Madam, – In your Editorial (January 6th) you stated, "So much for all that guff about global warming! Are world leaders having the wrong debate?" Winds of change are obviously blowing when the Editor of The Irish Timesis questioning the science that has been rammed down our throats for so long.
Many scientists are now asking questions because of the extreme cold (worst in 40 years, so far) and also because of the leaked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England.
Consider Michelle Michot Foss, an internationally respected energy economist and past president of the International Association for Energy Economics. Her December 6th letter to the New York Timesread: "it is precisely because of the type of coverage that the New York Timesand other mainstream news organisations are giving the whistleblowing incident that the integrity of both the scientific and journalistic communities is being threatened. Honest questions have been raised and honest attempts have been made to shed light on questionable claims about climate science for decades. We need to push for greater disclosure, more scrutiny, better research and a halt in the action before we jump into policy and regulatory schemes that we will deeply regret."
Consider also Dr Neil Frank, who holds a PhD in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.
He previously did not want to enter the climate fray for fear of being marginalised by the mainstream – including the hometown Houston Chronicle. On January 2nd, Dr Frank wrote an op-ed for the Chronicle, titled "Climategate: You Should be Steamed", where he explains why the silent majority in his profession has been mistreated by the academic mainstream/IPCC crowd.
“The e-mails document that the attack on the sceptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the sceptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the sceptics were demonized through false labelling and false accusations.”
I have been researching the subject for over two years and find incredible the stories of doom that circulate daily. Anything that happens on Earth is blamed on global warming. To the people who say overpopulation is the problem, I say the sum of urban areas of the US is equivalent to 2 per cent of the area of the country, and to 6 per cent in densely inhabited countries such as England and Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas.
If comparison is limited to land covered by buildings and pavements, the occupied land in the entire world amounts to 0.04 per cent of the terrestrial area of the planet. With 99.96 per cent unoccupied, the idea of an overcrowded planet is an exaggeration. Population forecasts are uncertain, but the most accepted ones foresee stability of world population in the 21st century. According to some, world population may begin to decline at the end of this century. With so much elbowroom, it is untenable that world population is excessive or shall ever become so.
Bravo, Madam. I salute your courage. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As your correspondents say, weather is not climate (January 7th). In view of this, perhaps they and their fellow alarmists could refrain from claiming impending doom every time we have a rare warm spell? – Yours, etc,