Welcome to Engr Salam Sheikh's Website

Engr Md Abdus Salam

animated gifsMy Participation in BBC Debate

Restoring natural capital in degraded landscapes

Mark Chandler
Mark Chandler

The interests of farmers are often perceived to be in conflict with those of both the ecosystems and the markets in which they operate, says Mark Chandler. In this week's Green Room, he argues that ongoing, directed efforts can create profitable, sustainable situations for everyone.

Drying coffee beans in Indonesia (AFP)
Rather than seeing the use and development of agricultural lands as the conversion of natural systems into human-dominated ones, there are increasing opportunities for win-win solutions

Fuelling the growing demand for food, fuel and fibre, 13 million hectares are converted annually for agricultural use, mostly from forests.

Together, crops and pasture make up more than any other land use - over 40% - and are projected to grow by another 15% over the next 50-100 years.

The conversion into agricultural lands is perhaps one of the greatest single impacts on the Earth. These impacts include the greenhouse gas emissions that make up a third of global emissions since 1950, the 70% of freshwater used for irrigation, and growing loss of biodiversity, among others.

The use of the planet's resources is no longer sustainable. A recent study by WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network revealed that humans now use in excess of 25% of the productive capacity of the biosphere and that two planet Earths will be needed to support our projected demand.

The scope and scale of agriculture and the projected growth in demand for food, biofuels and other commodities puts it on a crash course with identified pathways for environmental sustainability.

With a growing awareness of the value of the goods and services that nature provides, governments and institutions are looking for ways to both decrease per capita demand and increase the efficiency of current land use practices.

But how can agricultural landscapes produce more with less impact?

Coffee wake-up

While the interests of farmers are often seen to be at odds with others in the supply chain, a dialogue is taking place about ways to build on shared interests across the global supply chain. Creating dialogue across sectors that typically do not interact in this way has led to some interesting advances.

Critical to success is our ability to define how to pay for the costs of maintaining the goods and services, and who pays. Incentives are evolving, including certification standards such as Fair Trade and the newly developing payments for ecosystem services like those for water, or the trading of carbon.

Developing our understanding of the relationships and trade-offs among forests, soil, biodiversity, water, and food production among other key ecosystem components is driving a new paradigm for applied scientific research.

Bee pollinating

So are there interventions that can create win-win situations for both land owners and the regional community at large? Two examples from the world of sustainable coffee production follow.

Coffee is one of the top five traded global commodities. A hundred million people depend on it for their livelihoods and the evolving models provide insight into the opportunities and challenges for sustainable agriculture.

Pollinating insects help with the production of over 65% of the world's crops. Recent declines in native and managed bee colonies have created concern about food production.

An ongoing project by Earthwatch illustrates the connection of these pollinators to the landscape and how different stakeholders come together to identify potential solutions.

A recent research project by Valerie Peters from the University of Georgia in the US, using teams of Earthwatch volunteers, found that wild and domesticated bees enhanced both the yield and quality of coffee berries near Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Wild bees and other pollinators were in turn attracted by plants, other than coffee, which the farmers had grown around their fields. Recognising the value of these other management practices in boosting yields helps farmers understand the benefits of biodiversity in the landscape.

Citizen science

Dr John Banks of the University of Washington Tacoma in the US and Earthwatch are expanding on this work in the Tarrazu coffee region of Costa Rica.

Working with farmers, volunteers from organisations such as Starbucks Coffee Company and the accounting and advisory firm Ernst & Young LLP, are identifying the value of nearby forests in boosting bee populations and coffee production.

These volunteers and other citizen scientists are helping to collect and analyse field data as it relates to bee activity and coffee plant growth.

Barren salt plain (AFP)

These diverse teams of volunteers are also exploring the financial mechanisms that help recognise and reward the goods and services that farmers and forests provide to local and global communities.

Ernst & Young LLP volunteers in particular will assist the Costa Rican cooperative managers in their effort to improve their business practices and develop better pricing structures for sustainable coffee production.

While the increase in intensive agriculture and the use of fertilisers and pesticides has produced dramatic increases in yield, this has come at the cost of degraded habitats, particularly the soil.

New sustainable techniques are needed to mitigate the negative consequences of intensive agriculture. Rebuilding healthy, diverse soils requires great effort to yield not only nutritional, healthy food, but also to mitigate erosion, capture carbon, and act as a sponge to prevent flooding, among other benefits.

Providing farmers with ways to enhance their soils for these diverse benefits takes a multi-sectoral approach. By engaging local organisations and Starbucks employees, Earthwatch is finding that useful tools can be developed that benefit farmers.

In Costa Rica, like much of the world, there is a need to protect against practices that acidify the soils, and rebuild their organic matter and thus natural capital. The linking of research with both ends of the supply chain is enhancing the uptake of better soil conservation measures.

Rather than seeing the use and development of agricultural lands as the conversion of natural systems into human-dominated ones, there are increasing opportunities for win-win solutions. Rural farming communities are among the poorest on Earth, yet they are often open to change - and have much to lose otherwise.

Adoption by consumers, governments and businesses of financial mechanisms such as certification and payment for ecosystem services is needed to ensure that the cost burden by producers of enhancing the environment is adequately compensated.

Solutions to address this challenge are being drafted through unlikely collaborations - consumers, farmers, corporations and governments. Learning and trust across this global community is essential.

Mark Chandler is international director of research for the Earthwatch Institute; he spoke at the Earthwatch lecture "Farming and Sustainable Environments" on 17 March, available as a podcast


Do you agree with Dr Chandler? Can these examples of "win-win" situations be scaled up to a whole world full of conflicting agricultural and environmental interests? Is there any hope in maintaining "natural capital" in the face of a rising population with exponentially higher needs?

