The Mount

Pwllclai

Brynford

Holywell

Flintshire

CH8 8BB

 

Tel 01352 710579

26th January 2006,

 

The Editor,

Cambrian News

 

Dear Editor,

 

I was surprised to read Prof. Hubbard’s assertion that fossil burning will cause the next ice age. What caused our many previous ice ages with no fossil fuel burning? How did we warm out of them with no fossil fuel burning?  

 

One of several similar petitions to policymakers, signed by over 2000 climate scientists reads: “There is no convincing evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere or disruption of the Earth’s climate”

 

 Is Mr Hubbard aware that man-made global warming was only ever a theory, now increasingly discredited? Antarctica’s Vostok ice core research revealed that in cases of past warming, the carbon dioxide (CO2) rise came 600 – 1000 years after the warming so could not possibly have caused it. (Fischer et al 1999). Similar results were obtained from Dome Concordia (Monnin et al, 2001) and Taylor Dome. (Indermuhle et al 2000). Vostok also revealed the four previous inter-glacials were up to 2 degrees warmer than our present Holocene with no fossil fuel burning. 

 

The Hockey Stick chart (IPCC 2001) claimed temperatures in the late 20th century were unprecedented. Five independent groups of researchers challenged that claim, saying sufficient evidence exists to disprove it. (C. R. De Freitas et al. 2002) The Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period and the Holocene Optimum were all warmer than the “unprecedented warmth” of the 20th century. (Bradley et al, 1991). 

 

To call for CO2 to be taxed as a pollutant is ludicrous. It is a trace gas vital to life on earth. Plants use sunlight, CO2 and water to create oxygen and sugars during photosynthesis. At 370 ppmv, current levels of CO2 are very low when compared to past levels up to 12 times greater. Higher CO2 levels lead to more lush vegetation and improved crop yield, yet huge taxes are already levied on cars and factories based on the amount of a plant nutrient released. Of the 200 billion tonnes of CO2 circulated annually, human contribution is less than 3%. (Soon et al, 1997). 

 

Mr Blair’s latest recycled outburst on rising seas takes no account of the proven fact that sea levels have been both 100 metres lower and 10 metres higher than the present in the last 15,000 years.

 

Climate change is natural; nature has no preferred state, regardless of what politicians tell us. 

 

Yours faithfully

 

Alwyn Davies.