Madam, - With George Bush's defection I thought we had seen the last of the climate change quacks. But sadly no, there appears to be a second wave who claim that global warming is all due to natural causes. They are not part of a great oil industry denial campaign, but appear simply to be people who don't want to have to give up their SUVs and holiday homes abroad. But, just like the first wave, they have no scientific basis for their claims and, worse still, they cite debunked studies to support their contentions.
Let us go back to basics and understand what constitutes a sound piece of scientific work that we can use to base our judgments on. Such a study is one that is published in a scientific journal and which subsequently stands up to peer revision by the scientific community.
The International Panel on Climate Change does not conduct its own studies; however, its team of scientists scrutinises all relevant peer-reviewed scientific studies when compiling its reports. In its latest report the IPCC concludes that "it is extremely unlikely that global climate change can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone."
James G Lacy (March 13th), no doubt feeling vindicated by Channel 4's recent documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, tells us that climate change is entirely due to natural causes. Unfortunately for Prof Lacy and Channel 4, the science simply doesn't support them. Channel 4's documentary was no doubt captivating, but it was based upon completely discredited studies - studies which did not withstand the scrutiny of the scientific community.
So long as the media keep giving respectability to a handful of debunked studies in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, enough doubt will be planted in people's minds for them to justify their failure to do something to prevent runaway climate change. - Yours, etc,
COLM CAHILL, Nairobi, Kenya.
Madam, - The timing of Prof James G Lacy's claims as to the falsity of the theory of global warming, his reference to measurements of the Antarctic Vostok ice cores, his insistence that solar forcing is the culprit, all align well with the views expressed by the controversial film-maker Martin Durkin in a recent Channel 4 documentary.
He might thus be interested to learn that one of the key scientists featured in that documentary, Prof Carl Wunsch of Massachusetts Institute of Iechnology, has said he was "completely misrepresented," and called the documentary "terrible propaganda," believing it to be "an almost inescapable conclusion" that "if man adds excess CO2 to the atmosphere, the climate will warm".
In truth, the vast majority of climate scientists are convinced that it is human emissions of carbon dioxide that are the principal cause of global warming. - Yours, etc,
STEPHEN BARRETT, Lecturer in Computer Science, Trinity College, Dubin 2.
Madam, - Referring to the Government's White Paper on Energy, Dick Keane (March 15th) asks: "How is it possible to produce a serious policy document on future energy needs without addressing the option of nuclear power?"
The answer is painfully clear. All that is necessary is first to hop on the anti-nuclear political bandwagon (no conviction needed) and then to subscribe to the green point of view that "renewables" are a panacea for all our energy ills.
In reality, even the most cursory examination of the facts will reveal that renewables offer no panacea. That is why the Government's intention (it cannot be called a "plan") to derive one third of Ireland's electricity from renewable sources by 2020 is admitted to be "ambitious".
The question that belies the whole anti-nuclear stance is a simple one: where is the remaining two-thirds to come from, in the era of peak oil and climate change? At this time, it comes from a black hole filled with green pipe-dreams such as wave energy (30 years of research has failed to crack this, but we will, somehow) or the transmission of solar power from the deserts of North Africa to all of Northern Europe (any further comment necessary?)
The foot-dragging by the Government on this issue, this leadership from behind, is (to borrow Fouché's immortal words) worse than a crime, it is a blunder. It is already late in the day properly to debate our energy future, and succeeding generations are likely to pay a painful price for this blunder. - Yours, etc,
JOHN STAFFORD, Dargle Wood, Knocklyon, Dublin 16.
Madam, - Regarding the call for a discussion of nuclear power generation in Ireland the following points must be considered. It generally takes about 15 years to build an operating nuclear power plant - 15 years of massive CO2 emissions as a result of construction. Once in operation, no nuclear power generator has ever used anything but rare finite resources as fuel.
From the enlightened perspectives of climate change and peak oil, nuclear power appears to be definitively unsustainable. I eagerly await further discussion on the future of energy in Ireland, but I believe that we would be naive to focus on this particular possibility. - Your, etc,
WALTER BRUTON, Meadowbrook Avenue, Baldoyle, Dublin 13.