In geology there are rules that help make sense of observations. For instance a rule of how past processes continue in future and a rule of superposition as to how sediments are laid down. I would submit that the same can be applied to the present question as to where and how mankind is likely to affect the planet or at least the biology on it which holds conditions suitable for life.. If lessons learned by research into how coffee can be grown better are to be ramped up or scaled up to affect the future of our planet it's in raising awareness that a better system is needed to drive industry.. All the small scale farmers of shade grown coffee beans in the world and those trying to do their bit to keep soils good don't stand a chance when huge deals are cut half way round the world affecting fossil fuel interests if resulting emissions raise temperatures above what is suitable for raising coffee beans. The impact of things in one part of the world can no longer be taken in isolation or out of context as to how it affects the planet as a whole. Without the support of good governance and the active participation of forward thinking people economies of scale often fail to bring good policies forward.
Dale Lanan, Longmont, Colorado, USA

No mention of the degradation of minerals. With modern farming the product/crop is always removed from the field. With the crop goes whatever trace elements are in the soil. To keep crops going we put back fertilizer, but this is not aimed at replacing all that has been taken by the crop but only sufficient (and at the lowest cost) to make the crop grow again. This years crop of wheat is fundamentally different to the crop from the same field 50 years ago. Add to this the genetic engineering / breeding to ensure the crop looks right and is 'fat' in this sense lots of carbohydrate. Its also increasingly the same as the crop from a field 100 miles away. In the case of wheat. We eat it in bread, our food animals eat it, we eat them. We are moving towards a monotonous unhealthy diet denuded of trace elements. But, the standardized crop suites the food seller. Their job is not to provide a healthy product but something people buy and makes money for them. Take out the trace elements and our thyroid doesn't work, other parts also start to fail, we head towards being malnourished with growing obesity and failing health while surrounded by food. In the case of salt, we have processed what was a super food with 80 and more vital minerals into just sodium chloride. Okay, its white, tastes like salt, is cheap, pours but is no longer food. So, not only must we look to maintaining the volume of food, but that it remains food in the real sense.
Simon Mallett, Lenham Kent

Intensive farming is a direct response to an intensive increasing population that demands food for all. A need that cannot be denied as a minimum human right. However intensive farming which is basically a commercially driven system where a few people make a lot of money and the rest either work for little or get pushed out of farming and into the cities where as history repeatedly shows they become the bottom of the pile. It is good to consider and action systems that maintain a more natural and long term sustainable arrangement to the production of food but this needs to be supported globally by voluntary and financially supported family planning to ensure in the long term a sustainable population. One without the other is never going to work adequatley in the long term.
Geno, Heathfield, East Sussex, UK

As the world's population increases and climate change forces land use patterns to change, pressures upon farmers to produce more food on limited agricultural land grows by the day. Productive and sustainable agriculture depends on healthy ecosystems - fertile soil, plentiful water and flourishing natural pollinators and pest controllers. Under the above mentioned article we should understand the intellectual challenges of ecological restoration, but also with how to implement it in the field. In my ecologists sensing we might need a new set of perspectives and tools to do this. How can environmental degradation be stopped? How can it be reversed? And how can the damage already done be repaired? I argue that a two-pronged approach is needed: reducing demand for ecosystem goods and services and better management of them, coupled with an increase in supply through environmental restoration. Restoring Natural Capital brings together economists and ecologists, theoreticians, practitioners, policy makers, and scientists from the developed and developing worlds to consider the costs and benefits of repairing ecosystem goods and services in natural and socioecological systems. It examines the business and practice of restoring natural capital, and seeks to establish common ground between economists and ecologists with respect to the restoration of degraded ecosystems and landscapes and the still broader task of restoring natural capital. Also we should considers conceptual and theoretical issues from both an economic and ecological perspective, examines specific strategies to foster the restoration of natural capital and offers a synthesis and a vision of the way forward.
Engr Salam, Kushtia,Bangladesh

It seems to me that food processing storage transport etc. can attract a host of tax concession rebates and subsidies all the way along the chain. However it is difficult to allow tax concessions on things like compost heaps although they can be allowed on various chemical fertilisers herbicides etc. organic food is generally more expensive but it could be that if the tax incentives were removed from the conventional system or similar concessions were allowed to organic producers then the costs may not be much different. I think we need to closely examine the current system of tax concessions rebates and subsidies right through the processing storage and transport industries involved in food supply and look at what is available to the organic sector.
raymond, magill s.a. austral

It's still real and it's still a problem

Lord Chris Smith
Lord Chris Smith

Climate-related controversies and the outcome of the Copenhagen summit widely regarded as a failure have left a sense of hopelessness in climate policy, says Lord Chris Smith. In this week's Green Room, he stresses the soundness of the fundamental climate science and the need to continue pushing for meaningful climate deals.

No rain on this plain in Spain (AFP)
The worst response to Copenhagen would be to throw up our hands in horror and say nothing was achieved and therefore we should give up

The myth fostered by some parts of the media in recent months - that somehow the scientific evidence for climate change is deeply flawed - needs to be laid to rest, and soon.

Sloppily expressed e-mail exchanges involving researchers from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), and a blithe assumption that the Himalayan glaciers may melt by 2035, were both irresponsible and damaging.

But we cannot allow a few errors to undermine the overwhelming strength of evidence that has been painstakingly accumulated, peer-reviewed, tested and tested again.

That evidence shows overwhelmingly that our emissions of greenhouse gases are having a serious impact on the Earth's atmosphere, and that - as a result - climate change is happening and will accelerate.

The damage that has been done by the glee with which sceptics have seized on one or two scientific mistakes and attempted to use them to undermine the whole consensus about the evidence for climate change cannot be underestimated.

Not if but when

In recent years, the public here in the UK, and across much of Europe, had come to accept the reality and the urgency of climate change.

There were still debates about what precisely to do to counter it, but at least the fundamental recognition was there.

I think that is probably less true now than it was four months ago - and that is a tragedy.

We need to take the argument back to the sceptics, and make the powerful, convincing and necessary case about climate change much clearer to everyone.

There may still be a degree of uncertainty, and we need continuously to test the scientific evidence with rigour.

But the uncertainties are not primarily about whether or not climate change is happening, but about how fast the change will come and how bad it will be.

Cockermouth floods (Getty)
Flooding might not be climate change's smoking gun, but it is part of a trend

The evidence of change is indeed there.

The glaciers of the Alps and the Himalayas are retreating. Weather patterns around the world are becoming more erratic and more extreme.

The most intensive rainfall ever experienced in one location over a 24-hour period in England fell on Cumbria last November, and caused the tragic consequences of the severe flooding that we saw in Cockermouth, Keswick and Workington.

We cannot say for certain that these things - or indeed the intense heat recently experienced in Australia, or the droughts in Kenya - were caused by climate change.

But we can see with our own eyes that climatic, weather and temperature trends are changing, and we know that these hitherto exceptional events are likely to become more frequent over coming years.

Here in England and Wales, the Environment Agency works at the very point where people's lives intersect with environmental change.

We help people prevent and cope with flooding, environmental degradation, water depletion, and pollution.

In our day-to-day work, we can see small things that are happening all around us.

Damselflies and dragonflies are being found much further north than before, as they move with the warming climate.

The rare vendace fish is disappearing from its former stronghold in the Lake District, and is having to be re-introduced into the colder waters of Scotland.

