Dollar, Clackmannanshire

Antarctica Professor Sir David King's claim that global warming may lead to a catastrophic three-degree increase, was described by the BBC as his "strongest ever warning". However, he announced two years ago that global warming was so catastrophic that it was going to make Antarctica "the only habitable continent" by 2100. Presumably that warning, like so many "environmentalist" warnings, is retroactively non-existent.

Neil Craig

Glasgow

Wild The wild claims about future temperatures by Professor Sir David King are nothing more than assertions based on the output from assumption-laden computer programmes. Those programmes cannot "hindcast" the last 40 years, so clearly there is something very wrong with them.

John McLean

Croydon, Victoria, Australia

Unsafe In reply to Ostap Melnik (Letters, 13 April), temperature increases have been measured since the start of the industrial revolution, which is why the scientific consensus is one of urgent remedial action. The nuclear power cycle emits 75 per cent of the of a coal-fired station. It is not safe, sustainable, clean or cheap, so why consider it?

John Rogerson

Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire

Politicians Mike Haseler (Letters, 14 April) is right; we need a check on politicians, but what happens when they leave office? With their experience and connections, they will be invaluable to the business world. They took the country to war at taxpayers' expense, yet will be able to reap personal benefit when they accept directorships of multinationals. That is the real world; democracies cannot control it but tend to nurture it.

Nick Aitken

Kingussie, Inverness-shire