Can humans combat climate change?

Sir - As someone whom the philosopher David Hume would have called a “mitigated", or moderate, sceptic, I am concerned about Tony Blair’s G8 tinkering with climate (News, June .

In Britain, global warming is a faith. Here the science is legitimised by the myth. This is something that even our august Royal Society has failed to grasp. Too many of us believe we are making an independent scientific assessment, when, in reality, we have subsumed Hume-scepticism to the demands of faith.

The sceptic has to distinguish global warming from climate change.

Climate change has to be broken down into three questions: “Is climate changing and in what direction?” “Are humans influencing climate change, and to what degree?” And: “Are humans able to manage climate change predictably by adjusting one or two factors out of the thousands involved?”

The most fundamental question is: “Can humans manipulate climate predictably?” Or, more scientifically: “Will cutting carbon dioxide emissions at the margin produce a linear, predictable change in climate?” The answer is “No".

In so complex a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system as climate, not doing something at the margins is as unpredictable as doing something.

This is the cautious science; the rest is dogma.

And what “better” climate will Mr Blair produce? Doing something might lead to worse. Moreover, consensus is not science. Consensus would have entrenched eugenics.

At present, this basic question has been lost in the clamour “to do something at all costs” and to damn those who doubt we can.

Prof Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography, University of London, Gravesend, Kent

As I have said before; it strikes me that the whole “climate change” thing has become a new religion; one that is not based on facts but on emotion and faith. There have been many times in the history of the earth when there was a period of climate change either hotter or colder. In my opinion the planet, mother earth or gaia, is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. It has been around for millions of years before our lot of hairless apes showed up and will probably be here long after we become a distant memory of the universe.

It also strikes me that in order to be a climate change zealot you have to be a Christian or at least someone who believes in the chronology of the Bible. If the earth were only as old as Biblical records state then you might have a point that human behaviour might affect the planet in a bit way (or anger God(s)). Barring that, it seems rather silly.

In fact the climate change industry is filled with ageing Marxists who are using the issue as a way of getting back at the rich and those who proved their political beliefs to be a nonsense. It’s all about the politics of envy and very little to do with the politics of the planet.

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