Our yearly water testing over 20 years has shown an average rise in temperature in our rivers of 0.6C (1.1F). These are small signals, but like the canary in the mine, they foretell greater danger in the future.

'Disappointing outcome'

If we can hold the average global air temperature increase to 2C (3.6F) since pre-industrial times, we have a chance of surviving more or less intact.

But if it ends up being 4C or more, the impacts on population, water resources, sea levels, agriculture, weather patterns, biodiversity, and the quality of human life across the world, will be severe.

Connie Hedegaard and Yvo de Boer (AFP)
The COP15 meeting failed to provide signs of true international resolve

That is why the international discussions on climate change at Copenhagen were so important, and why the outcome was so disappointing.

We always knew that we would not emerge from Copenhagen with a full signed-and-sealed treaty with firm commitments for specific emissions reductions from everyone around the world.

But I did hope that we might emerge with rather more than we did, with at least a set of in-principle commitments and some target dates and a map charting where we were heading.

Instead, we have the Copenhagen Accord, drawn up by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, with some aspirations and agreements, and an earnest of intent to build on this during the coming year.

Build on it we must. The worst response to Copenhagen would be to throw up our hands in horror and say nothing was achieved and therefore we should give up on the search for international commitments and agreement.

We need to continue the drive for an international treaty, and do so with renewed urgency.

There are some useful fundamentals in the Copenhagen Accord - the acknowledgment of a 2C limit on the global average temperature increase; the principle of north-south flows of aid and support in order to ensure that the developing world can grow more sustainably than those of us who have largely caused the problem up to now; and commitments to help combat deforestation.

We should now work as hard as we can to build these up into more specific commitments over the coming months.

Lord Chris Smith is chairman of the UK's Environment Agency


Do you agree with Chris Smith? Is the real issue about climate change the when or the if? Have we lost hope in the prospect of truly global binding deals in the wake of recent controversies and conference outcomes?

Anyone in any doubt as to the reality of Climate Change/Global Warming (it doesn't matter what you call it - Global Warming was first mentioned at the end of the 19th Century and Climate Change has been officially used since, at least, the IPCC was set up in 1987), should have a look at the website of any national scientific organisation, e.g. The Royal Society in the UK, the US National Academy of Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Network of African Science Academies, the World Meteorological Organisation, the InterAcademy Council, etc., etc. In fact, check the National Science Association/Academy/Society of whatever country you like or happen to live in. They all agree, contain all the science and evidence you could possibly need, and will explain it all to you. If you don't accept what they say, or prefer to get your information and beliefs from blogs, then you don't WANT to accept reality.

Its all about money and can be summed up by two words "Carbon Trading" case closed.
Mike, Surrey

I keep thinking of the Victorian philosopher John Stuart Mill and his defence of free speech - if a case is strong enough (which in the case of climate change/AGW I think it is), it will stand up to public discussion. So let's have a public debate between sceptics and climate scientists and let the full panoply of climate science be brought to bear before the public. Let's also see the sceptics put some hard work into the process, and come up with databases just as robust and capable of scrutiny as the Hadley Centre or GISS databases. Let's also note that regardless of climate, the challenges of environmental sustainability on a 9 billion-plus inhabited world in 2050 are not going to just disappear. And if the sceptics feel it's all about taxes, perhaps they could answer what they would do to avoid a situation of mass resource depletion and shortage, with even a hypothetical chance this could be made far worse by changes in temperature. Fortress Europe anyone? Don't bet on it working. Those seeking to address even the risk of climate change have got the long term interest of these British Isles as well as those who live a more deprived lifestyle at heart - bau (business as usual) increasingly won't cut it. Nor will sticking our collective fingers in our collective ears.
Jim Watts, London

Who cares what I, or any of these other people, think? I'm not a climate scientist, and maybe I'm just naive, but I believe that if every single major scientific body in the world believes that AGW is a problem, then it probably is. This man-on-the-street opinion stuff is nonsense and demonstrates a real lack of spine for the BBC.

Chris Smith is perfectly right. To give up on this issue would be suicidal. The consequences of our negligence would hit our innocent descendants with full force. They could only curse us.
Andreas Jaffe, Krefeld, Germany

Chris Smith is making the classic mistake of using short term weather events to support his argument. e.g. The most intensive rainfall ever experienced in one location over a 24-hour period in England fell on Cumbria last November, and caused the tragic consequences of the severe flooding that we saw in Cockermouth, Keswick and Workington. I challenge him to produce the evidence that global warming caused this event.
jwilbye, Bristol UK

Lord Smith is absolutely right, and people in the UK and elsewhere need to rally behind him. Also, if we are to believe the so-called skeptics, it is high time the BCC and others place their scientific hypotheses under very close scrutiny and hold them accountable for the misinformation and attacks on science and scientists. AGW is a real, and is going to become more and more of an issue in coming decades. Unfortunately, it is like a slow, creeping cancer that cannot go unchecked for much longer. People seem to expect the scenarios predicted by 2100 to be happening now and also erroneously expect a monotonic increase in global temperatures. That is not the reality. Just like cancer (for example), ignoring AGW and going into denial is not going to make the problem go away. As a scientists I wish that AGW was a hoax and that we did not have to worry about the impacts on the biosphere and its inhabitants (including us), but like oncologists, climate scientists are not paid to protect us from inconvenient realities. They speak to the facts and observations, and those are telling us that the cryosphere, oceans and atmosphere are already undergoing marked changes, and this is still early days.
Julian, Edmonton, Canada

The need for 100% scientific certainty before anyone will accept that something has to be done to prevent climate change is ridiculous. How about we don't spend billions of dollars on defence spending until we are 100% sure that we are about to be attacked. Or perhaps I won't insure my house until i'm 100% certain that it's about to burn down! Sceptics simply don't want it to be true and are prepared to drag us all down with them. I really do despair for the intelligence of the human race.
David Castle, Melbourne, Australia

I wonder how the citizens of the South Pacific, especially those who live in the Fiji group which has just experienced the worst cyclone ever recorded, would interpret the comments made above by those who say there is no issue. Would they say that it was just another one-off aberration in a cyclical weather pattern (I don't think that we are in the hurricane season) or another dot to be joined.
Maunganui, New Zealand

I have mixed feelings in this story. By any measure, Copenhagen has been a disappointment. There was, as ever, a lot of talking but very little of the concrete and binding agreements that we need so badly. There is no agreement over the level of emissions that must be cut and by when. There was no clarity on where the money is to come from to finance the adaptation to the changing climate that all agree is critical and there was no binding agreement on how to preserve the world's remaining rain-forests. As a South Asian Social Engineer, I am happy to see that there was little of the blame game in this article. In a positive sense, I would like to say that in Copenhagen summit, poor countries like Bangladesh got an opportunity to raise their problems. I hope that developing and poor countries can be expected to prioritize carbon emission cuts over the well-being of their populations. On these benches, we have always seen the development of a sustainable green economy as part and parcel of building a strong economy in the future. There need be no conflict between strong growth and sustainable growth.
Engr Salam Sheikh, LGED, Joypurhat, Bangladesh

