There's nothing wrong in being 'flat Earther'

MESSRS Brown and Miliband intended to insult climate sceptics when they called them "flat Earthers" (your report, 5 December). But is this really such an insult? In everyday life, do we all not see the earth as flat? We trust the evidence of our own eyes and seem to manage quite well without imagining the earth to be "round". True, some, such as sailors and airmen, have to accept the "oblate-spheroidal model" in order to navigate economically, but they are a ver

If Messrs Brown and Miliband really want to insult the intelligence of the public, they should accuse them of being so simple-minded as to believe some of the fanciful ideas they themselves hawk around – including that man-made global warming, melting ice caps and rising seas are about to inundate us all.

At least there is a simple solution to this global warming thing. As is to be arranged by Messrs Brown, Miliband and other politicians in Copenhagen, tax payers in the once-rich countries are to be forced to pay largesse on a lavish scale to the emerging countries of the Third World. I am sure that the recipients, the majority at Copenhagen, will welcome the cash and will sign anything to get their hands on it. Of course, the official rhetoric is that these measures really will control the climate of the entire earth and even stop all the seas rising.

Surely, in Copenhagen, they have heard the legend of that great Viking King Cnut?

(PROF) FENTON F ROBB

North Street

Eyemouth, Berwickshire

Gordon Cochrane (Letters, 8 December) refers to the need for "an independent, open review" on climate change and states "the issue hasn't been properly debated". I am not sure where he has been in recent decades, but the issue has been debated exhaustively. As I understand it, 84 per cent of scientists accept the earth is warming because of human activity (Pew Research Centre Survey). The UN reviewed the research through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its 2007 report concluded the world was definitely warming. The IPCC panel had 450 lead authors, 800 contributing authors and 2,500 scientific expert reviewers. It advised there was a 90 per cent degree of certainty that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are likely to be the cause of climate change.

The rational course is to respect the IPCC's conclusions. We might like to have more reviews if it meant we could continue exactly the way we are: unfortunately, we need to act now.

TOM BALLANTINE

Dalkeith Street

Joppa, Edinburgh

Since Scotland has the potential to meet all our energy needs from renewable sources like wind, hydroelectricity and tides, it is not clear how our interests can be represented satisfactorily by UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in Copenhagen.

Any energy policy based on an estimated future UK population of 70 million would certainly aggravate the problem caused by increasing discharge of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

For Scotland, there needs to be only one target with an unquantifiable timescale of, "as soon as possible". This would involve an urgent move towards complete replacement of carbon-containing fossil fuels by continuously available, renewable energy sources of solar origin.

DR DAVID PURVES

Strathalmond Road

Edinburgh