Britannia Radio

26 July 2010 Climate Change Rubbish from East Hants My district council (East Hampshire) has just filled its latest quarterly magazine with the most ridiculous, ill-judged scare stories about so-called ‘climate change’. Utterly irresponsible. I wrote to the editor and he has refused to publish my response. So today I sent the Chief Executive of the Council the following letter. If anyone feels like writing as well, please be my guest. This is what I told him: Sandy Hopkins Esq Chief Executive Officer East Hants District Council Penns Place Petersfield Hampshire GU31 4EX In the latest issue of the East Hants District Council magazine your editor Steve Bradley published a great many seriously inaccurate allegations about so-called ‘climate change’ and subsequently refused to publish my response on the spurious grounds that it was too long. I must insist that you set the record straight. What follows is the full text, every word of which can be supported either by strictly relevant scientific evidence, or by information already on the public record. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is an essential plant food. It underpins all life on earth. Plants produce the oxygen which all animal life (including us) needs to survive. Why else do growers pump pure CO2 into their greenhouses if it is not to increase production? Climate change enthusiasts should consider the facts: The largest gas in the earth’s atmosphere by far is water vapour. CO2 is a minor component of the earth’s atmosphere, at barely one-third of one percent. Levels of CO2 today are amongst the lowest they have been in the known history of this planet. CO2 is absorbed naturally by water, the oceans, soil and all plant life. It is odourless, tasteless and non-toxic. The largest and most significant source of CO2 is underwater volcanic eruptions. Just one of the larger submarine volcanoes can, when active, emit more CO2 in a few days than all human activity might generate in a year. There are numerous eruptions on the seabed every year, almost none of which are ever noticed or reported outside the scientific community. Any impact of a higher level of CO2, such as it might be, is logarithmic, not arithmetic. In other words, the higher the figure the less the effect. Double today’s CO2 level, and no-one would notice any difference. The warmest year since modern records began was 1934. Temperatures rose from 1860 to 1875, cooled until 1890, rose to 1903, cooled to 1918, rose to 1941, cooled to 1976, rose to 1998 and have cooled since then. So 1998 was not the warmest ever, just the most recent peak. The fastest change in average temperature was between 1918 and 1941, and it was significantly faster than the increase which peaked in 1998. Ice-core research has demonstrated that any increase in average temperature levels lag any increase in CO2 levels by some 500 to 600 years. So, even if there were a slow, long-term connection, there is no practical purpose in attempting to change CO2 levels with a view to controlling average global temperatures. The proposition is scientifically absurd. Much of the above comes from a recent book by Professor Ian Plimer, Heaven and Earth. Professor Plimer is a geologist, and the head of the environmental sciences department at the University of Adelaide. He is also visiting professor of earth sciences at Melbourne University. His book includes over 2000 individually annotated sources of data and conclusions drawn from academic papers published all over the world by scientists directly involved in the study of earth sciences. Plimer also points out that the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warmings were all warmer than our current levels of average temperature. CO2 levels were also higher. However, during at least one Ice Age CO2 levels were 15 times higher than today, which undermines the proposition that global warming and levels of CO2 are directly linked. In the Cambrian period some 500 million years ago, CO2 levels were up to 20 times higher than today, and temperatures were some seven degrees centigrade higher as well. There was no greenhouse gas catastrophe. On the contrary, plant life evolved rapidly. During the period when dinosaurs roamed the earth CO2 levels were three times those of today. Plant life was abundant, which is thought to be one of the reasons why dinosaurs thrived for so long. Even the UK’s own Met Office (despite its name, much given to unscientific climate scare stories) has recently admitted that global average temperatures have fallen since 1998. And this has happened when there has been a significant increase in the burning of coal, oil and gas across the globe. Some estimates put the increase over the last ten years at 25% or thereabouts. There is a huge difference between looking after our environment and minimising pollution, and setting out on a crusade to “justify” more government control and taxation. And that, I believe, is what our ruling elite are up to. CO2 is merely their latest bogeyman. Worse, they are now hoisted by their own petard as a result of the development of an international market in carbon trading. Many public and private pension funds, including the BBC pension fund, have open positions in this market, which makes the recognition of scientific reality a potential financial disaster for fund managers, institutions and governments. Hence the desperate need to convince themselves of a threat from man-made CO2. Those of us relying merely on the facts can see that the King has no clothes on! Ashley Mote Binsted (One of the many local tax-payers paying your salary, and that of Mr Bradley.)   To respond to, or comment on this Email, please email ashley.mote@btconnect.com