I have a question for all those out there who have made an opinion, actually do some research into the science behind what is being said. There are a few issues that people need to grasp: 1. Climate change is a natural occurance 2. It is caused by a build up primarily of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 3. Carbon dioxide stores heat (this is a fact) 4. Due to humans, more carbon dioxide in atmosphere, means the planet heats up faster. 5. Combine with logging of trees, which are the primary source of converting CO2 into oxygen. 6. Logical Conclusion - world will heat up faster due to human interference However this is based of my own research and has been simplified for the uninformed, so make up your own mind about it, just remember it will be your children who have to deal with it later on.
Morgan, Wollongong, Australia

I'm afraid Lord Smith's article will do nothing to convince the unconvinced - just the oposite in fact. How can he refer unabashedly to events such as Cockermouth but conveniently ignore more recent events such as the coldest winter on record. Now, I'm not saying that that is evidence that AGW is not happening but it is as scientifically correct as saying that Cockermouth is evidence that it is. This type of politicised selection of facts that fit the case and ignore the rest is what gives the GW hypothesis a bad name.
Stuart, Ayr

So many "sceptics" here convinced that if they disbelieve strong enough they can change reality. Tragedy of democracy in action. People who know nothing of the science or the math are convinced by the oratory of those opposed to any environmental regulation. Polluters and oil lobbyists delay what must be done, and millions pay the price. We humans deserve the misery that is coming, but our children will curse us for all the beauty that disappears, and the suffering that results is on the hands of the "sceptics". Shame on you.
Mikko Rintasaari, Turku, Finland

In the buildup to Copenhagen, vast numbers of people had confidence in what the scientists were saying; with good reason. So what was it that changed public perception of the validity of the problem so dramatically? It was the media. I think it saw a great opportunity to make money; without the slightest concern that the welfare of humanity lay in the balance. By giving the few climate change nay-sayers prime time exposure on many talk shows, the damage to public confidence was irrevocable. So when a few minor mistakes showed up in the overall truly solid scientific evidence, the public was primed to respond with disbelief.
Kris Jacques, Brisbane Australia

I agree with Chris Smith I live in central U.S.A and notice dramatic changes in our weather since i moved hear from Europe ,50 years ago.The only people that don't believe in Global warming are industries that have billions to loose in profit and they will do anything to dispute it's existence I don't if you read about the tabacco companies off the 1980's and 1990's how they lied about tabacco and cancer and they even got doctors to testify on there behalf.This is the same thing that oil coal and gas industries are doing.Don't believe there lies!
germjoe, chicago il.,usa

55% of the US believes in angels, but only 36% believes that human activity is causing global warming. I suspect that there may be a negative correlation between these two groups; whereas there would probably be a fairly positive correlation between believers in global warming and the very similar number who believe in evolution. I would be interested to know if anyone has investigated these and other beliefs among BBC website commentators?
Dave, Edinburgh

Reading a selection of the above comments I'm struck by the similarities of some of the current debate to that seen in fundamentalist religious exchanges and I mean from both sides of the debate. Perhaps this would be an area worthy of investigation by suitably trained anthropologists. It also seems that the debate is much simpler than many realise and that it's all too easy to get caught up in our own circular arguments before tripping disillusioned over our own feet. As humans we are part of nature, that great test bed which allows many life forms to try their luck. Anyone who opens their eyes can see that our human life form may be facing a few crises in the not too distant future.
David White, Leeds

When "unadjusted" data is "lost" alarm bells start ringing. I MEAN, SERIOUSLY, HOW GULLIBLE DO YOU THINK WE ARE?
Shane , Torquay, Australia

Why do you think this goverment accepted cutting co2 by the highest yet unachievable level,for them it is a made in heaven, money making machine,last winter was the norm when i was young,1950s. climate always changes,believe it,dont be conned by the establishment...
bill, cheshire

Absolute rubbish. You only have to compare the careful and logical explanations by leading sceptics, such as Lord Monckton, with what has become the angry arm-waving and shouting by the warmists along the lines of: 'Look - we've done the resarch, we've had our stuff peer-reviewed, we are just RIGHT..' This has become a religion - jumped on gleefully by governments (especially in the UK) as a tax opportunity - and by the likes of Al Gore who will make a fortune trading a non-existing commodity ('carbon credits') with heavy-polluting industries in countries such as India - why do you think Tata shut down the Corus plant at Redcar..? Chris Smith also falls into the classic trap of using 'weather' as examples of climate change - when we have been told repeatedly that weather is not climate. Can't have it both ways.
David, Cambridge UK

Earth atmosphere and its natural resources have been seriously affected during last 2-5 years and the major reason behind this is continuous erosion of natural resources by every country to strengthen their economy in order to support their mass population. The leaders from this countries are not able to understand the seriousness of the situation BECASUE they are not the normal human beings who are spending their time in the outside. In the name of ECONOMY,the major construction/mining giants lobbies with the govt and do the maximum harm to the environment.Countries like China/India/US should make and follow strick norms for environment safeguards.
surendra singh, singrauli,india

The last time I looked we lived in a democratic society. If I have not been convinced by the science so far that himans are responsible for our climate change through 1.7% of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere then I don't have to buy into it. If you believe the theory, then do what is expected of you by the eco-politicians. Don't drive, don't use electricity, don't fly and don't breath out, of and pay large amounts to developing countries through an ETS on a regular basis. I mean, where is the common sense - with the ETS the funds raised don't even go to the organisations that need to convert to non carbon emissions - the funds go to people and organisations that have little need to convert. So this big money-go-round does very little to help organisations to convert therefore having little effect on the environment.
steveig, Barrow

Global warming-up is an objective fact happening now. If one is skeptic of such fact, he should refer to the year by the local and globe-wise year by year climate rocords and research results by responsible scientists. Based on my personal experience, when I moved to Xi'an , a city in Western Chinain 1950s last century, people enjoyed rather cool weather in summer and colder days wich much snow in winter. But with a little more half a century elapsed, things have changed largely. Xi'an has become a "furnace" with the temperature often topping across the country, and in winter, snow falling is so rare just like finding the blue moon. For example, in the past winter, we have had two snows. What we can make certain is that the increasing population and the human activities (industiral smog, car exhaust emissions, other kinds of pollultions, etc.) have contributed to the current terrible situation.
Guangfu Zhou, Xi'an China

