Your correspondent Gary Hollis (Times, November 9) needs to expand his research beyond BBC nature documentaries.
And his “climate change solution” is appalling. ”Polar bears now struggle to survive in warmer waters” – no they don’t. Polar Bear populations are as healthy they’ve been in 50 years.
“Deforestation continues at pace” – the fact that there are environmental vandals burning down forests has nothing to do with the amount of CO2 in the air.
What does though, is the overall “greening” of the earth as shown by NASA satellites. One good example is the Sahara Desert, which is shrinking faster than the vandals are burning the Amazon rainforest.
Simple high school biology explains why. When there is more CO2 in the air, plants require less water to photosynthesise. This allows plants to grow on desert fringes, shrinking the desert. This then stabilises temperatures on the desert fringe, which can then hold more water, and makes it more hospitable to more plants, and the desert-shrinking cycle continues.
“Catastrophic climate events” – like the ice age we were promised in the 70s? Or the ice-free Arctic by 2014, where research vessels needed to be rescued by icebreakers last year because there was more ice than their models told them to expect? Or the Maldives which were supposed to be underwater by now, but have actually grown in size? Or the dangerous hurricanes and tornadoes that are now fewer and causing less damage?
I have yet to see an example of a fulfilled prophecy of climate catastrophe, but I have seen many failures and much of the complete opposite of what was predicted.
Before the industrial revolution, atmospheric CO2 concentration was at its lowest since the dawn of life on Earth, and a fraction of what it was when dinosaurs roamed the earth. To claim that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is going to destroy all life on the planet is just irresponsible fearmongering that is now causing actual death on European and British roads following the actions of “climate protestors”.
“Consumerism and trade between nations is out of control” – I’m inclined to agree with this bit. We should not be dependent on other countries for our necessities like food, water, energy and manufacturing resources.
“The only solution is lockdowns” – but not with this. I’m not interested in your tyranny. Nor am I interested in your desire to condemn my grandchildren to miserable poverty, which is the main thing that your proposed lockdowns will achieve.
Ryan Price, Half Moon Bay