Pollution is bad. People get that. Hysteria is everywhere. People also seem to understand that. Trust is hard to come bye. The average person is more than a bit skeptical of corporations, science, government, news media, etc. So what happens? People understand the basic ideas but can't trust the hysteria. It also doesn't help when scientists from various schools of learning keep saying things with conviction and then being shown to be wrong. Remember, the general public is still trying to get over foolish science/technical hysteria over cold fusion, re-designating Pluto and Y2K. The average person is NOT going to be convinced when some "expert" says there is a change of 1 degree! Especially if that expert (or his or her cohorts) are shown to be using questionable sources to draw conclusions.
Victor Nazarian, Washington D.C. USA

Chris Smith's hyperbole just plays into the hands of the "sceptics". Cherry picking instances of unusual weather. Talking of a "consensus" of scientists. The scientific method should determine what we do. It does not rely on a "consensus". If you prove something in science, no amount of consensus can prove you wrong. All I would like to see is a testable, falsifiable hypothesis, followed by a prediction and then an experiment. Is that too much to ask? Scepticism is not a bad thing. And it can be demolished with hard evidence. So please please please Climate experts; Make a prediction and then test it.
S Smith, Nottingham

What troubles me is that China India US are allowed to massively increase their emissions while we give up our economies. And then taxes are increased constantly - all just 'manufacturing consent'.
Johnny, London

¨Sloppily expressed e-mail exchanges¨. I get sick of suggestions that this was the sum total of the hack/leak. The documents leaked were damning. If anyone wants to find out how solid the science is, enjoy the primary school level computer programming of the CRU exposed in: Harry_Read_Me.txt. Enjoy the demons of ¨Big oil¨ discussing interest in Carbon trading, see the CRU propaganda campaign and enjoy the spreadsheets showing Mr Jones 13 million pounds plus of grants. Al Gore´s Nobel should be taken off him and given to the hacker/leaker.
David, Noosa Australia

Ah, it's great to see Andrew Montford delivering the perfect 6 line riposte to Lord Chris Smith's regurgitated mantra, presented in the usual breathless manner by the heroically biased BBC. I live in hope that, maybe one day, our political masters and their compliant unquestioning media will stop taking the great unwashed for fools. Keep up the good work yer Grace.
Steve Yeates, Brighton

Chris Smith is absolutely right. But there are too many people who simply don't want to believe that there's a problem with climate change, who aren't interested in solving it, and who will clutch at any straw that appears to let them off the hook.
Ben Murray, Edinburgh

Climate change is happening. It has always happened, and always will. Lying about the cause of it to raise taxes, and use the lies as a basis for wealth redistribution must be stopped.
S. Blyth, London, England

'Climate change' changed from 'Global warming' because it didn't stack up. 'Reducing speed' we were told necessary initially to reduce fuel consumption, now under the 'Speed Kills' mantra, its used as an excuse to reduce accidents severity and frequency.
Both equally don't work. Both are an attempt to reduce individual freedoms to enjoy life, through raising taxes. We need to see for ourselves the repugnancy of such deceptive attempts to social engineer us all!
miller, Scotland

Im sorry but Lord Smith's statement that "the overwhelming strength of evidence that has been painstakingly accumulated, peer-reviewed, tested and tested again" is manifestly the equivalent of the political ostrich putting his head in the sand. I recommend Smith reads The Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford. From my perspective, it is the very quality of the science that is being questioned and that needs to be addressed. Until the climate science establishment stop hiding/cherry picking their data, and their code used to recreate and extrapolate climate trends, I for one will maintain a sceptical attitude. Note: I do not consider myself to be dyed-in-the-wool sceptic, but I do insist on being led by the scientific method and process and not by environmental hyperbole. (By the way, since when did Global Warming morph into Climate Change? These arent actually the same thing.)
Alex, Broxburn

Would it be possible for the Environment Agency to adopt renewable friendly measures to allow for easier installation of anaerobic digesters etc. as is happening in Germany and the Netherlands? Current arrangements for regulatory implementation are very difficult for small businesses and farms, hence we have very few installations.
Tom Langdon-Davies, Exeter Devon

The people that rubbished claims that several weeks of unseasonal snowfall were not evidence of warming but just weather variation cannot use the example of 1 day a rainfall as evidence of climate change.
If they want to demonstrate to people the reality of climate change they need to move away from the catchy soundbites and get back to what they do best - solid scientific analysis. If they had done this all along, we wouldn't have seen the glacier debacle because it would have been rejected through peer review before they ever made it a headline.
Paul R, Dorset

I think that a debate should be organised between the main proponents and deniers of man-made climate change. There are so many arguments put forward involving cosmic rays, sun-spot activity and the medieval warming period, to name a few. Also CO2 occupies a very samll percentage of the atmosphere with most of it being water vapour. Some people say that excessive CO2 causes increased plant growth.
So what is the truth ?. The public needs to know.
Let's have an agenda containing bullet points for component of climate change and let's get the arguments thrashed out.
Dave Roberts, North Yorkshire

I agree entirely with Chris Smith. I have worked in climate change mitigation in the UK and my native Australia since 2004. Too often recently I have been challenged by friends and acquaintences who remark that they were close to being conned into the 'climate change hoax' and take the recent cold weather in the UK as 'evidence' that climate change is a myth. It is important to dispel such localised and unscientific assessments to demonstrate what is really happening at a global level. Then perhaps there might be the public impetus to drive political will towards a concerted effort to invest in future technologies that can avert the worst possible outcomes of climate change-related weather events in future. Electric cars are often mentioned as the way to partial resolution of our problems, but until the source of that electricity is renewable and low or zero carbon, they only add to the problem with less efficient conversion of energy to motion. Someone close: please explain this to Boris Johnson!
Jenny Klein, London, England

Overstating and exaggerating the case for anything ultimately alienates those it is meant to convince. An apparent 1degree rise in global temeperature does not unequivocally equal climate change ( 2 degrees is mentioned in the above article). Science is usually about probabilities rather than certainties. The 'milennium bug' nonsensense and the over-hyping of swine-flu make people justifiably sceptical about the 'next big disaster'.
Peter Richards, Lincoln

The real problem is that human greed will always dominate the world. Therefore if there is money to be made, the environment and climate will always take a backseat. Big businesses tend to rule the roost and governments tend to cave in to short term demands - especially if the economy needs taxes from these businesses in the short term. As most democratically elected governments have a maximum 5 year term (depending on the country) then the shorter term targets are the ones that get the most focus. Anything required a long term strategy - such as climate change - are subject to the whim of the next government and any financial backing which may have existed to help battle climate change can easily be removed for 'cost cutting' purposes. Sad really - but to assist real change the attitude of the majority of the population would need to change. The government needs to give consistent messages to the population to shore up opinion, and minimise the chances for people to distrupt change.
Chris, Lincoln, UK

There has been far too much recent emphasis placed on a few silly errors that, even lumped together, make zero difference to a branch of science that first emerged in the 1800s. Some sections of our media, especially certain newspapers, are parroting downright misinformation, presumably for political purposes. This will be seen in the long term as a massive crime against humanity. The important point everyone needs to remember is that opinion, however forthrightly expressed, does not and will not change the laws of physics.
John Mason, Machynlleth, Powys

Chris Smith himself falls into the trap that adds grist to the mill of the sceptics, by referencing the flooding at Cockermouth. It is no more evidence of climate change than any other, normal, day.
The fact is that any rational person must acknowledge the consensus of man-made climate change. What needs to happen, however, is a much more rational debate about the outcomes and how we deal with them. I am not a sceptic of the fact of man made climate change, but I am absolutely a sceptic of the range of outcomes and how we should deal with them. I already knew how Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace wanted me to live my life before we really knew about climate change, and I disagreed with them then. They are hardly impartial or scientific, therefore, now that the gift of climate change has fallen upon them from the sky. That does not make me a 'denier'. But expensive, unworkable solutions with overt political intent are most definitely not the answer.
Tobias, London, UK

Headline comments like this are exactly why the debate IS flawed and why no one trusts what the politicians and scientists say any more. Wishing to properly debate the data & wanting to critically scrutinise it for accuracy is not heresy it is good scientific process.
Richard Tonge, Aberdeenshire

I couldn't agree more with the above article. I've always found it hard to believe that there are those who still reject the idea that the climate is changing at an uncontrollable rate - how many winters like the last one will it take before people realise something is happening?
One thing I think has always been a problem is essentially one of mistaken branding; people find it hard to believe 'global warming' is occuring when they can't get to work because of snow. But that makes the need to convince the waverers and the sceptics - mistaken as they are - all the more urgent. We need to act decisively, and act now. Do we really want to have to tell future generations that the terrible world they live in could have been avoided?
Jon Barton, Camberley

Like most educated people, I am tired of pseudo-scientists masquerading as "climate change experts". The scientific method employed by these climate fanatics is flawed; their logic if flawed and they are clearly biased beyond the point at which intelligent people will listen. Yes, the 'debate is over; the results are in'. Mostly because only a fool argues with a fool. This new eugenics-like pseudo-science will fall further into the disrepute it so wholeheartedly deserves. Yes, witnessing the winter we have just experienced means you are right about one thing - we can sense for ourselves that your theories are the simple dogma of a religious fanatic. We are not buying your baloney anymore.
Robert Shields, London

I disagree with Lord Smith. The idea that mankind can somehow control the global increase in temperature is clearly preposterous. Linking one-off severe weather events such as Cockermouth to "climate change" is just daft. Increased CO2 may well have some small but unquantifiable effect on temperature but the Earth's climate is cyclical and driven by far stronger influences. Far better that we concentrate resources on things we can control such as overpopulation and pollution and mitigate against any predicted climate changes. Hopefully Climategate together with the growing realisation that the climate is not following the model predictions will bring about a change in policy in the years to come.
Bill Hickling, Tonbridge

As long as capitalism is the main driver of society, and the media denounce and ridicule anything that gets in the way of this, nothing will change.
Gareth, Warwick

Climate change proponents are in many ways the architects of these problems. By shouting that they knew it all about climate change so many years ago, when clearly they didn't, they have instilled a level of disbelief in people. Al Gore's politically motivated and scientifically flawed film could only harm, in the long run, genuine scientific efforts. The fact that the pro's/media have labelled the other side 'sceptics', a seemingly negative term, has only served to harden the lines of both sides. As someone with a scientific background I try to keep an open mind and wait for the evidence to support the theories, unfortunately too many on both sides seem to have predetermined their belief and then gone looking for supporting evidence.
Willow, Warwick, UK

The people are fed up with these lies - and the extortion going on. What about the huge amount of money the BBC pension fund has 'invested' in climate change stock as well has all the other organisations that are milking the public with this gravy train? Something is rising big time and it isn't the sea levels. We don't have to believe inthe lies and the propaganda any more. Power to the people.
Les Richards, Ely

The 'record' rainfall in Cumbria was 12.5% higher than the previous record in 1955. Was it a one off or part of a pattern? I'm not convinced either way, partly because our records don't go back far enough to disprove these instances as part of a natural cycle. There's lots of work to be done before either side can convince the public at large.
David Quinn, Staffs, UK

The problem is that the media will often present both sides of the argument, giving a false sense of equality to the view of those who deny that climate change is happening. The truth is that in the scientific community the overwhelming majority believe the climate change is happening.
John Ruddy, Montrose, UK

I do agree. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to matter how much evidence one puts before the sceptics: people will believe whatever they want to believe, and certain newspapers are all too willing to feed their prejudices. Governments such as those of China and Saudi Arabia can then use the prevailing air of scepticism as an excuse to sit on their hands. Perhaps the best thing we could do would be to gag Jeremy Clarkson: that would be one less source of hot gas escaping into the atmosphere.
Chris Whitrow, London

The activities of so-called 'sceptics' (more accurately, pseudo-sceptics and conspiracy theorists) and those in the media who amplify the significance of IPCC errors and of the stolen CRU emails have distracted the public the really important issue - the failure at Copenhagen. Obviously, I agree with Chris Smith that we need to build on what was achieved at Copenhagen, but we also have to recognise the scale of the political obstacles. Obama might genuinely want the US to take action to curb emissions, but there are limits to what a US President can achieve. Unlike Obama the Chinese leadership have almost unlimited political power, but their priority seems to be to catch up economically with the West. We have to keep pressing for a deal, but I'm not optimistic. Maybe, for the individual, buying a plot of land in Greenland is the best option.
Paul A, London

Funny to see Chris Smith talking about "evidence that has been painstakingly accumulated, peer-reviewed, tested and tested again", just a day after a senior climatologist, Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, told Discover Magazine that climatology's handling of statistics is sloppy and that we are being asked to change our lifestyles when climatology hasn't even prepared a scientific uncertainty analysis.
Andrew Montford, Scotland

Chris Smith is right. But this is more a clash of worldviews, less a debate about evidence. We cannot afford to write off those who disagree. "We" do not win by being right and beating "them". We all only win if together we take action to keep below 2 deg of warming. That means we have to persuade, which starts with listening.
Hendersonishome, Sandbach

How to make an expensive, wasteful and inedible climate cake.
1. Science gets mixed up with advocacy.
2. Fear is added by NGOs and environmental groups.
3. Policy makers and politicians work out how much people have to stump up.
4. The public don't buy it.
Many people now believe that they have been delibrately lied to about the consequences of Climate Change. The UK government have even been forced to pull misleading TV ads on Climate Change. The Climate Change narrative has to change. What people like Lord Chris Smith fail to realise that simply repeating what many consider now to be green propaganda help proves the arguements of skeptics.
Malcolm McCandless, Dundee

Lord Chris Smith is absolutely right when he says that the question is 'when' and 'how bad' rather than 'if'. Present deals, including Copenhagen, seem to be more indicative of lack of political will to tackle the climate change, and therefore, it seems to me that there is no hope of truly global binding deal! Add the factor of economics, which is likely to get affected due to these bindings, and the chances of binding deals become bleaker!!
Rajan Tendolkar, Mumbai, India

No-one seriously questions that climate is changing in various ways but, despite Lord Smith's assertions, the only evidence that this is caused primarily by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is circumstantial. Put simply, the hypothesis is that the expected small contribution of carbon dioxide is magnified by positive feedback mechanisms. The hypothesis is deemed to be correct because computer modelling (based on an incomplete knowledge of the complexities of global climate) produces results consistent with this. QED. But, rather than accept that "a few errors" demonstrate a lack of open-mindedness among the clique of scientists who effectively control the IPCC, the establishment has chosen to defend the current received wisdom with renewed vigor and will not allow rational, scientific questioning. Whether or not the current hypothesis is right, this is not good news for the future of scientific research in any controversial area.
Martin Livermore, Cambridge

I totally agree with Chris Smith. I have been increasingly annoyed recently by the unjustified backlash against the recognition of climate change. This is very short-sighted by a number of selfish vested interests, and has been doing a genuine disservice to hard working scientists everywhere. It is my belief that the only motivation of climate scientists has been to try and make sense of a large amount of complex data.
Eddie, Warwickshire

No Chris Smith is not right, he is confusing weather trends with climate and ignoring the real cooling trend that is happening now in the Pacific that will end this obsessive CO2 witch hunt. Give it another few years and we'll all be asking for all our green taxes back...
Karl Bentley, Ashford UK

I'm not entirely convinced that global warming warming is man made, I wonder if it is not part of a natural cycle. However, even if we are not responsible for global warming, surely reducing carbon emissions and any other affordable measures we can take to improve our environment is good policy for the future. I think the problem is the Government has hijacked the issue and made it political in an attempt to garner popularity.
Gavin Ridout, Winchester, England

He is right and we all need to try. But I am not hopeful when governments world wide cannot agree on financial systems, war, human rights, let alone critical survival with food and water. To me UK energy security is the angle to take - self-interest is a stronger political driver.
Chris G, Bristol

These arguments are massively flawed and tend to play to the sceptics tune if you ask me. Scepticism is not to be avoided, defeated or marginalised, it should be embraced. If climate change is truly a science then scientists should be queuing up to address sceptical arguments, because by doing so they will at long last be lending a sadly missing credibility to what still remains a theory. If it's a science then let's see the scientific method at work. This is just the same old politics isn't it?
Dave, Doncaster

I think that the media hot air about 'climategate' was reinforced by the recent north atlantic cold snap. Unfortunately many people tend to have short memories, and don't understand (or don't want to understand) the difference between isolated data points and long-term trends. Statements like 'the coldest winter in 30 years' will conjure up different images in people's heads depending on their biases - there are various different paths you can take between those end-points. In reality, the statement itself can't be used to infer anything terribly meaningful but it doesn't stop people from drawing their own inferences.
Chris, Thanet, UK

The AGW house of cards is collapsing, but the establishment, including the BBC, still push the same old lies.
Bruce Holloway, The Hague, The Netherlands

Given the abject bias held by the BBC on this subject I doubt this will be published, but the fact is that the science is based upon flawed data, the scientists are working for their own ends, and the IPCC is a corrupt organisation which would cease to exist if anthropomorphic climate change was disproved. We need proper scientific review of the data and modelling tool. And we need to step back and apply common sense. Using less resources and stopping deforestation are hugely important to the world. We should be seeking to move to newer, less damaging power sources. But such projects as deliberately poisoning the oceans to absorb CO2 are the work of knee-jerk insanity. Mankind has lost his collective mind over this nonsense, led by Nobel Prize winning climate billionaire Al Gore, and a load of MPs looking for more excuses to raise taxes.
Simon Gregory, Chesterfield

Hopefully, once all the enquiries, etc. are finished, and the facts of Climate Change are acknowledged by all but the most irrational (just as the Theory of Evolution is accepted by all but the most religious), we can move on and actually do something. I fear, though, that the vested interests behind denial will hold us back enough (as it did over the link between tobacco and cancer) that too many will suffer and die in the meantime.

Nice article. Unfortunately, climate change has shown how poor our systems are. It has shown how scientific work is constantly misquoted, misrepresented, misunderstood and ignored, mainly and sadly, by the media. It has shown how our various systems of governance throughout the world are incapable of tackling a global problem. However, most of all, in the light of the current financial crash, it has shown us a depressing truth; vast amounts of money can be found to bail out a flawed economy, but we obviously don't value the only planet in the universe we know to support life as much. How small the human's horizons are!
Chris , Bristol

There are so many errors of fact and presumptions of proof in Chris Smith's piece that it is difficult to know where to start. That statement of mine does not, of course, deny AGW, as it will be taken to, it just means that Smith talks a load of rubbish in there which weakens acceptance of AGW.
"Weather patterns around the world are becoming more erratic and more extreme." - no. see hurricane or flood studies.
"The glaciers of the Alps are retreating." - evidence of the GW that no-one denies, not AGW.
And so on.
"The rare vendace fish is disappearing ...." I feel sorry for the fish, as I felt sorry for the pterodactyl, which did disappear. Just be calm, be rational, in analysis, and in response. Every exaggeration and elision loses you your audience. This is in fact one of the calmer pieces, but even this is cavalier with the facts and the logic.
Roddy Campbell, London

No, its still an if. In fact its still a majorly unproven, ever more dubious looking IF. Given that the majority of people in the UK are either undecided or disbelieving of the 'science' involved here, when will the BBC do its public service thing and allow those with skeptical equal space to put forward their opinions ? For that matter where is the in depth Panorama investigation into the IPCC ? Where is the reporting of the new mistakes that have been found ? Where is the balance debate on Newsnight ? Where is the scientific challenge of Horizon ? Those of us who don't believe this stuff deserve a place in our taxpayer funded media too.
Chris, Edinburgh

The key prediction of well-founded science is that rising levels of "greenhouse gasses", notably carbon dioxide, will lead to more extreme weather events. The changes to global weather patterns are predicted to be associated with melting ice caps and glaciers. All of these events are visible (apologies to Roddy, all the actuarial studies show increasing extreme events, and they're reliable because they're about money). As Chris Smith says, the scientific uncertainty is over the speed of change, not the direction or the driver. But of course there's politics too. Lots of people would find it more profitable or more comfortable to go on as we do now. They have jumped on the sceptical bandwagon. Let's be clear: the consensus among serious scientists remains nearly, though not quite, complete. And we have a political choice: do we act prudently now to prevent a likely disaster, or gamble that we can go on being self-indulgent and if we're wrong it'll be the next generation that pays anyway.
Peter, London

There is no doubt that climate change is contentious. Rather than focussing on that, we should be focussing on the fact that the UK has very little energy security - relying on gas from Russia, electricity from France etc. Therefore we need taxes, incentives, etc to promote renewable energy. Resources (minerals/oil) are limited so why not make the most of renewables, which will have the added benefit of creating jobs.
Cullum Alexander, London

It is easy to feel a bit sorry for anthropogenic climate change (AGW) proponents now that the case for AGW is falling apart at the seams, however let us not forget that for two decades ordinary people pursuing perfectly harmless activities have been treated like criminals, everything from steam railways to vintage motorbikes has been "selfish" and "destroying future generations", so lets not be too kind when AGW'ers see their life's work come tumbling down around their ears.
Dave, Southampton

Whether you are a sceptic or not - we are running out of natural resources. So we have to change anyway - we cant carry on as we are there simply isn't the capacity.
James, Fyn, Denmark

To say that the entire set of evidence of climate change is undermined by a few errors in an IPCC report is like saying that because of a single foul in one football match the whole of the FA cup is null and void and has to be re-played from scratch.

As to people saying that more proof is needed that climate change is a threat - lets turn this argument around. The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (whatever its source) is accepted by everyone - that is pure physics, not opinion. So, those saying anthropogenic climate change is not an issue should demonstrate in what circumstances CO2 could increase dramatically *without* global temperatures increasing. Given that there is a potential risk, those groups wanting to emit more CO2 should be made to prove it is safe to do so, rather than those wanting to stop it being made to prove it is dangerous. Other chemicals/processes are only approved once they are proved safe for general use, rather than an assumption of safety, so why should things be any different for this type of air pollution?
John, West Wales

I agree with Chris Smith, and find it amazing the skeptics are still in denial. It was the same with tobacco and asbestos, it took time until people came round and accepted the evidence despite the efforts of a few to deny the issues.
Paul W, Alton, UK

This is purely and simply a pack of lies.
There may be evidence that warming is occurring, but there is no evidence whatsoever - repeat, not one shred - that it is mankind's emissions that are causing it.
For anyone interested in the real facts, as distinct from the fantasies that the scientists and poiticians would like you to believe, please mail [email address withheld] for a free fact sheet on the subject. Let's see if they publish this!
Ed Addis, Cheltenham, UK

Environmental groups and some Governments are playing into the hands of sceptics and pressure groups by narrowly focussing on climate change. The causes and effects of climate change are uncertain and the average person's scepticism can easily be exploited by those wanting to maintain the current status quo. What is certain are the detrimental effects of pollution, deforestation, habitat destruction and the loss of finite resources, all quite clearly caused by human activity. The climate change argument needs to be more clearly focussed along the lines of sustainability, not on the science of climate forecasts. The climate is liable to change anyway, but we need to adapt and live sustainably within our environment.
Jon, Newport, South Wales

It still remains the way of modern western society to be reactive rather than pre-emptive. To pre-empt would require each and every one us to forgoe things which we see ourselves as 'needing,' and 'deserving.' THAT is why so many people and organisations argue against the concept of Climate change and seek to besmirch the science behind it, because we do not want to accept ourselves are directly complicit in it through our everyday actions. To accept resonsibility would demand that we change our own lifestyles for the sake of 'Others,' people we may never meet. What a ludicrously altruistic notion that would be.
Rob, York

I'm sceptical about the statistical information that has been gathered proving or disproving anything: it all seems to be a matter of individual opinion. I think most people will have an open mind on this issue and could be persuaded either way but the debate does not seem to have been honestly lead with argument against being vociferously disputed. It is well known that the earth has had cyclical changes in the past and will do in the future and I feel that the influence of humans has and will be minimal
jim burnley lancs, burnley lancs england

If Chris Smith is correct, then do we include in those "few errors" the fact that the required subtropical mid-tropospheric greenhouse gas warming signal is entirely absent? Are we to conclude that the greenhouse warming theory is incorrect when a key requirement of it is not fulfilled? Is not, why not? Is so, mustn't we conclude that the science of climate change is not settled and there is no real evidence that carbon dioxide (or any other greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere poses no real risks to the planet? Consider that carbon dioxide contributes at most 4% to greenhouse warming with water vapor contributing 95%. At 24 times the contributor to greenhouse warming as carbon dioxide, doesn't that make water vapor a far more suitable emission to control if we believe that changes in greenhouse warming dominate climate change (a condition never before experienced on Earth)?
R D Webster, Vero Beach, Florida, USA

There are two varieties of scepticism in the above comments which need to be treated differently. Some say warming isn't happening at all - and while I accept it might be possible for media to confuse humans into believing it is (as we are easily led), I'm less sure how the media or Government convince a bird to migrate earlier, or a dragonfly to move north into new terriroties, or a glacier to melt faster and retreat. But we are recording them all.
Others accept the warming (and the above points start to suggest it is hard to deny) but say it is not down to mankind. Presumably these people do not deny we've burned a lot of oil, gas and coal, and so added carbon dioxide to the atmosphere around the world. As we know this is the equivalent of a putting thicker duvet on our bed, this ought to make us warmer. This means this group of sceptics need to have an explanation of two things. First, why is this thicker duvet not making us warmer. And second, given they accept we are warming but its not the CO2, what is causing the warming?
Martyn, London, UK


About me



Facebook Fanpage Box

Twitter Follow Button

Recent Blog Entries

No recent entries